William Bernhardt - Criminal intent

"Give it up," Mike grunted, as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight.

"Go to hell," she answered. She took his hand-the one she had stabbed twice-and bit down on it.

Pain exploded inside his brain. He felt nauseated. "Damn!" He brought his left hand around-hard-and slapped her across the face.

Ben and Tomlinson came racing through the hatch. "What's going on? Are you all right?"

Mike pushed the girl to Tomlinson, who promptly snapped cuffs over her wrists. "I'll live."

"He beat me up!" Maura cried. Once again, tears flowed from her eyes. "See the bruises? He tried to rape me!"

Mike glared at her. "You know, I don't know whether to take you down or throw you over the edge."

"Help me!" she continued screeching. "Someone please help me!"

"Give it up, Maura. It's over." With his good hand, Mike unclipped his cell phone from his belt. "Maxine? I need two patrol cars at St. Benedict's, Seventy-first and Yale. As soon as possible. I think we've just bagged a couple of murderers." Down on the ground, Mike and Tomlinson worked to keep the madding crowd at bay while they waited for the black-and-whites to arrive. Everyone was shouting at once, wanting to know what was going on, what they thought they were doing, why they were hurting those poor innocent girls. Judy and Maura continued to scream accusations and cry and wail, which only made matters worse. It was a madhouse, all in the parking lot of St. Benedict's Episcopal Church.

Finally, the patrol cars arrived. Mike let the uniforms take custody of the prisoners.

"Where are they going?" It was Judy's mother, still brandishing the baby and the purse, trying to intervene for about the tenth time. "Where are they taking my baby girl?"

"Downtown," Mike answered. "Police headquarters."

"I won't let them!"

"I'm afraid it's out of your hands, ma'am. You can go downtown and meet her, if you like."

Judy's mother looked at him indignantly. "I'm calling a lawyer. You'll be sorry about this!"

Mike grimaced. "Probably."

As the uniforms dragged their prisoners past Ben, Judy threw herself at him. "Don't let them take me away, Ben. I love you!"

"Judy, just… go away. I don't want to see you. Like, ever again."

"That's not what you said last night!" she screamed, loud enough for everyone to hear. "When you made love to me. You said you loved me. I was a virgin before you, Ben."

Ben's eyes narrowed. "You lying little-"

Mike held him back. "Just ignore her, Ben."

"It's true. He raped me! He gave me one of those drugs and raped me!"

The uniforms dragged the screaming girls to the patrol cars. "Don't let them take us away!" Judy and Maura cried. "We're just girls!"

"Just girls?" Ben muttered. "You're frigging Leopold and Loeb."

He watched as they were packed into the cars and driven away. He didn't know what to think. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

Mike was getting his hand disinfected and bandaged, and as usual, he was behaving like a perfect baby. "Be sure to give him a lollipop when it's all done," Ben told the nurse. "I think he's earned it."

"I earn it every time I get involved in one of your miserable cases," Mike groaned. "Can someone please explain to me what just happened? How two teenage girls who sing in the church choir can be multiple murderers?"

"No, I can't," Ben said sadly. "And right now, I don't even want to try."

Murray was asleep. Again.

Ben supposed manning the reception desk was not the most exciting job in the world, but had he ever arrived when the man was awake? Was he a major party hound, Ben wondered, or was there just something about this job that induced instant narcolepsy? It was annoying, and worse, made Ben feel guilty about waking him. He looked so peaceful there, arms wrapped around himself, eyes darting back and forth beneath the lids, a soft snoring sound fluttering from his lips…

"Wake up, Murray."

To his credit, he came around with amazing speed and resiliency. But then, he'd done this before.

"Oh-Ben-!" He straightened, twisted a kink out of his neck. "I didn't see you there."

And for good reason. "Is this a bad time?"

"No, no…" He shuffled papers around on his desk. "I was just resting my eyes. Those fluorescent lights are a killer. You here to see Beale?"

"Smart man."

"Well, I knew he'd been transferred back to county pending the habeas corpus hearing. I'll have him around in ten."

"Thanks. And Murray?"

"Yeah?"

"No catnaps along the way, okay?"

Murray gave him a squinty look, then disappeared behind the interior gate.

Ben had been waiting barely a minute when, to his surprise, he saw Assistant DA Antony Canelli emerge from behind the barred door.

"I always thought you should be behind bars," Ben said as the man approached. "I just didn't expect it to happen so soon. What did they get you for? Aggravated good looks?"

"Ha ha." He walked up to Ben and set down his briefcase. "You here to see the priest?"

"Yes. And you?"

"Interviewing a potential witness."

"Not another jailhouse snitch, I hope."

Canelli shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. "Look, Kincaid, I… I heard about the arrest. Those two girls."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"I don't know. I mean, officially, of course, our position is that nothing has changed. But as a practical matter, I have to acknowledge…" He licked his lips, then started again. "If we had known about the girls before the trial, things might've gone differently."

"I would hope so."

"It's just-" Canelli paused, struggling for words. This all seemed very strange to Ben. But the man apparently had something he really wanted to say. "When you work at the DA's office, you get wrapped up in winning, you know? And you have to, because the odds are stacked so high against us that if you didn't, no one would ever get convicted of anything. So you assume everyone arrested is guilty. If there's any evidence at all, and especially if the press is covering the case, the pressure is always on to prosecute. Of course, if you prosecute and lose, you get crucified. So you gotta win. You gotta win to please everyone, and you gotta win to keep your job. I know the boss claims they don't keep win-loss records, but believe me, they do."

"So you do anything you can think of to win. No matter how sleazy."

"I don't agree with the sleazy part, but yeah, we want to convict."

"So you use snitches and junk science and liars and-"

"The point is," Canelli interrupted, "that I recognize there's a problem here. Innocent people do get convicted, way more frequently than anyone ever imagined. DNA evidence has proved it. And that makes me feel really… bad." He paused. "I just don't know what to do about it."

"A DA with a conscience? Do my eyes deceive me?"

Canelli's lips pursed. "You know, you don't do yourself any favors with those kind of remarks."

"It was just a joke…"

"But you do it a lot. I think, just as I go into a case assuming guilt, you go into a case assuming the prosecutor is a monomaniacal hardass willing to pull any dirty trick to get a conviction."

"I've seen it, Canelli, way too often."

"And I've seen defense attorneys who lied and helped their clients lie to get them off. Does that mean I should hate all defense attorneys?"

Ben took a step back. "You're right, of course. I'm sorry."

"I don't mean to get all soppy on you. I just think, somehow, we've got to change things. The system isn't working, let's face it. Not like it should, anyway. We know we make mistakes, but we're not doing anything about it. We just keep going through the motions, and nothing gets any better. We don't get any better. And that includes me. I need to get out of this zealotlike, lockstep thinking. I need to be more… flexible. And you need to have more…"