Twist of Faith

by Ellen J Green

  Just sitting outside the church made his skin itch. He didn’t want to look too hard at the doors to the chapel. His intention was to go to Ava’s house, get that over with first, but when he’d gotten there, her car was gone; only a silver Jeep Cherokee was parked in the front. The cop’s car. So he’d turned around and gone to the convent. Marie would be first.

  His head was down when he noticed movement near the convent door. A thin woman dressed in black approaching. Dark hair. He knew her even before she turned so he could catch her face. Ava. She’d left the cop in her bed to come to a convent. Weird choice. Then Marie was there, in the window.

  He lowered his head to the steering wheel. Anguish. A church. A convent. When would it end? He felt God playing a joke on him. He’d had to make terrible choices with worse outcomes his whole life, and every time there was a significant event, it was in a place of worship. And here it was again.

  The two disappeared inside. That was it. He wasn’t going in. This was a sign to leave well enough alone. Then a thought occurred to him; it was his thought, but it felt more like a guiding voice. Go pray. Go into the chapel, kneel. Light a candle and pray. He obeyed. Ten minutes later he saw why he was drawn here. Marie appeared in the chapel. Hurried and slightly flushed, she was speaking in a whispered voice to another nun. She gestured toward the outer buildings and then disappeared out the door. He slid out of the pew, genuflected, and crossed himself. And then followed her out the door.

  She ran out of the chapel and across the yard. Now was his chance.

  “Marie.” He said it in a monotone voice. Not urgent. He didn’t want her to run from him.

  She whipped around, startled, and almost lost her footing. “What are you doing here?” she hissed.

  He looked around to see who was nearby. Nobody. “When someone pays a visit, it’s proper to repay the gesture. Don’t you think?” He smiled.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  He reached out and took hold of her arm. “Oh, but you do. Why? Tell me why.” He noticed the bandage covering her right hand. Had she cut it on his neighbor’s light?

  She tried to shake free, but he held fast. “Why what?”

  “You left the photograph for me. Broke my light. Hurt your hand? And after we had such a nice agreement in place.”

  Marie studied him for a moment, her lips pursed. “If that’s what you think.”

  “Is this a game?” He shook her arm to underline his words.

  “You’re the one playing.” She broke free.

  He looked at the ground. “The girl’s worth nothing. Not your father’s life, or your sister’s. Has anyone but us searched for her over the years? In the past twenty years? Did they? Have you or Claire had knocks on the door, people saying, ‘Give us back our little girl’?” Marie refused to respond. “The answer is no. I won’t tell anyone about the photographs you sent. About Bill, Loyal, and Ross dying the way they did. If she’s in there, bring her out. Don’t make me wait any longer. This can be over, right now.”

  “Photographs I sent? You think I killed the others?” She half laughed, but it was hollow. “I didn’t.”

  Her eyes darted toward the chapel, the convent, the woods. She looked crazed. “Ava came here to talk to me, I don’t know about what yet, because I haven’t had a minute to speak to her. But she looks ill.”

  “Then my timing is perfect. We’re going to do this now.”

  He thought she was going to stall or make excuses, but she didn’t. “Just meet me on the other side of Euclid in ten minutes. I’ll get her there somehow,” she responded.

  He nodded. “Brown LeBaron. Don’t screw me over. Or I’ll come back for you both.”

  “Better idea. I’ll follow you in her Honda.” She must have seen the distrust on his face. “I’m not leaving her car here at the convent. And I don’t feel like fighting to get her into the back of yours.”

  “If you disappear on me, this is going to get ugly.”

  She was already headed toward the convent door.

  CHAPTER 28

  Juliette had blown past him in a fit of anger. There were no words to calm her now. He’d really screwed up, in so many ways. The wedding planner had been there when he’d arrived home. Papers spread across the dining-room table. Venue options. Guest lists, a chart with tables and names filled in. Menus. Fifty menus. And ideas for cakes. This was the first meeting, but Juliette had applied herself since he’d given her the ring, concentrating on little else. And like she always said, when she put her mind to something, shit got done.

  It was an awkward moment in front of a stranger. Mrs. Gleason felt the tension and was suddenly mute.

  “I said ten. I was sure I said ten. Did you misunderstand? It wasn’t clear?” Juliette underscored her anger by slapping the menus together in a pile. He knew her eyes were taking in his wrinkled clothes. Maybe her nose smelled the wine. “Took the opportunity to start the bachelor party early? That what happened?” She motioned to the number scrawled on his hand. “Maybe a hot stripper or—”

  “I told you I’m on a case—”

  “Mrs. Gleason, that’s it for today, I think. I’ll call you to reschedule,” Juliette said, standing up.

  “Well, I think we’ve covered some good options for today. It’ll give you something to think about. I’ll let myself out.” And she was gone.

  Juliette was only five minutes behind her. Her last words were clipped: “Case, my ass. Figure out what you really want, Russell. When you do, call me. But I’m not waiting forever.” She slammed his door, opened it, and then slammed it again before leaving for good.

  He dropped onto the sofa and rubbed his forehead. Juliette still had her own apartment, but since the engagement her belongings had crept in with her, filling every corner with her presence. He’d give her some time to calm down and then call her. Right now he needed aspirin and sleep.

  He climbed the steps to the second floor and went into the bathroom, reaching for the medicine cabinet. Two things stopped him. The haggard reflection staring back at him and the phone number written across the back of his hand.

  His eyes were sunken in. Underlined with dark-purple bags. His hair was a mess of curls smashed against his head. He was pale and exhausted. His neck twinged every time he moved his head, but he still lowered it to study the number. After grabbing the bottle of aspirin from the shelf, he headed to his office. Let’s see who called Ava.

  The number rang unanswered, no machine. He paused for a moment and dialed Ava’s number. He glanced at the clock. She had to be back, it was almost eleven thirty. Where could she have gone? The phone rang until voicemail picked up. He wanted to circle back to her house, to see if by chance she’d passed out and didn’t hear the phone, but he couldn’t.

  “Sleep. I’ll call again later.” He swallowed three aspirin, trudged to the bedroom, and fell onto the bed fully clothed.

  He was awakened by the sound of his cell phone ringing beside him. He rubbed his eyes and felt crust rub off on his finger. “Christ, what time is it?” The clock glowed three thirty. He turned the phone over and looked at the number. Juliette. He threw the phone down again. He needed coffee and more aspirin before he could listen to what she had to say.

  He sat up and looked at his phone. Five calls. Three from the office. They were calling to check in with him, see how he was, get a return-to-work date, no doubt. Two from Juliette. Ava, where are you? He dialed Ava’s number and listened to it ring through to voicemail. Damn it. If she was sleeping, he was going to kill her himself.

  He made coffee, swallowed some more aspirin, then dialed the number on his hand.

  “W and K.” The voice was female. Soft.

  “I’m sorry, is this a business?” He pushed himself up to a full sitting position.

  “Yes. W and K bar. Four thirty-five Poplar Street.”

  “Oh, I must have the wrong number. Sorry.” He hung up and wrote the address next to the phone number on his hand. “And now, Ava, I’m coming to get you
and we’re going to pay a little visit to the bar together.”

  He showered, changed, and was headed to Haddonfield in less than fifteen minutes. There was something twisting in the back of his head. Instinct. Gut. A sense of dread.

  Ava’s house was dark. No silver Honda Accord in the driveway. He pulled up in front and sat there staring at it. He dialed her number again, but this time it went straight to voicemail. He shoved the phone into his pocket and started up her steps.

  The door was unlocked when he turned the handle. He slid in and closed the door behind him. The room was in the same disarray as when he’d left. Russell wondered briefly if what he was doing would be considered breaking and entering, but climbed the steps to the office anyway and looked around. Her phone lay just where he’d left it. Out of charge now. She had never come back—or if she had, she’d left again without it.

  He put the phone in his pocket and continued the tour. Everything was just as it had been: the wet towel was on the bed where he’d thrown it, even his empty glass was still on the counter in the kitchen.

  His body started to tingle. What happened to you? Where are you? He’d asked these questions a million times on cases, with a professional distance. He could dissect things. Organize information. Make notes. Get leads, when he wasn’t personally involved. But this was different, and everything that had happened the night before was dancing in his brain. The wine, her sitting on the floor, laughing, drinking. Pretending to eat her Chinese food. Going through boxes. Laughing again. Kissing, her mouth on his. He shook the thoughts away. He couldn’t replay that. But he knew she hadn’t discussed plans for the next day, an appointment in the morning. Nothing. Shit.

  He stood in the office. They both had intended to clean it up after they were finished. She’d wanted everything back in the closet, as if untouched. Man, this is a mess. He started in the corner, packing albums into boxes as fast as he could. He was sweating, starting to feel dizzy, the whole while pondering where Ava had gone. The bar he’d called? Was she there, drinking? A hair of the dog? Had she gone to her aunt’s? Joanne’s? Without her phone? Without telling him? Missing person, forty-eight hours kept playing in his mind. After forty-eight hours the leads grew cold. That was, if she really was missing and hadn’t just taken off on her own to do some investigating without telling him. In that case, he really was going to be done with this whole mess.

  His actions became more frenzied. The closet door open, he began throwing boxes in haphazardly. Five photographs of Ross and the boys sat on the desk. He needed those. That was his starting point.

  He walked across the hall, taking in each nuance of the room, each fact, ticking it off in his head. She took her purse, left her phone. She took a shower. He glanced at his hand. The bar. Photos in hand, he raced down the steps to the front door.

  As he opened it and stepped outside, he bumped full force into a woman. Tall and on the thin side, her hair was short, slightly wavy, and dark. Despite the miserably serious expression on her face, it was hard for him not to notice that she was strikingly pretty. High cheekbones, square jawline. Dramatic eyes. Full lips.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. “And what are you doing in my sister’s house?”

  CHAPTER 29

  He peeled the clothes from his body, his back and arms aching with every move, his muscles painful to the touch. The bathtub was small and old. Stained around the drain from rust, but he didn’t care. He needed to soak. He lowered himself slowly into the hot water, steam rising to form fog in the small room. The one good feature of this crappy house was the water. It was always hot and there was plenty of it. The only thing that disturbed his soaks was when he heard Mrs. Engles through the wall, taking a bath at the same time. That was something he didn’t ever want to think about too deeply.

  He’d scrubbed his hands where he’d been cut, and washed the blood and dirt from his arms before getting into the bath, but he couldn’t help but notice that the grime from his body was turning the water the color of weak tea. He didn’t care. He rubbed the soap over his skin and then pulled his legs in so he could lie back, letting the scalding water fill the tub.

  Ava had fought both of them to the end. That was unexpected. But Marie had cooperated like she said she would. Getting her into her car had been easy, apparently. And by the time she’d figured out Marie was following the old LeBaron, it was too late. Pale, thin, obviously ill, she’d trusted Marie to help her. To watch that trust fade away over the hours that followed was a beautiful thing to see and something he’d waited almost twenty years for. Even up until the very end, the very last second, she had questions. Give me a name, she’d said. As if it mattered now. A name. That’s all I want. That’s when he’d hit her. But she still didn’t stop. Where did I come from? Who am I? Give me a name. I know you know. You were there with Ross. I remember.

  At the mention of her father’s name, Marie stepped in. Obviously torn, begging for it to stop and then finishing her off by wrapping her hands around the thin neck, choking the questions right out of her. Ava’s body was limp, eyes rolled back in her head, lids partially open. He’d kicked her in the back a few times and once in the head, just to make sure she wasn’t faking. This would have been easier if we’d done it when she was three. His parting words to Marie after they dumped her body and car in the Pine Barrens.

  “Just keep your promise and leave town tomorrow. There’s no reason for us to see each other ever again.” Marie left without looking back.

  He turned on more hot water now, letting it splash over his ankles, feeling the heat fill the tub. He closed his eyes and drifted off. The violence had made him sick, and he’d had to lean behind a tree to vomit without letting Marie see his weakness. The hitting, choking, and brutalizing the girl took him back to another time, when he wasn’t the perpetrator, but the victim. And that was a place he never wanted to revisit.

  Father Callahan’s voice was in his ear. When I was a child I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man I did away with childish things. Corinthians 13:11. Not just a memory of the voice, but the voice. He flew to a sitting position; water splashed over the floor. Do away with childish things. You’re eleven now. Come here. Now. Stop acting like a baby. If you cry, I will tell your parents. If not, well, I’ll take you to the movies. How does that sound? He shuddered and covered his ears, shaking his head back and forth. The man was there now too, not just the voice. He was small in stature—as a boy he’d seen Father Callahan side by side with his own father and visually measured the priest at almost a foot shorter. Close-set eyes, always unfocused as if he wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The voice, never loud. Calm. Condescending. Brutal. Manipulative. Confusing.

  “Come here.” Father Callahan reached for him. “Now, we talked about this crying before. I will always take care of you. You have a place here. You know that.” Arms went around him, and for that moment he felt safe, loved, and protected.

  He felt sad and strangely jealous that Ross had been Father Callahan’s favorite. Ross was tall for his age, dark, handsome. Father Callahan was drawn to him. New baseball glove at the beginning of the season. Tickets to the movies, with popcorn and soda thrown in. Trips to see the Phillies play. Ice cream. A free pass. That’s what Ross got. And Ross’s parents loved Father Callahan right back. He was invited to dine with the family a few times a month. All the boys picked on Ross because of it. Dinner with Father Callahan. What do you have to eat when he comes over? Wine and crackers? They knew Callahan was grooming Ross for the priesthood. All the talk of seminary, education, training, made Ross’s parents so proud. They just didn’t know to what extent he was being groomed.

  In front of the church it was shadowed and gloomy. He sat with Loyal in a small patch of grass at the front, looking at baseball cards. Ross was in the rectory with Father Callahan.

  “When are they coming out? I wanna go home,” Loyal complained.

  He dug at the dirt with a stick, his eyes watching the
door of the rectory. “Don’t go yet. I don’t want to go home.”

  Loyal sighed. “Five minutes and I’m out.”

  Just then Ross came tearing through the door, grabbed his bike, and pedaled toward Orthodox Street without saying a word. He and Loyal hopped on their bikes and followed Ross as far the Tacony–Palmyra bridge. Ross dumped his bicycle and started walking the footpath over the bridge and then climbed over the rails. Loyal climbed behind him out onto the metal planks, waving for him to come. But he was petrified of heights and couldn’t slide over the rails without looking down. He began to fear Ross was going to jump. He’d been crying. He’d never seen him cry before. Bill and Loyal, yes. Never Ross. The earth tilted a little that night, slightly off course, and things would never be the same. “I’m not going to Catholic seminary. I’m not. No matter what my parents say. I’m not doing any of this anymore. Father Callahan needs to stay away from me.” Red faced, tears streaming, Ross had stood up and walked farther out over the edge, Loyal behind him. The next sound was of laughter and their urine flowing.

  He closed his eyes. That night he’d felt envious of Ross. Angry and jealous. Why Ross? Why not him? And Ross didn’t even want the attention. Feeling special, in his world full of neglect, was something and not all bad. Being wanted, being told he was good and worthy, not only of Father Callahan’s love but of God’s love, was something too. There were days, back then, especially after his mother died, that that was all he had to hold on to. But deep inside, he knew a sickness had taken seed. And that seed would sprout in him, causing disgust, rage, and the worst kind of shame for the rest of his life.

  The tub was growing cold. He pulled himself up and put on fresh clothes, bandaged his hand—not cut too bad. Then he’d sleep. He had time for a good sleep. He’d given notice on the apartment, so he had fifteen days to pack his things, make arrangements, and move out of Philadelphia for good. Move south and try to find some temporary work. Get on with his life. That was his plan. He knew he’d find peace somehow. Maybe he’d chased Ava for so long to get back at Ross. Ross had everything: looks, smarts, people that loved him. Parents that cared. For so long, the hate had taken up a little spot in the back of his brain. And then directed itself toward the girl with the dark hair. This time Ross hadn’t won.