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Joey exhaled explosively, then inhaled with a shudder "It’s my brother He killed her"
11
THERE WERE RATS IN THE CHURCH TWO FAT ONES SCUTTLED ALONG THE back of the sanctuary, squeaking, briefly casting elongated shadows, vanishing into a hole in the wall
"Your brother? PJ?" Celeste said in disbelief
Although she had been five years behind PJ in school, she kneho he was Everyone in Asherville and all the surrounding villages had known PJ Shannon even before he’d becoh, he had becoest quarterback in the history of the football team, a star player who had led his teammates to the divisional chaain, in his junior and senior years He was a straight-A student, valedictorian of his graduating class, huifts and achieve, funny
And theto reconcile with the body in the trunk: PJ was kind He gave a lot of time to charitable activities at Our Lady of Sorrows When a friend was ill, PJ was always first in attendance with a set-ishes If a friend was in trouble, PJ was at his side to provide whatever help he could Unlike many other jocks, PJ wasn’t cliquish--he was as likely to be found hanging out with the skinny, myopic president of the chess club as with members of the varsity tea and other cruelties in which popular, good-looking kids soed
PJ had been the best brother in the world
But he was also a brutal killer
Joey couldn’t reconcile those two facts It would’ve been easy to go
Re on his knees on the top altar step, Joey released the dead woman’s cold wrist From the touch of her flesh, in a manner al revelation He could have been no more profoundly affected if he had, instead, just now seen a Eucharist transformed from a wafer of unleavened bread into the sacred flesh of God
"PJ was home on a visit froe he’d landed a job as an editorial assistant at ato work there until he could get a foot in the door of the filether on Saturday, the whole fa, PJ was out all day, seeing old friends fro around a little to enjoy the fall foliage ’Taking a long, lazy nostalgia bath,’ he called it At least that hat he said he’d been doing"
Celeste turned her back to the altar platforer tolerate the sight of the dead woman or because she feared that PJ would creep back into the church and take them unaware
"We usually had Sunday supper at five o’clock, but Moet hoized, sha so much fun with his old friends, he’d lost track of ti out jokes, full of energy, as if being in his old sto kick and revitalized him"
Joey folded the loose flap of the plastic tarp over the dead wo obscene about her punctured hand being exposed on the altar, even if St Thomas’s had been deconsecrated
Celeste waited silently for hi back on it," he said, "a dark energy Right after dinner, he rushed down to his rooht up his suitcases and put the, because the weather was bad and he had a long drive back to New York, wasn’t likely to get there until two in theat the earliest But Dad didn’t want to see hiht out his scrapbooks about all those high-school and college football triuives me this wink, like to say, Hell, what’s another half hourrooh the scrapbooks, and I decided I could save PJ so his suitcases in the trunk of his car His keys were right there on the kitchen counter"
Celeste said, "I’m so sorry, Joey I’m so, so sorry"
He hadn’t becoht of the ht of what she’d suffered was enough to uish, and thicken his voice with grief, even though he didn’t knoho she was But he could not get up and turn his back on her For the htful place was on his knees at her side, that she deserved no less than his attention and his tears Tonight, he needed to be the witness for her that he had failed to be twenty years ago
How strange that he had repressed all memory of her for two decades--yet now, in this replay of that worst night of his life, she had been dead only a few hours
Whether by twenty years or by a few hours, however, he was too late to save her
"The rain had let up a little," he continued, "so I didn’t even bother to put on my hooded windbreaker Just snatched the keys off the counter, grabbed both suitcases, and took them out to his car It was parked behind uessto PJ, I don’t know, but so, and he left Dad with the scrapbooks to coet to me in time"
a thin but bitterly cold rain, the blood-filtered light fro there as if the whole world hasn’t just fallen apart, and Joey saying again, "I only wanted to help"
PJ is wide-eyed, and for an instant Joey wants desperately to believe that his brother is also seeing the woman in the trunk for the first tiot in there But PJ says, "Joey, listen, it isn’t what you think I know it looks bad, but it isn’t what you think"
"Oh, Jesus, PJ Oh, God!"
PJ glances toward the house, which is only fifty or sixty feet away, to be sure that neither of their parents has come out onto the back porch "I can explain this, Joey Give ive me a chance"
"She’s dead, she’s dead"
"I know"
"All cut up"
"Easy, easy It’s okay"
"What’ve you done? Mother of God, PJ, what’ve you done?"
PJ crowds close, corners hi Not anything I should rot in jail for"
"Why, PJ ? No Don’t even try You can’tthere can’t be a why, there can’t be a reason that makes any sense She’s dead in there, dead and all bloody in there"