Vengeance: Mystery Writers of America Presents

Aleks looked around the pub to see if anyone was listening in. Luckily, Monday evening was the thinnest time at the popular watering hole. There were a few people in the back room, but only two other tables in the front room were occupied, one by a young couple too interested in each other to be eavesdropping. Sitting at the other table were half a dozen corporate types who looked as if they had been boozing ever since leaving work. Their jackets were slung on the backs of their chairs, their shirtsleeves rolled up, and their shiny faces were flushed from alcohol. Bursts of boisterous laughter erupted from their table from time to time.

He leaned in and spoke in a low voice.

“If one of your patients confessed to committing a terrible crime, would you report it to the police?”

“What kind of crime?”

Aleks looked down at his hands, which were trembling.

“Murder.”

Lee Campbell sat back, obviously nonplussed. It was clear he knew that the question was not hypothetical for Aleks. Lee shook his head.

“If I had taken a vow to respect the seal of the confessional, no, I wouldn’t.”

“Even if it meant a murderer would go free?”

“Yes.”

Aleks stared out the window; it was raining harder. He watched the pink mimosa blossoms fall under the cascading droplets, fluttering softly before surrendering to the pavement.

Lee Campbell leaned forward, resting his elbows on the ancient oak table.

“Is there any chance — in this hypothetical scenario — that this person is making up the entire thing just to screw with the priest’s head?”

“I’m afraid not.”

The waiter shot an inquiring look in their direction, and Aleks nodded, though he knew all the amber ale in the world couldn’t fill the gnawing hole in his heart. He stared out the window at the soggy puddle of pink petals on the sidewalk, and knew it was going to be a very long night.

AT HOME IN bed later, he watched car headlights flickering across the walls of his room, unable to sleep, tormented by the unwelcome knowledge locked inside his heart. Finally he arose and thumbed through his volume of the collected works of Jakob Bohme. His eyes fell on a passage from Threefold Life of Man: Man, Bohme said, “cannot see the whole of God’s One,” and “it follows that a part of it is hidden from him.” In order to reach God, Bohme claimed, man had to go through hell itself.

These ideas, which had been little more than an intellectual puzzle to him when he was a philosophy student, now struck him as deeply personal. He felt as if Bohme were talking directly to him and that the key to solving his dilemma lay in Bohme’s words, if only he could dig deep enough to uncover the wisdom there. Perched on the side of his bed, he turned the pages, searching desperately for something to help him. One quote in particular gave him some cause for hope: “What now seems hard to you, you will later learn to love the most.”

Finally exhausted, he fell into a fitful sleep sometime before dawn. His dreams swarmed with disquieting images of masked murderers stalking their victims inside the stern marble interiors of churches, their steps echoing against the unforgiving floors. He followed them down endless corridors, but they always remained ahead of him, just out of sight. Finally he turned down one hallway to see his sister standing there gazing at him. She was glowing, as in his vision years before, but her large brown eyes were searching, beseeching him — to do what?

He awoke in a sweat, the book still in his lap, unable to shake the feeling that she wanted something from him. His eyes fell on the passage on the open page: “The anguished work of the creature in this time is an opening and a generation of divine power by which God’s power becomes moving and working.” He sensed the words had a deeper meaning for him, but he didn’t know what they were.

Later that morning, after a quick breakfast, Father Milichuk dragged himself to St. George and took his usual place in the confessional. His hours were rigid: He was at his post every weekday morning from ten o’clock until noon. He had a wicked hangover, and that combined with his lack of sleep had put him in a foggy state of surreal, dreamlike consciousness.

It felt even more like a dream when the door to the adjoining booth creaked open. He slid open the wooden cover of the metal grate between the two sides in order to listen and was stunned by what he heard.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

It was the same voice Aleks had heard the day before. More weary, perhaps, and more wary — but the same. There was no mistaking it.

He tried to speak, but no words came out. Finally, he croaked out a response. “B-bless you, my son.”

Jagged rays of light sliced through his field of vision, interrupting his sight — the familiar aura telling him another migraine was on the way. He pressed a hand to his forehead; he could feel the blood vessel in his head throbbing through his fingertips.

“What do you have to confess?” Aleks longed to peer through the metal grate separating them so he could see the man’s face, but he could hardly bear to keep his eyes open. Pain sliced through his head, and he stifled a groan.

“I have committed another mortal sin.”

“What is it, my son?”

“I have killed again.”

Father Milichuk’s intestines turned to ice. Cold sweat spurted onto his forehead, and he fought to control the buzzing in his ears.

To his horror, the man continued. “Not only that, Father, but I enjoy it. I like killing. Even now I’m thinking of the next time I can go kill again.”

“My s-son,” he said, hearing his voice shake, “you need help. Please — please tell the authorities what you have done.”

The man laughed softly. “That’s not likely to happen, Father. I’m not going to tell anyone else what I’ve done, and certainly not the police.”

“Then why are you telling me?” Milichuk cried, his voice ragged.

“I enjoy talking about it. And my secret is safe with you.” There was a pause, and then he said, “It is safe with you, isn’t it?”

When Father Milichuk spoke, it was the voice of a dead man.

“Yes. It’s safe with me.”

“Good,” the man said. “I would hate to be the cause of your breaking your solemn vows to God.” His tone was mild, but Aleks sensed the threat lurking beneath it.

The man went on to tell him the details of his crime. He preyed on prostitutes, he said, the unfortunate women who prowled Tenth Avenue near the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel. Some were runaways whose families had no idea where they were; some were transvestites; and others were strung out on drugs, trying to earn enough money for their next fix. The man owned a nice car, and it was no problem getting them inside. Once there, the women were his prisoners; he could do what he liked with them. When he described just what that was, Father Milichuk’s stomach lurched and churned. The throbbing in his head crescendoed, and he vomited.

“Oh dear,” the man said as the sour smell rose to engulf them. “I’m sorry. I’d better go so you can get cleaned up. I’ll come back again soon — maybe even tomorrow.”

Before Aleks could respond, he heard the door latch click open and then the sound of retreating footsteps.

But this time something inside him rebelled. He whipped out his handkerchief and wiped his mouth, then stuffed the hankie back into his pocket. With trembling hands, he ripped off his soiled cassock. Dropping it to the ground, he threw open the door to the confessional and charged out into the church.

He dashed down the aisle just as the man reached the front of the church. Not noticing his pursuer, the man pulled open the heavy front door. Daylight streamed into the foyer, and he was briefly silhouetted in a blinding halo of sunlight. Shielding his eyes as pain shot through his cranium, Father Milichuk staggered after him, following him out into the street, where the man headed west, toward Third Avenue.

To his relief, the man didn’t look behind him as he rounded the corner to join the parade of people on the avenue. Aleks put his head down and shoved his hands into his pockets, losing himself in the crowd, just another