The Priest's Graveyard Read online

  Another slow nod. The man was clueless.

  “Not so good. The man was out within a week. It turned out that he was somewhat insulated from the law. His father was a judge, and a crafty one at that.”

  Paul Birch just stared at him.

  “Perhaps if that were the end of the story, you wouldn’t be strapped to that chair. Unfortunately for you, the boy and I had become close during the whole ordeal. Tigert was like a son to me. A month later, he was killed in a hit-and-run. I was very upset. The police investigated but found no evidence to support a criminal case against any party. They let it go. I can tell you that I was very, very upset.”

  He paced in front of Paul Birch, searching for any sign of empathy. He saw only outrage at the man’s own predicament.

  “I couldn’t let it go. So I traced the evidence myself, and it led me back to the pedophile. He’d killed my boy for exposing the truth.”

  Telling the story always filled Danny’s gut with a bitter brew of sorrow and anger, and he took a moment to let the worst of it pass.

  “My world changed that day. Something shifted in me. It took me back to a terrible pain I’d felt as an innocent boy, when I saw even worse atrocities in Bosnia. I was fifteen then and went by a different name, and there was war all around me. A part of me died when I was fifteen, but it came back to life when this pedophile killed Tigert. Have you ever felt that kind of pain, Congressman?”

  Sweat raked the man’s red face.

  “It took me six months to work up the courage, but I finally did the only thing I knew to do, having learned some valuable lessons in the Bosnian war. I took that guilty abuser of humanity off the streets and gave him one chance to see the light and change his ways. When he failed, I emasculated him. I cut off his penis.” Danny lifted a finger. “And before you judge me, you should know that the apostle Paul suggested emasculation as an option for the wicked in his letter to the Galatians. So it wasn’t my idea, you see. You’ll have to blame Paul, I was merely being biblical.”

  A deep breath.

  “It wasn’t my intention to kill him, but I couldn’t stop the bleeding. He was dead in fifteen minutes. I disposed of his body in the ocean, never to be found. He was my first. I want you to guess how many snakes like him I’ve taken since then.” Danny approached his subject and ripped off the duct tape. The sound of the adhesive parting from flesh ripped through the gutted warehouse.

  The fact that his name, Danny, meant “God is my judge” was intentional. He had selected it on purpose. He was, after all, God’s judge on earth, at least for some.

  “Guess.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Seven,” Danny said. “Whether the number will go to eight after tonight is up to you. Do you know right from wrong?”

  “What on earth is this? Do you know who I am?”

  “Even more than you do. I’ve been watching you for a long time. You’re a powerful congressman who lies for a living. You hide behind pork-barrel spending that lines your pockets. Your sole ambition in this life is to satisfy your desire for wealth and power, and you do it while pretending to fight for the small widow on welfare. In reality, you make your living by enslaving the poor with laws that keep them poor so they will do your bidding.”

  “I’m an independent. This is absurd!”

  “You were also once a Democrat and once a Republican—that’s not the point. Political parties are only a means to an end for you. You trample many to stand tall, don’t you, Congressman Birch?”

  The man had the audacity to glare, as if he were the schoolteacher and Danny the unruly student.

  “None of this is why you’re strapped to the chair. There are hundreds like you, and I wouldn’t say they deserved to die for lying through their teeth. I’m here for another reason. But you already know that, don’t you, Congressman?”

  “What do you want?” Birch snapped.

  “I want you to change your ways. Does the name Camilla Lopez mean anything to you?”

  Hesitation. “Should it?”

  It was all Danny could do to remain calm in the face of the man’s bold denial.

  “Let me help your memory. Do you know the name of Camilla’s six-year-old son?”

  “How could I?”

  “Bobby. Bobby became a ward of the state when you sent Camilla to prison. He was admitted to a foster home. I have a soft spot for children whose lives are turned upside down like mine once was.”

  “This is utter nonsense!”

  “Three months ago, Bobby tried to hitchhike a ride to the prison where his mother is being held. He never made it. I made every inquiry known to man in my search for him, but the child simply vanished. He is presumed dead. He left nothing behind but a weeping mother and a very upset me—that and a trail that led me back to you.”

  “Don’t be a fool! I’m a man with responsibilities!”

  “The fact is, Mr. Birch, you are Bobby’s biological father, are you not?”

  “Ridiculous.”

  “In fact, you raped Camilla Lopez dozens of times during her employ as your maid. She was nothing more than a sex slave to you, a convenience rudely sidelined by her pregnancy, thanks to your overstimulated libido.”

  Paul Birch kept glaring. He did indeed deserve the worst.

  “I think you had the boy killed,” Danny said.

  Silence.

  In the name of all that was holy, the man was pathetic.

  “Are you as ignorant about the other women as well, Congressman? We both know that Camilla is only one of half a dozen you’ve ‘employed’ over the years.”

  Paul was starting to wheeze.

  “I’ll give you a shot at walking out of here, but you have to engage me reasonably,” Danny said. “Are you willing to try that?”

  “If you think you can bully someone by tying them down and forcing…” The man’s face bulged. “What do you expect me to say? You can’t do this!”

  “I expect you to rethink some things, and the only way you’ll do so is if you’re tied to that chair. I want to present some thoughts that could make you question all that’s familiar to you. Do you know right from wrong?”

  “I…This is—”

  “Answer the question!”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Tell me, what makes something wrong?”

  No answer.

  “Let me enlighten you. There are two primary schools of moral thought on what makes an act right or wrong. The first is that an act is intrinsically wrong, so determined by religion or God or what have you, regardless of the consequences of that act. This is called categorical moral reasoning.”

  Judging by the blank look in the man’s eyes, his reasoning had stalled. Like most ordinary minds, Birch’s wasn’t well equipped to think through moral reasoning, but Danny knew from experience that even the thickest person could eventually wrap his mind around basic truth.

  “The second”—he paced to his left, hands clasped behind his back—“is called consequential moral reasoning, which is the belief that the consequence of an action determines its morality. Example: lying to the Nazis is the right thing to do, because it will save the lives of the Jews you’re hiding. Lying, as well as killing, can be right or wrong depending on the outcome of those actions. Do you think the consequences of your actions matter, Paul?”

  “This is crazy.”

  “If you subscribe to consequential moral reasoning, which most people do, then even if the law states that it’s wrong for me to kill you, cutting your throat might actually be the highest moral choice I have.”

  “You can’t get away with this.”

  “On the other hand, if lawful actions result in terrible consequences, following that law might be wrong at times, and breaking it might be right.”

  “You can’t do this to me.”

  “The law’s a decent guide, but the consequences matter far more. I have come to the conclusion that your actions are wrong, Mr. Birch. Terribly wrong. You rape and abuse women f
rom across the border, and you do it with impunity because of your power. So now you have a choice to make. Your fate is in your hands.”

  “I’ve never heard anything so absurd in my life. You can’t do this!”

  “You keep saying that. And yet”—Danny spread his hands—“I am doing it.” His mind ticked through his options in customary fashion.

  Choice: Forever change Birch’s life as planned now, or give him more time.

  Consider: The man wasn’t likely to change his ways, ever.

  Consider: Countless women and children had paid a terrible price to feed the man’s sickness.

  Then again…Consider: A few hours more with Birch, no matter how disturbing or painful, was a small price to pay for the slight chance he might change.

  On balance, the moral thing to do here was to give the man a fair shake, as planned.

  “I’m going to give you some time to persuade me that you have changed, heart and soul. If you fail to convince me, then I will feel obligated to prohibit you from fulfilling your role as a congressman. That will mean forever altering your life.”

  Paul Birch was trembling. He believes me, Danny thought. That’s a start.

  “You have the floor,” Danny said.

  3

  I COULDN’T HAVE been unconscious more than a few minutes, because when my mind crawled out of that dark fog, the man who’d swept in to rescue me was still running. How long could a man run while carrying a body, even one that weighed a scant one hundred or so pounds? I’m five foot two if I wear five pairs of socks, and I’m light as a toothpick, but even a world-class athlete would have trouble running with a body over his shoulder for more than a minute or two.

  Unless, of course, he’s an angel with superhuman powers, which I considered but doubted. I believed in demons because I had been hearing them all night, but I’d never met anyone who treated me like I imagined an angel might. Angels were the stuff of childhood dreams.

  I was hardly lucid and unable to move, but I remember thinking that something had changed, and for a few long moments I couldn’t place it. Then I realized that I was no longer hanging over his back, bouncing, but was cradled like a child in his arms.

  The rain had lightened but I had to squint to keep it from falling in my eyes. His face came into focus. His jacket and shirt were soaked. A thick silver chain hung around his neck.

  He twisted his head back over his shoulder and I knew there was danger behind us. But my mind was working slowly, and I was still captured by the look of this man who cradled me in his arms as if I were his Raggedy Ann doll and he wasn’t going to let anyone touch me.

  I saw it all in slow motion. His jaw was strong and his hair was trimmed neatly above his ears. When he swung his head back around, drops of water flew off his hair and there was a look of urgency above that flexed jaw, but he wasn’t frantic.

  I managed a feeble word. “Hello?”

  He looked down, face stern. Dark brown eyes. “It’s okay, honey. Just keep your head down.”

  Keep my head down? It was already in the crook of his arm. I didn’t know how I could keep it down.

  Pop, pop! Gunshots sounded like they’d come from cap guns. Maybe my head was sticking out past his arm where a bullet that just barely missed him could hit me in the ear.

  I tried to pull my head in but it was hopeless. So I just hung there in his arms.

  My angel veered around a corner at full stride, then ducked into an underground parking structure. He pulled up, panting, and glanced behind us.

  I was in such a fog that half of these details could be completely wrong. They were moving around the edge of my mind like ghosts. I have to think hard to remember exactly what happened, but even those memories could be a hallucination because, like I said, I was overdosing.

  I remembered my broken arm and wondered how it was getting along. “Are we safe?” I asked. I know it sounded stupid, but it was the question on my mind.

  “Just hold on.” His voice was soft but strong. “They’ll see our tracks.”

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” I said.

  “Do what you need to, honey, just don’t die on me.”

  He was hurrying now, headed for a side door, I think. But my mind was on what he’d said. My angel was giving me permission to throw up while he held me in his arms. I wanted to cry. If anyone had been so kind to me it had been a very long time and the memory was long gone.

  I began to cry. The world was fading to gray and I was floating in his arms and crying.

  In fact, I must have been crying loudly, because he hushed me softly as he pulled up next to a door with a small lighted EXIT sign above it. Then he pushed through, stepped back out into the rain, glanced both ways, and headed back down the same sidewalk we’d been on before.

  He was retracing his steps?

  We veered around the same corner and entered the same garage we’d just left, just as the far-side door slammed shut. Cyrus’s men had followed our wet tracks into the garage and then back out. But now we were inside again and the ground was wet from many feet, so no one could follow our tracks.

  At least that’s how I remember the scene.

  He slid around a car and ran along the wall, heading deep into the parking garage, all the way to the darkest corner, where he set me down behind a blue truck.

  I lay on the concrete and watched him peer over the truck bed to see if anyone was following. Then he was leaning over me.

  “Okay, we’re safe for now,” he whispered. He wiped my tears away with his thumb. “Are you still with me?”

  I nodded. And I started to cry again.

  “Shh, shh…It’s going to be okay.” He carefully lifted my broken arm off the ground and straightened it. “We have to take care of your arm. You took another hit.”

  His tone was all matter-of-fact, like he was a medic in a war zone, but I knew he was being brave for me. Or he might have been in the army for all I knew back then.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetie. Can you hold on for me?”

  Nausea swept over me and I began to shiver. I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up again. I turned my head away from him and retched. If I hadn’t been in such a terrible state, I would have been mortified.

  The man eased my head back toward him and wiped my mouth with his sleeve. “Just hold on, I’m going to get you out of here. I’ll be right back.”

  He rounded the back of the truck in a crouch. I began to drift into a fog. Voices were yelling somewhere far away—but in the garage. They had found us?

  The monsters were rasping in my ear again. You can’t throw us up, Renee, we’re inside you and you can’t just spew us onto the ground. You’re sick on the inside, you filthy whore.

  It was over. My angel had left me in a puddle of my own vomit and the world was collapsing around me. The truck was my tombstone. It would roll over and smash me into the concrete and I would be dead. Or worse, trapped alive forever.

  A shout broke through my daze. “They’re at the back!” Wet shoes slapped the concrete.

  Then my rescuer was back, muttering angrily under his breath. He motioned for my silence and scooped me up. “Sorry, honey, just hold tight.”

  He flew around the truck, head low. How he got me into the backseat of another car so quickly, I still don’t know. Had he broken into it? But I was there on the backseat, lying facedown where he’d tossed me. My broken arm was folded under my belly.

  The door smacked my heels when he shut it.

  I heard the engine fire.

  I felt the car jerk forward.

  Bullets were smacking into the metal sheeting and my rescuer was repeating his mantra—“Hold on, hold, hold on”—as the tires squealed and sped up the ramp.

  Something thudded into the car. A body maybe.

  We smacked through the wood gate and peeled into the street. One more bullet hit the trunk, and then we were flying into the night.

  “Hold on, honey. Just hold on.”

  I mumbled the same c
ommand to myself. Hold on, Renee. Just hold on.

  The night went black.

  I don’t know how long I was in the back of the car. I was only barely hanging on to life and dreaming of floating in outer space. Angels were hovering over me, whispering, keeping me alive.

  They wrapped my shattered arm in a glowing white cloth and poured a green liquid down my throat so I wouldn’t throw up anymore. They washed my body in warm water and dressed me in a soft white gown, then laid me on a bed.

  They brushed my hair and sang a beautiful chorus that made me think of Mariah Carey. It was as if she was kneeling over me, hands folded, singing about how beautiful I was. She kept singing the same refrain over and over.

  “You are beautiful, don’t let the devil tell you wrong; you are an angel in my eyes, so beautiful.”

  It was lovely, but it was also terrifying. I’d never thought angels would lie so blatantly, if at all. I kept wanting to tell her that she was wrong, that I wasn’t beautiful, that they had the wrong girl. Stop lying, please. Please don’t mock me with these kinds of lies.

  I was the worthless one who had thrown everything away because I was so, so stupid. I was the one her father couldn’t love. I was the one who shot up heroin and threw up in the alleys.

  I was the one who washed out her underwear in the sink with a bar of soap because she was scrounging quarters for a fix.

  I was the one who did whatever Cyrus wanted whenever he wanted because I was terrified of what might happen if I said no.

  I was the one who owned only two pair of jeans, and one of those actually belonged to Sara, who was three sizes larger than me.

  I was the one who cried myself to sleep before my tears had drifted away in the fog of hard drugs.

  My name was Renee Gilmore and I was disgusting.