CHAPTER 1: EXECUTION
"Allegheny", said Lennie.
"York," Rey replied promptly.
"Kansas City."
"Yonkers." They were playing Cities, a game where each player has to name a city that starts with the last letter of the last city named. Rey was usually much faster at this than Lennie, and he almost always won. Still, it passed the time.
Four hours to go till Attica. Lennie thought for a moment. "Syracuse."
"Edmonton," Rey replied before Lennie had even finished the word.
"N…" Lennie thought for a long time. N cities became hard to think of after the first few minutes of the game. "Nassau."
"Oh, a U city… Utica."
"I already said Utica."
"Uppsala."
"Oopsy-what? You're making that up."
"No, Uppsala, Sweden."
"I dated a Swedish girl once. Ingrid, Inga… Ingeberthe."
"Engelbert? You dated a girl named Engelbert?"
"Ingeberthe. A… Albany," Lennie finally managed.
"What is it with you and cities ending in Y? Youngstown."
"Didn't we just pass Youngstown?"
"No, we passed near Kingston. Where do you get Youngstown from Kingston? And anyway there's no rule says you can't use the name of a town you're going through."
Lennie looked out the window for a moment. So different from New York. So empty out here, little farms and small towns dotted along the I-87. Even the so-called 'cities' just looked like big towns to him. "You think they put this place far enough away from the rest of the world? Out of sight, out of mind," Lennie muttered disgustedly.
"What's wrong with that?"
"How are their families supposed to come see them? It's six, seven hours away from New York."
"So?"
"So what if you were in prison? Wouldn't you want your family to come visit you?"
"That's why I wouldn't be in prison, Lennie. If these guys gave a damn about their families, they wouldn't have committed a crime in the first place."
"Innocent people do go to jail, you know."
"Sure. Usually 'cause they're innocent of the crime they were convicted of, but guilty of about twenty others."
Lennie was silent for a moment. "Think Mickey Scott's family came to visit him?"
"Would you visit a piece of scum like that?"
"What, if your brother went to prison, you'd just forget him?" Lennie challenged.
"My brother wouldn't go to prison," Rey said definitively.
"Isn't he the black sheep of the family?"
"That's just 'cause he played around on his wife and then got divorced. He's not a criminal."
"Oh so in your family I'd be a black sheep too?" Lennie asked, amused. No surprise there.
"I didn't mean it like that. You know my family's different from yours."
"Yeah, you're all a buncha holy rollers," Lennie muttered to himself.
"Catholic isn't holy roller," Rey's sharp ears had picked up his comment.
"Right." Lennie was silent for a minute. "Think Scott's family's gonna be at the execution?" he suddenly wondered.
Rey frowned, a faintly disturbed look on his face. "I dunno."
"Ah, ten to one he never had a family anyway."
"Oh don't give me 'this poor guy never had love in his childhood, so it's OK for him to'-"
"I wasn't gonna say that!" Lennie protested. He decided to drop the subject. No point talking to Rey about any of this. Rey wore him out in the best of times when he went on a rant about the intrinsic worthlessness of the mooks they spent their life dealing with. And today wasn't the best of times. Just the drive to the execution was making Lennie feel uncomfortable. He wasn't looking forward to actually being there. The fact that it didn't seem to bother Rey one bit was just another thorn in Lennie's side today, and a political discussion about prisoner's rights most certainly wasn't going to make him feel any better.
Lennie had never really thought of himself as any real political persuasion, but months working with Rey made him feel like he was one step away from being a card-carrying Communist or at the very least a member of the ACLU. He remembered some comedian joking about a politician, calling him 'slightly to the right of the Sheriff of Nottingham'. Whoever that politician was, Lennie would give him five minutes with Rey before he'd start feeling pinko too.
Not for the first time, Lennie missed Mike Logan. Rey had grown on him in the last several months since they'd started working together, but it had been hard to develop a sense of camaraderie with a guy who hardly ever cracked a smile, let alone a joke. Who was so clean he squeaked when he walked. Who was so rigid it was amazing he could bend over far enough to put on his socks in the morning. Mike had been so easy to work with – occasional disagreements, but overall, just a couple of guys doing their job, having a pretty good time doing it. Mike knew how to have fun and be a cop at the same time. He also knew how to face human failings and weaknesses, his own and those of the people around him, with humour and tact, without radiating palpable disapproval. And since they had to deal mostly in human failings and weaknesses, Lennie considered that a pretty important skill in a detective. A skill that Rey was completely lacking.
Then again, Mike had quite a temper and that was why he was now walking a beat on Staten Island. Not that Rey was a poster boy for even-tempered self-restraint, but he'd never lose control enough to punch a politician in front of cameras.
And in some ways he wasn't that bad. Like this morning, he'd apologized for having made some smart-ass remark about Lennie being a failure at marriage the other day. To be honest, Lennie hadn't remembered the remark since he didn't register half the personal digs Rey threw his way, but it was still nice that the guy thought to say he was sorry.
"What city are we on?" Lennie remembered their game. Back to neutral territory.
"Just passed Ulster."
"No, the game."
"Youngstown."
"New Mexico."
"That's not a city, that's a state."
"N… Nebraska."
"That's a state, Lennie."
"N… New Hampshire," Lennie suppressed a smile, yanking Rey's chain. Not that hard to do, since Rey had almost no detectable sense of humour as far as Lennie could tell.
"Lemme save you some time. Don't say Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina or North Dakota. Those are all states."
"Thanks, Professor Curtis. What is that, a party trick, you just rattle off all the N states just like that? Here, gimme the A States."
"No problem. Alabama, Arizona, Alaska… Arkansas. And it's still your turn."
"You were president of the Geography club, weren't you? N… Newark."
"Finally. Killingworth."
"Halifax," Lennie grinned. He'd stumped Rey with this one the last time they played. Only time Rey had ever lost.
"Xunan," Rey shot back triumphantly.
"Shoo what?"
"Xunan, China."
"You looked that up!" Lennie was incredulous. Of all the-
"Nothing says you can't look up cities between games."
"N… Naples."
"Sussex," Rey gave him one of his rare grins.
"Son of a bitch," Lennie said, laughing. "You don't like to lose, do you?"
"You wanna go again?"
"Forget it. There's only so much losing my ego can take." He looked out the window for a while, then said, "Mind if I catch some shut-eye? You can wake me up when you're getting tired."
"Sure, no problem." Lennie leaned back and soon drifted off.
ooo000ooo
Hours later, just past Little Falls, he woke to the sound of some godawful music, something about Sunday Bloody Sunday, and Rey shaking his shoulder. "Hey. Lennie. I'm starting to faze out. You wanna take over?"
"Sure, sure," Lennie sat up, yawning, wincing at the music station Rey had picked. Kids these days. Headache Bloody Headache. At least Rey had the decency to not listen to this crap while he was awake. They switched places and Lennie automatically started searching for a radio station that played sixties tunes, about the only thing they could compromise on when it came to music. As he drove, he noticed a sign. "Oh look, a drive-through. You want a coffee or something?"
"Yeah, decaf though, I'm gonna try and grab some sleep too."
Once they pulled out onto the highway again, Rey leaned back the passenger seat. "You OK with the driving?"
"Sure. I'll wake you up if I get tired. It's only a couple more hours anyway."
Rey leaned his seat back and within minutes was fast asleep. Lennie drove on, listening to the music – country, which he couldn't listen to if Rey was awake – and pondering why he was doing this. Not reaching any conclusions. No closer to figuring out how he felt about it. But it kept his mind busy until they reached Attica.
Rey had said he was mostly going because he'd had some heavy discussions with his priest. Lennie didn't know what passed for a heavy discussion with Rey, since he and Rey had never had one. Rey didn't say much about personal issues, Lennie had found, and he hadn't said much about his reasons for going to the execution, but it didn't seem like he was avoiding anything. Just that he didn't think it was worth talking or thinking about. Mickey Scott deserved to die, period. End of discussion.
Well, not quite end of discussion. His priest felt nobody deserved to be put to death and he disagreed, but he agreed he should go to the execution and see it for himself. There. Period, end of discussion.
Lennie wondered if anything had ever been so black and white for him. He remembered telling Rey once that he wasn't anti-death penalty, he was just practical – if somebody was already facing the needle over one crime, then they had nothing to lose, and he didn't want to face a criminal who had nothing to lose.
That wasn't entirely it, though. Lennie was used to mulling over things. He knew he was unsure about the whole concept of taking a living human being and making them a dead human being. After all, he spent his entire working life tracking down and bringing to justice people who did just that. It didn't seem right, somehow, to be part of the mechanism for doing the exact same thing.
Not that he was necessarily anti-death penalty. He could see the sense in it – after all, if you kill somebody, you should probably expect some kind of punishment for it, and life in prison in many ways seemed much crueler than a quick, relatively painless death.
It even made sense from a practical standpoint; straight retribution. You kill, you get killed. Simple, easy.
But… he still wasn't sure how he felt about it. Not quite right, anyway. Well, maybe seeing it would help him make peace with it somehow, come down the fence on one side or the other.
He and Claire Kincaid had talked about it a bit, actually. One of their last cases, he had gone in to give her an update on a suspect, and she had mentioned that she was going to the execution, asked him if he was going too. He'd said yes, and they'd ended up talking.
He'd had to agree with her on many points. She was vehemently opposed. Found it barbaric, a miscarriage of justice, savage, appalling, and a dozen other extreme adjectives. He shared many of her sentiments, if not to the same degree. Claire was so passionate, so idealistic – a bit like a communicative and not so self-righteous version of Rey. Lennie often found himself wondering how she and McCoy could stand even working together, let alone sleeping together. Not that McCoy wasn't passionate, but he was totally lacking in the idealism and ethical conviction that so defined Claire Kincaid.
He wondered how McCoy and Claire were doing on their drive up to Attica. Part of him wishing he could be a fly on the wall, since he was intrinsically curious, part of him glad he wasn't with them. They'd probably bat about long words and eloquent arguments and bore him to tears pretty fast. Or disturb the hell out of him, since Lennie had had quite enough experience with emotionally volatile romantic relationships in his marriages, and had sworn them off. Even being near a fighting couple made him uncomfortable. His relationships now were low-key, low-stress, low-commitment. He couldn't imagine that was what McCoy and Claire had, especially right now, since he was well aware that McCoy had no problem whatsoever with the death penalty or his own role in securing it for people like Mickey Scott.
ooo000ooo
Finally. Here they were. Attica.
"Hey. Rey," Lennie shook Rey's shoulder, thinking that like most people his partner looked younger when he was asleep. Unfortunately, in Rey's case, this made him look about sixteen to Lennie. Days like this Lennie felt way too old to be doing this crap any more. Way too old to be dealing with criminals or working with a kid so young he made Lennie feel about a thousand years old and used up. He wondered if he'd ever been like Rey – young, in love with his wife, devoted to his children, happy with his life and perfectly sure that what he was doing was right. All the time.
No, not really. He'd been a heavy drinker from way back. There hadn't been a lot of youthful idealism in him, even at Rey's age. By Rey's age he'd already burned through a first marriage and was diligently working on destroying a second, though he didn't know it at the time.
And as for always knowing that what he was doing was right… that was a laugh. Not since he was about five, if ever. Lennie didn't often concern himself with making sure everything was ethically just so – he just wasn't that anal about stuff like that. Most of the time he just put one foot in front of the other and got through each day as painlessly as possible. And if he did more good than bad on any given day, then he figured he was doing all right and he could sleep at night. Mostly. Always being sure you're right… whatever.
Besides, you don't get to be a fall-down drunk, leave behind two wives and two kids and almost destroy a career, because you're the kind of guy who always thinks he's right. Not unless you're also seriously deluded.
Any more than you go to see some piece of garbage get poisoned and die if you're sure that you did the right thing by getting him there. Van Buren hadn't come. Hadn't seen the sense in it. She was comfortable with her role in Scott's death and didn't see a need to spend twelve, fourteen hours in a car to validate her actions.
Then again, Rey and McCoy were also OK with it, and they were both making the trip, for reasons of their own. Oh well, whatever lights your candle, Lennie thought.
They were ushered in. Claire and Jack McCoy were already there, McCoy looking impassive and Claire looking like she just might be sick. The Warden said a few words to introduce himself, welcomed them to the institution, and excused himself.
He could hear the people in the other room, the room where Scott was going to die. They were talking about Scott's last meal. Lennie shuddered inwardly. Last meal. What would he have if it was his last meal?
"You're sure about the priest?" the Warden asked.
"I'm sure," Scott answered. No surprise. It would have surprised Lennie if he'd asked for one.
"How about the curtain?"
"What about it?"
"It's your choice, Mr. Scott. Open or closed?"
"What would you like?"
"Closed."
"Then open the sucker up," Scott said, and Lennie sighed. No surprise there either, Scott was bound to do the opposite of whatever any authority figure said. Part of what made him such a fine upstanding citizen. Lennie wouldn't have minded having the curtain closed, himself, although he had to admit to a certain morbid curiosity and a certain satisfaction in knowing that he hadn't driven all this way just to sit behind a curtain.
"Fine." The curtain opened, and Lennie looked at Scott, strapped down, barefoot, arms out.
"Like damned fish in a barrel," Scott sneered, and Lennie felt a pang of sympathy for him. As much of an asshole as Scott was, it was obvious that he was scared, trying to show as much bravado as possible in his last moments. You kinda had to admire that level of brutish dignity.
"Want to say anything?" the Warden asked.
"Do it," Scott said tightly.
Two men opened a panel, turned the dials, then closed the panel, leaving the room. Here we go, thought Lennie. They just killed this guy. Sure as anybody I've ever arrested, these two just killed a guy, in front of a roomful of witnesses, and nobody is ever going to punish them. What makes this murder OK and the others I've worked on not OK?
Don't be a shmoe, Lennie, he gave himself a mental shake. The law says this one's OK, because they're just doing their job. Just like if you ever shot a perp, God forbid, that would be OK too. Just doing your job. And it's really not like Scott doesn't deserve it.
He glanced around the room, pressing his lips together, reminding himself of what Mickey Scott had done to deserve being in this room now, looking tense, staring up at the lights. Reminded himself of the crime scene, the autopsy of Adele Saunders' battered, tortured body. Scott was getting off easy. His death wouldn't be the horror hers had been.
Didn't look like he appreciated that right now, though.
A green light went on, then a yellow light. The heart monitor beeped steadily. Lennie cleared his throat, once more realizing that he was about to watch a person go from living to dead. And that he felt too much, too many conflicting emotions, to really be able to take his accustomed cynical step back from the situation.
He suddenly noticed that Scott's hand had relaxed. The beeping from the monitor got more erratic, faster… then turned into a long continuous sound. The monitor flat-lined.
Mickey Scott was dead.
The curtain closed.
That was it.
And what had he expected? Some kind of revelation?
ooo000ooo
OK. That's that, time to go home. Ugh, six, seven more hours in the car. He and Rey checked out of the prison, stopping to talk to McCoy about a case. McCoy looked fine, no surprise. A little quieter than normal, but that could just be due to the lateness of the hour. Claire Kincaid… poor kid. She looked like she was about to cry. Probably the only person in this world who would cry for Mickey Scott.
He got into the car, passenger side. Rey got in too and just sort of sat there for a while, until Lennie started to wonder. Maybe his unflappable partner wasn't so sure about this after all. Or maybe he was just tired. God knew he himself was tired. May as well grab another nap if he could.
Rey started the car and pulled out onto the highway again, driving in silence for about half an hour. Not even the radio on. Fine by Lennie. Lennie leaned his head back on the seat, not bothering to close his eyes until he started to actually feel sleepy, not just tired.
"You OK?" Rey suddenly asked him.
"Yeah," Lennie answered automatically. Why, didn't he look OK? He felt OK. About as OK as he ever felt. No different than when they were driving towards Attica instead of away from it. Maybe it was Rey who wasn't feeling OK. Maybe he should ask.
"So…what did you think?" asked Lennie curiously. Rey shrugged.
"He's dead."
"Justice is served?" Lennie asked, knowing Rey's answer. Trust Rey to not change his mind. In a way it was nice being around a person so predictable you could tell exactly how they were gonna react to just about anything.
"Guess so," Rey replied. "One less repeat offender, anyway."
"Guess so," Lennie repeated quietly.
ooo000ooo
"Aah, hell of a way to spend your day off," Lennie sighed as he sat down in Van Buren's office in the morning. They'd finally pulled into New York, both having taken turns driving and sleeping, doing pretty well despite the long trip.
"He just twitched, closed his eyes… case closed," Rey said.
"What did you expect, a dozen archangels strumming their harps?" Van Buren's no-nonsense question made Lennie shake his head at himself ruefully. What the hell had he expected?
"Well Mickey Scott's got nothing to do with angels," Rey said. Trust Rey to remind them that Scott deserved what he got.
"Who knows, maybe somebody, somewhere will learn something from this," Van Buren said skeptically. Right. Lennie knew better – Van Buren knew better too. Lennie wasn't much into sociological studies but even he knew that the death penalty had never been proven to be any kind of deterrent for any kind of criminal behaviour. Whether it was used to punish murder, abortion, adultery or marijuana use, the adoption of a death penalty in any country, any state, any society never made one single iota of difference in the frequency of the crime it was supposed to deter.
"Yeah, the thirty friends and neighbours who cheered when he ripped off Adele Saunders' skirt," Rey replied. Like anybody could learn anything from Scott's death… especially the people who'd watched Adele Saunders' death happen and done nothing to prevent it. As Lennie had watched Scott's death happen and done nothing to prevent it. Lennie grimaced and stood up.
"Wanna go get some Chinese, Rey? I guess executions make me hungry," he turned to leave Van Buren's office.
"Nah, actually I got some files I gotta finish up," Rey replied. Of course. Right back in the saddle. Lennie should've known that nothing so minor as watching Scott die would make Rey miss a beat. Although he'd looked a bit off in the car for the first little while.
"Watch out Lieutenant, this kid's gunning for your job," Lennie joked.
"Yeah, well, it doesn't get him any overtime," she smiled back. They walked into the squad room to a round of applause led by Profaci.
"So where you guys going to, Disneyland?" Profaci asked, jovial as always.
"Knock it off, Profaci," Lennie muttered, leaving. Profaci was probably going to act all hurt, but who gave a damn. Right now Lennie felt old, out of sorts, and tired. A bad combination when trying to be civil around Profaci when Profaci was in high good humour.
ooo000ooo
OK, where to now? Lennie suddenly remembered that it was close to Thursday morning break time for his buddies from the 116. A group of about eight of them usually got together at O'Haran's, a diner around the corner from the 116, even though many of them had moved on to other precincts. It was a comforting ritual and you could usually count on at least four or five of them to be there. O'Haran's it was.
ooo000ooo
"So me and Lennie're still in uniform-" said Reds.
"When was this, about the turn of the century?" asked Daugherty.
"Yeah, give or take," answered Lennie. Nice to be around other old guys. Shooting the breeze, comparing war stories, the dumbest, the weirdest, the spookiest, the funniest cases.
"We see this skel, got hair down to here, he hasn't showered in about two months-" said Reds.
"Sounds like my son-in-law," commented Jensen.
Reds continued without missing a beat. "There was this string of vending machine robberies in the neighbourhood, and we knew this guy was hanging around but he wasn't there to do laps."
Lennie took over, "So anyway, we cuff him, we take him down to night court. Now, he pleads not guilty on the vending machine thing and we don't really have anything on him except loitering-"
"-until the banana's wife shows up to post his 600 bail-" put in Reds.
"-in quarters!" the guys burst out laughing, "Thousands of quarters!" Lennie finished with a flourish, smiling at his friend's laughter, feeling a glow of nostalgia. That's what police work was supposed to be. Find some idiot who's doing something wrong, put him away, have a little fun in the process. Lennie remembered Reds' face that day, turning purple with mirth, almost losing it laughing at this poor stupid guy and his poor stupid wife and their shiny mountain of damning evidence. Remembered how his own sides hurt from laughing at the dumb schmuck, how the shy little bail clerk nearly wet herself giggling, how the halls at the precinct rang with hilarity as the story was passed around the next day.
"OK, gentlemen, time to see a little green here," Linda, the waitress, showed up.
"All right, I pledge ten dollars," Lennie put in.
"Ah, Ricky says yours is on the house, Lennie," she dismissed him, "Eh, after this morning the world's a better place, huh?" she smiled at him.
"A club soda on the house? Your boss is a real philanthropist. Another two cents plain for me, and the rest is for you, sweetheart," he smiled back at her.
"By the way, um, I get off at 5," she said to him softly, and left. Oh really. Lennie raised an eyebrow. That was interesting…
"Six months I've been asking her out: Bupkus," Reds said in disgust.
"You didn't kill a rapist-murderer," Jensen pointed out.
"To Detective Briscoe," said Daugherty, raising a glass to him.
"Briscoe," Jensen toasted.
"Detective Briscoe," Reds added.
"Eh, eh, eh, cut it out," Lennie said, a little disturbed.
"Aw, Lennie's just pissed off cause he didn't get to shoot the SOB himself," Jensen teased.
"Yeah, right," Lennie responded, the glow of being with his old buddies suddenly fading quickly. He looked down at his soda water and abruptly decided he didn't really want to have much to do with other cops today after all. This was nice, being with the guys was OK, but not today.
OTB. OTB would probably be better. OTB could generally be counted on to provide a nice way to spend a few hours… not to mention a few dollars. And who knew, today just might be his lucky day, he might make a little something.
ooo000ooo
"You're nuts, Lennie, Loch Ness is up for the race of its life," Joe told him.
"That's not what I'm reading here," Lennie looked at the sheet.
"He ran second last week in Florida."
"Yeah, on three weeks rest."
"I'm telling you, I got inside info on this one," Joe confided. Agh. Stupid Joe, always forgetting Lennie was a cop.
"Do I arrest you now or after you lose?"
"Listen to him, Fat Frankie over in Chelsea says if he gets five to one or better, he's a lock," urged Sam.
"The board says three to one," said Joe.
"Loch Ness, huh? Sneaky Pete at fourth at Aqueduct," he told the cashier behind the window, feeling a little contrary.
"What are you, a masochist? The horse is twenty-to-one," Sam protested.
"Story of my life," shrugged Lennie. Not that big a deal. He'd long ago learned the secret of enjoying OTB: consider every dime you bet to be lost. Then, if you ever got any back, it was like a present. Besides, Sneaky Pete had been doing pretty good lately. No law said he couldn't win today, right? What did Fat Frankie know anyway.
ooo000ooo
"Yeah, heh heh heh," Sam chuckled as the race ended. Loch Ness. Damn. Sneaky Pete didn't even show.
"See what I mean? Never mess with Fat Frankie," said Joe.
"What's he got on the sixth?" Lennie asked. His you've-already-lost philosophy didn't do so well on days when he lost as much as he had just lost. Especially when he suddenly remembered his microwave had just finally given up the ghost and he had to get a new one. Damn, why didn't he remember that before he bet?
"So we could share a cell, the three of us together?" Sam asked.
"Hey, guy's gotta pay the rent, no?" Lennie said, irate.
Joe started to ramble about a horse named Tippy-Top as Lennie spotted a vaguely familiar form approaching. For a second he literally couldn't place her. Then he did.
"Take Tippy-Top, for a C-note," he told Joe, facing his daughter. Cathy. What the hell? Why would Cathy be here at OTB?
"Hey," she said casually.
"Hi," he replied, just as casually.
"Figured, you know, what the hell," she said, a little awkward. What, she wanted to… what? Say hello? Talk to him?
"She wants you, Lennie," Sam remarked from behind him, in Sam's pathetic imitation of a bedroom voice.
"She's my kid, dipstick," Lennie informed him brusquely, and turned to lead Cathy out of OTB.
ooo000ooo
Author's Notes: By the way, if anybody out there watches 'Star Trek: Enterprise', you may have seen an episode where Captain Archer and Tripp played a game similar to Cities, called Geography, to pass the time and keep Tripp awake. I swear I didn't get the idea from the show, though my partner and I did get a chuckle out of it because as we were watching 'Enterprise' I happened to be doing a final edit for this story on my laptop. My parents and I used to play Cities to pass the time during long car rides through Southern Ontario.
And if anybody wants the actual script for Aftershock, e-mail me at
ciroccoj2002 at yahoo dot com
