"She was a beautiful woman before someone chopped her up. What kind of animal does it take to do this to such a pretty lady?" Ken O'Malley chewed on his lower lip, a habit he was unaware of, but one he indulged in at every crime scene.

"My old man was a beat cop in Brooklyn, and an alcoholic. He beat on me some. Mostly he beat on the old lady. She was an alcoholic and a psycho. She beat me everyday. The sexual abuse started when I was seven.

When I was twelve, the old man came home early one day and caught my sainted mother in the act. When he saw me tied to the bed and realized what she was doing, he pulled her off and shot her dead. Then he put the gun in his mouth and made me an orphan. I guess that was probably the luckiest day of my life." Ken was feeling a variety of emotions from relief at finally being able to speak of the trauma that was his childhood, to apprehension of Logan's reaction.

"I don't get any pleasure out of trying to get a death sentence for a kid of any race. A police officer killed by a teenager is as dead as one killed by an adult. A police officer killed by a black kid is as dead as one killed by a white kid. I'm not going to make an exception for anyone who kills a police officer. I have made that clear from the beginning. I have no control over what a jury does. Book the kid on capital murder. Get an all black jury. Let the chips fall where they may. This office has a policy, and we are sticking to it. End of discussion." While her words may have been harsh, her tone was not.

"Okay. Don't say I didn't warn you about the pressure."
"It's what I get paid for, Corney."
"You being from Alabama isn't going to make it any easier," Cornelius said as he got up to leave.
"Meaning what?"
"People get visions of police dogs and fire hoses."
Ashlee looked her executive assistant in the eye. Her voice took on a more defensive tone. "If you are saying I can't seek the death penalty against a cop killer because in my home state, some racist idiot turned police dogs and fire hoses on civil rights marchers when my mother was in elementary school, think again. I will accept no responsibility for things that happened before I was born. You're not running that guilt train over me."

"You don't have to accept it. But face it, Ashlee. You are tied to those tracks, and that train will run over you."