by Chris Bauer
“You’re the murderer, Doctor.” Larinda flipped the visor back down and tightened her grip on the wand.
The doctor turned and attempted a gimpy trot back to her office. Larinda stalked her, following her in no real hurry. The doctor trotted as fast as she could, lost her balance and fell palms-first onto the concrete sidewalk. She struggled to lift herself onto an elbow. Her squinty eyes turned into slits behind the shade from her raised arm. Larinda stood over her, her shadow tall. The doctor lowered her arm and opened her terrified eyes their widest.
Larinda’s words were cold, joyless. “Here, Doctor, is a taste of hell before your condemned soul gets there.”
“Please…no…”
Larinda stepped back and squeezed off another stream of liquid fire, held the wand steady even after the fiery baby-killing heap on the ground had stopped its screaming.
Sirens gathered strength from fire and police equipment still some distance away.
Larinda reentered the building through the rear exit, took the stairwell to the third floor and burst through the fire door. At the end of the empty hall she kicked her way into the Planned Parenthood suite and moved from room to room, torching each one until the smoke and flames got so bad she had to leave.
The office building’s front entrance delivered one more person to the street-side parking lot, a tall, attractive woman in exercise clothes, long black hair, and sunglasses that she slid down over her eyes. No helmet or hoodie; Larinda had left them in the burning clinic along with the flamethrower. She hustled up the street toward a few huddled people, curious local residents gathered out front of their homes. Word of the carnage between the buildings had scattered most of the building’s evacuees.
“Fire’s on the third floor,” she said to anyone who would listen. “I almost didn’t (cough) make it out…”
The small crowd swallowed her up and gasped as flames shot from two third-floor windows, licking the brick exterior and increasing in intensity. Larinda strode swiftly to her car like any other panicked evacuee might, got in, and drove off.
TWENTY-ONE
Mind farts. Judge’s affliction could generate thousands of them. An outburst was queuing up.
“…pig-faced, mung testicles…”
Inside the yellow caution tape, he and his two dogs and Owen stood in what used to be a tanning salon in Blacksburg, but was now a day-old crime scene, unmanned at the moment and picked over by the authorities, maybe even by the locals. He was glad it had been worked already. It reduced the chance of finding uncollected body parts. Otherwise it could become Iraq and Afghanistan for him all over again. This time his anxiety grew from the tangle of wires and wood and broken cinder blocks and exposed plumbing, plus a horrible blood splatter on a surviving section of ceiling and wall near the front entrance to the salon.
“Judge…”
Owen gave him room while swiveling his head to check for witnesses to the TS lapse. “Bro, it isn’t cool you losing your shit like this in the middle of, you know, a crime scene.”
Like Judge didn’t already know. Like he could control it.
The meds, they did work, but sometimes what he saw in this business got the better of him, his inner being, his soul.
Judge launched into it again, a string of spit-laden holy-fucks and shits and things that rhymed with pig testicles then doubled over at the waist like he’d been gut-punched. Maeby pushed into the crook of his neck, to comfort him and to be comforted. The tirade soon petered out. Overhead, next to the bloodied ceiling, a large hole showed through to a clear morning sky where the roof had been blown into pieces, exploding onto surrounding properties.
The reasons for the yellow tape: one, it was a crime scene, and two, what was left of the middle of the store appeared to be unsafe, including the floor. A gas explosion after an IED blast, this was the official ruling by the fire department according to an overnight cable news report. When Judge and team got there after midnight last night they cruised the scene. Well-lit enough then, but seeing it in daylight made a lot more sense, and would be a whole lot safer. They had found a local mom-and-pop motel and crashed until morning.
What they were looking for now was proof that this was Larinda Jordan’s doing, and Maeby’s nose was getting hits all over the place from different bomb-making materials, some on the floor, some on what was left of the walls, some on a tanning bed. They were pretty much past the bomb discovery phase, so Judge gave her leash to Owen. It made them both happy, and it gave Owen something to do.
“Yo. Judge. She likes this spot over here.”
“Good. Thanks. Give her a treat.”
Something Judge had learned when they checked into the motel last night: Maeby liked Owen. She stayed with him in his room while J.D. stayed with Judge. There’d been one challenge with the arrangement: Owen said he talked someone at the bar into coming back to his room, and Maeby didn’t let her in, forcing him and his “date” to consummate their arrangement in the woman’s car.
“Judge. Over here, too,” Owen said.
“Great. Give her another treat.”
After Maeby’s third hit and treat, a wizened Owen said, “Hell, dude, I’m just babysitting her, aren’t I?”
“She likes you, Owen, but yeah, pretty much.”
Judge concentrated on his big guy, newly rejuvenated with a whiff of Ms. Jordan’s tee shirt. J.D. nudged a metal trashcan, upside down in the rubble, small, round, and blast-furnace black with a hint of a pastel green enamel in one section, like it had once been a trendy office cubicle trashcan, or something from a powder room. He pushed at it with his nose until it flipped onto its side. Judge tugged him away from it so he could get a better look. False positive; the can was empty.
They moved through the rubble, not sure how much time they’d have before an authority-type showed up and told them to get the hell out. The Shepherd jerked Judge into an about-face and stuffed his head back inside the same trashcan, pawed at its interior, pulled back out and barked.
“All right, you convinced me.” Judge looked closely again at the bottom of the can. Not any less empty. “Sorry, J.D., I don’t see anything.”
He pawed at the inside wall of the can, his nails removing some of the soot to expose green enamel underneath. He licked at his paw. Judge put a hand inside, scratched with a fingernail at more of the blackened metal. Caked against it were threads from a flimsy fabric. He peeled a small patch of it back, its visible side black, but its underside had thin layers of material soiled a crusty brown, like a gauze pad with dried blood on it. In Ms. Jordan’s apartment they’d found gauze and gauze pads and blood on her bathroom sink.
His dog wanted to eat the evidence. Judge wrenched him away from the trashcan and sat him down, rewarding him with kibble. “Good boy, J.D.”
Two vehicles hopped the curb at the corner, one a cop car, the other an unmarked sedan, no sirens but both were advertising. Screeching tires, slammed doors. As trespassers Judge and Owen hustled back under the yellow tape and tried to nonchalant their way toward their parked van across the street. Judge resisted the urge to whistle while they walked.
“ATF! You two, stop!”
They complied and turned around, with Judge more resigned than nervous, then nervous as hell when he saw the guns. Four drawn firearms, two plainclothes ATF, two uniformed cops. His dog almost left his feet, snapping at the sight of guns and bulletproof vests that weren’t his master’s.
“Stay. Easy, boy…”
Judge reined J.D. in and had him sit, his deputy growling but otherwise behaved. Maeby, also growling, hadn’t left Owen’s side.
“Show me some ID,” one of the ATF agents said, the only black guy.
Judge’s fugitive recovery ID came out first, then his permit to carry, then his driver’s license.
“I have a Glock. In my belt, around back. Nothing else on me.” One of the cops relieved him of his piece and its holster. He shushed his dogs while the agent patted him down, except he couldn’t shush himself.
> “…testicle.”
A Tourette’s aftershock. Not much more than a peep, but still too loud. He coughed, gritted his teeth.
“You say something?” the agent said.
“Just quieting my dog,” he said, stroking his deputy’s head.
Another car arrived, screeching to a stop. “That’s FBI,” the ATF agent announced. “This is an ATF crime scene, but they piss off just as easily as we do, gentlemen, so be smart and cooperate.”
Two more men climbed out, both in suits. They assembled alongside their gathering. Owen got more questions than Judge did, produced his driver’s license and was polite, but Maeby stayed wary. They searched Owen, took his flask, but didn’t try to search the dogs. A wise read on their part.
The black agent: “What were you doing in there?”
Judge answered before Owen could say anything. “We’re tracking a bail jumper from Texas. This could be her work.”
“This your van, Mister…” he looked at the ID, “Drury?”
“Yes.”
“We need to look inside.”
Owen’s beer, far as Judge knew, had been fully consumed, but there were a number of empties in there. “Suit yourself.”
His canine deputies needed to relieve themselves. A cop escorted the troupe to a nearby grassy patch while other cops tossed the van. The black agent motioned them back after the search.
“What is in your van scares the shit outta me,” the agent said, “but my FBI friends here say you both check out. You, Mister Drury, apparently know someone in the Bureau. Some advice, gentlemen. In the future you need to consider this yellow tape, all crime scene tape, like it’s a fucking radioactive pest strip. Don’t go near it. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Judge said. “We were just leaving, sir.”
“Here’s your gun, Mister Drury.”
Owen spoke up. “How about my flask?”
“You’re lucky it was empty. You guys are both lucky the beer bottles were empty, too,” the agent said. “Quit while you’re ahead, Mister Wingert. Go.”
Judge was feeling benevolent. “You need to check out that office trashcan,” he volunteered to the agent, pointing at it in the debris.
“For what?”
“Just look it over. My dog’s nose says the fugitive we’re tracking left something behind. Something that probably has some DNA on it.”
They’d gotten what they came for, proof she was here, which also proved she was more dangerous than at first thought. The agent’s thank-you for the evidence lead said they scored some points.
On their way back to the van they gave the unmarked FBI vehicle a wide berth. Owen got chatty again, looking to fill in some new blanks. “You know people in the FBI?”
“Geenie’s daughter is an agent. Actually a supervisor. The two of them have this love-hate thing going on between them. Too much alike.”
They ignored that the door to the unmarked car was open, and that the agent inside was scratching his balls while he answered a radio call, but they couldn’t ignore the exchange. “Go ahead, Dispatch.”
A female voice crackled over the FBI radio. “It’s confirmed. Another clinic. Falls Church, Virginia. Five dead. Building is on fire. Stay where you are, gentlemen. Homeland Security and ATF are on it. More info when available. Out.”
Four more hours to D.C. They’d be there by early afternoon. The clinic was across the Potomac from the Capitol; they would pass it on their way.
Same itinerary as Larinda Jordan, except she apparently decided to make it a stop.
TWENTY-TWO
“Enter from the left and take the left-most chair, Your Honor,” the Marshal of the Court reminded her.
As the most junior member of the bench, Naomi followed two of her associate justice peers into the courtroom and sat as directed. She nodded at her newly minted law clerks, the four sitting together as part of the thirty-plus clerks observing the proceedings from the right side of the bench. In this morning’s audience Naomi recognized four Native Americans in indigenous clothing from the line outside the building. She too had sat in on sessions before, as observer, guest, and an arguing attorney. This newest trip, to this side of the bar, was giving her goose bumps.
The Marshal of the Court called the Court to order. “The Honorable, the Chief Justice, and the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the United States and this Honorable Court!”
The Chief Justice opened the proceedings. “Today’s first case will be number fifteen dash nine-seventy-three, Babineau v. Turbin. Ms. Island?”
Some paper shuffling in front of the microphone, then began the opening argument from Kristin Island, representing the petitioner.
“Mister Chief Justice, and may it please the Court: The instant case is a direct appeal to strike down a ruling made by the Northern District Federal Court of Texas. The Texas ruling enforces a law that, before a pregnant woman is allowed to terminate her pregnancy, she must view an ultrasound image of her fetus and receive information on hypothetical pain levels the fetus might experience during the procedure. Miss Philomena Babineau, the petitioner, would not comply with the new state law regarding viewing the ultrasound image. With no proof of compliance, she was refused access to a legal procedure at a local clinic. She subsequently engaged a medical paraprofessional to terminate her pregnancy. This procedure successfully aborted the fetus but has left her unable to bear more children. It is the contention of the petitioner that the Northern District Federal Court of Texas ruling is a violation of her right to privacy as originally protected by the Roe v Wade decision, and relies on scare tactics disguised as prenatal guidance regarding a fetus’ potential pain or discomfort in willful ignorance and disregard of the fetus’ attained age.”
Out of the pro-choice box with a bang. Ms. Island had thirty minutes to deliver her entire case inclusive of Court members’ questioning. Then it would be the respondent’s turn to represent the Northern District Federal Court of Texas in defense of its initial ruling, also with thirty minutes. The case would be won or lost in conference among The Nine, where posturing regarding a woman’s right to choose would again rely on right to privacy, but this time it had to be tempered with the pain factor and the age at which a fetus felt it.
The Chief Justice and three other associate justices questioned Ms. Island during the course of her argument. Near the end of the petitioner’s allotted time, Naomi weighed in.
“Miss Island, did Miss Babineau ever try to harm herself as a result of the Texas ruling, either before or after the abortion?”
“Your Honor, yes, she did, twice. Suicide attempts before and after the procedure. And she struggles daily with depression and anxiety in direct consequence of her inability to have children.”
The Marshal of the Court signaled the Chief Justice that Ms. Island’s argument time was up. “Thank you, counsel,” the Chief Justice said. His hands folded, his gaze shifted. “Mister Turbin?”
The two attorneys and their shuffling papers changed places. Not lost on Naomi and the other judges was the sudden yet discreet appearance of six additional court police officers at the rear of the chamber, behind the audience. Simultaneously, two aides to the Marshal of the Court delivered slips of paper, one for each associate judge. Naomi’s heart fluttered as she read hers.
“Falls Church Planned Parenthood arson. Five dead. No specific threats have been made to the Court. The additional court police you see are a precaution.”
Mr. Kenneth Turbin, Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas, began his argument. “Mister Chief Justice, and may it please the Court…”
Senator Folsom lit a cigarette and put a phone to her ear. She closed the glass partition separating her from her driver, her car on the way to the Capitol for a Senate hearing.
“Does anyone know wh
ere she is?”
She heard a pencil tapping and some nervous coughing from the other end, both sounding cavernous in her ear, the coughing first by a man then a woman, but the senator got no other response from within the conference room at Reverend Hunt’s Christian Charismatic Ministry of Wisdom and Light.
“Higby, I swear to God, I thought your group had convinced her it was in everyone’s interest that she disappear. Hello? Goddamn it, I hear you breathing! Answer me!”
“Mildred, calm down please.” This was the reverend finally speaking up, his Texas drawl more of a deep-in-the-heart-of kind, evident even on the phone. “For all we know, she has disappeared like we told her. She would normally contact someone on my staff during an assignment. We have no confirmation that either assault was her doing.”
“Assaults? These are terrorist acts! The second was an execution of five people!”
“Fine, Senator. But it seems out of character for her to…”
“Listen to me, Higby. The federal agencies are tracking multiple persons of interest now, domestic and off shore, all with MOs like this, and they’re looking to close this out before another tragedy hits. The Capitol police tell me she’s on a short-list for this, damn it! How did she get on this list? Why can’t you find her?”
The reverend took her off speaker. “Mildred, she’s out there, alone, and not contacting us. I get no answer from her phone. If she’s involved, I don’t know why, and I don’t know why now. We’re checking credit cards associated with some of the aliases we gave her. We’re working our way through them. It might not be her.”
Mildred rubbed her forehead. This timing had been nothing short of bullbat crazy. The swirling cigarette smoke hung inside the limo; she powered her window down to let it escape. When the Supreme Court building popped into view, she took measure of it.