[FIC] Law and Order: Metropolis, PG, Part One of Three
Law and Order: Metropolis
In the criminal justice system, The People are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.
95th AND LOHMAN STREET
THURSDAY, 2nd OCTOBER
"What've we got?" Oliver Queen asks, flashlight in hand as he examines the body on the ground.
His partner Clark Kent looks over the rim of his glasses to consult his notepad. "Officer Whitney Fordman," he reads, "twenty-nine years old, been on the force four years."
"And?" Oliver kneels, careful of the blood pooled at their feet. Fordman's eyes are still open, one hand loosely wrapped around his radio.
"He took one bullet to the stomach," Clark says, motioning over Oliver's shoulder toward the dark stain on the front of Fordman's uniform. "And one to the thigh, which hit his femoral artery. He bled to death, which would have taken about four minutes."
"Two a.m. out here in Suicide Slums? He may as well have had a bull's-eye on his chest." Oliver looks with a mounting sense of dismay at the Crime Scene Unit, only a short distance away examining a second body. "Where was the partner?"
"Name's Eli Talbert. Uniform that spoke to him says he was dealing with a parking argument near a bar on Central." Again, Clark consults his notepad. "Over all the shouting Talbert says he 'misheard the address'."
"Witnesses?"
"Officers are asking around, trying to find anyone who saw what happened," Clark says, though his tone betrays exactly how unlikely he thinks this is to happen. He looks up and around at the buildings framing the alley.
There are windows overlooking them, but shootouts and police sirens are more common in the Slums than mail trucks. Two people were shot dead not ten feet away from they live, sleep, take their meals, raise their children; and yet every blind is drawn closed.
Oliver sighs, not that he expected anything less. Every officer finds out about the Bystander Effect sooner or later. "When does anyone see anything?"
One of the crime scene investigators moves across the peripheral of his vision. He sees Davis Bloome, calmly, quietly, supervising two technicians with the word CORONER stenciled across the back of pale blue coveralls as they put paper bags over the hands and feet of the body.
"You got anything, Davis?" Clark asks. Davis turns around and finds himself looking up and up and up, the way everyone does when unexpectedly faced with The Wall of Clark Kent.
"Er," says Davis, adjusting his glasses.
"Detective Queen," a frightfully small officer calls as she approaches, clipboard in hand. "Officer Talbert is waiting just outside the tape."
"Thanks," Oliver replies. With a brisk nod, the woman walks away.
"So far," Davis continues, squinting a little as he looks up at Clark and then turns to Oliver, "eight bullets from around the scene from at least two different weapons." He nods at the body, as it is wrapped in a white sheet and prepared for transportation. "Five of them were from him."
"Do we have a name?"
"We have a driver's license," Davis informs them, frowning. "Derek Fox, age twenty-one. Carrying a .38. The other three come from a .22, so they aren't from Fordman."
"That confirms dispatch's report of a second shooter," says Clark absently. "Is there any other DNA? Trace? Anything"
Davis shakes his head slowly. "We have the plastic bag from the transaction. It's being sent to the lab now." He shrugs and adds hesitantly, "We might get prints."
In the absence of other evidence, Oliver sees no reason for them to stick around.
"Fordman's partner is waiting over there," he tells Clark. "Let's go and see how he's doing."
"Thanks, Davis."
"Yeah," Oliver offers. Davis gives them a tiny salute and goes back to work.
There's no need to further exchange pleasantries. Each of them has a job to do, a reason they're here tonight. Each of them is facing the very beginning of what is shaping up to be a long night.
Clark tucks away his notebook and takes off his glasses, rubbing his eyes.
"There but for the grace of God go I," Clark mutters.
"You start thinking like that, you hang up your badge," Oliver says roughly. He places a hand on Clark's elbow, to lead him through the safe area designated around Fordman's body.
Without his glasses on, everything is made up of the same few shades of darkness. Blurred forms clothed in black and dark, dark gray interrupted only by the steady red-blue of a police cruisers emergency lights.
A strong breeze catches the collar of his coat and chills him through four layers of clothing. Beside him Oliver shivers.
When he puts his glasses back on, the inky blackness coalescences into a Metropolis Police Department crest stretched across the broad chest of Officer Eli Talbert. Clark isn't used to very many people towering over him, but Talbert does so and makes it look easy. He's tall and solid in a way that makes bricks look easier knock down. He has the stance of a military man, and when Clark approaches hand extended, he meets Clark with a firm handshake.
"Officer Eli Talbert," he greets curtly.
Clark watches Talbert wipe his hand anxiously on one of his pant leg. "We're sorry about Fordman," Clark offers sincerely.
"Yeah," Talbert says, taking off his hat and running his hand over close-cropped hair. "He was a good kid."
"So, you got here after it went down?" Oliver asks without preamble.
"Yes." Talbert takes a steadying breath. When he speaks next, he is composed. "I was at the back of the Ace of Clubs. Shark's game let out earlier, had a few stragglers, nothing out of the ordinary. Had a taxi driver yelling his head off about a late bus that had blocked him in. Fordman went on ahead while I sorted the two of them out." He breaks off, eyes darting between Clark and Oliver's faces before settling on the ground. "I should have been with him."
"Don't beat yourself up. It could have happened to anyone."
"Yeah, but it didn't. I should have been with him -- would have, but I misheard the call." He gestures weakly to the radio clipped high on his shoulder. "I thought they said Bowman Street, not Lohman Street. I could have been there."
"Was your radio working properly?" Clark inquires.
Talbert chuckles humorlessly. "I don't know, but half a dozen people yelling in my ear didn't help much."
"Well, we're going to need an official debriefing and a statement down at the station," Clark tells him. "When you're ready."
"Yeah, of course," Talbert says, jaw clenched.
"That'll be all for now, Officer Talbert," Oliver says. He pats Talbert on the shoulder. "Go home."
Talbert nods stiffly and walks away. Like everything else, Officer Talbert fades into the darkness of Metropolis.
Clark and Oliver watch him go. Behind them, Fordman is loaded up and taken away. The crime scene unit continues to scour the scene for evidence.
"You remember foot patrol?" Clark asks.
"Yeah."
Turning to look at Oliver, Clark adds: "The part I remember most is I never thought I'd get shot."
He wonders what Fordman had thought.
FORENSICS LAB
TUESDAY, 7th OCTOBER
Television has taught the world that walking into a crime lab is a bit like walking into the Apple Store. There should be shiny doo-dads gleaming under rows of fluorescent lights and machines that receive data in one end and spits out results from the other.
In reality it's a bit more like taking a step backwards in time and entering a high school science lab, except the teacher is a nerdy little guy in a bow-tiw and all of the equipment looks to be out-dated by a minimum of ten years.
The lab technician on duty is Henry Olsen, answers to Henry, Hal, Hank, Harry, Jenry, James, Jamie, Jimbo, Jim, Jay, and Hey You. He prefers Jimmy.
"Twenty-nine. That's younger than Ol -- " Jimmy cuts himself off, probably at the looks he's receiving. He makes a kind of strangled, choking sound like he's forgotten how to breathe.
They all know what he was going to say: Twenty-nine. Younger than Oliver. A few years older than Clark, a few more than Jimmy himself.
Who was safe? Who was going to be next?
Could they even do anything about it?
Jimmy coughs. "S'no age to die, is all I was going to say," he mumbles, shuffling a stack of papers around at random.
"There's never a good age to die," Clark says in what Oliver has dubbed his 'ra-ra go-team-go hang-in-there-kitten-it's-almost-Friday' tone.
Oliver rolls his eyes. "What've you got?"
Visibly sagging in relief, Jimmy pushes off against a nearby cabinet, his chair sliding easily across the open space of the lab toward his desk. "Bag from the crime scene contained crack and had two major sets of prints. The first is from," he says, rifling through the stacks of paperwork before retrieving a folder Oliver or Clark would find indistinguishable from the rest and rolling back, "the corpse: Derek Fox, twenty-one. The other prints belong to a Wade Mahaney." He waves the folder under Clark's nose with a grin. "Record was sent over the second I was able to match his prints in AFIS."
Clark takes the folder from Jimmy only to have it immediately taken from him by Oliver. There's a mug shot attached to the inside cover. He hands it to Clark.
"Good work, Jimmy. This is exactly what we needed after an all-nighter." He stares into the face of their second drug dealer. Even if he hadn't shot Officer Fordman, he would at least be able to tell them what happened.
They were going to find this guy.
They were going to catch this guy.
"Hey, C.K.," Jimmy says casually, drumming his fingers on the table in an energetic, almost frantic manner. "Kara wanted me to see if you were still coming over for dinner Friday night."
Now, Clark loves his cousin. He does. Her cooking is another matter entirely.
Some of the horror must have shown on his face because Jimmy laughs. "I'll tell her you're looking forward to it," he says, peering into the eyepiece of a nearby microscope.
"I'll be sure to visit you after the stomach pump Saturday morning." Oliver keeps his nose buried in the report, but even without being able to see his face Clark knows he's smiling.
Clark frowns.
"She says Oliver's invited as well," Jimmy announces gleefully.
There's a sharp, unpleasant sound from behind the report, then Oliver mutters, "I'll probably end up in the room beside you," and abruptly changes the subject. "On Wade Mahaney we've got: ADW -- no conviction, possession intent to sell -- no conviction, robbery attempt -- no conviction."
Jimmy raises his eyebrows, taps his fingers intermittently against the counter top. "Lucky guy."
Clark swiftly grabs the mug shot out of Oliver's hands, ignoring his protesting squawk. "Not anymore." He thanks Jimmy and exits.
Oliver tells Jimmy to stop cackling and follows.
Metropolis is supposed to be the city of tomorrow, a place of infinite wonder. The grass is greener in Metropolis, people say, the sky bluer. Women and men are healthier, they're happier, in Metropolis.
Oliver and Clark -- the entire Metropolis Police Department, really -- know their city better than anyone. They know all of her dirty secrets, and it is their sworn duty to protect her. They see Metropolis for the dirty, soulless pit that she is.
With a collection of murderers and thieves waiting around every corner.
Right now, there's only one that they're looking for.
The streets are teeming with afternoon traffic, and they wait for Wade Mahaney outside of his rundown apartment in Bakerline. Even with the sun high overhead, the air is still shockingly cold. Clark's truck doesn't offer much in the way of protection. Oliver taps the car vent, trying to urge the dead heater back to life.
Oliver sighs. "How you people can live in this type of weather is beyond me."
Clark owns what has been voted three years running the ugliest most useless truck anyone in the precinct has ever seen.
Oliver's own car is small, silver, very fast, very expensive, and very likely to draw attention wherever it goes. Clark likes to exclaim loudly about his obvious attempts at compensating for something. Oliver likes to cuff Clark over the back of the head.
"You moved here four years ago. At this point you're one of us, Oliver. Accept it and move on." Clark pauses. "And get thicker skin."
"I'm just saying that if this was Star City," Oliver explains with forced levity. He gestures at a woman further up the sidewalk. "She'd be on roller skates. And wearing a bikini."
Clark keeps his eye to his mirrors, checking and rechecking, waiting for Mahaney to appear. "She's pushing a stroller," Clark says, in disbelief. Then he remembers who he's talking to.
"So? She crossed the street without looking both ways. I think that means she's a risk taker. Besides, moms like to skate, too."
"No one in Metropolis looks both ways before crossing," Clark points out.
Oliver makes one searching sweep of the street and turns to give Clark his most offended look. "You know, Clark, I think it's incredibly close-minded of you to assume that just because she has a kid it means that she isn't allowed to enjoy the finer things in life."
"Like roller skating?" Clark asks skeptically.
"Like roller skating," Oliver agrees with a firm nod of his head.
"Yeah, try that argument on my mom."
"Hell no. I'm trying to get an invitation to Thankgiving dinner." Oliver pauses, a horrible thought occuring to him. "Is Kara cooking?"
"It's too early to be thinking about Thanksgiving dinner," Clark replies absently.
"It's never too early to be thinking about Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey and home-made gravy, which I didn't actually know was possible..." Oliver trails off.
For the sixth time in the last fifteen minutes, Clark picks up the picture of Wade Mahaney, and just like the five times before, he stares at it hard enough that Oliver is half afraid that it might catch fire.
"And Kara dressed as a sexy pilgrim," Oliver continues with an exaggerated leer. When Clark doesn't react, Oliver snatches the picture out of Clark's grasp before he can damage it and asks, "All right, what's up? This can't be about Fordman. You didn't even know him."
"It's nothing, Oliver," Clark says immediately. For a moment his hand grasps at the air as if confused by the emptiness before it joins the other in choking the steering wheel. "It's nothing." He blinks and flushes. "Sexy what?"
Oliver grins slyly. "Is this about Mahaney? Did you want to ask him to prom, I mean," Oliver says, pretending to give the picture a critical once over, "I suppose he might be considered good-looking in some circles."
Clark completely fails to rise to the bait. There's a grim, thoughtful look on his face that makes Oliver sit a little straighter in his seat, makes the grin slide off his face.
"It's just," Clark starts, and again, his hand flails for a moment: looking for something to grab on to, finding nothing, and faltering, falling. He sighs. "That's got to be the worst thing in the world."
Oliver wills his expression blank. He knows and does not like where this conversation is going. "What? Losing a partner?"
"Yeah." Clark turns to Oliver, and immediately startles as he looks at Oliver properly. For a moment, he can only stare in mute incomprehension before the proverbial light bulb comes on in his head. His face falls. "Sorry, Ollie. I know you -- " he says, tone so thick with guilt it sounds like he might choke on it.
"It's all right, Clark," Oliver interrupts, making an effort to sound casual and only marginally surprised that he manages it. He's good at compartmentalizing things. "Carter got stabbed breaking up a bar fight. Nothing either of us could do."
"But, Ollie -- "
Oliver looks out the window.
A figure in the side mirror catches his attention. Walking up the sidewalk is Wade Mahaney. His head is down, hands shoved in his pockets, but it's clearly him. Oliver squeezes the door handle, his entire body suddenly tense.
"Clark. Call it in."
Clark is trying to take the keys out of the ignition and open the car door and activate his earpiece all at the same time. "Target sighted," he enunciates carefully into his microphone. "Coming down the street."
Clark finally manages to open his door and climbs out of the car. Blowing into his hands, he crosses the street and walks up the sidewalk, head down but keeping a careful eye on his surroundings.
1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 -- Mahaney passes the car and Oliver climbs out behind him.
"Wade Mahaney?"
Mahaney's head jerked up, doesn't know what's happening until it's too late.
Clark's in front of him with his badge out, shouting, "Police! Don't move!"
Oliver's behind him, gun drawn.
If that isn't reason enough, there are four more officers from the 41st precinct approaching from the side in full tactical gear, guns trained on him.
They are authoritative voices, an overlapping cacophony of "on your knees," "hands above your head," "get on the ground now," and "hands where I can see them."
Each one of them hopes he'll pull out a weapon or try to make a break for it.
It's an honest disappointment when Mahaney so readily complies.
Oliver holsters his gun and roughly wrenches Mahaney's hands behind his back to cuff him.
"What is this?" Mahaney snarls, struggling. Oliver is happy to add resisting arrest to his mental list of charges.
"Like you don't know."
"I'm arresting you on the suspicion of the murder of officer Whitney Fordman," Clark says, all business. Oliver searches him quickly, efficiently, while Clark Mirandizes him.
From the ground, Mahaney grunts, swearing bloody murder.
38 PRECINCT HEADQUARTERS
WEDNESDAY 8TH OCTOBER
"I didn't kill anyone," Mahaney denies vehemently, leaning forward in his seat. "You." He turns to his lawyer. "You speak cop? Tell them so they understand."
His lawyer is a moderately attractive woman in a pants suit named Corrine Hartford. Corrine Hartford looks about a half a second away from beating Mahaney over the head with her fine Italian briefcase. If she did give into the urge, Oliver hopes that the cameras in the observation room will mysteriously go out; otherwise he will have a difficult time explaining exactly why he did nothing to help. Except, of course, waylay Clark in case he gets hit with the Morality bug.
Unfortunately, she seems fit to contain herself. She says primly, "Fingerprints on a plastic bag does not even prove that he was dealing." She spreads her hands as if to say ay, there's the rub. "He bought a sandwich, threw the bag away, and someone else later filled it with drugs. You can hardly charge a man with hunger."
Mahaney slouches backwards in his chair, bright-eyed and smug. "See? She's good."
She sniffs delicately and tucks an errant strand of hair out of her face. "Thank you, now if you would do what we discussed and let me handle the talking?"
"Where were you at the time of the murder, Wade?" Oliver asks.
"Not there," Mahaney retorts with a sharp grin.
"Show me this murder weapon," Hartford interjects, "and prove Mr. Mahaney used it, or you're going to have to let him go."
Mahaney, who is nodding along with each of her words, adds, "Exactly."
"We know you fired shots, Mr. Mahaney," Clark explains reasonably. "We've taken gunpowder residue from your hands."
"But you haven't a gun to match it, have you?" she points out. Oliver grits his teeth.
"What did you do with the gun, Wade?" Oliver pushes. "Did you take it home or throw it away?"
For once Mahaney doesn't respond. Simply flashes Oliver a bright, carefree grin and raps his knuckles against the table.
"I promise you, Mr. Mahaney," Clark states, tone lower, every fiber of his being intense and focused on Mahaney. The casual slouch Mahaney had projected shifts as he inches his chair a little way backward, away from Clark. "Whatever you did with it, we will find it."
"I don't know if you two are hard of hearing," Hartford says, very slowly, "but they haven't, have they?" She trails a cold, calculated glance from Oliver to Clark and back again. "So, unless you can magically produce this weapon, you're going to have to let my client go."
Oliver and Clark stand beside Captain John Jones.
John looks older, haggard. He stares through the one-way mirror and heaves a heavy, tired sigh. "Miss Hartford is absolutely right," he says with care. He turns to face Clark and Oliver. "If we do not have a weapon, we do not have enough to charge him with."
Clark frowns. "We have security footage of him running away from the crime scene a few minutes after the shooting."
John opens his mouth, and then closes it. "We have footage of him out for a run. No connection."
The door to the observation room cracks open. Officer Andrea Rojas pokes her head in, waving a sheet of paper in front of her.
"Yes, Andrea?" John greets, stepping toward the door.
Andrea leans in through the doorway. "Hola Jefe, got word on your Lohman Street shooting."
"What is it?" Oliver asks.
"Dispatch logged an anonymous call from a witness who saw the shooting." She pauses. "I've got the phone's billing address if you want it."
There's an almost palpable sense of relief in the observation room. Oliver might have kissed her if not for two facts: the first being that it would have been considered deeply inappropriate, and the second, possibly more important, being that even in a pencil skirt Andrea would deck him if he tried.
Clark takes the paper with the billing address and looks it over. Finding the information satisfactory, he nods to Oliver.
"You're perfect, angel," Oliver says reverently as he heads for the door.
"I know," she agrees graciously, side stepping him to let him pass. "I have been telling you this for years."
"Good work, Officer Rojas." Clark, a keen observer of the rules, follows, in his head likely composing a lecture for the ride about sexual harassment in the work place.
As Clark passes her in the doorway, Andrea replies quietly, "No conoces todo en lo que soy beuna, cariño."
Clark doesn't actually flee her presence, but it's a near thing.
"What'd she say?" Oliver asks innocently as he waits by the elevator.
Clark stares pointedly at the lighted numbers as it descends to their floor, flushed to the tips of his ears. "I don't know. Something about a sexual harassment complaint," says Clark, who speaks fluent Spanish. Oliver just continues to grin. The bell rings, the doors part. Clark shoulder-checks him on his way in. "Let's go."
The address leads them to a run down apartment in Suicide Slums around the corner from the crime scene. The girl that opens the door is expecting the pizza delivery boy, but doesn't seem overly surprised when it's two detectives instead. She's young, too young for the thick, dark make-up on her face and the glare they've only ever received from tax payers, too young for the handful of petty theft charges and mug shot they have for her.
"What?" she says.
"Bette Sans Souci?" Clark asks, presenting his badge and plastering on his boyish 'golly shucks, ma'am, if you'd be ever so kind' smile that usually opens all sorts of doors for them.
She doesn't reply one way or the other, doesn't seem bothered to answer. She idly scratches a worn hole in the sleeve of her sweatshirt, staring blankly ahead.
"I'm Detective Kent," Clark says, gesturing to Oliver before he folds his badge and shoves it into his pocket," this is Detective Queen. We have a few questions for you, Miss Sans Souci, if you wouldn't mind speaking with us."
Bette maneuvers herself to stand taller, more fully in the doorway. "What's this about?"
Oliver and Clark exchange a look.
"Last night we received a call to 911 from your cell phone number. Would you mind telling us about that?"
"Wasn't me. I didn't call anyone."
Clark blinks. "You're Bette Sans Souci?"
"Maybe."
He unfolds the 911 transcript and holds it up for her to read. "This is your phone number," he states flatly.
Bette doesn't even look at it. "Maybe."
"You have your phone on you?" Clark presses.
"Maybe."
There's a crash from within the apartment, followed by a round of some incredibly creative swearing. A woman clinging to the wall to hold herself upright stumbles out from a backroom and into the hallway, one hand clutched possessively around the neck of a bottle peeking out from the top of a brown paper bag. "What's going on out here? Who're you talking to?" asks the woman, words heavily slurred together.
"No one, mom," Bette answers promptly, putting her head in her hands. "Go back to bed."
The woman about-faces unsteadily, and slowly heads back the way she came, cursing underneath her breath.
Bette sighs.
Clark and Oliver share a look. With a barely perceptible nod of his head, Clark lets Oliver take the lead.
"How old are you?" Oliver asks, trying a different tactic.
Looking up, Bette snaps, "Younger'n you, that's for sure."
"So was the man that was gunned down last night for doing his job." His caustic remark earns a flinch from Bette and a reprimanding look from Clark. Oliver presses on: "Now can I have a look at your cell phone?"
"Please," Clark adds.
Bette reluctantly takes her cell phone out and hands it to Clark. Clark barely glances at the screen before he hands it to Oliver. Clark can barely program a number into his own phone without assistance.
It only takes a moment to access her recent call list. "911, 3:47 AM," Oliver reads. "What did you see?"
"I didn't see nothing," Bette disagrees, a hint of desperation in her tone. She looks back into the apartment. "My mom says, 'don't get involved. Don't see nothing. Only going to bring trouble on yourself'."
"With all due respect," Oliver says, though there's very little of anything approaching respect in his tone, "your mother's an idiot. We all keep to ourselves, what happens to the community?"
"Ain't my problem," Bette mumbles.
Oliver holds up her phone. "It is now."
Bette makes an incoherent, distressed noise.
"Bette," Clark says softly, stepping forward, taking control of the situation.
Oliver shifts out into the hallway, out of the conversation, letting Clark take the lead. Oliver can ram his head into a persons defenses all he wants until they either wear down or give up, but Clark can talk his way through almost anything given adequate time and exposure.
"An officer was murdered outside of this building last night," Clark says and places a hand on her shoulder, stooping down to look her in the eyes. "We want to get justice for him."
Jaw clenched, Bette bites out, "Justice?" She steps out from under Clark's hand. "Where were you at when my old man got shot up outside this building? Where was his justice?"
"We can't catch all of them, Bette, and I'm sorry. But we -- we need to catch this one."
"'Cause he killed one of yours?" Bette wraps her arms around herself and leans away, away from Clark, away from the officers, away from this situation.
"He wasn't afraid to kill an officer of the law," Clark explains. "We need to catch him before he kills anyone else."
There are tears welling up in Bette's eyes. She looks away. "There were two of them," she whispers after a moment. "I saw the cop and -- and one of them got shot. The other guy legged it to the car and scratched out."
Clark nods. "What kind of car?"
"One of those, uh." Bette sniffs, rolling her eyes. "You know. 'Look at me, New Troy,' Corvettes."
"Would you recognize the man who ran away?" Oliver inquires.
"Maybe," she answers, not looking away from Clark. "If I saw him again, maybe."
"Come to the station with us," Clark requests. He reaches out, maybe to lay his hand on her shoulder again, but he stops halfway into the gesture. His hand falls to his side. "You don't have to if you don't want to."
Oliver adds, "We just need you to point out the right guy."
Bette sighs. Hugging her arms around herself, she looks over her shoulder.
Then she steps out into the hallway and closes the door.
Bette Sans Souci stands between John and Clark, face pressed close to the one-sided mirror. John doesn't need to explain to her how this works, she knows, she's seen it on television, but he does anyway.
Six men are on the other side of the glass: roughly the height, shape, and coloring of their suspect, standing side by side by side. Two of them are off-duty police officers. One of them is Wade Mahaney.
Bette zeroes in on him, locked on to him the moment the lights had come up, and she doesn't look at anyone else. She doesn't need to look at anyone else.
She stares at him. "Am I going to have to testify?"
The room is silent until Clark realizes that the question is directed at him. He isn't even entirely sure why John had asked him to stand in.
But Bette looks up at him; a soft trusting look on her face and Clark can't tell her that he doesn't know. He mentally flails for a moment, casting John a beseeching look.
John shares a look over her head with Executive District Attorney Perry White. Perry nods.
John directs her attention to him with a light touch to her elbow. He smiles reassuringly. "Just focus on identifying the correct person for now," he doesn't answer.
She must find something reassuring in his tone, because she turns back to face the mirror without another word. She sighs, lightly tapping the glass. "It was number two. I saw him shoot the other guy and leg it."
Number two is Wade Mahaney. They've got him.
Corrine Hartford swears under her breath.
"Good work," John says, resting a hand on her shoulder. He nods to Clark. "Why don't you wait outside?"
Clark ushers Bette out of the room where Oliver is waiting. Her eyes light up at the sight of the greasy take-out bag in his hand.
From the side he sees Perry's Assistant Chloe Sullivan approach. She gives him a little three fingered wave and immediately introduces herself to Bette, discreetly elbowing Oliver in the side for something he probably deserves. Clark closes the door on the entire scene. Back to business.
"What is that?" Perry asks casually. "Felony murder, twenty-five to life? Drugs, another what? Five to fifteen?"
Hartford has one hand on her hip. The other hand has a white-knuckled grip on her briefcase. "He didn't kill the cop."
Perry just stares at her, eyebrows raised. "Well, Fordman certainly didn't shoot himself."
"I'll talk to him," Hartford snaps, glaring at Perry, John, Clark, and, for good measure, the floor as if to make her known to all that her displeasure is absolute. "Save the cost of a trial. He pleads murder two and we forget the drugs. He does the twenty-five."
"So you've got a witness. I'm telling you: I didn't shoot the pig." There's a pause before Mahaney seems to catch himself and corrects, "The cop."
Pen poised, Clark gives him a stiff smile. "So why don't you tell us what happened?"
With a glance at his lawyer, Mahaney sighs. "We were finishing our deal," he explains. "Derek sees your cop come around the corner and he just went off. He's yelling, shooting -- it's like he just checked out." Mahaney makes a vague gesture that's meant to demonstrate what ‘checking out' entails. "Shot the cop in the leg first. Derek's got him down so he runs up, shoots the cop in the stomach. I think that's going to be the end of it, next thing I know he started shooting at me claiming it was a set-up. I'm shouting at him, telling him I hadn't done anything. He wasn't listening. That's when I started shooting too."
"And you shot Derek Fox," Clark says for clarification.
"It was self-defense!" Mahaney exclaims. "I had to stop him."
"Well, you cetainly did," Oliver says.
"You don't care. Nah, you're worked up about that cop." Mahaney snorts in derision, slouching down in his chair. "You boys should be thanking me, I did you a favor."
"Oh, well, now that you put it that way," Oliver replies, earnest, "we'll go ahead and let your future cell mates at Iron Heights know that they're going to have a bona fide hero in their midst."
"When it was going down, I didn't see you guys doing nothing about it," Mahaney snaps.
Clark looks up from where he's been taking notes. He adjusts his glasses. "I'm sorry; what is that supposed to mean?"
Mahaney doesn't hesitate. "After Derek," he trails off a moment, trying to find a tactful way to say ‘died', "…went down, I got the hell out of there. But when I turn the corner, there's a cop standing in the doorway. I think he's about to come after me, but he doesn't. He just stands there." Mahaney leans forward, eyes intent. "See, that's what I don't get: cop in the alley was injured. He wasn't dead. Other cop just stands there. Doesn't try to run me down, doesn't go to help. He could have been there, but he wasn't. He's the reason that cop's dead, not me."
Part Two | Masterpost | Part Three
In the criminal justice system, The People are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.
95th AND LOHMAN STREET
THURSDAY, 2nd OCTOBER
"What've we got?" Oliver Queen asks, flashlight in hand as he examines the body on the ground.
His partner Clark Kent looks over the rim of his glasses to consult his notepad. "Officer Whitney Fordman," he reads, "twenty-nine years old, been on the force four years."
"And?" Oliver kneels, careful of the blood pooled at their feet. Fordman's eyes are still open, one hand loosely wrapped around his radio.
"He took one bullet to the stomach," Clark says, motioning over Oliver's shoulder toward the dark stain on the front of Fordman's uniform. "And one to the thigh, which hit his femoral artery. He bled to death, which would have taken about four minutes."
"Two a.m. out here in Suicide Slums? He may as well have had a bull's-eye on his chest." Oliver looks with a mounting sense of dismay at the Crime Scene Unit, only a short distance away examining a second body. "Where was the partner?"
"Name's Eli Talbert. Uniform that spoke to him says he was dealing with a parking argument near a bar on Central." Again, Clark consults his notepad. "Over all the shouting Talbert says he 'misheard the address'."
"Witnesses?"
"Officers are asking around, trying to find anyone who saw what happened," Clark says, though his tone betrays exactly how unlikely he thinks this is to happen. He looks up and around at the buildings framing the alley.
There are windows overlooking them, but shootouts and police sirens are more common in the Slums than mail trucks. Two people were shot dead not ten feet away from they live, sleep, take their meals, raise their children; and yet every blind is drawn closed.
Oliver sighs, not that he expected anything less. Every officer finds out about the Bystander Effect sooner or later. "When does anyone see anything?"
One of the crime scene investigators moves across the peripheral of his vision. He sees Davis Bloome, calmly, quietly, supervising two technicians with the word CORONER stenciled across the back of pale blue coveralls as they put paper bags over the hands and feet of the body.
"You got anything, Davis?" Clark asks. Davis turns around and finds himself looking up and up and up, the way everyone does when unexpectedly faced with The Wall of Clark Kent.
"Er," says Davis, adjusting his glasses.
"Detective Queen," a frightfully small officer calls as she approaches, clipboard in hand. "Officer Talbert is waiting just outside the tape."
"Thanks," Oliver replies. With a brisk nod, the woman walks away.
"So far," Davis continues, squinting a little as he looks up at Clark and then turns to Oliver, "eight bullets from around the scene from at least two different weapons." He nods at the body, as it is wrapped in a white sheet and prepared for transportation. "Five of them were from him."
"Do we have a name?"
"We have a driver's license," Davis informs them, frowning. "Derek Fox, age twenty-one. Carrying a .38. The other three come from a .22, so they aren't from Fordman."
"That confirms dispatch's report of a second shooter," says Clark absently. "Is there any other DNA? Trace? Anything"
Davis shakes his head slowly. "We have the plastic bag from the transaction. It's being sent to the lab now." He shrugs and adds hesitantly, "We might get prints."
In the absence of other evidence, Oliver sees no reason for them to stick around.
"Fordman's partner is waiting over there," he tells Clark. "Let's go and see how he's doing."
"Thanks, Davis."
"Yeah," Oliver offers. Davis gives them a tiny salute and goes back to work.
There's no need to further exchange pleasantries. Each of them has a job to do, a reason they're here tonight. Each of them is facing the very beginning of what is shaping up to be a long night.
Clark tucks away his notebook and takes off his glasses, rubbing his eyes.
"There but for the grace of God go I," Clark mutters.
"You start thinking like that, you hang up your badge," Oliver says roughly. He places a hand on Clark's elbow, to lead him through the safe area designated around Fordman's body.
Without his glasses on, everything is made up of the same few shades of darkness. Blurred forms clothed in black and dark, dark gray interrupted only by the steady red-blue of a police cruisers emergency lights.
A strong breeze catches the collar of his coat and chills him through four layers of clothing. Beside him Oliver shivers.
When he puts his glasses back on, the inky blackness coalescences into a Metropolis Police Department crest stretched across the broad chest of Officer Eli Talbert. Clark isn't used to very many people towering over him, but Talbert does so and makes it look easy. He's tall and solid in a way that makes bricks look easier knock down. He has the stance of a military man, and when Clark approaches hand extended, he meets Clark with a firm handshake.
"Officer Eli Talbert," he greets curtly.
Clark watches Talbert wipe his hand anxiously on one of his pant leg. "We're sorry about Fordman," Clark offers sincerely.
"Yeah," Talbert says, taking off his hat and running his hand over close-cropped hair. "He was a good kid."
"So, you got here after it went down?" Oliver asks without preamble.
"Yes." Talbert takes a steadying breath. When he speaks next, he is composed. "I was at the back of the Ace of Clubs. Shark's game let out earlier, had a few stragglers, nothing out of the ordinary. Had a taxi driver yelling his head off about a late bus that had blocked him in. Fordman went on ahead while I sorted the two of them out." He breaks off, eyes darting between Clark and Oliver's faces before settling on the ground. "I should have been with him."
"Don't beat yourself up. It could have happened to anyone."
"Yeah, but it didn't. I should have been with him -- would have, but I misheard the call." He gestures weakly to the radio clipped high on his shoulder. "I thought they said Bowman Street, not Lohman Street. I could have been there."
"Was your radio working properly?" Clark inquires.
Talbert chuckles humorlessly. "I don't know, but half a dozen people yelling in my ear didn't help much."
"Well, we're going to need an official debriefing and a statement down at the station," Clark tells him. "When you're ready."
"Yeah, of course," Talbert says, jaw clenched.
"That'll be all for now, Officer Talbert," Oliver says. He pats Talbert on the shoulder. "Go home."
Talbert nods stiffly and walks away. Like everything else, Officer Talbert fades into the darkness of Metropolis.
Clark and Oliver watch him go. Behind them, Fordman is loaded up and taken away. The crime scene unit continues to scour the scene for evidence.
"You remember foot patrol?" Clark asks.
"Yeah."
Turning to look at Oliver, Clark adds: "The part I remember most is I never thought I'd get shot."
He wonders what Fordman had thought.
FORENSICS LAB
TUESDAY, 7th OCTOBER
Television has taught the world that walking into a crime lab is a bit like walking into the Apple Store. There should be shiny doo-dads gleaming under rows of fluorescent lights and machines that receive data in one end and spits out results from the other.
In reality it's a bit more like taking a step backwards in time and entering a high school science lab, except the teacher is a nerdy little guy in a bow-tiw and all of the equipment looks to be out-dated by a minimum of ten years.
The lab technician on duty is Henry Olsen, answers to Henry, Hal, Hank, Harry, Jenry, James, Jamie, Jimbo, Jim, Jay, and Hey You. He prefers Jimmy.
"Twenty-nine. That's younger than Ol -- " Jimmy cuts himself off, probably at the looks he's receiving. He makes a kind of strangled, choking sound like he's forgotten how to breathe.
They all know what he was going to say: Twenty-nine. Younger than Oliver. A few years older than Clark, a few more than Jimmy himself.
Who was safe? Who was going to be next?
Could they even do anything about it?
Jimmy coughs. "S'no age to die, is all I was going to say," he mumbles, shuffling a stack of papers around at random.
"There's never a good age to die," Clark says in what Oliver has dubbed his 'ra-ra go-team-go hang-in-there-kitten-it's-almost-Friday' tone.
Oliver rolls his eyes. "What've you got?"
Visibly sagging in relief, Jimmy pushes off against a nearby cabinet, his chair sliding easily across the open space of the lab toward his desk. "Bag from the crime scene contained crack and had two major sets of prints. The first is from," he says, rifling through the stacks of paperwork before retrieving a folder Oliver or Clark would find indistinguishable from the rest and rolling back, "the corpse: Derek Fox, twenty-one. The other prints belong to a Wade Mahaney." He waves the folder under Clark's nose with a grin. "Record was sent over the second I was able to match his prints in AFIS."
Clark takes the folder from Jimmy only to have it immediately taken from him by Oliver. There's a mug shot attached to the inside cover. He hands it to Clark.
"Good work, Jimmy. This is exactly what we needed after an all-nighter." He stares into the face of their second drug dealer. Even if he hadn't shot Officer Fordman, he would at least be able to tell them what happened.
They were going to find this guy.
They were going to catch this guy.
"Hey, C.K.," Jimmy says casually, drumming his fingers on the table in an energetic, almost frantic manner. "Kara wanted me to see if you were still coming over for dinner Friday night."
Now, Clark loves his cousin. He does. Her cooking is another matter entirely.
Some of the horror must have shown on his face because Jimmy laughs. "I'll tell her you're looking forward to it," he says, peering into the eyepiece of a nearby microscope.
"I'll be sure to visit you after the stomach pump Saturday morning." Oliver keeps his nose buried in the report, but even without being able to see his face Clark knows he's smiling.
Clark frowns.
"She says Oliver's invited as well," Jimmy announces gleefully.
There's a sharp, unpleasant sound from behind the report, then Oliver mutters, "I'll probably end up in the room beside you," and abruptly changes the subject. "On Wade Mahaney we've got: ADW -- no conviction, possession intent to sell -- no conviction, robbery attempt -- no conviction."
Jimmy raises his eyebrows, taps his fingers intermittently against the counter top. "Lucky guy."
Clark swiftly grabs the mug shot out of Oliver's hands, ignoring his protesting squawk. "Not anymore." He thanks Jimmy and exits.
Oliver tells Jimmy to stop cackling and follows.
Metropolis is supposed to be the city of tomorrow, a place of infinite wonder. The grass is greener in Metropolis, people say, the sky bluer. Women and men are healthier, they're happier, in Metropolis.
Oliver and Clark -- the entire Metropolis Police Department, really -- know their city better than anyone. They know all of her dirty secrets, and it is their sworn duty to protect her. They see Metropolis for the dirty, soulless pit that she is.
With a collection of murderers and thieves waiting around every corner.
Right now, there's only one that they're looking for.
The streets are teeming with afternoon traffic, and they wait for Wade Mahaney outside of his rundown apartment in Bakerline. Even with the sun high overhead, the air is still shockingly cold. Clark's truck doesn't offer much in the way of protection. Oliver taps the car vent, trying to urge the dead heater back to life.
Oliver sighs. "How you people can live in this type of weather is beyond me."
Clark owns what has been voted three years running the ugliest most useless truck anyone in the precinct has ever seen.
Oliver's own car is small, silver, very fast, very expensive, and very likely to draw attention wherever it goes. Clark likes to exclaim loudly about his obvious attempts at compensating for something. Oliver likes to cuff Clark over the back of the head.
"You moved here four years ago. At this point you're one of us, Oliver. Accept it and move on." Clark pauses. "And get thicker skin."
"I'm just saying that if this was Star City," Oliver explains with forced levity. He gestures at a woman further up the sidewalk. "She'd be on roller skates. And wearing a bikini."
Clark keeps his eye to his mirrors, checking and rechecking, waiting for Mahaney to appear. "She's pushing a stroller," Clark says, in disbelief. Then he remembers who he's talking to.
"So? She crossed the street without looking both ways. I think that means she's a risk taker. Besides, moms like to skate, too."
"No one in Metropolis looks both ways before crossing," Clark points out.
Oliver makes one searching sweep of the street and turns to give Clark his most offended look. "You know, Clark, I think it's incredibly close-minded of you to assume that just because she has a kid it means that she isn't allowed to enjoy the finer things in life."
"Like roller skating?" Clark asks skeptically.
"Like roller skating," Oliver agrees with a firm nod of his head.
"Yeah, try that argument on my mom."
"Hell no. I'm trying to get an invitation to Thankgiving dinner." Oliver pauses, a horrible thought occuring to him. "Is Kara cooking?"
"It's too early to be thinking about Thanksgiving dinner," Clark replies absently.
"It's never too early to be thinking about Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey and home-made gravy, which I didn't actually know was possible..." Oliver trails off.
For the sixth time in the last fifteen minutes, Clark picks up the picture of Wade Mahaney, and just like the five times before, he stares at it hard enough that Oliver is half afraid that it might catch fire.
"And Kara dressed as a sexy pilgrim," Oliver continues with an exaggerated leer. When Clark doesn't react, Oliver snatches the picture out of Clark's grasp before he can damage it and asks, "All right, what's up? This can't be about Fordman. You didn't even know him."
"It's nothing, Oliver," Clark says immediately. For a moment his hand grasps at the air as if confused by the emptiness before it joins the other in choking the steering wheel. "It's nothing." He blinks and flushes. "Sexy what?"
Oliver grins slyly. "Is this about Mahaney? Did you want to ask him to prom, I mean," Oliver says, pretending to give the picture a critical once over, "I suppose he might be considered good-looking in some circles."
Clark completely fails to rise to the bait. There's a grim, thoughtful look on his face that makes Oliver sit a little straighter in his seat, makes the grin slide off his face.
"It's just," Clark starts, and again, his hand flails for a moment: looking for something to grab on to, finding nothing, and faltering, falling. He sighs. "That's got to be the worst thing in the world."
Oliver wills his expression blank. He knows and does not like where this conversation is going. "What? Losing a partner?"
"Yeah." Clark turns to Oliver, and immediately startles as he looks at Oliver properly. For a moment, he can only stare in mute incomprehension before the proverbial light bulb comes on in his head. His face falls. "Sorry, Ollie. I know you -- " he says, tone so thick with guilt it sounds like he might choke on it.
"It's all right, Clark," Oliver interrupts, making an effort to sound casual and only marginally surprised that he manages it. He's good at compartmentalizing things. "Carter got stabbed breaking up a bar fight. Nothing either of us could do."
"But, Ollie -- "
Oliver looks out the window.
A figure in the side mirror catches his attention. Walking up the sidewalk is Wade Mahaney. His head is down, hands shoved in his pockets, but it's clearly him. Oliver squeezes the door handle, his entire body suddenly tense.
"Clark. Call it in."
Clark is trying to take the keys out of the ignition and open the car door and activate his earpiece all at the same time. "Target sighted," he enunciates carefully into his microphone. "Coming down the street."
Clark finally manages to open his door and climbs out of the car. Blowing into his hands, he crosses the street and walks up the sidewalk, head down but keeping a careful eye on his surroundings.
1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 -- Mahaney passes the car and Oliver climbs out behind him.
"Wade Mahaney?"
Mahaney's head jerked up, doesn't know what's happening until it's too late.
Clark's in front of him with his badge out, shouting, "Police! Don't move!"
Oliver's behind him, gun drawn.
If that isn't reason enough, there are four more officers from the 41st precinct approaching from the side in full tactical gear, guns trained on him.
They are authoritative voices, an overlapping cacophony of "on your knees," "hands above your head," "get on the ground now," and "hands where I can see them."
Each one of them hopes he'll pull out a weapon or try to make a break for it.
It's an honest disappointment when Mahaney so readily complies.
Oliver holsters his gun and roughly wrenches Mahaney's hands behind his back to cuff him.
"What is this?" Mahaney snarls, struggling. Oliver is happy to add resisting arrest to his mental list of charges.
"Like you don't know."
"I'm arresting you on the suspicion of the murder of officer Whitney Fordman," Clark says, all business. Oliver searches him quickly, efficiently, while Clark Mirandizes him.
From the ground, Mahaney grunts, swearing bloody murder.
38 PRECINCT HEADQUARTERS
WEDNESDAY 8TH OCTOBER
"I didn't kill anyone," Mahaney denies vehemently, leaning forward in his seat. "You." He turns to his lawyer. "You speak cop? Tell them so they understand."
His lawyer is a moderately attractive woman in a pants suit named Corrine Hartford. Corrine Hartford looks about a half a second away from beating Mahaney over the head with her fine Italian briefcase. If she did give into the urge, Oliver hopes that the cameras in the observation room will mysteriously go out; otherwise he will have a difficult time explaining exactly why he did nothing to help. Except, of course, waylay Clark in case he gets hit with the Morality bug.
Unfortunately, she seems fit to contain herself. She says primly, "Fingerprints on a plastic bag does not even prove that he was dealing." She spreads her hands as if to say ay, there's the rub. "He bought a sandwich, threw the bag away, and someone else later filled it with drugs. You can hardly charge a man with hunger."
Mahaney slouches backwards in his chair, bright-eyed and smug. "See? She's good."
She sniffs delicately and tucks an errant strand of hair out of her face. "Thank you, now if you would do what we discussed and let me handle the talking?"
"Where were you at the time of the murder, Wade?" Oliver asks.
"Not there," Mahaney retorts with a sharp grin.
"Show me this murder weapon," Hartford interjects, "and prove Mr. Mahaney used it, or you're going to have to let him go."
Mahaney, who is nodding along with each of her words, adds, "Exactly."
"We know you fired shots, Mr. Mahaney," Clark explains reasonably. "We've taken gunpowder residue from your hands."
"But you haven't a gun to match it, have you?" she points out. Oliver grits his teeth.
"What did you do with the gun, Wade?" Oliver pushes. "Did you take it home or throw it away?"
For once Mahaney doesn't respond. Simply flashes Oliver a bright, carefree grin and raps his knuckles against the table.
"I promise you, Mr. Mahaney," Clark states, tone lower, every fiber of his being intense and focused on Mahaney. The casual slouch Mahaney had projected shifts as he inches his chair a little way backward, away from Clark. "Whatever you did with it, we will find it."
"I don't know if you two are hard of hearing," Hartford says, very slowly, "but they haven't, have they?" She trails a cold, calculated glance from Oliver to Clark and back again. "So, unless you can magically produce this weapon, you're going to have to let my client go."
Oliver and Clark stand beside Captain John Jones.
John looks older, haggard. He stares through the one-way mirror and heaves a heavy, tired sigh. "Miss Hartford is absolutely right," he says with care. He turns to face Clark and Oliver. "If we do not have a weapon, we do not have enough to charge him with."
Clark frowns. "We have security footage of him running away from the crime scene a few minutes after the shooting."
John opens his mouth, and then closes it. "We have footage of him out for a run. No connection."
The door to the observation room cracks open. Officer Andrea Rojas pokes her head in, waving a sheet of paper in front of her.
"Yes, Andrea?" John greets, stepping toward the door.
Andrea leans in through the doorway. "Hola Jefe, got word on your Lohman Street shooting."
"What is it?" Oliver asks.
"Dispatch logged an anonymous call from a witness who saw the shooting." She pauses. "I've got the phone's billing address if you want it."
There's an almost palpable sense of relief in the observation room. Oliver might have kissed her if not for two facts: the first being that it would have been considered deeply inappropriate, and the second, possibly more important, being that even in a pencil skirt Andrea would deck him if he tried.
Clark takes the paper with the billing address and looks it over. Finding the information satisfactory, he nods to Oliver.
"You're perfect, angel," Oliver says reverently as he heads for the door.
"I know," she agrees graciously, side stepping him to let him pass. "I have been telling you this for years."
"Good work, Officer Rojas." Clark, a keen observer of the rules, follows, in his head likely composing a lecture for the ride about sexual harassment in the work place.
As Clark passes her in the doorway, Andrea replies quietly, "No conoces todo en lo que soy beuna, cariño."
Clark doesn't actually flee her presence, but it's a near thing.
"What'd she say?" Oliver asks innocently as he waits by the elevator.
Clark stares pointedly at the lighted numbers as it descends to their floor, flushed to the tips of his ears. "I don't know. Something about a sexual harassment complaint," says Clark, who speaks fluent Spanish. Oliver just continues to grin. The bell rings, the doors part. Clark shoulder-checks him on his way in. "Let's go."
The address leads them to a run down apartment in Suicide Slums around the corner from the crime scene. The girl that opens the door is expecting the pizza delivery boy, but doesn't seem overly surprised when it's two detectives instead. She's young, too young for the thick, dark make-up on her face and the glare they've only ever received from tax payers, too young for the handful of petty theft charges and mug shot they have for her.
"What?" she says.
"Bette Sans Souci?" Clark asks, presenting his badge and plastering on his boyish 'golly shucks, ma'am, if you'd be ever so kind' smile that usually opens all sorts of doors for them.
She doesn't reply one way or the other, doesn't seem bothered to answer. She idly scratches a worn hole in the sleeve of her sweatshirt, staring blankly ahead.
"I'm Detective Kent," Clark says, gesturing to Oliver before he folds his badge and shoves it into his pocket," this is Detective Queen. We have a few questions for you, Miss Sans Souci, if you wouldn't mind speaking with us."
Bette maneuvers herself to stand taller, more fully in the doorway. "What's this about?"
Oliver and Clark exchange a look.
"Last night we received a call to 911 from your cell phone number. Would you mind telling us about that?"
"Wasn't me. I didn't call anyone."
Clark blinks. "You're Bette Sans Souci?"
"Maybe."
He unfolds the 911 transcript and holds it up for her to read. "This is your phone number," he states flatly.
Bette doesn't even look at it. "Maybe."
"You have your phone on you?" Clark presses.
"Maybe."
There's a crash from within the apartment, followed by a round of some incredibly creative swearing. A woman clinging to the wall to hold herself upright stumbles out from a backroom and into the hallway, one hand clutched possessively around the neck of a bottle peeking out from the top of a brown paper bag. "What's going on out here? Who're you talking to?" asks the woman, words heavily slurred together.
"No one, mom," Bette answers promptly, putting her head in her hands. "Go back to bed."
The woman about-faces unsteadily, and slowly heads back the way she came, cursing underneath her breath.
Bette sighs.
Clark and Oliver share a look. With a barely perceptible nod of his head, Clark lets Oliver take the lead.
"How old are you?" Oliver asks, trying a different tactic.
Looking up, Bette snaps, "Younger'n you, that's for sure."
"So was the man that was gunned down last night for doing his job." His caustic remark earns a flinch from Bette and a reprimanding look from Clark. Oliver presses on: "Now can I have a look at your cell phone?"
"Please," Clark adds.
Bette reluctantly takes her cell phone out and hands it to Clark. Clark barely glances at the screen before he hands it to Oliver. Clark can barely program a number into his own phone without assistance.
It only takes a moment to access her recent call list. "911, 3:47 AM," Oliver reads. "What did you see?"
"I didn't see nothing," Bette disagrees, a hint of desperation in her tone. She looks back into the apartment. "My mom says, 'don't get involved. Don't see nothing. Only going to bring trouble on yourself'."
"With all due respect," Oliver says, though there's very little of anything approaching respect in his tone, "your mother's an idiot. We all keep to ourselves, what happens to the community?"
"Ain't my problem," Bette mumbles.
Oliver holds up her phone. "It is now."
Bette makes an incoherent, distressed noise.
"Bette," Clark says softly, stepping forward, taking control of the situation.
Oliver shifts out into the hallway, out of the conversation, letting Clark take the lead. Oliver can ram his head into a persons defenses all he wants until they either wear down or give up, but Clark can talk his way through almost anything given adequate time and exposure.
"An officer was murdered outside of this building last night," Clark says and places a hand on her shoulder, stooping down to look her in the eyes. "We want to get justice for him."
Jaw clenched, Bette bites out, "Justice?" She steps out from under Clark's hand. "Where were you at when my old man got shot up outside this building? Where was his justice?"
"We can't catch all of them, Bette, and I'm sorry. But we -- we need to catch this one."
"'Cause he killed one of yours?" Bette wraps her arms around herself and leans away, away from Clark, away from the officers, away from this situation.
"He wasn't afraid to kill an officer of the law," Clark explains. "We need to catch him before he kills anyone else."
There are tears welling up in Bette's eyes. She looks away. "There were two of them," she whispers after a moment. "I saw the cop and -- and one of them got shot. The other guy legged it to the car and scratched out."
Clark nods. "What kind of car?"
"One of those, uh." Bette sniffs, rolling her eyes. "You know. 'Look at me, New Troy,' Corvettes."
"Would you recognize the man who ran away?" Oliver inquires.
"Maybe," she answers, not looking away from Clark. "If I saw him again, maybe."
"Come to the station with us," Clark requests. He reaches out, maybe to lay his hand on her shoulder again, but he stops halfway into the gesture. His hand falls to his side. "You don't have to if you don't want to."
Oliver adds, "We just need you to point out the right guy."
Bette sighs. Hugging her arms around herself, she looks over her shoulder.
Then she steps out into the hallway and closes the door.
Bette Sans Souci stands between John and Clark, face pressed close to the one-sided mirror. John doesn't need to explain to her how this works, she knows, she's seen it on television, but he does anyway.
Six men are on the other side of the glass: roughly the height, shape, and coloring of their suspect, standing side by side by side. Two of them are off-duty police officers. One of them is Wade Mahaney.
Bette zeroes in on him, locked on to him the moment the lights had come up, and she doesn't look at anyone else. She doesn't need to look at anyone else.
She stares at him. "Am I going to have to testify?"
The room is silent until Clark realizes that the question is directed at him. He isn't even entirely sure why John had asked him to stand in.
But Bette looks up at him; a soft trusting look on her face and Clark can't tell her that he doesn't know. He mentally flails for a moment, casting John a beseeching look.
John shares a look over her head with Executive District Attorney Perry White. Perry nods.
John directs her attention to him with a light touch to her elbow. He smiles reassuringly. "Just focus on identifying the correct person for now," he doesn't answer.
She must find something reassuring in his tone, because she turns back to face the mirror without another word. She sighs, lightly tapping the glass. "It was number two. I saw him shoot the other guy and leg it."
Number two is Wade Mahaney. They've got him.
Corrine Hartford swears under her breath.
"Good work," John says, resting a hand on her shoulder. He nods to Clark. "Why don't you wait outside?"
Clark ushers Bette out of the room where Oliver is waiting. Her eyes light up at the sight of the greasy take-out bag in his hand.
From the side he sees Perry's Assistant Chloe Sullivan approach. She gives him a little three fingered wave and immediately introduces herself to Bette, discreetly elbowing Oliver in the side for something he probably deserves. Clark closes the door on the entire scene. Back to business.
"What is that?" Perry asks casually. "Felony murder, twenty-five to life? Drugs, another what? Five to fifteen?"
Hartford has one hand on her hip. The other hand has a white-knuckled grip on her briefcase. "He didn't kill the cop."
Perry just stares at her, eyebrows raised. "Well, Fordman certainly didn't shoot himself."
"I'll talk to him," Hartford snaps, glaring at Perry, John, Clark, and, for good measure, the floor as if to make her known to all that her displeasure is absolute. "Save the cost of a trial. He pleads murder two and we forget the drugs. He does the twenty-five."
"So you've got a witness. I'm telling you: I didn't shoot the pig." There's a pause before Mahaney seems to catch himself and corrects, "The cop."
Pen poised, Clark gives him a stiff smile. "So why don't you tell us what happened?"
With a glance at his lawyer, Mahaney sighs. "We were finishing our deal," he explains. "Derek sees your cop come around the corner and he just went off. He's yelling, shooting -- it's like he just checked out." Mahaney makes a vague gesture that's meant to demonstrate what ‘checking out' entails. "Shot the cop in the leg first. Derek's got him down so he runs up, shoots the cop in the stomach. I think that's going to be the end of it, next thing I know he started shooting at me claiming it was a set-up. I'm shouting at him, telling him I hadn't done anything. He wasn't listening. That's when I started shooting too."
"And you shot Derek Fox," Clark says for clarification.
"It was self-defense!" Mahaney exclaims. "I had to stop him."
"Well, you cetainly did," Oliver says.
"You don't care. Nah, you're worked up about that cop." Mahaney snorts in derision, slouching down in his chair. "You boys should be thanking me, I did you a favor."
"Oh, well, now that you put it that way," Oliver replies, earnest, "we'll go ahead and let your future cell mates at Iron Heights know that they're going to have a bona fide hero in their midst."
"When it was going down, I didn't see you guys doing nothing about it," Mahaney snaps.
Clark looks up from where he's been taking notes. He adjusts his glasses. "I'm sorry; what is that supposed to mean?"
Mahaney doesn't hesitate. "After Derek," he trails off a moment, trying to find a tactful way to say ‘died', "…went down, I got the hell out of there. But when I turn the corner, there's a cop standing in the doorway. I think he's about to come after me, but he doesn't. He just stands there." Mahaney leans forward, eyes intent. "See, that's what I don't get: cop in the alley was injured. He wasn't dead. Other cop just stands there. Doesn't try to run me down, doesn't go to help. He could have been there, but he wasn't. He's the reason that cop's dead, not me."
Part Two | Masterpost | Part Three