semen and vaginal secretions. That's a bad phrase, isn't it? Vaginal secretions. Anyway… if you'd like to know what we think happened, it's fairly simple. He's got a woman over and whoever she was, she gives him a goodbye taste. Maybe she breaks it to him that the affair's over. Whatever, she says something to him that doesn't sit well. She splits, he drowns his sorrows, has himself a serious bummer of a trip, and over the side he goes. Accidental or on purpose, it doesn't really matter all that much now, does it?'
Jack half raised his hand, as if he were in school, waiting to see if he could ask a question. When Sergeant McCoy nodded, Jack said, 'Isn't it possible somebody pushed him?'
'Who?' she said. 'A robber? We do our homework, you know. There was no sign of forced entry. The man's wallet was full, the stereo, TV, all intact. Or maybe you think it was the woman? Still a no go. There was no evidence of any kind of struggle. No scratches, no skin under his nails… besides which, take your choice, robber or sex partner, he looked like he could take care of himself.'
'But he couldn't,' Jack said. His words were not forceful now. They were quiet and urgent. 'I can't tell you how many times I saved his goddamn ass when he was growing up. Sergeant, I knew him. I knew him as if he were my own son. You don't understand.'
'Evidence, Jack. That's what I understand.'
Jack picked up the invitation again but McCoy cut him off before he could get a word out.
'No, no, no. That's not evidence. That's a piece of paper.' She tapped a notebook on top of her desk, picked it up, and started flipping through it. 'This is my little casebook. You know what's in here? I got me a liquor store holdup gone bad. Know what my evidence is? A dead clerk and an empty cash register. And I've got it on videotape… I got a hooker knifed to death not two blocks from here. Found in a hallway. My evidence? I saw her intestines hanging out onto the floor from the slit in her belly. How's that?' She looked up at him now, couldn't read his face. Couldn't tell if that was stoic defeat or determination she was seeing. 'Look,' she went on. 'Life doesn't always make sense. And neither does death – at least not the deaths I see. But sometimes it is simple. Your friend got high, your friend let it fly. End of story. Hey, isn't that from a movie? Some guy, a bad guy, I think, always ends his sentences with 'End of story!' Who was that?'
'I don't know,' Jack said. 'No idea.'
She furrowed her brow, motioned for Jack to be quiet, then nodded suddenly and said, 'The Longest Yard. That's what it was. That Burt Reynolds movie. And that guy from Green Acres, that's who said it. He played the warden. 'End of stor-ee!''
She looked relieved that she'd thought of it. Jack realized she was not someone who liked to leave any small details unrecognized. And then she looked embarrassed that she'd gotten sidetracked by a piece of movie trivia. She looked at him for an awkward few moments in silence. And then shrugged. That was the end of her embarrassment. It was a signal that she had nothing else to say.
'So that's it?' Jack asked. 'You're moving on?'
'Honey,' Patience McCoy told him, a touch of sadness in her voice, tapping her casebook one more time, 'I'm already gone.'
– '-'-'JACKIE GIMME A break,' Dom grumbled.
The meat market was Jack's next stop and he hoped this visit would prove to be more satisfying than the previous one. Based on the first twenty seconds of conversation, it wasn't going to be.
'I feel like I have to do something,' Jack said.
'What? What the hell are you gonna be able to do? Find some mysterious killer? Who probably doesn't even exist?'
'I know it sounds a little crazy…'
'No. It doesn't just sound crazy. It sounds unbelievably fucking stupid!'
'I'm not asking you for permission.'
'Then what the hell are you doin' here?'
'I just need to explain it. I need it to make sense to someone.'
'Well, it don't make no sense to me.'
'Then stop being such a stubborn cranky old bastard and let me explain it to you!'
'Nothin' but grief,' Dom said. 'Over thirty years, nothin' but grief from you…' But then he saw the expression on Jack's face, really saw what was in his eyes, and he said, 'Okay. So explain.'
Jack stood up. Paced once around the butcher-block table, picked up one of Dom's carving knives and clutched it tightly.
'When Caroline died,' he began, 'nobody knows what that was like for me. Believe me, not even you. I didn't just lose her, I felt that I'd lost her, that I was responsible.' Before Dom could interrupt, he said, 'Yeah, yeah, I know. I know all the shrink stuff. But I also know what I did and how I feel. No one else thinks that, that I somehow caused it, I get that; not her mother, not you, not the cops. But I do. If I hadn't gone charging up there, who the hell knows what would have happened? Maybe whoever that animal was would have just taken the necklace and gotten the hell out of there. And, Dom, it's not just her. It's…'
'It's Joanie. And I think I might understand, Jackie. Over thirty years later, I'm still wonderin' what would have happened if I'd gotten to the seventeenth floor one minute earlier.'
There was a strange silence between them now, a silence of shared grief and loss and understanding.
'You'll never know, Jackie,' Dom finally said softly. 'You can't go around blaming yourself.'
'No, you're right. Neither of us will ever know. But that doesn't make it any better. In some ways it makes it a lot worse. Because I don't just blame myself for what happened, I feel guilty that I'm the one who survived.' Jack put the knife down now, jabbed it into the butcher block so it stood straight up. He took a deep breath. 'At least with my mother, we know what happened. It was crazy, sure, but there was closure. With Caroline we never found the guy. He disappeared without a trace. I mean, no one could find him. How's that possible? Police, the private detectives I hired. They said it was random. Which means there was no logic to it. So there were no real connections, no clues. No real motive, no idea how he did what he did. That's what I have to live with. Never knowing what really happened or why. Or if anything could have been done to stop it… And then this thing with Kid. Dom, you knew him, too. You saw him grow up. You know he couldn't have jumped off that building. I spent almost every day with him this past year. Working with him, talking to him, understanding him. And he did something extraordinary. He healed me. He took away my pain. In a lot of ways, he brought me back to life. And I think I owe him something. Something more than what he's getting from everybody else right now.'
'And what?' Dom said in his low growl. 'You think that findin' out what really happened to Kid is gonna bring Caroline back? Or give you peace of mind? What the fuck's gonna happen? Kid'll come back from that fuckin' hole in that cemetery to thank you?'
'No, I don't think I can bring Caroline back. Or Kid. And, no, I don't think there's any magic that'll change the past. But I think what I can do is try to understand it. And that's what I want right now. I want the truth. I need the truth. I need to understand something that right now makes no sense to me. Once I find out, then I'll worry about what happens after that.'
'Okay, Jackie. I give you all this. I don't know exactly what the hell you re talkin about, but I'll give you that you re makin' some sense. Some. But what are you gonna do? You gonna suddenly turn into a middle-aged superhero and go around and find a killer? I mean, what the hell are you gonna do?'
'I've been giving this a lot of thought,' Jack said. 'Here's what I think happened. Kid had this 'team,' that's what he called it. Four or five women he was seeing. It was another side of him, one we never saw, and it was a strange side. It was a strange world he was straddling. He told me a lot about them. Some of them were into drugs and some had dark things in their past and he was afraid of some of them. He thought they were dangerous and from what he told me, it sounded like they were. It's what he liked about them.'
'Jesus, Jackie…'
'McCoy told me that there was a woman with Kid right before he died. In his apartment. I think it was one of his team. And I think she killed him. All I want to do is see if I can find out who these women are. Find out which ones really are dangerous. And which ones might have killed him. Had the motive, had the opportunity. Then I'll go to McCoy, with some evidence, and turn it over to her. And if I'm wrong, if he really did kill himself, then even that's something. Then maybe I'll be able to understand that.' When Dom stayed quiet, didn't seem to have any response, Jack said, 'I'm starting to think that when you get older it all comes down to the same thing: endings. Everything ends, one way or the other. And I'm not even looking for a happy ending, because when you think about it, there's no such thing, really, as a happy ending. I'm just looking for an ending, Dom. That's all I'm doing.'
