On the Third Day Read online

  He would give one to Shirley, and he would take the other. Between the two of them they would find a way to record whatever happened, and based on what they found, he would finally air his show. The thought of this made the palms of his hands slick, and though he smiled, the expression was weak and devoid of its usual confidence. Hector Clearwater was a local legend. He’d exposed crooked politicians, changed the face of local business, made, and broken careers, but never on this scale.

  This type of story would get national press. He had no idea how The Church had managed to keep this one so quiet – could only imagine that whatever experience had moved Gladys Multinerry to such adamant silence had the same effect on all those who witnessed it. Once Hector exposed it, the dam would burst. Anyone who knew the truth would suddenly want to talk, and to be part of the exposure. The Church would certainly retaliate, and Hector had to be ready for them. They paid armies of top-notch lawyers to prevent the type of story Hector was most likely to air, and he had only his own limited resources, and those of KROK, assuming they chose to back him, with which to fend off The Vatican. It wasn’t a pleasant prospect, but the end result would be well worth the pain.

  Hector wanted to be known. He didn’t want to be “local talk show host Hector Clearwater,” he wanted much more. He wanted every man, woman and child who watched television in the United States, possibly in the world, to recognize his face, his voice, and his name. He wanted to expand his files to include scandals in other cities and other states. He wanted what so many, in his opinion, lesser entities already possessed. Hector Clearwater wanted to be famous.

  It had been a long time since he’d attended mass. It had been even longer since his days as an altar boy – not at San Marcos, but in the city. He remembered the eerie presence of the dark robed priest in the confessional as if it hadn’t been decades since he last participated.

  “Forgive me Father,” he whispered. “It has been twenty-seven years since my last confession. I have ruined lives, put people out of business, broken up marriages and put myself before all others. Oh, and by the way, Father? I’m about spread your face and voice from coast to coast and show them the little circus you held here last year. What do you think…half a million or so Our Fathers and A Hail Mary, full of shit?”

  He didn’t laugh at his own crude humor. Hector seldom laughed. He reached out, instead, and pressed down on his left computer mouse button, starting the video once again. Within moments he was lost in the deep, resonant voice of Father Quentin Thomas, and the “miracle” he intended to expose.

  * * *

  Norman knew he needed to get to sleep. He was going to have to get up and drive his mother to the church in only a few hours. In fact, for the first time in more years than he cared to count, he was considering whether he might not put on the one suit he owned and join her. He hadn’t been sleeping well since he’d sent the first short video clip to Hector Clearwater, and as the money had poured in, and the rest of the video had been e-mailed out, his mind had eroded steadily along with it.

  He didn’t believe there was any redemption for what he’d done to be found in a single trip to mass, but there was always room for a new start. The only thing that kept him hopeful was that Clearwater hadn’t gone public with the video. Norman didn’t know why, but he was grateful. The more he thought about the situation, the easier it became to picture Hector Clearwater pointing a long, thin finger straight at Norman and saying, “Who, me? No, it was that guy. All I did was put it on the air. Ask him where it came from.”

  Norman had woken from several nightmares, crying out loud as thousands of leering, questioning, accusing eyes focused on him and held him in their glare. He didn’t know if confession could help, but he was willing to give it a try. He’d wanted to tell his mother for weeks, but feared the consequences. He might as well tell the priest first – confess the sin and get his absolution. His mother would tell anyway, and any confession he made after the fact would look like just what it was – something done out of fear after being caught. Better to get it off his chest and to be able to tell his mother that he had already taken steps to correct his error.

  If there was any way to correct it, that was. It was possible he’d already done all the damage that could be done, and that Hector Clearwater, looking and sounding as much like the Devil as any man Norman had ever encountered, would plaster the whole thing across the news as close to Easter as possible for effect. Every night Norman sat in front of the television, just long enough to find out what the stories on that show would be, and then, when he saw that they had nothing to do with Father Thomas, or with San Marcos, or with himself, he stood, walked to his room, and locked himself inside.

  He was sure his mother believed he was masturbating, or sneaking out the window to visit wild parties. She knocked, sometimes; to be sure he was really there. He knew she worried about him, but there was something more in her gaze now, something darker and more troubling. Norman had stayed up many nights trying to figure out just what it was, and in the end, he was fairly certain that he knew.

  His mother loved him, and she always would, but in her new gaze he saw that she no longer knew him. She had always believed he was her good boy, that the skinny eight-year-old boy who’d once hung off her skirts as she baked and chattered at her endlessly of growing up to be a fireman, or a baseball player was the real Norman, and one day he’d snap back to ‘normal’ and realize it. Now she looked at him as she might look at a stranger. She mistrusted his words, and his actions, and when she spoke to him, not as often as she once had, she did so in a careful, measured tone that Norman knew she’d once reserved for casual acquaintances.

  She wasn’t ignoring him; she just didn’t want to know. For some reason that one night, walking in and seeing the least of what he had live on his computer screen had been the proverbial straw on the camel’s back. She had looked at him, tried to find that eight-year-old boy, and realized suddenly he wasn’t there, and was likely never coming back. Now she dealt with him as if he were a different person – a different Norman than the one she’d raised, and he didn’t know how to breach the walls she’d erected to show her he was still there.

  Norman rose and walked to his closet. He searched the hangars closest to the back and found the plastic dry-cleaner cover that protected his suit. With a grunt, he pulled it off the hangar and dragged it free of the blue jeans and t-shirts surrounding it. Shoes might be more of a problem, but he thought he could shine up his Doc Martens, if nothing else. No one was going to be staring at his shoes, and if they did, so what? Was he thinking about going down to the Church to pick up women, or start a career in fashion, or was he going to try and straighten out his life?

  Either course was equally daunting. He laid out his clothes on the chair beside his bed, adding a belt and clean socks. He set his alarm, turned, and stared at the computer. The monitor blinked at him, having gone blank except for the screensaver. It was an image of an old, gothic-style clock. Lettered beneath it were his name, his date of birth, and beside that was the projected day of his death, courtesy of yet another Internet site. He had twenty-eight years to straighten out a nearly equal number of wasted ones. If the clock could be believed.

  Norman walked over and pressed a key to erase the image of the clock. He brought up the directory where he’d saved all of the video files from San Marcos. He quickly highlighted them all and pressed delete. He closed the folder and deleted it as well. Then clicked the right mouse button over the little trash can on his desktop and chose ERASE. This would overwrite the data several times and eliminate the possibility of it ever being restored. Norman pressed the mouse button and turned to his bed. He had four and a half hours to sleep.

  He set his alarm clock; turned over to face the opposite the death clock, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep. It was going to be a hellishly long night.

  ~ Nineteen ~

  Father Thomas stood before a full-length mirror, his hands stretched to either side as Father Prescott helped
him arrange his vestments. The older priest had arrived before sunrise bearing strong coffee from the city, and Thomas, though surprised, found that he was very glad for the company. His preparations for The Mass had been very solitary since coming to San Marcos, and he’d become accustomed to this, but for some reason, on this of all days, it was comforting to know that he wasn’t completely on his own. He would be, soon enough, but for the moment he stood very still and allowed the other man to fuss over the preparations.

  They didn’t speak much, at first. There was so much to say, and there were so many thoughts to fill their minds, that organizing it into actual conversation was an intimidating prospect.

  The heavy drapes were drawn wide. Bright morning sunlight kissed the skyline and seeped into the room, catching the finery of Father Thomas’ robes. He wore his best for Easter Mass, as always. The garments had been carefully cleaned and prepared for this day. Though they’d seen hard use the year before, they were none the worse for the experience, and as always at such times, Father Thomas felt a bit of awe that it was he who would wear those heavy, powerful robes. It was his voice that would intone the benediction, and the blessings. It was his face that would draw every eye on a day when they celebrated the most important event of Christian history.

  “You feel it, don’t you?” Father Prescott asked, smiling. “Every time I prepare for Mass, something flows into me – something beyond my understanding. It’s very powerful, and at the same time perhaps the most humbling of all experience.”

  Father Thomas nodded. It was an accurate description, though the words fell short of the reality. When he wore the vestments, he didn’t feel like Quentin Thomas. He was a vessel, a representative of something much greater. He knew this was as it should be, but at the same time the introspection it caused, the deep, conscious awareness of his own shortcomings, was frightening in its clarity.

  Father Prescott stepped around and scrutinized his efforts carefully. Then he glanced up into Father Thomas’ pale, strained face.

  “Are you sure you want to go through with this, Quentin? I know I told you the Vatican wanted it, and I would not stop it for Bishop Michaels. For you, though, it’s a different matter.”

  Quentin smiled.

  “I appreciate the sentiment, Donovan, but you and I both know it is far too late now for turning back. This is my life – my calling. Those people out there depend on me from week to week, and I won’t let them down if it’s within my power to serve. I won’t say that I’m not frightened, even a bit overwhelmed by the immensity of all of this, but I will see it through.

  “Besides,” he said, his smile growing wry, “many of them have come to witness a miracle. Whether or not they will be disappointed in this is not for me to say, but it would be cruel of me to deny them their opportunity. If nothing more miraculous than the Mass takes place, I will be content, and they will get on with their lives. It’s a matter of closure.”

  “You aren’t expecting the miracle yourself, then?” Father Prescott asked, watching the younger man’s face.

  “I’m not sure what I expect,” Father Thomas said. “I’m not even certain that I understand what a miracle is, Donovan. I’ve read about miracles all my life, wondrous things that brought peace and faith, and yet I never once stopped to think of the enormous pressure, or of the incredible fear of God, such an event could bring with it.

  “It certainly gives new meaning to the expression ‘put the fear of God into you.”

  Father Prescott laughed softly.

  “It does that, for a certainty,” he said. “I don’t’ know what it is, but there is something in the air here, this room, this Cathedral. There is something about today that is different, but I can’t define it clearly. I’ve felt it before…”

  Father Thomas turned to study the older priest carefully.

  “I made a promise to you a while back that I never kept,” Donovan said at last. “I promised that I would tell you the rest of the story of the words of Peter the Martyr, and to answer your question about that miracle.”

  Father Thomas said nothing. He stood very still, expectant. His eyes glittered and if Father Prescott had reached out a hand and laid it on Quentin’s arm at that moment, he would have felt a deep, invasive tremble.

  “Did you find your miracle, then?” Father Thomas asked. His voice was barely above the level of a whisper, and there was such pain in the tone, such anguish and hunger that Donovan almost fell silent.

  Father Prescott walked across the room to a small table, just inside the window overlooking the ocean. He gestured for Father Thomas to follow, and when they were both seated, he smiled thinly.

  “It’s best if I tell you the rest of the story in its entirety. I think there’s time before you are called to Mass, and I think it’s important.”

  Father Thomas nodded.

  “Sometimes,” Father Prescott began, “I remember it so vividly it might have been yesterday.”

  * * *

  The second night Father Prescott returned to the small statue of the martyr, Peter, he came later in the evening. The villagers had given him his own cottage nearby, and Donovan hadn’t eaten since the previous night. He hadn’t intended to fast, but his mind still whirled with conflicting emotion. If he closed his eyes, he still saw the earth shift. The letters formed, and he heard the soft sigh of those gathered. He saw Father Fernando’s dark, sad eyes, and knew that the weight of that gaze lay on his shoulders, and not on faith, or any divine promise.

  Father Fernando, the villagers, the Vatican, all of them had sloughed off the burden of responsibility onto Donovan’s shoulders. He had been exposed to the wonder of ‘the miracle,’ and now it was his job to contest it. In the face of a thing that should have brought him great joy, he found he had only questions, doubts, and an inability to discern from his own cloudy emotions whether he wanted it to be true, or false, God or man, Reality, or dream

  The sun hadn’t fully set when he stepped onto the shadowed street, but it was low enough on the horizon that the short houses and storefronts hid it from his view. The black and gray wash of night seeped over the street and down the walls of the houses to either side. He caught flickers in the windows of those homes, and knew the bright flashes were eyes. They watched him. They had watched for him since the previous night, when he’d walked away from their miracle and locked himself away from the sun.

  Donovan avoided the eyes. He didn’t meet their gaze because he knew what he would see. They were curious. They were hopeful. They were hungry for answers they believed he could provide, as if his own proclamation on the subject of the phenomenon they lived with on a daily basis would somehow change the mystery of it, would wash away the doubts and the shadows. Donovan knew that even if The Pope himself were to visit this place, kneel before the statue of the martyr and bless it with the full authority of the Holy See, it would change nothing. God communes with man – not with men. No two of them could ever truly share the experience he was about to revisit, and none among them could explain it -- unless it was a lie.

  Father Prescott searched the world for miracles, but he did not disillusion himself. His purpose, in the eyes of the Church, was not to find miracles, but to dispute them. He was a buffer zone between the Vatican and the magic of its history and the stark reality of a world populated with charlatans and fools of every stripe. They didn’t expect him to find a miracle, and if he did find one they would be as likely to send others to investigate his findings as they were to bless the phenomena. It was a thankless task, and so, he made it personal.

  The villagers fell into step behind him, far enough back that their voices were murmurs and whispers and their footsteps no more than a rhythmic rustle in the dust. He knew they were there. He felt them, and he wanted to turn to them, embrace them, and try to explain, but he had a purpose and place in all of this, and he could not afford to be distracted by what he would like, or what they expected. He didn’t turn, because he knew they wouldn’t listen. They were like partners in
an all-too-familiar dance.

  The small shrine lay ahead, awash in bright moonlight. Father Fernando was there ahead of him, standing off to the side, alone. Any other night there would be dozens of the faithful kneeling in a tight semi-circle around the statue, but this night was different. If they had come, they had been asked to leave. The small square was so empty it had the aspect of a vacuum. The shadows pulled back away from the gleaming moonlit stone of Peter’s statue. The same white stone formed the walls of the buildings and glittering mica flickered on the dark bricks of the street. The scene would have been idyllic under other circumstances, but this night it brought Donovan up short, one step away from entering the square.

  The eerie shadows leapt wildly, and he wondered if it was the villagers flitting about just beyond his sight, trying to see what he would do and hear what he had to say without getting close enough to influence him. What if he was about to proclaim the miracle real and one of them did, or said the wrong thing? Better to remain in hiding and hear the proclamation after the fact. Better to be justified in one’s absence than reviled while present. Better not to get too close to a God they didn’t understand, if they could get this stranger – this Priest – to make the journey for them and to tell them what to believe.

  Father Fernando stood beside the statue. He didn’t see Donovan, or if he did, he made no sign of it. He stood in front of the martyr and stared at the ground, as he must have done a thousand nights before. He watched for the miracle that had burrowed itself into the soil of his village to show itself, or be damned. There was no in between. If there was an answer beyond the miraculous (or, rather, falling short of it) he wanted to be the first to catch it. He knew that Father Prescott was trained to search out the truth in such matters, but it did not change his inability to understand how one man’s eyes could be valued above those of another – or of hundreds of others.