The second man is wearing work clothes—khakis and a blue T-shirt—but his T-shirt is tucked in and his khakis are neatly pressed. The overall effect is of a man without a coat and tie dressing as best he can for church. Although the goatee has been shaved off, the acne scars are still on his cheeks. He looks at me with surprise but not recognition. He probably didn’t get a good look at my face that night. I was just a kid running down a hallway, trying to bring his father a pistol.
“Samuel Bridges,” I say. The venom in my voice startles the men. It startles me. The hunchbacked monk cringes, while Bridges plants his feet as if awaiting a blow. “My name is Ethan Faulkner,” I continue. “I met you before at my house, with your friend who wears a ponytail. And Kayla.”
Astonishment washes across Bridges’s face, then recognition, followed by something I wasn’t expecting: guilt.
The old monk frowns, an ugly expression on his wrinkled face. “You shouldn’t be back here,” he says.
“It’s all right, Brother Milo,” Bridges says hoarsely.
We all stand facing each other, frozen by the enormity of the moment, depending on our point of view—Brother Milo from outrage, Bridges and me from other, more complicated emotions. We could be a Renaissance painting: the shocked monk, the guilt-stricken sinner, and the angry young man. All that is missing is the sad, cherubic face of an angel gazing down upon us from the heavens.
BRIDGES AND I sit outside the bonsai nursery on stone benches opposite each other. Frankie, who made his way back here after slipping past the monk at the gate, leans against a nearby wall, arms folded across his chest, his eyes never leaving Bridges, who, for his part, is doing a pretty good imitation of the Virgin Mary in the Pietà: head tilted toward the ground, eyes closed, mouth small and sorrowful.
“So, do you live here now?” I ask him.
Bridges opens his eyes, which are calm and clear. “Yes,” he says. “Ever since I got out of prison. Right now I’m just working here, doing maintenance, landscaping, that kind of thing. Most of the monks are old; they need help running the place. But if things go all right, I’ll go into my observership. Like a trial run. If the abbot and the vocation director like the progress I’ve made, they’ll make me a postulant in a couple of months.”
“And then you get a robe and sandals and everything?”
Bridges doesn’t bat an eye at my sarcasm. “I wouldn’t get to wear the religious habit unless I became a novitiate.” He gives a thin smile. “And most of the brothers don’t wear sandals these days.”
“I’m guessing most of the brothers haven’t murdered anyone either.”
That one strikes home. Bridges winces, then hangs his head slightly. “It may not matter for much,” he says, his eyes on the ground, “but I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve done horrible things, but I’m not a murderer.”
“Bullshit,” I say, and I like the reaction he has, the shocked jerk of the head, his eyes widening slightly, as if I’ve cussed at the altar. “You may not have pulled the trigger, but you came into my house with your buddy and my parents died.” I lean forward, glaring. “I don’t give a shit that you want to get close to God or whatever the hell you want to call this. You fucked up my life.”
He nods, his lips pressed together, hands on his knees. “I know,” he says, his voice thick with sorrow. “And I am sorry. Truly.”
Leaning against the wall, Frankie makes a dismissive noise in his throat. Bridges glances his way, then back to me.
“I can’t fix that night,” Bridges says. “God knows I would if I could, but I can’t. I told your girlfriend that, but it’s better that you’ve come so I can tell it to you straight to your face.”
Frankie stands up off the wall and uncrosses his arms. I’m leaning forward even farther, as if trying to hear. “What did—my girlfriend, what did she ask you?”
Bridges frowns, like he’s heard a wrong note in a familiar tune. No matter what else he is, he’s not stupid. “I thought you sent her here,” he says. “Asked her to talk to me.”
I look at Frankie, who shrugs as if to say, Go ahead, güero. “No,” I say to Bridges. “I didn’t.”
Bridges’s eyebrows knot together over that. Slowly, he says, “She told me that you were angry. That you wanted to know why I did … what I did. Did she tell you something different?”
“She … she actually didn’t tell me anything, really—”
“She lied to you,” Frankie says to Bridges. “Ethan didn’t know you were here. She came out here on her own.”
Thank you, Frankie. Confronted with a simple question, I didn’t know how to respond, especially regarding the fact that Marisa is now dead. “Marisa lied to both of us,” I say to Bridges, trying to swing the conversation back to her. “And I’m trying to figure out why. So please tell me what she asked you, what she said.”
Bridges says nothing for a few moments. “I want to tell you a story,” he says, then sighs and shakes his head. “I told her this, so I think I’d better tell it to you too.”
BRIDGES USED TO live in the Florida Keys, he tells me, working on swordfish boats, shrimp boats, shark boats, anywhere that paid well. He often got paid in cash. One night, after two weeks of swordfishing, he was walking to his rented room with his pay in his pocket when three men jumped him. Bridges threw one of the men into the harbor, but the other two clubbed him down, and one pulled a knife. That’s when
