“Bullshit. You fool. He’s using you. He’s dumping misery everywhere he goes. Leaving piles of it on people like shit, watching the flies gather. You’re the shepherd of God’s flock. Why do you embrace the wolf?”
“I cannot betray the trust. There is a spark of God in him. He’s a human being, no matter what he does.”
The man shook his head and growled, “Father, there are sheep and there are wolves. A shepherd who can’t tell them apart is no shepherd at all.”
“We must help him find that spark within himself. The spark of God in him may be hidden, but not extinguished.”
The man’s teeth were clenched. “There’s no human essence that can’t be destroyed. To be a human being is an achievement, and some people just don’t make it.”
“I’m sorry. I can not judge a man like that. That is God’s prerogative.”
The stranger roared, “Your god, old man. I won’t sacrifice my children on your god’s altar. No way. How can you do this? There are innocent children at stake here. He’s a monster.”
“God has said the confessional is sacred, holy. No matter what the cost, it can not be betrayed.”
Louder still, “Your god, not my God. Not my children. Why must they suffer for your beliefs?”
“He’s not my god. He’s my God. It’s my faith. Even our confusion is his will. It is not my choice; it is my faith. I believe, no matter what things appear to be. If I abandon my faith I have nothing. Not now when it is so hard. I must hold strong or my faith is nothing. I can not believe only when it is easy. I believe this is God’s will, that no matter how awful things seem, they are in the service of a greater ultimate good. My duty is clear. I have no choice.”
“Of course you have a choice. This side of a pine box there’s always room for choice, no matter how cramped the quarters get. You choose your faith at the cost of other’s lives. Is the doubt so painful? Climb down here with us who don’t have an answer, who are searching.”
“I doubt, of course I doubt. Don’t you think I care? Don’t you think I’ve looked everywhere for an answer? I am a priest. I can not betray my vows. I believe this is God’s will. It is a test of faith, and he has shown the way. I must cleave to it.”
“You could give up being a priest. God will survive the loss, I’m sure. Help me save some lives.”
“I just can’t. This is my relationship with God. I can’t answer to men for it. It is between God and me. I wish it were otherwise. Believe me, I do.”
“You’ll get your chance, Father.” The man aimed his finger at him. “Mark my words: study your saints well, Father. You’ll soon be among them. I’ll let nothing stand between me and my girls. Not you, not your God. I’ll trample you to get to them if I have to. That’s my god, Father, my faith, my duty.” The wild man turned and left the church. The door slammed hollowly behind him and echoed in the vast, silent chambers of Augustus Shannon’s heart.
Chapter 16
The man pulled his car up opposite the church at 4:40 with a predator’s precision. When your prey is fleet, timing is of the essence. The priest did not appreciate the urgency of his mission. A lesson needed to be learned. The after-school church class would be dismissed soon as the church schedule on the front lawn promised. He waited patiently. The children flooded out from the church, the first ones met by their waiting parents who had places to be in a hurry. The rest broke off into groups in all directions. Then the torrent was a trickle, the last few stragglers of the flock, the lambs of God.
He saw the one he wanted: a boy, carefully dressed. He was flipping pages of music. He would be a name, a face, a voice, a smile, a tousled head, a beloved pupil, a memory, and a dream.
The boy looked up and squinted into the sun, straightened his books, and bounded down the stairs. He walked up the tree-lined main street to the corner and turned left. The man in the car smiled. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And he thought: Let’s see what your faith is now, Father.
He started the car, moved up the street, and then turned left, smoothly closing the gap between him and the boy. He pulled alongside, his window down, and said, “Excuse me, son, I wonder if you could help me. I’m trying to find the Beaufort Restoration. I seem to be a bit lost.” He picked up the map on the seat next to him, slid the open end of the handcuffs into his other palm, and freed the icepick from its cork tip. The boy walked over to the car, and as the man held the map out to him, he traced the route he wanted on the map.
He heard the click, but never knew what hit him.
Chapter 17
The sun was setting slowly behind me, and I sipped my gin and tonic while I watched the waves roll on forever. Wendy had been sitting alone in her room most of the afternoon. I’d told her that if she wanted to talk about it, I’d listen. It wasn’t my forte, but I’d do my best. She passed, saying she wanted to be alone. I was just sitting and measuring the bucket of shit we were in from all directions, first in meters, then feet. Soft footsteps approached. Wendy pulled a chair up next to me and began looking at the ocean.
Looking straight ahead, she began to talk to no one in particular. “I can’t stand to be alone. I thought I’d just put my mind to work on it. You know, discipline, and sort out why this happened, how I feel, what I’m going to do.” She chuckled sadly, wrapping her long fingers around a cup of tea—or bourbon. “It’s just not going anywhere. I thought I’d feel better when I cleaned up. I used a kitchen scrubber even. No way. I feel dirtied in a way soap can’t even touch.” She set her jaw. “I’m so damn angry. I could kill those bastards, every one of them. Slowly, painfully, horribly, like what they did to me. That scares me. Where did this anger come from? I mean, I know why, but it’s so huge. It scares me to want to hurt someone so badly.
“Then I get depressed. Everything feels so hopeless. I have no energy. That’s how I felt there on the floor. I just wanted it to end. Any way. I didn’t care how. I just gave up. I couldn’t fight back anymore.” She looked away from me and took a sip, a gulp, and then drained the cup. “I think that’s what’s hardest for me. Not that it happened, but that there was a point when I didn’t care anymore. They could have done anything they wanted to me. I just wanted to die, for it to be over. I gave up. They got me to give myself up. I don’t know if I can undo that.” She stood up and turned back into the house. “Dammit.” She whirled and hurled the mug at the wall.
I put my hand out to her, “Wendy, listen. I don’t know if you can either. I do know it takes a long time and I do know that there’s no one that can’t be broken. It took seven of them all night to do it. You didn’t give yourself up easily. The bastards had to take it from you. You stayed alive to fight back, to live again. To rebuild yourself. Hold on to your life, to your future. Rebuild yourself. They tried to destroy you. You can still beat them.”
“It shits to be alive. When I wanted to die, when I hoped to die, everything was unbearable. When I survived, when I’d made it, now I look back and wonder was it really so terrible? Couldn’t I have fought harder? Made them kill me first?”
“They would have. You did the best you could.”
She glanced at me. “Did I? Did I really?” She stalked back into the house. I wondered if she was angry that I’d rescued her. Maybe a bit. I could live with that. I hoped she could.
The gin couldn’t cut the bitter taste in my mouth. I remembered coming home after Frankie O’Connell had beaten the shit out of me. My father stood there looking down on me, hands on hips, while I tried to explain that Frankie was two years older. He said with the calm of implacable certainty, “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the dog.” He turned and walked into the house and left me with a slamming screen door for company. I’d taken a lot of beatings trying to live up to those words. As easy as my answers came for Wendy, I knew I’d still try to find out how big a dog I was, no matter what. I was a good-sized fool. That I knew.
It was getting darker. I needed to talk with Wendy about security
and what to expect in the next few days. I got up from the chair and walked in toward the kitchen. Curled up on the chair like a big cat, she had a new mug. It was full.
“Do you want something to eat?”
“No. I can’t eat.”
“What have you got there?” I nodded.
“Gin and Drano.”
“What?” I started to grab for the cup. She twisted away.
“It’s not. It’s just something to make the merry-go-round slow down. All the ugly feelings: being afraid, angry, ashamed. It’s bourbon, that’s all.” She took another slug. “Do you want to eat?” she asked without enthusiam.
“Not really, I guess, but my appetite’s nearly indestructible. There’s got to be good seafood here in town. We could buy some if a market’s still open or go eat out.”
“I don’t want to be out with people. You could get something and cook it here.”
“Okay. We’ll talk while we ride.” I put down my glass and shucked my empty holster. Wendy was wearing shorts, sandals, and a hooded sweatshirt pulled tight around her face. She’d put on fresh bandages and some makeup over her bruises. I put on a windbreaker and pulled the door closed behind us. We went in my car.
As we pulled away to town I gave her the news. “Listen, that guy I wanted to come down can’t make it. At least not right away. That means we’re going to have to stay together. I’m trying to find a man. Actually I’m trying to keep two men apart. Here’s a photo of the one I’m looking for.” I pulled Saunders’ photo out of the glove apartment. “You can be a second pair of eyes for me. He’s here in town somewhere, looking for another man. I hope to find him first.” I tapped Saunders’ picture with my finger. She stared at the picture, completely absorbed by it, taking my request seriously. I pushed in my Rosanne Cash tape, her heartbreak voice my sole concession to country-tinged music.
“The second thing is that the chief said the older brother of one of the guys that raped you is a local badass. He intimidates people who get tired of being pushed around by the punks in town. The chief expected he’d pay us a call. That’s my problem. I don’t want you straying away from me. I want you close at hand. He’ll have to go through me to get to you. Got it?”
“Yeah,” she said without enthusiasm.
As we drove along the coast road, the skyline looked like midtown Manhattan. Greedy Gulch. The next time around they’ll kill Jesus for a zoning variance at the shore. Developers won’t consider a place overbuilt until the continental shelf falls off. I hate it. I’ve been going to the ocean my whole life for solace and solitude. That’s almost impossible to find now unless you can buy your own island. Hell, now I go to New York in August. There’s nobody there. You can drive the streets. There’s no lines, no crowds. No hustle. It’s downright pastoral.
We rode past tower after tower. You can tell their age by their promises. The oldest places boast of ocean front; then the next generation offers ocean view, with and without telescope; and the newest ones offer easy access. There were motels, boatels, and condotels. Apparently you can now buy a piece of a place where you used to steal the towels. Scattered among these pleasure hives for weary urban worker bees were liquor stores, night clubs, bikini ships, surfboard stores, and seafood restaurants.
In an incredible display of restraint the real estate and development agents had all agreed to stay on the sound side lest a square foot of prime sand go unsold. We swung right out of town. I looked up and down the coast. This was the only bridge. A hurricane in high season and you’d have thirty thousand drowned in their own gridlock. The developers only care about getting people to the ocean. So what if they float back to shore packed in brine like so many tins of tuna.
As we reached the mainland, the fishing docks were to our left. Slip after slip of sport boats and then farther down the larger commercial boats. We went down through a well kept, quiet side street to the docks.
“Wendy, look for a boat called Pot-O-Gold. It belongs to the former chief of police. I need to talk to him.”
“Sure.”
I slowed the Camaro down and checked my mirrors. No shadow. We went past a row of tackle ships, boat supplies, a dry dock, fish markets. They were all closed. “Looks like we’ll have to go elsewhere for some fish.”
“Wait. There it is.” Wendy wagged a finger at a boat rolling gently in its mooring. I pulled over the curb, got out, and looked both ways. Still no company.
“Keep the doors locked. I’ll be right back. Honk the horn if anyone—I mean anyone—approaches the car.”
“Please hurry. I really don’t want to be alone. I’m scared.” She was breathing shallowly after making that admission. Her face had the slick sheen of anxiety but not yet the pasty look of panic.
“Do you want to come with me?”
“No. I’ll be okay. Just don’t be long. Okay?”
“I’ll be in view the whole time and I’ll be quick.”
I walked over to the dock, down to the gate, and out to the boat. Pot-O-Gold was a beauty.
“Ahoy Pot-O-Gold. Anyone on board? Captain Boswell?” Nothing.
“He’s not here.”
I turned to the voice which had come from my left.
“Where is he?” I was searching for my respondent on one of the other bobbing ships.
“Don’t know, but he’ll be back tomorrow.” I found him two ships over. A tall tanned gentleman with snow white hair, Jacques Cousteau’s nose, far too little chin for it, and a drink in his hand. I walked down to him.
“Do you know when he’ll be here?”
“In the afternoon. He’s got a party in the morning. Are you looking to do some fishing?”
That was a nice idea. Maybe when this was all over I’d stay down an extra day and do some fishing. Maybe ask Wendy if she’d like to. “No, just looking for Captain Boswell.”
“Well, like I said, he’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. If you change your mind about the fishing, here’s my card.” He fished in his shirt pocket and came up with a card he held to me. I took it. Captain Ethan Franklin.
“Well, Captain Franklin, I just might. I have some business to attend to first, but thanks.” I was growing more uneasy by the minute at the distance between myself and the car. Though I could see Wendy, the marina’s spike-topped fence meant I had to go back to the gate to get out. I waved absently at Captain Franklin and jogged back to the car.
I unlocked the door and slid in. Wendy exhaled slowly and said, “Whew, made it. Nobody came near, but a car came by and slowed up a bit as it went by. I couldn’t see who was in it real well This smoky glass makes it hard.”
“Also hard to see in. What kind of car was it?”
“One of those little Toyota pickups. I wrote down the license tag. Here it is.” She tore a piece of paper off a pad and handed it to me. I looked at it, folded it up, and pocketed it. “I’ll ask the police chief who’s car it is in the morning, and I’ll keep an eye open to see if it shows up again.”
I turned on the ignition and pulled away from the curb. “Do you like to go fishing?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Why?”
“Just an idea. I was thinking I might go fishing when this is all over. Who knows? I thought you might enjoy it too. We’ll see.”
I made a U turn and left the dock area the way we came in. “I think we’re going to need a grocery store if we’re going to eat. We have to find out where the natives go for food. There’s only fast food mini-markets on the island.”
Two blocks over was the main drag of this town. Huddled together in a six block row were the kind of businesses you find when people stay somewhere longer than a weekend: banks, insurance companies, a pharmacy, a clothing store, furniture and florists, a car dealership, movie theatre, two churches, a book store, and a grocery store. Off in the distance, at the edge of town, you could see the huge storage tanks for the deep-water port.
In one way or another, the sea was the life’s blood of this town. It was a lure for the tourists—the ocean as playground; f
or sport and food they pulled fish from it. Up and down the coast huge ships carried vast loads of raw materials on it. The working ocean: a freeway, unchanged since the Phoenicians sailed it.
I pulled up in front of a grocery. After a quick scan for company, we got out and went inside. “How long until your parents arrive?”
“I don’t know for sure. “They said by Saturday at the latest. Why?”
“Just trying to figure out how many days’ worth of food to get. Time’s at a premium. I don’t want to spend too much of it in grocery stores. Anything you see that you like, toss it in the cart.”
“Okay. I’ll split the bill with you.”
“Fair enough.”
We wandered through the store tossing things in: milk, eggs, coffee, country ham, grits, Granola, barbecue, coleslaw, beer, soft rolls, o.j. I remember a previous girl friend’s warning about monochromatic diets. All our foods were earth toned. That couldn’t be good for you.
I got some distilled water because along with achingly pretty girls, mosquitos at dusk, sunburn, and Sunday night traffic jams, beach towns mean bad water. Wendy spent ten minutes trying to find some edible fruits and vegetables, then gave up. It was no wonder they breaded and fried everything. Judging from the signs on the local restaurants, down here nouvelle cuisine meant broiled, not fried. I got a wine from New York, some fresh grouper, and a local crustacean that I swear the girl behind the counter called a “sramp.”
Wendy and I split the tab and drove straight home. We unpacked the groceries and set about to make dinner. I was making the coating, and Wendy set the table. She looked up at me. The gumshoe gourmet, snub-nosed spatula in hand. Tossing that wing of hair out of her face, she put down the silverware. “Can I ask you a crazy question?”
“Sure. You might get a crazy answer, though.” I turned the fish over.
“Fair enough.” She composed herself.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” She looked away for a second and then back. “I mean, this is really crazy. Forget it.”
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