Outside the room, Richard found a pair of patrolmen, as well as Sergeant Reynolds.

“Pretty good bit of interrogation you pulled off there, little bro,” Terry crowed. “We haven’t been able to get much out of him.”

“Oh, good,” Richard oozed. “So that means you’re going to pay me for it, right?”

Terry’s face fell as the patrolmen snickered. “Sure, we’ll find something to throw your way.” His brow wrinkled. “Damn, you’re mercenary today!”

Richard wagged his finger. “Never mess with a detective. We have eerie powers.” This brought forth a hearty laugh from all of them.

“Yeah, about that,” Terry continued. “I read the part you delivered on paper, the one marked ‘for your eyes only’. That’s a wild story, Richard. You’d better keep it on the down low.”

“I had to tell someone,” Richard informed. “You could legitimately use that info for the cause of law and order.”

“But I’d never get the brass to approve it,” Terry joked.

The patrolmen both looked at them curiously. “What are you two talking about?”

“Information like that is given out on a need-to-know basis,” Terry declared. “And to speak the plain truth, I wish I didn’t need to know.”

“Do you suppose there really is an ‘X Files’ department at the FBI?” Richard asked. “Sounds like they’d love it.”

“There is, but you don’t want to engage them,” Terry related. “Their job isn’t to investigate, it’s to suppress. If you tried to contact them, you’d either get completely ignored, or they’d arrest you and, bizarrely, threaten you and demand you forget about the whole thing.” He let out a hollow laugh. “They couldn’t be any weirder if they actually worked for the aliens!”

“Aliens?” piped up one patrolman.

“Never you mind, rookie!” Terry declared.

“That’s really too bad,” Richard pined. “It was such a wild story. I wish I could tell someone about it!”

A patrolman raised one finger. “Why don’t you write a novel?”

There was a pregnant pause, and then all three cops burst out laughing. “No one would believe such a story!” Terry declared. “And no one would want to read about it!”

“Besides,” one patrolman added, “no one reads books anymore. You should try to make a movie that no one will watch. Much more modern.”

Richard looked around uncomfortably as he waited for their laughter to diminish.

“OK, OK, sorry, little bro,” Terry finally said. “We shouldn’t be so mean. I actually came here to bring you some news on your case! There’s been a development!”

“Oh?” Richard prompted.

“Miss Bettencourt’s lawyer has been working overtime, trying to come up with every excuse in the book. And, apparently, it succeeded. She’s being committed to a mental ward. Now they’re fighting over whether they can still charge her once she’s declared legally sane.”

“Oh, fer Crissakes,” Richard groused, putting his hand to his forehead. “She’s actually going to get away with this? Freaking rich people and their lawyers.”

“Yeah,” Terry joined in sanguinely, “but that’s how it goes with rich clients and top-shelf lawyers; they can accomplish results not available to mere peons.”

“But that’s so unfair,” Richard pouted.

“C’mon, Richard,” Terry chided. “You, of all people, know that the law isn’t moral – it’s procedural.”

“I know,” Richard grumbled.

“It’s the only way it can possibly work,” Terry explained. “The people that write the laws try to make them moral, and the police are motivated to treat them as moral, but in the end, the decisions are made by judges and bureaucrats, and therefore, in the only sense that counts, they’re procedural.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Richard moped.

“It’s not all bad,” Terry consoled. “Sometimes it’s better that way. I remember reading a story about a Russian noble during the Great Purge of the 1930s. He knew he’d be arrested for political crimes, then tortured and killed, but he found a way out. He committed a robbery, got himself arrested, and went to jail as a common criminal. The regular police have nothing to do with state security, so five years later, when he got released, the political threat had vanished, and he was a free man.”

Richard stared blankly, as did the two patrolmen. “Wow. I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“The poor stupidly believe they’re dealing with humans, and they get screwed,” Terry continued. “The rich know they’re dealing with a machine, one full of bugs that can be exploited. That’s how we get a two-tier justice system. But there’s not really an alternative; the works of man will always be imperfect.”

“I didn’t know you were such a philosopher, Sergeant!” one of the patrolmen quipped.

“That’s why I’m no longer a patrolman,” Terry explained. “And if you ever want to get promoted, you’re going to have to start using your brain too!”

The patrolmen nodded thoughtfully. “Food for thought.”

Terry turned to Richard. “We’d better leave these two alone; they have to do their job.” They moved to leave.

“So they’re guarding the room?” Richard asked.

“That young man in there is our best hope for charging Miss Bettencourt with a crime. If something happens to him, we’ll all look like incompetent fools.”

“Makes sense,” Richard agreed.

“Your work here is done,” Terry declared. “It’s time for you to take a long-deserved break.”

“I will, soon,” Richard promised. “But I’ve got a busy day ahead of me.”

They said their goodbyes, and Richard left the precinct building and walked down the street, government buildings on both sides of him.