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CHAPTER 1
It was hotter than hell inside the confessional A thick black curtain, dusty with age and neglect, covered the narrow opening fro of the box to the scarred hardwood floor, blocking out both the daylight and the air
It was like being inside a coffin soainst the wall, and Father Thomas Madden thanked God he wasn’t claustrophobic He was rapidly becoh The air was heavy and ripe withas labored as when he was back at Penn State running that last yard to the goalposts with the football tucked neatly in his ars then, and he certainly didn’t mind it now It was all simply part of the job
The old priests would tell hiatory Toh he wondered how his ownto relieve anyone else’s
He shifted position on the hard oak chair, fidgeting like a choirboy at Sunday practice He could feel the sweat dripping down the sides of his face and neck into his cassock The long black robe was soaked through with perspiration, and he sincerely doubted he s soap he’d used in the shower this
The temperature outside hovered between ninety-four and ninety-five in the shade of the rectory porch where the thermostat was nailed to the ashed stone wall The humidity made the heat so oppressive, those unfortunate souls ere forced to leave their air-conditioned homes and venture outside did so with a slow shuffle and a quick temper
It was a lousy day for the compressor to bite the dust There s in the church, of course, but the ones that could have been opened had been sealed shut long ago in a futile atteold, doels Gabriel and Michael holding glea up toward heaven, a beatified expression on his face, while Michael scowled at the snakes he held pinned down at his bare feet The colored ere considered priceless, prayer-inspiring works of art by the congregation, but they were useless in co the heat They had been added for decoration, not ventilation
To lory days, but he was cursed with baby sensitive skin The heat was giving hihs, revealing the yellow and black happy-face boxer shorts his sister, Laurant, had given his, and popped a piece of Dubble Bubble into his mouth
An act of kindness had landed hi for the test results that would determine if he needed another round of cheuest of Monsignor McKindry, pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Church The parish was located in the forgotten sector of Kansas City, several hundred miles south of Holy Oaks, Iohere Tonated by a fornor always took Saturday afternoon confession, but because of the blistering heat, his advanced age, the broken air conditioner, and a conflict in his schedule—the pastor was busy preparing for his reunion with two friends from his seminary days at Assumption Abbey—Tom had volunteered for the duty He had assumed he’d sit face-to-face with his penitent in a room with a couple of s open for fresh air McKindry, however, bowed to the preferences of his faithful parishioners, who stubbornly clung to the old-fashioned way of hearing confessions, a fact Tom learned only after he’d offered his services, and Lewis, the parish handyman, had directed him to the oven he would sit in for the next ninety minutes
In appreciation Monsignor had loaned hihly inadequate, battery-operated fan that one of his flock had put in the collection basket The thing was no bigger than the size of a le of the fan so that the air would blow directly on his face, leaned back against the wall, and began to read the Holy Oaks Gazette he’d brought along to Kansas City with him
He turned to the society page on the back first, because he got such a kick out of it He glanced over the usual club news and the se—and then he found his favorite column, called “About Town” The headline was always the saame The nuht was reported along with the names of the winners of the twenty-five-dollar jackpots Intervieith the lucky recipients followed, telling what each of them planned to do with his or her windfall And there was always a coanized the weekly event, about what a good time everyone had To, secretly had a crush on Rabbi Dave, a er, and that hy the bingo game was so pro every week, and Toether on Wednesday afternoons Since Dave usually beat the socks off hi to divert attention froame
The rest of the colu everyone in town knoas entertaining co them If the news that as hard to come by, Lorna filled in the space with popular recipes
There weren’t any secrets in Holy Oaks The front page was full of news about the proposed town square develop one-hundred-year celebration at Assumption Abbey And there was a niceout at the abbey The reporter called her a tireless and cheerful volunteer and went into so all the projects she had taken on Not only was sh
e going to organize all the clutter in the attic for a garage sale, but she was also going to transfer all the information from the old dusty files onto the newly donated computer, and when she had a fewthe French journals of Father Henri VanKirk, a priest who had died recently To testimonial to his sister Laurant hadn’t actually volunteered for any of the jobs She just happened to be walking past the abbot at the racious to a fault, she hadn’t refused
By the ti the rest of the Gazette, his soaked collar was sticking to his neck He put the paper on the seat next to hi shop fifteen minutes early
He gave up the idea almost as soon as it entered his mind He knew that if he left the confessional early, he’d catch hell fronor, and after the hard day of manual labor he’d put in, he simply wasn’t up to a lecture On the first Wednesday of every third month—Ash Wednesday he silently called it—Tonor McKindry, an old, broken-nosed, crackled-skinned Irishet as much physical labor as he could possibly squeeze out of his houseguest in seven days McKindry was crusty and gruff, but he had a heart of gold and a compassionate nature that wasn’t compromised by sentimentality He firmly believed that idle hands were the devil’s workshop, especially when the rectory was in dire need of a fresh coat of paint Hard work, he pontificated, would cure anything, even cancer
So why he liked the nor so much or felt a kinship with him Maybe it was because they both had a bit of Irish in them Or maybe it was because the old man’s philosophy, that only a fool cried over spilled h more hardships than Job Tom’s battle was child’s play compared to McKindry’s life
He would do whatever he could to help lighten McKindry’s burdens Monsignor was looking forward to visiting with his old friends again One of them was Abbot James Rockhill, Tom’s superior at Assumption Abbey, and the other, Vincent Moreno, was a priest To at Mercy house with McKindry and Tom, for they much preferred the luxuries provided by the staff at Holy Trinity parish, luxuries like hot water that lasted longer than fiveTrinity was located in the heart of a bedroo Missouri froly referred to it as “Our Lady of the Lexus,” and froner cars parked in the church’s lot on Sunday ht on the mark Most of the parishioners at Mercy didn’t own cars They walked to church
Toan to rumble He was hot and sticky and thirsty He needed another shower, and he wanted a cold Bud Light There hadn’t been a single taker in all the while he’d been sitting there roasting like a turkey He didn’t think anyone else was even inside the church now, except maybe Leho liked to hide in the cloakroom behind the vestibule and sneak sips of rot whiskey from the bottle in his toolbox Tom checked his watch, saw he only had a couple of h He switched off the light above the confessional and was reaching for the curtain when he heard the swoosh of air the leather kneeler expelled eight was placed upon it The sound was followed by a discreet cough from the confessor’s cell next to him
Toum out of his mouth and put it back in the wrapper, then bowed his head in prayer and slid the wooden panel up
“In the naan in a low voice as he n of the cross
Several seconds passed in silence The penitent was either gathering his thoughts or his courage before he confessed his transgressions Tom adjusted the stole around his neck and patiently continued to wait
The scent of Calvin Klein’s Obsession carille that separated thenized because his housekeeper in Rone on his last birthday A little of the stuff went a long way, and the penitent had gone overboard The confessional reeked The scent, combined with the sh he were trying to breathe through a plastic bag His sto
“Are you there, Father?”
“I’m here,” Tom whispered “When you’re ready to confess your sins, you in”
“This isdifficult for iven absolution then Will you absolve me now?”
There was an odd, singsong quality to the voice and a er si ti deliberately irreverent?
“You weren’t given absolution?”
“No, I wasn’t, Father I angered the priest I’ll ry too What I have to confess willshock you Then you’ll becory like the other priest”
“Nothing you say will shock or anger me,” Tom assured him
“You’ve heard it all before? Is that it, Father?”
Before Tom could answer, the penitent whispered, “Hate the sin, not the sinner”
The in?”
“Yes,” the stranger replied “Bless me, Father, for I will sin”
Confused by what he’d heard, Torille and asked the man to start over
“Bless me, Father, for I will sin”
“You want to confess a sin you’re going to commit?”