Well, I lean more toward Carlowe (the chemistry was amazing!), but I would take Lassiet, because they'd just be so...adorable, while Shules just disturbs me somehow, in the whole 'adult dating a 13-year old boy' sense. But anyway, I'm not sure if I'll have another chapter or not. We'll see. I may come up with a wrap-up on the murder mystery (I don't write mysteries, so that could be tough), but I'm going largely on some spoilers I've seen for S6, so that could all come into play if I continue this.

Now, on with the show!

It was a pretty grisly murder scene, as murder scenes went, and yet fairly standard.

Juliet hated being so used to seeing them, because she knew that it meant part of her had become hard, or maybe just…jaded. A few years ago, she'd be tossing her cookies into a potted palm, but now, she took a clinical approach to the whole thing. It was all even rather academic. Dead body. Three bullet holes in the chest. Strange little tufts of fuzzy stuff around the body. Big puddle of blood spreading on the egg-white Berber carpet. Don't look too close, or you'd think that a bottle of Heinz 57 had exploded when the man had fallen on it. No signs of struggle or forced entry. A neighbor had seen a 'willowy blonde' leaving the house the night before, but had not heard gunshots or screaming or anything.

The CSI's were taking photos and collecting evidence. Shawn was nowhere in sight, and for that Juliet was rather grateful, because her partner had a splitting headache and was in a particularly grouchy mood. She couldn't really blame him, though. His condition was not due to a hangover, but a massive, killer, surely-it-must-be-a-brain-tumor migraine.

McNabb scuttled over and handed Lassiter a cup of steaming coffee, for which he was given an only mildly grumpy 'thanks' before scuttling away again. The tall, weary-looking detective looked around the crime scene – a richly luxurious living room in one of Santa Barbara's richest neighborhoods – and edged around the CSI's, looking at a path muddy of footprints heading toward the kitchen. He crouched, holding the coffee cup out and rubbing his fingers into the mud. One of the CSI's came over and murmured for a moment with him, and he nodded and stood up, wincing a little, and took a sip of scalding coffee.

"Willowy blonde tracking mud into the house?" Carlton said to her, blinking against the lights from the chandelier above his head. "That doesn't exactly add up, does it? Willowy blondes tend to avoid mud, in most cases. And these aren't willowy blonde footprints. They look like boot prints. About a size ten."

"Right," she nodded, and stepped around a small pack of CSI's still taking photos from every possible angle. "It was raining last night, too, so the killer must have come around the through the garden…"

"But look at the second set of prints," Carlton pointed out. He rubbed his eyes. "McNabb, would you get me some aspirin…please?"

Only too pleased to help his hero, Buzz went out to the car to retrieve the bottle. Juliet raised an eyebrow at her partner, wondering. He was rarely this polite. Maybe it was the headache.

"Look at these prints." He pointed at the two sets – both were typically muddy, with rather ugly collections of red cedar chips and oozing mud. "One's at least a size ten. The other set is considerably smaller."

"Yeah," she nodded. Juliet walked over, stepping across the blood puddle. Carlton placed his foot next to one of the larger footprints. She placed her foot next to one of the smaller. "Two killers?" she whispered to her partner.

The widow of the dead man was sitting on the living room couch, sobbing, twisting a napkin on her finger. Carlton had barely spoken two words to her, but he was now studying the woman with increasing interest, sipping his coffee. She was a comfortable-looking woman, a bit wide of hip and voluptuous – a sort of sexy matron type, with tousled blonde hair and blue eyes. He moved closer to her.

"Mrs…?"

Juliet mouthed 'Tomlinson' to him, and he leaned down a little, to get to eye level with her.

"Mrs. Tomlinson?"

She wiped her eyes.

"Yes?"

"I'm Detective Lassiter, SBPD. This is Detective O'Hara. Could I ask you a couple of questions?"

Juliet sighed. Carlton was not going to offer any kind of condolences. He always cut right to the chase. Tactlessly so, usually.

"Okay…" She dabbed at her eyes with her napkin, and Carlton watched her carefully before finally squatting down again, so that he was eye level with her. She drew in her breath, and Juliet knew that his startling blue eyes had made her uneasy. Well, maybe not uneasy, because she was now looking at the detective with prurient interest. Juliet caught the disgusted look that crossed her partner's face, and shook her head sadly.

"Did you hear anything during the night? Any noises?" he asked, his voice sharper now.

"No. I didn't even hear Lloyd leave our bedroom last night." She had a distinctive Southern drawl.

"You two are alone in this house?"

"Yes."

He looked around the room for a moment. There were photographs on the walls and on tables – formal and informal family shots of Lloyd Tomlinson and his wife and children. All four of the children were apparently grown and had left the nest. He zeroed back in on Mrs Tomlinson, and stood up again. "O'Hara, let's take a tour of the house, shall we?"

Mrs Tomlinson resumed her sobbing, and Carlton eyed her briefly.

"Let's go."

"Huh…master bedroom is bigger than my entire apartment. But…she said she didn't hear him leave their bedroom. But you can tell only one person ever slept in this bed last night." He gestured toward the bed. Indeed, only one side of the king size bed was rumpled, while the other was undisturbed. "She mustn't move around a lot in her sleep." He looked at the dressing table across the room and saw prescription bottles and examined one. "Vicodin." He looked at another. "Hydrocodone. Two different prescribing docs, too." A pair of CSI's came into the room, and he gestured to them to take the RX's into evidence.

Juliet looked through the two cavernous closets and found nothing interesting. "Lots of shoes. Prada! Look at all this Prada! Oh my God…hello, Imelda Marcos!"

He sighed, shaking his head, and she pulled herself back into Detective Mode. "Any muddy boots?" he asked, flipping through his notes.

"Nope."

They trailed across the hall, and Juliet noticed Lassiter looking at his watch. He caught her look and ran a hand through his hair.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"Uh…yeah. Later today."

"Doctor?"

"Hm? Oh. No. Not a doctor."

"You are getting to be of a Certain Age," she said, grinning as they entered the bedroom across the hall. The bed was neatly made. A brief perusal of the room revealed nothing interesting and they moved on.

"I'm not that age yet. The glove has not become a part of my annual medical exam, thank you, and even if it did, I wouldn't be talking about it with you. Or anybody. Not even my priest. God, maybe." He looked at his notes again. "Dja notice that her eyes weren't red?"

"What?"

"Eyes. Not red. You cry, your eyes turn red, right?"

"Yes…" Juliet raised her eyebrow at her partner. He scratched his ear and they continued to the third and fourth bedrooms, with Carlton muttering about 'overdoing it'.

"Exactly. You cry, your eyes turn red, you blubber about, you sniffle and hornk into a napkin, and nobody can enjoy their peach cobbler. Or least I couldn't, last time I tried to eat with you while you were crying. That woman was doing her best Lady MacBeth back there but her eyes weren't red. I found that kind of odd. Didn't you?"

"I…suppose. But maybe she's just in shock. Or has already done all her crying, before we showed up."

"Her eyes would still be red, though," he pointed out. "She found the body. They'd been married twenty-eight years. Four kids. Guy made a fortune importing diamonds. If my husband imported diamonds for a living and was found dead, I'd be crying floods."

They entered bedroom number six and were startled to see the bed had been slept in, with sheets twisted and the blanket thrown on the floor…and two pillows with separate headprints were still on the bed. Carlton stepped around the room, and lifted the sheets, then recoiled in horror. "Oh dear God…"

"What? What is it?"

He put on his gloves, winced, reached under the sheets and held up a condom. A used condom. He looked sick to his stomach and looked again. He found four more, all used, and his obvious disgust dissolved into mild amusement.

"Well…way to go, Lloyd!"

"Willowy Blonde strikes again?" Juliet asked, unable to hide a grin.

"About five times, it looks like. Lloyd had game, but Lloyd was awfully stupid, wasn't he?"

Back downstairs in the Tomlinson bedroom, Juliet watched Carlton step around the pool of blood. The CSI's were still dusting for prints and taking a few final photos. Juliet remembered Carlton telling her that sometimes, on slow days, the CSI's were also prone to sit the body up and pose with it while waving its hands or pulling the skin behind its neck to make its mouth move, in a kind of really sick tribute to Weekend at Bernie's. She had not been amused, but she had seen a little spark of amusement in his eyes as he had told her the story, so that she wasn't sure if he wasn't giving her a bit of Irish blarney.

He looked at the couch, and stepped toward it, shooing Mrs Tomlinson aside in his usual brusque manner. She moved aside, and he noted that one of the couch cushions was missing. "I'm not a decorator, ma'am," he said. "So maybe I'm wrong, but then again, I have an eye for symmetry. You have space on that couch for four suede throw pillows. You have two red and one gray. Where's the other gray pillow?" The couch and the pillows did indeed match the room's décor, which was all reds and blacks and whites, in a kind of New Orleans Bordello-meets-Dynasty style.

"I…I'm not sure. Maybe it got moved to another room." She shifted on the couch, looking a little uneasy.

"I've never seen someone get so fidgety over a gray pillow. Mind if we look for it?"

She pursed her lips. "Sure. Go ahead. I've been looking for it, too."

Juliet and Carlton stared, aghast, at the gray pillow. Which had three bullet holes in it.

"Wow. So we've got the how and maybe the why, but what about the who and definitely the wheapon?"

"And the ha. Don't forget about the ha!" Juliet smiled. "The weapon…I figure the killer took it with him, or her. We'll test Mrs Tomlinson hands for gunshot residue, but I'm not so sure she's the killer. But I do know she knows more than she's saying."

"Right."

They had dug the pillow out from under a pile of leaves in the back yard. Buzz had noticed the corner of the pillow sticking out, not exactly matching the red and yellow leaves and had alerted them to it. McNabb had been particularly delighted when Carlton had praised him for his good eye as he held the pillow up. The two detectives could see right through each bullet hole.

"The ha part will likely come at the very end," Carlton said with a snicker. "For some reason, the murderer just refuses to jump up five minutes into the investigation and shriek 'I did it!'"

"Why can't they do that, though?" Juliet asked. They handed the pillow over to the CSI's, who took it away for processing. "Wouldn't it make our jobs so much easier?"

"If it was easy, it wouldn't be interesting."

"And we wouldn't have carpal tunnel syndrome from all that typing, and we wouldn't suffer from dust mite allergies from digging through old newspaper articles and ancient files hidden away in basements no one admits exists and are guarded by Ernest Borgnine."

"You do realize you work for the SBPD, not the CIA, right?" Carlton asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Sometimes, I imagine myself as a CIA agent," Juliet told him as they walked back to the house. "I could play with all those gadgets, and there'd be a private jet. Off to Monte Carlo. Name's O'Hara. Juliet O'Hara. Cocoa…stirred…with real marshmallows…"

She was surprised to hear Carlton laugh. He had one of the best laughs she had ever heard, and it was all the more valuable to her because it was so rare. "Santa Claus is a CIA spook, you know."

"Oh, Carlton, please," she said, rolling her eyes. They stepped back into the house, where they saw the CSI's asking Mrs Tomlinson about the see-through pillow.

"No, seriously. He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake…he knows if you've been bad or good…yes, a definite spook."

She punched him on the arm and let him open the door for her. All those little things, she thought, that makes working with him so…comfortable.

Juliet stood in the observation room, watching Carlton interview Mrs Tomlinson. She had her arms crossed and was scowling at Carlton, who was actually starting to look bored. He was writing on a legal pad, frowning as he formed his comments. The woman leaned forward and studied him, and he finally looked across the table at her.

"You have beautiful eyes, detective," she said, in a disturbingly sultry voice. "So…blue."

"Thank you," Carlton answered mildly.

"Do they turn violet when you're…?"

He looked vaguely alarmed. "When I'm what?"

"Aroused."

He looked angry then. Juliet glanced at the door. Should she go in there and rescue Mrs Tomlinson?

"Are they from your mother or your father?"

"Father," he answered, tugging at his collar, his eyes turning a darker blue. Almost cerulean, which meant trouble.

"What does he do?"

"He gets away."

Mrs Tomlinson raised her eyebrows. Carlton pursed his lips, fighting for control, and read over his notes. "Did you see anybody lurking about your house last night, in a murderous manner?"

"No," she said, shrugging. "I went to bed at nine." She began examining her fingernails. He looked at his watch and closed his eyes, and Juliet suspected he was praying for patience.

"Did anybody have anything against your husband?"

"No."

"No enemies?"

"Lloyd was loved by everyone," she said, putting only a slight emphasis on the final word. Lassiter raised an eyebrow.

"Everyone? The milkman, the paperboy, the mail man…the maid?"

She shifted in her seat.

"I don't know anybody who has no enemies, Mrs Tomlinson. In fact, I don't trust people who have no enemies. If you have no enemies, you're doing something wrong. Or maybe he finally did piss somebody off?"

Juliet jumped when she heard observation room door open. Shawn stepped in, looking disgruntled. "Nobody called me about this little murder thing?" he asked her.

"It's our case, Shawn. We don't always need you."

Spencer looked even more miffed, and looked out at Carlton and Mrs Tomlinson, who was leaning forward now, on her elbows, looking across at the detective, who didn't flinch but looked rather uncomfortable. Juliet found it odd that her usually stoic partner seemed…unsettled. He had been a little off all day. The headache had been beaten off, for the most part, by three Advils and coffee strong enough to strip the chrome off a trailer hitch, but the residual aches were clearly still there, and from what Juliet could tell, the migraine was edging its way back, like a tiny, angry Viking with an anvil, a big hammer, and a grudge.

"Are you married?" Mrs Tomlinson asked him.

He sighed. "That's irrelevant to this situation."

"You could try being more friendly. More outgoing…"

"That rarely works for me, except under very, very extraordinary circumstances. Now. Listen. There were footprints leading from the front door to your husband's body, and then around him to the back door and out onto the sidewalk, and went to ground in the cedar mulch, and the SBPD's bloodhound – his name is Clyde – is taking a nap right now, so we can't turn him loose out there to follow a now very wet, very cold trail. So let's try this again…did you hear anything last night?"

"No."

"Nothing at all?" he asked, finally looking really, really irritated.

"Nothing at all."

"Ma'am, right now, you are the prime suspect in this case," he told her, enunciating each word carefully. "You're telling me that the alarm system didn't go off when an intruder came into your house and shot your husband three times?"

"Lloyd must have turned it off."

"Why? Your husband sold diamonds for a living. There were three cases of them in his office. If he turned off the alarms, you'd have to think he was suicidal, right?"

She studied him again, and Juliet wondered how Carlton would tolerate being jumped, because that woman was practically panting over him. "Why, detective, your sweet words could charm the dew right off the honeysuckle," she simpered.

He looked aghast. "What?"

"Good God, she's got the hots for him," Shawn said, looking surprised.

"Ma'am, you'll be going to a women's prison, so you should be brushing up on a different pickup line," Carlton pointed out, not unkindly. He stood up. "Sit tight. Detective O'Hara will be having a go at you next, and yes, I realize that was probably the wrong phrase to use, but you are seriously creeping me out."

"I still say you have beautiful eyes."

"Yeah, whatever." He picked up his file and left, and Juliet and Shawn stepped out of the observation room to meet him. He rubbed his forehead, not pleased to see Spencer. "Go ahead. I've got to go find some Vicodin."

"You do have really beautiful eyes, Lassie," Shawn said. "The kind that women would just love to dive right into…"

Carlton eyed the faux psychic for a moment before continuing on down the hall, and they soon heard him clattering up the stairs, moving rather quickly for a man with a resurgent migraine. Then they heard clattering again, and he reappeared at the corner. "Let Spencer talk to her, after you. Give him the sheet. Don't let him anywhere near the crime scene, though. Keep him away, even if you have to shoot him. In fact, just shoot him, full stop."

"Carlton, are you crazy?" Juliet asked, astonished.

"I'm here aren't I? Call me if there's any major developments. You'll get voicemail. Leave me a message and I'll…catch up." He gave them a vague nod and turned to clatter back up the stairs again, obviously in a hurry.

"My God, he's off the reservation again!"

The parole board – two gimlet-eyed women and three grumpy-looking men – were seated at the long conference table, facing the two smaller tables. Carlton stepped into the room, flashed his badge to the guard, and took a seat in a chair behind the lawyer's table, keeping out direct line of vision of the parole board. The prosecutor was looking over some files and scribbling something on a notepad, and when he looked up he saw Carlton, he almost smiled, but then realized that the detective was on the wrong side of the room.

"Detective Lassiter, shouldn't you be over here?" he called.

"Er…no. Not today." He acknowledged two other people in the room, both apparently there to testify on behalf of imprisoned family members hoping to be released as well. For the first time in his career, he felt a strange twinge of sympathy for them. In most cases, he'd be telling them that they should recognize that their loved one had screwed himself as much as he had screwed them. But now…

"You're actually testifying on behalf of the prisoner? You've never done that."

He shrugged and returned his gaze to the parole board. Five people that made a Soviet-era oblast council meeting look like a trip to Disney World, he thought glumly. And earthly power doth become like God's, when mercy seasons justice. He tugged at his tie.

The prosecutor got up and came over to sit down beside Carlton. "What is this? You're here to speak for…" He consulted his file. "Marlowe Viccellio?"

"Mm." Carlton straightened his cuffs and adjusted his tie.

"Why? Weren't you the arresting officer?"

"Yep." Carlton adjusted the tie again – it really was like wearing a noose. Why the hell did he wear the wretched things? He thought about removing it, but decided against it. It would be best to look as official as possible.

"And now you're trying to get her off on early parole?"

Carlton didn't answer.

The head of the parole board – named, hilariously, Ted Baxter - was a man Carlton knew as a hard-line law and order type. He didn't look like Ted Knight, though. He looked a lot more like Joseph Stalin's demented nephew, to be honest, which in itself was kind of disturbing. He banged his gavel and gestured to the bailiff to bring in the prisoner.

Carlton swallowed and kept his seat while the prosecutor went back to his seat. The prisoner lawyer, who was unfamiliar to Carlton, stood as Marlowe was lead into the room by a female guard. Her hair was a little longer, and tied back with a black band, and she looked a little paler than when he'd met her three months ago. Prison pallor, he thought sadly. Otherwise, she looked healthy enough. Her cornflower blue eyes sought him and when she finally saw him, a small smile flitted across her face, but a sharp, warning look from him made it vanish and she looked down, meekly letting the guard lead her to her seat.

Orange is not her best color, Carlton thought gloomily.

"We're hear to listen to the case for the early release of one Ms Marlowe Catalyn Viccellio, prisoner number six-five-six-oh-five-two," the head of the board said, his voice rough. "Mr Ellis?"

"Miss Viccellio did break into a blood bank, with her brother – a convicted murderer – to steal blood. She and her brother caused about two thousand dollars worth of property damage. The state believes she should remain in this facility for the duration of her sentence."

"And no one was hurt during that little misadventure," the lawyer pointed out. "And the blood was recovered. Or, at least, most of it. Some of it was accidentally…er…spilled."

Carlton remembered Spencer telling him about that. The only good part of that was hearing that Guster had punched him in the chest as a result.

"So, what, no harm, no foul, Mr Carruthers?" the head of the board snapped, giving Marlowe's lawyer a sharp glare. "I understand you have someone here to vouch for Miss Viccellio's character?"

"Uh, yes, sir, I call…Detective Carlton Lassiter."

Carlton stood and moved over to the table, sitting down beside the lawyer, who gave him a searching look.

Baxter leaned forward, studying Carlton. "Detective Lassiter, never before in the past fifteen years of your stellar service to the Santa Barbara Police Department have you been in this room or any other parole board meeting anywhere in the entire state of California and possibly even this planet to petition for the early release of any prisoner who was incarcerated for any crime including littering. In fact, I seem to recall that the last time you attended a parole board hearing, you were actually trying to persuade the board to change a prisoner's sentence from life without parole to death via…let's see if I can recall…Woody Allen movies."

Lassiter cleared his throat. "Everybody Says I Love You, in particular, sir, but that man was a cold-blooded murderer who decapitated two women and dumped their remains in a landfill, and Miss Viccellio is…not."

"She is a thief and a liar, though," one of the women on the board spoke up.

"She was trying to help her brother," Carlton said. He could barely believe he was saying such a thing. Before Marlowe, a thief and a liar wouldn't get a single good word out of him. Not one. But this was different. She hadn't intended to hurt anyone. Of course, it still went through his mind sometimes, when he remembered how they had met. He had been her first mark – she had been coerced (persuaded? talked into? begged?) into luring him somewhere so her brother could bonk him over the head and drain some of his blood. Or was it something else, like that urban legend about a German guy being drugged in his hotel room in Bangkok after a night of great sex with a hot blonde and waking up in a bathtub filled with blood-covered ice, a note instructing him on who to call, and by the way, thanks for the kidney…

He cleared his throat and swallowed. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen. He was operating on faith now. He had to.

What was this called? Terror and elation all at once? Telation? Elerror? Oh, God, he thought. I'm thinking like Spencer!

"Detective?" Baxter said sharply. "Still with us?"

"Sorry. Uh…like I was saying, she didn't hurt anybody. Her brother did all that. Her actions were well-meant, if misguided, and she was only trying to keep a family member alive. She shouldn't have done what she did, but…well…uh…it was for a commendable cause. I'm not saying she can be excused for what she did. Reasons are not excuses, but the reasons were…er…valid. I'm sure that if you had a family member or loved one who was dying, you would move heaven and earth to help them. You'd even do something…illegal, if necessary, if it really came down to it."

"Would you?" Baxter asked him.

"I'm as human as the next guy." Carlton took a deep breath. "Sir. And isn't mercy a big part of justice?"

The panel stared at Lassiter, all with varying expressions of dismay and surprise. He tugged at his collar. He hated being stared at. Even more than he hated admitting to being human. You're a robot, sir!

Finally, Baxter spoke up. "Her brother also attacked you in your home, did he not?"

"I'm not going to advocate for his release, sir," Carlton said, adding a chilly edge to his voice. "And I overpowered him."

"After he chloroformed you?" the second woman asked him, looking down at her notes.

"Uh…yeah."

"How in hell do you overpower someone while chloroformed?"

"Well…a little slowly, I admit, but I did manage it, and Adrian Viccellio is serving a fifteen-year sentence for second degree murder. Marlowe Viccellio, on the other hand, never laid a hand on anybody." He remembered her hands on his body and drew in a breath, forcing himself back to calm and collected instead of…he winced. He hadn't felt such a powerful surge of desire for any woman in his life. It far surpassed that summer day when he was seventeen and Mrs Colby next door had lured him into her bedroom to help her 'move some furniture'…

"So you're of the opinion that Ms Viccellio is no threat to society?"

"None whatsoever, ma'am," Carlton finally answered, his heart finally slowing down a little through sheer force of will. "She has no prior criminal record, aside from a parking ticket, and she paid that fine off long ago. She has maintained steady employment since the age of sixteen, mostly with a film editing company and they're very eager to let her come back to work at any time. She's been an exemplary prisoner, with not a single incident recorded against her, and she works in the prison library and does volunteer work, teaching English to other prisoners…" His illogical and hormonal side wanted to point out that she was also beautiful and kind and funny and felt warm and soft underneath him, but his rational side smacked that part of himself down and told him to shut his going-crazy-with-longing yap.

"I still find it rather interesting that you're here to advocate for her," Baxter said coldly. "You have never shown even the slightest degree of sympathy for a prisoner before."

"I just think it's the right thing to do…sir."

"Hm."

Baxter tried again to fix Lassiter with a hard stare, but Carlton was made of sterner stuff. He returned the stare, unflinching. Finally, Baxter waved his hand and called for a conference with the other board members. The five judges put their heads together for a brief, murmured pow-wow, and Marlowe risked looking around her lawyer at him. Carlton only glanced briefly at her, and caught a brief smile in her eyes. He straightened his tie. She sat back in her chair.

Baxter finally leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the table. "Ms Vecchellio, please rise."

Marlowe stood up slowly, and Carlton's fingers twitched, his heart traveling slowly up from his chest to his throat.

"We have decided, considering your lack of criminal record and frankly, criminal finesse, to take a chance on you and allow you to be paroled. Your parole will last one year and two months, which is the remainder of what would have been your entire sentence in this facility. You will receive the conditions of your parole from your lawyer, and you will be expected to meet every single condition of that parole, without fail or you will be re-incarcerated until such time as your complete sentence is fulfilled. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Marlowe said softly.

Baxter frowned. "Well…I admit, you don't look like a criminal, but if Detective Lassiter here believes you can toe the line, then we'll stake his reputation on it." He closed the vanilla folder on the table. The five parole board members left the room in single file, and Carlton sincerely hoped they would be able to help each other remove the sticks that were crammed up their asses. He stood up and muttered polite responses to Carruthers, who shook his hand and thanked him for a job well done.

"Oh, and I guess you remember Miss Vecchellio. Marlowe, you remember Detective Lassiter, right?"

"Yes, he arrested me," she said, smiling shyly at him. Carlton swallowed. "Thank you, Detective. I…really didn't expect anyone to speak up for me." She held her hand out to him, and he finally took it, covering her smaller, fragile-looking hand with his own.

"Uh…right. Well, I…I'm a great believer in second chances. Sometimes even third and fourth…hell, sometimes, I even give the tenth and twentieth a try. Good luck." He made a very slight bow, and as soon as Carruther's back was turned, he flashed her a grin and mouthed 'Give me a call' before turning and walking out of the room and back out into the brilliant fall sunshine.

In his car, he dug around in the glovebox until he found the paper where he had written out the words. He had sent his battered copy of Shakespeare's play to Marlowe, and had underlined the words for her, hoping she would understand what he was about to do, and how it was a major turning point for him.

He taken a few drama courses in college, mainly to learn how to conceal his emotions a little better – a childhood of having them used against him had taken their toll by then, to the point that he was already finding gray hairs and his blood pressure was higher than normal at just twenty-one. It was weird, then, that the teacher had told him he was the best damned actor he had ever come across. "Mr Lassiter, I can honestly say that the theatre is losing a lot by you taking up law enforcement. You could go far on the stage." The teacher had forced Carlton to take the role of Antonio in The Merchant of Venice, but he had been (secretly) enthralled with Portia's speech, and he read the first lines again, even though he had memorized them years ago.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives

…and him that takes

He started the engine. He would still draw the line against pure evil. He knew it. He saw it every day and fought that battle every day, nonstop. But maybe…maybe it was just time to start looking at the gray areas a little when it came to people who had simply made an honest mistake while doing the best they could. Maybe it was time to start seasoning his sense of justice with a dash of mercy every now and then. He doubted it would be easy to change a lifelong attitude, but he couldn't find any reason to not give it a try. A person could change, if they really wanted to, and lately, he wanted to.

His cell phone started ringing – what would people think if they found out he had changed his ringtone to the theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? - and he saw O'Hara's name and number. He laughed to himself and let voicemail pick it up. He had a few things to square away. O'Hara could manage the interrogation, and justice was extremely patient.