"What happened to you?" Contusions littered Dawson's face; his left eye swollen to the point he couldn't open his eye. His lip was split, and his arms were a dazzling display of black, blue and red.
"Nothing." The man turned slowly; his hands wrapped around his midsection. He took two steps before he swayed and leaned against the wall. "Look, I don't feel so hot, man. Can we please do this another time? I got nothing to say to anyone." Dawson coughed, his arms still held tight against his body, and swayed radically. Brock's eyes widened and he reacted the same time Kallie did, moving to help keep the man upright. This close he could hear the rattle of the man's breathing. "Call it in, get an ambulance rolling." He put his hand around Dawson and held his hip.
Dawson hissed, "No, I'll refuse treatment. I don't have insurance, man. I didn't do anything. I didn't. I swear. I didn't..." Dawson's weight fell against him. The man whispered the words over and over.
"Who did this to you? Tell me who beat the fuck out of you?" He helped the man to the tiny living room. It had been trashed. A baseball bat had been jammed through a small aquarium and broken glass covered the soaking wet area rug.
Dawson closed his eyes and shook his head. A tear dropped. "I didn't do anything."
"All right, I hear you."
Kallie came into the room and he nodded to the bat, mouthing the word 'fingerprints'. She nodded and plucked a pair of latex gloves from her coat pocket. "The lock wasn't broken or pried that I could see. Crime scene techs are on their way."
He nodded and turned his attention back to the beaten-to-fuck man beside him. "Dawson, who did this to you? You let them in, didn't you?"
The man opened the one eye he could. He coughed again, and Brock waited until the man could breathe again before he asked, "You can tell me, man. I'll make sure this is handled the right way."
"I got nothing to say to anyone. Why are you here?" Dawson looked across the room, but he really didn't think the man was seeing anything.
"We want to talk to you about Samuel Treyson." The man looked at Brock and shook his head. "I'm so damn tired. Life's too fucking hard, man."
Kallie sat down on the small recliner across from the couch. "It just seems like it. You can't give up. It gets better."
"You believe that?" The hollow disbelief in the man's voice rang through his words.
She nodded. "I know it. Where you're at right now? I've been there. My story is an abusive ex-husband who killed someone. Thankfully, it wasn't me."
Dawson closed his eyes. "I can't help you."
"Can't or won't?" Brock watched the man swallow hard and shake his head. Not an answer, but not a denial either.
"I'd like to take you by County, let them check you over." He was worried about the way the man was breathing.
"I got no insurance. I've been beat worse. Ribs are broken. Nothing anyone can do about that."
"You could have a punctured lung."
"I ain't spitting blood. Besides, I couldn't be that lucky." Dawson pushed forward and stood on shaky legs. "I'll need my wallet."
The crime scene techs showed up before they left. Brock also called in a favor. Bettis, one of the detectives Davidson had assigned to go through the elder Treyson's grudge list, showed up to take over the crime scene. If the assault was connected to Samuel's murder, he wasn't going to allow sloppy handling of the scene to affect the outcome of the case. The trip downtown was slow and torturous, not only for Dawson, but also for Brock and, by the tightness of her expression, Kallie, too. Nothing was adding up. He'd broken his golden rule of assume nothing and verify everything. They'd assumed Dawson was the abuser in the relationship, but it could very well be that Cynthia was the aggressor. It was something they hadn't considered. Still, there were too many questions, and they needed to get to the bottom of it. Now.
The looks they got when they walked into the precinct with Dawson shuffling between them were expected, as was Davidson's sudden appearance outside the interview room. He waited quietly until they got Dawson settled and shut the door behind them.
"Why the fuck isn't he at a hospital right now?" Davidson was never one to beat around the bush.