The 24th Letter ((Mystery/Thriller)) (2 page)

Spelling said, “I saw something a few minutes ago that scared the livin’ shit outta me.  Pardon my language, Father, but I think I died…died and went straight to hell. Man, I’m a believer now.  You mind closing the curtain.  I want to make a confession.”

Father Callahan nodded and stepped to the curtain.  To the guard he said in a whisper, “Please give this man a moment of privacy to confess his sins.”

The guard grinned.  “Gonna take a lot longer than a moment.”

Father Callahan pulled the curtain closed and turned to Spelling.  

“Father…I ain’t sure how to say this…”

“Simply say it from your heart, son.”

“Heart’s almost wore out, but I’ll try.  Can I ask your name?”

“Father John Callahan.”

“Can I call you Father John?”

“Yes.”

“Father John, maybe you can put in a good word for me above,” Spelling cut his eyes up to dots in the ceiling.  “I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life.  I hope God can see what caused me to do that stuff and forgive me for some of it.  What I got to say, Father, it ain’t about me.  Maybe God will take pity at this stage of my sorry-ass life.  Any chances of that, really?” 

“It is never too late to seek our Lord and his forgiveness.  You wish to confess?” 

“It’s about makin’ something right.”  Spelling paused, glanced at the digital impulses of his weak heart on the monitor.  “There’s a man on death row up at Starke.  State of Florida’s gonna kill him.  He’s not guilty.  They say he raped and killed a girl—a supermodel down in Miami.  Happened eleven years ago, but he didn’t do it.”

“How do you know?”

“ ‘Cause I
know
who did it.  I’d been sittin’ low in my car in a condo parking lot when I seen him come out of one condo.  I was there to sell some coke when I spotted this dude.  Wasn’t long after I’d seen this first fella stumble shit-faced drunk outta the same place.  I saw where the second man hid the knife.  I
got
the knife.  I took it from the dumpster when I saw the dude toss it.  Wrapped in newspaper.  Got a good look at him and even memorized his tag.  I hid the knife.  Girl’s killing was all over the news.  Nobody was arrested…so I got in touch with the dude.  Told him for a hundred grand, his takin’ out the trash would remain our little secret.  He wanted the knife.  I kept it as an

 insurance policy.  Got the money, and it wasn’t but a few days before they’d arrested somebody else for the girl’s killin.’  I figured I was now an accessory to the whole f’d-up mess.  In a year, I’d sucked the money up my nose…robbed a bank and got caught.  They sent me to Starke for a dime.  The guy on death row, Charlie Williams, is an innocent man.  A
real
fuckin’ innocent man.  Forgive me for that slip again, Father John.”

Father Callahan was silent a moment.  He said, “You’re doing the right thing.”

Spelling glanced down at the floor toward the end of the curtain.  He saw the large black books of the guard standing as close as possible to the curtain.  “Father, come closer.  The murdered girl was Alexandria Cole.  She was one of those supermodels?”

“I remember the case.  Who killed her?” 

The heart monitor beeped.  Spelling chewed at his cracked lower lip.  “Father, I have sinned bad…will God set it right?  Will he forgive me?”

“God will embrace you for your confession.  The police may need more.  Write down your confession, many details as possible…name the person who did it and sign it.”

“Is this in case I die?”

“What do you mean?”

“If I die…if you got it in writing, proves a dying man’s confession is more than only your word, Father.  No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Feds want me to testify real bad.  I heard they are gonna keep me in here ‘till I’m well enough to testify.”

Two nurses and the ER doctor approached.  He said, “Dr. Weinberg has arrived. We’ll be taking the patient up for surgery”

Spelling’s eyes popped.  He looked up at Father Callahan.  “Say a prayer for me Father John.  If the good Lord sees me through this alive, I’ll write it all down.  Names and places, and where the weapon his hidden.”

The priest nodded.  “May or Lord bless you.”

As they wheeled Spelling from the area, he asked,  “What time is it, Father?”

Father Callahan looked at his watch.  “It’s exactly six o’clock.”.

“Time’s runnin’ out.”

“I’ll pray for you, son.”

“I’m talking about Charlie Williams, the fella on death row.  He’s next in line for the needle.  If it’s three, by my calculations, he’s got eighty-four hours to live, and he’s gonna need more than prayers to save his soul.”

FOUR

Sean
O’Brien stood on the worn cypress wood of his screened-in back porch and watched lightning pop through the low-lying clouds above the Ocala National Forest.  Each burst hung in the bellies of the clouds for a few seconds, the charges exploding and fading like fireflies hiding in clusters of purple grapes.  He could smell rain falling in the forest and coming toward the St. Johns River as the breeze delivered the scent of jasmine, wet oak, and honeysuckle.   

Thunder rumbled in the distance.  The rolling noise, the burst and fade of light reminded O’Brien of the times he witnessed night bombing in the first Gulf War.  But that was many miles and years in the past.  He deeply inhaled the cool, rain-drenched air.  The sound of frogs reached a competing crescendo when the first drops began to hit the oak leaves.  The river was like black ink, white caps rolling across its dark surface

As the temperature dropped, the wind picked up, bringing a wall of rain across the river and through the thick limbs of old live oaks, soaking the gray beards of Spanish moss.  Within a few seconds, moss hung from the limbs like the wet fleece of lamb’s wool caught in the rain and stained the shade of tarnished armor. 

O’Brien sipped a cup of black coffee and listened to the rain tap the tin roof over the porch.  The old house was built in 1945, constructed from river rock, Florida cypress and pine.  Wood too tough for termites, nails, or even hurricanes.  The house sat high above the river on the shoulder of an ancient Indian mound.

O’Brien bought the home after his wife died from ovarian cancer fifteen months ago.  Following her death, he had a fleeting romance with the bottle and the genies it released in his subconscious.

He sold his house in Miami, quit his job as a homicide detective, and moved to a remote section of the river about fifty miles west of Daytona Beach.  It was here where he repaired the old home and his life.  His closest neighbor was a half-mile away.  The nearest town, DeLand, was more than twenty miles away. 

O’Brien looked at Sherri’s framed photograph standing on a wicker table near his porch chair.  Her smile was still as intoxicating as a summer night, fresh, vibrant and so full of life.  So full of hope.  He deeply missed her.  He set his cell phone by her picture.

Max barked.

O’Brien looked down at Max, his miniature dachshund.  “I know you have to pee.  We have two options, I can let you go out by yourself and risk an owl flying off with you, or I can grab an umbrella and try to keep us both dry while you do your thing.”

Max sniffed and cracked a half bark.  She trotted over to the screen door and looked back at O’Brien through eager brown eyes.   

“Okay, never delay a lady from her trip to the bathroom.”  O’Brien reached for an umbrella in the corner, lifted Max under his arm like a football, and walked out the door.  He set her down near the base of a large live oak in this yard.  Sherri had bought the dog as a puppy when O’Brien was spending long days and nights on a particularly extreme murder investigation.

She named the dog Maxine and allowed her to sleep in their bed, something O’Brien discovered after he had returned home one night, exhausted, awakening before dawn to find Maxine lying on her back, snuggled next to his side, snoring.  In a dreamlike stupor, he sat up, momentarily thinking a big rodent had climbed onto the bed.  But Max had looked at him too lovingly through chestnut brown eyes.  They’d made their peace, and now it was only the two of them. 

O’Brien held the large umbrella over Max as she squatted, the rain thumping the umbrella, the frogs chanting competing choruses. 

A foreign sound sliced through the air like a bad note.

O’Brien could hear his cell phone ringing from the table on his back porch. “Ignore it, Max.  Go with the flow.  No need getting a bladder infection.  If it’s important, they’ll call back.”

Max bolted from underneath the umbrella and sniffed fresh tracks left in the dirt near an orange tree O’Brien had recently planted.  He watched rain pooling in the tracks.  O’Brien knelt down and placed his hand over one imprint.  He let out a low whistle.  “Florida panther, Max, looks like it was running.”  O’Brien’s eyes followed the tracks until they were lost in the black.  Max growled.

“That tough dog growl would certainly scare a panther.  Not many of them left.  But, boy, do we have the black bears in that old forest.  That’s why you, young lady, have to eat the leftovers.  We don’t need bears rummaging through the garbage cans.  Coons are bad enough.”

The cell phone rang again.

O’Brien stood and looked up towards the house and porch.  “Come on, Max, let’s see who is it that needs our immediate attention.”

Max sniffed the damp air, sneezed, and followed O’Brien up the sloping yard.  She climbed the wet steps and stood on the porch to shake the rainwater out of her fur.

O’Brien picked up has cell at the last ring.  “Hello.”

Nothing.

“Maybe it went to voice-mail, Max.”  O’Brien looked at the caller ID.

Not a good sign.

The caller was a close friend of his.  Father Callahan had been there for him when Sherri died. 

And now maybe the priest needed him.

FIVE

O’Brien hit the number left behind on his phone’s received calls register.  It rang four times and went into message mode, Father Callahan’s voice asking the caller to leave a message.  “Father Callahan, this is Sean O’Brien.  Looks like you were trying to reach me.  I’m around, give me a call.”

Max sat, her eyes following a mosquito that made it in before the door shut.  O’Brien picked up a dry towel that he had hanging from a sixty-year-old nail driven half way into a white oak support beam.  When O’Brien bought the house, an old horseshoe hung from the lone nail.  He had painted the porch, painted around the nail, cleaned and polished the horseshoe, and hung it back in the same spot.  He kept a clean towel there for rainy days and a little wet dog.  

O’Brien picked Max up, set her on the towel in the center of the porch, and dried her.  “We have to head to the marina.  Are you ready to visit Nick and Dave?”

Max cocked her head.

“Maybe Nick has some fresh fish.  I have to replace the zincs on the props this weekend or
Jupiter
might be sitting on the bottom of the bay soon.”

#

O’BRIEN WAS ALMOST to the Ponce Marina when his cell rang.   He pressed the receiver button. “Hello, Father.”

“Sean, you’re either a psychic detective or you have caller ID.”

“It’s all about technology.”

“Oh, I don’t know.  You’ve always been exceptional at reading things in people that no machine can detect.”

O’Brien drove through the heavy shower, the rain now falling in larger drops like schools of silver minnows pouring from the sky.   “Storm’s moving on, Father.  Good to hear your voice.  It’s been awhile.  How are you?”

“You visited me more after Sherri’s death than in recent times.  Are you okay?”

“Yes, thanks.  I don’t get out as much as I’d like to.  Fixing up my old house and boat keeps me busy.”  

“Earlier today I was at Baptist Hospital where I heard a confession.  It came from a prisoner who was shot as he was being transferred to testify in court this morning.  After he was stabilized, he suffered a series of heart attacks.  He underwent surgery.”

“I’m listening.”

“This poor chap believes he died on the emergency room table, and in the near clutch of the devil, he says he was resuscitated.  Says he saw evil…absolute evil.”

“Maybe it was just a bad dream.”

“The man believes he’s been given a divine chance to make amends.  He saw something, Sean, something that led him to confess.”

“It may have more to do with the brain in an oxygen-deprived state than it does with good or evil.”

“No,” Father Callahan lowered his voice, “he saw something eleven years ago.”

“What?”

“A murderer.  Saw him leave the scene right after the devil’s work was done.  And the man who did it was never caught.”

“Why doesn’t he go to the police?”

“He’s a convict.  It’s complicated.  Time’s running out, and he’s under the knife.”

“Father, start from the beginning?”

“The real killer is free, and the man accused of the murder is sitting on death row.  The state is going to put him to death at 6:00 A.M. Friday.  That about four days.”

O’Brien could feel tightness in his chest.  “What does this have to do with me?”

“You might be the best man to free the condemned man and catch the real killer.”

“Why me, Father?”

“If it’s true, Sean, it was you who caught the wrong man, and he’s about to be executed.”

SIX

  O’Brien pulled in the Oyster shell parking lot of Ponce Marina and shut off the Jeep’s engine.  The rain stopped and he unzipped the windows.  “Wrong man?  Who, Father?”

“Charlie Williams.”

“Williams?  That was ten, maybe eleven years ago.”  O’Brien’s thoughts raced.  In his mind’s eye he saw the murder scene.  Blood covered the victim’s bedroom.  Young.  Beautiful.  Stabbed seven times in the chest and throat.  Her blood was in the ex-boyfriend’s truck.  His prints in her condo.  His semen in her body.  He was found drunk.  Passed out in his pickup truck.  He said they’d fought, but he didn’t kill her.