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The courtroom was sweltering. Brooklyn in the height of summer was unbearable most days, but being jammed into a small room with no working aircon wearing this stuffy formal police attire was a new level of torture. At least this was a closed courtroom. They didn’t need another fifty warm bodies in here.
At the stand, Jake swallowed, the dryness sticking in his throat as he coughed, echoing even though he tried to lean away from the microphone. He kept his hands clasped in front of him, face neutral. Holt’s eyes bored into him from the seats, fenced off in the public area. Only Holt, Amy, a handful of court staff and the kid’s family were permitted to watch. Key witnesses, key support people. At least the kid wasn’t here.
No, he’d be sectioned off somewhere with his support worker. Colouring, maybe. Waiting. The kid would give his testimony at some point, then there’d be the cross-examination to worry about. Jake tried hard not to glare at the defence. They were just doing their jobs, and besides, being openly antagonistic to that piece of shit’s-
Breathe . Hands opened. Shoulders dropped.
“The jury will be watching your every move,” Holt had said.
He focused on Amy, spotting her face pinched in concern next to Holt’s stoic one. She was breathing deeply, too deep, obviously trying to get Jake to match her. Something to focus on.
This was fine. He’d done this plenty of times. He was John McClane, walking barefoot on the broken glass. Just a little torture for the greater good.
“Detective?” Kim, the prosecutor, brought him back to reality. Jake would want her on his team, if he was that kid in the other room. Calm, serious, dedicated. A true professional. Someone who would fight for you.
He’d been on the stand for ten minutes. Not his longest testimony, but one of his hardest. It had been fine at the beginning. Easy. They’d been investigating the defendant for something else entirely. Murder. Drug trafficking. The fun stuff. Well, awful, but compared to other crimes-
How did the Sex Crimes Unit function, anyway? Sure, there was the high attrition rate, cops getting burnt out and scarred and disillusioned by the world. But how did they keep finding people ready to put their hands up to deal with the worst of humanity? And then there was the Crimes Against Children Unit, which Jake steered clear of on the best of days. He was sure they were great guys, really, but he couldn’t trust someone who could stomach that shit.
“Detective Peralta.” The Judge’s deep tones hedged into his thoughts. Brought him back to this stifling hot room. Really, was there no way to crack open a window?
Think of John McClane, bandaging his feet and pulling himself along. Can’t abandon the mission, Peralta. Even though Holt and Amy were watching him fidget, their brilliant detective minds whirring behind their concern at his discomfort.
Besides, the worst part was over. He’d told them what he’d seen. A sting operation turned rescue. Worst day of his life yet. No biggie. He’d even told them about his interview with the kid, afterwards. Had rewatched the tape of himself, and this poor fucking kid, hanging in the calm room, playing with Holt’s train set while the state-appointed support worker watched on.
So to describe the perp’s demeanour? Cake walk.
“When we brought Peter McCormack into questioning, he was angry. He kept shouting at us, saying we didn’t understand. That we couldn’t understand.”
“Understand what, Detective?” See, Kim was calm. Jake just had to be like her. Calm. Affected, but professional. Upholder of justice.
“His relationship with his son, I think.”
“Objection, speculation.” The other lawyer, the one Jake hadn’t bothered with learning the real name of, had just called Suits in his head, stood up. Jake’s gaze flashed to Suits, and he felt his face hardening, his chest tightening.
The judge nodded. “Sustained.”
Okay, focus. The courtroom floor wasn’t much to look at, but it was something he didn’t want to punch. Or spit at, stuck on the stand as he was. It was a dirty, filthy linoleum floor that needed a good clean. Not like his new apartment. Amy had gotten them a roomba that vacuumed and mopped but she’d go behind it with a proper mophead, saying she didn’t trust it to sanitise the floors correctly. Why did Amy have to be here?
“What did Peter McCormack say to you, specifically?” Kim tried again, changing tactics. Holt had prepared him for this, too.
“Do not panic if part of your testimony is inadmissible, or if it seems like the prosecution is asking you the same questions. They want to see this case succeed as much as you do and they will do everything they can to get your testimony over the line.”
Over the line. Over the fucking line. Jake could laugh.
He was a firm believer in the justice system most days – had to be, to do the work he did – but he knew the statistics on child abuse cases. On sexual assaults. On cases that happen behind closed doors, with a kid that fucking trusted you and loved you and would try and be a good kid in the hopes you’d love them back then.
“He said, ‘You don’t understand us.’ He mostly said that, while we were bringing him in, and once we got him into the interview room, he said ‘You couldn’t understand it until you experience it yourself.’ When I asked him what he meant, he-”
Jake looked at Amy. She’d schooled her face into neutrality now, but Amy was never good at acting. Her eyes were too soulful, as cheesy as that sounded. Too soft around the edges, the slightest divot between her brows betraying her concern. And Holt, too. He lacked his usual ninety-degree posture.
He cleared his throat, and looked back at Kim. He should address it to the jury, for added emphasis, but he couldn’t face them right now. Kim would hammer it home in closing arguments.
“McCormack said, ‘They don’t know how to fight back yet.’ ”
Audible gasps from the jury. That was a good sign, right? Kim would make sure they got the transcripts of the rest of the interview, not that much had happened. McCormack may be dumber than dog shit, but even dogs could bark out that they wanted a lawyer.
The ringing in Jake’s ears obscured the changeover. He was too busy cataloguing the marks on the floor to realise that the first part of his testimony was over. That the faint clacking over the white noise was Kim returning to her bench, and that the evil leeches of earth had inched their way towards him.
“Detective Peralta,” Suits said, more spitting than speaking. The words flew out of his mouth at a rapid pace. “You were the first one on the scene, correct?”
“Yes.” John McClane, standing up on his feet and limping. Hero in the making, even if it was just one life saved, even if he suffered for it.
“You were the first one in the house, correct?”
“Followed closely behind by Detective Santiago and members of the NYPD, yes.”
“And you were the first to find my client?”
“Again, yes. We split up to search the house, and I located McCormack first.”
“You allege that you found my client and his son in the bedroom, and you made the arrest before you alerted the other members of your team?”
“I initiated the arrest as I called out for backup. My priority was to get Luke away from McCormack as soon as possible.”
“But neither you nor your team witnessed any explicit sexual activities prior to the arrest?”
“The kid was half-undressed and crying. They were on the bed. What was I supposed to think?”
“That my client was helping my son get dressed. As fathers are known to do.”
“While his own pants were on the ground?”
“You said it was late. You said my client was wearing boxers. Did it ever occur to you that that could be my client’s sleep attire? That the kid had a nightmare, wet the bed, and my client was comforting him?”
“That wasn’t what it looked like, sir.”
“Is it possible, Detective, that your judgement was clouded?”
“This is a man we had sufficient evidence to tie to a murder-”
“Objection,” Suits interrupted. Jake cursed in his head. Stupid separate trial shit. Why couldn’t the murder and assault all just be lumped together? Well, he knew why. Best not to drag the kid into a prolonged proceeding. Best to deal with Luke’s case separately.
“Denied.” Never mind. Thank you, Judge-man. Second favourite Judge, after Mama Holt, of course.
“Detective, what were you feeling when you saw my client?”
Now it was Kim’s turn to object to this turn in questioning. And to be denied. Jake bumped the judge down his tier list.
“I was upset. Disgusted. Horrified. Angry. Who wouldn’t be?”
“Pretty strong emotions.” Now Suits turned to the jury. Smiled. Played nice. Evil piece of shit. “Now, detective, what evidence did you have to support your charge for sexual assault?”
“They were both undressed, in the bedroom.”
“My client was hardly undressed, as we had established. But you didn’t see any sexual activity?”
“If I hadn’t’ve found them when I did, I’m sure I would’ve. Thankfully it didn’t get that far.”
“Detective, answer the question with a yes or no. Did you or did you not see my client interact with his son sexually at the time of the arrest?”
“I didn’t, no.”
“Is it possible then, that those strong emotions you felt clouded your judgement?” The questions sped up. Jake barely had time to answer one before the next rolled out of Suits’ lips, an endless barrage.
“No- maybe, but-”
“Is it possible that you jumped to conclusions because of those strong emotions – you said you were upset. Horrified.”
“Yes-”
“ Angry. Just how angry were you, Detective?”
“I’m not sure what you’re insinuating-”
“I’m not insinuating anything. You said yourself that you were angry. How angry?”
“That bastard was about to abuse his kid. Yes, I was angry. Very angry. I don’t-”
“So angry, that when you saw my client comforting his son after a nightmare, you assumed the worst because you weren’t seeing my client and his son, were you, Detective?”
“I saw them; they were right there on the bed-”
“So angry, very angry, the kind of anger brought on by personal biases, would you say?”
“There’s no personal biases-”
“No personal biases? No projection of any kind?”
People were standing now – Kim. Amy. Holt, shockingly, the very same Holt who thought exhaling too hard was ‘making a scene’. But they weren’t fast enough. He was John McClane, and they had already forced him off the building, and the roof was about to blow.
“Detective, is it true that you initiated proceedings against your own father for child sexual abuse?”
Kim was objecting even before Suits finished speaking, and the Judge instructed the jury to disregard the last few questions and answers. But Suits had put that out there, and the jury had already heard, and Holt and Amy had heard, and now Jake was falling through the air with a fucking fire hose as a safety rope.
He didn’t know what he said in the final few minutes of his cross-examination. All he knew was that at some point, he’d been released from the witness stand, and he must have walked right out the court doors, must have left the building entirely, because now he was on a park bench.
He had the tattered remnants of a bagel in his hands. He vaguely recognised it as the one Holt had bought him, blueberry and cream cheese, before the trial today. Jake had been so nauseous that he had only taken a few bites before he stuffed it into his pocket, and now he’d fed half of it to the flock of cooing pigeons around him without even realising. Now, with a clearer head, he thought it was odd for Holt to buy him this. To buy him any food, for a start, but especially the type of bagel Holt detested most. His Captain had declared many times that Jake should only eat the seeded kind because he needed to increase his fibre intake, whatever that meant, and that blueberry bagels were for kids and cavities.
Had Holt known this would be hard for Jake? Had he guessed?
He looked up then, just now remembering that this was New York and he’d left his phone with Holt and Amy, trying to get a sense of his bearings. This park was quiet, near-empty, which was nice. He checked his cheeks. Not wet, so he hadn’t been crying, but it wouldn’t have mattered. There wasn’t anyone here.
Jake bristled at the polite cough behind him.
He knew who it was without turning around. It had been arrogant of him anyway, to assume he could slip Holt.
“So, I pro’ly blew that.” His voice was far away from his own ears, but that was fine. He had nailed nonchalance. That was Jake Peralta. Always keeping his cool. Not traumatised, no, just in a park feeding some birds. The usual. “You guys probably couldn’t smell him, but that guy’s breath smelt like sardines. Sardines! That’s like, the worst type of fish.”
A light touch on his shoulder alerted him to Amy’s presence moments before she sat down next to him, quiet and small.
“Sorry, Ames. I don’t get how you can eat that stuff. It’s cheap for a reason – ‘cause it’s nasty.”
Holt sat down on the other side of him now. No ninety degree posture. Not even eighty-nine-point-nine. Hands clasped in his lap like a criminal, hunched over, looking at the birds with Jake. Jake clocked it immediately, though. Holt’s attempt at being non-threatening. Like he was some fucking kid being convinced to talk with a train set.
“I’ll pay you back for the bagel, by the way. I know it’s not good for them to eat bread or whatever, but I thought they could use a break. Must be hard eating out of the trash. Plus, all the food in the bins probably has, like, a zillion diseases.”
Neither Holt nor Amy scolded him for the use of the word zillion. They just sat there with him, watching him throw chunks of bagel to the pigeons, and they even took a piece when Jake handed it to them. For some reason, it was this, the three of them sitting together and feeding the birds, that broke him.
“It’s true. You probably both knew that already. But what he said. It’s true.” The confession tumbled out of him with each damp crumb. “The case didn’t go anywhere. I had to drop it. Not-” His voice caught, and he forced himself to continue. “Not enough evidence, I guess. Which I should’ve thought about. Hard to collect evidence ten years after the fact. But I had just graduated from the Academy and I believed in it, man. The mission. In law and order and justice. I don’t even think he was notified in the end. I don’t know how that Suits found out, but, whatever. I guess you know now. Jakey’s got issues!” He tried for joking and upbeat, but even he could only force out a chuckle before his throat tightened.
Amy threw her arms around him then. “Oh, babe.”
Holt, ever the softie, went for a pat on the back and a sentimental, “Jacob.”
Pieces of nothing but, still.
Jake’s shaking hands failed to hold onto his bagel, and the remaining morsels scattered beneath his feet. Pigeons cooed in excitement as they swarmed, pecking around him, but even though Holt and Amy despised the birds (Holt, for the time he had to dress up as a pigeon mascot and Amy because they were “dirty disease-ridden creatures”), they just held onto him. The roof of the Nakatomi Plaza had blown and yet here they were, suggesting they go get pizza from Sal’s, the extra cheesy kind that neither of them particularly liked but would eat for Jake’s sake.
Both of them, pulling Jake up onto solid land.