Paul Cleave - Cemetery Lake

I toss everything back into the bag and pull away from the curb.

I hit the mall and again struggle to find a parking space. Late Saturday afternoon and it seems nobody in this city has anything better to do than come out shopping an hour before the mall closes. At the electronics store the only thing they have in stock for recording conversations is digital, but they suggest another couple of shops to try. I finally find what I’m looking for.

“Last one in stock,” the guy tells me. “Hardly anyone uses them anymore. Even secretaries use digital.”

“I have a thing for old technology.”

I get back to my father’s car only to find that a shopping cart has strayed from the flock and smacked into the back bumper, creating a small dent that I know my dad will spot around the time I’m turning the car into their driveway. This is the reason, he’ll tell me, he didn’t want to lend me the car in the first place. If he realizes that I’m driving without a license, then that will confirm it. If we can put a man on the moon, surely the digital age will reach a point where shopping carts can guide their way back into the supermarket by themselves.

I load fresh batteries into the tape recorder and pick a tape at random. I’ve been pretty certain about what to expect, and when I push play my suspicions are confirmed after just a few seconds of hissing.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

“How long has it been since your last confession?”

Father Julian’s voice is deep and clear. It makes me shiver to hear a dead man’s voice, and I feel sick to know he was violating all of the people on these tapes. The other voice could be anybody. It’s a male. Could be twenty years old. Could be eighty. I pause the tape. I have to. I have to sit in silence and let what has happened sink in. I have to prepare myself to hear the things that I’m going to hear. It makes me feel like I’m complicit in some way just by listening. I press play.

“I’ve done it again.”

“Done what again?”

I look at the names Julian has neatly written into his log. The confessional is supposed to be completely anonymous, but I suspect the reality is that it’s not. I think at minimum the priest has a good idea who they’re talking to because it’s likely to be somebody from their congregation.

“Cheated. On my wife. I know it’s wrong, Father, but the problem is I can’t help it. It’s like another person takes over. It’s like I know what I’m doing is wrong, but at the time I can’t consider the consequences.”

“Maybe you do consider them but choose to ignore them.”

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s true. It would explain a lot.”

I push the stop button and fast forward the tape for a while. When I push play I hear Father Julian’s voice.

“. . to realize you are hurting more than just yourself.”

“I know, I know.” It’s a woman’s voice. “It’s just that, well, sometimes I can’t help it. It’s like a different person takes over.”

“Perhaps you should look at it from another. .”

I push stop. Is this everybody’s excuse? That they aren’t responsible for anything in their lives? That their actions are justifiable because another person takes over?

“I’m a different person when it happens. I’m no longer me,” Quentin James told me as he stood by the grave he had dug, waiting for me to forgive him.

Was that my excuse too?

Maybe. But I don’t think so. I wasn’t switching between personae. Alcohol made Quentin James the man he was, and he would live with a foot in each of those worlds, existing as two separate men. I’m different. Quentin James made me into a different kind of man, and there’s no going back from that. There is only one Theodore Tate.

When I get home my body is exhausted, but my mind is still racing with excitement: it’s a weird combination that makes me want to sleep, but at the same time pace the room. I don’t get to do either, because walking from the driveway to my house I’m brought to a stop by Casey Horwell and her cameraman. I don’t see a van anywhere, and assume they must have been camped out in a dark red sedan parked opposite. Again Horwell is wearing enough makeup to look like the media whore she is. I can see the thin lines and cracks in the foundation. She smells like stale coffee. I lower the bag of tapes and statements and hold it to my side, out of sight of the camera.

“Mr. Tate,” she says, getting into my face. “It hasn’t taken you long to get behind the wheel of a car since losing your license. You manage this, and you’re a suspect in the murder of Father Julian. Your friends in the department you seem exceedingly proud of must really be working overtime to keep you out of jail.”

“I thought reporters liked asking questions, not giving statements,” I say, immediately wishing I was saying nothing.

“Actually we do both.”

“Just not accurately.”

I start to move around her, but she sidesteps into my way. She probably wants me to push her, and that’s exactly what I feel like doing. I want to grab her by the arm and escort her off my property, but then I change my mind and go with a different tactic.

“Would you care to tell us how the murder weapon came to be found in your garage?” she asks.

“What murder weapon?” I ask.

“The hammer.”

“What hammer?” I ask.

“The one that killed Father Julian.”

“Who’s Father Julian?” I ask.

She frowns a little, unsure of where I’m going with this. “The man whose church you have been parked outside of for the last four weeks.”

“What church?”

The frown becomes a deeper crease and breaks a line into her makeup. “Is this a game to you?”

“What game?”

“People are showing up dead and you’re the only commonality.”

“What’s a commonality?”

The creases deepen. Her smirk fades, quickly replaced by her annoyance, and beneath the surface of her makeup a different Casey Horwell is simmering.

“Where is Sidney Alderman?” she asks.

“What’s an Alderman?”

She turns to her cameraman. “That’s it,” she says, and the camera is lowered.

“You’re finished,” she says. “We got you on tape driving into the street, and that makes you look bad.”

“You think that’s the best you can do?” I ask.

“Actually no. You haven’t seen the best I can do, but you will. Come on, Phil,” she says, turning to her cameraman, “let’s go.”

“Wait,” I say.

She turns back toward me. She gives me such a dark look I’m sure she’s trying to cut me open with it. “What for?” she asks.

“Your source. Who is it?”

“Are you that stupid? You think I’m going to tell you?”

“Just tell me this,” I say. “Is it a cop?”

“I’m not telling you anything.”

“Is it a cop?” I ask, and this time I yell it at her.

She takes a step back, and the cameraman swings his camera back up and starts to film me again.

“I suggest you back down, Tate.”

“And I suggest you think about what you’ve got yourself into,” I say. “This source of yours, if it’s not a cop, then who can it be, huh? Who else can possibly have fed you all that bullshit about the murder weapon, huh? There’s only one possibility. You’re being played, Horwell, and you’re too stupid to know it, and when you figure it out you’ll be too arrogant to admit it. But you’re responsible for anything that happens now, you get that? If you keep that name to yourself and it turns out to be the guy who killed those girls, and he kills again, then that’s on you. You get that? You keep your mouth shut and don’t go to the police, you’re as good as helping him.”