CHAPTER 3: ACCIDENT

"Yes, yes, I'll call him right now, he should be home any - oh!" Deborah was holding the phone when Rey stepped through his front door. "Rey!" she called him urgently. He approached quickly. "It's Lennie. He's been in an accident. He's OK-" she assured him, putting her hand on his, "but he's at St. Vincent's. I told him I would send you over there right away," she handed him the phone.

"Lennie?" he took the phone, struggling to shift mental gears.

It was just past midnight. He had left the coffee shop around 9:30 and decided to take a walk where he and Deborah first met, indulging in nostalgia and gathering his strength, knowing Deborah would be up until late anyway - they were both night owls. Then he'd forced himself to go home, knowing he'd put it off long enough, prepared to face her and face the consequences of his actions. And now here he was, and here she was, but it looked like he wasn't going to be able to talk to her any time soon.

"Hey, Rey... lissen, I needja ta get over here, and I needja ta call McCoy," Lennie's voice came over the line. Rey felt a pang of alarm. Lennie had either been hurt, gotten a concussion or something, or he was... he was drunk.

"Lennie, what happened?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I walked away withou' a scratch," Lennie's voice slurred, "but Claire, she was drivin' me home an' she's not doin' so good, she might not make it. An' I dunno McCoy's number."

"OK, I'll be right there," Rey assured him. "And I'll call McCoy. Hang tight," he hung up, mind racing.

"Rey, was he... he sounded drunk," Deborah said worriedly.

"Yeah, I know," Rey muttered distractedly. "I have to call McCoy and get to St. Vincent's-"

"Was he driving?"

"No, Claire Kincaid was. She's hurt - I have to call McCoy," he went past Deborah into the kitchen, taking out his address book. Of course McCoy was unlisted, but he and Lennie had had to get a hold of him outside of office hours a few times, so he'd given them his number. Deborah drew closer as he rifled through, trying to find it.

"Rey, was he drunk?"

"I don't know," he muttered, finding the phone number. Feeling he didn't know what - worried about Lennie? Claire Kincaid? Part of him relieved that, as horrible as this was, at least he didn't have to face Deborah right now? He put that thought out of his mind immediately. A person he worked with, a person he respected and liked, was hurt and could very well be dying or dead and he had absolutely no right to feel the slightest sense of reprieve. He listened to the ringing at the other end of the line. Nothing. Answering machine. Damn.

"You've reached Jack McCoy. Leave your message after the tone."

"McCoy, this is Rey Curtis. I just got a call from Lennie Briscoe. He and Claire were in a car accident. They're at St. Vincent's. Give me a call at 555-0957 as soon as you get this message, I'll fill you in on what I know."

He put down the phone. Deborah was still right there, looking at him worriedly. "Is Lennie OK?" she asked, concerned.

"Yeah, he said he walked off without a scratch."

"Then he doesn't have a concussion or anything."

"No, I guess not," he started to get ready to go again, not wanting to talk to Deborah right now. Too much going on.

"Rey, he sounded like he was drunk," she repeated.

"I know that, I heard that too," he replied, a little more sharply than he meant to. She raised her eyebrows at him.

"He's not supposed to drink at all, Rey. What's he doing?"

"We don't know he was drinking," he protested. Her eyebrows went up even higher.

"Are you kidding?" she paused. "If he's drinking, I don't want you partnered with him. He can't watch your back if he's fallen off the wagon."

"Deborah, we can't talk about this right now. I have to go to the hospital. I'll call you when I know more, OK?" he gave her a quick kiss and left, hurrying to St. Vincent's.

ooo000ooo

"Lennie!" he spotted Lennie in the emergency room, looking disheveled and confused. "What happened?"

"Hey, Rey, they won't tell me anything. They just said wait'n see, so I been waitin' 'n seein'," he words were still slightly slurred. Rey looked at him, concerned.

"Lennie..."

"Yeah, yeah. I was drinkin'." Lennie sat down heavily at one of the waiting room chairs and put his head in his hands. "I was drinkin', and Claire was driving me home, and so now here she is an' they won't tell me how she's doing."

Rey rubbed his face. God. What a mess.

"OK, don't worry, I'll try and find out what's going on. They probably wouldn't talk to you 'cause you're drunk," he said absently, then cursed himself. That probably wasn't a good thing to say to Lennie right now. "I mean, 'cause you're a little shaken up," he corrected himself, but his tactless comment had already hit home.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm drunk. I fell off the wagon, OK? I know," Lennie said miserably, leaning back and closing his eyes.

"Hey, it's OK," Rey found himself saying. "It's OK, Lennie, don't worry about it. Stay here, I'll be back," he touched Lennie's shoulder encouragingly and made his way to the nurse behind the desk.

"I'm looking for information on Claire Kincaid, car accident..." he showed her his badge. Lennie had probably tried this tactic too, but if he was as unsteady when he came in as he was now, it was no wonder nobody had taken him seriously.

"Oh, yes sir. She's been taken to the OR. She came in unconscious, with severe head trauma... I don't really know much more than that."

"Where can I find out how she's doing right now?"

"Until she comes out of the OR, I don't think you can, sir."

"Has anybody been contacted?"

"Yes sir, her next of kin is listed as her mother. I left a message at her number."

"Thanks," he said, knowing that was probably as much as he was going to get. Just then his cell phone rang.

"Curtis."

"Detective Curtis. What's this about an accident?" McCoy's voice was on the other end. Rey frowned, detecting a slight slur in McCoy's words as well. Christ, did everybody get drunk today except him? He felt a pang of guilt, abruptly remembering what he had done and wishing he'd just gotten drunk as well.

"I can't tell you much more than what I said on your machine. Claire's in the OR right now. You may want to come down here," he added, hearing McCoy's sharp indrawn breath over the phone. "Her mother's already been called, but they just left a message on her machine. Do you know if there's any other way to reach her?"

"Yes," McCoy said, and hung up abruptly. Rey cut the connection and returned to Lennie's side.

He sat down next to Lennie, still leaning back with his eyes closed. "OK, Claire's in the OR and I got a hold of McCoy. He'll probably be here in a little while," he looked at Lennie, concerned. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. No, hell, I'm not fine. If I hadn't been drinking she wouldn't a given me a ride. She'd be OK."

"You don't know that. She coulda gotten in an accident on another street. This wasn't your fault."

"I was drinking."

"This wasn't your fault, Lennie."

Lennie looked at him blearily, a little puzzled. "Hey Mr. I Never Did Drugs and I Never Did Nothin' Wrong, what's with you?"

Rey felt a prickle of apprehension. "What?"

"How come you're not reading me the riot act? What's with this 'It's not your fault'? You know I'm not s'posed to drink, ever."

"Doesn't matter, the accident still wasn't your fault."

"I don't even know why I was drinkin'. Yeah, I do, I'm a drunk. Agh, I'm a sorry excuse for a human being... can't even stay off the bottle," he closed his eyes again.

"Yeah, you can. You did it for years before today. You made a mistake. It happens." They were silent for a few minutes.

"You gonna ask for a new partner now?" Lennie said suddenly, opening his eyes.

"What?"

"You gonna ask for a new partner?"

"Why?" He didn't get the connection for a moment. Then he suddenly understood and, without thinking, answered, "No, of course not. Lennie, you made a mistake. I'm not gonna ask for a new partner 'cause of one mistake. Don't be stupid," he said dismissively, and Lennnie cocked his head to the side, immensely confused. Rey's cell phone rang.

"Curtis."

"Rey? What's going on?"

Deborah. Damn, he thought, I can't deal with this right now. "Hon, I told you I'd call when I knew anything. I still don't. Claire's in the OR and McCoy's on his way and he's getting a hold of her parents. I don't know any more than that, OK? I'll call you later-" he tried to hang up, but she interrupted him.

"Was Lennie drinking?"

He sighed. "Yeah."

"What the hell was he thinking?!" she exclaimed.

"I don't think he was, Deborah. Look, this isn't a good time-"

"Tomorrow you ask your lieutenant for a new partner, you hear? Bad enough that you're out there risking your life, if you can't trust your partner-"

"Deborah, we'll talk about this later-"

"What's to talk about?! You're not thinking of still working with him-"

"Not now! I'll call you later!" he hung up on her.

"That Deborah?" Lennie asked.

"Yeah."

"Sounded pissed off."

"Just worried," he dismissed the topic, and distracted Lennie. "So what happened?"

"You mean the accident?"

"Yeah."

"She was drivin' me, and we went into an intersection an' then boom, crash, big noise, and I get out and there she is, blood all down her face. Ambulance got there pretty fast - somebody musta seen and called it in," Lennie frowned miserably. "I don't think she's gonna make it."

"We don't know that yet. They get the other driver?"

"Yeah, he was fine too. Drunker'n me, if you can believe that," Lennie said bitterly. Rey winced in sympathy at the tone of self-disgust in Lennie's voice. "Took my statement, brought us here, checked me out, I'm jus' fine."

"OK," he said, nodding, trying to think if there was anything else he could do. He looked at Lennie more closely. "So what happened?" he asked gently.

"You mean why was I drinkin'?" Lennie closed his eyes in pain. "'Cause I'm an alcoholic, and this 'recovering alcoholic' crap is just that, a loada crap," he said morosely.

"Lennie, come on. What happened today, how come you fell off today?"

"You gotta ask me that? You were there - oh I forgot, you don't have a problem with it. You think it's just fine, 'cause it's what that bastard deserved, you wish you coulda turned the knobs yourself-" his voice started to grow louder, belligerent.

"Hey, hey, calm down," Rey said soothingly, aware that other people were starting to look at Lennie. "OK, OK, so you were upset about the execution." He paused, not sure where else to go with this.

"Yeah, sorry, my kid might think I gotta heart of brick but I don't, it bugged me, OK? An' I went back to dealin' with my problems the way I used ta. What the hell, it's not like I'm gonna hurt my kids any more by bein' a drunk, right?" he chuckled derisively. "Not like that stopped me before anyway."

"Your daughter?"

"Yeah, had lunch with her. Real nice time. She hates me," he added conversationally.

"She doesn't hate you, Lennie," Rey corrected him automatically.

"Yeah, Mr. Perfect Husband and Daddy, you don't know anything about it. She does. I was a sorry excuse for a daddy then, and I still am now, an' she hates me, and she's got a right to." Rey rubbed his forehead, hurting from Lennie's words - hurting for Lennie and Lennie's family, for himself and his own wife and children. Mr. Perfect Husband and Daddy. Mr. Perfect Husband and Daddy was busy doing a college student today, Lennie, he wanted to tell him. Mr. Perfect Husband and Daddy's gonna be lucky if his wife doesn't kill him tomorrow, or at least walk out and take the kids with her. Mr. Perfect Husband and Daddy went to your apartment tonight because he didn't know what the hell else to do.

"OK, Lennie, relax," Rey said, "Just tell me what happened." He realized he was using his 'soothing the witness to a crime to get the story' voice, but it seemed to work on Lennie.

"So I got together with some friendsa mine, nice time, 'cept they were jokin' about Scott," Rey felt a stab in his gut - would he ever be able to hear that name without that sharp pain? "And then I went to the OTB place an' my daughter's there. You know, Cathy. An' we had lunch. An' we had a nice conversation. An' it was nice. An' then it all went to crap. An' I don't even know how," Lennie paused. "An' you know what? I don't wanna talk about it."

"OK," he said gently. "OK. Let's just wait till McCoy gets here."

"He's pretty ripped too."

"McCoy?"

"Least, he was a couple hours ago. When he left the bar."

"You saw him?"

"Yeah. Went into a bar, and there 'e is, tanked outta his gourd. He was waitin' for Claire, but she stood 'im up. He waited for her all day. So he got a cab. Then Claire comes along. Told her Jack turned inta a pumpkin. Mike thought she was my kid," Lennie laughed softly.

Rey shook his head, confused at the wandering narrative, and tried to reconstruct the day's events. Let's see, Claire had done god only knew what other than standing up her lover, and could very well be dead before the day was through. McCoy had spent hours at a bar waiting around for Claire to pick him up, and now would get to spend hours at a hospital waiting around for Claire to live or die. Lennie had fallen back into the bottle and he had broken his marriage vows. Mickey Scott must be laughing at them all from his brand new corner of Hell.

ooo000ooo

"McCoy. Over here," Rey waved McCoy over, and he approached them. Rey looked at him closely. He didn't seem intoxicated, but Rey caught a bit of unsteadiness in his gait.

"Anything?"

"No. No news, she's still in the OR. Did you get a hold of her parents?"

"Yeah. They're on their way," McCoy glanced down at Lennie, still slumped in a chair, and narrowed his eyes at him. "Detective Briscoe?"

"Yeah," Lennie looked up wearily.

"Are you all right?"

"Fit as a fiddle. Nothing wrong with me," he said, slur nearly gone. McCoy noticed, though, and glanced at Rey, eyebrows rising. Rey nodded slightly, and McCoy sighed.

"What happened?"

"Claire came to the bar. You were gone. She was givin' me a ride home and some SOB rammed into us at an intersection."

"Did they get the driver?"

"Yeah."

McCoy sat down, suddenly looking a little lost. "She came... I thought she just decided to ignore me. I was paging her all day."

They sat in silence for a while until a middle-aged couple strode into the emergency room, the woman looking frightened and the man looking very businesslike.

"Where is she? Do you know anything?" they asked McCoy, who stood up to greet them.

"No. Nothing. She's still in the OR."

ooo000ooo

None of them would ever forget that night, spent in vigil over Claire Kincaid's fate. They didn't talk much. McCoy went with Claire's parents to try to pry some clue about Claire's fate from the nurses. Rey and Lennie mostly sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts, each dealing with remorse and regret over his failings that day. They did find out that Claire had apparently spent part of that day talking to her stepfather, arguing about the death penalty and her feelings about it, and her attendance at the execution.

The rest was normal modus operandi for a hospital, which Lennie and Rey were quite familiar with from time spent with victims and families. Styrofoam coffee, linoleum and fluorescent lights, the ding of the elevator. Occasional groans and wails and rushing hospital staff. A small child was brought in screaming in pain, possibly with appendicitis. A young man waited and waited to be seen for severe back pain.

Rey rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. Tired of obsessing about how he could have possibly allowed himself to do what he did that day, he turned to thinking about Claire and Lennie and McCoy.

Claire was in God's hands, and there wasn't much he could do to help her. Lennie hadn't said much, but he was clearly devastated by his fall from sobriety and was feeling worse, not better, as the effects of the alcohol slowly wore off. Rey noted his downcast eyes, his slumped shoulders, his uncharacteristically quiet voice and complete lack of the biting humour that was so much a part of him, and he wished there was something he could do to help. He thought of suggesting prayer to Lennie, but realized that not only would that probably not wash with him - Lennie being about as lapsed as a Catholic could be - but that tonight he didn't really believe in prayer himself. He couldn't even think of praying tonight - not for Claire, or Lennie, or McCoy, or even for himself and his family. Like he didn't have a right to pray.

He turned his thoughts to McCoy. McCoy seemed composed enough, occasionally pacing and leafing through magazines, but Rey could see that he was terribly shaken as well. This had to be incredibly painful for him. While Kincaid and McCoy were both very good at maintaining strict professional demeanor at all times, he and Lennie were well aware of the fact that Kincaid was much more than just McCoy's assistant. Rey thought for a moment of how he would feel if it was Deborah in there, if Deborah was hurt or injured in any way, and he felt a wave of compassion for McCoy. Their relationship probably wasn't anything like his marriage - coworkers who sleep together couldn't possibly be as close as a couple who'd been married for six years and were raising three children together, but still. This had to be heart-wrenching for McCoy.

He felt a stab of guilt. For a while there he'd actually managed to forget his sin, but thinking of Deborah now brought it flooding back. God, would he ever be able to think of his wife again without that immediate reaction?

At about 3 am, McCoy excused himself and quietly asked a nurse the directions to the chapel, of all places. Rey wondered at that. He'd figured with a name like Jack McCoy that he'd probably been brought up Catholic, but McCoy had never struck him as even remotely religious. He'd heard there were no atheists in foxholes. He supposed there were no atheists in hospital emergency rooms when a loved one was at death's door either.

He wondered if there was a cliché saying about adulterers and how they felt about God on the day they fell from grace. He supposed it was ironic - on this day, he felt unable to turn to his faith, unable to even think of turning to God, unworthy to appeal to his normal source of comfort and sustenance, while Jack McCoy was going to a chapel.

About an hour later, a doctor finally stepped out to talk to Claire's parents. They all realized as soon as the doctor came out that the news was not good. Claire's mother looked down, expressionless, visibly paling, as her stepfather covered his mouth with his hand and lost his businesslike air, becoming just another grieving family member, confused and in pain. Rey glanced at McCoy, who looked outwardly impassive, his black eyes flat. Somehow, though, he looked like he aged about ten years in those moments. Rey shivered, looking down. As much as he'd seen death, as much as he'd seen grieving friends and relatives, this still sickened him.

What a waste. Claire Kincaid, alive and shedding tears over the death of a piece of scum like Mickey Scott barely twenty-four hours ago, was now also dead. Or close enough to make no difference. Why? Bad luck and a drunk driver. It made no sense.

He stood, approached McCoy cautiously, waited until McCoy acknowledged his presence. "Is there anything we can do?" he asked quietly. McCoy shook his head.

"Take him home," he nodded his head at Lennie, his voice low, filled with pain. Rey nodded, turned back. He and Lennie approached Claire's parents, murmured a few words of condolences, and left.

ooo000ooo

Back home. Near dawn. He'd left Lennie at his apartment, assuring him that he'd call Van Buren in a few hours to let her know they'd both be taking the day off, and wearily made his way home. He stepped into his dark house, everything still and quiet, and looked around. Little shoes arranged in a row at the front door. Toys in bins, neatly put away for the night. Children's artwork on the fridge. The kids' pictures, starting with their births, on the walls. A Pequot quilled bag. Quena pipes from Peru. Portrait of the family in a little frame on a living room table.

Olivia's drawing of all of them, 'My FAMiLy' written in an awkward child's hand. Him tall and thin, wearing a badge. Deborah short and smiling wide, her tiny cross looking huge. Olivia in pigtails and bows, Serena in bright red overalls, Isabel with her bear. All of their faces darker than they were in real life - Olivia hadn't had tan-coloured markers so she'd used dark brown.

He sat down, exhausted and drained. God. What the hell was he going to do? He hadn't thought much about his eventual return home while he was at the hospital, but now here he was. And as he looked around at their life, at the home he and Deborah had made for themselves and their children, he wondered what he'd been thinking yesterday, how he'd let all of this mean less to him than a roll in the hay.

He knew he should go to bed, but also knew that it wouldn't do any good. He'd just lie next to Deborah, watching her sleep and feeling soul-tearing guilt.

He decided to do a bit of reading, took out a novel Deborah had been bugging him to read - something medieval. She was into historical fiction, always trying to get him into it too, and he liked it once he got started but not enough to start without some prodding. Especially when the book was as huge and daunting as this one. He set it down. Right. Try and please Deborah by reading a book she's been trying to get you to read for months, that'll earn you points. Yes, honey, I know I slept with a perfect stranger for no good reason, but look, I finally started to read 'Pillars of the Earth' last night, doesn't that make up for it?

He picked up their Bible, put it back down. Normally it was a source of comfort, a reassurance that though the teachings of the Church were sometimes hard to follow, there was a reason for them. That there was a benevolent presence watching over them. Not today. Today he looked at the cover of their Bible and felt nothing but an aching sense of remorse. He turned aside and his eyes fell on their small picture of the Virgin, gazing at him with compassion and understanding for his human weakness, and bowed his head, finally able to pray.

Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.

Pray for us sinners. He'd never felt that more than right now. They were all sinners, he'd been taught, all fallible, all imperfect. But it was an abstraction. They were all sinners, that was why as a child he'd broken his sister's doll and then lied and said his brother did it. That was why as a teenager he'd boosted a car with his friends. That was why he'd lied to Deborah about not being able to come home from work when he just wanted to avoid Burt. Because he too was a sinner.

But he'd never felt it this viscerally before. Sinner. He'd never felt the burning shame of that label before. Never sinned like this before.

He idly leafed through their catechism. Profession of faith, sacraments of faith, commandments...

Adultery is an injustice. He who commits adultery fails in his commitment. He does injury to the sign of the covenant which the marriage bond is, transgresses the rights of the other spouse, and undermines the institution of marriage by breaking the contract on which it is based. He compromises the good of human generation and the welfare of children who need their parents' stable union.

God in Heaven, what had he done.

ooo000ooo

Deborah came downstairs at seven thirty and found her husband in the kitchen, gazing out at their small back yard. He turned when she came in she was struck by the weariness and sorrow in his eyes. She sighed and went to put her arms around him comfortingly.

"Not good?"

"No," he held her, resting his chin on top of her head. "Not good."

"Is she gone?"

"They couldn't do anything. Too much damage, too much bleeding into the brain. She was technically still alive when we left, but I think that was just so they could prep the organ recipients before pulling the plug."

Deborah closed her eyes. Rey had always spoken highly of Claire Kincaid, in contrast to what he said about her boss. Rey didn't have much use for lawyers most of the time, but felt Claire was more concerned with justice than legal technicalities. The only thing he disapproved of was her relationship with her boss - more because he couldn't understand what she saw in McCoy than any other reason.

"How's Lennie?" she asked, and felt him tense up a bit.

"Not so good. Feels pretty bad about what happened."

"What happened?"

"McCoy was waiting for her at a bar, getting drunk. Lennie went into the bar, McCoy got tired of waiting and left, Lennie got drunk, then Claire showed up and offered to take Lennie home. Then a drunk driver plowed into them," he recited mechanically.

"He should feel bad. If he hadn't gotten drunk she'd still be alive," Deborah commented caustically. Rey sighed, dropped his arms and moved away from her slightly.

"It's not his fault, Deborah. It's the fault of the other driver," he said wearily.

"He shouldn't have been drunk," Deborah pointed out. Rey looked away from her, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly and not responding. "Rey? Why are you defending him? He's not supposed to drink."

"I know that. So does he. It was a bad day, that's all," he said, his voice subdued. Deborah stared at him in puzzlement. It wasn't like Rey to forgive another person's stupidity, especially stupidity as glaring as this.

"Well for heaven's sake if he was having such a bad day he could have gone and prayed or spent some time with his family or gone to a movie or something. Or done what you did, talk it over with somebody and then work." Rey flinched inwardly, feeling that jabbing pain again but knowing he couldn't show it. "He didn't have to go and dive right back into a bottle."

"Deborah, please. Not now, OK?" Rey said quietly, and Deborah relented. For some reason, he didn't seem inclined to make any of his usual quick pronouncements on Lennie's lack of moral fiber today. Probably feeling the effects of a long sleepless night ending with finding out a person he respected and liked was dead. Deborah mentally reprimanded herself for her insensitivity.

"I'm sorry," she said, and approached him again, enfolding him in her arms and rubbing his back. He sighed and hugged her back, holding her close for a few minutes. Feeling comfort in her embrace while at the same time feeling a tearing pain inside, knowing that he didn't deserve her comfort, that the last person he'd held in his arms was another woman, not too many hours ago. Knowing that he couldn't even tell her right now, because the kids would be up any moment now and they couldn't talk in front of them.

"I have to call Van Buren, let her know we're not coming in for our shift today."

"And you need to tell her about Lennie drinking," she reminded him gently. Rey bit his lip, looking away from her. "Rey, you have to. She has to know," she pressed, opening her mouth to remind him that he needed to ask for a reassignment, then thinking better of it. "You have to tell her."

ooo000ooo

Two hours later the phone rang, Van Buren calling him back. Deborah handed him the phone and Rey took it into the study to avoid the post-breakfast noise going on in their kitchen. Deborah watched him go, a worried frown on her face. He'd been unusually subdued all morning, patiently listening to Olivia's chatter and not even reacting when Isabel mashed her oatmeal all over her high chair tray. He had just picked up a dishcloth and cleaned it up, reminding Isabel not to do it again in a distracted voice.

He was taking Kincaid's death pretty hard, Deborah thought. Poor Rey - it seemed to have been a particularly difficult end to a particularly difficult day. Odd that he'd had trouble with the execution; he hadn't seemed to think about it much before going. Maybe he shouldn't have gone. Maybe none of them should have gone, judging from his description of how the rest of them had spent their day.

Deborah approached the study, bringing him his coffee, and heard him speaking in a tense, angry tone. "It didn't have anything to do with the accident-" there was a pause, "It's not my job to tell you what Lennie does with his private life!" Another pause, "Oh is that in his contract? Does the PBA know?" Another pause. "I know it's not a game!' he said furiously, "I was gonna talk to him about it, I just didn't think-" he looked up and saw her, and closed his mouth suddenly. He listened to the other end of the line, and said, his voice clipped, "I can't talk right now." He paused. "Yes, we are," he said, and he hung up the phone.

"You didn't tell her," Deborah said slowly, accusingly.

"No," he answered her, voice still tense.

"Rey." Deborah took a deep breath, trying very hard to not lose her composure.

"Don't, OK? I don't need this from you too," he said angrily, trying to leave the study. She snapped and stepped in front of him.

"What the hell are you thinking? You can't cover up for him! What's the matter with you?! This isn't like telling the teacher your buddy cheated on a test, this is your life on the line if Lennie doesn't even have the self-control to keep away from the one thing he's not supposed to-"

"Shut up!!" he shouted at her. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about!! You don't know him, you don't know what he went through yesterday, you don't know a damn thing!!" he pushed past her and went into the living room, and she followed him, rage rising.

The girls looked at them from the kitchen, wide-eyed, not knowing how to take this fight between their parents. While both Rey and Deborah had quick tempers and were prone to blowing up, usually whenever one of them was upset the other one kept control and made sure the situation didn't get out of hand. Now it looked like neither one of them was going to do that.

"I know that I worry enough about you!! I didn't want you partnered with an alcoholic in the first place! But no, you said he'd been off the bottle for years, he was a good cop, you felt safe with him watching your back! Well here you go, the first little thing goes wrong and he goes running right back to the bottle! Still feel safe?!"

"It wasn't a little thing, can you get that?! Damn it, why am I even trying to explain this to you? You weren't there, you don't understand!!" he slammed his hand against the wall in frustration.

"So explain it to me!! Explain what's so devastating about watching a piece of scum whose finest hour should have been an early abortion die and go to Hell like he deserves!!"

Rey suddenly looked at the small, frightened faces of their children and swallowed hard. The anger drained out of him and he looked at Deborah and put out his hand. "Don't. Deborah, don't, you're scaring them. We're scaring them," he corrected himself quickly. "I promise you I'll talk to you about this later today, but right now I have to figure out what I'm gonna do, and I can't do that if we're yelling at each other."

"You have to ask for a new partner," she said firmly.

"We'll talk tonight after the girls are in bed, OK?" he said quietly. She stared at him hard and finally nodded. "I have to go see Van Buren. I'll be back in a few hours."

Rey left his house and leaned his back against his front door, shaking. Another lie. He didn't have to see Van Buren. He had to see Father Morelli, ask his advice. Figure out what he was going to do, not about Lennie's transgression, but about his own.