John Jordan05 - Blood Sacrifice (4 page)

“Guess who was last seen with Tommy Boy?” Kathryn asked.

It was evening, the temperature falling with the slow diminishment of the day. I was standing at the edge of the lake where I had been for much of the afternoon, weighing Sister Abigail’s words, searching myself for answers, finding few.

Though the onset of winter had muted its colors, the small lake was no less beautiful. What the brittle brown grass, straw-colored underbrush, and gray trunks of cypress trees lacked in lushness, it made up for in subtlety, and it matched my subdued, contemplative mood.

Sister was right. I had come here for healing and anything else would be a distraction—including pursuing Tommy’s death or the woman who had just walked up behind me.

“Who?” I asked, turning to face her.

“Tammy. They were seen leaving here together in her Mustang late last night.”

Tell her to notify the police
.

“You should tell…”

“Huh?”

“I thought the program was for street kids?” I said. “What’s she doing with professionally manicured nails, an expensive dye job, and a new Mustang?”

“How’d you know her Mustang’s new?”

“There’s only one Mustang here,” I said.

She nodded, then rolled her eyes at herself. “Of course.”

My afternoon by the lake had done me good. I felt peaceful, connected, loved, and I wondered if it was the lake, the time spent in solitude and silence, or just being away from my life. Why couldn’t I ever maintain my serenity? Why was equilibrium so elusive? In the widening gyre of my life, why did things always have to fall apart? Why couldn’t the center hold?

Something about the stillness of the scene was serene. It had felt so right to sit on the ground and watch a small burnt-orange butterfly flitter between tall blades of grass while hearing the splash of a fish jumping in the lake.

What I had to do was figure out how to integrate this—time for stillness, quietness, and meditation—into my life away from St. Ann’s, even, or especially, when I was involved in a homicide investigation.

“Most of them are street kids,” she said. “Poor. Alone. From abusive families.”

“But not Tammy?”

She shook her head. “Tammy’s actually the niece of the man who gave us this place.”

“She’s a Gulf Paper Company Taylor?”

She nodded.

“And she’s here because…”

“Her uncle gave us this place,” she said, a wry smile turning up the corners of her pretty pink lips.

“Does she come here often?”

She nodded. “When her family can no longer tolerate her, or she wants to disappear for a while.”

“Which is it this time?”

“Her family didn’t bring her. I’m not sure they know she’s here. Rumor has it—and that’s all it is—that she’s hiding from an abusive boyfriend and the drug dealer they owe part of her inheritance to.”

I nodded as I thought about it, then turned away from her for one last look at the lake in the soft shadow of sunset.

The reflection of the pine and cypress tress on the smooth surface of the water looked like an impressionist painting—though it was hard to imagine Monet, Renoir, or Cézanne using such a pale palette.

Across the lake, a gentle breeze blew through the trees and onto the pond, rippling a narrow strip of the otherwise glass-like water.

“Breathtaking, isn’t it?” Kathryn asked.

I nodded, and watched as a small winter wren flew across the lake and came to rest on an old weathered board nailed between two cypress trees not far from the water’s edge.

“How often do you come down here?” I asked.

“Nearly every day,” she said. “This is my Walden.”

“No wonder you write such inspired books.”

“Thank you. There
is
something to be said for the impact our environment has on us.”

“Like spending most of your waking hours with convicted felons,” I said.

“I can imagine that would be extremely difficult—especially on a man as sensitive and compassionate as I hear you are.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” I said.

“I don’t, but when it comes from a nun…”

“So much for confidentiality.”

“Oh, she would never violate that,” she said. “But it doesn’t cover her trying to set us up.”

“She working you too?”

“Since the moment you arrived. She lives certain things vicariously through me, which means lately she’s had a boring life.”

“Lately?”

She smiled. “Well, actually most of my life.”

“No wonder she’s so persistent,” I said.

“You have no idea.”

“Every man with a heartbeat that comes through the front gates?”

“Oh, no, I meant… She’s very particular. She’s just relentless about certain ex-cop, recovering alcoholic, wannabe detective prison chaplains.”

“Wannabe?”

A rustling in the branches above was followed by a squirrel as gray as the surroundings scampering down the cypress tree closest to us. As we watched, he bounced across the cypress knees between the trees like a Pentecostal preacher walking pews, and scurried up another tree farther down the bank.

“And she told you all that without breaking my confidences?”

“Actually, some of that I learned on my own. You’re not the only one here who can investigate. I have to hunt down information for every one of my books. Speaking of which, I want to help you investigate what happened to Tommy Boy. I’m curious, plus I might be able to use it in a story. I can be your Watson.”

“As fun as that sounds,” I said, “I’m going to take Sister’s advice and stay out of this one.”

Her deep brown eyes grew wide in surprise. “Really?”

“Really,” I said.

There would always be cases, always be distractions. I couldn’t keep allowing them to lure me from my path. They were becoming red herrings in my life, and like a young, untrained hound I kept losing the true scent—and my way. Since the only way to stop a destructive cycle was to stop, that’s what I had decided to do. I couldn’t continue to fail to live out my convictions and ideals and have any credibility as either a minister or investigator.

“Wow, so I’ve lived to see the day when Sister was wrong about someone,” she said. “I don’t know if she’ll be happy you took her advice or sad she was wrong to predict you wouldn’t.”

“You should turn over everything you have to the chief of police.”

“Steve?”

“You know him?”

She nodded. “We went out a few times.”

I felt myself pull back ever so slightly, and I wondered if she noticed.

“Then you know where to find him,” I said, surprised not only at my tone, but how much what she said had bothered me. It was irrational and immature, but there it was.

She nodded. “Shouldn’t be hard. He’ll be joining us for dinner tonight.”

The tension during dinner was palpable.

For the first part of the meal everyone ate in awkward silence. At one end of the long main table, Sister Abigail sat with Ralph Reid, a trim, rigid, early graying representative of the Gulf Coast Company who had come to look over the property. She was finding it difficult to be civil to him and she didn’t conceal it well.

He acted oblivious. He wasn’t much of an actor.

At the opposite end, Tammy Taylor, dressed modestly in jeans and a white button-down, was seated between Brad Harrison, Keith Richie, and across from Sister Chris King. Avoiding each other’s eye line, the three watched Tammy intently, but she just kept her head down, moving her food around on her plate with her fork. In fact, she was so subdued, such a different person, I found myself trying to guess if she was medicated or merely bipolar.

I was seated near the center of the table, Kathryn next to me, Steve next to her.

“Sister Abigail, where’s Father Thomas?” Steve asked.

Shrugging, she said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

“He’s fasting and praying,” Tammy said without looking up, her voice flat and so soft it was barely audible.

“Of course he is,” Sister Abigail said. “Limiting himself to only water and whiskey.”

Several people laughed, and didn’t hear Tammy say, “Getting ready.”

For what? I wondered, but didn’t pursue it.

Everyone grew quiet again, and only the sounds of silverware clinking, ice chinking, and the loud mechanical hum of the ice machine in the back corner by the kitchen remained.

In the absence of conversation, every sound was exaggerated as it bounced from the tile floor and ricocheted off the wooden walls. The large room was plain, but not rustic. A simple cypress table surrounded by uncomfortable cypress chairs sat at its center beneath a tilting old chandelier covered with dust. Oppressively heavy and gaudy drapes covered the many windows, their appearance altered by the sun on one side and dust on the other.

Leaning over to me, Kathryn whispered, “When’s the last time you had this much fun?”

“Last time I did step five.”

“Which is?”

“‘Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.’”

“That had to be better than this.”

“What’s going on? Hasn’t been this bad before.”

“Well, on one end you’ve got a lovers’ spat and on the other, a big bad corporation wanting to close us down.”

I glanced over at Tammy and her admirers.

Slumping in the uncomfortable seat made Brad Harrison’s thick body seem to gather around him and made him look dumpier than he was—which along with his dark skin and eyes accentuated his difference from the light-skinned, reddish-haired Keith Richie, whose tall body and erect posture caused him to tower over his competition for Tammy’s attention.

I said, “Did Tammy tell the other boys if she couldn’t have me, she didn’t want anyone?”

She smiled. “I think her exact words were if she couldn’t have you she didn’t want to live.”

“If I had a dollar for every time I heard that.”

I then panned to the opposite side to see the nervous Ralph Reid trying to talk to the stiff, pinched Sister.

“The Gulf Coast Company wants this land?”

“They want it back,” Kathryn said.

“Why?”

“Since the mill closed, they’re converting this area into resorts, golf courses, and retirement communities.”

I wondered why, with so much land, Gulf Coast wanted the abbey. It didn’t make sense. St. Ann’s was minuscule compared to Gulf Coast’s other holdings and it wasn’t close enough to the Gulf to be very valuable.

“Including the abbey?”

“Everything.”

“I need to say something,” Tammy said, pushing her chair back from the table and standing.

Everyone stopped eating and looked at her.

“I want to apologize for how I’ve behaved. I’ve done some pretty stupid and self-destructive things, and I’m sure I’ve hurt some of you. I’m very sorry. I take full responsibility for what I’ve done, but I want you to know that some things are out of my control. That’s not an excuse. It’s just the truth. Anyway, I’m gonna get help and I wanted y’all to know.”

She then sat down as abruptly as she had stood and began to fork through her food again.

“Well,” Sister Abigail said, “thank you, Tammy. We accept your apology and offer you our forgiveness and support on your efforts to have the life you want.”

“Yes,” Sister Chris said, and patted Tammy on the back affectionately.

“Hear hear,” Steve said.

“It wasn’t a toast,” I said.

Kathryn laughed. Steve glared. Everyone grew silent again.

After a few minutes, Keith Richie rose and went into the kitchen, coming out a minute later with a large chocolate sheet cake. He placed the cake in the center of the table and began to cut it into sizable slices. As he did, I noticed the pale green prison tattoos on the underneath of his forearms, and wondered if everyone here was running or hiding from something.

Eating cake seemed to lighten everyone’s mood, and soon the silence was replaced by whispers and faint laughs. But not everyone had cake, and those who didn’t—Sister Chris and Tammy—remained sullen.

“This is very good, Keith,” Kathryn said.

“Thanks,” he said, his face turning a light shade of crimson.

“Since it seems to be a night for clearing the air,” Ralph Reid said, “I think I should set a few things straight.”

We all turned toward him, most of us continuing to eat.

“Regardless of what you may have heard, the Gulf Coast Company is not attempting to close St. Ann’s down. Obviously, things have changed since we made this generous donation to your ministry, and we have different needs now, but nothing we’re proposing would cause St. Ann’s to close.”

“What
are
you proposing?” Kathryn asked.

“Simply to relocate St. Ann’s to another parcel every bit as beautiful as this one,” he said. “Just one that would enable us to go forth with our plans to be a viable company for the future.”

“
Simply
relocate us,” Sister Abigail said. “Relocation is never simple, and this has been our home for nearly thirty-five years.”

“Anyway,” Reid said, “I just wanted to expel any rumors and explain what I was doing here. I’ll be staying in Daniel cabin tonight if any of you have any questions.”

“You’re spending the night?” Sister Abigail asked.

“Is that a problem?”

She hesitated, then said, “Absolutely not. Just unexpected.”

“Y’all still keep that cabin reserved for us, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Good,” he said. “I have a few more things to do out here in the morning and I’d like to get an early start.”

I leaned over and whispered to Kathryn, “The paper company has its own cabin?”

“Always has had. Not only did Floyd Taylor donate everything, but he set up a trust before he died that keeps St. Ann’s going. If he hadn’t, we’d’ve closed a long time ago.”

Before I could ask her anything else, Father Thomas appeared at the door. Without speaking to the rest of us, he looked at Tammy and said, “It’s time. Are you ready?”

She nodded and they left together.

“Time for what?” Steve asked.

“I have no idea,” Kathryn said.

“You don’t think he’s, ah—you know, with my little cousin, do you?”

“
No
,” she said. “Ew.”

“Just the same, maybe I should go see what they’re doing.”

As he stood, I said, “Did she tell you your little cousin was the last one to be seen with Tommy?”

“Was she?” he asked Kathryn without acknowledging me.

Kathryn nodded.

“Well,” he said. “Then I’ll ask her about that too.”