Beyond Justice (31 page)

Compassion.

It made no sense, he was about to beat the living daylights out of me.  One sharp look from Bishop and everyone near the pay phone scattered like cockroaches.  Luther lingered, but when Bishop nodded at him, he too left.  We were alone.

"What do you think you're pulling?" Bishop said.

"Can we just talk?  That's all I'm asking." It felt like an ice pick in my jaw when I spoke.  Flecks of light danced about my eyes.  I was going to pass out. 

Bishop straightened up and shook his head as if by doing so he could clear it.  "Chapel in ten minutes.  That's all you get."

"See you there."  Every beat from my heart drummed in my ears and eyes.  Finally, I picked myself up and leaned on the pay phone.  I still had to call Rachel to ask about Aaron.

A gruff male voice answered her cell phone.  "Yeah?"

"This is Sam Hudson.  I'm looking for Rachel Cheng.  Who's this?"

"Sam!  It's me, Mack."  He was speaking with his mouth full, stopped, swallowed and continued.  "I've got her cell phone.  She's been in an accident."

"What?  When?"

"On the freeway last night.  Someone ran her off the road.  CHP's don't have any suspects yet."

"How is she?"

"She pulled through."  So many questions.  Where she was being treated, what kind of injuries had she sustained?  I almost forgot to ask about my son.  "Do you know anything about Aaron?"

"Well, I spoke with Alan this morning."

"What did he say?" I was about to crawl out of my skin.

"You hear about that weirdo who snuck into Aaron's room?"

"No," my ears started to burn.  "How's my son?"

"Out of the woods."

I shut my eyes and exhaled long and slow. 
Thank you, God
.  For a moment, nothing else mattered. 
It's going to be fine.

"You there, Sam?  He's out of danger."

"Yeah, I heard you.  Thanks, Mack."

"Still in a coma, but he's a helluva fighter, your boy."

"Yeah."  Someone was looking out for him.

"Hey listen, I'm bringing some juice and bagels up to Rachel.  I'll have her call you when I get back to her room, okay?"

"Okay, thanks."  Astounding.  And yet, strangely inevitable.  What was happening?  I had to speak with Bishop about the vision about him and the dying woman.  His reaction told me it rang true with him.  There had been a reason it was revealed to me.  With the chapel just twenty yards away, I was about to find out.

___________________

As per Father Speedy's preference, the blinds were drawn.  And since there was no service in progress, the overheads were left off.  Bishop sat alone in a wooden chair that gave off a scent of expiring varnish.  He didn't turn around when I arrived.

"Hey, Bishop." Not so much as a lifted eyebrow, so fixed was he on the cross in the front of the chapel.  I took a seat next to him.   Would I walk out alive?  "I don't know what it was that I saw, or why I saw it."

"Just spit it out already," he grunted.

Trying hard to remember, I shut my eyes and.  A moment later, the vision returned but with so much more detail than before.  "You're kneeling at her bedside.  Her hair is white, but she doesn't seem that old.   A quilt— patchwork—red, brown, tan.  Her eyes are shut.  I think she's dying.  And you.  It's you, but... I don't know, maybe twenty years ago.  You're by her side, holding her hands, pressing them to your lips.  It's clear you love her very much.  And this is the oddest thing, she's given you something.  Something small.  It's an ivory locket, I can't read the inscription on the inside but...  somehow I know what is says.  It's a verse from the Bible."

"Impossible," Bishop said shaking his head.  "No one knows about that.  No one could, possibly know." He turned to face me.  Cautiously, I backed away slightly.

"So it's true?" I said. 

He didn't answer.

"Besides this vision, I've recently experienced other things I simply can't explain.   So, you being a priest, I thought I'd ask."

"I'm not a priest anymore.  Anything but.  I'm so far from that life now, you couldn't possibly hope to get anything useful from me."

"You must still believe."

"I must?"

"So, am I going crazy?  Am I going to end up in PSU, thinking God is talking and end up hanging myself?  Like Walker?"  Bishop pressed his face into his hands resting on the back of the pew before him.  His large frame rumbled. "What's the matter?

"I thought I could escape," he said.

"What, from Salton?  I don't think anyone's ever managed that."

"Not what I mean."

"Escape from what, then?"

"Not what.  Who."

"All right.  Who are you trying to escape from?"

"God."  To my great discomfort, he pulled a shiv out of his pants and began sharpening it against a rock, which he pulled from his shirt pocket.

Bishop had begun the long process of euthanizing his faith years ago, he just didn't realized it.  First with the untimely death of his mother, then with the scandal that put him on death row.  "I served Him, dedicated my life!  I was a good priest."

"How did it happen?"

"There's a reason I've never told anyone."  He held up the business end of the shiv and examined it as if he were a jeweler.  Then went back to sharpening it.

"Right.  Your image:  Big, ruthless killer."

"Not just that."

"Then why?"

"Because," he lifted his head and sniffed—snorted actually.  "You'd never believe me if I told you."

"Would you believe me if I told you I didn't kill my wife, rape my daughter and bludgeon my son into a coma?"

"Who cares?" He squinted at me.  Put the shiv in front of my face.  "Whadya think?"

"Looks fairly deadly."

He nodded, and lowered it.   Relieved, I leaned in closer. "Seriously though, how does a Jesuit priest get convicted of murder?"

"I was framed."  He scrutinized my face in anticipation of a snort, a chuckle, anything indicative of incredulity.  I knew better.

"I believe you."

"You would."

"I believe you because I was framed too."

His eyebrow cocked upwards.  Glad I could amuse him.

"Anyway," he continued, pulling a cigarette out of his shirt pocket, "there was an investigation of my Parish for sexual abuse by priests.  I was clean, but one of the other priests had been accused.  I didn't know one way or another if he'd done it.  But when they started pressuring me for a statement against him, I refused.  The victim was Janice D'Amati."

"Wasn't her father—?"

"Tony D'Amati."

" Tony D'Amati, the mafia kingpin?"

Bishop picked his teeth with the point of his shiv.  Spat on the floor. "Yeah.  His whole damned family attended St. Ignatius regularly.  I took confession from him more than once.  And you should know, that I used to work for the bastard, years before I cleaned up my act and joined the Jesuits."

Wasn't this supposed to be privileged?  Bishop lit his cigarette, puffed a cloud away from our conversation.  He coughed, cleared his throat and went on.  "D'Amati was working
with
the D.A., you believe that?  He wanted to bring Father Connor to justice."  Bishop took another drag.  "D.A. wanted me to cook up some testimony against a fellow priest."

I rubbed my eyes which were beginning to water.  I could hardly believe my ears.

"You know," he said.  "If I had even an inkling that Father Phil had even touched Tony's girl, forget about taking the stand, I woulda' castrated him myself!  I got no patience for scum like that."  He let the thought trail off, then flicked the cigarette on the ground and stepped on it.  "But I
didn't
know for sure.  So I refused to bear false witness.  Hell, I had someone a lot bigger to answer to."

"So that ticked D'Amati off."

"You have no idea.  But Tony?  He don't get mad, he gets even.  Two days after I told the D.A. what he could do with himself, I come into my office and noticed that Father Phil's door is open.  He always kept it shut in the morning to pray.  I walk down the hall to his office and smell it.  He's lying there on the floor face down in a puddle.  Someone shot him six times, once in the head, five times in the back."

"Oh come on, they couldn't put it on you just like that."

"Don't be naive.  It happened to you, didn't it?  Or so you say."

"But you were a man of God.  Priests don't murder other priests."

"Most priests ain't former mobsters either," he said with a dry smirk.   "Look.  You got law enforcement and the D.A. hungry for a conviction, add to that Tony D'Amati working together with them.  Planted evidence, bought witnesses.  They could prove Mother Teresa a chester if they wanted to."

"Chester?"

"Prison lingo for child molester.  How long you been here anyway?"

My head was hurting.  I rubbed my jaw.  "So that's it?"

"What.  Not good enough for you?  I was convicted of first degree murder.  I guess my past career and my very outspoken words against the sexual abuse by Priests didn't help me much when it came time for the trial."

I sat silent.  The sound of inmates shouting out in the yard came through the door.

"I was already struggling with God because of how he let my mother die of AIDS, ten years back.  A needle.  You believe that?  Frikkin' druggie's needle."

"Man, that's—"

"She was a nurse, dammit!  She helped the sick, faithful to God till the end.  And
this
was how He rewarded her?  How could I go on serving a God like that?  And when I was convicted of killing Father Phil?  Forget about it!  I was
done
with Him."

Still processing it all, I said, "I'm really sorry."

"I don't need your pity."

"You don't need anything, do you?"

"I need..." he paused and stared at the stained glass image of Christ kneeling at a rock and praying.  "I need to get the hell out of here.  No way I'm going to sit around, rotting in this hole, waiting to be executed for a crime I didn't commit."

"You got a plan?"

"I always got plans.  They're just waiting to be executed."

"No pun intended, I'm sure."

"Shut up.  First chance I get, I'm out of here.  And anyone getting in my way is going to wish they hadn't."

"For what it's worth, I feel your pain."

"Whatever."  He stood up, stretched his arms up and let out a Moose call of a yawn.

"Look Bishop, you've had a long history with God.  Me, I just started and now I have all these questions.  Can't you put your anger aside for a bit and help me out a bit?  I mean, there's got to be a reason he gave me that vision of your mother."

He turned and glowered for a moment, then stared at the wooden cross again.  He wasn't going to talk to me.  He'd already said more to me than he probably had to anyone else here at Salton.  After a while, I figured he was done with me.  "Thanks for your time."  I got up to leave.

But Bishop grabbed my shoulder, and forced me back down into my seat.

"All right.  You got questions?  Ask."

Chapter Fifty-Eight

All things considered, the amount of pain Rachel felt seemed reasonable.  She thanked God quietly.  The doctors and nurses hadn't yet explained the extent of her injuries.  One thing they were sure of: it was a miracle that she had survived.  And Rachel knew a bit about miracles.  Though grateful, she was not quite as astounded as her physicians.

When she tried to sit up, a sharp pain stabbed her side.   She yelped.  Was that a broken rib?  Whatever it was, it reminded her that she had nearly been killed.  The memories flashed back.  The speeding headlights, the spine-whipping collision, the Corolla spinning out of control.

It wasn't an accident.  She had a good idea who might have wanted her dead, too.  But how did he know?  Though she and Mack hadn't yet connected an actual name with the virtual killer with the
Huli-boy
screenname, it was just a matter of time.  And the killer must've been aware of it.

Rachel's stomach vociferously protested the neglect.  She strained to reach the remote control that would lift her back and head up.  As her torso bent, needles shot down from her spine to her toes.  Out of sheer reflex, she pulled her foot up.

At least I can still move it.

"You're a very, very lucky lady," someone said, as he entered the room. 

Rachel gasped.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you.  I'm Doctor Reynolds."  He was a good-looking—though somewhat geeky— man in his mid-thirties.  His black, horn-rimmed glasses were so thick it nearly obscured his face.  His mustache was equally thick, so much so that it looked like it had been stuck on with spirit gum.