Olivia and Elliot sat in the interrogation room with Clancy, who thus far had refused to say a single word, and merely sat at the other side of the table, looking at them from time to time but mostly just looking towards the wall.
"We know you're a smart man, John," Olivia said, "you're no fool. See we know that you know how all of this works, your mother was a cop, she probably taught you all about interrogation procedures. But you also have to know that we know what happened. The gunshot residue test we ran is going to come up positive, it's going to tell us that you fired a gun recently, and ballistics is going to match one of the two guns we confiscated from your car as being the one that shot Dr. Moll in the back of the head. We also know that you went to Spencer Academy, you picked up David, and you didn't take him home, you went on the run. All of this is going to stack up nicely for a jury to get the big picture. And you know that D.A.s are always willing to cut a deal, all you'd have to do is tell us everything that happened. Maybe it's not as bad as it looks. Maybe it was an accident, things just got out of hand, you panicked, it happens all the time."
"Obviously you and Steven Moll had an argument about something," Elliot said, "about David? About how he was never there and you were the one playing daddy for four long years."
"Or maybe it was something else," Olivia said, "something more personal."
Clancy folded his arms and made a less than amused sound and told them, "You two really are stupid."
Olivia slammed on the table the photo of Clancy, Moll and David at the safari park.
"Looks like one big happy family," she said, watching Clancy look away from the picture and leer at the wall again, "except it wasn't, was it? And we know it wasn't."
"The company you work for, they train you for everything, how to handle every possible scenario," Elliot said, "except how to handle kids…nobody and nothing prepares you for that, it's all hands on experience with no guidelines. I know, I have 4 of them myself. I look back at all the stuff I did wrong, it's like 'Why didn't somebody warn me about this?' You know, annoying little kid screaming, whining, crying all day, 'I want daddy, I want daddy'. And I know my wife thought plenty of times 'where the hell is that bastard?', you probably said the same thing a hundred times."
"You know what, I think this picture would look a lot better," Olivia pressed the heel of her hand against the photograph, blocking Moll's image from it, "like this. Just the two of you with nobody to interfere. We have some other pictures." From her lap, Olivia produced one photo after another of David from one year to the next. "You watched him grow up from a little boy into a handsome young man, and who knows what the future could hold? But that couldn't happen with Steven Moll in the way, could it?"
"Wow, you are one dumb bitch, you know that?" Clancy asked her.
"See, that's what I said," Elliot replied, "I told her she's way off base, it's very obvious what happened. You saw this rich bastard who had a son he didn't even appreciate, while you and your wife spent 8 years together and couldn't even have a child, then she leaves you, and you've got to be kicking yourself, if you'd had a kid she would've stayed and you'd still be together and your life would be perfect. Why was that anyway, your sperm count too low or what?"
Clancy managed a small, unamused smile, and responded, "This is seriously what you people do all day? I want my taxes back."
"Well I wouldn't worry about that, you've just forfeited paying them for the next 25 years to life," Elliot told him. "Of course the D.A. would probably be willing to knock down the charges if you'd just tell us where David is."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Clancy replied.
Elliot slammed another photograph on the table, a still taken from the security footage at the motel.
"That's you carrying David out to the car, he's unconscious, what did you do to him, Clancy?"
"CSU is tossing your car, they find so much as one drop of blood, you're history," Olivia told him. "You murdered Steven Moll in the process of kidnapping his son, that's murder 1, that's the death penalty, John, you're too good for that."
The door to the interrogation room flew open, and Clancy jumped back in his chair. Elliot and Olivia turned and saw a middle aged man in a dark suit with a briefcase enter the room.
"This interview is over," he said.
"Who the hell are you?" Elliot asked.
"Richard Palmquist, I represent Mr. Clancy."
"I didn't ask for a lawyer," Clancy spoke up.
"You didn't have to," the attorney replied, and explained to the detectives, "I'm representing him on behalf of his employer, Evan Beck at SafeTCorp."
"Get him out of here," Clancy said as he stood up, "I ain't talking to you cops but I sure as hell ain't talking to him."
An incomprehensible squabble ensued over the next few minutes between the two detectives, the lawyer, and the perp. It finally ended with Clancy telling the detectives, "Get this guy out of here, I've got nothing to say to him."
The attorney was starting to lose his cool and it showed, "Don't be stupid, John."
"Mr. Palmquist," Cragen said as he stepped into the room, "As amusing as this all has been I believe you need to come with me."
"This is an outrage," Richard Palmquist told Cragen as he paced outside the interrogation room, "it's unconstitutional."
"Mr. Palmquist, as I recall, a defendant does have the right to waive their right to counsel," Cragen pointed out. "John Clancy had made it clear he doesn't wish you to represent him, and you can go back and tell Mr. Beck the same thing."
"This isn't the end, Cragen," Palmquist threatened him, "I'll be back with a lawsuit for wrongful arrest."
"I'm sure the D.A. looks forward to sparring with you," Cragen replied.
Once the defense attorney left, Cragen tapped on the 1-way glass and watched as Olivia and Elliot came out to speak with him.
"What the hell was that about?" Munch wanted to know.
"Beck has to know his guy is guilty, why's he falling over himself to get him a lawyer?" Fin asked.
"Did anybody else see what I saw in there?" Olivia asked the men around her. When nobody answered she explained, "Clancy nearly fell out of his chair when Palmquist walked in…Clancy doesn't care about being charged with murder and facing the death penalty, but he was scared of that man."
"Meaning he must know Palmquist works for SafeTCorp," Cragen said, "but what's so scary about a lawyer?"
"Maybe it's not the lawyer as much as what he'll relay back to Beck," Munch thought, "he works first and foremost for the company president, who can pay handsomely, for anything, he probably wouldn't see it as a conflict of interest to tell the right hand what the left client is doing."
"Why would that be a problem?" Olivia asked.
"Maybe something he'd divulge to an attorney would be enough for his own employers to have him killed," Munch said.
"Here we go again with the crazy ass conspiracy theories," Fin said, "we've heard them all already, Kennedy, Oswald, Ruby, Sirhan, Ray…"
"I'm not talking about that," Munch replied, "I'm talking about the Invisible Empire."
"The what?" Elliot asked.
"The Klan," Fin answered. Then he turned to Munch and asked, "What they got to do with this?"
"Beck said they've lost several men to this job, is there any way we can corroborate they just happened to be on the receiving end of the wrong crazed stalker, and not that they were fragged by their own company?" Munch asked.
Even Cragen was lost. "You think he's having his own men killed? For what reason?"
"There're a lot of secrets in this business, maybe some of the guards leaked them to the wrong people," Munch said. "Back when Stetson Kennedy was infiltrating the bed sheet brotherhood in the 40s, at the meetings all Klansmen were ordered to lay down their guns, they were collected into a pile that the only person who could access them was the Grand Dragon or Imperial Wizard. And if it was found out that any of the lower ranking sheets had committed any acts of treason against the Empire, they were executed by the organization they vowed to honor. Kennedy himself had several narrow escapes, as did his wife, whose only crime was being married to the man leaking their secrets to the writers of Superman's radio program."
"And your point?" Elliot asked.
"Kennedy reported his discoveries about the Klan all the way to the FBI and CIA, notice how even that didn't get their group shut down, any takers on why that is?" Munch asked. "And everything I've seen of this company tells me they think of themselves as a new CIA, they know everything about everybody and they expect us to believe that they don't use that information for any ulterior purposes."
"Munch, you gotta stop pulling all nighters, you finally fried your brain," Fin said.
"Maybe so, but maybe we should look into it," Cragen said. He turned to Elliot and Olivia and told them, "Get Warner on speed dial, tell Casey to wake up a judge, we're going grave robbing. In the meantime, keep working Clancy, maybe something will accidentally shake loose."
"Fin and I are up next," Munch said, "I've got everything prepared I'm going to say to him."
"This is not going to end well," Fin groaned.
"So do you think I'd have what it takes to join SafeTCorp?" Munch asked Clancy, who sat sandwiched at the table between he and Fin. Munch looked over some paperwork and continued, "Gotta be single to qualify, right? That's me. The eternal bachelor. Can you actually reclaim your bachelorhood after divorce, like women reclaim their virginity if they say a guy doesn't count? This job's got me written all over it, divorced 4 times, no kids in any of them, though I understand that's something we have in common. Probably just as well, I never wanted to stick a child with the responsibility of raising me."
"Shut up, Munch, you're acting weirder than usual," Fin said.
"Well the job pays better than being a cop, I could finally pay off the rest of my alimony," Munch replied. "You know, Mr. Clancy, I have my own take on this company, Spooks Lite. They think they're the new CIA or something, they know everything about everybody, they know stuff about people that nobody else knows, and what do they do with all that information? Gotta be selling it all to somebody, that's all every corporation does that gets your private information."
"Munch, go get us some more coffee," Fin told him.
"I'm good," he replied.
Fin picked up Munch's coffee cup and poured it into the wastebasket. "There, you're out, go get some more. You want something, Mr. Clancy?"
The suspect didn't answer.
"He is so easy to please, isn't he?" Munch asked as he got up, "Been here six hours now, doesn't need a glass of water, something to eat, use the facilities, why can't they all be like this?"
Fin waited until the door closed and said to the suspect, "Tell you the truth, Mr. Clancy, I don't even get what any of us are doing here. This is a bogus arrest if ever I saw one. Nobody saw who shot Steven Moll, the gun wasn't found, nothing was missing from the house," he looked at John through the corner of his eye and added, "And let's be real, we both know you didn't kidnap that boy. You couldn't do something like that, hell, you were probably the only one who ever gave a damn about him. Three months he attended that school, and his own dad couldn't bother to pick him up one time, you did that, you made sure he got there and home again safe. You were the one there making sure his tutors didn't try anything funny. You were the one watching him every time his dad was out of town. You caught nine people who threatened his life, sent them all to prison where they belong, to rot, that's dedication. Anybody willing to put his life on the line that much couldn't possibly harm a kid." He pointed at Clancy and added, "you just wanted to make sure he was safe, that he didn't see what that bastard that got away did to his father, you made sure that nobody could possibly find him to make him the next target."
John Clancy turned towards Fin and said point blank, "You are as transparent as those other cops, bring them back in here, at least they have the balls to tell me to my face what they think I did."
"It's not looking good, John," Olivia said as she and Elliot returned to the interrogation room, both of them carrying several sheets of paper. "The GSR test came back positive, you did fire a gun recently. Now, you were smart enough not to use your issued gun, but that doesn't matter. We have a man with the back of his head blown off, we have nitrate on your hands…and CSU found blood in the back and front passenger seats of your car, and they matched it to David."
"What happened?" Elliot asked as he straddled his chair backwards and faced the man. "David said he wanted to go home and he wouldn't be quiet so you smacked him to make him shut up? Is that it?"
"Only maybe he didn't listen," Olivia added, "and he kept screaming."
"So you hit him again."
"And maybe then he just quit making noise altogether," Olivia said.
"If that's true the only way you can save yourself is to tell us where he is," Elliot told him.
"Do you know what happens to child abusers in prison, John?" Olivia asked, "they are the absolute bottom of the food chain. Everybody in Rikers is going to be gunning for you."
"Well he's not worried, he was trained to handle anything and everything, right?" Elliot asked. "Maybe even how to survive being locked up…but that wouldn't have taken kidnapping or child abuse into question, there's no training for that. You're going to walk into gen pop with a big target on your back, my friend. You know how many guys get shanked when the guards aren't looking?"
"And the group beatings in the shower," Olivia added.
"And if one of the guards there would happen to be a parent," Elliot added, "they'll drag you off to a backroom somewhere and beat the piss out of you."
"Time's running out, John," Olivia said, "once you're arraigned, we can't help you. You have to help yourself."
The door opened and Casey Novak stepped in.
"Who's this?" Clancy asked, "another defense attorney?"
"No, I'm the ADA who's going to prosecute you for Steven Moll's murder, and his son's kidnapping," she answered, "And I assure you if this goes to a jury, you will get the death penalty, and if possible I would be only too happy to give you the needle myself."
Clancy looked at them and finally said, "You've had me here for 24 hours, book me, take me to arraignment, get on with it."
"Where's David?" Casey demanded to know.
Clancy got a different look in his eyes and he all but lunged at her, Elliot and Olivia jumped in to restrain him. Clancy let out a demented laugh and yelled at them, "David's gone and you're never gonna find him!"
The next morning Clancy appeared in court, in a dark suit and tie, with a woman from the public defender's office at his side. Casey stood at the opposing desk, and Elliot and Olivia sat behind her in the gallery.
"State vs. John Clancy, 1 count murder in the 1st degree, 1 count kidnapping in the first degree," the bailiff read.
"How does the defendant plead?" the judge asked.
"Not guilty," the public defender said.
"People on bail, Miss Novak?"
"The People ask that the defendant be remanded," Casey said.
"That's absurd, Your Honor," the public defender said, "my client has no criminal record. We request ROR."
Clancy turned to his lawyer and told her, "That's not what I said."
The judge banged her gavel for order.
"Your Honor," Casey said, "the defendant murdered his employer in cold blood and then kidnapped his 12 year old son, who still hasn't been found."
"Your Honor," the public defender tried to speak.
"No, she's wrong," Clancy told the judge, "I'm pleading not guilty but I want remand."
"Your Honor!" the public defender said.
"Your client seems to have made up his own mind," the judge said, "defendant is held without bail."
Casey headed over to the detectives and asked them, "What the hell was that about?"
"Nothing about this makes any sense," Olivia said, "he fired a top dollar defense attorney paid for by his company and settled for a public defender and now he's arguing with her too."
"Why the hell would he want to be remanded?" Elliot asked, "He's a bigger target in Rikers than out on the streets."
"Did you find anything to support Munch's theory that his employers might try to kill him if he talks?" Casey asked.
"Warner's checking out the bodies, we got five of them exhumed yesterday," Elliot answered.
"See what Warner says."
