A/N: Once again, thanks to everyone who left feedback, thanks to RebeccaInley for excellent work betaing, and thanks to Lynn46 for her insights.
Ticking Clock
Abbie Carmichael's House
8 am Wednesday May 9th 2007
Regan looked at her watch. Call Jack again? shewondered. It's been half-an-hour.
Her last call to his cell had gone straight to voicemail; his landline was continually engaged. Switched off and off the hook respectively, Regan had surmised.
Regan was reaching for her cell phone to try again when it started ringing. She snatched it up, hoping to hear McCoy's voice.
"Hello, Regan?" she heard Melinda Warner say. "You asked me to call Rob Jordan?"
"Yeah," Regan said. "Did you? Will he talk to me?"
"He'll talk to you," Melinda said. "But I don't think it's going to help you. Rob's been working in Baltimore since he want down there. He hasn't even set foot in Mercy since his last shift."
"But that's – his signature's on the chart," Regan said. "Is it forged? Why would a doctor – "
"I don't know," Melinda said. "All I can tell you is, Rob Jordan didn't treat Keri Dyson last week."
"Can you give me his number?" Regan asked, and wrote down the digits Melinda read out. "Thanks, Dr Warner. I appreciate it."
"You figure out the mystery," Melinda said, "let me know."
Regan cut the connection and dialed Serena Southerlyn's number. She told Serena what Melinda had said.
"I have to go," she said. "I'll call Dr Jordan, get on the train, I can be down there and get an affidavit from him – "
"No," Serena said. "You're thinking like you're still second-chairing for Jack. You need to stay on top of your PI, prep for tomorrow, write your opening statement – I'll go to Baltimore. I can be back tonight. What's Dr Jordan's number?"
Regan gave it to her. As Serena rang off, Regan reflected that Serena was right – she was still thinking as if she were second-chairing for McCoy – looking for him to give her a lead to follow, spinning her wheels when he refused.
I have to stop thinking of him as my boss, she thought. I have to think of him as a client.
She dialed her client's number again. Voicemail. Dial tone.
Dammit, Jack!
I shouldn't have pushed him last night, she thought. But what choice did I have?
He needs a lawyer, not mollycoddling.
On that thought, she called Rey Curtis and told him about the mystery of Rob Jordan's signature on a medical report he couldn't have written.
"I'll check it out," Curtis said. "I've got you a report on Keri Dyson's life and times which I'll drop by your office later today."
"I don't have an office," Regan said. "Drop it at Abbie Carmichael's house."
"Ms Carmichael," Curtis said. "How is she doing?"
"About seven months pregnant," Regan said.
"No kidding!" Curtis said, sounding pleased. "That's great!"
"Yeah, it is," Regan said. "Mr. Curtis, I really need to know what's going on with this doctor."
"I'm on it," Curtis said, sounding businesslike again. "I have some contacts at the hospital from when I was on the force. I'll reach out to them and see what there is to see."
"Thanks," Regan said. "Oh, and Mr. Curtis – how did you go with the security cameras?"
"No luck," Curtis said. "They're inoperative since the building went to doormen 24/7. I'm going to go back tonight and see if I can talk to the guy who works nights during the week."
"Great," Regan said. "Listen – Keri and Jack caught a cab from the Lord Roberts to his building. I'd like to talk to that cabbie."
"Do you have a hack number?" Curtis asked.
"No."
"Name of the firm?"
"No," Regan said, and heard Curtis sigh. "That's not good, is it?"
"Ms Markham," Curtis said, "Do you have any idea how long it's going to take me to track down one cab driver in all New York City?"
"The rest of your natural life?" Regan asked.
"About that," Curtis said. "How badly do you want to talk to him? Or her, I suppose."
"Not as badly as I want to know what's going on with the hospital records or as badly as I want to talk to the doorman," Regan said.
"Okay," Curtis said. "I'll put it on the list – at the bottom."
Regan thanked him again, and cut the connection.
Okay, she thought. Two things ticked off my to-do list.
Next ought to be starting to draft her opening arguments for the next day. But Jack's made it clear he doesn't want me to give one.
She tried to call him again without success.
Your partner's lost in the woods, girl, what you gonna do? You gonna leave him to freeze in the dark, or you gonna saddle up?
When she got to McCoy's apartment, there was no answer when she rang the bell and pounded on the door. When she unlocked the door, it opened only a fraction before jamming fast. Regan ran her fingers along the jamb, trying to see if he had the chain on, and felt the rounded edge of some piece of solid wooden furniture.
She shouldered the door again. "Jack! I know you're in there!"
Silence. The door wouldn't budge. She couldn't get her arm far enough through the crack to try and shift whatever he'd used to barricade her out. She shouldered it again, then pounded on the wood with her clenched fist. "Damn it, Jack! I need to talk to you! We're in court tomorrow! Jack!"
She didn't realize how hard she was hitting the door until she saw blood on the paint, took a deep breath and lowered her hand to her side and then impulsively hammered her fist on the wood once more.
"Jack, damn you! Open this fucking door! Jack!"
"He's either not there or he doesn't want to talk to you," a voice said from her left.
Regan turned and saw a diminutive old lady glaring at her.
"And if you don't stop doing that, I'm going to call the authorities," the old lady said.
For just about the first time in her adult life, Regan was without a badge to hold up and say I am the authorities, ma'am.
"Okay," she said as meekly as she could.
With the old lady watching her, Regan pulled a legal pad and a pen from her briefcase and began writing, hand aching.
I'll see you in court. 9 am, she wrote. Her split knuckles left spots of blood on the paper. About to slip the note inside the door she paused, and added: If you don't turn up I'll haul you there by your hair. And if I get over here and can't get in, I'll call FDNY and tell them I smell smoke.
She reached as far inside as she could and dropped the note, then pulled the door shut. "Okay?" she said to the old lady, and McCoy's neighbor nodded, satisfied. "I really do need to talk to him," Regan added. "If you see him, will you tell him? My name is Regan Markham."
"I'm Mrs. Louise Farr," the old woman said. "And I'll tell him if I see him, but I doubt it will do any good. Although I haven't seen anyone try that before, so who knows?"
"Seen anyone try what?" Regan asked, startled.
"Begging him to take you back," Mrs. Farr said. "Usually they're the ones who storm out."
"I'm not begging him to take me back," Regan said.
"No, you aren't," the old lady said, looking at her shrewdly. "You're begging him to let you in, aren't you? I've seen that. Not usually quite so physically, I must say. They usually try sympathy. And that never works. That's when they start leaving, you know."
They? Regan thought. "How long have you lived next door to Jack?" she asked.
"Oh, a long time now. I've been here forty years, you know."
Regan leaned on the wall. "That is a long time," she said. Interrogation 101. If the subject is talking, let them talk.
"I remember when he moved in, he was such a good-looking young man, and he knew it, too!" The old lady smiled at the memory. "All those girls, well! And then his wife, such a nice girl. And the baby. And then she left and there were more girls – oh, dear, I don't mean to imply that they were those kind of girls. And then that nice young woman, Claire."
"Claire Kincaid?" Regan asked.
"Did you know her?"
Regan shook her head.
"Let me tell you, the whole floor knew how well they got on!" Mrs. Farr shook her head. "Well, you can't begrudge young people their happiness. Then – they started arguing. We all heard that, too. The same as it always goes with Mr. McCoy. I thought she'd stop coming around, like the others. And she did."
"Ma'am, Claire Kincaid – " Regan hesitated. "She was in an accident, a very serious accident." The words were familiar from dozens of death-knocks. "Her injuries were very severe and – "
"I know she died, Miss Markham," Mrs. Farr said. "I caught the lift down with Mr. McCoy the day of her funeral." Her face tightened. "Reeking of liquor, that day, every day for years after. Poor man. She used to yell at him, I used to hear her through the walls, Jack, you say you love me, act like it! And I used to see him, after – he got so thin, you know – used to hear him stumbling around that apartment in the middle of the night, cursing. If she'd been able to know what losing her would do to him, she would never have had any doubts."
Remembering the shape McCoy had been in when she'd first started working with him, Regan could see the picture Mrs. Farr described all-too-easily. The grey pallor ADAs called 'courtroom tan', the shadowed eyes and slumped shoulders that told of exhaustion no sleep could relieve – it must have been a thousand times worse for him when Claire died than when Alex was murdered, Regan thought. She wondered if he had cried for Claire, if there had been anyone to sit with him in the dark hours of the night.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "He loved her very much," she said softly. "I know that. Still does, I think." More than ten years later and when he talked about her in the car on the way back from Carthage it was like, for him, she was there.
From time to time I remember how much I miss her, he'd said. She was amazing. Very beautiful. And her looks were the least remarkable thing about her. An astonishing woman, smart and idealistic.
And It was all I thought about.
"I don't sleep much," Mrs. Farr said, and Regan blinked at the non-sequitur. "That's what happens when you get to my age, I suppose. I hear him, sometimes. Walking around that apartment at three in the morning. He'd bring women home – still does – even married one of them –but he'd be walking around in the small hours, all the same." The old lady shook her head. "Save your time, Miss Markham. None of them had any better luck that you just did."
"Begging him to let them in?" Regan asked, trying to imagine some of the women McCoy had been paired with by the rumor mill here in the corridor pounding on the door.
"Metaphorically," the old lady said. "If he wasn't going to let that nice Claire Kincaid in, I don't think anyone else is going to have any luck, do you? Not after her."
Regan heard the unspoken message. She's letting me know I don't come up to the Claire Kincaid standard.
Like I didn't know that I'm not Claire Kincaid.
Not even close.
"Probably not, Mrs. Farr," Regan said. "But actually, I need Mr. McCoy to turn up to a court date tomorrow morning. Un-metaphorically."
"He's not one for missing work," Mrs. Farr said. "A good work ethic for that generation."
"You know, you're absolutely right," Regan said. She smiled her best non-committal police-officer smile. "I'm probably worrying about nothing."
"If getting Mr. McCoy to work is what you're worrying about," the old lady said skeptically.
Regan held her gaze. "I'm worried about Mr. McCoy," she said. "Did you hear anything last week, Thursday night? Any kind of commotion?"
"Nothing. You won't save that man from himself," Mrs. Farr said, turning away. "Prettier girls than you have tried." At her own door, the old lady looked back, shaking her head. "Take it from an old, old woman, Miss Markham. I know it's an appealing idea, rescuing the suffering outlaw, seeing who he really is. But it only pans out in the movies."
"Don't worry, Mrs. Farr," Regan said. "I'm not about to save anyone."
I well aware that I couldn't if I tried.
.oOo.
A/N: If I've entertained, moved, diverted or even just distracted you for a little while, please consider hitting the review button. I put hours and hours and hours into my stories in the hope they'll give a few people a few minutes of fun. Please think about putting a few seconds into letting me know if I've succeeded or not. I've enabled anonymous reviews so that if you're shy, you don't even need to leave your name – or you could PM me, if you don't want to put something in the public arena.
