Epilogue
The trial of five Manhattan Judges, and four attorneys, prosecuted by the District DA himself, had made national, even international headlines. It had been a very public undertaking.
Everyone around the world watched, listened, and read, all the gory details, and no one was surprised when the jury returned the verdict.
Guilty on four counts of Capital Murder, and four counts of Conspiracy to commit Murder.
The Manhattan Nine were going to go away for a very long time, their exalted status notwithstanding.
The Good Guys, too, came in for a little more publicity than they would have wished.
Executive Assistant DA Jack McCoy was being compared to Frank Serpico, much to his unease. Due to his newfound notoriety, he was very much in demand for interviews, most of which he refused to do.
"I was only doing my duty," he groused at Adam Schiff over drinks at Schiff's favorite bar.
"You went just a bit above and beyond," Schiff sipped his scotch. "And you very nearly died for it."
McCoy managed a wan smile at the reminder of how close he had come to getting killed.
Several months later, his right shoulder still twinged occasionally.
At least the spasms in his right lung had stopped; although his chest still bothered him sometimes, when it got too cold.
He hadn't been allowed to prosecute the case against Feldman and the others himself, and that had burned…
He understood the reasons, but those were both legal, and political…
Jack McCoy had been deeply involved in the case; but not as a lawyer.
He had been working as an Undercover Agent. Recusing himself was the only reasonable thing McCoy could have done.
But Adam Schiff's decision to prosecute the case personally, had also been a political decision.
The DA for the District of Manhattan had to be seen bringing the members of The Court of Last Resort down.
Now, Jack McCoy was sitting with Adam Schiff, enjoying a warming scotch, waiting for the Presiding Judge to hand down Sentence, later this afternoon.
The Presiding Judge was Linda Karlin; and McCoy was enjoying the irony.
Feldman, and his friends, broke the Law. Their victims were those the People couldn't convict.
People called Linda Karlin Judge Dread, when they weren't calling her worse, for her habit of imposing the absolute maximum sentence, rightly or wrongly, in all of her trials which ended in conviction.
Diana Hawthorne…
She was going to spend the rest of her life in prison…
As were the other eight.
Paul Kopell…
McCoy's throat tightened. Kopell's roll in the whole affair had come out.
I'm sorry, Anna…
Anna Kopell had been horrified to learn the truth; that her husband had been a member of the Court of Last Resort, that he had voted death on three murders.
It was McCoy's almost getting arrested for those murders that had caused Paul Kopell to change his mind.
Kopell had been killed on Feldman's orders.
"Jack…" Adam Schiff's voice brought him back. "It's time to go back to Court."
McCoy felt odd, sitting in the row reserved for Witnesses for the Prosecution. But it had been fun to see Adam Schiff sitting at the DA's Station.
The older man had not lost his touch.
The wisest man east of the Missouri…
But now, it was Judge Karlin's turn.
She viewed the nine Defendants standing in the Dock.
"The very nature of your crimes is a perversion of all that is right about our Legal System," she said. "Innocent until proven guilty, we proclaim far and wide. That is why our legal system is the best in the world. Because our courts couldn't prove your victims guilty, the men you killed, or had killed, were-in the eyes of the law-innocent. Because of your callous disregard for the sanctity of human life, each of you are sentenced to Life Imprisonment, with no Parole. You will each be sent to a Maximum Security Prison, where you shall spend the rest of your natural lives."
Three months later
"Feldman wants to…what?"
"He wants to talk to you, Jack," Danielle Melnick was standing in McCoy's office, a bemused Adam Schiff standing just inside the door, watching the proceedings.
"Well…I don't want to talk to him," McCoy slid files from the current case-a nasty one involving murder and blackmail-into his briefcase.
Feldman can rot for all I care…
"Jack…"
"What!" McCoy snapped at his boss. "He tried to have me killed! He had Paul killed! He had three other men killed! He can rot in hell…"
"You won, Jack," Schiff reminded him. "You can afford to be magnanimous…"
"I don't want to be magnanimous…" McCoy continued stuffing files into his briefcase.
"Just…go and see him," Schiff said. "You don't have to become his BFF or anything."
"B…F…F..?"
"What? You don't have Nieces, Nephews, or anything?"
"Uh…no?"
Adam snorted again, turned to leave.
"Just see Feldman. See what he wants."
"Yeah…" McCoy put his briefcase back on his desk.
"I'll drive," Melnick offered. "I can't believe you don't know what BFF means…"
Here Jack McCoy was, standing in the Visitors' Room, waiting for Gary Feldman.
Feldman looked awful in that bright orange jumpsuit. He obviously hadn't been sleeping.
"I was afraid you wouldn't come," Feldman took a seat at the table.
"Why did you want to see me?" McCoy demanded. "If you wanted to make a Confession, you should have called a priest."
"I want to know why you betrayed us, Jack. We were doing God's work."
"God's work?" McCoy snorted inelegantly. "Hardly... You were killing people the State failed to find guilty."
"Yeah, Jack. And the operative word here is failed."
"That is irrelevant."
"Irrelevant?"
"Yes! Innocent until proven guilty! That's the cornerstone upon which our legal system rests! Destroy that, and you've destroyed the entire system. I'll be the first one to admit the legal system isn't perfect. It has flaws. But it's still the best we've got. All these checks and balances are there for a reason; and you seem to have forgotten that."
McCoy sat too, glaring at Feldman across the desk. Feldman glared right back at him.
"What about people like…Willard Tappan, Jack? He's back at Central Park, picking up the trash, like the Model Reformed Ex-Con he claims to be. He should have died, like the miserable felon he is. But you saved him, Jack. You let him live."
"The People are patient," McCoy spoke calmly. "We can afford to be. Willard Tappan is under constant surveillance now. The Courts have approved our petition to look at his mail, and to record all of his incoming, and outgoing phone calls. We will know everything he says and does, everyone he talks and writes to. He steps one inch out of line, he's going back to prison, for the rest of his life."
Feldman shook his head…
"You don't understand," he began.
"I understand plenty!" McCoy snapped. "You decided you were above the law. Whatever justifications you might have used, that was where you went wrong. No one is above the law! Not you! Not I!"
McCoy stood. He'd had enough of Feldman…
Enough of his pious, self-righteous excuses…
"I'm going now," he said. "You've had your say, and I've had mine."
Besides, he had a full schedule. There was that Murder and Blackmail case, going to trial the next day.
As for Willard Tappan…
Sooner or later, that man was going to trip up, somewhere…somehow.
And Jack McCoy would be there to catch him.