by Dan McGirt
The interrogation room held a table and two metal chairs. Palin sat in one. Her hands, cuffed together, rested on the table. Finch ignored the other chair.
“You’ve been read your rights?” he said as he closed the door behind him.
“I can recite ‘em,” said Palin brightly.
“You want to tell me what happened? Why you and your friends shot up the Walmart? Burned it to the ground? Killed a bunch of good people?”
“No,” said Palin. “Actually, I want to talk to your mayor. Grissom, isn’t it?”
“You want to talk to the mayor?” Finch shook his head. “Lady, you’re talking to me!”
“No, I’m not, because I’ve got the right to remain silent. Which I will, until I talk to the mayor.”
“That’s not happening,” said Finch.
Palin opened her hand. She was holding a black plastic card, the size of a credit card.
“What is that?” said Finch. He snatched the card away. “Where did you get this?”
“It’s mine,” said Palin.
“You should have been searched.”
She shrugged. “They missed it.”
Finch turned the card over in his hand. On one side was an odd, but vaguely familiar gold symbol. On the other, a string of numbers. “I’ve never seen a card like this.”
“Call that number,” said Palin.
“I’m not calling any number! This isn’t even a phone number. It’s too long.”
“I get a phone call, don’t I?” said Palin. “That’s my call. And I want you to make it for me.”
“I’m not—”
“It’s the best lead you’ve got there, Chief.”
Finch frowned. “Maybe.”
“Say, is your mayor a lawyer?”
“Yes, but—”
“Perfect! I get a lawyer, don’t I? I choose the mayor. Now you’ve gotta let me talk to him, don’t cha?”
The mayor’s office was on the second floor. It was modestly furnished with hunting trophies, plaques, and pictures of groundbreaking ceremonies, ribbon cuttings, and Rotary Club dinners. Mayor Grissom was in his fifties, a pear-shaped man, mostly bald, with a fringe of grey hair. His wide redwood desk was cluttered with loose papers, folders, a lamp, and a fancy pen set.
“Dave, I don’t think this is such a good idea,” said Chief Finch, glancing out the door.
Palin, smiling, handcuffed, waited in the hallway. An officer held her by the arm.
“I’ll be fine,” said Grissom. “If she wants to talk to me, then maybe we can get to the bottom of this whole mess faster.”
“Well, look, you’re not going to represent her are you?”
“Heavens, no!” said Grissom. “I’m a real estate lawyer. I’ll make that clear. But if she’s willing to talk, what have we got to lose?”
“I don’t like it,” said Finch. “But you’re the mayor.”
He gestured for his officer to bring her in. They seated Palin in a leather wingback chair across from Grissom’s desk.
“Ya think we could do this without the bracelets?” said Palin, lifting her hands.
“The cuffs stay on,” said Finch firmly.
Palin turned puppy dog eyes on Mayor Grissom. He shrugged.
“If it makes you feel better, Chuck, we’ll keep ‘em on.”
“Fine,” said Finch. “And I’m posting my man right outside the door. So I want no trouble.”
“You go call in that card,” said Palin. “You’ll feel better when you do. Maybe.”
The door closed behind Chief Finch. Palin and Mayor Grissom regarded each other in silence. Grissom waited for her to speak first. Long seconds dragged by, each an agonizing eternity of suspense. He shifted uncomfortably. The chair squeaked. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He mopped them off with the back of his hand. Palin sat placidly, lips set primly, her face neutral, her eyes a bright impenetrable cloud, but Grissom could tell she was sizing him up.
He could take the silence no longer. “Well, say what you have to say!” he blurted. “You wanted to talk to me alone and here we are. So spit it out! Why did you kill all those people and burn down our Walmart?”
“You know, I was the mayor of a small town too,” said Palin. “Wasilla.”
“I know that!” snapped Grissom. “What does it have to do with anything?”
“It’s a bigger job than people think,” said Palin. “Mayor is tougher than being governor in some ways, because you’re so much closer to your constituents and they sure let ya know when they don’t like something.”
“My constituents don’t like murder and mayhem!” said Grissom. “So you’d better start explaining yourself.”
“You’re a mayor. I’m a mayor. Let’s just talk here, mayor to mayor,” said Palin.
“All right.”
“So, Dave—can I call ya Dave?—let me just lay it out there for ya. You’ve got a problem in your little town.”
“And what is that?”
“Twinkle is lousy with vampires. Werewolves too. Do you know that?”
Mayor Grissom’s eyes widened. “Werewolves and vampires? Ridiculous!”
“Dave. Look me in the eye and tell me it ain’t so.”
Grissom looked away and said nothing.
“Okay, sure, who would believe such a crazy thing,” said Palin. “But I’ve seen them, Dave. I’ve seen them. I fought them. I fought them today, in that store, to protect your citizens. So tell me I’m wrong.”
Grissom bit his lip and stared at his sweaty hands clenched together on the desk. He said, softly, “Yeah, we’ve got ‘em. It’s true.”
“And what are you doing about it?”
He looked up angrily. “What can we do? We just pretend they’re not there!”
“That’s no solution.”
“Governor Palin—”
“Mayor. Mayor to mayor here. But you can call me Sarah.”
“Sarah, then. You may have noticed we’re pretty isolated out here on the peninsula. We’re at their mercy. So we just live and let live. We don’t bother them and they don’t bother us. Much.”
“Seemed like a lot of bothering going on down at the Walmart there.”
“You brought that on!” snapped the mayor. “Stirred things up.”
Palin grinned. “That’s kinda what I do.”
“But now Twinkle’s got to live with the consequences! There is going to be trouble with...those folk. Big trouble. And we’ll pay the price while you go on with your million dollar book tour!”
“Not necessarily. I think it’s time you took back your town, Dave.”
Grissom shook his head in violent denial. “We can’t! We’re powerless against those things. You have no idea what they’re capable of!”
“Oh, I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“Don’t you understand? We’re cut off here! We’re outnumbered, overmatched.”
Palin’s face tightened. “You don’t think Alaska is isolated? There are towns back home that make Twinkle look like Times Square for isolated! But we dealt with our vampire problem. Yessir, we did, by golly! And with no outside help. The werewolves too. Don’t tell me it can’t be done. But the first step is, you’ve got to be willing to fight back.”
“We can’t,” said Grissom. “We’d need an army. No one is going to send an army here to look for vampires, believe me.”
“You don’t need an army,” said Palin. “You’ve got me!”
“That isn’t reassuring.”
“Well, it should be,” said Palin. “Let me tell you why.”
“It all goes back to our Founding Fathers, God bless ‘em,” said Palin.
“Are you serious?” said Grissom.
“Now you just hush up and listen,” said Palin. “The Founders knew the first responsibility of any government is to protect the people. Provide for the common defense. It’s right there in the Constitution, don’t cha know?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, that means more than fighting fo
reign armies and terrorists and such who want to destroy our American way of life. It also includes protection against the supernatural forces. Your vampires and werewolves and wendigos and what not. Ever see a wendigo?”
“No.”
“Believe me, you don’t want to! You see, the supernaturals, they’ve been around since Bible times. And it was always the job of the kings to oppose them and protect their subjects. Like when David slew Goliath.”
“Goliath wasn’t a—”
“Never you mind that. The point is when our thirteen colonies there decided for themselves that we hold these truths to be self-evident and we’re not going to have us a king any more, well, then it wasn’t King George’s job to look after us any longer in that regard of opposing the supernatural forces. So the British Secret Office pulled out along with those darn redcoats.”
“Huh?”
“Part of being a new country is saying we better hike up our big boy britches and start solving our own mess. But the so-called Age of Enlightenment had come around with lots of new ideas about science and reason and it just wasn’t considered rational or fashionable any longer to believe in your vampires and devils and witches and all, right?”
“Er...right?”
“So when our Founders sat down there in Philadelphia to write our blessed Constitution, they had to decide how to protect America from the supernatural threats without causing that popular alarm that would happen if it were acknowledged. So they wrote two Constitutions.”
“Two Constitutions? I’ve never heard anything like that!”
“That’s because the one ya haven’t heard of is a Secret Constitution, written in invisible ink designed by Benjamin Franklin on the back of the main Constitution.”
“Wasn’t that in National Treasure?” said Grissom.
Palin frowned. “That was a movie, Dave. This is real. But wasn’t it a great film? That Nicolas Cage is a hoot!”
“So what did this Secret Constitution do?”
“Glad you asked! The Constitution we all learned about in school sets up a structure for governing our great land. The Secret Constitution sets up a parallel structure for protecting us from those supernatural forces of evil and such. It give authority for this to a College of Lictors.”
“Lick what?”
“Lictors, Dave. In Roman times the lictors were a special class of public servants who protected the magistrates of the Republic. They carried the fasces.”
“They carried feces? That’s disgusting!”
Palin shook her head. “Fasces. I guess you’re not a classical scholar like me. The fasces lictoriae or ‘bundles of the lictors’ were the symbols of their authority. A bundle of rods tied around a bronze axe. The same symbol on the card I handed your police chief.”
“So this was some kind of fascist thing?”
Palin slipped into full sarcasm mode. “Do ya think George Washington and James Madison had Mussolini in mind back in 1789 when they wrote this? Of course not! Stay with me, Dave! I’m gonna bring this home for ya. The Electoral College elects our president and the Lictoral College leads the defense against the supernatural enemies. It’s a fourth and hidden branch of government. Under the Lictoral College, see, is the U.S. Special Service. They’re like those roving marshals who ride into town when there’s trouble, do what has to be done, and clean up the mess after the fact.”
“This is nuts!” said Grissom, crossing his arms. “I can’t believe the Founding Fathers would set up some kind of secret police force accountable to no one.”
“Well, of course they’re accountable to someone! The Service answers to the Lictoral College and the lictors are organized under the Prime Lictor, who is an elected magistrate of our nation.”
“You mean the president? You’re saying the president knows about this?”
“The current guy?” Palin rolled her eyes. “No way! Some presidents have been aware, but not all. You see, it’s a totally separate structure and presidents don’t usually want to know. But the Founders—and how right you are to point this out, Dave—they did want that accountability to be there, so they put the Lictoral College under the direction of the one officer of the United States who is elected by all the people but has almost no responsibilities under the main Constitution.”
“Who?”
“The vice president, of course! Think about it. Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, and all the rest were the smartest political thinkers of their day. Why would they create an office so seemingly useless as the vice president? Well, they wouldn’t! They didn’t give him much to do because the vice president’s real duties as the Prime Lictor fall under the Secret Constitution.”
“How do you know all this, if it’s so secret?”
“I know because I’m a secret marshal. I’m a sworn deputy of the Special Service. I have been since I was recruited outta college. I spent years cleaning up Alaska. Hunting down these nasty critters or running them out of my state. I’m a fighter, Dave! I don’t believe in making peace with these things and I don’t have much use for this namby-pamby ‘live and let live’ attitude you’ve got here. You can’t live and let live with something that’s not alive.”
Grissom flushed. “You have no right to come here and tell us how to run things!”
“You’re wrong. I have every right. The supernatural things are getting the upper hand. They have penetrated our media and altered our popular culture to convince people that, oh, they’re not such a threat and it’s perfectly all right for our daughters to date vampires and our sons to rot their brains out with the death metal and the Xbox to make easier chewing for the zombies. It is way past time for us to stand up and do something about it! You know, when I had the great honor being Senator McCain’s running mate I thought I’d be overseeing that whole effort after the election. Well, that didn’t turn out quite as planned. So I decided to just do it anyway.”
“By going rogue?”
“Not quite. Fortunately, the new Prime Lictor sees things my way and he has expanded on my jurisdiction to cover the whole nation, not just Alaska. So, you see, Twinkle is my concern and I am here to deal with the situation as I see fit. So my question to you, Mr. Mayor, is this: are you going to help me help you?”
“We don’t need your help!” said Grissom. “You should just leave. I’ll have Chief Finch drop the charges and you can leave. Immediately.” Grissom reached for the phone.
“It doesn’t work that way,” said Palin. “And the charges have already been dropped. Last chance, Dave. Are you with me or against me?”
“You have to leave!” said Grissom.
“Do you know what a ghoul is?” said Palin.
“What?”
“There are several meanings of the word. You’ve got your desert demons and your Massachusetts corpse-eaters. But some people apply the term to living human beings placed under the control or direction of a vampire. Isn’t that the darndest thing?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” snapped Grissom. He was sweating profusely now. “We’re done here.”
“Your typical vampire there can’t go out in the sunlight. They’re vulnerable during the day. They need servants. People who can protect them, cover their tracks, even help them find their prey. People in positions of authority are best. Like a doctor at a hospital. A coroner. Like a policeman. Or like...a small-town mayor.”
“I told you to leave!” said Grissom. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a revolver.
His hand shook as he aimed it at Palin.
“That you did,” said Palin. “I wonder when the special election will be?”
“What special election?”
“The one for your replacement.”
Grissom fired. Palin was already in motion before his finger squeezed the trigger. She dived to the floor. The bullet punctured the leather of the chair. Palin rolled up against the desk. Grissom, still seated, couldn’t see her. He stood, foolishly leaning over the desk to get a look instead of stepping around. Palin s
urged up from the floor, snatched the fancy fountain pen from its display, and drove it into Grissom’s throat. Blood geysered. He slumped back into his chair, dropped the gun. Palin rounded the desk, took his head in her hands, and snapped his neck.
Just to be sure.
The officer posted outside burst into office and pointed his gun at Palin.
Palin stepped away from the body and raised her bloody, bound hands before her.
Chief Finch bounded up the stairs, gun in hand.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“Regime change,” said Palin. “Meet the new Mayor of Twinkle!”
Finch examined Grissom’s body. “You killed him!” he accused.
“Obviously,” said Palin. “Did you call that number I gave you?”
Finch hesitated. “Yes.”
“And?”
“They said to release you from custody, drop all charges, delete all records, give you full cooperation, and don’t ask any questions.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Palin. “So you know I have the carte blanche, as the French say, to do whatever I deem necessary here.”
“But you just killed the mayor!” protested Finch.
“See, that was something I deemed necessary,” said Palin. “He wasn’t a very good mayor anyhows.”
“But—”
“He’s dead,” said Palin impatiently. “Let’s move on from that, because we’ve got loads to do before sundown.”
“Like what?”
“Like you could start by getting these cuffs off me and releasing my team.”
Finch produced a handcuff key.
“Much better,” said Palin, rubbing her wrists. “You had those kinda tight. Really cuts into the old circulation. Now, tell me, what’s the biggest meeting space in town?”
“The high school gym, I guess.”
“Perfect! I want you to round up everyone in Twinkle and send ‘em to the gym. I’m calling a town meeting. We’ve got lots to discuss, me and the good people of Twinkle!”
Twinkle was not a large town. The population was a smidge over a thousand people on a good day. As the rainy afternoon faded, Twinklers streamed into the gym and took their accustomed seats in the bleachers. But they weren’t here for a basketball game or school play. The townspeople greeted one another with nods and handshakes, huddled together, and spoke in low voices.
