Wednesday, December 16, 2003
She had nothing to lose with Jack, aside from her job. She wasn't attached by flimsy legalities to a marriage that had stopped being a marriage and become simply a conversation filler at boring parties. She wasn't attached with children or tied to an exceptionally posh social circle that would shun her sin. She had never allowed herself to be more than her name until she'd come here and met him.
When they started, it was a purely physical intimacy, supported solely by the passions they ignited in each other, to each other. When they started, they promised not to say each other's names, to call out the other in a moment that would pass and they would shrug off like dirty laundry, fix their clothes, and pretend nothing had happened.
But he said her name once, said it in a way she thought she could get used to hearing all her life. He said it in a way that made her believe this could mean something and she was lost to him.
When they started, she had nothing to lose.
When they ended, she had a face and a name that could never be hers.
*
There were a thousand different ways to hate what had been done to you. You could point your finger at little inconsistencies in your third year of life, your eighth, fifteenth, and so on. You could blame your parents and the arsenic that consumed them, that moved onto you; blame your mother for leaving and promising things she knew she couldn't keep. You could blame your second grade teacher for telling you you were too slow for this, too dumb for that.
You could blame your first enemies and your first loves and the way they both, in the end, left you feeling inadequate and incomplete. You could blame all these things for your life so far, but the truth was, they were going to happen, they had to happen.
Jack shut his eyes, tapped his pencil against his keyboard.
There were a thousand different ways to hate these things, and maybe, he thought, he'd gotten through a hundred so far.
A thousand different ways to hate and one way, just one way to love.
And that was plainly, very simply, forgetting everything else. Forgetting mortgage payments, car insurance, work and religion and politics and all the bureaucratic bullshit that defined most people's barest functions. You had to forget all these things and fall completely into the one thing, the only thing that meant something.
You had to fall fast and hard and not look back; be free of earthly burdens, and find your spark, your hope, your faith.
A thousand ways to hate.
A thousand places of darkness.
You had to love.
A thousand points of light and maybe you could make it.
"Jack?"
Samantha poked her head in, halfway into his office. Samantha -- his thousand points of light. There she was. So close, but too far away now to ever be reached.
"We got a new case."
*
You learned to detach yourself from this, you had to. If you didn't, it would consume you, case by case. He'd seen what it had done to the old war horses. The ones like Miller and Feldmen; the ones who had written papers on profiling techniques, on the psychology and motives of some of the worst serial killers they had experienced; on the sociology of ones who had become so numb to human suffering they killed because they were bored.
These were the detectives he had idolized when he'd started. When he'd met Miller once a year ago for advice on a case, he was this foreign entity, remiscent of a person you might see working a grunt security job at posh penthouses for rich snobs who made more in one day than he did in five years.
He had the eyes of someone who had seen too much and been too much, and held a knowledge of the world most educated people spent years in classrooms and books trying to figure out. He had spent 20 years on the streets of New York and become the last bit of empty you really could be before dying.
Matt wondered how it happened, how a man like Miller had been taken over completely by his work and realized maybe it didn't happen on a conscious level, maybe one day he just woke up and saw all the things he had pushed back after each case. Push it back, push it back.
It doesn't hurt if you push it back.
It doesn't hurt. Until, that is, it finally does. Until you can't keep the vault locked and there you are, a bruised Saint who once might have been a cocky detective out to change the world. There you were, Pope of the lost. Looking around for where you used to be, hoping someone might remember who you could've been.
So here he was, staring down the fourth victim in the cold, clinical back room of the city morgue, wondering for the hundreth time how you got the smell out of your mind; the smell of fresh death and imminent dirt piled on coffins that smelled of wood smoke and tarnished dreams. The last real place you could be who you were.
He heard her before she spoke, had memorized the click of her heels and swish of her clothing. She raised the flaps of her coat, brushed off the rain, shook her wet hair, and stood beside him as she sighed.
"You've got your bodies, partner."
"Yeah, " he sighed back.
"Forensics came back, still no trace of semen, no sexual assault, no fingerprints. Gloved when he beat her."
He turned away from the body, settled on the safe face of Alex, her soft features muted in the half-light, but calming, nonetheless. She felt good to look at. She felt right.
"He's got to mess up soon. It always happens. They make one little mistake, and that's when we get them."
She nodded, folding the lab results underneath her arm.
"Lt. Marro is pulling some more cops in on this, people are getting crazy, you know, serial killer on the loose. People want this guy caught just as much as we do. He wants us at his office in ten minutes."
"Bad or good?"
She shrugged.
"I'll take him over this any day. God. We need to get this guy, Matt."
"We will."
She rubbed her brow absently.
"What's he telling us? We've got 'You' from the three previous victims and we've got an 'all' from Stephanie Meslin. Why carve three letters in one girl?"
"Getting restless."
"And what's he saying? 'You all'...You all what?"
"Lex, " he spoke, laying a hand on her shoulder, "let's go see Lieu and we can dissect this later."
*
She thought it ironic she had been the one placing his photograph on the white board. No one else would know why because it was a blemish on her past she kept with the other things she wanted to hide. A secret marker, but ironic nonetheless. This man, the man they were now assigned to find, had once been the cause of many sleepless nights, lying awake waiting for him to do something, to hurt her in some way.
And now, she had to find him.
She didn't want anyone knowing, but sooner or later, she knew, someone would find out. Taking a seat close to where Jack stood, she leaned against her chair for invisible support and waited to hear a name she already knew. A name she sometimes still heard like a monster in her dreams.
"Vincent Marro, missing since last night. He was supposed to meet his brother for dinner, never showed up, brother called it in. Now, uh, his brother, Joseph, is Lieutenant over at the 52nd Precinct, and, I used to work with the guy, so we need to do this right, I don't want him stepping on our toes about improper procedures and other BS."
"You guys rivals, Jack?" Danny smirked.
"You could say that, " Jack replied, half-smile on his face.
"Also, Vincent's a detective himself with the 60th, so Danny, I want you over there, talk to his coworkers, get some background on him and the cases he worked, see if there's anyone who could be holding a grudge. Martin, I want you and Viv at the guy's apartment, get a feel for the guy at home. Samantha, you and I are heading over to talk to the brother."
Certain that he'd made a good decision in keeping her from Martin, if only to forestall what could be an imminent conflict of interest (God, did he feel like a hypocrite), but wavering on whether she would've been better off with himself, he decided to screw his indecision and get to work.
*
He couldn't put his finger on what grated him about this guy, but he knew only that the man rubbed him wrong, plain and simple. Joseph Marro had moved up from the man he'd known five years ago, but he hadn't humbled or gained any sort of wisdom you might imagine a person of power to have. Oppositely, he became the truest definition of a person in power and that was, absolute power corrupted absolutely.
Maybe he was exaggerating that, but there was a barren type of emotion in the man's eyes, a loss of something human that he'd seen in the picture of his brother as well and he wondered, not for the first time, how a guy like this was on the side of the law.
In fact, Joseph never liked Jack much either, so they both maintained a nice, simmering rivalry, though Joseph's dislike bordered on hatred. That little tidbit, however, remained unknown to Jack.
So here they were, both putting on their amicable facades for the other, so perfectly executed they perhaps should've been auditioning for bit parts in Hollywood. Jack extended his hand first, caught the look Joseph shot Samantha, and dropped his hand, masking his slight confusion.
"Nice to see you again, Jack."
"You too, Joe."
Oh, the lies we could tell.
"Too bad it couldn't have been under better circumstances."
He played the part of a grieving brother very well. Step up from a bit part now, Joe could very well land a spot in a Lifetime movie.
"Yeah. Well, we'll have to ask some questions, of course."
"Of course."
"Procedure, Joe, " he said, hoping to allay any implications that they were focusing on Joe as a suspect. For his part, though, Jack wasn't entirely convinced Joe wasn't involved somehow.
You just got that feeling from the guy.
"I understand, Jack, no hard feelings."
Joe moved aside, gestured to the two empty chairs by his desk for Jack and Samantha to sit, and took his assigned chair as well, pulled it close to the desk.
"So, you say you were meeting for dinner?"
"That's right. We were meeting at Unity Restaurant down by Battery Park on South End Avenue."
"What time were you planning to meet?"
"Seven. He was supposed to be there before me, but he wasn't when I got there, figured maybe he was stuck in traffic. An hour goes by, not a word from him, I'm getting worried. Couple of hours later, still no answer. And here we are."
Jack nodded.
"Anything out of the ordinary going on with him? Some unusual case, maybe?"
"Nothing I can think of."
"All right, Joe. We'll be in touch."
They shook hands again and again, there was this feeling that maybe Joe was capable of something he hadn't thought him capable of before. Capable, perhaps, of murdering his brother. But that angle was wide open, considering they didn't even have a body yet.
*
She was fidgeting in her seat; so slightly, it would be unseen to the outside observer. But when you're partners, truly effective ones anyway, you find yourself picking up on little nuances like that. He was used to seeing her trenchcoat habitually wrinkled, not because she didn't care to iron it now and then, but because she honestly didn't think of it most days.
She was that devoted and they understood each other because of it. He knew as much about Alexis as a person could know without being that person altogether. Without her, the job would seem menial somehow. He needed her around to temper belligerent witnesses, bounce theories off of, roll eyes with at the seemingly innate stupidity of most of the people they came in contact with.
So here they were, staring down Lieutenant Marro whose already fired-up temper had risen to record heights with the worry, guilt, and frustration he was undoubtedly feeling. The pressure and stress, not surprisingly, was wearing on him. Unfortunately, they sat bearing the brunt of that frustration.
Matt glanced at his watch covertly, quickly caught a spot on the far wall to avert his eyes to without seeming as though he had frankly had enough here. Which he had.
His partner continued to fidget and he knew something was bothering her, something she hadn't told him, and now, that bothered him.
"I don't have to remind you two how serious this case is. And now with my brother -- Jesus, just close this case, all right?"
Obviously, the serial murders would be taxing on him seeing as he sat behind a desk all day and perhaps, through osmosis, saw the mutilations they had seen. Undoubtedly hard on him.
"Yes, sir, we'll have this closed within the week."
"All right, you're dismissed."
It seemed to be a wasted visit, in Matt's mind, but they stood, hands in their pockets, and left as quickly as they could. Alexis moved out of the building quickly and he could've sworn he saw her shoulders moving in apparent distress.
So he did the only thing he could do: he followed her.
*
Her legs bent halfway against the wall as she slid to the ground in a slow descent, not bothering to take off her coat, dropping her keys on the floor next to her as she finally touched the cool ground beneath.
She thought of her partner because they seemed to be the only two people in the world on nights like these, nights when her father couldn't stay in that closet she had locked him into when her childhood ended.
She thought of Matt and wanted him here because he was safe and warm and somehow, there he was, the key she'd given him turning in her lock.
"Lex?"
He called to the darkness. And though she wanted his strong arms around her, she was tempted for a moment to remain cloaked in the shadows without saying a word.
"Matt."
He followed her voice and knelt beside her, brushing a hand down the side of her head.
"Your dad ever hit you, Matt?"
He sighed, continuing to stroke her hair.
"No. Yours?"
He could feel her nod and he sighed again, this time with disgust.
"Only once, though. Right before he left. Used to hit my mom sometimes, but most times, he wasn't even home. Hit me hard the night before he left, and then he was just gone. Great dad, you know? Right up there with yours."
She laughed bitterly and yet, he felt a satisfaction that she had finally shared this part of herself with him.
"We all got fucked, Lex. We all did."
"I won't argue with that."
"Why are you thinking about this now?"
She was quiet for a moment, then spoke again and he could feel the tears on her skin.
"My mom died. Just got a call from her nursing home. She died there, alone. And now -- now I'm...I'm alone, Matt."
She fell against him, no wailing sobs or cries, just a few stray tears and muted breath and there they were, two lonely people.
"Not tonight, Lex, " he said, and pulled her closer.
A thousand points of light for all the lonely people thinking maybe...maybe life had somehow passed them by.