Paul Cleave - Cemetery Lake

“I. . I suppose not. I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. All I know is what you’re capable of. All I know is that you think it’s your job to protect the world from bad people, and I know you don’t have the right to judge who those people are.”

“That’s right,” I say. “You do know what I’m capable of. So you know that if I’d wanted to kill Bruce, I’d have taken him somewhere else. Nobody would ever have found him.”

His jaw tightens and his eyes narrow slightly, and the look he gives me is the kind of look I never want to be given again. It’s one of disgust and disappointment. Finally he leans back in his chair and forms a steeple with his hands, touching his fingertips to his chin. He looks like he’s praying. Jesus looks down on him, but doesn’t seem to be listening.

“Come on,” I say. “You don’t have to like it, but it’s a good point.”

He nods. “What else did Bruce tell you? Did he know who killed the girls?”

“He didn’t say. He just said to talk to his father. The only person I can think of who Bruce Alderman would be burying those girls for is his father.”

“You think Sidney killed them?”

“It’s possible.”

“So what do you want from me? To tell you about Bruce? I’ve already told you, he was a good kid. There is one more thing, though, and I want you to think deeply on this. Yesterday he was alive, and today he isn’t.”

I don’t answer him. I just let him have his say, knowing the sooner he gets everything off his chest, the sooner I can get on with things, and the sooner I can get my little girl back into the ground. The world is definitely fucked up when the goal of the day is to bury your daughter.

“What happened after Bruce’s mother died? What happened to Sidney?”

“What?” He looks shocked.

“His mother. Ten years ago, when she died, what were things like?”

He breathes out heavily, reinforcing just how much of an ordeal it is to have me here. “It was the same thing, I guess. It was like one day he was alive, the next day he wasn’t. Though it wasn’t even really that. It’s not like he was dead. He just became. . lost. They both did.”

“And?”

“And what?” he asks. “People become lost when that kind of thing happens. Come on, Theo, of all people you don’t need an explanation on that. Sometimes people never recover, or they recover in the wrong way. And some people are lost in a way you can’t ever put your finger on.”

I think of Sidney Alderman digging up my dead daughter. I can safely say I could put my finger on dozens of different reasons why the old man is more screwed up than he is lost. “Did either of them ever give you a confession?”

“Come on, Theo, you know I can’t answer that.”

“There were four of them in that lake, Father. So far the police have identified only two. Soon they’ll know all four.”

“Four girls,” he says. “What a waste of young lives.”

“Well, now’s your opportunity. . ” I stop talking when suddenly it hits me. Father Julian’s anger can’t all be directed at me. It must also be directed at himself. He’s been holding out on me. “Yesterday,” I say, talking a little slower now, “yesterday I said there could be others in the coffins, but I never said they were all girls. Or that they were young.”

He starts to say something-probably to protest that somehow he heard or that he guessed-but he gives up the pretense and says nothing.

“You knew!” I say. “You fucking knew!”

“Theo!” he yells, banging his fist down on the table. “Enough! How dare you use-”

“How dare I ?” Now it’s my turn to bang my fist down on the table. “How dare you ! You knew all along and did nothing? You did nothing? How can that be?”

He doesn’t answer, and the silence that falls between us then is unexpected, as if we’re both too aware that what we say next may damage irrevocably whatever relationship we have. But perhaps that has already happened. Perhaps everything went to hell two years ago when he thought he could save me from the path he says I went down.

“What was I to do, Theo?” he asks, almost in a whisper now, and the question seems genuine, as if he really wants me to come up with other options when there are none. “You know the rules. You can argue them and you can hate them and you can rant and rave about the injustice of it all, but you know, Theo, you know the deal.”

“One of the Aldermans confessed to you. One of them killed those girls!”

“That’s not what I said, and that’s not what happened!”

I stand up and open the envelope and tip it up in the same manner I did when I found it. The articles spill out in the same way. I brush my hand over them, fanning them out like a deck of cards. Father Julian’s eyes are pulled to them.

“You already knew the girls were in there. You knew they were dead.”

“Sit back down, Theo.”

“These are the girls we could have saved. What was it you said to me yesterday when I told you why this case was important to me? You said it wasn’t my fault. You were right and you were wrong. See, I thought it was completely my fault. But not now. Now I share that burden with you.”

He reaches out and touches the articles, picking some of them up. I watch his eyes, but they don’t scan over any of the words. The more he shifts the clippings around, the more dust floats up in the air. I’m not sure what he’s looking for. None of the disappearances made the front pages. There are no huge headlines or bylines. Maybe if one of them had been a rock star or the mayor’s daughter, things would have been different. Though that’s about to change. Tomorrow Rachel Tyler is going to be all over the news. And the other girls too. People other than their friends and family are going to care. People are going to look at the names and faces and wonder how the hell their city became a breeding ground for the kind of violence needed to take these young women away, and for the kind of ignorance to let it happen without asking why.

“You’re the one who said I went down a path, Father. Tell me, what path have you taken? By protecting bad people you’re betraying the innocent.”

“It’s so easy for you, isn’t it, Theo? It always has been. Guys like you think they can just come in here and get what they want.” I’m not sure what he means by guys like me . “You have these great expectations that all you have to do is ask and I’ll break the confessional seal and tell all. You don’t think it hurts? Huh? You don’t think that hearing all the poison coming from these people takes its toll? Don’t you think I want to be able to pick up the phone and make the world a better place?”

“Then why don’t you? These girls, you could have saved them.”

“At what cost? You still don’t get it, do you? You think if this was just about me I wouldn’t do it? If it was just a matter of getting fired and losing my church, I’d pull the pin for the greater good. But this isn’t about me, Theo. It’s not about you either. It’s not about those girls out there. It’s about God. About our faith. It’s about not breaking one of the oldest rules in the church.”

There are so many angles from which to attack his argument, but for what point? He’s right and I’m right and we both know it. And there’s nothing we can do. He has to stand by his beliefs, and I have to stand by my anger with him for not having done something to prevent all of this.

“That’s how you knew Bruce was innocent. He wasn’t the one who confessed.”

“We can’t go down this road.”

“What road?”

“The one where you start twisting all the boundaries, where you ask who didn’t confess so you can narrow down your suspect pool.” He runs both hands through his hair, then wipes them down the front of his cassock.