Sacred Sins

Lou.” She wanted to back up, just edge back one foot, but saw by his eyes that even that small movement would trigger the violence. “When did you first hear it?”
    “When I was a boy. They said I was crazy, like my mother. I was afraid, so I blocked it out. Later I realized it was a call from God, calling me to the priesthood. I was happy to be chosen. Father Moore said only a few are chosen to carry out the Lord's work, to celebrate the sacraments. But even the chosen are tempted to sin. Even the chosen are weak, so we sacrifice, we do penance. He taught me how to train my body to fight off temptation. Flagellation, fasting.”

    And one more piece to the puzzle fell into place. An emotionally disturbed boy enters the seminary, to be trained by an emotionally disturbed man. He would kill her. Following the path he saw laid out for him, he would kill her. The parking lot was all but empty, the doors of the Emergency Room two hundred yards away. “How did you feel about becoming a priest, Lou?”
    “It was everything. My whole life was formed, do you understand? Formed. For that purpose.”
    “But you left it.”
    “No.” He lifted his head as if scenting the air, as if listening to something only for his ears. “That was like a blank spot in my life. I didn't really exist then. A man can't exist without faith. A priest can't exist without purpose.”
    She saw him reach in his pocket, saw the snatch of white in his hand. Her eyes were almost as wild as his when they met again. “Tell me about Laura.”
    He'd come a step closer, but the name stopped him. “Laura. Did you know Laura?”
    “No, I didn't know her.” He had the amice in both hands now, but seemed to have forgotten it. Treat, she told herself to hold back a scream. Treat, talk, listen. “Tell me about her.”
    “She was beautiful. Beautiful in that fragile way that makes you worry if such things can last. My mother worried because Laura enjoyed looking at herself in the mirror, brushing her hair, wearing pretty clothes. Mother could sense the Devil drawing, always drawing Laura into sin and bad thoughts. But Laura only laughed and said she didn't care for sackcloth and ashes. Laura laughed a lot.”
    “You loved her very much.”

    “We were twins. We shared life before life. That's what my mother said. We were bound together by God. It was for me to keep Laura from spurning the Church and everything we'd been taught. It was for me, but I failed her.”
    “How did you fail Laura?”
    “She was only eighteen. Beautiful, delicate, but there wasn't any laughter.” The tears began, sobless, to glisten on his cheeks. “She'd been weak. I hadn't been there for her, and she'd been weak. Back-street abortion. God's judgment. But why did God's judgment have to be so harsh?” His breathing quickened and became painfully loud as he pressed a hand to his forehead. “A life for a life. It's fair and just. A life for a life. She begged me not to let her die, not to let her die in such sin that would send her to Hell. I had no power to absolve her. Even as she lay dying in my arms, I had no power. The power came later, after the despair, the dark, blank time. I can show you. I have to show you.”
    He stepped forward, and even as Tess's instincts had her pull back, he slipped the scarf around her. “Lou, you're a police officer. It's your job, your function to protect.”
    “Protect.” His fingers trembled on the scarf. A policeman. He'd had to drug Pudge's coffee. It would have been wrong to do more, to hurt another officer. Protect. The shepherd protects his flock. “I didn't protect Laura.”
    “No, it was a terrible loss, a tragedy. But now you've tried to give something back, haven't you? Isn't that why you became a police officer? To give something back? To protect others?”
    “I had to lie, but after Laura it didn't seem to matter. Maybe with the police I could find what I'd been looking for in the seminary. That sense of purpose. Vocation. Man's law, not God's law.”
    “Yes, you swore to uphold the law.”
    “The Voice came back, so many years later. It was real.”

    “Yes, to you it was real.”
    “It isn't always inside my head. Sometimes it's a whisper in the other room, or it comes like thunder from the ceiling over my bed. It told me how to save Laura, and myself. We're bound together. We've always been bound together.”
    Her hands clenched over the keys in her pocket. She knew if the scarf tightened, she would use them