VC03 - Mortal Grace (65 page)

“Reaching out with what?” Cardozo said, but already in that one exploding instant he understood.

A shadow flicked across Colin Draper’s face. “Ben brings runaways to me and I give them communion.”

“And what’s your part in this?” Cardozo asked the woman. “Acolyte?”

She stiffened. “Communicant. I happen to love the Eucharist.”

“Come on,” Cardozo said. “The girl was doped to her eyeballs. What the hell did you think was going on? Didn’t one of you ever suspect something was happening besides communion?”

“Drugs are an important part of the runaways’ lifestyle,” Colin Draper said. “That doesn’t have to come between them and God.”

“How can you people be so goddamned naive? I just don’t understand what you thought you were doing.”

“Helping the helpless,” the woman said.

“Don’t you realize what’s been happening to these kids?” Cardozo shouted. “Don’t you know what that man’s going to do to Nell?”

Colin Draper looked sincerely baffled. “All he’s doing is taking her home.”

Nell Dunbar closed the bathroom door. A wave of nausea buffeted her. She knelt at the toilet, bracing her elbows against the icy white porcelain.

Spasms ripped her.

She opened her mouth. A yawning reflection flashed up at her from the toilet bowl. She shut her eyes, blotting it out. Darkness rushed up around her.

Sweat was running down her face and arms. She could feel her heart beat with a furious drumming. Her tiny hammer-and-sickle silver earrings tinkled like a pair of wind chimes.

A fit of retching took her, but nothing came up. She tried and she tried till she was choking on her own tears.

She opened her eyes and pushed herself to standing. She still had a buzz on from all the drugs—especially that pink pill that Eff gave her. What the hell was that pink pill?

She promised herself never to take one of those again.

Three wobbling steps brought her to the sink, breathless. She swung the cabinet door open and found a bottle of Brut after-shave. She dabbed some behind her ears and on her wrists and then under her baggy Georgetown sweatshirt, between her breasts.

She stumbled back into the other room. A wall hit her broadside. She found herself staring at parchments covered with Gothic lettering. She tried to focus. The word
blessed
came swimming at her.

A hand reached over to touch her shoulder. “Tell me, my child,” Father said, “how long have you been a runaway?”

She had to will her brain to communicate with her tongue to produce the words. “Awhile.”

His vestments were streaked in red. He was lighting incense in a small copper bowl and already the room was drowning in the sweet honeyed stink of it.

“Tell me, my child, how long have you been taking drugs?”

“Eight or nine years.”

“And how long have you been prostituting yourself?”

“I don’t know…since I was…”

She tried to say “ten,” but something inside her sealed off and died and she pitched forward onto the sofa.

Father’s hand supported her under the nape of her neck. Every ten seconds or so the breath came out of her in a sigh and he felt the warmth of it against his face. He felt such love and sympathy and joy for her that it made his eyes sting.

He laid her in the washtub. The ribbed drain board was her pillow. She was looking up at the ceiling now, eyes unfocused and unseeing.

He relaxed the naked hips, tilting them so the knees reached over the edge of the tub. The legs swung lazily in the dark, damp air. The legs of a bored little girl.

His footsteps echoed against concrete. He was in no rush. He was absolutely still inside himself, absolutely at peace with the rhythms of the ceremony. He opened the tool chest and lifted out the chain saw. He worked the three-pronged plug into the wall socket.

The outlet and the tubs were on opposite sides of the empty room. As he crossed back, carrying the saw, he let the loops of electric cord uncoil from his hand.

He pressed the
start
button, testing the current. The small motor growled. The blade blurred. A fine mist of rust-colored dust fell in her face.

He heard her breath sigh, a shuddering sigh this time. A muscle worked in the pale blue of her irises. Her uncomprehending stare fought to focus itself.

He lifted the whirring saw and there was a snap of recognition in her eyes.

The tendons in her neck made a wrenching effort.

“Relax,” he urged. “God loves you. So do I. We both love you very much. You could not be more loved than you are at this instant.”

With her eyes half-turned in their sockets she had the cunning, evasive look of a guilty child found out.

Her throat pushed out a bubble of protest.

He pressed the
fast
button. The saw’s whining became a shriek.

With one hand he turned her head sideways, just so. A tiny shadow pulsed at her jugular.

He raised the saw and carefully brought it down in a measured arc. He would begin with the throat. He always began with the throat. He angled the blade.

The shriek of the motor dropped to a squeal. The squeal dropped to a moan. The moan dropped to…
silence.

And then a voice.

“Ben—what are you doing?”

EIGHTY-FIVE

T
HE VOICE SPUN HIM
around. At first, all he saw was a woman standing on the stairway, holding the three-pronged plug of an electric cord.

“I’m doing my duty.” Somewhere in his mind he knew why he was here with a saw dangling at his side, but in the shock of seeing her he had to struggle to recall the reason. “I’m doing God’s will.”

“Remember when we were children?” Gray light spilled down and outlined her. “Remember how we made believe we were Father Damien? We gave one another presents and signed them ‘to Damien, from Damien.’ But I’m not Damien—I’m Bonnie. And you’re not Damien. You’re Ben. You’re my brother. And I love you. And you’re not a priest.”

“But I’m a deacon of the Church. I can’t give communion or hear confession, but I can perform marriages. I can assist at Mass.”

“Ben—what are you doing with this child?”

“I’m sending her to God while she’s still in a state of grace.”

“And how did you choose
this
child?”

“Because she’s one of them.”

“One of
who
?”

“They bashed the cathedral—they interrupted the cardinal and threw consecrated hosts on the floor.”

She let the plug fall to the floor. “But it wasn’t her. She wasn’t one of them.” She spoke with the voice he remembered from childhood—the voice of admonishment—chiding but carrying no malice. “Eff’s been tricking you. None of the youngsters he brought you were activists. They were just runaways. They were never even inside St. Patrick’s.”

The concrete floor swayed like a rope bridge beneath him. “But they told me—”

“They were lying. They were doing it for money.”

He looked into her eyes. “Then I’m the sinner?”

Her eyes did not look away.

“Not them?” The terror of certainty hit him. “How has God let me do this?” He seized her hand. “You’re a priest. Help me.
Please
.” He sank to his knees. “Hear my confession.”

“Ben—no.”

He held tight to the hand. “I confess to Almighty God and to you, his priest, that I have sinned.”

She gave a long, surrendering sigh. “When did you make your last confession?”

“I haven’t made a true confession since…I can’t remember. Years. I confess that I broke the commandment against murder. I killed six young people. But I did it for them, out of love. They died in a state of forgiveness of sin. I gave them Christian burial. I took flowers to their graves.”

He watched his sister’s face. It did not change. Yet it looked so tired—so remote. Panic washed through him.

“I committed sins of envy and anger. After your ordination, I raped a woman.”

“Why?”

“Because she opposed Church teaching. So many people are opposing the Church—an example has to be made.”

“Don’t you think God can make his own examples?”

“I confess that I doubted that. I confess that I broke the commandment to be truthful. I said I’d stopped drinking. But I never stopped. When you thought I was in detox, I was in court.”

“For the rape?”

He nodded. “The judge made me pay her. She used the money to bash the Church and profane the cathedral. I couldn’t stand by and let that happen, could I?”

His sister didn’t answer.

“She made sinners of young people—but I saved their souls. She sinned against me—but I forgave her—and sent her to God too.”

His sister probed him with disbelieving eyes.

“I confess that I maligned Father Joe. I had photos put in his desk and I sent an anonymous note on your letterhead.”

“Why, Ben? Why Father Joe?”

“Because of what he was doing to you and to young people.”

“He was only trying to serve.”

“With
condoms
?”

His sister took a step away from him. He clung to her hand.

“But my greatest sin was malice. The birthday presents that you asked me to pass along to Mother—the books…the rose clipping…the piggy bank …” Tears stung his eyes. “I confess that I kept them—because I was jealous of you. In my heart, I hated you, because you were what I could never become—a priest.”

He bowed his head in shame. A deep pool of silence closed over him.

A light fell across the stillness, and he heard the sound of his sister’s voice pronouncing the formula of forgiveness.

“Ego te absolvo.”

I absolve you.

Cardozo stepped through the door at the side of the garage. He heard voices. He approached the second doorway, gun drawn.

Bonnie stood in profile, absolutely still. A man knelt before her, head bowed. Even with his black shadow of beard stubble, Cardozo recognized Ben from the religious goods shop.

His body stiffened into firing stance. Gripping with both hands, he raised the revolver to eye level. He lined up the front sight on the kneeling man.

He said one word. “Freeze.”

Ben got to his feet.

Cardozo brought the sight up with him. “I said freeze.”

Ben was holding an electric saw. “Kill me,” he said quietly.

Cardozo stood motionless, holding Ben in his sights.

“Kill me now!” Ben screamed.

Bonnie half-turned to look over at Cardozo. She was shaking her head. “Vince…no…” She moved into the sights. Now she was standing between the gun and Ben.

Cardozo spoke very slowly. “Bonnie…step aside.”

“Kill me.” Ben’s voice cracked into a high, keening quaver, and then it dropped. “Or I’ll kill her.” He swung the saw up into the air. The blade caught a ricochet of light.

“Bonnie…step away.”

She glanced behind her and then quickly back at Cardozo. “It’s not plugged in!” she shrieked.

It didn’t need to be. Ben brought the saw crashing down. It struck with the force of a serrated sledgehammer, tearing into the side of her head.

A
crack
echoed.

For one moment she stood absolutely still, her mouth open just a little. And then a slanting line in her temple split open and blood spurted across her eyes and face.

The impact carried her to the side and for an instant Cardozo had Ben clear in the gun sights.

He fired.

White light shot from the barrel. A clap of thunder rocked the concrete walls.

The bullet tore a third eye in Ben’s forehead. The saw clattered to the floor. He staggered backward, spun, and toppled.

EIGHTY-SIX

C
ARDOZO STEPPED INTO THE
hospital room holding a dozen red roses. He could see they weren’t needed. The room was so packed with flower arrangements it looked like a florist’s shop window.

A private nurse was seated in a chair beside the window reading a medical suspense paperback. She looked up, laid the book facedown on the table, and rose from her chair. “May I help you?”

“How’s she doing?”

“I’m sorry—the doctor doesn’t wish the reverend to see visitors.”

In the hospital bed, Bonnie opened her eyes. Her head was wrapped in a turban of white gauze and a bandage slanted down over her left eyebrow. An IV fed into her arm. The bed had been raised to a half-sitting position.

“Bonnie,” he said.

Bonnie’s gaze moved across the room by deliberate degrees, as though it had to draw support from each object it grazed before it could limp on to the next. Her eyes finally met his. They were weary, sedated, beyond shock, beyond grief. Yet their beauty struck him with the force of a blow from a sharpened instrument.

“Please,” the nurse said, and Cardozo could feel her ready to oppose him.

“Do you suppose you could find a vase for these?” He pushed the flowers at her and stepped around her to the bed.

“Vince.” Bonnie’s voice was weak.

He pulled up a chair. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve caused so much trouble for everyone.”

Her hands lay on top of the thin blue hospital blanket, side by side, thumbs touching. He took her right hand. It rested in his, then squeezed.

“If only I’d seen how Ben was suffering—and drinking—and using the people around him—” She turned away and looked toward the window.

“We’re human. Sometimes we let ourselves be deceived. You loved your brother. It was natural to believe what he told you. It was natural to believe in
him
.”

“I loved him—but I knew the truth. I knew when you said Collie gave communion to the murdered boy—Sandy McCoy.” Her hand slid from Cardozo’s. “The only people Collie gave communion to were Ben’s runaways. I should have spoken out then. Ben might still be alive. That little girl might still be alive.”

“Nell’s alive. She’s in the hospital and she’s recovering.”

“Thank God.” Bonnie’s eyes did not move from the gray of the window. “But I’ve hurt so many others.”

He felt something wounded and self-wounding in her. “Stop blaming yourself. Look at me. Look at the hell I put Father Joe through.”

“You were doing your work. He understands.”