Abbie Carmichael's Townhouse

8 pm Sunday May 13th 2007


Abbie came out of the kitchen drying her hands with a tea-towel as McCoy closed the front door behind him. "How'd it go?"

"Regan didn't tell you?"

"She's not back." Which meant Regan had stayed more than a few minutes in Cutter's office after McCoy had walked out, because he'd walked home.

He'd told himself he wanted to clear his head and calm down before inflicting his foul mood on anyone, especially the women who had proved themselves these past week to be loyaler friends than he could ever deserve. That was partly true. He didn't let himself look directly at the rest of the truth, the fact that there might not be all that many evening walks left to him for many years to come.

He hoped Regan wouldn't let Cutter talk her into anything, or trap her into saying something she shouldn't about the defense case. Or worse — talk her into sharing confidences she had no right to reveal.

The thought must have showed on his face, because Abbie frowned. "You two fighting again?"

McCoy shook his head, and moved towards the kitchen. "Cutter called. Wanted to talk. He must have had something more interesting to say after I left than before, if Regan's not back yet." The sink was full of suds and dishes and McCoy began to roll up his sleeves. "You should get a dishwasher, Abs. Babies make more dirty dishes than you can imagine."

"I have a dishwasher." She thumped the door of the appliance with her heel. "But those plates were a gift from Tom's grandma and I don't trust it with them. Did Cutter want to deal?"

"Maybe. I didn't stay long enough to let him tap-dance all the way there." He rinsed the first plate and Abbie took it from him and began to dry it. "He knows his case is weak. Tried to run a let's-help-each-other-out play."

Abbie snorted. "As if you'd fall for that. Or had any reason to."

McCoy shrugged. "He's a good prosecutor. Better than I knew. He's got the killer instinct and the nose for guilt."

"But you're not guilty."

"Of the charges." McCoy handed her the last plate and pulled the plug, watching the water swirl away down the drain. "But you have to admit, I certainly acted like a guilty man for a while there. Cutter thinks he's on to something. He's just not sure he can get there on his own before the end of the trial."

"And is he?" Abbie stacked the plates together so gently they didn't make a sound. "On to something?"

"Not what he thinks, and not where he's looking. And no, Abbie, I don't want to talk about it."

"Well, that's a shame," Abbie said, putting the stack of plates in the cupboard above the counter. "Because Liz Olivet is in the living room, and I'm told she's a good listener."

"Oh for —" McCoy raked his fingers through his hair. "I don't need a fucking shrink, Abbie. I need a lawyer who —"

Abbie held up her hands. "I didn't call her. She turned up, looking for you. She said she'd been trying you at home and finally called Nora."

"She never did know when to leave well enough alone."

"Yeah, that's the annoying thing about friends, Jack. They tend to care about what happens to you and want to help." Abbie shut the cupboard firmly and turned, folding her arms. "So dig down deep and find the manners I know you have somewhere and go talk to her." When he didn't move, she scowled. "You can hear the front door from the living room, Jack. You can't hide in here all night in the hope she'll go away."

It was McCoy's turn to snort. "You don't know Liz Olivet if you think that'd work."

"No, but I know you well enough to know you'd give it a try." She took his arm and turned him towards the door. "Go. Be polite for fifteen minutes. Then she'll leave and you can sulk in peace."

McCoy surrendered to the inevitable and reluctantly made his way to the living room.

Liz was sitting in one of the armchairs, to all appearances engrossed in one of Abbie's books. She was wearing her hair long again. It was still the same shining brown as it had been the day he'd met her, but she hadn't styled it into her usual professional waves and it fell loose and straight around her shoulders.

"Liz." She looked up and smiled, and McCoy made himself smile back. "I like your hair like that."

"Weekends I like to give it a break from the hairdryer. You can come all the way inside the room, Jack. I'm not here to pry."

He gave her a wry grin as he took her invitation and crossed to the couch. "You can't help yourself."

"Any more than you can help yourself from having to have the last word in any argument."

"Hazards of our respective professions. Did Abbie offer you a drink?"

"She did. I declined. But don't let that keep you from having one, if you want."

"Are you hoping to get my defenses down?"

"Are you defending anything important?"

"I thought you weren't here to pry."

"And I thought you said that I couldn't help myself."

McCoy found himself not sure whether to be angry or amused. He chose amused, deliberately, and grinned at her. "You were a loss to the legal profession, Liz."

"Maybe not. You just got me to prove your point for you in about ten seconds flat." She uncoiled herself from the chair and crossed to the sideboard. "I will have that drink, I think. I feel in need of fortification. You?"

"Scotch. Neat is fine."

Liz poured the same for them both. She brought him his glass, and then sat beside him on the couch, turning to lean against the arm so she was facing him. "This is not a professional visit, Jack, although I have been worried about you."

"I'm alright." McCoy sipped his drink. "Well, I might be going to jail. But as far as your professional interest is concerned, I'm alright."

Liz studied him over the rim of her glass. "You are," she said at last.

"So you can tell Emil to stop worrying."

He expected her to either look guilty or try to sell a denial, but instead she laughed. "I will. And Mike."

"Logan?"

"The same."

"And how's he doing?"

She shrugged a little. "Riding a desk for the moment. Looking into a blackmail case, and I think you might be able to guess which one."

That was good news. Mike Logan and McCoy had butted heads back in the day, but if there was one thing about Logan that hadn't mellowed with time, it was his bone-deep loathing of anything that smelled like corruption or abuse of office. He'd pursue Keri Dyson's attempt to blackmail her way to the head of the promotions list as a personal affront. "Will he go back on the line?"

"I don't know." She sipped her drink. "I don't think he knows."

"You're helping him figure it out," McCoy said. It came out more caustically than he'd intended.

Liz didn't take offense. "Yes," she said. "Mike and I were over a long time ago, Jack, and he and Gina have something solid there if he can keep himself from screwing it up. I'm his friend, like I'm yours."

McCoy raised an eyebrow. "That's a creative interpretation."

She smiled. "Alright, I'm his friend like Emil is yours. And you know, Emil would be here, would have been here a week ago, except — "

McCoy nodded. "Witness for the prosecution."

"Not as yet. But he didn't want to take the chance of someone getting wind of a visit and getting called." Liz turned her glass between her hands. Her scotch was barely touched, McCoy noticed, while his own glass was almost empty. "He could claim confidentiality of course, but then he's on record as you needing a shrink. Which you'd have in common with ninety percent of the population of Manhattan, but juries can reach unwarranted conclusions. Especially with prosecutors leading them by the hand."

"And you? Not worried about a subpoena?"

Liz smiled. "I'm here to talk to you about Mike. It's a social call. And if someone is stupid enough to put me on the stand and ask me about this conversation, I can honestly answer that I didn't see anything other than a man suffering the perfectly normal stress of being on trial."

McCoy drained his glass and stood up. "Then it's a good thing you didn't come by last week," he said, crossing to the sideboard for a refill.

"What's changed?"

He paused, bottle half tilted. "Maybe I should give you a dollar before I tell you anything else."

"Maybe you should remind yourself about the rules of hearsay," Liz said, and he could tell from her voice that she was smiling again.

All the same, he put the bottle down and took out his wallet. "Will a five do?" he asked, turning around.

Liz held out her hand, and McCoy put the note into it. "I'm hired, Counselor."

"Last week the case was a he-said, she-said, only I had nothing to say. The night was a blank." Liz opened her mouth and he cut her off. "And no, I don't suffer from blackouts. Never in my life, before that night."

Liz nodded. "And we all know that story. The guy who no-one would have thought had it in him … and you're professionally predisposed to believe what victims tell you."

"And personally." McCoy stopped himself there. Perhaps the scotch had loosened his tongue after all. "But it turns out it doesn't matter what I can or can't remember. There are witnesses. It looks like the complaining witness wasn't even injured at all. At least, her medical records were forged."

"But that's wonderful, Jack." Liz set her glass down on the coffee table and turned to face him. "Why on earth did you say you might be going to jail?"

"Because you and I know that evidence isn't always enough in a courtroom. Hell, Liz, I've won cases weaker than the one Cutter's got against me. And he's a better lawyer than the one I've got."

"Then why did you hire him?"

"Him?"

"Your lawyer."

"Oh. Her," McCoy corrected.

"Oh," Liz said with a wealth of meaning. "Her."

"Not like that, Liz. She's usually my second chair." And that wasn't getting him out of anything, from her arched eyebrow. "Just my second chair. I haven't — we haven't —" Which was tap-dancing along the thin edge of a lie, because they certainly would have if it had been up to him. "I thought she'd do as I said and run the case the way I wanted — when what I wanted was to have it over with and face the music. Now I'm fighting for my life and she's not — she's a good prosecutor but not because of her courtroom skills. Not like Claire."

Liz picked up her drink and looked at it, and then looked at him. "When did you start doing that again?

"Doing what?"

"Comparing women to Claire Kincaid."

"I don't."

She raised an eyebrow. "You just did."

McCoy shook his head. "It's not the same. Claire — she defended me in court. Or that's what it amounted to, prosecuting Diana. Now Regan is doing the same. It's a natural train of thought. It's this case. It's just this case."

"Or just this woman."

McCoy frowned. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"What do you think it means?"

He had to chose again, to be angry or to be amused, and it took an effort of will almost beyond him to chose amused this time. "I think your professional reflexes are kicking in."

Liz shrugged a little. "You hired me," she said.

"Technically."

"Courtrooms aren't the only places technicalities count." Liz sipped her drink again. "So tell me about her, this woman who's not like Claire."

"I don't compare her to Claire," McCoy said shortly. He'd stopped comparing women to Claire Kincaid a long time ago.

They always came up short.

He could bring the photograph to mind without even closing his eyes, could see it more clearly that the room in which he stood. Claire, squinting a little against the sun, laughing at something he'd said, beautiful, happy.

Gone.

Cover her face, he thought, the old quotes coming unbidden, mine eyes dazzle. She died young.

If he had had any say, that would have been Claire's headstone. Mine eyes dazzle.

But he had had no say, no legal claim, and her mother had chosen Beloved daughter.

"Jack?" Liz said softly, and he realized how long he'd been silent. Too long. Betrayingly long.

"I'm tired, Liz," he said. "Just tired. It's been a long few weeks. Regan is …" He shrugged. "Former cop, street smart, better with people than with law books. She's had some tough times but she's …" The words of the old doctor in Carthage came back to him. "A survivor." Liz opened her mouth to ask another damned question and McCoy faked a yawn. "I'm sorry, Liz, I really am tired."

"And an important day tomorrow," Liz said, nodding. She set down her glass and stood. "I'll take my cue, then. But if you do ever want to talk, Jack …"

She gave a wry smile, and McCoy returned it. When had he ever wanted to talk, to Liz, to anyone? "I'll call, Liz, if I need to."

He walked her out, and returned to the living room. He half expected Abbie to be there, ready to take over where Liz had left off, but the room was empty and in the silence he heard footsteps overhead.

He poured himself another drink.

Liz Olivet had meant well, she always meant well, but she was as wide of the mark tonight as she ever was. Oh, there might have been a time when every woman he looked at was nothing more than not Claire, and if he was honest with himself it had been that rather than the hours he worked that had hammered the nails into the coffin of his third marriage. But that was a long time ago. He'd taken plenty of women to bed since then and never once considered all the ways in which they were so very different to Claire Kincaid.

It was just this case. It was just seeing Regan, unpolished and unpracticed in the courtroom, that had him remembering how elegantly sure-of-herself Claire had been, at least before a jury. And that was no fair comparison, because Claire had been aimed at a career in the law her whole life and Regan … for Regan the courtroom was a poor second-best to a patrol car.

He couldn't imagine Claire in uniform. She had been exotic enough in the DA's Office, a beautiful rose surrounded by the weeds and brambles of repeat offenders and beaten-down public defenders. Regan now, well. If Claire had been a rose then Regan was a bunch of sunflowers bought at a bodega, cheap and cheerful and perfectly at home in a fourth-floor walk-up. Claire had learned how to argue a case by arguing with her stepfather over the dinner table; at the same age, Regan had been learning different lessons from old Bill Markham.

Not how to win an argument, but how to defuse one. Not how to crack a witness, but how to win one over.

Learning that impersonal kindness she'd shown when McCoy's worst nightmares were all coming true and learning, too, the loyalty that had seen her willing to burn every bridge with the DA's Office and with him, too, in order to save him from himself.

As if the thought had summoned her, McCoy heard the front door open and close and a moment later Regan was standing in the doorway. The day had left its marks on her in a way even the longest case hadn't shown with Claire: hair fraying loose, lipstick a long-ago casualty to coffee cups, clothes wrinkled and rumpled and none-too-fresh.

Claire Kincaid had been young, and breath-takingly beautiful, and a brilliant legal mind.

Regan Markham was none of those things. Regan was worn and scarred inside and out by things no-one should have to survive. As much as McCoy enjoyed looking at her she would never stop traffic and she didn't even give enough of a damn about it to reapply lipstick. And what makes her a good prosecutor is her talent with people that has nothing to do with the law.

She was no Claire Kincaid, but then …

Claire Kincaid had been no Regan Markham, either.

"Cutter turned over the cab driver," Regan said. "Before I left. Enrico Rodriguez. I called Curtis on the way home, he's tracking him down now."

"What will he say?" McCoy asked.

Regan shrugged. "Not exculpatory, Cutter said. And not material, which is why he didn't plan to call him."

"Which is why he didn't turn him over in discovery. So the question is, why now?"

He could see Regan thinking about it. "He can confirm Evatt's evidence. Cutter's feet are getting cold."

McCoy nodded.

"He offered a deal," Regan said softly.

"I don't want it," McCoy said instantly.

"I know, but I'm obliged to tell you. No time."

"No time, no license, no job."

"I know." She crossed to the sideboard and poured herself a drink. "But Jack … if I fuck it up tomorrow, you could end up with no license and no job and behind bars."

"You won't."

Regan snorted and turned to look at him, leaning back against the wall. "Were you paying any attention at all today?"

"I was paying too much attention today," McCoy said. "Regan, you're not me. You're not — not any one of the other lawyers at One Hogan Place. And you can't be, no matter how hard you try. You can't do what they'd do, what I'd do."

"I know that, Jack." She looked away from him, scratching her cheek. "Believe me, I do know it."

"No." McCoy stood and crossed to her, taking her shoulders, making her face him. "Because none of them, none of us, is you, either, Regan."

"And would want to be, either. A washed-up ex-cop whose career highlight was walking a beat?"

"Exactly," McCoy said, and her eyes widened at the sincerity in his voice. "Exactly, Regan. That's exactly who you are and exactly why you're going to win tomorrow."

She tilted her head back a little and studied him. "You're going to need to explain," she said at last.

.oOo.


A/N: The stories "Aftereffect" and "The Ones After" take place in the same storyverse as this series.

The quote is from John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi.