They stared at each other for a moment. Cutter was only a little taller than Regan, and she held his gaze with her best Back off, buddy cop glare.
He wasn't intimidated. Regan had to give him points for that. "The day I start prosecuting cases differently because of who the accused is will be the day I stop deserving Jack McCoy's job, Ms. Markham."
Regan shook her head. "This is – "
"This is different, right? This is special. Ms. Markham, that's your personal involvement speaking. Every defendant, and their family, and their friends, thinks they're different. You know that."
She did know that, and saw from Cutter's expression that he'd caught her making the realization.
He stepped past her, turning the visitor's chair towards her. "So you tell me how else I should have played it, absent your personal loyalties. Which are admirable, by the way, don't get me wrong."
Regan hesitated, then took the indicated seat. "Admirable, but inconvenient to you at the moment?"
Cutter smiled a little as he settled himself in his own chair. "Inconvenient to us all, if they're going to get in the way of working this out."
"Not the only inconvenient thing in this office right now," Regan said.
"You mean me?"
Regan leaned forward a little. "I mean your ego, Mr. Cutter. I'll give you a pass on playing hardball – " Cutter opened his mouth to speak and she held up one finger. "For now. But Jesus, you were in the courtroom. I don't have to give you a preview of the defense case for you to guess how this is going to play out tomorrow and you wouldn't have asked us here tonight if you didn't have at least a solid suspicion that it's not just a good defense, it's the truth. If you want to 'work this out', you're holding all the cards you need to do that, aren't you? Except you're still looking for a way to be the winner. Aren't you?"
"You don't get a deal insulting the opposition, Ms. Markham," Cutter said.
"If you're interested in a deal, Mr. Cutter, you're the only one in this room who is."
"What if it came with no time?" Cutter said, almost casually.
Jesus. McCoy's words about the unpredictability of juries came back full force. No time – an actual, real life, get-out-of-jail-free card.
But it wouldn't be free. It would come at the price of a conviction, McCoy losing his job and losing his license. Regan knew she didn't need to ask Jack what his answer would be. "No."
"You have a lot of confidence," Cutter said, a little bit amused, the way a Great Dane is amused when a Pekinese growls at it.
"I have an innocent client," Regan shot back.
Cutter leaned forward again, looking at her hard. "No, Ms. Markham. You don't. I'm willing to admit I'm not so sure what Jack McCoy did that night. But he did do something, didn't he? To make him ready to take a plea. He's guilty of something."
"It's got nothing to do with Keri Dyson," Regan said. "I swear on my life, Mr. Cutter. Or anything else this office would consider prosecuting."
Cutter sat back, flipped a file on his desk open, flipped it closed. "I wish your oath on your life was something I could take into consideration, Ms. Markham, I really do. But you're going to have to give me more than that."
"I can't," Regan said.
"Confidentiality."
"Yeah."
He flipped the file open again. Then closed. Then open. "You might get your acquittal, Ms. Markham. You might not. But even if you do, reasonable doubt isn't going to clear Jack's name in the court of public opinion. You need a big, thumping victory to do that, and you won't get it picking holes in my case."
"I know," Regan said.
"If what you suspect about Ms. Dyson is true, you need to get her to admit it on the stand," Cutter said. "In my professional opinion."
"Are you going to call her?"
"Would you? In my position?"
"No," Regan said quietly. "I draw the line at suborning perjury."
"You're not the only one," Cutter said. "Will you call her?"
"It seems like you think I have no choice," Regan said carefully.
"Big call," Cutter said. He flipped the file open again, then closed, and Regan wanted to lean across the desk and rip it away from him. "What if the judge doesn't rule her adverse?"
"I'll cross that bridge when the time comes," Regan said.
"Of course, that wouldn't be an issue if she was a prosecution witness," Cutter said, very casually.
Regan sat very still. Let him say it. Let him talk himself into it.
"I'd have to have a pretty persuasive reason to call her, though. Given the circumstances. I'd have to be pretty sure it was serving the interests of justice, and the office." He looked up then, and Regan caught a glint of humor in his gaze. "Since it certainly wouldn't be serving the interests of my career."
"It would be," Regan said quietly. "Serving the interests of justice."
"Persuade me," Cutter said, pushing the file aside, leaning forward again, gaze intent. "Tell me something, Ms. Markham, anything."
Regan looked down at her hands, and shook her head. Some things – you only have the right to talk about if you'rethe one they happened to.
"Ms. Markham?" Cutter pressed.
It's Jack's decision. The only story you can choose to tell is –
Is your own.
"When I was growing up," Regan said quietly, "My dad – he used to drink." Cutter made a noise, impatience perhaps, and Regan raised her hand. Wait. There's a point. "More than was good for him. More than was good for the family. And I used to think that maybe I could find a way to make him stop. But I couldn't. And then I – well, I left. I got a ticket out."
Cutter was still now, listening. Regan paused, getting the words straight in her head, and he gave her that time. Regan found herself noticing that, noting it, with the part of her that McCoy had trained to never stop thinking like a lawyer.
A very small part of her, right this moment. This wasn't a story she'd ever chose to tell. But she had to get past Cutter's conviction that McCoy's sense of guilt meant he was guilty, and this was what she had.
Your partner needs something, you don't ask what it's going to cost.
And I told Jack I'd meet any cheque he needed to write.
She took a deep breath. "And a few years after that, he was driving home one night, he'd been drinking, too much to drive, and I guess he knew it because he stopped at an all-night truckstop and filled up on black coffee. But it doesn't really work, you know, coffee, doesn't sober you up in any way that counts, and he lost control of the car and crossed into the oncoming traffic and – that was it."
"I'm sorry," Cutter said. It was what people said, Regan knew. I'm sorry, as routine and meaningless as How are you? She looked up to meet Cutter's gaze and thought that perhaps it wasn't entirely meaningless, this time.
She looked at him, this man who wasn't a friend, this lawyer who was her profoundest adversary. This man she'd hated and despised for long hours in the courtroom, and feared, too.
And for Jack McCoy, she turned herself inside out in front of him. "And I thought, I still think, what if I hadn't left? What if I'd been at home, saying, don't go out tonight, Dad? What if I'd been there, pushing him to go to AA, telling him that he needed to stop?"
"Ms. Markham," Cutter said, not ungently. "What does that have to do with Jack McCoy?"
"Sometimes the things that happen in your family when you're young leave their marks on you," Regan said. "Sometimes you can hold yourself responsible for something that isn't your fault."
.oOo.