A week had passed since her sentencing hearing – an entire week. Tomorrow morning she would be moved upstate to await her execution. The fact that years would pass before she finally was executed meant nothing – the point was that it would happen, unless she won an appeal. But for the first time she began to doubt in her skills as a lawyer – presenting a case didn't matter to a jury anymore, it was all about character, sympathy... and she'd never been a warm person.
Her five cellmates returned from dinner – she had refused to attend – and she scooted further onto her small bunk. Despite herself, she was terrified of them – they certainly were not the kind of criminals Diana had ever associated with, not even as an A.D.A. – Jack had always handled the prison visits, not her. And her fellow inmates at Bedford were certainly a higher class of criminal than these five, violent women.
She avoided their eyes, having learned early in prison life that not showing any interest in one's surroundings made one nearly invisible. But she felt the bunk creak slightly as someone sat down on it.
"Here," said a voice. Diana looked at the speaker, startled at the refined tone of her voice. The woman was holding out a small thermos. Seeing Diana's nervous expression, the woman laughed.
"It's not booze, though I wish it was," the woman laughed. "Just coffee."
"I didn't think we were allowed to bring things back from the mess hall," Diana said.
The woman winked. "Would you like some?"
She nodded gratefully, taking the steaming-hot thermos from her hands. She took a deep sip, relishing the way the hot liquid slid down her throat.
"Feel free to finish it," the woman said, and Diana nodded gratefully, gulping the hot liquid down.
"Hawthorne! What are you doing?" the CO shouted, stopping at their cell. "You know the rules."
"I didn't – it's not mine –" she protested as the CO stepped into the cell, yanking the thermos out of her hands.
"Really?" she asked. "And whose is it, then?"
The woman whose thermos it was made a sudden slashing movement across her throat, promising ill will if Diana ratted her out. Diana fell silent as the CO scoffed.
"Thought so. You're coming with me."
Mutely, Diana followed the CO down the hall to an empty cell. She was shoved in without ceremony, falling to the floor as the CO locked her in.
As Diana stood the CO sneered at her. "Sleep tight!"
Diana slowly walked over to her bunk and collapsed, sobbing bitterly at the indignities of her new position.
***
The next morning she was found hanging from her bunk, her cotton sheet knotted around her throat. As the morning CO walked down the hallway, unlocking the cell doors for breakfast, she stopped and called out to the other CO waiting down the hall. They stared for a moment, before they shrugged and continued to round up the other inmates for breakfast. It was only later, once they had returned the inmates to their cells, and the medical examiner arrived, that Diana Hawthorne was cut down.
--xx—
Jack sat at his desk, holding the framed picture of Claire, looking at it but not really seeing it. He was engaged with the ghost in his head. It's justice at least, he thought.
And does it make you feel better, Jack?
His thumb rubbed the edge of the frame. It helps. What about you, do you feel better?
He heard that merry laugh. We always feel good here. Hey, c'mon. Sure, I'm glad justice has been served, but killing her for whacking me is not going to miraculously bring me back.
I know. He put the picture back and then leaned back, locking his hands behind his head. So what happens now?
You move on. I move on. We don't just sit on clouds, playing harps, you know. And don't ask, I can't tell you. It's supposed to remain a mystery. You have no idea how unusual it is for me to be able to talk to you.
You can tell whoever makes these decisions that I appreciate it.
They know. That merry laugh again, and he closed his eyes, so wanting to wake up from this lingering nightmare of life without her. I did, however, catch a rash of shit for popping into your dream not so long ago.
Someone knocked on his door, and Claire was gone. Jack sat up and called out "Come in," wanting to add "damn you."
Jamie came in, a file in hand and a frown on her face. "I've just heard from the medical examiner."
"And?"
Jamie sat in Claire's old chair, passing the file across the desk. "Diana Hawthorne's death has been ruled a homicide, and guess who's caught it?"
Shock ran through him. "Oh hell no."
"Oh hell yes." She pointed at the file. "Briscoe and Curtis caught it on their end. Full circle, wouldn't you say?"
"I'd say is this thing ever going to end?" He refused to open the file.
Jamie persisted. "They have a suspect, the corrections officer who removed her from gen pop to a solitary cell. Briscoe unearthed a serious gambling debt, seems the woman loved the ponies. Guess who she owed thirty grand to?"
"Don't tell me." Jack closed his eyes as his stomach twisted and his mind cried out for a drink.
"Yes indeed, the Viola family's bookie over here."
"One way to clear a debt," he muttered. "And I'm expected to prosecute?"
"Adam doesn't see a conflict of interest, he says it's one way to show that justice is impartial when it's doled out by his office. The press is going to get hold of this soon."
He shook his head. "I'm supposed to prosecute the person who killed the woman who killed my lover. Surreal."
"We're supposed to prosecute." The emphasis in Jamie's voice caught his ear and he looked at her. "Look, I understand if you're not ready yet to look at the files. I'll do the preliminary work, but it's ours, Jack." She got up and took the file off his desk. "I'll talk to you later."
He waited until he was certain she was not going to come back with some argument about moving on, facing facts, doing his job. Then he got up and left without a word to anyone. He wandered to his favourite bar and sat on his usual stool. He ordered a double, then stared at himself in the mirror. Could this get more twisted? A memory erupted, Diana laughing at something he said, and how he took her in his arms. No, he thought, I will not go there. Then Claire slipped into his memory, holding his hand as they walked along the beach.
"Thought I might find you here, Counselor."
Jack looked up at Lennie Briscoe, not at all happy to see him. "And what gave you the idea that I'd enjoy having my privacy invaded?"
Lennie sat next to him and ordered a club soda. "A shared sense of guilt and responsibility, for one. We have to have this out someday, Jack. Neither one of us killed her, yet both of us did, and we have to find a way to work together."
"You fell off the wagon, of course she was going to take care of you," he said, finishing his drink and signalling for another.
"And you left her." Lennie knew how to return fire. "Jack, he was stalking her. He would have hit her that night whether it was you or me in that car."
"But if I hadn't called her in the first place," he said, and he acknowledged the drink put in front of him with a nod.
"We can compare dick sizes all day, McCoy," Lennie said, "but in the end, she's dead and we're still here, we have to keep going."
Jack laughed at his comparison of their guilt complexes. "So Diana was murdered?" He changed the subject, not wanting to talk about Claire.
"That's what Liz Rodgers says. She found the ligature marks of a garrotte, distinctly different from a sheet."
"And you, of course, have already nailed down a suspect?"
"Yep. It wasn't hard, this particular CO is lousy at both gambling and killing."
"And I'm expected to prosecute her."
"You and Jamie." He looked at his watch. "Jamie is arraigning her right now for murder for hire."
"A capital offense," Jack mused.
"Yes."
"I can't prosecute her, her attorney will have a field day with the conflicts."
"To the contrary, I'm sure her attorney will be doing happy dances, after all, why would you want to stick a needle in the arm of the person who executed the woman who murdered your lover?"
He looked at Lennie. "Do you get the feeling this thing has come full circle, that fate or whatever is playing with us?"
Lennie shrugged. "I don't think that deeply about such things. I caught a homicide, I caught a suspect. I've collected evidence, done my job. Now it's your turn to do yours."
He sighed, drained his drink and flicked his finger at the bartender. He waited until another was put in front of him, then said, "I guess there's no way out of it." His sigh was explosive. "Claire would laugh her ass off at the ironies."
"You know, I can't remember hearing her laugh." There was a tinge of sadness in his voice.
Someone put money in the jukebox, and "Sounds of Silence" filled the bar. Jack nearly winced. He was all too familiar with the sounds of silence, he hated them.
"She laughed," he finally said, "she laughed a lot. She had a really playful streak, but she kept it out of the office. I once told her she should start her own law firm, Serious and Roebuck."
Lennie smiled. "I'm sure she'd expect you to do your job."
Jack arched his eyebrows. "Think so? I'm not so sure, she'd go into ethical overload."
"McCoy." Lennie gripped his wrist before Jack could lift the glass to his lips. "I knew her well enough to know she would expect you to do your job. Diana Hawthorne was a murderer, but even she deserves justice as a victim in this case. The Violas wanted her silenced, too bad we can't tie them directly to this."
Jack shook off Lennie's grip and drank. "All I cared about was justice for Claire." Another drink appeared, Lennie glared at the bartender as Jack stared into space. "And now...God, what a cosmic joke. Now I have to get justice for her killer."
"Which a man of integrity would do," Lennie said, softly, wishing he could somehow comfort this conflicted, complicated man next to him. "I do remember one thing Claire said." Jack cocked his head, listening. "We were listening to Rey interview this skell, she thought Rey was wound too tight, but that's beside the point. She said 'Jack has integrity, he may push the envelope sometimes, but in the end, he does the right thing. I don't think he's going to see this as anything more than manslaughter.'" Lennie shrugged. "I knew she loved you, but, honestly, I had no idea why.' He smiled to take the sting out of the words. "Those words gave me a clue."
Jack shrugged it off. "So she thought I had integrity. I'm not so sure, look at the way I went after Diana."
"Justifiably so, even Ben Stone was on board for that. My point is –"
"Your point is that I shouldn't lose one of the things that made her love me." Jack finished his drink. "I'm going home, Detective. I want to be alone, I'm sure you'll convey the message."
Lennie watched him count some bills and put them on the bar, then stuff his wallet in his hip pocket. "I will, but I'm not sure that gaggle of women you have will listen."
Jack grinned. "I'm not going to answer my door, and if some fool tries to invoke a 'welfare check' they won't know what hit them the next day." He got off the stool and shrugged into his jacket. "I know what I'm supposed to do, Lennie, I understand what's expected of me. Failure has never been an option for me." He looked at Lennie for a long moment. "I'll be fine, I'll do the right thing, but I absolutely want to be left alone right now." He turned and walked out of the bar.
Lennie flashed back to a night months ago, when Jack had done the same thing, but this time he didn't turn and say 'the hell with her.' Sighing, Lennie finished his club soda. Whatever had been between Jack and Claire away from the office, it was real, and he understood the man's need to be alone with thoughts right now. He'd pass the word.
--xx—
Jack took a cab home. It was dusk, he flicked the switch on the lamp by his new couch, then went to his bedroom to change into jeans and a tee shirt. He poured a large scotch and put the Jefferson Airplane into his CD player. Then he flopped on the couch lengthwise, crossing his ankles, pushing a pillow behind his head. Diana was dead. It had been difficult to absorb when he heard the news, learning it was a homicide was too much. Live by the sword, die by the sword, the Jesuits would have said. It did save him a trip to witness another execution.
He wasn't sure how he would have handled that, watching Diana die. Despite the hatred he felt for her, for killing Claire, he still remembered a time when what he felt was anything but hate. He thought about the terror she must have experienced, then countered it with what must have flashed through Claire's mind as those headlights signalled impending death. He wondered if there was truly a hell, and if Diana was there. Somehow the thought was not comforting.
She's not in hell.
He jumped. "Damn it, don't sneak up on me like that," he snapped, wiping spilled scotch with his fingers.
He heard her laugh. I always hated that tee shirt, no great loss. Listen to me, Jack. It's over, and you have to let go and move forward. Diana is not in hell.
"And how do you know?"
A sigh. Let's put it this way – we met in reception. She was in shock, but when she saw me, she apologized for what she did, for wrecking so many lives. She was scared, too, but she wanted me to know how sorry she was. And then she got yanked for her life review. I think she's in the place for those who...well, I guess your Jesuit buddies would call it purgatory, I call it the room I never want to see, but it's not hell.
"So, now I prosecute her killer?"
Isn't that the way it works? She was a human being, deeply flawed, but she still deserves a little justice for having her life taken.
"How can you be so forgiving?"
It's not hard, a lot of understanding comes with being here. Jack, you have to move on, I'm not going to tell you again. I'm not going to come back, either, though you can still talk to me. I just won't answer. It's time, Jesuit boy, for you to accept the cards you were dealt and play the hand.
He felt a kiss on his forehead, and then she was gone. He knew it was for good, that she meant what she said. He sat up enough to sip his drink, then sank back on his pillow as Grace Slick sang "Don't You Want Somebody to Love?" He sighed. OK, he could do what she wanted, one last time.
--xx—
Jamie was already in the office when he came in the next morning. His headache wasn't too bad, a couple of aspirin and he'd be fine. He leaned into Jamie's cubicle. "Bring me the file, let's get to work."
Unable to hide her surprise, Jamie opened a drawer as Jack walked into his office. She followed. He held his hand out and she gave him the file. He smiled at her before opening it. "You know I can be a son of a bitch," he said.
"Yeah, so what?"
"So don't take some of the things I might say personally."
Her smile was sweet. "I won't."
He cleared this throat. "The wheels of justice turn slowly, don't they?"
"And we're still here," she said.
He glanced at the file, then closed it. "I'm not ready to look at some of this right now. What have you culled from it?"
Jamie took the file and pulled her notes from the back of the stack of legal papers. "A corrections officer, deeply in debt, isolated and then strangled Diana Hawthorne, or so we theorize, based on the evidence. CSU recovered a rawhide string from a trash can just outside the prison gates, DNA from Diana's skin is on it. We have fingerprints from the isolation cell itself, and on the sheet. The suspect is terrified that she'll be next, we have her in protective custody. I know the charge is murder for hire, but maybe Adam would drop it down and we can deal her out."
The things Claire would have said, but without that quiver of emotion Claire couldn't hide when the death penalty was discussed. He studied Jamie. She wasn't judging him, appeared to hold no expectations of him beyond doing his job, wasn't about to pry into his private life. Relate to her, Claire had said, trust her and work with her.
"OK, we'll talk to Adam about it. This thing has to end somewhere, it might as well be now. There's been enough death." He pushed away from the desk and stood. "Let's go see if Adam will go for murder two. You can present the case to him."
Jamie cocked her head, surprised. "Oh, OK."
"You're a smart lady, Jamie, I'm glad to have you." His smile was sweet. "So, let's get to work, and if I get too moody, too close to the edge, don't hesitate to kick my ass."
"Deal."
They walked across the hall and into Adam's office, and Jamie stepped forward to present the case and their opinions. Adam listened, a tiny smile playing with his lips. They'd finally become a team, he wasn't quite sure how, but they'd done it. Maybe that ghost in Jack McCoy's head had finally left him. He met Jack's eyes. He saw enough of the old Jack to be reassured, to let him run this case his way. And he hoped with all his heart that the ghosts running around were finally at peace so his office could get back to normal, with his lead prosecutor kicking ass left and right while his second chair battled him, enjoying every second of the combat.
And Jack McCoy felt at peace for the first time in a very long time.
END.