Absolution: A Mortal Sins Novel

by Keri Lake

  My blood turns as cold as the rage seizing up my muscles, but I approach cautiously, while she ducks away from the light.

  “Camila?”

  Her whimpers intensify, and I crouch down before I reach her.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you. I promise, I’m here to help.”

  “I want … my … mama.” A muzzle covering her face muffles the words, and yet, they’re as clear as my resolve to get her the hell out of this place.

  “And I’m going to make sure you see her, okay? But please, you have to be quiet. Do you know who put you in there?”

  Brows tipped in fear, she points beyond me, and I turn in time to dodge a swing at my head.

  I barrel forward and knock him backward, and the shovel in his hand tumbles to the ground on a hard clang. In the melee, my phone smacks against the floor, illuminating the room enough to see his fallen form. Scrambling over top of him, I draw my fist back and hammer a punch to his face, kicking his head to the side. Another sends a spray of blood from his nose. As his head rolls back and forth with disorientation, I study his face before the swelling sets in. He must be pushing sixty, with a gray beard and sun-weathered skin.

  “Y’come to offer me absolution, after all, Father?” His voice is unmistakable, and at the sound of it, something inside of me snaps, as if it’s somehow tethered to a piece of my former self.

  Imagining my own daughter in that cage, I nab the small bit of rope lying on the work bench, and without hesitation, I wrap it around his neck, batting his arm out of the way as he tries to stop me. Its not fear that makes me twist that rope in my hands, nor is it rage, really, because I’ve learned to temper that, for the most part. An innate reflex has me throttling him with the emotion of a robot. I can’t stop myself, even if I want to.

  Body seizing beneath me, he tears at my fingers in a poor effort to pry them away, but it’s futile, the way the rope is cleverly wrapped, giving me all the leverage I need without much effort. He doesn’t beg for his life, perhaps because he can see it in my eyes that I’ve no intentions of granting him mercy.

  “By the sweat of your brow, you will eat bread.” A tremble in my whisper matches the tight clamping of my chest. “Till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

  Even if the sight of his eyes bulging and his skin turning purple makes me sick to my stomach, the image of that child and those tools on the wall have been seared into my mind, overriding every other righteous thought. In those split seconds, I’m the Bagman again, collecting on a long-owed debt. One that belongs to a little girl I’m now certain is buried up on Angels Point somewhere.

  “Thought … God … mercif—” He tries to speak past my grip of his throat, but I cut his words by pressing harder.

  “God promises mercy, but he does not promise tomorrow.”

  Camila’s sobs fail to divert my attention. I am a machine with one sole purpose: to end this man. It takes a good minute before that purple color fades into a bluish tone and his body stills. I push off him until standing. The adrenaline rattles my nerves as I pace back and forth. “Fuck.” I grip either side of my skull and crouch low to stop the spinning inside my head.

  Ten years ago, I’d have been looking for a place to discard the body by now. If I leave him here, someone will undoubtedly be looking for him at some point, with his business. There’ll be ligature marks, trace evidence, a smorgasbord of variables to link me to the crime.

  But I can’t think about that right now. Not yet.

  Swiping up my phone, I turn around to the muzzled girl still trapped in the cage, and with my hands out where she can see them, I kneel down beside her, slow and easy. “I’m going to get you out of there and take that off your face, okay?”

  She nods, the tears in her eyes carrying a world of sadness and other things I can’t even begin to fathom for a girl her age. I unlock the cage, and she startles, kicking herself back as if she doesn’t trust me, and why should she?

  I just murdered a man without mercy in front of her.

  The cage door swings open, and I offer her my hand.

  “Camila, I want to take you somewhere safe. Somewhere no one can hurt you again.” I don’t even know where that is yet. The spinning inside my head goes full throttle and every move that comes next is entirely thought up as I go.

  Taking her to her mother isn’t an option for a number of reasons that include me being a priest. I make a point not to meet with children unsupervised for a reason. I don’t need someone thinking things that would never happen. Things I could never prove otherwise.

  I can’t call the police here, or the investigation will kick off before I’ve even had the chance to discard the body, and even if I stay, I’ll have to explain why I was here, which will force me to break the seal of confession.

  This was self-defense.

  Perhaps, one would argue, I shouldn’t have been here, but all signs pointed to Camila being kept inside this house. I had to see for myself. I had to try to save a child from the same fate as the Ames girl.

  Camila emerges from the cage, her bony arms outstretched as she crawls out onto the concrete floor. Bruises and scratches mar her skin, and the two circular marks along her ribs are where I have to believe she was shocked with the prod.

  As I reach for the muzzle, she rears back and flinches, then allows me to unfasten it from the back of her head. “I want you to stay here. I’m going to pull my car around to the door.”

  With a frantic shake of her head, she lurches forward as if to grab hold of me, but stalls before she does.

  “It’s okay, nobody’s coming for you.” I glance back at the man still lying on the floor behind me. “He’s dead.”

  She breaks down sobbing, hiding her face in the palms of her hands. “Mama!”

  “You’re going to see her again. I promise.” I reach out for her, only this time she doesn’t hesitate. She wraps her arms around me, her body shivering and cold to the touch.

  As my memories taunt me, for a moment it’s not Camila in my arms, but Bella. Fragile and scared as the day I took her to the hospital to begin her chemotherapy. But strong, too.

  I stroke Camila’s hair and lay a kiss to the top of her head. “I need to get my car. Can you be brave and stay here?”

  I feel her nod against me, and when I pull away, her fingers curl into my arms for a tense moment, and then release me.

  I push up and jog across the garage toward the door, flip the lock on the inside knob, and heft it open onto the backyard. The driveway curves to the right, up the hill, and I follow to where it ends at the front of the house. Once inside my car, I back it down the drive, around the curve and into the garage. I search the house for a blanket to wrap around her and find one draped over a ragged-out couch.

  Bundled in an afghan, she sits in the front seat, while I load the body into the trunk.

  The dogs bark incessantly, goading me to hurry, as I run my flashlight over their kennels, noting full bowls of fresh water and food. If someone doesn’t report the barking within a few days, I’ll make an anonymous call to animal control.

  Driving back through the city, my mind battles the guilt and shock while scouring my memories for the best means of disposing the body. Burning it will draw attention. The smell alone will lure the cops, since a body doesn’t exactly give off a burgers-on-the-grill scent. It’s much more foul, and I have to believe pedophiles stink the worst when they burn. Burying him will leave evidence at the scene of the crime, something the dogs might sniff out right away, the second someone opens up their cages. Best bet is to take him away from the scene. Water might be good, so long as he doesn’t wash up somewhere.

  It’s while we’re passing Sam’s Septic Solution that the light bulb goes off in my head. A week ago, we had the septic at the church pumped for routine maintenance. It’ll be for another five years before we’ll need it pumping again, and by then, he’ll long be decomposed.

  A fitting burial.


  Though I am dedicated to my vocation and commitment to God, I am not immune to seeing the suffering and abuse of a child. As irrational as all this may be, I find it necessary, even at the cost of my own soul. Who knows what wretched ways the man planned to defile her. And if his story about Lia Ames is true, Camila might’ve ended up nothing but a pile of bones by week’s end.

  Beside me, Camila devours one of two granola bars I keep in my glove compartment for days when I have back to back meetings. Rivulets of water leak down her face, as she tips back a bottle I gave her. Monster must’ve starved her in punishment, judging by the way she’s already tearing into the second granola bar.

  I turn down Leroy Street, to a block lined with apartment buildings, an address provided by Camila .

  I didn’t plan to take her home, and doing so might be asking for trouble, but there’s no other place I can imagine dropping off this poor child. No place she’ll feel safe, other than her mother’s arms.

  She points to the building two blocks up, and I come to a stop at the curb.

  “Forgive me, but I can’t take you any closer.” I feel despicable for making her walk the two blocks in nothing but an afghan, but I’d be putting myself in someone’s crosshairs—whether it be her mother’s, or the police, who’d eventually find a dead body in the trunk of my car. “No one can know that I helped you, okay? This has to be our little secret. Do you understand?”

  After wiping the remnants of another gulped drink from her face, she nods, before her face turns somber and her gaze falls to her hands in her lap. “Thank you,” she whispers, and when her eyes find me, they hold the shine of tears.

  “Go see your mother. She’s been looking for you. I’m going to watch you from here, and I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.”

  She offers me a quick hug, but doesn’t waste any time clambering out of the vehicle. One block up, she throws a quick glance over her shoulder, but keeps on toward the building.

  I duck low in the seat, watching the surrounding complex for any sign of movement, any chance someone else might happen upon her before she makes it home.

  The door of the building flies open before she arrives, and three women burst out toward her, as if they’ve watched for her every night. A heavyset woman wraps Camila in a hug that lifts her small body up off the ground. I don’t even have to crack the window to hear their squeals. The other two stand with their hands covering their mouths, shooting glances around, as though looking for her means of transportation. I’m too far away though, and as long as I don’t move before they shuffle her inside, I should be safe to leave the way I came.

  More people pour out of the complex, a community of those who’ve been looking for the girl, and it troubles me to withhold the answers her mother’s probably desperate for right now. But the night isn’t over, and there’s still much to do before daylight, so as the few stragglers shuffle inside, I keep my headlights off and fire up my car, slowly backing down the block to the drive of the next apartment building. There, I turn around and head back out onto Main Street.

  Back toward the church.

  The rectory stands dark by the time I arrive back. A creature of habit, Father Ruiz will already be in bed. It’s only just after nine, but for the last two years, the man’s made a point to be fast asleep well before then, and the adjacent church is locked up around eight o’clock. Too many thefts and lack of volunteers forced the diocese to forego perpetual adoration years ago.

  I drive the car around to the back, where a stretch of property makes up prime real estate in this city. Built in the twenties, the church is one of few places downtown that still uses a septic system. Due to lack of funds, mostly. The lid still stands partially exposed, from when it was pumped just a week before.

  It’s quiet this time of night. The property butts up to Vista Hermosa Park, so the surrounding trees offer a small bit of cover, as I drag Chuck’s body from the trunk of my car and drop him beside the mound of dirt that marks the access lid to the septic tank.

  Last time I disposed of a body, I was twenty-two years old, and I swore I’d never do it again. Guess I didn’t expect to run into a scumbag pedophile back then.

  From the skinny shed beside the church, I nab one of the shovels and slam it into the fresh dirt. The excavation takes about two minutes before the lid is fully exposed, and I’ve hardly broken a sweat.

  A heavy square of concrete is the only barrier to the awful stench beneath, even after having been pumped, so I prepare myself by drawing in a few deep breaths. At the count of three, I lift it up from the dark, square opening that’s about thirty inches wide. Glancing around to make sure no one sees me, I drag his limp body across the yard, and after rummaging through his pockets for any identification and finding none, I push him into the darkness, watching him disappear down the hole with a thunk. On the verge of gagging, I replace the lid, closing out both the smell and Chuck’s dead body, then bury it just as it was before. It’s risky disposing him on church grounds, but it’s probably the least likely place anyone will go looking for the guy.

  Standing over the burial site, I wait for the guilt and agony of remorse to settle over me. Regret for having committed a mortal sin, an offense against God. Thomas Aquinas might consider this the Principal of Double Effect—by killing the man who attacked me, I’ve prevented the death of a child. Assuming I had no intentions of killing him in the first place, and I know that’s not true. From the very night he entered the confessional, detailing the death of an innocent child, I knew I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t ignore my instincts as a father, not only to my own slain child, but also to the congregation who looks to me for strength and protection. And the truth is, vengeance has always been part of my blood. It was there when my father forced me to collect his debts with violence, and it resurfaced again when police failed to produce a single lead in the murder of my wife and daughter. No amount of theology can banish what has been pumping through my veins since the day I was brought into the world.

  So, the truth is, I don’t regret killing this monster, at all.

  8

  DAMON

  From my office window, I stare down at the mound of dirt, beneath which Chuck’s body has likely already begun the stages of decomposition. In a few years, the septic sludge will break down his skin and major organs, until he’s every bit a part of his surroundings. I wish I could say that’s all based on theory, but watching a body get dumped in the septic system is nothing new for me. Not in the last decade, of course, but recent enough to remember that I felt more remorse than I do now.

  A knock interrupts my thoughts, and I turn to see Ivy peeking through a crack in the door.

  “Father Damon? The secretary told me it was okay to come in.” Red-painted lips draw my attention to her face, to how beautiful she looks today. Or maybe she always looks this way, and I’ve just been too preoccupied on other occasions I’ve run into her.

  “Of course, please.” I gesture toward a chair set in front of my desk, where she takes a seat. “Have you decided to give the medieval box another go?”

  “Eventually, yes.” Her coy and sheepish smile tells me she’s still embarrassed from the last time. “But I’m not here for me. It’s about my grandmother. She’s very sick.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I can see this troubles you very much. How can I help?”

  “I don’t think she has much time. And she’s asked for one last reconciliation.”

  “Is she at home, or still in hospital?”

  “Hospital.”

  “I’m available this afternoon, if that works.”

  “I’m actually going to hold off a bit, if that’s okay. I feel like once she’s confessed, she’ll just give up. Mostly, I wanted to offer a heads-up.”

  “I trust you’ll keep me posted, and I’ll let our secretary, Mrs. Castle, know, as well.”

  “Father …”

  “Please, call me Damon.”

  “Damon.” My name rolls off her tongue l
ike silk brushing across the back of my neck, and I have to stifle a shiver at the sound of it. “There’s something else …” From the night she first came for confession, I guessed something else troubled her. Fidgeting with her purse, she casts her gaze from mine, and in the next breath, she shoots out of her chair and crosses the room to the window where I stood just moments before. “Can I ask you something? Somewhat off-topic.”

  “Sure.”

  With her back to me, I can see her lithe form down to slender legs, where her calf muscles bulge over black high heels. Swallowing a gulp, I force my eyes away from her, silently chiding myself for looking at her that way.

  “If someone … hurts you … or threatens to hurt someone you love … is it a mortal sin to defend yourself?”

  My blood freezes while my pulse quickens to a dizzying pace. I study her to see if she happens to be looking down at the mound of dirt below as she asks this question.

  Don’t be so paranoid!

  “Are you speaking from experience?” Arms resting on the chair, my hands ball to tight fists to calm the sudden racing of my heart.

  “If I am, does that mean you’ll tell me to go to the authorities? Because I have. And they’ve done nothing about it.” As troubling as her response is, I’m glad to know it has nothing to do with the body I dumped the night before.

  As my muscles ease off, I sink back into my chair and clear my throat. The challenge of answering judiciously, without feeling like a complete hypocrite, weighs heavy on my conscience, and I take a moment to consider her question. “Self-defense, itself, is not a mortal sin, so long as your intent isn’t to viciously murder someone without reason.”

  “How so?”

  The discussion takes me back to seminary, discussing the difference between permissible and impermissible acts, and how each essentially boiled down to the intended outcome.

  “If someone threatens to hurt someone you love, and you proactively attempt to do that someone harm in retaliation, you are committing sin by virtue of seeking them out for that purpose alone. In contrast, if you witness someone being harmed, and you attempt to intervene and are attacked in the process, defending yourself and the other person is not considered a mortal sin.” I’ve practically confessed my own crime to her, as she stands staring down at the concealed evidence.