48. Chapter 48

Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Erik Kripke, Warner Brothers and quite possibly others who are not mentioned here. No money will be made from this fan fiction.

Summary: When Dean goes to sell his soul at the crossroads to bring Sam back, someone else steps in to negotiate the deal. Cas did get a sign and it sent him off into the past to change things. AU from The Man Who Would be King and All Hell Breaks Loose.

Author's note: Side step over to Henricksen for a chapter. Trying to tie up some of his loose ends.

It's All in the Details

By Colleen

Chapter 48

Henricksen dropped a bag of burgers onto the coffee table in front of his partner, grabbed the plushy ergonomic rolling chair from the desk and sat down across from her. The rooms the bureau sprang for were nice, each having a couch and a wall desk, but neither of them a dining table. So instead, they ate with their files spread out over half the small sofa and the coffee table.

Victor bit into his burger and wisely decided against reviewing the autopsy file, setting it aside. In its place, he picked up the reports from the first response officers. Dry stuff, but better for his digestion. Rae was picking at a side salad while she read over the non-arrest file of Tyson Brady. With a grimace, she dropped the file onto the table, then picked up her soda and gave it a healthy slurp.

"Guy managed to skate on everything. And this list alone makes me wonder what he got away with that never saw the light of day."

Victor picked up the discarded file and flipped through it. Rape, assault, insider trading. All the things he expected to find when looking into the lifestyles of the rich and demonic. Apparently even the smart ones, and he had no doubt that Brady had been a smart demon, but apparently even they couldn't control themselves enough to not get caught. Not that it mattered, as the long list of missing evidence and witnesses could attest.

He focused on the insider trading for a moment. It was almost an anomaly, being a somewhat discrete pastime for a demon.

With a mental grunt he shifted demonic and demon to psychotic and psycho in his head. When it came to the supernatural, he needed to pretend that he knew nothing.

With that in mind, he took a closer look at the insider trading charges.

"Hmmm."

Urquhart had just bitten into her burger, so her 'what' came out a little garbled.

"Just wondering if the White Collar division ever took a look at this guy."

"I'll check."

Henricksen nodded and continued his meal.

"Hey." Urquhart asked. "Can I ask you something?"

Victor shrugged. "Guess so."

"I heard you were a hard ass…" She held up her hands, as if she expected him to disagree. "Not my words, you understand, but that's what I heard."

"You wouldn't be wrong, though I do try to not be one with my partners."

"Not what your last one said."

Victor snorted. "Not sure how he noticed. Man spent most of his time being an all around ass. Even I couldn't dedicate that much of my life to being a hard one."

Rae spluttered into her soda.

He smiled at the reaction, but the humour was strained. He understood the question, maybe even better than she did. The truth was that for years now he couldn't help but get up in someone's face. It wasn't so bad when that someone was the perp he was after, but he'd had more than one complaint filed against him by other law enforcement and the lawyers that represented the people he arrested.

Worst of all was the way things had gone with the Winchesters. He knew he'd let his anger blind him to what was really going on. Sure, he didn't know about the supernatural at the time, but looking at the old case files again it was obvious they couldn't have pulled half the crimes he ascribed to them. His last partner, Reidy, probably knew it, but still backed Victor up, no doubt figuring they would sort out the mess that was the Winchesters after they caught them.

He missed Reidy.

He meant it when he said partners were a different matter. He made the effort there, and it didn't hurt they were working towards the same goal. On a more mercenary note, you didn't want the person who had your back to hesitate when you were in trouble.

He and Reidy worked well together. They both understood the other's bullshit, and didn't let it bother them. For losing that alone, he would happily take down a few demons.

Being possessed had turned his world upside down and shown him how wrong he could be about things. Since then, it was as if he'd forgotten how to be angry at the little things. And he had to face it, from the time he got up to the time he went to bed, hell, screw that, even when he was asleep, he never stopped being angry. Another year or two he'd have burned out or been buried under the avalanche of the disciplinary action looming in his future.

Until recently, he didn't realize how much of the anger was the job. Not until after he started hunting. The nitty, picky, screwed up things that never let you catch the bad guy ate at him all the time. Hunting…

Hunting was different.

More dangerous in its way, but you found the thing and you made sure it couldn't kill again.

Simple.

Okay, maybe not that simple, but it was still better than paperwork, filled out in triplicate.

XXXXXXXX

Henricksen shuffled the coroner's report a little further off to the side, still not ready to look at it. "So, you think there's anything more to find here?" Sure, keeping the search in Bakersfield would keep it away from a certain salvage yard in South Dakota that he knew nothing about (nope, not a thing), but he couldn't see how anyone would believe this was anything other than a dumpsite.

"You think they carted the body to a completely different city, just to dump it?"

Aw, crap, him and his big mouth. If his partner was thinking that the killing took place in Bakersfield, or even in the state, then that was not something he wanted to have her rethinking.

"Think about it," His partner said, apparently not noticing Victor's slight wince. "After they grabbed him from Niveus they obviously took him somewhere to torture and kill him. Why not Bakersfield? It's not that far away from Niveus' headquarters."

Because South Dakota was faster when you travelled by angel. He shook the thought off and decided to play devil's advocate. He would have done it on any other investigation.

"It's got to be easier transporting a dead body than a live hostage. 'Course, either way they could have just stuffed him in a trunk."

Rae shook her head. "Coroner believes the body spent most of it's time laid out flat. Wrapped in a tarp and rope, but still flat on its back. To move the body that way they would need a van or a station wagon and they wouldn't want to drag it around for a couple of days before getting rid of it.

Victor shrugged. "Could have been a hearse or ambulance. A dead body in one of those wouldn't be much of a surprise."

She nodded. "Yeah, but those vehicles would have stood out where they dumped the body. An enclosed van is more likely. Industrial area like that, there's probably a few hundred a day in and out of there."

Victor agreed. From the traffic cam report he noticed the number of vans heading in the general direction of the body drop were headache inducing. The Bakersfield police had done searches on them, but nothing pinged. The agent doubted that either Bobby or anyone he knew would be stupid enough to list a vehicle under their own name. The van was probably registered to a little old lady from Pasadena who, if anyone bothered to check past that, would turn out to be non-existent.

With a sigh, Henricksen picked up the coroner's report and started paging through it.

Brody had been, as Rae pointed out, dead two days before being found and the body lay in the place it was dumped for several hours. The coroner tested the clothing and found salt, sulphur, motor oil and a chemical compound that turned out to be Febreeze. The body probably got a little ripe during transport, although if it had been him he would not have unwrapped it just to air freshen it.

Maybe they'd sprayed him down before wrapping him. He could see Bobby or Dean thinking to do that.

Victor continued reading the report and didn't like it. The coroner believed the victim, or at least his body, may have been held in a garage for a time. Duh. The salt was rock salt, something usually used to salt roads in wintertime (South Dakota in this case) and wasn't something that was used much in California, except maybe in the more northern part of the state. The sulphur appeared to be natural, a fact he found rather disturbing. According to the report, it could have come from a number of places in the state, as the testing was inconclusive. Thankfully, the motor oil could be bought in every discount store, auto shop and self serve gas station in the country.

The rock salt was the biggest problem. He looked up at his partner to see her frowning at a page of a report he hadn't seen.

"Did you know that you can get rock salt and sulphur from a salt dome?"

"A what?"

"A salt dome. It's a geological … uh, doesn't matter. Anyway, you can mine both minerals from them." She gave him an amused look. "Think they might have dragged the body all the way from Texas or Louisiana, because that's where most of them are."

Victor had to give that a snort. "Nah, I don't buy it."

She dropped the sheet of paper onto the coffee table. "Yeah, me either. So…"

"So, we'll go over these reports backwards and forwards and tomorrow we'll check out the dump site."

She nodded and picked up one of the police reports.

XXXXXXXX

One industrial area tends to look like another. Corrugated steel buildings, lots of dirt and the occasional attempt at landscaping with a patch of grass and some not so artfully arranged rocks.

After this long there wasn't anything to see and a re-canvas of the area got them even less information than the police originally gathered, and that was pretty much bupkis.

After a fruitless day, both of them were ready to pack it in, when Henricksen's phone started to play a country tune.

Urquheart watched amused, as the man who'd dragged himself through the day suddenly came alive as he chatted with someone named Joe… She listened a little longer and changed that to Jo.

"You're in Bakersfield for a job?"

Rae almost chortled at the expression on her partner's face. He looked like nothing less than a schoolboy who desperately wanted the bell to ring so he'd be free to go off and get into trouble.

"Go, have dinner with her, or whatever."

"Uh, what?" Victor said, as he tried to split his concentration between the phone and her.

"Just drop me off at the hotel first."

XXXXXXXX

Urquheart rolled her shoulders, working out the kinks as she returned to her hotel room. She planned on doing nothing more strenuous than room service. Sitting down on the bed, she flopped onto her back, staring up at the ceiling.

"Not the most comfortable mattress we've ever shared."

She cast a gimlet-eye at the man suddenly lying beside her. He smirked back and took a bite of the candy bar he was holding.

"Don't get chocolate on the sheets." She said, sitting up. As she did, her hair shifted, becoming longer and blonder than it had a moment ago. A pair of glasses appeared on her face and she adjusted them slightly before fixing her glare on the pagan god lounging beside her.

"I seem to remember you liking it when I got choc… oof." He curled up as her fist bounced off his stomach. Wincing, he sat up, rubbing at the injury as if it actually hurt him.

'Urquheart' shook her hand out and checked to make sure she hadn't broken any fingernails. For a trickster, he had one thick hide on him.

"You should know better than to remind me of things like that. Besides, I thought I heard you and Kali have made up."

Loki's smirk turned into a grimace. "No such luck. We've hung out. Handled a couple of problems together, but she's actually dating Balder." He rolled his eyes as he said the other god's name.

She winced in sympathy. Not that she usually had much for Loki. Whatever trouble he got himself in he usually deserved. However, a couple of centuries ago one of her sisters set her up with Balder. He may look a tasty treat, but Loki losing out to him was like turning down a decadent dessert to eat a meal of dry crackers and water.

Loki pulled another chocolate bar out of thin air and bit into it. "Well, was I right?"

She sighed, glad for the change of subject. "Yes, you were. There were three demon possessed people in his department alone and none of them were slated for the loss of freedom or the death that usually follows such an event."

"You cleaned house?"

She nodded. "Nobody's possessed who shouldn't be."

Loki chewed a moment while he wrapped his brain about that. "So, there may be a few of them still kicking around?"

Now she smirked at him. "Maybe."

"Hmm."

"Why do you care anyway? I admit, Henricksen is interesting…" And he was, for a human. There was something off about him to her senses, almost as if he were where he was supposed to be while at the same time, he shouldn't be there at all. At first she thought time travel was causing the dissonance, but she usually knew when things like that happened. The only one who could have hidden a change in the timeline from her senses like that would have been… well, the being who'd given her and her sisters their jobs to begin with.

Loki shrugged in answer to her question. "Just one of my usual lessons. Our dear FBI agent needs to figure out that he's got something more important to do."

"That why you have him tap-dancing around this case?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Couple more like this and he'll realize he can't be both a hunter and an FBI agent. And a hunter is what he really is."

Frowning, the woman in front of him nodded. "Yes, maybe that's what I'm feeling. That his time with the FBI is over." The frown deepened. "Doesn't quite explain that many demons being interested in him."

Loki snorted. "They're just not that bright. Their apocalypse got derailed and they think they can start it again by finding a replacement Righteous Man. From what I've heard through the grapevine, Henricksen isn't the only candidate they have staked out"

The look she gave him was appalled. "Are they out of their sulphur medicated little minds? Dean Winchester is the Righteous Man. Despite whatever wishful thinking they're indulging in, there are no other candidates for the job. Not this millennia anyway."

Loki choked on his candy. "You're sure about that?"

The glare she gave him could have punched a hole through steel plating. "You're asking me if I'm sure about a man's destiny?"

A small white flag appeared in Loki's hand and he waved in in surrender. "No of course not. I would never ask you something like that."

"Good."

The flag disappeared with a small pop.

"So, about Henricksen, you willing to dog his steps until he learns his lesson?"

She made an annoyed sound and pointed a finger at him. "I do and you never mention that weekend in Gomorrah again."

Loki pouted. "Fine." Then he smiled. "There's still the trip to Cancun. You know, the one with the pictures."

She glared at him. "You mean the pictures I could send to Kali?"

He slumped. "You're no fun at all." He sighed. "Fine, I'll throw in Cancun as well.

"Okay then." She made a shooing motion with her hands. "Goodnight Loki."

He gave her one more smirk.

"Goodnight Atropos."