A/N: This and the following chapters are a post-ep for "Bodies" that … kind of got out of control.
Apartment of E.A.D.A. Jack McCoy
1 am Friday 24 October 2003
Jack McCoy was almost asleep when he heard the knock on his door.
He was on his feet, scrubbing one hand over his face, before he was fully awake. A glance at his watch told him it was well past midnight. At this hour, it was some kind of emergency. Something Complaints couldn't handle without kicking it upstairs …
Except that would merit a phone call, first. Almost everything would merit a phone call, first.
Adam Schiff's voice hoarse on the answering machine, saying "Pick up the phone, Jack …"
Everything would merit a phone call, except the very worst news for the very closest affected.
Jesus, Lisbeth. He stumbled down the hall and flung open the door, expecting uniformed officers, expecting the strained faces of young people burdened with news too heavy for them to bear.
Found himself blinking at Jessica Sheets.
"So I heard my former client filed another appeal," she said. Her lips trembled.
"Come in." McCoy didn't wait for her to accept the invitation, drawing her inside the apartment by the hand and then slipping his arm around her shoulders as he closed the door behind her.
"I was just passing, at least, I was nineteen blocks away, and I thought, well, I know somewhere there's always decent quality scotch — " She turned away from him, turned back, working hard for insouciance and failing.
He squeezed her shoulder "I'm glad you came here."
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. I know it's just a sentencing appeal. He'll never get out. I know — god, if Professor O'Connoll could see me now. Running to the nearest man just because I got a rough bounce on a client. She'd say something about standing the heat and getting out of the kitchen."
"Remarks like that are a luxury afforded to those who have no experience with either heat or kitchens," McCoy said, and Jessica heaved a giant sigh and burst into tears. "Shhh." He wrapped her up in a bear-hug, one hand cupping the back of her neck and drawing her head to his shoulder. "Shhh, Jess, it's alright."
"T-tell me to be s-sensible," she sobbed.
"You are being sensible. You needed a friend and you came looking for one."
"I sh-shouldn't – he's locked up. He w-won't ever get out. And I —"
McCoy rubbed her back. "Mark Bruner scared the socks off of you. He scared the socks off me, too. And if I'd ever gotten into his cab, I would have got out again unharmed."
"That's the thing, I —" She bit the rest of the sentence off, shaking from head to foot, but McCoy could hear the rest of that sentence, the words that attorney-client privilege kept her from saying. That's the thing, I did.
He told her that she'd been in his cab. And probably, from what McCoy had seen of Bruner, told her in detail what he could have done to her, too.
Nearly three decades in the District Attorney's Office had given McCoy a large and expressive vocabulary, including an extensive range of profanity, but right at the moment he couldn't think of a word that could even come close to describing Mark Bruner.
"I don't believe in the devil, Jess," he said, "but I do believe in evil, and next to the dictionary definition they should have a picture of Bruner. You've had a whiff of brimstone. Come into the kitchen and have a belt of scotch to wash the taste away."
She started to let him guide her down the hall, and then stopped. "Jack. I didn't think – do you have company?"
"Not tonight," he assured her, although a more truthful answer would have been not any more, tonight, Anne Paulsen having taken her leave in plenty of time for her to get home and put in another few hours of work. "Come on."
"Well." Jessica took a seat at the kitchen table. "I suppose you wouldn't have answered the door if you had."
McCoy turned, bottle in hand, eyebrows raised. "Do you think I would have left a friend on the doorstep?"
"Ah, but Jack … I'm not your friend."
He splashed liquor into two glasses and set one in front of her. "I'd like to think we're friendly, at least."
She picked up the glass and studied it. "Because of Claire."
"Jess," he said, taking the chair across from her. "Claire …" And god, it still hurt to say her name, after all these years.
She took a solid belt of the scotch. "If she'd been the slightest bit bicurious, Jack, you wouldn't have stood a chance."
"Believe me, I know." McCoy gave her his best roguish smile. "If you were the slightest bit bicurious, I wouldn't stand a chance."
He won a laugh from her. She raised her glass. "To things never meant to be."
He copied the gesture. "Amen."
Jessica tossed back the rest of her drink. "Any sign Tim Schwimmer is going to crack?"
McCoy scrubbed his face with his hand. "You just come here to drink my scotch and bust my balls?"
She shook her head. "Serious question, Jack. One of the reasons I am here at this ungodly hour — apart from your scotch."
"Then, no." He poured a little more liquor into her glass. "Not as yet, but give him time. Attica's got to be a shock to a boy like him."
"How long will you wait before you cry uncle?" Jessica asked, staring into her glass.
McCoy shrugged. "He was sentenced to five years, so … five years."
"Jesus, Jack!" She shook her head. "They'll tear him apart in there."
"He'll be fine," McCoy said. "Defense lawyers do easy time, and he'll get plenty of practice writing appeals."
"He's just some kid who got in over his head."
McCoy leaned forward, elbows on the kitchen table. "He aided and abetted in concealing multiple murders. How much of a kid do you have to be to know that's wrong?"
Jessica looked away, lips set in a tight line, and then she heaved a sigh and looked back. "I can't talk you into going easy on him?"
"Those families deserve answers, Jess," McCoy said.
"Fine," Jessica said flatly. McCoy raised his eyebrows as she drained her glass again and set it down hard on the table. "Then you can do me a favor, instead." She took a plain, blank envelope from the inside pocket of her jacket and held it out to him.
McCoy took it. It was unsealed, and inside he found a letter. The format was familiar to him — a complaint to the Bar Ethics Committee, requesting sanctions up to and including disbarment, against …
Jessica Sheets? He skipped to the bottom of the letter to see whose ass he was going to have to kick into next week, and saw, beneath the blank space left for a signature, John J McCoy.
McCoy let the letter drop to the tabletop, and looked up to see Jessica holding out a pen to him. "What the hell is this?"
"Sign it, Jack. Please."
"Are you out of your fucking mind?" he demanded. "Hell will freeze over before I put my name to this nonsense!"
"I need you to sign the letter," Jessica said. "I'm asking you to, Jack. Please."
"And what are you supposed to have done, that I'm asking to have your license stripped?" he asked, picking up the letter again. That the above-named attorney, contrary to the canons of ethics, did reveal privileged communications from her client, Mark Bruner … He stared at her. "He told you, too, didn't he? He told you where the bodies are."
"Sign the letter," Jessica said. "Sign the letter, and I'll tell you what he told me."
"Or I can not sign the letter, and you can tell me, and next week a patrolman can happen to stumble across —"
She cut him off. "You know I can't do that."
"It's just us here, Jess," McCoy said. "No-one ever needs to know."
"I'd know," she said simply. "Please, Jack. You're right, the families need to know. And I can't just sit still and leave Tim Schwimmer in jail for something I'm just as guilty of —"
"Did you go and view Bruner's handiwork?" McCoy snapped, and when she shook her head, "Then you're not guilty of anything except being in the 18-B counsel pool."
"Please sign it," Jessica said, her voice cracking. "Please, Jack. So I can tell you. Please —"
McCoy crumpled the letter and got up, going around the table and drawing her to her feet. "I'm not going to get you disbarred, Jess, so you can forget about that damned letter."
"Then what am I going to do?" she cried. "What am I going to do, what am I going to do?"
He pulled her firmly into an embrace. "We are going to find another solution."