by Ellery Kane
“Nothing but!” Millie exclaimed. The jurors laughed along with her.
Smiling, Mr. Van Sant stood and walked toward Millie. “Good afternoon, could you please state your name?”
“Mildred Jackson, but most people call me Millie.”
“Millie, how do you know Mr. McAllister?”
“He is … he was my neighbor … him and his wife. God rest her soul.” Closing her eyes and looking toward the heavens, Millie made the sign of the cross.
“How long did you live next door to Mr. and Mrs. McAllister?” Mr. Van Sant asked.
“A couple of months at least. I’ve been living there ten years, so new folks stand out right away.”
“Did you ever hear them arguing?”
“Never!” Millie was adamant. “They were such a sweet couple—and their son, Quin—he always reminded me of my grandson.” At Millie’s error, a slight frown of concern passed over Mr. Van Sant’s face, then vanished. Seamlessly, he shifted topics, probably hoping Dream Killer had fallen asleep.
“Please tell the jury what you observed on the night Mrs. McAllister was murdered.”
A few more creases appeared on Millie’s wrinkled forehead. She didn’t respond.
“Go ahead, Millie,” Mr. Van Sant prompted. “It’s okay. Just tell us what you remember.”
“I won’t ever forget that night. I thought it was my Michael come home to stay. He walked past my window. It was pouring rain, so I put on my coat and went after him. The rain was so hard, I don’t think he even noticed me, but I saw him knocking on the door to George and Shelly’s apartment.” Millie wiped a tear from her face. “I guess, deep down, I knew it wasn’t him. Then, there was a noise, like a thud.” She pointed to the back of her neck. “The little hairs right here stood up. My mama used to say that’s the sign of the devil. I was scared out of my wits, so I ran back to my apartment and hid in my room.”
“Did you ever talk to the police about what you saw that night?”
“No.” Millie didn’t mention her distrust of the police. She had either completely forgotten or Mr. Van Sant advised her against it.
“Can you describe the man that you saw?”
“I couldn’t see too much of his face, but he looked handsome. That’s why I thought it was my Michael, handsomest boy you ever did see. He had on a jacket, like a trench coat.”
“Anything else?” Mr. Van Sant hinted.
“Oh yes, the tattoo,” Millie replied. “Michael didn’t have any tattoos so I noticed it right off, when he was knocking at the door. That’s when I knew it wasn’t him. It was on his wrist, but I couldn’t make it out.”
“No further questions. Thank you, Millie.” Satisfied, Mr. Van Sant returned to his seat, as Dream Killer readied her arsenal. The determined expression on her face made me afraid for Millie.
Still, she began with a polite smile. “Ms. Jackson, forgive the directness of my question, but how old are you?”
“Oh goodness, I wish I didn’t have to say, but I’m seventy-eight … and counting.” Again, the jurors chuckled.
“A young seventy-eight,” Ms. Dillard pronounced, but her compliment felt hollow. “How is your memory?”
“It’s okay,” Millie said. “I remember the important stuff.”
“The important stuff. I see. Like your grandson’s death? That would be important, right?”
Millie gasped, clutching her chest.
“Objection! She’s badgering my witness.”
Judge Blacksher nodded. “Sustained. Ask your question—one question at a time—Ms. Dillard.”
“Of course. I apologize. Ms. Jackson, is your grandson, Michael, still living?”
Choking back tears, Millie croaked, “They tell me he’s not. But sometimes I don’t believe them.”
“You said on the ninth of October, the night Shelly was murdered, you thought you saw a man who looked like Michael. Have there been other times like that?”
“A few,” Millie whispered.
“I’m not sure the jury could hear you, Ms. Jackson. Would you repeat your answer?”
Millie took a deep breath. “A few.”
Dream Killer paused and returned to her table, but she wasn’t finished. “I’d like you to look at a picture, Ms. Jackson. Is this your grandson?”
Millie’s hands shook, as she considered the image. She gazed at it intently, her eyes blank. “It looks like … I—I’m not sure. I don’t—I don’t remember.”
“Objection. Irrelevant. She’s not here for a memory test,” Mr. Van Sant huffed.
Ms. Dillard immediately fired a response. “Her memory is clearly at issue here, Your Honor.”
“Overruled.”
Millie looked desperately out into courtroom, past Mr. Van Sant, to Quin. “Michael?” she asked.
“Your Honor,” Mr. Van Sant interjected. “My witness needs a break.”
Turning her back from the jury, Dream Killer hissed, “Your witness is senile. I don’t think a break is going to do her much good.”
“Michael?” Millie stood, reaching her hand toward Quin, as he looked on horrified.
“Help her,” Quin urged Mr. Van Sant. Millie took one uncertain step from the witness stand, before she crumpled to the ground.
CHAPTER EIGHTY - ONE
FIGHT LIKE A GIRL
A SUBDUED JUDGE BLACKSHER addressed the room, “The ambulance is on its way. We’ll take a recess until we know more about Ms. Jackson’s condition. For now, I’d like to ask the gallery to clear the courtroom, except for you, young man. Quin.”
“I’ll see you in a minute.” I squeezed Quin’s shoulder, before I filed out behind Max and Elana. We walked outside, where the crowds of protesters were still gathered on the steps. By now, they must have heard of Millie’s collapse. Both groups were unusually silent—holding their signs at half-mast, propped against the ground—but restless. Without a glance, Emma walked past us, as if we were invisible. Still, I noticed she positioned herself just within earshot, pretending to stare at her cell phone.
“Poor Millie,” Elana lamented, taking a seat on the stairs. “She never stood a chance against you-know-who.”
I nodded in agreement. “I was afraid that might happen.”
A few minutes later, Max pointed toward the door. A long-faced Edison headed toward us, followed closely by Quin. “How is she?” I asked.
Edison shook his head. “Not good.” Seeing Elana’s discouragement, he amended, “She’ll be okay. Her blood pressure dropped, and she fainted. She may have broken her wrist when she fell.”
Quin stood a few steps behind Edison, not speaking. I watched Emma watching him. Considering us with obvious disdain, she went over to him.
“Why did Judge Blacksher want to talk to Quin?” Max asked.
Edison glanced over his shoulder, smirking. “Apparently, McAllister’s got a way with ladies of all ages.” Quin’s glare prompted Edison to raise his hands in surrender. “Kidding, kidding. The judge thought it would be calming for Millie since she seems to recognize him.”
“So how bad is this really? The Michael thing? Her memory?” I asked Edison. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Emma reach out to touch Quin’s arm. He let her.
Edison sat down next to Elana, putting his jacket around her shoulders. He leaned against her, looking defeated. “Bad.”
“What happens now?” I asked, half-distracted, my eyes still on Quin. Emma’s hand was on his forearm. Even if we don’t get back together, I will never get used to that.
“The judge gave us recess until tomorrow,” Edison explained. “Hopefully, Millie will be well enough to resume cross-examination, but if she can’t come back, the District Attorney will probably challenge the admissibility of her statements. And then…” He didn’t finish, didn’t have to. It was obvious. Without Millie’s testimony, whatever hope remained would crumble like the petals of a pressed flower and blow away.
“Hey!” A young man emerged from the swarm of protestors, pointing at Edison. In one hand,
he carried a banner that read Not Afraid To Feel. We Are The New Resistance. His jaw was set, his expression fierce, demanding. It seemed he was waiting for this moment, his moment. “You’re Nicholas Van Sant’s son, aren’t you?” Heads pivoted as he passed, stomping toward Edison, until he was standing on the step below him.
“Who’s asking?” Edison replied, pushing Elana aside.
Next to me, Max whispered, “Uh-oh.” Loosening his tie and cuffing his sleeves, Edison stood to face his challenger, as if he also had been waiting for a moment of his own.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” The man scoffed and turned toward his audience. Megaphoning his hands, he incited them. “How can Nicholas Van Sant defend a hypocrite? A man we believed in, a man we supported, a man who was shoulder to shoulder with us against EAMs, a man who was caught with Onyx?” Amid a mixture of jeers and howls of approval, he pointed at Edison. “Because Nicholas Van Sant is also a hypocrite! His son was a member of the Guardian Force! His son used Emovere. His son used Agitor. His son used—”
Shrugging off Elana’s pleading arm and Max’s half-hearted grab, Edison pummeled the man in the face, sending him reeling. When he looked up again, a small river of blood trickled from his nose to his lip. “Eddie!” Quin called out, running toward us, Emma a step behind him. He gestured frantically to the unsettled crowd. “Think about what you’re doing!”
He was right. Below us, a beast awakened with fire catching in its belly. There was jostling near the periphery, then a fight broke out within the group of McAllister supporters. Just a few feet away, two women clobbered each other with their signs, pictures of Shelly and George engaged in battle.
“No wonder you’re all suited up next to Daddy,” the man taunted Edison, wiping blood from his face. “You punch like a girl.” He reached up toward Elana, grazing her arm with his fingertips. “I’ll bet your pretty little girlfriend punches harder than you.”
As Edison lunged forward, eager for round two, Quin pulled him back. “It’s not worth it,” Quin insisted. “He’s an idiot. Let him make a fool of himself.”
“Oh … I’m the fool, huh? ’Cause I gotta tell you, you look pretty stupid defending your murderer dad.” Quin gritted his teeth but kept a tight rein on Edison.
For a moment, the world was still, the fighting below us on pause, while I waited for an explosion. Finally, it came—from a most unlikely place. I looked on, mesmerized, while Elana drove a swift elbow to the man’s stomach. He doubled over, clutching at his side. “Not bad for his pretty little girlfriend,” she pronounced, spinning around to grin at Edison. From behind her, still crouching in pain, the man grabbed her hair and yanked hard, pulling her toward him.
“Let her go!” The strength of my voice surprised me. It was primal. I aimed my foot at his groin and unleashed a mighty kick.
“Argh!” he grunted, then folded in pain. Emma stood over him, smacking her fist against her hand. “You wish you fought like a girl!” As foreign as it felt, I secretly cheered her. The man slunk down the stairs into the fray, still wincing, without a backward glance.
I followed Elana and Emma, retreating toward the courthouse, balancing on a razor’s edge between laughter and tears. Edison was quarantined in the corner, Quin and Max standing guard. Elana ducked around them and pulled Edison close.
He grinned at me over her shoulder. “I guess you are tougher than you look, Red.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY - TWO
DRAGON’S BREATH
OVER TWO HOURS PASSED before police cleared the scene, arresting at least a hundred protestors. We gathered around Max in the courthouse lobby, watching his cell phone for news alerts, as rioters spilled out across the city setting fires and looting stores.
“What happened out there?” Mr. Van Sant asked us, as he and Vivian Dillard were ushered out a side door by security. “Were any of you involved?” Next to me, Edison tensed.
Quin shook his head. “This guy was running his mouth in the crowd, and it didn’t go over too well.”
Satisfied, Mr. Van Sant nodded. “Was he arrested?”
“I’m not sure.” Quin tried to hide a smile. “He got beat up by a couple of girls though.”
“That must’ve been a sight to see.” Mr. Van Sant chuckled. Stone-faced, we all nodded. “I’m heading back to the office,” he said. “Security will take you all home.”
When the door closed behind him, Edison turned to Quin. “Thanks for covering for me, McAllister. I just wish you would’ve let me hit him one more time.”
“Lex, did you see this?” Wide-eyed, Max handed me his cell phone, just as Van Sant security deposited us at our doorstep.
The ticker on the screen flashed:
BREAKING NEWS … BREAKING NEWS … BREAKING NEWS … FIVE-ALARM FIRE CONSUMES ABANDONED OFFICE BUILDING IN OAKLAND, THREATENS TO SPREAD TO NEARBY STRUCTURES, INCLUDING HISTORIC PARAMOUNT THEATER … RIOTERS TO BLAME …
“Look!” Max pointed below the caption to a live image from SFTV. Burning bright orange, the flames licked up toward the sky like a dragon’s breath. Instantly, I knew. Augustus’ makeshift office was on fire. “Do you think Augustus was in there?” Max asked.
I didn’t answer. “Let’s go inside. Maybe my dad’s heard more.”
String met us at the door. “I guess you’ve heard,” he surmised from our faces.
“SFTV reported it was deliberately set by a group of protestors,” my father added. He was sitting on the sofa with Barry and Scooter, the newly displaced duo, with nothing left to surveil.
“Little do they know,” I said, imagining Augustus striking a match, gleeful for the chance to cover his tracks.
“Ha!” Barry chortled. “Protestors? More like Augustus.”
Next to him, Scooter rubbed his bristly chin. “I think you’re both wrong.” He pointed to the television screen. With the wind’s urging, the eager flames had leapt the street. Through the fire, I watched as the marquee’s letters—M-A-C-B-E-T-H—melted and plummeted to the ground. The Paramount Theater and everything in it was about to burn.
CHAPTER EIGHTY - THREE
TOMORROW
I DIDN’T SLEEP AT ALL THAT NIGHT. By the time we’d gone to bed, the fire had consumed Augustus’ building, the Paramount, and half of the block on both sides of the street. The police had bigger problems, as the New Resistance took to the streets, fighting each other and anyone who got in the way. At last count, there were fifty injured, ten fatalities. It all seemed eerily familiar—history repeating.
I pulled the covers over my head, turned onto my stomach, and buried my face in my pillow. But there was no escaping it. Do you still think my dad is guilty? That question came again and again, as certain, as inescapable as an echo, especially now, with the world burning—literally—around me. Leaving the courthouse that afternoon, Quin had walked with me to our van, Max a few steps ahead of us.
“It wasn’t fair for me to ask you if you believe my dad. How could you? After what he did to my mom.”
Surprised, I replied, “I never said I didn’t. I’m starting to.”
He simply nodded. Max climbed into the car, leaving the door open for me. I waited for Quin to do something, but he just stood there. I ignored my ache to touch him.
I spoke first. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Just four words—a casual good-bye—but, as soon as I said it, it felt like a decision. I slid in beside Max.
“Okay.” His eyes disappointed, Quin shut the door.
I sighed and turned to Max. “It seemed like he wanted to tell me something.”
“Well, you didn’t give him much of a chance.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Maybe he wanted to tell you about his dad. You know, Elana told me that he’s going to testify on his own behalf.”
“I-I didn’t know.” I fought back tears with a sudden realization—Quin doesn’t trust me anymore.
Do you still think my dad is guilty? The question was still there, still unanswered. I rolled onto my side and reached under the mattress to the gun beneath i
t. Its metal was ice cold to my fingers. Tomorrow, I whispered in the dark. Though it seemed illogical, I had an unshakeable feeling the only way to answer that question was to meet with Dr. Donnelly.
CHAPTER EIGHTY - FOUR
A POEM OF SORTS
“WAKE UP!” I nudged a dozing Max, slumped next to me in the backseat of the Van Sant security van. “Look!” I pointed out the window.
Max sat upright, suddenly alert, as a caravan of military vehicles rumbled past us. That morning, SFTV had announced the deployment of troops to Oakland to quell the riots.
“We can’t afford another San Francisco.” I mocked the president’s words from the morning’s news broadcast, shaking my head at the irony. It was the government that caused the city’s evacuation in the first place, carefully orchestrating clashes between the Guardian Force and the Resistance.
Max rubbed his tattoo. “Think they’re recruiting?” He was joking, but neither of us laughed. Whatever they were doing here, I didn’t trust it.
There was an unsettled quiet in the courtroom, stone-faced soldiers stationed like pillars in every corner. Only their eyes moved, darting across the galley with suspicion. Next to me, Elana’s breathing was measured. I said nothing to her, but I knew, like me, she had only one focus. Each soldier—dressed in a camouflaged uniform—bore a familiar tattoo on his forearm. Coincidence? That word rimmed the edges of my mind and stayed on my tongue, unspoken. Just a coincidence. It had to be. According to SFTV, after Alcatraz, almost all of the former Guardians were offered other military positions after they completed a government-sponsored rehabilitation program.
Still, surrounded by those tattoos, even the steady swish of Judge Blacksher’s robe sounded ominous. “Before we begin this morning, I have a few announcements. In the wake of last night’s riots, the United States military has stepped in to support our security efforts. They are here for your safety, and I ask you all to follow their direction. As most of you know, Mildred Jackson took a hard fall yesterday and spent the night recuperating in the hospital. Fortunately, she will be able to resume her testimony this afternoon. In the meantime, I have asked Mr. Van Sant to call his next witness.”