Disclaimer: NBC, MCA/Universal and Wolf Films owns them.
Rating: NC17
Summary: Part 14. The case takes another turn. Jack and Ed learn the meaning of evil.
Copyright August 2003 Cassatt
"I want what he wrote about. Something permanent," Ed had said. Jack was shrugging on his coat next to the man doing the same. Permanent. Ed was clipping his badge to the coat's lapel and Jack was grabbing his keys from the hall table. He did know what Ed had meant. He had understood. He should answer him, before they left the apartment. But now that he'd had a few minutes, albeit minutes of hurriedly getting dressed, the word was beginning to hang him up. Permanent. Ed was reaching for the doorknob. He gripped the back of his shoulder; the man turned.
"Ed," he said, with Ed now looking at him intently, less than two feet away. "We'll talk later."
Ed nodded, and they were out the door. Riding the elevator down. Getting into the waiting cab. Ed reached for his hand not ten seconds after they were seated, and it was his turn to nod, and to grasp tightly. Permanent. He hadn't thought of anything as permanent, save his job, since Claire had died. He had long ago stopped considering his failed marriage applicable. But wasn't permanence an extension of the exact issue that had been plaguing him, about Ed? About them? All weekend? Should he get hung up on semantics? He'd already told Ed that he wanted long-term. That he wanted to learn everything he could about him. He already knew that he absolutely did not want his life to go back to what it had been before he'd run into Ed in the Tide. He studied the man sitting next to him as they drove a block nearer to the crime scene. Semantics were irrelevant, he concluded.
He tugged on Ed's hand and leaned in close. Ed turned his head enough so he could speak directly into his ear. I love you, is what he wanted to say, but it seemed undeniably inappropriate. Instead, he kissed the slightly rough cheek with a slow, openmouthed kiss. Felt the puff of Ed's responding sigh against his face when they both pulled back. The squeeze of Ed's fingers.
They didn't bother playing the cab game by getting out of the vehicle separately; they simply didn't want to waste the time. They'd been having dinner together as colleagues; a late dinner which had lasted until ten pm. They told themselves nobody would notice in the flurry of crime-scene activity.
The front door was open with a uniform standing guard. He and Ed greeted each other, and in response to Ed's questions he said that there was another uniform at the back door; the body was in the first room on the right; and Detective Briscoe was already there. The man's eyes flicked over Jack, standing at Ed's side, but he didn't say anything. Ed always assumed that members of the force would recognize the borough's chief prosecutor, but it appeared that this officer did not.
He said to him, "This is ADA McCoy."
"Counselor," the man responded, to Jack.
Jack nodded; Ed swallowed a snort of disgust to hear the very slight sarcastic tone in the officer's voice. They walked away from the door.
"Dissing bullshit," Ed muttered in a low voice for Jack's ears alone.
"I'm used to it," Jack muttered in reply, with a small shrug of his shoulders.
Lennie met them at the door to the study. "Looks like our perp did himself, and made a lousy job of it, too. Blew off most of his face in the process."
"Suicide?" Ed asked in disbelief. That he hadn't expected. At all. He turned to look at Jack; his lover seemed as surprised as he felt.
Jack asked, "Is there a note?"
"Yeah, on the desk," Lennie answered. To Ed, he said, "CSU's waiting for us to give the okay."
Ed nodded, and went into the room with his partner by his side. He saw Jack take a good look at the crime scene, then detour to the desk. He approached the couch, where the body sat. The copious amount of blood made it difficult to get very close--he couldn't disturb what hadn't yet been photographed. A man's body sat on one end of the couch, slumped against the back and lilting to one side. His hands were around the trigger of a shotgun, and from where Ed stood, it appeared to be the same shotgun they'd seen in the attic earlier that afternoon. As Lennie had described, most of the face was gone, or at the very least mangled.
"Same hair color, what little I can see of it, and cut," he said to Lennie.
"Yeah, and the clothes match the description."
He looked closely at every detail he could. Nothing was out of the ordinary for a person in this situation. "Difficult to imagine how you could force someone to do this to themselves," he said.
"No kidding," Lennie replied, his mouth set firmly.
Jack came up to them. "The note is only one line. Unsigned. 'For once I'm doing the right thing.'"
Ed stared at him. "This guy doing the right thing?"
Jack lifted one eyebrow in agreement. To Lennie, he said, "How did he get back in here? I thought this house was being surveilled?"
"No idea, yet. There was an unmarked on the street--they called it in when they heard the blast. The front door was locked and they had to get someone to break it down. At the most, ten minutes from the time of the shot until they were inside."
Ed looked at the windows for the first time. The drapes were still drawn, as they'd left them. "How come they didn't see the lights on? I assume these lights were on when they got in?"
Lennie shrugged, then turned to one of the uniforms. "Hand me your flashlight." He took it and walked to the curtains, pulled out the liner from behind and shone the light through it. Or tried to. It barely showed. "Blackout curtains. My mother still had hers up from the war."
"CSU from today must have discovered that," Jack said with irritation, "they were doing luminol testing. Why didn't they pass that information on to the people who'd be watching the house?"
Ed glanced at the CSU teams waiting near the doorway. They were studiously ignoring the question. Ed suppressed a deep sigh. Lennie made an off-the-cuff remark about the chaos of the day. Jack shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and stared at the body. Ed planned to search the house, again, to see which rooms were lit, or had lamps which were still warm, and which rooms had the same type of window covering. Though why in the world someone would put up blackout curtains in the middle of the city, he couldn't imagine. Unless it was someone who really wanted prying eyes of the neighbors kept out. He turned to Jack. "This doesn't go along with what Skoda said."
"Skoda's been wrong before. And I don't know that I buy suicide, either. Make sure this body is really Woodbridge. I want DNA analysis run on something, and quick. Find something to compare. Bathroom, hairbrush, kitchen...."
"And I want to know how the hell he got back in here," Ed said with a nod, "and where he was, once he did get in. We'll check the attic for the shotgun." He waved the CSU team over so they could begin photographing. He gave the DNA collection order to the chief criminalist. Lennie had left the room with the flashlight; Ed had assumed to check the curtains in the living room, across the hall. He returned in time to hear Ed speak to the tech about the DNA.
"Hey," Lennie said, "you can't make someone line up their mouth with the barrel of a shotgun, and then pull the trigger."
Jack said sharply, "He's managed to do a number of things that we haven't explained yet." He paused. "I want Rodgers performing the autopsy. No one else. First thing. Tell her this is priority number one."
"We will," Ed answered him, drawing attention back to himself. Hopefully diffusing whatever had the potential to occur between the other two men.
Jack nodded, then glanced at his watch. "Why don't you show me where the blood was found in the basement," he said to Ed, making the underlying request clear with only his eyes.
"Sure, no problem," he answered quickly. "Be right back, Lennie."
"I'm goin up to the attic," Lennie said.
"This place has been searched?" Ed asked.
"It has," Lennie answered, "but I'll take a uniform with me as backup."
Ed gave him a small smile. "Okay," he said, trying not to show his relief. "I'll only be a minute."
Lennie nodded, once. With a short look to Jack, Ed walked his lover back toward the kitchen and to the basement door.
"This is far enough, Ed," Jack said, when they reached it. "For the same reason you didn't want Lennie upstairs alone." In the relative privacy of the kitchen, well away from the sight line of the hallway, Jack took hold of Ed's forearm. Not quite holding hands. "I have to be in the office early tomorrow morning--I have a hearing scheduled for eight-thirty. There's nothing else for me to do here, so I'm going to go home and get some sleep." He hesitated, fingering the wool of Ed's coat. "You'll probably be another couple of hours?"
"At least."
"Look, you don't have to stay at my place tonight. Makes more sense for you to just go home, and sleep in a bit in the morning."
Jack might have been right, from a logical standpoint, Ed thought, but Ed didn't like it. In the ten seconds that was passing, he was looking at it from a number of different angles, and he still didn't like it. Given that they should have been in bed talking and doing other things, at that moment, wasn't making it any easier to curb his reaction. A tiny sliver of doubt about Jack's true motive was worming its way through his brain. "It's not a big deal for me to sleep at your place," he said.
Jack patted his arm and let go. "No, I know, but really--just go home. Get some good rest. You need it. Okay?"
Footsteps coming down the hall forced him to swallow what he was going to say. He nodded to Jack; the man gave him a soft smile, said that he'd call him when he got out of court, and left as two technicians walked into the kitchen. Ed turned back to the basement door, pretending to study something important. He knew he was being absurd, and that he was so tired both physically and emotionally that he shouldn't give credence to anything he was feeling. If he could even figure out what he was feeling. But he also knew that his experience of the prior few minutes was vaguely close to getting the brush off. He didn't like it.
He didn't have time to think about it. He turned around and went looking to borrow a flashlight and to find his partner.
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, Jack admonished as he unlocked the door to his building. "And what is that crap about shooting yourself in the foot?" he muttered, walking down the hallway to the elevator. The door opened; he entered and stabbed the button for his floor, then leaned heavily against the wall of the car. "God damn it." It really had seemed like a good idea when he was talking to Ed in Woodbridge's kitchen. He was exhausted. Ed was exhausted. They didn't have to spend every night together. They were both grown men. But as he walked off of the elevator and toward his apartment, Friday night was replaying in his mind. An empty, too-big bed awaited. "God damn it," he repeated with a deep sigh, opening his front door.
"Hey, Lennie," Ed called out, "look at this." He was squatting next to the doormat on the back porch, and shone his light closely so his partner could see. Lennie passed the officer standing guard at the door, ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape, and came to his side. "Mud, here, in the holes. Still kind of wet," he said. He traveled the light over the mat.
"That's a helluva lot of mud. Seems like he would have tracked some of it into the house." Lennie stood straight and looked over the backyard. "And why bother to cover up the evidence he got in the house? Obviously, he got in."
Ed stood, too, and started down the stairs. "Come on," he said, noting that there was no mud on the wooden treads. The flashlight picked up something that registered a step later. He stopped, and almost had Lennie crashing into his back. He shone the light on the tread at Lennie's feet. The paint was worn off in the middle, at the edge. He touched the raw wood. It was wet. "I'll be damned," he said, "he washed off the steps."
"Anal-retentive doesn't begin to cover this," Lennie said. "Wait a sec." He went back to the door and ordered the officer to get someone to photograph the steps, then returned to Ed. "Better safe than sorry." They continued down the stairs, side by side. "Besides, don't want your boyfriend hassling me later."
Ed looked at him. It was nearly too dark to see Lennie's face. "No remarks about Jack, please," he said. He stopped again. Lennie went two more steps, then stopped, as well, and turned around. "I mean it, Lennie," he said more gently than he felt.
Lennie sighed. "Yeah. First rule of partnerships. Don't criticize wives, girlfriends, or significant others cause you never know when that might come back to bite you." He paused. "I just never imagined that McCoy would end up in that category. And you gotta admit, that man can be a real hard-ass...."
"I know," Ed said, feeling every bit as tired as he was, "but I also know that he works fucking hard, and... and carries every bit of the responsibility for putting these assholes away." He stabbed his chest with force. "In here."
Lennie sighed again. "Okay, okay. Come on, let's keep going. Find a back way into this place. Trudge through some mud of our own."
"These are my favorite shoes, too," Ed complained, giving his partner a small smile. They continued down and onto the grass, shining their lights around the yard.
They found the point of entrance within a half an hour. One border of the yard was a brick wall, between the property and that of the house next door. The other two sides of the yard were fenced in wood, and rather old fencing at that. There were flower beds edging the yard, containing some shrubs and what looked like the remains of that season's display, with wood chips in between the live and dead plants. At the farthest end of the yard from the back door, there was a barely discernable opening in the fence, approximately four feet by three feet. It was a simple rectangular cut in the fencing more than a gate, hinged, with a four-inch long piece of wood which swiveled on a nail, serving as a latch. The ground cover in front of this pseudo-gate was also wood chips, but when Ed and Lennie stepped into the bed, their feet sank into the soft, muddy earth.
They looked at each other. "Okay," Ed conceded with resignation, "back out, I'll kneel. Looks like I can reach from the edge, here." He did, and holding himself up with one arm, he cleared the wood off of the ground with Lennie using his flashlight to illuminate the area. They found what they were looking for -- the indentations left by someone climbing through the opening in the fence. There were wood chips pressed into the indentations, and now that he saw everything, Ed surmised that excess mulch from the surrounding area had been utilized to even out the surface.
"Footprints don't look too clear," Lennie said with disgust, "and why should that surprise me? Just looks like a mess, like someone trampled all over the place...."
Ed stood, now with wet knees and dirty hands to go along with his shoes. He stepped into the flower bed, a yard or so away, and climbed onto the fence railing. He was tall enough to see over the top. As expected, there was nothing remarkable, other than the back neighbor's yard. He shone his light toward the house and could barely make out one crucial difference between the yard he was seeing and the one he was standing in. Woodbridge's neighbor had direct access to the street from the yard. Ed could see a gate in a wall.
"Well?" Lennie asked.
"We need to take a walk around the block, but it looks like he could have just waltzed through this guy's yard, right from the street. Assuming that the gate I saw is unlocked." He stepped down, and backed off onto the patchy lawn. "Have I said today how much I hate this case?"
"No, not today."
"I hate this case, Lennie."
"I'm right with you."
He called to the photographers working the back steps. After directing them to document what he and Lennie had found, they went back toward the house, wiping their shoes on the grass to clean off the relatively small amount of mud they carried.
Around the block they discovered two things which answered some minor questions. The house that was directly behind Woodbridge's was up for sale, and appeared unoccupied given as much as they could see through the windows while standing on the front stoop. The gate, which gave access to the side of the house and eventually the back yard, was not locked. A plain lift-latch operated it. They supposed that to sell the house, leaving the backyard accessible made some sense. It allowed prospective buyers to look around, but neither Ed nor Lennie cared about that. Their prime suspect must have known that he could get back into his house, even with the surveillance of his front door. The detectives would need to question neighbors on this street, too, the following day. For that night, they'd send some uniforms to copy down the license plates of every car parked on the block.
When they got back to the crime scene, they received a report from the CSU technicians. Biological samples with the potential for DNA analysis had been collected from a hairbrush in the bedroom; the drain in the master bath's shower, which appeared to have been recently used; a glass found in the kitchen sink; and a toothbrush.
Ed completed notes for his own report. The shotgun used had been the one in the attic, or at the very least the one in the attic was missing and the one used looked very much like it. By checking lightbulbs for residual warmth, Ed had discovered that the rooms Woodbridge had been in that evening, aside from the study, kitchen and attic, were the master bedroom, master bathroom, and upstairs office.
Lennie offered to give Ed a ride home. He accepted. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning, and he leaned back against the head rest, listening to a talk radio station Lennie had put on to keep them both awake. The host was grousing about what he saw as a lousy basketball season ahead for New Yorkers. Lennie was muttering, half to himself, in response. Ed fingered the keys that he'd transferred to his coat pocket from his pants. Counted them, starting at the gold ball, as he flipped them along the ring. He sighed to himself. The car was approaching the next intersection.
"Take a left here, Lennie," he said.
His partner changed lanes, then glanced at him with a lift of his eyebrows.
It was a sound, which had become familiar, that pulled Jack up from the depths of sleep. The sound of something heavy being placed in the bedside table drawer, and the drawer being gently closed. His brain made enough of a connection to tell him it was Ed's gun and holster. His eyes were still closed, but he listened to make sure he'd really heard it. A rustle of clothing, a zipper, and belt, fabric falling on the carpet, the closet being closed. He rolled over and opened his eyes in time to see the bathroom door shutting slowly, as gently as the drawer. "Good," he whispered to himself, then rolled back to face the middle of the bed and wait. He listened to the muffled sounds in the bathroom. Sounds which weren't the least bit intrusive. Sounds which only gave him a sense of peace, and even happiness, at their very least. Absolute surety, at their most extreme.
The bathroom door opened, and light spilling into the room was quickly extinguished. He listened to Ed pad across to the bed and with a sleep-heavy arm, pulled the covers back for him. Ed slid into bed; Jack brought them together into an embrace, feeling Ed's sigh match his own.
"Didn't want to go home," Ed said into his ear. "Sorry I woke you."
Jack shook his head. "No, glad you're here."
Ed's hand moved down Jack's back, reaching the waistband of his pajamas. He tugged at them. "Too many clothes," he said.
Jack smiled against Ed's neck. "Okay," he muttered. "Fix it." He was too lethargic to move much, but shifted to help Ed get the offending flannel down and off. After Ed dropped the pajamas on the floor, and rolled back, Jack sighed even deeper to feel the full body contact. "Good," he whispered again.
"Sh-h-h," Ed replied, "go back to sleep."
He knew he would, and could more easily now that Ed was with him. Pressed up against him. Arms around him. But he'd had something important to say to him, earlier, which hadn't been given the space to be heard. Or the time. There was both, now. He moved away enough to open his eyes and prop his head. He cupped the side of Ed's neck and focused in the near dark of the room. "Need to answer you," he said.
"Need to sleep," Ed replied, but it was a halfhearted protest at best. Ed's eyes were locked with his.
"The issue was permanence. Aside from an in-depth talk about whether or not I believe in its validity -- I want you to hear one thing. I don't want to lose this. If I could live out the rest of my life with you in it, I would be a very happy man. Okay?" His heart began to thud as Ed continued to look at him intently.
Ed smiled. "Okay," he said, pulling on Jack's waist.
Jack smiled, too, and followed the man's lead as Ed fell back against the pillow. Jack kissed him with a slow, languid, deepening kiss. Ed's hands moved leisurely over his back, more sensual than sexual. Jack tasted his lover, and felt the roughness of an unshaven cheek under his fingers, and wished they both had the energy to do more. He gradually broke the kisses. "Okay," he said to Ed, with one last look into his eyes.
He settled on his side, with one leg over Ed's, an arm across his waist, and Ed holding him close. His last sensations were of gentle fingers, stroking his arm, and the rise and fall of Ed's chest. This time, sleep came effortlessly.
Drifting in and out of morning sleep was one of those luxuries that Ed rarely indulged in. Once he was awake, he was usually awake. Years of training, of responding to middle-of-the-night calls, of needing to have his mind fully functional by the time he was out of bed and getting dressed had forced him into the habit. But this morning, his body knew that he could stay in bed. He'd get into the precinct when he got into the precinct, and after the hours he'd been putting in on their primary case he felt not one iota of guilt about that. He rolled over, and focused his hearing on the apartment. It was empty; Jack had already left for work. He didn't open his eyes to check the time, but he had the sense that it was light outside. Jack's blinds were not one hundred percent lighttight. He had a very fuzzy memory of Jack getting out of bed, of lips caressing the back of his neck. The sensation had been recognized at a strange point during a dream he'd been having; one he couldn't remember now and didn't bother to try. Sleep was dragging him back, and with a sluggish effort, he pulled Jack's pillow under his chin. A piece of paper fluttered over his hand, startling him. He grabbed it, then smiled when he realized what it likely was, and let himself drift back under.
The next time Ed awoke, he knew it was the last. He was fully awake. His bladder was complaining. He stretched. His hand ran into the paper he'd been clutching; he picked it up and opened his eyes, rubbing the sleep from them. One line, three short sentences, seven words. He grinned.
"Good morning. I'll call. Love you, Jack."
Unaccountably, his throat thickened, and ached. The words blurred behind unshed tears. It wasn't because he missed the man, though waking up with him would have been welcome. He wasn't entirely sure why his emotions were overwhelming him, or what they were. He cleared his throat, and took a deep breath. Wiped the corners of his eyes. "Love you, too," he said in the quiet of the room. He got out of bed, turned on the radio, and headed for the bathroom. He stopped at the closet, folded the note carefully, and tucked it into the back pocket of a pair of his jeans.
He was smiling again by the time he was looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, brushing his teeth. Humming by the time he was in the shower. Singing along to the radio by the time he was shaving. Thinking about the day ahead of him by the time he was opening up the dresser drawer Jack had given him. He pulled out a shirt Jack had taken to the cleaners, and unfastened the paper tape encircling it. Unbuttoned it, and prepared to put it on. Then he saw the two identifying numbers stamped on the inside of the collar, side by side. His throat closed again. After a moment, he continued with the task, shaking his head.
"Sentimental mush, Eddie," he chided himself gently. Peter had been right. He needed a vacation. A real vacation, with Jack. Far away. To have the time and space to relax into a relationship that he never would have imagined, and now couldn't see beyond.
As Jack walked out the side door of the courthouse, he checked his watch. He'd have to grab a cab if he hoped to get back to the office before his scheduled appointment with Anthony Cabot. He'd miss the exercise, but there was a up side to it, as far as he was concerned.
Serena said, "I suppose that went as well as we'd expected."
He glanced at her, then up the block for a taxi. "Better, actually. That was a good save," he acknowledged. "At least we didn't lose the corroborating testimony, along with the confession." She was silent for too long, offering no response. He flagged a taxi and turned to face her.
"Thank you," she said, only briefly meeting his eyes. Then she shrugged. "I lucked out. Remembered the cite from a class. It just came to me."
The car pulled to the curb; they climbed in. Jack gave the driver the address and dug out his wallet. "Well, then, we lucked out, too."
"You have an appointment? Is that why the ride?"
He nodded. "With Mr. Cabot." He paused, momentarily struggling with his distrust. "I'm going to give him copies of what was found on Crymson's computer. Some of it is personal, and some of it he might need to keep the club running."
"How much is useful to the case?"
She was right to ask, and he knew he was wrong to be keeping her out of the loop. He'd justified it the day before, because when she'd returned to the office she'd had to finish working on the response they'd just presented to the judge in the Hahn case. "The emails will help. There was a personal letter to Anthony that could be useful, but we won't be touching it."
"Why not? Seems like we need everything we can find."
He looked directly at her. "One very important reason. It would establish a connection between Crymson, the Tide, and Detective Green," he said with a bit of force. "We won't out him."
She blushed, and asked slowly, "What kind of connection?"
To give himself another chance to calm his anger, he pulled money out of his wallet. The cab stopped at a light. Then he turned back to her, speaking in a low, clipped voice. "Crymson wrote to his lover, on the evening he died. A highly personal letter, giving a sparse explanation of what had happened to him at Madison. In it, he instructed Anthony to contact Detective Ed Green at the two-seven if he didn't survive the night. So, in a way, it disproves your theory, that Ed was involved in the case. Obviously, Anthony didn't know Ed, or where he worked. Like we said last week, it was just the Saturday night before Crymson was murdered that he himself even found out where Ed worked," he finished harshly. "You, however, chose not to believe that."
"It wasn't a matter of believing that or not...."
He huffed loudly, interrupting her. "No, it was a matter of not trusting either of us. Not trusting me, in particular."
She broke their eye contact and looked out the window for another block. Then she met his eyes squarely. "What can I do to make things right between us, Jack? I know that I made a mistake." Her voice dropped significantly. "And probably made a bigger one yesterday," she said with a tone Jack couldn't identify. "But this job means a lot to me. I want a career as a prosecutor."
He sighed, from deep in his gut. One positive thing in her favor, he thought, was that she certainly had the grit to be a prosecutor. He decided to continue speaking honestly. "I don't know what you can do. Not yet, at least."
She nodded, and went back to looking out the window. They arrived at Hogan Place; Jack paid the fare and they entered the building. In the elevator, Serena said quietly, staring at the numbers lighting in sequence, "I don't think I'd want to read a letter like that from someone I loved."
"No," he agreed, "I'm sure this is going to be very difficult for him."
The elevator stopped at the tenth floor. The door opened, and they exited the car.
He said to her, "Take the financials from Woodbridge's house and create a timeline for monies going in and out of his Cayman accounts. See how that correlates with the victims' accounts here in the states. It'll give us a head start, until Justice comes through."
"I'll get right on it," she said, then walked ahead of him.
He stopped at Jennifer's desk. She handed him some messages, and told him that Mr. Cabot was waiting outside his office. There was no message from the lab about DNA results, or from Rodgers. If he hadn't heard from either by the time Anthony left, he'd start pushing. He took a long, deep breath as he approached his door, steeling himself for what he assumed would be a very difficult meeting for him, too.
"There is one personal letter in here," Jack said, sliding the expanding file in front of Anthony, "that I would recommend you wait to read, until you're home." They were sitting next to each other on one side of the T-table.
Anthony's eyes locked with his. "Personal as in from Crymson?"
"Yes." Jack glanced down, and saw that the man's hands had begun to shake, ever so slightly. "I apologize, for what might feel like an intrusion, but I had to read everything."
"Can you give me the gist of it? I don't think I can wait...."
"It was written to you, the Sunday evening of his death. He talks about Madison, and makes some reference to what had been happening between him, and Ryerson, and Abbott." He paused. "There's more to it."
Anthony sucked in a breath, then slowly released it. He looked down at the file, and rested his hands on the surface. "Will it help you prosecute Woodbridge?"
"It could, but we won't use it. It also has a reference in it about Detective Green."
The man let out a strangled chuckle. "So if that wasn't there, this would be splashed across every newspaper in the city."
Jack sighed. "Only if it were absolutely necessary, and with what else was found in his emails, the case can proceed without it. But yes, the victim, and the victim's family, very often loses any semblance of privacy in these circumstances." He paused again. "I'm sorry."
Anthony met his eyes again. "It is so... hard," he said quietly. "I want this bastard to pay, and I want you to do whatever it takes to make that happen. That feels like the opposite of protecting Crymson, but... it also feels like I am protecting him, or maybe just that I'm making up for not protecting him when he was alive. Does that make any sense?"
Jack nodded, and risked some physical contact. He touched Anthony's forearm, giving it a quick squeeze. "It does, believe it or not. However, there's something else you need to know." He waited until the other man was completely focused on him. "Last night, there was a body discovered in Woodbridge's house. It's an apparent suicide -- but," he said quickly, raising his hand to forestall a reaction, "we're not convinced that it was Woodbridge. We're waiting for some test results, and an autopsy. We're proceeding as if there will be a prosecution. The APB is still in effect. The airports, train stations, and the Port Authority have been notified."
The man stared at him for a few very long moments, the focus he'd had completely gone. The tension between them was palpable. "So if that wasn't him," he finally said, "he's disappeared?" He shook his head almost violently; his voice got louder. "How am I supposed to handle it, if it was him? The slimy bastard took his own life? Doesn't even have the decency to stand in front of me?! Take any kind of responsibility for what he did?!" His eyes filled; his hands clenched and he slammed one fist on the table. "You tell me -- how the hell am I supposed to handle that?! How is that justice for... for Crym?!" Then Jack watched with dread as the man crumbled. His head fell into his hands, and his shoulders heaved with grief.
Without hesitating, Jack clutched the back of Anthony's neck, keeping any false words of comfort to himself. But the casual massage wasn't helping, so he let go and swiveled to pick up the phone. He called Serena, and asked her to bring a cup of water. He didn't want to leave him alone, and risk someone coming into the room. His stomach was clenching, and he swore to himself that if Woodbridge was still alive, he would do whatever it took. Whatever. He got a kleenex box from the far end of the credenza and set it on the table, then went to the door. Serena was opening it within two seconds, her eyes darting to the crying man behind him.
Jack nodded his thanks as he took the drink from her, and shut the door. He returned to his seat. Placed the water in front of Anthony. Took a deep breath. Waited as the other man tried to calm his emotions, as he blew his nose, and drank some of the water.
"Is there someone I can call?" Jack asked. "Russell? To help you get home?"
Anthony shook his head. "I'm sorry. I'll be okay. I am sorry, Mr. McCoy...."
"Don't worry about it. I understand." He watched the man pick up the cup and almost spill it. "Would a real drink help? I've got some scotch."
Red-rimmed eyes met his, and the man gave him a small smile. "It's ten-thirty in the morning." The smile melted into a quivering line. "Yeah," he said in a raspy voice, "I'll take some scotch. Thanks."
Jack went around to the other side of his desk and opened the bottom drawer. Took out the bottle, and his glass. He poured one finger. Handed it to him. Anthony downed it in one gulp.
His office was empty and the doors were closed. Jack sat at his desk, trying to concentrate, but after one more futile minute of staring at his notes, he reached for the phone. Dialed, and it was answered on the second ring.
"Good morning," Ed said. He could hear the smile in his voice, and there was the sound of a dog barking in the background.
Jack smiled too, into the phone. "Good morning. I didn't call for a report, though I do want to know what's happening. How late are you on tonight?"
"I'm leaving at six, if possible."
"Dinner plans?"
"With you, I hope. My place? We can do take-out, or one of the frozen meals we got, I don't care. Can of soup...."
Jack's stomach finally unclenched. "Yeah," he said in a low voice, "I don't care either. Your place. Good." He needed an evening alone with Ed so badly, it was like a visceral ache in his chest.
"Good," Ed answered slowly, somehow infusing the word with a heated promise.
He did get his report. Ed and Lennie were interviewing the neighbors both on Woodbridge's street and the street behind. Ed estimated another hour before they'd be done. They hadn't heard anything from the lab about DNA results either, or the ME. Jack ended the phone call, feeling much better than when he'd dialed. Grounded. Calmed. Ready for the rest of the day.
Ed slid the phone back into his inside coat pocket and made an attempt to wipe the smile off of his face. He turned around, to the stoop behind him, hearing Lennie end another conversation. Though his partner was half-scowling as he shoved his hands into his coat and stomped down the steps, Ed's grin returned. Even if he saw Jack every evening, and spent every night with him, it still felt like they were dating. Phone calls like the one he'd just had left him with butterflies in his stomach and utter peace in his heart. He needed an evening alone with Jack, needed it down to his bones. He was going to get it.
Lennie stood in front of him, still scowling. "Why are you so cheerful? We're getting nowhere." Then he shook his head slightly. "Never mind, that was McCoy, wasn't it?"
Ed looked down his nose at the man. "You know what, Lennie? I think it's time you took the bull by the horns and asked Rodgers out."
Lennie let out a noise. "Where the hell did that come from?"
"You need some romance in your life," Ed continued. "Love. Companionship. Fun--"
Lennie interrupted him. "Stop right there. First of all, I don't buy the whole romance thing--"
Ed interrupted this time. "Bullshit. You've been in love -- twice that I know of for certain. Probably more times than that! So don't give me that 'I'm so cynical' line. Everyone needs to love." He shrugged. "Just ask her out."
The response was a deeper scowl. "Come on, let's try the next house," Lennie said, walking away.
In two long strides, Ed caught up with him. "So the people back there saw and heard nothing?"
"They heard something, but didn't look out the window until we showed up."
They climbed the stoop of the house which was two houses down from Woodbridge's. Lennie was right; they were getting nowhere. People had heard the shotgun, but saw nothing in front of Woodbridge's house until the lights and sirens appeared. As they had expected from the surveillance report, nobody saw their neighbor in the vacinity of his home the evening before, prior to the shot. No-one had noticed anything unusual during the nights of the murders, either. No shots had been heard, no large object had been seen taken out of the house. The odds were long that anyone remembered the comings and goings of visitors nearly two weeks ago, and so far, nobody had. They would be checking the street behind them next.
"So you think I've been in love twice, for certain," Lennie said, with a hand poised at the doorbell.
"Nobody gets as far as the altar if they're not in love."
"Well, maybe two marriages just cured me of the habit," Lennie retorted.
Ed grinned. "Yeah," he said drily, "maybe they did."
Lennie shot him a look and rang the bell.
Jack was about to call the ME's office when the phone rang. He answered it, and the voice of Elizabeth Rodgers made his stomach jump.
She told him that she'd received the PCR DNA result from the lab. "They matched the body's blood sample to DNA swabbed from the drain of the master bath, and from a toothbrush found there, as well," she said. Jack's heart sank. "But I found something unusual, and I need some information before I feel comfortable declaring this man identified."
"What kind of information?" Jack asked, confused. "Doesn't DNA about clinch it?"
"It clinches that the man with his face shot off used the bathroom. Do you know Mr. Woodbridge's ethnic background?"
"No," he answered, his mind racing, "but I think I know who might. I'll get back to you." He started rifling through the files on his desk.
"Okay," she answered, and hung up.
He followed suit, and after finding the Middleton file, he placed a call to Sergeant Froendlich. He identified himself, and the other man immediately asked him about the Woodbridge case. Jack fancied that he'd been sitting by his phone since Ed and Lennie had left his office, waiting for it to ring. He told him they were still working it, then asked Rodgers' question. Silence was the response.
After a long fifteen seconds, Froendlich said, "I can only guess. This has to be exact?"
"Yes. Our ME needs it."
Jack heard the sound of a chair scraping. "Okay, yeah," Froendlich said with a lift in his voice, "I know who can tell me. Give me your number, I'll call you back real quick."
Jack did as asked and they hung up. Now it was his turn to stare at the phone, as he willed "real quick" to be a few minutes at the most. He thought about how disappointed he'd been to hear the DNA results, and came to the conclusion that he was actually with Anthony on the issue of a suicide. He wanted to prosecute Richard Woodbridge. He wanted to convict him, and have him sentenced to the ultimate penalty. He wanted to watch his face when it all happened. He wanted justice, and not a facile outcome. He wanted it very, very badly.
Froendlich called back within the half hour. He'd gone to the Middleton library, which was across the street from the police station, and had had the librarian pull an ancestry chart that Miriam Woodbridge had filed there nearly twenty years before. Jack made notes of the lineage of both of Richard Woodbridge's parents, then gave the sergeant a quick status report. He also made a promise to keep the man informed.
He called Rodgers. He gave her the information.
"How accurate is this?" she asked.
"From some genealogy records that the police got from the local library in Middleton," he answered, then added, "though I don't know why this guy's mother would have left them there."
"People, especially people considered prominent in their community, file them with their library, or genealogy society. At least they did before the age of the internet. So you've never done your family tree, Jack?" she teased.
"No," he said. "And so what does this information tell you about our suicide?"
"That it probably wasn't one. Look, I've got an errand to run, and one more thing to follow up on. How about I swing by there as soon as I can and give you the report in person?"
"Fine," he said, though he really didn't mean it. He wanted the answer now, if not sooner. They said good-bye; he hung up the phone and stood in one fluid motion. "I knew it," he spat out. He left, to ask Jennifer to order him some lunch, and talk to Nora.
Ed and Lennie drove back to the precinct, but instead of going inside they walked to one of their favorite places for lunch. They hadn't learned anything that they considered useful from the neighbors on the other block. People in the two houses that bordered the brownstone for sale had heard the sound of what they thought might have been a gunshot. One person had looked out his back window for the minute or two after he'd heard it, seen nothing, and had gone back to his television. The couple on the other side had admitted they'd ignored the situation. Other interviews with people in the neighborhood had elicited tales of typical late evening life on their street. People coming home, people walking their dogs, one woman who fed the local stray cats carrying her bag of food. They had tried to talk to her, but she hadn't been home. Lennie had left his card in her door.
Ed ordered his usual and found them a table by the window. Lennie joined him within a minute, sighing as he sat.
"What?" Ed asked around a bite of falafel.
"Lousy morning," Lennie replied, then dug into his pastrami.
Ed was about to contend that point, and return to the Rodgers conversation when he sensed someone approaching their table. He looked, and was completely taken aback.
"Hey, guys, mind if I join you?" Abby asked, tray in hand, and a broad smile on her face.
Lennie grinned, and said as he pulled out a chair for her, "Well, look who's slummin' with the city folk."
Abby sat. "I always remember my roots," she said, still smiling. "Keeps me humble."
Ed let out a short laugh, but wasn't sure if he was actually reacting to the slight nervousness he was feeling in her presence. "Good to see you," he said.
She raised her drink to him. "You, too."
He went back to eating while Lennie asked her what she was doing in their neck of the woods. She said she'd been craving a chocolate egg cream, and this was her favorite place to get one. Ed continued to eat and listen to the other two chatting about life working for the feds. He was half waiting for her to say something to him about Jack, and as he finished his food, she finally did. It came on the heels of Lennie filling her in on their main case.
"Yeah," she said, looking directly at Ed, "Jack told me about it last night. He's taking it very personally. Which I completely understand."
"It's a tough situation," he said.
Abby leaned forward and lowered her voice. "He also told me that he's very, very happy," she said with a smile, "which I completely support. He looked it, too."
Ed couldn't help it, he grinned full out. "Thanks."
"Aw, geez," Lennie said, good-naturedly, "now he's gonna go back to being all moonie-eyed...."
Abby chortled. "Moonie-eyed? Our cool Detective Green?"
"Yeah," Lennie said with a roll of his eyes, "all morning."
"Hey," Abby retorted, "he's just in love. I think it's sweet."
"Yeah," Lennie moaned, "sweet."
Abby took a long draw on her straw. "I also asked Jack how Southerlyn is taking the news," she said lightly, "but I'd like to know what you two think. If you know."
Ed's stomach tightened around his lunch. He and Jack had not taken the time to talk about the dinner with Abby prior to them going to Woodbridge's the night before, and hadn't had a moment to talk since then. He had no idea what Jack had said. He also did not want to be discussing this at all. "I don't really have an answer to that," he hedged. "But I'm going for a cup of coffee. Anybody want anything?" He stood. They shook their heads, and he left the table. He needed some space, physically and emotionally.
He went to the counter, and got his coffee. He looked over his shoulder while waiting to pay. Lennie and Abby had their heads together; his partner was doing most of the talking. Neither person was smiling. Ed sighed to himself. A deep, deep sigh.
Jack's attention was drawn away from his sandwich and magazine at the sound of his office door opening. Nora walked in.
"I just returned from lunch with Rudy, to find a note from you. 'Adverse developments,' Jack?" She sat down across from him.
He drank some iced tea. "Looks like our hunch was right. The suicide wasn't a suicide."
"The DNA?"
He shook his head. "A match. There's something else wrong. Rodgers is coming by to report in person."
"Good lord." She sighed. "Rudy was questioning whether or not he should have sent out that press release yesterday."
"It was late enough that it would have made, what, the six o'clock news? I don't think that would have mattered to Woodbridge--he'd already eluded the police and disappeared. We have a bigger issue today. Anita's getting calls from the press about Woodbridge's death. Apparently, one of the neighbors tipped them. She's stalling, of course. I've gotten two calls myself. We need to decide what to tell them."
"After we hear the ME report, of course," she said.
"Of course."
She was quiet for a minute or two, thinking. Jack finished his lunch while he waited.
"Well," she said, "what's striking me about the last twenty-four hours, is that this man either had a plan ready to implement or he really does think fast in a crisis. What else strikes me is he seems to be acting from a place of desperation. That's not the profile that Skoda gave us, is it?"
"Not entirely, but some things fit. The main point that Skoda made is that Woodbridge needs to be in control. His desperation could be because things are slipping out of it. He doesn't know what we have and what we don't. And he still has a couple of loose ends that are probably making him very nervous."
"Mr. Marsh," she agreed. "But what's the other one?"
He took another drink of iced tea. "Something that I haven't told you about, because we don't know if it actually exists or not. There was a reference on Crymson's computer, in his emails to Abbott, about a manuscript. The impression I got was that it may have been about what happened in Wisconsin fifteen years ago."
Nora's eyebrows shot up. "Someone wrote down what they did to Woodbridge's parents? As a work of fiction or nonfiction?"
"My guess would be fiction. And I think it was Abbott who wrote it."
"He'd want it," she stated. "He's trying to buy himself some time."
Jack nodded. "And he thinks he has. All the time in the world. He thinks we think he's dead." He smiled grimly. "I think we should continue the charade."
"Assuming he's really not dead."
His eyebrows were the ones to shoot up now. "When have you known Rodgers to be wrong?"
She shook her head. "That's not the point. Let's make sure. But," she said, lifting her hand, "once we are, I agree. We'll notify the press that Richard Woodbridge has committed suicide. I, for one, have no problem playing the game with that man." She sighed. "Guess I'll go call the mayor, and give him the latest. After the things he was venting about at lunch, I don't think he'll have any problem playing, either."
"He's worried about the fallout?"
"Not like you're imagining. He truly wanted the GLBT community to feel that his office was attentive to their concerns. He has two close friends, gay men, who are in a long-term relationship. So he takes this whole situation as an almost personal insult. The one man he trusted to keep the lines of communication open has turned out to be the murderer? He said, today, that he's very grateful the death penalty was reinstated." She shrugged. "Can you blame him?"
"No, I can't," Jack said sincerely.
"I assume the police are looking for the manuscript?"
Jack nodded. "Anita's on it."
She stood. "Okay. Let me know when Rodgers arrives? I'd like to hear what she has to say, too."
"I will." When she was nearly to the door, he said, "Oh -- Abby sends her regards."
"Thank you," she said, smiling. "How is she?"
"She's good. Still enjoying her job; the bureaucracy is annoying." He smiled, too. "Much the same as before."
"Nice to know there are some things which are constant," she said.
He chuckled to himself as she left. While gathering his lunch detritus, he thought, for the hundredth time, about how different the office was without Abby around. Her energy, passion, and sense of humor were the three things that he missed the most in her absence. Those, and the fun of simply working with a friend. He tossed his garbage, finished his drink and tossed that, too. He picked up the phone.
Ed and Lennie walked into Van Buren's office; Lennie handed her the large coffee he'd bought at the cafe. She took a sip and smiled her thanks.
"I just got off the phone with McCoy," she said. "The ME is due over there, shortly, to give her report. He wants the two of you there as well. The DNA shows a match with samples taken in the bathroom, but Rodgers is saying that it wasn't suicide, that's as much as he knows."
She sipped more coffee, and Ed tried to reign in his reaction to both pieces of news. He honestly didn't know whether to be cheering that they'd been right, or swearing that their suspect was now almost officially at large. Anywhere, really. At the same time, he'd be seeing Jack hours earlier than he'd thought, which was something to bring another grin to his face, and which started him wondering when that would change. If it ever would change. If they were going to be as permanent as possible, how would that go, around work, exactly?
"Ed? You still with us?" Lieu's voice interrupted.
"Yeah, sorry," he said quickly. "Just thinking about where Woodbridge might be." He caught his partner's glance and knew Lennie had seen right through him. He gave him a warning stare.
"Well, the DA's office has a plan in mind about exactly that. Even though our perp isn't dead, we're going to announce that he is." She pointed at them with her pen. "You see the possibilities there," she said with a small grin.
"Yeah," Lennie agreed with a grin of his own. "Ollie ollie in free...."
"Exactly," she said. "Now. I've spoken with Mr. and Mrs. Abbott about the manuscript. They're going to look through Karen's things. Things that she'd stored in their house, the boxes they brought back from her apartment, etcetera."
Ed shook his head. "It's not going to be in the stuff from her apartment. Woodbridge already searched there. He'd have found it." He didn't say the obvious, that for all they knew he had already found it.
"We've stopped making assumptions about this guy some days back," Lieu stated.
"I know," he conceded.
"So," she continued, pointedly, "you two follow up with whomever has Ryerson's things." She checked her watch. "For fifteen minutes, then go to the DA's office."
"No encouragement is needed, Lieu, to get us out the door," Lennie said with a straight face, "we're both dying to be there."
"I'm sure you are," she replied.
Ed simply nodded, and led Lennie to their desks. "It's a golden opportunity, Lennie," he muttered as the other man sat down. "Drinks, after work, discuss the case some more...."
Lennie was looking through their file for a phone number, Ed assumed. He glanced up. "I admit that I wouldn't mind doing a little socializing with the woman after work. But," he said, stabbing the folder once for emphasis, "no talk of romance, or love. Okay?"
"Good God, Lennie, what in the world did your wives do to you?"
Lennie chuffed. "The first one gave me a demonstration of just how miserable she was with me. I caught her in the shower with another man."
"Ooh, ouch. That is cold. But hey, I've been there." Ed shrugged.
"Really? You caught someone in the shower?"
"Yeah. The one before the last one." He leaned forward, over his desk. "I always suspected that it was done deliberately."
"Yeah," Lennie answered darkly. "I know what you mean."
Ed sat back, and let his partner off the hook by pulling out his notebook to review the interviews they'd had with neighbors. He concentrated on something besides where they'd be in twenty-five minutes, and what they'd be learning. Whose shining face he'd be seeing. Whose deep eyes would lock with his, and make all the difference in his day.
Jack stopped at Serena's office on the way back to his own. He didn't enter, but stood in the doorway.
"Rodgers is on her way," he said, "she should be here in about ten minutes. My office."
"Okay," Serena replied. "I'll just grab a cup of coffee first."
"The detectives will be here, too." The implication was left hanging, but Jack knew that his second understood precisely what it was.
Serena appeared to want to say something, but only nodded in response. Jack left, wholeheartedly appreciating her reticence. He hoped she kept it up. By the time he was behind his desk, he was trying to contain his smile. Ed was coming, and Jack was almost eighty percent sure that his presence was absolutely necessary. That he'd justified the other twenty or so, with an argument about the saving of Rodgers' time by explaining things to everybody at once, didn't matter a bit to Jack. Ed was coming. He checked his watch. In seven and a half minutes. He smiled.
Ed shifted his chair at the head of the T-table so he could look directly at Dr. Rodgers, who was at the end of the table, facing Jack. He was sitting to Jack's right, and the other reason for moving his seat was sitting to Jack's left, across the table. Serena, just a few feet away. Even though his anger at her had lessened, and he assumed it would continue to do so as the weeks went by, having to concentrate to keep his eyes off of her was irritating. He also didn't like the fact that she was sitting as near to Jack as he was, but at least she wasn't perched on the credenza behind Jack's chair. Which was, he'd realized a few minutes after arriving, where he himself wanted to be.
Rodgers took out files from the briefcase in front of her. The shift of Ed's chair also afforded him a clearer view of his partner, who was adjacent to him, across the table from Nora Lewin. The man relaxed in his usual pose of nonchalance, but his eyes stayed on Elizabeth Rodgers with every move she made. While the doctor readied her papers, Ed glanced behind him, over his left shoulder. Jack winked, and flashed a quick grin. He grinned, too.
"Okay," Dr. Rodgers said, drawing Ed's attention back. "Because of the angle of the shot, the shotgun pellets destroyed the front half of the brain for all intents and purposes. We were lucky, though -- the cerebellum," she pointed to the back of her head, just above the neck, "was mostly intact. And it's the cerebellum which showed some significant abnormalities. I assume you don't want the boring scientific details describing them?"
"Not right now," Jack answered.
"These abnormalities can be caused by a number of different diseases," she continued, "some of which are complicated to diagnose postmortem. One of which is quite easy to diagnose, and only requires a simple blood test that we can do right there in our office. I did the test, and the results were positive. Your guy had late onset Tay-Sachs disease." She paused.
"Tay-Sachs in an adult?" DA Lewin asked. "I thought it was fatal, that children died very young?"
"There are two forms of it. One is fatal and shows up at birth; one doesn't manifest until adolescence. Late onset causes a degeneration of the cerebellum, which in turn causes physical and sometimes mental debilitation of varying degrees. Trouble with balance, walking, hand tremors, possibly a speech impediment or difficulty thinking; some patients have even been misdiagnosed as schizophrenic, or catatonic, or with MS or even ALS. Now, I looked at the muscles in his legs and there was some atrophy. And there is no quantifying test to indicate how much change in the cerebellum would correlate to the number and strength of symptoms. But, given the usual way the disease progresses, this guy being in his mid-thirties would have shown some signs of it. I was told your suspect was healthy," she said, looking around the table.
Lewin answered. "The mayor has never made mention that Mr. Woodbridge had any physical limitations, or mental ones. I believe he skied, even, and was quite good at it."
"Yeah," Lennie said, "we saw the equipment."
"Downhill and cross-country," Ed added.
"I'm assuming," Jack asked, "that this version of Tay-Sachs is also a Jewish disease? Which is why you asked about Woodbridge's ethnic background?"
"It's not exclusively Jewish, but yes, that's one of the ethnicities with a higher than average occurrence rate. The other, for some reason, is French-Canadian. Again, it's not exclusive to these two ethnic groups. But your suspect, being almost strictly from Northern European ancestry, doesn't fit the pattern."
Ed was still wondering how she'd determined that, definitively, this was not Woodbridge on her slab. "But, still, he could have had Tay-Sachs," he said.
Rodgers smiled, and Ed recognized that look. "True, he could have. However, given my theory about the way the two people in Middleton, Wisconsin died, I decided to do a careful examination of this man's skin." She pulled out a large photo and handed it to Lewin. "I found a small puncture wound, on the back of the neck. Not a place someone could, or would, choose to inject themselves. Definitely not the place any medical professional would use," she said with her characteristic grin. Lewin had passed the photo on. "The puncture was made close to death. He was drugged, then shot." She pulled out another photo from her file. "I spoke to the blood spatter analysis expert, Garrett, and had him check the crime scene photos. There's something wrong with the blood pattern on the floor. It appears something was in front of the guy as he shot himself." She pointed to the second photo and, again, handed it to Lewin first.
"So what do you think he was injected with?" Jack asked. "Or should I say, can we find out?"
Rodgers grinned again. "Back to the two who drowned in Wisconsin. There's a drug called succinylcholine; it's an anesthetic. One of its side effects is that is causes an elevation in the blood potassium level. Both drowning victims had elevated potassium, which is why the coroner there said they likely had heart attacks, which contributed to their drowning. Succinylcholine used to be called 'the perfect murder weapon,' because it causes almost complete paralysis, and it metabolizes very quickly, leaving the bloodstream within a half hour of being administered. So it was virtually undetectable."
Ed's stomach turned over, as the implication of what she was saying sank in.
"That's horrific," the DA said. Serena muttered something unintelligible, and passed the crime scene photo to Jack.
"More than horrific," Jack replied. "So, Doctor, succinylcholine is no longer undetectable?"
She nodded. "I've sent a sample of kidney tissue to Quantico. They've got the equipment to test for one of the by-products of the drug's metabolism -- succinyl monocholine. They've told me they'll have an answer for me by midday tomorrow. I'm having your suicide's blood potassium level tested. I was hoping I'd have the result by now. It's due anytime."
Lennie said, shaking his head, "It's disgusting to think about, that this perp paralyzes his vic, then shoots him in the face, and he can't do anything to protect himself? He paralyzed his parents, and then tossed them into the lake so they'd drown? Sick...."
Ed's heart stopped for a long, terrible moment. He'd suddenly visualized the answer to something else, which had been bothering him since the day before. "Doctor," he said slowly, in the heavy silence of Jack's office, "if the results of the FBI test comes back positive, I think we should look into exhuming the body of the third shooting victim. See if you can find a puncture wound. Mr. Estes," he managed to clarify through a thickening throat.
"Son of a bitch," Jack muttered in a low, intense voice. Ed didn't need to turn around. He'd heard the man's understanding of what, exactly, Ed was thinking. He wanted to turn, however. Really, really wanted to.
"Why him," Rodgers asked, "and not the other two as well?"
It took every bit of Ed's willpower to give him the ability to continue to speak. A desire to bolt out of his chair and hit something was nearly overwhelming. "Because he suspected what had happened to the first two, and he knew what kind of person he was going to meet. He was bigger than the perp. It's never made sense to me, to us, how he would let himself be shot so cleanly in the chest, without....," he said, but had to clear his throat to continue, "without a struggle."
"Succinylcholine would do it. Once injected, the victim is helpless. But the perpetrator has to be careful, or a person can stop breathing once the muscles in the chest become paralyzed, the dosage needs to be nearly exact...."
That was all Ed heard. He could not sit there any longer. He stood quickly and left the room, stalking to the stairwell door. He tore it open and trotted up the steps, hot tears burning his eyes. He made it to the landing Jack had taken him to the week before, stumbling up the final stairs. He collapsed, sitting heavily, buried his head in his arms, and tried to keep from crying. The picture of Crymson, lying on Woodbridge's carpet, helpless, while a gun was pointed to his chest, played over and over in his mind until all Ed wanted to do was scream at the top of his lungs in frustration and anger.
In the moment of stunned silence which followed Ed's departure, Jack made a move, pushing away from his desk and standing quickly.
"Go," Nora's voice interrupted his haze of half-thinking, half-reacting. He looked at her. "Go," she repeated.
He looked to Lennie, barely registering Rodgers' confusion. "Yeah," Lennie said. He left, believing he knew where Ed might be, understanding completely why the man had bolted. It was worth a try, anyway. As he approached the hallway, he saw one of the elevators arrive, and it's arrow was pointing up. He impatiently waited for his coworkers to get off, then stabbed the top floor button as soon as he could.
It took too long, but he was finally trotting up the stairs, to the sounds of muffled cursing and choppy, harsh breathing. He sat next to Ed and pulled the man to his chest. Ed wrapped his arms around Jack's waist and held tightly. It wasn't the most comfortable way to give support, but clearly Ed didn't mind. His breathing was evening out.
Eventually, Jack said quietly, "I didn't think this could get any worse."
"Fucking bastard," Ed muttered thickly. "I'll kill him myself. Screw lethal injection...."
There was no real response to that, and Jack knew that none was necessary. Hell was continuing, and whereas the two of them would handle the responsibility of bringing Woodbridge to justice, if it turned out that the man had used the drug to murder Crymson, hell was going to get a lot hotter. They'd have to tell Anthony. Jack stroked Ed's back, and kissed his head as Ed rested it on his shoulder. He also knew that his lover was probably realizing the very same thing.
Ed finished changing his clothes, pulling on his sweat pants and the same lightweight sweater he'd worn the very first night he'd met Jack at the Tide. He somehow felt it was appropriate that he put on that sweater, on this evening. Jack's hands had touched his skin for the very first time under the soft cotton of it. A touch which had seared him in ways he had been completely unprepared for. Which ultimately had changed his life.
The sweater had always been one of his clubbing outfits. Crymson had once made a jokingly suggestive comment about it, how the color of it set off the color of his skin. The man had winked at him when Robert, the other bartender, had commented that Anthony would probably agree. Innocuously flirting, gently charming, Crymson's personality had filled the Tide.
Ed closed his closet door and went to the kitchen to start dinner preparations, deliberately not thinking about anything else but food and the man he loved, who was due any minute. He was waiting to hear Jack's key in his lock. He was turning on the oven, and taking out Jack's favorite frozen lasagne, choosing heat over microwaves so the cheese and sauce would brown, the way his lover liked it. All the while listening, in the quiet of his apartment. He finally heard it, after he'd put the food in to bake.
He was in the hallway by the time Jack had closed the front door behind him. He was hugging him before Jack had the chance to do anything but set his helmet and keys on the hall table. Holding him closely, in the privacy of his home. Kissing his neck, then finally kissing him, feeling everything that Jack was giving him with his lips, and tongue, and breath. Finally feeling them.
Jack was glad for many things, as he sat and ate dinner with Ed. The man's proximity, the good and easily prepared food, the hours ahead of them. He was also glad that they finally had an opportunity to talk, at length, about things that Jack had wanted to since the day before. First and foremost was the topic of his second chair, and why he'd been compelled to keep Serena in that position. He trusted Ed was telling him the truth, when he assured Jack that he understood. When he reminded Jack that he, himself, had had to learn to work with people whom he loathed and detested, and who'd felt the same in return. That it hadn't been easy, by any means, but he'd managed.
Jack had wanted to take care of the situation with Serena, somehow, so that Ed wouldn't have to manage anything. He still believed that it was ultimately his responsibility -- not only due to his professional position, but due to the fact of Ryerson's diary and everything that had transpired around that book. There were only two things in the whole mess that Jack regretted. The most important of those was that Ed had been hurt. The other was that he'd fucked Ryerson in the first place. He could never have predicted that his life would end up intertwined with Ed's, but if he'd known how deeply he could fall in love with another man, he doubted he would have been engaging in anonymous sex. And as he sat next to Ed, eating dinner on the couch, seeing him in that sweater, he almost couldn't breathe from want and love warring it out inside of his chest.
Ed served them ice cream for dessert, which had been a good choice considering their topic of conversation. Unintentionally planned comfort food. Jack told him how the meeting with Anthony had gone that morning. Hearing that Crymson's partner had come apart at the seams, over what they could now tell him was a moot issue, only made the pit of dread in Ed's stomach grow heavier.
Jack clasped Ed's knee. "If it turns out that Crymson was given the injection," he said, "we should tell Anthony with someone else present. Russell, or whoever."
Ed nodded, but he still couldn't say anything on the topic. He thought about the list of tasks he and Lennie had made when they'd returned to the precinct. Tasks that would, hopefully, get them proof of who the mystery man was, how he knew Woodbridge, and how the bastard had obtained succinylcholine. Their latest vic's potassium test had come back elevated. Rodgers' theory had credence. He stood and took the empty bowls to the kitchen. While he was putting them in the dishwasher, Jack came up behind him.
"Ed, let's go lie down. Watch something on tv," he said, slipping a hand under the back of Ed's sweater.
He nodded again, closed the dishwasher, took Jack's hand and walked with him to the bedroom. To lie with him was exactly what he needed.
They were watching something close to mindless entertainment, with Jack holding Ed to his chest in a much more comfortable fashion than they'd done at Hogan Place's roof access. Ed was draped over him, and Jack reveled in the closeness. In the relative quiet. During the middle of a scene in the show, Ed picked up the remote and muted the sound.
"Where do you think he is?" Ed asked, still looking at the television.
Jack had considered that question at length, late in the afternoon, with Nora and Serena. The whereabouts of Woodbridge, and the cat and mouse game they were about to engage in. Ed moved off and up, until they were face to face. "I think he's waiting to see if his death gets reported," Jack answered him. "See if he's free and clear. He has a car, we're all assuming, that's not registered to him?"
"Yeah, that's what we think."
"He'll track down his loose ends as soon as he hears the news," Jack continued.
"So it's a matter of which one he goes after first."
"More than likely."
Soft, dark brown eyes stared into his. "And then when he's finally caught, I'm gonna be the one who'll personally throw him in the holding cell," he said in a low, intense voice.
Jack nodded, not bothering to add his own personal vow. Ed reached out and cupped his face, stroking his cheek, eyes still locked. "I love you, Ed," he said.
The brown eyes glistened. "I love you, too."
Then Ed moved, and kissed him, taking his mouth in a soft kiss laced with urgency, and need. Jack's stomach dipped as he returned the need with his own, parting his lips, and letting the want he felt surge right on through. When they momentarily stopped for breath, Jack shifted them down the bed, away from the headboard and onto the pillows proper. Ed dove in as soon as he could, kissing him deeper, and deeper still. Jack slid his hands under Ed's sweater, feeling the glorious press of his lover's body, and the soft skin over his flexing muscles. He reveled in it all. He loved it all. He wanted it all.
Ed knew this was going to be one of those hard, fast, and intense sessions. He couldn't get Jack's clothes off quickly enough and Jack was fumbling to help with his own, and with Ed's. That it would be hard, fast and intense wasn't seeming to bother either of them. The pure need he was feeling from his lover was matched in every way by what his own body was screaming for. Connection. Joining. Loving. Release. Loving. Release. It was throbbing in him, surging through him, burning his skin, and his heart.
They were finally naked, and clutching at each other, rolling back and forth on the bed, kissing deeply, thrusting against each other, hard, and leaking. Biting each other's necks. Sucking, and licking whatever skin, lips, or tongue they could reach. Then Jack moved his legs, and gave him that familiar, knee weakening look that said, "Take me. Now." For one fleeting, dangerous moment, he thought of foregoing the condom, and in the scorching gaze passing back and forth between them, he fancied Jack was wanting that, too. They were both seronegative, was thought of in the second, much more dangerous moment. Jack pulled him down for another blazing kiss and Ed nearly crossed the line without reservation.
But he lunged for the bedside table instead and yanked out a condom. Tore it open before his mind could interfere again. Rolled it on, used their own fluids for lubrication and plunged into Jack with one long, practiced motion. Then they were at it in earnest, joined, connected, thrusting hard, spiraling up together, heading for release and bliss. His eyes were locked with Jack's. I love you, he wanted to call out. Don't ever leave me, he wanted to cry.
They reached the top, they leapt, they came, shuddering, contracting. Ed collapsed on Jack's chest, clutched tightly by strong arms wrapping around him. "Love you so much," he managed to whisper into Jack's neck. "So much...."
"You, too," Jack moaned softly, his voice raspy, and deep.
So, so much, Ed thought.
On to Chapter 15, Mitigating Circumstances
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