“Except I had Damian’s car that weekend.”
Her face stiffened. “Do you remember going down there?”
“No.”
“So how can you remember borrowing his car?”
He removed his wallet and pulled out a slip of paper. “Receipt from the Gulf station on Huntington. I put in forty-three dollars’ worth of gas at five that afternoon.” No MassPike receipt, but the entrance was a mile east down the avenue.
“And you don’t remember where you went?”
“No.” Fear shuddered through him as if there were a core of ice in his chest.
They were silent a long moment as Sarah stared at him, probably afraid for her own safety, he thought. Then she said, “But that means you’d have to have looked him up, where he lived, worked, what he was doing that night. That’s a lot of unknowns.”
He nodded.
“Remember doing any of that?”
“No,” he said. “But sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night and be at my computer and not remember getting there.”
“Sleepwalking. Is that something you’ve done?”
“Not until recently.” He downed the rest of the milk, which had done nothing to calm him down. “He worked at the local Sears. Maybe I called and got stuff from a coworker.” Even as he said that, nothing inside clicked.
Sarah said nothing. She looked scared.
He picked up the obit notice on Celia Gretch, the jogger. She was run down on a rural back road in Reading, fifteen miles north of Boston, on the afternoon of June 25—the same day her Volker was found dead in his garage.
“Wouldn’t Damian have mentioned damage to his car?”
“Not if she was just knocked down.”
“But she died by getting hit.”
“She died by being crushed under the wheels.”
Her eyes were dilated with fear. “So what does this all mean?”
“It means I don’t have an alibi for three murders I saw myself commit.”
Sarah backed up to the kitchen sink, her arms folded protectively across her chest. “You’re scaring me, Zack.”
“I’m scaring me.”
63
Roman arrived at the confessional early that morning. He had called two nights before on the secure cell phone and insisted they meet. Father X was not pleased but agreed when Roman said he had something important to propose.
The church was empty when Roman slipped into the booth. At ten sharp, Father X entered the other side. “God be with you, my son. You did good work.”
“Thank you.”
“So, what are you proposing?”
“I’m proposing we cut the Father-son bullshit and get real.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Roman punched his fist through the grate. He reached in with one hand, grabbed the man, and pulled his face to the window. “You’re no more a priest than I am. You’re Norman Babcock, and I want to know what the hell this is all about.”
The man made an involuntary grunt as his fat bald head flushed like a ripening tomato.
“I’m not on some mission for the Church. You hired me to settle some pissant little scores for you.”
“What? That’s not true.”
“Then tell me what the fuck is going on or I’m going to come in there and pound you till you stop moving.”
“Please lower your voice.”
With the other hand, Roman whipped out his gun and poked the barrel with the silencer through the window. “This better?”
“God, don’t. Please.”
Roman tightened his grip on Babcock’s shirt. “Then tell me why you want these people dead.”
“Okay, okay.”
Roman yanked the white collar off his shirt and tossed it at him.
“H-how do you know…?”
“How do I know you’re Babcock? ‘Satan’s henchmen,’ ‘dupes of the devil.’ Your pet phrases are all over your Web site.”
He looked at the silencer aimed at his chest. “What do you want?”
“I wanna know why I’m killing these people. And don’t give me any mission-for-the-Church bullshit.” Roman would have loved to choke the fat bastard to death out of sheer rage—rage at being Babcock’s patsy, rage at himself for having nearly fallen for the setup. For wanting to believe that he was on a genuine quest to eliminate the enemies of Christendom and, in so doing, opening a path to heaven.
“You
“They’re a bunch of fucking doctors and computer geeks.”
Babcock hesitated, probably wondering how much Roman knew. He had been hired to kill and not ask why.
“Yes, and what they are doing is evil.”
“They’re doing near-death experience research.”
“So you know. But you know what they’re trying to do?”
“I’ve read your Web site.”
“They’re committing blasphemy. They’re violating God’s demand not to practice divination. And that’s what their research is—defilement of God’s Word.”
Babcock’s Web site was a nonstop rant against near-death experiences—“the Great Cosmic Lie,” another favorite phrase. “So some people say they see dead loved ones. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal? The test subjects are innocent. It’s those running the tests who are violating God’s prohibition, leading them to believe that they’re encountering beings of light, glimpsing heaven. But that’s all deception— fabrications of Satan.…”
Roman snorted. “Yeah, yeah. I read all that.”
“Then you also know that stopping them is a sacred mission for the Lord and the Church.”
In his heart of hearts, Roman wanted to believe him. “But this mission’s not sanctioned by the Church. It’s for you and your Friends for Jesus.”
“No. The Fraternity of Jesus are dedicated to the belief that every member of the Church is called to holiness—to a sanctifying life of doing God’s work. And fighting God’s enemies is the highest mission and an aspiration to sainthood.”
Roman snickered. “So, I keep it up, they’ll make me a saint?”
“I didn’t say that. Your work in defense of the Church is a blessed mission. History will decide if your success is worthy of sainthood. But this is not some little personal payback thing.”
Nothing in Babcock’s manner suggested that he did not believe in his own words. And he had put forty-five grand where his mouth was. Roman pulled the pistol out of the smashed-open window between them. “What’s your beef with Warren Gladstone? And don’t go stupid on me. Your rants are all over the Internet.”
“I think he’s behind the NDE project.”
“You mean he’s bankrolling it?”
“Yes. And throwing his moral weight behind it. He’s a disgraced Evangelist minister who’s trying to get back
