The Priest: An Original Sinners Novel

by Tiffany Reisz

  “Maybe this is my penance, too.” She gave him a tired smile.

  “I guess I ought to take you home.”

  She sat up straight and looked at him again. “No, I want to go back to the house. Someone had to have seen someone near his car, right?”

  “You sure about that?” Cyrus asked.

  “What if the Butterfly needs our help?”

  There they were, Cyrus thought, two fuck-ups with so many sins in their past, they’d need an army of priests and a five-gallon bucket of holy water to absolve them both. Since they didn’t have any priests or holy water, they would find the Butterfly and make sure she was safe. They couldn’t do a God damn thing about their pasts anyway tonight. But they could do this.

  Chapter Forty-One

  They didn’t talk on the way to the house. Cyrus’s mind ran with the possibilities. The Butterfly, whoever she was, had stuffed the pink envelope into the mailbox. Someone might have seen her. Cyrus pictured a beautiful young woman, probably in her twenties, someone with a shitty boyfriend or an abusive husband. The kind of troubled young woman who’d had a bad relationship with her father and would latch onto a kind older man, a kind older priest. She’d pour out her heart to him and he’d comfort her and tell her how beautiful she was and how she didn’t deserve to be treated the way she was…and all the time Father Ike was falling for her, falling hard, so hard he couldn’t stop thinking about her, how much he wanted her, how much she tempted him. But he was a good man and he refused to give into temptation.

  Until he did.

  Assume the worst, Cyrus thought again.

  Was she pregnant? Possibly. A priest finding out he got a young woman pregnant would be a good motive for a suicide. Or a murder. Men killed their pregnant partners all the time. Or maybe she wanted an abortion, and he offered to take her to get one when really he was going to keep her captive until it was too late for that. The thought turned Cyrus’s stomach.

  Assume the worst.

  There was something worse than even that. Don’t be a kid. Don’t be a kid. Dear Lord Jesus in heaven, don’t let it be a kid, Cyrus prayed silently.

  They parked in front of the house on Annunciation Street.

  “Ready?” Cyrus asked.

  “Ready.”

  They headed in the general direction of the street where Father Ike had left his car the day of the suicide. When they saw someone was home, they knocked on the door. Nora flashed her smile. Cyrus flashed his P.I. credentials. Nobody had seen a priest around, but they hadn’t been paying attention either. Lots of Catholic schools in the area. Priests and nuns didn’t make a big impression.

  “I’m glad you’re with me,” Nora said as they turned the corner onto Rose. “Knocking on stranger’s doors is a little dicey.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” Cyrus said. “Glad you’re with me.”

  She felt safer walking around at night with a man. He felt safer walking around at night with a white woman.

  “What now?” she asked as they stopped at the place where Cyrus had found Father Ike’s car.

  “I guess we come back tomorrow,” he said. “And do it again.”

  Nora exhaled heavily, nodded. As they walked back to the car, back to Annunciation Street, Cyrus tried to meditate, to reach the river and the answers he hoped were waiting there for him. But he couldn’t find his way there. Instead, his mind kept taking him back to that morning he was called to the house and had seen Father Ike’s body on the floor.

  Maybe that meant something.

  “If you were planning to meet someone somewhere,” Cyrus said, “and they didn’t show up, what would you do?”

  “Call them.”

  “If they didn’t answer?”

  “I’d call again. If they still didn’t answer…I’d get very scared.”

  “So what would you do?”

  “Probably try to find them,” she said. “Go to their house, knock on the door, make sure they’re okay.”

  Cyrus spun on his heel.

  “Cy?”

  “Come on,” he said, waving his hand and Nora jogged after him.

  They ran all the way back to the street where Father Ike had parked his car that morning.

  “What are we doing?” Nora asked, panting, out of breath.

  Cyrus wasn’t sure. He only had a hunch. A strong hunch, but still just a hunch.

  “Remember that nosy lady who asked us about the car? Where’d she live?”

  Nora pointed to a pink house. Cyrus went up to the door and knocked.

  A woman answered. It was the same woman who’d given them the third degree about the car.

  “Yes?” she asked. “Wait. You two were here before.”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Cyrus said. “I’m a detective, I think I told you. You said something about kids messing with the car that was left on the street. Did you recognize those kids?”

  The woman wore an embarrassed expression.

  “Well, it was only one kid,” she said. “And she was mostly just standing by the car.”

  “She? A little girl?” Nora asked. “Do you know her?”

  “She lives over there in that little gray brick house. That’s her.”

  He and Nora turned at the same time toward the house. A girl was sitting on the concrete porch steps, drawing or coloring. Cyrus looked at Nora. As casually as they could, they crossed the street. They stopped on the sidewalk in front of her house.

  “Hi there,” Nora said. Her voice was painfully bright and cheerful. “Is your mom or dad home?”

  The girl shrugged. “Soon.”

  “That’s the girl,” Cyrus said under his breath. “I saw her walking by the house the morning after.”

  Nora gave him a worried look. “Are you coloring?” she asked the girl.

  The girl held up her book. It was a coloring book but not one for kids. This was the sort of coloring book adults used for personal therapy, with intricate patterns that took hours to complete—all butterflies. Those books weren’t cheap. Had someone given it to her?

  Cyrus felt something inside him shatter and the pieces cut into his gut. She couldn’t have been more than twelve years old.

  “I know you,” Cyrus said, smiling at the girl, the fakest smile he’d ever smile. “Where’s your fairy wings at?”

  “Fairy wings?” The girl looked at him, wide-eyed.

  “I saw you on Saturday walking on Annunciation. You had on fairy wings.”

  “Those aren’t fairy wings,” she said. “That’s my backpack. It’s a butterfly backpack.”

  Assume the worst, Søren had said. This was the worst.

  “I’m Cyrus,” he said. “This is Nora. We knew Father Ike. Did you know him?”

  Cyrus walked slowly to the porch, Nora at his side, still smiling. They both were, smiling like it would kill them not to smile.

  “He was chaplain at my school last year,” she said, closing her coloring book. “He died, right?”

  Nora stepped up onto the front porch first. Cyrus kept a little more distance.

  “Yes, sweetheart,” Nora said. “He died. I’m sorry.”

  Her bottom lip quivered. Nora reached out and lightly touched the girls’ shoulder.

  “What’s your name?” Nora asked her.

  “Melody.” Her voice was choked, hoarse.

  “Pretty name, Melody,” Nora said. “You and Father Ike were friends?”

  She nodded, unable to speak. Tears welled in her eyes.

  Cyrus pulled his white handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Nora. She held it out to Melody, who cautiously took it.

  “Were you going somewhere with Father Ike?” Cyrus asked. He kept his voice soft and gentle. He’d had to ask kids tough questions before. It never got easier.

  Melody wiped at her face. “I came by… He was late.”

  “Late?” Nora asked. “Late for what?”

  Melody glanced around like she was looking for a way to run, to get away from them before they made her break a
promise Father Ike had surely told her she had to keep.

  Then Nora said something to make the girl stay. “When I was fifteen, my best friend in the world was my priest. He helped me with my homework because I was terrible at math. And he gave me hot cocoa in winter. And he gave me a beautiful saint’s medal, Saint Louise. That’s my middle name. Eleanor Louise Schreiber.”

  “They’re not supposed to,” Melody whispered.

  “I know they’re not,” Nora whispered back. “But sometimes they do. And sometimes it’s kind of nice. I wore my saint’s medal all the time. But just because they break the rules sometimes, that’s not… It’s never your fault if they do that. And you’d never be in trouble for telling someone about it. Was Father Ike going to take you somewhere last Saturday?”

  “Dad promised,” Melody said. “But we haven’t seen him in months. And Mama works all weekend. I never see her either. So Father Ike, he said he’d take me to the Butterfly Dome.”

  Some prayers don’t get answered. Jesus Christ, it was a kid. Cyrus didn’t want to hear anymore. He wanted to cover his ears.

  “The Butterfly Dome sounds fun,” Nora said, her bottom lip quivering.

  “They say the butterflies will land right on you,” Melody went on. “And they have all kinds. Papilio nireus—that’s the blue-banded swallowtail. And Caligo memnon—the owl butterfly. It has big eyes on its wings. And Papilio palinurus—the emerald-banded peacock. It’s the prettiest butterfly in the world.”

  “You had your butterfly backpack on Saturday?” Nora said. “You were going to be gone for the whole day?”

  “Father Ike said I might want to swim. I should bring other clothes. It’s on an island. And Mom doesn’t get off work until ten,” she said. “We could spend all day at the Dome.”

  “You like butterflies a lot, then?” Nora said. Cyrus couldn’t even stand to hear her voice, she was trying so hard not to fall apart. He wanted to scream, to weep, to howl, to pull Ike out of the ground and then put him back in it.

  “Yeah, I love butterflies.”

  “So do I,” Nora said. “I love them, too. Butterflies are beautiful.”

  Cyrus walked away, down to the sidewalk, and quietly called Katherine. He asked her to come down, no lights, no sirens, and to bring a female detective from the special victims’ unit. One who was very good with children.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Nora sat in the rocking chair in the finished nursery, one leg curled up to her chest, one leg on the floor, foot pushing to keep the rocker rocking. They would be home soon—Juliette and Céleste and Kingsley—to see the nursery for the first time.

  Céleste would squeal, as she did when she saw anything pretty. Kingsley would nod approval though deep down, he would have preferred pink or yellow walls to the blue-green they’d settled on. Juliette would gasp in delight. Nora made sure the nursery was gasp-worthy. She would wander the room, hand on her swollen belly, and touch the ivory changing table, the ivory cradle and crib, the antique rocking chair Nora had scoured the city to find. Céleste had been a New York City baby and her nursery had been in Kingsley’s old Manhattan townhouse in a room with red wallpaper and gilt-framed mirrors. The mirror on the ceiling had been removed before Céleste’s birth, of course. They’d made it as pretty as they could, but the entire house had been an Adult-with-a-capital-A oasis and there was no more turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse than a dungeon into a daycare center.

  So they’d moved to New Orleans. A fresh start for all of them. For Kingsley, who’d made enemies in New York. For Juliette, who wanted to raise her daughter in a warmer, more welcoming city. For Søren, who was ready to teach again after years pastoring in a small Connecticut church. And for Nora, who could use some space between her and the heartbreaks of her past, which were too many to count (but rounding out the top three were Kyrie, Lance, and Wes). Of course, she was up for anything, as long as she could be with Søren. New Orleans? Why not? An old, beautiful, strange, arcane city bursting with sex and sin and jazz. What was not to like about it?

  And it didn’t hurt either that the cost of living was so much lower than New York City. Twice the house for the same price? Sign her up.

  They called New Orleans The Big Easy. Her dream city. But that evening, it didn’t feel so easy anymore.

  It felt hard. And cold. And sad.

  Nora heard the floor creak with footsteps. She turned her head and saw Søren come into the room.

  She didn’t smile at him though she wished she could. He said nothing, but walked over to her, then sat across from her on the window bench right next to the big stuffed ducky she’d put there for Céleste.

  Nora pushed off the floor again, set the rocker rocking.

  “How are you?” he asked. His tone was careful, like a single word might break her.

  “Not good.”

  He nodded. Waited. Then said, “Father Murran?”

  “Turns out he was sexually obsessed with an eleven-year-old girl named Melody,” Nora said. “He was chaplain at her middle school. He gave her butterfly stuff as gifts and promised to take her to the Butterfly Dome on Grand Isle last Saturday. Her mother works two jobs and is gone from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturdays. He had a kidnap kit in the trunk of his car. He’d been looking for someone willing to castrate him—the chastity device wasn’t doing the trick—that’s why Doc pointed him to me.”

  The room was silent for a minute or two, silent but for the squeak of the rocking chair on the floor.

  “Not as bad as I’d feared,” Søren said at last.

  “What did you think it was?”

  “That he wanted you to kill him,” Søren said. “Or be with him while he did it. I have never been so glad in my life you changed your phone number.”

  “You and me both,” she said. She pushed her foot against the floor, rocked once, then stopped. “There’s no way he was calling me to castrate him. Maybe if he’d called before he… I think he thought about it but changed his mind. I think he knew about you and me—Doc definitely knew all about us, that you’re a priest, I mean. Doc knew Isaac Murran was a priest. He told him about us, and that’s why he lied to me and Cyrus. Murran had already decided to kill himself when he called me. He had the gun, locked the doors. The only reason I can think of that he’d call me, of all people, right before committing suicide, is he wanted—”

  “Absolution,” Søren said.

  “I’m the grownup version of Melody Flores, aren’t I? We were just the same. A lonely girl with a mom working two jobs and a useless father who comes and goes and never keeps his promises. Then a priest comes along who might as well be God to her, and she trusted him with her life. Just like me. So who could absolve him but her? Or me who was just like her?” She met his eyes. “I would have told him to stop wasting my time and pull the trigger.”

  “So it comes at last,” Søren said, nodding. “I’ve been waiting for you to get angry with me. I thought it would be over Fionn. But it’s not. It’s because of us.”

  “He was going to destroy her. He had ropes in the car, handcuffs. God, he had lube.” Sickened, she bent over and put her face in hands, breathed deep and long. She sensed Søren kneeling in front of her, close to her, not touching her.

  “I never wanted to destroy you. And I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

  She raised her face, looked at him. “But you could have. If I’d been any other fifteen-year-old girl…”

  “What can I say?” he said, his voice soft. “Do you want me to defend myself? Or do you want me to say what I did to you was wrong and apologize? Tell me anything you want from me. I’ll give it to you if I can.”

  “Can you defend yourself? Is there a defense?”

  “Several. None adequate on their own. Taken together, possibly. One,” he said, holding up one finger. “You were fifteen, almost sixteen, not eleven. Two: when I offered to help you when you were arrested at fifteen, you wouldn’t agree to accepting my help unless I agreed to have sex with you. I agreed for the sole purp
ose of your cooperation, in order to save you from years wasted in juvenile detention.”

  This was all true. No denying it.

  “Then I waited over four years, until you were twenty years old, to keep my end of the bargain. I waited, hoping you would grow out of your crush on me, grow up, forget me, and move on with your life. You didn’t. So I didn’t.”

  No, she didn’t. She was more in love with him at twenty than she’d been at fifteen.

  “Three requires me to quote Ignatius Loyola—the ends sanctify the means. The means were unholy, yes, but for a holy purpose and a holy end—keeping you out of trouble and saving your life. Do you doubt for one minute if you’d gone to live with your father you would like what your life looks like right now?”

  No, she didn’t doubt it. But that wasn’t the only choice, was it?

  Søren went on when she didn’t say anything. “Was what I did wrong? Yes. Was it akin to grooming behavior?” He paused, then said, “Yes.”

  The “yes” hung in the air like the incense of a holy day—cloying, choking.

  “I admit it, Eleanor. But I ask you this—would you be here now, alive and healthy and thriving in your art and your work and your life if I hadn’t done what I did? You tell me. For my own part, I look back on what I did when you were a teenager with genuine shame. But I also can’t think of anything else that would have worked with you. You were hardly a typical teenager. You didn’t want money and you didn’t want exotic vacations or gold stickers on your report card. You wanted me. Nothing and no one else. Only someone evil and cruel would put a choke collar on a poodle puppy but on an untrained Rottweiler? Simply good sense.”

  “I did growl at you all the time, didn’t I?”

  “All the time.”

  “There is one little difference though,” Nora said. “As evil as the means were…you enjoyed it. You got off on it. You weren’t putting a choke collar on a Rottweiler because you were afraid of getting bitten. You were putting it on because it turned you on. Yeah, your method worked, but don’t get all Father Flanagan with me, Søren. You loved what you did to me. The jokes about tying me up with rope to make me behave, making me water the stick every day for six months, withholding answers to my questions until I jumped through all your hoops, whistling at me like I was a dog you had to make come to heel. It made you hard. You didn’t just do it for me. You did it for you, because you liked it.”