“Louis, where’s your cellphone?” I said.
Louis was standing. In the dark, his voice came from above. “In the house, on the table.”
“Robert took mine,” said Hugh.
“Worthless, the pair of you.” I stood. Put my hand on the wall to brace against the roaring pain between my ears. Blood trickled down my neck.
“We’re dead, Inspector. You condemned us to hell.”
“I was already dead, Louis. Only thing that changed is you’re in the noose too.”
I blindly made my way toward the heap in the corner.
Louis and I crashed together in the black. He pushed at my shoulder and cursed. I got my forearms up in time to catch a punch, thrown by a panicked man not used to throwing them. I shoved him. He stumbled, tripped over something, and sat hard. Based on the sudden effluvia, he spilled a bucket of piss.
“Oh dear lord,” he moaned.
“That’s for taking photos of Ronnie.”
“Celia let you into my office, didn’t she, the bitch. Those photos are a hobby, Inspector. Just for fun.”
“Having fun now?”
I found Alec in the corner. He was limp but warm. I blindly probed his arms, his chest, his neck. He wasn’t emaciated; Robert fed him. His pulse was strong but he only murmured when I shook him.
“He’ll survive,” I said.
“We won’t, Inspector. So focus on the pressing issue.”
“Shut up, Louis, or I’ll hit you in the ear.”
“The ear?”
“Yeah but really hard. It’ll hurt.”
“How can you make jokes now?” he said.
“When better.” I moved forward. Tripped and stumbled over Hugh’s foot. Reached the dungeon door and tried it, but Robert had securely fastened it from the outside. Didn’t even rattle when I hit it with my shoulder. The impact made my head throb and nose ache.
“Mr. August,” said Hugh. Very soft. “This is my fault.”
“Let’s get out of here first, Hugh. Then I’ll accept your apology.”
“Why, Father Louis? Why would…those poor boys. So sorry, all my fault.”
“The sexual predator bears most of blame, Hugh,” I said.
“Oh please, don’t pretend you’re some Paraclete,” scoffed Louis. “Jeremy and Cameron are grown men. They adore me. No one forced them to stay. They could’ve left.”
“They’re grown men; they shouldn’t have to. They have careers and responsibility.”
“I’m so cold,” said Hugh.
“You’re going into shock, Mr. Pratt, and if that isn’t holy justice then I don’t know what is.”
Hugh had to take deep breaths and speak only a handful of words on each exhale. “The church needs men like you, August. Not men like me. I knew we should’ve fired Father Louis, but…I didn’t want to. I didn’t want the conflict. I hoped it would go away. So did the bishop. We wanted it to be lies. But we knew. We knew deep down.”
In the corner, Alec mumbled something in his medicinal fog.
“I want to tell Alec I’m sorry,” said Hugh. “Tell him it’s my fault. Tell him not to blame the church. Not to blame God. Blame us, the cowards.”
I knelt beside Hugh. Untucked his shirt and used my fingernails to rip a hole in the fabric.
Louis gasped. “Oh god, what’s that sound?”
“I got bad news, Hugh,” I said.
A wheeze. “What?”
“I’m making you a tourniquet.” I did my best, trying to tear his shirttail evenly in a long strip. It jostled him and he moaned, and in retrospect I probably should have ripped my own shirt instead.
Through clenched teeth he said, “Why’s that bad?”
“Because it’s going to hurt. And after it’s on, I’m yanking out the ax. And that’s going to hurt worse.”
“Oh. Shit,” he said, and I thought I heard a little smile in the word. “Rob hates it when I say shit.”
“Then stop it. Let’s not make him angrier.”
“Why do you need the ax, Inspector?” said Louis.
“To execute you.”
“You’re joking again.”
“I am. I don’t need an ax for that, just a thumb. I’ll use the ax to break down the door. After that, to impair our captor.”
He sniffed. “Clever.”
“No. Desperate.”
“You’re an irredeemable pain in the ass. How’d you find those emails?” said Louis, sitting in a puddle of urine and being unhelpful.
“Not telling.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t deserve it,” I said. “But let me congratulate you. Your vocabulary is better than I expected. So many euphemisms for penis, I had no idea.”
“Why the sudden jocularity?”
“That’ll happen when the guy with the gun leaves. That and a salience of mortality,” I said.
I wrapped the long strip of shirt just above Hugh’s elbow, where there was one bone instead of two. I cinched the wrap and twisted the loose ends tighter and tighter until Hugh was crying with the pain.
“It won’t save your life if it doesn’t hurt,” I said.
“I know.”
“Louis, get over here.”
“Why?” he said.
“Because I told you to.”
“Inspector—”
“An ax is buried in his left arm and his right shoulder is broken. You need to hold this knot in place. We don’t have time to do it right.”
Louis fumbled his way to us. I placed his hand on top of the makeshift tourniquet.
“You smell awful,” I said.
“I’m covered in urine. As you intended.”
“Hold this knot tight or he’ll die within minutes, and I’ll bury you with him.”
“You are culpable for this, Inspector. You wrecked it all, including Hugh. The blame is yours.”
“Do it,” said Hugh. “I’m ready.”
“Our Father who art in heaven,” I said, gripping the throat and knob of the ax handle. “Please help us.”
“Amen,” said Hugh. “Amen.”
“Everyone hold tight.”
“I’m ready.”
“This is your fault, Inspector, dammit,” said Louis and his teeth chattered.
One strong tug and the ax tore free.
I couldn’t see much. I imagined a thick wet gout from Hugh’s wrist, blood in his arm finding release. I hoped the hand stayed attached but Hugh made no sound. Probably he fainted.
“Keep it tight,” I told Louis.
“I am! Good Lord, I am.”
The door squealed open and light poured in.
Robert Wallace had returned.
I wasn’t ready yet.
Robert’s hair whipped in the maelstrom’s wind. He held my pistol in one hand, my cell phone in the other. Reading spectacles perched on his nose.
He’d been crying. And he still was.
I wasn’t in place, not close enough to hit him with the ax.
He raised the pistol. My pistol.
I did what everyone does when a gun’s aimed at them. I held my breath and winced. But he didn’t pull the trigger.
“Robert, wait,” I said and I made a subtle move to place myself between him and Louis/Hugh/Alec. I held the ax in both fists crosswise.
“He lied to me, August,” said Robert Wallace.
“I know he did.”
“It’s true. All of it is true. Isn’t it.”
I nodded.
“It’s true, Robert. He’s been lying to vestry, cheating on his wife, and harassing the younger guys.”
He jerked the gun. “Move aside. Let me see him.”
“Louis needs to go before a judge. He’ll face criminal charges for trespassing, sexual battery, assault, and indecent exposure. And civil charges for workplace harassment. He’ll be exposed, humiliated, and defrocked.”
“That’s not enough,” said Robert.
“Yes. It is.”
“He’s behind you. I want to see him.”
“Give me the gun and you can,” I said.
“He betrayed All Saints. He betrayed…me. Treated the church like a rag. Something to be used and thrown away. I want to know why.”
“He’s human like the rest of us. Maybe even more so,” I said.
“Move.”
Behind me, Louis whispered. “He’ll kill me! Like he killed Jon Young. I need you. You need me. We’ll survive. Please, Inspector.
I said, “Hugh needs a doctor, Robert. Immediately. So does Alec.”
“Move!” he shouted and we winced. I was jumpy.
“Patricide would feel good, I admit. But it would make things worse.”
He fired the gun. In close quarters it was deafening. Some of the noise escaped through the door but most of it went into our ear canals like knives. Robert grabbed at his ears.
Over the ringing I heard Alec Ward cry.
Robert released his head and said something.
“What?” I shouted.
He repeated it. He was telling me he missed on purpose.
“I know you missed on purpose,” I told him.
He spoke again. I read his lips—Move. Let me see him.
Without moving my feet, I twisted to look behind. Hugh was unconscious and bleeding far too much on the ground. Louis had released the tourniquet to cower behind me. He was crying and I didn’t blame him.
“Lay flat,” I told Louis. He ignored me, or he couldn’t hear over the ringing. “Get down.”
“August!” shouted Robert. “Let me see Father Louis.”
“Come in here and find him.”
He looked at me and the ax I held. Shook his head. “I’ll shoot you first. So move aside.”
“Why?” I said.
“He lied.”
“That’s the least of his sins,” I said. “If there is such a thing.”
“He lied to me.”
“Still, though.”
“He desecrated the church. It’ll crumble now. He needs to answer for it.”
“That’s not your call, Robert.”
“Yeah it is, August,” said the man with my gun. “It’s entirely mine."
“Louis needs to answer to the police and Jeremy Cameron and Alec Ward’s parents and a bunch of other people. Not just you. And not in the darkness.”
“I’m gonna kill you, August.”
I could barely hear him over the ringing in my ears, over my pounding heart, my throbbing face.
“I believe you,” I said.
“If you don’t move aside.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“Why’s that.”
“Haven’t you been listening? I’m stubborn. And somebody, at some point in this whole mess, needs to do the right thing.”
“I’ll count to two, August. Then you’re dead with your own gun.”
“Don’t do this, Robert. I have a son at home.”
“Then move. One…”
I didn’t wait.
I said a two-word prayer and lunged forward. Tucked and rolled to my right, his left, making sure not to roll on the ax blade.
He roared and fired at the spot where I’d been. And fired again, tracking my evasion. Both misses. Both thunderously loud.
Being shot at is the worst.
I came to my feet. Ax held like a baseball bat. Ready to swing at his hands. I wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t close enough. He had me. He wouldn’t miss this time.
Screaming in the room.
Two more gun shots. Large and deep sounds. But somehow less hard on the ears, less penetrative.
Robert Wallace staggered forward, his eyes wide.
He made a cough and tried to reach around to his spine. Went to his knees and twisted in pain. I saw his back. His shirt was punctured in two places, blooming crimson.
Those final gunshots… Robert hadn’t fired; he’d been shot from behind.
Manny Martinez, federal marshal and my good friend, stepped into view. His big .357 issued some gun smoke that the wind caught.
“I shoot the right guy, migo?” he said. “Figured somebody needed shooting.”
I went limp. Let myself sag onto the ground, ax across my lap.
“You’re a little late,” I said and my voice only wavered a little.
Robert collapsed forward. Twitched twice. And didn’t move again. Manny’s absurdly large ammo had probably disintegrated his heart.
“Ay caramba, looks like somebody kicked your face, Mack.” Manny held a flashlight and he flashed the rest of our little sepulcher. All threats were neutralized. “Smells terrible.”
“Why’re you here?”
“I’m fond of you,” he said.
“I mean, how’d you find us?”
Manny held up a cellphone.
“Señorita Ronnie’s in my car. Your phone tells her phone where you are, she says. White people witchcraft. She was watching you and your dot disappeared here and she got worried. So we came over muy rapido and I heard the first gunshot.”
“How about that.” I looked at my phone in the dirt with renewed fondness. “Sexual obsession saves the day.”
“This is no time for eye running museums.”
“You mean ironic musings. We need a couple ambulances. One for Alec Ward and another for Hugh Pratt. Not a fun trip in this weather.”
Manny dialed 911 and nodded with his chin.
“Happened to him?”
Father Louis Lindsey was dead. I hadn’t noticed. Consigned to oblivion by Robert Wallace’s wayward gunfire. I told Louis to lay down. Twice. But he wouldn’t listen, not even to save his own life. Defiant unto the end. He stared upward, his death visage one of distress.
“Louis once told me the worst part of his job was dodging sniper fire from his own congregation. Prescient words, Louis,” I said.
I scooted across the dirt floor. To tighten Hugh’s tourniquet and stop the bleeding.