by Ray Flynt
“Ronald something. Young guy from Philadelphia. Allessi! That’s it. Ronald Allessi.”
The name didn’t ring a bell for Brad, and he knew most of the prominent attorneys in Philadelphia. “Probably a public defender.”
“Sure didn't act like a public defender,” the chaplain said.
“What do you mean?”
“I spent ten years as a chaplain with the county prison before I started working here,” George Haines explained over the shouts of the drunks at the bar cheering on the Celtics as they tied up the game. “I’ve seen a lot of public defenders. This guy didn't dress like any public defender I’ve ever seen.”
Brad thumbed through a few more pages of the Bible, and tried to imagine how Wilkie could afford an attorney other than a public defender. “Can you tell me what Frank talked about tonight? You know, during the time you spent with him before…” Brad let his voice trail off.
“Sure,” the chaplain replied. “It wasn’t a confessional or anything like that. Frank rambled a lot. Talked about being a kid, growing up in Philadelphia. He spent a few summers with relatives in Kentucky, and mentioned fishing in a pond out there. I asked him about Christmases when he was a child, and he said his mother always made sure that he and his brother and sister had a Christmas tree with white lights on it, even though his family wasn't very religious. I inquired about his dad, and Frank told me he never knew his father. Apparently the jerk ran out on his family when Frank was a baby.” Chaplain Haines took a sip of his beer then added, “Did you know Frank got committed to his first juvenile institution when he was nine?”
The chaplain stared at Brad, apparently trying to gauge his reaction. Brad knew Frank’s rap sheet well, including his juvenile record, and remained stoic.
“Frank was childlike tonight. No bravado. No false defiance. Guess what?” Haines said before answering his own question. “He asked me if it was going to hurt when he died.”
“What did you say?”
“I assured him it wouldn't.” George gulped his beer, and with foam stuck to his upper lip, added, “But how do I know?”
Brad recalled that Wilkie had a brother and sister, just like he did until Wilkie took his sister away from him. Maybe they would know why Wilkie had left him the Bible. “Did he talk with anyone in his family?” Brad asked, as he returned the Bible to the table.
The chaplain pursed his lips. “He didn’t have any family left. His mother died two years ago. He told me his brother was killed in a gang fight, and that his sister overdosed on heroin.”
An all-American family, Brad thought, unable to check his bitterness.
“When I asked Frank if he wanted me to contact anyone, he said just to make sure you got the Bible.”
“God, why me?” Brad muttered, hitching his fingers behind his head. After all, that’s why he had driven to this stink-hole of a bar, hoping to get some answers. He couldn’t say closure.
The chaplain shrugged, then emptied the rest of the pitcher into his glass. His third glass of the evening, Brad noted. Remembering the drive home, Brad had only finished one glass of beer and pretended to nurse a second.
Brad picked up the Bible again, opened it to Psalms, and slowly turned pages. Each page of Wilkie’s Bible was printed in two columns. Suddenly, in the margin between the columns he spotted another penciled word—sorry. Sharon had suggested Wilkie might want to apologize. At that moment Brad knew he had to get back to Philadelphia. He’d had enough of Emma’s Tavern, and he wanted answers.
Brad looked up and saw the chaplain leaning in to him and staring. Brad slammed the Bible on the table and shouted, “I don't get it, George. The guy's not content to wipe out half my family. Now he leaves me with a religious memento. What the hell is he trying to do? Rough up my conscience?”
The guys at the bar yelled for quiet. Brad noticed the bartender scowl in his direction before placating the bar jockeys by jacking up the volume on the television.
Chaplain Haines gawked at him, his eyes opened wide. “You saw the words, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Brad whispered, wary and intrigued by what the chaplain might know. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I wasn’t sure,” the chaplain explained. “Wilkie was so insistent about getting you that Bible. I thought that maybe he’d written a note. I quickly leafed through it and spotted a couple of words in the margins. No doubt he wrote them—the Bible was brand new when I gave it to him. But I don’t know what it means.”
“That makes two of us.” Brad stood, pulled a twenty out of his wallet, and tossed the bill on the table. “That’ll cover the tab. Are you stickin’ around?”
The chaplain stood and clasped Brad’s hand. “Thanks! Yes, I’m gonna stay. There'll be guys getting’ off shift soon from the prison and stopping by. I’ll have plenty of company.”
“I’d better be going,” Brad said, loosening his grip and retrieving the Bible from the table. “I have a long drive ahead of me.”
“I’ll pray for you.” The chaplain patted him on the shoulder.
I’ll need it, Brad thought. He could barely see his own hands, bathed in the orange-red neon of Emma’s sign, as he inched his way back to his car on that fog-shrouded night.
Chapter Three
Brad gradually eased his car into fifth gear, punched up a CD of Camille Saint-Saens’ Organ Symphony No. 3, and sped down the highway. The further Brad traveled from the tavern the easier he could breathe. Picturing Chaplain Haines’ and a few of his buddies unwinding at Emma’s after a day working in a State Correctional facility gave him the willies, conjuring up an oppressive picture of gloom after a day of doom.
Within twenty miles the fog had lifted—from the roads—if not Brad’s head. The dramatic crescendo of the Organ Symphony’s finale couldn’t drown out the competing thoughts swirling through his brain. Wilkie’s Bible and what information it might hold nagged at him. But he kept coming back to the question of what had lured him to the execution in the first place. Hell, he turned down hundreds of invitations a year, most of them to swankier places than the Rockview penitentiary. What made him accept Wilkie’s request? In spite of what Sharon had said, Brad knew he wouldn’t find closure. Nothing could close the black hole that had ripped through his soul when his mother and sister died. His brother Andrew, the take-charge son, had tracked Brad down in Miami Beach and broke the news of their kidnapping. The prodigal son flew home to help Andrew support their father through ransom demands, hopeful phone messages, and FBI red tape. All the while hoping for a successful reunion with their loved ones, but when their bodies were found, Brad helped support his dad through the funerals. The journey reshaped Brad’s life, creating not just a new chapter but a whole new volume on the bookshelf of his existence, sitting next to tomes labeled childhood, teen years, college, and a ten-year odyssey called finding himself. Brad knew when this current book—label it transformation—began: eleven years ago March 12th. He wondered if Wilkie’s execution was the last chapter. Had that drawn him to the death chamber at Rockview? Maybe, he thought, pushing the repeat button on the CD and jacking up the volume.
Brad’s car hugged the curves of the road as it followed the meandering flow of the Susquehanna River around the bedrock of the mountain. In the light of a partial moon Brad spotted the engine of a CSX freight train crossing a bridge heading for his side of the river. A train aficionado, he recognized the engine as General Motors, circa 1980. For half-a-mile he raced to catch up with the locomotive exceeding the posted speed by at least twenty miles per hour, but with the train barely making forty it was hardly a contest. Still, in the wee hours of the morning the competition fueled his imagination, made the trip go faster, and helped him stay awake. A few minutes later the skyline of Harrisburg, the State Capital, loomed in the distance. Amazing, he thought, how all those tax dollars made a small city look big. With two more hours to drive, Brad welcomed the sight of the Turnpike entrance. Home was a four-lane straight shot.
Brad rumbled over t
he cobblestones on the curved driveway of his Bryn Mawr mansion shortly before five a.m. Spotting lights on inside, he feared Aunt Harriet—on one of her periodic visits from New York—was afoot, maybe fixing an early morning pick-me-up in the Butler’s pantry. He stepped from the car and inhaled, savoring the fresh air. He detected the lingering odor of burnt logs from one of his neighbor’s chimneys, and noting a light breeze from the north, figured the Mackenzie’s must have had a roaring blaze in their fireplace the previous evening. Brad glanced up at the starry black heavens with Venus shining back at him near the horizon. He remembered Wilkie’s Bible and grabbed it from the passenger seat. Approaching the front door, he gingerly turned the key in the lock, hoping to tip-toe across the foyer and up the stairs to his bedroom before Harriet knew he was home.
Brad closed the door and spotted Sharon Porter waiting for him in the doorway to the kitchen, dressed in jeans, a Gap sweatshirt and flip-flops; her smiling freckled face a welcome sight after his stress-filled night.
Pointing at his watch, Brad said, “What are you doing up so early?”
“I got your message—sorry I didn’t answer, but Mark and I were at that new Jazz Café over by the mall. I figured you’d be home about now and might want some company. I set my alarm.”
He felt a tear well in his eye, a delayed reaction after a night of dreary reflection. “I’m glad… you did,” he said, the words momentarily catching in his throat.
Sharon was the right arm in his detective business, having joined the agency three years earlier. His equal in analytical ability and detection skills—though he seldom admitted that to her. Nick Argostino, a Philadelphia police detective and Brad’s mentor, had urged him to hire Sharon. Her father, a detective who worked for Nick, had taken his own life. Sharon had lived with her father and needed a place to stay and a chance to rebuild her life after the tragedy. Nick suggested letting her stay in the apartment above the garage once used by his family’s live-in groundskeeper. In the early days of his detective agency, the apartment had functioned as his office, where he and Nick had many meetings. Brad reluctantly acceded to Nick’s request, but had no regrets.
Sharon was also a hugger. She ran over and threw her arms around him. “Oh, Brad, I watched the news reports. I’m sorry.” As she squeezed tight, he realized that Sharon had gradually become family, like the sister he no longer had.
She pushed him back and wrinkled up her nose. “You stink!”
“Yeah, it’s great to be home, thanks!” Brad sniffed at the shoulder of his jacket as remnants of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and burnt popcorn leeched from the fabric. “Jeez, I smell like a skid row bar,” he said, surprised he hadn’t noticed earlier.
Sharon nodded. “Where have you been?”
“Come here.” Brad ignored her question; he could regale her with tales of Emma’s later, and beckoned her over to the kitchen counter where he opened Wilkie’s Bible. In the quiet of his kitchen Brad noticed the cracking sound of the book’s spine as he opened it to Psalms, and flipped through pages until he found the word sorry. Handing it to Sharon, he said, “Take a look at this. In another place, I can’t remember exactly, I found the word eddie. I’m gonna go grab a shower and change clothes. See what else you can find.”
“I made coffee,” Sharon shouted after him as he took the steps on the curved staircase in the foyer two at a time.
“Thanks,” Brad called back, adding, “I knew there was a reason I hired you.”
Twenty minutes later, in fresh clothes and smelling much more agreeable, Brad found Sharon sitting in the breakfast nook. She was thumbing through the pages of the Bible with her left hand, while a pencil in her right hand hovered over a tablet. He poured himself a fresh cup, and waved the half-full pot in front of her.
“In a minute.” She looked up. “I’ve found fifteen words so far. I’m in the Book of Thessalonians. Oh, here’s the word eddie.” Sharon made a notation on the tablet.
She continued, “I found another reference to Eddie back in… let’s see, here it is—actually two words—and eddie in Ezekiel. The printing’s in pencil, so it’s kinda hard to make out, and I’d take long odds that Wilkie never won any prizes for penmanship.”
Brad stared at the list over Sharon’s shoulder. Sharon had numbered each word in the order in which she had found it in the Bible, along with the page number from the Bible. The word sorry appeared once, while a variation of kill made the list three times so far. “It doesn’t look like an apology to me.”
Sharon flashed him a hold your horses look, pulled the paper closer, and blocked his view with her arm.
“Here’s another word, get in the Book of Ephesians,” she announced. “You sure the Chaplain had no idea what this was all about?”
Brad shook his head. “He convinced me he didn’t. I wouldn’t want to play poker with him if he did.” Brad slid into the seat across from her and took a long, grateful sip of the dark brew.
“Here’s Revelations,” Sharon said, poking the page with her finger.
“Wilkie went to a lot of trouble to send me a message,” Brad said, trying to act calm as Sharon neared the end of the Bible. “Maybe it has something to do with the prison.”
“I found another one.” Sharon jotted the number 18 on her pad and next to it the word real, and the Bible’s page number 1159. She turned the remaining pages, then announced, “That’s all of them.”
Sharon turned the notepad sideways so they both could study the list, and Brad hitched his fingers together behind his head and leaned forward.
big
i
talked
paid
sorry
killed
and eddie
not
he
kill
find
money
guy
killer
me
eddie
get
real
Brad read the words aloud in order, then read them backwards. Wilkie had kept the words simple, most one syllable. Brad looked at Sharon and asked, “Can you make any sense out of this?” But he could see by her blank expression that the message was a mystery to her too.
“Eighteen words,” Brad muttered to himself.
“That’s like a bazillion possible combinations,” Sharon said. “Maybe a few less if you apply the rules of grammar.”
Grammar? Brad looked quizzically across the table. Yes, there were too many combinations, with or without grammar... eighteen times seventeen times sixteen times... like Sharon said a bazillion of them. His spirits sank, and for the first time during the long night exhaustion overcame him. Brad felt a headache forming behind his forehead. Outside he noticed the glimmer of first light.
“My answer is in the last two words, ‘get real’,” Sharon said, and then in a move that startled Brad she picked up the Bible, held it upside down, and fanned through the pages.
“What are you doing?” Brad asked.
“I thought maybe he left some kind of a key.”
“Of course!” Brad pounded the table with his fist, startling Sharon. He suddenly remembered the paper that Superintendent Dolewski retrieved from the floor of the execution chamber. It must have fallen out of Wilkie’s Bible, and would be the key to Wilkie’s message. Brad described the scene for Sharon, adding, “I’ll call Dolewski tomorrow.” Brad glanced at his watch and corrected himself, “I mean later today.”
Chapter Four
“Good morning, Aunt Harriet.”
Brad waved to his aunt from the marble tiled foyer, intending to offer a quick greeting before getting on with his work. The silver-haired dowager of the Frame family—Harriet Frame Beecham, his dad’s younger sister—commanded attention, whether holding court with her neighbors in New York’s Gramercy Park or selecting salmon fillets at the South Street market. Like an ocean liner steaming for port, the sleek and fast boats knew to steer clear of her wake, and Brad was no exception.
“Oh, Bradford,�
� Harriet cooed, easing herself up from the drawing room sofa, “I didn’t hear you coming. Last night must have been horrid for you. I was just reading about the execution in the paper. You poor dear.” He stopped near the archway to drawing room. She looked regal in her navy blue suit, white blouse and trademark pearl earrings, he thought, as she chugged in his direction, brandishing a copy of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Harriet planted a peck on his cheek then shoved the newspaper into his hands. “You’ll want to read this.” Brad tucked the Inquirer under his arm, figuring that as an eyewitness he needn’t read a second-hand account.
Aunt Harriet aimed her finger at him. “Bradford, this mansion is a mausoleum! You've got to pump some life back into it.”
“It's good to see you so peppy this morning.” He laughed, and gave her a quick hug to placate her. Remembering he’d only had two hours of sleep, he added, “Did you rest well?”
“Don’t change the subject,” she scolded. “You need to find a woman who can make this place over.” Harriet made a sweeping gesture with her arm and groaned. “All this cut velvet fabric on the sofas, the gold color, and the worn, faded rugs. It looks like Lyndon and Lady Bird just moved out.”
Brad forced a smile. He tried to think of a rejoinder, when Sharon rushed in carrying a newspaper. “You might want to take a look at this,” she said, handing him a second copy of the Inquirer. Sharon had piqued his curiosity, but the musings of the fourth estate would have to wait; her newspaper joined his aunt’s under his arm.
“Hold that thought, Aunt Harriet,” Brad said, gesturing with his open palm, “I need to confer with Sharon.”
Brad guided Sharon toward the middle of the foyer and in hushed tones asked, “Any messages? I phoned Superintendent Dolewski’s office early this morning and asked that he call me.”
Sharon shook her head. “Nothing yet. But I’m heading over there now. I’ll let you know if he calls.”
