The Redemptive Return E-Book

Susan Mathis

• Herausgeber: Mercy and Justice Mysteries
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

My faith lies in tatters after the events of the summer. I’ve neglected my prayers. I’ve avoided my priestly duties.

I am questioning everything about myself--except my feelings for Helen.

When my estranged sister goes missing, I fly home to look for her--with Helen surprising me on the plane.

My sister’s dead when I arrive. I’m too late to save her. But I promise to find her killer.

But emotions are fragile things, and in the depths of my despair, my love for Helen bursts forth in a grief fueled frenzy of passion and longing.
 
In coming home, what have I found--my damnation, or my redemption?

Leseprobe

The Redemptive Return

The Father Tom Mysteries, Book 3

By

J. R. Mathis and Susan Mathis

Also by J. R. Mathis

The Father Tom Mysteries

The Penitent Priest

The Framed Father

The Redemptive Return

The Buried Bride

The Defining Decision

The Silent Shooter

The Purloined Paintings

The Slain Saint

The Perfect Patsy

The Haunted Heritage

The Fatal Fall (Coming Soon)

The Father's Family (Coming Soon)

The Mercy and Justice Mysteries

The Honeymoon Homicide (Coming Soon)

The Maligned Marine (Coming Soon)

Standalone

The Reluctant Rector: The Father Tom Mysteries Books 1-3

Watch for more at J. R. Mathis’s site.

Also by Susan Mathis

The Father Tom Mysteries

The Penitent Priest

The Framed Father

The Redemptive Return

The Buried Bride

The Defining Decision

The Silent Shooter

The Purloined Paintings

The Slain Saint

The Perfect Patsy

The Haunted Heritage

The Fatal Fall (Coming Soon)

The Father's Family (Coming Soon)

The Mercy and Justice Mysteries

The Honeymoon Homicide (Coming Soon)

The Maligned Marine (Coming Soon)

Standalone

The Reluctant Rector: The Father Tom Mysteries Books 1-3

Table of Contents

Title Page

Also By J. R. Mathis

Also By Susan Mathis

The Redemptive Return (The Father Tom Mysteries, #3)

Authors’ Note

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Acknowledgements

Also By J. R. Mathis

Also By Susan Mathis

About the Author

Mercy and Justice Mysteries 2021

Copyright © 2020 by James R. Mathis and Susan S. Mathis

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

––––––––

SECOND PRINTING, OCTOBER 2021

Contact: [email protected]

––––––––

HALLELUJAH, WORDS AND Music by LEONARD COHEN, © 1984 Used pending permission from copyright owner.

Cover Photo: Adobe Stock Photos

Cover: Millie Godwin

Editing: Anna Palmer Darkes

To our Fathers

James D. Mathis

and

Fred C. Sowell

The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one's word to Christ and the Church, a duty and a proof of the priest's inner maturity; it is the expression of his personal dignity.

Pope Saint John Paul II

The person who denies his own profound relationship with evil denies his own reality. 

U. K. Le Guin

Authors’ Note

THE REDEMPTIVE RETURN begins one week after the end of The Framed Father and contains spoilers for the earlier book.

This book takes place in a time and place very much like our own.  In  the book’s world, however, COVID-19 doesn’t exist; hence our characters wear no masks, shake hands, hug with abandon, and gather in groups of more than 10 people.

Myerton, Maryland; Bellamy, Florida; and all the places and characters in this book are the product of the authors’ imagination and research. Any resemblance to actual places or persons is entirely coincidental.

A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO CATHOLIC READERS: This book depicts physical attraction and love between a Catholic priest and a single woman.  This is not to be construed as a criticism of the Church’s discipline of priestly celibacy. As practicing Catholics, the authors respect the 800-year-old practice of the Western Church that, with exceptions allowed through the years for married ordained men entering the Catholic priesthood from the Anglican tradition, priests live in an unmarried and chaste state. This is a work of fiction. Father Tom Greer and Detective Helen Parr are fictional characters who, to the knowledge of the authors, do not represent any situation in reality. For our fellow Catholics disturbed by some of what's depicted,  we urge you to please read to the end before passing judgment.

TRIGGER WARNING: The Redemptive Return presents a realistic view of human nature, including sin and evil. Thus, there is profanity (including the use of the “F” word), violence, discussion of prostitution and human trafficking, and allusions to the sexual exploitation of children.

Prologue

BURYING THE DEAD IS a corporal act of mercy.

No one is more in need of mercy than a murderer and a suicide.

A priest who is both needs mercy the most.

I’m standing under the blazing July sun next to the grave of Father Leonard McCoy, priest of the Roman Catholic Church and confessed murderer. Only child of Meredith and Benjamin McCoy, deceased. Born October 22, 1990; died July 21, 2020, by his own hand using a rope fashioned from his shirt in a cell in the Myer County Jail.

About two hundred yards away, slightly shaded by a large maple, is another grave. There lies Rachel Watson, murdered at the hands of Father Leonard McCoy.Born March 24, 1992; died July 10, 2020. With her is buried her eight-week-old unborn child, fathered by Father Leonard.

Before this July, in my six years as a priest, I had never performed a single funeral.

In a matter of weeks, I performed three.

The first, Rachel Watson, I did before a packed Saint Clare’s parish. If not every member, almost every member was there to pray for the soul of this poor woman.

The second, Winthrop Myer III, Rachel’s brother-in-law, killed by a jealous wife, was even better attended as befitting one of the pioneer families of Western Maryland. Dignitaries from across the state, Washington, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania attended. The Governor sent his condolences. There was even a message from the White House.

Father Leonard’s mourners number two. One is Anna Luckgold, my late wife’s mother and more of a mother to me than my own. The other is Helen Parr, the woman I once loved and whose heart I once broke, the detective who brought my wife’s killer to justice, and who maintained Father Leonard’s guilt in the face of my stubborn insistence on his innocence.

The other parishioners of Saint Clare’s, who this broken man shepherded for over six months, could not find it in themselves to pray for the soul of one of Our Lord’s lost sheep.

As I finish the final prayers at the graveside, Portia’s words from The Merchant of Venice pop into my head.

The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

For Father Leonard, mercy was almost non-existent.

I make the sign of the cross over Father Leonard and the duet of mourners. I’m baking in the sun. Underneath my layers of vestments, my body is dripping with perspiration. I’m fairly certain I’m beginning to sunburn. Now would be the time to leave.

Instead, I just stand where I am, my hands clutching my copy of the Rite of Christian Burial, staring down at the casket.

You could have prevented this.

You should have prevented this.

Now, three people are dead because of you.

A hand on my shoulder and the scent of vanilla tells me I’m no longer alone.

Reading my thoughts, Helen whispers, “Tom, this wasn’t your fault. None of what happened was.”

She’s been saying the same thing to me for days now. My eyes remain fixed on the casket.

“I know, Helen,” I whisper.

“Do you?”

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. Concern is etched into every tiny line and every small corner of her face. Her eyes, their deep azure blue usually vibrant, are sad.

Of course they’re sad. It’s a funeral.

Only the sadness, I suspect, is not for Father Leonard.

“Let’s go,” she says quietly, gently pulling on my arm.

“No,” I say, pulling my arm away. “You go on. I’ll talk to you later. I need to see Joan first.”

“I can go with you.”

I shake my head. “I want to be alone.”

“I’m not sure—”

“Helen, please!” I snap. I close my eyes. “Sorry,” I whisper.

Wordlessly, she pats my shoulder and walks away. I take one last look at the grave and turn in the direction of Joan’s.

She’s buried up a slight hill, underneath a large, expansive oak tree. Even under the shade, the heat is almost unbearable. I’m certain to die of heatstroke before I get back to the Rectory.

I don’t care.

I stand in front of the place where my wife is buried. The woman who died in my arms fifteen years ago, murdered by a bullet fired by her emotionally disturbed ex-husband. An ex-husband I knew nothing about before last October.

Like Rachel Watson’s, her funeral was well-attended, with scores of mourners lining the pews to pay their last respects and pray for her soul.

But then, she wasn’t a murderer who died by his own hand. In that, she was very different from Father Leonard.

In one respect, however,  Joan was very much like both Father Leonard and Rachel Watson.

I couldn’t save her, either.

My knees weaken and I collapse on the grass in front of her headstone, whether from the heat or the emotions piling on me, I don’t know.

I stare at her name etched in the marble, just above the words, “Loving wife and daughter.”

I cover my face with my hands and bend so my forehead is touching the ground.

One

Six Months Later

GIVEN A CHOICE BETWEEN nightmares and insomnia, I’ll take insomnia every night.

I may be tired in the morning, but at least I’m not shaking.

Checking my phone for the umpteenth time tonight, I see that only ten minutes have passed since I checked it last.

3:10 a.m..

I went to bed at 10:00 p.m., exhausted again,

I haven’t slept a wink, again.

It’s been this way since July. Since the new nightmares began.

I wouldn’t have had nightmares if I had listened to Helen in the first place.

Of course, a lot of things would have been different if I had listened to Helen in the first place.

For one, Father Leonard might still be alive .

***

“TOM, YOU REALLY SHOULDN’T go in there.”

Helen had looked at me, imploring me to listen to her just this once, to stop being so stubborn and just take her word for it.

I arrived at the jail about 30 minutes after she called. I should have been there sooner but I had made a short detour, a perhaps selfish but at the same time necessary one, to the Blessed Sacrament to say a Rosary, seeking solace for myself before I could offer it to him.

Five decades of the Rosary usually takes no more than twenty minutes from beginning to end.

That night, I barely got through one before I quit.

That was the last Rosary I had tried to pray for the last six months.

But then, there are a lot of things I haven’t done in the last six months.

“Helen,” I had said. “I need to. I need to see him. I . . . I . . . I need to give him Last Rites.”

She had shaken her head. “You don’t want to see this,” she had said, gently. “You really don’t. He hasn’t been moved yet. He’s still as he was found.”

“I’ve seen dead bodies before.”

“Have you ever seen a body after a hanging? It’s not pretty.”

I had looked at her. “Helen, I know what you’re trying to do. I appreciate your concern. But please, let me do my job.”

Helen hesitated before nodding. “OK. I’ll take you.”

She had escorted me from the small office she had taken over temporarily to Father Leonard’s cell.  They isolated him from the other inmates, partly because of the assumption that if a Catholic priest was in jail,  he was a child molester, and would be an instant target of the other inmates. His cell was a small room with a slit window cut in the door. It was no wonder he wasn’t found in time to save his life.

“Open the door,” Helen had told the officer stationed outside the cell.

As soon as the door opened, the first thing I noticed was not the sight.

It was the smell.

I had looked at Helen. “He soiled himself,” she had explained, quietly. “It’s typical.”

I stepped into the room. Father Leonard’s limp body was hanging from the rail of the top bunk. He was shirtless except for a t-shirt. His arms dangled at his sides, his fists tightly clenched together.

It’s only when I got closer that I saw the scratches around his neck, blood from them staining the makeshift noose.

“You changed your mind,” I whispered. “You tried to free yourself.”

I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer of thanksgiving.

The rest was anticlimactic. I had said the necessary prayers and left the scene to Helen and her technicians.

As I walked past her, she stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Helen had whispered to me. “There is nothing you could have done to prevent this.”

I had said nothing in response, but gave her a terse nod before leaving.

That night I had the first nightmare.

***

I WAS IN HIS CELL. All went exactly as it had been in real life.

Except when I made the sign of the cross over Leonard’s body, his head jerked up. His arm, no longer lifeless, came up and his hand clasped me around the throat.

“This is on you!” he hissed. “This is your fault. Everything that happened is your fault.”

I managed to break away and staggered backwards. I bumped into something. Turning, I found myself face to face with Rachel Watson.

“Your fault! Your fault!” she screamed.

Panicking, I turned to run to the door. In my way was Win Myer, pointing a condemning finger at me.

“You didn’t listen. You didn’t listen. You didn’t listen,” he repeats.

I managed to get around him.

It’s when I got to the door that I heard the cries of an infant.

***

THE BUZZING OF MY PHONE jars me awake. I must have dozed off finally.

I pick up the phone. Area Code 850. The Florida Panhandle.

My sister is calling me from Bellamy. At almost 4:00 a.m..

“This can’t be good,” I mutter. I answer and yawn, “Hello?”

“Tommy!” says a woman’s voice through the static and drops of a poor cell phone signal.

“Sonya?” I say. “What is it? Has something happened to Mom?”

“Oh, Tommy, I need your help,” my sister says. I hear what I think is the sound of leaves crunching. She sounds panicked and out of breath.

“What is it this time?” I ask with little sympathy. “Another dealer after you to pay up?”

“No, no, nothing like that, I promise,” she says. “Oh, God! They’re getting closer!”

“Where are you?” I say. “What’s going on? Who’s after you?”

“You need to help me, Tommy! I can’t trust anyone else and I don’t want Mom to get hurt!”

“What the hell are you talking about? Who’d hurt Mom?”

There’s no sound for a minute, just Sonya’s labored breathing. “I don’t have much time,” she whispers.

“What was that? Sonya, you need to speak up. I can barely hear you.”

“Listen carefully, Tommy, please! You need to come home. You can help stop them. You can help the girls. You need to help Chrystal."

“Girls,” I say, thoroughly confused. “What girls? Who’s Chrystal? Are you drunk or high again?”

“Remember that—.” The signal drops so I miss what she said.

“What, Sonya? Remember what?” I shout into the phone.

“—-Look there. Everything you need is there.” Sonya falls silent. Through the phone I hear what sound like distant voices and the crunching of leaves.

“Tommy,” she whispers. “They’re almost here. I’m sorry for everything. You’re going to find out things about me. I know I was wrong to do them. I tried to do the right thing in the end. You’ve gotta know that. I love you.”

“Sonya! Who’s—.” That’s as far as I get before the line goes dead.

I stare at my phone. I consider calling back, trying to get Sonya on the phone.

My sister was scared about something, so scared she called me, her older brother who’s spoken to her only a handful of times in the last five years.

But why call me in the first place, when I’m 900 miles away?

And how do I know this isn’t one of her drug and alcohol-fueled delusions?

I consider just letting it go, just chalking it up to that. I should just forget about it, and go downstairs, and finally tackle that pile of paperwork Anna’s been after me about.

But the niggling feeling in the back of my mind won’t stop.

I scroll through my contacts and find the only other person in Bellamy I speak to besides Mom.

“Hello?” a gruff and groggy voice answers.

“Gus? It’s Tom. Sorry to wake you.”

“Tom? What’s wrong?” Gus yawns. “Is it Aunt Nola?”

“No, no, Mom’s fine so far as I know.” I pause for a moment. “I got a really weird call from Sonya.”

“Sonya? When’s the last time you spoke to her?”

I think and try to remember. “Probably the last time was when Mom was in the hospital with her ingrown toenail. A few months ago.”

“Well, why was she calling you?”

“That’s just it, she didn’t really say. She sounded like she was running through the woods, kept talking about ‘they’ were coming after her, that she needed my help and couldn’t trust anybody.”

Gus is quiet for a minute. “Did she say anything else?” he asks.

“No, no, not really. It wasn’t the best connection so I couldn’t hear everything.”

“Huh.” Gus says. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. You know Sonya. Probably all in her mind. Got into some bad stuff, you know? I arrested some kid at the high school peddling magic mushrooms. Maybe she got some of those.”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “It’s probably that. Sorry to wake you Gus.”

“Right,” Gus says.

After I hang up, I sit on the bed for a minute. In spite of everything I know about Sonya, in spite of what Gus said, I have a red alert going off in the back of my mind.

I check the time. 4:30 a.m.. No reason to try and sleep. I might as well get up.

I stand and stretch. “Ooh, errg, uhm,” I say as I feel my joints loosen and I hear the popping and creaking of my arthritis. Every morning is another reminder that I’m not 25 anymore.

I sigh. “No,” I whisper. “If I were 25, I wouldn’t be alone.”

Moving shadows through the window catch my attention. I walk over and pull the sheer curtains back so I can see clearly.

“Damn,” I whisper.

It’s snowing.

Again.

Two

“I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH more she can take, Father.”

I’m standing in Saint Clare’s attic, directly over the altar. I’m wearing a heavy coat, a scarf and matching ski hat crocheted by Anna, leather gloves, and fur-lined boots.

My teeth are still chattering.

I look where Rob MacMillan, parishioner and general contractor, points. Even I, whose  knowledge of construction wouldn’t even allow me to build a birdhouse, can see what he’s talking about.

After three days of heavy, wet snow, Saint Clare’s roof is sagging, the trusses clearly straining to support the 150-year-old slate roof that’s covered by approximately five feet of snow dumped by a storm two days ago.

“So, it might collapse?” I ask.

“No, Father,” Rob says as he types something on his tablet. “There’s no might about it. It’s going to collapse. Frankly, I’m surprised it hasn’t already. These trusses are the originals. You can see in a couple of places where they’ve been shored up over the years, but they’re rotting. It can barely support the weight of the slate alone. But a cubic foot of snow weighs about 20 pounds, and it’s five feet deep over the whole roof. I could do the math for you—”

“That’s okay, Rob,” I say. “Can you fix it?”

He sighs. “At this point the only thing I can do, Father, is replace everything—the trusses, the roof, the slate tile. That’s a lot of area to cover. It’s not going to be cheap.”

“I’m not worried about the money,” I say, shaking my head. Which is only partly true. Win Myer had left a sizable monetary donation to the Church in his will, in addition to the Myer Estate house and grounds—which I’m still not sure what to do with. The money should be enough to pay for the roof.

“Well,” I say, “when can you start?”

“I can start as soon as the snow melts and we have about a week to ten days of clear weather,” Rob says. “I’ll throw all my guys on the job to get it done as quickly as possible, but it will still take a while.”

He pauses and looks back at the trusses. “I just hope we don’t have any more snow before it melts. If we do, Father, I just hope you aren’t standing at the altar when it gives way.”

***

WE MAKE OUR WAY OUT of the attic after Rob promises to send me an estimate for my approval. The parish council already authorized the work, so I can go ahead without consulting them first. I watch him walk to his truck, then stare up at the roof.

White snow rises upward, meeting the sky. The sky itself is blue, not a cloud floating by. The sun is already doing its work; water drips from the snow-laden branches in the church yard, sounding like a spring shower. There’s melting on the roof as well, for water drips from the roof and I hear  the sound of water moving through the downspouts.

“Lord,” I whisper. “Please don’t let me get any more bad news today.”

“Morning, Father!” I turn to see Alice, our letter carrier, making her way through the snow.

“Alice, you’re early today!” I say as I step towards her.

“Had to get an early start,” she says. Alice stops and looks through her bag, pulling out a large bundle of letters held together by a rubber band. “With all the snow the last couple of days, we couldn’t get out to deliver. That neither rain nor snow stuff is a bunch of crap, not with six feet of snow. So we have to make up for it.” She hands me the bundle. “Hope it’s nothing you’ve been waiting for.”

“No, I haven’t been waiting for anything to come,” I say, weighing the bundle in my hands. “Probably just bills and junk mail.”

She shrugs. “That and packages are about it anymore. No one sends letters. It’s all email.”

“I don’t think people write much by hand anymore,” I comment. “Not anything important, anyway.”

Alice tells me to have a good day and trudges off through the snow back to her mail truck. I go inside the toasty-warm Rectory, where I’m greeted with the smell of frying bacon and the sound of dishes clattering in the kitchen.

Anna’s fixing me breakfast, like she does every morning. She used to leave 8:00 a.m. Mass right after Communion so it would be ready for me when I got back to the Rectory. But since there is no 8:00 a.m. Mass anymore, she just arrives at 8:30.

Sometimes, I’m already at my desk.

Much of the time, I’m still in bed.

“Anna?” I call.

“In here, Tom.” I go into the kitchen and sit at the table, placing the stack of mail beside me.

“So what’s the verdict?” Anna asks from the counter.

“The patient is on life support,” I say as I unbundle and begin to go through the stack of envelopes, circulars, and catalogs. Most, as I suspected, are bills, the remainder junk mail.

Anna places a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon, and whole wheat toast in front of me and sets a glass of orange juice alongside.

“Thanks,” I mutter. I pick up my fork and dig into the offerings, eating silently for a while.

“Tom,” Anna says, finally, “I hate to keep nagging you, but there are several things that we really need to talk about. We have to go over the year-end financials, for one thing. The Parish Council wants to meet with you. You haven’t sat down with them for months, and there are several pressing issues—”

I dismiss that statement with a wave of my hand. “Just tell them I’m busy.”

“Why would I lie to them?”

I stop in mid chew and look at Anna, leaning against the counter with her arms crossed, a look of disapproval on her face.

I swallow my mouthful of food. “You have something to say, Anna?” I ask, evenly.

“Oh, a lot of things,” she says. “But let’s start with—”

At that moment, the doorbell rings.

“I wonder who that could be,” Anna says, walking to the door.

“It’s okay, Anna,” I say, scrambling to my feet. “I’ll get it.”

She turns to look at me. “Oh,” she says. “I see. Why don’t you just give her her own key, Tom? It’s almost like she lives here anyway.”

I glare at Anna. “Can you please handle any phone calls,” I say, “so I’m not disturbed?”

“Oh, of course,” Anna says, a trace of sarcasm in her voice. “Wouldn’t want you being disturbed during your meeting.”

Without another word, I leave the kitchen to get the door. I love Anna, and I’m lucky to have her as my secretary. But lately she’s been getting under my skin in a major way when I talk about her.

Especially when I talk about her.

By the time I’m at the door, butterflies flutter in my stomach. My heart beats a little faster. I take a deep breath and open the door.

I smile when I see her.

Helen Parr is waiting for me.

Three

BEFORE WE KNOW IT, it’s almost 11:30 a.m. I don’t know where the time went.

Lately, it always seems to stop when I’m with Helen.

“Wow, look at the time,” I say, standing up.

Helen stands and puts her bag over her shoulder. “Sorry to keep you so long, Tom. I only meant to stop by for a few minutes.”

“Hey,” I laugh. “No need to apologize. Today’s my day off, so I have no other meetings or calls to make. I was going to go over parish administration stuff that Anna’s been after me about, but I’d much rather talk to you.”

Helen smiles, “And I’d much rather be here talking to you than where I was supposed to be.”

“Oh, where was that? The Medical Examiner’s Office in Baltimore?”

“No. No place that pleasant. I had a meeting over at the courthouse. With Brian.”

I can’t help but notice the tone she uses in saying his name. It is one a person might use when mentioning something unpleasant.

Like hemorrhoids.

I know any relationship they had ended a long time ago—even before I returned to Myerton. Still, I can’t help the surge of jealousy that I experience when she mentions being with him. “You had a meeting with Brian?” I say as calmly as possible.

She looks at me, maybe detecting the tone in my voice. “Yes,” she says evenly. “We were supposed to go over evidence in a trial that’s coming up. I’ll have to call and apologize.” She pauses a moment. “You know, I am Chief Detective. Brian is State Attorney. And, thanks to the voters of Myer County, he will be for the next four years.”

She says this to me, but it’s almost like she’s repeating it to herself.

“Though now that Dan’s been made a detective,” she adds, “it won’t be me Brian works with every time there’s a case.”

“How is Dan?” I ask. After his work on Father Leonard’s case, Chief Lowden had made Dan Conway a detective, working directly under Helen.

“Oh, he’s great,” she replies. “I appreciate the second pair of hands. I’ve had my eye on him for a while, but I was a little taken aback when the Chief didn’t consult me before promoting him, but apparently Dan said if the promotion wasn’t forthcoming, he’d quit.”

“That doesn’t sound like Dan,” I say.

“I thought it was odd, too, so I asked him about it. He mumbled something about needing to be at home more.” She shrugs.

She looks at the time again. “Now, I really need to get going,” she says. Smiling, she adds, “I really enjoy our talks, Tom.”

“Well, we can keep talking,” I say, looking at the time. “How about lunch at The Bistro?”

“Ooh, sounds tempting,” Helen says. “I’m starving. But I need to get back to the office. I’ll probably just grab a sandwich at my desk with Gladys.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Not as much as you think.”

“How is Gladys? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Still pinning for her forbidden love,” Helen says sarcastically. “She asks me about you every Monday, wanting to know how you looked on Sunday.”

“She could see me herself,” I say, “if she came back to Mass.”

Helen sighs and shakes her head. “I know. I’ve actually mentioned it. But whenever I do, she seems to—I don’t know, it’s like she closes in on herself.”

“Any idea why?”

She hesitates. “Some, but as her supervisor it’s really none of my business.”

Helen turns to leave. “Oh,” she says, digging through her bag, “I almost forgot the reason I’m here in the first place.” She produces a black wallet and hands it to me. “It finally came in.”

I open it and find a gold police badge that looks exactly like Helen’s, but instead of “Detective” mine says “Police Chaplain.” The ID card with my picture, complete with an awkward smile and Roman collar, says the same thing.

“The one you’ll wear at crime scenes comes on a chain,” she says as I stroke the badge with my thumb. “I’ll get that to you. Though maybe I should just bring it with me the next time one of the kids finds a dead body behind the Rectory.”

I look at her. “What do you mean, ‘the next time’? There’ve been no bodies found behind the Rectory.”

Helen grins, her deep azure blue eyes twinkling. “I figure it’s just a matter of time.”

Our eyes lock. Her grin slowly disappears.

I look back down at the badge. “I still don’t see how you persuaded the Chief to do this.”

“Oh, it wasn’t that difficult,” she says, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. “I pointed out that I found you valuable in meeting with family members, plus you could see to the spiritual needs of the department. And since you’ve been at the crime scenes of the last two murders in Myerton, we should just make you an official part of the force.”

I cock an eyebrow. “And that persuaded him.”

“No,” she smiles. “What persuaded him was that I told him you’d do it for free.”

We laugh as she turns to go.

“Wait, Helen, before you go,” I say, “I have something for you, too.”

She turns back. I reach into my pocket and pull out a blue velvet box.

Helen’s eyes widen. “What’s that, Tom?” she whispers.

“I wanted to give it to you for Christmas,” I say as I present the box to her. “It didn’t get here in time.”

Helen stares at the box laying in the palm of my hand. She doesn’t reach for it at first, then she tentatively takes it.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Huh? Oh, nothing, nothing,” she replies. Not taking her eyes off the box in her hand, she says, “I’m just thinking about the last time you gave me a blue velvet box.”

I remember. That time, the box contained a gold ring topped with an azure blue sapphire. I had to go to half a dozen jewelers to find one that matched her eyes. When I found one, I got my first credit card.

I finally finished paying it off two years after I left her.

“I was just looking at the ring the other day,” Helen continues.

“You still have it?” I’m a little surprised.

She looks at me. “You let me keep it, remember?”

“Oh, I remember, it only seemed right. I just didn’t think—”

“It was too pretty to get rid of. I keep it in my memento box. Along with the rings John gave me.”

We stand looking at each other in uncomfortable silence. Finally, I say, “Don’t you think you’d better open it? I assure you, it’s not a ring.”

Helen laughs, that laugh so like her and so unlike Joan’s. “No,” she says as she opens the box, “I didn’t think—”

She gasps. Her eyes are huge as she looks at the object nestled on white satin.

“Tom!” she whispers.

I smile. “You like it?”

“Do I like it? I . . . I love it! It’s absolutely exquisite! But you . . . you really shouldn’t have! I mean, I didn’t get you anything nearly this nice.”

“Oh, that’s not true,” I say. Her present to me hangs on the wall behind her. An oil painting of Jesus, The Divine Mercy, as He appeared to Saint Faustina. It’s unlike any other image I’ve ever seen. When she gave it to me outside the rectory after the disastrous Living Nativity, it took my breath away.

“Helen,” I had said. “It’s—this is fantastic.”

“You like it?” she had said with a smile.

“I love it! Where’d you find it?”

“The Painted Lotus,” she had answered. “Bethany Grabell painted it. I went in there to check out some harassment complaints she had filed and saw this. I just had to get it for you.”

“I didn’t know she could do work like this,” I muttered as I looked at the painting. It was impressionistic, full of bright colors and vibrant brush strokes. But it was unmistakably Jesus, one full of energy and power.

I step closer to Helen. “You’ve been my protector two times in the past year,” I say to her. “I thought I’d return the favor.”

“But this—this is too much,” she whispers. Her eyes are huge and sparkling like a little girl’s on Christmas morning when seeing a new bicycle.

“Don’t you think you should put it on?”

Helen reaches into the box. “I’m almost afraid to,” she says as she draws out the delicate gold chain. Dangling from the chain is a small round pendant with the figure of a winged angel with a sword killing a dragon. The inscription on the front says, “St. Michael, protect us.”

“It’s beautiful,” she says.

“He’s the patron saint of police officers,” I say. “Look on the back.”

She looks at me quizzically, then turns the medal over. Inscribed there is “TJG to HMP, Christmas, 2020.”

“I didn’t want you to forget who gave it to you,” I say nonchalantly.

“There’s little chance of that,” she mutters, looking at the medal as it sways on the chain, the light reflecting from it’s gold surface.

Something on the front of the medal catches her eye. She brings it closer for a better look. Her head snaps up.

“Tom!” she says with astonishment. “This is 18 karat gold! This must have cost you a fortune!”

I dismiss the statement with a wave of my hand. “Are you going to appraise it or put it on?”

She laughs and begins to try to work the clasp. Her hands are shaking.

“Here,” I say, taking the chain from her trembling fingers, “why don’t I do that for you.”

She turns her back to me, scooping up her shoulder-length black hair so I can see the back of her neck.  My eyes linger on it for a moment while my shaking fingers try to work the clasp.

“Tom?” Helen asks. “Everything okay back there?”