Gabriel: A thriller (Standalone within the Divinus Pueri series)

by Tracie Podger

  I stumbled as I tried to put it all in order, as I tried to recall the exact words spoken by everyone.

  “Everything happened so fast, and when Zachary came in, my focus was on Taylor. He held her in his arms,” I said, hoping that would explain some of my confusion.

  “Let’s get to Zachary.” He consulted his notes. “Broken nose, fractures to the right cheek and eye socket. Severe bruising to the back of the knees, most likely hit from behind…” He paused and looked at me, clearly letting me know that he knew there was someone else in that barn. “That’s some punch you have there.”

  “He’s involved, I know it. Why would he have my daughter?”

  “He said that he was looking for you, he had information. He heard a commotion and thought it safer to keep hold of your daughter.”

  “No way, absolutely no way. My mom knew what to do; the barn isn’t close enough to the house for him to hear a conversation because that’s all that was going on when he walked in. He has to be involved.”

  “He is involved, just not in the way you believe him to be.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” I was getting annoyed, both with myself, and Mich.

  “I’m not at liberty to say at the moment, as I said, this isn’t a formal interview.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, my head is fucked up enough.” The minute the words left my mouth I knew I’d made a mistake.

  “And therein lies the problem, Gabriel,” he said, quietly.

  “That’s not what I meant. My wife was killed by Syd, you believe that, right?”

  He stared at me. “Your wife was killed by an unknown assailant. There is nothing to place Syd at your house that day. Your daughter is too young to be a credible witness and one who has changed what she remembers.”

  “But we had intruders, Thomas can verify that, and Syd was sitting outside, in a patrol car.”

  “Awake? Asleep? It’s odd, I grant you that, but it’s not evidence enough.”

  He sighed and leaned forward to gather the photographs and papers, which he placed back in his folder. He reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve a pack of cigarettes, shaking one loose before offering me the pack.

  “Look, Gabriel, it doesn’t take a fucking genius to figure things out, but what will hold up in court is a whole different ball game to what we have here. Was Syd your wife’s murderer? Probably. And at the end of the day, we have two witnesses that saw him kill the woman. Your father confesses to wrestling the gun from him…” He paused and raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Then shooting him. I’m not even going to go down the, ‘shooting an unarmed man straight between the eyes is not a shot made from fear or defense,’ right now.”

  “Lucky shot?”

  “Damn fine lucky shot.”

  “Sydney Cooper, not his real name, came to this town just a few months before your wife was killed. Your sheriff will most likely lose his position for not doing enough thorough checks. And before you ask, no, he didn’t come from Richford, but from a small town in New York State, near Auburn.”

  “So he has to be involved, he has to be a member of that cult, that’s got to be where the convent is, isn’t it?”

  “Being a member of a cult isn’t against the law. And yes, it is where the convent was. It was closed down many years ago.”

  I ran my hands over my face. “So what’s real? Of all the stuff I know, what the fuck is real?”

  “That’s what we are trying to determine. Gabriel, there was no Sister Anna registered at that convent. There was no one with the name Sierra…”

  I cut him off. “Savannah, Lily said her name was Savannah.”

  “There was no child with the surname, Preston. But, before you say it, that doesn’t mean she didn’t exist there. The convent burned down, maybe that was a convenient way to get rid of records. Who knows? This is the problem; we know what went on, we’ve been investigating the connection between Father Samuel and the convent. We know he was defrocked, we know of the abuse at the cult.”

  “Then you have to believe what I’ve told you,” I said. Desperation crept into my voice.

  “I do, honestly, I do. I’m on your side here, but without any hard evidence, our hands are tied. Getting those involved to talk is proving to be a problem.”

  “Why can’t you just arrest him?”

  “Because without testimony, or a confession, I don’t stand a chance in hell of bringing it to court.”

  I physically deflated. I felt my body sag, the breath leave my lungs, the tension I’d held for so long leave, and not because it was over, because I was beaten, we all were.

  “So where does that leave me, leave Taylor?”

  “Assuming Zachary doesn’t press charges, which I doubt he will, my advice to you would be to leave town. You’re not a suspect in the shooting, but we know someone else was there that night. I could charge you for withholding evidence, but I think we have greater things to worry about right now.”

  “You’d just let me leave?”

  “I’d ask you to stay in contact, and I have no doubt you’d want to know how this investigation progresses.”

  “Where would I go?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Gabriel, I personally believe there is a threat to you and your daughter, but not enough to put you in any kind of program, because you’re not a witness to a crime that warrants that. If you choose to stay, I have no doubt you’d be able to ‘defend’ yourself, and I’ll make sure the sheriff can make arrangements. Until I have something to go on, my hands are tied.”

  “But they want my daughter.”

  “So you say, and until there is an attempt to kidnap her, no crime has been committed. I can’t even decide on the level of risk until I have more facts.”

  “So, I’m fucked then, really. My daughter is fucked. You want me to help you, but I get nothing in return?”

  “Go talk to your dad, Gabriel. I will tell you this one thing; his records are classified. Ask him why. You might find you have all the protection you need.”

  “And my brother was not involved?” I asked.

  “Not in the way you believe. He is helping us with our continued investigations, I think is the official line.”

  “What are you going to do about the fake feds? They’re cult members.” For some reason, I didn’t want to tell them Midley was not only Lily’s half brother, but also the father of her child. She’d had enough abuse throughout her life, what good would it do now to disclose that?

  “It’s an offence to masquerade as a federal agent, for sure. Is it one we’d spend money and time investigating? Like I keep saying, Gabriel, as much as you have a whole load of useless knowledge, so do we. If we can arrest them for something that will result in a decent prison sentence, then we will.”

  “And yet you said you’ve been investigating this cult for a while.” I shook my head as I spoke.

  I didn’t know what to do, what more I could say to convince them my daughter was in danger. They had Sierra’s letter, they had the statements Sister Anna sent, but it didn’t seem to be enough.

  “Can I get my gun back?” I asked.

  “No, it’s part of the investigation. I need to determine how Sydney came to have it.”

  “Lily didn’t take it,” I said.

  “Then who did?”

  “Syd.”

  “How?”

  I shrugged my shoulders and rose. “He had a key, he must have taken it. I don’t know what more I can tell you, to convince you. I just need to be with my daughter right now.”

  He stood and walked with me to the entrance of the police station. We stepped outside to see Thomas leaning against his car; he looked as dejected as I felt.

  “Be safe, Gabriel,” he said and then nodded at Thomas.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and called my dad. I needed to know he had gone to my house and not his own. I wanted some peace and quiet. I wanted to sit in the dark and not think. I wanted to sleep.

  Once I’d re
ceived the confirmation I needed, I patted Thomas on the chest and without a word, walked home. The sun shone, a neighbor waved, life went on as if nothing had happened: as if I hadn’t witnessed a murder, been covered in blood, and beaten my brother to a pulp.

  I found Dad changing the locks on the front door, he handed me a new key as I took the steps up to join him. In all the drama, I’d completely forgotten about telling anyone we had a locksmith coming.

  “Window’s fixed, all new locks, and I’m about to do something with that back door,” he said.

  “We need to talk,” I replied, as I walked into the cool hallway.

  “Daddy! You’re home,” Taylor squealed. She seemed none the worse for her brief stay in hospital.

  I picked her up and hugged her tight. I’d made many mistakes over the past few days, few months even. I’d let rage get the better of me in that barn, instead of leaving with my daughter; I’d beaten the shit out of someone who could be innocent.

  I carried her through to the yard, Dad followed. I placed her to the ground and she skipped off. I sat at the small metal garden table. I reached forward to the pack of cigarettes that had been left there.

  “I haven’t a clue what’s going on anymore. I don’t know who’s lying and who’s telling the truth,” I said. My voice hitched as sadness and tiredness washed over me.

  “We need to sit down and evaluate what we know, Gabe. What we know for fact. Why don’t you get a couple of hours sleep, I’ll watch her.”

  “I can’t. I close my eyes and I see it all. I see the blood, the tears, and the fear. I smell it. I can’t get rid of the fucking smell from my body, from my mind.”

  “What happened at the station?”

  “Not much, I told them what happened, they gave me some snippets in return. I don’t know what they believe right now, other than they don’t have enough to charge anyone who isn’t already dead. And talking of that…Sam?”

  “How about a coffee first?” Dad said.

  Was that a delay tactic? I didn’t really care, I guessed. How much more information could I absorb before it all finally tipped me over the edge?

  I made my way to the kitchen and turned on the coffee machine. I rested my back against the counter and looked around. Sierra had loved this room. It was bright and airy, the walls were painted a soft yellow and one housed pictures and paintings Taylor had done. It was meant to be homey, bright, and cheerful. The total opposite to how it felt then.

  I knew at that moment I would sell the house quickly. I’d take the first offer. There were just too many memories, too many incidents, for me to ever feel happy here again. When the coffee was brewed, I poured two mugs and took them out to where Dad still sat.

  “Is Mom okay?” I asked.

  “Sort of, she just needs a little time to process.”

  “She blame me for beating Zach?”

  His silence was all I needed as an answer.

  “She’s overwhelmed, Gabe, give her a little time.”

  “She’s overwhelmed!”

  “She’s torn. She’s nursing Zachary and she’s terrified for you, I’m sure. She’s never seen you fight, Son, she’s never been around that level of violence. Just give her time.”

  “Back to Sam,” I said.

  Dad leaned back in his chair and studied me. “Sam was in Vietnam with me. We weren’t delisted as soon as we returned home, Gabe. We still had to serve our time. The army did some pretty bad stuff back then, experimental shit that left a lot of our boys fucked up. Sam…” he sighed. “Sam doesn’t exist, Gabriel. He died on the battlefield.”

  “Come again?”

  I could see he was trying to come up with the right words, he glanced over my head, pursed his lips before he spoke again.

  “Sam was part of a program, a military program. It affected him greatly.”

  “Let me guess, he’s Jason Bourne?” Although I hadn’t wanted to make a joke of what I was being told, it all seemed too unreal for me.

  “Watch your smart mouth, Son. You have no idea what most of those soldiers went through, what shit the government did to them to make them the fighting machines they needed.”

  Even at nearing thirty-years-old, my father’s rebuke stung a little.

  “I’m sorry, I’m just…”

  “I know, but you asked the question, let me answer. So, Sam was supposed to be an ultimate fighting machine, drugged up and full of aggression. We were losing that war long before we actually lost it. When it was all over, when we were finally able to leave, he disappeared. He turned up on my doorstep a couple of years later. I didn’t know where he’d been, I never asked. But he needed my help and I gave it. Obviously, Gabriel, he can’t risk being interviewed by anyone, let alone the FBI. As I said, he doesn’t exist.”

  “And you? Do you exist? Your war records are classified.” I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer.

  “No, don’t answer that. Sierra, or Savannah, Lily, Sister Anna, no one exists in the way I believed them to. I can’t take knowing that’s the same for you,” I added.

  My world had been turned on its head. My wife wasn’t who I had thought she was, or was she? Did it matter that she had changed her name? I tried to focus on the woman I’d spent just over five years with. It wasn’t long enough, no amount of time would have been long enough, but I had to get back to that. I had to focus on the good times, the times she loved me, the times she gave herself to me; the times she sang our daughter to sleep, and the times she’d cried or we’d fought. I needed to find a way to erase the past months.

  I sat and watched my daughter play, she was making something, a daisy chain perhaps. She gently sang to herself as she threaded small flowers through stalks. I wanted to capture and hold on to those precious few seconds of watching her. I wanted to believe that life was normal. A tear leaked from one eye.

  “I’ll get back to those window locks,” Dad said, giving me some space, I imagined. I simply nodded.

  It was a half hour or so later that the first friendly face I’d seen in days walked around the corner of the house.

  Trina stepped up to me; she cupped my face in her hands and kissed my cheek.

  “Hey, how are you doing?” she asked.

  “Not good.”

  Trina had called me a couple of times, as had Jake. In fact half the townsfolk had enquired after Taylor’s illness.

  “If you want to tell me, I’m here for you.”

  “I can’t Trina, not right now. Something’s going on, and I don’t want to involve anyone just yet.” I was too frightened to involve anyone knowing what the consequence of that could be.

  She nodded her head. “Want me to take her a while? You look like you could do with some sleep.”

  I shook my head. “Well, at least go and lay down for an hour. I’ll sit with her. Your dad’s here, I’m sure we’ll be just fine,” she said.

  “Let me just sit here for a minute and doze. I can’t go to sleep and relive it all in my dreams.”

  She patted my shoulder and left to sit with Taylor. I closed my eyes and slid down in my chair and placed my feet on the table.

  “We’ve got some storms rolling in,” Thomas said, as I opened the front door to him.

  We hadn’t spoken since I’d left the station three days ago. We’d barely spoken during the time Taylor was hospitalized. It had been three days of hell. Three days of not knowing what was going on, of quiet, and the quiet had me worried.

  “Shift over?” I said as I let him in. He was out of uniform.

  “For a while, suspended.”

  “Aw, fuck, I’m sorry,” I said.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “How is she?” he asked.

  “Asleep, for now. Her nightmares have returned.”

  I grabbed two beers from the fridge and we sat at the kitchen table.

  “So, what happened then?” I asked.

  “Some bullshit about not doing checks. Which I did, I can only dig so far and when I’m given fake fucking ID, there’s not much
else I can do but take it at face value,” he said.

  “Syd?”

  “Yeah, Syd. A dead deputy who may, or may not, be a member of a cult was an embarrassment to the force, so I was told.”

  “Or may not be?”

  “I’m as in the dark as you, Gabe. All I know is they don’t have enough evidence to blow the cult open and the deaths of the children can be easily explained.”

  “How?”

  “One was a vehicle accident, another an industrial accident. There is only one that’s questionable and he was found in an alley frequented by prostitutes and drug dealers.”

  “Anything on the fake feds? At least we still have them, and Father Samuel, of course.”

  He shook his head. “Not a thing, they’ve disappeared.”

  “So we’re back to waiting then,” I said.

  “Or it’s over.”

  “No, it’s not over, Tom. Not by a long shot.”

  “Heard anything from your brother?” he asked.

  “No, he left the hospital and Mom is taking care of him. She hasn’t spoken to me since it happened, won’t return my calls either.”

  “I don’t understand that. Whatever capacity he’s involved, you can’t be blamed for what you did, for making a mistake.”

  “Do you think I made a mistake?”

  “I just don’t know, Gabe.”

  It seemed I was losing the support of those that I trusted, of those closest to me. It was an isolating feeling and made me lonelier than I had before.

  “I asked Taylor if she remembered anything, she doesn’t. How did they drug her, if it wasn’t Zachary? The hospital said it was likely to be something she had ingested, a drink maybe. I put her to bed, she didn’t have a drink with her then.”

  “I wish I knew, Gabe. There’s going to be so much of this that I don’t think we’ll ever know the answers to.”

  “Will the police register Sierra’s killer as Syd?” I asked.

  “If they do, it’s only to close the case. I believe he killed her, but like Mich said, there’s no evidence.”

  “So I’m just expected to move on, carry on and go about my day as usual?”