The young woman followed Mitty down the hallway in the direction of the archives, coughing at the dust. When they reached the broken Entrance and Exit sign above the door to the old courtroom, she pointed out that the word "Exit" was dark. Mitty Laughed.
"My boss says it's existential."
"There's always an exit," the young woman said. "With God, all things are possible. Are you Catholic?"
"I'm Catholic on my father's side. I'm Jewish on my mothers, just like Jesus."
"That's very clever. You are a very witty man."
"You need a sense of humor in a job like this," Mitty said, opening the door to the old courtroom.
He led the young woman through the door behind the judge's chair. His replacement, Officer Deneen, was sitting at the first checkpoint.
"Are you Sister Mary Elizabeth McCarthy from Sisters of the Assumption Preparatory Academy?"
"I am."
"You are a licensed psychiatric nurse?"
"I am."
"You took a PHD from Clark University at the age of 24, shortly after you were accepted for your final vows?"
"I did."
"You knew the murder victim in grade school?"
"I knew the poor little girl as well as I know myself."
"What was her nickname?"
"Squirrel."
"OK," Deneen said, turning around and opening the metal gate. "Proceed down this corridor until you come to the sign that says archives. Turn left, open the door, and check in with officer Donahue. He'll give you access to the prisoner."
The young woman walked down the hallway to the sign that said "Archives," coughing up the ubiquitous dust as she went along. She turned right. She peered into the crack between the two heavy doors of the Archives, and tried the key, a little surprised that it worked.
"Second key," she said to herself, looking ahead at the door that led up to the street on the south side of The Reagan Center. "Handcuffs the first key, archives the second, and there's the third," she said.
She made a left, and walked down the flight of stairs to the second checkpoint, looking up at the dim fluorescent light above and sniffing at the moldy smell. Officer Donahue, Reynolds' replacement, was sitting at the security desk, munching on a bag of Cheetos, reading a popular crime novel. Donahue was a big, blowsy Irish American in his 40s with a red face, and thick, meaty arms. When he looked up to see the youthful nun, he crossed himself.
"Good morning sister."
"Good morning officer. I'm here to confess John Avellanos."
Donahue screwed his face up into a disdainful expression at the mention of the name "John Avellanos."
"You are Sister Mary Elizabeth McCarthy of Sisters of the Assumption Preparatory Academy?"
"Yes I am."
"You're a day early but the Rabbi couldn't get through that mass of bikers outside so you can take his place. Let me warn you before I take you down that while the young man you are going to examine may look perfectly normal, don't let appearances fool you. He's very, very, dangerous."
"I confront the visage of Satan every night in prayer. A common murderer holds no terror for me."
"Burning that poor girl alive sounds like the work of Satan to me."
"Satan was once the most beautiful archangel in all of heaven."
"I will admit he doesn't look like a murderer. You might even consider him handsome, but look into his eyes. There's nothing there. It's like looking at a snake."
"We all have the potential for murder inside of us. I have bouts of rage so severe I'm surprised I can stay sane. That's why we have the church, to guide us through dark times."
"You're going to need that church when you examine him."
"Not examine. Confess."
"Whether you call it confess or examine, there's no privacy of the confessional. Be advised that everything you say will be recorded. My commanding officer also requests that you debrief him on the interview and inform him of any information he gives related to the crime. He's got some crazy idea that the poor girl might still be alive."
"Does he?"
"He's a great guy but he's a little eccentric. It comes from too much book learning. I don't share his views. The man you are here to examine not only killed a police officer, he burned an innocent girl to death in the West Hill Mine fire. You are to remain outside of his cell and you are to keep as far back from the bars as you can."
"I understand."
"This being the politically correct society that it is, I have to ask the little monster's permission first. Would you excuse me for a moment?"
"Certainly."
Donahue indicated that the young woman should sit in his chair at the security desk while he was gone. He unlocked the door, went inside, and locked the door behind him. He whistled as he walked down the flight of stairs. Avellanos was sitting on the bench staring at the wall. The food left for him had not been touched. The nervous twitching and bloodshot eyes indicated that he had not slept since being transferred out of The Dungeon.
"Hey psycho," Donahue said, rapping at the bars. "Pay attention."
Avellanos turned to look.
"I've got a treat for you, maybe the last woman you'll ever see in your life."
"I'll see plenty of women at the trial," Avellanos mumbled.
"Not if we put a bag over your head and just ship you to Gitmo. Now pay attention. Sister Mary Elizabeth McCarthy of Sisters of the Assumption Preparatory Academy is outside ready to examine you.
"Sisters of the Assumption Preparatory Academy?" Avellanos mumbled.
"The sister is a licensed psychiatric nurse. She's going to shrink your head as well as save your soul."
Avellanos suddenly appeared to grow violent. He leapt off the bench, steadied himself on his feet, and lunged at the bars, Donahue, who had been casually lingering near the bars, jumped back. Avellanos started to kick and punch the bars, bloodying one of his hands in the process.
"No nuns for me," he screamed. "No kiddie raping church for me."
"She a very attractive, very young looking nun," Donahue said, having quickly recovered his nonchalant air. "Are you sure?"
"I'm not even a Catholic."
"Are you sure you don't want to talk?"
“Get out of here. You bring a fucking nun down here I'll reach through the bars and rip her fucking head off."
"Suit yourself psycho."
Donahue opened the door, locked it behind him, and walked back up the stairs.
"He won't see you."
"Are you sure?"
"Couldn't be more sure of anything in my life."
"Could I go downstairs and ask him myself?"
"I wouldn't be able to guarantee your safety. He reached through the bars and almost strangled me."
She reached into her pocket and came up with a black cashmere scarf with the initials "RC."
"This may seem like an odd request, but could you go back down and show him this."
Donahue looked at the scarf.
"Roman Catholic?"
"It is an item with deep personal meaning."
"Then why do you want me to show it to him?"
"Show it to him and tell him to look into his heart. That it's such a deeply personal item will convince him that I see him as human, even though the initials will mean nothing to him. It may cause him to change his mind. Show him that, and I'm fairly confident he'll allow me to confess him."
Donahue looked angry.
"OK. But it makes me sick. Little punk burns an innocent girl alive and they bring you in here to reach his soul."
"But if I can reach him it will calm his soul. Do you want to be in contact with a disturbed, violent man all day?"
"I want that disturbed violent man to go to the gas chamber," Donahue said, taking out his keys. "But if you really want to see him, yeah, I'll show it to him."
The young woman crossed herself. But before Donahue could go back down, a cell phone rang. He raised his hand to indicate that she should wait. He picked up the cel
l phone and began to speak.
"Pete," he said. "Yeah, the shrink, nun, nun shrink is here, no, not the rabbi. He couldn't make it through the redneck apocalypse out there. It's the nun. She's a day early. Yeah. She knew the nickname. To tell you the truth, I didn't even know nuns could be shrinks. You didn't tell me how young she was going to be either. Yeah. Yeah. I know I'm old. Yeah. Yeah. I know I said you were too young to be a detective. Point taken. I've already gone downstairs and asked him. Well I have to ask him don't I? Well you should have said that before. The problem is he got violent. No. Not with the shrink, with me. She hasn't seen him yet. You want me to go down with her? She's making a big deal that she has to see him by himself. You want me take her in now? This evening? Later? You're coming yourself. OK. I'll tell her. 4 o'clock."
Donahue hung up the phone and looked at the nun.
"I cannot bring you downstairs now, but the lead detective on the case is going to conduct an interrogation this evening and he will accommodate you."
"Accommodate me?"
"Take you downstairs and protect you while you conduct the interview," he said.
"If Daniel could go into the fiery furnace with a lion, surely I can go downstairs with one violent young man."
"You'll have to wait for Detective Muffley."
"Detective Muffley?"
"He's the lead detective on the case. I call him that punk."
"That punk? Why do you call him that?"
"He's a 27 year old detective. You're the youngest nun I've ever seen. He's the youngest detective I've ever seen. You two will hit it off. Come back at 4."
"So there's no way I can see the prisoner now?"
"I have my orders. Come back at 4."
"But you will give him the scarf?"
"As soon as you're gone."
The young woman smiled. Donahue smiled back. For one brief moment, he held his keys in his hand, and seemed ready to let her go downstairs after all, but he put the keys in his pocket and stood up.
"I'll still be here at 4. I'll see you then.
The young woman smiled again, then said goodbye. She turned around, and walked up the stairs back out into the hallway looking up at dim fluorescent light. She kicked a rat along the way.
Donahue opened up the door, and walked back down the stairs with the monogrammed scarf. He opened up the second door, and walked over to the cell.
"Get out of here."
"Calm down."
"You're not bringing a nun, a priest, a minister, or any other religious pimp in here."
"Sister Mary Elizabeth McCarthy is gone, but she's coming back later with Detective Muffley."
"You bring that nun in here, she's dead."
"Take it up with Detective Muffley when he comes back. She left some kind of prayer cloth for you."
"You try to give me a prayer rug pig and I'll kill you. Get closer to the bars pig. Get closer. I dare you."
Donahue walked up to the bars, and, with one hand, reached through, grabbed Avellanos behind the neck, and pushed his face up to his.
"You're not going to do anything punk."
Donahue pulled Avellanos's hand through the bars, closed his fingers around the scarf, and shoved him back. Avellanos held up the scarf, but, instead of ripping it apart the way Donahue expected, he sat down on the hard, wooden bench. He put the scarf up to his face and took a deep breath. It seemed to have the effect of some kind of narcotic.
"Officer," he said to Donahue. "I apologize for my behavior."
"Well shoot me dead," Donahue said, surprised at the sudden change. "Maybe the sister was right."
"The United States government has the reputation throughout most of the world for using hallucinogenic drugs to torture political prisoners. I have avoided eating any of your food and I have drank water only from the tap. Did you perhaps, rub LSD into my wounds when you bandaged my head?" he added, fingering his bandages.
"You've got a vivid imagination. Nobody's drugging you."
"Why a nun?"
"Why not? This is probably the last good looking young woman you're ever going to see."
"Young?"
"Looks like she's still in college," Donahue said, turning to go upstairs, "but 20, 25, 30, I can't tell anymore. I'm an old man."
"I'll see her when she comes back."
"You'll do whatever Detective Muffley tells you to do," Donahue said.
He walked down the hall, opened the door, and walked back upstairs.
"Thank you," Avellanos said, calling out after him. "Thank you."
Chapter 51 - Poison Springs is under Siege
Michael Catalinelli looked out of the window of the Municipal Executive Suite. It was 3 o'clock. He had been trapped inside the Reagan Center for most of the day and there was little or no possibility of leaving anytime soon. Reagan Plaza was filled with people. The crowd sprawled out from the Reagan Center's staircase all the way to Scahentoarrhonon Station. It was the largest crowd Poison Springs had ever seen, probably, according to the latest report on WOKR, bigger than the city of Poison Springs itself. Even the great America's Guard rallies in 2010 had never been able to fill even a half of Reagan, then Roosevelt Plaza, barely, in fact, even a third. Catalinelli turned around. He took his hands off his ears and started shouting at Peter Muffley and Joe Devanny, both of whom were sitting at the conference table.
"Do you mean to tell me he followed you to the old courtroom, and you didn't arrest him?"
"Arrest him for what?" Muffley said. "Yelling loudly in the first degree?"
"Trespassing."
"He has a pass giving him unrestricted access to the building. You gave it to him."
"Since when does a pass prevent you from making an arrest? Since when has anybody ever needed a reason to make an arrest? Make something up."
"My team is very small. I thought it would be better to let Dan go home and calm down."
"Or let him go home and stir up an insurrection."
"I thought he was a friend of yours. I didn't want to put him in handcuffs when he seemed so obviously distraught. He would have only gotten released in the amnesty anyway."
"He's right," Devanny said. "We've already started releasing non-violent prisoners to clear out jail space. But it's beginning to feel like I'm trying to stuff an elephant in a mouse hole."
"How many fucking people are out there?" Catalinelli said.
"We estimate the crowd to be between 50 and 100 thousand people."
"WOKR says 150,000," Muffley said, "maybe 200,000."
"Pete's guys have done a pretty good job scooping up low level troublemakers," Devanny said, "but we obviously had no way of anticipating Grossinger's article."
“Maybe we should arrest Randy Sullivan," Muffley said.
"Maybe I can talk to him," Catalinelli said. "Can you bring up here?"
"Highly doubtful," Devanny said. "We don't have the manpower. They'll think we're arresting him."
"Then arrest him," Muffley said.
"We wouldn't have the manpower to deal with the fallout," Devanny said.
"Randy Sullivan's a friend of mine," Catalinelli said. "I don't want to see him in handcuffs."
"You wouldn't think he's your friend if you were paying more attention to what he's been saying about you the past few days," Muffley said.
"He's right," Devanny said. "The only reason Grossinger's article went over like a shot is because Randy's been laying the groundwork ever since Quinn died."
"So Randy really thinks I'm trying to sneak that kid into federal custody?"
"Yes," Muffley said. "That's what everybody thinks."
"You know why they think it?" Catalinelli said. "Because it makes so much sense. We don't have the resources to deal with a crowd that size."
"They think he's going to get off with a slap on the wrist," Devanny said.
"Oh bullshit," Catalinelli said. "He not only crossed state lines to murder two, maybe three people, he snuck into the country. Just slap a terrorism enhancement on the federal m
urder charges, and boom, he's eligible for the death penalty. We need to get him out of here."
"How?" Devanny said. "America's Guard has the building completely surrounded. We've got two bad options. If we go large and bring him out with 200 officers, they know we're moving him, and we have to fire on them. If we go small and try to sneak him out, he may escape, or they may see what we're doing, grab him, and string him up. We need more troops. We need to call the governor and bring in the National Guard."
"The governor lives to see me humiliated," Catalinelli said. "And I'm not calling the guard on my own people."
“They're not your people anymore,' Devanny said.
"To tell you the truth I don't think the guard will do any good at this point," Muffley said. "The mass of people around the building is too dense. I've been out there. I've been supervising snatches all morning. More troops could push the mob into the building, or, I may add, into attacking the building, and, after that, us."
"Isn't there a secret tunnel from here to the train station?" Devanny said.
"I wish," Catalinelli said.
"What if we deliberately choose the second bad option?" Devanny said. "What if we just give that little piece of shit to the crowd? We go small, three, four, five officers. Then we let someone know he's being moved. They pull him out, bash his head in. The mob gets their blood. They go home satisfied. We did our best. We failed. Problem solved."
"Are you crazy?" Catalinelli said. "Have you gone stark, raving mad?"
"Then tell me your solution," Devanny said.
"Let's use our heads," Catalinelli said. "First of all, you moved Avellanos out of the dungeon, right Peter?"
"He's in the old holding cells under a secure guard. The officers guarding him are handpicked. They're all experienced men who won't let their emotions get the best of them. The only entrance in or out of that part of the building is through the old courtroom and a very secure door on the south side of the building, and, even if Sullivan and his goons could find it, one man sitting in that old judge's chair with an automatic rifle could hold off 1000 people until he ran out of ammunition. It's the safest place in the city."
"OK, so Mr. Avellanos is safe."
NOT AN AMERICAN Page 40
