Tom Lowe - The 24th Letter

Spelling looked to his left and then to his right, his eyes searching. Where’s the emergency button? “Get away from me!” Spelling’s heart hammered in his chest, the pain crushed him in a vice, the taste of metal erupting from his stomach like butane.

“You’ve become quite a liability, Sammy. Having a little heart palpitations, are we? Perhaps it’s time for our bedside prayer.”

“No!”

“You can say a nice prayer in the time it’ll take you to die. And you should begin right now. Shhhh, it’s painless. You will go to sleep. This is how I seal big mouths.”

Sam Spelling struggled as the man placed a wide hand over his mouth and pinched his nose. His lungs burned. He could hear the heart monitor beeping. Faster. Where were they? Somebody! The single handcuff restrained his free arm. He struggled and felt stitches rip in his chest, the heat of his blood flowing across his stomach like warm soup. He could see the digital white light from the monitor reflecting off the killer’s wide eyes-eyes the blackness of coal. He could see his own heartbeat beginning to slow, the reflection fading from the eyes like a flashlight dimming. His mind flashed back to the evil in the eyes he saw when he was dying in the emergency room. Now he saw the bull trout’s eyes, its mouth gasping for air, its body thrusting. He held the trout under the stream, a calmness returning to the fish. Then he released it and watched the trout swim into the cool translucence.

Spelling smiled. The little sparrow with the lost foot had retuned to the windowsill. Spelling saw himself open the window. He reached down and cupped the tiny bird in his hand. It was as light as a cracker and its heart raced. “ You’re okay, little bird. You’ve got wings. I do, too.”

Sam Spelling jumped from the windowsill, soaring over the parking lot, flapping his wings, feeling the heat of the morning sunrise as he flew toward the light.

Father John Callahan stood in the sanctuary of St. Francis Church and lit seven candles. Lightning, from a storm blowing off the Atlantic coast, illuminated the sanctuary’s massive stained-glass windows. The priest stepped toward a marble statue of the Virgin Mary, made the sign of the cross, and whispered a prayer. He reached inside his coat pocket and retrieved the letter. He wanted to read Sam Spelling’s letter one more time before Sean O’Brien arrived.

As he finished reading, Callahan stood next to the pulpit and folded the letter once in the center of the paper. He opened the large Bible that sat on the podium, and he carefully placed the letter in the first chapter of Revelation, slowly closing the Bible.

Lightning struck close to the church, the sound of thunder exploding and rumbling like echoes bouncing off canyon walls in the night. The lights in the church flickered and faded out. Father Callahan found a lighter, lit a candle, and picked up the church phone. No dial tone. He lit more candles. He plugged his cell phone in the charger just as he heard a noise. He looked up to see the back door to the sanctuary open, the wind blowing rain into the dark alcove.

“Thought I locked that,” he said, walking toward the rear of the church to close the door, the chill of wind and the smell of rain meeting him.

Lightning popped and the wind blew rainwater into the hall. Father Callahan glanced in the direction of the alcove to see a man step out from the shadows, the burning candles tossing a soft light on the left side of his face.

“Who enters the house of our Lord?” Father Callahan asked.

The man was silent.

Father Callahan assumed the bearded stranger, who wore a hat pulled down low, was homeless, someone needing a dry place until the storm passed. He had always extended a helping hand to the homeless. But as he walked toward the new arrival, he could tell the man was not a homeless person.

He was a priest.

“Welcome,” Father Callahan said. “Glad you could duck out of the rain on a night like this. Just took me ol’ nerves back a notch. Most folks come in the front door.”

The man said nothing.

Sean O’Brien looked at the GPS navigation map on the screen in his Jeep. He signaled, pulled off the highway, and drove on the right shoulder. Drivers hit their car horns. One man in a pickup truck gave O’Brien the finger as he sped past the truck.

O’Brien pulled completely off the shoulder, driving through a pine thicket, the limbs slapping at his window, birds scattering. He looked at the navigation map, cutting the wheel to the right and following under the clearing of a high-tension power line for less than a half-mile, and then he drove down a slight embankment that connected to a paved road, SR 46. He tried the priest’s cell again. No answer.

Father Callahan’s cell rang as he turned toward the stranger. “Regardless of your point of entry, I’m delighted that a fellow priest is visiting. Not the best of nights for a social, but please enter our Lord’s house. You must be soaked. I can put on some tea, shot of brandy perhaps. I have a change of clothes that ought to match yours well. What brings you to St. Francis?”

Still, the man said nothing, the sound of the rain pelting the parking lot.

“Would you’d be good enough to close the door? At least you can step from the shadows and show yourself. All we have is good old fashion candle power, but for hundreds of years it was all the church needed.”

The man said, “No need for tea or brandy. No need to shut the door, for that matter. I won’t be saying long.” He stepped out of the recess, the long shadows from candlelight dancing off his face. Father Callahan could not see the man’s features.

But he did recognize the voice.

Stall him, Sean’s almost here…

He thought about the souvenir Colt. 45 pistol his father had given him thirty years ago. He kept it in his office, in a framed box with Old West memorabilia. The bullets were in his desk drawer. Father Callahan said, “I detect a very slight accent. Are you from Greece?”

“That’s impressive, Father. Very few people can pick that up. I was born there. One of the islands.”

“I’ve studied linguistics and art history. Which island?”

“Patmos.”

“Indeed, the sacred island. The place where Saint John wrote Revelation.”

The man said nothing.

“Odd,” Father Callahan said, “that you’re Episcopalian rather than Greek Orthodox.”

“I’m neither. Where’s the letter?”

“Letter? What letter?”

“The one Spelling wrote.”

“Perhaps you’re mistaken.”

“Where’s the letter? Answer me!”

“So you’re the one who took the life of the young woman, Alexandria Cole.”

“And I’ll claim yours. Give me the letter!” The man pulled a pistol.

“Please, like a confession, it’s in God’s ear…and his forgiving heart.”

Father Callahan’s cell rang, the sound ricocheting noises in the farthest reaches of the old sanctuary. Father Callahan turned to run to his phone. The intruder fired two shots into the priest’s back. Father Callahan fell down, the bullets hitting him like sledgehammers.

Father Callahan lay on the marble floor a second. He slowly crawled in the direction of the altar. He knew he was going into shock. The darkness was descending-the ringing of the cell phone reverberating in his ears. He could crawl no further, stopping at the first marble step, the right side of his face now against the chill of the stone.

Father Callahan felt his wallet being removed from his back pocket, coat pockets searched. Lying on his stomach, he sensed the man step over him, approaching the altar. There was the sound of bowls crashing from the communion table to the floor. He could hear the coins and dollars stolen from a collection plate.