2016

Tree Hill, North Carolina

(Ten Days After The Funeral)

It was a rare night since Lucas Scott had been murdered that Detective Mouth McFadden had even had the opportunity to get home at a decent hour. But even at home, he didn't really feel at home. There was no time to relax or catch his favorite shows on the tube. Dinner had long gone cold and he'd had no time to play with his daughter. Instead, Mouth found himself in the office of the small one story, single family home where he and Gigi had planned to share their lives together. He was surrounded by documents and files and photos and all other kinds of things marked evidence.

Sighing, he pulled out another photo album. It did not show crime scene or autopsy photos. Instead, it went back ten years before. It showed goofy shots snapped at the River Court. Smiling faces posing in front of TRIC. The gang bright eyed at Ravens' basketball games.

Mouth found himself staring at one face in particular. Jake Jagielski. Prior to junior year, Jake had been just another face in the hall. He was one of the popular jocks. He was a cheerleader dating starter on the basketball team and he ran with Nathan Scott's clique. Most guys in that elite inner circle didn't give guys like Mouth a second glance unless they were plotting to beat him up or humiliate him. But not Jake. He had always been different.

He was a quiet kid who minded his own business. A good boy from a good middle class family who respected his teachers and worked hard to make good grades even though it wasn't required from someone of his popularity. Jocks ruled the school. He never taunted, hazed or fought. He was the only one of the group who had ever managed to nod and say "what's up" to Mouth and his friends and when Lucas first joined the basketball team, it had been Jake who had been the first one to reach out and befriend the ostracized brother.

He was a nice person. He was well liked. He was a responsible and loving teenage father. He had eventually become an equally devoted husband. His children, wife and friends were his life. And somewhere, seemingly it had all gone wrong. But where? How?

"I've got some interesting news, McFadden", Tucker had barged into the young detective's office without even bothering to knock.

"What's that, sir?"

"Major break in the case. The surveillance video came back from the Hilton. Note this. The first time we spoke to Jake Jagielski, he says he stepped out for dinner a little after six and returned before eight. The second time, he changes his story. Says he never left the hotel that night. Before we can talk to him a third time, the bastard lawyers up. But you'll never guess what the security cameras show."

"What?"

"Our little Jakey leaves the Hilton at a little after nine o'clock. On tape he is cool, calm and collected. He returns shortly before 11 p.m. looking anxious and disheveled. Also, there is a stain seen on his jacket that looks a whole hell of a lot like blood."

"Do you want me to try talking to him again? It's gonna be difficult, Boss. His attorney is good and in light of the new discoveries on this tape, Jake has a lot of explaining to do. It's not like he'll be itching to talk to us."

"Jagielski's not gonna have much of a choice. The dive team searched the river again this morning. Guess what was at the bottom just a few feet away from the docks? A .357 Magnum."

Mouth's heart caught in his throat.

"Did Forensics check it out yet?"

Tucker nodded.

"It's a match. It's our piece. They ruled conclusively that the bullet recovered from Scott's body was in fact fired from the gun recovered this morning."

"Fingerprints?"

"It was under too long. There were none."

Mouth sighed. So much for the smoking gun.

"Now what?"

"Now what? Now we arrest Jake Jagielski."

"On what grounds? With all due respect, sir, I know how badly you want to solve this case. Believe me, so do I. But like you said before, we have to be smart about it, careful. One false move by the police and we bungle a possible conviction. A killer goes free. We rush to judge without the proper evidence and those lawyers will have us for breakfast."

"McFadden…"

"Do we even know where the gun came from?"

"No but our people are working on it. As much as I'd like to drive down to Georgia and arrest Jagielski myself, I know we can't do that. Not yet at least. But he's our guy. Mark my words. It's just a matter of time before we get his ass. Once we tie that gun to him, it's all over."

"And in the meantime we have a surveillance video and a shady alibi. I don't know, Chief. It's not enough. Juries have found reasonable doubt on a whole lot less. Besides, I just don't think Jake did it."

Tucker held up a plastic evidence bag.

"Then why was this found at the bottom of the river not too far from the gun?"

"What is that?"

"A cell phone. We put it through the system and guess who the owner is? You got it. Either Jake dropped it or panicked and threw it in the water with the murder weapon. Either way, this is all building one hell of a circumstantial case. All that's left is the physical evidence. All we have to do now is link the gun to him and somehow find those clothes he wore that night."

Mouth was still unconvinced.

"What about a motive? I mean, why? We need something really concrete. According to the phone records did Jake and Lucas even talk that night? Did anyone see them together? And what would make Jake Jagielski angry enough to want to shoot Lucas Scott?"

"We might not ever find out the 'why', kid. But if science can connect him to this and since we've already put him at the scene of the crime and he lied to us once about leaving the hotel…once we explain how it happened, it won't matter why."

Mouth nodded.

"Okay. Um, we should have enough to obtain a warrant to search the Hilton and the Jagielski residence for the clothes. I'll get right on that."

"Good. Oh and by the way, did you ever figure out that poetic gibberish Brooke Scott was gabbing about?"

"No, not yet."

"Keep looking although it's probably a waste of time. She was probably just trying to throw us off track. I wouldn't be surprised if she was in on this with Jagielski."

But Mouth wasn't so sure. What if it wasn't gibberish? What if Brooke was dropping an important clue, really trying to help him? Something told him she was and he had to find it. Maybe it would bring them one step closer to the truth. Maybe it would prove Jake's innocence…

"Hey, you."

Mouth jumped as he felt the hands touch his shoulders.

"Gigi! God, you scared me. Don't sneak up on me like that."

"Sorry", she apologized. "I didn't mean to startle you. I was sure you heard me coming."

He put his head in hands and sighed.

"It's okay. It's not your fault. I'm been so wrapped up in this, I haven't heard anything."

"It's been a long day."

"Try a long two weeks."

She took a seat beside him.

"Any breaks?"

"Yeah. I mean, I can't go into detail and stuff but there is some new evidence that implicates Jake."

"Jake? Oh no. Do you believe that? I mean, do you think he could…"

"I don't know but it doesn't look good for him right now. And then that clue Brooke gave us in Dallas…"

"The one about Howard Moss?"

"Yeah. I'm still trying to figure it out. I went to the library and checked out every book I could on the man. I've been on the Internet non stop looking for anything."

"Did you see the book Peyton left on the grave?"

"Yeah, it was still there but it wasn't turned to any particular page or passage. I mean, there are so many poems and quotes by the man. It's almost impossible to narrow down. Listen to this…'Starting out as love, it climbed the stairs, And then came down as something else again; I did not recognize its killing features until I saw they were my very own.' What does that mean? Is Peyton copping to the murder? Is she saying Luke committed suicide? What?"

"How do you know that's the quote?"

"Because I've spent the past two days reading everything ever written by or about Howard Moss and this one stood out the most. Peyton knows something. Brooke knows she knows it. Now she's trying to tell us. I just have to figure it out."

"Then I'll help you."

"Gigi…"

"I will. I want to."

"I know you do and I love you for it but…"

"But what? No buts. I just checked on Ella and she's sleeping soundly. I can't sleep anyway, especially knowing you're in here working your butt off. So we'll do this together."

She rubbed his back and kissed his lips.

"It's a lot of work and we probably still won't figure it out…"

"So? I don't mind and it's worth a shot, right?"

He nodded. It certainly was.

"Thank you. You're the most amazing wife on the planet, you know that?"

Gigi winked at her husband as they sat up shop for an all nighter. With cups of coffee and the baby monitor in place, they combed through the works of Howard Moss for hours. It was almost dawn and the young couple had had no such luck.

"Well, we're down to the last four poems", Gigi yawned.

Together they read them slowly aloud looking for any words that would trigger a correlation.

"Check out the last four lines of The Hand", Mouth noted. "Write these down. 'Your face slides back its screen, I see, Such streams begin, such gardens grow, That you must hide more than you hide, And I must know more than I know.' Is that a confession? If Peyton were saying that to Lucas, doesn't it sound like she knows what happened?"

"What if it's not a confession or anything like that? Take this part from The Silences. 'Silence is pain. You hear it most when you cannot bear it. Tell me if you can bear it, Far body and near spirit.' Let's assume Brooke doesn't know why Peyton left a Howard Moss book for Luke. What if it's just a eulogy, a memorial, if you will, left for a fallen friend?"

Mouth shook his head.

"I don't buy it. It means something significant. It has to. And Brooke knows. I know she knows."

"'We sound the very history of fear we felt, Through all the shorter histories of fear we feel. Is it true, we think, our sorry otherness is to fall in love with beasts whose beauty ruins us? Those beasts are everywhere, though Venice says lions to be golden must be painted gold.' That's from Venice. I don't know. Maybe she's trying to say Lucas is the beast and his beauty was ruined."

Mouth put his head in hands.

"I don't know. But if we lie down now, the good and the bad news, depending on how you look at it, is we can get maybe three hours of sleep. What do you say?"

Gigi gave a tired smile.

"Just one more. It's called Elegy For My Father."

"Go for it", Mouth said as he began straightening up the mass of papers in disarray.

"Father, whom I murdered every night but one,
That one, when your death murdered me,
Your body waits within the wasting sod.
Clutching at the straw-face of your God,
Do you remember me, your morbid son,
Curled in a death, all motives unbegun,
Continuum of flesh, who never though to be
The mourning mirror of your potency?

All you had battled for the nightmare took
Away, as dropping from your eyes, the sea-
Salt tears, with messages that none could read,
Impotent, pellucid, were the final seeds
You sowed. Above you, the white night nurse shook
His head, and moaning on the moods of luck,
We knew the double-dealing enemy:
From pain you suffered, pain had set you free.

Down from the ceiling, father, circles came:
Angels, perhaps, to bear your soul away.
But tasting the persisting salt of pain,
I think my tears created them, though in vain,
Like yours, they fell. All losses link: the same
Creature marred us both to stake his claim.
Shutting my eyelids, barring night and day,
I saw, and see, your body borne away.

Two months dead, I wrestle with your name
Whose separate letters make a paltry sum
That is not you. If still you harbor mine,
Think of the house we had in summertime,
When in the sea-light every early game
Was played with love, and if death's waters came,
You'd rescue me. How could I take you from,
Now, if I could, its whirling vacuum."

Gigi read the words slowly as her tired husband dropped the folder with all the pictures in it. One in particular stood out. Suddenly, staring at it, along with hearing Gigi's words, it all came together. It all started to make sense.

"Oh my God…"

"What is it?" she asked.

With trembling hands, he showed her the photograph.

"Do you see what I see? Do you get it now?"

Gigi, in a state of shock, nodded.

"Yeah. I, I do. Oh my God, Mouth."

He looked at the picture in disbelief before looking at his wife again.

"He did do it. Jake killed Lucas."