MovieChat Forums > Cold Case (2003) Discussion > The Experiment

The Experiment

posted 9 years ago by t_smitts
9 replies | jump to latest

Author's note: The "present" scenes of this story take place in a virtual "eighth season" for the show, which would be around the year 2011. A line of dialogue in the "present" scenes that appears in italics means that character is "flashing" to appear for a moment as their younger self, as they often did on the show.

The following story is fictional and does
not depict any actual person or event.

("For What It's Worth" – Buffalo Springfield)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZKB-ZQTkO8

September 19, 1968

With unseasonably warm temperatures lasting well into the fall, the campus of Whitman College was much busier than it normally would've been at that time of year. Most of the students were relaxing or studying. A few were tossing footballs or frisbees. A small number, however, were gathered in protest groups. One student was defacing a campaign poster of Richard Nixon, before his work attracted the attention of a campus security guard. The student grabbed his gear and ran, he and the shouting security guard startling a brown-haired young man as they rushed past him.

The young man, a slight-looking, unassuming student, looked past at the pursuit for a moment, before shaking his head, and resuming walking in the direction he'd been heading before. A few moments later, however, he was stopped by another interruption, this one much more familiar.

"Hey, Ben," the slightly taller, more athletic-looking young man shouted, running over to him. "Ben!"

Ben acknowledged his approaching friend with a nod and a skeptical smile. "Hey, Jakey. What are you doing? I thought you had History this afternoon."

Jake dismissed his friend's question with a wave. "Ah, it's fine. I'll copy the notes off someone next time. I was thinking I'd stop by Kappa House. Maybe they'll finally let me pledge."

Ben chuckled. "Just try not to start anymore fires."

Jake frowned. "That was an accident."

"Right," said Ben, rolling his eyes. "Why don't you do something useful with your time? Didn't you say you were going to apply for that DJ gig on the campus radio?"

"Turns out it's not a paying gig." Jake shrugged. "Then again, I get to play whatever I want. I'll think about it. In the meantime the Kappas are throwing a huge party on Saturday. You coming?" Jake gave his friend a sly smile. "I hear a bunch of the sororities are gonna be there."

Ben chuckled and shook his head. "I can't. I gotta study for most of the weekend, and the rest of the time, I'm gonna be looking for a part-time job."

"You still hard-up for money?"

Ben sighed. "Well, a couple of the textbooks I needed were more expensive than I thought. My folks sent me a little, but they can't afford much."

"I'll get my parents to send you some. They're always good for it."

"I'm not gonna borrow money from your parents!" Ben said, looking at Jake. "I can manage on my own."

"Okay, I'm just trying to help." Jake said with a shrug, looking at his watch. "I gotta go, but you should try to come out though, have a little fun."

"I've been to parties with you, Jake. You've never settled for 'a little fun'."

"Hey, I'm just saying these are you college years, man." Jake gave Ben a pat on the arm, before running off. "You can't play by the rules all the time."

"Yeah, well, you break enough rules for the both of us!" Ben shouted, with a smirk, to his departing friend, who chuckled, gave him a wave, and then headed off in the direction of a blonde co-ed he'd spotted.

Ben shook his head in amusement, before heading over to one of the campus billboards, one that often had a few postings for employment. Most of the items posted there were old ones, since the last time Ben had checked it. However, he watched an attractive brunette young woman, whom Ben had seen a few times around the psychology department, possibly one of the secretaries, walk over to the board with a stack of bright yellow papers in hand.

Pulling one of the pages from the stack, she pinned it to the board, gave Ben a friendly nod and smile, which he returned, before walking off.

Ben turned back to the board and pulled off the paper she'd just posted on the board, the headline having caught his eye.

"Hmmm," he said, frowning in thought, as he read the contents of the page…


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was pouring rain, as Ben walked, barely keeping upright, down the gravel shoulder of the deserted road. His face was deathly pale, his hands shook, and he tried in vain to keep blood from seeping from the wound in his stomach. Practically stumbling already, he was only able to make it a few more steps before collapsing to the ground and rolling into the muddy ditch. The cold rain, unmoved, continued to trickle down around his lifeless body...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The short, middle-aged detective frowned as he placed the box, marked PHILLIPS, B., on the shelf with the others. The few leads he'd had with this case all seemed to lead to a dead end.

Sorry, kid, he thought to himself. Maybe somebody else'll have better luck.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finishing up his paperwork, Detective Will Jeffries couldn't help but steal the occasional glance at the silver-haired, well-dressed man in his early sixties standing at the entrance to Homicide. Eventually, his burly looking colleague, Detective Nick Vera took notice.

"Something interesting about the guy waitin' there?" Vera asked.

Jeffries look at Vera. "That's Jake Gillespie. Big name in the Philly music scene. Owns half a dozen stations in Philly and Pittsburgh, including a couple of my favorites. I'd love to pick his brain."

"Hmm, maybe you should ask if he's single," Vera said with a hint of a smirk.

Jeffries gave Vera a mildly annoyed look, as he stood up and head over to the entrance – just as the slender blonde woman, who'd been approaching Jake from the other end of the squad, arrived.

"Can I help you?" she asked, not noticing Jeffries' disappointed look.

"Jake Gillespie," the older man said, with an easygoing smile. "I have some possible information on an old case."

"Detective Lilly Rush," she said, before finally looking over at Jeffries. "This is Detective Will Jeffries."

Jeffries smiled. "I really like the lineup you got going on WIAF."

"Well, country always seems to sell, even in the big cities," Jake said with a shrug. "Never cared for it myself."

Lilly smiled in amusement, offering Jake a seat at one of the desks, as Jeffries stood there, taken aback.

"So this case you mentioned?" Lilly asked, as the three sat down.

"Ben Phillips, college student in 1968," Jake said, looking wistful, "and the best friend I ever had; all the way back to the third grade." He sighed and shook his head. "They found him stabbed in the northeast end of the city. Nobody ever seemed to find anything."

"But something new turned up?" Jeffries asked.

"Turns out it was practically under my nose all along." Jake said, with a hint of surprise. "Ben's dad died in the nineties. His mom passed away last week. Our families were still close, so I volunteered to clean out the house, put it on the market. She kept everything he ever had. I was going through a box of his old college papers, seeing if there was anything worth holding on to," Jake reached into the travel bag on his shoulder, pulled out a faded, creased, yellow paper, and handed it to Lilly, "and I found this."

"Need cash?" Lilly said, reading the page, "Subjects needed for an intensive, well-paid, three-week study. Interested parties apply with the Psychology Department."

"Those were posted all over campus," Jake said, nodding his head, "some kind of experiment, real hush-hush kind of thing. There were a lot of rumors about something going wrong, and them having to cut it short early."

"I think I remember hearing about that." Jeffries said. "Something about military funding."

"Yeah, that's the one. Had to do with law enforcement. They did it off campus, at this old hospital on the edge of town," Jake said, looking at the page. "At least those were the rumors, anyway," he quickly added.

"Ben never said anything to you about being involved with this?" Lilly asked.

"Well, the truth is, after we got to college, we didn't get to see each other as much as we wanted. Our priorities were pretty different." Jake chuckled. "I was more interested in girls and parties. He was the boy scout, more interested in studying or taking odd jobs to pay for school. His family wasn't as well off as mine. This is just the kind of thing he would've signed up for, but I don't think the cops back then knew about it. They certainly never said anything about it to me. Maybe they just didn't know where to look."

Lilly gave Jake an slightly awkward smile. "Unfortunately, Mr. Gillespie, some rumors aren't much to open a forty-three year old case with."

Jake sighed. "Look, after they shut down that experiment, everyone seemed to close ranks, students and professors. I mean what could they possibly need to keep quiet about?"

Lilly and Jeffries look at each other, as Jake continued.

"And that place where they supposedly held the experiment? It's just a stone's throw from where they found him. It was in the middle of nowhere. There was no reason for him to be out there. He spent evenings in his dorm room studying."

"Mr. Gillespie…" Lilly said, setting the paper down on the desk.

Jake put up his hands up, though his tone remained calm. "I'm just trying to get justice for my friend. He would've done the same for me." He picked up the paper and handed it back to Lilly, giving her an earnest look. "Maybe it's time for the truth to come out."

Lilly looked at Jeffries, who nodded in approval, before looking back at the paper…

COLD CASE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyRAD1z-lys

reply
formatting help
[–] t_smitts 9 years ago

Guest Starring
Professor Kevin Hatcher (2011): Rene Auberjonois
Ben Phillips: Josh Blaylock
Albert Rooney (1968): Andrew Caldwell
Carter Jenkins (2011): Ron Canada
Darren Gale (1968): Brett Dier
Jake Gillespie (2011): Wilbur Fitzgerald
Shirley McGarrett (2011): Beth Grant
Shirley McGarrett (1968): Mekenna Melvin
Darren Gale (2011): Geoff Pierson
Albert Rooney (2011): Richard Riehle

Professor Kevin Hatcher (1968): Adam Harrington
Dean Bob Patterson (1968): Francis Guinan

Carter Jenkins (1968): Marc John Jefferies
Jake Gillespie (1968): Matt Shively
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sitting in storage, Lilly pulled another page from the case box sitting on the table, while two men sitting around her looked at their own pages.

"Ben Phillips," Lilly read. "Nineteen, sophomore at Whitman, found stabbed to death along the side of the road up in Northeast."

Lilly's partner, Scotty Valens, frowned at the report he was reading. "Surprised he didn't find someone to help."

The older man, Lieutenant John Stillman, turned to Scotty. "Well, he might've been in shock. Plus that area was all industrial back then. If it was the middle of the night, everything would've been shut down. He could've wandered around in the dark for hours and not seen anyone before he bled out."

Lilly nodded "Assigned thought he was probably walking home from a party and got mugged, except Ben's friend Jake says Ben wasn't the partying type."

"Well, whatever happened, looks like Ben fought back," Scotty said, reading the medical examiner's report, before handing it to Lilly. "Bruising on the hands suggests he was hitting someone, hard. Unfortunately, the rain took care of any prints that might've on the body."

"This is interesting," Lilly said, reading the report. "M.E. found traces of gold in and around the wound."

"Gold?" asked Stillman, with a hint of skepticism. "Not something most people in that neighborhood would've been carrying."

Scotty shrugged, "Doesn't sound like a mugging, but without the experiment angle, the assigned probably didn't have much to go on."

"Speaking of which, you find anything more about that experiment?" Stillman asked.

"Just the two guys who ran it," Lilly said. "Bob Patterson, the dean, died in '98, and Professor Kevin Hatcher, just retired last year."

Stillman nodded, "Okay, keep digging. Scotty, you and Nick can talk to the professor. I want to know what the hell kind of experiment this was, if it ended with someone getting stabbed."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Professor Hatcher's study was about what Scotty expected; an old-style, wood-finished room with several bookshelves and various plaques and framed awards hanging from the wall.

This is a guy who wants everyone to know how smart he is, Scotty thought to himself with a smirk.

Hatcher himself, a slim, but fit-looking man of about seventy, gave Scotty and Vera nod as he sat down behind his desk and took a sip from the glass of scotch in his hand.

"I haven't thought about that experiment in a long time." Hatcher said with a sigh. "It took me a lot of years to live it down."

"What kind of experiment was it anyway?" Scotty asked.

"A prison experiment," Hatcher said, looking wistful. "It was my idea. I was just starting out as a professor, and I was so determined to make my mark. I thought this would help us gain new insight."

"Insight into what?" Vera asked.

"Authority, really. The country was divided like it hadn't been since the Civil War. Some people were supporting the government, and the war, without question. Others were denouncing the government and everything it stood for. How do people respond to authority, both when they're faced with it, and when it's given to them? I mean look at you gentlemen. Would you be the same person you are now if you'd become an accountant or a construction worker?"

Scotty and Vera looked at each other.

"I don't like working outside and I never had a head for numbers." Vera said, looking skeptical, "now back to the say."

"Yes, I'm sorry" Hatcher said with an embarrassed chuckle, "the academic in me dies hard. Anyway, I managed to sell the Dean on the idea. He helped me get financial backing from the Navy, the Department of Corrections, and a few others. We converted an old building that had built to quarantine influenza patients around the end of the First World War. It was practically a prison already. After that, all we needed were the volunteers."

"That's where Ben came in?" Scotty asked.

Hatcher nodded. "I picked them myself. I could tell that Ben was a stand-out; honest, hard-working, fair-minded. I had something special planned for him…"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
("Sympathy for the Devil" – The Rolling Stones)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBecM3CQVD8

Standing in the enclosed office area, Dean Patterson frowned as he looked out at the collection of young men gathered in a common area, before turning to Hatcher, who was also watching them.

"I checked over some of the profiles." Patterson asked. "Are you sure these are the ones you want?"

Hatcher nodded confidently. "I'm sure. This shouldn't be too polished. Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."

Patterson's gaze shifted as his secretary, an attractive young brunette, walked in carrying a stack of papers.

"Sir, I have the orientation forms you asked for," she said to Patterson, before handing Hatcher the forms.

"Thanks, sweetheart," Patterson said, giving her a smirk. As she turned to exit, Patterson gave her a pat on the rear, causing her to flinch. Not letting him see her reaction, she gritted her teeth and walked out.

Hatcher, looking a bit awkward at the display, gestured towards the doorway, and he and Patterson walked out towards the group.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Hatcher said, giving the students a smile, keeping a close eye on Ben, who was standing off by the corner. "I'm Professor Hatcher, and this is Dean Patterson. I'm sure you all remember me from our interviews, and I'm sure you have some questions of your own about what we're doing here."

Hatcher began handing out the orientation forms. "I'm sure most, if not all of you, know someone who's questioning the war. I'm sure you know others who say it's a just cause. Why do we respond to authority so differently? What is it that makes one person say 'yes' and another say 'no'? What makes one person follow the rules and another break them?"

"That's what we're going to explore here together. Starting tomorrow, for the next three weeks, this will be a working prison, as far as you're concerned, just like Sing Sing or Alcatraz."

"Most of you will be prisoners." Patterson said. "You'll live like prisoners, eat like prisoners, and have the same restrictions they would. The rest of you will be corrections officers. It'll be your responsibility to keep the peace, and to maintain order."

"But the guards need to be held accountable as well," Hatcher continued. "Someone needs to ensure that they're performing their duties correctly. Someone needs to set the tone for how this place will be run, someone firm but fair."

"Ben Phillips," Hatcher said, walking over to where Ben was standing, "that someone is you."

Ben's eyes widened, "Me? Are you sure?" Ben asked, as Hatcher shook his hand. Some of the other students muttered to themselves, while others, including a taller boy with crew cut hair, just stared disapprovingly.

"Absolutely," Hatcher said. "I know you won't disappoint me."

Ben could only nod nervously…
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It was a controversial choice," Hatcher said, "but I was confident that Ben would rise to the occasion."

"Well, from what we hear, things didn't go according to plan, and you ended up pulling the plug." Scotty said.

"It's not quite as dramatic as it sounds. There were some minor altercations between the prisoners and the guards, not much worse than a few bloody noses, but we decided the responsible thing to do was to end the experiment before things had a chance to get serious"

"Was Ben involved any of these 'minor altercations'?" asked Vera, looking somewhat dubious.

"Not that I saw, but I…" Hatcher trailed off, suddenly looking uncomfortable.

"But?" Scotty asked, pointedly.

The older man sighed. "Look, I know how this sounds, but I wasn't… physically present for most of the experiment."

"Then where the hell were you?" Vera asked.

"Buttering up our benefactors, teaching my class, writing papers," Hatcher shrugged. "Time just seemed to get away from me."

"So you had a bunch of students playing cops and robbers and no one was even watching them?" Scotty asked, his dislike of the professor becoming more evident.

"It wasn't quite that anarchic," Hatcher said, putting up his hands. "I had a team of grad students observing everything from separate rooms. They knew if anything serious happened, I was just a phone call away."

"You remember any of the students that signed up for this?" Scotty asked.

"It was over four decades ago," Hatcher said. "It's possible there's still some paperwork in the archives, but I heard a lot of things got thrown out over the years."

"Right," Vera said, still looking dubious as he and Scotty stood up. "Anyway, stay reachable. We might be back for another lecture."

"Look, I know I should've been there more often," Hatcher said, "I was so busy trying to promote the work we were doing, I barely bothered to actually do it. I've been trying to live it down for forty-three years."

Scotty gave the professor an uninterested look. "Yeah, well, that's forty-three years that Ben didn't have."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dressed in a park ranger's uniform, the slightly pudgy, mustached older man, whose name tag read ROONEY, turned back to give Lilly and Scotty a friendly smile as they walked down the hill trail towards the cabin.

"Not much of an outdoors type, are you?" the man said, noticing Scotty's bemused look.

"Not really. More of a city guy."

"Oh, I'm opposite," he responded. "After I got divorced and the kids grew up, I couldn't get out of the city fast enough. Too cramped, you know?"

"Not as cramped as being locked in a makeshift prison," said Lilly.

He, stopped, turned, and gave her a wistful look. "Yeah, I found that out on my first day. Longest two weeks of my life." His face brightened, clearly trying to move on from that awkward subject. "So how'd you guys find me, anyway? I though the school threw out most of their old records."

Scotty nodded. "Yeah, they did, but one of the ladies from archives remembered getting' into with you when you tried to save some of the files."

The older man chuckled at the memory. "Yeah, I remember that old battle axe. Surprised she's still alive."

"So, Albert, why were you trying to save a bunch of old files anyway?" Lilly asked.

Albert shrugged. "Didn't seem right, just pretending like it never happened."

"So you and Ben have any sorta beef?" Scotty asked.

Albert paused for a moment, then shrugged. "Nothing comes to mind. I was too busy keeping my head down to make any sort of trouble."

"Any other prisoners ever get into it with him?" Lilly asked.

"Maybe, but I'm afraid I don't have any names to give you."

"Well, maybe we'll get something from the files you got," said Scotty.

Albert shook his head. "Don't count on it. Prisoners all got assigned numbers. Using your real name in there was a big no-no. Professor Hatcher said something about breaking down the individual, getting us into the mindset of a prisoner. I was Number Three. I used to think that was my lucky number. Boy, was I wrong."

Stopping at the door to the cabin, Albert pulled out a set of keys. "I don't know if there's anything useful in there, but you're welcome to 'em. I just hope the mice didn't get at them."

Lilly and Scotty just looked at each other.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sitting at his desk, Detective Vera frowned at the sandwich in his hands, until he attracted the attention of the nearby Detective Kat Miller.

"Something wrong with the sandwich?" Kat asked.

"Nah, just thinking of something that professor said. Something about not being the same person if I had some job without authority."

"What does that have to do with a sandwich?"

Vera shrugged. "I always have the guy make something that's not on the menu. Just wondering if I was an accountant or something."

"I don't know, but I wouldn't want you doing my taxes if you were." Kat rolled her eyes and took a sip of the coffee.

"Hey, where'd you get that?" Vera asked, gesturing to her paper cup.

"That place at the corner."

"Something wrong with the coffee here?"

"The guy there puts some cinnamon in it."

Vera eyed her suspiciously. "He do that for everyone, or you did you ask him to?"

Kat took a sip and said nothing.

The conversation was interrupted by Jeffries walking past them to Stillman's office and knocking on the door.

"Got something here." Jeffries said,

"Albert Rooney's files have some names?" Stillman asked, getting up from behind his desk.

"Not exactly," Jeffries said. "Most of the other guards aren't mentioned by name in here, and all the prisoners are referenced by numbers. There is one thing though. An incident a couple of days into the experiment. One of the prisoners got into it with a couple of guards after one of them used 'a racially derogatory term'." Jeffries winced slightly at the detached, official tone of the report.

Stillman nodded. "Any chance Ben was one of those guards?"

"No, according to the punch cards, he wasn't on shift then, but it got me thinking. Whitman wasn't exactly a diverse campus back in '68. No Asian or Hispanic students and only four black students."

"Any chance one of those four could've been a volunteer?"

"Well, two of them were too old to make the cut, a third was in a wheelchair…"

"Leaving just one," Stillman finished.

"You ever hear of Carter Jenkins?"

"That big-time civil rights lawyer?"

Jeffries nodded solemnly, "That's him."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The law firm was a fairly modest one, one that suggested its clients consisted mainly of people who couldn't afford to pay much.

Carter Jenkins, the man escorting Lilly and Jeffries through the office, was a slightly bulky man in his sixties, appearing a bit more reserved than the fiery young man visible in pictures of various protests in a few of the framed newspaper clippings on the wall. He nodded with a hint of resignation when the two detectives brought up Ben's name.

"I haven't heard that name in a long time," Carter said with a hint of a sigh. "Haven't even thought about that experiment in years. Naturally, they assigned the role of prisoner to the one black volunteer." Carter rolled his eyes, slightly at the memory.

"You know he was found murdered not far from where they held the experiment?" Jeffries asked.

"Yes."

"Same experiment you participated in." Lilly said. "You didn't bother to mention that to anyone back then?"

"No, I didn't," Carter said, evenly. "I learned early on not to trust the police. It's not personal, but I certainly wasn't going to risk going to them voluntarily."

"We know you got into it early on with a few of the guards during the experiment." Jeffries said.

Carter shook his head. "Not with Ben," he said, sounding a bit defensive. "If you were civil with him, he was civil with you. Actually, I always thought if it was anyone in there who hurt Ben, it wasn't a prisoner."

Lilly looked at Carter intently. "Are you saying one of the guards killed Ben?"

"I'm saying Ben wasn't a very popular leader. He was one of the younger volunteers and a few of the older boys didn't take kindly to taking orders from a sophomore. More than that, a lot of them thought he was too easy on us. It was like they could smell weakness on him. Some of them rode him pretty hard, especially one of them…"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
("Jumpin' Jack Flash" – The Rolling Stones)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQSGw0hMd_I

Carter, wearing the dull gray prison uniform he and the others had been assigned, looked over at Ben, adjusting the slightly oversized guard's uniform he wearing, and waving the prisoners back to their cells.

"Let's go, Number Four," Ben said, calmly to Carter, as he continued waving them forward. "Come on, guys. It's past curfew."

Ben turned to see a taller boy with crew cut hair, also in a guard's uniform, but adorned with a shiny badge, walking towards him, a scowl on his face.

"I need to talk to you," the guard said to Ben.

"Okay," Ben said, calmly, waving the prisoners towards their cells.

Ben and the guard walk around a corner. Once they were out of sight, however, Carter slipped out of the line, headed towards the corner they'd gone past, put his back to the wall, and listened.

"They're supposed to be in their cells by now. Curfew is nine, sharp." the guard said.

"It's just a couple of minutes," Ben said.

"That's not the point!" the guard hissed. "There's something I wanted to ask you about. Is it true you caught one of them with contraband?"

"It was just a few candy bars. Relax, I took them away."

"Well which one of them was it?"

"I said I took care of it, Darren," Ben said, gritting his teeth with growing irritation.

"How? By giving him a stern talking to?" The sarcastic tone in Darren's voice was impossible to miss. "Did you even make him tell you who got them in for him? I'll bet Number Twelve got them in for him. Every day, it's something new with that guy. Are you going to do anything about him?"

"Look, I don't have to explain anything to you! Hatcher made me head guard."

"And I'm starting to think he made a big mistake." Darren glared at Ben, "You bleeding heart types are all alike. You're too afraid to lay down the law. You know, people like you are the reason this country's going to hell in a hand basket."

Ben's eyes narrowed. "Well, I'm sorry I don't meet your approval. If you can find another prison experiment that's run better, feel free to switch. Until then, go back to your post and stand watch!"

Darren stared at Ben for moment, and then started walking off, before turning back to Ben.

"Maybe I'm not the only one who should be watching out."

After Darren was out of sight, Ben sighed and leaned against a wall. Carter, trying to hide the surprised look on his face, stepped away from the corner, and hurried to catch up to the other prisoners…
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It was like that guy could smell blood in the water," Carter said, shaking his head.

"Different managing styles?" Jeffries asked.

"Darren was a Nixon Youth, law and order type. Thought leniency was a cardinal sin. Really took to the role. Even had this shiny gold-plated badge made up."

Lilly leaned in at the mention of this. "Did you say gold?"

Carter nodded.

"You have any idea what happened to him?" Jeffries asked.

"Sure," Carter said, with a hint of a smile. "I've even argued in his courtroom a few times over the years."

"His courtroom?" Lilly asked.

"Mmm-hmm," Carter answered. "I assume you've heard of Judge Darren Gale."

"A.K.A. 'No Bail Gale,'" Jeffries said with a sigh.

"That's the one." Carter said.

The two detectives looked at each other uneasily.

reply
formatting help
[–] t_smitts 9 years ago

Vera shook his head. "We seriously looking at a judge for murder? That's playin' with fire."

"And not just any judge," Jeffries said, leaning back in his chair. "'No Bail Gale's probably the toughest guy on the bench, got a reputation as a hanging judge."

Kat nodded "Curtis told me once that even some of the DA's office think he's too harsh sometimes."

"Well, if anyone's gonna stir up that hornet's nest, it'll be me," said Stillman, putting on his coat. "We managed to track down anymore of the volunteers?"

Vera shrugged. "Most of them scattered after graduating. One's in Florida, two are out in California. One of them's a consul in Australia," he said, giving the others an awkward look.

"Well, keep at it," Stillman said. "Someone in this group knows something about Ben's death. We just gotta shake it loose."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even out of his judicial robes, Judge Gale was a forbidding presence. A tall, severe-looking man, his face seemed to carry a scowl that didn't completely disappear, even when smiling pleasantly, while shaking Stillman's hand.

"Thank you for seeing me, Your Honor." Stillman said as the two walked into the judge's office.

"My pleasure, Lieutenant," Judge Gale responded, still looking cordial as they sat down. "Your reputation precedes you. You've done great work in Homicide. What can I do for you?"

Steeling himself for an uncomfortable conversation, Stillman leaned forward. "Actually, Judge, I wanted to ask you about the murder of Ben Phillips."

The smile faded from Gale's face. "It's been a long time since I heard that name."

"You were both volunteers for the prison experiment Whitman was putting on, both assigned as guards. I hear you really took to the role, badge and all."

"My father was a colonel in the marines. I learned the importance of discipline early on. You break the law, you get punished. I've built a career on that."

"Well, from what we heard, Ben did things a little differently, and the two of you butted heads after they put him in charge. You also told him he should watch out."

Gale glared at Stillman. "What exactly are you asking me, Lieutenant? Did I kill him?"

"He wound up dead not far from the prison." Stillman said, not appearing intimidated.

"Ben and I may have argued, but, hand to God, I never laid a finger on him." Gale looked away. "His girlfriend made sure of that," he muttered under his breath.

"Girlfriend?"

Gale looked back at Stillman and chuckled wistfully. "I wish I could say I was the toughest one in there, but I wasn't…"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

("Fire" – The Crazy World of Arthur Brown)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCU5hTCynkQ

Ben rushed into the reception room at the entrance to find Darren standing there, arms crossed, and frowning.

"I can't even step away for five minutes to take a call from Professor Hatcher," Ben said. "What happened?"

"It was Number Twelve again." Darren said, giving Ben an unfriendly look. "We decided to check his cell for contraband and he decided to fight back. He almost broke Kaplan's nose."

"Where is he now?"

"We gave him a little lesson in manners and put him in solitary." Darren said, holding up his nightstick. "He can sleep on the floor tonight. It's not just him, though. Half these guys don't listen. We need to make an example out of one of them. What are you gonna do about this?"

"I'll handle it," Ben said, glaring at Darren.

"You keep saying that and nothing ever changes," Darren said, stepping closer to Ben. "That's not good enough anymore. Now, I wanna know what you plan to do to lay down the law around here, otherwise I'm gonna do it for you!"

"Hey!"

Hearing the voice, Ben and Darren turned to see the young woman standing in the doorway, wearing the same uniform they were. The Dean's secretary. A stack of letters and a letter opener in her hand, she walked towards them.

"Is there a problem here?" she asked, giving Darren a hard look.

"No, it's fine." Ben said, stepping back, the tension in his voice easing a bit. "Darren and I were just having a little chat."

"We still need to have a conversation about discipline," Darren said, looking at Ben.

"Well, it sounded to me you just had it," the female guard said, tossing the letters and opener on the nearby desk, and stepping uncomfortably close to Darren, "and Ben said he'd handle it. That should be good enough for you," she leaned in even closer, her gaze hardening, "unless we have a discipline problem right here."

Darren stared at her for a moment, before his gaze shrank and he stepped back. "No," he said, with a hint of nervousness, "no, we don't."

"Good," she said, keeping her gaze on Darren. "Now, isn't it time for you to punch out?"

Darren nodded quietly and stepped out of the room, before stopping and hiding around the edge of the doorway when the other two weren't looking.

Ben put up his hands. "It's not enough I gotta keep the prisoners in line. I gotta put up with him riding me every day too? He's not the only one either. I hear some of the other guys saying the same thing. They say I'm too young, I'm too soft, that I don't know what I'm doing."

The female guard shook her head. "They're just jealous that you got put in charge instead of them."

"No, that's the worst part," Ben said, starting to pace the room, "I'm starting to think they're right. The prisoners break the rules, they bring in contraband, Number Twelve gets into it with me or one of the other guards every day. Nothing I say or do makes a bit of difference. They listen to you, they listen to Darren. They don't listen to me."

"Look, you just can't let them take advantage of you. I learned that early on here. Stand up to people, and they'll respect you, or at least they won't be able to ignore you."

Ben looked at her for a moment, then looked around the room. "Things have gotta change, that's for sure. As of right now, no more 'Mister Nice Guy'."

Still standing near the doorway, Darren rolled his eyes, and walked off…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I didn't hear anything about a female guard," Stillman said.

Gale nodded. "She was a last minute addition, a secretary from the Dean's office. Shirley… something."

"And you're saying they were an item?"

Gale shrugged. "All I know is if anyone of us rode Ben too hard, it usually got back to her, and she'd give us hell for it. Trust me. She wasn't someone you wanted to cross."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lilly and Scotty wandered through the halls of Whitman College's history department, until they reached the right office and knocked on the half-open door.

"Professor McGarrett?" Scotty asked.

The woman sitting in the office, her back to the two detectives, didn't move.

"If you're here to ask for an extension on the assignment, don't even bother."

Scotty smirked. "Nah, don't worry. I handed mine in about fifteen years ago."

"Detectives Rush and Valens, Homicide," Lilly said, presenting her badge, as the professor swiveled her chair around.

The woman was unmistakably Shirley McGarrett, the late Dean's former secretary. Now in her sixties, she had the composure of an experienced academic and if the badge being shown affected her, she didn't show it.

"Ben Phillips," Lilly said. "You two were guards in the prison experiment back when you were Dean Patterson's secretary."

Shirley frowned. "Over forty years ago."

"Well, think of it as history," Scotty said, giving her a slightly condescending look, which Shirley returned in full.

"A female prison guard would've been science fiction in '68," Lilly said. "How'd you manage that?"

Shirley shrugged. "One of the students who volunteered rolled his car the day before the experiment started, broke both his legs. Professor Hatcher needed someone who knew how to do the job, and didn't have time to bring someone new up to speed. I'd been typing everything up from the start, so he asked me to step in, which basically consisted of me sorting the Dean's mail for him there, instead of at his office. I didn't really care one way or the other, but it was easy money and it got me away from the Dean's wandering eyes and hands for a couple of weeks. I figured, why not?"

"Well, we heard you and Ben might've had a little experiment of your own going on," Scotty said.

Shirley frowned at this. "Where'd you get a silly idea like that?"

"You always had his back when the other guards were riding him," Lilly said.

"Cause I knew what it was like having people not take you seriously. That doesn't mean I was going to risk my day job by getting involved with a student." Shirley gave the detectives an impatient look. "Look, I barely interacted with Ben. I was on the midnight shift. I only saw him when I came on to relieve him."

"So, you were just sticking up for him cause you felt sorry for him?" Scotty asked.

"Sure. The guards weren't respecting him; the prisoners didn't listen half the time. He was trying to prove he was up to the job, but I could tell the pressure was getting to him." Shirley paused for a moment. "Honestly, I don't really blame him for what he ended up doing."

"What did he do?" Lilly asked.

Shirley sighed. "Look, you gotta understand Ben wasn't the assertive type, but even a guy like that, you can only push so far, before they push back…"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Puzzled at the absence of most of the guards, Shirley followed the sound of voices down the stairs to the boiler room. Ben, Darren, and a half-dozen other guards were standing around a pudgy-looking prisoner, whom Shirley recognized as Number Three, Albert, sitting in a chair, and looking nervous. Ben looked up and walked over to her.

"Is it midnight already?" Ben asked quietly, not wanting Albert to hear.

"Yeah," Shirley answered.

"Where are the others?"

Shirley rolled her eyes. "Late, as usual. What's going on?"

"I'll tell you what's going on," Ben said, raising his voice, clearly no longer worried about Albert overhearing. "We caught Number Three here with contraband in his cell – again!"

Albert shook his head rapidly. "No, no, that's not true!"

"You swore to me last time you weren't gonna do this again. Who smuggled it in for you? Was it Number Twelve?"

"Nobody! That stuff wasn't mine."

"I found it in your cell myself!" Ben snapped. "Stop lying to me!"

"I'm not lying!" Albert pleaded. "Somebody must've put it there."

"Oh, now you're saying someone framed you?" Darren asked, stepping forward. "Why would anyone do that, huh? You're a nobody."

"Back off! I can handle this!" Ben barked at the surprised Darren, before turning back to Albert.

"Please," Albert whimpered, "you gotta believe me. I didn't do this. I swear."

Ben only glared back at the trembling Albert. "You know, I try to treat you guys with respect, give you the benefit of the doubt, and what do I get? You just think you can walk all over me." He turned to Darren, who was eyeing him suspiciously, clearly wondering what Ben would do next, before his gaze turned back to Albert. "Fine, have it your way. You were warned what would happen next time. You're going in the box."

Albert's eyes suddenly widened with terror. "No, no! Please, no! I didn't do it! Please, no!"

"Yeah, you're going," Ben said, a hint of nervousness in his voice. He turned to the other guards. "Pick him up."

Darren and the other guards grabbed the still-pleading Albert by the wrists and ankles and carried him toward towards an open metal hatch in the wall, not much bigger than a foot in height and width.

Despite Albert's struggling, the guards managed to shove him inside, before Darren closed the hatch and locked it.

Albert stopped pleading and started screaming.

Shirley watched from the other end of the room, before turning to Ben.

"Are you sure about this?" she asked.

Ben turned to her, still looking nervous. "You said it yourself. I can't let them ignore me. Not anymore."

Ben stared at the hatch, trying to steel himself, while Shirley looked on in shock as the screams continued…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"What was this 'box'?" Lilly asked.

Shirley sighed. "Back when the building was an influenza hospital, they had an incinerator for cremating dead bodies. It was just big enough for one person. We found a use for it." Shirley shook her head in resignation. "You stick a guy as claustrophobic as he was in there, that's hell on earth."

"How long did they leave him in there?" Lilly asked.

"All night." Shirley said, sighing again. "He was pretty messed up by the time we let him out."

"And you're sure this was Number Three?" Scotty asked, "Albert Rooney?"

"Yeah, that was him."

Lilly, looking suspicious, exchanged a look with Scotty. "Funny how Albert left that part out."

"Like I said, I didn't blame Ben," Shirley said. "Then again, I wasn't the one who got stuck in there."

"When did this happen?" Scotty asked.

Shirley eyed the two detectives. "The night before Ben died."

reply
formatting help
[–] t_smitts 9 years ago

Albert's eyes darted nervously around the interview room, as Vera and Kat sat across the table.

"Not a fan of closed-in spaces, are you, Albert?" Vera said, giving him a dull look.

Albert didn't answer.

"If this is bad, I can only imagine how bad it was inside that furnace," Kat said, looking at him intently.

"You were real helpful, giving us all those old files," Vera said. "I guess you figured, if anyone ever knocks on your door, you can just give 'em some old papers, make yourself look good, get 'em looking at someone else."

"No… no," Albert said, seeming to shrink in his chair.

"I can understand you wanting to get back at Ben, after what he did." Kat said, her tone softening a bit.

Albert shook his head weakly. "I didn't do that."

"Come on, Albert," Vera said, sounding more skeptical. "The guy puts you in that box, makes you live you worst nightmare, and you're telling me you didn't want any payback?"

"No one would blame you." Kat continued. "Any normal person-"

"Normal?" Albert said, looking at her incredulously, finally showing a bit of energy. "There was nothing normal about anything that happened there! It was just supposed to be some silly experiment we took part in for a few easy bucks. That's it! But… somewhere along the line, it started bringing out the worst in all of us." Albert sighed and looked down. "I can't blame Ben for that."

Vera just stared. "You figure that out before or after Ben died?"

Albert looked up and glared at Vera. "Look, there was payback, but I wasn't the one who delivered it…"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

("All Along the Watchtower" – Jimi Hendrix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLV4_xaYynY

Sitting alone at the table in the corner of the prison mess hall, Albert looked up from his lunch tray to look around at the other prisoners eating and the guards standing over them. One of them was Ben, apparently having started early, as some guards did to earn some extra pay. Ben turned his gaze over towards Albert for a moment, before quickly looking away. For a moment, Albert thought he saw a flash of guilt on the young man's face.

Lifting up a fork full of food from the tray in front of him, he found his hand shaking. He looked at it for a moment, his breathing growing heavier, then put the fork down and shoved the tray of food away. It was the first time in ages that he'd lost his appetite.

He sat there in silence for a moment before Carter, carrying his own tray, walked over and sat down across from him at the table.

"What do you want?" Albert asked, scowling at him.

"Hey, man, I thought we were friends." Carter said, quietly, not betraying any emotions.

"Friends?" Albert asked. "I didn't put that stuff in my cell. They were just punishing me to get to you guys."

"I know," Carter said with a sigh. "Look, I swear I don't know who put that stuff in there, but that's not important now. Number Twelve asked me to deliver a message."

"And why can't he deliver it himself?" Albert asked skeptically.

"Cause our head guard's watchin' him like a hawk." Carter said, quietly. "He said it ain't right what they did to you, and it's time for a little payback."

Albert's face went slack. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about fightin' back, givin' them a taste of their own medicine, for every shove, every swing of their nightstick, and especially for what they did to you."

Albert stared for a moment, then shook his head. "That's crazy. The guards'll tear us apart if we go after them."

Carter shook his head. "They can't stop all of us, not if we all move at the same time." A slight smirk appeared on Carter's face. "Besides, Number Twelve said he's got an ace in the hole."

"What's that?"

"Secret weapon, that's all he told me. Said it's safer the less people who know." Carter leaned closer, "but, listen, I gotta know right now, are you in or out?"

Albert looked down at the table for a moment, then at Ben, across the room. His eyes narrowed.

"I'm in."

Carter gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"So what am I supposed to do?"

Carter picked up his tray, stood up from the table and smiled. "He said someone's gonna be along in a couple of minutes to explain it."

Albert nodded as Carter walked off. Albert looked down at his tray for a few minutes, before he noticed someone standing behind him. Turning around, Albert recoiled in shock as he saw Darren Gale standing over him, looking as intimidating as ever. Albert could feel his heart racing, wondering what Darren would do, certain that he had heard everything. Instead, Darren leaned down and whispered into Albert's left ear.

"Dinner finishes at exactly eight o'clock tonight. When you see that time on the clock on the wall, that's when I'll step away, and that's when you target the closest guard. Got it?"

Shocked, Albert could only nod.

Nodding back, Darren stood up and looked over at Ben.

"Don't worry. He'll get what's coming to him."

Still stunned, Albert looked down in thought...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vera leaned closer, still not believing what he'd heard.

"You're saying 'No Bail' Gale, a future judge, was helping the prisoners go after the other guards?"

"I don't know why he did it, but I know what I saw."

"So how'd your payback end up playing out?" Kat asked.

Albert shook his head. "I don't know."

Kat and Vera gave him dubious look.

"I don't!" He insisted. "When the fight started, I got whacked over the head. I ended up spending the night in the emergency room at Saint Boniface with a concussion. Go ahead and check."

"Well, it sounds like the judge has some explaining to do." Vera said.

"So does Carter Jenkins." Kat added.

"And you never thought to tell the cops about this?" Vera asked.

Albert sunk in his chair slightly and shook his head. "I just wanted to forget the whole thing happened."

Kat shrugged. "Then why'd you take those files?"

Albert looked at her, with a hint of courage showing. "Cause I may have wanted to forget, but that doesn't mean they get to."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sitting at the table, Carter looked warily at Jeffries and Scotty, who were standing at the other end of the room.

"So you and Ben were civil with each other, huh?" Jeffries said, folding his arms.

Carter gave the detectives a steeled look. "This isn't my first time in a police station, not by a long shot. I know my rights."

"Yeah, sure." Scotty said, "just like Judge Gale knows his rights too. Wonder if he's gonna stick with 'em."

Carter's eyes narrowed slightly. "What are you talking about?"

"We got the judge in the other interview room right now with our boss." Jeffries said, leaning closer to Carter, who started to look uneasy.

Scotty gave Jeffries an innocent look. "What do you suppose they're talkin' about right now, anyway?"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Judge Gale leaned back in his chair and gave Stillman an icy stare, the kind that had withered more than a few defendants and lawyers in his courtroom over the years.

"You've got a lot of nerve hauling a judge in here like this."

Stillman, not fazed in the slightest bit by the stare, only glared back.

"And you've got a lot of nerve lying to a cop in a murder in a murder investigation." Stillman retorted. "What would your father say?"

The judge recoiled, having nothing to respond to this.

"You accused Ben of being too soft on the prisoners, but you were helping them set off a riot. Why?"

Gale sighed. "I wasn't trying to hurt anyone. I was just trying to embarrass him."

Stillman nodded, starting to understand. "You thought if Hatcher saw that Ben couldn't keep the prisoners in line, he'd put someone else in charge? Maybe you?"

Gale nodded, lowering his head for a moment. "I told myself it'd be better for everyone. I just didn't think Ben had the spine."

"Even after what happened with Albert Rooney?"

Gale looked at Stillman. "All I could see was someone in my way."

Stillman's look was still firm but softened a bit. "Tell me what happened, Judge."

"I thought the other guards would be able to put down a riot in no time, but those guys came at us like they had nothing to lose. Believe me; they didn't go easy on me, either."

"Can you blame them?"

The judge paused at this, then sighed. "I guess not."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Look, I didn't kill Ben." Carter said, sounding more defensive.

Scotty looked at the older man, unimpressed. "Nah, you just started a riot so the other guys could do you dirty work."

Carter's eyes narrowed. "Look, every one of us had a beef with one of those guards. They'd been on us since the start, some of us more than others." Carter looked directly at Jeffries with his last remark, the implication clear. "I'm not saying I didn't get some payback, but it wasn't with Ben."

"Somebody did." Jeffries said.

Carter shook his head. "Ben didn't die during the riot, and, by the way, starting it wasn't my idea anyway."

"No, it was this 'Number Twelve' guy we keep hearing about." Scotty said. "Who was he, anyway?"

Carter chuckled cynically. "That's how messed up it was..."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every prisoner in the mess hall seemed to steal a glance at the clock on the wall when no one was looking. Carter, trying not to be obvious about it, has his eyes on Albert at a nearby table, who looked up from his tray back at him. The unasked question on Carter's face was clear. Are you ready?

Though visibly nervous, Albert gave him a slight nod.

Satisfied, Carter looked up at the clock.

7:59, with the second hand inching its way up towards the top.

Back at Albert's table, Darren, who'd been standing over him, glancing at the clock himself, took a deep breath and stepped away from the table, and headed towards the doorway.

The second hand reached twelve.

His heart racing, Albert bolted upright from his chair, then, moving faster than he ever had in his life, and screaming at the top of his lungs, he ran at the guard standing over the adjacent table. The guard's eyes widened as he turned to see Albert throw his fist into the his jaw, knocking him to the floor.

Not wasting a second, Carter stood up from his own chair, spun around, and struck the guard standing behind him. Every other prisoner followed suit, attacking whatever guard happened to be closest. Two of them even chased down Darren and began pummeling him.

Then the guards started pulling out their nightsticks.

One of them pulled Albert off the guard he'd been hitting, then clubbed him over the head as hard as he could. Albert went down and didn't move. Several others struck the other prisoners, knocking down several of them. Undeterred, Carter and the other prisoners continued attacking the guards. A few of them managed to pull the nightsticks from some of the guards' grasp and began hitting them violently.

No one seemed to notice when Ben ran into the room, having heard the noise, stunned by what he saw.

Gritting his teeth, he rushed over to the two prisoners kneeling over Darren, hitting him, and brought his nightstick down hard over their backs. As the two of them went down, he tried to pull Darren to his feet, without much success.

"Darren, what the hell's going on? How did this happen?"

The bruised and groggy Darren only mumbled something Ben couldn't understand. Aggravated, Ben instead waded through struggling prisoners and guards toward Carter. Pulling him off another injured guard, and throwing him to the floor, Ben grabbed him by his collar.

"Who started this?" Ben yelled. "Who?"

A defiant smirk formed over Carter's face. "Who do you think?"

His breathing quickening as he understood who Carter was referring to. Shoving Carter aside, he scanned the room until he saw the one he was looking for on the other side of the room, standing over a guard he'd just knocked down.

Number Twelve.

With the energy of two weeks of pent up anger and frustration, Ben ran at the young man and tackled him to the floor. The young man pinned under him managed to get off one punch, which only seemed to infuriate Ben further. Ben pulled out his nightstick and raised it, when the prisoner managed to knock it out of his hands, falling to the floor, and rolling out of reach.

Looking at the nightstick, then back down at the prisoner, enraged, Ben clenched his fist and punched the young man in the face as hard as he could. Then, he hit him again. Then again, and again.

Looking down at the backs of his hands, unsure of whose blood that was on them, Ben knelt lower and pinned the young man's throat with his left forearm. Immediately, the young man became making a croaking sound, as his hands struggled in vain to pull Ben's arm off his throat.

"Why couldn't you just follow the rules, for once in your life!?" Ben screamed, not caring whether the young man was listening or not. "Why!?"

He wasn't listening. Desperately, trying to lift Ben's arm off his throat, any anger in his eyes had given way to fear. Not seeming to notice this, Ben, raised his right fist, ready to hit him again, when he finally got a look at the face of the terrified young man pinned under him. He'd known it for years.

Jake.

As the realization of what Ben was doing washed over him, the rage seemed to melt away, replaced by a look of horror, as he scrambled off of his friend, who was finally able to breathe.

"What am I…?" Ben stammered weakly. "I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry."

Jake only glared at him, too weak to do anything else.

Looking around in shock at the other prisoners and guards, still beating each other, Ben pulled himself to his feet and rushed out of the room. He turned a corner and opened a door to closed-off alcove. A half-dozen grad students inside were quietly sitting, watching the riot through a two-way mirror, as if it were movie. Ben could feel some of his anger returning.

"Hey!" Ben yelled, startling the grad students, who clearly hadn't noticed him come in. "The peep show's over! Help me break this up!"

The students looked at each other for a moment. Obviously, interfering was the one thing Hatcher had told them not to do. Ben didn't care.

"Now!" he barked, causing the students to jump from their chairs and hurry towards the mess hall.

Ben turned back at the table in the room, covered with the notes they'd been taking. Looking at it in disbelief for a moment, he shook his head and ran back towards the mess hall…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Judge Gale put his hands over his head, clearly unsettled at the memory.

"Ben and those grad students managed to break things up after that."

Stillman nodded. "Then what happened?"

Gale shrugged. "We started patching ourselves up as best we could. Ben started making phone calls."

"Phone calls to who?"

"He was trying to get a hold of the Dean and Professor Hatcher. No one answered at the number they were supposed to stay reachable at. It took a couple of hours, but he finally managed to track them down at some alumni fundraiser." Gale snorted in disgust. "Ben told them to get over there, or else he'd come to them."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scott and Jeffries stared at Carter in disbelief.

"You're saying Number Twelve was Jake Gillespie?" Jeffries asked.

"The radio guy?" Scotty added.

With a look of remorse on his face, Carter sighed. "Yeah, that was him."

Scotty looked at Jeffries, confused.

"That's the guy who brought Ben's case, right?" Scotty asked.

Jeffries nodded solemnly. "His best friend."

reply
formatting help
[–] t_smitts 9 years ago

Jake kept his eyes on the table, not looking up at first, when Lilly and Jeffries walked into the interview room.

"You left an important part of your story out, Jake." Jeffries said.

"You already knew that Ben signed up for that experiment," Lilly said, giving him a cool look, "because you signed up for it too."

Ben looked up at the two detectives for a moment before hanging his head again.

"Yeah, I did," he said, softly.

"So you come in here with some story about finding a flyer when you were cleaning out his things." Lilly said.

Jake looked at her and shook his head. "That wasn't a story."

"And you didn't think to mention that you were there?" Lilly asked, sounding more skeptical. "Didn't think we'd find out that you and your best friend were at each other's throats?"

Jake narrowed his eyes. "That was me at my worst. Is that something you'd want to spend a lot of time thinking about?" He sighed. "I just wanted to forget the whole thing, pretend it never happened, and after forty-some-odd years, I'd gotten pretty damn good at it. Then one day, I saw that flyer, and I just couldn't anymore."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the adjacent interview room, Scotty and Vera glared across the table at Professor Hatcher, who was trying to keep his composure.

"You have a lot of nerve, dragging me in here like this," Hatcher said, with forced indignation in his voice.

"You tell us one more lie, you're gonna find out just how much nerve we have," Scotty said, impatiently.

"What are you talking about?"

"The line you sold us about shutting down the experiment because of some 'minor altercations?'" Scotty continued. "It was a full-blown riot."

"Not that you were there to see it," Vera said, giving him a condescending look. "Too busy buttering up those donors, right?"

"I told you before I wasn't there."

Vera nodded. "Except for after, when Ben threatened to embarrass you in front of the school and all your rich buddies."

Scotty leaned closer. "He was gonna expose your screw-up, probably cost you your job, and he ends up dead that same night."

Hatcher put his hands up. "No, no! You've got it all wrong!"

Scotty leaned back. "Well, we're just dumb cops. Why don't you explain it for us?"

Hatcher looked at the two detectives nervously

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"So what happened, Jake?" Lilly asked with a shrug. "You come in here, telling us about your friend's murder, but you can't bring yourself to tell us about your part in it?"

"Maybe because of something you did?" Jeffries said, leaning closer.

Jake looked at him. "I didn't hurt Ben."

"You're telling me you didn't care about him pummeling you like that?" Lilly asked. "Or about being enemies that whole time?"

Jake shook his head. "We all lost ourselves in that place, but Ben was the first one of us to come to his senses. Not only that, but he was the one who saved us from it..."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

("White Room" – Cream)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkae0-TgrRU

Sitting the reception room at the rear of the building, Jake lifted the ice pack from his face as he heard voices in the adjacent room.

Professor Hatcher and Dean Patterson, both still wearing suits from the upscale event they'd come from, looked uneasily at the row of volunteers, some in prisoner uniforms, some in guard uniforms, including Darren and Carter, sat against the wall of the main room, outside the cells. Most were nursing various injuries, with the grad students nervously tending to them.

"Broken arms, broken wrists, broken ribs, and that's just what I've seen so far." Ben looked up at Hatcher. "This is what was going on while you were at some fancy party with a bunch of rich donors."

Dean Patterson put a hand up to his head. "Oh, my God. This is a mess."

Hatcher looked over to the corner of the room, where Albert was propped up in a chair, while a grad student cleaned dried blood from the wound on the side of his head. Looking dazed, Albert didn't seem to notice.

"What's wrong with Number Three?" Hatcher asked, looking increasingly uncomfortable.

"His name is Albert," Ben snapped, "and I think he has a concussion."

Hatcher shook his head. "I left you in charge here. You were supposed to keep the peace. That's what a guard does."

Ben stepped closer to Hatcher, his eyes narrowing. "Don't you try to put this on me, not after what you've been doing."

Hatcher tried to keep his composure. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Your grad students filled me in. All those questions and evaluations you had us take at the start? You didn't make me head guard because you thought I was fair. You did it because you knew the older guys would be resentful and I'd have more to prove. You told Jake to find ways to stir up trouble whenever he could. You also had your students plant that contraband in Albert's cell to see how I'd react." A hint of regret was visible on Ben's face as he said this. "You're like some kid shaking up his ant farm to see what they do."

Hatcher shrugged. "I told you this would be a working prison. Real prison guards have to deal with unexpected situations all the time."

"They don't have to deal with the warden sabotaging them behind their back." Ben shot back. He looked over at Patterson. "Did you know he was doing this?"

The suspicious look the Dean was giving Hatcher was enough of an answer for Ben.

Hatcher sighed. "All right, fine. You have my word, for the remainder of the experiment, I won't interfere."

Ben recoiled, looking incredulously at the professor. "You can't be serious! Look at these guys!" Ben gestured at the injured volunteers. "You think I'm gonna let you use them as guinea pigs any more than you already have? No way. Unless you want the school, or the newspapers finding out what happened here, and how you stacked the deck, this experiment's over."

Hatcher scowled at Ben. "Don't you threaten me, young man. This is over when I say it's over."

"Did you hear what I said?" Ben stepped closer, but not raising his voice. "I'm saying no."

Hatcher started to wilt under Ben's stare, before Patterson stepped in and gently pushed them apart. "Hey, hey, it's okay," Patterson said, smiling nervously. "We don't need to get anyone else involved. We're not going to make anyone do anything they don't want to do, right?" Patterson looked at Hatcher, who shook his head submissively.

Ben nodded coolly, before looking back at the volunteers. "Some of these guys need to be checked out by a doctor. I want to have someone look at them. Tonight."

"Okay." Patterson nodded, before turning to Hatcher. "We'll take them to Saint Boniface," Patterson said, softly. "It's not far from here. I know some of the doctors there. It'll be handled quietly."

Hatcher nodded in acknowledgment, while Patterson looked up at the clock on the wall.

"Wait a minute. What about...?" Patterson trailed off, gesturing towards the clock.

Hatcher, noticing the time, sighed. "Oh, right. I guess I'll stay behind."

Ben shook his head. "No way. I don't trust you. I'll be the one to stay."

"Fine," Hatcher said, through gritted teeth, as Patterson gestured for the grad students to help the volunteers to their feet.

"Come on, boys," Patterson announced, sounding almost paternal. "We're going to have you checked out by a doctor. Let's get you loaded in the cars."

Ben walked over to Jake, still sitting in his chair, and gave him a sad smile as he helped his friend to his feet.

"It's okay, buddy," Ben said. "I got you. Put your weight on me."

"Ben..." Jake said, weakly.

"I'm sorry, man," Ben said, looking his friend over, and patting him on the arm, "but it's gonna be okay."

Jake nodded wearily, as Ben, ignoring the scowl Hatcher was giving him, walked him outside...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hatcher held up a finger. "That boy was alive when I left."

Scotty nodded. "Yeah, well, there's one little problem," he said, opening the folder in front of him and pulling out one of the papers inside. "We've managed to track down a dozen or so of your volunteers and the grad students you had watching them. Wasn't easy, cause a lot of them scattered, almost like they were trying to get as far away as possible. But a lot of them remember you and Dean Patterson telling them, if they wanted to graduate, they should keep their mouths shut."

Hatcher shook his head. "No, that… that's a mistake."

Vera leaned in. "Not only that, but we managed to find a couple of the ladies that ran the school archives. You know those librarian types, they remember everything. These two remember you telling them to get rid of all of the records after the investigation died down."

"Too bad for you one of the students managed to save a box," Scotty added.

Vera glared at the professor. "You may not have killed Ben, but you knew damn well his murder was connected to your experiment, and you covered it up to save your own ass."

"No, you don't understand!" Hatcher said, growing more defensive.

"No, we understand just fine," Scotty retorted, "and intimidating witnesses and destroying evidence makes you an accessory after the fact."

The weight of hearing this seemed to push down on Hatcher, who buried his face in his hands.

"It wasn't supposed to turn out like that!" Hatcher said through his teeth, before looking back at the detectives. "It was just supposed to be a simple experiment."

"Well, hey, look on the bright side," Vera said, with a hint of condescension. "Now you got a chance to try your experiment again."

"Yeah," Scotty said, with the same condescending tone. "Up close and personal, this time."

Hatcher lowered his head and sighed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jake shook his head. "Never thought that'd be the last time I saw him."

Lilly looked away, as though thinking of something, before turning back to Jake. "Jake, you said that Ben, Hatcher, and the Dean were all looking at the clock on the wall?"

Jake nodded with a hint of surprise on his face. "Yeah, I'd forgotten about that until now."

"Do you remember what time it was?"

Jake shrugged. "About twenty to twelve, give or take."

Lilly looked at Jeffries with a knowing glance.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The person sitting across from Lilly and Kat in the interview room gave them an uninterested look.

"We've been looking into your history, Shirley," Lilly said, pulling several pages out of the folder on the table. They looked like photocopies of documents several years old. "A lot of applications for things over the years you wouldn't expect a secretary back then to try out for."

Shirley just stared at her, confused. "What? What are you talking about?"

Lilly looked over some of the pages. "Well, you applied for jobs with the Department of Corrections three times, with Philly PD twice, with the FBI, state police, and a few private security firms."

Kat shook her head. "No takers, huh?"

Shirley frowned. "Not as many doors open to women back then. I shouldn't have to tell the two of you about that. What does this have to do with Ben anyway?"

"Well, it's just curious. You said you didn't care about volunteering for the experiment one way or another, but these are all jobs that involve authority," Lilly gave a faint smile, "like the kind you had when you were a guard."

"Look, I don't know where you think you're going with this, but it was just a stupid three-week job."

"Two weeks, actually," Kat said. "Ben made them shut down the experiment early."

"No cell phones back then, so he stayed behind to tell the midnight shift," Lilly leaned closer. "Your shift."

Shirley shook her head. "There were lots of guys with me on the midnight shift."

"Yeah, we found their punch cards." Lilly pulled a few cards out of the folder and gave a hint of a chuckle. "They were all twenty minutes late."

"Not you, though," Kat said. "You were professional, right on time."

"And he told you this job, that you supposedly didn't care about, was being cut short." Lilly said.

Shirley said nothing.

Kat looked at the pages on the table, then back at Shirley. "You know what I think? I think you got a taste of something in that place, and you've been trying to get it back ever since."

Shirley stared at the pages, a reminder of years of rejection. A look of bitterness came over her face. "Honey, sugar, sweetheart. That's what they used to call me, the Dean and everyone else in that office." She laughed cynically. "It's not like I had a name, right?

Lilly and Kat listened, a hint of empathy on their faces.

"You know, at least once a week, he'd have me pull some file out of the bottom drawer, just so he could watch me bend over and get it. I think what pissed me off the most was he wouldn't even pretend to read it after." Shirley leaned forward, years of anger finally coming out. "When I put on that uniform, nobody in that place treated me like that, at least not more than once. You know what I got a 'taste' of in that place? Respect, for the first time in my life."

Lilly nodded, solemnly. "And Ben was taking that away."

"Did you tell him that?" Kat asked.

Shirley shook her head. "He wouldn't have understood…"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shirley rushed through the hallway, the Dean's mail in hand, frantically checking the cells. Each one was open and empty.

Looking around the joining rooms, she finally noticed someone in the reception room at the rear. It was Ben. Having changed back into his street clothes, his uniform was bunched up in a ball in his hands. He was staring through the open doorway outside, watching storm clouds forming overhead, with a hint of thunder. He looked like he was lost in thought.

"Ben!" Shirley called, causing him to spin around. "What's going on? Where are the prisoners? Why aren't they in their cells?"

Ben shook his head and walked over to her. "It's over, Shirley."

Shirley looked at him, confused. "Over? What are you talking about?"

"Look, this whole experiment's gotten out of hand."

"But they can't just stop it like that!"

"Shirley, there was a riot here a few hours ago! People got hurt. I almost strangled my best friend tonight!"

"Look, it's our job to keep the prisoners in line."

"They're not prisoners!" Ben said, holding up his uniform, before tossing it on a nearby table. "And we're not guards! They just told us we were and we let it go to our heads. But no more. I told Hatcher we weren't gonna play along anymore."

Shirley looked at him for a moment. Her eyes narrowed. "You stopped it?"

"I had to, Shirley, before things got worse."

She shook her head in disbelief. "You had no right to do that."

"We've taken this way too far. It's time to get back to the real world."

Shirley's look of disbelief gave way to anger. "The real world? Do you have any idea what 'the real world' is for me, Ben?" She rolled her eyes, as her voice began to rise. "No, what am I saying? Of course you don't. I thought you were different, but you're just like all the others. I supported you, I stood up for you, and this is the thanks I get?"

"Shirley…" Ben said, putting up his hands, suddenly feeling uneasy.

Shirley pointed the rolled up stack of mail directly at Ben. "You need to go find Hatcher and tell him you changed your mind. Now!"

Ben shook his head. "No, Shirley, I'm not doing that. Listen to me-"

"No, you listen!" Shirley shouted. "You are not taking this away from me! Now tell Hatcher you changed your mind!"

Ben looked at her with a mix of sympathy and nervousness. "Shirley, I'm sorry, but I can't do that!"

"Yes, you can! You have to! I'm not going back!"

As she said the last words, she gave Ben a shove with both hands, pushing him back a step. She heard him make a faint noise as she did so. When she pulled her hands away, the pile of mail stayed on him for an instant, before falling away, revealing the Dean's gold-plated letter opener, now embedded in Ben's stomach, a cloud of blood forming around it.

Ben looked at her with wide eyes, clearly in shock. Shirley was breathing heavily, but didn't move. Looking down at the wound, he managed to maintain enough instinct to pull the letter opener out, dropping it to the floor, with a growing puddle of blood joining it moments later.

Still in shock, and starting to tremble from the sudden cold he was feeling, Ben took a few steps backwards, stumbled, and fell to the floor, never taking his eyes off Shirley. After a second, he managed to pull himself to his feet, and, pressing his hands against the wound, he walked through the doorway to the outside, where the rain was starting to come down.

Still breathing heavily, Shirley stepped forward, picked up the bloody letter opener, and stood there, glaring, as Ben walked further away, until he finally disappeared into the rain…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

("Abraham, Martin, and John" – Dion)
http://youtu.be/ZBiH5fsKJB8?t=15s

Standing against the line-up wall, Shirley looked up at the camera taking her picture, while Lilly watched from the corner of the room. After turning to the side for another picture, a young female uniform officer took Shirley by the arm and escorted her out of the room. Shirley gave a weary, resigned look at the officer, then at Lilly, as she was led away…

Holding him firmly by the arm, Scotty walked Professor Hatcher down the row of cells, until they reached an open, empty one. Hatcher stepped inside, and turned to see Scotty close the door, with a hint of a smirk on his face. Giving the cell a quick look around, Hatcher lowered his head, shaking it with a sigh…

Stillman walked through storage, carrying Ben's case box. He placed it on a shelf among the others, pulled out a marker, and marked CLOSED on the side…

Sitting at his desk, Vera picked up the elaborate-looking sandwich. Instead of taking a bite, however, he looked at it for a moment, then turned to see Kat at her own desk, holding a cup of coffee, likely with cinnamon in it. The two continued to exchange looks for a moment, which earned them a puzzled look from Jeffries as he walked by, before Vera gave an affirming nod to Kat, and bit into his sandwich…

Carter and Albert looked out at the vast, empty field, where the prison facility had once stood. There was no sign it had ever even been there. They turned to see Darren, who was walking towards them. Rather than usual his scowl, Darren's face had a look of humility, almost contrition. He extended a tentative hand to the two of them, waiting to see their reaction. Carter and Albert looked warily at each other for a moment, before Carter, then Albert, nodded and shook Darren's hand.

Halfway across the field, Jake was looking around as well, when, for a moment, he thought he glimpsed Ben giving him a friendly smile. Feeling young again for a moment, Jake smiled back warmly, and watched as Ben nodded and walked off, fading away. Jake gave a sigh of relief and walked back towards the others.

THE END

reply
formatting help
[–] christianturba4 9 years ago

i read everything..well, first of all congratulations great job!

Some things:

1) I was sure Jake had something to do the moment you introduced him; i was afraid he was going to be the killer but fortunately you decided otherwise

2) I was also afraid of the old "professor kills the student cause he turned against him" topic, but fortunately it went otherwise

3) I suspected Shirley all along, and this is the only weakness of your story.It was an other cold case topic: when somebody says he doesn't care about something (shirley about the experiment), he/she really cares and turns out to be the killer..and


Waiting for your answer..good job!!

reply
formatting help
[–] t_smitts 9 years ago

It's good if you have some other suspects you really thought could be the doer. I'm well aware of the show's many tropes, including the "best friend doer" and the pretending-not-to-care doer, but I thought it was a good fit here.

In case you didn't know, the case is is based on a real experiment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Like the experiment in the story, it had to be cut short after guard engaged in cruel behavior (though nobody died) and the professor running it wasn't as nearly as irresponsible as Hatcher is shown as being here.

reply
formatting help
[–] eljuma_1 9 years ago

Hey t_smitts! Do you know what happened to the "Virtual Season 8" web that was set a few years ago? Was it taken down?

reply
formatting help
[–] t_smitts 9 years ago

I'm not sure. If you google "cold case virtual season 8", you might be able to find it, if it's still up. You can also go to kathrynmorris.co.uk and contact the webmaster. They might still be in touch with the person who ran it.

Not that many ended up being posted. I put up the first two and there were maybe two or three beyond that. If you want to see the ones I wrote ("The Wall" and "The Company"), they're on fanfiction.net. I think a whole season might've been biting off a bit more than a bunch of amateur writers could chew, especially for someone like me, who considered himself a good writer, but is a very LAZY writer and can go weeks or even months between posting chapters.

I did have a couple of long-term story arcs planned that those two stories hinted at, if you'd care to know what they were.

reply
formatting help
[–] t_smitts 8 years ago

Bump

reply
formatting help
About | Contact | Privacy | Terms | Standards | Contribute
Top Movie Discussions
Nosferatu Discussion | Wicked Discussion | Gladiator II Discussion | Mufasa: The Lion King Discussion | Sonic the Hedgehog 3 Discussion | Babygirl Discussion | A Complete Unknown Discussion | The Substance Discussion | Anora Discussion | Conclave Discussion | Better Man Discussion | The Order Discussion | Moana 2 Discussion | Kraven the Hunter Discussion | The Brutalist Discussion
Copyright © 2017 - 2025 MovieChat LLC

MovieChat is not affiliated with IMDb, IMDb Message Boards, or Reddit