3 Angel of Darkness

by Chaz McGee

  Most remarkable to me was the utter lack of hatred in Adam Mullins. As badly as he had been treated by those he loved, he had not yet turned mean. I could feel no trace of hostility, no need for revenge, no desire to blame others for his troubles. I just felt a weariness from him, an overwhelming, bone-deep weariness and a desire for it all to be over.

  I hoped he was on suicide watch.

  Adam’s breath began to slow and I felt him slip under into a quieter state of mind. I realized that he was meditating, that he was consciously trying to find peace in a deeper state. I wondered if he had learned that technique while in therapy after the death of his mother. Maybe this was how he had been able to maintain his remarkable calm as a young man.

  Whatever it was, it worked. I felt a tranquility settle over me as the same feeling filled the cell. I felt the kid’s sorrow start to lift. I felt a flicker of his spirit come alive.

  That was when I realized that I was not alone in the cell with Adam.

  There, standing in a corner across the room from me, was the figure of a tall woman with high cheekbones and a weary face. Her bony red hands and plain house dress were evidence that life had been hard on her. Her hair was pulled back in an indifferent bun and she wore neither jewelry nor any make-up. She was staring intently at Adam. I examined her face and saw traces of him in her features. He had her eyes, and those cheekbones had been passed on to him, too. I knew who she must be.

  Adam’s mother had come to him in his darkest hour, traversing who knows how many worlds to get there, and while I did not understand the form she took – she looked there, yet somehow not there, her body seemingly carved out of the air – I could feel her presence undeniably. She stood a few feet away from her son, radiating a warmth that I can only describe as golden and comforting in its power. I experienced every moment of it with Adam. It washed over him as he meditated and calmed his mind. It filled his being and healed his heart. It settled around him like a cloak. It gave him hope and the will to live.

  ‘You ready, kid?’ The guard was back and he held a bulletproof vest in one hand. ‘I’m going to have to put this on you, and it’s going to be tricky because of the belt.’

  Adam stood, staring at the vest. ‘Do I really need to wear that?’ he asked. His mother had faded away at the guard’s arrival, but she had left him with new strength.

  ‘I think so, yeah. I think maybe you better.’

  ‘What happens after that?’ Adam asked.

  I don’t think the guard liked what was being asked of him by Gonzales. I don’t think he thought of Adam as a monster, the way Gonzales and the Feds seemed to. ‘After that, you get arraigned in court, kid,’ he answered. ‘And I hope to God you have a good lawyer.’

  I rode with Adam to court, squeezed in beside three guards who sat motionless and silent on the bench across from a shackled Adam. He was dressed in a bright orange jumpsuit that covered the security belt and bulletproof vest, but made him look like a kid in a Halloween costume instead of a dangerous prisoner.

  Adam was someplace far away. His body was there in the van, shackled to rings in the wall, but he wasn’t there. I hoped he was someplace beautiful, and I hoped that wherever he was, his mother was there with him.

  Word had leaked to the press, probably deliberately, that a Columbine-style shooting at a local high school had been thwarted and that there might be a connection to the recent murders in town. By the time Adam Mullins was pulled from the transport van, he had already been dehumanized and reduced to everyone’s worst fear – a diabolical young villain, devoid of all morals and empathy, caught just in time, intent on random destruction of those more innocent than he. He was the perfect poster boy for those who feared the world changing around them as much as they feared getting old.

  Me? I had not bought it as a cop and I sure didn’t buy it now. I knew that the real villains were never as obvious as Adam Mullins, that they did not display their weapons neatly in lockers or leave blueprints to destruction on their computers for everyone to see. The real people to fear were the ones who spent a lifetime hiding behind others, reaping the benefits of their well-directed destruction. Beyond that, I could feel the terror in Adam Mullins – and no one could be that afraid without having some innocence left in them.

  As the angry shouts of a gathered crowd reached him, I could feel Adam clinging to fading memories of time spent with his mother, frantically attempting to return in his mind to afternoons by the creek, building forts and playing war, of times before his world shrank to four walls that trapped him and held little more than a sick grandmother and violent father.

  My heart ached as I experienced these memories with him, knowing they did not have the power to obliterate the threats of the crowd gathered to watch him being hustled inside, their shouts and fear fueled by the presence of television cameras.

  Overhead, the sky had turned a deep gray, as if the heavens themselves were angry at what was playing out beneath. I looked up, smelling rain in the air. A storm was on its way.

  I passed Maggie and Gonzales in the hallway outside the main courtroom, arguing in furious whispers. I stopped to eavesdrop. I had never seen the Commander more angry at Maggie. His face was flushed and his mouth set in a dangerously thin line. He was world-class pissed off.

  ‘Your actions could cost us this entire case,’ he said to her. ‘How many times have I made my feelings very clear on that point? No interviewing minors without a parent present.’

  ‘He had an adult there representing him,’ Maggie protested.

  ‘I’m not talking about that interview, Gunn,’ Calvano said angrily. ‘Don’t play games with me. You went out to his house, and you talked to him alone, and if he has a halfway decent lawyer, that could well cost us this case.’

  ‘What case?’ Maggie asked. ‘Look at what’s happening around here. You brought in the Feds and you know what can happen. They’ve labeled the kid a terrorist. They don’t need any evidence now. He could well end up a thousand miles away from here and we’ll never be able to find out what happened. He may well have done nothing. His father is far more likely to be guilty. Just stop to think about it. Every scrap of evidence you have against the kid is either from his father or could apply equally to his father. And the old man worked in the very unit where Otis Parker lives.’

  ‘From the very beginning, you have let your theory about Otis Parker color every piece of evidence we’ve found,’ Gonzales told Maggie. ‘You have ignored the facts. The evidence against this kid is overwhelming and I’m not going to discuss it any further.’

  ‘Sir, you are making a mistake.’

  ‘The only mistake I made was moving you up too far, too fast,’ Gonzales said. ‘I plan to correct that mistake once this afternoon is over.’

  With that, he left Maggie standing, stunned, in the middle of the hallway. Typically, Calvano waited until Gonzales had disappeared into the courtroom to step out from around the corner and approach his partner. Christ, the guy was better at skulking around than I was.

  ‘That sounded pretty bad,’ Calvano ventured. He looked genuinely shocked when he realized that Maggie was wiping away tears.

  ‘I don’t give a shit about my career,’ Maggie said. ‘We’ve all made a horrible mistake and that kid is going to be the one to pay for it once he steps into that courtroom.’

  Calvano put an arm around her and pulled her tight. ‘Pull yourself together, Gunn. Let’s just go in and see what we’re up against.’

  I followed them in to the courtroom and saw that Connie and Michael were both already there. They were sitting directly behind the defense table and looked as if they both wanted to throw up. Then I saw the reason for their distress: Adam had been assigned a public defender who looked nearly as young as he did. His suit hung off his gawky frame and he looked panicked at the growing crowd trickling in, as if he wasn’t sure he could handle the task ahead.

  The judge was cause for even more concern. I knew her well, she’d chewed me out often enough, an
d she looked like she was in no mood for mercy today. She was a prosecutor’s judge, and the DA’s office did everything they could to rig the system and draw her name when a big case like this one was on the docket. Adam Mullins would not get a break from Judge Hobart. She was a large woman with a perpetually unhappy face and an attitude that made you believe she felt the world had been unfair to her and therefore she was entitled to impose a rigid justice system of her own when it came to her courtroom.

  The prosecutor hadn’t liked me much either and had once famously referred to me as ‘a waste of space who is not worth the tarnish on his shield,’ right here in this very courtroom. She’d been speaking privately to a peer and was unaware that the microphones at her table were on. From the look on the judge’s face at the time – and his failure to instruct the jury to disregard the remark – I had the uncomfortable feeling that he agreed with her about my credentials all too readily. In the end, I had not been called to testify in the case and, had I been sober at the time, would have slunk shamefacedly from the courtroom. As it was, I remembered with even more shame that my partner had tapped me on the shoulder to let me know that the session had been adjourned and I could go home and sleep it off. I’ll never forget the way the jury was looking at me as I trudged from the courtroom.

  That had been the last time I ever appeared in court until now.

  Adam Mullins was led to the defense table in chains. He stared down at his defense attorney, not knowing who he was. He saw Michael and Connie sitting a few feet away and looked so grateful, I thought he might start crying again. His eyes swept over the courtroom and I felt absurdly grateful to see another friend of Adam’s among the crowd – his English teacher, Mr Phillips. He had seen his favorite pupil dragged from his classroom and now sat a few rows behind Connie and Michael, clearly furious at what Adam was going through.

  And, then, just as I thought that Adam had been abandoned to the kindness of strangers, I noticed his father sitting in the back row. Eugene Mullins made no attempt to speak to his son and Adam did not make eye contact with him.

  Eugene Mullins was dressed far nicer than I had ever seen him dressed before. He wore a pair of clean khakis and a pressed white shirt and his hair had been combed straight back from his cleanly shaven face. He looked like the epitome of an honest, hard-working citizen – right down to the pained expression on his face, as if he was disgusted with his son and wanted the world to know that he had regrettably washed his hands of him.

  I wanted to get closer, to probe his memories and see what I could find out but Adam was suddenly instructed to sit down next to his counsel with a clanking of chains and Judge Hobart gaveled the courtroom into order.

  It was a packed room, with reporters jostling for seats among the spectators. It took a moment for the crowd to settle down, and even then there was barely a second of silence before the doors at the back of the courtroom opened and a handful of nervous-looking teenagers entered, dressed in their church clothes. Adam turned around and spotted the three girls and a solemn-looking boy as they inched their way to a spot standing against a wall. He bit his lip and tried not to cry.

  Judge Hobart had noticed their entrance, too. I was certain she at least knew who the kids were, and that they came from good families – our town was small enough that she could still keep the troublemakers catalogued separately from the good kids. I hoped that her opinion of Adam had been dislodged just enough to make mercy a possibility. The kid deserved some hope.

  The crowd had been expecting a good show, but even the spectators gasped as the charges against Adam were read. He was being charged with more than the attempted murder of his classmates: the prosecutor announced in a clear voice that they had evidence that he was involved in the murders of Darcy Swan, Vincent D’Amato and even Otis Parker’s shrink.

  When Maggie heard the charges, she could not hide the surprise on her face. But her expression changed instantly to one of anger as she searched the crowd, finding Gonzales in the opposite corner of the courtroom, studiously avoiding her gaze.

  The prosecutor was the best one the department had, but she was also deeply self-righteous and loved the attention that came with being the one who led the battle cry for justice. She could never resist trying her case in the press and at other inappropriate times, such as during an arraignment. Sure enough, she gave in to her need for glory and tried to introduce her opening argument. ‘The state intends to prove that Mr Mullins is responsible for multiple murders, and planned to commit dozens more by taking revenge on his classmates for shunning him,’ she announced. Her voice was as trained as a news announcer’s and rumor was she’d taken lessons for years. ‘The state intends to present overwhelming evidence against Mr Mullins, including the testimony of his own father.’

  ‘Save it for the opening argument,’ Judge Hobart intoned automatically and waved for the prosecutor to go on.

  There was at least one person in the courtroom who clearly could not go on. His lawyer had instructed him to stand for the next part of the proceedings, but Adam swayed and turned white as he realized the magnitude of the charges against him – and the fact that his father was going to testify against him.

  Worse, his lawyer clearly shared in Adam’s disbelief. He was staring down blankly at his notepad and his hands were shaking.

  I knew then that the kid was in real trouble.

  ‘How does the defendant plead?’ Judge Hobart prompted Adam’s lawyer.

  The lawyer looked too confounded to speak.

  My god, could this really be his first trial? Would they do that to him?

  I was not the only one to wonder if what was happening truly served the cause of justice. Connie looked like she was contemplating leaping over the railing so she could represent Adam herself. His teacher, Mr Phillips, was scanning the crowd as if seeking someone, anyone, who might agree with his belief that something had to be done. Even Judge Hobart looked doubtful as Adam’s defense attorney remained silent, paralysed with stage fright.

  A painful silence followed as the courtroom waited for a response. But the young lawyer just stood there, looking frightened. He was in over his head and he knew it. The seconds stretched out and the tension grew. Spectators began to glance at one another. Whispers broke out. Judge Hobart frowned, not sure what to do.

  ‘Do something,’ a voice cried out, and there she was – Connie, standing up alone when no one else was willing, determined to protect someone else’s son out of love for her own.

  Connie’s courage tipped the balance of another’s.

  ‘Your honor,’ a deep voice said as a well-dressed man rose from his seat in the center of the courtroom. ‘The charges against Mr Mullins are both complicated and as serious as charges against a defendant can get. I am an experienced criminal defense attorney and I would like to offer my pro bono services in assisting his counsel at this time. I realize this is unorthodox, but I believe it is in the best interests of the court that the proceedings continue at this time and I believe that my counsel would enable that to happen.’

  As I realized who this unremarkable-looking man was, I experienced a sudden and irrefutable flash of understanding, as if a door had been opened and I had been allowed to see the truth on the other side. I realized then that true miracles don’t occur when prayers are asked and answered. True miracles occur before we even reach the point of prayer, when fate, or God, or some other force I cannot begin to explain, intercedes and sends events barreling in a new direction just before we are about to believe that there is no hope. People can call these strange turns ‘twists of fate’ or coincidence, but in that instant I knew better: I knew a greater force was at work.

  Judge Hobart looked too astonished to comment, but the prosecutor was outraged. She jumped to her feet and shouted, ‘Your honor, he can’t do that,’ just as the judge recovered and asked the lawyer, ‘Why would you want to do that?’

  A profound silence settled over the courtroom again as the crowd waited to see what might happen nex
t. I stared at the man who had offered to rescue Adam Mullins and now stood, confident and poised, as only a man at peace with his conscience can be: it was Otis Parker’s lawyer, the man I had discovered sitting on a bench a few days before, unable to bring himself to attend Parker’s competency hearing, knowing in his heart that his client had arranged to have the psychiatrist killed, acknowledging that he had helped to kill another man.

  ‘He can’t do that,’ the prosecutor repeated. Her voice rose with indignation and she glared at Parker’s lawyer. ‘He is representing Otis Redman Parker and we fully expect that Mr Parker will be called to testify as part of this case.’

  The prosecutor had not wanted to disclose this information in public – but it was too late. The courtroom exploded with speculation as onlookers stared at Adam Mullins, wondering how such a timid young man could be connected to a known monster like Otis Parker.

  The judge banged her gavel and silenced the courtroom yet again. The lawyer at the center of this controversy waited until all was quiet before he explained. ‘Your Honor, I am no longer representing Otis Redman Parker. I resigned as his counsel yesterday. I have absolutely no connection to this case and I reiterate my offer to help.’

  Not a person in that courtroom moved at that moment – except for one. While everyone else waited to see what this new development might bring, one man hurried from the courtroom without looking back: Adam’s father. And wherever Eugene Mullins was headed, he was in a hurry.

  Maggie saw him go. She rose abruptly and gave Calvano a look that contained the sort of unspoken signal that only partners can understand.

  Calvano was not a complicated man. He believed that when people talked, they lied more often than not, but that when they acted, they were telling the truth. The fact that Eugene Mullins had run from the courtroom told Calvano that he had a reason to run. He nodded back at Maggie and, as the lawyers clustered in front of the bench, arguing over Adam’s representation, he and Maggie took advantage of the confusion to slip from the courtroom.