Scene: Kate's office. She is watching newscast.

TV: "Political insiders have been talking about Medical Examiner Kate Murphy as a possibility for a congressional seat in the next election. That campaign suffered a significant set back today before it really got started. County Commissioner Travers leveled charges of bias and incompetence against the medical examiner's office, citing an incident of improperly handled evidence in a case last year. The commissioner stated that the citizens of Philadelphia cannot afford to have representation by someone with a known history of prejudicial behavior. No response as yet from the Murphy camp."

Kate switches off the TV.

Kate: "Great. I guess I need to have a chat with Ethan..."

She proceeds to the lab. Ethan, Curtis, and Barry are there.

Kate: "Have you guys seen the news today?"

Barry: "Yeah. Samsung has a cool new..."

Kate: "Local news. Commissioner Travers is blasting me for that incident with the evidence last year, Ethan."

Ethan: "Oh, no!"

Kate: "Oh, yes. We'll be lucky if every defense attorney in the state doesn't claim we fudged on the lab work."

Ethan: "Oh, God. You're going to throw me under the bus, aren't you?"

Kate: "Tempting, but no. However, if they raise a big enough stink, I'm not sure I will be able to protect you. You might want to start considering your options."

Ethan: "Oh, God. I'm going to end up in a homeless shelter..."

Barry: "Jeez, Nancy, get a grip. Nobody is going anywhere."

Ethan: "But you heard what she said. I'm in trouble."

Barry: "Every problem contains its own solution."

Kate: "And your solution is to throw platitudes around."

Barry: "Yeah, I got that from an episode of 'Wonder Years'."

Kate: "And you think it applies here because...?"

Barry: "How many times did Ethan make a mistake like this?"

Kate: "Just once. More than that, and he really would be gone."

Barry: "All labs have occasional errors. Is his error rate higher than what you see from other labs?"

Kate: "No, overall, it's better. It's the fact that he deliberately slanted the reporting of the evidence in a certain way that was the issue."

Barry: "Deliberate? How do you know it was deliberate?"

Kate: "It was too simple a mistake to be anything else."

Barry: "That's your interpretation."

Kate: "Yes. And commissioner Travers'."

Barry: "But it is still an interpretation. His intent is not a fact. You can't see it in the evidence."

Kate: "So?"

Barry: "So the only way you can arrive at the conclusion of his guilt is by being guilty of the same prejudice he is accused of. Absent a pattern, you can't find him guilty without being guilty of the exact same thing yourself."

Kate: "Hmmm... I think I need to call a press conference. Ethan, you're buying Barry lunch tomorrow."

Ethan: "I am? Why?"

Kate: "I think he just saved your job."

(end scene)

Scene: Press conference.

Kate: "Thank you all for coming. I want to respond to the charges leveled against the medical examiner's office by Commissioner Travers. First, I want to point out that the work being done by this office is exemplary. We handle a high case load, and received a very high ranking in our last audit. We have never had a case overturned due to improper lab procedures during my tenure, and I intend to keep it that way.

Commissioner Travers has stirred up a controversy with a bias charge. I admit that a mistake was made, but it was caught by another staff member prior to being presented at trial. No evidence was ever presented in court that was false."

Reporter: "What about the bias charge? Are you sure your staff is competent and fair?"

Kate: "The error was a solitary incident, not part of a pattern. I was concerned because it was an uncharacteristically sloppy mistake made by that individual. However, the typical reasons for bias were missing: racial, gender, and so on. I concluded that given a lack of factual evidence, I couldn't convict the individual of malfeasance without being guilty of the same bias myself. It would be silly to fire someone, only to have to turn around and fire myself for the exact same thing, don't you think?"

(she smile at the reporters, who seem won over.)

Kate: "I gave a reprimand for the error, which it merited. There simply was no factual evidence to back up my gut feeling of bias, which was precisely the point I was trying to make. In the ME's office, our job is to follow the evidence without letting our feelings get in the way. We're human, we occasionally make mistakes, but my people have an outstanding record overall."

Reporter: "Isn't it true that a member of your staff shot and killed a civilian recently? Was that person a minority?"

Kate: "It is true that a person was killed by a member of my staff, and that person was a minority. The shooting was thoroughly investigated by the IAD people in the police department, and I have no influence over them whatever. You will have to ask them regarding reasons for clearing my staff member. He received a commendation for it."

Reporter: "Didn't they also recommend a reprimand?"

Kate: "Yes. The reprimand was issued for the appropriation of an officer's weapon."

Reporter: "Minorities are much more likely to be killed by police actions. How can you be sure there was no prejudice involved in that incident?"

Kate: "Because I was there. We were returning from a crime scene when the group of us was attacked without warning from behind by a man with an assault rifle. I can assure you that the likelihood of my demise was much more in my thoughts than the ethnic background of the assailant, whom I never saw until after the incident was over."

Reporter: "And you are sure there was no prejudice involved?"

Kate: "I have no reason to believe it was anything but self-defense. The weapon that was borrowed came from a female minority. She didn't seem to be too worried about it being some sort of ethnic cleansing at the time. She was too busy bleeding from the wound inflicted by the assailant."

Reporter: "You didn't question the actions of your staff member at the time?"

Kate: "No. It was the coolest reaction under fire that I could imagine. I was simply grateful that his quick action saved us all from being killed. I was also busy dealing with the injuries to the female officer. And happy that I had managed not to pee myself from the gunfire."

(reporters laugh)

Reporter: "Do you intend to run for Congress?"

Kate: "I wish to serve the people to the fullest extent of my abilities. Currently, that means running the finest medical examiner's office in the country, and I don't intend to let anything interfere with that. The prospect of higher office is intriguing, but a little premature at this time."

Reporter: "Would you take a tough stance on crime in a congressional race?"

Kate: "At the moment, I take my stand against crime by uncovering evidence. If you'll excuse me, I'd like to get back to that job before you sign me up for another one. Thank you for coming."

(cut to the ME's office, where the staff has been gathered around a TV)

Curtis: "Looks like you won't have to sublet your apartment after all, Ethan."

Ethan: "I know. I'm so relieved."

Curtis: "Why don't you make up for it by doing some useful work?"

Ethan: "I'm on it!"

Megan (to Barry): "That went amazingly well."

Barry: "Kate presented her case well. I think that storm has blown over."

Megan: "The point you made about not being guilty of the same thing yourself really shut up the opposition."

Barry: "That worked out well, didn't it?"

Megan: "Yes. The questions about you came out of left field, though."

Barry: "Well, maybe just short center field..."

Megan: "What do you mean?"

Barry: "I leaked the questions to a friendly reporter."

Megan: "Why would you do that?"

Barry: "It was most likely the next thing Travers was going to blast with. If she has a series of accusations, eventually people just assume that where there's smoke, there's fire. This way, we get all the potential prejudice issues out of the way at once. People will remember there was nothing to them, and that she handled the charges with aplomb."

Megan: "Wow. Remind me that I never want to be on your bad side."

Barry: "I have a bad side?"

Megan: "Yeah. The side with a mouth on it. I hope this is the last we hear from Commissioner Travers."

Barry: "Almost certainly not."

Megan: "What will Kate do?"

Barry: "Rely on her friends to support her."

Megan: "Hate to break this to you, Barry, but we don't have all that much political pull."

Barry: "We're more helpful than you think, and she has some influential friends outside of the office. She'll be fine."

Megan: "Still, I worry about her."

Barry: "She has Megans on her side. Who can stop her?"

Megan: "There is that..."

(end scene)

Scene: A few days later, staff in the ME's office are once again gathered around the TV.

TV: "In political news, a breaking local scandal. There are accusations that a political Super PAC backing county commissioner Travers is involved in money laundering. Super PACs have been widely denounced in many quarters for their lack of accountability, and in this case it seems to have been used not only for dubious political ends, but as a way of laundering money from illegal drug sales. Several million dollars in contributions have been made by convicted drug dealers. Though technically the PAC is not controlled by Travers, it is run by her cousin, and there are a lot of questions today as to why a county commissioner would ever need a 3 million dollar PAC. Calls to the commissioner's office and house went unanswered."

(TV switched off)

Kate: "That certainly seems to be a marvelous stroke of luck for my campaign."

Megan (looking at Barry): "Yes. You are just one lucky woman."

Kate: "Everybody back to work before I'm tempted to start asking questions."

(they file out, Megan and Barry on the way to her office to continue the discussion)

Megan (to Barry): "Kate is certainly a lucky candidate, huh Barry? Her worst political enemy was just vaporized."

Barry: "Yup. Just one lucky gal. Lucky, lucky, lucky."

Megan: "Spill. You loaded the dice."

Barry: "I would never do such a thing as gamble with loaded dice. I'm offended at the implication."

Megan: "You had something to do with this."

Barry: "Well, as you may know, I might happen to have certain contacts with people who have some skills in data analysis..."

Megan: "What did you do?"

Barry: "I did nothing. Certainly I participated in no behavior which could be traced back to this office."

Megan: "But?"

Barry: "But I may have casually mentioned to certain knowledgeable people that Kate's campaign was being smeared by a local politician."

Megan: "So you have a dirty tricks group?"

Barry: "I don't think they would like being referred to in that way. Dirty tricks is when you make a clean politician look dirty. This was just a matter of finding the actual dirt and uncovering it. Travers might avoid jail, but she won't want to be calling any press conferences accusing Kate of anything any time soon."

Megan: "Was Travers really dirty?"

Barry: "At the very least, helping provide cover. It was actually pretty clever. The donations would come in, and the PAC would purchase things like vastly overpriced campaign materials from a business front run by a former gang member. Buying flyers at two bucks each that they made at Kinko's for a nickel, there's a lot of profit margin there. Travers gets the benefit of favorable campaign materials, the gangs get magical clean money."

Megan: "And the timing of this little announcement..."

Barry: "Just happens to be very favorable to Kate. It will be a while before anybody tries another dirty trick on her. This should make any attackers think twice."

Megan: "You really play hardball."

Barry: "Politics is a rough game. You need a big ante, and Megans or better to open."

Megan: "There is something better than Megans?"

Barry: "Of course not. Megans are unbeatable. Not to mention that I happen to know an actual Megan who is pretty hot as well."

Megan: "Better believe it. It's why I didn't run for office myself."

Barry: "Huh?"

Megan: "I choose not to dirty myself with messy political campaigns. I prefer to think of myself as the sort of person who would gain office by the universal acclaim of my devoted subjects."

Barry: "Oh, brother."

Megan: "Silence, knave! Go get me a coffee, two sugars."

Barry: "Why am I going to do this, exactly?"

Megan: "Because you are my devoted subject."

Barry: "I am?"

Megan: "Who wants to have a second opportunity to ask me out."

Barry: "Oh."

Megan: "Get me the coffee."

Barry (sighing, exiting the office): "This is not nearly as good as the way I planned it..."

Megan: "This is way better than the way I planned it..."

(end scene)