by Joseph Flynn
“What do you mean by taken?” Ellie asked.
The videographer knew to keep the camera on Charlotte then.
“I mean, what they do at Winstead is scout the best players in the public schools, check their grades, too, to make sure they can read and write, and then offer them scholarships to their fancy, rich school.”
“Who were the players Winstead took from Coach Mays and Southeast?”
“Jarius Niles and Ricky Mitchell.”
“And what did you mean by saying Winstead had taken Coach Mays’ best players again?” Ellie asked.
“Just exactly that. Well, the last time it was only one player, but he was the best of them all, Harold Walker. Nowadays, they call him —”
“Hal Walker,” Ellie said.
She didn’t follow high school athletics, but she paid attention to top-dollar sports stars. They were often grist for her scandal mill, and Hal Walker, she knew, was about to sign his name to a multi-million dollar NFL contract and accompanying megabucks endorsement deals.
“See, you know who Harold is. Winstead took him from my Abel, too.”
Ellie knew she’d be pissed having a valuable asset like that filched from her.
Maintaining journalistic objectivity, though, she limited herself to asking, “How do you think your husband might harm himself or anyone else?”
“He bought a —”
A loud knock at the door drew a sharp look from Ellie.
Interviews were never supposed to be interrupted. Ivy stepped into the room anyway. The videographer stilled his camera. The receptionist hurried over to Ellie and whispered directly into her ear. Ellie directed a look at Ivy: Are you sure? Ivy nodded, and left.
Ellie looked at the videographer and bobbed her head. The camera rolled.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Mays. You were saying.”
“My husband bought a gun, one of those gangster things like you see in the movies. The ones that can shoot up a storm.”
Ellie waited a beat before saying, “I’m sorry to tell you, Mrs. Mays, that your husband followed up on his threat this morning at the Winstead School.”
Charlotte Mays’ face crumpled. Her eyes filled with tears.
“He killed those two boys and the coaches?”
“The coaches and more than two boys, yes.”
The distraught woman shook her head. “That’s not right.” She took a note out of her purse. “I took this when I left home. It says right here who he was mad at. Just the two boys, the coaches. Look, he says right here what he wanted to do.”
Ellie knew the moment called for her silence.
Charlotte Mays extended the note in front of her like a plea.
She said, “Didn’t the police ever come?”
Ellie took the note and shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I’m sorry to tell you your husband has also been killed.”
Later, as Ellie was about to go on the air at WWN with her interview of Charlotte Mays, word came in that Abel Mays’ last victim was Jordan Gilford, the famous whistle-blower. That point was added to Ellie’s report.
Georgetown University — Washington, DC
Abbie McGill had tears in her eyes. She told her father, “This is horrible, Dad. These idiots are shooting up every classroom in the country. Elementary schools, high schools, colleges: Nobody is safe.”
His child was safe, McGill thought. For the moment, that was what mattered most to him. There were Secret Service agents outside her dorm room door, on the roof and at the entrances to the building. Anyone making an attempt on his child’s life —
“It’s embarrassing, too, how safe I am compared to everyone else.” A thought occurred to Abbie that brought a look of alarm to her face.
“What is it?” McGill asked, concerned now that he might have overlooked something.
“Kenny and Caitie and Mom, are they safe, too? What about Lars?”
Abbie’s siblings, mother and step-dad.
McGill told her, “Kenny and Caitie have added Secret Service protection; the Evanston PD is looking out for your mom and Lars.”
For a breath, Abbie looked relieved and then she began to sob.
McGill took her in his arms.
Abbie looked up and told him through her tears, “Too bad those kids and coaches at Winstead didn’t have a Secret Service detail, huh? Maybe we should have half the country standing guard over the other half at all times.”
It was the blackest joke McGill had ever heard.
He couldn’t bring himself to smile, but it didn’t matter because Abbie pressed her face back into his chest and resumed weeping. He held her until she exhausted herself. Then they sat side by side on her bed and called his ex, Carolyn, back in Evanston, Illinois and Patti at the White House. Both mother and step-mother were profoundly relieved to hear that Abbie was all right, and to talk with her.
McGill told both women he’d be in touch again soon.
Then he asked his daughter, “You want to spend the night with Patti and me?”
She kissed his cheek and shook her head.
Dried her eyes with the back of a wrist and did her best to look brave.
“Give Patti my love, but I’m staying right here where I belong. I’m going to spend time with my friends and teachers, and I’m going to the chapel and pray …” Abbie’s words stuck in her throat for a moment, but she fought off a return of tears. “Pray for those people who aren’t as lucky as me and died today. You’re okay with that, aren’t you, Dad?”
McGill stood up. Abbie got to her feet next to him. They embraced for a long moment.
“I’m okay with any choice you make.”
He knew Abbie would be safe with the Secret Service to protect her.
Even so, he would have been more comfortable if she’d spent the night under the White House roof.
Still, she was a young woman now and he had to respect her choices.
Abbie bussed him again and they said goodbye.
Hearing his daughter tell him of her intent to go the campus chapel, and Georgetown University being a Jesuit institution, made McGill think there was someone he should see.
Father Inigo de Loyola, the renegade priest and sometimes guerrilla, who lived under the staircase in Dikki Missirian’s other office building.
The Oval Office — The White House
After speaking with Abbie McGill, Patricia Grant’s heart settled back into her chest from the spot in her throat where it had been lodged. With that switch, her mind shifted gears from stepmother to president. She instructed Edwina Byington to summon the attorney general.
Galia Mindel, sitting opposite the president, watched the transformation.
It never ceased to amaze the chief of staff how many demands could be placed on one person. Or how the president could compartmentalize her thinking. All the while excelling at the variety of tasks demanded of her.
The president was scribbling a note to herself when she stopped to look up.
“What is it, Galia? Why are you staring at me?”
“I was just thinking, Madam President, that you are severely underpaid.”
For a moment, the president was nonplussed. The she broke out laughing. Even slapped her desk.
“Thank you, Galia. I needed that. But I don’t think Congress is about to vote me a raise.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Did you call your sons after you heard the news about the Winstead School?”
“I did,” Galia said. “Everyone is well. My grandchildren will be spending the remainder of the day at home.”
“We can’t allow things to continue this way,” the president said. “Too much innocent blood has been spilled for too long. It has to stop.”
“We might have pressed the issue sooner, ma’am.”
The president’s expression turned rueful. “You’re right, I should have done so.”
“You have some ideas in mind, Madam President, ones that won’t require Congressional approval?”
“I do.” But she made Galia wait to hear them until Attorney General Michael Jaworsky arrived. In the meantime, she went back to writing the note she’d started earlier.
Q Street NW — Georgetown
Father Inigo de Loyola, namesake of the founder of the Society of Jesus, priest without current assignment, provider of food to the hungry and former man at arms in Central American wars, lived in one of the richest neighborhoods in Washington, DC, albeit quite humbly. His decision to tuck himself in to sleep one night behind the building where McGill had his offices led him to help foil an attempt to smear the good name of the president’s henchman.
In this way, he and McGill had become friends.
And Dikki Missirian had offered de Loyola the space under his staircase.
Becoming the first commercial landlord in town to offer his tenants a complimentary confessor. No sin too large to purge. Penance within everyone’s reach.
Although not a Catholic, Dikki took great comfort in his conversations with de Loyola.
McGill was happy to find the priest in his tiny room with the steeply slanted roof.
“I haven’t come at a bad time, have I, Father?”
De Loyola shook his head.
McGill had never seen the priest wear anything but thrift-shop clothing, never mind a Roman collar. De Loyola had a mane of silver hair and a thick beard of the same color. His brows and eyes were dark brown. His skin struck a warm chromatic compromise between his light and dark features. McGill often saw the priest as a lordly thespian playing the part of a pauper. Only there wasn’t an inauthentic whisker on the man.
De Loyola understood at a glance that McGill came to him bearing a burden.
“Your heart is heavy, my son.”
“It is, Father.”
“You have sinned?”
“Not yet, not that I know of, but the day isn’t over.”
The priest grinned, but he inquired, “The president is well?”
“I’m sure her heart is heavier than mine.”
He told the priest of the school shooting.
“Madre de Dios.” De Loyola pressed his palms together and closed his eyes … but before he began to pray, he opened one eye and looked at McGill. “You have an idea, my son? How you and I might fight this evil? This is why you came to see me?”
“I do and it is, Father.”
De Loyola opened his other eye and gave McGill his attention.
McGill told the priest his plan.
“The simplicity is breathtaking,” de Loyola said, “and completely in line with church teaching. Nonetheless, I will take it to a pastor who will be completely simpatico. We will present the diocese with an hecho realizado. A fait accompli, should you prefer the French. If the cardinal should quibble, however, I will take the matter to Francesco himself.”
That’s right, McGill thought, the new pope was also a Jesuit.
If de Loyola needed more clout than that to help him get an audience, maybe Patti could put a word into the ear of the papal nuncio to the United States.
“Is there anything else I might do to help?” the priest asked.
McGill shook his head. “I have to see a client, Father. Tell her I was too late to save her husband’s life.”
The Oval Office — The White House
Attorney General Jaworsky entered the Oval Office, took one look at the president and her chief of staff and asked, “Are we here today to make history, Madam President?”
Patricia Darden Grant said, “I hope so, Michael. Please have a seat.”
Jaworsky sat and asked, “Should I have the solicitor general warming up in the bullpen?”
The solicitor general was the attorney who represented the federal government in cases brought before the Supreme Court; two out of three cases decided on merit by the court each year involved the federal government. Given that ratio, the solicitor general always had to be ready to enter the game. Still, it was useful to advise him what might be coming his way.
The president said, “You may brief him after we conclude our discussion. You’ve heard about the shooting at the Winstead School?”
“I have. Yet another tragedy.” A thought occurred to Jaworsky. “If I may ask, Madam President, have you heard who the shooter’s last victim was?”
Both the president and chief of staff looked puzzled. The president asked, “Are you saying the last person at the school or was there someone else somewhere else?”
Jaworsky said, “The last shooting took place on the National Mall. FBI Director Haskins called me with the news.”
The attorney general filled in the details, including the fact that Abel Mays, himself, had been shot by an unknown person. This was clearly news in the Oval Office. More surprising, Jaworsky made a connection between the shooting of Jordan Gilford and James J. McGill.
He said, “Mrs. Zara Gilford told the U.S attorney who worked with Mr. Gilford on his whistle-blowing cases that she feared for her husband’s life. She said her suspicions were intuitive and she didn’t know whether the FBI would be able to make anything of them, but she was going to plead her case to Mr. McGill.”
The president digested that and said, “Jim went into the office this morning. That’s a sometimes thing for a Saturday. He didn’t say who the client was or what she might want.”
“Mr. McGill probably didn’t know,” Jaworsky said.
“Probably not,” the president agreed. “I ordinarily don’t ask about his cases, but …” She kept her own counsel about what might come next between husband and wife. “Michael, you’re familiar with Project Exile, I assume.”
The attorney general nodded. “It’s a federal program started in Richmond, Virginia, back in 1997, I believe. It shifted prosecution of illegal gun possession offenses from state to federal courts so that harsher mandatory minimum sentences might be imposed.”
Galia added, “Harsher sentences to be served at federal prisons far from the offenders home town.” The chief of staff hadn’t been briefed on the president’s idea and was curious to know where it might go.
“That’s right,” the president said. “Harsh sentences and remote confinement. The idea was also tried out in Atlanta and upstate New York, if I remember right. The first thing I want you to do, Michael, is contact all fifty state attorneys general and tell them the federal government will be taking Project Exile nationwide. We’ll want to prosecute all the offenders they can send us, starting with their worst cases.”
The attorney general frowned.
The president took a breath before saying, “This is where you can tell me, Michael, all of the problems I’ll be creating for you.”
“Very well, Madam President. If you want to lock up a lot of criminals, you’ll need a lot of money, people and other resources to do it. More judges, prosecutors, marshals, prison space, correctional officers, prison support staff, buses, planes and other means of transport for the prisoners.”
The president shrugged. “So we’ll make the country safer and create a jobs program. Win-win. I’ll do the political lift, and skin the opposition alive, if there is any opposition.”
Galia said, “There’s always political opposition.”
The president raised an eyebrow. “Street gangs, bank robbers and stickup men have their own lobbyists now, do they?”
“No, ma’am,” Galia said.
“Do career criminals constitute a major voting bloc, a constituency that might sway Congress?”
Galia shook her head, still looking concerned.
“I know what’s bothering you, Galia,” the president said. “If the criminals we lock up are disproportionately African-American or Hispanic, some people will cry foul or worse. Well, our answer to that will be it’s not black or brown skin that concerns us, it’s how much red blood we keep from being spilled that matters. To be fair, of course, we’ll be just as tough on white offenders.” The president turned to the attorney general. “Your turn, Michael. Any other problems?”
“If you can ma
nage your end, Madam President, I’ll manage mine.”
“Good, because that was the easy part.”
Galia and Jaworsky exchanged a look.
“Michael,” the president said, “please refresh me on the legal concept of depraved indifference.”
The attorney general sensed where the president was going, but he did as he was asked. “If a defendant’s conduct is so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the lives of others and so blameworthy, it warrants the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the actual resulting injury or death.”
Galia’s heart sank. She thought the president meant to go after the gun companies. Given the current laws on the books and the makeup of the present Congress, that would be an impossible political lift.
But Galia had presumed the wrong target.
The president said, “Michael, I want you to hold a press conference. You’ll be just one of the faces of this administration condemning the shooting at the Winstead School, but you’ll be among the most important. You’re going to announce that any parent, parents or other custodial adult who owns a gun that is used by a child or children to kill anyone else will be charged with … well, when is murder a federal crime?”
The president was taking Jaworsky back to his days as a law professor. “Murder is a federal crime if it takes place on federal property or involves crossing state lines or substantially affects interstate commerce or national security. Acts of terrorism might fall under either of those latter two considerations. A killing that doesn’t occur in any state, say on a U.S.-flagged commercial vessel in international waters, would also be a federal offense. Jurisdiction for a homicide that occurs within the borders of a single state and does not involve the crossing of state lines belongs to the courts of the state where the crime occurred.”
The president thought about that. “There have been times when a state has either failed to prosecute a homicide or took a case to court and a biased jury returned a dishonest not guilty verdict, and the federal government still prosecuted the offender, right?”
