“I don’t have time for that,” I said. “I’m not going to turn myself in.”
Lew pulled out a chair and sat down. “Del, listen to me—”
“There’s a woman who can help me,” I said. “Mother Mariette. I need to find her, look her up on the Internet or something, find out where she lives—”
“That bald woman you went off after?” Amra said. “How can she possibly help you?”
“She’s an exorcist.”
Lew made a dismissive noise. “Jesus, Del, you can’t just latch on to some religious quack. You’ve got to get serious, we’re talking about murder here. This Mother Mary—”
“Mother Mariette,” I said. “She’s Irish, I think—she’s the only person I’ve ever met who actually says ye. And she’s a priest of some kind. I’m not exactly sure what church she’s in, we’d have to find that out.”
He sat back in his chair, looking pained. “Let me get this straight,”
he said. “A bald Irish exorcist nun . . .”
“Lew, she saw the Hellion in me. Nobody else has ever done that before—none of the shrinks, none of the doctors, not even Dr. Aaron.”
I leaned forward. “This woman is the shit.”
No one said anything for a long moment.
Then Lew said, “You’re going after her, I guess?” He saw something in my face, and shook his head. “Where does she live, fucking Dublin?”
“I don’t know. Yet.”
He sighed, got up, and left the room. A moment later he came back with his laptop. “Go take a shower,” he said. “I’ll Google her ass.”
THE TRUTH
LOS ANGELES, 1995
Later, when the videotape played on every news channel in a seemingly continuous loop, it was easy enough to hear: a percussive sound like a cough, picked up by the microphones inside the courtroom. But no one watching the scene live on television, and no one inside the crowded chambers at the time, seemed to recognize it as a gunshot. In the minutes before the attack, the single television camera allowed in the courtroom was focused on the defendant’s table. O. J. Simpson—or Orenthal James Simpson, as the prosecution had repeatedly referred to him during the trial—stood impassively as Judge Ito issued his instructions. On the tape, many people are partially visible behind Simpson, including three California State police officers in brown uniforms, but it is Johnnie Cochran who is directly behind him. Cochran was not the architect of Simpson’s possession defense—that was Robert Shapiro—but it was Cochran who had successfully sold the jury on it. The blood, the glove, the black bag: the obviousness of it had made his case. Who else but a man possessed would leave so clear a trail?
When the court officer read the verdict for the first count—for the murder of “Nicole Simpson, a human being”—Cochran gripped Simpson’s shoulder and pressed his forehead into the taller man’s back. Simpson smiled in relief, and nodded. Murmurs rolled through the courtroom. Then the second verdict was read for the murder of Ronald Goldman. It was at that moment that Marc Janusek, a building janitor for over fifteen years, shot Officer Steve Mercer as he stood guard outside the courtroom. A few seconds later, out of sight of the camera, the door to the courtroom was pushed open. Cochran looked over Simpson’s shoulder at the movement, but at that moment Simpson was lifting his hand and waving to the jury. He mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
The first clue to the television audience that something was amiss was when one of the police officers, Dan Fiore, ran toward the defendant’s table. He grabbed Robert Shapiro by the shoulders and shouted, “Get down! Get down!”
Janusek, the janitor, moved into the frame, his back to the camera. He was dressed in a black trench coat and a wide-brimmed fedora, and was carrying two silver pistols, though only one is visible on the tape. The next gunshots, however, were from Officer Tanya Brandt. Brandt, an AfricanAmerican and the only female officer providing security inside the courtroom, fired her service revolver twice into the possessed man’s back. Janusek turned quickly, the trench coat fanning around him. He raised his arm, and fired once. Officer Brandt fell to the ground, out of the camera’s sight. Troopers converged from all corners of the courtroom. One officer tried to tackle the possessed man, but was immediately thrown off. Another officer fired at nearly point-blank range, but Janusek was spinning, and only later was it determined that the shot had missed. The bullet tore through Janusek’s coat and struck the wall only inches from where prosecution lawyer Christopher Darden was standing. Janusek, however, abruptly stopped moving, and three officers immediately threw themselves onto him, smashing him to the ground.
The following moments were chaotic, but a rough order of events was reconstructed from the tape and from later interviews. Every person in the courtroom, with the exception of the three troopers restraining the possessed man on the floor, was trying to exit by any means
possible. Most were heading toward the large door at the rear of the court, but many were also moving forward, toward the bench, to the three doors that led to the judge’s chamber, the jury room, and the hallway. The camera swung from the pile of officers wrestling with Janusek and focused on Simpson. Fiore and another officer were pulling and pushing the defendant toward the judge’s chambers. Simpson stayed hunched as he moved, his hands on the back of Fiore. Cochran, Shapiro, and Simpson attorney Robert Kardashian were just behind. Fiore suddenly stopped, and Simpson stumbled into the officer’s side.
Fiore turned, reached over Simpson, and grabbed the other bailiff by the front of his shirt. Fiore lifted the bailiff off his feet and tossed him sideways. He hit the floor and skidded into the prosecutor’s table. Cochran seemed to be the first to realize that the demon had jumped. Cochran grabbed Simpson by the arm and pulled him backward. Officer Fiore stepped forward and punched Cochran in the face, breaking his glasses and sending him to the ground. Simpson stared at Cochran, then looked up at Fiore. There was a long moment in which neither man moved. Then Fiore smiled, opened his mouth, and laughed: a deep, rolling laugh that seemed to go on and on, filling the room. Only a few yards away, Janusek had gone still, and at least one of the officers holding him down seemed to understand what had happened. The camera showed one of them abruptly stand and move toward Fiore, his arms out.
It was impossible to determine how many bodies the demon occupied in the next thirty seconds. Suddenly, officers were turning on each other. Faces collapsed under vicious punches, leg and foot bones snapped from kicks delivered near the mechanical maximum of human force, disabling both attacker and target. As soon as one man struck, he would abruptly lose concentration, his hands would drop—and another man would take him down. Within half a minute, every police officer but one was unconscious. The middle of the courtroom was empty except for Simpson and Fiore. Both men seemed frozen in place. Then Fiore knelt down, and calmly smashed his forehead into the floor.
Fiore would survive, as would all of the officers, including the two who were shot, Steve Mercer and Tanya Brandt.
Janusek, motionless since being tackled by the police, got to his feet. His face was bloody, his nose smashed flat. He straightened the trench coat and recinched the belt. Then he stooped to pick up the fedora from where it had been pushed under a chair. He placed the hat firmly on his head, and then, facing Simpson, tilted the brim down in a kind of salute. Then he lifted both hands, the silver pistols plainly visible. O. J. Simpson, forty-eight years old and one of the greatest rushers in collegiate and NFL history, did not run.
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