CHAPTER 1: EXECUTION

The law allows for certain defenses to murder.

This is a simple case.

'Extreme emotional disturbance.'  What exactly does that justify?

These are the facts of the case.  And they are undisputed.

Jack sighed as he scratched out that last line.  That was from "A Few Good Men," which he and Claire had rented a few days ago.  Too bad, because it was a very good line.  Maybe he could use it a few years from now, when the movie had faded from public memory a bit and the jurors wouldn't immediately be distracted by the quote and start thinking of Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson instead of the case before them.

Four times he'd started to write the closing statement for this stupid case, and four times he'd started over.

All right, come on, he tried to work up some kind of enthusiasm.  How about giving the jury a simple reminder of the facts, which were, as he had just written and scratched out, undisputed.

- Penelope Marie Kirksen killed her husband, Gerard Alan Kirksen
- GK cheated on her (scratch out) had affair with her friend Sarah Rosewilde (maybe not mention name)
- PK found out from a mutual friend, came home, shot him with his own gun
- PK called 911 right after killing him
- 911 tape of her sobbing into the phone: didn't mean to kill him, just very upset.

Those were the facts of the case.  And they were indeed undisputed.

It had been ridiculously easy for the prosecution to prove that Penny Kirksen had caused Gerry Kirksen's death, and ridiculously easy for the defense to prove extreme emotional disturbance.  Jack had no problem with letting the defense use it to argue for leniency, but the problem was that Kirksen wanted to get off scot-free.  Stupid woman.  Stupid defense lawyer for not being able to convince her that she should take a deal.  They were all wasting their time.  The jury would find her guilty and probably sentence her to 3-9 years, which was exactly what Jack had offered as a deal in the first place.  All this time and effort, for nothing.

He sighed.  Any ADA could have taken this case.  As EADA, Jack usually got both the privilege and the responsibility of tackling the harder cases - the strange ones, the twisted ones, the ones that brought up unique or tricky legal issues.  Straight-up murder usually went to the ADAs.  He should have just let Claire do it, but Claire had been overworked and out of sorts lately, so he'd taken on People v. Kirksen.  Now he rather regretted it.  After doing so many of these in more than twenty years of prosecution, they all kind of blurred together in the mind, and it wasn't easy to work up enthusiasm for yet another simple domestic homicide.

Jack sat up on the couch and stretched, then dropped back to his customary half-lying down position, notebook propped up on his thigh.  What time was it?  9pm.  He should go home.  He could probably just improvise the summation as he spoke in front of the jury the day after tomorrow.  He normally didn't like to do that, though.  Part of how he'd become an EADA was that he was meticulous and driven about his work - willing and able to wing it in the courtroom when circumstances demanded, but preferring to prepare conscientiously whenever possible.  Relying on last-minute inspiration as a way of life was arrogant and careless, and led to stupid, avoidable mistakes.  He was unashamedly arrogant, but he wasn't careless.

He mentally ran over his To Do list.  First, finish the Kirksen closing.  He had all day tomorrow to do it, but he really should finish it tonight and read it over tomorrow with fresh eyes.  Also: send over some files to Ruth Miller as she was wrapping up all loose ends in the Crenshaw case - no, Claire had said she was going to do that.  He should also look over some of the notes Claire had left him regarding the latest plea bargains.  She'd had a session with Travers today that hadn't gone terribly well - some pleas they both thought would be shoo-ins had been flatly rejected.

He looked at the Kirksen folder in front of him again.  Focus.  Think think think.

Not a clue what to say.  The case had been boring from the start, and he just didn't feel terribly inspired.  Maybe he should ask Claire to work on the closing tonight - she seemed to be able to work up more enthusiasm than he.

Maybe he shouldn't.  Claire had gone home a couple of hours ago, and while she rivaled him for dedication to the job and length of hours spent at Hogan Place, she didn't appreciate it when he called her at home regarding work.

Besides, things weren't exactly going swimmingly with Claire lately.  She'd walked out in a bit of a huff, he couldn't really remember over what.  Possibly another request for paperwork, possibly he'd forgotten something personal.  Anniversary?  Birthday?

Jack sighed.  Part of why he tended to get involved with women he worked with was that work was what interested him the most, so he had a built-in connection to the women he took to bed.  Unfortunately, he wasn't the most romantic or sensitive person in the world and women, even the sensible, practical women he worked with, occasionally wanted romance.  Not his strong suit.  He could do flirting, he could do intellectual debate, he could do passionate argument and passionate bedroom activities, but flowers, anniversaries, stuffed animals and candy-covered chocolates were just not his thing.  And sometimes that got him in trouble with the women he was involved with.  He wondered if that was what Claire had huffed off about.

Probably not, since Claire was also rather unromantic.  It was something they had in common. And she tended to be fairly blunt when she was unhappy about something - didn't brood like Sally had, or hint, like Diana.  If he'd missed an anniversary of some sort (and he couldn't think of any) she probably would've missed it too, or she would have reminded him point-blank.

Maybe it was the damn execution again.  They'd been tense around each other as the date drew closer - or rather, she had been tense as the date grew closer, and that impacted on him.  Especially since her bad mood came out when he was least expecting it, over things that he couldn't connect to Mickey Scott at all.

Like this morning, they'd been talking about a first-degree murder case in Texas where the defense was pleading insanity.  She'd just about bitten his head off when he expressed a wish that New York's definition of insanity as a defense were as narrow as that of Texas.

"So that we can rival Texas for percentage of inmates on death row?  That's really something to strive for, Jack."

"It would make our job somewhat easier."

"And that's what's important.  Who cares about justice.  The important thing is to make our job easier," she'd said in disgust.  He'd opened his mouth to argue with her, then the rarely-used portion of his brain responsible for sensitivity leapt up and tugged at him, reminding him that Claire probably wouldn't appreciate yet another debate on the subject.  He'd closed his mouth.

He looked down at his notes.  Claire should do this closing statement, because he really wasn't getting anywhere on it.  He'd pick at it for a bit longer, go home, then bring it to her in the morning so that she could finish it up.  They could also work on it in the car on the way to Attica for the execution; it would certainly be a long enough drive.

Although maybe he shouldn't rely on the car ride to provide them with working time.  Claire might want to go on and on about the injustice of the death penalty yet again.  He mentally groaned, thinking of spending seven hours in a car with Claire Kincaid on an idealistic rant about anything, let alone justice and the death penalty.  And once again he asked himself what he had been thinking when he agreed to attend the execution with Claire.

At the time it had seemed the logical thing to do.  She had read the notice of the date of execution and told him, slightly challengingly, that she was going to attend.  He'd asked her why, and she'd said, somewhat righteously,  "Because I have an obligation to attend.  I was part of the process that's brought this about.  Not attending would be irresponsible."

He'd nodded and gone back to his work, not giving it much thought, then noticed that Claire was still standing there, looking at him expectantly.  He'd looked up at her questioningly.

"Yes?"

"I take it you won't be going?" she'd asked.  He raised his eyebrows at her.  No, he hadn't thought about it until that minute.  He saw no need to attend the carrying out of this sentence, any more than he saw the need to attend the first day of a prison term for any of the other criminals that he helped to punish.  He and Claire had stared at each other for a few moments, then he'd said, somewhat cautiously,

"I take it you think I should?"

"Don't you feel any sense of responsibility for this?" she'd answered his question with one of her own.

"Of course.  I was responsible for putting Scott on Death Row.  So were you and Adam - and even Detectives Briscoe and Curtis.  That doesn't mean that we have an obligation to attend his execution."

"So you can just send a man off to die and not feel any consequence for that action."

"What consequence should I feel?"

"Doesn't it impact on you at all, that he's going to die?"

"No, it doesn't.  Any more than it impacts on me that..." he pulled a name out of his current caseload, "Eric Fitzgibbons is going to go to Sing Sing for six years."

"Eric Fitzgibbons is going to live.  Mickey Scott is going to die."

There didn't seem to be anything to say about that.  It was a simple statement of truth.

"Or is it that you don't want to acknowledge that this is any different from any other sentence?"

"It is no different from any other sentence.  The crime was First Degree Murder.  The penalties possible were Life Without Parole or Death.  The trial was carried out with regard to the law, twelve citizens found Scott guilty and sentenced him accordingly.  This is no different from any other case, Claire."

"And you can keep telling yourself that, because you won't be there to witness what the sentence means.  How can you impose a sentence when you don't even know what you're imposing?"

"I don't witness what the sentence means in most cases.  I've never been incarcerated, I've never seen the inside of a prison except for the parts of it that visitors go to in order to meet with inmates.  That doesn't mean I can't ask for a sentence of incarceration."

"And you see no difference?"

"No, I don't."

She'd glared at him, frustrated by her inability to pierce his equanimity.

"You don't think it would make any impact on you?  To actually witness the carrying out of this sentence?"

"No, I don't," he'd replied honestly.  She'd blown out her breath, then looked at him speculatively.

"Then come with me."

"Excuse me?"

"Come with me.  Be one of the witnesses."

He'd readily agreed.  Surprising her, but not himself.  He didn't know what Claire had expected from him, but she should have known better if she expected him to try to avoid something that didn't need avoiding.  There was no reason not to go - other than the fact that it would be a considerable waste of time.  Which wasn't a problem for him.  As unromantic as Jack was, he wasn't totally insensitive or cavalier about his relationships.  If his attendance at the execution would help Claire, or help make their working and personal relationships smoother, then he had no objection and considered the trip a worthwhile investment of time.

It had made sense, at the time, when this was all theoretical.  When he hadn't been the unwilling recipient of Claire's somewhat tedious moral hand wringing over the subject for weeks.  He certainly hoped that once the execution was over, her qualms would subside, and things between them would go back to what they had been before.  But first, they had to survive six or seven hours cooped up in the car, treading the same tired ground back and forth.  He wasn't looking forward to the ride.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, he told himself.  Claire had been getting more tense about the execution, and she made little comments about it every so often, but she had also been getting more and more quiet when it came to prolonged discussions about it.  As if she were running out of steam - or maybe just running out of energy to talk about it with him.

Which was fine with him.  Why she stopped talking about it wasn't as important as the fact that she did.  He felt badly for her, of course, and wished he could help her through this moral quagmire she was battling through, but didn't really have the requisite patience for it.  Her more and more frequent silence on the subject was a welcome change.

Back to Kirksen.  Straight up statement of facts, then segue into why the facts were not in dispute, but the consequences of the facts were.

What is in dispute is what price Penny Kirksen should pay for what happened that night.

No, hang on, the murder happened in the afternoon.  Jack corrected that last part.  He really needed Claire to look this over and make sure he made no factual errors in his summation.  He sighed in annoyance.  Why was he having such trouble concentrating tonight?  Why did his mind keep wandering over to Claire and their relationship lately?  Normally he didn't give it a second thought - didn't even think of it as a 'relationship'.  It wasn't a 'relationship', and Claire wasn't his 'significant other' - she was just Claire.  Part of his life, at work and after work.

So why this distraction tonight?  Why was he thinking of Claire and their arguing, or not arguing, about the death penalty? Claire wasn't whining about it so much any more.  Why couldn't he just accept that, be grateful, and get on with his work?

He had a sudden flash of insight - rather rare for him - remembering Sally going silent in exactly the same way near the end of their time together.  She had slowly grown less and less likely to voice disagreements with him, less and less strident when disagreements came up.  He had taken it as a sign of harmony, but it had actually been a sign of disinterest, and her disinterest had gradually rubbed off on him too.  She'd eventually broken off their relationship, with no protest from him, and left the DA's office for defense work.

Was that what was going on with Claire?  Was she getting tired of their constant struggles? What would she do about it if she were?  He felt a brief stab of alarm, imagining Claire becoming a defense lawyer.  Imagining her ethical, idealistic nature twisted to protect the scum of the earth, as Sally did, as Diana had before he'd had her disbarred.  Not that Sally or Diana had ever been idealistic in the way that Claire was.

No, he was overreacting.  Barring a little tension in the last weeks, he and Claire were fine.  Besides, Claire wouldn't go into defense, he reassured himself.

But then what was going on with her?  And when would she snap out of this funk she was sliding into?  It wasn't just the death penalty, either.  She had said she was getting tired of being on the Maginot line of the justice system, had actually said she was thinking of quitting, a few weeks ago.  Would she?  And if she did, what would she do?

Although... maybe this funk of hers was actually pretty simple at heart.  Maybe it all just had to do with her difficulty with the death penalty.  Her feeling that she was part of a flawed, uncivilized legal system, precisely because it contained the 'savagery' of executions.  Maybe going to see the execution tomorrow would be good for her.  Maybe once she saw that Scott's death was carried out humanely, she would understand that it wasn't barbaric.  With all the blood and gore they saw in their daily lives, maybe she would be able to see that Scott's fate wasn't that bad, comparatively speaking.  That their work, even when it led to a man's death, was good work nonetheless.  Maybe she would snap out of her blues and they could go back to business as usual.

Right.

He firmly brought his mind back to Kirksen.

The facts of the case have all been presented to you, and they are not in dispute.

That was skirting a little too close to the movie version, but he decided to leave it in for now.

What is in dispute is what price Penny Kirksen should pay for her actions.

No, she's not Penny, she's Penelope or Mrs. Kirksen.  And he's Gerry.  You want to distance her from the jury, make him more sympathetic.  'Penny' probably makes terrific apple pie and would never kill anybody, and 'Gerard' sounds like a foreign diplomat who claims diplomatic immunity when he's given a parking ticket.  Penelope and Gerry, though... that's a totally different scenario.

She would have you believe that, being emotionally upset as she was, she was not really responsible for her actions and she should not be held liable.  And there is no doubt that her husband's actions were reprehensible and he caused her emotional distress.  But you have to ask yourselves how reasonable it is to expect emotional distress to excuse all actions.  Penelope Kirksen may have been upset, but this does not mean that she had no control over her actions.

The fact is, Gerry Kirksen was a son of a bitch.

No, he scratched that out, the judge would be somewhat unamused if he used that kind of language in court.

The fact is, Gerry Kirksen deserved to suffer some kind of consequence for his actions.  He deserved to have his wife walk out on him and sue for divorce.  He did not deserve to die.  And if you acquit Mrs. Kirksen, you're saying Gerry Kirksen deserved to die.  That's just not an option.

There.  That was one of the weakest closing statements he'd ever made.  Tomorrow he'd have Claire go over it and salvage what she could.  While she was doing that, he could probably look up a couple of his old cases, see what he'd said in the past to counter unreasonable defenses of extreme emotional disturbance.  He stretched out again and stood up to go home.

ooo000ooo

Jack suppressed a yawn as he drove along the I-90.  He and Claire had plodded through the Kirksen closing and she'd improved it immensely.  Which was good, even though they might not need it after all.  Kirksen's lawyer had, immediately after winding down his case this morning, said that they might be willing to get a deal, provided it was 2 to 6.  Jack had again offered 3 to 9, and the lawyer had said he needed to talk it over with Kirksen.  Happily, the judge had been quite willing to allow both sides two days to ponder the subject, since he had some other unspecified obligations taking up his time right now anyway.  They were all getting a two-day reprieve from the case.

He and Claire had spent the rest of the day rather conflict-free.  They had court in the morning and then both of them worked madly through the afternoon, knowing that they might not be able to put in a full workday the next day.  Six or seven hours to Attica, witness the execution, six or seven hours back.  Even though they were both planning on taking turns napping in the car and were used to working on little sleep when the need arose, the fact remained that they would probably not be functioning optimally the next day.

"What's next?"  Jack asked Claire as she put away their revised notes for Kirksen and pulled out a bunch of files.

"Plea bargains.  Three cases tomorrow morning with Silverman: Simmons, Mandelay and Carson.  Then Gomez with Glacken the day after."

"I thought Estevez was doing Simmons."

"She just went on maternity leave."

"Ida Estevez was pregnant?"  Jack was surprised.

"You didn't notice?" Claire smiled at him indulgently.

"No," he passed a minivan, "she's a little on the heavy side to begin with."

"She's not that heavy," Claire protested.

"Maternity isn't the first thing that comes to mind when I see her.  Usually I'm just hoping to survive an encounter with my... dignity intact."  Claire smiled.  Estevez had the well-deserved nickname of The Barracuda among the prosecutors of Hogan Place.  Jack was probably one of the only prosecutors who were joking when they expressed fear of the woman.  For most of them, the fear was very real.

"First up, Carson," Claire began, and they plunged into the plea bargains.

As they worked, part of Jack's mind was thinking of how different Claire's approach to plea bargains was these days.  She had never been soft, but her willingness to plea down had decreased dramatically since her encounter with James Smith.  Smith, a homeless schizophrenic, had stalked a woman several months back.  Claire had pled him out, as was customary in stalking cases with no overt violence, with a slap on the wrist.  It had been an appropriate deal, given what she knew of the case.  The only thing that had made it any different from any of the hundreds of other deals that Claire had made was that Smith had, months later, gone berserk and killed three people and permanently maimed another.

Claire had been agonizing about it ever since, and it came out in her attitude towards her work and towards plea bargains.  She was, if anything, even more conscientious now, and had become decidedly less forgiving and more hard-line.

Smith had also been the case that had prompted her to tell Jack that she was thinking of quitting.  He'd talked her out of it at the time, and they hadn't spoken of it since.  Now, listening to her go through cases, he wondered if she was still thinking along those lines.  Maybe he should ask.

Maybe not.  If she wanted to talk about it, she probably would have brought it up.

Claire was taking out another file.  "The Mandelay case, Kevin and Marisa."

"Bonnie and Clyde?" Jack hazarded a guess.  Mandelay, Mandelay, that was a young couple...

"No, they're brother and sister.  Silverman wants leniency for the girl."

Right, right, brother and sister, the facts of the case were crystallizing as he thought about it.  A hold-up.  The brother was a known hoodlum, no problem getting the max for him, but the sister... "She'll be very sympathetic.  She's got no record."

"She held up a bodega, Jack."

"He'll argue that she was just along for the ride."

"Silverman's a pussycat.  I can take him," Claire said confidently.

"I happen to agree with him.  I don't think a jury would convict her.  Wasn't she on the honour roll?"

"You want me to take a lesser charge for her?"

"It's your call," Jack deferred to her judgment dubiously.  Claire was a big girl and this was her area.  He was technically her superior, but when it came to plea bargains he mostly just played a consultant's role.  And he considered it doubly important to show her he still had confidence in her plea bargains since the Smith fiasco.

"I want Man One for both.  She knew what she was doing."

"OK... if you think Silverman will go for it."  He probably would, now that Jack thought of it.  Silverman was a bit of a pushover, and Claire was decidedly not.  Jack yawned and took a look at the clock.  Nine thirty.  It wasn't that late, but he suddenly realized he'd better try to catch sleep whenever he could.  Might make tomorrow a little less tedious.  Besides, this way if he was too tired to drive during the night and Claire was too tired to drive by herself, he could stay awake and maybe keep her company.  "Do you mind driving?"

"No, of course not," he drove to the shoulder and they switched places.

"I'm think I'll try to nap a bit."  He leaned back and closed his eyes.  As he drifted off, he thought of Simmons.  They hadn't discussed the Simmons case yet.  Oh well, they could probably get to it when Claire woke him up, or at some point during their ride home.  Or maybe Claire didn't think it was important enough to bother talking it over with him.

ooo000ooo

"Jack, wake up," Claire was shaking his shoulder.  He blinked himself awake.  The car was stopped at a parking lot.  The Attica parking lot.

"Oh.  You drove all the way here," he said sleepily.

"I didn't want to wake you up," she told him.  He nodded and got out of the car, stretching.  They silently entered the institution, showed their identification, and were ushered into the observation room.  They took seats in the second row and waited.  Jack glanced around the room.  Ten seats in two rows, most of the seats filled already.  Adele Saunders' parents, four other people he didn't recognize.  One of them looked vaguely familiar; probably the reporter who had covered a lot of the Scott case, but Jack wasn't entirely sure.

Jack checked his watch.  11:45pm.  The door opened and Detectives Briscoe and Curtis walked in, the last two witnesses expected, according to the number of chairs set out.  Briscoe sat down, briefly greeting Jack and Claire.  Curtis looked about the room curiously as he took his seat next to Briscoe.  Almost immediately, the door opened again and a man in a suit entered, introducing himself as the Warden to the witnesses.  He reminded everybody that this should be a dignified execution and that they could talk to a chaplain afterwards if they needed to.  Jack glanced at Claire, hoping she wouldn't make a scene - then immediately told himself that was ridiculous.  Claire would never make a scene.

Talking from the other room.  Somebody was asking Scott about his last meal.

"Now is not a good time to go crybaby, Mickey," the voice said.

"Yeah, right, in your dreams."  Too bad.  Scott wouldn't cry - he was an inhuman monster, probably incapable of any human emotions.

He heard the Warden come in and ask about a priest and Scott, of course, decline.  A priest would have seemed rather out of place at Scott's side at the end of his worthless life.

"How about the curtain?"

"What about it?" Scott asked.

"It's your choice, Mr. Scott.  Open or closed?"

"What would you like?"

"Closed," the Warden replied.  The wrong thing to say, because if Jack were going to bet on this he would bet that Scott would say-

"Then open the sucker up."

Exactly.  Vintage Mickey Scott: an antagonistic, evil bastard to the very end.

"Fine."

The curtain opened.  There was Mickey Scott.  He was strapped down, his arms out, barefoot.  All his violent menace taken from him, awaiting his death.  Exactly where he deserved to be.  Scott lifted his head from the gurney and stared at them.

"Like damned fish in a barrel," he sneered at the people in the observation room.  McCoy almost laughed at his pathetic attempt at bravado.

"Want to say anything?"

"Do it," he said tensely.  Jack felt mild surprise.  He would have thought Scott would take the opportunity to shout a few foulmouthed insults at Adele Saunders' parents, or at the Warden or police or prosecutors, or even at Adele Saunders herself.

Two men who had entered the execution chamber opened a panel and turned some dials, then closed the panel and left the room.  Jack remained impassive, staring straight at Mickey Scott.  This was it, then.  Those two men had just begun the final stage of a process of sentencing that had started with Claire at Scott's arraignment hearing and culminated in a death penalty handed down by a jury in accordance with New York State law.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see that on the panel, a light turned green, then another turned yellow.

This was no different from any other sentence.  If Claire thought it was, she was mistaken.  People died all the time, this was no different from any other death, this was no more barbaric just because it was brought about by the criminal justice system.

In fact, it was far less barbaric than Adele Saunders' death had been.  Maybe once Claire had finished watching this she would stop all of this nonsense about the injustice of the death penalty.  This was not unjust.  In fact, it was one of the most just deaths a person could possibly experience.  For most people, the best they could hope for was that death should come peacefully, at the end of a long, useful, happy life.  Adele Saunders didn't have that.  Most of the victims he and Claire spoke for didn't have that.

The two other people he'd seen die in his life, his grandmother and his father, didn't have that.  His grandmother had died of a heart attack, in pain and scared out of her wits, and his father had died of cancer, tubes coming out of him and drugged out of his mind.  Neither of them deserved that.  Scott was getting off easy.

Scott was looking up at the lights.  The last thing he would ever see.  He looked very tense.

The heart monitor beeped steadily as they all waited for the poison to do its job and end the life of Mickey Scott.

Scott closed his eyes.  The beeping became erratic, closer together, then turned into one long beep.

Case closed.  He just lay there.  One minute Scott was breathing, and then he was gone.  Jack blew out his breath.

The curtain was drawn on the execution chamber.

Jack sat for a moment, feeling... what?

Scott was dead.  He'd done as Claire had asked, come and witnessed Scott's death, and now that duty was done.  And he felt no different about the sentence than he had before Scott breathed his last.

He felt pretty much nothing, as a matter of fact.  There was no sense of justice, vengeance, rightness... or regret or pity or guilt or any of the things Claire probably thought he would feel.  Nothing.

Shaking himself out of his strange blankness, he stood and then glanced at Claire.  Claire had tears in her eyes.  Damn it.  He finally felt something - irritation at Claire, for her useless histrionic sentimentality.  Dismissed it immediately and made himself lean down and murmur, "Claire?  Are you OK?" in what he hoped was at least a semblance of a supportive tone.

"Fine," she said curtly, and stood up, blinking her eyes rapidly but not looking at him.  All right.  She obviously didn't want his support right now.  They left the room in silence.

ooo000ooo

Checking out of Attica.  He and Claire waited for Briscoe and Curtis to sign themselves out at the security desk.  Oh - that reminded him of something.

"Detective Curtis," he said quietly as Briscoe retrieved his badge.  Curtis turned around questioningly.  "We asked for the Fox prints, didn't we?" Curtis nodded.  "Where are they?"

"Uh, I think Lennie was - Lennie," Curtis addressed Briscoe as Briscoe put his badge back in his wallet, "the Fox prints?"

"Yeah," Briscoe took over as Curtis retrieved his own badge and handed in his Visitor tag.  "They were down in Evidence.  I put in the request to send them to you."

"I don't have them yet."

"I'll ask again," Briscoe said.  "And hold their hand through it this time."  He waited a beat and Jack nodded at him, indicating that was all he needed to talk to him about.  The detectives headed for the door as he and Claire signed out, but they caught up with them again at the Attica front gate, as all four waited for the gate to open.  There was a small media presence there, flashing lights in their faces as they all walked out, heading towards their cars in two separate directions.

"Ms. Kincaid?" Jack and Claire turned and found themselves facing Margaret and Seamus Saunders, Adele Saunders' parents.  Margaret Saunders had tears in her eyes, but her expression was otherwise satisfied, her husband standing silently behind her.  "Ms. Kincaid, thank you so much for coming tonight."

"You're welcome," Claire said, her voice hollow.

"Mr. McCoy.  Thank you for making the trip out here.  I just - I just wanted to thank both of you for helping us so much.  You know, for, for helping to make sure he got what he deserved."

"You're welcome, ma'am," Jack answered her gently.  Poor woman.  It couldn't have been easy for her to come face to face with her daughter's killer again.  Thank god it was the last time she'd ever have to go through that.

"Those two men that just left - they were the two detectives, weren't they?  They caught that man?"

"Yes ma'am," Claire said.

"It was kind of them to make the trip too.  I wanted to thank them too.  Please let them know we appreciate them coming," she paused.  "It's good to have this all done."

"Yes it is," Jack said.  This was one of the reasons why he'd pushed for Scott's execution.  Because the Saunders family deserved some kind of resolution, inadequate as it was in the face of the loss they'd suffered.

"I feel like Adele's finally at peace," she said, her voice trembling.  She turned to her husband.  "Let's go, Seamus."  They slowly walked away.

Jack glanced at Claire.  Did this matter to her?  While she was busy feeling sorry for Scott, did it matter to her, that the people who deserved the most consideration from them had obtained some measure of peace from Scott's execution?

ooo000ooo

Jack drove along the I-90, listening to the radio.  He'd found a sixties station that was having a Clash marathon.  Too bad Claire wasn't awake to enjoy it, since a fondness for sixties music was something they both shared, and she didn't mind The Clash.  But he'd offered to drive and she'd accepted his offer and promptly gone to sleep.  That was probably for the best; she needed her rest.  And he himself felt wide awake.

So.  Tomorrow he had a meeting with Schwinger in the morning - administrative stuff, what she called 'administrivia'.  They were supposed to go over some evaluations of ADAs, re-assign people here and there.  Not one of the aspects of his job that he particularly enjoyed.  Then he had to write up a few briefs for some cases that were slowly, slowly making their way through the judicial system.  Then he had his regular meeting with Adam - Adam would want to know where the Hendersen appeal was going, tie up some loose ends with Crenshaw, Smith and Danforth... that was probably it as far as Adam was concerned.  Oh, he might want to hear about the execution.

What was there to say about the execution, though?  He went to see a man die, and he saw a man die.  Period, end of story.

Adam was probably going to hold a press conference.  Not an aspect of Adam's job that Jack envied.  In fact, he didn't envy any part of Adam's job, but the whole press part of it was probably the one he found the most distasteful.  His own contact with the press was usually, thankfully, limited to curt "No comments," on the way in or out of court during big trials.   Jack had no problem with public speaking, but the press annoyed him on a deep level.  They never wanted full answers, they just wanted the quickest, juiciest, most controversial and therefore best-selling news bites they could get.  If they could twist your words to sell more copy or line up more viewers, so much the better.  They didn't want the truth.

"You can't handle the truth!" floated through his mind.  He chuckled.  A Few Good Men, again.  Good movie, as far as courtroom dramas went.  He had teased Claire that she had only wanted to rent it because of Tom Cruise, and she had teased back that actually, Jack Nicholson was what did it for her - something about his maturity, she said.  They'd laughed together and he'd said, There's something about Demi Moore that's fairly attractive too.

He sighed, thinking about Claire again.  Looking over at her, sleeping seemingly peacefully.

Would this change anything?  Would she finally make peace with this now that it had happened and the earth had not opened up to decry the injustice of the event?  And would that translate into a more peaceful working environment for him as well?

The execution had been pretty peaceful, now that he thought about it.  Scott had been given the dignity of a calm, efficient execution, just as the Warden had requested.  More than he deserved, certainly.  He'd just simply gone to sleep and not woken up again.  Not exactly an adequate punishment for somebody who had caused others so much pain.

His own father had died like that.  Relatively peacefully, breathing one moment, not breathing the next.  People died, after all.  There was no need to make a big deal out of it just because one person died at the hands of the State instead of old age or cancer.

Jack drove on, losing his train of thought as he listened to The Clash.

ooo000ooo

Jack had woken Claire up at a truck stop just outside Kingston, finally starting to feel the effects of the long drive, and taken a nap for the last two hours of their drive into New York City.  He'd woken up to the sounds of early morning traffic.  7:30am.

What had he been dreaming about?  There was something just barely escaping the edges of his consciousness... oh, right.

"You know, if Kirksen doesn't take the deal, we should find some way to bring in what she said to the 911 operator into the closing."  She had babbled something about how she was so sorry and she didn't mean to and she should have known better.  Yes, it was in the heat of the moment, and the defense could, if they didn't do it right, turn it against them... but on the other hand, using a defendant's own words against them in closing could be a very powerful tool.  He pondered for a moment, looking over the revised closing statement.  "I'm not actually sure we should plead her out even if she wants to take the three to nine.  I say we give them until noon and then call to say the deal's off the table.  I don't feel like waiting till tomorrow - not with this closing."

"Is that really all that goes on in your head, Jack?"

"I beg your pardon?" he looked up.

"Just work?  Cases?  Who to plead out, who to push to the wall?"

"What else should be going on in my head?"

Claire blew out her breath in frustration.  Oh, no.  Not this again.  He felt his heart sink.

"Mickey Scott?" he ventured.

"We saw him die, Jack.  Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"Yes," Jack nodded, "He's dead.  That case is very much closed."  But not to you, I guess, he thought.  What else could she possibly want to talk about?  Was there anything about this subject that they hadn't already said a thousand times?  Jack put the Kirksen file away and there was a long, uncomfortable pause as they stared out at traffic.  Hundreds of cars motionless on the street, and both of them stuck here, all of them stuck here, staring out at the vast landscape of trapped vehicles.  "Tell you what, they should ban cars in Manhattan," Jack tossed out.  Please, Claire, let's not go into Scott yet again.  "What, no witty response?" he asked her after a pause.

"You leave me speechless," she replied dryly.

"Nobody forced you to watch it," he reminded her.  Nobody forced any of them to watch.  He'd just thought that maybe if they did she would finally be able to let it go.  He wasn't wrong often, but when he was... boy, was he ever wrong.

"I just can't imagine what it must be like, staring at the clock, knowing the exact moment-"

"Adele Saunders thought she was going to work," he interrupted her.  "She ended up dead, your pity's misplaced."

"I'm tired of arguing, Jack."

"Good," he nodded.  So was he.  Who wouldn't be?

"You know, I'm not feeling too well," she said.

"Must be the flu."  The 'too-sensitive-for-prosecutorial-work' flu.

"Yeah, the flu," she answered him wryly, and he mentally reprimanded himself.  Claire wasn't overly sensitive.  Not most of the time.  She had just developed a weak spot when it came to this issue.

"Wanna take the day?" he heard himself saying.  Normally he wouldn't suggest such a thing, firmly believing that the best way to cope with anything was to work.  But he was tired of arguing with her.  And maybe if she spent some time on her own, she might return to work with a clearer outlook on things.

"No, I've got Silverman," she replied, and the wistful tone in her voice, as though she really wished she could take the time away, made the decision for him.

"Cover?"

"You sure?" she asked him, startled.  He nodded.  Sure, why not?  He knew the cases.  They'd talked about them during the drive.  And the unexpected two-day break from Kirksen had freed up his schedule a bit.  Why not.

"OK, fine, I'll drop you off at the office," Claire said gratefully.

"No problem," he got out of the car.

"You've got Schwinger," Claire reminded him.

"She'll wait.  I'll take a cab.  Maybe you'll feel better."  They gazed at each other for a moment, neither one really knowing what to say.  "I'll call you later," he finally promised gruffly and walked away, leaving his concern for her unspoken.

ooo000ooo

"Man Two, three to nine?" David Silverman suggested hopefully.

"Man One, five to fifteen."  After bickering back and forth over the Carson case for a while, they'd opened up the second case, Simmons, which Jack had abruptly realized he hadn't spoken to Claire about.  He'd had a brief moment of alarm, then mentally chuckled at himself.  The case was simple enough.  Cloris Simmons had told everybody and their dog that she was going to kill her husband because he was hitting her.  There was no physical evidence linking her to the crime, but no evidence of spousal abuse either.  He'd very quickly settled on five to fifteen.  He was pretty sure that's what Claire would have wanted too.

"That the best you can do?"

"A bird in the hand, David."

"Right.  My mistake.  I forgot how easy this job is when I don't have any choices," David said ruefully.  He took out another file.  "Marisa and Kevin Mandelay."

"Nothing to talk about, Man One all around."

"Come on, Jack, Marisa's an honours student, a member of the math club."

"Who likes to hold up bodegas," Jack reminded him.

"That was Kevin.  Marisa just thought they were going in for Ding-Dongs."

"With an Uzi?" he asked skeptically.

"She's a good kid, Jack.  Give her Aiding and Abetting.  Kevin, he goes the distance."

"Sorry."  Privately, Jack thought that David had a good point.  If they went to a jury, a jury probably would see Marisa Mandelay as a sweet young thing who'd just been led astray by her big brother and made a mistake.  However, Claire had been pretty sure she could get David to accept Man One.  And Jack was willing to bet that she was right.

"You don't like to lose, do you?" Jack suppressed a smile as David gave in and stood up, picking up his files.  Claire had been right after all.  "When's Claire coming back?"

"The flu?  Who knows?"  David nodded, leaving the office.

Simple plea bargains.  He was three for three, and, minor as the thrill was, he suddenly wanted to share the moment with Claire.  To talk to Claire.  To see how she was doing.  He dialed her number.

"Hello, you've reached 555-9870.  Please leave-" Claire's voice began on her answering machine.  He hung up.

What now?  He'd called Schwinger to reschedule, found out she wasn't free again until tomorrow.  No big loss.  The world could live without their ADA evaluations and reassignments for one more day.  He thought of the Kirksen closing, then remembered he'd left it in Claire's car and he had nothing to add to it anyway.  There wasn't anything to be done with that case any more - just wait for Kirksen and her lawyer to get off the pot and say Yea or Nay to the deal on the table.

Well, there was always plenty of other paperwork to be done.  He randomly stuck his hand into a pile of files teetering on the corner of his desk.  Frunt.  There was an interesting situation.  He quickly became lost in the intricacies of the Frunt case.

ooo000ooo

Hours later, having attended a rather perfunctory meeting with Adam, he found himself dialing Claire's number again.  Adam had nodded, not terribly interested, as Jack gave his verbal report on Danforth, Smith and Crenshaw.  Then he'd asked where Claire was.  Jack had replied that she seemed to be coming down with the flu and Adam had given him a sour look of impatience.

"Ms. Kincaid has the flu?  That's a new one on me.  I thought young people didn't get sick."

Jack had smiled.

"Well, I have to go get ready for this press conference," Adam had groused, getting up.  "You sure you don't want to step in for this?  Just this once, meet the press?"

"I'm sure the pleasure will be all yours, Adam," he'd quipped.  Another dour scowl.

"You're the one who actually saw the damn thing."

Jack had grinned and got up.  "But you're the one who actually ran for the job of DA.  That makes you the one they want to talk to."  He'd started to head out the door.

"How was it?"  Adam's voice, uncharacteristically subdued and... hesitant, had made him turn around in slight surprise.

"The execution?"  Adam nodded.  "Fine.  Everything went smoothly."  Adam had gazed at him with a bemused expression on his face before dismissing him and going back into his own office to prepare to face the cameras.

Everything had gone smoothly, although he very much doubted that Claire would have described it that way.  He didn't know how she would describe it.  They hadn't talked about it, because he didn't want to get into yet another pointless argument with her.

But what if they could talk about it without arguing?  What if they could just discuss, as rational adults, how she had felt about it now that she'd seen it?  He'd been thinking that there was nothing more to say because they'd talked the subject over thoroughly.  But really, they hadn't.  They hadn't talked it over post-execution.  Who knew, maybe seeing it had affected Claire in some unexpected way.  Maybe if they talked, it wouldn't be a re-tread of everything they'd already said to each other.

So now here he was, dialing Claire's number again.  Waiting for her to pick up, not really knowing what he wanted to say to her, except that he felt like talking to her.  Actually talking to her, maybe try to get past the distance he could feel between them lately.  Even, he realized, even if she wanted to talk about the execution.

And then her damn machine was picking up and then it was beeping and he was winging it, suggesting they have dinner together that night.  Asking her to call him back.  Trying to express his wish to just... spend time together.  Not to argue, not to work.  Just to be together.

ooo000ooo

Jack entered the restaurant in a hurry, late as usual for social obligations.  Liz Olivet was sitting by herself, sipping a glass of wine.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, "Claire's out with the flu, I had this brief... Adam..." he trailed off.  He never had a problem keeping work-related appointments.  Briefings, court dates, all of that was easy to schedule.  But a semi-casual lunch with a colleague... somehow that managed to get pushed aside for more important things until all of a sudden he was late.

"No problem, I keep myself good company," Liz replied easily.

"Nice place.  You're paying.  What's good?"

"The pasta if you're PC, the veal if you're not."  He grinned at the thought of anybody calling him PC, then plunged into business.

"I trust you reviewed the Newman file?"  He'd given her the Newman file a few days ago, and was looking forward to picking her brain about it.

"Sure, can't it wait till coffee?"  He glanced at her.

"Maybe you don't know me all that well, Liz.  Outside of work, I really don't have much to say about anything."

"Somehow, I don't believe that," Liz said musingly.  What?  He nodded at her - OK, fine, he wasn't going to get into a discussion of his predilection for shop-talk with Liz.  They had a lot of important material to cover - the Newman and Fox cases, just for starters - and besides, he was hungry.  He looked over the menu.

"What is it, people like you?  You bury yourself in your work," he looked up at Liz.  She continued in the same musing tone.  "I wonder, is it because you're hiding from your emotions or you have no emotions to hide from?"

Oh for the love of God.  Spare me from shrinks in an analytical mode.  "I wouldn't know.  I work because I love it," he asserted.

"All the time?" she asked skeptically.

"Sure."

"It never gets to you?  I mean, basically you're paid to make someone's life miserable."

"Yes, and the better I get at it, the more miserable I make them.  What is this about?"  A waiter had appeared next to them and he took a moment to order.  "Scotch, rocks."

"Sometimes you have to take a beat, Jack," Liz said gently.

Oh, everything suddenly came together.  Jack had wondered why Adam hadn't probed all that deeply about the execution.  Here was his answer.

"Adam called you, didn't he?"

"You saw a man die this morning.  You were instrumental in the process," Liz began seriously.

Enough of this.  He was willing to talk to Claire about it, if the subject came up, because it was bothering Claire and because he wanted to do what he could to help her out.  But he certainly didn't need to talk to anybody else about it, had no desire to, and even if he did he wouldn't pick a shrink colleague to bare his soul to.  "I won a case.  Justice was served.  I'm a happy man.  Now can we change the subject?" He turned to the waiter.  "Veal.  Very rare," he looked at Liz as he said that last.

They continued their lunch, the meal made a little uncomfortable by Liz's obvious disappointment in him.  What the hell.  He wasn't put on earth to make a shrink's job easier, especially when he didn't need that shrink's services.  Thanks, but no thanks, Adam.  Adam should have known better than to sic Liz Olivet on him in the hopes of prying some kind of emotional response out of him.

Maybe Adam was feeling conflicted about what had happened, maybe Claire was, maybe Liz thought that a traumatic event had taken place this morning and it was her duty to help him through some kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but he was fine.

He left the restaurant feeling somewhat put off by this strange solicitude from Adam and Liz.  Feeling a little unenthusiastic about his afternoon's tasks, a little dissatisfied with how his day was proceeding.  He mentally reviewed his agenda for the rest of the day.  Nothing really interesting to do - administrivia, reports, no casework to keep it interesting.  A friend of his had asked him to help out with a study he was doing on the attitude of juries towards repeat sex offenders, and he'd been thinking of working on it this afternoon, but that was something that Claire had been doing with him and she'd had quite a few ideas that had made the work interesting and stimulating.  He didn't feel like plodding through it alone.

He didn't really feel like going back to work alone.

Out of the blue, he had a revolutionary thought.  Why not take just the day off?

Adam certainly wouldn't mind - in fact, Adam hadn't expected him to be at work at all today.

He stood on the street for a moment, a little off-balance mentally.  What would he do if he wasn't at work?

Is that really all that goes on in your head, Jack?  Just work?  Cases?  Who to plead out, who to push to the wall?

What is it, people like you?  You bury yourself in your work.  I wonder, is it because you're hiding from your emotions or you have no emotions to hide from?

This was silly, he should go back to work.  There was no reason for him to take the day off just because he'd been to an execution.

But he also didn't have anything to prove to anybody.  He didn't have to be at work.  He didn't have anything pressing going on.  And he didn't feel like going back to work, and he was tired, having been up most of the night driving.  So why not take the afternoon off?  Wander off and see where he ended up?   Maybe stop at a library, he could look up some of those figures for Clancy's sex offender study -

No, that was the same as going back to work.  Just in a different building.

He turned and went down a street.  This was an interesting thing about New York.  One minute you were among the classy restaurants and drinking establishments that he usually frequented, then you turned a corner and you were smack in the middle of working class pubs and diners.  This street could have been any place in the South Side of Chicago, where he grew up.  The bars probably looked the same inside, too.  This place, for example - The Green Table.  Three blocks away from the airy, pleasant-looking restaurant where he and Liz had just eaten.  But it looked, from the outside, like a drab little working man's pub, like the ones his dad used to frequent with his cop buddies.  Probably even had dartboards and pool tables.

On impulse, he opened the door and went inside.

ooo000ooo

Author's Notes: If anybody wants the actual script for Aftershock, e-mail me at

ciroccoj2002 at yahoo dot com

BTW, if anybody notices similarities between chapter 12 of Gypsum's "It's Always Something" and chapter 3 of "Aftershock: McCoy", please don't send either of us nasty e-mails ;)  Gypsum borrowed with permission.