Blind Spot

by Terri Persons

  “Coward.”

  Another word he despised, and one he’d used on himself. “You don’t know anything about it. What I’ve been through. What others have been through. People who have lost mothers and fathers and daughters and sons. You’re after me? You’ve got your gun pointed at me? Why aren’t you after the real criminals?” Quaid raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Let them be put to shame and dishonor who seek after my life. Let them be turned back and confounded who devise evil against me. Let them be like chaff before the wind, with the angel of the Lord driving them on.”

  “Why should God answer the prayers of a murderer—and a coward?” She took another step closer.

  “Stop there!”

  Bernadette froze, her gun and her eyes riveted to this dark, handsome man with his dark, ugly soul. He’d stunned her with the revelation that he was the priest from her church visits. He’d set her up to find him—whether he could admit it to himself or not. Why did he want to be caught? Was he trying to exit in a blaze of glory? “Do you see yourself as a hero? A martyr? You’re two paragraphs in the back of the newspaper. Just another sick killer. Another coward.”

  “I am not a coward! If I’d been here, don’t you think I would have defended them? Don’t you think I would have given my life? Don’t you think I wanted to die with them? My sister’s cries still ring in my ears. I hear them pleading for their lives. Their honor.”

  Bernadette blinked. Why had he suddenly taken off on a rant about defending his family? How could he hear…?

  She gasped. The terror she’d felt in the closet. The familiarity of that position in that tight space. Now she understood. He’d been hiding while his family was being butchered. He’d curled his legs up to his chest and done nothing. “You were here all along. You were home when they were killed. Your mother and your father and your sisters—”

  “Shut up! I was at school! I was gone! I wasn’t here! I wasn’t!”

  “They didn’t even call out your name, did they? They didn’t want the killers to know you were there. They died protecting you. My God. What a thing to carry around!”

  He took another step toward the stairs. “I wasn’t home! I didn’t hear anything! I wasn’t in the closet! I wasn’t!”

  “Liar.” She took a step in his direction.

  His finger moved to the trigger. “Stop where you are! Stop moving or I’ll finish it now!”

  She needed to draw him in for the kill. Anything short of a square hit to the chest wasn’t going to stop this guy. Her shot would have to be perfect, and she wasn’t feeling confident. Her head was cloudy and her arms were heavy. She’d finally shrugged off his emotional state, only to find her own psyche crippled and weak. She softened her tone and tried to find their common ground. “Think you’re the only one who’s suffered a loss in this life? Take a number.”

  “What do you know about suffering?”

  “My sister. That wasn’t a fabrication.” The story tumbled out easier than she expected, a completion of the confession she’d started on the church bench. “The drunk driver. He’s walking around. Living and breathing. Getting up in the morning and going to work and coming home and having dinner with his family. Going to church on Sundays. The same church Maddy was buried from. The same church! You think I like that? I stopped going because of him. I’m the coward, and he’s the brave saint going to mass. Do you know how many times I’ve fantasized about hitting him with my truck? Seeing him roll up over the hood?”

  She took a breath and continued, speaking more slowly and with less conviction. “But he did his time. Served his sentence. He’s out and it’s over and that’s how it works.”

  Quaid lowered his gun an inch and moved his finger away from the trigger, but stayed where he stood, one stride from the edge of the stairs. “Shouldn’t be how it works. That isn’t God’s justice; it’s man’s way. Flawed and unfair. Easy on the criminals and tough on the victims.”

  A part of her agreed with him. She knew her retort was flimsy, but it was the truth: “It’s the best we can do.”

  “I can do better. I am doing better. You and your friend in the shed, you should have left me alone. Let me do my work. Accomplish my missions. We’re on the same side.”

  Her eyes darted to his chest. A wide target, but was she close enough? “People can’t take the law into their own hands. Run around executing other people. We’ve got to work within the system, as imperfect as it is.”

  “I gave the system a chance. The state of Minnesota turned its back on the death penalty. Turned its back on all of us.”

  The thump of a heavy footstep made both snap their heads toward the stairs. Quaid pivoted around to face the steps. A male voice booming up from the first floor. “FBI! Don’t move!”

  “Tony,” Bernadette hollered. “He’s armed.”

  Quaid stepped to the edge of the stairs and addressed the man at the bottom. “Get out of my house!”

  The voice from downstairs: “Drop it, Father Quaid!”

  Father. The sound of a stranger’s voice addressing Quaid by his former title made him hesitate. He adjusted his grip on his gun.

  Bernadette steadied her arms and squeezed the trigger. At the same time, two shots rang from downstairs. All three bullets found their mark: Quaid was hit twice from the front and once from the side. He jerked like a man who’d been shocked by an electrical jolt. He dropped his gun and brought both his hands to his chest. Brought his palms up and looked at the red. Turning his head toward Bernadette, he opened his mouth as if to say something to her. He bent forward and tumbled down the stairs.

  She lowered her Glock and ran to the top of the steps, relieved to see Garcia standing alive at the bottom. At his feet was Quaid, sprawled on his back with his arms extended straight out and his feet still resting on the bottom step, crossed at the ankles. A sloppy crucifixion. “Sweet Jesus,” Bernadette breathed. A prayer, not a curse.

  Garcia holstered his gun, pulled out his cell, and called for help. He dropped his cell back in his pocket and went down on his knees next to the wounded man. Glancing up at Bernadette, Garcia said: “You can put it away.”

  She pocketed her Glock and started down the stairs. “Dead?”

  Garcia nodded grimly. “Close to it.”

  She reached the bottom of the steps and hunkered down on the other side of Quaid, across from her boss. She noticed red lines on Garcia’s wrists. “How did you get loose?”

  Garcia held up his right wrist and jiggled his Catholic ID bracelet. “Makes a good saw. I just needed something to distract him so I could use it.” He lowered his wrist. “You played it right—drawing him into the house with the gunshot. A firefight in that tin can would have been a bad deal.”

  Quaid’s eyes were closed but his lips were moving. “He’s saying something.” Bernadette leaned down and turned her ear to his mouth.

  Garcia asked in a low voice: “A confession?”

  Bernadette held up her hand to quiet Garcia and drew closer to the bloody figure on the floor. She whispered into Quaid’s ear: “Don’t understand.” As the dying man’s lips moved again, Bernadette nodded and put her hand on his shoulder.

  Garcia: “What does he want? Is he making a confession?”

  A final puff of air escaped from Quaid’s lips. Air leaking from a balloon. His eyes popped open and his head rolled to one side, toward Bernadette.

  She sat back on her heels. “He’s gone.”

  Garcia reached over and searched for a pulse against the side of Quaid’s neck. He cupped his hand and held it over the man’s nose and mouth to feel for breath. He pulled his hand away. “What did he say?”

  “Three words,” she said. “A good priest.”

  Garcia stared at the body and frowned. “He wanted last rites? He wanted us to call a priest? He didn’t deserve it.”

  The sound of distant sirens made Bernadette look toward the front door. She turned back to her boss and answered his question: “No. I don’t think that was it. He didn’t want a pr
iest.”

  “What, then?”

  “He wanted me to know. Wanted us to know. A good priest. That’s what he was, or what he could have been, if all the crap hadn’t rained down on his life.”

  “He dumped his vocation and turned into an ax murderer. Literally. Good priest, my ass.” Garcia stood up and swayed, grabbing the stairway banister for support.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He let go of the railing and touched his forehead with his fingertips, felt the bump, and grimaced. “I’ve got one mother of a headache.”

  “Got to get you to a hospital.”

  “It can wait. We got plenty to do here. Our folks need to be briefed. Locals are gonna have a few questions about what went down in their backyard and why those asshole feds didn’t clue them in.”

  Outside, a half dozen sirens wound down as squad and ambulance lights flashed against the curtains. “Speak of the devil,” said Bernadette.

  “Speak of the devil,” Garcia repeated. As he headed for the front door, he said over his shoulder: “Sheriff’s here. Get up and get your game face on. I’ll do the talking for both of us.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” she said after him. Bernadette watched his back to make sure he wasn’t going to turn around again. She made the sign of the cross and struggled to come up with a quick formal prayer. All she could manage: “May God have mercy on your soul.”

  She stood up and gave one last look at the dead man. She wondered if she should keep Quaid’s sad secret—that he’d been in the house hiding when his family was murdered. What about her own secret? Could she ever tell her boss how the killer had deceived her and helped her at the same time? As she followed Garcia to the front door, she remembered the words she’d exchanged with her ghost lover in her dream.

  Then stay home. Don’t go back to church. He isn’t there.

  Who? Who isn’t there? God?

  A good priest.

  Fifty-one

  He walked through her condo door—without opening the door—while Bernadette was on her knees unpacking a crate of wineglasses. Frightened, she dropped a goblet on the floor and jumped to her feet. “Hey!”

  “Not finished unpacking yet? Pathetic. And alone on a Saturday night? More pathetic still.”

  “It’s Sunday.” She stumbled backward. “Go away.”

  He pointed to the broken glass. “Should I get a broom?”

  She held up her hands to fend him off. “Use it to fly away.”

  “Wanted to congratulate you on the case. See if you wanted to—”

  She cut him off. “I don’t want to do anything with you.”

  He folded his arms over his chest. “Not very neighborly.”

  She backed up until she felt the sofa behind her legs. She put her hand over the front pocket of her jeans and was disappointed she felt no bulge; she’d left her gun on the kitchen counter. Then she told herself she was being ridiculous—she couldn’t kill a ghost. “You’re not my neighbor. You’re a dead guy. Get the hell away from me.”

  The right side of his mouth curled up into a smirk. “You weren’t so eager to part ways last time we were together.”

  She wondered if her heart was pounding so loud it would drown out her words. “I didn’t know you were…”

  “So good in the sack?”

  “This has never happened to me before,” she said defensively. “It’s not like I go around getting drunk with dead guys and hopping into their beds.”

  The crooked smile vanished from his face. “It was a first for me, too. All of this is new.”

  Was she the only living person able to make contact with him? Her fear was immediately overshadowed by intense curiosity. Maybe she could unravel how all of this worked. Could be it was connected to her sight. She lowered herself onto the couch, but sat on the edge in case she needed to escape quickly. “Let me get this straight. No one else has seen you? This haunting thing isn’t your regular gig?”

  He shoved his hands in his pants pockets, stepped over the glass, and went around the box. “I made enough racket once to keep a couple from buying my place. The Realtor blamed it on pigeons or rats or some such nonsense. A little boy downstairs can see Oscar, but not me. Go figure. His parents told the kid not to pet strange dogs. If only they knew how strange.”

  “Why can I see you? Is it something about me? Something about you? Something with this building? How were we able to…”

  “Do it like bunnies?”

  She frowned. “That’s not how I’d put it, but yes. How?”

  “I have no idea why or how. I do know that it was wonderful. I hope you don’t push me away. Please don’t push me away. I’ve been so lonely, and now there’s someone who can see me and talk to me. Touch me.”

  She crossed her arms in front of her. “We can’t…I can’t let that happen again.”

  He opened his mouth to respond and then closed it. He thumbed to an armchair parked to the right of the couch. “May I?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Appreciate it.” He plopped onto the cushion.

  “What’s with the popping in or materializing or whatever? There was a time when you bothered to knock.”

  He rapped twice on her coffee table. “How’s that?”

  “Hilarious.”

  He crossed his ankle over his knee. Oscar appeared on his lap. Augie stroked the dog’s back. “Bad dog. You should have knocked first.”

  Bernadette started at the dachshund. “How did you make the dog do that? Appear like that?”

  Augie ignored her question and ran his eyes around her condo. “Looks like you’re getting settled in. Nice. The motorcycle is a unique decorating touch. Didn’t notice it before.”

  “It’s a dirt bike.”

  “I should get one for my place. More interesting than a piano.”

  “Your place. What happens when they sell it? Where’re you and Oscar gonna go then?”

  He stopped petting his dog and flashed a wicked grin. “No one will ever want to buy my joint. I guarantee it.”

  She had to smile along with him. “You’re evil.”

  “Maybe that’s why I’m stuck here.”

  Suddenly a dozen topics popped into her head. Life and death and the angels and the devil. A single question rose above the clutter. She had to pose it, even though she feared the answer. “Have you seen him?”

  His brows furrowed. “Who?”

  She immediately regretted asking; it would be better not to know. “Forget it.”

  “Your Michael?”

  Her stomach fluttered; Augie knew her husband’s name. She leaned forward, hungry for details. “He’s at peace? Happy? What’s it like for him? Is he in a better place?”

  “How should I know? I’m stuck here. Unless a lot has changed since I was in Sunday school, a warehouse overlooking the Mississippi River is not the definition of heaven. I’m waiting for that better place myself.”

  “You know too much about me and about the case. You knew my husband’s name. How did you know his name?”

  “Look,” he sputtered, losing patience with her questions. “There’s a lot I don’t know, and a lot I do.”

  “How? You must have some insight into the afterlife.”

  “Why must I?”

  She jumped out of her seat. “Because you’re a spirit or ghost or a poltergeist or whatever you want to call yourself! What do you call yourself?”

  “Dead guy. Your terminology. Works fine for me.”

  “Asshole dead guy.” She walked around the couch and headed into the kitchen. Bernadette yanked open the refrigerator and leaned one hand against the door. She prayed he’d be gone by the time she turned around. She pulled out a bottle of beer.

  “I could go for three of those,” he yelled after her.

  “Thirsty dead guy,” she muttered, pulling out two additional bottles and plucking a magnetic bottle opener off the refrigerator. She dropped it all on the coffee table in front of the sofa.

  “St. Pauli,” he said, pick
ing up one of the bottles and popping off the top. “Excellent. This would have been my pick for a last drink—had those bloodthirsty animals allowed a last drink.”

  She sat down and watched while he chugged. Through the green glass, she saw the beer disappear as he swallowed. “How does it work?”

  He set his half-empty bottle down on the table and stifled a burp. “What?”

  Before she answered, she picked up a bottle, pried off the cap, and took a long drink. She held the bottle on her lap, between her thighs. “How can you drink if you’re dead, and what about food? Your dog must poop. You were carrying a poop bag when we met.”

  Oscar looked at the bottles on the table and whined. Augie retrieved his beer, cupped his hand in front of the dog, and poured a puddle into his palm. The dog lapped it up. “Boozehound.”

  “August,” said Bernadette. “Augie. How does it work? How do you do things?”

  He wiped his hand on his pants. “Elaborate. What things?”

  “How did you light up your condo for me?”

  “Let’s just say no one else in this building can hold a candle to our lovemaking—because they can’t find their candles.”

  “You stole all that stuff from the other lofts.”

  “I prefer the term spirited away.”

  “Semantics. What about the champagne? How can you pour it? How can you drink? Can you get drunk?”

  Augie tipped back the bottle and polished off his beer. He set the bottle down and reached for another. “I intend to. Hope you’ve got more in the fridge.”

  “Dammit. Answer my questions.”

  He yanked off the top of his second beer and tossed the cap and opener on the table. “Jesus H. Christ. Can you get drunk? Does your pooch poop? Have you seen my suicidal hubby? Is that the best you can do? No wonder the bureau is so fucked up. What about the big stuff? Holy crap. How about Is there a heaven and a hell? Does God exist and is He pissed at us?”

  “Is He?”

  “How should I know?” He lifted the beer to his mouth, tipped it back, and gulped.

  “That’s why I didn’t ask those big questions.” She pulled the bottle from between her legs, took a long drink, and set her St. Pauli on the table. “You obviously don’t know. You can’t even tell me why you can drink beer. For a dead dude, you’re very ignorant about the hereafter. Maybe you need to take a night class. Read one of those dummy books—Life After Death for Dummies.”