Faye Kellerman - Prayers for the Dead

Decker yelled out, “Someone get a fucking blanket! Elevate his feet.” His hands remained deep inside Bram’s chest. Everything was flooded with body fluids, seeping and oozing from the open cavity. At least at present, arterial blood wasn’t actively squirting.

The priest’s face had turned gray, his legs and arms a series of random twitches and tics.

Decker whispered, “Hang in there, Bram. We all need you to hang in there, buddy. I need you to do it, Rina needs you to do it. Everyone needs you, guy. Just hang in there.”

Marge’s hands began to tremble. She willed them to be steady. Her eyes welled up with wetness.

Words forming on the priest’s cyanotic lips.

Our Father who art in heaven.

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

“Ambulance is here,” Oliver yelled out.

“Thank God!” Marge whispered.

“Nobody move until they get here!” Decker said to Marge and Michael. A group of paramedics raced over to the scene, meticulously relieving the cops of their tenuous positions as medics. Immediately, Marge walked away. But Decker and Michael remained kneeling at the priest’s side. Michael took one hand, Decker took the other.

Bram’s complexion had turned pasty, his skin temperature cold and clammy. He managed to squeeze his brother’s hand. “Finish…”

Michael’s voice trembled, his eyes clogged with tears. There was panic in his voice. “Finish?”

An oxygen mask was placed over Bram’s face, a needle scanning the priest’s arm for a vein. His breathing remained choppy and shallow.

He whispered, “Give us this day…”

“Oh, the Lord’s Prayer…” Michael said, “Yeah…uh, give us this day our daily bread…uh…uh…”

Decker said, softly, “And forgive us our trespasses…”

Michael cleared his throat. “And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us…” He paused as the IV was hooked into Bram’s deflated vessels, an instrument buried into his collapsed lungs.

Decker said, “And lead us not…”

“And lead us not into temptation,” Michael sputtered out, “but deliver us from evil.”

Bram nodded, whispered between labored breaths,

“Deus, qui inter apostolicos sacerdotes famulum tuum Abram Matthew Sparks et Sacerdotali fecisti dignitate vigere: Praesta, quaesumus, ut eorum quoque perpetuo aggregetur consortio. Per Dominum nostrum.

“Te amo, Jesu Cristo.”

The priest shut his eyes and went slack. Michael looked at Decker with frightened eyes.

“His chest is moving,” Decker said.

Michael bit his lip, continued to squeeze his brother’s limp hand.

A paramedic said, “You’re going to have to move so we can transfer him to the gurney.”

Decker nodded, helped Michael up onto shaky feet. Both of them were covered in blood. “Clean yourself off. Start calling your siblings.”

Tears were running down Michael’s face. “I don’t know if I…” He staggered on his feet.

Decker grabbed his shoulders, steadied him. “I’ll ride in the ambulance. But you have to call your brothers and sisters, Michael. No one else can do it except you. Understand?”

Michael stood unresponsive, paralyzed with shock.

“Understand?” Decker repeated.

Michael nodded vigorously.

“Tell them to meet us at…” Decker turned to one of the paramedics. A skinny kid with a big Adam’s apple. “Where are you taking him?”

“New Chris.”

Decker swallowed hard. “Tell them to meet me at New Chris.”

The paramedic looked at Decker. “You know you got a bullet wound in your right arm?”

Decker pulled back his sleeve, regarded the shredded fabric of his suit jacket. He quickly removed it. As expected, his shirt was torn as well. He rolled up his sleeve. Next to his bicep was a round patch of raw meat.

The kid said, “C’mon. I’ll patch it in the ambulance.”

The wound was leaking blood. Suddenly, it hurt like hell.

“We’ve been going at this for over an hour,” Martinez said. “You’re making life difficult on yourself, Mr. Waterson.” The detective leaned across the table in the interview room. “Dolores Sparks shot her son, hoping to make it murder/suicide. He’s been on the operating table for the last three hours, hanging on to life by a thread. The woman wants to die, Waterson.” He snapped his fingers. “She turned you in like that!”

“You’re gonna fry, sir,” Webster jumped in, “unless you do something to help yourself.”

“If you talk to us,” Martinez said, “tell us what happened…give us the triggerman…and then maybe Mr. Kent over here will deal.”

Mr. Kent was John Kent, a fifty-five-year-old Fundamentalist Christian who had put in over twenty years with the DA’s office. Fight religious with religious-Decker’s idea.

Kent smoothed his tie and said, “You talk to us honestly, Mr. Waterson. Then maybe I can save you from the chair.”

“How many times must I repeat myself. Dolores Sparks is a very sick woman.” Waterson’s eyes darted about the interview room, deep, wet circles under the arms of his suit jacket. He ran his hand through white, thin hair. “She’s been on medication for years. She’s not a credible person. No jury will believe anything she says.”

“So y’all willing to go to trial,” Webster said. “Good luck to you.”

Martinez said, “You know, Mr. Waterson, if you don’t start talking-”

“I didn’t do anything,” Waterson insisted. “I killed no one.”

Webster said, “But you know who pulled the trigger because you hired them.”

“All you have is Dolores’s word against mine. Is it my fault that some demented lady mistook my kindness for craziness?”

Kent said, “Sir, you don’t stand a chance.”

“I wish I had a nickel every time a lawyer said that to me.”

“Spare your life, sir. Then use it to repent to Jesus to spare your soul.”

“My soul…” Waterson looked away.

Farrell Gaynor folded his arms. “You make a good living, Mr. Waterson. You want to tell us how you got so far in the hole?”

Waterson gave Gaynor a steely glance. “I don’t believe I have to answer that. I don’t believe I have to answer any more of your questions.”

“You’re going to talk to us one way or the other. You want a mouthpiece…” Martinez handed him the phone. “I’ve always said, be my guest.”

Waterson looked at the phone, but didn’t move.

Gaynor said, “You won’t tell us about your financial woes, I’ll tell you about them. Your wife, Ellen, underwent treatment for renal cancer. Unsuccessful treatment. Eventually, both kidneys came out. She had two transplants that failed. You blamed Azor for that, didn’t you?”

“Never-”

“Then your medical insurance topped out,” Gaynor continued. “Four more years of expensive out-of-pocket dialysis. And during this terrible time in your life, Azor’s just raking it in-”

“You’re despicable.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean Azor’s despicable?”

Foam gathered at the corner of Waterson’s mouth. “He was despicable-a sinner and a pervert.”

Webster said, “I was taught Jesus loves all His children.”

“Not those who mock His words. Pray fervently in public and debase in private.”

Kent’s voice was soothing. “I know it’s hard, Mr. Waterson. Hard to watch the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer.”

The room went quiet.

“You did what you thought was right,” Kent said. “In your eyes, in God’s eyes. But the law doesn’t see it like that, sir. And the law’s going to punish you severely. You might lose your life unless you do something to help yourself.”