Reverend Joshua Padilla knew the officer who was stationed outside Basque’s door: Lyrie. He’d counseled him after he’d shot a gang member last year.
“Thorne told me I’m supposed to go in,” he said to Lyrie. “Talk to him. Before his surgery.”
“Why?”
“I guess he asked for me while he was at the slaughterhouse.”
“I’m not authorized to-”
“You know it’s protocol to let spiritual advisers speak with victims and injured suspects.”
“Yeah.” Lyrie rubbed his head. “Alright, look, there’s an FBI agent in there. Parker. The guy’s strapped to the bed. But she stays in the room.”
“I’m supposed to meet with people confidentially.”
“She stays, Padre.”
The tranquilizer. Use it if you need to. Get in, meet Basque, then get out.
“Alright.”
I heard heavy footsteps pounding around the corner behind me.
I looked back.
Ralph.
“Radio Ellen,” I called to him. “She’s at the room!”
He was quickly catching up with me. “I tried already. There’s interference here in the hospital.”
“Then let’s move.”
One hallway to go.
Lyrie introduced Joshua to Special Agent Parker and then left the room.
Joshua looked toward Basque, but his attention was immediately drawn to the television on the wall. There was a news report about the woman who’d been killed at the slaughterhouse.
A name flashed across the screen and the announcer said, “We’re getting unconfirmed reports that the victim’s name is Sylvia Padilla.”
Joshua froze.
He locked eyes with Basque and knew it was true.
Parker looked at Joshua oddly. “Didn’t Lyrie just say your last name is-”
But then her words were cut off as he jammed the needle fiercely into her neck and depressed the plunger. The tranquilizer kicked in almost immediately. He held one hand over her mouth and with the other he stopped her from reaching for her gun.
She faded and he lowered her to the floor.
He quickly checked-there was no lock on the door. He slid her body against it to slow anyone down who might try to interrupt him. After wedging her legs solidly in the nearby bathroom doorway, he turned a cart on its side and jammed it in to lock them in place. Nobody was going to get the hospital room’s door open without torquing Agent Parker’s spine.
Then Joshua turned to Basque, whose wrists and ankles were strapped to the bed.
The man’s jaw was broken so he couldn’t cry out for help.
His hands were restrained so he couldn’t hit the call button.
“You took Sylvia.” Joshua’s voice was trembling. “You killed my wife.” He produced the necrotome from its sheath.
Voices shouted in his head: You are beyond redemption, Joshua!
No! It’s not evil to pursue justice!
Basque just watched him. Didn’t struggle to get free. Didn’t look away.
You took care of your father, Joshua. You did what needed to be done. You’re good at doing what needs to be done.
He pulled up a chair beside the bed.
Ralph shouted down the hall for Lyrie to open Basque’s door, but when he tried, he was able to open it only far enough to get a hand inside.
Ralph beat me to the room. “I got it,” he told Lyrie.
But then he looked into the room. “It’s Ellen! She’s down!”
And that’s when I arrived.
Joshua heard Detective Bowers shout, “Padilla, stop! Get away from the bed!” Through the crack in the doorway he could see movement. He wasn’t sure how many people.
So this was it.
Endgame.
He tightened his grip on the handle of the necrotome, the “cutting instrument of the dead.”
Yes, he would do this for Sylvia.
Your father taught you what to do. This is your chance, just like you did in the cellar under the barn.
Bowers called again for him to stop, even as Joshua saw a massive arm squeeze through the crack in the door, clutch Agent Parker’s armpit, and begin to lift her from the floor.
Ralph gritted his teeth, shoved his other hand through the crack as well so he could get a better grip on Ellen’s limp body.
He managed to get her high enough to free her legs, then he leaned heavily against the door.
Joshua had the necrotome raised when the door swung open. Lyrie stepped forward to support Parker, and the enormous guy who’d lifted her whipped out a Glock, aimed it at Joshua. “Move away from the bed!”
“Listen to him!” It was Bowers again. He stood in the doorway beside the big guy. “Back away.”
The evil which I would not.
That I do.
In an instant, the rest of the passage came to him, the conclusion St. Paul had reached, the one Reverend Tate had mentioned in his prayer at the funeral: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord,” and Joshua thought of his wife dying at the hand of this man now lying in front of him, and he thought of redemption and sin and hope and eternity. He had, all of his life, wanted to find God’s forgiveness, and now he was sure he never would.
“Step back!” Ralph bellowed, moving into the room.
“Get back, Joshua!” I yelled. “Now!”
“No murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” Those words raced through Joshua’s mind, chased by the ones from Reverend Tate’s homily, “Let us take responsibility for our sins…Let us trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the one whose blood cleanseth us from all sin.”
The blood.
Always the blood.
And that cleansing was what Joshua yearned for, even as he said to Basque, “A shedder of blood shall die,” and then he thrust the necrotome deep into the man’s abdomen.
But that was the last thing he ever did. Because Special Agent Ralph Hawkins fired three shots in quick succession and Joshua Padilla dropped dead to the floor and entered eternity.
For the reckoning.
Ralph lowered his gun.
The knife handle jutted from Basque’s abdomen.
“We need a doctor in here!” I yelled. “Now!”
TWO DAYS LATER
Friday, November 21
The Coffeehouse