Ghost in My Head

Chapter One

Jamie left Jack's office, angry and confused. His attitude bordered on insanity, the death penalty for a drunk driving case? He was unbending, refusing to discuss it, and she left before she said something unforgivable. She sought the refuge of her little cubicle, sinking low in her chair, and looked through the glass at Jack's closed door. Why was he pushing so hard, so angry? She glanced around her little space, and remembered who occupied it before her. Jack's words – "Do you ever wonder how your position became open?" – rang in her brain. She picked up the phone and dialed the two seven, asking for Lennie Briscoe.

'I need to see you, if it's convenient," she said, toying with a pencil and keeping a wary eye on Jack's door. "I'll meet you at the house,' she said, and hung up. She grabbed her coat and purse, then told her clerk she was going to the two seven to talk to the detectives.

Lennie waited for her, and escorted her into an interview room. She draped her coat over a chair, then sat and looked at the man perched on the edge of the table. "Has Jack talked to you about this case?"

"The drunk?" Lennie sighed. He knew where this was going. 'Do you mean has he said this one's for Claire Kincaid?"

Jamie nodded. "You were with her. I pulled the file."

He sagged, aging ten years before her eyes. "I was. She came to pick up McCoy, but he'd split, tired of waiting. I caught a ride with her. Guilt – it's what keeps Jack and I bonded yet anything but friends. You didn't know her?"

'I'd seen her, heard the stories about them. Tell me about her, Lennie, help me understand why Jack is being such a hardass on this. It won't bring her back." Jamie felt awkward, talking behind Jack's back, but he was heading for disbarment, sanctions at the least. She needed to understand.

Lennie slid off the table and pulled a chair out. He sank onto it like he weighed five hundred pounds. He covered his face with his palms for a second, then slapped them on the table. He looked at Jamie, assessing her motives for nosing into this terrible history. "She was a great kid, Claire. Beautiful, smart, but vulnerable. And she fell in love with Jack McCoy." He shook his head. "And he loved her. We used to joke about it, that she humanized him, but that night." He stopped, looked out the window. "That night was a nightmare, that whole thing was. We all got the day off, and McCoy spent his afternoon in a bar. Claire went her own way, I hear she ended up here taking to the Loo. Anyway, McCoy called her to pick him up, but she took her time about it. He was soused, he got pissed, and he left.' He sighed. "And I fell off the wagon. So she offered me a ride. Bad timing all around."

"He really loved her?'

Lennie nodded. "Oh yeah. He went ballistic over that punk's sentence – a year. A year for killing a wonderful young woman with all the potential in the world. He's aged, he's bitter, he drinks too much. I'm not surprised he's thinking this one is for Claire, and personally, I hope that mope gets exactly what he deserves. It won't bring Claire back, but it might bring Jack a little peace."

"And Adam never made him get help?"

Lennie snorted. 'Make McCoy get help? His grief is so deep, so raw, I don't think anyone can help him. I don't think he wants help, he'd view it as an invasion of his privacy, his pain."

Jamie flashed on a memory, Jack and a beautiful young woman in the hallway, by the elevator, in the courthouse. Jack was laughing, his hand on the small of the woman's back. She was looking up at him with shining eyes, and Jamie recalled thinking there's two happy people. "I didn't know," she said. "I didn't know he loved her that much, that he was in that much pain. I just thought he was being unreasonable. I sensed it was somehow personal." She patted Lennie's arm. "Is there any way I can help him?"

"Yeah, by not trying to help. He has to work through this his way." He looked at his watch. 'If you want to know more about Claire, talk to the Loo. They were pretty close in their own way."

"I might do that." Jamie stood. "I need to understand his pain, understand why he's so rigid on this. Maybe find a way to ease his pain enough to pull him back from the edge of career suicide."

Lennie walked out of the room with her. 'Talk to the Loo, Counselor. She's the one who held Jack's hand at the hospital."

Jamie tried to imagine that scene. It was hard to visualize the small lieutenant holding the EADA's hand in any circumstances. She walked back into the squad room with Lennie, and as he resumed his seat at his desk, continued on to Van Buren's office. The loo looked up as Jamie knocked on the open door, then stood.

"Counselor," she said, pleasantly, "what brings you here?"

"Do you have time to talk?"

Anita closed a file on her desk and nodded. Jamie closed the door, and sat in the chair in front of the desk. She crossed her legs and took a deep breath. "Jack has gone round the bend on the Dressler case," she began.

"The drunk driver."

"Yes. I think it's because of Claire Kincaid.' She matched Anita's steady gaze. "Lennie told me a little about her, about them, and suggested I talk to you. Jack's going to commit career suicide with this one if I don't find some way to reach him, to understand what's driving him."

'Rage," Anita answered. "Her killer got twelve months." Anita sat and leaned back in her chair, folding her hands in her lap. She chewed her bottom lip. How much should she, could she, say, without betraying either Jack or Claire? She probed Jamie with her eyes, taking her measure, then made her decision. She knew how close Jack was to losing it, maybe this young women could help. "I was close to Claire, it was much like a maternal relationship in some ways. I feel a little uncomfortable revealing much about her, but I care about Jack, I understand only too well the pain he's suffering. They were in love, I don't think that was any great secret. She came to see me the day she died, she was thinking about quitting the DA's office. And she was pregnant. The execution tore her up, messed with her moral compass so to speak, and she had a lot on her mind."

"Did Jack know she was pregnant?" Jamie tried to keep the shock out of her voice.

"Yes. He was OK with it."

"Was Claire?"

Anita smiled. "Yeah. She loved that man like a fat kid loves cake. Some things defy explanation." Her eyes danced with humor. "She knew they had some problems to work out, and her crisis of conscience over the execution didn't help. She told me they argued on the way into work that morning and she avoided his phone calls most of the day. When he finally paged her that night, she was here, and she took it, privately. We chatted a little more, then she left to get him. You know the rest?"

"I think so. He wasn't there, but Lennie was."

"Guilt does terrible things to people, Jamie. I don't know who's suffering more, Jack or Lennie, when it comes to guilt. Jack also feels guilty about the baby, about all that could have been, and was stolen. When Baumgarten was given twelve months, I thought Jack was going to go after him, but he let it go. But he hasn't let go of Claire."

"Maybe it's time he does."

Anita shook her head. "Everyone grieves at their own pace, Jamie. He's aged so much since it happened, No one can reach him, talk to him about it. He shuts down, pushes people away. You haven't been with him long enough to know how he ticks."

Jamie shook her head. "I better learn fast. What can I do?"

"Nothing. He's not ready to let go, and he's out for vengeance, however he can get it. I've heard he goes to her grave every weekend. God knows what he's thinking." Anita glanced past Jamie at the busy squad room. "Just be patient, and keep trying to make him see reason. The last thing Claire Kincaid would want is for him to ruin the rest of his life."

"What kind of person was she?"

"Sweet, truly a sweet person. Smart as hell. Beautiful. She was a good lawyer who was going to be great. There was a vulnerability about her that got to you, you knew she'd been hurt and that you didn't want to hurt her, too. She was so young, my God, what a waste." Anita looked away, the pain in her eyes obvious. "I miss her." That simple statement spoke many complex truths, and a seed of understanding sprouted in Jamie.

"How did they get away with it? I'm familiar with the rule about subordinates and bosses."

Anita's smile was fond. "You had to know her, for one. See them together. Of course they tried to be discreet, but in the end, Adam Schiff simply turned a blind eye to the obvious. Now he has something worse to deal with, and I suspect he's as lost as you are."

'Jack going postal?"

Anita nodded. "He has to let Jack deal with his pain, but there are limits, hence your arrival as Jack's second chair." She studied the other woman. "Seems he could have chosen someone who didn't bear a superficial resemblance to Claire, though."

"I don't look like her." Jamie turned defensive.

"In a way you do. Dark hair, tall…it doesn't matter." Anita shook it off. "I loved that girl. There were times when I wanted to just wrap her in my arms and make it all better, especially that night. There's no way to make sense of the senseless. All that said, you have your work cut out for you, finding a way to rein Jack in, keep him from ruining his career. Try talking about her, maybe he'll open up."

"I don't think so."

"Don't you have to try?"

Jamie shrugged. "Maybe. But not until I know more, I don't want to blindly stumble into his personal hornet's nest."

Anita stood, there were things to do, and remembering Claire was not one of them. The pain was as fresh as the night it happened, and she wanted to politely get rid of Jamie Ross. Jamie took the telegraphed hint and stood, too. "Try, Jamie. It's all you can do."

She nodded. "I will. Soon. Thanks for your time."

"It hurts, to talk about her, I mean. Remember that if you talk to anyone else, especially Jack."

Jamie left the office, the station, and caught a cab back to Hogan Place. Her mind swirled with images, little bits of memory – seeing Claire in the courthouse, but never in court – and tried to imagine what the young woman was like. She wondered how someone that young, that beautiful, could fall in love with a man so much older, attractive as Jack was. She saw a side of him I've never seen and never will, she thought, climbing out of the taxi. And I get to pick up the pieces and try to keep him from committing symbolic suicide.

She met Ruthie Miller on the steps, coming down. She stopped when she saw Jamie and flashed a friendly smile. 'So how's life on the other side of the aisle?" she asked.

"interesting." Jamie hesitated. "Ruthie, did you know Claire Kincaid?"

Ruthie's smile faded. 'Yes." She held her briefcase handle with both hands. "Why?"

"We have a drunk driver case, and Jack's gone nuts, pushing for the death penalty."

"Are you surprised?"

"Yes."

"Jamie, Jack was a son of a bitch before Claire. Now he's a miserable, guilt-ridden son of a bitch. Those couple of years in between were special, she was special. Good luck, girl."

Jamie watched Ruthie walk down the steps, then continued on to her office on the tenth floor. Jack's door was still closed, and she returned to her desk. She opened the drawer holding the file marked "Kincaid, Claire" and glanced around before reading it again.

The pictures were gruesome, even in black and white. She flipped them over and read the reports. She died an hour after arriving at the hospital, broken beyond repair. Jamie looked up, at Jack's door, and wondered if that held true for him. Detective Lennie Briscoe suffered minor injuries, was drunk, had hauled the driver of the truck out of his car and was about to pound him into hamburger when the RMCs arrived. Fire and rescue cut her out of the car, tried to save her, hustled her to Hudson, but those terrible injuries were too much, even for a young, healthy woman. And John Baumgarten got twelve months. She closed the file. This file was going to trump the open one, the Dressler file, and if Jack didn't come to his senses, wreck his life as efficiently as Baumgarten had wrecked so many others.

Jack's office door opened and Jamie shoved the file in its drawer. He stopped by her doorway. "I'm going home," he said. Jamie looked at her watch, it was five. OK, fine, gives me a reason to get out early, too. She nodded, observing the bags under his eyes, the sadness that colored them, the slump of his shoulders. "No need for you to hang around, go spend some time with Katie." He turned and walked toward the elevators.