A Matter of Justice

Lt. Raymond Howards stood still, his body tense, and inwardly he freaked. On trial. A lousy lawyer. And all evidence against him. He hadn't even seen - yet alone met - the person who was about to represent him in court in just 30 minutes. What would a lawyer care; why should he care? Raymond was doomed to a life in prison.

The case against him: murder. And the prosecution's key witness? None other than the infamous Roy Wallace, a man that he had been trying to jail for the last 10 years. For Raymond was a cop, and a good one at that, but it looked like Roy might just be a better criminal.

A woman had been stabbed, dumped in a grey dustbin, and left for the owner of the trash to gasp at early one Thursday morning. Since Thursday was Raymond's day off, the case had been passed to another officer and his crime scene investigators, but the coroner, Justin Strand had recognised all too well the pattern of stab wounds and had called Raymond in, even on his day off.

In truth, Raymond didn't actually have any substantial evidence pointing Wallace to the crime or the similar stabbings leading up to it. He could only go by a set of tire tracks matching Wallace's truck and by his proximity to the crimes. Once, Raymond had even managed to get as far as a search warrant for Wallace's house and had found a knife that could have committed the crimes, but the serrated blade was perfectly cleaned, and no evidence could properly tie it to the cases.

But if Raymond had any reason to suspect foul play on Wallace's part, now was definitely the time. There were only two ways that his hair and DNA could have found themselves to the crime scene: either he committed the crime in his sleep, or someone had framed him.

Of course the public was in an uproar; a dirty cop deserved to be punished all the more since he was supposed to uphold the justice system.

So now he waited, since waiting was all he could do.