February 26, 10:18 AM (Present Day)

District Court

Courtroom No. 4

"Mr. Spade!"

The sound of the judge's gavel snapped Astor Spade back to reality, breaking his earlier calm demeanor and startling him slightly.

"Er… sorry, y'Honor…"

"If we could have your attention, Mr. Spade?" the Prosecutor's voice spoke again. Finally, Astor made eye contact with the man, a bespectacled, balding gentleman, probably in his early-to-mid-fifties he guessed. During his time working at the precinct, he'd seen him around quite a bit, but had one of those forgettable faces, one that would be lost in a crowd. His voice, however, was anything but forgettable, and was the only way he was really able to remember who he was.

"Sorry, Mr. Payne." Astor replied with a large, insincere smile, making a mental note to write his name down somewhere, "Could y'repeat the question, please?"

But Prosecutor Winston Payne was having none of the insincerity, giving the witness as flat a stare as he could, as nothing seemed to be able to penetrate the glasses he wore, "Perhaps you need your hearing checked, Mr. Spade? I asked, 'How long have you worked for the defendant?'"

Astor leaned forward on the witness stand, thinking back. "It'll be... two years in March." he replied, "I joined JLD Private Investigations following the arrest of Chief Gant."

"Ah, that's right... you were a police officer, weren't you?" Payne went on with his own insincere smile.

Astor could feel his blood pressure starting to rise, but kept the fake smile set firmly on his face.

Something about that comment rubbed him the wrong way, especially coming from a man like Payne. He was almost sure it was made to get under his skin.

'Don't give in to it.' went one part of his mind, 'You know he's trying to bait you. That's how these Prosecutors work.'

"Yes, Prosecutor, I was." he finally spoke, still smiling, "I'm flattered y'remember me."

"I have to tell you, Mr. Spade, I can't abide quitters." Payne shook his head disdainfully, like a father scolding his child, "Abandoning the police department in what was possibly its darkest hour... truly shameful."

Astor raised himself up from his leaning position, all pretenses of pleasantries gone from his face, replaced by an undeniable frown and a hard stare toward the Prosecutor's bench. "Are we trying t'make this personal, Mr. Payne? I didn't know my career was on trial, here."

"Of course not." the Prosecutor replied, smiling that damnable smile. Payne had scored something of a point there in that exchange, Astor thought, and he knew it. "This is a murder trial. A trial that almost didn't come to pass, thanks to you."

Astor tightened his jaw and opened his mouth to speak but Payne beat him to the punch, "But none of the evidence I've seen seems to indicate that you were an accomplice or that you were trying to deliberately sabotage the Prosecution's case. You were simply blundering about, as is usually the case with your private investigator types."

"Tell me, Prosecutor," Astor cut in sharply, not bothering to feign a respectful tone nor hide the frustration in his voice, "am I here as a witness or as your personal punching bag? I understand not getting a decent victory in several years can be a blow to your ego, but-"

"Why, you little-"

The increasingly irate banter between the two was abruptly cut off by a sharp hammering of the gavel.

"Mr. Payne." the Judge intoned, looking down at the two men, "Mr. Spade. If you could both focus on the facts of the case, please?"

"Of course, your Honor." Payne was quick to reply, breaking away contact with Astor to return to the case files in front of him. "Frank Goode. Grant Bedder. Harold Zebest. Familiar names to you, Mr. Spade?"

Astor had calmed slightly, irritation still present on his features, but he managed to keep his tone level, "Yes, Mr. Payne, they would be; they were my colleagues at JLD Private Investigations."

"Yes, they were." the Prosecutor nodded, "All three of them were private investigators. All three of them were former police detectives. And all three of them were victims of your mutual employer, Mr. Jack Daman."

Astor instinctively glanced at Jack at that as a murmur rippled through the people in attendance. The man hadn't flinched, hadn't budged an inch even as Payne spoke the charge against him. Not a flicker of emotion across his face, nothing so much as a grimace upon being accused with murder. For the moment, Astor couldn't tell whether Jack had a fantastic poker face or if there was a coldness in him that would freeze the devil in his tracks.

"You were there for two years, Mr. Spade." Payne spoke up again, "How well did you know the victims?"

"Not that well. I wasn't exactly the social type an' we all worked our own cases. That's the way they were used to running things." Astor replied, moving his gaze from Jack again, "Even when we all came to work together on large cases, they were a lot closer to each other than they were to me."

"And why was that?"

"S'pretty obvious, I'd think." he shrugged, "They were police detectives f'years before they went private. They'd been through plenty t'gether. I was the new kid comin' in. Doubt they were that ready to open up."

"Or was it because of something else, Mr. Spade?" Payne flicked his hand about his forehead, as if nudging a pompadour that was no longer there, "Something that, through your very... helpful investigations, you uncovered that they didn't want to share with you?"

The young detective said nothing, instead keeping his gaze leveled at the prosecutor. He knew exactly where Payne was going with this.

"Let's go back." the Prosecutor said, "Let's go back to the very last case you all worked on together, Mr. Spade."

The last case? Astor thought for a moment, frowning slightly. That case. Not exactly something he wanted to remember, but there was no going back now. He shifted his stance uncomfortably.

'I'm here as a witness.' he thought, mind racing, 'A witness of the prosecution, no less. ...so why does it feel like I'M the one that's on trial here?'

"...The last case we all worked on together was several weeks ago." He began, "We had been hired to investigate death threats made against a certain person. We were told to find out who it was an' apprehend them."

"And who hired you?" Payne persisted, "Who was the client?"

The young detective was silent for a few moments, as if weighing the consequences of the next words he spoke. Confidentiality, at that point, was hardly an issue; he was damn sure positive that the Prosecutor already knew who it was anyway.

Astor placed both hands on the witness stand as a sigh escaped his lips, focus once again on the judge's bench. "The client was Dyce Rollins, Chief of Police."

The courtroom exploded in shouting.

The Judge repeatedly hammered his gavel in an attempt to restore order as Astor began to recall the events of that day.