The Three Wise Guides (3 page)

A moment
later, Mary found herself back in her bedroom standing next to her bed without
Gabe. She tried to concentrate, in case she just wasn’t seeing him. “Gabe?” she
called out. “Gabe
are
you here?”

Her bedroom
door creaked open and Mary jumped and turned.

“Mary, are
you all right?” her mother asked, looking concerned.

“Oh, Mom,
you startled me,” she said.

“Well, I
thought I heard you call out,” Margaret explained. “I was on my way to the
bathroom. Are you hearing voices again?”

“No, Mom,
nothing like that,” she said. “I was trying to work something out and I guess I
was talking to myself.
 
Sorry.”

Smiling with
relief, her mother gave her a quick hug. “Oh, no, don’t worry about a thing,”
she said. “Your father talks to himself all the time when he’s working on a
case.
 
He says it helps him remember the
details. Now, go to bed. You need your rest.”

Mary
obediently climbed into her bed, knowing it would be much easier to just do
what she was told than to explain things to her mother. “Thanks Mom,” she said.

“Well,
that’s what moms are for,” she replied, as she stepped out of the room and
started to close the door.
“To watch over their children, no
matter how old they are.”

The picture
of Jose’s mother lying dead on the floor immediately came to mind and Mary
inhaled sharply to hold back her emotions. “Yes, they are,” she said softly to
the closed door.

“Well, that
was close.”

Mary turned
to see Otis standing next to her bed. “What was close?”

“Your mother
nearly caught me in your room,” he said. “We would have had quite a bit of
explaining to do.
Not only to your mother, but to my wife.”

Mary smiled.
“Are you still married?
 
Even though you’re dead?”

“Child,
death is not strong enough to break the bonds of true love,” he said. “My
Noreen is still alive, but someday we’re going to be together again.”

“That’s good
to know,” she replied. “Love does conquer all.”

“Oh, honey,
I didn’t say that,” he said, shaking his head. “Love tries, but prejudice,
hate, anger and fear are pretty strong too. It takes a lot to smother love, but
it can be done.”

Shaking her
head, Mary slipped from her bed and stood before Otis. “That sounds like a
segue to another training experience,” Mary said.

Otis’ eyes
twinkled. “Your mama didn’t raise
no
ignorant
children, did she?”

Mary
grinned. “Well, sometimes I wonder,” she admitted. “What do I need to learn
this time, Otis?”

“Honey, I’m
just the driver,” he said. “You get to take from the situation what you need.”

He held out
his hand and Mary clasped it.
 
Once again
there was the blurring of everything in her bedroom before she was transported
to another time and place.
 
When they
stopped, they were inside a school.
 
Mary
looked around and saw they were right outside the principal’s office.

“I hated the
principal’s office,” she admitted.

“Spent a lot
of time there?” Otis asked, raising one eyebrow in her direction.

“Probably
more time than I should have,” she confessed. “I hated turning down a dare.”

“Oh, you
were one of those kinds of students.”

“Yes, I
was,” she said. “And I probably deserved to be in there more than I was.”

“How’d you
stay out?” Otis asked.

“I had a bunch
of big brothers looking out for me.”

“Yeah, big
brothers have a way of doing that for their little sisters, don’t they?” Otis
asked, as he drew her from the hallway into the office.

Looking
around, Mary saw a slightly older version of the eight year-old Jose sitting on
a wooden bench outside the principal’s inner office.
 
A nun dressed in a black habit sat at a desk
across from him, her face in a perpetual scowl.

The door
opened, a large priest stepped out and looked down at the boy. “Mr. Martinez?”
he asked.

Jose looked
up and nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“It seems we
meet far too often than we should,” the man said sternly.

“Yes, sir,”
Jose replied, dropping his head. “I am sorry, sir.”

“Why don’t
you come into my office and we can discuss it.”

The boy
obediently followed the priest into the office and Mary and Otis followed too.

The priest
sat behind the large oak desk and the boy sat in the small chair on the other
side.
 
“So, tell me, Mr. Martinez,” he
said. “Why aren’t you doing your homework?”

“I’m sorry,
Father
Tilford
, I have been trying,” he said.

“We have
offered after-school tutoring,” Father
Tilford
said.
“And you have turned us down.”

“I have to
take care of Maria,” he said simply.

“You should
allow someone else the responsibility of taking care of your sister. You are
only twelve years old, scarcely old enough to take on the responsibility of
raising a sibling.”

“I promised
Maria I would take care of her,” he said. “I promised I would watch out for
her.”

“If your
grades keep up this way, you will lose your scholarship and you will have to go
to the public school,” he insisted. “Do you understand what that means?”

Mary
understood.
 
Often the parochial schools
were the only things that stood between a child actually getting an education
and making a clean break from one of the downtrodden neighborhoods or being
pulled into gang activity.

“I
understand,” Jose said somberly. “I will try harder.”

The school
bell rang and Jose looked up, startled.

“You may
go,” the priest said with a sigh.

Jose jumped
up, glanced at the clock,
ran
from the office and down
the hall towards the door.

“Can you
run?” Otis asked Mary.

“Yes, I
can,” Mary said, jogging alongside the ghost as they followed Jose outside.

He didn’t
pause for the light or the crossing guard, but zig-
zagged
through the beeping cars until he made it to the other side of the street.
 
Then he sprinted down the street towards the
schoolyard of the public elementary school two blocks away. Dodging parents and
students as they walked away from the school, their hands filled with books and
backpacks.

Finally, he
ran to the back of the school.
 
Maria,
now eight years old, was huddled in a corner of the building, next to the
entrance, sobbing. “Maria, what’s wrong?” Jose asked.

She dropped
her books and ran to him. “I thought you weren’t coming,” she cried. “I thought
someone had killed you.”

He shook his
head. “No, Maria, I told you I would look after you.”

“But you
were late,” she accused.

“The Father
had to speak with me,” he said. “That’s all. I came as quickly as I could.
 
Besides, you are supposed to wait for me
inside if I am late.”

“My teacher
had a meeting and told me I had to wait here,” she said, wiping the tears from
her cheeks. “I thought the gangs would get me.”

He bent
over, picked up her books and put his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, pequeño,
you will be fine.”

Mary and
Otis followed them as they walked for several blocks in the cold wind before
stopping in front of a small Latino Grocer.
 
Jose opened the door and held it for his sister.
 
Entering after them, Mary looked over the
grimy store.
 
There was a smell of rotten
vegetables and spoiled meat in the air.
 
The aisles were a combination of Hispanic canned goods and generic
American food.
 
The packaging was beat up
and dented, like it had been pulled from a discard bin at another store and
brought here.

“Hey, you
are late,” a rotund greasy man with a limp moustache said as he rounded the
counter. “You’re docked an hour’s pay.”

Mary looked
up at the clock over the counter.
 
Jose had
only been five minutes late, why didn’t he argue?

“Yes, sir,”
Jose said. “What would you like me to do?”

“I need the
floors mopped, the shelves restacked and back room cleaned,” he snarled.
“You’ll be watching the register tonight too, so don’t fall asleep again.”

“Yes, sir,”
Jose said.

“I saw Maria
with a juice box yesterday,” the man said, moving closer to Jose. “Did you make
sure you deducted that from your pay?”

“Yes, sir, I
did,” Jose replied.

“Good,
because if I find out you’ve cheated me, I’m calling DCFS and they will put
your sister in foster care sooner than you can spit,” he said. “And you know
what those men in foster care like to do to pretty little girls.”

“I won’t
cheat you,” Jose said firmly. “I promise. You won’t have to call anyone.”

“That man is
using that boy like his own personal slave,” Mary protested. “Jose is
sacrificing everything for his sister.”

Otis looked
down at her. “That’s what big brothers do for their little sisters.”

The room
around them began to blur and a moment later Mary found herself back in her
bedroom.

Mary sat on
the edge of her bed and waited, she was not disappointed. A few minutes later
Joseph appeared. He smiled when he saw her. “So, you knew I was coming,” he
said.

“I’m just
hoping we don’t end up in a cemetery somewhere with my name on a headstone,”
she said lightly.

His smile faded.
“Actually, we are going to a cemetery, but your name won’t be on the
headstone.”

He reached
out, touched her hand and in an instant they were standing in a cemetery next
to the Catholic Church and school Jose had attended when he was younger.
 
Mary walked slowly through the snow to a
freshly covered plot. “How did he get here?” she wondered aloud.
“How did he get from caring little boy to gang member?”

“Does it
matter?” Joseph asked. “Wouldn’t those just be extenuating circumstances, which
really don’t count in a court of law?”

Mary closed
her eyes in shame and felt the harshness of her own words. “Yes, it does
matter,” she whispered and then she opened her eyes and turned to him. “Are you
going to show me?
 
Are you going to let
me see what happened and why he made the choices he made?”

“You want me
to tie this all up in a nice little bow for you,” Joseph replied. “You want me
to prove to you that shooting you wasn’t his fault.
 
That he didn’t have a choice.
 
That deep down inside he was a good guy.”

“Yes,” Mary
said, nodding excitedly. “Yes, that’s exactly what I want.”

Joseph shook
his head slowly, the look on his face both patient and sad. “No, Mary, I’m not
going to do that,” he replied. “Because life is never wrapped up in a nice tidy
bow and if you choose to accept your calling, you will never know everything.”

“But if I
knew for sure…” she began.

“Then you
could judge him fairly,” Joseph finished.

“Yes,” Mary
said.

“But don’t
you remember, you weren’t supposed to judge him at all,” Joseph reminded her.

Mary stepped
back as if she’d been struck. “Then why did you show me all this?” she demanded.
“Why?”

Joseph
stepped forward and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Because, we wanted to
give you just a glimpse of what God sees in his children,” he replied tenderly.

“I don’t
know if I can do this,” she admitted. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough or
wise enough.”

“As long as
you’re willing,” Joseph said, “that’s all God requires.
 
Besides, you’ve always got your three wise
guides to call on for help.”

Mary stood
in front of the Catholic Church as the wind whipped flakes of snow around her
in the still, dark night.
 
The school
Jose had attended was boarded up and had not held classes for a number of
years.
 
Gang logos scarred the doors and
outer walls of the buildings.
 
The empty
church next door was surprisingly unscarred, although the plywood that covered
its windows and doors had been torn down in places.
 
Stained glass windows had been stolen and,
Mary was sure, there wouldn’t be much left on the inside.

Following
directions, she walked to the backside of the building and pulled down on the
ancient metal fire escape.
 
The rusted
joints creaked and, at first, resisted, but eventually Mary could pull the
ladder down low enough to climb up on it.
 
She bypassed the second floor and carefully climbed up the slippery
rungs to the
steepled
third floor.
 
As promised, the window was intact, but swung
open on well-oiled hinges.
 
She pushed
the window open and slid inside.

Shining her
flashlight around slowly, she realized she was standing in the humble
residential quarters for many of the priests who had served the parish.
 
Walking down the narrow hall, she passed by
tiny rooms that only held a cot-like bed, a built in desk and a narrow
dresser.
 
Some of the rooms still held
personal mementos of their former residents like a plastic crucifix hung on a
wall, a strand of rosary beads and a picture frame of a family member. The
floors were covered remnants of shag carpeting, molding and damp.
 

Mary moved
past the cubicles to the large oak door at the end of the hall.
  
This door was more ornate than any of the
plain wooden doors she had just passed. It was arched on the top and held a
delicate stain glass rendition of Jesus kneeling in Gethsemane.
 
The priests’ private chapel.

Reaching
down, Mary took hold of the doorknob, twisted and pushed.
 
The door gave way and opened to a small
sanctuary that still smelled of wax and incense.
 
Her flashlight guided her past the red velvet
covered pews and up to the marble transept and oak altar. She climbed up the
stairs and around the altar to the vestry in the far corner.

“Are you
sure you can do this?” the voice behind her asked. “I don’t want her to get
hurt.”

Rolling her
eyes, Mary looked over her shoulder and held her finger up to her lips.

“They can’t
hear me,” Jose said. “I’m dead, remember.”

Placing her
hand on the door, she slowly turned the knob and, once she heard the click,
knocked it open. “Police,” she yelled, pulling out her gun.
“Freeze.”

The dozen or
so young gang members started to scatter, trying to reach their weapons and fight
back. But Mary shot up into the air. “I said freeze,” she repeated.

This time,
they did as she requested. “I’ve got a warrant for the arrest of Maria
Martinez, which one of you is Maria?”

At first
there was no response.

“Fine, I’ll
bring you all in,” she said.

“That one,
over there, she’s Maria,” a young man said.

“Philippe,
what are you doing?” Maria asked, shocked.

“Hey, I
ain’t
going down for you,” he said. “You
ain’t
nothing
but a bitch.”

“But, you
said…you said you loved me,” she cried.

“Yeah, just
like your brother said he’d look out for you,” Philippe said, spitting on the floor.
“And look how that turned out.”

Maria stood,
her hands clenched and rushed at Philippe. “Don’t you talk about Jose,” she
said.

Mary pulled
Maria away before she reached the boy and guided her out of the room.
 
“You have to come with me,” she said.

Once she had
pulled the door closed, she extracted an iron bar from her pack and slid it
between the knob and the doorframe, effectively keeping anyone from escaping
the room.

Pulling her
radio out of her back pocket, she clicked it on. “Hey, this is O’Reilly. Yeah,
I got the room secured. You can come up now.”

Pulling
Maria out of the chapel, she half-ran with her through the narrow hall and,
when she heard the footsteps approaching on the stairs, pulled her into one of
the smaller rooms.

“What the…”
Maria yelled, before Mary clapped her hand over the girl’s mouth.

“You have to
sit still and be very quiet for a few minutes,” she said. “And then I’ll
explain everything.”

“Tell her,”
Jose demanded. “Tell her I sent you or she will never be quiet.”

The girl fought
beneath Mary’s hand. “Jose sent me,” Mary finally whispered into Maria’s ear
and the girl stared at Mary in disbelief.

“Tell her I
said be quiet, pequeño,” he said.

“He said to
tell you to be quiet, pequeño,” she repeated.

The girl’s
eyes went wide and she leaned back against the wall, her breath shallow and
frightened.
 
Suddenly, on the other side
of the door, they could hear the sounds of an army of boots rushing down the
hall. Then there was a crash of wood splintering, some yelling and finally the
exchange of gunfire.
 

The light
shining through the cubicle’s small window from a streetlight illuminated Maria’s
pale face as she comprehended what was going on in the room she had just
occupied. Mary met her eyes and motioned to her once again to remain silent.

Finally, the
sounds of sirens echoed in the street below them and they waited as paramedics loaded
victims into ambulances and police officers filled paddy wagons with still
walking members of the gang.
 
After the
last vehicle drove away, Mary turned to Maria.

“Who are
you?” Maria asked before Mary could speak.

“Tell her,”
Jose insisted.

Mary nodded.
“My name is Mary O’Reilly and I’m the police officer your brother shot.”

Maria
scooted further against the wall. “You here to hurt me?” she asked. “To get
back for what my brother did?”

Shaking her
head, Mary stepped away from Maria. “No, I’m here to help you,” she said. “Jose
asked me to help you.”

“How?”

“I have this
new…I don’t know…ability,” Mary said. “I can talk to ghosts.
 
Jose came to me two nights ago and asked me
to help get you away from the gang.”

“Did you set
up the drug bust?”

“Yes, with
Jose’s help,” Mary admitted. “His only condition was that I get you out of there
first.”

“Yeah, now
what?” she asked. “They are going to think I snitched because you pulled me out
of there.”

“Tell her
about our aunt,” he insisted.

“Jose
discovered you have an aunt,” Mary said. “She is your mother’s older sister.”

“But my
mother didn’t have any family,” Maria said. “Jose is all I had.”

Mary shook
her head. “No, he wasn’t.
 
Your aunt
didn’t know about you.
 
She didn’t know
what happened to her sister. I called her.
 
She is on her way from Indiana.
 
She is coming to get you.”

“But, I
don’t want to leave Chicago,” she insisted. “I don’t want to leave the gang.”

“Maria, the
gang is what killed Jose,” Mary said. “He does not want the same thing to
happen to you.”

“If it was
good enough for Jose, it is good enough for me,” she insisted.

Jose glided
up next to her and wrapped his arms around her, as he did when she was three.
“No, pequeño, it is not good enough for you,” he said. “Madre would not want
you to live this kind of life.”

“Jose is
here, with us,” Mary said.

Maria turned
to her, her face wet with tears.
“Si.
I know he is,”
she said, her voice trembling. “I can feel him.”

“He’s says
this life is not good enough for you.
 
He
says your mother would not want you to live like this.”

“But I don’t
want to leave him,” she said.

“Maria, you
will never leave me. I promised that I will watch over you forever and I will.”

“He said
that you will not leave him,” Mary repeated. “He will be with you forever.”

“Forever?”
Maria asked.

Mary nodded,
wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I have it on good authority that the bonds
of love are stronger than death,” she said.

Maria looked
around the room. “Jose, I love you,” she said softly. “I will go to our aunt.”

“And I love
you too, Maria,” he replied.

Then he
turned to Mary, his eyes widening with wonder. “I see a light,” he said.

Mary nodded.
“Maria is safe,” she said. “You can move on now.”

The church
bells from a distance chapel began to chime.
 
Jose smiled at Mary. “Thank you for helping me.
 
And
Feliz
Navidad
.
Merry Christmas.”

“Merry
Christmas, Jose,” Mary said.
“Merry Christmas.”