by Sandra Brown
knowledge that he seldom smiled. Audible laughter was even rarer than
that. It had been the unfulfilled ambition of many of his colleagues to
make Burke Basile break up with hilarity.
They wouldn't have recognized the hearty laughter that burst out of him
at Duvall's absurd statement."Come again?" "I believe I made myself
clear," Duvall said, no longer looking amused.
"Oh, I heard you. I just can't believe what I heard. You want me to come
to work for you? Doing what?"
"A man of your experience could be valuable to me. More valuable than
you were to the police department." Reaching into his desk drawer, he
withdrew several sheets that had been paper-clipped together.
He held them up for Burke to see."A copy of your tax return for last
year. Shameful, the pittance society pays the men and women who protect
it."
Duvall wouldn't have had too much trouble getting his hands on a copy of
his tax return. It could have come to him through anyone from an IRS
employee to Burke's postman. He didn't care that Duvall knew how much,
or how little, he had earned at his former job. What bothered him was
that Duvall had such easy access to him. That, he felt, was also the
point Duvall was making.
"I'm no longer a cop," Burke said, "but make no mistake, Duvall.
You and I are still on opposing sides. Fact is, we're poles apart."
"Before taking that moral stance, shouldn't you at least hear the job I
have in mind?"
"Doesn't matter what it is or how much it pays. For all your fancy
surroundings," he said, giving the well-appointed office a glance,
"you're maggot shit. I wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire, so I
sure as hell wouldn't work for you."
Burke stood up and headed for the door. Duvall ordered him to sit back
down. Bardo lunged toward him and would have thrown a body tackle if
Burke hadn't thrust his hand into Bardo's sternum, stopping him cold.
"You put your hands on me again and I'll break your freaking neck."
The warning carried enough impetus to make Bardo reconsider. He remained
where he was, but his eyes glowed with hatred.
Burke looked across at Duvall."I'm not interested in your job."
"Really? That's odd." Unruffled, Duvall folded his hands on top of his
desk. He even smiled sympathetically as he said softly, "Because I have
very good reason to believe that you might be. Don't I, Basile?"
The two men stared at each other. The distance between them seemed to
shrink, until Burke could almost make out his reflection in Duvall's
black pupils. It was a haunted man who stared back at him.
He dropped his hand from Bardo's chest."Go fuck yourself, Duvall."
Duvall's smile widened."Tell you what, I'll keep the position open for
you. Think about it and get back to me."
"Yeah. I'll do that. I'll get back to you." Just not in the way you
expect, you smug son of a bitch. Burke looked over at Bardo."No need for
you to see me home." Then to Duvall, he added, "I know my way."
At precisely two thirty in the afternoon, Remy Duvall entered the
church. Confession was heard between three and five o'clock but because
the Duvalls were generous contributors, Remy was afforded the courtesy
of having her confession heard early. Pinkie had arranged it so that by
three o'clock, when other parishioners began to arrive, she was already
safely in the limo and on her way home.
Errol stationed himself just inside the church door, where Remy would be
constantly in his sight. She moved down one of the side aisles,
genuflected at the end of a row, and slipped into the pew.
Retrieving her rosary from her handbag, she pulled down the kneeling
bench and got on her knees to pray.
Even after her prayers were finished, she remained with head bowed and
eyes closed. This half hour spent in church each day was precious to
her. Pinkie ridiculed her for being excessively devout, but aside from
her Catholic faith, there was another reason why she regularly came to
pray: This was the only time she was entirely alone.
Even when she went to the gazebo, there were always people around the
house, full- or part-time workers doing one job or another. Since the
day she married Pinkie, she had never been in her house by herself.
Before that, she had lived at Blessed Heart in a dormitory with other
girls. And before that, she'd shared a single room with her mother.
There, she'd been left alone every night while Angel went to work.
But on those nights alone, Remy had been too young and too afraid of the
raucous noise on the streets and in the neighboring apartments to
appreciate the solitude.
Here in the cathedral, she was both safe and alone. She savored the
stillness, the quiet. She loved watching the ever-changing mosaic of
color that the stained-glass windows cast on the walls. The flickering
of the candles and the soft organ music were calming. She loved the
freedom from watchful eyes.
Today in her prayers, she asked God for wisdom and courage. She needed
wisdom to devise a plan to protect Flarra, and the courage to carry out
that plan. For the time being, Flarra was safely ensconced in the
academy and would remain there until she graduated. Then what? She
placed the problem in God's hands, although she couldn't give over
worrying about it.
Finally, she asked for forgiveness, or tried to. The words wouldn't
come. She couldn't acknowledge, even in her own mind, the transgression
that haunted her and made her appear ill to those around her. Some sins
were too great to lay before God. If she couldn't forgive herself, why
should He forgive her?
Glancing toward the confessional, she saw that the light had been turned
on. The priest was -waiting for her. She moved from the pew to the
confessional and went in.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been one week since my last
confession."
She enumerated a few minor offenses, but she was stalling, trying to
garner enough courage to confess the Sin. She hadn't been willing to
share it with anyone, not even a priest. She sensed him on the other
side of the screen, waiting patiently.
Finally he coughed softly and cleared his throat."Is there something
else?"
"Yes, Father."
"Tell me about it."
Maybe if she talked about it, she would know some peace. But the thought
of confiding it caused her throat to compress and her heart to pound.
Tears clouded her eyes. Swallowing dryly, she began."A few months ago, I
conceived. I haven't told my husband about it."
"That's a lie of omission."
"I know," she cried softly."But I ... I can't. I'm conflicted, Father."
"About what?"
"The baby."
"The Church is very clear on this. A child is a gift from God.
Don't you want the child?"
Staring at the large diamond on her left ring finger, she whispered
through her tears,,"There is no child. Not anymore."
She had hoped that finally speaking the words out loud would provide
instant relief from her guilt, but she didn't e
xperience any such
release. Indeed, the pressure inside her chest increased until she
thought her ribs might crack. She had difficulty breathing. Her short,
choppy breaths sounded loud in the enclosure.
Quietly, the priest said, "You also know the Church's position on
abortion."
"It wasn't an abortion. I miscarried in my tenth week." He assimilated
this, then said, "Then what is your sin?" "I made it happen," she said
in a broken voice."Because of my ingratitude and uncertainty, God
punished me."
"Do you know God's mind?"
"I wanted my baby." Sobbing, she rubbed her abdomen."I loved it already.
But I was afraid ..."
"Afraid? Of what?"
Afraid Pinkie would stick to his word and force me to have an abortion.
That was too ugly to confess, even to a priest. Pinkie had made it clear
to her when they married that she would not be having children.
Period. End of argument. The subject was closed. He didn't want the
competition. Nor did he want her to be disfigured, even temporarily.
He had said that if she felt the urge to nurture, she could nurture him
without becoming grotesquely misshapen.
So when her contraceptives failed her and she accidentally conceived,
she didn't tell him. She feared that he would insist on an abortion.
But she was just as fearful that he wouldn't.
What if he had mellowed on the subject of children and changed his mind?
What if he had reversed his thinking and welcomed the idea?
Did she want her child to be reared under Pinkie's control?
While she was still debating the dilemma, the problem had been solved
for her. One terrifying afternoon, when she felt the tearing inside her
womb and saw the blood trickling down her legs, she knew in her heart
that she had willed it to happen. A precious life had been sacrificed to
her cowardice.
The priest repeated his question, asking what she was afraid of.
"Of Hell, Father. God knew I was ambivalent about having a baby, so He
took it from me."
"Did you do something that caused you to abort?"
"Only in my heart. Please pray for me, Father."
Desperate for understanding and forgiveness, she reflexively reached
out, pressing her palm against the screen. Head bent, she wept.
Suddenly, against her palm and fingers, body heat, as though the priest
had aligned his hand with hers on the opposite side of the screen It was
a fleeting sensation, and when she raised her head, only her hand was
silhouetted against the mesh.
But whether physically or spiritually, she had been touched. A peace she
hadn't known for months stole through her. The bands of guilt around her
chest dissolved, and she took several cleansing breaths.
Speaking with quiet reassurance, the priest granted her absolution and
gave her a penance, which seemed moderate when compared to the enormity
of her sin. It would take more than this penance to assuage her guilt,
but it would be a start, a move toward redemption, a way out of the
morass of guilt in which she had been floundering.
Slowly lowering her hand from the screen, she wiped the tears off her
face and left the confessional with a soft, "Thank you, Father."
The scent of her perfume lingered for as long as Burke remained inside
the confessional.
It was time to get out. He mustn't still be in the booth when the priest
appeared to begin scheduled confession. Each second counted.
Nevertheless, he was reluctant to leave. In that small confessional
chamber, he had shared a strange sort of intimacy with the woman of his
fantasies, the moonlit woman in the gazebo.
Who just happened to be Pinkie Duvall's cheating wife. And Pinkie Duvall
was the enemy he had sworn to destroy.
Prompted by that thought, Burke forced himself to move. When he stepped
from the booth, his eyes swept the sanctuary, hoping for a glimpse of
her, but she wasn't in sight. He glanced toward the door.
The bodyguard he'd seen her with in the French Market was no longer at
his post. She was gone.
He took a handkerchief from the hip pocket of his black trousers and
blotted perspiration from his forehead, then from his upper lip, which
felt naked without the mustache. A stranger had gazed back at him from
his shaving mirror this morning.
Without further delay he left the church through a side exit.
Gregory lames was already in the car, waiting for him. Burke said
nothing as he got behind the wheel and drove away. The car seemed
excessively warm. He switched the air-conditioning system from heating
to cooling and turned it on full blast. The black shirt was sticking to
his back beneath his coat. The reversed collar was bugging him.
He tugged at it irritably.
"Didn't it go well?" Gregory asked nervously.
"It went fine."
"The lady showed up?"
"On schedule."
After following Remy Duvall for a few days, it had become clear to Burke
that she was never alone. Either she was inside the mansion and
completely inaccessible, or in the company of her husband, or with the
bodyguard. She never went anywhere unaccompanied. The only time she was
by herself was when she went to church to pray.
"Pray?" he had exclaimed when Ruby Bouchereaux told him of the occasions
on which she saw Mrs. Pinkie Duvall.
One of the madam's carefully penciled eyebrows arched."Which surprises
you most, Mr. Basile, that she goes to church to pray, or that I do?"
"I didn't mean any offense," he'd muttered abashedly."It's just that "
"Please." She raised her hand to indicate that she hadn't taken umbrage
at his shock."I frequently see Remy Duvall at prayer. I've never spoken
to her. Nor does anyone. She's not there for show. She appears very
devout and is always the first one there to go to confession."
After following Pinkie's wife into the cathedral for several days in a
row and verifying Ruby Bouchereaux's information, he had thought,
Perfect.
What better way to get inside someone's head and learn what she's about
than to hear her confession? Did she do drugs like her mother, Angel?
Would she confess her affair with Bardo? What sordid sins would she cite
to her priest that would be useful to someone out to destroy her
husband?
Come Saturday, Burke determined to be in the booth waiting for her. It
was a ballsy plan, but brilliant. Except for two hitches: how to sound
priestly, and how to forestall the real priest. The last time Burke had
been to confession was the day following his mother's funeral, and then
he'd gone only to honor her memory He was a little rusty on the drill,
although, once trained in Catholicism, one never completely forgot. But
even if he could do a passable job, that still left him with the problem
of delaying the parish priest. That's when he'd thought of using Gregory
James, who'd been trained both as a priest and as an actor.
"Did you say everything right?" Gregory asked him now.
"You'd been over it with me a dozen times." Burke cursed a slow driver
as he whipped around him."I sai
d everything right."
"She didn't guess?"
The tearful remorse he'd heard in her voice couldn't have been faked.
"She didn't guess."
"Good thing she couldn't see that scowl on your face. It hardly looks
saintly."
"Well she didn't, so relax."
"I'm relaxed. You're the one who's sweating and driving like a maniac."
Having said that, Gregory sat back, smiling. He tapped his fingers on
his knees in time to a tune inside his head."I did my part great.
Waylaid the priest outside the rectory, just like you told me to.
I told him I was trying to hook up with Father Kevin, that we'd been
seminary students together.
"He'd never heard of him, of course. Are you sure?" I asked. I'm
positive his mother told me that he'd been assigned to Saint Michael's
in New Or-leens." Those voice classes I took in New York sure helped
cover my accent," he told Burke in an aside.
"Anyway, the priest says that my friend could very well have been
assigned to Saint Michael's, but I was at Saint Matthew's. So then we