AFTERMATH

Chapter 1

Assistant District Attorney Ron Carver usually resented the presence of social workers, but this was one time he welcomed the quiet, no-nonsense woman serving in that capacity in his office. She separated him, figuratively and literally, from the angry and grieving trio sitting at the large table in his office.

"Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Carver," the grey haired man hissed, "this monster, this thing that destroyed the brain of out little girl, is going to live?"

"He killed my baby, and he gets to spend his life living off the taxpayers of the state?" one of the two women asked. The other clutched the grey haired man's arm and sniffled into a tissue.

"I'm sorry," Ron Carver said for the thousandth time in an hour. "Mr. Tagman confessed to his crimes. I can't seek the death penalty. My hands are tied."

"Tagman," the man said. "He doesn't deserve a name...he's a thing...I hope he dies in his prison...horribly..."

His wife spoke for the first time. "Mr. Carver...our baby...she was a straight A student all through school...grade school, high school, college...she was
an athlete...she worked hard...she loved music and art, and she wanted to start therapy programs for children. She played the piano and sang. She devised complicated financial programs for her company...and now...now she can't remember her own name."

"I...Mr. Tagman will be in prison for life," Carver said feebly.

The wife looked at him with desperate, pleading eyes. "So will my daughter."

As the trio left, Carver silently cursed Robert Goren. "He doesn't have to deal with this...with the consequences of his actions," Carver thought. "With the results of his psychological abstractions...it's a game to him, nothing more...pitting and putting criminals and victims and attorneys against each other on some chess board in his head." Carver shook his head. The attorney was convinced sometimes that one of Goren's greatest pleasures must be finding ways to irritate ADA Ron Carver. He was also occasionally convinced that the rumors that floated from the NYPD over to the prosecutor's office might have more than a grain of truth--the rumors that the reason Detective Robert Goren got into the heads of the worst cases so well was because he was two steps away from being one himself.

"He's not a head case," Goren's partner Alex Eames had insisted one evening when Carver had stopped for drinks with the two detectives. They were celebrating a tough victory, one made possible by the methods Carver often criticized. Carver liked Eames--nearly everyone liked Eames--in spite of the fact she frequently scared him more than Goren. She was tough, smart, and honest, even when she was arguing. Goren was collecting their drinks, and Carver had made a comment about the seeming ease with which Goren had turned a schizophrenic brother against his scheming older sibling. Eames rose to her partner's defense.

"He's had a tough background, and a lot of experience with manipulation. I know people think he pulls this stuff out of the air, but he works really, really hard." Eames gave Carver a tough look. "By the time he reaches them, he's worked on his conclusions."

But even Eames seemed infuriated with Goren for his actions during the Tagman case, and Carver knew that Captain James Deakins was furious with the detective. After Goren coerced the confession from Tagman, Carver was so filled with rage he feared he might physically attack Goren, a stupid move considering the detective's considerable advantages in size and training. "Although," Carver thought, "Goren gave every indication he wouldn't have fought back." Upon leaving the interrogation room, Goren had meekly presented himself to Carver and Deakins. Deakins had quietly and professionally dismissed Carver. Carver turned briefly to see Goren following Deakins into the captain's office, and he sensed the resulting session was not pleasant for Goren.

"Well, so be it," Carver thought. "Goren doesn't have to deal with the survivors...to explain to them why a monster will live when their daughters won't. He doesn't have to deal with the aftermath."

End Chapter 1