1 Hogan Place

The mood in the Executive Assistant DA's office was subdued this morning.

Ben Stone, sipping his morning coffee, looked around the room, at his companions.

When Rikers Security had arrived to take Roger Hall into Protection, they had found him dead in his cell. There hadn't even been a mark found on his body.

Liz Rodgers was currently hard at work in the ME's Office, but it would be a while before she had anything substantive to report.

Duvall, at least, was alive. But in a coma from which it was possible he might never awaken.

Still, there was a twenty-four hour guard set over him. Just in case…

"What did the doctors say about Duvall?"

"Jack," Jamie Ross sighed. "They said it was highly likely he would never wake up. There's nothing they can do. Briscoe and Curtis are trying to lock down who killed Roger Hall; but they won't be able to do much until the ME's Office discovers how Roger Hall died."

"Light a fire under Liz Rodgers," McCoy snapped. "I'm not going to let them get away with murder by committing more murder!"

There was a knock on McCoy's office door.

It was Anais Van Der Hooten who walked in hesitantly at McCoy's barked command.

"May I borrow Ben Stone for a minute?" she asked.

"I'll be back," Ben Stone stood at Jack McCoy's graceless assent, and stepped outside into the hall with his original client.

"What's wrong, Lynn?" Van Der Hooten was a world-renowned science fiction writer. What the world didn't know, what only a very few-including Ben Stone-knew was that Anais Van Der Hooten was really fabulously wealthy Carolyn Edgewood.

The murder of Daniel Carrera, and the discovery of a life insurance policy, with her named as the beneficiary, was what had set this whole thing off.

"I need to ask you a legal question, Ben," she said. "The killer bought a life insurance policy for Mr. Carrera, but made it in my name."

"Yes, Lynn," Stone nodded. "Two million dollars."

"I want to give two million to Mrs. Carrera, so she and her children won't be destitute. Is there a way I can do this so she won't have to pay income tax? Also, I don't want her to know where the money came from. Don't want her thinking she's beholden to me, or anything."

"I'll see what I can do…" he sighed. "It's not your fault, Lynn. You didn't do this."

"I know!" she snapped. 'Someone killed Danny to get to me. That doesn't make me feel any better. You and Mr. McCoy…just you and he do your best to get the bastards, all right? I can talk to you about how to help the Carrera Family once that's done."

"Thank you, Lynn. May I walk you out?"

"Thanks, but I know my way out," she smiled sadly. "Go get them, Ben. Make them pay."

…..

Rikers Island Correctional Facility

Sometimes, miracles really do happen, Jack McCoy thought to himself.

Liz Rodgers had come through, as usual. It had been an unusual kind of choke-hold.

It had left no bruises, but strangled Hall just as easily.

That pointed everyone to Samuel Gardinski; a prison guard who had served in the Marines in the Eighties.

Now, Gardinski was safely held in Solitary. Even better, he had confessed, freely, after having signed a waiver in front of, and over the protests of, his attorney. He had even named his employer.

Emory Chance.

That was not the only miracle…

…..

Manhattan General

"Are you going to be my attorney, Neil?" Dr. Dan Duvall's voice was raspy; the result of a couple of days on a ventilator. But he was sitting up, and even with oxygen cannulas up his nose, he looked alert. A remarkable recovery for a man who had been on death's doorstep only the day before.

Neil Gorton sighed.

"There might be conflict," he warned. "But, for now, I can act as your attorney. Gotta warn you, Jack McCoy thinks you were the one who killed Heidi Ellison."

The look in Duvall's eyes was the only confirmation Gorton needed.

"For God's sake, Dan…why?"

"Neil…You don't know what Chance, and the others, had on me."

"Enlighten me, Dan," Gorton took a chair by Duvall's bedside. "I'm all ears…"

…..

Some hours later, the Executive Assistant DA sat in the small private hospital room, along with the Defendant, and his Attorney.

"Man Two…" Gorton still had his duties as Duvall's Defense Attorney. "Minimum Sentence."

Jack McCoy didn't want to do it, didn't want to let Duvall off so lightly. It had been Duvall who had killed Heidi Ellison, it had been Duvall who had given Eddie Newman that barong, and it had been Duvall who had told Newman to cut Ellison's body up and dispose of the remains.

It had been Duvall who had set Eddie Newman up to take the blame.

And now, Eddie Newman was dead too.

All because of what this sonofabitch did…

But Duvall was also promising to give them Emory Chance, and all the other members of this so-called Schadenfreude Society.

Man Two was also what they had offered Roger Hall, and what they were offering Samuel Gardinski…

"Your information had better be pure gold," Jack McCoy growled.

"They made me do it!" Duvall was almost weeping. They had…stuff…on me!"

"Stuff?"

Neil Gorton cleared his throat.

"You remember Nikki Starz?" he said.

Nikki Starz. A rising star with incredible…assets, and a mediocre talent. Whatever her talent, her rise had been meteoric. Until an overdose of prescription pills had put an end to her life.

"I was careless," Duvall explained. "Put her on the wrong meds. Chance found out, threatened to destroy my career. I had to do what he said, or he'd ruin me."

"All right…" McCoy hated doing this, letting Duvall off with Man Two, when he had sent people who had done less, to prison with harsher sentences. But he needed Dan Duvall to bring the Schadenfreude Society down.

"Man Two," he gritted his teeth and got on with it. "Minimum Sentence. In return, you're going to give us everything on the Schadenfreude Society. Where they go…what they do…and who they do it with."

Duvall looked to Gorton. Gorton nodded.

"This is as good as it's going to get, Dan. I'd take it if it were me…"

"Fine," Dan Duvall nodded too. "I'm in…"