CHAPTER 7: CLOSURE

Friday, April 9
4:02pm

Rey puzzled over an internal memo on triplicate forms as he picked up the phone on the second ring.  "Curtis," he absently spoke into the receiver.

"Rey, it's Jack."  Rey sat up, the memo forgotten.  "The jury just came back.  Guilty for Gonzalez and Johnson, not guilty for Gether."  Rey let out his breath.

"Guilty?" he repeated numbly.  "Johnson too?"

"Criminal Facilitation."

"Not just Criminal Negligence?" Rey asked, astonished.

"No.  Jamie's disappointed that the Warden didn't-"

"Oh, hell, the Warden was a long shot, Jack, we all knew that," Rey said.  "I was surprised the Grand Jury indicted him in the first place.  But Johnson..." he shook his head in disbelief.  "I really expected him to take a walk."

"Well, he may not be walking anywhere but a prison yard for a while.  Sentencing starts next week.  We'll see."

"He could be facing jail time?"

"It's possible," Jack said.  "I'm sure if he does his lawyer will ask for protective custody for him."

"Let's hope he has better luck with that than I did," Rey said, part of him a little surprised at himself.  He'd never thought of himself as a forgiving person, but... he realized he really didn't wish what happened to him on anybody.  Even Johnson.

There was a brief pause, neither one of them sure what else to say.  Into the silence, Rey heard Jamie's voice in the background, and Jack saying, "Not now, Jamie."

"That Jamie?"

"Yes."

"She wants you to ask me about the civil suit?" Rey guessed.  The silence on the other end was all the answer he needed.  He sighed in half-amused exasperation.  "She just doesn't let up, does she?"  He hesitated for a moment, then said, "I'm not making any promises, but tell her to call me in a week."

"OK."

"Uh - I have to get back to-", "I better let you get back to work-" they both spoke simultaneously, and laughed.

"OK.  Thanks for calling, Jack."  Rey put down the phone, chewing on his lip pensively.

"Good news?" Brackin stood next to his desk.

"Uh - yeah," Rey answered, somewhat startled as always on those rare occasions when a colleague interacted with him socially.  He usually avoided the people at his office, and didn't have a job where there was much need for interaction, so he often went for days without talking to anybody.

"What was it?"

Rey shook his head.  "It would take too long to explain.  What's up?"

"Oh, I just wanted to thank you for catching my fuck-up with the quarterly report before it went to Bensen."  Rey looked at him blankly.  "The allocation for bulletproof vests?  I missed a zero?"

"Oh, yeah," Rey smiled.  "No problem."

"Well, thanks.  And thanks for not telling Bensen about it.  I hate looking like an idiot."  Rey waved off his thanks.  "Hey, uh, how's the trial going?" Brackin asked quickly.

"What?"

"I heard you pressed charges against some of the people that... that hurt you in prison."  Rey looked at him curiously.  "I just uh, I just wanted to say, good for you, man.  That takes guts."

"Uh - thanks."

"Yeah, and uh, good luck with it."  Rey nodded and started to turn back to his work, then cleared his throat.

"Actually... um, that's what the call was about."  Brackin looked at him questioningly.  "Yeah.  Guilty."

"Yeah?  Hey, congratulations!" Brackin grinned, and Rey smiled back at him and turned back to his work

He stared at the memo for a minute, his mind elsewhere.  He hadn't been at court today, the last day of the trial.  He'd thought he would be - he'd attended the last day of many trials he'd been involved in as a cop, and knew that many victims attended to the very end.  But at one point he'd been talking to his brother on the phone, telling him about the trial, and had realized that he'd done all he needed to do for his own peace of mind.  He'd done what he could to make sure justice was served, and there was no point in missing yet another day of work just to be there for the outcome.

Besides, he didn't particularly want to be near anybody if the trial ended in acquittals despite everything.  He'd told himself it didn't really matter to him, but hadn't wanted to find out if he was right.

It had been the right decision, not attending today.  One more way to take back control of his life.  But suddenly he needed to share the outcome of the trial with somebody.  He picked up the phone and dialed, smiling as it was picked up.

"Deborah?  The jury came back."

===

"What do you think?" Jamie asked as Jack put down the phone.

"I think he'll help out."

"It would have been better if the Warden had been convicted as well."

"I know.  But we all knew that probably wasn't going to fly.  This still looks good for your civil case."

Jamie checked her watch.  "I better go, I've got to get Katie's things ready for tonight.  Neil's in New York and he's taking her for the weekend."

"How's that going?"

"We've worked out an armed truce," Jamie smiled.  "I'll talk to you later."

"Goodbye, Jamie." Jack watched the courtroom empty, then approached Southerlyn to congratulate her on a job well done.

===

Eight Weeks Later
Saturday, June 5
9:03pm

"So then Serena apparently backed away and tried to just let it go, but the other kid grabbed her and she, uh, she hauled off and hit him."  Rey glanced at his watch and opened up the top cupboard where the pills were kept, taking out six bottles and a glass. "Another week's suspension.  I thought maybe she'd get expelled, but the teacher who saw the whole thing said they should give her some credit for the fact that she really tried to back off."

"She's a challenge," Lennie said.

Rey filled the glass and counted out pills from each of the bottles.  "Yeah, she is.  She's doing a lot better though.  Never thought I'd be saying that about a kid of mine who's been suspended five times," he chuckled.  Lennie smiled.  He'd noticed that Rey didn't get all that upset about Serena's behaviour any more, even though sometimes it really was pretty bad.  The fact that she was doing her best and was improving seemed to go a long way.

Rey put the pills on a small dish and set it aside for Deborah, palmed one of the pills and downed it, grimacing at the taste and washing it down.  "That kid's an idiot, too," he remarked.  "Serena's had problems with him before." He took the pills into Deborah's room, returning in a few minutes.

"You still on the meds?" Lennie asked.  Rey nodded.

"Yeah, the shrink says I'll probably be on it for a long time."  He put the pill bottles back in the cupboard and shrugged.  "That's OK though.  I'm used to it now, I can accept it.  I mean, I still hate it, but I hate depression more, so... oh, you know what was funny?  There was this Mainstay meeting, Caregivers and Depression, and it just sorta degenerated into this debate over the pros and cons of different anti-depressants.  Turned out like half of us were on something," he chuckled.

"Yeah, I can imagine that," Lennie said, reflecting that taking care of an invalid would certainly depress the hell out of him.  Gloria's 'womanly trouble' days used to be enough to drive him around the bend.

"Yeah.  Hey, you accept going to AA meetings, right?  What the hell, you do what you have to and get on with your life.  Oh, speaking of meetings... you're never gonna believe this one, they were really desperate for presenters at Mainstay last week, so," he paused for a moment, slightly embarrassed but mostly highly amused, "I'm doing one next month for, get this, MS and Intimacy, I cannot believe I let myself get talked into that one."  They shared a laugh as Lennie tried to imagine the normally very private Rey voluntarily talking about intimacy in public.  Looked like he was OK with it, though.

"Things going good with Deborah?"

"Yeah," Rey smiled inwardly.  "Yeah.  Really good," he said softly.  He cleared his throat and changed the subject.  "So what time are we meeting Jack?"

"He said he'll be there in about an hour."

===

"Jamie said the suit's looking good so far," Jack told Lennie as Lennie set up a shot.  "It's still in the early stages and it'll probably take years, but the fact that Johnson's appeal got turned down is very promising."

"I'm sure having Mr. NYPD before the 'et. Al.' is very promising too," Lennie teased Rey as he took aim.  Rey rolled his eyes in mock annoyance - he'd received some ribbing from Lennie after Lennie had heard Lisa call him the 'poster boy for inmate's rights', but he took it good-naturedly.  Lennie sank a ball.  "Somehow I never pictured the guy I partnered with taking a civil suit against the New York Correctional Service.  That guy woulda thought anything up to and including burning at the stake was too good for cons."

"That guy woulda run screaming from this lawsuit," Rey agreed.  "Hell, that guy woulda run screaming from just about everything about my life right now.  And I gotta say, I'm not real thrilled about the lawsuit either, but... Jamie's right.  There's gotta be a limit to what happens in there."  He thought for a moment of the 'et. Al.' - Tim Bayliss, Snapple Jorgenson, Dawn Chang, Neil Jasinski, and almost a dozen other inmates that Jamie's group had persuaded to join the class action suit.  Deliberately turned his thoughts away, because that led down a rather morbid path.  He could too easily have been one of them.

"You know, I never asked, but how did you and Jamie know who to ask about what happened?" Rey asked Jack as Lennie set up his next shot.  "In the prison, I mean?  I woulda thought you'd run up against the inmate code of silence.  How'd you end up talking to Bayliss and Jorgenson and Chang?"

"You told me about Bayliss in the infirmary.  You told me he'd given you the shiv to cut yourself."

"Did I tell you it was him?" Rey was a little surprised.  Jack had known Tim Bayliss - not well, but he had known him - and he didn't think he would have betrayed the fact that Tim was incarcerated, even in the heavily drugged state he'd been in.  Let alone the fact that Tim had broken a number of prison rules by providing him with a shiv.

"No, but you told me an ex-cop from Baltimore gave you the idea to cut, and the blade.  I knew Bayliss was in."

"So did I," Lennie said.  "John Munch got very drunk one night and told me about it."

"Do you know anything about his case?"

"Some," said Jack.  "I ran into a couple of Baltimore attorneys shortly after it happened.  They told me a bit about it."

"What's he in for?"

"Murder."

"I know that, but murdering who?"

"Didn't he tell you?  I was under the impression that the two of you had spent a lot of time together."

"We didn't talk much about the outside world," Rey said shortly.

"He murdered a serial killer who got off on a technicality.  He did it in cold blood.  Then he took off for several months, came back, confessed to Frank Pembleton, and was tried and convicted."

"Pembleton turned him in?" Rey asked.  That would be awful - turning in your former partner.  Lennie looked sombre as he sank the eight ball.

"He had to.  Bayliss confessed."  Lennie shook his head, setting up the table again.  "What?  Wouldn't you?" Jack asked Lennie.  Lennie looked at him, not knowing what to say.  He'd gotten too close to that situation when Rey was staying at his place.

"Wouldn't you?" Rey asked.

"What?"

"Wouldn't you have turned me in?"  Silence.  "You doubted me.  I know you did.  What if you'd found evidence that convinced you I did it?  Wouldn't you have turned me in?"  Lennie spread his hands.  He really didn't know.

"Would you?" he asked Rey back.  Rey thought for a moment.

"I don't know.  A few years ago I would have said definitely, but... I don't know any more.  I didn't want to turn Serena in even when I thought she might be guilty."  He shrugged and changed the subject.  "Anyway, what was Tim doing in a New York prison?  Didn't his crime take place in Baltimore?"

"His lawyer got him transferred out of Maryland because he didn't want him to run into anybody he'd arrested," Jack said as he made the break.  Two striped balls in.

Rey nodded thoughtfully.  "Yeah, that was probably a good idea."

"I'm sorry, Rey, I should have done that for you," Jack said, his voice low.

"I think you were a little busy convincing my priest to break the seal of confession and trying to get me into Seg," Rey pointed out, as Jack missed his next shot and stepped back from the table.  "I didn't give you much time to transfer me out of state.  Besides, the transfer didn't do much to help Tim either."

"I'm sorry I couldn't get you put into Seg, then."

"There wasn't anything you could have done.  The Warden didn't want it to happen.  Nothing you did, nothing Gonzalez did to me, would have changed his mind."

"I just wish..."

"You saved my life, Jack," Rey said dismissively, sinking a ball.  "Don't apologize just because I got a few bumps and scratches along the way."

It wasn't just a few bumps and scratches, Jack wanted to point out, but didn't.  Although Rey was doing a lot better now, the last several months had been hellish.  Rey caught his look and dropped his eyes.

"I'm fine," he said.  Jack looked down at the table, and Rey cleared his throat.  "I'm fine," he repeated more firmly.  "If it wasn't for you, I woulda gone down for Murder Two and been sent to Sing Sing for fifteen at least.  I woulda died in there, and it wouldn't have been an easy death. "  Jack shuddered inwardly.  No, it wouldn't have been.  "I might even have gone down for Murder One, if some eager prosecutor convinced a jury I did it for the insurance money, committed Felony Murder.  Or what's more likely is I woulda killed myself before the trial even started.  Instead I'm alive and I'm back with my family.  So I have a few nightmares, it's a small price to pay.  At least I'm not living a nightmare all the time."  He took another shot, missed.

"So you don't remember telling me about Bayliss?" Jack asked.

"I don't really remember much about anything that happened between cutting and getting out.  It's all confused.  I have no idea how much was real and how much was hallucination."

"You said I looked like a leprechaun."  Rey snickered.  "I'm assuming that was an hallucination," Jack said dryly.

"No, you really do look like a leprechaun, Jack.  I'm surprised nobody ever told you that before," Rey said seriously.  Jack chuckled, sinking a ball.  "What else happened?  When you came to visit?"

"You told us about cutting yourself, then you told us what happened the day before."

"How much did I tell you?"

"Not much - just that Gonzalez tried again and a guard saved you.  You asked me to get you into Seg.  You said you tried to cooperate with Gonzalez but you couldn't make yourself do it.  Just talking about it made you sick."

Rey's eyes were grim as he nodded.  "Yeah, I imagine it would have.  I felt like puking most of the time I was inside."

"You were pretty out of it.  Then Deborah spoke to you for a long time."

"I remember that.  That's the one memory that stands out clearly, but it's so clear I thought maybe I just dreamed it.  I was so confused, I hardly even knew my own name.  But I remember her talking to me.  In Spanish?"

Jack nodded, and Rey indicated he should finish his turn.  Jack looked back at the table, not seeing many possibilities there.

"I think she was talking to me about the kids, and a movie they saw, and a story that Olivia was reading to her.  Funny, I don't remember much of anything else, but I remember that.  I was cuffed to the side of the bed, wasn't I?"

"Yes."  Jack finally settled on a shot.

"I couldn't even touch her face.  I wanted her to hold me, make me feel safe... all I had was her voice," he said softly, almost as if he was speaking to himself.  "I thought about her voice a lot for the next day or so.  God, I was so out of it.  Everything was so mixed up."  He brooded for a moment.  "I remember her leaving too, thought I was gonna die.  It felt like the sun was going out or something."

"You were pretty doped up.  You said they had you on painkillers and sedatives and 'all kindsa shit'," Jack took aim, surprising himself as two balls went in.

"You may learn to play this game yet, Jack," Lennie put in from the sideline.

"It's funny, my brother said that me still being with Deborah was pathetic, 'cause she's sick.  I wonder if he's ever felt about anybody the way I feel about her.  Like as long as she's there I can pretty much deal with anything."

"I don't think most people have ever felt like that about anybody.  You're lucky," Jack missed his next shot, and Lennie shook his head in mock dismay.

"Lucky," Rey repeated, and met Jack's eyes humorously.  "Not what most people would say to a guy who's been to prison, been assaulted, still clinically depressed, with a crippled wife, brain damaged daughter and no money in the bank, huh?"

"Maybe not."

"The funny thing is I kind of agree with you."  He set up a shot.  "You know... I never really said... um, I don't really know how to..." he took a deep breath, sank the ball and straightened up.  "I wish there was some way I could pay you guys back."

Lennie shrugged dismissively.

"You guys did a hell of a lot for me, and all I did for you was... well, I slammed both of you against a wall at one point or another.  Not very gracious."

"Don't worry about it."

"Hard not to.  I mean... you both saved my life.  And my family, and my sanity.  It's... I don't even know what to say.  'Thank you' sorta doesn't seem to cut it."

"Thanks is good enough for me.  You're welcome," said Jack.

"I'll never be able to repay you."

"So pay it forward some day," said Lennie.  Rey regarded him seriously for a long moment.

"Thanks, partner."

"No problem," Lennie smiled and indicated the table.  "Finish your turn, Rey."