Tom Lowe - The 24th Letter

As he started writing, he heard muffled talking outside his hospital room door and the sound of a chair sliding on the tile. The deputy who had stationed himself there was probably being replaced, he thought. Spelling looked at the bandage across his chest. In the center, near his heart, he could see a rust-colored spot the size of a quarter. He could smell the coppery odor of wet blood and adhesive.

Pain shot from his chest to his jaw. His heart fluttered. The monitor on the left side of the bed sounded. Then his heart jumped into sync, a steady beat, and the machine silenced. Spelling’s mouth felt like sand was on his tongue. With his left hand cuffed to the bed, he used his right hand to hold the pad of paper in place on the tray as he wrote.

The door opened. Spelling glanced up to see the guard, Lyle Johnson, returned. Before the door shut, he saw a deputy in the hall yawn and stretch.

As Johnson stepped inside the small room he said, “D…O…C back on duty.” The guard held a large Styrofoam cup of steaming coffee. “Kinda funny how the abbreviation for department of corrections is short for doctor.”

Spelling said nothing. He continued writing.

Johnson snorted and stepped to the window overlooking the parking lot. “Writing your last will and testament, huh? All your worldly possessions, something like that?”

“Why don’t you get outta here?”

“You cons are all the same. Still think you’re entitled to privacy in lock up.”

“Look man, I’ve been shot. I had surgery. I’m chained to the fuckin’ bed. My heart is sick. I’m not goin’ anywhere. Just leave me be, okay?”

“That’s called justice, what’s happened to you, Spelling.”

There was a knock at the door.

“It’s open,” said the guard.

Detective Dan Grant entered the room. He lifted the right side of his sports coat, displaying a gold badge clipped to his belt. “Dan Grant, homicide, Volusia County.”

“I ain’t killed nobody, and I ain’t dead yet,” Spelling said.

Grant smiled and stepped toward the bed. “No, you’re not. But for the sake of your protection, we’ll pretend that you are. Whoever took a shot at you made a great fort to kill you. A sniper with a lot of skill.” He looked at Johnson. “Would you excuse us?”

The guard took his time securing the plastic lid on the Styrofoam cup, glanced at the paper under Spelling’s hand and left the room.

Grant turned back to Spelling. “Who wants you dead?”

Spelling sighed. “I guess I’ve made my share of enemies over the years. FBI finally caught my partner in the last bank job we pulled. He managed to stay hid ‘til he got sloppy. I’m sure you know I was being taken to the courthouse to testify against him. Maybe Larry or one of his scumbags hired the hit. He’s been in jail for more than eight months waiting trial.”

“Maybe he had somebody on the outside to plan it, someone to arrange a hit.”

“Possibility. We weren’t friends. Business partners, that’s all.”

“He just managed to stay in business longer than you, right?”

“Larry liked selling lots of dope, too.”

“Who else might want you dead?”

Spelling looked at the paper he’d finished writing. He was silent, his eyes flat. “Who knows? All I really know is there’s lots of evil all around us. It’s a tragedy for a man to go to his grave never knowing who he really is. We’re too stupid to get it right until it’s about all used up. I ain’t afraid to die. No sir, not now. Not after what I saw.”

As the evening sunset broke through a patch of pewter clouds, light seemed to blossom into the room with an organic energy. Spelling looked toward the window and smiled. He saw a sparrow alight on the windowsill outside the room. “Bird’s hurt.”

Grant looked at the bird. Spelling said, “Missing a foot. Little fella has to stand on one leg. He’s a peg leg, but he’s still got his wings.”

Spelling signed his name on the bottom of the paper beneath his hands. He folded the paper and wrote on the outside in bold block letters:

CONFIDENTIAL: FOR FATHER JOHN CALLAHAN

Spelling held the paper. “Detective Grant, this is my ticket.”

“Ticket?”

“It’s my ticket to fly just like that little bird out there on the window. Don’t know if I’ll fly to heaven, but I’m hopin’this will earn me wings.”

“What is it?”

“It’s something a priest asked me to write. It’s nothing about Larry’s trial. More like my own personal confession. Priest is comin’ to get it. Detective, would you be kind enough to drop this in that bag with my clothes. All I got left in this world is what’s in that brown bag.” Spelling smiled through crack lips. Blood, the color of dried tobacco juice, lined his lower lip. “But that’s all I really need.”

Two nurses entered the room. One said, “We have to change bandages and give the patient medication. He must sleep now.”

Detective Grant nodded. He took the piece of folded paper and dropped it in the bag. Spelling said, “Detective, anything happen to me…if I don’t make it. You go see Father John Callahan. And do it real quick.”

As the nurses hovered around Spelling, attending his wound, he looked at the sparrow just beyond the window glass. The bird hopped on one foot to the ledge, stretched its wings, and flew toward the morning light in the eastern sky. Sam Spelling smiled.

Guard Lyle Johnson waited twenty minutes. Spelling ought to be sleeping about now, he thought. Johnson swallowed the last bit of cold coffee in the Styrofoam cup and walked into Sam Spelling’s room. Johnson’s Department of Corrections black shoes made a hollow sound as he stepped to the nightstand.

The caffeine and Dexedrine put him on edge. His hands were moist, mind racing. A con getting better medical treatment than most taxpayers. All because he was shot. Nineteen years wearing a corrections officer uniform-a job that wouldn’t get a private hospital room. Maybe it’s ‘cause of the damn media-the shooting-all over the news. Maybe it was ‘cause nobody gives a shit about the nobodies.

He peered into the brown sack, reached in, and lifted out the folded paper. Johnson looked over his shoulder at the closed door. He opened the paper and began reading, the further down the page he got, the wider his eyes became. Johnson let out a low whistle and mumbled, “Un-fuckin’ believable.”

“What are you doing?”

Lyle Johnson spun around. Father John Callahan stood at the door with his arms folded over his chest.

“Nothing,” Johnson said, lowering his hand with the paper.

“What do you have there?”

“Nothing.”

Father Callahan stepped closer. He could read his name on the yellow legal paper. He said, “As an officer with the state, I would think that security, confidentiality, would mean something to you. That’s marked for me-confidential.”

“With all due respect preacher, no such thing as personal property for an inmate.”

“You’re not holding personal property, you’re holding a private letter, a confession, addressed to me. I asked that man to write it. As a spiritual confession, it’s a sacred trust between God and one of his children.”

Johnson said nothing. He made no effort to move.

“Give it to me. That man, regardless of his past, is trying to make amends with our Lord. This could be his last statement-his last wish on earth. I won’t let you deny him, because right now God’s law supersedes your regulations.”

Johnson’s eyelids lowered, a red patch forming on his bull neck. He slowly lifted the piece of paper. “Take it. I didn’t read it anyway.”

Father Callahan took the paper and placed it between the pages of the Bible he carried. He glanced down at Spelling, who was in a deep drug-induced sleep, breathing slow, mechanical pulses thumping. Monitors filled the room with a bluish tint. He looked at Johnson’s nametag. “I’m praying for this man. He’s more than a prison number. His name’s Sam Spelling. And, Mr. Johnson, I will pray for you, too.”