"Purge the Evil" - a novel

by Bill Dunn

(Note: this is a work-in-progress attempt at writing a novel. Feedback, critiques, plot suggestions are more than welcomed.)
 

CHAPTER 28

Sunday, November 21st, 6:15 p.m.

            Mrs. Elizabeth Cavanaugh finished setting the table in her modest two-bedroom cape. She checked to see if the green beans were done. The turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes were all set, sitting on plates under layers of aluminum foil. This would be the first time in many, many months that both of her sons would be over for Sunday dinner. They used to visit the home in which they grew up almost every week for Sunday dinner.

            Problems began when her younger son, Michael the police officer, got divorced four years ago, a minor scandal in Mrs. Cavanaugh’s view. But then he turned the situation into a major scandal when he began to “live in sin” with a floozy hairdresser almost ten years his junior.

            At that point, Mrs. Cavanaugh did not actually tell her son he was no longer welcomed in the house. She didn’t have to. The look of pure disgust, shame, and anger on her face when he dared to bring the hussy into her home—under the very roof the saintly Daniel Patrick Cavanaugh, Sr., worked himself to death to provide—communicated the message quite clearly.

            The boys were coming over this evening because her older son, Daniel Jr., the priest, had begged her to host an early Thanksgiving dinner for the brothers. “Ma, Mike has to work on Thanksgiving Day.” “C’mon, isn’t it time to reconcile?” “Please Ma, it would mean so much to him—and me.” Finally the priest had to play his trump card: “Listen Ma, do you think Jesus would hold a grudge like this, huh? I don’t think so, and I should know, because, Ma, in case you forgot, I’m a priest.”

            She had replied after a long silence, using her exquisitely perfected martyr-mother mannerisms: “Fine, if it will make you happy…” delivered as one long sigh. All-the-while she thought to herself, Jesus most certainly would hold a grudge. Divorce? Adultery? What scandal! What shame! What sin! Unforgiveable, that’s what it is!

            After getting his mother to relent, Fr. Dan excitedly called Mike with the good news, then was ready to jump off a bridge when the detective said, “No way! I don’t need extra stress in my life. I’ve got enough already!”

            Eventually, after much pleading and weeping and gnashing of teeth, the family dinner was agreed to and arranged. Earlier in the evening Mike picked up Fr. Dan at the church rectory in his Crown Victoria, and the two brothers made the ten-minute drive in silence to the Cavanaugh homestead.

            The dinner went reasonably well. The three Cavanaughs exchanged polite pleasantries and did their best to ignore the 800-pound gorilla in the room, the huge “Scarlet A” that dominated Mrs. Cavanaugh’s opinion of her younger son. Only twice during the evening did she pause, gaze at a photo on the wall of her only two grandchildren, now forever exiled in Phoenix, and let out a mournful sigh.

            After they ate, as Mrs. Cavanaugh cleaned up in the kitchen, Fr. Dan and Mike had a moment to relax with coffee at the dining room table. “So I hear you have yet another murder,” Fr. Dan said. The priest did not know exactly how the bizarre confession he heard the previous day factored in to the situation, if at all. Frankly, he didn’t know what to think about any of it.

            “Unbelievable,” Mike replied. “Four shootings in four weeks in our quiet little suburban town. That’s insane. And again we have no arrests, no suspects, and hardly any leads to follow. I tell you, big bro’, right now it’s about as stressful and uncomfortable down at headquarters as it is…um, in this house.”

            Fr. Dan chuckled. “Yeah, I bet it’s pretty tense over there,” he said.

            “This last one, though,” Mike continued, “was different than the first three. This time the victim was not a criminal. He was a hard-working, law-abiding citizen. But he did have a real loser for a brother. And he was driving his brother’s car when he got shot. It’s almost like…I dunno, almost like someone went after the wrong guy.”

            The wrong guy? Fr. Dan thought. What had he hear in the confessional? “It was really the wrong…” Fr. Dan felt a shiver go up his spine. Did I hear the confession of the person who committed this last murder?! Wow. And who can I tell about it? Well, obviously no one. I’m sworn to secrecy.

            “What’s the matter, Danny? You don’t look so good.”

            “Um, nothing,” the priest answered. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

            “Yeah, me too,” the cop said. “You won’t believe this, but I’m starting to think all that crazy talk about vigilantes isn’t so crazy after all.”

            “Really? I thought you said there was no way that was true.”

            The cop shrugged.

            “Well, what are you thinking now?” Fr. Dan asked.

            “I dunno,” Mike said. “I guess it’s just a nagging feeling at this point. I can’t even call it a real hunch. But nothing fits the usual profile here. This last one, for example, in the condo parking lot, it really wasn’t a robbery, even though we told the press it probably was. The victim still had his wallet, cash, credit cards, and expensive watch on him. Nothing was stolen. He was just…just gunned down for no good reason—at least no reason we can figure out.”

            Mrs. Cavanaugh came into the dining room with a homemade pumpkin pie in one hand and a tub of Cool Whip in the other. “Who wants pie?” she asked. “It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without pie.”

            “Oh Ma,” Fr. Dan said. “I’m stuffed. I ate too much turkey, and I really should cut down on the desserts.”

            Mrs. Cavanaugh scowled at her oldest son. Mike noticed and quickly offered, “I’ll have a piece, Mom. I love your pie.”

            She smiled at her younger son, the first time she genuinely and warmly smiled at Mike in almost a year. The simple gesture made the cop’s night.

            “Here you go, Michael,” she said cheerfully as she handed him a slice of pie.

            “Remember how much Dad loved pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving?” Mike asked his mom. She smiled at him warmly for the second time in two minutes. The three Cavanaughs spent the next 45 minutes telling old familiar stories about Thanksgivings and Christmases past. The three people hadn’t felt this happy in many, many months.

#

On the ride back to the rectory, Mike said to his brother, “Thanks a lot, Danny. I thought it was going to be awful, but it turned out OK. No, better than OK.”

“You’re welcome,” the priest said. “It’s just not right for anyone to be estranged from his mom, you know?”

            “Yeah. Hey Dan,” Mike said, changing the subject, “I’ve got a question for you, a religious question.”

            “Religious question? You?” Fr. Dan said, genuinely surprised.

            “Yeah, me. Anyway, I was wondering, do you think it’s possible someone could be so fanatic about his religious faith, that he could do something completely evil, but think he’s doing something good, doing God’s will?”

            “Mike, you ever hear of 9-11? The terrorist attacks? Those guys thought they were doing God’s will.”

            “I know that, Danny,” the cop said. “I don’t mean those guys over there getting brainwashed in some radical country. I mean here in the U.S. Someone who is a Christian. You think it’s possible someone here could get so fanatical about God that he might, for example, think God is pleased when he, uh, kills a person?”

            Fr. Dan peered at his brother. “You, um, you have anyone in mind?”

            “Not really,” Mike answered. “I guess it’s a hunch—no, not even a hunch yet. I’m just kind of thinking outside the box, I suppose.”

            Mike steered the Crown Vic into the driveway between the rectory and the church. He drove to the back of the rectory and stopped the car by the kitchen door. Fr. Dan made no move to get out. “Well,” the priest said, thinking out loud and speaking slowly, “it’s not very common in this country, but there are some people who have killed abortion doctors or bombed clinics, and I guess they delude themselves into thinking God is pleased when they murder someone engaged in an evil activity. I dunno.”

            “Yeah, that’s right,” Mike said. “I hear about that stuff on the news once in a while. Hmm…”

            “Mike, tell me the truth,” Fr. Dan said. “What are you really thinking? Do you have someone in mind? I won’t tell anyone. Honest.” Fr. Dan was being much more inquisitive than usual, which surprised Mike. But the bizarre confession of the previous day, combined with the emotional rollercoaster of comforting Anna Rivera after the murder of her son, caused the priest to be overly nosy and pushy.

            “Well, like I said, Danny, I wouldn’t even call it a hunch yet. But a couple of times now—hey, you’re not gonna say anything about this, right?” The priest nodded. “A couple of times during these murder investigations,” the cop continued, “the name Wilkins Ford turned up.”

            “You mean the license plate?” Fr. Dan asked.

            “Yeah. Plus a different unrelated thing. So I did a little checking around, you see, and there’s this guy who works over there, and he’s a real religious fanatic. And I’m just kind of wondering about it at this point, that’s all.”

            “Hmm, is he Catholic?” the priest asked, wondering to himself whether it might have been the person who went to confession on Saturday.

            “No, why would you say that?” Mike answered. “He’s one of those born-again guys. He goes to church at the Faith Cathedral. You know, the big—”

            “Yeah yeah, I know,” Fr. Dan said abruptly. The priest was frustrated at being reminded of the successful congregation only a couple of miles away from his weak and faltering parish. Mike’s reply also puzzled Fr. Dan. The stranger he encountered in the confessional the day before was definitely a Catholic. A very lapsed and apparently very violent Catholic. But no member of Rev. Morton’s church would be caught dead in a Catholic confessional.

            The two men shook hands. Fr. Dan opened the car door. “I have no idea what to make of all this,” he said as he got out.

            “Me neither, big bro’,” Mike said. “Hey, thanks again. I appreciate all you did tonight.”

            Fr. Dan leaned down to look into the car. He smiled at his brother.

            “And I’m pretty sure,” Mike said confidently, “that Mom now likes me better than you!”

            “You knucklehead!” Fr. Dan exclaimed with a laugh. He shut the door and waved as his brother backed the car down the driveway. He let himself into the rectory through the kitchen door. All thoughts of strange confessions and police hunches and vigilante conspiracies and Anna Rivera emptied from his mind. Maybe it was the turkey, but all Fr. Dan wanted to do was collapse onto his bed and sleep for a week.

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