Life or Death 2
By: Olivia

Eight Months Later

"Am I interrupting?"

Nora tore her gaze away from the window and looked to see Jack standing in her doorway with a pen stuck behind his ear and a notepad stuffed underneath his arm.

"No," said Nora. "C'mon in Jack."

Jack walked into Nora's office and stood solemnly beside her. The two gazed out the window at the people rushing about to work as the early morning sunlight beamed down upon them where it could amidst the skyscrapers, which normally blocked out most of the sun.

"Mr. James Mancuso was executed by lethal injection at 12:01 this morning by order of the State of New York. Another day has come but Mr. Mancuso has already breathed his last breath," said Nora not taking her eyes off the people below.

"You didn't attend the execution," said Jack. It was more of statement rather than a question.

Nora shook her head. She cast him a quick sidelong glance. "On a friend's advice, I decided not to go."

Jack didn't say anything, but inside he was relieved that Nora had taken his advice and had not gone. None of them had. Not Lennie or Ed. Abbie had been thinking about going, but then decided that Mancuso wasn't worth her time. She had other more important cases pressing.

Nora began to speak again. "None of those possibilities you said might happen to prevent Mr. Mancuso from being executed seems to have worked. The end result is that we helped a man to die today."

It was Jack's turn to shake his head. "You can't blame yourself. Mancuso had a choice. He choose to kill people, horribly kill people. He brought this upon himself."

"Did he? I had a choice too. I didn't have to seek the death penalty. I look at all these people walking below us, going about their lives as if nothing has changed. There is one less among them today. I understand it, but I don't."

Jack took a deep breath and collected his thoughts. "They might be one less resident of New York today, but think about if we hadn't caught him, if he had gotten off, or been released down the line. Maybe other people's lives, including those down there, would have been shattered by Mancuso. Our job is to seek justice, to keep people safe. I believe we did that today. He has paid for his crime now. He will never hurt another person again."

Nora looked at Jack absorbing his words. "I take comfort in the fact that Mancuso was guilty and he was unrepentant. But who am I to say that he would never, could never, turn his life around. Maybe he should have been given that chance. A chance to redeem himself."

"There are no easy answers Nora. The first and last person I ever saw executed, I saw with friends of mine, Lennie being one of them. It tore us up, each and our own way, with disastrous results, some of which to this day I have never quite been able to get over. I don't take the death penalty lightly. All we can do is the best we can given the laws of this state. You applied the law correctly. Don't beat yourself up too much over this."

Nora smiled sadly, grateful as always for Jack's comforting pieces of wisdom. She was lucky to have him on her team. Even luckier to have someone she could trust, someone she could let her guard down with before she faced the world as if she never had any doubts about her decisions. "Thanks, Jack."

"Anytime," said Jack smiling.

"Well," said Nora, turning back to the new business at hand. "I supposed you wanted to talk to me about the Hoyt case." Nora sat down at her seat behind her desk.

Jack nodded and sat down across from her.

"So what have we got so far?" asked Nora.

Jack began to explain and the two carried on with crime and punishment.