Chapter Text
Then.
Marie crept into the room, clutching the handcuffs ready.
The Pinkman person lay sprawling outside the covers of her guest bed with one of his arms dangling off the mattress. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Marie saw that she could easily snap a cuff onto his wrist and then secure it to the bed frame. Marie really didn’t like the idea of touching the Pinkman kid though. She could hardly imagine what kinds of bacteria and drug particles might be clinging to his unsanitary skin. Marie could smell the gasoline on his jeans. She was fiercely tempted to just shove the little punk off the bed so that she could strip away the sheets and then rush them to the laundry room.
“Baby...” a soft murmur behind her, “...what are you doing?”
Marie looked up to see Hank blinking at her in the doorway.
“Hank, you’re awake,” she whispered back. “I…I was just...”
Marie raised the handcuffs with a shrug. They weren’t proper police cuffs. These were the ones Marie kept in the back of her lingerie drawer. The cuffs they had used for role playing games in the bedroom...something they hadn’t done in a long time.
“...I was just taking precautions,” she explained.
Hank gestured rather frantically for Marie to step away from the drowsing criminal and return with him to the hallway. Marie followed the silent instruction, dragging her heels. Hank then closed the door behind her and snatched the cuffs out of her hands.
“Marie, I told you...” Hank scolded, guiding her back to the living room. “You don’t have to worry about Pinkman being in the house. I’ll be on watch all night.”
“Hank, you fell asleep in your chair!” she hissed.
“I was just resting my eyes! I was thinking...”
“You were snoring,” Marie corrected. “Hank, you’re exhausted. We’ve both barely slept all week. We can’t go on like this. At some point we’ll just hit a wall.”
Hank sighed. “See Marie...this is why I booked you into a hotel.”
“Well it’s a good thing I stayed and stood guard while you were falling asleep on the job!” Marie pointed out, feeling proud of her efforts thus far. “Do you want that drug crazed pyromaniac wandering around our house while you’re napping?”
“Marie, I’m on the case here,” Hank insisted. “I’ve already locked up all the matches, the sharp objects and the pharmaceuticals just to be on the safe side.”
“That’s not the only thing I’m concerned about, Hank. What if he sneaks away in the night? We can’t let our best chance of getting Walt just slip through our fingers,” Marie pinched the bridge of her nose. “We have to call Steve,” she said for the tenth time that week. “Just tell him he needs to come over here and give us some back up. He’d do that for you, even at this late hour. Hank, we really need to let someone else in on this...”
“Baby, I need something solid first. I’m close, okay? I can feel it.”
She tensed, straining with impatience. “But what if he...”
“Marie, we can’t chain the kid to the bed, okay? End of story.”
“Well I just don’t see what the big deal is!” said Marie, throwing up her hands. “You’re a DEA agent. He’s a criminal. You say that you caught him trying to burn my sister’s house down, for Christ’s sake. So now he...he’s in your custody, right?”
Hank winced. “Technically no. Marie, I explained this. If Pinkman were in custody then I’d have to take him down town and put him in the system. I’d have to lose all control over the evidence that he can give me. So technically he’s not arrested. Technically he’s our guest...a guest who may voluntarily offer up some evidence that could lead to the legitimate arrest of the criminal scumbag we’re really interested in.” Hank took a calming breath. “That’s how we have to play this, okay? If we keep Pinkman handcuffed in our home it becomes a little more like false imprisonment. You know…like kidnapping.”
Marie rolled her eyes. Hank had already given her a long lecture on kidnapping after she had tried to get little Holly away from close proximity to her monster of a father. Before this situation with Walt, Marie hadn’t realized there could be so many situations where what the law called kidnapping was actually a perfectly reasonable course of action.
“So what’s your solution if this Pinkman tries to escape?”
Hank shrugged. “If he wakes up in the night and tries anything stupid then I’ll handle it. I mean...we already know which one of us wins in a fight, right?”
“Hank, that’s not funny,” she chided, cringing at the memory. “I mean you…you did put him in the hospital, didn’t you? Doesn’t he still hate you for that?”
“I expect he does,” said Hank. “But I think he hates Walt more.”
Marie nodded. She was glad to that hear that Pinkman had the right attitude at least. If they all took the perspective of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ then maybe they could come to an accord. But it didn’t stop her worrying that this precious potential ally might run away from them before they could get him to talk. If they couldn’t count on Skyler to come forward and testify, how could they possibly rely on the likes of Pinkman?
“You might be able to take him in a fight, Hank, but you wouldn’t be able to chase him with your leg.” She stood up. “I’m going to put my sneakers on.”
Hank blinked at her in confusion as she marched over to the front door and picked up the lavender tennis shoes that she used for her morning jogs. She sat back down in the living room, kicked off her heels and was soon tying up the laces.
“Marie, baby...” Hank shook his head, “...what are you...?”
“I’m a good sprinter,” said Marie. “I won several medals for my high school track team. So if Pinkman makes a run for it, I’ll catch him and I’ll tackle him before he reaches the door. And I’ll put him in an arm lock. You can arrest me for it later, okay?”
Marie wasn’t kidding, but it warmed her heart when Hank cracked a smile. I can still make him smile, she thought. That was one thing they hadn’t lost yet.
“Okay then,” said Hank. “Sounds like a plan. And sorry to say but it’s a plan you won’t need to put into action. The kid’s coming down off a meth binge, Marie. With the sleeping pills I gave him I doubt he’ll surface before morning. I can’t question him till he’s sobered up. And even if he does wake up in the night…I don’t think he’ll run.”
“How can you be so sure?” asked Marie.
He shrugged again. “Because I know breaking point when I see it...”
Marie swallowed. Hank had told her about the state he had found Pinkman in. That he had been raving something about Walt having poisoned a little boy. Even now with all the other horrors Marie knew about – the witnesses killed in prison, the bomb in the nursing home – the thought of Walt harming a child still shook her to her core and made her more desperate to get her sister, her niece and nephew away from that psychopath. They had to tell Steve Gomez soon. The DEA needed to be here protecting them all again.
“So once we get a confession out of Pinkman we’ll go to the police,” Marie assured herself. “How much do you think he even knows, Hank? Hank...?”
Hank’s eyelids were drooping and Marie feared he might be about fall asleep again. But then her husband gave her a sharp look, full of wakefulness.
“I think he knows everything,” Hank said.
Her skin tingled. This was what they needed.
“Walt might’ve thought he was smart pulling that frame job,” Hank continued, “but that tape has actually helped me to figure things out...given me a timeline. We know that Walt got the idea to make meth from that ride along after his birthday. That was the same time he got his cancer diagnosis. The same time Skyler found out he was buying pot...”
“...from Jesse Pinkman!” Marie interrupted.
She had always said that Walt’s association with this drug dealer person was something the family needed to investigate further but it’s not like anyone would listen.
“He wasn’t buying weed,” said Hank. “Walt needed an in. So he finds some stoner ex-student who knows the business and he uses him to gain contacts with the bigger players. That’s why Pinkman’s car was right there at Tuco’s house. Walt had connections with the Salamancas and then with Fring. It was Walt who got Pinkman to drop those assault charges. And Agent Munn over at APD tells me that the last time they pulled Pinkman in for questioning it was concerning this Brock kid who was poisoned. That was the exact same day the nursing home blew up. It’s all connected somehow, Marie, and this kid’s been in it from the start. At first I took him for just one of Walt’s low level street dealers like Mayhew, but...there’s something more between them. Something personal…” Hank trailed off. He was looking a bit queasy. “I don’t know what Walt did to him exactly, but Pinkman’s not that same cocky little twerp who was bullshitting me about his car being stolen over a year ago…”
Marie thoughts drifted to Skyler again, the sister she barely recognized now she was caught in Walt’s thrall. Clearly this was something Walt did to people. He had tried to do it to Hank too with that repulsive tape. He was trying to drive them all crazy, trying to push them to the point where they’d all want to throw gasoline around and strike matches.
They were still sitting in silence when the phone rang. Not Hank’s cell or Marie’s but that ridiculous Hello Kitty phone they had taken out of Pinkman’s pocket. Hank put it on speaker phone and they listened to the message as it recorded. Walt’s message.
“Jesse…” Walt began, “…I’m going to be at Civic Plaza tomorrow at noon. I hope you’ll give me the chance to explain myself...talk through everything once and for all.”
Hank’s eyes flicked to Marie, shining with triumph.
“Sting…” he whispered to her like it was a sweet nothing.
“You have to call Steve!” Marie insisted.
“Shush!” Hank pressed a finger to lips. Walt hadn’t finished.
“I’ll be alone and unarmed,” the message went on. “So if you want to come and shoot me in the head that’s up to you. Either way…I’m in your hands.”
The message bleeped to a close. Marie stared at the phone, blinking. She was remembering how Walt had been unwilling to entertain Marie’s suggestion that his suicide might be the best solution to all of their problems. The man was dying anyway and Marie knew the final stages of terminal cancer weren’t the most pleasant thing to live through, so why couldn’t Walt just speed up the process? But no, Walt wasn’t prepared to do that. Not for his family’s sake at least. But for this druggie degenerate? For this strung out little hood? For him it seemed that Walt was prepared to put his own neck on the chopping block.
Marie shook her head, appalled.
“Who the hell is this Pinkman person?”
~*~
Now.
Marie stared through the one way mirror into the empty visiting room. A set of handcuffs were attached to a slim metal bar that ran lengthways across the table’s surface. The meeting place was prepared just as she had requested; a private and secure space which she could feel safe in. Yet Marie still flinched when agent Tim Roberts stepped into the observation room behind her.
“They’re sending Pinkman over now,” said Tim. “I’ve been allowed to extend the visit time to half an hour. Will you be comfortable with that duration?”
Marie hesitated, feeling like she was about to be placed in a pit with a rabid wolf.
“Is he dangerous?” she asked. “I hear he...choked a man with a chain?”
Tim nodded. “That one has already been ruled as a justifiable homicide. The kid’s been to hell and back. He’s...he’s a very damaged young man. But he’ll probably do his best to hide it from you. He’s exhibited good behaviour in these last three months he’s been with us. The only time he really fought us was when our doctors said he needed to be on medication.” He touched her shoulder. “Just so you know…I’ll be out here the entire time, keeping an eye on you.” Tim gave her a sympathetic if patronizing smile. “Just watching, not listening. I know this is likely to be a sensitive discussion. He’s the only surviving witness to your husband’s murder after all. I hope that talking to him can give you closure.”
“Yes closure,” Marie affirmed, nodding. “Dave thinks that’s important.”
Tim nodded too. “Anything we can do to support you, Mrs Schrader.”
Marie hung her head mournfully to disguise that this meeting had little to do with closure. Marie knew Hank was dead and he was never coming back so what more closure did she need? She had read the autopsy reports and learned that her late husband had been shot by two bullets, one in the thigh and one in the head, most likely in that order. She had even been to view the remains that had been unearthed from the desert, something Skyler had found disturbing until Marie indigently reminded her that she had worked as an X-Ray specialist for the last twelve years now. People in Marie’s profession are more acutely aware of the reality that all human beings are just walking skeletons wrapped up in skin. The reality of Hank’s bones was easier for Marie to deal with than the long sickening uncertainty of never knowing what had happened to her husband and the stupid delusional hope that he might somehow come back to her so long as no body was found. But finding those two corpses in the sand had stopped that cruel hope before it could drive Marie crazy.
Marie knew when she married a DEA agent his work came with all these risks of a violent death. But even after the shooting by those insane Mexican hitmen Marie knew that she could never talk Hank into quitting. The man was a natural born cowboy. Nothing had ever killed Hank like being bedridden and unable to do his job. Marie had always known that if it came down to it, Hank would give his life for the force and he wouldn’t regret it. She would be left alone to do all the regretting for both of them. Marie knew she couldn’t save Hank’s life, but now that he was gone she could at least protect his reputation. And that was why she had come here. That was why she needed to talk to Jesse Pinkman.
Jesse entered the room through the far door, flanked by a burly guard who towered over him. The young man looked different from the last time Marie had seen him. He was clean shaven which made his facial scarring even more prominent. One scar in particular ran from his eye down his cheek like a permanent tear trail. Jesse’s hair was longer too, tawny tufts of hair that stuck out in all directions making him look like a little boy who had just rolled out of bed. Marie was sure that Jesse or his lawyers had chosen his look on purpose. They were determined to make him seem like the misled child in all this.
Jesse didn’t wait for his hulking guard to restrain him, but marched straight up to the table and snapped the handcuff onto his own wrist. Like it was the most natural thing in the world, like he was strapping on a watch. The guard caught up to Jesse and gave him a stern look for rushing ahead, but Jesse waggled his cuffed hand to show there was no harm done. So the guard just sighed and let it go. Jesse slumped in the chair, yawning and rubbing his neck with his free hand, already seeming bored before the visit had begun.
Tim squeezed Marie’s shoulder and motioned her to enter the room. She stepped through the door and quickly addressed the guard before he could leave.
“Excuse me, I need to ask is...is that secure?” She pointed to the cuff on Jesse’s wrist. “I just wanted to check that correct procedure is being followed.”
“It’s fine,” the guard assured her. “He just prefers to do it himself.”
“Oh, he prefers,” Marie replied with haughty nod. “I see.”
“I’ll be just outside,” the guard added and he seemed to be saying it to Jesse more so than to her. Marie narrowed her eyes. She had the distinct impression this guard liked Jesse which she considered not only unorthodox, but a mite unprofessional.
Marie could already tell her assumptions had been correct. Jesse Pinkman was getting special treatment in prison. She was sure that these little exceptions to regulations weren’t the end of it. She had the feeling that they were all handling Jesse with kid gloves and all because some big time director wanted to make a documentary about him. Then there were biographies they wanted to write about him, the websites that had sprung up about him and the endless ‘Villain or Victim?’ debates she read in the press. There were already talks of making a movie about all the horrible things that Walt had done and apparently every young actor in Hollywood wanted to play the Pinkman role. A movie. It was absurd.
Still...Marie sometimes wondered who might play her in the movie. Winona Ryder would be the obvious choice, of course. She had Marie’s elfin features and milky complexion and she was still looking remarkably good for her age. Playing a sympathetic woman struggling with kleptomania would be a bold choice for the actress given her own highly publicized struggles with the condition. Marie had told Dave that if the film went ahead then she would be writing to its director to inform them of her casting preferences.
“Uh…Agent Roberts said you’ve been asking to see me?”
Marie snapped out of her reverie and refocused on Jesse, who was sitting chained to the table, waiting for her to speak. She took the seat opposite him and reminded herself to remain calm and civil. She had waited months for this visit. She couldn’t waste it. One little royal wave to his guard and Jesse could probably terminate the whole meeting.
“Yes,” Marie began. “Yes, I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to inform you that I’ve been asked to testify at your trial. I want you to know that I intend to tell the jury the unadulterated truth. I intend to say that while you were a guest in my home you seemed very remorseful and you were very helpful to my husband’s investigation. I’ll confirm that you made a full confession and that you were willing to turn state’s evidence at great risk to your own safety. That might help towards a more lenient sentence, wouldn’t you say?”
“I guess,” said Jesse, frowning. He seemed to be waiting for the catch.
“On a personal note,” Marie continued. “I also wanted to thank you for turning yourself in when you did. It took the heat off my sister when she needed it the most. You have no idea what Skyler and poor Flynn were put through in those months after Walt disappeared. I mean Walt was the one who forced her into it. He could’ve spared her all these interrogations and accusations if he’d only been prepared to surrender as you have done. But that man never cared about anyone but himself. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that.”
Jesse tensed at the mention of Walt and he gave her a non-committal nod. Marie thought that he might have warmed up to her after these pleasantries that she had planned to begin with. But his sunken posture in the chair was still moody and mistrustful.
“So how have you been?” Marie asked, still struggling to break the ice. “Tim says that you’re currently in protective custody. Is that like…solitary confinement?”
“Nah...” Jesse drawled. “It means they’ve got me in this smaller separate unit with the other freaks and pussies who they think are likely to get their asses reamed in gen pop.”
“Oh, I see,” Marie nodded, not understanding, nor wanting to understand half of what Jesse had just said. “So is it nicer…in this protective unit?”
Jesse snorted a laugh. “That depends on your idea of nice. We got a library and a chapel and not a whole lot else to do. But it could be worse. I get three meals a day and I get a toilet that flushes. Other than that, it’s prison and it sucks. But that’s the point, right?”
“I’m just pleased to hear the police are so concerned for your safety,” Marie concluded. “You know...because I keep hearing about how victimized and abused you were.”
Jesse rolled his eyes, sinking even lower into his chair.
“Look…is this about the photograph?” he asked, cutting to the chase.
Marie bristled at the mention of it. That damned photograph. The photo of Jesse Pinkman’s battered face, his left eye swollen up like a purple balloon, as he lay in the hospital bed that Hank had put him in. The photo that had been leaked anonymously to the newspapers about a month ago and had been haunting Marie ever since with all the slurs that it had placed on her late husband’s name. The DEA had been scandalized by the photo too since it revealed they had covered up this act of police brutality by their own ASAC. So now there were these wild speculations that poor little Jesse Pinkman might have come forward so much sooner if it hadn’t been for Agent Schrader destroying all his trust in the authorities.
Marie took a breath and struggled to retain her composure.
“I don’t know who out of your cowardly little circle of friends released that photo to the tabloids. I suppose that your lawyers thought it would be a good publicity stunt to gain you sympathy. To make you look like the victim of the situation.”
Jesse frowned. “Yo, I was the victim of that situation.”
“Only technically,” Marie hissed back, her anger mounting. “Let me tell you now…when I am next in a position to speak to the media I won’t be covering up any of the traumatizing lies that were told to my husband, convincing him that his wife was dying in hospital…lies that I believe drove my husband into a state of temporary insanity. Not that the DEA or anyone else ever cared about the pressures they put him under…”
Marie forced herself to stop. She had no intention of getting tearful during this meeting. Jesse seemed to sense she was close to crying and he softened his tone.
“Look lady, I…I didn’t tell anyone to leak that photo. I didn’t even know it still existed. The dude who took it was my old lawyer. I haven’t seen him in almost a year.”
“Is this that Goodman character?” Marie scoffed. “Oh Skyler told me about him. All I can say is you must’ve paid him well if he’s still pulling strings for you.”
Jesse shook his head. “He’s got no reason to be helping me out. We sure didn’t part on the best of terms. In fact, I’m pretty much the whole reason he had to leave his business and skip town. So like I said…he’s got no reason to be doing me any favours.”
“Well obviously he is!” she snapped, still bitterly frustrated.
This was really too much. In Marie’s opinion Jesse had already been ridiculously pampered with good legal representation. There had only been one public defender appointed for Skyler and he had been useless in presenting compelling arguments for her defence. But then Skyler was just the abused wife with Stockholm Syndrome who didn’t know anything. Jesse was the star witness to all Heisenberg’s criminal exploits. Jesse was the one that they wanted to make movies about. So it seemed these lawyers were lining up to defend Jesse free of charge just to grab their share of the fame and glory, including this fugitive TV lawyer who had allegedly been profiting for their drug ring all along. Even the corrupt lawyer was helping him out. But Jesse simply seemed confused by the actions of this shady benefactor.
“At first I thought...” Jesse began, “...maybe Goodman was trying to say sorry for some of the stuff that he did. But honestly, I think that he just misses being a lawyer. Like, his two most famous clients are national news stories and he’s got to keep his mouth shut and hide in the shadows. Maybe he leaked that photo because he just couldn’t stand not being involved.”
“Just don’t act like you’re sorry about it,” Marie sneered. “It doesn’t end with the photo you know...now there is all this suspicion about how Hank might have coerced you into making that confession and that you’re a victim of police misconduct because Hank didn’t go through the proper channels. It’s absurd! My husband was protecting you!”
“Oh yeah, right...” said Jesse with a sardonic snarl to his lips. “Your husband protected me real good…right up to the point where I got kidnapped by Nazis.”
Marie felt herself go cold. “You…you can’t blame him for that.”
Jesse stared into her eyes and then he softened again.
“I don’t...” he admitted. “I don’t blame him. We both put ourselves in that situation because it was our one chance to catch that asshole. This photo stuff…it’s not about me blaming other people for what I did, okay? It’s just the lawyers doing their thing, trying to get me a better plea bargain. Like, they’ll promise not to raise some big civil rights suit against the DEA if the prosecutor agrees to drop some of the charges against me...”
“Drop some of the charges?!” Marie spluttered. “So does that mean that you’re just going to get away with some of those crimes that you committed?”
“Lady...chill. Even after they’re done cutting deals…there’s still going to be a lot of charges left over.” He smiled grimly. “I cooked a lot of meth. Like quantity-wise, I might’ve cooked more meth than any other single person in all America.”
There was a note of awe in Jesse’s voice when he said this as though he wasn’t sure if he was shocked at himself or whether this was the one great achievement of his life.
Marie tried a different approach. “Look, I understand that these things are good for your defence, Jesse. But I thought we were on the same team here. We both know who the real villain is, don’t we? Hank always said that Walt did a number on you. Walt got you in over your head, right? Can’t you get the lawyers to say it was all Walt’s doing?”
Jesse laughed raggedly. “Yeah, they’re saying that too. They need more than one argument for like, mitigating circumstances and diminished responsibility in my case. So yeah, they want me to say everything we did was Walt’s idea. They want me to say I was manipulated and blackmailed into doing his evil bidding. They want me boohooing on the stand about how I always looked up to Mr White as my teacher and how I put all my trust in the wrong guy.” Jesse sighed. “Basically I have to pass myself off as some poor brainwashed idiot.”
“Well...isn’t that what you were?” asked Marie.
Jesse gave her a stung look and sank still lower in his chair.
“I don’t mean to be insulting,” she clarified. “He made an idiot out of me too.”
He swallowed and nodded. “I know that he was just using me. Just working me over...it took me a long time to see it, but I know now. I just don’t want people seeing me as this stupid sidekick who could never think for himself. It’s not true. I mean...I had ideas.”
Jesse was practically pouting over this. Marie was losing patience with the brat. It seemed that if he wasn’t avoiding responsibility then he was sulking over not getting enough credit.
“Well then,” she said. “If you’re so proud of your nasty little criminal ventures why don’t you just own up to them and quit blaming other people for all your misfortunes? Because I know for a fact that nobody forced you into the drug world. I’ve read those interviews with your parents and I know you came from a good home and had every opportunity to lead a better life. Do you ever think about your parents, Jesse? What you’ve put them through?”
He met her stare again. “They’ve been sure to remind me every time they visit, yeah.”
“So they are visiting you then. Well, I would say that’s very decent of them.”
Jesse rubbed his temple. “Well, it's in their interests, you know. They’re making a ton of money from all those press opportunities. Mom says they’ll be able to afford to send Jake to space academy this summer.”
This caught Marie by surprise. “Your parents are making money off you?”
Jesse winced, but shrugged it off. “It’s not like that. They offered to put some of it in a trust for me for when I get out. But I told them I don’t think there’s any point. They might as well just spend it or like...use it for charity or whatever. I don’t care. I mean, I want my kid brother to go to space camp, you know? They actually let Jake come with them last time they visited. Man, I hardly recognized him. The kid’s growing like a weed. He’s taller than me now. My little brother is taller than me! Like...how the hell did that happen?”
For the first time in their meeting, Jesse’s face lit up with a genuine smile. Marie could see that whatever grievances lay between Jesse and his parents, it hadn’t diminished his affection for his younger sibling. But still, there was something tragic about Jesse’s smile. Like he had given up on himself and could only place his hopes in other people that he cared about.
“You...you don’t think you’ll ever get out?” Marie asked.
“I don’t know,” said Jesse, his face falling again, “Maybe when I’m an old man or something, if I live that long. I know that the lawyers are trying for leniency, less years, nicer prisons, the chance of parole and all that. But I got to accept whatever verdict they give me. And I know that it could be bad...real bad. Like, I could end up in one of those super max places where you do all your time alone in a cell and you only go out in the yard for around an hour every day and you never talk to anyone. There’s people who are sane that go into max and come out crazy. What chance would I have? It’s not like I think I deserve any slack. It’s just that there’s not much more that I can physically take, you know?”
Marie opened her mouth and closed it again. She knew about the conditions Jesse had been kept in at that meth lab compound where Walt had finally been killed. She had always been horrified by these drug gangs who keep actual human slaves. Marie had no real desire to see Jesse suffer further. She didn’t hate him. She hated her dead brother-in-law so intensely she had no hatred left for anyone else. It drove her crazy that Walt would never set foot in a jail cell while this kid might be spending the rest of his life behind bars. But she still had to object to Jesse’s line of defence. She still had to do right by Hank...she had to...
She sighed and wondered if Hank himself might tell her to just let it go.
“Hank didn’t lie about what he did to you, you know,” said Marie, wanting Jesse to know this if he didn’t already. “He was going to admit to the assault, lose his career over it. I was telling him to make up a story and say that you attacked him first. But he wouldn’t do it. That was how committed my husband was to being a good cop. But now nobody will know that. They will only focus on his mistakes...not on all the things he did right.”
Marie’s voice was cracking in spite of herself. Jesse finally sat upright in his chair, limply raising his free hand as if he wanted to reach out and console her.
“Look listen...” said Jesse. “I won’t be letting the lawyers say anything about your husband that isn’t true. But I can’t really stop them using the stuff that is true. It’s kind of out of my hands at this stage. But for what it’s worth...I probably wouldn’t have gone to the cops any sooner, even if your husband hadn’t beaten me to a bloody pulp.”
“Why not?” asked Marie. “For your own sake, I mean. You could have made a deal. You could have walked.”
“I know...” said Jesse, his face hardening as if all those chances for witness protection still gave him headaches. “I guess for a long time there I was just...loyal.”
Marie nodded and she didn’t push this line of questioning any further. She understood by Jesse’s solemn tone that when he said loyal, he meant stupid.
To be continued...