Tom Lowe - The 24th Letter

“He’s also a human being in need.”

Spelling looked up at the young doctor through watering, pleading eyes. “Doc, please, can I talk to the priest? Just for a half minute?”

“You’ve had a second heart attack in less that an hour. You need rest.”

“Please, Doc! I saw something I don’t know how to describe. I can’t go back there. I need to tell the priest-to confess. Man, I need God right now!”

A news reporter stood by the nurses’ station, looking down the hall to where Sam Spelling was being treated. The doctor glanced up at the priest and cut his eyes to Spelling’s pleading face. “Okay, Father. No more than a couple minutes. This man will be in surgery soon.”

The hospital personnel left as the Father Callahan stepped past the department of corrections guard to Spelling’s bedside.

“Father,” Spelling began, looking at his trembling free hand, now with an IV taped near his wrist. “Look at me, shakin’ like I’m comin’ off a four-day drunk. Father, I haven’t been a religious man most of my sorry-ass life…but I always believed in God.” Father Callahan nodded.

Spelling said, “I saw something a few minutes ago that scared the livin’ shit outta me. Pardon my language, Father, but I think I died…died and went straight to hell. Man, I’m a believer now. You mind closing the curtain. I want to make a confession.”

Father Callahan nodded and stepped to the curtain. To the guard he said in a whisper, “Please give this man a moment of privacy to confess his sins.” The guard grinned. “Gonna take a lot longer than a moment.”

Father Callahan pulled the curtain closed and turned to Spelling.

“Father…I ain’t sure how to say this…”

“Simply say it from your heart, son.”

“Heart’s almost wore out, but I’ll try. Can I ask your name?”

“Father John Callahan.”

“Can I call you Father John?”

“Yes.”

“Father John, maybe you can put in a good word for me above,” Spelling cut his eyes up to dots in the ceiling. “I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. I hope God can see what caused me to do that stuff and forgive me for some of it. What I got to say, Father, it ain’t about me. Maybe God will take pity at this stage of my sorry-ass life. Any chances of that, really?”

“It is never too late to seek our Lord and his forgiveness. You wish to confess?”

“It’s about makin’ something right.” Spelling paused, glanced at the digital impulses of his weak heart on the monitor. “There’s a man on death row up at Starke. State of Florida’s gonna kill him. He’s not guilty. They say he raped and killed a girl-a supermodel down in Miami. Happened eleven years ago, but he didn’t do it.” “How do you know?”

“ ‘Cause I know who did it. I’d been sittin’ low in my car in a condo parking lot when I seen him come out of one condo. I was there to sell some coke when I spotted this dude. Wasn’t long after I’d seen this first fella stumble shit-faced drunk outta the same place. I saw where the second man hid the knife. I got the knife. I took it from the dumpster when I saw the dude toss it. Wrapped in newspaper. Got a good look at him and even memorized his tag. I hid the knife. Girl’s killing was all over the news. Nobody was arrested…so I got in touch with the dude. Told him for a hundred grand, his takin’ out the trash would remain our little secret. He wanted the knife. I kept it as an insurance policy. Got the money, and it wasn’t but a few days before they’d arrested somebody else for the girl’s killin.’ I figured I was now an accessory to the whole f’d-up mess. In a year, I’d sucked the money up my nose…robbed a bank and got caught. They sent me to Starke for a dime. The guy on death row, Charlie Williams, is an innocent man. A real fuckin’ innocent man. Forgive me for that slip again, Father John.”

Father Callahan was silent a moment. He said, “You’re doing the right thing.”

Spelling glanced down at the floor toward the end of the curtain. He saw the large black books of the guard standing as close as possible to the curtain. “Father, come closer. The murdered girl was Alexandria Cole. She was one of those supermodels?”

“I remember the case. Who killed her?”

The heart monitor beeped. Spelling chewed at his cracked lower lip. “Father, I have sinned bad…will God set it right? Will he forgive me?”

“God will embrace you for your confession. The police may need more. Write down your confession, many details as possible…name the person who did it and sign it.”

“Is this in case I die?”

“What do you mean?”

“If I die…if you got it in writing, proves a dying man’s confession is more than only your word, Father. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Feds want me to testify real bad. I heard they are gonna keep me in here ‘till I’m well enough to testify.”

Two nurses and the ER doctor approached. He said, “Dr. Weinberg has arrived. We’ll be taking the patient up for surgery”

Spelling’s eyes popped. He looked up at Father Callahan. “Say a prayer for me Father John. If the good Lord sees me through this alive, I’ll write it all down. Names and places, and where the weapon his hidden.”

The priest nodded. “May or Lord bless you.”

As they wheeled Spelling from the area, he asked, “What time is it, Father?”

Father Callahan looked at his watch. “It’s exactly six o’clock.”.

“Time’s runnin’ out.”

“I’ll pray for you, son.”

“I’m talking about Charlie Williams, the fella on death row. He’s next in line for the needle. If it’s three, by my calculations, he’s got eighty-four hours to live, and he’s gonna need more than prayers to save his soul.”

Sean O’Brien stood on the worn cypress wood of his screened-in back porch and watched lightning pop through the low-lying clouds above the Ocala National Forest. Each burst hung in the bellies of the clouds for a few seconds, the charges exploding and fading like fireflies hiding in clusters of purple grapes. He could smell rain falling in the forest and coming toward the St. Johns River as the breeze delivered the scent of jasmine, wet oak, and honeysuckle.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. The rolling noise, the burst and fade of light reminded O’Brien of the times he witnessed night bombing in the first Gulf War. But that was many miles and years in the past. He deeply inhaled the cool, rain-drenched air. The sound of frogs reached a competing crescendo when the first drops began to hit the oak leaves. The river was like black ink, white caps rolling across its dark surface

As the temperature dropped, the wind picked up, bringing a wall of rain across the river and through the thick limbs of old live oaks, soaking the gray beards of Spanish moss. Within a few seconds, moss hung from the limbs like the wet fleece of lamb’s wool caught in the rain and stained the shade of tarnished armor.

O’Brien sipped a cup of black coffee and listened to the rain tap the tin roof over the porch. The old house was built in 1945, constructed from river rock, Florida cypress and pine. Wood too tough for termites, nails, or even hurricanes. The house sat high above the river on the shoulder of an ancient Indian mound.

O’Brien bought the home after his wife died from ovarian cancer fifteen months ago. Following her death, he had a fleeting romance with the bottle and the genies it released in his subconscious.

He sold his house in Miami, quit his job as a homicide detective, and moved to a remote section of the river about fifty miles west of Daytona Beach. It was here where he repaired the old home and his life. His closest neighbor was a half-mile away. The nearest town, DeLand, was more than twenty miles away.