FAMILY RIOT

by ardavenport

- - - Part 3

John Gage stared down at his cards.

Fifteen.

That wasn't too bad for blackjack. Captain Stanley thought so. So, how could Gage lose with fifteen? But the other cards at the table were higher.

His own: queen and ten.

Stoker: jack and ace.

Chet: seven and nine.

Roy: six and nine.

Marco: queen and seven.

Gage had a nine and a six. And it was his first shift back to work after being shot.

"Unlucky with women, unlucky at cards, Gage."

"Ooooh, thanks a lot Chet." Back at the sink, pots and pans and a stack macaroni and cheese smeared lunch dishes awaited the loser of the hand.

Rrrrrrr-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ii-ii-ii-ii-iinnnnnnnnnggggggg!

Captain Stanley got up from the kitchen table to answer the station's alarm-like doorbell. He went out into apparatus bay, past the squad and fire engine, to the front door in the office. He opened the glass door and immediately looked past the short, dark-haired man in the rumpled raincoat to the old, battered gray car in the driveway in front of the garage door. The man opened his mouth.

"Sir, Sir, I've got to ask you to move your car out of our driveway, please."

"Oh." He whirled around, as if just noticing that parking in the way of a fire engine might be a problem. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Sir. I'll move it right away."

Stanley pointed. "You can go around the drive there and park out back."

"Of course, of course. I'm terribly sorry." The man shuffled back to the vehicle. And it actually started. Grumbling, Stanley went back inside.

"Twit."

"Cap?"

Stanley waved off Mike Stoker, who stood, confused, in the doorway of the dayroom.

The rear garage door was open. It was a warm, sunny day. Blue sky above. The car parked in an empty spot. The man got out and Stanley walked up to him.

"Now, can I help you, Sir?"

"I'm sorry about the car. I wasn't even thinking." He reached into his coat pocket, under the raincoat. Stanley raised his brows when he saw the badge.

"I'm Lieutenant Columbo with the LAPD, homicide division. I'm working on a case involving the Warren family. And I had some questions to ask your men about that incident back at the family picnic a few days ago." Columbo pocketed his badge.

"Of course, of course. Come right in." Stanley ushered the policeman in and gestured for him to go into the dayroom first.

"Woof! Woof!"

"Dog!"

The station's short basset hound, Henry, actually pushed itself up from Chet Kelly's lap on the station's vinyl covered couch. Dropped pages of the LA Times around him, Kelly stared as Henry jumped down to the floor and trotted over to Lieutenant Columbo who knelt, arms wide.

"Hey ya, boy! Where you been? We just about gave up on you!"

"Woof! Woof!" Henry licked his face.

Stanley stared down at the policeman and the suddenly animated dog that had hardly moved off of their couch for months except to eat and be dragged outside to do his business. Chet Kelly, who had adopted the lazy beast as his own, gaped dumbfounded before jumping up and coming over to them. Lopez and DeSoto got up from the chairs, putting aside sections of the newspaper.

Wiping his wet hands off on his pants, Gage walked over from the sink and. "Cap, is that his dog?" He looked incredulous.

"Cap?"

Stanley turned around to an equally stunned Stoker coming in from the apparatus bay. Stanley shrugged, holding his hands up.

"I guess, so."

"Boy, I really missed you." Tail wagging, Henry continued eagerly licking the lieutenant's face. "Ooooh, looks like you missed me, too." Grinning, he patted the animal. "So, you've been hanging around the firehouse all this time, eh, boy?" He accepted another doggie kiss before standing again.

"Hey, guys, thanks for finding him. I didn't know where he'd gotten to. He disappeared from my car months ago. Don't know how he ended up here."

Stanley shrugged. "We don't know either. We just came back from a run one morning and there he was on our couch."

"Yeah, he's hardly moved since." Chet Kelly's mustache seemed to droop a little sadly, looking down at the suddenly animated dog, tail wagging furiously, sad eyes looking upward begging for attention from a complete stranger.

DeSoto looked baffled. "Well, if you don't know how he got here, how did you know to look for him here?"

"Oh, that's not why I came." He dug around in an inside picket and held up the opened badge case. "I'm Lieutenant Columbo with the LAPD. I just came by to ask by to ask you some questions about that little incident at the Warren family picnic the other day." He looked around at the gathering of firemen. "Uh, is one of you is John Gage?"

Roy pointed. "He is."

Johnny put his hand to his chest when the police lieutenant turned to him. "Me? Oh, um, ah, yeah."

"Lieutenant, if you need to talk to him, you can use my office." But Columbo waved off Stanley's offer.

"Oh, no, no, no, I don't want to put you out, Captain. Actually I wanted to talk to all of you about what happened during the shooting. You see, I was in the house talking to some of the family when it happened - - "

"Wait, you were there?" Stanley looked down at this man who was nothing but surprises.

He held up a hand, "Actually, I asked my sergeant to call the fire department when Stephen Warren and his brother-in-law started burning the furniture on the lawn."

Stanley moved to the kitchen table. "Well, Lieutenant, please have a seat. Ask us whatever you want. Would you like some coffee?"

"Oh, no thank-you, Captain, please. I'm trying to cut back." But he did accept the offer of a seat. The Station Fifty-One men gathered at the kitchen table, though Kelly divided his attention between Colombo and the dog that stayed close by his feet. Colombo absently patted the dog's head as sat in one of the wooden chairs.

"Well, as I said, I was inside with Caroline Warren, talking with her about her son's murder when the shots were fired. I was pretty certain that the murderer was another member of the family. But it was a real break in the case when the murder weapon resurfaced."

After the mess they had gotten caught up in at the picnic, none of the firemen were surprised that members of that family had been killing each other, too, but Roy figured out what the Lieutenant's last statement meant. He leaned forward over the table.

"Wait a minute. You mean that someone actually killed someone with that gun? Who?"

The police lieutenant demurred. "Well, I can't actually say too much about an open case. You understand."

Stanley agreed. "Of course. But Lieutenant, we're pretty surprised. I mean, Vince Howard showed it to us. It wasn't a very big gun."

"It was a toy." John Gage's tone rose in indignation, apparently still offended by the slightness of the weapon that had wounded him. "It looked like something that you would get out of a gumball machine."

Columbo shook his head. "I'm afraid it was a little more than that. And I got the ballistics report this morning," he patted the front of his coat where he presumably had the paperwork, "and the bullet that hit you and the bullet that killed Patrick Warren did come from the same gun."

"I don't believe it."

Columbo shrugged off Gage's incredulity and moved on. He took out a small worn notebook. "I just wanted to clear up a few details, if you don't mind." He thumbed through dog-eared pages. "Can you tell me exactly where all of you were standing when the shots were fired?" He looked up at them.

Roy jumped in first. "Well, Johnny and I were standing next to the bonfire."

"Chet, Marco and I were breaking it down next to them." Stoker pointed toward all three of them, but Chet added another detail.

"We already put the fire out, we were just cleaning up."

"I was standing next to Roy and John." Stanley leaned forward, elbows on the table.

Columbo nodded, jotting down a few notes. "Could you just show me exactly where you were all standing and where you were all looking when the shots were fired?"

Wooden chair scraping on the floor, Roy got up first and the others followed.

"Well I was standing next the pile of chairs here." Roy stood in the middle of the floor, halfway between the kitchen table and the far wall. "And Johnny," he guided his partner to stand between himself and the far wall, "was standing there."

"Closer to the picnic area."

"Yeah," Roy nodded back to Columbo.

"I was standing here." Stanley took a place next to Roy.

"And we were all over here," Marco and the others moved to stand by the door back into the apparatus bay. Columbo nodded eagerly, writing more notes. He got up and hustled over to the blackboard on the far wall and then walked an imaginary line back to Johnny.

"Now, which way were you three facing when it happened?"

"We were looking at the tents," Stanley pointed at himself and Roy who confirmed that.

"They were starting to throw some chairs there and they knocked over the barbecue just before the shots."

"I was looking at the pile when Roy said something," Johnny pivoted on his heel to face back toward the kitchen. "And that's when it happened."

"The barbecue." Columbo rushed back to the far wall and carefully walked back, counting to himself.

"Yeah, and the shot came from the tent," Roy pointed, his finger following the imaginary line along the path of the bullet to his partner's side, "and hit Johnny." Then his finger continued along the line. . . . and ended at his own stomach. Mouth open, Roy looked toward the direction of the imaginary picnic tents and then back down at himself.

"Holy smokes." Stanley looked from one paramedic to the other, also realizing the importance of where they had been standing when Johnny was shot. And Roy wasn't. But if the police lieutenant noticed this detail it wasn't important to his investigation.

"The barbecue . . . " Hand on his chin with his elbow on his arm clutched tightly to his body, Colombo looked back at the far wall, then to Roy and Johnny before grinning. He reached out to Stanley to shake his hand.

"Thank you very much, Captain. You've all been very helpful."

A little mystified by this, Stanley accepted Columbo's gratitude. "Well, I'm not sure how we did it, but we're glad to help. I think you answered a few questions for us, too." Roy still had his finger on his stomach, blue eyes obviously seeing what might have happened. John still looked baffled, muttering.

"Barbecue?"

Columbo went back to the kitchen table. "Ready to go, boy?"

"Woof!"

"Now, I don't believe that." Stanley could not remember that permanently recumbent basset hound ever sitting up for any reason. But there he was, tail wagging, looking up to the man he obviously belonged to. The Captain walked over to them.

"I wish I could tell you how he ended up here. Like I said, we just found him on our couch one morning."

"Yeah, that's a mystery." Columbo furrowed his brows in thought before he suddenly raised a finger in an 'Ah ha' gesture.

"Who cuts the grass around here?"

"Excuse me?"

Columbo pointed toward the front of the station. "The grass in front. Who keeps that up?"

"The Parks Department."

Columbo answered with a knowing grin. He fished around in his pockets and took out a very battered notebook. "I've been carrying this one around since I lost him." He thumbed through the ragged pages. "Five-thirty AM. Some joggers found a body in a park. You see, they got me up early for that one, and I hadn't had time to take him out for his walk, so I took him with me. He usually just waits in the car. I mean you must have noticed how much he just lays around." All the firemen agreed about the remarkably lethargic dog. "But when I finally finished up with the scene and the coroner and the pictures and the evidence, he was gone."

Stanley got his own 'ah ha' look. "Aaaaaaaaah." He nodded. "Yeah, he might have gotten a ride on one of the Parks Department trucks. And they've got a key to the building, too."

Kelly didn't seem satisfied with the explanation. "He didn't have a tag on when we found him."

"Oh, well, that's my fault. We gave him a bath the night before and I forgot to put his collar back on. My wife's been beating me up about it ever since." Columbo bent down. "You must have gotten tired of waiting for me and hitched another ride, eh boy?" He scooped his dog up. "The Parks people must've found you and thought this could be your new home."

"Wait! What's his name?"

"What?" Puzzled, Columbo looked back at Chet.

"Your dog. We've been calling him Henry all this time, but it would be kind of nice to know what his real name is."

Columbo looked down at his armload of basset hound. "Oh, Dog? I just call him Dog."

"Woof!"

"I'll just see myself out. You guys have been a big help. I can't think you enough."

Astonished, Kelly stood watching him leave. "Dog? He calls him Dog?" Then he rushed after the police lieutenant and Station Fifty-One's former mascot. The others followed Columbo out to the parking lot.

"It's really nice of you to see me out, Captain, but I don't want to put you out any more than I already have." Columbo arrived at the battered door of his small gray car.

"Oh, well, the men just want to say good-bye to Henry, here. Uh, Dog, I mean."

"Oh, I'm sorry, of course." He held up Dog for them.

Stanley had not been too fond the former-Henry whose best features were that he was low maintenance and he didn't have enough energy to chew on anything other than food. But he joined his men in giving Dog one last pat. Dog sniffed their hands and licked a few fingers.

"So long, Henry." Kelly leaned forward for one last doggie lick before Columbo wrestled the passenger door open and deposited his pet onto the seat. Dog settled down as comfortably as he had on the station couch for months, just like he belonged there and gave them one last sad-eyed look. Stanley thought that Chet Kelly's face looked just as long as the dog's.

Columbo got into the driver's side and with a last farewell, started the car and drove off.

Kelly watched the car leave. It stopped at the street, turned right and disappeared. He sighed and, feet dragging, followed the others back into the station.

"I can't believe anybody killed someone with that gun."

"I can't believe that police lieutenant owned that dog."

"I can't believe the guy calls his dog, Dog. Who calls their dog, Dog?" Kelly shook his head, the last one into the dayroom. Stanley patted him on the back.

"Cheer up, Kelly. I'm sure he's going back to a good home."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. But sitting in a car driving around looking at bodies? Is that any kind of life for a dog?"

Marco sat down at the table. "Yeah, I never would have thought that Henry could have had such an exciting life."

Mike sat down next to him. "Hey, Chet. All we need to do to get Henry back is have a body here for Lieutenant Columbo to come and look at. Want to volunteer?"

Chet sneered back at his comrades. "Yeah, very funny guys." He slouched back to the couch and stared down at the empty space there, newspaper pages scattered on the seat and floor.

Sighing, Johnny stood staring in the opposite direction, at a sink full of sudsy water and dirty dishes.

"Hey." He turned his head toward Roy who patted him on the shoulder. "I'll do the dishes this time."

"Huh?"

Roy pointed a thumb back at where they had re-enacted the shooting. "Didn't you notice where we were standing? If that bullet hadn't hit you, it would have hit me. You took a bullet for me, Johnny."

"Well. . . . I didn't mean to."

Stanley laughed, coming up behind the pair. Enjoying the confused look on the younger man's face, he clapped him on the shoulder. "Gage, I don't think that matters in this case. I'd take Roy up on his offer. You've earned it."

Grinning, Roy went on to the sink; Johnny followed him. Roy handed him a dish towel.

"Here, you can dry."

Roy picked out a couple empty plates and a handful of silverware and plunged them into the water. Roy squirted in a little soap and ran more hot water in the sink to revive the diminishing suds. Next to him, Johnny thoughtfully reviewed what had happened at the picnic and the aftermath. He slowly grinned and accepted the first cleaned plate to be dried.

"Thanks, Roy."

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Mark VII Productions, Inc., Universal Studios and whoever else owns the 1970's TV show Emergency!; I am just playing in their sandbox.