Sins of the Fathers

by S Gepp

  "You're my lawyer?" Troy whispered, his voice hoarse and dry.

  "When I heard about it, I rang your wife—Ellen, isn't it?—and volunteered to work pro bono for you," he stated as he pulled a manila folder out of his crisp, clean briefcase, then a yellow pad, and finally a plastic sleeve. "It's odd," he said disinterestedly. "We don't have contact for twenty years and now twice in two days. Father Leckie would have said the hand of God was involved."

  "The hand of something," Troy returned. "Yeah, something…"

  Francis made a note on his pad and contemplated it. This was not the same man he'd gone to high school with. This man was defeated and had been for a long time. It was in his eyes and drawn face, in the sagging flesh of his cheeks, in the red eyes. None of this was new, and if he could see it, then a jury would also surely see it and judge him against it.

  "Why did you do it?" Francis asked suddenly.

  Troy stared back at him blankly before slowly but firmly shaking his head. "I didn't," was all he said, his voice so incredibly quiet.

  Their eyes met. A truth was shared, a truth that made Troy out to be a liar right here, right now.

  Francis sighed and opened the folder. He shoved the top photograph across the table and watched as Troy flinched away from the image, recoiling as though he had been shot but unable to take his eyes off the scene of blood-soaked death it depicted. He stretched a shaking hand towards it, but the chains prevented him from reaching it. Instead, he closed his eyes and turned his head, shaking it as the tears built up under his eyelids.

  "What happened?" Francis asked without emotion.

  "I don't know," Troy managed.

  "Hell, mate," Francis groaned in exasperation. "It does not look good. Your prints and your son's were the only ones on the murder weapon, you were covered with his blood, you had a blood alcohol reading of point three. Point three! Six times the legal driving limit! Christ, Troy, how much had you had to drink?"

  "A few cans last night, some wines after the funeral, a couple of Scotches when I got home."

  "Nine cans of beer, seven glasses of wine, two full bottles of Scotch, plus the rest Ellen didn't know about," Francis stated coldly.

  "A bit, then, I guess," he murmured finally, his words edged with depression.

  "And then there's this." Francis slid the plastic sleeve across the table. Troy gazed at it and winced. It was the police report from thirteen months earlier. Drunk again, he had gone to the back room, forgetting in his haze that it had recently been given to Sam as his bedroom, and so he had thrown Sam out of the bed, splitting open the boy's forehead, the wound requiring eleven stitches to close.

  Troy could not say anything.

  Francis leaned back on his chair. "Look, mate, I don't want to bring you down, but you're fucked," he stated simply. "Seven puncture wounds to the heart. Man, this is bad."

  Troy just stared back at him, the tears finally breaking free and flowing down his face without restraint. "I di…didn't…didn't do…do it," he hiccoughed pathetically.

  Francis dropped his voice low. "We both know you're capable of…"

  "It wasn't me!" he screeched.

  "Tell me everything that happened then. Do not leave a single thing out." Francis moved his body forward again, pen poised. "Everything," he emphasized.

  Troy closed his eyes and dragged Francis back to a time so recent, yet one he really wanted to forget but knew he never could.

  1990

  Lord Acton said that power corrupts. Unfortunately for most, this realization does not come until it is too late.

  Francis grabbed Brandon by the arm and dragged him into the boys' bathroom. Before his friend could say anything, he clamped a hand over his mouth and dragged him to the far wall. "Have a look," he whispered, pointing at the window.

  Brandon smiled. The other side of the wall was the hastily constructed and poorly designed girls' bathroom, built when the school started to admit female students in the final two years of secondary schooling, just over a decade earlier, and thanks to a poorly placed mirror array, any girls not in a stall—normally those getting changed for whatever reason—were fair game to their male peers who knew about this anomaly.

  Brandon carefully climbed onto the rim of the garbage bin, balanced there for a few moments, then lifted himself, hoping beyond all hope it would be the stunningly beautiful Chelsea Hartog changing into—or better yet, out of—her tennis uniform. Instead, what he saw very nearly made him fall off his makeshift pedestal.

  He was visibly shaking when Francis finally managed to get him outside.

  "That was… That was…"

  "Yeah, it was," Francis smiled. "I don't know the boy he was with…"

  "I do. He's a couple of years younger than us." Brandon's face finally creased into a slight smile. "That's not good," he mused, the grin widening with each word.

  "Our school captain in a…well…a clinch with a younger boy?" Francis pondered this briefly. "Not good for him, maybe. But us? Oh yeah, it's very good." He laughed out loud. "Come on, we need to tell the others."

  "And then we'll have a discussion with a younger student about his future at the school," Brandon added with a self-satisfied nod.

  Knowledge is indeed power, and these two had just had another tiny taste of the power they felt they had been denied for so long and now craved. Desperately.

  Chapter Four

  2012

  Francis's hand shook a little as he downed his neat bourbon in one gulp. Too many bad memories had surfaced in the past week, painful memories of a youth that should have been perfect, and so soon after the anniversary. A stupid, youthful indiscretion…

  Hang on. Youthful indiscretion? Was that how he was justifying the horrific action they had performed? It was terrible, and the fact they had all simply got on with their lives afterward was something for which they would never be forgiven, at least by themselves. He had gone back—as he did every year—less than two weeks earlier, and now it was all being hurled back in his face like a vicious slap.

  He held up a finger, and the middle-aged man behind the bar nodded. "Make it three," said a voice from Francis's left. He looked sideways curiously and felt the smile break across his face before the emotion registered.

  Julian and Luke sat down beside him, two men he had been estranged from for two decades, but who he was very glad to see now…even if they were part of that terrible memory that was always there, digging at him with guilt-tinged fingers. "Hey, guys," he said, his voice cracking more than he would have expected. "Good to see you here."

  "Yeah, you, too, mate," Julian smiled, offering his hand. The shake was firm and enthusiastic, the years falling away far more easily than they had at the funeral a few days earlier.

  "Look, no offense, but you look like shit," Luke stated as he also took the lawyer's offered hand.

  "Yeah, I know." The barman placed the drinks in front of them all and took the money from Julian. "But look…thanks for coming, guys." He looked past them. "Any idea where the others are?"

  "Brandon's on his way. He offered to get hold of Randy, uh, Randolph. I don't know about Troy." Julian looked down at his drink and grimaced. "I didn't feel right calling Sean. The wife and I are catching up with him and his missus tomorrow night, just for a catch-up, introduction, whatever, but Simon's death has really hit him hard."

  "Sean? Yeah, I saw him this arvo." Brandon's voice made them jump as he dragged a chair over to them. "He's going real bad. Sorry. Oh, and hi," he finished with an embarrassed grin.

  "Hey, everyone. What's up?" Randolph entered, the only one of the five not dressed in a shirt and tie. He leaned against the bar and stared at everyone else. "Fuck, what's up with you lot?" he stated.

  "It's Sean. What do you think we…" Brandon started.

  Francis was shaking his head, then stood. "Let's move," he muttered. "Somewhere less public."

  "Hang on, what about Troy? I know he's always late, but shouldn't we at least wait?" Julian asked curiously. Luke n
odded his agreement.

  "Not an issue," Francis mumbled.

  "Come on," Luke sighed, shaking his head.

  Francis grimaced, then nodded at the barman, who returned the gesture. Without saying a word, Francis led them to a room off to one side where a low table was surrounded by comfortable chairs, which they took up slowly and with some confusion. Moments later, a young waitress appeared with a tray of finger food and two pitchers of beer, a second one following behind with plates and glasses. Francis offered them a smile as they left, closing the door behind them.

  "This is all very serious," Randolph smiled as he took a small pie. "Someone else died?"

  "Yes."

  Randolph stopped in mid-bite while Brandon's arm jerked, spilling beer across the table.

  "What?" Luke hissed.

  Francis let out a long sigh but said nothing. Julian grunted and pulled a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. They all watched as he tapped one out and lit it, then inhaled deeply. The smoke curled up to the extraction fan and disappeared, everyone staring in mute fascination, glad to be distracted, even momentarily.

  When Francis continued, it was reluctantly. 'Troy's been arrested. He's in the Remand Center in town. It'll be in tomorrow's papers, I'm sure. It somehow didn't make the TV news tonight, but I reckon by now it'll be all over the Net."

  There was a long pause. "Shit, what'd he do?" Luke eventually croaked.

  Francis watched Julian take a draw on his cigarette, breathing out the plume through his nose this time. "It appears he got drunk and…" Francis swallowed hard, his mouth drying up quickly, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth uncomfortably. "The police say he killed his son," he finally finished.

  Stunned silence greeted the statement. Julian's cigarette hung limp. Drinks remained untouched. Eyes were dropped or averted. "What… What happened?" Luke finally asked.

  "He stabbed the kid. In the chest. Seven times."

  The others finally exchanged glances. "But… But why?" Brandon managed.

  Francis shook his head and shrugged. "He claims he didn't even do it." Brandon slid a beer in front of him. "I'm representing him, and I've known him for years, and even I don't believe him."

  "Yeah, but, we know why…" Randolph muttered quietly.

  "Before the funeral the other day, I hadn't seen him since he dropped out of uni," Luke said quickly. "I hardly recognized him."

  "I kept in touch for a little while," Julian said. "But, you know, shit happens."

  "Why did he just drop out of everything?" Brandon piped up. "I never understood that."

  "We dropped out. Remember?" Randolph stated blandly.

  "But you got an apprenticeship, then a good job," Francis said. "Troy just got stuck at a shipping company doing inventory on a computer."

  "And drinking," Julian added. "Like I said, I kept in touch for a few years, but he drank so much, even back then. Even after Sam was born…" His voice trailed off as he realized what he'd been talking about. "Sam. Little Sammy," he muttered. "For fuck's sake, I was at his christening."

  "He had his kids christened?" Randolph asked. "Even after…"

  They were all aware just what he was referring to, and they were all glad he stopped himself. That had been the real reason why Troy and Randolph had dropped out of university, no matter what other excuses they may have convinced themselves of. It had been why Luke had changed his course to a teaching degree, why Brandon had taken a gap year in the middle of his journalism studies, and why Sean had transferred to a different university to finish his accounting degree. Only Francis's law aspirations and Julian's physics studies—which had eventually led to a Ph.D.—seemed to have been unaffected, but it was obvious that that was how those two had coped: by dedicating themselves whole-heartedly to their studies, blocking out the real world they had so appallingly affronted.

  Francis broke the ensuing silence, and that memory they were all trying so hard to shove back into the dark recesses of their minds was brought starkly to the fore. "That's just it," Francis murmured. "He said he had a vision of…of her right before he found Sam. And then he held Sam as he died. It took twenty-one years, but what he did, what he started, it finally got all too much for him."

  No-one could respond. The past would not let them speak. It had them in its thrall, and it was not about to let go, especially now that it had forced itself back into their lives.

  1991

  One of the figures reached under the drab-colored robe it wore and pulled out a knife, long and thin, the clean, sharp blade catching the glow of the flickering flames, giving it an orange sheen, the appearance of internal heat, a weapon forged of the very elements themselves.

  A second followed suit, then a third, a fourth, two at the same time.

  The final paused before slowly, with apparent reluctance, falling into line, with head still bowed.

  Seven knives.

  "We can't do this."

  A whispered voice, floating on the air, coming from seemingly out of nowhere.

  "It's too late now." A returning voice, hoarse with emotion.

  "No, it's not." The first voice was a little more confident.

  "This is for us, remember. For what we desire most in the world." A third voice, the dominant sense coming through the words one of anger.

  "How can it work?" Still, that terrified but dissenting first voice wanted to resist.

  "Because it has worked already." A different, slightly higher pitched voice. All heads turned in the direction of the one who had been at the rear. There was no real answer to that, not one they felt they could make.

  There was no answer to what was seen as the truth.

  Chapter Five

  2012

  "You okay, dad?"

  Francis poked his head into the front room of his house and looked at his son, hunched over the computer, books scattered and open on a folding table he had set up beside his chair. The eyes that stared at Francis from under a floppy fringe of black hair were a mirror of his own, something he had never really grown used to. "Sure. Why?" he asked with a forced smile.

  The young man leaned back in his chair in a pose Francis's secretary would have recognized immediately. "Well, you're out late on a work night, you fumbled with your keys coming into the front door, and your clothes are a bit of a mess." His mouth curved into a mischievous grin. "And would I be able to smell alcohol on your breath if I came close enough?"

  Francis held his hands up. "Guilty as charged, your honor," he said, and they both tittered at an old, old shared joke. "Regular Sherlock Holmes, aren't we? Sure you won't try to get into law next year instead of psychology?" Francis smirked.

  "Nice try at changing the subject," the youngster stated. "There's only so many ways I'm following in your footsteps, and law's not one of them."

  "But I was never school captain," Francis corrected. "And was definitely never on the football team."

  "And I won't be Dux of the school, but that's by the by, and you know it." He folded his arms across his broad chest. "So, what's wrong, dad?"

  Francis sighed and leaned against the door frame. Since he and Kellianne had divorced, his relationship with his son had slowly changed from the standard parent–child form he had 'enjoyed' with his own father to one more akin to friendship, so much so that at age fifteen the young man had opted to shift from his mother's home to his father's, leaving his younger brother and sister behind. Francis had subsequently gained the distinct impression that his daughter had been discouraged from following suit by her eldest brother, but he would never say anything. There was no way he wanted to lose what they had over something he could not be sure of.

  "Dad?"

  "Sorry, Nathan," he muttered. "Lost in my thoughts."

  "Yeah, something's wrong. Spill." His words might have been a little flippant, but the tone of his voice and facial expression were scarily adult.

  "I think I've got another funeral," he mumbled. "The son of another friend."

  "Two?" There wa
s more concern in his son's voice than Francis had been prepared for.

  "Afraid so." Francis pushed himself away from the wall. "It's not good, either."

  "Another old high school friend? Those guys you haven't seen in, like, twenty years?" Nathan leaned forward. "Dad, is something going on?"

  "Coincidence," Francis said quickly. He was about to explain himself when the opening bars of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" came from his pocket. He pulled his phone out and could not hide his surprise at the name on the screen.

  "Who is it?" Nathan asked.

  "Sandra." Francis continued to stare at the screen. "What's she calling me at this hour for?"

  "Probably a client in trouble," his son suggested as the music sounded again. The young man knew the efficient and officious Sandra all too well; her hiring had been the straw that had broken the back of his parents' marriage. He still found himself wondering if it would have come to a head like it had if his mum had known Sandra's actual sexual preference. But his mum had seemed to have been searching for "the other woman" for as long as Nathan could remember, and so he supposed that Sandra had just been convenient.

  Francis finally took the call. "Hey, Sandra, what's…" All color drained from Francis's face. "Th-thanks," he managed. "No, no, tell her I'll go down." He winced. "Now, yeah, right away, right. Thanks, Sandra. And… yeah. Thanks." He disconnected and stared at it as if it had suddenly bitten him.

  "Dad, you look like you're about to throw up." Nathan was at his side before he had even noticed that the young man was moving.

  Francis looked at him and shook his head slowly. "No, I don't think I will," he muttered. "But… It's my friend Troy, the one who… Shit. He's… he's… Shit, Nathan, he's dead."

  1990

  Troy sniffed at the air and wrinkled his nose. The atmosphere felt dry, and the odor of mildew hung like an invisible cloud over everything. He shuddered a little and glared at Julian. "Tell me again what we're doing in here," he whispered curtly.