A LETTER

Kate,

I am sitting here on the Saturday of 4th of July weekend realizing that it has been five weeks now since I have seen Alexis, mother and you. It's good that summer days provide extended hours of light because that is truly the only bright spot in my existence. I miss them so very much, and even with the state of our situation, I miss you deeply.

Bringing Gina with me appeared to be the only option that I had available at the time. She was my 'any port in a storm'. Being my editor, I knew that she was probably getting a lot of pressure from Black Pawn to get Naked Heat to publication, so it was in her best interest to insure that I was diligent in bringing it to completion. 'Any port in a storm' certainly implies one's desperate choice, and in this instance it was ever so true. I can't blame her for 'wanting what she wants', but it became apparent that I was not going to get any writing done by being harassed about it. She lasted about a week before I had to call the car service to take her back to Manhattan.

Over the past month I have been able to tie some of the threads together that will enable me to have the book maintain a sensible flow. Although it hurt, I did a lot of reflecting on our time together. Through that reflection I was able to capture all of the nuances that take place in the commission of a crime, in the investigation of the crime and in the people involved in the crime (victims, suspects, investigators). All of these people come to the event with their own background, and sometimes with their own agendas. Fleshing out those backgrounds and identifying those agendas are what you do each and every day, and it is what I write about.

I love the work that you do and I am proud of you for how you do it. You provide a dedicated service to the people of New York. Your empathy for victims, your steadfast determination to bring about whatever justice might be available and that beautiful mind that is filled with the capacity for deductive reasoning. I must say, however, that as much as I love how you do what you do, I also hate that you do it. I hate the fact that you are in harm's way. I hate the fact that day after day you are forced to experience the worst of society, both in events and people. In my time with you I cannot say for certain that part of my task, or assistance might have been to at least make you smile once a day. Perhaps, I went about it the wrong way, but I tried not to make it all 'gallows humor' by spicing it up or presenting myself as being self absorbed allowing you the opportunity to come back at me. The banter was indeed fun, but it was also hopefully a release from the misery you have to face.

I guess the biggest thing that I discovered was also what made me write to you. I don't know whether I will mail this letter, or whether it will just serve to be my catharsis. We spent our days analyzing evidence as well as the real and suspected participants in a crime. Our task was to determine the motive, the opportunity and the means for someone to commit the offense. It would be up to the DA to proffer, in their terms, the mens rea (a criminal intent) to the court system, but you (and perhaps we sometimes) had to provide the groundwork for that to be able to take place. The dynamics of the dialogue that took place between us during those investigations I would like to think made it easier for you to sift through the myriad of things that would arise. I guess it would be up to you to determine if that were so.

The more I thought about the criteria for the investigations; motive, opportunity and means, the more I began to use them to analyze my relationship with you. The opportunity for us to get to know one another was certainly there. Even with our current situation being what it is, beyond anything else, I am grateful for the opportunity you gave me to experience you and your life.

The means may be the most difficult portion of the puzzle to solve. I do have the capacity for insight, and I did become adept at reading your facial expressions, your eyes and your motivations. However, I must have been deficient in my ability to exhibit the proper behavior that would allow you to know what was in my mind, and in my heart. I guess to steal another legal phrase, res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself), I thought that what I was doing would be enough to make those things demonstrate my concern for you, my caring for you and my love for you. If it was, and you just chose not to want me I would have been crushed, but I would have at least understood. If it wasn't, then I have to look at motive as being the determining factor.

I know that early on you gave intimations that I saw you as an opportunity for 'another notch on my bedpost'. I had to take that to mean that you were solely tied to the public persona that had been developed about me in the press. I guess that is why I tried to make my res ipsa loquitur demonstrate something else. Obviously, that failed. So what could I have done a better job at with regard to motive?

Kate, I will not deny or apologize for the fact that I found you to be the most beautiful woman that I had ever encountered, and that nothing would have made me happier than to be in a relationship with you. The more time I spent with you the more I was able to experience your mind. You are beautiful, but your mind out distances your physical attributes in so many ways. As our time together progressed I almost desperately wanted you to want me. If you had wanted me half as much as I wanted you, I would have felt that my life would have been complete. Those eyes, that smile, I wanted them to be directed at me. I guess selfishly, I wanted them always to be solely directed at me.

Five weeks of reflection and analysis has led me to this conclusion; I should have told you that I wanted to be more than your unofficial partner, more than your friend, that I wanted us to be 'together', always. Certainly, I would have wanted marriage, but it was not my intent to ask you to marry me at that juncture, only to clarify my motive so there would not have been any hidden agenda for you to need to decipher. It may have turned you off at that very moment and ended our time together, but in reflection it could not have been any worse than what I have experienced of late, and where I am now.

Should this ever reach you, I want you to know that along with Alexis and mother, you are the most cherished thing in my life. My love for them is unconditional, but assuredly different than the unconditional love and passion that a man can have for a woman.

Please be safe.

Rick