by Tom Lowe
THE 24th LETTER
ALSO BY TOM LOWE
A False Dawn
The Butterfly Forest
The 24th Letter
A Sean O’Brien Mystery/Thriller
Tom Lowe
K
Kingsbridge Entertainment
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, and events portrayed in the novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
The 24th Letter – Copyright © 2009 by Tom Lowe. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, Internet, recording or otherwise without written permission from the author. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Published in The United States of America. For information, address Kingsbridge Entertainment, P.O. Box 340, Windermere, FL 34786
Library of Congress Cataloging in–Publication Data
Lowe, Tom 1952- The 24th Letter / Tom Lowe – 2nd edition
1. Death Penalty - Fiction. 2. Ocala National Forest - Fiction. 3. Florida - Fiction. 4. Book of Revelation. 5. Omega.
The 24th Letter is distributed in ebook and trade paperback print editions. Printed books available from Amazon Inc. and bookstores.
Cover Design by Marty Martin, Jade Graphics: jadegraphics.net
First Edition: October 2009, St. Martins Press. Second Edition: April, 2012, Kingsbridge Entertainment. Published in the U.S.A. by Kingsbridge Entertainment.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
One of my favorite parts of writing is recognizing and thanking the folks who’ve helped me, and there are many. My thanks to: Detective Sara Gioielli, Detective Aaron Miller, Dr. David Specter, Father Roger Hamilton, and A. Brian Phillips.
Writing, especially when it’s done after the day job, takes a lot of time. My family has always been my greatest source of inspiration. My thanks to my children: Natalie, Cassie, Christopher, and Ashley. I want to recognize my son, Chris, who produces my book trailers. His production company is: www.suite7productions.com.
A big thank you to Tom Greenberg and Greg Houtteman of EO Media Works for the design and my website, www.tomlowebooks.com. And to Marty Martin, who turns a book cover into a work of art.
My appreciation and love to my wife, Keri, whose support throughout the novel-writing process makes a tough job easier. Her sense of story is extraordinary, and it is matched by her editing skills, passion, and encouragement for each book.
I want to thank the booksellers who have taken the time to introduce readers to my work. And my appreciation to you, the reader. If you’re just now joining us, welcome aboard. If you’re returning for the next part of Sean O’Brien’s journey, I’m thrilled that you are here.
“You only live twice: Once when you’re born, and once when you look death in the face.”
- Ian Fleming
For my daughter, Ashley
ONE
U.S. Marshal Deputy Bill Fisher had never done it before, and after that morning he swore to God he’d never do it again. Never had he let a prisoner have a cigarette before entering a courthouse to testify, but Sam Spelling had been cooperative and polite on the long ride from Florida State Prison to the U.S. district court in Orlando. And they were early. The news media were on the other side of the building, out front. Maybe, thought Deputy Fisher, it wouldn’t hurt if Spelling smoked half a cigarette.
Spelling was to be the star witness in the government’s case against a bank robber turned cocaine trafficker. Since Spelling was helping the government, at a possible risk to himself, what harm could a quick cigarette do? Might calm the boy down, help his testimony. Marshal Fisher and a second marshal escorted Spelling up the worn steps leading to the courthouse’s back entrance.
At the top of the steps, Spelling looked around, eyes searching the adjacent alley, the delivery trucks and sheriff’s cars parked along the perimeter. His dark hair gelled and combed straight back. Two white scars ran jagged above his left eyebrow like lighting bolts—leftovers from a diet of violence. He had a haggard, birdlike face, beak nose with feral eyes, red-rimmed and irises the shade of blue turquoise.
He squinted in the morning sun and said, “I’d really appreciate that smoke, sir. Just a quick one to relax my nerves. I gotta go in there and say things that are gonna send Larry to where I am for a hellava long time. State’s promised me he’ll go to some other prison. If he don’t, it’ll be a matter of time before he shanks me, or has somebody do it. Right now a smoke would make my time in the witness stand a whole lot easier.”
#
THE RIFLE’S CROSSHAIRS swept up Sam Spelling’s back as he reached the top step. The sniper looked through the scope and waited for the right second. He knew the .303 would make an entrance hole no larger than the width of a child’s pencil on the back of Spelling’s head. The exit wound would plaster Spelling’s face into mortar supporting the century-old granite blocks.
He didn’t anticipate Spelling turning around at the rear entrance to the courthouse. Even better, now he could put one between the eyes. Through the powerful scope, he saw the flame of a cigarette lighter. Magnified, it looked like a tiny fire in the marshal’s hand. He watched while Spelling used both his cuffed hands to hold the cigarette, bluish-white smoke drifting in the crosshairs. Spelling took a deep drag off the cigarette as the sniper started to squeeze the trigger.
Then Spelling nodded and coughed, turning his head and stepping backward.
He lowered the crosshairs to Spelling’s chest and pulled the trigger.
Sam Spelling fell like a disjointed string puppet. The gunshot sprayed tissue, bits of lung and muscle against the courthouse wall. Blood trickled in a finger pattern down the white granite, leaving a crimson trail that glistened in the morning sun.
TWO
Sam Spelling knew one day he would go to hell. He didn’t know it would be today. The hospital emergency room staff patched the bullet wound in his chest, restored his erratic heartbeat, and pumped him full of chemicals. Then they left him chained to a gurney behind privacy curtains.
He tried to focus on the acoustical ceiling above him. Concentrate on the little holes. They looked like tiny black stars in an all white sky. He couldn’t remember the last time he had actually slept under the stars—or even seen the stars.
He could hear the constant beep from the heart monitor—the slowing.
Where are they?
He could feel the flutter in his chest, nausea in his gut, bile in his throat. His pores leaked the medicinal smell of copper and sulfur. The black stars were dimming. The sounds from the monitor were like the pounding of off-tune piano keys as Spelling’s heart tried to jumpstart life and catch up with losing time.
A man’s not supposed to hear his own death! Where are they? Somebody!
Then taste in his mouth was as if someone had crushed a cigarette butt on his tongue. Sweat dripped onto the flat pillow.
Better pillows in the cell! His neck muscles knotted.
The pain was now connecting from his chest through his left shoulder and down his tingling arm. He tried to lift his head to see if the guard was still standing outside the drawn curtain. The continuous beep. So damn loud.
Why couldn’t they hear? Somebody!
The room was swallowed in black and then it didn’t matter to Sam Spelling anymore because he was gone. He was caught in a dark whirlpool sucking him into a vast drain—down into a sewer of total darkness.
When the nurse yanked back the curtain, she didn’t know if Sam Spelling if was dead or alive.
#
FATHER JOHN CALLAHAN NEVER go
t used to it. Performing last rites didn’t come easy to a man who, at age fifty-seven, could drill a soccer ball dead center from midfield. He was competitive by nature. Death was to be fought, and for the young, it was to be fought hard. Never throw in the towel. People need time to get it right.
He thought about that as he walked through the rain, stepped over cables from a TV news satellite truck, and entered the hospital emergency room. Father Callahan had a chiseled, ruddy face, prominent jaw line, and green eyes the shade of a new leaf in spring. He saw four police officers—one sipping coffee, the others filling out reports. A plainclothes man, an African-American, Callahan took for a detective, stood in a corner talking with an officer. A blond TV reporter applied pink gloss to her lips.
A veteran nurse with tired eyes looked up from her desk as the priest fastened the cord around his umbrella. Father Callahan said, “Nasty day.”
The nurse nodded, glancing toward the packed waiting room. She said, “The reporters don’t make the job any easier.”
“Why are they here?”
“A prisoner was shot on the courthouse steps this morning. He was supposed to testify in that big drug trial.”
Father Callahan nodded. “How is Nicole Satorini? She was brought in earlier? Head-on collision. I heard she’s in IC. Is the family with her?”
The nurse inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry, Father. She passed. I think the family left the hospital a little while ago.”
#
SAM SPELLING GRIPPED the doctor’s white coat the way a drowning man grasps a life preserver. “It’s okay,” the doctor said, holding on to Spelling’s wrist. “You need rest. Lie back down. We re-started your heart.”
The Department of Corrections guard started to enter, but the doctor shook his head and lowered Spelling’s hand to the gurney. He looked at the digital numbers on the monitor and said, “Pressure ninety-fifty. Pulse thirty-nine. Start another pac-cell drip.”
A nurse nodded, following the doctor’s orders.
Spelling lifted his head. The prison guard stood just beyond the bed, close enough to watch the proceedings. The guard was built like a linebacker, his forehead thick with bone, nose flat and scarred.
Spelling looked beyond the guard. He saw a man dressed in a black suit standing by the nurses’ station. The man in the suit wore the collar of a priest. Spelling blinked, the tears spilling from his eyes. He smiled, his cracked lips trembled, his left cheek quivered from pulsating nerves and muscle.
“Father!” screamed Spelling.
Father Callahan looked in the direction of the shouting.
“Father!”
The priest started towards the frightened man. The guard held up a large hand, as if he stood at a school crossing. “Hold it, sir.”
“That man called out for me,” said Father Callahan.
“That man’s a prisoner.” The muscle in the guard’s lower jaw tightened.
“He’s also a human being in need.”
Spelling looked up at the young doctor through watering, pleading eyes. “Doc, please, can I talk to the priest? Just for a half minute?”
“You’ve had a second heart attack in less that an hour. You need rest.”
“Please, Doc! I saw something I don’t know how to describe. I can’t go back there. I need to tell the priest—to confess. Man, I need God right now!”
THREE
A news reporter stood by the nurses’ station, looking down the hall to where Sam Spelling was being treated. The doctor glanced up at the priest and cut his eyes to Spelling’s pleading face. “Okay, Father. No more than a couple minutes. This man will be in surgery soon.”
The hospital personnel left as the Father Callahan stepped past the department of corrections guard to Spelling’s bedside.
“Father,” Spelling began, looking at his trembling free hand, now with an IV taped near his wrist. “Look at me, shakin’ like I’m comin’ off a four-day drunk. Father, I haven’t been a religious man most of my sorry-ass life…but I always believed in God.”
Father Callahan nodded.
Spelling said, “I saw something a few minutes ago that scared the livin’ shit outta me. Pardon my language, Father, but I think I died…died and went straight to hell. Man, I’m a believer now. You mind closing the curtain. I want to make a confession.”
Father Callahan nodded and stepped to the curtain. To the guard he said in a whisper, “Please give this man a moment of privacy to confess his sins.”
The guard grinned. “Gonna take a lot longer than a moment.”
Father Callahan pulled the curtain closed and turned to Spelling.
“Father…I ain’t sure how to say this…”
“Simply say it from your heart, son.”
“Heart’s almost wore out, but I’ll try. Can I ask your name?”
“Father John Callahan.”
“Can I call you Father John?”
“Yes.”
“Father John, maybe you can put in a good word for me above,” Spelling cut his eyes up to dots in the ceiling. “I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. I hope God can see what caused me to do that stuff and forgive me for some of it. What I got to say, Father, it ain’t about me. Maybe God will take pity at this stage of my sorry-ass life. Any chances of that, really?”
“It is never too late to seek our Lord and his forgiveness. You wish to confess?”
“It’s about makin’ something right.” Spelling paused, glanced at the digital impulses of his weak heart on the monitor. “There’s a man on death row up at Starke. State of Florida’s gonna kill him. He’s not guilty. They say he raped and killed a girl—a supermodel down in Miami. Happened eleven years ago, but he didn’t do it.”
“How do you know?”
“ ‘Cause I know who did it. I’d been sittin’ low in my car in a condo parking lot when I seen him come out of one condo. I was there to sell some coke when I spotted this dude. Wasn’t long after I’d seen this first fella stumble shit-faced drunk outta the same place. I saw where the second man hid the knife. I got the knife. I took it from the dumpster when I saw the dude toss it. Wrapped in newspaper. Got a good look at him and even memorized his tag. I hid the knife. Girl’s killing was all over the news. Nobody was arrested…so I got in touch with the dude. Told him for a hundred grand, his takin’ out the trash would remain our little secret. He wanted the knife. I kept it as an
insurance policy. Got the money, and it wasn’t but a few days before they’d arrested somebody else for the girl’s killin.’ I figured I was now an accessory to the whole f’d-up mess. In a year, I’d sucked the money up my nose…robbed a bank and got caught. They sent me to Starke for a dime. The guy on death row, Charlie Williams, is an innocent man. A real fuckin’ innocent man. Forgive me for that slip again, Father John.”
Father Callahan was silent a moment. He said, “You’re doing the right thing.”
Spelling glanced down at the floor toward the end of the curtain. He saw the large black books of the guard standing as close as possible to the curtain. “Father, come closer. The murdered girl was Alexandria Cole. She was one of those supermodels?”
“I remember the case. Who killed her?”
The heart monitor beeped. Spelling chewed at his cracked lower lip. “Father, I have sinned bad…will God set it right? Will he forgive me?”
“God will embrace you for your confession. The police may need more. Write down your confession, many details as possible…name the person who did it and sign it.”
“Is this in case I die?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I die…if you got it in writing, proves a dying man’s confession is more than only your word, Father. No offense.”
“None taken.”
“Feds want me to testify real bad. I heard they are gonna keep me in here ‘till I’m well enough to testify.”
Two nurses and the ER doctor approached. He said, “Dr. Weinberg has arrived. We’ll be taking the patient up for surgery”
The priest nodded. “May or Lord bless you.”
As they wheeled Spelling from the area, he asked, “What time is it, Father?”
Father Callahan looked at his watch. “It’s exactly six o’clock.”.
“Time’s runnin’ out.”
“I’ll pray for you, son.”
“I’m talking about Charlie Williams, the fella on death row. He’s next in line for the needle. If it’s three, by my calculations, he’s got eighty-four hours to live, and he’s gonna need more than prayers to save his soul.”
FOUR
Sean O’Brien stood on the worn cypress wood of his screened-in back porch and watched lightning pop through the low-lying clouds above the Ocala National Forest. Each burst hung in the bellies of the clouds for a few seconds, the charges exploding and fading like fireflies hiding in clusters of purple grapes. He could smell rain falling in the forest and coming toward the St. Johns River as the breeze delivered the scent of jasmine, wet oak, and honeysuckle.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. The rolling noise, the burst and fade of light reminded O’Brien of the times he witnessed night bombing in the first Gulf War. But that was many miles and years in the past. He deeply inhaled the cool, rain-drenched air. The sound of frogs reached a competing crescendo when the first drops began to hit the oak leaves. The river was like black ink, white caps rolling across its dark surface