by Tom Lowe
SIXTY-TWO
Father MacGrath pulled his Cadillac Escalade into St. Patrick’s Catholic Church lot, parked in his spot, turned off the car engine and sat there for a half minute. He kept his hands on the wheel, more for support—something to hang on to, even though he was sitting down. He glanced out the car windows at the long and gangly limbs from a massive weeping willow tree swaying in the breeze to a woman across the street walking a beagle. A groundskeeper, skin the shade of light coffee beans, mowed the grass around St. Patrick’s, the white cross at the top of the church in silhouette from the sun.
Father MacGrath got out of his car and walked slowly toward the entrance of the church office, his thoughts scattered. For the first time in many years, the traditional roles in his life had changed. Always, he had been someone for his flock to seek in their time of need. He was there to love and comfort them, following the word of God. He was their rock. But now the old priest needed someone to share his burden, but he could not. He couldn’t violate the seal of the sacrament. Not only was he forbidden by sacred tenets and covenants of canon law, the bishop was unwavering in his warning.
His phone buzzed in his hand. The display read: Unknown. Father MacGrath paused near the entrance to the church office, dark green ivy grew up the side of one brick wall, the sound of the lawnmower on the other section of the building. He answered, and a soft voice said, “Father MacGrath, I’ve missed you. Oh, I was in attendance at last Sunday’s mass, but I’m just one of many. I have missed the one-on-one time with you in the confessional.”
“What do you want?”
“That’s a rather abrupt and curt question for a man of God to ask. It’s not so much as what I want … it’s more of what I need.”
Father MacGrath said nothing. He looked across the church lawn, a man in shorts and a hoodie walking on the opposite side of the street, a phone to his ear. Somewhere in the neighborhood, the tune Pop Goes the Weasel played from an ice cream truck.
The voice continued, “Let me tell you what I like about the phone … it’s similar to the confession booth. Both can be anonymous. From the phone I’m using, you will have no record of this call. But in your mind, you will record it, and you won’t forget it—just like I recorded the abuse I received as an altar boy, never able to delete it from my thoughts. I am on the prowl again. The urges can’t be suppressed. A deadly result of the abuse I suffered. The police have someone arrested for my crimes. Where’s the justice in that, can you tell me? Of course not, because the church has never offered justice from the pedophiles it harbored and transferred from one parish to another. Before I go, Father, may I confess my latest sins to you?”
“No! I will speak with the police.” A cloud moved in front of the sun.
“And tell them what? You can’t and won’t violate the seal of the sacrament any more than the church would have its child abusers prosecuted. Also, you don’t know my name. You chose not to recognize it years ago, and I choose not to give it to you now.”
“You don’t know what I know. You must end the violence. I swear, as God is my witness, I will go to the police.”
“I plan to save you the trouble. I will have the police come to you. But they really won’t be coming to you … they’ll be coming for you. And there will be nothing you can do about that. Just like there was nothing I could do when I was twelve years old.”
The call ended. Father MacGrath’s heart hammered. He lowered the phone and held one hand to his chest, his left side pulsating in a pain that throbbed with the beat of his heart. He looked toward his parked car, the breeze stopped, a drop of sweat trickling down his neck and into his white collar. The sun returned, casting the cross on the roof into a long shadow that fell across the fresh-cut grass.
• • •
More than two hundred people sat in the stands and watched the little league game playoffs. One person watched one of the coaches. From the sea of faces in the bleachers, the observer blended in with everyone. He wore dark glasses and a ball cap, the collar to his windbreaker turned up. Behind the dark glasses, his eyes followed one man on the field—Coach Joe Jackson.
Coach Jackson was approaching fifty-three. Thick in the middle. Cherub cheeks. A laugh bigger than he was, and eyes that seemed to have a bemused twinkle to them. He played Santa every year for two weeks leading up to Christmas. Holding children in his lap and listening to their dreams. If they’d been good children, especially the boys, their dreams might come true.
Joe Jackson made a living as an accountant. He made scars in children as a pedophile. He was an assistant scoutmaster, and he’d been coaching little league for more than twenty years. Some of his first victims were grown men now.
One man—who had heard the rumors for years—sat in the stands.
There had been rumors and inferences that Coach Joe was sometimes a little too close with the kids he coached. Pats on the butt for everything from homeruns to strikeouts. But he was very selective, taking the time to groom and manipulate his innocent prey. Candy and compliments. Our secret. Better not say anything. No one will believe you anyway. Join the scouts for camping trips—trips away from home. Roughing it as real men do in the woods.
After the game ended, after the Hattiesburg Blue Jays lost, Coach Jackson consoled his team. They formed a circle, and the coach lead the kids in a quick prayer before high-fives to players on the winning team. Coach Jackson provided words of encouragement. His big hands on lots of small shoulders. Grinning and telling some parents that their son had what it takes to play in high school … and just maybe he had the talent in his DNA, if nurtured and coached, he could secure a college scholarship.
As the teams dispersed, people walked back to the parking lot and loaded mini-vans and SUV’s with bats, balls and gloves. Coach Jackson walked to the restroom. He quickly changed from his baseball uniform to his scoutmaster’s uniform, like a wolf changes from sheep’s clothing to the wool of a lamb. He wore a khaki shirt, red ascot around his neck, colorful badges sewn to the shirt, green shorts, and calf-high black socks with brown sandals on his feet.
Before the game, in the last-minute hustle to get extra bats and gloves and to pick up a first aid kit for the inevitable skinned knees and elbows from sliding the bases, Coach Jackson had failed to lock his new Lincoln Navigator.
It would be the last mistake he ever made.
SIXTY-THREE
Coach Joe Jackson’s black Lincoln Navigator sat alone in the parking lot. Parents and children of both little league teams were gone. Jackson, dressed in his scoutmaster’s uniform, red ascot perfectly knotted, opened the rear of his Navigator, one of the largest SUVs built. Lots of room for bats, balls, and scouting provisions. His tent was neatly stored in a cardboard box next to a container of camping supplies. He stored everything in spotless order. Folding shovel, rolled up sleeping bag, air mattress, insect repellant, two flashlights and a lantern.
The small ax was missing.
Had Joe Jackson not been in such a hurry, he might have noticed that because he set a canvas bag with his little league uniform just inside the open box with camping supplies. He glanced at his watch on his thick, hairless wrist, closed the rear door and got in the driver’s side behind the wheel. As he fastened his seatbelt, he smelled something strange.
The odor was similar to the aftershave his father wore. Maybe Old Spice.
Jackson glanced in the rearview mirror just as someone in a baseball cap, dark sunglasses, reached for him. Two hands and arms came over Jackson’s shoulders, grabbing the ascot and pulling with powerful strength. The ascot dug into Jackson’s flabby neck, pushing against the esophagus, digging deep into the larynx and trachea. Jackson couldn’t talk. Couldn’t scream. His air flow was cut off. With his heart pounding and arms flailing, he reached for the ascot, the cloth tightening deeper. He tried to get the tips of his fingers underneath the cloth. But the ascot was in too far, a noose tightening.
Jackson batted at the strong arms and hands like a child in a cradle reach
ing for a moving toy carousel. He tried screaming. His larynx was crushing. Face turning dark red. Blood trickling from his left nostril—a blackness descending over him. Just as Jackson was about to pass out, the noose loosened. A voice near his ear whispered, “Coach, it’s your turn to wet your pants.”
Jackson grasped for a breath. “What?” he managed to cough out, his voice raspy. Mind fogged.
“Pee in your pants. Just let it go, Coach. You pee in your pants like I did the first time I was molested … for all the young boys you terrorized.”
Jackson’s eyes were wide. Terrified. Sweat pouring down his pudgy face. The noose tightened again. “I said piss in your pants!”
Jackson gurgled a few words and released his bladder. His green boy scout shorts turning dark, the acrid smell of urine in the air. “Let it flow, Coach. Atta boy.”
The noose tightened again. This time with even more force. The ascot shutting off all air to the lungs and blood to the brain. The voice spoke again. The whisper seemed even more distant to the dying man. “Et roborabitur fortitudo eius in hora mortis … you shall be strengthened by His presence in the hour of your death.”
Joe Jackson’s hands fell from the ascot to his sides. The attacker waited another fifteen seconds before releasing his grip on the ascot. He reached around the body and yanked on Jackson’s arms to bring his hands to his lap. He then lifted a wooden cross next to an ax on the back seat and shoved its long end into Jackson’s hands—reminiscent of the innocence of an altar boy. He picked up the ax, swinging the blade down hard into the back of the dead man’s skull.
The attacker whispered, “Part of the scout’s oath is to do duty to God and country. Done.”
SIXTY-FOUR
Father MacGrath sat alone in the sanctuary of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church and prayed like he’d never prayed before in his life. He knelt at the foot of the three carpeted steps that lead up to the altar where a long table was covered with a white cloth. Matching ivory candles burning in two ornate silver candelabras sat on top flickering droplets of light onto the nearby windows. Father MacGrath looked at the image of Jesus in one of the stained-glass windows to the left, Christ dressed in a white robe, a dark red shawl draped over his left shoulder, his arms open wide, palms out.
“Lord … God … I cry out to you like a lamb in the darkness. I know evil is there in the dark, but Father … your light is always there to greet it. I feel like I have been blinded to the holy light as if a scarf was around the eyes of justice. My mouth is bound by the seal of the sacrament, but my heart is exposed to the pain, suffering and death caused by evil. It is an evil spirit that walked into this holy place, entered the confessional under the cloak of anonymity and confessed to the most unspeakable of mortal sins … the taking of a precious human life. Not once, Father, but at least three times. And I fear my silence will allow this horror to continue. I know I can never understand fully your plan. But I pray that you will guide me. I come to this sacred altar on my knees pleading with you, Lord Jesus, to give me direction. Do you want me to violate canon law to disclose what was confessed to me for your ears only? Please lead me to the still waters of certainty. I can only reflect and follow your teachings, Jesus. And, I use that as a blessed guide … but it is a difficult road to walk, Father. I stand at a crossroads of indecision. I reflect on words you whispered into the ear of Saint Thomas Aquinas who shared with us the three things necessary for the salvation of man. The first is to know what he ought to believe. The second is to know what he ought to desire. And the third is to know what he ought to do.”
Father MacGrath paused, flickering yellow candlelight trapped in eyes welling with tears. He clasped his hands together and said. “To know what he ought to do … I Lord, know what I ought to do, but I am bound by a seal that I can no longer believe that applies to the horror that is before us, that mocks the confession, your holy word and your absolution.”
Father MacGrath closed his eyes and simply listened. He was an old priest at the foot of an altar praying in the light and shadows of flickering candles, the soft whir of air through the vents punctuated by the rumble of thunder in the distance. He opened his eyes, staring at the image of Jesus on the cross, the crown of thorns on his head. There was a flash of lightning, accentuating the colors in the stained-glass, the eyes of Christ transcendent, filled with tenderness. Father MacGrath stared at the image and whispered, “And now, God, following the example set when you walked this earth … I know what I must do and how I must do it.”
SIXTY-FIVE
Elizabeth wasn’t sure where to begin. She and Mike Bradford sat at a table with a white linen cloth over it. Candles flickered in the low light next to three fresh-cut long-stem red roses in a smoky blue vase. Spotless crystal wine glasses stood beside silverware wrapped in beige cloth napkins made from a heavy thread-count linen. Piano music from George Winston came through hidden speakers in the Cellar Restaurant.
“What a day,” Elizabeth said, watching a blonde waitress in her mid-thirties approach with two cocktails on a tray. It was early, and the restaurant had less than a dozen patrons. The waitress set a dirty martini down in front of Elizabeth. Bradford had ordered bourbon, Wild Turkey on the rocks. “May I bring you folks dinner menus?”
Elizabeth smiled and said, “Can you give us about fifteen minutes?”
“Of course.” She nodded and left.
Bradford lifted his drink in a toast. “To wrapping this up and getting some normalcy back into Forrest County and our own lives.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Elizabeth sipped the martini. “I’m not sure what normalcy means any more … and I’m the psychologist.” She smiled, lips wet, a touch of red lipstick on the edge of the cold glass.
Bradford laughed and said, “Personally, it means us, you and me, going to a movie and dinner. Professionally, in my line of work, a few weeks without a murder would be nice.”
“Amen.”
“Tell me about your meeting with Baxter.”
She stared at the candles, the yellow light swaying in her wide pupils, and then she looked up at Bradford. “I remember reading a quote from a former U. S. Supreme Court justice when, in the sixties, the high court was trying to define pornography. When considering the threshold test for hard core obscenity in a case before the court, the justice said, “I’m not sure what it is … but I’ll know it when I see it.”
“That phrase certainly made its way into the American vernacular and colloquialism.”
“I’m not exactly sure how to define evil … but I believe I saw it in the eyes of Boyd Baxter.”
“He does have that crazed deer-in-the-headlights look.”
“It’s beyond that. It seeps from his very pores. First and foremost, Baxter is competent to stand trial. Evil and insanity, in terms of knowing right and wrong, understanding the consequences of your actions, aren’t necessarily in the same psychological category. When you mentioned the shrine honoring Hitler that you found in Baxter’s home, you didn’t articulate just how far out his white supremacist beliefs go. He essentially said the three victims don’t fall in the category he and his neo-Nazi pals have for slaughter. Baxter has his sights on blacks, gays and Jews. He said if he could find a black Jew who’s gay to kill, he’d get three for one.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Baxter told me that the Unabomber—Ted Kaczynski, is his hero because Kaczynski had the guts to write his manifesto and said the bombs he used to kill were justified to attract attention to—quote, ‘the erosion of human freedom, individuality, and dignity by modern technologies that require large-scale corporate organization.’ End quote. He said he keeps a framed photo of the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, on the wall of his Nazi room.”
“Somehow, among all the pictures of Hitler and Holocaust victims, I must have missed that one.” Bradford took a long sip from his cocktail.
“In terms of mental competency, Baxter told me another reason he admired the Unabomber is because Kaczyns
ki had the opportunity to plead guilty by reason of insanity but chose not to do it because he didn’t want to be labeled mentally ill. So, in a plea deal, he confessed to the killings in exchange for a life sentence.”
“And, I would assume, that’s why Baxter wants to make an effort to establish mental competency … he doesn’t want to be labeled as mentally ill.”
“Yes. Interesting dynamics … to carry a label as a serial killer, as in the case of Kaczynski, and maybe Baxter, but don’t tag them with the mark of mentally ill. In his mindset, it’s okay to blow up the nation and its minority groups with it, just don’t call him crazy for doing it.”
“When will you submit your competency evaluation report to Judge Zeigler?”
“In a couple of days.” Elizabeth ate an olive from her martini. “Mike, what keeps nagging at me, though, is the Catholic connection, so to speak. Three members of St. Patrick’s are dead, and Boyd Baxter has no affiliation with the church. I asked him if he included Catholics among those he’d like to see gone from the planet. He said no, although he wanted to sit down with the pope and have a talk about the sex abuse scandals that have plagued the church too often and too long.”
“I’m glad priests aren’t on Baxter’s hit list of deplorables.”
“Me, too. I met with the senior priest at St. Patrick’s, Father MacGrath. I’ve attended the church for years. He seemed different. Somehow changed.”
“In what way?”
“I couldn’t put my finger on it. Father MacGrath is one of the most positive, gregarious people I’ve ever known. He seemed subdued, as if he had a lot on his mind, a heavy weight on his shoulders. In all these years, I’ve never seen him like that.”