Four Walls

13

IT SEEMS TO BE a routine crime scene check. You and Mac follow a blood trail that starts at the dead body and leads upstairs into a corporate office hallway.

There's a ladder on the floor where the trail ends and an open panel in the ceiling. Mac holds a latex glove in his hand and straightens the ladder, then he climbs it to see what's up there.

While Mac does that, holding that penlight he always carries like it's a spear or something, your mind starts to wander. You're testifying in the Howard case in a week, and you're supposed to go over your testimony with ADA Maria Cabrera this afternoon. Even though the evidence against Howard's partner in the plastic surgery business is overwhelming, the jackass still pled not guilty and hired an expensive mouthpiece.

Worse, the DA gave it to Cabrera, the snottiest person in the prosecutor's office. She still has a grudge against you for the Balidemaj case, which means this meeting will be as much fun as your last trip to the dentist, only without the cute hygienist, Abby. If the ADAs were less like Cabrera and more like Abby, you'd enjoy testifying more. You should call her, actually…

Suddenly, Mac practically jumps off the ladder. "We gotta check the building. If there's anyone here, get 'em out." You wonder what the hell he's talking about, when he says three fateful words:

"There's a bomb."

All thoughts of Abby's hourglass figure and the Howard case and Cabrera's obnoxiousness flee from your brain at the sound of those words.

Instead, you think that the last thing this city needs is another building blowing up.

"Hit the alarm!" Mac yells, and you reach out with one long arm and yank on the white handle of the fire alarm.

It's craziness after that, the alarm blaring in your ears. "Call central," Mac screams over the alarm, "no radio!" But you already have your cell phone out and flipped open.

"Suspicious package," you cry as you run upstairs, "621 Greenwich. A bomb."

Central, as usual, is staffed by morons. "Did you say a bomb?" the guy says. You're pretty sure it's Soohoo. Probably half asleep like usual.

"Yeah a bomb!"

You and Mac get to the next floor, and sure enough, even though it's Sunday, there are workaholics in the building who just can't wait until Monday to do what they have to do. Of course, you're working on a Sunday, but never mind.

Used to be that evacuating a building was like pulling teeth, only without the sexy hygienist. Since the fall of 2001, though, all you had to do was say the word bomb, and every New Yorker knew exactly what to do.

You're not sure if that's a good thing or not.

Mac calls Monroe-who had gone outside to get more crime lab toys from the SUV-and tells her to evacuate the area.

Finally, you're checking the last of the doors, making sure that the building's been completely emptied. It's just you and Mac left, looks like.

"All right," Mac says, "c'mon, let's go."

You both turn and head to the stairwell.

"Hey, what's goin' on?"

You whirl around, and there's some schmuck wearing noise-canceling headphones who looks confused. You start moving toward him.

"Hey, get the hell outta here!"

And then the world explodes in a fiery conflagration. Your ears pop from the deafening report of the bomb's detonation, and you feel the impact of shrapnel slicing into your chest.

You don't remember anything after that…

Flack sat up quickly, his bare chest drenched in sweat. "Son of a bitch."

Though the dream had ended, the pain in his chest hadn't died down.

It took Flack a few seconds to extricate himself from his sheets, which had gotten tangled in his legs.

It had been a while since he'd had the dream.

He wasn't sure what prompted it this time. Usually, there was some kind of trigger, but he'd spent all day today at Richmond Hill interviewing surly convicts and brain-dead COs. That wasn't a hundred percent accurate, of course. Many of the COs were just fine, especially Terry, and a surprisingly large number of the cons were polite, but Flack didn't remember the decent ones with anywhere near the same clarity with which he remembered the jackasses.

Flack liked the look of Melendez as their guy. Mac would say it was because of the fingerprint on the murder weapon, but Flack put more stock in the fight in the Koran class. Guys like Melendez were always searching for a way to get out early, and Washburne had put up a roadblock to that. And the incident in the weight yard had provided him with a golden opportunity: everyone was busy looking at Barker. Melendez could get his revenge without anybody even seeing him. He even pointed out the dead body so people wouldn't suspect him. The classic stupid person's rationale: If I point out the dead body, I can't have done the murder.

He looked over at the clock radio next to his bed. 3:52.

Then he looked down at the network of scars on the left side of his chest.

Knowing he wouldn't get back to sleep, and not relishing the idea of possibly having the dream again anyhow, Flack got up.

That proved to be a mistake, as the twinges of pain in his chest turned into white-hot knives of agony. He fell back down, staring at the ceiling, trying to get his breathing under control.

After a few dozen eternities, the pain started to die down. Slowly, very, very slowly, Flack got up from the bed. He gingerly walked to the closet, where his suit jacket was hanging. Opening the closet door proved to be even more painful than getting up had been, and he almost stumbled to the floor with the pain.

Taking a second to let the pain subside, he stood upright and reached into the inner pocket of the jacket he'd been wearing yesterday.

He heard the clatter of a Percocet against plastic as he pulled out the pill bottle.

He also heard Terry Sullivan's voice: "Will you please take the pill, for the love of Christ?"

Walking into the kitchen, he pulled open the refrigerator door. His memory hadn't betrayed him: there was an open bottle of Chianti Classico, the cork sticking up out of it.

Under normal circumstances, Flack would've gotten a wineglass out of the china closet, but-with all respect to an excellent Tuscan red-he needed this sooner rather than later. Besides, opening and closing doors was proving to be agonizing. He could just get a regular milk glass out of the dry rack next to the sink without having to open or close anything.

Pouring out the remainder of the Chianti, he then put the pill in his mouth and downed a mouthful of the wine.

Peyton Driscoll usually got in early. She had promised a full autopsy report on Malik Washburne first thing in the morning. For all Flack knew, she'd had a prelim the night before, but after a full day at RHCF, he'd come straight home. If something important came up, Mac or somebody would've called him. Or not-it wasn't as if anybody involved in the case was going anywhere, and Mac had even commented to Flack that he looked like he needed a good night's sleep.

A pity he didn't get one.

The pharmacy opened at eight, he knew. Flack intended to be there as soon as the gate went up.

So what if it was weak. Sometimes weakness was a strength.

Seeing the video on the web, watching herself making love to a man she thought she knew.

"So I broke up with Frankie right then and there. Told him I never wanted to see him again."

Sneaking up on her in the parking lot, wondering why she wouldn't return his phone calls, as if he didn't know.

"Did you think it was funny? Did you think it would turn me on?"

Walking into the apartment to find him standing there, lighting candles, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

"It's one of my rules: no men in my place. Just in case things go bad, I always have a safe place to go to."

Rushing to the phone to call 911-or Flack or the landlord, somebody-only to have him rip the phone out of the wall and throw it across the room with a clatter. Suddenly everything changes: a seemingly harmless guy who won't take no for an answer has become dangerous.

"All right, that's it. I'm making a phone call."

Feeling the phone cord bite into her wrists behind her back as he ties her up, angrily wondering how she could treat him like one of the suspects she meets at work, never mind that he's acting just like one himself.

"I loved your statue-so beautiful. And I loved all the I-love-you messages. And I really meant to call you-I did."

Sitting in the bathtub, her fingers slick with her own blood as she tries desperately to grip the blade that she'd managed to pry out of her leg razor so she could slice the phone cord apart and be free.

"I remember the doorbell ringing-but I don't know why."

Digging through the handbag with bloody fingers, trying desperately to find and hold her Glock, when he comes leaping over the divider, knocking her to the floor with a bone-jarring impact.

"You caught me off guard. Can you blame me?"

He grabs the Glock and tries to shoot her, but he doesn't know how to shoot a handgun and never takes the safety off. She takes advantage of his confusion and grabs the weapon from his hand.

"That's the name and number of my lawyer, Courtney Bracey. You want to talk to me, set it up with her."

Stella bolted upright.

It wasn't the first time she'd dreamed about that terrible night when Frankie Mala broke into her apartment and held her captive. Usually, any mention of a rape or kidnapping or sexual assault triggered that reaction.

But this time, it had been Jack Morgenstern in the dream, taking Frankie's place. Morgenstern who tied her up, Morgenstern who tried to shoot her, Morgenstern whom she was about to shoot three times in the chest.

Rubbing her eyes while sitting in the very bed where Frankie had tied her up, she looked over at the clock radio on the end table, which told her that it was a little before five.

She was getting up in a few hours anyhow. This morning, she had a meeting with the ADA to go over next week's testimony in the Osborne case, then it was back to the grind with the Maria Campagna murder-which was obviously preying on her mind if the prime suspect was showing up in her dreams.

As she padded to the kitchen-the same kitchen where she'd found Frankie blithely setting the table-she reflected with frustration on how little useful evidence they actually had. There was no sign of Maria's fingernail on Morgenstern's clothes, nor anywhere in his house. The bruise that was forming on Morgenstern's chest was shaped vaguely enough that it could have come from the impact of a teenager's protected foot, or a woman's fist, or both.

Everything at the lab was getting bumped for Mac's prison case, so Stella didn't know the results of the trace left on Maria's knuckles yet. She just had to hope they'd discover something definitive there.

They also hadn't found Maria's necklace in Morgenstern's house. Angell had double-checked with Maria's mother, and she said Maria had indeed worn the necklace when she left for work the previous day.

Any decent lawyer would blow through that evidence like a shotgun through cardboard, and Bracey-no matter how annoying she might be-was more than a decent lawyer.

They needed the proverbial smoking gun.

Stella liked it better when criminals were stupid. Then they were easy to intimidate with circumstantial evidence. Morgenstern, though, wouldn't intimidate easily, especially after what he went through on that rape case.

She had read up on Morgenstern's case. The actual rapist didn't look anything like Morgenstern, but he did match the general description. The victim never got a good look at her attacker, so her ID of him wasn't solid, but Morgenstern's alibi for the time of the rape had simply been that he was alone in his Belmont apartment, which hadn't helped his case.

In all fairness, Stella could see how he would be wary of the NYPD after being put through the wringer like that.

But at the end of the day, he was still the most viable suspect they had.

They just needed to prove it.

She needed to prove it.

Walking to the counter, she put on a pot of coffee. No sense trying to get back to sleep now. She'd down some caffeine, shower, and maybe go to the gym. She suddenly felt the need to take out her frustrations on an innocent punching bag.

I'm jogging, just like I do every night.

The night wind is blowing in my face.

The car takes the place of the wind, shining light that blinds me.

I know the drill. I don't stop them from searching me.

I think it's insane, but I know better than to resist.

That's what they taught me, you do what the cops tell you to do.

I don't know where the money in my pocket came from. I don't know why they're handcuffing me.

I do know how it makes me feel. I'm helpless. No control. Just like in the ER, when the patient won't come back to life no matter what I do.

No control.

A man says I shot someone. I don't know what he's talking about.

A lawyer tells me he's on my side, even though he questions me the same way a suspect is questioned.

I'm put in jail, forced to wear a prison uniform instead of my own clothes.

I'm handcuffed if I'm taken anywhere outside the prison.

And then he comes to visit me.

Shane Casey.

He did this to me.

He took my control away. And no one will believe me.

Hawkes woke up as his alarm went off. He was still having the dream.

Part of him figured he should talk to that departmental shrink. Mac had recommended it after he was released, but it wasn't a requirement. Maybe he'd ask Stella how it worked out for her after Frankie attacked her.

Or maybe he'd just talk to Stella. She'd been tied up and threatened, her wrists bound as if they were handcuffed. She knew what it was like to be helpless.

To lose control.

Sitting in his darkened apartment, the lights of the city that never slept casting odd shadows in his bedroom, Sheldon Hawkes was willing to admit that the thing that scared him more than anything else was losing control. He became a doctor so he could control life and death, only to find that life and death weren't anywhere near as easy to wrangle as he'd led himself to believe.

It had been too much, so he fled the hospital for the morgue. His patients were already dead, so he couldn't kill them there. He had his control back.

Then Shane Casey took it all away from him. Just so he could clear the name of his brother-who turned out to be exactly as guilty as the jury had found him.

It was all for nothing.

Sometimes, Hawkes thought that was the worst part of it all. Casey's loyalty to his brother was touching but misplaced.

And all it cost was a little piece of Sheldon Hawkes's soul.

He hadn't gone running since that night. It wasn't that he was afraid to, exactly, he just didn't want to risk reliving it.

That was a sort of fear, wasn't it?

Maybe he did have things to discuss with the shrink.

However, that could wait until after this case was put down. Peyton had said when he left for the day that she had to check a few things against Washburne's medical records at RHCF before she would release the autopsy report. She was also being cagey about her findings, not even filing a prelim. At the time, she had said it was because, with Gerrard breathing down her neck, she didn't want to jump to any conclusions, and that excuse certainly had the ring of believability about it.

But Hawkes had been an ME too long not to know the signs. Peyton had found something that didn't make sense, and she didn't want to tell anyone about it until she had an answer or had proven to herself that an answer was not to be found.

He hoped it was the former.

Hawkes performed all his morning ablutions and rituals, then hopped the R train uptown to work.

Stella was waiting in the elevator bank when he arrived. "Morning, Stella."

"Hey, Sheldon. How's your prison riot going?"

"One's a dunker-guy confessed, evidence matched up. Unfortunately, the other one's Washburne. We've got a suspect, but I'm still waiting for Peyton's report."

She smiled. "I envy you. I've got a suspect, too, and Sid's done his report, but it's all way too circumstantial."

Unable to miss the fact that Stella wasn't making eye contact, Hawkes stared straight at her and said, "You okay?"

Finally, she met his gaze.

Hawkes recognized the haunted look in her eyes. It was the same one he saw in the mirror after waking up from that damn dream.

"Bad dreams?" he asked.

"How'd you guess?" She didn't actually sound that surprised.

"Experience. Wanna get a drink after the shift's over and compare night terrors?"

She smiled. "You're on, Doc."

With a telltale ding, the elevator arrived. They both got on, went to their floor, and disembarked.

As soon as they got off, Stella's Treo rang. She looked down at the display, said, "Angell," then put the phone to her ear. "What's up, Jen? Really? Okay. I've got a meeting, but I'll send Lindsay up to meet you."

"What is it?" Hawkes asked.

She gave him a grin. "The proverbial break in the case. Our vic was missing a necklace, and Angell said it just turned up. I gotta go find Lindsay. I'll see you later, Sheldon."

Stella peeled off and went in search of Lindsay. Hawkes continued toward the break room to get some coffee, only to find Peyton Driscoll waiting for him. She was holding what looked very much like an autopsy report in her hand.

"I'm afraid I have some disturbing news," she said by way of greeting.

"I had a feeling."

She frowned. "Are you becoming a psychic, Sheldon?"

"No, but when you don't file a prelim, I know something's up," Hawkes said. "Give it to me straight, Doc, I can take it."

"I have a cause of death for Malik Washburne, nй Gregory Washburne, and it is most assuredly not blunt force trauma to the head. Rather, it was asphyxiation due to the closing of the throat as a result of an allergic reaction."

Eyes wide, Hawkes took the report from Peyton and started flipping through it. "Allergic to what?"

"That," she said with a sigh, "is the question. I haven't the foggiest."

He looked at her, then led the way out of the break room toward Mac's office. "C'mon, we'd better talk to Mac. And, if we're really unlucky, to Gerrard, too."