Not a Social Call – One

10th Floor

One Hogan Place

5.30 pm Friday 22 September 2006

"Excuse me."

Regan Markham looked up from the deposition she was scrutinising to see a tall, polished blonde leaning in her office door.

"I'm looking for Regan Markham," the blonde said.

"I'm her," Regan said, and stood up. She felt awkward and rumpled next to this sleek creature and self-consciously straightened her jacket.

"I'm Serena Southerlyn." Serena extended her hand and Regan shook it. "I wanted to thank you for your work on Jenny's case. Getting Conroy to take the maximum – saves her family a lot of heartache."

"That was Jack McCoy," Regan said. "But thank you."

"I know he seems like a one-man-band, but I used to sit in that chair right there. I know he doesn't do it all himself." Serena gestured to the visitor's chair. "May I?"

"Please," Regan said, and sat down herself.

"I'm going in to see Jack and thank him, but I have something I want to talk to you about first."

"Sure," Regan said. Her voice cracked a little. After McCoy had mentioned Southerlyn's history in the DA's office, Regan had hit Google. There was enough information about Serena Southerlyn online – three years as McCoy's second chair, came from money, now crusading lawyer for anti-discrimination causes - to thoroughly intimidate a rusting rustic rookie like Regan Markham.

"I've had some – incidents – at my home." Serena said. "My car has been vandalised. Blood – pig's blood – thrown over my door and front steps. Heavy breathing phone calls. Threatening letters. I thought – I thought it was connected to Jenny, she knew she was being followed, I didn't know she knew who it was – " Serena's words tumbled over each other faster and faster and Regan reached out and put her hand over the other woman's, gripped hard.

"It's okay," she said softly. "It's okay." She got up and closed the door and tilted the Venetians.

Serena sat for a moment with her face in her hands. "I thought it was that bastard who was fixed on Jenny," she said, muffled. "But two days ago I got another of the letters. It wasn't him."

"Have you been to the police?" Regan asked. She pulled her cardboard box out from under her desk and rootled out a bottle of water and a travel pack of tissues. "Here."

"Still unpacking?" Serena asked with a watery smile. Regan gave her A for effort, D minus for execution.

"I'm only here temporarily." Regan reached for a pad and a pencil. "Did you go to the police?"

"Every time. I even got copies of all the incident reports. But I think … I represented Fanny Monahan last year." Serena said.

"Who?"

" Fanny Monahan – she was a police officer who sued the department for discrimination. I represented her. So …"

"So you think the police are being less than zealous in their response to you," Regan said.

"I think they were less than zealous in their response to Jenny." Serena said bitterly.

"I didn't see anything about any of this in the case file," Regan said, thinking I can't be that stupid as to miss that. Can I?

"Different precincts."

"Maybe your neighbourhood cops aren't overly zealous passing information on, either." Regan said.

"I am telling you now, if there's a hint, the slightest whiff, that Jenny died because the cops thought Serena Southerlyn's girlfriend had it coming, I will represent her family in a civil suit that will nail NYPD's ass to the wall." Serena said. "But I don't want this to be a favour or special pleading. That's why I'm not asking Jack. I'd go straight to the complaints room, but …"

"But if it's nothing you don't want to start a circus."

"Exactly." Serena said, nodding. "I don't want to raise hell over unjustified suspicions."

"Why don't you leave it with me, I'll get into it a little bit," Regan said.

"I'd appreciate it." Serena said. She ran her fingers under her eyes to remove the last traces of tears and stood up. Regan couldn't help noticing that her jacket was well-enough cut to settle smoothly back into place. "Here's my card."

"Okay," Regan said, taking the piece of creamy pasteboard. It felt expensive, embossed and heavy, not like her own. "I'll call."

"I'll wait."

Serena left the door open behind her and Regan rolled her chair back a little to watch her go across the corridor to Jack McCoy's office. Serena knocked on the open door, said something Regan couldn't hear, and then McCoy came into view and enveloped Serena in a bear hug.

"I'm so sorry," Regan heard him say. " Serena, I'm so sorry."

Serena returned the embrace, dropping her head to his shoulder, and McCoy reached past her to close the door. So …

A week with Jack McCoy had left Regan all raw nerves and bruised edges. Only the moment of camaraderie they had shared after Conroy confessed to Jennifer Walker's murder had kept Regan from following the path taken by all the other ADAs second chairing Jack McCoy over the summer, straight into Arthur Branch's office with a request for a transfer to some other, any other, assignment.

That Monday morning after the two of them had worked through the night, shared a drink, listened to the DA's homespun wisdom, Regan had stumbled back to her office wanting nothing more than to take the subway home and sleep thirty hours straight. McCoy had called out to her before she made it to the lift. Arraignments. Regan had taken the files dazedly.

"I have to sleep first," she said, choosing admitting weakness over screwing up the arraignments as the lesser of two evils.

"Sure. Be in court by eleven thirty," McCoy said, already back at his desk, already preoccupied.

And that had been the pattern of their working relationship so far. Jack McCoy had a workload that would have drowned a lesser lawyer, or one who was less of a workaholic, and files rained down on Regan unceasingly. She ran from arraignment to deposition to her office to prepare a pre-trial to the office library to look up a disallowance motion back to the courthouse, barely able to grasp the import of each case before McCoy was asking for results. Regan had never worked so hard in her life, not even preparing for either of her attempts at the New York Bar Exam, and McCoy showed his gratitude for her efforts by ignoring them. She would have wondered if his distance was due to disappointment with her work, except he had not been slow to let her know when she fell short of his expectations. Only that morning she had given him a research brief on a defence motion to exclude evidence seized in a search as not being in plain view that had failed to include People v Sullivan and McCoy's description of her imbecility had been loud and long enough to bring Arthur Branch out of his office.

But … Serena, I'm so sorry. Jack McCoy didn't hate everybody who worked for him.

Regan looked back at Serena's business card, flicking it between her fingers as she thought. Maybe solving Serena's problem would mellow McCoy's attitude a little. She indulged in a brief day-dream in which Serena proclaimed her gratitude in glowing terms while McCoy looked on, impressed.

Get a grip. Solve the damn problem first.

Back in Seattle, Regan would have known who to call right away, looking for gossip, for rumour, for the "skinny" or the "inside dope". Here in New York … options were limited.

She reached for the phone.

"Yeah, Detective Briscoe please. Regan Markham. No, I'll hold."