by Lopez, Rob
Packy gave an exasperated sigh. “Okay, okay. How about something a little more practical. I know what you’re thinking. It could be crazy, but I’ve got an idea to make it work.”
*
The cries of pain from the clinic ceased. April wondered what that meant and feared the worst. Straining her ears until she could stand it no more, she got up and hurried to the room.
She met Sally coming the other way.
“It’s okay,” said Sally, seeing the look on April’s face. “He’s still breathing, but he’s tired.”
“Is he going to be fine now?” said April in a rush.
Sally grimaced slightly. “I’ll take you to see him,” she said, avoiding the question.
Scott lay on the bed, a ghostly pallor on his face, his eyes closed. April took his hand, feeling the warmth of life still clinging to him, but he didn’t respond to her touch.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” said Sally. “He’ll drift in and out of consciousness for a while, but I can’t predict what will happen after that.”
Harvey gathered bloody towels in a basket, and the two men who’d been assisting left the room, their faces drawn by the horror they’d seen. On Scott’s arms were the prominent bruises from where they’d held him down. On the floor by the bed lay a piece of wood that looked like it had been chewed by a buzzsaw.
“But you finished, right?” said April. “I mean, you did whatever you were supposed to do to make him better. He just needs to rest now, doesn’t he?”
“I removed the bullet,” explained Sally patiently, “and sewed up his stomach. The wound leaked gastric acid onto his organs, however, burning them. There’s a lot of tender swelling, and a lot of tissue that needs to recover. He’s taken some damage to the pancreas and liver, and I really don’t know what complications that will bring. I’ve cleaned him up as best I can, but what worries me now is the infection that’s taken hold. Without antibiotics, I can’t do anymore.”
“You mean he’s going to be sick for a few days?”
Sally took a deep breath. “No, I … mean more than that. April, the biggest killer of soldiers with battlefield wounds in the old days was infection. Without the right drugs … I can’t give him more than a 1% chance of survival.”
“But that’s the same as before,” cried April. “What was the point of operating on him if all you did was make him suffer?”
“I have done my best,” said Sally wearily. “The only advice I can give now is to pray.”
“I don’t believe in any of that,” said April, her voice cracking. “I don’t want any of your superstitious crap. I just want him to live.”
Daniel hung back by the doorway, a little overwhelmed by the spectacle. Dashing forward, he dropped to his knees by the bed, put his hands together and bowed his head.
“Dear God,” he said fervently. “Please don’t let my new daddy die.”
Both women stared at him, and April broke down and began to sob.
4
Lauren was alerted in her cell by the jangling of keys. She hadn’t slept much. The news that Scott was dead disturbed her, and as much as she wanted to think that Connors had lied to her out of spite, the idea that it could be true nagged at her. She’d also convinced herself that the whole thing about a trial was nothing but a charade – an interrogation technique. She’d done a minimal amount of training in the army about the ways interrogators worked to break their prisoners, and assumed this was the case simply because Connors was involved. If he was really using her to get to Rick, that made her a valuable asset, and he wasn’t going to throw her away so easily.
Thus she was surprised to see Sheriff Eagleburger opening the cell door.
“Okay,” he said. “It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“Your trial, of course. The judge told you yesterday, didn’t he?”
“He’s no judge.”
“Is now. Appointed by the governor himself.”
“Did Connors set you up for this?”
“Major Connors doesn’t have anything to do with matters of the law. This is Asheville, and we do things right, here.”
Lauren felt a distinct chill as Eagleburger helped her to stand, realizing she was in way over her head, and without the faintest idea how to get out of it. Taken up the stairs, she saw people in dirty clothes crowding the corridor, and faces turned to her, some spitting on the floor. A deputy turned up to help Eagleburger push her toward the courtroom, and they were jostled as the crowd raised their voices, calling her a murderer. The courtroom itself was packed to capacity, and hands reached out to grab her. There were no militiamen to provide security, and Eagleburger resorted to using a baton to force people back as he wrestled her to the witness stand. Judge Reid sat behind the bench, visibly intimidated by the tumult. He didn’t have a gavel with him, but it didn’t look as if he was prepared to confront the mob anyway.
Eagleburger crossed the bar, maneuvered Lauren to her seat and turned to face the crowd.
“Quiet it down,” he roared, his face bright red. “This ain’t a football game!”
“We wanna see her hang,” shouted a voice.
“That ain’t up to you,” retorted Eagleburger. “I wanna see order in the court, or this case is gonna be adjourned.”
Reluctantly, the mob simmered down, all eyes on the judge.
Judge Reid nervously cleared his throat. “The court is in session again. Uh, we’ve heard the witnesses for the prosecution, and, uhm, I’d like to question the defendant.”
“The oath, Judge,” murmured Eagleburger as he took his place by the bench.
Reid wiped his sweating hands on his pants. “Yes, the oath. Uh, do you, Lauren Nolan, pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?”
Lauren couldn’t see a bible anywhere, and still found it difficult to believe she was in this situation. The crowd’s hostility was palpable and she couldn’t understand why they hated her so much. The fact that she hadn’t been present for the prosecution statements didn’t help.
“This isn’t how you do this,” she told Reid.
“I need to hear your oath,” insisted Reid.
Another voice yelled out from the crowd: “She can’t tell the truth because she’s a lying whore!”
“Your oath,” hissed Reid.
It sounded like he was begging.
Lauren felt very small before the mob, and the wooden witness podium was scant protection against the belligerent faces that looked ready to lynch her on the spot. In spite of that, the unfairness of her predicament demanded a proper response.
“I want to know what they’ve been saying about me,” she said. “It’s my right.”
“You ain’t got no rights,” shouted a voice.
“You killed Luke, and that’s that,” called another.
Reid pulled across a piece of paper and began to write, his hand shaking. “Let it be recorded,” he muttered, “that the defendant refused to pledge the oath.”
Indignant, Lauren responded: “This isn’t fair. I demand a retrial.”
“Young lady,” grated Reid, “this trial isn’t over yet, and you don’t get to demand anything.”
“Don’t you ‘young lady’ me,” shot back Lauren. “I’m older than you and I’ve had it with this charade. You’re not a real judge and you have no idea what you’re doing.”
Reid slammed his hand on the desk. “Silence in the court!”
“Oh, so you’re telling me to be silent, but everyone else can shout whatever they want?”
“Silence!”
“I pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth and to tell it any damn way I please,” said Lauren, stiffening in defiance.
“That’s not the oath.”
“That’s all you’re going to get.”
Eagleburger leaned in and whispered to the judge: “Just proceed.”
Reid pursed his lips, crossed out what he’d written and put his pencil down.
“Lauren Nolan, can yo
u give the court your whereabouts on the sixth day of March, this year?”
“No. I don’t keep a calender. In case you hadn’t noticed, the stores are out of stock.”
Someone guffawed in the crowd.
Reid shifted uncomfortably.
“Did you, or did you not, illegally enter and occupy the property of the Myers Park Country Club?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“Just no.”
“Mrs. Nolan, if you did not enter the property illegally, then how did you come to be there on the date of the alleged incident?”
“We were invited.”
“Invited?”
“Yes. The club chairman sent us a gold-plated invitation, offering us his clubhouse so that we could shelter from the looters, thugs and murderers. How can you be so stupid? The city was abandoned, wide open and covered in radiation. There were corpses everywhere and thousands more dying outside, and you’re asking me about private property laws? This was a national emergency.”
“That doesn’t mean you can break the law.”
“There was no law! We had to fight for our lives and we couldn’t call 911. We certainly weren’t going to waste our time finding out if the chairman would mind ever so much if we partook of his excellent facilities. And no, we didn’t sign the visitor’s book either. Have you got any serious questions?”
“Mrs. Nolan, if you do not answer in a more polite manner, this court will hold you in contempt.”
“I get the feeling it already does. This isn’t a fair trial.”
“That is not for you to decide. On the day of the crime, did you, or did you not, threaten the victim, Luke Walsh?”
“I didn’t threaten him. I warned him.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“It’s a no.”
A short, bitter-faced woman stood up in the crowd. “Objection, your honor,” she cried. “I was there. She was threatening, oh yes she was. Said she was ready to kill us all if we didn’t hand over everything we had. Why, she was ready to steal the clothes off our backs.”
Lauren recognized the woman. It was Barbara, whom she’d seen once at Myers Park and once in Black Mountain when the woman got her arrested, and Lauren was tired of hearing her shrill voice. “Why don’t you shut up and sit down?” said Lauren caustically.
“You’re a thief and a murderer,” said Barbara, jabbing a finger toward Lauren. “You was looking to steal our stuff, and when we wouldn’t give it to you, you shot Luke down in cold blood.”
Reid looked up. “Uh, that differs somewhat from your earlier testimony.”
“No it doesn’t,” said Barbara hastily. “It don’t and I swear to God it’s the truth. That woman there is guilty. She got no respect for life and no respect for the law. Her and her posse are just a bunch of raiders. That’s right. They steal and they kill and she deserves to hang.”
“Objection, your honor,” said Lauren. “This woman’s off her meds.”
“You don’t have the right to make objections,” said Reid.
“Why not? Everyone else does.”
“That does not make your flippant attitude acceptable.”
“And what would be acceptable? That I just plead guilty to everything so that you can go back and collect whatever favors Connors offered you? This is a sham, it’s unconstitutional, and if you’re not ashamed of that, you’re a bigger coward than I took you for.”
“Mrs. Nolan …”
“Don’t give me that. Luke and that stupid woman over there were part of a group making demands on me. We’d already been attacked by another group, and I was defending my children. If the positions had been reversed and it had been me lying dead, you wouldn’t have even bothered trying this in court, because it wouldn’t have suited Connors’ agenda, so don’t you dare suggest that I’m in the wrong. I’m being set up and you’re being used. All of you are.”
“You need to be more respectful,” seethed Reid.
“Go to hell,” said Lauren.
A man stood up at the back of the crowd. “All I want to know,” he said, “is did she or did she not murder some guy?”
There were nods from some of the others, and Reid turned to Lauren with a triumphant smile on his face. “Good question,” he purred. “Mrs. Nolan, did you or did you not shoot Luke Walsh dead?”
“Who’s running this trial?” remarked Lauren. “You or them?”
“Just answer the question, please.”
Lauren hesitated. She’d hoped to win some of the crowd over to her side, but one look at their faces destroyed that notion completely. Over the past winter, they’d witnessed terrible things. They’d starved and watched helplessly as loved ones died. They’d probably done things they never imagined they’d have to do, and they’d come out of it scarred. Their previous life, and any sense of innocence, had been stolen from them. For them, justice wasn’t just for this case, but for everything they’d lost. They didn’t know Luke, and they could care less about Lauren, but they knew the hurt inside, and someone had to pay. If they figured that even half of what had been said about Lauren was true, that was enough. She’d become the avatar for all their misery, and the act of hanging her would atone for all the suffering.
“The question, Mrs. Nolan?”
“The question’s irrelevant,” murmured Lauren.
“I’m sorry?”
Lauren lifted her voice, addressing the crowd. “Is it murder when you’re trying to defend your family?”
The multitude of eyes bored into her.
“You know what it’s been like,” she continued. “You know some of the hard choices you had to make, and the danger you found yourself in, with predators everywhere. Do you want to be judged like I am? Do you want to find yourself here, being accused of something that doesn’t make sense in the chaos out there?”
Barbara jumped up. “Don’t you listen to her,” she cried. “She shot Luke dead and he was unarmed. He didn’t have a weapon or nothing. We was all unarmed and she was the only one with a gun. It’s butchers like her that have been making our life a misery. Luke never meant no harm to nobody.”
“My final question for the defendant,” announced Judge Reid. “After you shot Luke Walsh, did you find a weapon on him?”
Lauren remembered the moment Luke reached behind him, in spite of repeated warnings not to. She recalled the way his body fell after she pulled the trigger, and her mortification when she discovered he’d been reaching for a written note in his back pocket.
“Well, Mrs. Nolan?”
Lauren had reached the end of the line, and knew that nothing she said would make an ounce of difference. All she could think about were her own children, out there somewhere. Would they ever understand what happened to their mother? And what about Rick? Would he be able to keep them safe?
“Well?” insisted Reid.
“I had reason to think he was armed,” said Lauren softly, gazing into the distance. She closed her eyes, trying to picture her family one last time.
“It appears he was not,” concluded Reid. “The court finds you guilty of second degree murder, and sentences you to hang.” He slapped his hand on the table. “This court will reconvene tomorrow to decide upon the time of the execution.”
“The hell it will,” called Barbara. “I say she hangs now.”
“Uh, tomorrow will be fine,” muttered Reid.
“Come on, boys,” said Barbara, clambering over the bench in front.
Reid’s eyes widened. “Sheriff?” he said.
“Everybody stay in their seats,” ordered Eagleburger.
Barbara kept going, drawing a portion of the crowd with her. Lauren, with her hands cuffed and her wounded leg immobile, was helpless to react as increasing numbers surged across the bar rail. Barbara reached her first and dragged her off the chair, and Lauren struggled in vain as scores of hands pulled her across the floor. Reid gathered his papers and bolted for the back door to the judges’ chambers. Eagleburger drew his baton and wad
ed into the crowd, trying to get to Lauren, but the stampeding mob beat him to it. Reaching out and grabbing her sleeve, he could do nothing more as he was dragged along with the crowd.
The deputy at the main door was knocked aside. As more people joined the fray, the momentum squeezed them through the doors and into the packed corridor, where those who couldn’t get into the court room waited. Like water in a pipe, they flowed out of the courthouse and down the outside steps, with Lauren sandwiched in their midst.
Seeing the scaffold up ahead, Lauren squirmed and kicked, but they had a hold of her legs, and her exertions had no effect. Up the wooden steps they carried her, the looped noose waiting.
Standing her up, someone grabbed the rope. Most of the crowd surrounded the scaffold. With fewer people on the platform, Lauren found the space to kick out hard, sending a man flying off into the crowd, which parted nimbly to allow him to hit the ground hard. Apart from that, they stayed glued to the spectacle.
Lauren head-butted Barbara, catching her on the bridge of the nose, but someone punched Lauren in return, her head ringing from the impact. She felt the noose being tightened around her neck. Barbara, bellowing in fury, charged into her to knock her off the platform, but Eagleburger still had Lauren’s sleeve in his grip, having somehow maintained his position in the stampede, and he yanked her back from the edge, his other hand trying to get his pistol out. Hands reached out to prevent him from doing so, and somebody attempted to interpose himself between Lauren and the Sheriff, pushing out against both of them. Lauren swayed back and forth near the edge, the abrasive rope rubbing against her throat.
*
Connors watched the drama from an upper window in the county hall building.
“Is everybody ready?” he asked Fick.
“Yeah, but he’s not going to show up,” replied Fick.
Beyond the park where the scaffold had been erected, the streets of downtown remained deserted. Nothing moved on the mountain slopes that overlooked Asheville. He’d deliberately pulled in his militia patrols to make the city look as wide open as possible. The troops he did have in the city were hidden, waiting for the signal. If Rick was going to launch an attack to rescue his wife, this would be the optimum time.