Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
MARIS
“No fighting,” I tell Josie in a whisper-scream.
You’d think I wouldn’t have to remind her not to punch a deputy but honestly, you’d be wrong. Josie has a record of getting into it with the officers in town when they’re standing between her and a story.
“I won’t fight if they stop acting like brain dead hacks.”
“That’s not going to happen. Just keep it to a minimum.”
Josie makes a face which is a good sign that she’ll listen for now.
We’re in City Hall with what feels like the rest of Vesper Point.
The place is packed wall-to-wall and the din of chatter echoes and bounces off the walls.
It reminds me of the sea during a storm, the voices rise together in a quiet roar.
I swallow hard and look out at the sea of faces that I’ve known all my life.
I don’t like that so many of their eyes are on me and not the podium where the Sheriff is about to start speaking.
“Why is everyone staring at me?” I ask Josie.
“You mean more than usual?”
“Yes, obviously.”
“You look good, boss. Really good.”
“All I did was wash my hair,” I lie and roll my eyes and busy myself with the notepad and recorder that I’m holding.
Yes, it’s analog but I’m set in my ways and I’m not going to change now that we finally have a big story.
A big story that I’m hearing half the town thinks is the work of a vampire.
Turns out my staff aren’t the only ones buying into the vampire shit.
Josie gives me a ‘yeah fucking right’ face but she doesn’t say a word. Smart woman. She knows I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with the vampire talk.
While we wait for Sherrif Dayton to come out, I tune into the conversations around me and sure enough it’s vampire central.
“What the hell bit him?”
“A vampire did. You saw the photos.”
What the fuck? How many people saw those photos? Is the morgue running some kind of snuff ring? I make a note to stay far away from knowing how Mary is getting her info and move onto the next conversation.
“It’s a vampire. You mark my words. They’ve come back.”
Come back? I turn to look around me, trying to figure out who said that but I can’t tell if it was coming from behind me or beside me.
Damn. I think I figure it out when I spot a curly-headed old woman whispering to her husband to the right of me but when I start to push my way towards them Sheriff Dayton emerges from the bowels of the city hall’s offices and takes the stage.
Sheriff Dayton, the perpetual bachelor, is an alright guy.
He went to school with my dad. We used to have him over for barbecues and sometimes Christmas when he didn’t want to spend it alone.
Christmas was a big to-do in those days.
All the holidays were. They had to be if they were being hosted at Vesper House.
Before the night I killed Mike, Sheriff Dayton hadn’t set foot in Vesper House since my parents’ wake when I was twelve.
He was good to me when I blew up my life.
I think he’s one of the main reasons I didn’t go to jail, not with the way he argued that there was no way I could have overpowered Mike if it wasn’t life or death, and it was life and death.
Sheriff Dayton said so when he took the witness stand.
“She’s just a woman on her own. You think she wanted that fuck in her house? She did what she needed to and now she’s here and he’s not. End of story.”
I watch him now. He’s doing his best to look calm and collected which is a bad sign. Sheriff Dayton is always cool and calm, there’s not an excitable bone in the man’s body. He’s on an even keel, rocky waters or not Sheriff Dayton never shows it.
Except for now.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for gathering here on such short notice. It’s good to see your faces, though I wish it was on a more joyous occasion.
” Sheriff Dayton smiles but his eyes are somber.
“We lost a good man. I’d like to take a moment of silence to remember Father Paretti before we begin. ”
A hush thick as a wool blanket falls over the crowd and we all bow our heads. Sheriff Dayton wasn’t lying, Father Paretti was a good man. Good enough to let a sinner like me confide in him.
But you confided in his killer, not him, I remind myself.
All of this is a mess.
I probably did. Jesus.
You have to tell Sheriff Dayton.
The thought of telling him what I think happened is strong but if I do that, I already know what his first question will be.
“What were you doing there at midnight, Maris?”
And if he asks that, they’re going to know it was me when Brian doesn’t turn up for work, when he doesn’t pick up his phone or show his face at the bar. When they realize he’s missing they’ll know it was me if I admit I was there.
No fucking way.
“Amen,” Sheriff Dayton says into the mic and the rest of us repeat it back like the good townsfolk Sheriff Dayton thinks we are. Was I ever good? I don’t know. Maybe before my parents died, before I lost granny. Maybe I was good and not faking it.
“At approximately midnight on the night before last, Father Paretti passed from this world at St. Edwards. He was discovered yesterday morning at roughly five am by the morning cleaning crew. We have reason to believe foul play was involved in this tragedy. We have ruled it as a homicide.”
Instantly the room starts buzzing. Foul Fucking Play.
It’s not hearsay anymore, or a rumor or whatever urban legend the morgue and the rest of town think happened. It’s real. Father Paretti was murdered. It’s real and I was there at midnight. That means whoever killed him was still there in the confessional booth with his body.
The killer was the midnight confessor.
My confessor.