Vincent Zandri - The Innocent

The pastor, being a man of God, would have no choice but to act the role of the good Samaritan.

I had a clear view of Cassandra from the driver’s seat of the Impala as she walked to the screen door of the rectory and rang the doorbell. If all went as planned, we’d be on our way out of town in five minutes or less.

But for now, I had to wait and hope that her acting abilities were as good as her talents for evading the police. Of course, she couldn’t deny her film experience, but that kind of film didn’t take a whole lot of talent.

She was better than I could have hoped.

It took only about ninety seconds and Cassandra had the pastor by her side, the two of them making a beeline for his Pontiac Grand Prix. From what I could see, the pastor was older than me by four or five years, with very thin arms and legs. His belly, on the other hand, was enormous and hung over his black polyester pants. A black collarless shirt was unbuttoned at the stomach, exposing a white T-shirt underneath. He held a key ring in the fingers of his right hand. Nearsighted, he held it up to his red face while peeling back key after key until he came to the one for the Grand Prix.

Cassandra wiped both eyes with the backs of her hands. She was good. She was very good. Not only had she fooled the pastor into believing her story about a stranded daughter, but she had forced tears. But then, her boyfriend had just been shot and killed, so the tears may have been real, not an act at all.

The pastor unlocked the passenger-side door for Cassandra. He went around to the driver’s side and got in.

That was my cue.

I got out of the Impala, gripped the.45 in my right hand, barrel pointed down at the macadam. I moved fast and silent, careful not to alert the pastor, who, with shaking hands and trembling fingers, was inserting the key into the steering column. The driver’s-side window was rolled down so it must have been a complete surprise to him when I raised the.45 and stuffed the barrel into his ear.

“Don’t move, Father.”

The pastor stiffened, gripped the black steering wheel, white-knuckled.

“In the name of sweet Jesus,” he swallowed, “don’t kill me.”

All life seemed to drain from his face. He breathed heavily, sucking air in and blowing it out fast. I hoped his heart was still good. If his gut was any indication, a massive coronary was imminent. But it was a chance I had to take.

“Shut the car off, Father,” I ordered. “Backseat.”

I unlatched the door, held it open for him. He started sliding out as ordered. But when he was all the way out and standing in the lot, he began to breathe faster than his lungs could soak up the oxygen.

“Nice going,” Cassandra said. “Now the priest is having a heart attack.”

I grabbed the pastor’s shoulders, put my face in his red face.

“Breathe, Father,” I said. “Take your time and breathe.”

“Can’t…get…air,” he stuttered, in a voice so forced I could actually feel the pain and struggle in my own lungs.

“I’m not going to hurt you!” I shouted, my heart pounding against my rib cage. “I just need you to get into the back of the car.”

“Right…pants…pocket,” he said. “Breathilator…right…pocket.”

“Get his freaking breathi-whatever!” Cassandra shouted.

“I heard him,” I said, feeling around in the right-hand pocket of the pastor’s black pants. When I found the breathilator I pulled off the cap and stuffed the round inhaling end into his open mouth. The pastor took a breath while I squeezed down on the device at the same time. What a team we made. By the time I took the breathilator away, he was already beginning to breathe normally.

“The good Lord,” he said, between breaths, “has blessed me with many things. Good lungs is not one of them.”

“You okay now?” I said, taking a look around the parking lot to make sure we hadn’t been spotted.

“Yes,” he said. “Better.”

“Good. Now get back into the car.”

The pastor stuffed himself into the back. No arguments, no struggles, no heart attacks. I took another quick look around. Nothing but a slightly overcast afternoon and the wavy, mirage-like heat rising off the blacktop.

I got in and started the car.

“Take the pastor’s belt off and tie his hands at the wrists.”

Cassandra’s eyes were wet and heavy looking. She faced the floor of the car.

“There’s no need for that, my son,” the pastor said in a fabricated voice he might have used during his Sunday sermon. “I’ll give you no trouble.”

“Do it,” I said, pulling out of the lot and turning left, northbound.

Cassandra turned, extended her slim body into the back, reached for the pastor’s belt, and unbuckled it. I watched in the rearview as she slid the belt out from between the loops and told the pastor to hold his wrists out. Then she wrapped the belt around them until the slack was gone and the belt was buckled tight.

There was a pause for a second or two while I drove past the open fields browning in the unusual summerlike heat and past the scattered wood-framed cottages and bungalows.

“You’re that warden, aren’t you? And you’re that young woman. You murdered that escaped criminal, that man who killed the policeman with the pregnant wife. Not that he deserved to live, but who are you to judge?”

I kept the speed at an even forty-five. Not too fast, not too slow.

“Would it help, Father,” I said, “if I told you that both of us are innocent?”

“Your guilt,” the pastor said, “is entirely your affair, as is your inevitable council with the Almighty Himself. What does not have to be inevitable is your lack of repentance. What you need to ask yourself, my son, is this. Just what do I profit through my corruption that I should gain the world but lose my soul? Why must I lie, cheat, kill? Son, you can still be saved so long as you admit to your crimes, turn yourself in, turn your soul back over to Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior-”

“Cassandra,” I said, “gag the pastor.”

I reached into my pants pocket, pulled out a hankie.

“I won’t be able to breathe,” he protested.

“Make sure his nostrils are clear,” I said.

“See,” he said, “this is exactly what Fm talking about, case and point.”

“Sorry it has to be this way, Father,” I explained, as Cassandra turned and stuffed the hankie into the pastor’s mouth. “But I believe your opinion about the state of my salvation is not relevant.”

Of course, the pastor had no way of responding. But he was not to be silenced either. He mumbled something nearly indiscernible through the gag. Something that sounded like, “May God have mercy on your souls.”

I HAD LEFT MY mobile phone inside the Toyota, leaving me with no choice but to call Val from a wall-mounted pay phone outside a twenty-four-hour supermarket located just a couple of miles south of the Albany city limits. But before that-before I got out of the Pontiac-I made the pastor lie down on the backseat, out of sight. In the meantime, Cassandra, through the opening between the bucket seats, kept the barrel of the.45 pointed in the direction of the pastor’s head. What the Father did not know was that I had discharged the clip and slipped it into my pocket before handing the piece over to Cassandra. It was one thing trusting her with the.45. It was quite another trusting her with a loaded.45.

“Superintendent’s office,” Val said.

“You alone?”

“Where are you, Keeper?” Her voice suddenly muffled, but urgent all the same.

“Pay phone.”

“Vasquez is dead.”

“I know,” I said.

“I saw the special report on television. You were running away.”