Disclaimer:  The characters are not mine, etc., etc.  Clearly.  I am posting this on ff.net.  This is just a short piece exploring Jack's reaction to the shooting of Danielle Mellnick in "Open Season" and serving as an outlet for me to kvetch about certain things.  Like politics and NYC driving.  Be warned – it gets very snarky about current political trends.   

The ambulance doors closing.  Lights of police cars whirling, bouncing rhythmically off the heavy stone sides of 100 Centre Street.  Raised voices.  Radios crackling.  Police and crime technicians shouting in a roaring cacophony.   Yellow crime scene tape flapping in the gentle night breeze.  Blue NYPD sawhorses blocking off sections of Centre Street and the main entrance to the Criminal Courts Building.  Curious passersby talking urgently amongst themselves.  Lennie Briscoe, imperturbable, saying something about a 9mm.  After he'd said something like, "You'd better be careful, Jack.  It looks like it's open season on lawyers."  That was about as perturbed as Briscoe ever got.

            A crime scene, like any other.  Jack had visited countless crime scenes in the twenty-seven years he'd worked for the City.  DAs frequently visit crime scenes, especially in murder cases when there is a lot at stake and a DA who loses one can get his ass fried by the public.  Viewing for themselves what sort of criminal activity they will be prosecuting.  Verifying that the police are diligently securing the scene.  Normally, Jack felt as impassive as a homicide detective.  Sure, he felt righteous anger towards the perpetrator, as one should, but he separated the anger and disgust from the work before him.  He'd been doing this too long to be fazed by all but the most grotesque crime scenes. 

This fazed him.  Though there was no body because she wasn't dead, Jack could not stare at the blue sawhorses, crime scene tape, and traffic cones marking where she'd fallen and blood trails without nausea twisting in his gut.  He did not feel the chilly breeze and he barely heard the detective above the white noise screaming in his head.  An old friend shot.  For what?  The world was filled with injustice and the justice system certainly did not always dispense justice, but this injustice floored him.  Danielle Mellnick had nearly sunk her career defending these people, and now they had shot her.  But they did not know she'd nearly gone to jail and gotten disbarred on their behalf now, did they?  Jack forced away dizziness, deploying the strength of willpower against it. 

He'd told Julian Pruce that Danielle would testify against him.  Yesterday in Rikers.  That conversation clearer in his mind than whatever Lennie was saying.  Pruce believing Danielle turned state's evidence and agreeing to a plea-bargain.  A flat-out lie on Jack's part.  Danielle had flatly refused to incriminate her client.  Not just going to the mat for her client and the Constitution, but taking that mat and throwing it out the window.  With everything that was happening in the United States now, it warmed Jack's heart that people like Danielle Mellnick would defend the spirit of the Constitution with their last breath. 

Which was where things seemed now. 

Some murder victims damn well deserved what they got.  Others did not.  And Jack zealously prosecuted their killers regardless, clinging to the one poignant commandment that killing was wrong.  But Danielle deserved it less than most New Yorkers.  She had attempted to save her client's rights at risk of incarceration herself, and now an ambulance was rushing her to Beth Israel Hospital because one of that client's friends had shot her.  Damn her for representing such people.  Jack swallowed the bitter taste.  The conversation in Rikers.  He had told Pruce that Danielle turned on him.  His fault.  Goddammit, he should have recognized the danger these people posed.  It wasn't his best lie – his personal best was when he told a defendant who had sexually assaulted a ten year-old girl and then shoved rat poison down her throat that the victim was conscious and would testify, when in fact that victim was in a coma with no sign of recovery.  But this lie had gutwrenching consequences.  Couldn't have foreseen that, could he?  Even though this terrorist organization had already gunned down a defense lawyer here in New York and a prosecutor in Florida.  Even though they had threatened a lawyer Upstate and had been responsible for God only knows what else.   

"Jack?  Everything okay?" asked Briscoe, putting a hand on his shoulder. 

"Fine," Jack snapped, Lennie's touch jerking his attention back to the present.  A sharp tug on reality's reins. 

The detective arched a skeptical eyebrow.  Gazed through him with those soulful, penetrating brown eyes.

Jesus, Jack thought.  The man was a homicide cop.  Homicide cops could read people like he could read Supreme Court cases.  "It's really fine," he said, even though he knew Lennie did not believe him for an instant.

"Whatever, Counselor," said Lennie. 

"Is anybody talking to the girl?" he demanded.

Lennie said, "Ed's with her."

"Well, somebody better fucking advise her of her rights before some judge excludes any statements she makes.  These people, these Patriot Union people, they have a knack for finding the best lawyers in this whole fucking City."

"And then shooting them," said Lennie, deadpan.

Jack glared at him.  Damn cop had to make the wisecrack.  Lennie held his gaze, cool, unflappable.  So I made the fuckin' wisecrack.   

"They're taking her to Central to be processed," Lennie said unemotionally. 

"I want her Mirandized."

"I'm sure my partner read her her rights."

"I want a signed waiver."

"We'll get one," said Lennie.  He sighed wearily. 

Jack turned on his heel.  Stormed past the cops and CSU techs, jogging up the stares and shoving his shoulder into the heavy bronze door.  There was blood spattered on the floor in front of the elevators.  Orange traffic cones marked various points within the crime scene.  Yellow tape cordoned off the entire section of the hallway from the metal detectors to the elevators.  CSU techs crouched around the hallway, brushing at walls and the floor.  Place smelled of death and blood, thick and heavy. Made it hard to breathe.

"How did she get a gun in here?" Jack demanded loudly of no one in particular.

"She didn't go through the metal detectors," said Lennie, who had followed him.  "She stood about five feet behind where you're standing."  Jack was standing in the metal detector.  "Shot from there.  Pretty good aim."

"She got off three shots before she was stopped?"

"It was a semi-auto.  Takes like five seconds to get off three shots."

"These people are what that Patriot Act should be for," he snarled.

"Jack," said Serena, who had been eerily quiet since they'd arrived on the scene, like she'd never viewed a crime scene before.  She'd followed him and Briscoe into 100 Centre.  "Don't be ridiculous."

Ridiculous?  This whole situation was ridiculous!  Jack stared daggers into her.  Everyone had to be a wiseass tonight.  Lennie – well, when wasn't he? – and now Serena. 

"I don't know Danielle Mellnick very well," she admitted.  "But I know that she would shoot you if she heard you saying that.  And in your more rational moments, you'd shoot yourself."

"Go to hell," he said.  But she was right.  Danielle hated the current administration, hated what they were doing to the Constitution, and she'd promised Jack that she'd up and join the ACLU if she had to, defending liberty against a steadily encroaching government.  And he had agreed with her!  The Fifth Amendment espoused that no persons shall be deprived of life and liberty without due process of law.  The Fourth demanded a high degree of judicial scrutiny for any search and seizure.  He agreed with the ACLU on most things.  He'd gotten into vehement arguments with his boss, Arthur Branch, over the Constitutional legitimacy of sketchy legislation like the Patriot Act.  Branch, who had a rather flexible view on civil liberties, didn't see much wrong with it.  Jack had been horrified when Congress passed the damned thing. 

Didn't seem like such a bad idea right now.

Though right now was not a very rational moment.

He exhaled, shuddering.  Which did not relieve any anxiety.  Blood rushed in his ears.  Rationality was overrated. 

"Maybe you should go home," Lennie suggested. 

"Are you going to question her tonight?"

The old detective sighed.  "I don't know.  Probably."

Jack looked at Serena.  Tranquil in the whirling lights, apparently untouched by the death and chaos.  And then at Briscoe, unfazed because this was what he did, lined face world-weary but impassive.  Few things bothered an old homicide cop. 

"I'm going to the hospital," Jack announced.

"Okay," said Lennie, relieved to be rid of him.

"Want me to come?" asked Serena.

Extending their sympathy.  He didn't want it.  "No, stay here," he said.

"You know the chances of you and me prosecuting this are pretty low."

"We're in Intake this week, Serena."

"What are the odds of Branch letting you prosecute someone who shot a friend of yours, or that the defense lawyer won't move to have you removed from the case if Branch doesn't first?"

"We're in Intake," he repeated.  He wanted this case.  "Four years ago, Russian mobsters killed an ADA.  I prosecuted them."  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Briscoe rolling his eyes expressively and making a show of biting his tongue.  Fuck you, Detective, Jack thought.  And then he added, "No one complained about that."

"No, they just complained about you suspending habeas corpus," said Serena.  Everyone indeed knew the Russian Mob story.  A good story spread like a roach infestation through the New York County DA's office. She had been working misdemeanors at the time, nowhere near Major Felonies.  "Go to the hospital," she said more sympathetically. 

How the hell did it come to this?  Jack and Serena had been at the DA's office celebrating their plea bargain with Pruce when the phone call came.  Mellnick, shot in the entrance of 100 Centre.  Jack thought he'd been kicked in the chest.  Half-deaf from the noise in his head, he'd bolted out of the DA's office, not even fucking with the elevator, just clattering down the fire stairs to the Criminal Courts Building as fast as he could run.  Serena had run after him and was fit enough to scramble down the stairs with him and not be out of breath at the bottom.  He'd jogged into the entrance, found the place crawling with cops – every cop in Manhattan and maybe a few from Brooklyn.  Briscoe and Green had found him and Serena immediately through some cop-sixth sense, told them what happened.  Then Ed ran off to deal with something, leaving Lennie alone with the prosecutors by the ambulance. 

Jack turned away from the crime scene.  Guilt pulled at him, insisting he stay here, act like a prosecutor.  The cops had handled many crimes scenes without his cautious supervision.  And Serena was there.  Inexperienced, but it doesn't take a veteran in the justice system to be sure that people do not contaminate a crime scene.  Fuck the guilt.  Had to see Danielle.  Had someone called her husband, a local real estate broker?  Her parents?  Did Jack know her parents?  He thought they lived in Riverdale or Queens or maybe Rockland County or Westchester.  That narrowed it down.  Good God.  Panic overtaking him, a thought that he'd never see Danielle again flitting through his mind.  Why did his final conversations with people before they unexpectedly gave up the ghost always seem to be pejorative?  His last conversation with his father had been an argument about lifestyle and politics  – all Jack had in common with his father was DNA and a right to trial by jury.  His last conversation with Claire Kincaid had been a bitchy, eight-hour long dispute about the death penalty.   His last conversation with Danielle had been more or less a threat that he would arrest and prosecute her if she did not cooperate with him. 

He tore himself from the crime scene, jogging to the parking garage.  Motorcycle like hell for the hospital.  Serena started after him, but he said, "No, stay."  She reluctantly withdrew, hurrying back to where Lennie stood chatting up a few witnesses.  Glancing over his shoulder, Jack saw her with the detective, speaking with the witnesses and CSU people. 

Heart pounding.  In the dark parking garage, he leaned his back against the wall, took a deep breath.  Modern medicine could accomplish miracles.  She had a chance.  The ambulance had arrived within minutes of the gunshots. 

Straddled his motorcycle, gunned the engine, tearing out of the parking garage hell bent for leather.  Pulled around the turn so hard his knee nearly touched the ground.  Wheeling around onto Lafayette, weaving in and out of traffic, wrestling for space on the road, pressed between cars.  The lights turned red, and when they turned green, every vehicle on Lafayette either leapt from standstill to thirty miles an hour like it was a NASCAR race or didn't move at all if other vehicles were blocking an intersection, but made up for it by honking frantically.  Why did that New York Sightseeing Tours double-decker think it could turn onto Houston, blocking traffic on Lafayette and Houston?  Fuck you, New York Sighteeing Tours.  Then he had to dodge double parked vehicles – people in this City believed they had a God-given right to double park anywhere at any time – avoid cabs darting in and out of traffic, weave between drivers who didn't understand the concept of lanes, pedestrians who didn't understand streetlights. Well, streetlights in New York were suggestions anyway, but for Christ sakes, at least look for traffic when crossing against the fucking light.  An MTA bus blocked an entire lane on West 8th, waiting for traffic to part like Moses parting the Red Sea, but the MTA bus wasn't Moses and traffic didn't readily part.  So the bus just blocked the lane and clogged the road and annoyed people.  Jack jigged into the next lane, between a taxi and a black hummer.  Who needed a hummer in Manhattan?  At East 14th, he cut left and then a few blocks later, pulled into a metered parking space in front of the Union Square Circuit City, near the Beth Israel Medical Center's front doors.  Union Square and the East Village was a part of the City he loved.  This time, the neighborhood's wild energy didn't touch him.  Place was hopping on a Friday night with NYU students and anyone else looking for a good time, but the energy broke over him like a river breaking over a rock. 

Relax, he thought, crossing Union Square South and then shouldered his way through the revolving front doors.  His fevered brain still noted the Starbucks in the same building complex as the hospital.  His hands trembling like a Parkinson's patient's.  Felt like the police had stabbed a knife in his gut when they called his office telling him Danielle was shot, and the knife was still there.  Jesus.  He told the nurse at the front desk that he wished to see Danielle Mellnick or know of her status.  He flashed his district attorney's badge at her and she told him where Danielle was – eighth floor. 

She was in surgery.  There was a waiting room with light blue chairs and sofas and magazines.  The carpet gray and stained.  The walls mostly bare, though there were several posters of medical stuff and legal stuff advising you to report domestic violence that you exhausted within minutes.  Several people Jack did not know sitting listlessly in the chairs in the far corner of the room.  Friends or family of Danielle?  Of someone else?  They did not make eye-contact with him.  He responded in kind and sunk down onto a couch on the opposite side of the room.  Now for the waiting, he thought.  Listened to the clock ticking away the seconds.  That's how quiet it was.  Just the sounds of the clock and the distant New York City hum of motors and sirens reverberating through the walls and his heartbeat reverberating in his chest.  The antiseptic, sweet stench filled his nostrils.  Too fucking quiet.  Too fucking clean.  He hated hospitals.  But he would wait.  Because this was his fault, and not his fault in any ridiculous way that he could not have controlled, like Claire's death.  This was really his fault. 

First day of Constitutional Law.  There were about five hundred people in this huge seminar room in NYU Law School.  Mostly second-year law students and a few scattered first and third-year law students.  Some of the class dressed conservatively in slacks and sweater vests, and other half wearing long hair and colorful clothing.  Law school attracts all kinds, from the hippie/liberal students interested in public service to the conservative types fated to work in a corporation.  Jack and his friend, Paul Koppell, sat near the front of the lecture hall.  Both had shoulder-length hair, loose, casual clothing.  They'd participated in war protests and made trouble with the law school administration over its miles of red tape.  Bummed around the Village every night, in and out of the cafes along Bleecker and West 4th.  Toyed with marijuana and other controlled substances – Paul did more drugs than Jack, who limited his drug use to pot after he tried acid once and disliked its effects.  Paul occasionally played with acid with other friends.  They wrote bleeding-heart liberal law review articles.  At the end of last semester, Jack had written a brilliant piece on jury nullification in draft resistance and anti-war First Amendment cases, and felt that exhilarating rush that comes from engaging in illicit activities while writing it because he knew his father would be royally pissed if he ever learned what Jack was writing, much less actually doing – such as war protests.   Children of the 1960s, indeed.  He and Kopell were at the law school for the hippie, public service track.  Bill Kunstler and Alan Dershowitz were their heroes. 

The professor stiffly welcomed the class and handed out a syllabus as thick as the Bible.   Jack glanced at it, and then stuffed it into his book bag.

"How do you teach Con law these days?" he whispered to Paul.  "They're- the Supreme Court – is overturning precedents left and right.  What we're gonna be practicing when we get out of here will be nothing like what these guys-" indicating the professor , "-practiced."

Before Paul could respond, the pretty brunette on Jack's left replied, "You don't like what the Warren Court has done?"  Her tone laced with disapproval. 

He enjoyed forthright people.  And she was cute.

Grinning, he said, "I don't disagree with the Warren Court at all."

"So..." she said.

"It was an observation," he said.

"I bet these codgy old profs have issues with it," added Paul, eyeing their codgy old prof. askance.  Guy looked like a Coolidge appointee to the US Supreme Court. 

"I bet it doesn't matter," she said.  "Come on.  Don't tell me know one has ever told you that this-law school- doesn't mean a damned thing when you get out into the real world."

"They said that about college, too," quipped Jack. "Lets all drop out and flip burgers at McDonald's."

"Some kind of wiseass, huh?"  

"I try."

Paul poked him in the shoulder, hissing, "Jack."

"What?"

"Pay attention." 

Jack raised his eyes.  Saw the professor, a tall white-haired fellow with horn-rimmed glasses, dressed in an impeccable three-piece suit, scowling at him like he'd committed a class A felony.  Not a professor who approved of "kids these days."  One of those New Deal liberals who despised the counterculture and New Left and the whole liberal free sex, free drugs thing.  Missing the good ol' days of the 1930s.  The prof's little blue eyes bore into him.  Fuck you, Jack thought, but he shut up. 

"Now that everyone is listening," the professor pontificated, "I am assuming, so long as you paid more attention in class your first year of law school than these folks up front, that you know what Marbury v. Madison is.  Now, can anyone tell me the facts of the case?"  He paused, eyed the class, a predatory light glittering in his eyes.  His gaze settled on Jack.  "How about you?  What's your name?"

"Jack," he said. You are a bastard, he thought.  He noticed the pretty brunette hiding a smirk. He'd get her. 

"Well, Jack.  What were the facts in Marbury v. Madison?"

"President Adams, on the eve of his term, made some last minute judicial appointments, but they never got delivered during his term.  So the incoming Jefferson administration just disregarded the appointments.  Marbury and his friends were angry, so they went to the Supreme Court seeking redress, asking the Court to compel Secretary of State James Madison to deliver the commissions." 

"How was he going to do that?" asked the professor.

"Deliver the commissions?"  Jack couldn't follow the question. 

"What was Marbury seeking?"

"A writ of mandamus," Jack answered.  That was really not the point of this case. 

"And I assume we all know what that is.  Jack, why don't you tell us anyway?"

"It's a writ asking-"

"What's a writ?"

He withheld a sigh.  "It's like a command, an order, demanding that someone in the government do something he is required by law to do and not doing."

"A command.  From who?"

"A court."

"Very good," snickered the pretty brunette.

The professor's roving eye latched onto her.  "What's your name?" he demanded. 

"Danielle," she replied.

"Danielle," he echoed, the word rolling off his tongue like it tasted bad.  One of those old men who didn't believe women ought to be in the legal profession, thought Jack.  The prof. continued, "What questions did Chief Justice John Marshall ask, in determining whether he should grant poor William Marbury this mandamus?"

"Whether he had a right to that commission," answered the brunette.  Danielle.  Pretty name.

"Well, that's all?"

"No...  If he has a right, then has it been violated and do the laws afford him a remedy, and is the writ of mandamus the right remedy." 

Jack arched an eyebrow at her.  Almost said something equally as snarky as what she'd said to him, but feared the professor would assail him again.  He thought the prof. might go after Paul, but his deific attention had been drawn to the back of the lecture hall. 

"How did the Court answer the first question?" he asked.  "You..."  Pointing to a student in the back.  "Your name?"

"Sam," replied the student.

"How did the Court answer its first question, Sam?"

"Uh...  It..  Marshall said that since the President had signed the commission, it was complete.  And Marbury therefore had a right to it."

The class continued, exemplifying the Socratic method, but the second and third-year students were unfazed.  Jack found his attention drawn to the cute brunette.  Danielle.  She listened to the prof., her head tilted, an ironic expression on her refined face, like she knew the prof.  was full of shit. 

After class, Jack and Paul approached her.

Jack formally introduced himself.  "I'm Jack," he said. 

"So I gather," she said.  "Danielle."  Shook his hand.  Had a confident grip.  "What year are you?"

"Second," he answered. 

She nodded.  "So am I.  You look familiar.  What's your last name?"

"McCoy.  I made the law school newsletter writing a bitchy letter to the administration about its hiring practices."

Danielle laughed, a sound like water trickling over a rock.  "Oh, that was you. Nice letter.  You write the thing about jury nullification in the law review, too?"

"That was mine," Jack admitted.  Feigning humility.  He really was proud of that law review article. 

"Me and some people are going to the Bitter End tonight," Danielle said.  "Feel free to join us if you're so inclined."

Well, a night out in the Village debating law and politics between sets at the Bitter End would be fun.  He nodded, said he would be there, and they went their separate ways, him and Paul across Washington Square towards the A/C subway line and her along Washington Square South, towards the dorms.  A light breeze twisting its way up West Fourth.  New York in the spring.  Jack felt light.  And tonight he would say to hell with his studies and hang out with a very pretty, very bright girl on Bleecker.  This was why he'd come here, wasn't it?

An hour passed.  An hour and six minutes, actually.  Jack had been vacillating between reading through a casefile, reading the mindless crap magazines in the waiting room – Entertainment Weekly ceased to be entertaining after about five minutes, and Madamoiselle after about thirty seconds -- and watching the clock.  No one in the room had made a sound. The clock ticking.  His breath rasping in his chest.   The distant rumble of traffic in Union Square growling through the walls and now and then an occasional siren wailing plaintively.  Panic had ebbed.  Now he was just exhausted, in a state of not thinking too much about it.  His brain couldn't handle it, so it had simply stopped handling it, like he'd had a few too many drinks. Orderlies walking in and out without speaking to anyone.  Jack watching them blankly.  Weariness gnawing at him and he thought about willing it away, but it was like a persistent subway rat and kept coming back.  Dammit.  He sighed.  Absentmindedly massaged the flesh near his collarbone.  His pulse throbbed against his fingers, heavy and fast.  Jesus.  He was that tense.  He swallowed hard. 

"Are you a friend of Danielle?" one of the people on the other side of the room asked him.  A short brunette approximately Danielle's age, who bore a vague resemblance to Danielle.  Funny.  Jack hadn't seen the resemblance before.  Sister, maybe? 

The question startled him.  Slashed into the uncanny silence.  "Yeah," he said.  "Went to law school with her."

"So you're a lawyer."

"Yeah," he said.  Too tired to be wiseass. 

"Ah…  At her firm?"

"No.  I'm a prosecutor."

"A prosecutor…"  The sister – if she was that – thought about that for a while.  Then she inquired, "You and she aren't, uh, romantically involved, are you?"

"God no," Jack said.  Him and Danielle.  They'd kill each other.  And Danielle told him that after her divorce, she would never date anyone in the legal profession again.  And to his knowledge, she hadn't. 

"Oh.  I just figured 'cause you're here…  You know."

"Yeah," he said.  "Do you know what's going on in there?"  Gesturing in the direction of the OR.

"She's in surgery.  All I know." 

"Okay."

"I'm so sorry…  What's your name?" 

"Jack."

"I'm Krista.  Her sister."

Very good, he thought.  His powers of inference and observation were sharp as ever. 

"I didn't…  Well, I…  I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself…"

He waved her silent.  "Don't worry.  Whatever." 

"Are you a, uh, prosecutor in Manhattan?" she asked, after a short pause while she recollected herself.

"Yes," he said.  The articulateness genes must have skipped Krista. 

"That must be tough."

He shrugged. 

"Do you know who did it?"

"Did what?"

"Shot Danielle."

Jack sighed.  "It's a pending case.  I can't really discuss it."

"But it will be all over the news, I'm sure."

"Then it will be all over the news.  But I still can't discuss it." 

The sister fell silent, as though he ceased being interesting.   Several more people, some of whom he knew, arrived.  The ones he knew asked him a few questions about Danielle's condition, but he had no idea what it was.  Wished he did.  Others, family he supposed, talking quietly to Krista.  The hours ticking past.  No news was good news.  A doctor did appear and said that she was still in surgery and would be there for a while.  Meant she wasn't dead yet.  Said some medical jargon Jack was too tired to follow.  Sit and wait, and he hated sitting and waiting.  His eyes drifted towards the curve of his ribs, evenly rising and falling.  Shifted his hips so he was half lying on his side, legs folded on the row of empty chairs. 

"Jack," Danielle said, her face creased in disapproval, her hands on her hips.  "For God's sakes, how much did you have last night?"

"Uhhhh..." he said, wincing as he opened his eyes.  His memory was uncertain.  He was lying on his side on someone's couch – whose couch?  Tried to think about that, but when nothing immediately came to mind, he gave up.  Everyone had gotten their bar exam scores that day, or yesterday, and they'd partied it up, bar hopping all over the Village before going to the huge Chelsea loft owned by Sarah Elwood's family.  After you get your score, you get really wasted.  A tradition.  Right alongside getting really wasted after graduation and after taking the bar.  There was no excuse too small to justify getting wasted bar-hopping all over the City.  Jack sighed.   His stomach twisted.  If he shut his eyes and relaxed, he'd be fine and everything he'd swallowed last night would stay down.  He shut his eyes and curled up in a fetal ball against the back of the sofa. 

"You're so hungover," Danielle observed.

"You think?" he grumbled. 

"Do you remember what you did last night?"

"Sorta..."  He wished she'd leave him alone.  Felt like he had his head strapped to a board and someone was hammering at it. 

"Did you have sex with me?" 

"Wha- No.  Jesus...  Are you still drunk?"

"I only had a couple and then I dealt with all the assholes like you who got plastered," she snorted.  "Paul got so sick...  Ended up spending the better part of the night with his head in the john."

"Are we still in Elwood's loft?" he asked blearily.

"Yes...  you weren't about to go home tonight-last night."

"I don't think I can go home now," he moaned.  Rested his head on his forearm, probing his memory.  He remembered the bar-hopping enough to know they'd traveled from Midtown to SoHo, at least, because the last bar he remembered was definitely somewhere in SoHo, and they'd traveled in a Downtown direction.  Then he remembered being drunk in Elwood's Chelsea loft, so drunk they decided that when you have parts of the City called SoHo – South of Houston – and TriBeCa – Triangle Below Canal – general words like Midtown just don't suffice.  So they came up with things like "Bejelfth"  - Between Jane and Twelfth – and "NoPlazSoTif" – North of the Plaza and South of Tiffany's.   They must have been pretty hammered, because in retrospect, it wasn't as funny now as it had been then.  Though he felt like he'd been hit by the Broadway local and not much is funny after that. 

Danielle smiled, the arrogance of someone without a hangover.  "So, rumor has it you passed."

"Passed what?" he muttered. 

"The bar exam."

"I did."

"Yeah.  And got hired by the Manhattan DA."

"Yes."  He pressed his throbbing temples into his forearm.  Thank God it was Saturday.  He had two days to recover before he had to present himself in the New York County District Attorney's office.

"Good for you.  Everyone said you'd be a prosecutor."

"Yeah." 

"Even though you were the most anti-establishment SOB in the law school.  You had it in you."

He moaned, in pain.  His head and his stomach needed to settle.  "Can we talk about this later?"

"I'll let you sleep it off for a bit," Danielle said, standing up.  He heard her footsteps fade down the hallway.  Damn him if he was going to have to make a run for the bathroom. 

 

            "Jack?  Are you asleep?  Jack?"

            Jack abruptly opened his eyes.  Where was he?  The muscles in his back, right shoulder, and arm complained sharply.  All cramped up.  He was reclined on his right side, back pressed against something uneven, all his weight on his right shoulder, knotting the muscles.  He'd been hungover at a party, but he wasn't hungover.  Felt like hell, but not that kind of hell.  Stared at the cold white ceiling, disoriented.  Heard traffic outside.  Beth Israel Hospital.  That's where he was.  Not sleeping off a party in1975.  Waiting out Danielle's surgery.  In 2003.  His heart fluttered sharply.  He'd fallen asleep.  She could be dead.  No, they would have told him.  But someone had woken him up.  His hands shook.  His heart hammered against his ribs.  Sweat made his shirt stick to his chest. 

            "Jack, I heard what happened." 

            Jamie Ross.  Peering down at him, curiosity and concern pasted on her pretty, refined features, arms folded over her chest, her purse looped over her right wrist.    He hadn't seen her for a year, even though she surely still defended people in New York County courts.  Why was she here?

            "Jamie.  What the hell are you doing here?" he asked hoarsely.

            "I heard what happened."  Pausing.  Licking her lips.  "You look like shit.  Sorry I woke you up."

            He shook his head, sitting up, untangling himself from cobwebs of sleep.  "Do you know what's happening?"

            "Just got here.  I heard she'd been shot, that she was here.  You know why?"

            "She was defending these people in this case," he said.  Your damn fault, that aggressive little voice hissed in his head.  He chased it away.  "They shot her."

            Jamie's frowned, perplexed.  "But why would they shoot their own defense lawyer?  That's ridiculous."

            "They're crazy."  They were crazy.  Not a lie, but surely not the whole truth.

            "I guess," Jamie said softly, in that way she had of subtly expressing skepticism.  Sat down on the chairs opposite him, fingered the magazines that had lost Jack's interest long ago.  She was pretty.  Ice cold and pretty.  Impenetrable to anyone she had no interest in, and she had no interest in Jack.  Nor did she seem to have much interest in the OR.  Her expression was blank, her makeup unsmudged, not like someone waiting for a friend to decide to die or live during surgery.  Woman could be waiting for a Metro-North train at Grand Central. 

            "So," she said.  "How is the new DA?"

            "Republican," Jack said. 

            A tiny smile marred Jamie's icy features with a touch of warmth.  "I didn't vote for him."

            "I'll bet."

            "He's from South Carolina?"

            "Georgia, actually."

            Jamie shrugged.  "Like there's a difference."

            Jack, from Chicago originally, had a slightly more expanded view of the United States than native New Yorkers; though he'd lived here so long he doubted it was that much more expanded these days.  He said, "He'd say there is." 

            "Damn carpetbaggers.  First Hillary Clinton – who I like... don't get me wrong -- and now this guy..."

            " 'This guy' was very pro-law enforcement in a Republican way of being pro-law enforcement," Jack pointed out.  "These days, after 9-11, that's what people want to hear. Your fellow citizens elected him."

            "Except they're slashing law enforcement budget left and right."

            "Well, that's because the economy sucks.  What are you gonna do?"  He shrugged.

            "I'll be happy I'm not working in the DA's office anymore."

            "You do that.  Crime rates are still down and no one has been indicted for fraud yet, unlike, say, the mayor of Bridgeport.  Things are not that bad, even if my boss is a jerk." 

            "Okay," sighed Jamie, crossing her legs and gazing at the clock on the wall above Jack's head.  For several minutes, she watched the second hand tick past and then slowly edged her gaze to the window, watching the stream of activity flowing through Union Square.  A river of light.  "Now what?"

            He almost said, "I should have brought work," but bit his tongue.  If he said it, Jamie would say something snarky about his workaholism – a good friend is in surgery for her life, and here is Jack McCoy, working like a dog.  But without anything to do, he felt antsy.  An anxious hollowness settling in the pit of his stomach.  Had to be productive.  Had to be doing something interesting.  But no, here he was, waiting, waiting, waiting.  So little patience for waiting.  His gaze drifted to the window.  Stood up, walked over to it, leaned his shoulder against the smooth glass and gazed at the traffic sweeping past on the road below.  Could see his breath on the cool glass.  Watching taxis.  Trucks.  An occasional police car.  SUVs. Sedans.  That river of lights eddying around the statue of the horse and rider in the middle of the square.  Neon signs on buildings on Union Square East lit the whole square; not in broad daylight like Times Square, but in early dawn light brimming with potential.  The City glittering.  Couldn't see a star in the sky, but the vast array of lights stretching Uptown were their own galaxy.  People went about their business down there as though nothing was wrong.  After a minute or two, boredom returned, a heavy weight inside him, and he returned to the seat across from Jamie.  Danielle's family appeared to be paying no attention to him.  Wrapped up in shrouds of their own misery.  Jamie met his gaze briefly and observed, "No one is keeping you here."

"My conscience," he said ironically.

She smiled, though it did not touch her chilling green eyes.  "Your conscience appears to be concerned about all the work you're not doing."

"There is a lot of work I'm not doing."

"What good are you doing here?"

"I'll think of something."  Forced a wry grin.  "What good are you doing here?"

"Not climbing the walls, for one.  Jack, go home.  I know- you know, you're barely holding it together."

He stared daggers into her, his black eyes burning like heated steel.  "I'm fine," he said softly.  The words catching in his throat.  Breaking down tempted him, like an illegal drug, but he withstood its dulcet pleadings.   The toughest, meanest son of a bitch ADA in the entire Manhattan District Attorney's office did not lose his dignity in a hospital waiting room.  It constricted bands around his chest and throat – if he would release himself to tears, it would release him.  Fuck you, he thought at it.  It was in his head.  Therefore, he could fight it.  His hands shaking.  They'd been shaking all night.  He folded his arms across his chest, hiding it, and then he strode, slowly, gracefully, to the men's room.  Slammed the door shut behind him.  Hard.  The walls reverberating.  Didn't mean to slam the door like that.  Glared at the door, and then bent over the sink while cold water ran through his fingers and then he splashed it on his face, in his eyes.  Washing away the stinging.  Inhaled deeply, shuddering, like his ribcage rattled with each breath.  Jesus Christ.  Put yourself together.  Too much fucking stress.  He could handle stress.  He was an expert at handling stress.  Surely, he could handle this. 

"Your Honor, once a suspect in custody asks the police for an attorney, interrogation must cease.  The only question now is whether Benjamin O'Dell was acting as an agent for the police when he questioned his brother."  Danielle's voice echoing insistently in the cavernous space of the more or less empty courtroom.  She leaned on the podium, holding Judge Bourke's gaze.  Benjamin O'Dell was the brother of Matthew O'Dell, Danielle's client charged with three counts of first-degree murder.  Matthew O'Dell had kidnapped three people for reasons he articulated well but still made no sense, murdered them, and he'd told the police where the kidnapped victims were at his brother's urging.  He'd flashed a lot of attitude and little else at the detectives during an interrogation, and the police, frantic to find the victims who might have been alive, sent brother Ben into the interrogation room to talk sense into Matthew.  Alone.  With the sound off.  The only way Ben would do it.  Jamie had promised Ben consideration for Matt's mental state if he convinced Matt to confess.  Later on, after Matt refused to admit any sort of psychiatric testimony into evidence, thus tying the district attorney's hands in that respect, Ben, feeling betrayed, alleged that Matt had requested a lawyer.  Fucking convenient, Jack thought.  No one else could corroborate that request one way or another.  Ben's credibility was dubious at best because he was royally pissed at the DA, and that was how Jack intended to argue this motion to suppress Matt's confession and the fruits thereof – the bodies and the murder weapon.  He did not think his argument was making a huge impact with Judge Bourke. 

"Mr. O'Dell only agreed to speak to his brother.  The police never told him what to ask," Jack countered.  He didn't like the way this motion was going.  The People had the burden of proof in a suppression motion like this, and he damn well knew he hadn't met it.  But he had to try.  Eyed Danielle competitively, but all her energy was focused on her crazy client and her case and she paid him no attention. 

"They might as well have.  The conversation was instigated by the police to further a police objective."

            "There were three people missing!   The police weren't necessarily looking for a confession."

            "Even if Your Honor were as naive as Mr. McCoy seems to think you are, it doesn't matter.  Matthew O'Dell requested an attorney before he incriminated himself.  Therefore, his statement and all the physical evidence found at the warehouse have to be suppressed." 

Goddamn the vindictive brother and Jamie's on-the-fly promises.  And Jamie sitting at the counsel table, wearing a wounded expression.  Brother Ben could not expect the DA to live up to any promises they made with Matthew if Matthew wanted nothing to do with it.  Jamie could not expect it any more than Ben O'Dell could.  And everyone was pissed at Jack, like he had some control over this.  How can you base a plea on a defendant's diminished capacity when the defendant flatly refuses to make his mental state an issue?  Impossible.  A damned Catch-22 Joseph Heller would laugh hysterically over, no doubt.  "For all we know, Ben O'Dell concocted this allegation.  There's nothing to corroborate it."

            "That's because the police sent him in there alone," Danielle said, as though the police had a choice in the matter and deliberately made the decision to send Ben O'Dell into that interrogation room alone.  Heated courtroom arguments after the fact could not capture the frantic moments of a kidnapping/murder investigation when you act quickly, but not necessarily shrewdly because there are lives on the line.   

            "That was his choice." Three people missing.  The police had no other choice. 

            "And the police went along with it."

            "Your Honor, this is payback by the brother of the defendant.  You must view it with skepticism." Pleading with the judge, but Jack's gut told him he'd lost.  There was no sympathy in Judge Bourke's imperial stare. 

            "Ben O'Dell turned his own brother over the police, Your Honor," Danielle insisted beseechingly.  " Surely it's illogical to think he would lie to undo what he already did."

            "He would if he thought the conditions for turning his brother in weren't being honored."  Were Matt O'Dell's actions logical?  Were Danielle's?  A crazy man sending himself to the death chamber and his own defense attorney behaving somewhat diffidently about that.   

            "I'm sorry Mr. McCoy," Judge Bourke said.  Not apologetically. " The police and the DA sent Mr. O'Dell into do their work.  If he's their agent, they have to live with his credibility.  I'm granting the motion.  The statements and the physical evidence found at the warehouse are suppressed."

            Jack felt his stomach turn, soured by defeat.  While Danielle gathered up her things and the bailiff called the name of the next case on the docket, he glowered at the woodgrain on the counsel table, glum.  Damn her for fighting like hell to get this lunatic a walk and not a padded cell in one of New York's finer mental facilities where he could not harm himself or others.  If she wanted a fucking fight, Jack would give her one.  He'd do everything in his extensive power as a New York City ADA to see that her obstinate client got himself an execution.  If that's what he wanted and she willingly conceded to his wishes, that's how things were going to be.  Don't play hardball with Jack McCoy. 

Jack resting all his weight against the sink, breathing hard, fingers sliding against the cold porcelain.  Raised his eyes towards the mirror.  The lined face looking back at him had aged ten years.  The fire in those black eyes barely burning beyond the creased brows and bloodshot whites. Splashed more water in his face.  Gritted his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.  He'd spent long enough in the bathroom.  Jamie might be wondering if he'd slit his wrists or be smirking to herself about being right about his imminent nervous breakdown.  Gathering his dignity, he cautiously opened the door and strode into the waiting room, but only Jamie noted his presence.  Everyone was cultivating their New York indifference to the world.  She raised her eyes from the book she was reading, studied him like a cop would study a suspect in custody.

"Doctor came out," she said.  "He thinks Danielle will be out of surgery soon."

"Alive?"

"He says her chances are looking better."

"She was damned lucky," Jack breathed.  She might make it.  He could cling to that might for all he was worth and perhaps not regret all those times he'd taunted her or even disliked her for kicking his ass in court.  His last memories of her might not be his threats to prosecute her.  Sunk down into the seat again and noted the sky outside the window had faded to that eerie gray-dawn light.  Hours had passed.  Thank God tomorrow was Saturday.  Today was Saturday.  The gray dawn outside, the sun stretching lazy tendrils through long canyons of skyscrapers heralded the approach of Saturday.  He'd wiled away the hours in this miserable hospital waiting room all night. 

Footsteps in the hall outside, one set light, another two heavier.  The waiting room door creaked open and Lennie Briscoe, Ed Green, and Serena Southerlyn filed into the waiting room.  Serena appeared bright, chipper and professional; Briscoe and Green exhausted.  Jack couldn't recall a day when she'd looked as though she'd been dragged four blocks by the crosstown bus.  A few more years in the justice system would break her from that.  Briscoe had a bruise on his left cheekbone, black as NYC pavement, right below his eye, which had not been there when Jack saw him at the crime scene hours ago.  Swollen enough to half-shut his eye.  Green hovered beside him like a bulldog protecting his charge.  Partners protect partners and Green must have made sure that whoever did that to Briscoe hated life.  Both cops putting up tough fronts and failing, though Green was doing a better job faking it than Lennie.  The older detective was uncomfortable, kept touching his eye and had his lips pursed, a set, glum expression.  Smiled at Jack and Jamie, but forcing it.

"What the hell happened to you?" Jack asked.

"Our suspect was resisting arrest," Lennie said.  "Took a swing, caught me."  Shrugging.  "It happens."

"Maybe you should get ice for that."

"Already did.  I'll be fine."

"We heard she'll be out of surgery soon," Ed interjected.

"News sure flies," said Jamie.

"We need to talk to her."

"If the doctors let you."

Lennie had sat down, arms folded over his chest.  "Guess we'll wait.  Rough night for everybody, huh." 

Jack rubbed his face.  "Yeah."

"We're in a hospital," Serena said to Lennie.  "Maybe someone should look at that."  She indicated her face, below the left eye. 

"It's really okay, mom," the detective replied caustically.  "I ain't dyin'.  Just be another count on the indictment, which can't hurt." 

"That chick had a hell of a left hook," said Ed, cracking a grin as forced as his partner's.  These cops normally had funnier smartass quips – they could do a stand-up show in one of those Village comedy clubs on their better days -- but weariness quashed humor. 

"I'll say," agreed Lennie, fingering his cheek again. 

Danielle shot Briscoe a glare so sharp she'd be serving twenty-five-to-life if looks could kill.  She hadn't cared much for cops back in law school and disliked them even more now after defending people from the government for twenty-five years.  And she disliked cynical, recovering alcoholic cops over the age of forty with particular zest.  But the detective was accustomed to nasty stares from defense attorneys and did not even grace her with a retaliatory scowl.  Thirty years on the Force makes you immune to most forms of derision. 

They were in a Two-Seven interrogation room, stark, gray, the barred window on one side allowing tiny slivers of light into the room; the one-way mirror on the other side.  Jack, somewhat incongruously wearing a suit and tie with his beat-up, threadbare leather jacket, leaning on his elbows across the table; Danielle in a striking crimson power suit sitting close to her client, who was more or less in her lap; Briscoe, wearing his shirtsleeves, indolently straddling a chair; and Rey Curtis, well-dressed as usual in his expensive-looking suit, leaning against the wall, arms folded. 

"You don't have to answer that," Danielle told her client.  "You all clearly don't have anything on her other than attitude, so lets all go home..."

Jack held Danielle's gaze and then stared down her client.  Hawkish.  The woman, Judith Sandler, cowered in her chair, shrinking away from him.  If a trapdoor had opened in the floor, she would have leapt for it even if it led to Hell.  Fear made the world go round, though people as prone to it as this defendant shouldn't ever kill anybody.  "In spite of what your lawyer may tell you, Ms. Sandler," Jack said softly, "I'm a pretty good lawyer and that jury will convict you if we go to trial.  You lying, you're only dragging it out."  The woman was unstable.  Push her, push her hard enough, and she would confess to something.  So long as her mental stability was like a fish in her defense lawyer's hand and would slither out before Danielle could get a firm enough grip on it. 

Helplessly, Sandler reached for her lawyer's hand.  Sweat shining in the pale light of the interrogation room beaded on her brow.  Danielle clasped her hand soothingly and said in a motherly voice, "Prosecutors like to talk a good game, but he has the burden of proof.  You have the right to not speak with him."

"I-I don't want to talk anymore," whimpered Sandler.  "Please, please can I go...  I don't want to talk." 

"She's had enough," Danielle told Jack and the detectives.

"Enough, my ass," grumbled Rey under his breath.  Lennie snorted. 

"Politeness is too much to ask of the NYPD these days," observed Danielle, helping her client to her feet and shepherding her out of the interrogation room, an arm around her shoulders.  Glum, Jack and the cops followed. 

"That was two hours of my life I'll never get back," Lennie complained to Jack.

"Cool it, Detective," Jack sighed.  He lengthened his stride, catching up with Danielle and Sandler.  Tapped Danielle on the shoulder, capturing her attention, and then took her aside, around the corner out of her client's earshot.  A panicked look crossed Sandler's face when Jack dragged her lawyer away, but Danielle assured her it was fine and she should wait and not say anything to anyone.  Jack stepped around the coke machine, lightly holding Danielle's arm.  Sensed Lennie and Rey behind him, but didn't chase them off.  Whatever.  He didn't care if they overheard this.  Other cops scurried past, ignoring them. 

Bracing his shoulder against the wall, he whispered, "Danielle, is this really a good idea?"

Bewildered, she squinted at him.  "What?"

"Is this really in your client's best interests?"

"Is what?"

"A trial."

"What trial?  Jack, you haven't even gotten this case past a motion to dismiss."

"You know damn well that the chances of a judge granting a motion to dismiss are ridiculously low.  I can see, anyone can see that your client thinks mental stability is a part time job she doesn't have to show up for.  And I know how you litigate.  There will be pre-trial motions, hearings for the next six months.  And then a trial.  You think she can handle that?  She could barely handle this."  Gesturing towards the interrogation room. 

"Why don't you let me worry about what's in the best interests of my client.  I'm pretty sure that state prison is not it."

"She could get help."

"I'd rather her get help outside of prison, thank you."

"She killed a man."

"So you say."  Danielle began moving down the hallway towards her client. 

"I'd let her plead down to Man Two on diminished capacity.  She could serve her sentence at Bellevue."

Danielle threw back her head, laughing derisively.  "And get her head shrunk by state psychiatrists who can hardly remember their patient's names?  I don't think so.  I think we'll wait and see how ridiculously low our chances of winning that motion to dismiss really are." 

"Your client's loss," Jack said, shrugging, like he had such confidence in his case that he did not care whether Danielle accepted the plea bargain or not.  He did care.  The cops and Jamie had royally fucked up a search, which inevitably led to Danielle's success on a motion suppressing evidence – ground-up glass matching broken glass at the crime scene -- they'd found in Sandler's apartment.  Jack suppressed a sigh.  The cops he could forgive, sometimes.  Cops did dumb things.  But Jamie should have been more cautious.  Consent to search must be voluntary, and from what Jamie and the detectives said, even Jack agreed reluctantly with the judge that Sandler's consent had fallen a few feet shy of voluntary.  Almost read Jamie the riot act on that one.  "I know the rules, Jack," she'd said after Adam chewed them out about losing the motion.  Jack had restrained his hair-trigger temper, only replying quietly, "I know you know them." Then he'd read the detectives the riot act. 

"No plea?" Rey asked.

Danielle put her arm around her tremulous client's shoulders and guided her out of the precinct, sheltering her as though a throng of bloodthirsty reporters was descending upon them.  None of the cops cared, though. 

Jack shook his head, crossing his arms.  "No.  Thanks to your fantastic search, God knows if we even have a case."   

The door leading to the OR opened and a doctor, a tall black man wearing green scrubs, stepped solemnly into the waiting room.  Conversation ceased.  Everyone looked up at him, hopeful, expectant.  The doctor seemed to be putting conscious effort into his blank expression.  Jack could not discern whether he had good or ill news.  An ER doc had seen everything and could be as dispassionate as a homicide detective.  He was a hell of a lot more dispassionate than the two homicide detectives in the room. 

"She made it and she's awake," said the doctor slowly.  "She can speak for a few minutes.  But only a few."

Danielle's family leapt to their feet, scrambled towards the door, but Lennie and Ed beat them to it.  Flashed their badges at the doctor and the family.

"Us first," Lennie said.  "We're sorry." 

The family slumped in the chairs, disappointed. 

Jack, a DA, had as much of a right as anyone to be in there with the police.  He stood up.  Muscles complained, stiff from hours in that chair.   Stomach churned.  He trudged after the detectives.  Noted Serena on his heels.  A fucking party, he thought.  But he didn't bother chasing Serena away.  She should hear this interview, too.  She needed the mileage dealing with the sort of situations a DA in Tax Crimes did not deal with, such as gunshot victims.  

            "You're also police?" asked the doctor skeptically, brows creasing. 

"Assistant district attorney McCoy," Jack said, touching his chest, "And Assistant district attorney Southerlyn."  Indicating Serena.  Don't make me flash my DA's badge and fucking Bar Association card, he thought. 

The doctor stepped aside.  "Keep it short," he said.  "Really short."

 Inhaling deeply, Jack shouldered his way through the door and around Briscoe's broad back.  Place reeking of sweet antiseptic.  Thick wafts of hospital chemicals turned his stomach and lightened his head.  If he didn't already feel somewhat nauseous, it would not have affected him so strongly.  But Jesus.  Reeling, he stiffened his back and leaned indolently against the wall, feigning composure.  Pulse seemed heavy, throbbing in time to the ECG.  He swallowed hard. 

The detectives hovered close to Danielle's bed.  She lay there hooked up to a dozen machines, pallid, frail, all the zest and passion bled out of her.  Her brown hair spread on the pillow, tubes up her nose, IVs in both arms, ECG cables diving under the white sheets covering her.  Inwardly, Jack cringed.  Waves of guilt almost shook him.  Fuck, if he hadn't lied to that defendant, twisting his arm into a plea bargain, Danielle would not be clinging onto life in the OR, looking more like a pale corpse on the ME's examining table than a living, breathing person.  Perhaps.  These people were terrorists.  They didn't need a reason to shoot.  Maybe they would have done it anyway. 

Her eyes were open, observing the nurse in the room, the detectives, Serena, and Jack.  Attempted a wan smile in his direction, which he returned just as wanly. 

"Jack?" she whispered.

"The detectives want a short statement from you," he answered softly. 

Green twirled a pen between his fingers.  Briscoe studied Danielle in a very composed, interested but professional cop-like way. 

"All business," she murmured.  "You're all business.  All the time." 

"Ms. Mellnick," Green said, soft and polite.  "We just want to know if you remember what happened."

She shifted her gaze to the cops.  "I'd imagine you do.  I'm sorry, I don't remember it very well."

"Just tell us what you do recall," said Green, as if he had all the patience in the world. 

"I was in the elevator.  Doors opened."  Stopped for breath.  "I saw Pruce's friend, the girl with the long brown hair, standing back behind the security gate.  Making noise.  Giving the guards a hard time.  When she saw me, she yelled something incoherent."  Wheezing, she stopped again.  A look of concern crossed the nurse's face.  Danielle added, "That's it.  Just blank after that."

"Was she holding anything?" asked Lennie.

Danielle forced a weak smile.  "You mean like a gun?  I didn't see anything."

"You sure?"

"Detective, if I saw a gun, I'd tell you I saw one." 

"Will that be all?" the nurse asked impatiently, placing her hands on her hips.  That was fucking short.  The shortest interview in the world.  The nurses here were your quintessential Jewish New York mothers. 

"One more thing," said Lennie, holding up a hand.  "Had you received threats from anybody?  Letters, e-mails, whatever?"

"Not more than the usual."

"You usually get threats?" asked Green.

"I take on controversial cases.  It pisses people off, sometimes."

"People like the American Patriot Union," Lennie said, arching an eyebrow. 

"I don't know.  No threats from them that I saw."

The nurse said, "We really have to stop now.  You can come back later if you have further questions."

Lennie and Ed both grimaced, like they wanted to argue or squeeze in one more question, but they held their tongues and left without fussing.  Frowning, Serena hurried after them, touching Ed's shoulder and hissing something to him and Lennie that was out of Jack's hearing.  Hesitated a moment before leaving, and Danielle whispered his name.

"Come here," she said.

He approached her bed, tentative.  Her hand reaching up, weakly grasping his.  Her fingers ice cold.  So close to death.   

"You have to promise me, promise me you'll do this one right."

"Okay," he said, not sure what she meant. 

"No fucking with people's civil liberties because you want revenge.  Vengeance is not justice."

"Of course not," he said.

"I know you, Jack.  I remember the Dressler case.  And the Russian Mob case.  You have a lousy track record with these things.  I don't want you tearing up the Constitution on account of me, understand?"

Ever the defense lawyer and Constitutional scholar.  "I won't," he assured her.  Only Danielle Mellnick would be more concerned about the rights of the people who shot her than in seeing that they were punished.  Figures.  She released his hand, her arm falling back to the bed, cold and limp.  Shut her eyes, sighing deeply.

Jack gazed at her for one minute.  Felt like his insides were being torn apart.  Then he walked out of the room into Lennie, Ed, and Serena, huddled around the door, speaking in low voices. 

"Did she confess before she did that to you?" Serena was asking.

"Not in so many words," Lennie replied.  "But she did say a blow was struck in the name of liberty for the United States or some such bullshit.  Doesn't matter.  She had the damn gun on her when the court officers got to her." 

"There were a dozen witnesses," Green added.  "A rock in Central Park couldn't lose this one."

So when we lose it, we'll feel like real assholes, thought Jack.  He said, "There is no such thing a case you cannot lose."

Serena ignored that, asking, "You have the gun-"

"Yeah."

"With the serial number?"

"It was filed off.  We sent it to the FBI's lab.  See if they can raise it." 

"Can't believe she got a gun into the courthouse," Jack interjected softly.  "There's one more reason for more gun control, as if you needed another one."

"Guns don't kill people," Serena chimed.  "People kill people."  That tired cliché.

"With fucking guns," said Jack.   

Nothing more they could do here.  The four of them nodded in acknowledgment to Danielle's family, and then filed out the door, though Ed approached the sister, gave her his card in case she knew anything or heard anything. 

On the street, the City had woken up.  Beautiful day.  Sun gleaming off the pavement, bouncing off windows and cars.  People bustling along the sidewalks, cars rushing past, the streets mostly a yellow river of taxis, kamikaze bicyclists weaving through traffic.  Well, some parts of the City were that active no matter what the hour.  Horns blared, people shouted, brakes squealed.  New York's rambunctious energy rose from the pavement, from the steaming vents, swirled past like a whirlwind.  Jack sighed, overwhelmed by the City.  He'd walked into that hospital when it was dark, came out when it was light, and he hadn't gotten more than an hour of sleep.  Somewhat disorienting, like popping out of a subway station having no idea which way is east, west, Uptown, or Downtown.  His body ached, he was so tired.  Wouldn't make it to the subway station across the square, much less to the Upper West Side on his motorcycle, without a hefty dose of caffeine.  Instead of crossing Union Square South towards his bike, probably collecting parking tickets, he turned right.  Towards the Starbucks.  Thank God for Starbucks. 

"We're going back to the stationhouse," Green said.

"Call us if you need anything," said Lennie, looking at the Starbucks like a heroin junkie looks at a stash of skag.  Briscoe had the worst caffeine addiction of anyone Jack knew, like he'd replaced alcohol with caffeine.  But he successfully beat his addiction and crossed the square with his partner, no doubt to imbibe upon his legal drug of choice at the precinct.  

While Jack ordered a cup of coffee, Serena, far more composed than he, said, "I got a call this morning from the US Attorney about this case."

"Terrific," Jack said, sitting down at one of the tiny tables in the Starbucks.  In his head, he heard Adam Schiff saying the same words in the same grumpy intonation. 

"Yeah, he said that they're interested in asserting jurisdiction, basically."

"They're kidding."

"I don't think they have a sense of humor."

"It's a New York case.  Crime was committed within the jurisdiction of New York County in violation of New York law and there is no way in hell the feds have jurisdiction on this one.  What are they thinking?"

'They're thinking the American Patriot Union is a terrorist organization."

Of course.  "It's domestic."  Did the new anti-terrorist legislation extend the scope of federal jurisdiction to domestic terrorist organizations, and if so, how the fuck did they define 'terrorist?'   Danielle would defend this woman herself if she learned that the federal government was experimenting with its new anti-terrorist legislation.  Even if the feds did treat her like any other defendant, Jack, in the longstanding tradition of territorial jurisdiction spats, just did not want them to have her. 

"Ashcroft is expanding the scope of the law," Serena said.  "It's the War on Terror."

"It's no different from any other shooting, and it's our case.  Danielle said back there that she didn't want me tearing up the Constitution, so I'll be damned if I let the feds do it."

"They could charge them with murder one, though," suggested Serena tentatively.  "We can only charge them with murder two." 

"We're not forum shopping," he said irritably.  Some DAs accepted that as a legitimate reason to hand the ball to someone else's jurisdiction  -- they had less stringent rules of evidence, tougher penalties, whatever.  Jack did not.  "And we can charge them with murder one."

"Okay," she said.  "How's that?"

"Didn't they shoot her because they believed she was going to testify against them?  That's shooting a witness.  Fits squarely in 125.27."

"But she wasn't actually going to testify against them," argued Serena.

"Because Julian Pruce cut a deal."

"But she wasn't going to testify.  Come on, we both know you lied through your teeth to Pruce so he'd be scared enough to accept the plea bargain."

"But that's between you, me, and this table.  No one knows that.  It's a matter of what the defendant believed, and the defendant did not know that I lied and believed Danielle had turned state's evidence, and therefore shot her.  That's all that matters."  Jack had put very little thought into how to charge her.  Murder one – or attempted murder one -- seemed natural, not for any vengeance reasons, but rather because that's how you charge people who shoot witnesses. 

"Okay," said Serena somewhat dubiously, but she desisted arguing about it. 

Ever since Jack had received his promotion to head of a Trial Bureau division, he'd had a long line of assistants who'd been doing this for long enough to form their own rather inflexible opinions on matters of criminal justice.  This had made life hell when they disagreed with him about something he did and threw a fit.  But Serena was green enough to more or less trust his judgment, occasionally voicing opposition but never taking her opposition to the mat and threatening to quit or at least avoid speaking to him for a week.  Which in a way made life easier, but conflict was interesting and he found himself missing it.  Well, he had lots of conflicts with his new boss, who was crazy in that right wing yahoo way of being crazy.  Jack sighed.  Branch had not expressed much dissatisfaction with the Patriot Act when they'd rammed that fucking legislation through the Congress back in September, 2001.  He might not complain if the feds poached this case.  Damn him.  Only thing Jack could do was wait and see, and at least be thankful Danielle was alive. 

He finished his coffee, then jogged across the street against the light to where he'd parked his bike.  Told Serena he'd see her Monday, and then gunned it Uptown on Broadway.  He should learn something from this.  People joked about his slow learning curve.  Be careful who you tell which lies – or truths – to.  In retrospect, he did not know what he would do if faced with this situation.  If the defendant hadn't taken the plea, Jack would have lost the case.  The grim reality of the situation.  He did not know.  No right answers, no good answers, just the messy reality jamming him between that rock and hard place with no way out.