JUSTICE REBORN (A Charlie Taylor Novel Book 1) (13 page)

The session halted with the Historian’s
conclusion unresolved: one of our own the killer.

It was a helluva of a time to stop the
brainstorming session, but everyone had other commitments, including me. I’m
driving to the Abbey where Monk is helping with an upcoming charity concert; he
says it’s critical to meet. The sun is burning and the sky cloudless.

As I drive to the monastery, my mind
wanders as much as the road.  And yes, I am thinking about the Chinese supper
and Emma Collins. What a bitch, she has a lot of gray in her life; isn’t that
nice. She wouldn’t survive one shift out on the street. I’ve better things to
do than debate with her.

The Abbey is a good 90-minute drive on a
winding road which climbs out of the valley to the top of our highest hills,
almost mountains. The Abbey is a seventeenth-century edifice built by a sect of
monks whose origin I can never remember. It’s a series of interconnected
buildings of various sizes and shapes. Since the buildings and the grounds are
diligently maintained, the result is a magnificent piece of architecture and a
perfect setting for someone seeking peace or just a quiet environment to walk
and reflect. The path from the parking lot is constructed of old bricks and
weaves its way through shrubs and large trees which are getting the full
attention of some of the junior members of the Abbey. No doubt our early spring
is ready to depart and make way for another searing hot summer.

It’s been a few days since I’ve seen the
Monk. Today he wears the collar of a Roman Catholic priest, Father Ed;
nevertheless, it’s always a relaxing time when we’re together. After many
years, there is not much we don’t know about each other. Monk was a great
friend of my wife Nancy and I think loved young Linda, my daughter, as much as
I did. He arranged to have them buried in a plot outside the east wall of the
Abbey, looking over the valley with the city on the distant horizon, a fabulous
view.

“Charlie, Sam tells me you’re still getting
yourself into various layers of deep shit.”

“Oh, you know Sam. He is always letting
these little incidents get him upset.”

 Monk nods his agreement, looking very much
like an understanding priest. I never discovered what made him take the vows,
but his commitment was evident throughout his life.

“I know you you’ve all sorts of dragons
prepared to burn your ass, but I want to tell you a story and need your
opinion.” 

 I stare at Monk and wonder what the hell
is this all about; the guy is always straightforward, and now he appears to be
dancing and uncomfortable. “My friend, the coffee is hot. The view is
excellent. Fire away.”

 Monk’s preparation is solid and the story
flows. “Once upon a time in the far south a young athlete, who was being raised
by his grandmother, became difficult to handle and started to hang with the
wrong crowd. He maintained good grades, in fact, maybe things were too easy for
him, both in the classroom and on the hardwood. Once all the teen hormones
kicked in, he kept looking for more and more excitement.

His frantic grandmother begged him to stay
away from two high school drop outs who had earned enough money to acquire a
car and raise hell most nights. One night, grandma’s begging failed. Our young
teenager jumped into the car with the two jerks, booze, and pills the diet for
the evening. They cruised around whistling at girls, yelling, drinking, and
getting high. Later that night they picked up Gail who was known as a fun girl,
an easy lay; she started drinking with the boys but had a way to go before she
matched their condition.

They drove to a secluded part of a
municipal park, and they all got out to rest in the grass. The guys tried
talking Gail into taking her clothes off or to a do strip tease; our young
athlete was not a good drinker and passed out.

When he woke, the two jerks were swinging
thick tree branches at Gail, who was on the ground trying to defend herself. It
seems they both had sex with her, and then for some reason they decided to
tease her with their knives. She started screaming and the bigger guy, in a fit
of anger, grabbed a fallen branch and began beating her. The other idiot
decided it was fun and decided to help his friend.

Our athlete, a recovering drunk, tried to
stop the beating, but they just brushed him aside. It didn’t take long. The
screaming stopped, and it was all over. All three finally silent, the only
noise their heavy breathing and the odd car roaring past on other side of the
park. After 15 minutes of accusations and curses, they decided to escape and
leave the dead body in the park.

They drove out of the park and back onto
the main strip where all the action rolled on, fast and loud. Our athlete
couldn’t stop crying and the other two were sick of him. They literally threw
him out of the car, with a warning: shut your mouth.

 He was not far from home and started
staggering to his house. He didn’t get far when headlights of a patrol car
found him. There was only one officer in the car. This sympathetic man saw the
teenager was harmless. He barked: go home. The other occupant of the police car
stayed rooted to his seat.

Just as everyone prepared to separate, a
loud crashing sound filled the night, and the patrol car tore off with the
siren blaring. It turned out our two heroes decided they needed more booze.
When the owner refused, they threw a rock through the vendor’s plate glass and
tore off down the road.

The cruiser accelerated, on their tail, and
the chase was brief. They two jerks were in no condition to drive, let alone
proceed at high speeds. At about 110 mph they slammed into the concrete
abutment; various auto and body parts flew around the highway. After their DNA
matched the semen found in the girl, the cops wrapped up the case. Our athlete
escaped, in one sense, but in reality never recovered.

He graduated from high school. But his
sensitive nature never allowed him to forget that one night. The dead girl
became a set of recurring nightmares and daytime flashbacks. Booze and drugs
didn’t help. One incident followed another, mostly penny ante stuff, and some
minor jail sentences to provide him a warm winter residence, a chance to dry up
between events.”

Monk stops and starts drinking his brandy
laced coffee. I’m trying to figure out where this is going because I sense he
is waiting for me to respond. “Would this happen to have anything to do with
your visit to Fort Green Prison the other day?”

He doesn’t even bother to ask how I know
about his visit. “You always were a smart bastard.”

“I also have an excellent memory. Let me
fill in the rest of the story, which I am sure you know. When in grade 12, I
wanted to be a cop and had a cousin in a small southern community. Because the
police force had a rather laid-back attitude, my cousin, Mark, was able to get
permission for me to ride in his patrol car. The ride was restricted to some quiet
periods when his unit wasn’t a first responder, more like a roving paddy
wagon.  I never left the car unless he signaled it was ok. 

And, I remember your athlete, never knew
his name; he was a sorry looking mess staggering down the road. My cousin thought
he was an accident victim. But once he talked to him, Mark understood what he
was dealing with and told the kid to go straight home. I just stared through
the window and watched as the boy tried to put one foot in front of the other.

When the crap hit the fan, my cousin
yelled: get that belt on. And we went flying down the road. I could see them
ahead of us. The weaving car tottered from one side of the highway to the
other. Within minutes, they smashed into the abutment. The mangled mess was too
much for me; my stomach heaved and I splattered the side of the police car.”

Monk grunts; he can roar but today it is
more of a soft rumble, and I can see he’s very subdued and nervous, which is
rather strange for him.

 “Charlie, I don’t know how to put this to
you. It’s about a convict preparing for an S3 interrogation. He thinks if this
incident surfaces during his memory scan, he could be in serious trouble. With
Amendment 33-2 and all officials in a hurry to clean out death row, they could
easily interpret this incident as his participation in the girl’s killing. The
way they are processing convicts…….one quick decision and it would be over for
him.”

“I don’t know him or his record, but I
agree it could happen, and I’m still waiting.”

“From here on, I trust you to either accept
or forget my proposition. Yes, I drove up to Fort Green Prison and spent time
with Ronald Bowen.”

 “You mean Ron of the liquor store killing?
He’s the kid I saw on the road 15 odd years ago?”

“Yes, he’s the one. You’re the original lead
at the liquor store robbery; you brought him in for questioning along with a
few other characters. After you were reassigned to a task force Ron was
arrested and found guilty. A large segment of the population believe your
successor was too lazy and the DA in too much of a hurry. The guilty verdict
shocked the public, even the press. The consensus: Ron had been railroaded and
never did receive a fair trial.”

 “I know all that, and if he’s innocent,
he’ll be released after the S3 interrogation. I really do feel sorry for him,
but I can’t get involved in some plan to beat an S3 and that’s where I think
this is heading. Right? ……. Best we leave it before it goes too far.”

“I’m not asking you to help him beat the
liquor store rap. The issue is this teenage party and the dead girl. If the
wrong segment of this teenage drunk appears on a monitor, and if someone is
trigger happy, he’ll be executed. Will you at least give this some thought and
let me describe the plan?”

 I drain my coffee and stand up. “Monk, I’m
going to walk in the gardens and visit the grave site, and I’ll forget our
conversation; it’s a great spring day. I’ll see you on the way out.”

I know he’s disappointed, but I have to be
abrupt. Monk is too good at talking me into helping with one of his projects,
and this is the last thing I need. I walk away and think about the dramatic
change in Monk’s life. The training for priesthood is an eight-year affair
after high school, four years of university and then four more at a seminary.
But Monk was able to reduce the eight-year stipulation because he already had a
degree, with biblical studies as his optional courses, whenever possible.

Once he decided this was to be his life, it
only took three years to be ordained. I am not sure how he reduce the time
demands.  They say maturity and years as an obvious believer were the main
factors. I suspect the Church saw him as an excellent recruit, all-star pro
football player, ready to work the streets as a priest; this is the stuff of
movies. I’m sure the Church didn’t want any obstacles in his way.

My goal is the grave site, but I do enjoy
wandering around the Abbey, this religious labyrinth of buildings and greenery.
Some monks from a monastery in Russia are here for the early summer benefits
concert .They’re practicing, and their voices fill the halls. I walk outside
and then under the shade of the some stone arches which border the east wall.
These ancient walls and the melancholy chants of Russian monks really set the
mood; it provides a medieval atmosphere, pensive, but relaxing.

 I’ve a few flowers and place them in the
small vase I’d anchored to the burial plot headstone. The intense rays of the
sun bounce off any reflective surface, but at this altitude the air still has
some lingering winter crispness.

I perch on the edge of the nearby bench.  I
never speak out loud to the two of them; the conversations are all in my head.
I close my eyes. It’s time to relax with the voices of the singing monks as an
embracing powerful spiritual force, like a hypnotic spell. The plaintive music
funnels through the halls and seems to target the grave site. A melancholic
mood. Relax, ease off.

  Before long, images are coming at me like
an old fashion slide show, one grainy frame at a time.  There are only a few of
them, but they continue to repeat, play like a carousel, one after the other,
taking turns filling my consciousness.

The first image is the accident scene:
bodies are sprawled at the side of the road and standing by the wrecked cars,
the drunken driver with blood pouring down his face. Then images at the morgue
surface: each body on a metal gurney, draped with a sheet. Last I see them
leave the house that morning: they are waving and smiling, Linda giggling with
excitement because of a day of shopping with mom.

 My eyes stay shut; this is an internal
show.  One frame after the other jerks its way to the front of my
consciousness; it doesn’t stop. Finally, all the images morph into dancing
lights, like a wild set of northern lights, violent exploding lights. They flare
and die down. There is one last explosive flash and then nothing but darkness.
The images are all gone. God, it’s true: they are gone; it’s over. I feel the
emptiness; they’re gone and I know it; God, it’s over and I accept it. I’m
surrounded by emptiness.

The Russian monks are becoming louder, more
emotional, and as they reach their climax, the singing overwhelms the entire
yard. I don’t understand a word; the acoustics are such that the voices arrive
from every direction; the damn music plunges straight to your soul, the
anguish, grief, and despair all surface. I feel the tears pouring down my
cheeks. I can’t stop them and the next thing I know: I’m sobbing, hard gut
wrenching stuff which has me off the bench and on my knees. I really don’t
know, and never asked, if I was screaming and shouting or for how long this
lasted.