The System

Officers Weissman and Murphy are on patrol on a rainy night when they are called to the site of a robbery. They race to the scene and find an elderly woman cradling her husband who was attacked by two men. While Weissman stays with the victims, Murphy goes looking for the shooters. In a nearby alley, Murphy finds the shooters suspended by webbing, Spider-Man’s calling card.

At the 15th Precinct, Detectives Bing Harrison and Pete Donovan are called into the chief’s office for an update on the deli robbery. They tell him that the victim is in the hospital and they have two perps in custody. However, when the victim’s wife was asked to identify the crooks in the line-up, she identified Harrison as one of the culprits. To make matters worse, Donovan hands the chief Spider-Man’s trademark “friendly neighborhood” notes that were left at the scene. This frustrates the chief who learns where the perps were nabbed by Spider-Man, where the weapon was found and update, and how forensics are still looking at it. This gives him some optimism, and the chief tells his detectives that he’s going to check in with Hernandez at the District Attorney’s office to see how much leverage they’ll get on this case.

After getting the files on the perps, Harrison and Donovan go into the first interrogation room to interview Terry Dunn. Dunn refuses to talk, and demands a lawyer. Harrison then goes over Dunn’s rap sheet but Terry continues to insist that he and his friend, Walter Bunkowski didn’t do anything. The detectives convince Terry to explain himself and he says that they were walking down the street when two other guys ran past them. They knew that these other men did something wrong because Spider-Man was chasing them. He says that Spider-Man mistook him and Walter for the real crooks and webbed them up. He also complains that the wall-crawler assaulted them and suggests that the detectives go after him instead.

The pair then go to interview Walter Bunkowski, and he too demands to speak to a lawyer. However, they get him talking by asking why people call him Bunk. As the interrogation continues, the chief and District Attorney watch from the other side of the two-way glass. The situation doesn’t look good as there were no eye-witnesses and without confessions, the judge will throw their case out. They are concerned that the two crooks are going to use the “Spider-Man Defense” like the last bunch of crooks that Spider-Man nabbed, who ended up walking free. With the clock ticking before the arrival of the public defender, the chief has faith that Harrison and Donovan will be able to get a confession out of one of the crooks before that time.

Back in the interrogation room, the two detectives put on a good cop/bad cop routine for Walter. While Harrison suggests that he can confess to getting himself out of serious trouble, Donovan angrily chastizes Bukowski because his victim, an 80-year-old man, might die in the hospital as a result of his injuries. Donovan leaves the room to check on the forensic results on the baseball bat, but learns that it only had the victims prints on it. He then returns to the interrogation with Bunkowski where Harrison is trying to get answers out of him. Donovan decides to change tactics, when Walter starts saying how Spider-Man webbed them up, he starts doubting that Spider-Man was even there. This starts making Walter nervous. They then start pointing out that he might not see his girlfriend or his daughter for a long time if they pin this crime on him. They then start ratcheting things up by claiming that Terry has his own lawyer and is already spilling the beans on Walter. Bunk is then threatened with a harsher sentence if the old man dies. Unfortunately, Walter’s public defender arrives and stops the interrogation before Walter can sign a confession and when the officers can’t charge him with anything he takes Bunk and leaves.

It’s already dawn by this point, and Donovan and Harrison are told to go home. When the chief goes back to his office he is giving his mail. Opening up the paper he calls the two detectives back because the Daily Bugle has a front-page photo of Spider-Man confronting Dunn and Bunkowski and Bunk is brandishing the baseball bat used in the crime. Attached to the paper is another note reading “Courtesy of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man”

Recurring Characters

Spider-Man

Topical References

• Donovan threatens Walter with the death sentence, saying he’ll get lethal injection if the old man dies in the hospital. This should be considered a topical reference as this story was published prior to August 24, 2004, when the State of New York abolished the death penalty. Once could assume that Donovan is threatening Bunk with life in prison rather than the death senteance.