BANQUO: It will be rain tonight.

FIRST MURDERER: Let it come down.

Macbeth Act 3 Scene 3


Neil Gorton strode away down the corridor, taking the arm of a tall man loitering there and steering him away. Marco Durham, no doubt. As little as McCoy liked letting anyone have the last word, let alone Neil Gorton, right now he had far more important things to deal with.

Such as where the hell is Regan?

Not waiting in the corridor, that much was clear.

Carver was filling Detectives Goren and Eames in on the grenade Gorton had thrown.

Eames nodded. "We got that much from Ms Markham before she tore on out of here."

"And you let her go?" McCoy snapped. "With a possible threat to her life?"

She gave him a level look. "Since I don't carry blank material witness warrants in my pocket and I didn't see any evidence of a crime, yeah. I talked to her long enough to be sure she wasn't about to sleepwalk into traffic, and I let her go."

"And exactly how could you tell that, Detective?" McCoy demanded.

"I could tell," Eames said. "You want us to go find her?"

McCoy unbuttoned his collar and loosened his tie with a savage yank. "Given that she's a witness against a man doesn't draw the line at murder-for-hire —"

"This is actually my call, Jack," Carver reminded him. "You're a witness now. You've withdrawn."

"Then make the damn call, Ron!"

The marble floor and walls picked up his shout and amplified it. Both Goren and Eames found other things to look at. Carver remained impassive, although a muscle tightened along his jaw. Only Chen stared at McCoy in outright shock.

"Detectives," Carver said with careful deliberation. "Since it's now too late to bring Rivera over from Rikers, go back to One PP. Locate Ms Markham. If you need a material witness warrant to assist you in doing so, let me know. And then concentrate on Detective Durham. It is imperative that I am able to discredit him tomorrow, even if I can't disprove his allegations."

"You will disprove them," McCoy said. "Neil Gorton just called an A.D.A. a murderer and a fugitive from justice in exactly that many words. It can't be allowed to stand!"

"Are you concerned for the reputation of the office, Jack?" Carver asked mildly. "Or do you have more personal motives?"

"If you're suggesting —" McCoy started to say.

Carver raised his voice a little. "I'm suggesting that you let me do my job. We have until tomorrow morning, and I have to make a decision about prioritizing my detectives' time. It's going to be a lot easier to find some mud to throw at Detective Durham than it would be to re-investigate a mass shooting that happened more than four years ago on the other side of the country. Gorton said that Ms Markham has a copy of that video footage. Instead of shouting at me, I suggest you locate it and find out just what we're going to see in court tomorrow."

"I will," McCoy said shortly. "And I'll rehabilitate your witness while I'm at it."

He turned away from them and strode down the corridor.

Chen followed him. "Mr McCoy. Mr McCoy!"

"I don't have time, Qiao," McCoy snapped, yanking his cell phone from his pocket.

"Then tell me how to help, sir," Chen said. "Let me help."

McCoy held up a hand as he found Regan's number and pressed the call button. Chen fell silent.

"This is Regan Markham. I can't take your call," Regan's voice told him. "So leave a message and a number I can call you back on, and I'll do that as soon as I can."

"Regan, it's Jack. I don't believe a word of it. Call me. As soon as you get this, call me." He ended the call. "Get back to the hotel," he told Chen. "When Regan turns up there, call me straight away."

"Yes, sir, Mr McCoy," Chen said. He took a step toward the door, stopped. "What Mr Gorton said …"

"Was a lie," McCoy said flatly. I don't believe a word of it. I know Regan, and I know she's incapable of something like that.

Except as he'd told Abbie, everyone is capable of killing, under the right circumstances. Or the wrong ones, might be a better way to put it.

And the one time they'd talked about that night in Seattle, the one time he'd asked her about the man she'd killed, Regan had looked at him with eyes as cold as a winter sky and said When a man draws down on you, you put him in the ground.

"I know," Chen said, and when McCoy looked at him, "When A.D.A Firienze was attacked, the blogs were all over it. You took me off the trial, so I … I had time to read them." He swallowed hard. "Some of them were almost transcripts. One even got hold of that video of her … of her, after. If there was proof, CCTV footage, that a cop shot an unarmed suspect? No way that stayed quiet all this time. Not in this day and age. I'll go back to the hotel, sir. But if you think of anything else I can do …"

"There is," McCoy said, deciding. "Call Colleen on the way to the hotel. I spoke to …' He closed his eyes for a moment, searching for the name. "David Cohen in King County last year. He had a lot of good things to say about Regan. I doubt he'd have been so complimentary if he'd had a question mark over her integrity, and if there's anyone in Seattle who'd know if there was, it'd be the man who sits in the equivalent of my chair. Get his number from Colleen, call him, tell him what's going on and find out what he knows about that shooting."

"Yes, sir, right away," Chen said, and went.

McCoy found Abbie's number in his phone's address list and pressed call. "Abbie, listen. Has Regan come back there yet?"

"Not that I know," Abbie said. "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Get the hotel staff to let you into her room," McCoy said,

"Why?" Abbie asked.

"You're looking for a DVD. I don't know how it'll be labeled. It'll have a video file on it, CCTV footage. I need that DVD, Abbie."

He heard fabric rustle, the sound of a door. "Jack, are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"I don't have time to explain, Abbie, I'm sorry, Gorton threw a curve ball. I need to break into your house."

"You —"

"Abbie, please. If the DVD isn't in Regan's room at the hotel, it's at your place. Call me if you find it, but if you don't, I need to look for it."

There was a long silence. "I don't know what's going on," Abbie said at last, "and I'll take your word for it that there isn't time to explain. But Jack, you will explain. Harold Boyd one up from me has my spare key. I'll call him and tell him to give it to you."

McCoy thanked her, and hung up.

His protection detail arrived from upstairs. "You seem to have misplaced a witness," McCoy pointed out acerbically, ignoring the fact that they'd been upstairs because he hadn't wanted to taking any chance of alerting Gorton. "Regan Markham. I suggest you work with the police to find her."

"We've been informed. But first we have to take you back to the hotel, Mr McCoy."

He shook his head. "I have to get to West 90th."

"Then that's where we're going, too," the agent said. "I'm not telling my boss we misplaced two witnesses, sir."

"I'm not in danger, not now Neil knows the whole D.A's Office knows about —"

Firm shake of the head. "Until I hear it from my boss, we protect you."

A waste of time, when Regan was who-knew-where and in who-knew-what state of mind. "Would the N.Y.P.D. be an acceptable substitute?"

The agent considered, and then nodded.

"Fine," McCoy said, heading for the door. "I'll call someone from the car. They'll meet us there."

When he strode out of the courthouse, the humidity in the night air robbed him of breath for a moment. He could smell rain in the air as he hurried down the steps to the S.U.V parked in what was normally a no-standing zone. It will be rain tonight.

One of the agents opened the door of the car for him and McCoy got in, trying to remember where he'd heard those words. A defendant, probably, with limited English.

No. Not a defendant. Decades, centuries ago, in Central Park, his arm around Ellen's shoulders, watching the inevitable, inexorable horror of Banquo's last moments.

It will be rain tonight.

McCoy was startled from memory by the car door closing. He tried Regan again, and got the same recorded message. "Regan, dammit! Call me."

It wasn't true. It couldn't be true, not of Regan —

Man draws down on you, you put him in the ground.

"Goddammit!" McCoy ignored the startled glances from the agents in front of the car and dialed again. "Anita. Glad I caught you."

"Only just," Anita Van Buren said.

"Anita, I have a problem and I need to borrow a couple of warm bodies for the evening."

She sighed. "Jack, you have fifty investigators in the Office and I have a board full of red names —"

"It's not that kind of problem. Gorton — Anita, I don't want to get into it, but take my word for it, the babysitters Arthur Branch got me have more important work to be doing. They seem to feel I need someone to keep me out of trouble. Can you lend me a couple of people from your precinct or not?"

"Not without paperwork, you know that."

McCoy closed his eyes. "Unofficially, then. Anita. How long have we known each other?"

"Since you prepped me as a witness on the Carrera shooting in … must have been '89. Back when I was undercover."

"Twenty years," McCoy said. "Have I ever asked you for —"

"Eighteen years, and only every other week," Van Buren said.

"Anita." McCoy heard the ragged note in his voice at the same time as he realized he was holding his cell phone hard enough to hurt.

She paused. "I'll see if Ed and Lennie have any plans for the evening."

"I owe you," McCoy said.

"You'll owe Lennie and Ed," Van Buren said, and hung up.

By the time McCoy had gotten the spare key from the neighbor, Briscoe and Green had arrived. Thunder rumbled along the horizon as McCoy sent his protection detail away and filled the two detectives in on the evening's developments. It will be rain tonight. He shook his head sharply to drive out the thought, working out which key went into which of Abbie's three locks.

Inside, McCoy took the stairs two at a time, Green behind him. Briscoe hung back, his phone to his ear. McCoy flicked on the light in Regan's room and paused. Where would she keep it?

"You take the dresser," Green said. "I'll do the wardrobe."

The dresser drawers were almost empty. The few days' clothes Regan had packed for the hotel had left little behind. McCoy rifled through T-shirts, looked under a pair of jeans. "Nothing."

"Mike says Regan's phone is switched off," Briscoe said as he reached the top of the stairs. "If she turns it on, they'll at least know what cell tower she's near."

"Got something," Green said. He turned from the wardrobe, holding a battered shoe-box, many times repaired with duct tape. He took off the lid. "Uh — you want to look through this? There's letters, photos — personal stuff."

"You do it," McCoy said. Regan would find that less invasive, when she found out.

Green nodded. He set the shoe-box down on the bed and started to go through the contents. After a moment he gave a low whistle. "You know she — "

"Don't tell me," McCoy interrupted. "If she wants me to know something, she can tell me. If she doesn't …"

"She's a witness, Jack." Briscoe said from where he was leaning against the door. "Or are there new rules for trial preparation that I don't know about?"

"She's entitled to her privacy," McCoy said, but he knew it wasn't true even as the words left his mouth. He scrubbed his hand over his face. "Dammit. Tell me if there's anything that Neil might use against her."

"Got it," Green said, turning with a DVD in a clear case in his hand.

McCoy took it. It was unmarked, unremarkable, except for the Post-It note on the front. Take medical retirement, it said in unfamiliar hand-writing. "I've got to see what's on it." Abbie would have taken her laptop to the hotel … "The office," he said.

"Try downstairs first," Green said. "If it was copied a couple of years ago, it might be a straight disk-to-disk burn. Any DVD player will play it."

They went downstairs. Abbie wasn't much of a television watcher, but she had a small set in the corner of the living room for the news and, being Abbie, she'd bought one with a DVD player built in. McCoy switched it on and put the DVD in the slot. About to press play, he stopped. "Ed. You might not want to watch this. If I'm right, it shows police officers being shot."

"I'm okay," Green said.

McCoy nodded, and started the DVD. He found himself looking at a wide-shot of what could have been any open-plan office, except most of the people in it were wearing uniforms. It was in color, but there was no sound.

McCoy was almost glad of it when the first muzzle-flashes blazed across the scene and the first bodies fell. He could hear Regan's voice, low and hoarse, Robbie's screaming 'Ellie, Ellie, help me, Ellie' and I can't help him and all I want is for him to shut up because I can't stand it, I can't fucking stand it, and then he makes a sound that might be my name

"Jesus," Briscoe muttered, as the shooter came into shot and paused to fire directly into the face of one of the injured officers.

All three men jumped as a crack of thunder overhead announced the arrival of the storm, rain beginning to hammer down on the roof. Green glanced upward, taking his hand from his gun. "It's coming down out there."

"Let it come down," McCoy said, leaning closer to the screen. "There she is." Regan, younger and in uniform but still recognizable, moving forward in a left-handed Weaver Stance. McCoy winced as she staggered and half-fell against a desk, leaving a wide smear of red. Hit real hard, she said. He'd seen the scars. He didn't want to think about the wounds they represented, but he forced himself to keep watching as, on the DVD, Regan pushed herself upright again and stumbled forward.

"Why doesn't she just shoot the fucker?" Green asked.

"She can't," McCoy said grimly. "A stray shot blew out her elbow a while before this happened. That's why she was there in the first place. Desk duty."

The gunman dropped his weapon and raised his hands. "Looks like he doesn't know that, though," Briscoe said.

"No." McCoy as Regan staggered forward, gun wavering, leaving a red trail on the carpet behind her. To the accompaniment of another long roll of thunder and rain pounding on the roof, she stumbled to within five feet of Frank Tourmetti.

And shot him in the head at almost point-blank range.

McCoy ran the recording back and watched it again, watched Regan stagger up to Tourmetti and pull the trigger. The gunman went down barely a second before Regan herself dropped her gun and crashed to the floor.

"I didn't see his hand move," McCoy said. "Did either of you?"

"Not me," Green said.

"Me either," Briscoe said.

McCoy shook his head. "So the official account of the shooting, that he was going for a weapon …" That was what had been in the newspaper stories he'd read on-line. Reaching for a second weapon.

The recording ended. "Well, at least they don't have this former partner of hers dropping a gun on tape," Green said.

"His admission that he did is an admission against penal interest," McCoy said. "It's inherently credible."

"It's not as if she shot someone just walking down the street, Jack," Briscoe pointed out. "That guy killed a bunch of cops and tried to kill her. She was shot all to hell."

"It would be almost impossible to get a conviction. Showing this to a jury? They'd watch Tourmetti shoot an injured police officer in the head and want to give Regan a medal. Which might be why King Country decided to let it go," McCoy said. He ran the recording back again and watched the last few seconds. "Man draws down on you," Regan says, and her voice is very steady and her eyes are colder than cold, "You put him in the ground." "But we can't. Regan is the only witness to Gorton's conversation with the man he hired to kill me and he's going to use this to destroy her credibility."

"And what does she say about it?" Green asked.

"I wish I knew," McCoy said tersely. "She hasn't answered her phone. She hasn't called me back. She hasn't gone back to the hotel. Since she clearly hasn't come here, I don't know where she'd be." On a bus to Wichita is one bad answer to that particular question.

"Let me try Mike again," Briscoe said. "She might have turned her cell on."

"Run that back again," Green said. "Just at the end there." He leaned in as McCoy did so, squinting at the screen.

"Do you see something? Another weapon?"

"Not a weapon." Green leaned in even closer. "He said something, right before she shot him. I can't get it … but it definitely wasn't I surrender."

McCoy ejected the DVD. "Take it," he said. "The Department has translators for the Deaf, right? You've got to be able to find someone who can lipread. Maybe it's exculpatory, somehow."

Green nodded, took the DVD, and turned to the door.

Right as Regan Markham, drenched to the skin, walked through it.


.oOo.


A/N In the real world, Shakespeare in the Park did not perform Macbeth before 2006. There's certainly no canon to suggest McCoy has any interest in theater, but since Sam Waterston appeared in a number of productions of Shakespeare in the Park in the 1960s and 1970s, I couldn't resist …