Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY. Poetry not otherwise referenced is original.

A/N: Sorry for the wait – too many irons in the fire this week! Not so long for the next, I promise.

Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".


Vampyre

Drawn to heat, to beat of heart,

Cold to the core, blue flame in snow,

Seeking out warm breath of the living,

Red blood pumping through blue veins.

The eternal flame of desire wrapped in ice,

Fueled by anger so cold it burns

Through the body from the bones

In which it is seated.

Heart frozen between one beat and the next

Held trapped in a prison of stone:

A prison bitterly chill.

In the body which bore a child of flame,

A child of frost,

A child of redemption,

Lies a heart of cold iron

On which a weapon is forged.

SMT2007


Chapter 29: Burning Bridges

"What's the good word today, Sid?" Hawkes said, snapping on his gloves as he came into the morgue where Sid was examining the latest body brought in off the street.

"According to the Word of the Day, it is sinuous: characterized by many curves or turns; winding. I once knew a girl who could suck her own toes from behind her head."

Hawkes shuddered and changed the subject. "So, DB, Sid? You got anything?"

"He was found in an alley near Central Park around noon today. Dead perhaps two hours prior to being dumped. No ID; in fact, no clothes."

"So someone dumped a naked dead guy in an alley in a crowded part of town and no one saw a thing?"

"According to the patrolmen who found him."

"Sounds like no one was encouraged to see anything," Hawkes commented as he examined the body. "And what killed him?"

Sid shrugged, looking through his glasses contemplatively. "No signs of trauma; no obvious contusions or wounds. He looks like he was in good health: perhaps mid-30s. Nothing is jumping out at me: it looks like his heart just stopped."

"Well, let's see what John Doe can tell us about himself, shall we?"

Forty minutes later the two doctors were staring at the dead body in confusion.

"Well, looking at the heart, he died of ventricular fibrillation – something caused his heart to 'stutter' and then stop." Sid unhooked his glasses and looked at Hawkes thoughtfully. "No signs of disease – young, healthy, in good shape. Ate a large breakfast, stripped naked, went out into the crowded streets and dropped dead?"

Hawkes rolled his eyes, "I'm guessing no. The body was clearly moved; there is post-mortem bruising on the back and buttocks showing he was on his back …"

"That's how the patrolman found him," Sid interjected.

"But there is also older hypostatic lividity on his chest and face. He died lying on his front," Hawkes said. "Help me turn him over, Sid."

They examined the body again carefully, but it wasn't until Sid brushed back the hair that would normally have fallen long onto the collar that both doctors gave a sigh of curiosity satisfied.

"There it is. A burn mark – two small marks like …"

"A cattle prod." Hawkes finished the thought. "He was electrocuted. Was there a burn mark on his hands or feet?"

Sid checked, and found the exit burn mark between the toes on the left foot. "It disrupted his heart beat long enough to shut down his oxygen supply and kill him. It wouldn't take much time."

Hawkes stood up and stretched out his back, "Well, now we know how he died, it's my turn to find out who he was. Maybe that will get us a when, a where …"

"And a why," Sid finished off.

-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY

Mac sat at his desk, checking through the results of tests Danny, Lindsay, and Adam had managed to get through. He hated to admit it, but he was relieved to have Messer and Monroe back in the lab – they worked together well and always seemed to kick Adam up a notch too. Mac sighed; there was something up with Adam – he was sulky and even more distracted than usual. He'd have to put talking to Adam on his ever-growing list of things he had to do even if he was crap at it.

At least three files had been completed; three cases closed. The Central Park murder was going to get much, much bigger, if the DNA results he was looking at were anything to go by, but at least it would be on someone else's desk, someone else's headache: the Child Abuse and Exploitation Task Force would be working it.

He looked again at Reed's file; technically he was off the clock, and if he chose to put this case ahead of others, no one could complain. This was another case he was going to have to hand over, in this case to the Organized Crime Unit; at least he trusted Don Flack to give it his full and careful attention. He wouldn't jump to the easiest and most publicity-generating conclusion.

Reed had been kidnapped by the Taglia brothers, who worked for Gino Messer, who owed allegiance to the Lucchese family; that much was clear from the evidence. He had been held for two days, presumably because someone needed him out of the way for those two days. But why? There was nothing big in the wind, no new or significant operation going down that either he or Flack had been able to get any information about. Mouse had said it was a distraction or a diversion, but surely a first-year journalism student hadn't been able to get close enough to anything that serious.

Miranda Garrett was the reason behind the kidnapping: he could feel it in his bones. Trouble was, Mac Taylor, Detective First Grade, NYPD, was all about the evidence. When his detectives came to him mumbling about 'a feeling' or 'just knowing' something, he blew them up good. The one 'feeling' he hated the most was 'instinct'. Instinct led animals at risk to eat their own babies to protect them. "Instinct is why humans invented computers," he muttered.

Still, he had to admit that sometimes the gut got it right; listening to it had saved him a time or two in the past. Good for throwing oneself out of the way of a bomb, perhaps. No good for solving a complex problem with a multitude of variables.

Mac rubbed his forehead; he could feel the headache building. This is when he needed his team to work things out, to kick around ideas. There was no future in worrying at it all on his own. Danny and Lindsay had gone for the day, not before it was time; Stella had left hours ago clutching a brown paper bag full, Mac thought with a grin, of fresh tomatoes; Peyton was in the morgue with three new dead bodies to examine. Who did that leave?

"Mac? Got a minute?" Hawkes came around the door and was a little surprised at the warm smile he received from his boss.

"Come on in, Hawkes. I need some help too, so we can swap."

Hawkes moved into the room and sat down, composed as always. Mac had often thought that he would have made a near-perfect sniper with the right training; he had the gift of silent stillness. Mac leaned back in his chair and gestured. "So, what have you got?"

"I have a dead body, electrocuted execution-style." Hawkes pointed two fingers at the base of his own skull. "They used a cattle-prod, not a Taser. Easier to override safety settings to deliver a fatal load. Silent, painful, and deadly. DB was stripped naked and dumped in an alley just off Central Park. No one saw a thing."

Mac held out his hand for the file, "A new style Mafia hit? More efficient in some ways than a gun, certainly quieter. We got an ID?"

Hawkes handed over the file a little reluctantly. "Yeah, confirmed by a fingerprint check through AFIS. Mac, it was Robert Taglia."

-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-CSI:NY-

It was several minutes before Don Sr. could get enough breath to continue. It took a little longer to gather the courage it was going to take to continue.

"I was on the Organized Crime unit, working my way up. We were watching Tony Messer; he never got very far, but he was a weathercock, you know? Whatever way the wind was blowing, Messer would be facing the other way, cold air blowing straight up his ass. He never could get anything right."

"Except for Danny." It was the first thing Flack had said for several minutes, and Don Sr. flicked an eyebrow inquisitively at him before nodding and sighing.

"Yeah, well, if they didn't get that one wrong, it wasn't for lack of trying, believe me."

Flack sat down in the chair beside his dad again. Finally.

"I was out in a van, alone, on stake-out. It must have been three in the morning. Who knows where Tony was. She came sashaying out with coffee for me. I was so embarrassed I didn't know where to look. She asked if I really thought she hadn't known we were there from the minute we'd set up. She'd grown up in the life too, you know?"

Flack shook his head. Danny had said very little about his mother, except to swear on her obviously empty grave and to make a comment about her still dressing him.

"Oh yeah. She was a Riley; her dad was a lieutenant in the Westies. Shot in a drug raid years ago: left him in a wheelchair. Mother's family was from somewhere in Italy. Grew up in Hell's Kitchen, ran with the Irish mob until she married Tony when she was only 18. Had Louie within the year, Danny two, three years later." He took a deep breath. "They'd have been – what – five and eight? So she was twenty-five, twenty-six, something like that."

He took another few minutes to just breathe. Flack sat silently, waiting, calculating. Twenty-eight. His father had been twenty-eight. Four years younger than Flack was now.

"She used to come out to me, then. At first, she'd bring me coffee, give me some info, tell me what Tony was up to. She hated him. Hated him worse'n poison. She told me once if a girl was going to be sold, she should at least take some of the profits. One night, she offered me more."

Don Sr. opened his eyes. He may have to take this lying down, or at least propped up on pillows, but he would take this like a man. Take the scorn and hatred his son would pour his way like a man.

"I took her up on it. Your ma, she'd been gone for nearly six weeks by then. I went to see her every day. She wouldn't even look at me. I'd go see you and you'd cry and ask for her. You wouldn't come near me, just cry for your Mama." The old man went to wipe his hands over his face, and looked at them in surprise when he felt them come away wet. "Ah, it was a bad time, Donnie."

He looked his son in the face again, searching for the hatred he expected, almost needed to see. "I loved her. Your mother. It killed me to see her like that. Like a stone statue. Like one of those angels in the cemetery – cold and lifeless and beautiful. But Maureen – she was like a flame. It was a kind of madness."

Flack looked at his father with compassion. He'd cheated on his sick wife, with a woman who had two children. But he had been lonely too, taken comfort where he could find it. Given who his father was, he could understand it. And could he honestly say he would do any better? Hell, the most he had committed to in his life was a potted plant presently dying on his fire escape.

But damn it. How was he going to face Danny?

"I saw her three, maybe four times before I got pulled off duty. The desk captain never said, but I know he knew. I thought I was going to lose my badge along with everything else. Instead, they partnered me up with McQueen, and your mother finally responded to the drugs they were trying on her, and you came home. We all came back home."

Flack nodded. His little sister Marie had been born when he was four years old, then Catriona and Francesca in short order after that. He'd grown up, the oldest in that noisy, bustling family, and never understood the fear and anxiety that permeated the foundations of the home.

He didn't say anything. His father wouldn't have appreciated it, wouldn't have known what to do with it. But he reached out and held the old man's hand, just for a minute, squeezing hard.

And his father closed his eyes and accepted absolution.

It was several minutes later that Don Sr. opened his eyes, his breathing still rattling in his chest as if the bones were trembling in a wind only he could feel. His voice was wispy and thin, but he had one more thing to say, one more piece of information to pass on to the cops. To pass on to his son.

"I tell you, though, Donnie. She was a hard piece. One day, the last one before I was pulled to other duty, I was on dayshift. She never looked for me on days – I was strictly nightly entertainment." Don Sr.'s voice still held a snap of bitterness. "I watched her walk down the street with those two boys. And what I saw chilled me to the bone."

He stared into his son's eyes, cop's eyes, and knew this would be remembered when everything else was allowed to be filed under 'Ancient History'. "She had Louie by the hand; she loved that boy like nothing I've seen. Danny, he was only five, trailing along behind. She called him a couple of times," he could hear the voice now, high, harsh, impatient, "But he was entranced with something. Maybe a bug he'd found on the sidewalk. Something small anyway. He was squatting down watching something, and she came up behind him."

He swallowed. He could see that moment again, feel the shock. "You gotta understand, Donnie. Everyone smacked, hit, their kids. Some even used a belt or a switch. It wasn't called child abuse then, it was called being a parent. But this. I've never seen anyone hit a child like this." He shuddered and shook his head.

"She beat him? In public?" Flack's voice was stone-cold now.

His dad shook his head again, "It was worse than that. Any parent can lose it, you know? But she was ice – just lined him up like a golf ball and swung. He went flying, lay on the ground for a good two minutes before he moved again. Didn't say a word, just got up and followed her. I was nearly out of my van before I realized I was going to blow my cover." He blew out once, hard. "I didn't see her again for years."