I wake up, a few hours later, feeling better than I did a while ago. I drag myself up, as my body protests. On my way down, I nearly collide with my partner. "You're awake." Elliot comments. "I was just coming up to wake you - I found Lombardo's brother in Jersey City. Figured he'd want to talk to you."
"Do I look like hell?" I question.
"Liv, you never look like hell."
I hit him, lightly and make my way down. My ex-boyfriend's older brother is standing in the squad, looking a little uncomfortable in his jeans and dark t-shirt. Jimmy Lombardo looks the same way I remember him. Solid as a rock with a square-jawed, stubborn face and dark eyes and hair. He's a little shorter than his younger brother - maybe an inch or so taller than me. He glances up when he sees me and grins. "How you doin'?"
I always liked this guy. Not that I'd date him, but I liked him as a friend. "Good. How are things going on your end?"
"Good. God, how long's it been?"
"I don't know." I shrug.
"You look great - as young as you did when you first rolled around with my kid brother."
I laugh, quietly. Since I was about sixteen when I met his brother, I know that's a joke. "Little brother's coming home, huh?"
Jimmy shakes his head. "Ma called me this mornin'. And he can stay the hell away from me. I told him, when he went in - forget I exist."
"But you're his big brother - you don't think he'd come to you?"
"Not after what he's done. Hell, I wish they'd kept him locked up for what he'd done. I got a wife, twin fifteen-year-old girls and a twelve-year-old son - I'm not havin' that son of a bitch around 'em. I ain't havin' him around."
"So he won't come to you - what about your father?" I shove one hand into my pocket.
"Dad's done with him. Washed his hands of him when the jury came back with the verdict. Always had faith in the system - if twelve people say you're guilty, you're guilty. Angie's husband, Bobby, won't have him around the kids - they got two boys, one girl. So he ain't welcome there. Only one he'd go to would be Ma, out in Queens."
"He's your little brother." I protest. "Are you sure"-
Jimmy cuts me off. "He's my brother by blood and that's it. He's sick. He's a screw-up - always been a screw-up. I don't want him around. His type don't change - I don't care how many shrinks they've been in to see - they don't change. Besides that, he scares the hell outta my wife."
"So you haven't heard from him?" I raise an eyebrow.
"He wrote me, a couple of times, when he first went in. I wrote back, told him to lose my number and my address and forget I existed. My wife was an FDNY paramedic. My father-in-law's a retired police Lieutenant - they've seen what his type of whack jobs do to people. I don't want to risk havin' him around my kids. The only one that will believe him is Ma - she's the only one who won't see what the rest of us see. She thinks he's still her innocent little boy."
"Your parents divorced when?" I need to get inside his little brother's head, or try to.
"'81. Mikey would have been about fifteen, I was seventeen and Angie was ten or eleven."
"Who filed for it?" I question.
"Ma. She came home one day, when we were all in school, and found Dad in bed with the neighbor's wife. She'd thought he was steppin' out on her for years, and then she had the proof. After they finished the settlement, Dad moved out to Connecticut, and I think that screwed Mikey up, not havin' the old man around. Ma couldn't keep him in line - he needed a father figure. I tried, but I was just a kid myself. He was never the same kid, again - I really think he was pissed off at my mother for divorcing my father."
I nod, letting him talk. "So no one explained it to him?"
Jimmy shakes his head. "You know Mikey - got rocks in his skull. He believes what he wants to believe. Ma tried to explain it him, but he had this idea in his head - it was her fault. I wondered if he'd ever bring a girl home and then a year after, this angel falls into his life." He grins at me. "You straightened him up, too. I thought you were gonna pull him outta that hole. Havin' a girl, it did somethin' to him. And when you walked away - not that I blame you, with the way the son of a bitch treated you - it just about killed him." He checks the watch strapped around his arm. "I gotta go pick up my kid - he's playing soccer in the park with a couple of friends."
I nod. "You have a number I can get you at? Just in case."
"Yeah." He scribbles down the number for me and grins. "It's good to see you, again. You know, some night you should come down and have dinner with Alex and the kids and I."
"Maybe." I show my old boyfriend's older brother to the door.
"Seems like a good guy." Elliot comments.
"Jimmy? Yeah. Sometimes he's a little too honest, but he's as straight-up as they come."
"While you were asleep, this came in." Elliot hands me a plain, white envelope. "Desk sergeant says it was hand-delivered. Are you seeing someone?"
"Huh?" I blink, startled.
He shakes his head. "C'mere." My partner turns me around, to face my desk. I didn't even look in that direction when I came down. Sitting there, is a bouquet of flowers - not roses, but white lilies. I slip my hands back into my pockets. "Why is it that only psychopaths send me flowers?" I ask, shaking my head.
"What?" Elliot glances at me, curious.
"I'm not seeing anyone. I haven't had a date in months. And these"- I pick up the flowers - "were always Mike's trademark gift. I'd get a bunch on my birthday, delivered to my door or to the precinct house. It's gotta be him." I drop back in my chair.
I pull latex gloves from a pocket and put them on, cracking the seal on the envelope. If the sender left prints, I don't want to smudge them and make them useless.
It's a letter, on plain white paper, written in the same, neat, precise handwriting that was on the papers in Mike's cell. I shudder, thinking about those. They're sick. I didn't think he was capable of thinking like that. I read it, once - he's talking about how he can't let me go and he needs me - it sounds like something a boyfriend might write, after his girlfriend has walked out. But we broke up fifteen years ago - I don't understand why he's doing this, now. My partner holds out a hand and I give it to him to read. There's nothing overly personal in there.
Elliot looks up at me, halfway through it. "He's talking about a girl named Mandy - who is she? Another victim - one we didn't find? A girlfriend?"
I shake my head. "Mandy - she's me."
"What?" He sits straight up in the chair.
"Calm down. It was just his stupid pet name for me." I push my bangs out of my eyes.
"Why the hell would he call you Mandy?"
"My middle name sparked that one." I shake my head, remembering.
"Huh?"
I manage to smile. "Amanda's my middle name. He knew I hated it, so he'd call me Mandy to piss me off. He thought it was funny."
"You pissed off is not funny." Elliot comments, dryly.
"Apparently, Mike thinks it is." Still wearing gloves, I pull the card from the flowers. It's the same writing as what's on the letter. It's only one word: Mandy. I roll my eyes and unwrap the flowers. I hand envelope, letter, card and wrapping to my partner. "You wanna run that to the lab? See if they get anything."
"What are you gonna do with those?" Elliot raises an eyebrow.
"I'm not keeping 'em." I drop them in the wastebasket beside my desk.
I bury myself in paperwork for the time being. There's nothing else I can do. Nothing else has popped up yet. Munch and Fin are in court on another case. Today's just a slow day. Elliot reappears, a half-hour later. "Got prints off the card - Lombardo's."
"I knew that. But unless we can arrest him for sending me flowers - which, the last time I checked, wasn't illegal - you can help me with this crap." I nod to the stack of files in front of me.
He takes half of the paperwork over to his side of the desk. "We know he's violent, but will he be violent toward you?"
"I don't know. I don't think so. But prison changes people, in a lot of ways. He wasn't violent, when I knew him. But that was before he spent twelve years in Attica."
"Mm. True. We've seen that before, haven't we?"
I know what he means without him having to say it. Plummer, a.k.a Webber. Prison does a lot of things to people. But Plummer was innocent - he didn't belong there. I tuck my hair back behind my ear. "We're gonna have to wait and see."
