Chapter 2: Nigel
Woody hadn't been the only one to notice the changes in everybody's favorite female ME. The others had noticed the change in her temperament too. But Jordan was never an easy person to confront. No one really wanted to take on the task of calling her on her problem. But Woody had. They'd all noticed how he had pulled Jordan aside on several occasions when they went out together. Nigel had, for sure, noticed how he had been asking the bartender to add ice or water to her drinks and adding the ice himself when they drank in private as a group. Everyone seemed to think that Woody would take care of it. He seemed to be the only one who wasn't afraid to go back to her after getting torn to shreds by her acerbic tongue.
Right now, Nigel was in trace, and had seen Woody come in this morning, heading directly for Jordan's office, a determined look on his face. It was about time, he thought, turning back to the fingerprints he was analyzing. Looked like the young detective was finally going to give Jordan what-for.
He was surprised to hear, not two minutes later, Jordan's door slamming shut. Poking his head out into the hall, his curiosity was peaked at seeing a dejected Detective Hoyt leaning against the wall.
"You okay there, Woodrow?"
Woody looked up. "Yeah."
His voice wasn't exactly brimming with confidence and happiness. "Have another lover's spat with our favorite brunette?" He joked, trying to lighten the ambiance.
For once, Woody didn't go along with the attempt. He looked up at Nigel – one of the few men he had to look up at – with a serious expression and a furrowed brow. "It's gone to far, Nigel," he said, running a hand through his short hair. He hefted himself off the wall and walked toward and then past Nigel. "She doesn't have much time left. Look, I've got to get to work. I'll try talking to her again tonight, but if that doesn't work, I just….I don't know what else to do."
Nigel couldn't think of anything to say. Instead, he found himself looking down the hall, watching Woody wait for the elevator then get on and disappear. Woody hadn't been his chipper self in weeks. Months, actually, when one thought about it. Years ago, when the team at the morgue had first met the young Wisconsinite, he had been so chipper and excited that it drove them all nuts. Of course, Boston police work and a certain medical examiner had brought him down a couple pegs to reality and he had seemed to stabilize at a lower level that didn't drive them all batty. But now… he seemed so dejected, worn out.
Nigel shook his head and went back into trace. He had heard all about Calvin's recent behavior with the mob from Jordan, and wondered if that was the cause. It probably was.
He went back to the mysterious fingerprint, not wanting to accept what was the more likely cause of Woodrow's melancholy: Jordan's behavior.
Part 2
Nigel was pissed. He was beyond furious. Livid. Incensed. He had just gotten off the morning shift a few hours earlier, and was supposed to have the next 48 hours off. He was planning on indulging himself with a nice day at the men's spa, then he was going to head over to the newest second hand book store and then a new shop that was supposed to be wickedly creepy, but full of forensically fascinating stuff.
But here he was, back in trace, covering for Sidney's butt. The stupid...short... wanker had managed to catch the stupid flu bug that everyone else had already had. And no one else had been able to cover, so here he was, less than 4 hours after he left, back in trace, this time pulling trace evidence off the body of a John Doe the police had found in the river. And this was the third one in a month, which meant he'd be stuck cross-referencing the cases, too. All he had wanted was a stupid day off.
"Damned wanker," he mumbled begrudgingly, glad that, as usual, the night shift was practically devoid of other personnel who might over hear him. Carefully, he used a pair of forceps to pull the remnants of what looked like duct tape from around one of the man's wrists. Just as he dropped it into the dish, he heard a knock against the glass that separated trace evidence from the rest of the office and then heard the door swish open. Looking up, he felt his jaw drop.
Standing in the doorway was Woody. The man's tie had been loosened to the point where it was nearly completely undone, and the top two buttons of his shirt were open. His suit coat was slung over one shoulder, held in place by one finger. But was most surprising was the presence of a long, deep cut over his left eyebrow. Blood still oozed from the cut, dripping down the side of his face and onto the collar of his blue shirt. He had most likely taken off the coat so he wouldn't get blood on it. Woody usually was rather protective of his clothes.
"Hey, Nige. Have you seen Dr. Macy? He's not in his office and he's not in autopsy."
"'Hey Nige!' Here you are bleeding out all over the floor, and all you can say is 'hey Nige?'" Nigel quickly stripped off the gloves he was wearing and put on a new pair as he hurried over to Woody. "Let me have a look at that."
"It's not that bad. I'll take care of it later. Have you seen Dr. Macy?"
Nigel ran his fingers over the cut and Woody flinched. "He's here somewhere. He and I are the only ones here tonight, and he would have told me if he had to go out. That's actually pretty deep there, Woodrow. You're going to need stitches, and quite a lot of them. Let me just tell Dr. Macy and then I'll take you over to the hospital."
"I don't want to go to the hospital, but I'll take you up on finding Dr. Macy."
Nigel saw the determination on the detective's face. "Fine. Maybe he can convince you to go to the hospital, you big Neanderthal."
Woody rolled his eyes. "Just take me to Doc, will ya?"
"Fine," Nigel said, slapping through the doors of trace and heading down the hallway. "But don't blame me when that 'little scratch' gets infected and leaves a big bloody scar that makes you so ugly no one will go near you!" He huffed as he led Woody down the central corridor, searching for Dr. Macy. Finally, they found him in the freezer, cross-referencing toe tags.
Macy didn't looking up when he heard the door opening. "Nigel, I don't want to hear another word. There's no one else available right now, so you're just going to have to tough it out."
Nigel cleared his throat, causing Macy to look up. "Holy Hannah. What the hell happened to you?" Dr. Macy put down the clipboard and went over to examine Woody's cut, much like Nigel had a few minutes ago."
"Nothing. It's fine, Doc." Woody twitched, getting away from Garret's prying fingers. "Look, I need to talk to you."
"I'm not doing anything for you until you get this sewn up."
"That's what I told him too!" Nigel exclaimed. "But the stupid bloke won't do anything until he talks to you. And, he said he doesn't want to go to a hospital."
Garret looked over to Woody, and must have seen something in the detective's expression that Nigel missed. "Fine. Nigel, grab a suture kit out of autopsy and meet me in my office. You can talk while I stitch you up," he said, pointedly addressing the bleeding man.
Woody nodded his acquiescence and Garret led him to his office while Nigel retrieved a suture kit. By the time he got back, Garret had Woody sitting on the edge of his desk and was cleaning the wound with sterile gauze and distilled water. Handing the needle and thread off to Dr. Macy, who obviously wanted to do the sewing himself, Nigel crossed his arms over his chest and settled in for a story.
Woody glared at him. Nigel just shook his head. "Oh, I'm not going anywhere. This promises to be a most interesting story, and I've got the feeling it's something I need to be in on.
After another couple moments, Woody acquiesced again.
Garret finished wiping away what blood he could from around the wound. "I think I've gotten all the glass out."
Nigel raised an eyebrow. This was getting more interesting.
"Sorry, but I don't have an anesthetic. We work mostly on dead people, and they don't really need it. I've got some whiskey in the cabinet if you want a shot of that though."
Woody shook his head fervently, inadvertently causing more blood to flow from the wound. "No thanks. I think tonight has sworn me off alcohol forever."
Nigel caught Dr. Macy's gaze. Something in Woody's tone made them both realized that this had something to do with Jordan Cavanaugh.
Garret wiped the field clear of blood again and began suturing. "Care to tell us what happened tonight? What's so important that you risked bleeding yourself into a deeper concussion to talk to me?"
Woody kept his head still, but glanced over to Nigel with his eyes. "You remember what happened this morning?"
Nigel nodded. "You went to talk to Miss Cavanaugh this morning, and she bodily threw you out and slammed the door. Wait, she didn't do this, did she?" He pointed to his head wound.
Woody started to nod, but then thought better of it when Garret gave him a harsh look and forcibly held his head still. "Yeah. Not on purpose, though."
Garret used one hand to lift Woody's head, forcing the young man to look him in the eye. "I think you'd better start from the beginning."
And Woody did. He explained how it had started the night after Max had left town again. How she had drunk her self to sleep for the first time since he'd known her. And how it had spiraled down from there. She had been drinking more. He recalled how she had been getting upset with others, but especially him, at the drop of a hat. Garret and Nigel both nodded as they recalled and recognized Jordan's behavior. Finally, he told them what had happened earlier in the evening.
A knock sounded on her door, and Jordan begrudgingly put her drink down, flipped off the late night talk show she'd been watching, and went to answer it.
"Oh, it's you." She turned and went back into the apartment, leaving the door open for him to come in if he chose. "Here to tell me again that I'm a drunk?"
He entered the room and shut the door before speaking. "No. I'm here to talk to you."
"You mean to give me another lecture."
Woody sighed. He'd been hoping he'd be able to start out on a neutral subject, as he had all those times with Cal. But it appeared that Jordan wasn't going to make it easy for him. "I'm not here to lecture you. I want to help."
"The only thing you're doing is trying to run my life. And I'm not going to let you."
"I'm not trying to run your life. I just want you to see that what you're doing is destroying yourself."
She harrumphed and took another sip from her glass.
He cocked his head and picked up the half-empty bottle of vodka on the coffee table. "It's never a good idea to drink alone, Jordan."
"What the hell would you know about it, Mr. Saint?"
Woody let the bottle fall heavily back to the table. "I know a lot about it, Jordan. Remember my brother? NA, AA, GA?"
Jordan smirked. "And how far did that get you? He's still got problems. You didn't do shit for him. Hell, you probably made it worse, throwing your goody-two shoes attitude in his face every time he saw you."
He felt the sting, but ignored her words. "I tried to go through it with him. I know every step. And I know all the signs. And you're showing just about every single one."
"But not every one. See, you don't know everything."
He felt his patience finally waning, felt it evident in his voice. "I'm trying to help you, Jordan. I don't want you to hit that last sign. Look at yourself! You come home and drink alone. You yell at your friends. They avoid you at work just so you won't bite their head off. In the last month alone, I've watched you go into the store and come out with what's got to be nearly 100 dollars in alcohol. Twice!
She jerked her head back in disbelief. "You've been spying on me!"
"I've been trying to keep an eye on you Jordan. And I don't like what I'm seeing. Hell, you probably spike your coffee in the morning! You're drinking too much, and you need to get help."
She set the glass down hard. "You don't understand. It's the only thing that makes them stop!"
He let his shoulders drop. "Makes what stop, Jordan?" He moved closer.
"The nightmares." Her own shoulders dropped. And she sagged down into a nearby chair. "They won't go away. They terrify me, but I don't know what it is I'm seeing…" Suddenly she looked back up. "No…you're not going to do this to me!"
"What am I trying to do Jordan?" Whatever progress had been made in the last 30 seconds was gone. He took a few steps back, into the kitchen.
"There's nothing wrong with me! I can control my own life. I've been doing it for decades, even before my mother died." Her voice was rising again.
"Jordan, please. I care about you. Let me help you."
"I don't need help. I don't need you to baby-sit me! All you ever do is make me feel bad because I can't be happy like you!" With that, she flung the glass at him.
He was sure that she wasn't aiming for him. But it came awful close. The glass hit the corner of the refrigerator, which was mere inches from his head. It shattered, sending shards everywhere. He felt the heavy bottom of the glass hit his head and scrape down the side. Smaller shards pricked the skin around his ear. Fortunately, he closed had his eyes at her words, or he could have been blinded. When the glass settled, he touched the side of his head, feeling the blood drip down, wincing at the sting of the alcohol that had been in the glass. He took his coat off and looked up at her. "You're right. I can't help you. Congratulations, Jordan, you've just exhibited the last sign of an alcoholic. Get some help. You obviously don't want mine, but get some help."
He turned on his heel and went out the door, locking it behind him.
Back in the apartment, Jordan stood, still infuriated. What right did he have to tell her what to do? Fuming, she reached out for the bottle he had set down earlier.
"Jesus…," Nigel heard himself breathe. "She's really gone of the deep end."
"No," Garret said, tying off the last of the nine stitches he put into Woody's scalp. "She's just reached the end of her rope with Woody." He placed a dressing and bandage over the wound. "Come back in 5 to 7 days and I'll take them out."
"Thanks, Doc." Woody shrugged back into his jacket, the cold of the morgue finally seeping in.
Nigel shifted his weight. "I didn't think you'd have an end to your rope when it came to Jordan, Woody."
"It's not that, Nigel. It's just that I can't help her anymore. She was right. The minute she said that, I realized that all I'm doing is enabling her. I've been handling her with kid gloves and it hasn't worked. And now that she's hit that last sign of alcohol abuse, it might be best if I just step back for awhile."
Nigel frowned. "What do you mean she's hit the last sign?"
Garret finished cleaning up. "One of the most damaging and last signs of alcohol abuse is physically harming yourself or others while under the influence of alcohol."
"Ahh. And with Woodrow's little boo-boo here…" He let his voice trail.
"It's no longer a question of if she's an alcoholic, but what do we do about it," Garret stated, arms folded across his chest..
"Can you really become an alcoholic after just two months, though?"
Woody looked over at him, wincing has he tried to raise his eyebrow. "Addiction doesn't always take a long time. Jordan's already got a personality that's susceptible to addiction. Just look at what she does for her cases, or her mother's murder. If she latches on to something, for whatever reason, it's pretty hard for her to let go. No matter what the consequences."
The room was silent as the gravity of the situation permeated over the three men.
It was Woody who finally broke the silence. "That was what I wanted to talk to you about, Dr. Macy. I was hoping you could talk to her. There's nothing I can do, and with Max gone… Hell, actually if Max were here, I think he'd only make it worse…"
"Yeah, I'll talk to her," the older man said. "And if you really think you're enabling her, you're going to need to lie low for a while, away from her. You think you can do that?"
Woody glanced from Garret to Nigel and then back. He rubbed his fingers along the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, I can. Walcott and the chief have been asking me to go undercover on this recent string of murders. It'll mean cutting ties to everyone for awhile, but I think I'll take them up on their offer."
Nigel frowned. "Are you sure you want to go that far? That seems a bit drastic, I mean. Cutting all ties."
Woody nodded. "I know, Nigel. But I really care about her. I love her. And right now, this is the only thing I can do for her."