Note: This chapter is rated T for mention of non-consensual sexual activity (nothing graphic). It's a long one, folks, because I didn't want to split it.
Reese, Joss and Finch were sitting together in the subway car as they listened to Shaw's low-voiced commentary on Paul's Queens home. "No booze in the refrigerator," she said.
"There wouldn't be. Paul never was much of a drinker and his VA counselor has encouraged that," Joss commented.
"Kitchen cupboards well stocked, fresh fruit in a bowl on the counter. They're eating healthy anyway, Joss." Joss's face was sad as she listened.
"Going through to the main bedroom. Huh."
"Huh?" said Reese.
"There's a bunch of photos scattered on the bed. Shots of Paul and I guess his platoon mates in Afghanistan." A pause. "This one's ripped up. Sending you a picture."
The picture, when it arrived, showed the photo roughly reassembled in six pieces on the bed. Finch began working on the image as soon as it appeared, and it was only a few moments before he had the picture restored. Two unshaven and very dirty men wearing t-shirts and body armour grinning into the camera, their arms around one another's shoulders. Paul Carter on the left, a rugged, gray-brown landscape in the background. "Anything written on the back, Ms Shaw?" There was a pause.
"Nope. Oh wait, there's a date. September 2003."
"So who's the mystery man in the picture?" wondered Reese.
"I shall do my best to find out," said Finch, fingers rattling across the keyboard.
"Found his laptop," said Shaw. There was a pause as she booted it up and plugged in the thumb drive.
"Get Taylor's as well, if you can," said Reese. Joss looked askance at him; he shrugged. "He might be involved somehow was well, Joss," he said as gently as he could. She sighed and looked away, reluctant agreement in the set of her shoulders.
"Okay, I've finished," said Shaw. "Moving into Taylor's room." There was a pause. "No laptop, but I'm getting his desktop."
"I think he takes the laptop to class," Joss said into the silence.
Shaw moved back through the living area on her way out. "Huh. There's an envelope here, handwritten address on it. No return address, but it was for Paul. No sign of the letter, though. Who sends things snailmail these days?"
"People who can't access a computer. Or who don't know his email address. Is the postmark legible?" asked Finch.
"Ummm... Queens, I think. Posted three days ago."
"Joss, is Paul's phone number unlisted?" asked Reese.
"Don't think so," said Joss.
"I'll check," said Finch, keyboard rattling. "No, it would appear not. Just an ordinary listed number."
"So his name, address and phone number were all publicly available, but someone already living in Queens chose to send him a letter rather than phone or visit," said Reese.
"I think we can assume the the sender was the guy in the photo, don't you?" said Shaw. "I mean..."
"Tempting, but let's not reason in advance of our evidence, Ms Shaw. Post hoc ergo propter hoc," replied Finch.
"We'll just wait for the interpretation," murmured Joss.
Finch shot her a glance, the motion rendered oddly birdlike by the stiffness of his neck. "Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Ms Carter. With your legal training I'm astonished you don't know the phrase. One of the great logical fallacies – 'After this, therefore because of this'. Just because an event happens immediately after another event, that does not mean it was caused by it. The two may be entirely unconnected."
"Yeah, you want to take a bet on that, Finch?" Shaw sounded impatient. "Ten bucks says that when you track down the mystery man, he's our threat. In fact, make it fifty."
Finch ignored this, and sat for a moment starting meditatively at the left-hand screen.
Joss suddenly said, "Sameen, have you checked the waste paper basket?"
"For the letter? No... just looking now." A long pause. "Nope, no luck. Checking the kitchen garbage too...no. Nothing."
"Yeah, well that would have made it too easy, I guess," sighed Carter.
xxxxxxx
It was in fact several hours later that they got their breakthrough, after Shaw returned with the contents of Paul's and Taylor's computers. Finch was sitting in his usual pose, fingers flying over the keyboard, when he suddenly froze. "Ah. Hmmm."
"Professor?" Reese was lying dozing on the emergency cot. He propped himself up on an elbow as Finch said, "I think I've found something. Paul Carter entered a number of searches on Google, Facebook and Friendczar. He was looking for a man called Curtis Allen. When I track Mr Allen's address I find he lives in Queens, at a halfway house for recently released prisoners."
More keyboard noises. The shifting light from the computer screens reflected in Finch's glasses. "It would seem that Mr Allen served two tours in Afghanistan. The first was with the 87th Infantry regiment, 10th Mountain Division."
"That was Paul's unit," said Joss. She was back in her usual position sitting against the semi partition.
"After returning to the United States at the end of his deployment he was out of work for a few months, then rejoined the Army and went back for another tour. Honourably discharged in 2006, but things seem to have gone downhill for him after that. More unemployment, then a series of arrests for assault."
Joss was firing up her laptop. "Let me wave my magic ADA wand on that, Finch. Lemme see..." There was silence broken only by two keyboards clattering. "He skated on thin ice for a time, obviously his PDs were able to keep him out of prison on the basis of his war record for a while," said Joss, frowning at her screen. "He seems to have pleaded guilty each time, but eventually the courts must have got tired of sentencing him to counseling and anger management, which he never went to anyway. He served a one-year sentence, was out for two years and then back in for another two years. About three months ago he came out of prison again, and he's been living at the halfway house since then."
"So then he suddenly decides to hook up with an old army buddy. It was him in the photo. You owe me fifty bucks, Finch," said Shaw. She was sitting on the floor where she had been playing tug-of-war with Bear, using an old sock.
Finch's only response was a flick of the eyebrows.
"Oh well, back to the noodles and cheap wine," muttered Shaw. Raising her voice she said, "Time to get eyes on Paul Carter then, don't you think?"
xxxxxxx
Stakeouts. Reese accepted stakeouts with a philosophical shrug, something he shared with Detective Riley. He sat in the car just down the street from Paul Carter's residence as the autumn sunset faded. Taylor had arrived home from class half an hour earlier, the lights had gone on and the curtains closed. Reese stiffened in his seat as the house's front door opened. Paul Carter emerged and ran down the steps, turning his collar up and pulling a hat on as he did so. He turned and began to walk along the street toward Reese's car. Reese drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and glanced at his watch, the picture of a man waiting for someone, as Carter passed by. As Carter disappeared into the twilight, Reese tapped his earpiece. "Finch? Carter just came out and headed off somewhere on foot. I'm going to tail him and try to see where he's going."
"I hear you, John. Joss is here with me, so we'll keep listening in."
Reese got out and set off after Paul Carter. It wasn't that hard to follow him – there weren't many people out in the rapidly cooling evening. The problem was following him unobtrusively. Reese nodded to a couple walking their dog, wishing he'd thought to bring Bear.
After nearly an hour's walk, he was both cold and frustrated. "Finch, where the hell is this man going? And why on foot?"
"I was thinking exactly the same thing, Detective. I'm just checking something... Ah." Finch's voice changed, becoming much more urgent. "He's heading for Allen's halfway house, it's about another mile-"
"-and he's chosen not to use a bus or the subway to lessen the chances of being picked up on camera," Joss put in.
"So he isn't the victim. He's the perp." Reese's face was set, and he increased his pace just slightly.
"I'm coming over," said Joss, sounding worried. "See if you can delay him, I'll be right there."
xxxxxx
Reese stood in some shadows just down the street from the entrance to the halfway house. Paul Carter was standing under a street light just across the road from its brightly lit doors. "St Martin's," read the sign on the building. A stained glass image of the saint, a handsome young man on a prancing horse, was above the double doors leading to the street. It was illuminated from the inside, the colours glowing on the sidewalk beneath it. The smiling blonde rider was using a sword to cut his cloak in half, and was offering the half cloak to a beggar. The man looked grateful. Reese wondered if the beggar could be as cold as he was himself. He hadn't been anticipating an hour and a half hiking the streets of Queens. At least the walk had kept some warmth in his body, but it was slowly leeching out as he stood in the shadows watching Paul Carter hesitating in front of the halfway house. He tapped his earpiece. "I don't like the looks of this, Finch. He's standing here psyching himself up for something. How long before Joss gets here?"
"Not long, I think, John," replied Finch. "She left here half an hour ago – she can't be far off."
"Well, she'd better get here soon...Wait, I think he's made up his mind."
Carter squared his shoulders, stepped out from under the streetlight, and crossed the street. One final hesitation, then he pulled the door open and disappeared inside.
"No more time, Finch. I'm going in after him." Reese stepped out of his hiding place and strode towards the entrance to St Martin's. A dark sedan pulled up at the kerb. "John! Wait!" Joss threw herself out of the car and was halfway across the street before the car door had slammed shut. Reese pulled the big door open for her, automatically checking the street for possible witnesses, and then followed her inside.
"Excuse me," she was saying to the man on the reception desk, "I'm just running a little behind. My husband Paul, he was just here to meet an old Army buddy-"
"Oh yeah, he just came in," said the receptionist. "Upstairs, Room 208. Up on the right."
"Oh, thank you," said Joss, smiling politely. She moved towards the stairs, and Reese could see she was trying hard to move normally and not break into a desperate run. He shot a smile at the receptionist and moved to follow her as she rapidly mounted the stairs.
"Hey, no more than two visitors at a time..." the receptionist trailed off as they disappeared around a bend in the stairway.
The door to Room 208 was open a crack. A thin pencil line of light cut across the darkened hallway as Reese and Joss approached. There were voices coming from the room.
"I can't believe you wrote to me." Carter.
"I...I wanted to make contact. I wanted to-" the other voice was very quiet.
"Do what? Do it again? You didn't do enough damage the first time? Or maybe I wasn't your last victim. What were you doing time for anyway, Al? You got plans to keep on hurting people?" Rage in Carter's voice. "I won't let you. I'm gonna end you, you bastard-"
Reese put his eye to the crack. Paul Carter was standing with his back to the door, while Curtis Allen was sitting on the bed. Carter was holding something out in his right hand. Reese couldn't see what it might be, but judging from Carter's stance he had no doubt at all that it was a gun. He glanced at Joss, took a deep breath, and slowly eased the door open. She took in the scene with a single glance. Carter, hearing the door move, took a quick peek over his shoulder before returning his gaze to the man in front of him.
"What are you doing here, Joss?" Paul's voice was hard and flat.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Paul?" Joss said, entering the room very slowly. Reese eased in behind her. He hoped to Christ Joss was wearing a vest; his eyes flickered across the room, calculating distances and angles.
"I'm going to shoot this sonovabitch, Joss. He deserves it."
"He was your best buddy over there."
"He took everything from me. All the shit Afghanistan threw at us, it was nothing compared to what he did. I could leave Afghanistan, I could leave the valley behind, but not him. He stayed with me. But now I can end it." The gun was very close to Allen's face.
"Paul," said Joss, "I know what it is to make a really stupid decision when you're not thinking straight. I did that, and now I'm caught in the consequences of it. There isn't a day goes by when I don't wish I'd decided otherwise, but I'm stuck with it now. So I'm begging you, please don't do this."
"You don't know what this is all about, Joss." His hand remained rock-steady, and Reese could see the finger begin to tighten on the trigger.
"You're right, I don't know. But I know nothing can possibly be helped or cured by taking this man's life. Please, Paul. Please don't do this."
"Joss is right, Paul," Reese said softly. He was focused on Paul's gun hand, moving very quietly and slowly to try to place himself between Paul and Joss. "I know what it is to take a life in cold blood. I know you've killed before, in combat, but believe me, this is a whole 'nother ball game." A fractional relaxation of that trigger finger? He continued to talk, a quiet hypnotic whisper. "It doesn't really matter what came before. Whatever wound you've got won't be healed by this act. Killing this guy will only magnify the consequences of whatever it was he did to you." There was a slight sheen of sweat on Paul Carter's face. The finger was slowly coming off the trigger. "You've got people around you who care about you, a son who looks up to you. You do this thing and you throw all that away. I promise you, whatever it is that started all this, we'll find a way to make it right. But only if you put your weapon down."
Abruptly Paul's hand dropped. The gun hit the floor with a muffled thump. Joss took two steps towards her former husband and enfolded him in a hug. Reese picked up the gun and pocketed it, then he turned towards Allen, pulling some zip ties from his other pocket as he did so.
"I think we need to have a little discussion, Mr Allen," he said. He did not try to hide the coldness in his voice. Allen slumped. "You don't need to tie me up," he said wearily. "In fact once we're done you guys can arm wrestle for who gets to off me for all I care. I'm done."
The bleakness of his tone seemed to touch something in Paul. He released Joss and looked over at Allen as if seeing him for the first time. Then he turned his gaze to Reese. "You'll find a way to make it right, huh?" he said bitterly. "Well, see if you can make this right. That bastard was my best friend in Afghanistan. Until he raped me. See if you can make that right."
xxxxxxxx
"We were stuck up a hill together for a solid year," said Allen. "One platoon, that's thirty soldiers, right? All hunkered down behind razor wire and mines and sandbags. Patrols every few days, maybe. Or maybe not. When it wasn't boring it was scary, we'd hear radio chatter told us the insurgents were coming in a week, two days, next morning. Sometimes it'd pan out, sometimes not. Sometimes the boredom got so bad we'd be desperate for combat, something to happen, anything at all. Then some towelhead would set up as a sniper and fire a few rounds into our compound. Guy bunked across from me got hit in the shoulder lying in his bed one day." Allen's voice was low, a monotonous mumble of disjointed memories seeping out like water from a steadily dripping tap. "No-one who hasn't been there can possibly imagine what it's like. One night they tried to overrun us, all of a sudden there's tracer rounds and mortar rounds and shit coming in from up the hillside, everyone piles out of the hooch just as we were, you remember Paul? You were on the 240 firing up the hill, just there in your underwear and body armour and a helmet. You were on that gun a solid hour before the Apaches got there, never did get anything else on. Crazy sonovabitch." Paul nodded, blank faced.
"Then it went quiet for a whole month," continued Allen. "Like just nothing at all happening. Stupid motherf-" he stopped and cast an apologetic glance at Joss. "I mean, stupid bastards. Ran out of ammo, would you believe. Harvest was a small one for them that year, they couldn't afford the bullets to fire at us. So we got bored."
"And that caused you to..." Joss seemed to have difficulty getting the words out.
"Rape someone? One of my brothers in arms? My best friend, in fact?" Allen's expression was an odd amalgam of self-loathing, defiance and a mute plea for understanding. "You would not believe the things that went on up that hill. Most of them were just...a little strange. Some people took to sleeping all the time, fifteen, twenty hours a day if they weren't on duty. One guy would pin people down for weird philosophical conversations about whether there was anything in astrology, or whether ESP was true, stuff like that. There was another who spent all his time trying to lure the damn monkeys down off the hillside into the compound, he was convinced he could tame one of 'em. There was lots of porn, magazines or on people's laptops or whatever, and you had to be real careful to walk into the hooch loudly, you know, in case you caught someone committing an intimate act on his bunk, right? And the tension in the air all the time..." His voice trailed off. Joss and Reese exchanged looks. Yes, Reese could imagine it. Heat, dust, the strange numbness that set in after a week or two, a numbness which had to be fought because any moment it could all change to violent action in which a slight hesitation could get you killed, or worse cause you to let the others down. The tiniest details would take on a bizarre significance, the pattern of light and shade cast by the camo netting, the smell of thrown out coffee grounds, a stray wisp of smoke from the burn pit where the platoon's rubbish went. Every sense stretched to its utmost, stretched thin, just waiting to snap...
"And so one day I walked into the hooch and you were asleep on your bunk, Paul. You were face down in your underwear with your ass up in the air, like my kid used to sleep when he was little. And to this day I swear I don't know what went on in my head, but I just thought, what the hell. And before I knew it I was on top of you, and..." Allen drew a deep breath. "I couldn't believe what I was doing even at the time. And before you were even fully awake I was done and ah shit I don't know. I zipped up and went out. We never said one word to each other after that unless we were in a firefight. And ten weeks later the deployment was over and we all went home. End of story, right?" He looked around at the three of them. "I could tell you that I wasn't quite right in the head when I did what I did. That might even be true. And I could tell you I have nightmares about it, and that would definitely be true. And I could say I'm sorry and I'm sick as hell for what I did, and that would be true too, but none of that really matters, does it. It doesn't fix it." Allen took a deep breath. "So there you go. You can arm wrestle now or whatever you like. I've said all I'm going to say. I just want to end this."
The silence after this speech stretched out. Paul sat with his head bowed. Joss was gazing at the wall, her face a blank mask. Reese examined his hands. I don't fix people, I'm better at breaking 'em. Damned if I know how to fix this...
Paul lifted his head. "I'm not arm wrestling anyone," he said heavily. "I'm not going to kill you, Al. Now I'm thinking straight again, I can see. You're a pathetic piece of shit. I don't care enough about you to end you. You can go off and jump under a train or drink yourself to death or find a good woman and have eighteen kids together for all I care. Just so long as you do it a long, long way from where I am."
xxxxxx
"I feel sorry for Curtis Allen in a way," said Joss reflectively later that night. She and Reese were sitting in one of their favourite diners. They had decided the all-day breakfast was in order; she was having a stack of pancakes with maple syrup, while he was finishing eggs Benedict. "He was really looking for some sort of forgiveness from Paul, and I think he was truly sorry for what he'd done."
"It can't have come as a surprise that he ended up looking down the barrel of a gun," replied Reese as soon as he got his mouth clear of the last of his eggs. "I think he was trying to commit suicide, he was just hoping he could get someone else to pull the trigger."
"Mmm. Maybe you're right." Joss looked pensive. "I hope he can find some peace, some sort of help. It also explains why Paul took so long to seek help for his PTSD." She sighed.
"Anyway, we have other things to think of right now," he said, signaling for the check.
"Oh?" Joss shot him a sultry look.
Don't get your hopes up, he thought. This is more important. Damn it. "You have an important conversation to have with Paul. And Taylor. About trying to make things right after you make a really stupid decision. So get your coat on, I'm driving you over to his house, and then I'm sitting the three of you down. And you're going to have a talk."
Author's note: The description of life in an outpost in Afghanistan is based in part on Sebastian Junger's excellent book War. Although he doesn't describe sexual activity, consensual or not, between the soldiers with whom he was embedded, he does make it plain that things did get more than a little strange among these men, isolated as they were under conditions of immense stress. Thus I don't feel I've pushed the bounds of possibility too far in having Paul the victim of a rape. I certainly don't want to imply any disrespect to those who served in Afghanistan, or anywhere else for that matter. Thanks for reading this far! Please review, your feedback keeps me motivated to keep writing.