"The People call Keri Dyson."

Regan pulled her legal pad towards her and uncapped her pen as the doors opened. She heard the slight rustle as everyone in the crowded public benches turned to get a look at Keri. She concentrated on writing the date and time carefully at the top of the page to prevent herself from doing the same.

Footsteps, heels tapping on the floor. Out of the corner of her eye Regan saw Keri step past the bar and then hesitate before staying close by the prosecution table and as far away from Jack McCoy as possible as she moved into the well of the court. Nice touch. Finally, Regan let herself look up as Keri took her seat and was sworn in.

Regan could guess Keri had dressed as carefully for the day as Regan herself had, although to different effect. Her suit was a dove-gray, demure, the blouse beneath it high-collared. Her hair was pulled back, not the most flattering style but one that showed every inch of the deep purple bruises to her eye and cheek to the jury. She looked pretty, but not pretty enough to make any of the female jurors jealous or to give any of the men on the jury Neanderthal ideas about it being understandable for a fellow to get carried away. She looked, in short, exactly the way Regan would want a complaining witness to look in a case she herself was prosecuting.

It was a reminder, if she needed one, that Keri Dyson was no ordinary witness, that she was not just a lawyer but an ADA and she'd know every one of the tricks that Regan had so painstakingly learned from Jack McCoy.

"Please state your name for the record," Cutter asked, tone absolutely neutral.

"Keri Marie Dyson."

He took her through her date of birth, her occupation, her address. And then —

"How long have you worked at the District Attorney's Office?"

Regan kept her face calmly attentive as Keri answered, and as Cutter took her through the rest of her work history, job by job and promotion by promotion, but she wrote on the pad in front of her What is he doing? and turned it for McCoy to read.

He took the pen from her hand and wrote underneath it opening the door.

And underlined it, twice.

Keri looked, perhaps, slightly confused, or maybe that was Regan's imagination and wishful thinking. Regan stole a glance at Cutter and couldn't read his expression at all.

"On the evening of May third, did you visit the Lord Roberts?" Cutter asked.

Judge Wright shot a glance at Regan, no doubt waiting for an objection on leading the witness. Regan kept her mouth closed and her backside firmly in her seat. If she was right, Cutter was working hard to leave it open for the defense to cross-examine on Keri's allegations without suborning perjury himself. She wasn't going to risk making it impossible for him to open every door he could.

"I did," Keri said.

"What happened there?" Slight stress on the last word.

Keri went through the evening, nothing Regan could identify as a lie. She's too clever to lie about things a dozen other lawyers saw.

Cutter glanced down at his papers. "When did you leave the bar?"

"About a quarter to nine."

"Alone?"

"No. I left with Mr McCoy. I wanted to make sure he got safely home."

"How did you travel?"

"I hailed a cab."

"And on the morning of May fourth, what did you do?" Cutter asked.

And now there was a slight upright line between Keri's eyebrows, the hint of a frown, as Cutter skipped straight past the events of the evening of May third, past everything that happened at McCoy's apartment. "I went to work," she said.

"Was it a normal day?"

"No. How could it be a normal day? I'd been assaulted the night before."

Cutter ignored Keri's efforts to steer him back to the previous evening. "What did you do, on the morning of May fourth?"

"I confronted Mr McCoy over his assault of me."

"And how did he respond?"

"He tried to intimidate me with a false charge of blackmail."

"You are currently charged with attempted blackmail, correct?"

Keri's eyes filled with tears. "Yes. I just — everyone respects Mr McCoy. I wanted him to make things right, I wasn't sure I should make a fuss but I wanted him to make things right. I didn't mean — it wasn't blackmail. I was just confused."

"And then you made a complaint against Mr McCoy?"

"Yes."

Cutter took a document from the folder in front of him and crossed to the witness stand. "Is this the complaint?"

Keri took the paper reluctantly and looked at it. "Yes."

"Can you read the name of the Assistant District Attorney who filled out the form?"

"Yes," Dyson said. "Regan Markham."

"Is Regan Markham in this courtroom?" Cutter asked.

"You know she is," Keri said.

"Mr Cutter, where is this going?" Judge Wright asked.

"I seek to put all relevant facts before the jury, your honor."

Judge Wright raised an eyebrow. "Ms Markham?"

Regan raised herself a little from her seat. "No objection, your honor."

A pause. "Continue, Mr Cutter," Judge Wright said at last.

"Can you point out Regan Markham, Ms Dyson?" Cutter asked.

Keri raised her hand and pointed at Regan. "That's her."

"Mr McCoy's defense attorney is the same person as the Assistant District Attorney who took your complaint against Mr McCoy for the matter which is the subject of this trial?"

"Yes."

"Thank you," Cutter said. "No further questions."

He walked back to the bar table without looking at anyone and sat down. As Regan rose to her feet, she saw Connie Rubirosa put her hand on Cutter's arm.

Mike Cutter had done his best for McCoy. Now it was up to Regan.

Keri Dyson and the witness stand seemed an impossibly long way away across the well of the court. Regan realized her knees were trembling. She would have to ask the first question and possibly all the questions from here behind the table so the jury couldn't see how nervous she was. And what should her first question be? Her mind was blank. She looked down at the notes she scrawled while Cutter had been questioning Keri and they might as well have been written in Chinese for all the sense they made to her.

She swallowed bile, realizing she was about to lose her breakfast all over the bar table.

I can't.

Can't do this.

Can't help him.

Can't help anybody.

Frantically, she leafed through her papers, finding the page she'd filled with notes after McCoy's critique of her courtroom technique on the day before. There had to be something there …

McCoy took hold of the page and turned it face down. "You don't need that," he said softly.

"Jack, I — I'll try to do as good a job as – " As Claire Kincaid would have. "I'll try to do what you would do, Jack, I'll do – "

He shook his head. "Don't do what I would do," he said. "Don't do it my way. Do it your way. Remember Timmy McMillan."

"That was police work."

"You know the truth. She knows the truth. You need to make her want to tell you. How is that so different?"

"Ms Markham?" Judge Wright asked. "Do you have questions for this witness?"

"I do, your honor."

She straightened, reaching back past McCoy's advice, past the cases they'd tried, past law school. Back to an old man's scratchy voice imparting a life-time's experience in law enforcement over the dinner-table, in the car, at every passing opportunity. People like to talk, Eli. They don't like being questioned, but they like to talk.

"Hi, Keri."

A small, tight nod in return.

"You just told the court that I was the one who took your complaint against Jack McCoy. How did that go down, exactly?"

"What do you mean?"

"Where did it happen?"

"In Mr McCoy's office."

"Was he there?"

"You know he was."

"Did he object?"

"You know he didn't."

"I do," Regan said, and smiled a little. "But you know I can't tell the court from here at the bar table. Did he say anything? Did I?"

"He —" Keri didn't want to say it, Regan could see, but if Regan couldn't testify, McCoy could. Keri was trapped into the truth. "He ordered you to do it. You — you said something about 'rookie hazing'."

"Thank you." On the record, in the jury's memory — that Jack McCoy had followed the letter of the law, that Jack McCoy's attorney had never for a moment believed him guilty. "Keri, you told us about having a few drinks with Mr McCoy at the Lord Roberts." Regan turned back to the bar table and picked up a piece of paper at random. She pretended to read from it. "Three drinks."

"I don't know how many drinks he'd had."

Relieved to realize her knees had stopped trembling, Regan moved out from behind the bar table and into the center of the courtroom. Closer to the witness stand, making it more a conversation, but not too close, leaving Keri plenty of room to feel comfortable. About the same distance she'd leave between herself and someone getting upset on the street. "How many drinks did you see him have, Keri?"

"Three."

"Two of which you bought for him, didn't you?"

"I don't remember. Maybe. People were going to the bar … you know how it is."

"We've heard from several witnesses who are quite certain you bought Mr McCoy two of the three drinks he consumed at the bar."

Keri shrugged. "If they say so. It's not the sort of thing you keep track of — unless you're cheap, I suppose."

Regan let that lie, confident that at least one of the jurors brought out the calculator when it was time to split the check. "And after three drinks, you were concerned about Mr McCoy's ability to get home?"

"I don't know how much he'd had."

"Well, we've heard testimony that he hadn't had a drink before he arrived at the bar. And that he'd had three drinks and no more at the bar."

"I don't know."

"All right," Regan said easily. "But Mr McCoy was apparently intoxicated enough that you were concerned enough to make sure he got home."

"Yes."

"You hailed a cab. At 8.37 pm."

"It might have been. It was around then."

"According to the voucher you submitted for reimbursement to the District Attorney's office, it was at 8.37 pm."

A small, upright line appeared between Keri's eyebrows. "Then that's when it was. I thought … I mean, I was trying to make sure my boss got home safely. It seemed okay to use the office voucher."

"You hailed a cab driven by Mr Enrico Rodriguez," Regan said.

"I didn't ask his name," Keri said a little tartly.

"Fair enough," Regan said calmly. "You had no reason to. Your honor, I tender to the court the cab-fare voucher submitted by this witness for reimbursement, which records the hack number of the driver, along with documentation from the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission identifying Mr Enrico Rodriguez as the registered holder of that license."

"I fail to see the relevance, Ms Markham," Judge Wright said.

"It will become apparent, your honor."

The judge looked at the prosecution table. "Mr Cutter?"

Cutter half rose. "I think we can all agree that the witness and Mr McCoy traveled by taxi. I have no objection to the defense stipulating which particular cab it was."

Judge Wright nodded. "Go ahead, Ms Markham."

"Thank you, your honor." Regan handed up the documents, and moved back to the center of the court, a little closer to Keri this time. "What happened then?"

Keri was wary now. "Mr McCoy was … intoxicated. The cab driver had to help him out of the cab."

"You haven't mentioned that before, in your statements or depositions. Why not?"

"It didn't seem important."

Or it didn't support your story, but now you know I'm able to call the cab driver you figure you can't contradict what he says. Regan kept her face pleasantly expressionless, and nodded. "And then?"

Whatever Keri said next would be a lie, and Regan knew it just as Cutter had known it. He hadn't been able to ask his witness a question that would lead to perjury. But Regan could, could ask questions expecting Keri Dyson to lie because her whole intention was to expose the lies.

Small problem, though — Cutter had been very careful not to ask anything about what happened after McCoy and Keri caught the cab, and Judge Wright glanced over at the prosecution table. "Mr Cutter, did I hear you clear your throat?"

Cutter bobbed up. "No, your honor. It appears to me the People have no grounds to object, as the witness alluded to events occurring between leaving the bar and the next morning in her answers on direct."

Wright gave him a long, level look. "You may answer the question, Ms Dyson."

And now Regan could see more than wariness, could see alarm and calculation, in Keri's eyes. "I helped Mr McCoy upstairs to his apartment."

"And?"

"We went inside. I — Mr McCoy was … he had the wrong idea about why I'd taken him home. I tried to leave. He was insistent. He …" Keri's eyes filled with tears, and she wiped her lower lashes with her fingers before they could fall. "He struck me. Several times. I managed to get away and I ran out and got away."

"Did you call the police?"

"No. I didn't want … I didn't want to get him in trouble."

"He seems to be in quite considerable trouble right now, Keri."

"Well, he … at the time, I felt … I felt … you know how it is." Keri tried a watery smile at the jury. "I felt stupid, for being there. I know that it's never a woman's fault, but it feels different, when it's you."

Regan had to give Keri that one. It was a good answer, and Regan would have bet there was at least one woman on the jury who'd found herself standing in the shower trying to scrub the sense of shame away and who had never told a soul about the guy who'd 'gotten the wrong idea'.

"But the next day, you went to see Mr McCoy. You weren't scared of him?"

"Of course I was scared," Keri said, a little sharply. "But it was daytime, in the office, and I figured he'd be sober."

"Why did you go to see Mr McCoy and not to the police, or go down to the complaints room and swear out a statement?"

"I guess …" Keri paused, and then shrugged a little. "I guess I still thought, well, he's Mr McCoy. I wanted … I wanted him to make it right, but I didn't want … didn't want the whole office up-ended. I mean, he's famous. He tries all the high-profile cases. Isn't it better that murderers and terrorists go to jail?"

"So when," Regan said, still in the same calm, even tone, "you told Mr McCoy that unless he gave you a transfer to Narcotics you'd have him charged with assaulting you, that was for the sake of the District Attorney's Office?"

"That's not what I said to him. I told him he should make it right, and he offered to transfer me to Narcotics. If I didn't press charges against him."

"Right before he called me in and ordered me to write up a complaint against him for exactly those charges? Does that make sense to you, Keri? Because it doesn't make sense to me."

"I — I don't know why he did that."

"Maybe he doesn't like being blackmailed. But let's back this up a little bit, Keri, back to Mr McCoy's apartment. You helped him get up to his front door, you said."

"Yes."

"Who else was in the elevator with the two of you?"

"I — I don't know what you mean."

"Was the doorman in the elevator with you?"

"I — he might have been. I was concentrating on Mr McCoy."

"So it would surprise you to learn that the doorman, Mr Joseph Evatt, was in the elevator because he was concerned at Mr McCoy's state of extreme intoxication — after just three drinks — and was assisting you help him upstairs?"

Dyson looked past Regan at Mike Cutter. Regan followed her gaze. Was Cutter going to object?

Cutter sat motionless, attentive gaze fixed on the witness stand.

"That's not what I remember," Keri said.

"That's what Mr Evatt remembers and will tell this court," Regan said. She reached back and felt McCoy put a folder in her hand. "And what he said in this sworn statement."

"Mr Cutter," Judge Wright said sharply.

"Ah …" Cutter rose slowly to his feet. "I gather Ms Markham is seeking to introduce this evidence under the principle of limited admissibility?"

"Mr Cutter is correct," Regan said. "I will seek to call both Mr Evatt and Mr Rodriguez, once the People's case is concluded, and at that time I will ask your honor for a jury direction that their evidence is considered in full. However, at this time, I seek only to impeach the witness."

"I'm afraid I can't see a grounds for me to object, your honor," Cutter said.

"Very well," Judge Wright said. He turned to the jury. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defense is referring to statements made by witnesses who have not testified before this court. Because of that, you have had no opportunity to form an opinion on their truthfulness or reliability. You cannot consider their evidence as proof of any facts or events, but only as a factor in assessing the reliability of the witness currently on the stand." He leaned back in his seat. "Continue, Ms Markham."

"Thank you, your honor." Regan moved a little closer to Keri in the witness stand, a little closer to the jury. "Mr Evatt helped Mr McCoy upstairs with you, and into Mr McCoy's apartment, didn't he?"

"No," Keri said instantly, and then reconsidered. "That is … he might have come upstairs. But not inside. Not while I was there."

"But he was inside while you were there, Keri. He came inside with the both of you, and he was so concerned about Mr McCoy that he called Mr McCoy's doctor."

"Maybe after I left he did," Keri said, and Regan felt the scales tip. This was the point when every police officer knew that they were going to get home, even if there was a long way yet to go to get there. The point when the suspect started offering explanations, started trying to fill in the cracks and contradictions.

"And stayed with Mr McCoy until the doctor arrived," Regan went on steadily, as if Keri hadn't spoken. "Doctor Margolis, who said in his statement that when he reached Mr McCoy's apartment, Mr McCoy was unconscious, Mr Evatt was waiting for the doctor to arrive, and there was no-one else at all in the apartment."

"That must all have happened after I left," Keri said stubbornly.

"Is that your testimony, Keri? That Mr Evatt, who has no reason at all to lie, didn't go upstairs to Mr McCoy's apartment and call a doctor for him until after you left?"

"I don't know what reason he would have to lie," Keri said. "Or to be confused."

Regan nodded, as if considering it. "Confused. Okay, I can see that. Maybe he didn't get concerned until he saw you leave and realized Mr McCoy was on his own."

"That must be what happened."

"Funny he didn't remember seeing you leave, though, isn't it? Since you must have been in quite a state. Those bruises are still pretty shocking. You'd think Mr Evatt would remember seeing a woman who'd been beaten as badly as you say you were, running out of his building."

"Maybe he only saw my back," Keri said. "Maybe he was looking away."

"Maybe," Regan said, nodding again. "I mean, those injuries … I'd remember them, if I saw them." She turned back to the bar table and McCoy had the file ready for her. Flipping it open, Regan strolled back towards Keri, reading aloud. "Cracked cheekbone, contusions, trauma to the lower and upper lip …" She paused. "Oh, my mistake, this is your medical report from June 2000. When you laid charges against Harold Grafton. But you dropped those charges, didn't you? Was that before or after you were hired at Bentley and Grafton?"

"You can't ask me about that!" Keri said.

Belatedly, Cutter rose to his feet. "Objection —"

"Mr Cutter opened this door on direct, your honor," Regan said.

Judge Wright nodded. "He did. But I remind the jury again that none of this is evidence of facts or events. You can only consider it as it bears on this witnesses credibility."

"Thank you, your honor." Regan dropped the file back on the bar table and McCoy handed her the next. "Here we are. Cracked cheekbone, contusions, trauma to the lower and upper lip …the same doctor, I see. As well as the same injuries. Oh, my mistake. This is from May 2004. Just before Barry Norrell hired you to work at N.W.N, despite your lack of experience in corporate law. I have a statement here from Mr Norrell, Keri, about you threatening to charge him with assault if he didn't give you that job."

"That is not true."

"Maybe this is the right file," Regan said, as McCoy held out the third set of documents for her to take. "It looks like it. Looks just like the other two. Oh, except for the date. August 2005. That's funny, that's right when you jumped three pay-grades in the move from appeals to the Identity Fraud Bureau. Oh, here we are, May 3rd, 2007. Same injuries, same doctor. Which is odd, since he's been practicing down in Baltimore for four years."

"I don't know where you think you got those —"

"From the men willing to testify that you blackmailed them into hiring or promoting you, Keri, that's where I got them." Which was not entirely true, certainly not for the first file which Rey Curtis had effectively stolen, but then, Keri Dyson was under oath, not Regan.

"I never —"

"But you did." Regan closed the file, taking the last step that brought her right by the witness stand. "I can see how it happened," she said gently. "Grafton really beat on you, didn't he? And you went straight to the police. And he told you that he was willing to make it worth your while to drop the charges."

"He said I'd never prove it," Keri said softly. "He said he could get a lawyer who'd run rings around the DA's Office and I'd end up branded a liar and never work in New York again."

"What an asshole," Regan said sympathetically. "And I guess after, what, three or four years working for him, you were pretty desperate to get out, weren't you?"

Keri nodded. "But he wouldn't give me a decent reference. Every job I went for …"

"And it occurred to you there was a way out. I don't know, Keri, I might have started thinking along the same lines myself, in your position. Your back was really to the wall."

"It was," Keri whispered.

"And after the first time, it's always easier, isn't it? And it wasn't really doing any harm, was it? You got the job, you got the promotion, but you did deserve them, after all. After what you'd been through. And you never got those guys into any trouble, did you?"

Long ago, her first month with Highway Patrol, Officer Elish Reagan had pulled over a car with a broken tail-light on one of the long, winding roads through the forest that she was responsible for. She hadn't known that the driver was armed; she hadn't known that he was driving unlicensed; she hadn't known that he had enough marijuana in the trunk of his car to earn him six years, easy. When he'd floored the accelerator rather than pull over, Reagan had given chase, light and sirens and her partner on the radio calling in their location.

Broken Tail-Light hadn't known the area, or maybe he'd just taken a wrong turn. He'd gone up a driveway instead of a turn-off and Reagan's traffic stop had turned into a hostage situation with a little old lady in a rickety wooden house and an armed felon shouting threats through the closed door.

Backup had been an hour away. Keep him talking, her sergeant had said over the radio. Keep him talking, keep him calm.

So she'd rung the one infallible source of law enforcement advice in her life, her great-grandfather, and he'd told her that there was always a point, every criminal, every crime, where all they want is for it just to stop, for everything to go back the way it was before they made that first bad decision that had led them to the dead-end where they were trapped.

She'd talked and talked through the closed door, talked until she was hoarse, and eventually she'd heard, from inside the house, I didn't mean for this to happen and she'd known they were at that point, the point her Gran-Da had told her to look for: the point where the right words, at the right time, in the right tone, would end with guns and lies and denials being finally laid down.

Regan looked at Keri Dyson and knew they were at that point right now.

"It just kind of got away from you this time, didn't it?" Regan asked softly. "You didn't mean to be here. You didn't mean for Mr McCoy to be on trial. You didn't mean to lie to me, or to Mr Cutter, or to the jury. Just one little white lie to Mr McCoy, and it would be over. It just got away from you, that's all."

"I didn't — it wasn't —"

For a heartbeat Regan had the horrible feeling that she'd miscalculated, that she'd pushed Keri too soon, or in the wrong way. That she'd be forced to leave the jury with Keri's denials ringing in their ears.

"No-one was supposed to get hurt!" Keri burst out, and buried her face in her hands.

.oOo.