The Priest's Graveyard (22 page)

It was then, in the darkness, that I relived each moment I’d spent in Darby Gordon’s house. His hot breath, his twisted grin,
his terrified children, his battered wife, the cigarette butts on the carpet, the sweat on his face—all of it. The look in
his eyes when I’d asked him about Lamont.

The way that he treated his wife gnawed at me like a ferocious animal. That was me, you see, battered by Cyrus, abused and
used up and left for dead before Lamont rescued me. I cringed to think of that poor woman.

I was lying in bed trying to sleep, but my body was coiled like steel springs. I would kill Darby Gordon. I had to, if it
was the last thing I did. I would kill that man who’d killed Lamont.

My mind skipped a thought.

What if I did kill him?

My eyes snapped open.

Kill him now. Tonight.

The fist of God himself was pounding on my chest as the thoughts came alive in my mind.

Why not? This wasn’t about Danny, it was about Lamont. I, not Danny, had to avenge Lamont’s death. This is what I was living
for.

But it was more than that. The thought of such a vile creature breathing even more breath sickened me. He was there, snoring
in his bed, and Lamont was in a shallow grave somewhere. Or cut to pieces and lying at the bottom of the ocean.

I sat up, fully awake and trembling. It was the perfect time. He would never expect me to return, not after I’d run like a
mouse.

Could I really do it? I’d never actually killed a man with my bare hands. I’d helped cut up Redding and throw him over the
cliff, but only after Danny had shot him.

A gun, I thought. I had a silencer for my gun now. Killing that viper would be a simple thing for me. Just sneak in, press
the barrel up to his head, and
pop
. One bullet in his temple while he slept next to his wife, who was probably dreaming of ways to poison him.

I slipped onto the floor, shaking like a twig in the wind, and I paced next to my bed. I could do this. I would delight Danny
with this. I would finally be able to sleep in peace. Lamont would love me for it.

It was this last thought that got my feet moving toward the box in my closet, where I now kept all my tools, including the
gun.

My decision was final. I was going to kill Darby Gordon, and I was going to do it tonight.

I reached that
dark, nasty house at two o’clock in the morning, and it took me twenty-five minutes to leave the shadow of the tree where
I’d had the cab drop me off. Because I could still back out and call Danny for advice. Because I knew I had to rid myself
of my emotion first, if I wanted to avoid mistakes. Because I had to be perfect, absolutely perfect, if I really wanted to
impress Danny.

I was dressed in black, from my Puma runners to my long workout pants to my long-sleeved pullover. After the cab pulled away,
I tugged a black neoprene mask over all but my eyes. Every other inch of my body was covered—no skin cells or hair would fall
off me as evidence for a forensic team. Even my small leather tool bag was black.

Finally satisfied that I was calm and that the street was empty, I casually strolled down the sidewalk toward the house I’d
fled hours earlier.

There were no streetlights. The neighbors had darkened their houses. The rain had stopped. My shoes made a sticking sound
as I walked over the wet asphalt. The hot air from my lungs was already making the mask humid, like breathing in a sauna.

But these things were distant to me. I was homed in on the Darby house. More precisely, on getting
around
that house, where I could work in secret.

It was a rough neighborhood, but not even these folks could kill the greenbelt that ran behind the string of houses. My back
would be covered. I had to concern myself only with being spotted from the front, and from what I could see, there was no
one to spot me.

Heart pumping like a steam engine, I cut left and sprinted on my tiptoes toward the back of the house. Careened around the
corner. And came face-to-face with a high fence.

A dog fence.

The thought of a pet was new. I’d forgotten about the smell of dog hair in the house. But I was quick on my feet and sprang
back around the corner before any canine could sound the warning.

No sound at all. Darby had probably killed the children’s pet in a fit of rage and then barbecued it for dinner in front of
them.

Trying to still my breathing, I carefully poked my head around the corner and eyed the back of the house. An old doghouse
sat in the corner of a fenced lot that could have passed for a yard if it had any lawn. Tufts of wild grass grew in spots
on otherwise barren ground.

I picked up a pebble and tossed it at the doghouse, then jerked back and listened for it to hit the roof. It missed, so I
tried again and this time was rewarded with a soft
plop
.

No bark. No nothing. So probably no pet. To be sure, I sent another stone sailing toward the doghouse and this time watched
for any sign of a dog. There was none. Spot had been eaten by his master, and that was no surprise.

I flung my bag over the fence and hoisted myself into the yard, thinking that if properly motivated I could vault this thing
and sprint for the car.

I had contemplated a number of ways to execute body disposal, as Danny called it, if I got to that point, and I had decided
that the safest way would be in the black bags I’d brought. But the moment I landed on the bare ground and saw the shovel
leaning against the back wall, a new idea popped into my head.

I stood there for a full five minutes running this idea through my grid of possible downsides, as Danny had taught me to.
My eyes remained on the doghouse, because that was the deal: What if I was to bury the body under the doghouse?

Assuming I could move the wooden structure, which looked pretty heavy. Assuming I could dig a hole large enough to fit a body.
Assuming I could cover it up properly and drag the house back over the disturbed earth.

There were no tree roots to make digging impossible, which would probably be the case out in the greenbelt. No wild animals
to dig up the body. Even if the house was eventually sold and the doghouse tossed, no one would know there was a body buried
there. Even if they did eventually find the body after years of rain washed away the dirt or something, they would only assume
Darby Gordon had been knocked off by some nasty criminal, he being one himself.

I was not a nasty criminal. I was God’s merciful angel. Danny, my priest, my savior, my new soul mate, had his own private
graveyard. Now I would add to it here, in San Pedro. The idea was intoxicating.

I grabbed the shovel and ran over to the doghouse at the back corner. A blanket of clouds provided a cover of darkness. If
I was caught, I could throw the bag over the back fence, leap over, and vanish into the greenbelt.

The doghouse wasn’t anchored into the ground, and although it took even more muscle and huffing and puffing than I had expected,
I managed to push/pull/drag it to one side. The earth was hard, and there was no grass to keep the base from sliding.

The hole was another matter because, although it was clay and dug up quite easily, I realized that after I put a body in the
mix, the dirt wouldn’t all fit back into the hole. So I began to toss every other shovelful over the back fence.

A man like Darby Gordon would notice the fresh dirt strewn along the ground beyond his fence, but with any luck he wouldn’t
be around. His wife and children might see it but wouldn’t likely make the connection. If they did, they would only rejoice.

I pulled my ski mask up so I could breathe, then dug for half an hour, until my back was breaking and my palms were blistering.
Without my gloves I wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes. I was a puff cake, not a construction worker, albeit a puff cake that
could cut life with a knife when needed.

My mind spun with each thrust of the shovel. If Lamont could only see me now. I missed him terribly.

Would anyone believe me if I told them I was digging for treasure at three o’clock in the morning?

I loved Danny, but I missed Lamont. I could do both, right? And I could kill Darby Gordon for both of them.

The hole wasn’t long enough to lay a body in, but I had to keep to the doghouse dimensions, so I went deep instead of long—a
good three feet deep. Satisfied that I could get Darby into the grave if I broke him up a bit, I pulled my mask back down,
grabbed my black bag, and ran to the kitchen window.

I was still clean, see? I could still make a run for it. But I didn’t because I didn’t want to. A part of me was trembling,
but a part of me would die if I didn’t see this through. The feeling wasn’t so different from how I’d felt searching for a
fix when I was addicted to a different kind of high.

The thought stopped me for a moment as I stood at the window with the glass cutter in my hand. I had tasted the blood of vengeance
once, and I wanted it again.

Was a good person’s addiction to doing good, bad?

I might have just broken the glass with a towel wrapped around my hand like they did in movies, hoping no one would hear,
but Danny had explained the foolishness of it. Instead I took the time to painstakingly cut a one-foot hole in the bottom
of the glass, wide enough for me to reach in and release both locks that fastened the window to the sill.

With a single shove, the window jerked up, gaping eighteen inches at the bottom. I stood, listening. I heard the distant hum
of a transformer; a ticking sound that came from inside the house, maybe a clock; my own breathing. Nothing else. No sound
of Darby creeping around to intercept me.

At the moment, my crime was limited to property damage, but the second I climbed through the window I would be guilty of breaking
and entering. So what? Neither compared to cutting up a body and throwing it in the Pacific Ocean. I was ready.

I withdrew my silenced nine-millimeter gun from the black bag, shoved the firearm behind my waist, hoisted myself into the
open window, and slid over the sill onto the floor of the kitchen’s dinette.

I did not land in perfect silence. My gun fell out and
thump
ed on the linoleum floor.

To me it sounded as if a bomb had been detonated in the house—there was no way Darby could sleep through such a racket! He
was probably grabbing his shotgun and rushing out to shoot me.

I snatched up my gun and scrambled to the edge of the kitchen cabinets. I crouched there, trying not to breathe, with my weapon
cocked and ready to fire the moment he stepped out. A dozen thoughts crashed through my head, all of them about one kind of
disastrous ending or another.

It took a full minute, which felt more like ten, before I realized Darby had either slept through my thumping or was waiting
for me in the bedroom.

Once you go, go.
Danny’s voice came back to me.
Keep them off balance. It’s all about maintaining the advantage, surprise, illusion, sleight of hand. Speed and stealth are
your closest friends.

I’d already blown the stealth bit, and I wasn’t doing so well with the speed thing, but I could change both now, right?

So I moved forward in a crouch like a ninja, gun ahead of me. I crouched/tiptoed/rushed out of the kitchen and through the
living room, which was barely lit by one night-light on the far wall.

The bedroom door was open. I poked my head around the corner, gun by my chin now. The room was dark, but I could make out
one lump curled up and another sprawled out, snoring softly. That would be the beast, lost in nasty dreams.

I froze by the door, knowing it was a bad time to freeze up, but I couldn’t help it. I was now guilty of property damage,
and breaking and entering, but I still hadn’t done the deed. And doing the deed wasn’t going to be as simple as shooting Darby
in the head and running. The knowledge in that head was too valuable to waste. Killing him outright would be unforgivable.

Danny favored drugs. Incapacitating the target was the best option, he said, and who could disagree? I’d become fascinated
with the idea that a simple needle could reduce any thug to a lump of flesh, and I practiced with a poor cantaloupe until
Danny was satisfied I could sling a syringe with the best of them.

His drug of choice was propofol, which when injected directly into the bloodstream would typically render any subject unconscious
in seconds.

Still crouching, I hurried around the bed to where Emily was curled up in a dead sleep. Kneeling so that only my head poked
above the mattress, I set my gun down on the carpet, withdrew one of two syringes in my pocket, and removed the protective
sleeve from the needle.

Poking someone in the neck with a needle and injecting a drug into their jugular is much harder than most people imagine.
Too shallow or too deep and you miss the vein. Either way, Emily would wake. The idea was to quickly, and I mean very quickly,
inject the drug and get the needle out before she could interrupt the procedure.

I carefully guided the needle to her bare neck so that it hovered in line with her vein. Then, taking a deep breath to steady
myself, I jabbed the needle in, shoved the carefully measured dose into her bloodstream, withdrew the syringe, and dropped
to the floor.

Emily gave a short cry and slapped at her neck, jerking up onto one elbow. Beside her, Darby grunted. Finding no gargantuan
mosquito hovering over her bed, Emily scratched her neck a couple of times and sank back to the pillow.

On the far side of the bed, Darby rolled over. It was a shame I had to hurt her, but try as I might, I couldn’t think of a
better way to deal with her without exposing myself. No matter what I did with Darby, she would probably wake up and identify
me, if not in the bedroom, then later when she peered out through the window as I buried his body in the ground.

Drugged, she would sleep soundly and wake in a few hours, groggy and with a bruise on her neck, but otherwise ignorant and
safe.

I waited several minutes on the ground beside the bed, then reached up and poked Emily’s arm. When she did not respond, I
jabbed harder in her side.

She was out. Now I could do my deed properly.

I sneaked over to the lamp, turned it on, and then stood back as Danny had instructed so that Darby couldn’t easily reach
me. The man was still snoring. I started to speak, then stopped to clear my throat and spoke with a trembling voice.

“Wake up, you lousy viper.”

They weren’t the most clever words, and Darby didn’t wake up.

“Get up!”

He jerked upright and twisted toward his wife. Uttered an unintelligible word.

“This way,” I snapped. “Make any sudden moves and I’ll pull the trigger.”

He swiveled his head and stared in my direction. “What?”

“Turn over on your stomach and keep your arms spread,” I said.

His eyes widened as his head cleared.

“Now! On your belly. Now!”

The man’s face darkened. “What do you think you’re trying to do?”

“I’m trying to give you a chance to live, you stupid schmuck. Turn over like I said!”

I almost pulled the trigger then, because instead of showing fear, he actually sneered like he was daring me to kill him.
But I didn’t want to leave blood on the sheets or shoot a bullet in the wall.

So I said, “I’m going to count to three. One…two…”

His sneer softened and he lifted his hands. “Okay. Calm down.”

“On your face.”

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

“I’m dealing with a fool in his underwear. Turn over!”

He clenched his jaw and finally turned onto his stomach. “What do you want?”

“Arms wide.”

He stretched his arms out, a frail little man at my mercy, face turned so that I could see it.

“Tell me how I can get to Bourque and I’ll let you live,” I said.

“You’re mental! You think I have any access to Bourque? He’s going to kill you, you know that. No one crosses him and lives.”

“Tell me why and how you killed Lamont.”

“I didn’t, you fool! I have no idea who he is.”

“Don’t lie to me. Jonathan Bourque had him killed and I want to know why and how. Tell me!”

“I am telling you! I don’t have a clue who—”

“He worked for Bourque. We lived in Malibu. Blond hair, handsome man. You killed him.”