1
The news broke overnight.
When Jack awoke he flipped on MSNBC. He wasn't sure why. Maybe because the channel had had Brady on as a guest so many times. But Imus in the Morning was playing—who was the genius who'd dreamed up broadcasting a radio program on TV?—so he switched around until he saw Brady's face.
It was a photo and the voiceover was going on about how everyone was shocked—shocked!—that Luther Brady had been arrested for murder. Then they switched to a live feed from outside the Bronx House of Detention for Men where Brady had spent the night. A pretty, blond news face was standing on the curb while a hundred or so protesters shouted and waved signs behind her.
After some prefatory remarks she motioned a young woman onto the screen. Jack recognized the eternally cheery Christy from the temple. Only today she wasn't cheery. She stood there in her gray, high-collared jacket with the braided front, tears streaming down her cheeks as she blubbered about the injustice of it all. That a wonderful man like Luther Brady, who'd bettered so many lives the world over, should be accused of murder, it just… it just wasn't fair!
"Fairer than you'll ever guess, my dear," Jack muttered.
Next the blond reporter brought on another familiar face—the Aryan poster boy, Atoor. In contrast to Christy's grief, Atoor was angry. Color flared in his scrubbed cheeks as he denounced the police, the DA, and the city itself.
"It's a witch hunt! It's religious persecution! We all know that the old-time entrenched religions call the shots in this town, and obviously they've decided that Dormentalism is becoming too popular for its own good. So the solution is to trump up charges against the head of our Church and throw him in jail. What next? Burning him at the stake?"
Jack applauded. "Well said, young man! Well said! But let's not burn him at the stake yet."
If the Penn cops were earning their pay, there'd be lots more shit raining on the Dormentalist roof real soon.
With that in mind, he headed out the door for Gia's. The baby was scheduled for a follow-up ultrasound in just over an hour.