Every Saint a Sinner

by Pearl Solas

  Every Saint a Sinner

  Pearl Solas

  For Father Tom Doyle, who tirelessly worked for justice from within

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part II

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Part III

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part IV

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part V

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Though one day he’d be known as The Venerable and, later, The Blessed, on this day he was just Frank. He was about as exhausted and dejected as a “just Frank” could be. He shifted in the hard wooden chair and his sore, protesting lower back reminded him of just how long he’d been sitting there, staring at nothing. Hours. Man, he thought, these chairs are torture devices, and he considered whether he should request something more comfortable to accommodate the rare client who needed to sit across the desk from him, rather than on the plush couch at the far end of the office where he conducted his therapy sessions. Who was he kidding? If he went ahead with what he was planning, he wouldn’t have any clients to accommodate. He wouldn’t have an office.

  He had been sitting in a guest chair, rather than his usual, more ergonomic perch on the other side of the desk, because it was closer to the locked filing cabinet. As he had done several times since he had taken this seat in the pre-dawn hours, he reached his hand toward the cabinet, then drew it back. Daylight had been steadily strengthening, and now it forced its way through the slats in the cheap blinds covering the window. Soon other people who worked in the building would be arriving, and he would need to figure out how to hide his despair and get through the day.

  Frank ran his hand over his jawline, feeling the salt-and-pepper stubble that had sprouted there since he had shaved yesterday morning. The tops of his cheeks were sticky with dried tears, and the skin around his eyes felt swollen and tight. He hadn’t returned home after the police had patted him kindly on the back and told him he could leave—that they would take it from there. Instead he had come straight to the office. To what was in the filing cabinet. To do what he should have done years ago.

  He’d woken in the night after having a vicarious dream. It was the second time in his life this had happened. Like the first time, there had been no mistaking it for something from his own subconscious. It was completely foreign, but vivid with detail, immediate. Also like the first time, the consciousness his dreaming self inhabited was female, the same female, in fact, although she was now a woman rather than a girl. Same agony, though. Same confusion and hopelessness. As it had decades before, experiencing her pain spurred Frank to action. He had leaped out of bed, accessed his client database to find her address, and rushed to her apartment as quickly as his shitty pickup could get him there. Though he had hoped against hope, his dream had, once again, revealed to him the truth. She was already dead by the time he got there. And so he had called the police and wept disconsolately while he waited for them to arrive.

  At some point during the hours he had occupied the wooden chair, his weeping had ceased. The well of his tears, but not of his grief, had run dry.

  “Right,” he said as he stood decisively, forcing his stiff legs to straighten and waiting out the pins and needles. He removed the keychain from his pocket and found the match to the filing cabinet. He slipped the key into the lock of the bottom drawer, and pulled it open. Pushing the files forward, he felt for the small black box in the rear corner, wiping dust off of it with his hand, then turning the combination dial right, then left, then right again, hearing the faint click as the last of the tumblers slid into place.

  He reached into the small safe and removed the only item it contained—an obsolete hard drive that was almost comically oversized in comparison to minuscule, modern USB drives. Frank placed the drive into the manila envelope on which he had written “Tavis” with a thick Sharpie. Now that it had come out of the safe, he could not return the hard drive to its hiding place. The die had been cast, and he would give the envelope to Tavis the next time he saw him.

  As if on cue, a loud knock on the door shattered the silence of the office.

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Veronica craned her neck and pulled down her rearview mirror, checking to make sure she didn’t have anything in her teeth and that her lipstick hadn’t bled into the small cracks that had recently begun to form around her lips. She wiped away the mascara that insistently deposited itself on the skin below her lower lash line by the end of every day. She ducked her head to sniff her armpits and frowned at the small circle of perspiration on her white blouse. She grabbed the suit jacket draped over the passenger seat and shrugged into it as she opened her car door and stuck out one of her legs. Not until her bare foot touched the warm asphalt did Veronica remember that she had removed her high heels to drive. Sighing, she reached into the passenger footwell, snagged the shoes, and stuffed her feet into them.

  Her car hadn’t had a chance to cool off in the ten-minute drive from her office, and Veronica felt hot and oily. The slight dampness in the places where her clothing met her skin made her feel like sausage innards stuffed into a tight casing. To an outside observer, however, the stylish but understated heel that emerged from the car, followed by a slim ankle and long, well-formed leg, the svelte body donning a fitted skirt suit, all suggested a cool, confident professional.

  Veronica’s heels clicked toward the door of Sacred Heart High School. As she approached, the door opened and a tween boy emerged, followed by a tall, striking, powerfully built man in a black suit punctuated with a bright white clerical collar.

  “So sorry I’m late,” breathed Veronica, giving the boy a quick embrace while he stood with his hands at his sides. “My deposition ran a little longer than expected, and I couldn’t get ahold of Tom.”

  “No worries,” said the priest, an easy smile spreading across his face as he ruffled the boy’s hair. “Sean and I just talked about how he’s adjusting to Sacred Heart, and he got caught up on his homework. I’d love to say I helped with it, but that math he’s doing is beyond my skillset.”

  Wordlessly, Sean had begun to walk toward Veronica’s car.

  “Sean!” Veronica called after him. “Manners! Say goodbye to Father Paul and thank him for his help.”

  The boy looked up briefly from beneath his flop of hair. “Bye, Father. Thanks.”

  Veronica smiled resignedly at the priest. “Sorry,” she said. “You know better than almost anyone, I’m sure, what this age is like. Someone takes your sweet, talkative child . . . almost too talkative . . . and replaces him with a monosyllabic alien.”

  Father Paul chuckled and waved away her apology. “He’s a great kid. Scary bright. I’m sure this is all just a big adjustment for him.”

>   “Thanks for being so understanding and for taking the time to help him transition. Tom and I really appreciate it. Somewhere in there,” Veronica gestured toward the car, “Sean appreciates it too.”

  Deflecting her gratitude, Father Paul looked toward the horizon at the dark wall of clouds distantly devouring the sunlit sky. “Looks like we’re in for some weather tonight.”

  Veronica followed his gaze. The air had that oppressive weight that accompanies the collision of hot and cold fronts. She nodded her agreement. “It’s that time of year. Well, I’d better get home and feed my brood before it hits.”

  “Of course. See you soon.” For the first time during their conversation, Father Paul looked directly into her eyes. He bit lightly at his bottom lip and then smiled, bowed slightly, and turned back toward the school.

  Before heading back to her car, Veronica paused briefly to allow her blood to cool. Holy Thorn Birds, she thought, priests shouldn’t be allowed to be that fucking sexy.

  * * *

  “Meg, would you please bring me the salad bowl?” asked Veronica later that night, draining the water from the salad spinner and looking for a towel to dry her hands. Tom put his hand on the small of her back as he sidled around her to lift the lid on the simmering meat sauce.

  Meg pushed up from the counter stool, every slouching step across the kitchen a silent protest at the injustice of being asked to help. Setting the table across the room, Avery rolled her eyes at her older sister.

  “Thank you, daughter mine,” sang Veronica as Meg thrust the bowl at her. As she grabbed the bowl, Veronica ensnared her eldest daughter’s wrist and pulled her into a tight embrace. Meg submitted to her mother’s affection, trying to suppress the smile that bubbled up through her practiced aloof expression.

  Snuggling her nose into Meg’s silky cheek, Veronica asked, “So what are your plans after tomorrow night’s game? Are you going to stay awhile after you finish cheering, or are you going to bounce right away?”

  “God, Mom. It smells like something died in your mouth. And nobody says ‘bounce’ anymore. At least I can’t if you’re saying it now.” Meg extricated herself from her mother’s hug.

  “Ah, yes,” piped up Tom in his best David Attenborough as he stirred the sauce and pasta on the stove, “the basic middle-aged white woman in her natural suburban habitat. Where slang goes to die.”

  Laughing in spite of herself, Veronica beaned a crouton at her husband’s head.

  “Hey, buddy,” Veronica said to Sean as he entered the kitchen with wet hair. “Long shower, huh?” Veronica and Tom caught each other’s eyes and smirked, remembering what their friend Melissa had said about the 45-minute showers each of her three sons had begun taking in their early teens. “Why don’t you help Avery finish setting the table? Dinner’s almost ready.”

  As they passed the dishes around the table Meg said, “Mom, Kelly said she can fit me in on Saturday to do a trial run of my hair and makeup for homecoming. Is that okay?”

  “I assume what you’re really asking is whether I’ll pay for it. Did she tell you how much it would cost?”

  “Well, no, but it’s going to be so pretty! I found a picture of this updo that I just love and nobody else is going to have anything like it.”

  “Sounds very hair-odynamic.” Veronica snickered at her own joke while Tom groaned.

  “Lucky me!” exclaimed Meg in a falsely bright voice, “I get to have two parents who tell dad jokes!”

  “You’re such a twat, Meg!” shot Avery.

  “Language, Avery!” Veronica fixed Avery with her best severe mother glare. “Just because someone acts a certain way sometimes doesn’t mean that person is a certain way. Meg isn’t a twat, she’s just acting like a twat. And stop using that kind of gendered language—we women have enough problems without using derogatory slang for female anatomy to cut each other down.”

  “Sometimes you act like such a dick, Meg,” amended Avery.

  “Better,” Veronica approved.

  “Jesus, Ronnie,” muttered Tom under his breath.

  Veronica had just set the rolls in motion around the table when the singular sound of a tornado siren split the air. Tom’s and Veronica’s eyes met across the table. “I thought the storms weren’t supposed to roll in until later,” he said.

  She shrugged and snatched the basket of rolls from Meg’s hand, picking up her plate as she stood. “Grab your plates, guys, and let’s go to the strongroom.”

  When the last of them had filed into the strongroom, Tom closed the door and switched on the battery-powered weather radio. They sat with their plates perched on their laps. The water table under their split-level home was too high for basements or for the tornado shelters favored in the area, so the Matthews family had settled for the strongroom alternative on the lowest level of their home: a concrete-enforced room with a steel door.

  Veronica chose the seat next to Sean, who was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, his dinner untouched atop his legs.

  “Hey, buddy,” she said, tucking his hair behind his ear.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “You doing all right? You’ve been pretty quiet lately.”

  “I’m okay. Just tired.”

  “You know, there’s no reason you have to stay at Sacred Heart if it feels like too much. We said we’d try it, but you can always go back to the middle school and we can just do some enrichment programs if you feel like you want more.”

  “I know, Mom. Thanks.”

  Veronica finished her dinner and then absentmindedly rubbed Sean’s back until Tom announced that the system had passed. Sean stood without a word, and Veronica’s hand trailed down to where he had been sitting. Her fingers encountered a sticky dampness. She raised her hand and furrowed her brow at the rusty tinge covering her fingertips. She looked up at Sean just as he walked past the steel door. Her eyes widened at the dark, brownish-red stain on the seat of his pants.

  Chapter Two

  Tavis Pereira shook rain droplets off his umbrella under the overhang in front of the emergency room entrance. The violence of the storm had passed—the ear-splitting thunder, eye-dazzling lightning, and gale-force wind that had torn shingles from roofs and branches from trees—but rain still ceaselessly dumped from the roiling clouds.

  Tavis showed his badge to the triage nurse, who pointed out a white-coated man conversing with an elderly woman on a hospital bed surrounded by an imperfectly closed curtain.

  Tavis walked over toward the doctor and stood a respectful distance away while the consultation continued.

  “Dr. Selim?” Tavis asked when the doctor emerged from the cubicle.

  Dr. Selim looked up from notating the chart in his hands, took in Tavis and the badge he proffered, and extended his hand. “Yes. Thanks for coming so quickly.” He peered at the badge. “Mr. Pereira?”

  Tavis nodded, and Dr. Selim led him into a small office, closing the door behind them.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Matthews brought in their twelve-year-old son, Sean, about an hour ago because of rectal bleeding so severe that the blood had seeped through his pants. They seemed to assume it was symptomatic of an illness, but it was obvious, on examination, that the bleeding was trauma-induced and required sutures. The boy isn’t saying a word, and I didn’t press him. I just called your office. The parents both appear to be completely gobsmacked. For what it’s worth, I don’t think they had any idea.”

  “Thanks. It’s worth a lot. Did this appear to be a fresh trauma? Any signs of older or prolonged abuse?”

  “The nurse can give you the digital images we took. Poor kid. I didn’t see any bruising or irregularities on other parts of his body, but some of the tears are partially healed. Those that required sutures were quite fresh. I would say this wasn’t a one-time incident.”

  Tavis looked up from his notepad. “Anything else you think I should know?”

  Dr. Selim considered, then shook his head.

  “All right. Please reach out if anything occurs
to you. Can you show me to them?”

  Dr. Selim led the way to a room with the words “Family Care” etched on the glass door. Tavis was relieved that, rather than the curtain-separated cubicles of the rest of the E.R., this room offered privacy for sensitive conversations.

  Tavis introduced himself and shook hands with the haggard-looking parents. The boy lay curled up on the bed, facing the wall. When his mother reached up to rub his back, he twitched her off like a horse repelling a fly.

  Tavis crossed the room and stood between Sean and the wall he faced. Squatting until his face was level with the boy’s eyes, Tavis allowed Sean to take his measure before he started speaking. “Hello, Sean. I’m Detective Tavis Pereira with the Colberg Police Department. I think Dr. Selim and your parents told you why Dr. Selim had to call me. What can you tell me about how you got hurt?”

  Sean closed his eyes.

  Veronica Matthews again reached out for her son’s back, stopping herself before she touched him. “Please, Sean,” she pleaded, “please tell us who did this to you. Was it one of the boys at school?”

  “I knew we shouldn’t have let him move ahead so much,” said Tom Matthews. “It doesn’t matter if he could handle the academics. He was just not ready, socially, to spend his time with kids so much older.”