by David Beers
“Maybe,” Lori said. “I just think we should pay closer attention to him is all. I think it would be good for you to spend more time with him.”
Scott nodded and leaned back onto his pillow. “I can do that.”
Vondi was reaching a fork in the road, and he saw it just ahead.
He had been seeing Lori Hilt for two years and John for a year. He didn’t see progress in either—or rather, he saw progress from Lori in certain areas, but the one that now occupied much of his thinking, her son’s penchant for violence, he saw no change in those thoughts. And John? What was Vondi trying to get out of that?
Knowledge, he thought.
But the progress was slow, if at all.
The fork was coming up, and he would have to decide whether he went right or left. Ignore what he thought or did something about it.
“I’m not sure,” he said, “of what else to do.”
He sat on the couch this time, his psychologist on a chair across the room.
“You haven’t talked much about them before,” Trevor said.
“I guess I’ve been scared about what to say. I could be imagining all this; I mean, I’m still working with his mother to stop having such illogical beliefs. Yet here I am wondering the same thing.”
“What is it about the kid that bothers you?” Trevor asked.
“There’s something off about him,” Vondi said, his mind slowly turning through the words that could describe what he meant. “I spoke with one of his teachers, and she told me there was a ruthlessness about John that most kids didn’t have.”
“You spoke to his teacher?”
Vondi nodded, his lips pressed tightly together.
“How did you manage to do that?”
“I went to his school and asked to speak to someone that taught him.”
Trevor smiled, cocking his head slightly to the left. “Why?”
“You don’t get it with this kid. I can’t get anything out of him. His mother is convinced he’s a serial killer, and while that seems pretty far fetched to me, there’s something not right. One of the only times he ever opened up to me, he told me that he dreamed about his friend that died, and in the dream, he didn’t save his friend because—and I quote—he ‘didn’t want to.’”
“And that means what?”
“You don’t find that disturbing?”
“How old is he?” Trevor said.
“Fifteen.”
“It’s a bit odd, but the kid is young, and you know this as well as anyone—he could simply be lying to you.”
Vondi leaned back against the couch, sighing. “You’re probably right … but I just can’t shake it that there is something going on here.”
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“Honestly?”
Trevor nodded.
“I want to follow him and see what he does all day. I want to know what he’s hiding.”
“Outside of the ethical problems with what you’re saying, what are you going to do if you find out he is hiding something? It’s not your business what the kid is up to.”
“I,” Vondi said, “… I don’t know. I guess it depends on what he’s hiding.”
“Maybe you should stop seeing him,” Trevor said.
Vondi looked down at his shoes. He knew Trevor was right but …
“I don’t want to,” he said.
14
Present Day
John backed away from the body lying on the floor. He did it hurriedly, knocking the chair over and slamming into the priest’s desk.
“What the FUCK!” John shouted, blood covering his hands and shirt. He looked down at it, frantically trying to wipe it off, but only smearing it across his arms.
“Jesus Christ,” Harry said. He stood over the body, the priest’s blood slowly outlining his sandals.
“Oh my God,” John said, his breath picking up speed. “What did I do?”
“You killed the son-of-a-bitch,” Harry said. “Christ’s cunt hairs, man. This isn’t good.”
John walked forward, the knife falling from his hand and landing silently on the floor. He knelt down in front of Father Charles. The priest’s eyes were open, staring at some spot on the wall. His neck was open too, blood slowly oozing out, though it appeared gravity caused it, as the priest’s heart no longer pumped.
John reached forward, placing his hand on the priest’s chest, his fingertips dipping into the cooling blood.
Harry grabbed him and threw him back; John landed on his ass but didn’t even look up at Harry. He couldn’t take his eyes off Father Charles.
“Don’t fucking touch him. This is a mess, John. A goddamn mess. I told you not to get involved with this guy. He just tried to kill you!” Harry stared at John as if expecting an answer, something along the lines of, You were right, I was wrong.
John couldn’t speak, though.
He couldn’t do anything but stare at the man who had given him spiritual guidance for the past decade. That man lay dead, his throat slit by John’s insane lust.
Harry looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s nearing three, man. I don’t know what time first Mass is supposed to be, or if janitors get here early, but we have to move. We gotta get this body out of here and this whole office cleaned up … FUCK, MAN!”
John looked down at the floor in between his knees. “What did I do?”
Harry walked across the room, kneeling at John’s feet so that they were eye to eye. “You killed someone, John, without any planning involved. His blood is everywhere, and your DNA is too. Do you love Diane? Do you love your kids? Because if you do, you need to stand up and start doing something about this shit. You have three hours probably, and at the end of those three, if you don’t get it together, you’re going to jail.”
John looked up at him, his eyes moving slowly. They were red, filled with tears though none had fallen. “I can’t do this anymore. He’s dead. I killed him.”
“You can do it, John, and you’re going to. I don’t care what else you do, but you’re going to get this body out of this room.”
John glanced at Father Charles.
“Or else Diane finds out everything,” Harry said.
John’s body had nothing left to give. He felt it a wonder he could even stand, that he didn’t collapse to the ground.
The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, casting its yellow and orange hues across a black world. John turned to look at it, putting his back to the grave.
“You think we did a good enough job?” he said.
Harry stepped up next to him, looking at the sunrise as well. “I hope so. We’ll know pretty soon, I guess.”
Dirt covered John, plastering his skin as if he might have been a sculpture fully created from earth. Soreness wracked his back muscles from the digging, slamming the shovel down over and over again, then taking the turned dirt and piling it up next to the hole. By the time he dragged the body to it, he could barely grip the plastic bags wrapping the priest.
They were thirty minutes outside of Dallas, having snuck into a state park. They moved deep into the woods, using the GPS on John’s phone to understand how close they were to the road.
“We need to leave,” Harry said.
“And go where? Where is there to go from here? Home? Where I shower and tell Diane what? That I killed my priest and buried the body? I’m out of excuses, Harry. I’m out of ideas.”
“You’ve never been the ideas guy, John.”
“I’m serious. I can’t go on. We have to figure something else out.”
“I need some time to think,” Harry said. “You’ve got therapy coming up with Diane. Go to that and let me think. I’ll figure something out.”
Harry watched John shower. The curtain was drawn so he could only see the man’s feet and the top of his head. Of course it had been Harry’s idea to come to the gym to get all the dirt off, though they first stopped at a gas station bathroom to remove the most obvious patches.
So now John s
howered, and Harry waited.
He told John he would think while John handled his family business.
And Harry was thinking, because John said he couldn’t go on, and Harry was beginning to believe him. He had a breaking point, Harry supposed.
The situation with the priest wasn’t good, either. Harry had a chance of controlling everything else that happened, but this wasn’t in his plans. The priest losing his goddamn mind and trying to kill John? No, he never saw that coming. Which meant mistakes were made in their clean up. They couldn’t use bleach, not if they wanted the man to look like he had simply gone missing. Most of the blood had been contained to John’s and the priest’s clothes, but still, a good bit made its way to the floor.
They checked the video footage of the parking lot and cathedral, wiping it before leaving, but what had they missed? Harry couldn’t think of anything, but that didn’t mean Detective Dick Face wouldn’t. No, Harry had a strong feeling that the detective would think of every possible thing and end up collaring John for the murder.
Going to jail wasn’t an option … yet. Hell, honestly? Harry would rather die than go to jail, because what he liked to do for fun got harder in jail. Sure, you might kill one or two people, but eventually they’d shove you in a hole and you never saw anyone again.
They had to get out of here. Out of Dallas, Texas. Without John’s family. If they left here, Harry might not ever have to leave John again. A traveling road show sort of thing, come and see the disappearing act—only it’s the viewers that disappear.
The hard part would be convincing John it was the only way.
John was still tired, but he had managed to nod off in a tiny motel, paying cash at the desk.
If he hadn’t done that, he wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes open right now.
“How are you both?” the psychologist, Dr. Elizabeth June, asked. Diane found her and John didn’t ask any questions.
“Good,” Diane said though John remained quiet.
“So, what’s going on? How can I help you both?” the doctor said.
John looked to Diane, wanting her to begin. He would have rather been almost anywhere but this room (not Father Charles’ office, either—don’t forget that); exhaustion didn’t begin to describe what he felt, not to mention lactic acid had set in his muscles, making movement feel like death.
He told Diane he worked out too hard.
Just another lie.
What did it matter at this point? He couldn’t remember the last time he told the truth, to anyone.
“I’m not really sure how to start,” Diane said. “I guess … well, there’s been some problems.” She looked to John, nodding, wanting his support, and he knew that remaining silent this whole hour wasn’t a possibility.
He looked to the psychologist.
“This may be crude, but I suppose I’m fucking up a lot.”
“Not crude. If that’s the truth, it really doesn’t matter how you say it, as long as it’s not hurtful. Does it hurt you that you’re fucking up?” Dr. June said.
“Yeah … it does,” he said.
“And Diane, would you agree with that statement, that John is fucking up?”
“I think in some ways, yes, but in other ways it’s a lot deeper than that.”
The doctor nodded. “So what have you been doing, John?”
Fuck it, he thought. What’s it matter at this point? This is beyond embarrassing and there isn’t any way to tell the truth. Tell them whatever they want to hear.
“I leave late at night. A few times a week. I’ve been distant. Not just to my wife, but my sister and father, too.”
“Where do you go when you leave?”
“Most times I go to my mother’s grave. Sometimes I just drive.”
“Your mother’s grave?”
And on and on John went, weaving a lie that he could barely remember the beginning to.
Harry wasn’t here to direct him, and his mind felt like it might deteriorate at any moment—simply melt inside his skull, leaving nothing but a pool of gray to jiggle around if he moved.
“What about your kids? How are they handling this?”
“I honestly don’t know,” John said. “I haven’t had much contact with them.”
“They notice,” Diane said. “I don’t think it’s gone on long enough to have any real effect, but they see that their dad is missing from their lives right now.”
“How does that make you feel, John?”
That word was getting on his goddamn nerves. Feel. How did he feel? She wanted to know so much about his feelings, and how he felt about his actions making others feel certain ways. Did she really want to know, though? That he felt fucking lost and though he just killed someone a few hours ago, he knew Harry would be back with the next one lined up—maybe as soon as he left this office. Maybe when he stepped out of the damn room, Harry would start hounding him again.
Did she want to know that his God had abandoned him? The one person John always went to, who knew everything, just had his throat slit by John himself. Whatever the SA group spoke about, the higher power, well, He had no interest in John except perhaps to kill him.
John knew nothing but Harry’s lust—his own lust, and in that, he only knew hate.
“It doesn’t make me feel good,” John said.
15
Present Day
Scott moved around his house, completely alone. Not talking to anyone. He’d done this for days, not venturing out for anything—not even heading to his local bar to eat and watch a game.
He wasn’t lonely, though, because his thoughts kept him company.
Sometimes he turned the television on and let the words pass around his face without ever entering his mind.
Lori’s notebook lay on the end-table; he hadn’t opened it again. He didn’t want to and he wasn’t going to lie about why: Scott Hilt, at sixty-five, was frightened of what lay beneath the cover. His wife’s beautiful handwriting now held a sinister halo around it, as if each letter might jump off the page and bite him—ripping through his skin like a knife.
Yet, his mind kept going back to it. Kept going back to the fact that John hadn’t called him in a week. Hadn’t gone to his mother’s grave.
Everyone in Scott’s life thought something was wrong, and yet Scott took his usual ‘everything will be fine’ attitude. But maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe Scott was wrong and Lori had been right.
Who would know? Was there anyone he could reach out to that might have some insight? Anything to keep him from having to open that notebook again.
What about the doctor they both saw?
But no, he was dead.
What was his name? Dr. Vondi? Scott thought that sounded right. He died, and if Scott remembered correctly, it wasn’t in a very good fashion—though that was hazy.
Would anyone know anything about what he thought when seeing Lori and John? Were there files lying around somewhere? Digital ones saved?
Those were the first decent thoughts he had on the subject since he closed Lori’s notebook last. Someone might know something, someone objective, and he wouldn’t have to read anymore of her letters.
Scott turned his computer on and started surfing the Internet, running searches—starting with Dr. Vondi, Dallas, Texas. It took him three hours and at the end he felt that he had crawled through every nook and cranny the web possessed. His head felt awful and his eyes were beyond strained. He turned the computer off and walked back upstairs, heading first to the bathroom where he grabbed an aspirin bottle, then to the sink for water, and finally outside. He stepped far enough out from the porch to let the sun shine on him.
“Okay,” he said to no one. “Okay.”
He stood a bit longer and then took a seat on one of the rocking chairs.
After an hour of slowly rocking, he went back into the house and picked up a small sticky note where he’d written a number. He grabbed his phone and went to the living room, sitting down, and then dialing Dr. Vondi’s brother.
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Susan looked at her phone and then put it to her ear.
“Yo,” Alan said.
“Hey,” Susan said, stepping from her car. She was headed back to Stinson’s Starbucks, but not for a drink—she wanted to check-in on Rickiment. “I found out some things about him, or at least his time in England.”
“Awesome, what is it?”
“Nothing we can pin on him.”
“So?” Alan said. “What’d he do?”
And the problem reared up again. Alan didn’t care what could be proven. He cared about what he thought—and he saw John Hilt as the murderer, the man who killed his partner.
“So? So it doesn’t matter what I found, it can’t be used in a case against him.”
“So, it can still help tell us if we’re after the right guy. Just tell me what you found.”
Susan stopped in front of her car and leaned against the hood.
“People died while he was over there. At his school.”
“Died or were murdered?”
“Foul play,” she said.
“Okay, how many?”
“I found three. Only one was from his school and the others were in the vicinity. Some of it was similar to what we’re seeing now. Remote location. One was bludgeoned to death, one knifed, and the last one with a bullet through the lungs. The first two were done ruthlessly. The one that went to school with him was shot.”
“One out of three had a bullet hole in their ribcage?” Alan asked.
“Yes.”
“He fucking did it, Susan. You realize that right?”
She realized the excitement in Alan’s voice. “You want this too much.”
He went quiet for a few seconds. “Maybe, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Will you send me the information? How many years ago was this?”
