In Death 27 - Salvation in Death

a priest.”
    He sat, sipped. He lowered the mug, stared. Then sipped again, slowly. A flush rose to his cheeks. “I’ve never tasted coffee like this.”
    “Probably because you’ve never had actual coffee. It’s not soy or veg or man-made. It’s the deal. I’ve got a source.”
    “Bless you,” he said and drank again.
    “Have you seen this before?” She took the print out of the tattoo, offered it.
    “Oh yes. It’s a gang tattoo; the gang’s long disbanded. Some of my parishioners were members and still have the tattoo. Some wear it with pride, some with shame.”
    “Lino had one. He had it removed before he came here.”
    Understanding darkened López’s eyes. “So. This was his place. His home.”
    “I could use the names of the people you know who have this tattoo.” When he closed his eyes, Eve said lightly, “There could be more coffee.”
    “No, but thank you. Lieutenant, those who lived through those times and aren’t in prison are now older, and have work, and families, have built lives.”
    “I’m not looking to change that. Unless one of them killed Lino.”
    “I’ll get you the names, the ones I know or can learn. I’d like to have until tomorrow. It’s difficult to go against the authority I believe in.”
    “Tomorrow’s fine.”
    “You think he was a bad man. Lino. You believe he may have killed Flores to put on his collar—taken his name, his life. And yet you work like this to find the one who took Lino’s life. I understand that. I believe in that. So I’ll do what I can.”
    As he started to rise, Eve spoke. “What did you do before you became a priest?”
    “I worked in my father’s cantina, and boxed. I boxed for a time, professionally.”
    “Yeah, I looked that up. You won your share.”
    “I loved the sport, the training, the discipline. The feeling I’d get when I stepped into the ring. I dreamed of seeing big cities and fame and fortune.”
    “What changed your mind?”
    “There was a woman. A girl. I loved her, and she loved me. She was beautiful, and so unspoiled. We were to be married. I was saving money, nearly every penny I could from the matches I won. So we could marry and have a place of our own. One day, when I was training, she walked from her parents’ home toward town, to see me, to bring me lunch. Men—three men—saw her, and they took her. We searched for two days before we found her. They left her by the river. Strangled her. They’d raped her first, and beaten her, and left her naked by the river.”
    “I’m very sorry.”
    “I’d never known hate like that. Even bigger than the grief, was the hate, the rage, the thirst to avenge her. Or myself. How can we be sure? I lived on that hate for two years—that and drink and drugs, and whatever dulled the grief so the hate could stay ripe.
    “I lost myself in it. Then they found them, after they had done the same to another young girl. I planned to kill them. I planned it, plotted it, dreamed of it. I had the knife—though I doubt I could have gotten near enough to them to use it, I believed I could. I would. Then she came to me. My Annamaria. Do you believe in such things, Lieutenant? In visitations, in miracles, in faith?”
    “I don’t know. But I believe in the power of believing in them.”
    “She told me I had to let her go, that it was a sin to lose myself for what was already gone. She asked that I go, alone, on a pilgrimage, to the shrine of Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos. To draw—I had some little talent—a picture of the Blessed Mother as an offering. And there I would find the rest of my life.”
    “Did you?”
    “I did. I loved her, so I did what she asked. I walked, a long, long way. Over many months. Stopping along the way to find work, to eat, to sleep, I think to heal, and to find faith again. I drew the portrait, though it had Annamaria’s face. And I understood as I knelt at the shrine, as I wept, that my life was now for God. I traveled home—many months, and worked to save money to enter the seminary. I found my life. And still there are some nights when I dream she’s beside me, and our children are sleeping safe in their beds. I often wonder if that’s God’s blessing for accepting His will, or penance for testing it.”
    “What happened to the men?”
    “They were tried, convicted, and were executed. There were still executions in Mexico at that time. Their deaths didn’t bring Annamaria back, or the other girl, or the one it was found