The Carousel

I stare at the ceiling. I can hear the clock tick—tick, tick, tick, each second falling like a heavy toll. I listen to another minute of my life slowly seep away. Another minute I could be working on this case. Another minute I could be saving this child.

But Cragen has ordered me to get some rest. So here I am, staring at the ceiling and not really resting at all. This is pointless. I can't sleep—not at a time like this. I should be out there, on the streets with my partner, or in the interrogation room with the suspect.

As I close my eyes, I see the faces again. The faces of all the children I didn't save, all the people I didn't help, all the suspects I didn't catch. They revolve inside my head like a demented carousel, taunting me with my failure. Every time I sleep, they are waiting for me.

I roll over. I can't sleep. Not here, not now. In my mind, I review every detail of the case—what time the little boy left for school, what he was wearing, eyewitness reports. I roll these facts around in my brain, like a Rubick's Cube. Surely there's something that I'm not picking up on.

There it is. A flicker of an idea.

Wait...yes, there it is again. Something someone said.

Suddenly, it hits me full force. I sit up quickly, the answer so blazingly obvious that I could kick myself for not noticing it sooner. I pull my coat on and hurry down the hall, back into the squad room.

"I told you to get some rest," Cragen growls. My partner looks up from his desk and just shakes his head. A smile plays on his lips.

"I've got it," I am not affected by my captain's obvious displeasure.

"What?"

"Masseman's lying," I move to the map of Manhattan that we have highlighted and pinned without success for the past 46 hours.

"How do you know?" Cragen steps forward curiously, his hands in his pockets.

"Remember what he said about going home?" I take a highlighter and confidently circle the location. "He's got the kid in the brownstone—at his mother's old place."

My partner is already on the phone, contacting our detectives in the field.

"Try Mom's old place," he says curtly.

"Look for a closet with a trap door or a false wall," I tell him. He relays the message and hangs up.

Now we wait.

"I hope you're right," Cragen admits.

"I know I am," I give a nod of confidence. "Masseman claimed to be a big fan of that fiction writer, Marice Davidson. All of Davidson's novels refer to hidden chambers. Our boy would have definitely followed the pattern. That's why we missed it the first time."

Minutes tick by like whispered prayers. I think that if I am right, when I sleep tonight the faces will not be there. The cries for help will be silenced for a few hours. A few precious nights, I will receive rest. Then it will begin again. Again, I will see the faces, in turns pleading and jeering, crying and laughing, imploring and taunting. Again I will take the carousel ride that is my mind's inner hell.

Sometimes I wonder why I do this. Why am I still here? But deep down, I know. Even as cynical as I am, I still believe that I can change the world. It may not be ending world hunger or bringing about world peace, but to that little boy locked up in a closet somewhere, unsure of whether or not he will ever see his mother again, my contribution will make a all the difference in the world. I may not change everyone's life, but if my work saves just one victim, then I will have spent my life well. The child in the dark, the woman with no place left to go, the innocent man murdered in cold blood—that is why I do this. That is why every day, I get up and get dressed, and slip that badge onto my belt.

The phone rings. My partner answers. A grin spreads across his face. The child has been found—of all wonders, still alive.

Cragen looks at me, gratitude and pride on his face as he gives me an approving nod.

"Good work, Munch."

~Le Fin