I'm telling ya, baby, they ain't mine. The lyrics are from Ani DiFranco's song "Providence"; the title is from Shakespeare. Standard disclaimers apply. Please send feedback.
The Fall of a Sparrow
Violet
As she came in, he sized her up with a greasy grin, thinking, It's just another dyke with a badge.
Instead of taking the chair across from him, she sat down on the table
and casually produced the pack of cigarettes. "Want one?"
They weren't his brand, but he was having a serious nicotine fit and
didn't care. She lit one for him. "Did the other detectives read you
your rights?"
"When they brought me in. Like I haven't ever seen 'COPS' before."
"Yeah, well, some things we gotta do by the book." She smiled
ruefully. "Anything else I can get you?"
He shook his head. "I'm all right."
"I gotta tell you, it isn't looking too good for you up here," she said. "Some of these New York cops, they don't really care if you're guilty or not, 'long as they can clear a couple files off their desks. I guess it comes of working in a city this size. You're from Baltimore, right? Same as me."
"Yeah, born and raised in Bawlmer. Came up here a while back though.
Better for business."
"You weren't running away from any trouble down there, were you?"
He laughed. "Cops down there are shit. Got their hands full with
junkies and spades, killing themselves and each other. And they
ain't all that smart. Nothing personal, you understand."
"Of course not. But I don't know if you should be so quick to judge
Bawlmer cops. After all, they got you running, didn't they?"
"What do you mean?" he asked.
His voice was hard-edged, and Kay felt panic at the edges of her mind.
She was standing on a ledge, and the drop was unforgiving, and very
sharp. Stay in control, she ordered herself silently. When she spoke, her voice was level and calm. "Well, you grew up down there, right? Your family and your friends are down there. That's where your roots are. Now, I don't think you're a guy who would ditch your hometown for no good reason. You didn't just pick up and head north because you got bored, did you?"
"I told you. Better for business."
"Yeah, you told me," she said. "But, Frank - can I call you Frank?"
He was taken off guard; the other bitchy cop hadn't asked his
permission. "Sure you can."
"Frank, we both know what business you're in, huh? So if you were
having business problems back in Baltimore, it must've been because
the police down there were on your back. You had to move your whole
operation up here. I bet you even lost money on the deal. They ran
you off, huh?" She sounded almost sympathetic, as if they were
talking about factory layoffs or corporate downsizing.
"Nope." He was starting to sweat.
"Every car you tried to move, every doper you hired off the street;
they were all over you, huh? You were gonna go down like any other
common car thief if you didn't get out of there."
"No way," he persisted, sounding less and less convinced.
"Ran away with your tail between your legs," she said softly, looking
straight into his eyes. She reached over, took the remainder of the cigarette from his hand, and ground it out. "I guess you never stood up to a cop in your life."
Her expression was pitying; it made him think of his mother telling
him he'd never amount to anything, and he hated women like that. "The
police down there couldn't bust me for bad parking," he told her.
"They tried raids, they tried paying people off, they even sent in an
undercover guy and they still didn't have crap!"
"An undercover agent," Kay's posture was still casual, her tone still
conversational, and he did not notice the sharpness in her eyes. "And
you're trying to tell me you weren't about to get busted? If they had
someone on the inside, they must have picked up plenty of evidence
against you, Frank. Just like I said, you got out because you had to."
"I handled the situation!" he insisted, jumping to his feet, getting
angrier by the second.
"By wimping out!" she countered, and she got up and walked around,
putting the table between them. "They were onto you, and you couldn't
take the heat!"
"No!"
"They had a guy on the inside, a guy who was giving them all the rope
they needed to hang you, and you couldn't do anything but back off!"
"I handled it!"
"No, you couldn't handle it! Their guy put the pressure on you, and
you just ran away from him like the little boy you are!"
He was so furious that the words were out before he knew what he was
saying. "I didn't run away from no cop! I killed him!"
The words were heavy and still in the air for a few seconds, during
which neither of them moved. Cantwell slowly began to sink back into
his chair.
"I think maybe I better call that lawyer now."
"I think maybe you should," she agreed, quietly, heading to the door.
"Hey," he called after her, and she paused and looked back. The smile
on his face was sickening. "I didn't run away. I *wasted* that
motherfucker."
Her eyes met his. "I'm sure your mama would be proud," she said, and
walked out.
She closed the door behind her and leaned against the wall, with a
long sigh, gazing down at the floor. Munch came out from the
observation room. She seemed pale, fragile, and exhausted. "Are you
okay?" he asked. She looked up at him, and though she was shaky,
her eyes were fierce and bright. She nodded.
"It's over."
---
Munch handed Kay her drink -- a gin fizz, her favorite and his
specialty -- and sat down next to her on his old, comfortable red
couch.
They hadn't talked much since they'd left the station. She'd felt a
little guilty about leaving her partner to fend for himself, but he
and Jeffries had discovered a mutual affinity for Knicks basketball.
They'd last been seen in the coffee room, huddled over the sports
page, passionately debating player stats. Kay doubted whether he'd
even noticed she was gone.
"So," Munch said, raising his glass for a toast, "I haven't
congratulated you yet. Congratulations."
She did not clink her glass with his. "I don't feel like they're
really in order."
"Are you kidding me? Kay, you were brilliant in there. You had him
cornered like a rat from the second you walked in. It was magical; it
was masterful. You were note-perfect."
"Nah, I just did what I had to do." She sighed. "It's kind of
strange; I just feel like I'm still waiting for the other shoe to
drop."
"Anticlimactic," he suggested. "It's understandable. You waited for
this a long time."
"It's not just that. Cantwell confessed; he didn't even take that much pushing. He'll be punished for what he did, held accountable. I should be satisfied."
"But you aren't," he said, softly. "You gave him what he deserved, but it doesn't make the pain of loss go away. It doesn't make things right again. You anticipate the moment, and when it's come and gone you realize how little difference it makes."
She was startled by this insight, and studied him wordlessly for a
while. "Yeah," she said, at length. "I guess part of me thought that
once I caught the guy, everything else would disappear. I mean, I
knew it wouldn't bring Beau back, but I thought maybe -" She stopped,
searching for words. "I'm still angry at the way I got treated during
the investigation, you know? I never got things right again with Gee
after that, and I wish I had. And I'm still mad at myself for giving
him reason to distrust me."
"You never did that. You're the best detective I've ever known, and
you were a great sergeant."
"If I was so great, how come things went so wrong, huh?" He waited
for her to explain. "That was my squad, John," she said, trying not to sound choked up, though her throat felt tight. "I was in charge of
keeping everything from falling apart, and I didn't do the job. If
Gee thought I was really trustworthy he would have fought to keep me
in Homicide. If I'd been there, or even if I'd seen the warning signs
earlier, maybe everything would be different now. Maybe I could have
made things better between Kellerman and Lewis, after the whole
Mahoney mess. Then maybe that shoot-out would never have happened,
and Pembleton would never have quit, and Bayliss...."
But neither of them could talk rationally yet about what had happened
to Tim, and so they fell silent and sipped at their drinks, watching
the sunset reflected in the windows of neighboring buildings.
"I don't know about what might have been," Munch said after a while.
"I know what was. I know that none of those catastrophes were your
fault, not in the slightest. Everyone made their own mistakes. And
it also wasn't your fault that you weren't there to save Beau's life."
Again, he'd hit closer to home than she expected. "You did right by
him today," he told her. "Justice was done. So congratulations, all
right?"
"Thanks." She brightened a little. "Just a routine interrogation."
"Every routine interrogation, every standard confession, means justice
for someone. You used to say that we work for God, remember? Even
the ordinary things are important. 'There is special providence in
the fall of a sparrow.' "
"Is that Shakespeare?"
"Precisely, although it actually it goes back a lot farther than that.
Old Billy Shaxbeard was a world-class plagiarist and propaganda artist
for the totalitarian Tudor regime -"
He shut up, aware how tiresomely pretentious and pedantic he sounded.
She was looking at him with a familiar smile: exasperated, amused,
impossibly indulgent. And suddenly he simply could not accept the
detachment between them, and could not let the chance go by. Without
warning, he leaned over and kissed her.
It took her a few seconds to react, to pull away. "What in hell are
you doing?" she gasped. He didn't -- couldn't -- answer.
She had vaguely suspected, on past occasions, that he might be
attracted to her. She'd even imagined the prospect, mostly teasing
herself, but also sternly reminding herself how absurd it would be.
The kiss had startled her. But what had shocked her the most was the
intensity, the sweetness, and the dawning awareness that there was so
much more to this than desire.
He was watching her, waiting for her to respond. It did not matter
that he didn't speak; anything he might have said was expressed in his
eyes. There was passion, yes, and anxiety; a glimmer of hope and a
hint of fear, as if he was waiting for her to push him away. And
there was something else underneath all that: an unguarded tenderness
that made her heart sting. She found herself dangerously close to
tears, but she didn't want to cry, so she did the only other thing she
could think of to do. She kissed him back.
Instantly she was second-guessing herself. She could think of so many reasons to stop: she was influenced by stress, loneliness and exhaustion; she was leaving town in a matter of hours; she knew him too well as a colleague and friend; it was Munch, for heaven's sake! Just as quickly, though, she knew she didn't care. She wanted this, needed this; her reasons didn't matter. Logic told her she was only embarrassing herself. But if I can't make a fool of myself with John, she thought, when am I ever safe? The gentle strength of his mouth and his hands reminded her of coming home at the end of a long journey, and she decided to stop worrying, stop thinking. And she let herself go.
---
The sky had been dark for hours, and Munch's bedroom was lit only by
the dim, fragmented glow of the city lights outside. Kay emerged from
his bathroom, drying her hair, wrapped in one of his unexpectedly
opulent, oversized towels. He beamed at her admiringly, looking
somewhat comical but endearing in his (black, of course) bathrobe.
She sat down next to him, and he reached out and touched her
shoulders, carefully massaging away the lingering tension of the day.
"I guess now I know how you got four women to marry you." She turned
her head and winked at him. "And I'm not talking about back rubs."
He smiled, and might even have blushed a little. "I thought I heard
you singing a little bit in the shower."
Kay nodded. "The one that always makes me think of the old days. 'Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies....'"
"I remember." The song was an echo from what seemed to both of them like a different life. "Cragen called, too, while you were in there. The lawyers did the extradition dance for a judge; the governor's ready to sign off on it. The Department of Corrections is probably readying a paddy wagon as we speak. It's pretty much out of our hands now."
She knew what he was deliberately not saying, and she brought it out
into the open. "And I'm going back to Baltimore in the morning."
"I know," he said, with difficulty.
"I don't come up here often," she continued, in a cautious tone. "And
you're sure you're staying for good?"
"What you said to Cantwell was true for me too, you know," he told her. "I lived my whole life in Baltimore, and I didn't leave without a good reason. I came to New York knowing what I was leaving behind."
"Yeah." She turned to look at him again. "Are you okay with this?"
"Well, I'm going to miss the crabcakes, but - of course I'm not okay
with it, Kay! I would love to be with you, to have the last few years
back and start over, to see if we could make this work. But we
can't." He sighed. "I can't go backwards. I'm not stupid or selfish enough to imagine you could stay here. We don't have a chance together, so maybe... maybe it's enough for me that you know I love you."
She knew he was right. She was reluctant to admit the truth to
herself, knowing it would only make things harder. But there it was, and so she made herself reply, truthfully, "I love you too."
It was more than enough. It was above and beyond anything he'd
allowed himself to hope for. He slipped his arms around her; she
leaned back against him, and they were quiet. After a while, he
realized she had fallen asleep, finally overwhelmed by the fatigue she'd been fighting all day. He eased her into a comfortable position on the bed, towel and all, arranged the covers around her and settled himself beside her. He was drowsy, too, but he stayed awake as long as he could, to have as much as possible of the night to remember. He watched her sleeping peacefully, and before he finally closed his eyes, he softly murmured the song running through his head:
"Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies;
Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Spain,
For we've received orders to sail for Old England;
We hope in a short time to see you again...."
---
The departure board indicated that the southbound train was ready to
start boarding, and the crowd in the terminal was coalescing into a
line.
"All I'm saying is, I wouldn't want to live here," Hurley told the other three detectives. "Charm City has it all over New York. Better seafood, cleaner air, nicer people, lower prices..."
"...Higher crime rate," Munch added.
Hurley shrugged. "Hey, it keeps us on our toes."
"We have sports teams, too, but we've established that," Jeffries said. "It's too bad you're not up here for longer; John's buddy over at the two-seven has connections with someone at the Garden. We could've gotten tickets."
He looked downhearted. "I'm missing it."
"You're gonna miss the train if you don't hurry up," Howard pointed out. They joined the queue leading down the stairs to the platform. "So," she said, "We take what we've got and give it to the State's Attorney, and some bottom-rung Legal Aid dope catches the case and pleads Cantwell down before you can say boo."
"Hey, he'll probably take life in prison for fear of the needle,"
Munch replied. "And even if not, we have the auto raps and the rape
to tack on. He'll be watching the world from a cell for a long time."
"We'll send him back to your guys after we're done with him," Kay
said. "And if you need anything else from the Bawlmer police, you know where to find us."
"Of course I do," Munch deadpanned. "Right across the street from the most money-losing bar in the state of Maryland. And you know you can count on us if you're ever chasing a deviant, disgusting pervert in our general direction."
"Friends in high places," Kay said. They laughed. "Well, don't let
working sex crimes warp your mind, Munchkin. You're already warped
enough. Take care of yourself, huh?"
"Goodbye, Kay." He looked at her with a serious expression. "Beau
would be proud of you. I know I am."
She knew he was deferring to her rule about keeping her personal life away from her coworkers. She'd certainly had reason, a few times, to lecture him about invasion of privacy. She hated being discussed and dissected by the boys' club when she wasn't around Headquarters. It made her feel like a fool.
And if I can't make a fool of myself with him....
She couldn't leave things that way, knowing that it was the end.
Impulsively, she turned back and hugged him, fiercely and tightly. He held onto her, eyes closed, breathing her in for the last time.
Then the moment was over, and they let go simultaneously, oblivious to Hurley's astonished stare and Jeffries' smirk of confirmed suspicion. Kay hurried unwaveringly down the stairs; Munch pushed through the clusters of people, making a beeline for the exit. There was a bittersweetness that they both carried away, equal parts weakness and strength. Neither of them looked back.
It's a narrow margin,
Just room enough for regret
In the inch and a half between
'Hey, how've you been?' and 'Can I kiss you yet?'
So we talk, like nervous neighbors
Over a tall fence
True love, but for the lack of
Providence....
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