Praise for Helen C. Escott
Operation Wormwood
“Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! With skilled, detective-like precision, Escott kept me at the edge of my seat throughout this well-told story of hurt and faith. Filled with a ton of well-researched facts and figures regarding Newfoundland and Labrador’s history, criminal investigative processes, and relevant political complications, this novel fills the reader’s need for action, suspense, and emotion. This book will make every Newfoundlander and Labradorian reflect on their complicated history and fully intrigue those who come from away. Operation Wormwood is wicked . . . simply wicked . . . in every definition of the word.” — E. B. Merrill, S/Sgt. (Rtd.), Royal Canadian Mounted Police
“At the heart of this gut-wrenching, savagely realistic novel is a deep theological struggle: why does evil against the most vulnerable go unpunished by a loving, all-powerful God? Escott combines first-hand police experience, superb storytelling, and deep faith in this Dan Brown–style epic.” — Rev. Robert Cooke
“Operation Wormwood . . . gives us a sense of what first responders deal with in their daily lives. A well-written book. Great job, Mrs. Escott.” — Edwards Book Club
“Operation Wormwood is one heck of a thriller.”
— The Telegram
Praise for Helen C. Escott
Operation Vanished
“Operation Vanished is a powerful page-turner that will resonate with any reader who enjoys a good murder mystery. Helen C. Escott doesn’t just seek justice and remembrance for female victims of crime but makes a brilliant attempt to emancipate them from the bonds of yesteryear.” — Fireside Collections
“Operation Vanished is a must-read Newfoundland mystery-thriller!” — The Miramichi Reader
Operation Vanished was awarded a Silver Medal for
Best Regional Fiction at the 24th annual
Independent Publisher Book Awards
Flanker Press Limited
St. John’s
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Operation wormwood : the reckoning / Helen C. Escott.
Other titles: Operation wormwood (2020) | Reckoning
Names: Escott, Helen C., author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200286072 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200286110 | ISBN 9781771178174 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771178181 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781771178198 (Kindle) |
ISBN 9781771178204 (PDF)
Classification: LCC PS8609.S36 O65 2020 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
——————————————————————————————————————————————------——
© 2020 by Helen C. Escott
all rights reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well.
Printed in Canada
Cover Design by Graham Blair
Flanker Press Ltd.
PO Box 2522, Station C
St. John’s, NL
Canada
Telephone: (709) 739-4477 Fax: (709) 739-4420 Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420
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We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 157 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.
To my husband, Robert, and our children: Sabrina, Daniel, and Colin, my daughter-in-law, Alanna, and grandchildren Sophie and Maximus.
“One day, you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” — C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia
Love forever and always,
Mom
To Minnie,
How can I ever thank you for always being by my side? I can never thank you enough for your love, companionship, and loyalty. You could never be replaced.
I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me. — C. S. Lewis
1
“How was the flight from Rome?” Kathie Fagan had settled in the old downtown house her mother had left her. The early morning sun poured in through the kitchen window, squeezing past the ledge of growing plants onto the new linoleum floor. She had spent the last few months renovating the house, putting in an updated kitchen while leaving its quaint and lovely charm intact.
“Long. Long and boring,” replied Father Peter Cooke as he took off his old felt fedora and placed it on the table. It had left his grey-white hair in a tuft on top of his head. Worry lines criss-crossed his elderly face. “I watched four movies going over and four movies coming back. It seems the only movies Hollywood is putting out these days are about organized crime. No one is making great movies like The Bells of St. Mary’s anymore.”
Father Cooke looked like he fell out of a 1950s-era movie. He proudly wore his priest’s attire every day: black pants with polished shoes, shirt with the Roman collar, and blazer. There was no excess about him, and material things didn’t interest him.
Kathie placed a plate of fresh baked cookies on the table alongside a pot of tea.
“Have you noticed every mob movie is about getting out?”
“Have you noticed every religious movie is about the same thing?” she answered.
They both laughed. The old kitchen wasn’t the only thing that had been renovated this summer. Kathie Fagan had retired from the convent and left her former name behind. She looked older than her fifty years. She was thin for her small frame. A life of humble penance had taught her to dress conservatively. She still buttoned her blouse to the top, and the only makeup she owned was a tinted Chap Stick and a jar of Vaseline moisturizer. Sister Pius was gone.
She caught him staring at her and reached up and tucked her newly cut and dyed blonde hair behind her ear. Kathie felt this new style hid her life in the convent. It didn’t.
A sleek black cat with big green eyes sauntered into the kitchen.
“Well, who is this?” Father Cooke reached down to stroke the glistening fur.
“This is my new fur baby, Salem.” She proudly picked him up for a cuddle. “I told you I wanted a cat.”
“Well, you are certainly using your new-found freedom wisely.” He admired her new life.
“It gets lonely at times. I’ve been surrounded by sisters in the convent since I was nineteen. I’m not used to having privacy.”
Father Cooke looked around at her new cupboards. “You’ve done a lot of work here while I was gone. It’s so homey here. So comfortable.” He let out a great sigh. “It’s so you.”
“It was the house I grew up in. There are a lot of great memories here. I didn’t want to throw them out with the rotted wood and mould.” She poured the tea. “Tell me the truth. How was Rome?”
“Well, you know what they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Father Cooke poured tinned milk into his tea followed by a heaping teaspoon of sugar. “You know, the Vatican takes for granted that everyone knows the story of God and reads it the same way. But that’s simply not true anymore.”
Kathie nodded. “If it ever was true. Now that I’m away from it, I can see that the Church has piled years of religious and cultural baggage on the story of Jesus.”
“I tried to tell them, as a front-line priest, that it is of the utmost importance to listen to people’s stories of faith, pain, loss, rejection, doubt, and questioning.” He shook his head.
“I have long criticized the Church’s use of tradition as a way to keep people involved.” Kathie pushed the plate of cookies toward the priest. “We have relied on Christmas Mass, christenings, Easter Sunday, Holy Communion, and weddings to bring people in. But then they don’t show up any other time of year.”
“Now people don’t even bother teaching these traditions. Weddings take place on sandy beaches. Christmas is about how many gifts you can fit under a tree, and then post pictures of the extravagance to Facebook, so others less fortunate can feel bad about themselves.” He took a cookie from the plate. “We have taken our traditions for granted. Now they are empty and meaningless.”
“I believe that these religious traditions are the most important contribution that churches give to people. Who will teach children the real meaning of Christmas or the sanctity of marriage when churches have closed their doors? Marriage has lost its meaning. It has become as recyclable as this tin.” The former nun picked up the tin of Carnation milk. “Tradition is how faith is passed from one generation to the next.”
Father Cooke broke the cookie in half, a force of priestly habit. “It seems to me that loneliness and despair are at epidemic proportions. Suicide has become an option for elderly and youth. The community that the Church offers is more important now than ever.”
“Personally, I think the Church was off-track when they focused on Mass on Sundays. Jesus ate with everyone, sinners and saints alike, but he was deemed a glutton and a drunkard. He brought people together in celebration. Even His miracles were about removing barriers to community. As followers of Jesus, we are literally called to be a community of gluttons and partiers.” Kathie grinned from ear to ear.
Father Cooke could only chuckle. “Oh, we should put that on bumper stickers. ‘The Catholic Church—the original gluttons and partiers.’”
Kathie poured him another cup of tea. “At the heart of our worship and community is a table and a simple meal shared by friends.”
“Agreed. But how do we turn meals into a sacred encounter? How do we take the idea of ‘Church’ beyond the four walls of our buildings?”
“We used to be good at this,” Kathie replied, deep in thought. “We built schools, hospitals, and universities. We educated women when the world told us they had no value other than procreation. We helped the poor. Wherever there was a need, the Church met it. But we have lost our way, forgot about those we really serve. We find ourselves holed up in cold stone buildings, longing for the good old days.”
“I tried to tell them that the Church was at its best when it added value to people’s lives. When it made the world a better place.” Father Cooke sipped his tea. “We need to focus on love, partnerships, and service, not programs, hierarchical structures, and protecting the status quo.”
“I didn’t tell you that I’m taking on a new ministry.” Kathie laid her cup down. “I will be volunteering with Survivors of Suicide. Its acronym is SOS.”
Father Cooke’s pride for her filled his heart. “You are the Church. That’s such a great fit for you.”
“Peter, did you know that Father Charlie Horan was my son?” She watched his face.
“What?” His face took on a serious look.
“When I was sixteen, I became pregnant. I gave the baby up for adoption, but the lady who adopted him died when he was twelve, and he was put in the orphanage.” She stared into her cup, unable to look at her friend. “I knew there was something about him. Something familiar. I started to wonder. Then I did some digging. Before my mother died, she told me the truth. I can’t forgive myself for what happened to him. I gave him up so he could have a better life.”
Father Cooke was stunned. “What you did, you did in good faith. What happened to him was not your fault. Maybe God sent him back to you so he could have one soft place to fall before He took him home. Maybe God sent him back to you to say goodbye and to give you a new direction.”
Kathie looked up and met his eyes. A tear rolled down her face, and she brushed it away. “Only you could see the good in suicide.” She brushed the cookie crumbs off the table. “Anyway, my new direction is to work with youth and front-line responders such as police officers, firefighters, and paramedics.”
“That’s one of the things I suggested to the Vatican. The Church needs to find a place for youth.” The priest took her hand. “These youth groups and hip-hop music in worship don’t work. We need to give them a voice and a place of ministry. We need to give them leadership roles in our parishes, our finance committees, and strategic planning groups. Young people can bring a new energy, fresh eyes, and—I don’t know if they are ready for this, but—change.”
Kathie squeezed his hand and let go. “The days of large, rock churches are numbered, but the future of small, local, informal, loving, committed faith communities are wide open. That’s why I am going to be there for people who have lost someone to suicide or who are thinking about taking their own lives. That will be my Church.”
“And I will be there for you.” Father Cooke’s genuine admiration for her was always hard to hide.
She locked eyes with him again. “Peter, tell me the truth. Now that you know I had a baby at sixteen and gave him up, now that you know it was Father Horan, how do you feel about me? Because I’m not going to hide that anymore. I visit my son’s grave every day and pray for his forgiveness. I’m not praying for anyone else’s.”
He took a deep breath. “I will drive you to the graveyard, and I will sit and pray with you. Who am I to judge anyone else? We all have something to hide. Nobody goes through this world untouched. Do you think you’re the only one in that graveyard praying for forgiveness? If I am going to change the Church, then it starts right here and now.”
Father Cooke made the sign of the Cross over Kathie. “Your forgiveness is granted. Instead of saying ten Hail Marys, tell your story to ten families who are suffering and help them find forgiveness as well.”
Kathie felt a weight come off her shoulders and a new purpose in her heart. “Thank you. This is what the Hail Mary is about.”
Then she added, “One more thing.”
“Yes.”
“What about this Wormwood business?” She waited for his reaction. “Do you really think God has sent a plague to the world to kill pedophiles, or do you think someone is killing them intentionally?”
“I’ve thought long and hard about that one. The hardest thing I do is hear the confessions of people who tell me they hurt children.” He pointed to a pocket inside his blazer. “I still keep a Bible here, you know.”
“I know you do.” Kathie knew the outline in his coat.
“I admire what Father Horan did. He was a brave man to go to Sgt. Myra with the detailed files of all those pedophiles.” He laid his hand over his pocket. “I wish I were that brave. But I can’t break my vow.”
“I’m not judging you, Peter.”
Father Cooke scratched his head. “I really do believe God is unfolding His justice upon the world.” His face was stone-cold serious. “Besides, there’s no way a serial killer could travel the world and infect so many people.”
She breathed in deeply and exhaled. “I believe it’s God’s work, too.”
2
Sgt. Nicholas Myra stood staring out the office window of the Integrated Child Exploitation Unit. The title on the open door to his office reflected in the glass read: Ice Unit Commander.
He watched the sun slowly set behind Signal Hill. The sky had changed from a brilliant promise of a day into a dark, inky black lit only by a scattering of stars and a greyish full moon.
Myra watched the patrol cars leave the parking lot of the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary. Each was driven by an officer starting the evening shift, policing the city of St. John’s, the oldest city in North America.
The police headquarters had a vantage point in historic Fort Townshend. It was strategically built on the hill overlooking the harbour, a reminder to all that they, the police, were there. Adjacent to it stood the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, positioned to offer a blessed overwatch of protection to the officers. On the opposite side was the CLB Armoury. The concrete arches, built in 1910, was a memorial to the first 500 men who answered the king’s call to arms at the start of the First World War, when Newfoundland was still a colony of Britain.
Myra’s police portable radio sat on his desk, and he listened to the officers signing in one by one to the Operations Communication Centre. Each gave a car and badge number, opening the lines of communication for the evening shift.
Their lifeline. Their umbilical cord to safety.
A sheen of sweat covered his face, trickling down into his thick brown moustache, even though the air conditioning in the building was on bust. His heavy wool dress uniform confined him, and he could smell the stench from his own body.
Myra tried to remember the vigour he had when he first joined the force. He was a young constable eagerly leaving at the beginning of a shift to fight crime and protect and serve. He could not calm his mind tonight. The thick taste of too many coffees stuck to his tongue, and the nauseating taste of bile caused by a stomach ulcer felt like it was choking him.
The darkness of the evening made the windows in his office reflective, and Myra looked at his imposing frame dressed in his black uniform with the silver trim. He reached over and turned off the light to get a better look at the city he had policed for thirty years.
Earlier that afternoon, he had been presented with the Chief’s Commendation by Chief Robert DeSilva for his outstanding leadership during Operation Wormwood. It was an investigation that had brought down a network of pedophiles in the province and across the country.
The Chief’s Commendation is the highest honour a police officer can receive. Myra opted to receive it alone in the chief’s office to avoid the pomp and circumstance. He had not invited his father, even though, as a retired police officer himself, he would have been bursting with pride. Nor did he tell his mother, because he knew she would cry watching her only child receive acknowledgement for his hard work, and that would break him. He thought about Maria, his ex-wife, but pushed that thought out of his mind.
But Myra couldn’t push from his mind the thousands of images and videos of children being abused. No matter how he tried or how many times he went to his psychologist, he couldn’t stop hearing their cries for help. The screams of torture. The helplessness in their eyes. They stalked him daily and caused him night terrors. They isolated him from family and friends.
He didn’t tell his staff about the commendation. He was too embarrassed to receive the award in front of them. They knew about Father Charles Horan, the priest who hanged himself after giving Myra the thirty-two files that had brought down the network. Myra couldn’t stop thinking about Father Horan’s life as Archbishop Patrick Keating’s assistant—and victim. A twelve-year-old orphan trapped in a life of horror. How horribly confused he must have been, disobeying the archbishop’s dying request to destroy the detailed files, the files the archbishop had used to blackmail the pedophiles who made him untouchable.
Father Horan had reached out to Myra for help when he panicked and regretted betraying the archbishop. Myra was in the middle of the takedown, organizing the arrests and running Operation Wormwood. He was too busy to answer the phone.
Father Horan, fearing retribution from those in the archbishop’s network, and terrified he would abuse children himself, took his own life in Archbishop Keating’s office. The archbishop’s final victim.
The investigation into Wormwood had been long and exhausting. Myra’s theory of a serial killer who hunted down pedophiles had fallen apart. There was no way one person could criss-cross the country so quickly, identifying and infecting pedophiles, causing their slow and painful death. The excruciating pain and nosebleeds they suffered had become front-page news around the world. Instead, the police investigation focused on the details in the files Father Horan had given him. They led to the disruption of the largest pedophile ring in Canadian history.
Myra had spoken to Dr. Luke Gillespie at the Health Sciences Centre earlier that morning. Gillespie told him the medical community was still hotly debating the possibility of a new disease but could not agree that it only affected one group of criminals, as others without charges against them also presented with the same symptoms. Gillespie told Myra he was frustrated that their newly formed group of medical professionals was not getting much support on the federal level.
Myra wasn’t sure if Father Peter Cooke’s news conference on the steps of the Basilica was a help or a hindrance. Father Cooke’s announcement that God was back with a disease that only made pedophiles suffer gave the religious community the opportunity to promote the God theory every chance they had. Reported miracles were happening throughout the world as the faithful thanked their God for coming back to judge the good from the evil. It seemed to Myra that Father Cooke was in over his head, and he suspected he was becoming a pawn in someone’s game. But whose? He did not know.
Sister Pius, who seemed to be the only voice of reason in the Catholic Church, had retired and returned to civilian life. Myra had great respect for her.
Sister Pius. He smiled. Now there’s a lady who could have been a great police officer. That woman is fearless. She stood up to the devil himself.
Myra often wondered what she was up to but didn’t made the time to call her. Maybe that was just another excuse to hide the shame he felt over Horan’s death.
His dedication to the file, the numerous arrests, and the hard work of his task force had earned accolades from the public, politicians, media, and his own chief. But it had taken a toll on him. His jaws were permanently clenched, caused by the frustration of interviewing sexually abused children. His cheeks were sunken, his skin pale. He glanced at the calendar on his desk. A black X covered his appointment with his psychologist. Another appointment missed. Revealing his feelings was too overwhelming.
Myra studied his reflection in the window. His eyes looked old. Are they really the window to my soul? Inflamed red veins caused by lack of sleep streaked through the whites of his eyes. Deep wrinkles were engraved around the outside corners, created by stress and late nights of reading too many files.
If he could just stop his mind from playing the same movie.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the one who got away. Kevin Macy had walked. No victim had come forward. All he could get the child psychiatrist on were two criminal counts of possessing child pornography, mailing obscene matter, and two charges of smuggling and possession of prohibited goods contrary to sections 155 and 159 of the Customs Act by the Canada Border Services Agency. Macy’s court date was scheduled for two weeks time.
Macy had ordered a child sex doll from China. His defence was he didn’t know possession of a sex doll depicting a child was illegal in Canada and a form of child pornography. Myra knew Macy had real-life victims; he just couldn’t prove it, and that failure stabbed him repeatedly in the gut, inflaming his ulcer.
Myra hadn’t ever really believed in God until now.
He had not even thought about religion until this morning, when he had taken his dress uniform out of the storage bag and put it on. His pith helmet added to his 6’4 frame, making him look six inches taller. His parade boots were polished to perfection. He could not remember the last time he had worn his dress uniform—or his regular uniform, for that matter. Myra had been in plainclothes units for so long he forgot where he had stored them after his divorce from Maria.
He was surprised the uniform still fit. All the running his psychologist had suggested to deal with his operational stress injuries paid off.
Myra had been thinking about God all day.
Maybe God had managed to do what he could not. Maybe God had come up with a way to stop predators from preying on children. Myra had decided to thank Him in person. He took a deep, long breath in through his nose and released it slowly.
He looked at his reflection, now just a shadow in the window. He thought about Father Charles Horan and what his last minutes must have been like.
Myra took his service handgun out of its holster.
He thought about the conversation he’d had with Chief DeSilva earlier that week. The chief had offered him a position at the highest level. But Myra knew it was the chief’s way of making him non-operational, of taking him away from the action and putting him in a nice cozy corner of headquarters, where he could sit filing papers until retirement.
Myra declined, telling the chief that when he felt he wasn’t fit for duty, he would leave on his own terms.
Sgt. Nicholas Myra, named after the patron saint of protecting children, considered the life-altering decision he was about to make. He examined the dull black SIG Sauer P226 in his shaking hand. Its steel body felt heavier tonight. Colder. He always hoped he would have no reason to use it but knew he could if he had to. The decision between either him or a bad guy going home would be an easy one to make.
Am I the bad guy?
He couldn’t push Kevin Macy’s smug, smiling face from his mind, the greasy grin that so proudly announced he had won. The way he walked out of the ICU ward once his nose stopped bleeding and his pain ceased. Each step gloated his superiority over victims hidden from view. Still out there. Still hurting.
Macy’s rape kit, found in his car during Myra’s search, revealed his black balaclava, gloves, and condoms. His protection against leaving DNA at a scene.
Agatha Catania, the emergency room nurse at the Health Sciences Centre, revealed to Myra that Kevin Macy shaved his whole body every day. She hadn’t known that tidbit of information was the string that would unravel Macy’s secret.
Myra’s team searched though everything they could find on Macy but didn’t turn up a thing. They interviewed his client list of at-risk children who went to him for counselling, but no victim came forward.
What did I miss? The guilt of not being able to solve it haunted him.
Myra clenched his hand around the handgun. His knuckles were scarred and swollen from an earlier altercation with a steel door.
A cold breeze blew through the building. Everyone in headquarters felt a shiver down their spine when they heard the crack of a gun fired in the parking lot, reverberating outside the building.
Myra jolted to attention. He put his handgun back in its holster and moved closer to the window. His eyes narrowed, trying to make sense of the horror below him. A frantic call came over the radio. “Shots fired. Officer down.”
A patrol car was parked with the driver’s door open. An officer lay on the ground, blood oozing from his chest. Several officers were crouched down behind their cars with weapons drawn. One had begun to administer CPR. Smoke from the fired gun hung in the air near the back of the car. Myra could taste the sulphur in the back of his throat.
Pushing the framed commendation off his desk, he watched it slide to the floor beside the garbage bin with a thud. He grabbed the police radio and began running toward the nearest exit to the parking lot. Myra listened intently to the operator taking the horrified call from the first officer on the scene.
“Shots fired. Officer down.”
Myra would leave on his own terms, but not tonight. Tonight, one of the officers leaving the building had been shot while getting into his patrol car.
3
Dr. Luke Gillespie felt his pager go off. He tilted it up toward his face. “It’s emerg.”
At thirty-five years old, he already looked drained. His bloodshot eyes dulled the blue irises. His scrubs were a wrinkly mess from a long shift.
He and Nurse Agatha Catania had spent the last week setting up the new PPXI ward. Doctors throughout Canada had agreed not to use the street name of Wormwood because of the pedophile connotation.
Gillespie explained to Agatha and Ms. Furey, the hospital administrator, how they had come up with the name.
“We agreed it is to be considered a rare disease, because so far it affects fewer than 200,000 people in Canada,” Luke explained. “The official medical name will be PPXI. For blood to clot, your body needs blood proteins called clotting factors and blood cells called platelets. So, we took the P from proteins and the P from platelets. The XI means it occurs in about one out of 100,000 people.”
Ms. Furey pursed her lips. “Rolls right off the tongue. I couldn’t have dreamed I would see the day when we had to create a special ward like this.” She had been able to pull together a ten-room section, away from the other patients, on the top floor of the Health Sciences Centre. It was an overflow area used when the hospital was at capacity but more recently had become a graveyard for broken beds and other equipment.
Agatha watched Luke as he picked up the phone to call the emergency department. She had a gut feeling that put her on high alert. It was an impending sense of doom that only nurses understood—the ability to read a doctor’s face and know exactly what was happening.
Putting his hand over the receiver, Luke added, “All I can say is that, after watching the way the last three patients died, the torture they went through, pedophiles had better watch their backs. Someone is coming for them, because I can’t accept that God created this disease to punish them.”
The emergency nurse answered on the second ring. “It’s Dr. Gillespie. What’s up?”
“Police and paramedics just called in a trauma,” the nurse blurted out. “A gunshot wound.”
Luke hung up and looked at Agatha. “We’re needed in emerg.”
They ran toward the elevator. Once inside, Luke hit the button for the main floor.
Agatha couldn’t help but ask, “Luke, straight up, would you tell a pedophile that Wormwood—sorry, PPXI—is created by God to punish them and protect children?”
Luke thought about this. “My question is this. Are they willing to take that chance?”
The elevator door opened to a scene of chaos. Police were everywhere.
Agatha felt her knees give out and fell back against the elevator wall. “Please, God, no,” she cried.
Luke ran with Agatha a step behind him. They pushed their way through the maze of police officers in the lobby into the trauma room.
Agatha’s breath caught in her throat when she spotted the size twelve black boots dangling off the edge of the gurney. Nurses had surrounded the bed, inserting IVs in the victim’s arm and attaching a blood pressure cuff and electrodes. A large, bloodied towel covered the patient’s chest. An anesthesiologist was inserting a breathing tube, making it hard to see the victim’s face. A glimpse of a moustache, a tuft of short brown hair. Two surgeons stood at the foot of the bed while the nurses cut off his shirt, allowing them to survey the wound.
The anesthesiologist finally moved back, and now Agatha could get a good look at his face.
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Sgt. Nicholas Myra.
She felt a wave of relief come over her, followed by a tsunami of guilt. Who was this young man on the gurney covered in blood? What happened to him? She could hear the chilling shriek of a woman’s cry coming from the lobby. The victim’s wife had arrived.
“The operating room is ready,” a nurse called from the doorway.
Agatha stepped on the gurney’s pedal to release the brake, and she, along with another nurse, pushed the bed through the halls toward the freezing cold surgical theatre. They removed the remains of his clothes while the surgeons scrubbed up. Then they left as the trauma team took over.
She stood outside the operating theatre holding the bloody, tattered remains of the young man’s uniform. His silver badge hung from his shirt, which was stained with his own blood. Agatha was in a daze as she dragged her feet back to emerg. A buzzing sound scared the wits out of her. Frantic, she felt around his jacket and located a cellphone in his pocket. She dug it out as it continued to vibrate.
Mom flashed on the screen. She froze.
It would be all over the news by now. Mothers were calling their sons and daughters on the force. Praying they answered.
“I’ll take that.”
Agatha looked up, and a flood of tears escaped from her eyes, releasing the tension that had built up in her body. She tried to speak but drew the words back in.
Sgt. Nicholas Myra reached out and took the phone. He answered it, turning his back to Agatha and walking farther down the hallway. Pressing the phone to his ear, he was calm as he paced back and forth, talking. Agatha couldn’t make out what he was saying, only that his voice was low and steady. He hung up the phone, turned it off, and walked back toward her.
His face revealed the demons and fatigue that haunted him.
“I thought the worst thing I heard today was a gunshot, but it was nothing compared to the scream of a mother who just found out her son had been shot.” He reached for the clothes in her arms. “I’ll take those, too.”
Agatha looked down at the bloodied shirt. She had forgotten they were still in her arms. “Let me put them in a plastic bag for you,” she offered.
“No, that’s okay. Ident is here with evidence bags. They’ll take care of that.”
“It’s good to see you.” Agatha felt the wave of tears coming back over her and sucked it back in. “I thought it was you.”
Myra’s embarrassment burned through his cheeks as his mind flashed back to holding his own gun. “I’m fine.” He turned to walk away.
“Nick, do you have time for a coffee?”
“No. I’m going to sit with the officers in the lobby.” He considered his quick answer and stopped to look back at her. “When it quietens down, I’ll come looking for you. I want to make sure everyone is okay first.”
“Okay.” Agatha watched him walk away. She headed back to emergency.
Dr. Gillespie was filling out the paperwork. “Some night,” he commented.
Agatha leaned against the desk. Everyone was still racing around, filled with adrenaline that had not yet drained from their systems. Doctors and nurses tried to return to the patients they had been attending before the police officer was wheeled in.
“I’ll say. Hey, did you ever notice when we work together, shit always hits the fan?” Agatha looked exhausted.
“Must be you, because my life was boring before I came here.” He laughed.
“I would really like a boring life right now. Or a week on a beach drinking fruity drinks.”
“I don’t remember life before Wormwood. It seems like we’ve been dealing with it for years, but it has only been three months.” Luke closed the file and handed it back to the nurse behind the desk.
Agatha nodded. “I feel like I’ve aged ten years since I started managing the PPXI ward.”
Luke lowered his voice to a whisper. “Is it too much? Do you need a break?”
“No, I’m good. I just had a hard day. That call just did me in.”
“You thought it was Sgt. Myra, didn’t you? I could tell by the look on your face.” Gillespie admired the way she handled stress. “To tell you the truth, coming down in that elevator, I had a gut feeling it was him.”
“That’s weird. I did, too.”
“Does he know you have a bit of a crush on him?” He grinned.
“No. No.” Agatha pushed the thought away with her hand. “Sometimes he seems like he is open to it. Then he just shuts down. I don’t know. Maybe he has someone else.”
“I know he’s divorced, but I don’t know anything about his personal life other than that.” Gillespie checked his watch. “We should clock out. We were supposed to be off two hours ago.”
“Yeah, good idea. I can barely see right now. I need a good ten hours sleep.” She yawned as she headed toward the staff room.
Luke groaned. “See you in six hours.”
4
Chief Robert DeSilva had one look: very serious, all the time. He stood in his office flanked by his media relations officer. The chief struggled to fasten the hooks on the collar of his dress uniform. Eighteen hours had passed since the shooting, and each minute felt like a year to him.
“Goddammit. Why do they make these so small?” His sausage-like fingers fumbled with the hooks until they found their holes. “Is Myra here yet?” he grumbled.
“He’s on the way,” the nervous media relations officer answered.
Chief DeSilva stretched his neck around in the too-tight collar and pulled at the itchy wool to get it away from his skin. “Pass me those media lines and I’ll take a look.”
Myra took up the whole frame of the door to the chief’s office. “Sir.” He saluted and walked in.
“Nick, take a seat. I want to run these by you.” Chief DeSilva took the prepared statement that had been written for him and tossed it on his desk.
“What’s on the go?” Myra sat in a big leather armchair.
“I’m holding a news conference in an hour to address the shootings.”
“I just left the war room, so I can update you on the latest.” Myra took his notebook out of his blazer pocket.
DeSilva continued to pull at the uncomfortable collar now making his neck red. “Give it to me.”
“Here’s what we have. The shooter was hiding behind the large garbage bin waiting for officers to start their shifts. It doesn’t seem like he was targeting any specific person. We believe he was planning to target the first one who came close to him.” Myra flipped a page in his notebook.
DeSilva straightened his uniform. “Motive?”
“It’s going to be extremely difficult for us to definitively say what the motive was. Obviously we can’t question the shooter.”
“What do you think the motive was?”
“He lived in a boarding house downtown, and from what his roommate told us, his nose was bleeding heavily and he was in a lot of pain. The roommate figured he’d had Wormwood. According to him, the shooter would often get into agitated, drug- and alcohol-induced states and start ranting and raving about how the police gave him Wormwood and how he would get them for it.” Myra closed his notebook. “I think he knew he was going to die and wanted to take a cop with him. Then go out by suicide by cop. He was being investigated for sexual assault against a ten-year-old neighbour.”
“Bastard,” sputtered Chief DeSilva.
“A patrol officer returned fire and was able to hit the shooter centre mass. He died instantly.”
“So, he got what he wanted. How is the officer who took out the shooter?”
“Pretty shaken up and worried that other Wormwood victims will find out his name and address and target his family. Internals took his gun and reassigned him to a desk job. I just hope he’s not dragged through the media.” Myra looked at the media relations officer. “I hope you’re watching that.”
The officer fumbled for his pen. “Yes, sir, I’ll keep an eye on it.”
Chief DeSilva stared out the window at nothing in particular. “You’re forever changed when you take a life. Even if it’s justified. All that officer wanted was to go home safely at the end of the day. He didn’t start out wanting to kill anyone. How is our officer in the hospital?”
“He is out of surgery and in recovery. It could go either way.”
The chief put down his sheet of media lines to look directly at Myra. “His family?”
“His wife is with him. They have a two-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. Our officers are doing everything they can to help.”
“Jesus.” DeSilva let out a heavy sigh. “I want to run this media statement by you.” He picked up the sheet of paper while the media relations officer sat up in the chair next to Myra.
Chief DeSilva dismissed the formality of the event. “‘Thank you for coming. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of our officer who is recovering in hospital.’”
The chief paused. “God, I hate that ‘our thoughts and prayers. . . .’ It’s so overused.” He then picked up from where he left off. “‘He is out of surgery, and we pray for his recovery. The investigation into the shooting may take months as our officers try to make sense out of what happened.’”
DeSilva cleared his throat. “‘I can confirm that the shooter is deceased and was shot by one of our officers at the scene. I recognize that the death of this individual is difficult news for his family, and my thoughts are also with them, as they have suffered an unimaginable loss.’”
Myra jumped up, causing the media relations officer to pull back in his chair. “What the fuck? Why are you talking about the family of this killer?”
A flustered media relations officer opened his file. “It’s standard operating procedure to acknowledge the families of all involved. In this case, the family of the killer,” he stuttered.
“Are you nuts?”
“That’s also against policy, sir. We can’t say ‘nuts’ anymore.” The media relations officer regretted saying it as soon as it came out of his mouth.
“He’s not wrong,” Chief DeSilva interrupted. “We have to be politically correct now. I can’t have people protesting outside the building.”
“You know what else is not politically correct?” Myra was seething. “Putting your sidearm in your duty belt, putting a Kevlar vest over your chest, and heading out to a patrol vehicle with police written all over it, making yourself a goddamn target.”
“Calm down, Nick,” DeSilva shouted.
“I can’t call you nuts, but every time I put on my uniform, I have some idiot telling me they pay my wages, punks calling me a pig, and psychopaths who point their hand at me like it’s a gun, cock it, and pretend to shoot.” Myra stood toe to toe with the chief. “We have one officer in the hospital who may not make it, and another sweating bullets hoping he’s not going to be charged with murder because he’s now under investigation for killing a cop killer, and you’re up here practising how to send your condolences to the fucking maniacs who created and raised this monster.”
“That’s enough,” DeSilva shouted as the media spokesperson sank down in his chair.
“Enough?” The intensity in Myra’s voice spilled outside the room. “Enough of what? Enough of having to attend a full police funeral while trying not to look at the grieving widow? Enough of trying not to make eye contact with your fellow officers while a piper plays ‘Amazing Grace’? Enough of having to watch your co-workers walk by his kids saying, ‘Your father was a good officer’? Is that what we have enough of?”
Chief DeSilva turned on the heel of his drill boots and locked up in front of the media liaison officer. “Constable, you’re dismissed. Close the door behind you.”
It only took two giant steps for the media relations officer to get clear of the chief’s office. He slammed the door a little too loudly but didn’t look back to see if anyone noticed.
DeSilva went back at Myra with his chest puffed out. “Don’t you ever question me like that again.”
“Or what?” The vein’s in Myra’s neck bulged. The two men began a choreographed dance of who-throws-the-first-punch. “These officers need your leadership right now. Not to watch you bow down to your political masters and protest groups.”
The chief’s eyes flashed while he thrust his index finger at Myra’s chest. “I lead every day. I don’t have the luxury of pulling the shit you do. I have to think about what’s best for the whole force, not just myself.”
Myra pushed the chief’s hand away. “Then grow a set.”
The two circled each other like gladiators, each knowing how far he could go without repercussions. “The game has changed, Nick.”
“I know. Our officers don’t feel safe anymore. We no longer have control. We’re ruled by special interest groups.” Myra looked into DeSilva’s eyes for validation that his old friend was still in there.
“We are doing our best.” The chief broke eye contact with him to hide the doubt in his own mind.
“The system is broken. We go from call to call, and there isn’t any time to recover.” Myra relaxed. “Bob, our officers feel mistreated by government and pushed to the brink of exhaustion because we’re so under-resourced. That officer went out last night and unlocked his car door, then took a bullet to the chest. Now you want to send your condolences to the family who raised the asshole who shot him?” He couldn’t hide the quiver in his voice. “There’s a whole lot fucked up about that.”
DeSilva fell into the big leather chair behind his desk. The adrenalin began to flow backward, allowing his head to clear. “You think I don’t hurt? The blood drained from my body last night when I heard that shot.”
Myra sank down in the chair across from him. “You were my idol. I used to watch you and think, ‘Man, I want to be like that guy.’”
The chief let out a ragged laugh. “I used to think the same about you.” He reached up and pulled his collar open. “Jesus, I can’t believe this happened. He was ambushed.”
Myra noticed how DeSilva suddenly seemed deflated. “Security is going to have to get a lot tighter around here now. How did we become the bad guys?”
“Retirement is calling me,” the chief admitted. “Looks real good today.” He grabbed the arms of the chair. “How does this end, Nick? That young constable has gone back telling the story of the two old bulls locking horns on the fourth floor.”
“I need some time off. I was going to ask you if I can take a couple of weeks. I need to press the reset button.” Myra bit the inside of his lip to stop himself from talking.
DeSilva raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you say that.”
Myra chuckled. “Times are changing.”
“Okay, here’s how it will go down.” The chief hoisted himself up from the chair. “Tell your staff I ordered you to take two weeks off. I’ll call you an asshole to my staff, and you’ll look angry.” He looked at Myra. “In other words, a normal day.”
Nick stood up feeling like he had dragged himself out of a physical fight. “Sounds good.”
“Now get lost. I have to hold that news conference.” DeSilva reached up and tried to hook his collar back up. “Jesus, I hate this collar.”
“Bob, one more thing.” Myra stopped at the door before he opened it.
DeSilva fumbled with his shirt collar. “What’s that?”
“You apologize to the killer’s family and I’ll beat the shit out of you in the parking lot. Just like old times.”
“Make it three weeks.” The chief finally found the hook and closed the collar. He picked up the sheet of media lines and threw them in the garbage.
“Make it four. I’m bigger than you. Just kidding. I’d go nuts if I had to stay home for four.”
5
Kathie Fagan sat at the kitchen table in the Comfort House, the centre for Survivors of Suicide (SOS). The smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the room. Trays of cookies wrapped in plastic lined the counter in anticipation of an upcoming meeting. Kathie nervously looked around the small home. She could hear muffled voices coming from behind the closed door nearby. Her meeting with Father Cooke yesterday came to mind. His reaction to Father Charles Horan’s lineage as her son was a great relief to her.
The Comfort House looked no different than any other house on the street, except this was a place of mourning and healing.