John Jordan05 - Blood Sacrifice (16 page)

We were getting into my truck when we saw them. They were walking toward a car across the street in front of the hardware store. I got Kathryn’s attention and pointed to them.

Her eyes grew wide in alarm. “The two who attacked us?”

I nodded.

She ducked beneath the cab of the truck, though they weren’t even looking in our direction.

“Get in,” I said. “Let’s see where they go.”

We jumped in, Kathryn crouching down in her seat.

“You’re gonna follow them?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “You wanna stay here?”

She hesitated a moment, seeming to think about it. “No, I guess I’ll go, but can I call Steve?”

“Sure,” I said. “I was gonna suggest it.”

She opened her purse, withdrew her phone, and began tapping Steve’s number.

The two men backed out of their parking place and drove in our direction. When they passed by, I let a couple of cars get between us, then pulled out and began to follow them.

They drove out of the downtown area and headed toward Highway 98, which ran along the coast between Pensacola and Carrabelle. Taking a right on 98, I followed three cars behind them as they drove back in the direction of St. Ann’s.

Seeming to rise out of the bay, the empty shell of Gulf Coast Paper Mill loomed in front of us. In contrast to the abandoned mill, the new Bridgeport marina next to it was alive with activity—boats trolling into and out of the bay, fish being unloaded on the docks by sun-burned families and their charter guides, and people coming from and going to the Café on the Dock.

“Where is he?” Kathryn was saying.

I glanced over at her.

“Do you know when he’ll be back?” she asked. After a pause, she added, “Can you reach him by phone or radio?”

The car directly in front of us turned, leaving only two between, and I slowed to increase the gap.

“Well, would you have him call Kathryn as soon as he can? It’s very important…. What?… Oh yeah, hold on. What’s your cell phone number?”

I told her, she repeated it into the phone, then reiterated how important is was that Steve return the call as soon as he could.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“They’re not sure. Left the abbey about an hour ago, checked in, and told them he’d be ten-something for a while, which evidently means unable to be reached. They’ll continue to try him, but said he would check back in as soon as he’s able to. I wish he were here.”

“I have a gun if that makes you feel any better.”

“I probably shouldn’t’ve come,” she said.

“My previous performance what’s inspiring all the confidence?”

“I can still feel the way he held me, still smell him, still feel his grip around me and the blade of the knife against my throat. At first it was cold, but then, when he pressed it harder into my skin it got so hot it seemed to burn.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t put you in danger. Let me just see where they go so I’ll know where to come back with Steve, okay?”

“Thanks. And sorry to be such a baby. You’re certainly not seeing me at my best today. Found out I battle with depression, steal evidence, lie about it, and that I am just a big fraidy cat.”

Perhaps I should take all these as signs, but I didn’t––and didn’t feel my objectivity had been so compromised that I was incapable of doing so.

“Yeah,” I said, “if you weren’t so good in bed…”

Nothing I could discover about her could detract from the mystical experience I had with her earlier in the day. In fact, being exposed to her flawed humanity allowed me to resist the temptation to make an idol out of her, but instead enabled me to better focus on the true source of the encounter.

She smiled.

“Not too depressed or afraid if you can smile like that,” I said.

“Both are reasonably mild.”

The cars in front of us slowed and I could see that the two men we were following were turning.

“Aha,” I said.

She looked over at me. “Aha?”

“That’s what I say when I get a big clue.”

“And you had the audacity to say something about
ransacked
?”

“But look,” I said. “I think an ‘aha’ is warranted.”

She looked back to see them turning, her eyes widening when it registered that they were turning into the paper mill.

“The mill? I thought it was closed. Aren’t they blowing it up tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” I said. “They’ve been using some of the front offices, but everything should be cleared out by now.”

I continued up the bridge above the railroad tracks, pulled onto the shoulder, parked, and watched as the two men parked their car next to the two others present in the huge empty lot and walked inside the business office.

“You think they work for Ralph Reid?” she asked.

“I do,” I said.

“Why would he get men like that to do what they did?”

“Think I’ll go ask them,” I said.

“But—” she began.

“You can sit inside the little café in the marina and keep trying Steve. You’ll be safe.”

I made a quick U-turn, eased back down the bridge, and took a right onto the road that led down to the marina. All along the road, new buildings were popping up in anticipation of the tourism boom being predicted to result from the Gulf Coast Company’s developments. According to the signs, every new business was either a bank or a real estate agency.

When Kathryn didn’t say anything, I looked over at her.

“That’s okay, isn’t it?”

She gave me a small shrug. “I guess. What would you do if I said it wasn’t? You seem set on doing it.”

I let out a long sigh. I was getting frustrated with her and I was beginning to let it show. “I can take you somewhere else. Just tell me where.”

“Café on the Dock is fine. I’m sorry. I can’t help that I’m scared.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But you’ll be safe and chances like these don’t come along very often.”

I pulled into the parking lot next to the green tin building used for a dry dock and in front of the marina gift shop. The entrance to the café in the back was down the breezeway.

She hesitated before getting out, and I turned and glanced out my back window toward the mill, but the view was blocked by the construction of a new strip mall.

“Keep trying Steve,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“And if you’re not?”

“I will be,” I said. “I’m just—”

“When I was little, a homeless man staying at the abbey held a gun to my head and led me into the woods.”

“Oh, Kathryn. I’m so sorry.”

I remembered reading a similar scenario in one of her novels.

“I’m not sure if he was going to rape and kill me or kidnap me. Father Thomas caught up to us and stopped him before he could do anything but scar me for life. It’s why I freaked out in the clearing and why I’m not handling this as well as I should. I just wanted you to know.”

I wondered how much her traumatic experience in childhood really had to do with her present day reactions. Maybe a lot. Maybe not. But that was her narrative, and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of ourselves and the world are all-powerful. That was no less true of me and the person who killed Tammy than it was her or any other human on the planet. We are our stories. We are who we believe we are. Part of my reason for being at St. Ann’s was to revise my stories.

“Come on,” I said. “I’ll take you back to the abbey.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll be fine. I need to face my fear.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I’ll be fine. I know the owner. I’ll sit and talk to him.”

She opened the door and stepped out of the truck. “Now go. Be careful. And hurry back.”

As I pulled out of the marina parking lot, instead of going back the way we had come, I took a left, driving toward the bay, then took a right onto a narrow oyster shell road that led to the back of the old mill site.

Driving around the mammoth marred-concrete and rusting-steel plant, I recalled the enormous stacks of pine logs, piles of pulp chips, and lines of loaded log trucks, where now there was only an empty lot. I imagined the fluffy white smoke, like cumulus clouds, billowing out of the smokestacks that now looked purposeless and out of place, and, most of all, I remembered the smell––that heavy, pungent stench that would cling to clothes and air currents alike, oppressive in its unrelentingness.

I pulled off the small road and parked among some tall stalks of sea oats, looked for the best place to get through the chain-link fence that surrounded the compound. Grabbing the small snub-nosed .38 from beneath my seat, I climbed out. Back toward Bridgeport, children played in a park next to the bay, while people stood on the retaining wall around the marina fishing with cane poles.

Like the structures and machinery of the dilapidated mill, the fence was in disrepair. Wired to its weathered links next to the faded and rusted signs warning not to trespass were bright new signs warning of explosive devices and the impending demolition of the remaining mill buildings, which according to the sign would take place in the morning.

Finding a place where the fence had been cut and poorly repaired, I pulled it apart and slid through, ripping my jacket on the jagged ends of the half-circles of aluminum as I did. Once inside, I checked to make sure my gun and phone were still in my pockets. Confirming they were, I moved through the maze of galvanized pipes, boilers, and buildings toward the offices in the front.

In preparation for demolition, the mill had been stripped of most of the machinery that was worth moving, but in testament to the sheer amount of materials required for a working mill to transform pulpwood into paper, an enormous amount remained.

A complex network of tubes and pipes of every size ran into and out of the ground and buildings, passing through shutoff valves with large, round handles like steering wheels. Glancing inside a couple of the buildings through broken panes of glass, I saw that the insides of the buildings looked similar to the outsides. Joining the pipes inside were enormous vats, extraordinarily long conveyor belts, and an elaborate system of metal-grate catwalks, beneath which the soiled concrete floor was littered with green barrels and drums, bleached and unbleached pulp, and rolled and unrolled paper.

As I neared the office building in the front, my phone rang. Answering it quickly, I looked around to see if anyone had heard it, but as far as I could tell, there was no one around to hear anything.

“Hello,” I said in a whisper.

“John?” Kathryn asked. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. You okay?”

“Yeah. Still can’t get Steve, but I’ll keep trying. Just wanted to let you know I’m going back to the abbey, so take your time. Do what you need to do.”

“How are you—”

“A friend of mine is eating here. I know she won’t mind taking me. I’ll see you back there tonight, and I’ll call you if I get Steve.”

“You sure?”

“Positive,” she said, but it was unconvincing. “I’d rather be there and I don’t want you worrying about me. Everything’s fine. I promise.”

When I ended the call, I set my phone to vibrate, slipped it back into my pocket, and continued toward the back door of the front office. I had taken maybe three steps when I felt the gun barrel touch me on the back of the head.

“Lift your hands very slowly,” the voice behind me said.

I did.

Reaching into my pockets, he withdrew my gun, then my phone. After he did, I slowly looked over my shoulder to see who it was. As I suspected, it was the guy from the clearing who had taken Tammy’s diary. Like before, he was alone, and I wondered where his partner was.

“You’re trespassing in a very dangerous place,” Ralph Reid said.

I turned to see him stepping out of one of the back doors of the building in front of me. He was wearing a hard hat.

“There are live explosives all over the place. What’re you doing here?”

“You took Tammy’s diary,” I said.

“I was trying to help Father Thomas. I told them not to hurt anyone. Just get the book.”

He was relaxed and comfortable, his words and manner demonstrating how untouchable he felt.

“They work for you or the paper company?” I asked.

“We all work for the company. They do the heavy lifting. We’re here getting the last of our things. And we’re not a paper company anymore.”

No wonder he felt so confident. He had the weight of the monster behind him.

“What are you going to do with me?”

He looked surprised. “Escort you off this dangerous property and remind you that trespassing is a crime.”

“That’s it?”

“What’d you think I was going to do?”

“Don’t know,” I said, “but the guy pointing the gun at me gave me a few ideas.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said, as if it had slipped his mind. “Russ, put down the gun and give him his things back. John, I think you’ve been working in prison too long. Russ was just doing his job, securing the facility. We mean you no harm. I’m an officer of the court for God’s sakes.”

When I had my phone, I said, “Do you mind if I call your client?”

He made a sweeping gesture with his upturned hand. “Be my guest.”

Russ walked around and stood by Reid, eyeing me cautiously as he did. At a minimum, Russ and his partner should be arrested for assault, but I’d have to wait for Steve for that.

Father Thomas was in his office. Sister Abigail was with him. He put me on speaker phone and I told them where I was and who I was with, then asked Father Thomas if he had anything to do with the theft of the diary.

“I most certainly did not,” he said. “I would never—”

“He says he did it on your behalf.”

“I never said any such thing,” Reid said. “Don’t put words in my mouth. I said I was trying to help my client. I had to know if what was in her diary could hurt us. And I had to get it before it became police evidence.”

“Assault and theft are crimes whether or not it was in police custody yet.”

“I realize that,” he said. “I’m a good attorney. Sometimes I just get a little overzealous on behalf of my clients.”

“Did you hear that?” I asked into the phone.

“Ask him how he can keep a straight face when saying such things,” Sister Abigail said.

“You think I’m lying?” Reid asked with just a slight hint of outrage in his voice.

“If you expect me to believe that you risked disbarment because you were concerned about what Tammy’s diary might say about Father Thomas.”

“I told you,” he said, “Father Thomas is the closest thing to a priest I’ve ever had.”

I said into the phone, “Father, I think you need a new attorney.”

“We all know good and well his primary if not only interest is in getting this land back for the paper company’s new development,” Sister Abigail said.

I repeated what she said.

Reid shook his head to himself and sighed heavily.

“Did you kill Tammy Taylor?” I asked.

“What?” he said in shock, his eyes wide and slightly wild. “No.”

“Did you have your two, ah, heavy lifters do it?”

“No,” he said. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Where is the diary?” I asked.

“Russ got overzealous and destroyed it,” Reid said.

Russ smiled and said, “Sorry. I misunderstood.”

“Why does the Gulf Coast Company want the abbey property so badly?” I asked.

“We don’t,” he said. “Not so badly. Certainly not enough to kill over it. We’re just planning ahead. We have several developments in the works and we’d like to put one of them out there. If we can’t, it’s not the end of the world.”

“Why do you continue to support St. Ann’s if you want it closed?” I asked.

“Obviously we don’t want it closed,” he said. “We
would
like it relocated. That’s it.”

“Actually,” Sister Abigail said, “they can’t just stop their support. Floyd set up a trust for the abbey that will continue as long as the paper company does.”

I repeated what she said.

“Unless—” Reid began to say, but stopped.

“Unless what?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

Sister Abigail said, “Unless the board of directors has just cause to suspend support.”

“Such as?” I said.

“Annual attendance drops below a certain number,” she said. “We’re convicted of a felony. The—”

“Who?”

“Father Thomas or myself or our successors.”

“Aha,” I said, but it wasn’t the same without Kathryn there to appreciate it.

“What happens to the trust and land if St. Ann’s closes?” I asked Reid.

He shrugged.

“The land wouldn’t automatically go back to the paper company,” Sister Abigail said.

I told him what she said.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Reid said.

“So if Tammy’s death gets the abbey shut down…”

“Then he gets what he wants,” Sister Abigail said, “and that’s the best motive I’ve heard so far.”