Cloaked in Blood by LS Sygnet

punishment.”
    “Would you like to confess your sins, my
son?”
    He nodded.  Johnny began the
recitation, from his little white lies, to looking the other way
when he suspected that Salvatore Masconi had been murdered. 
“And then there was the thing last fall.”
    “God loves you.  You know this. 
But for peace, you need to confess, to receive the benefit of his
blessing.  He must carry your burdens.”
    Johnny sighed again.  “I made sure
someone who was guilty of unspeakable crimes would be punished, and
someone who simply overreacted to abuse found peace.”
    “That hardly sounds like sin.”
    “Even if the punishment is for a crime the
man didn’t commit?”
    “Ah,” the priest said.  “As I said,
God’s ways are not ours, or even comprehensible to us.  There
are times when I wonder at his methods when it seems that the
guilty suffer no consequences, my son, and other days when I come
to understand that even though men think they have evaded justice,
no one can escape the final judgment.  There are no legal
loopholes in the afterlife.”
    “So you’re saying that even if God forgives
me, I’m still damned.”
    “Not at all.  You’ve confessed your
sins.  And for all we know, you were the tool that God used to
exact his justice in this life.  As you said, man’s justice
fails.  We cannot escape God’s plan, no matter how much we
might wish to do so.”
    Johnny nodded.  “To be fair, this man
who was arrested, it doesn’t look like he’s even going to be
prosecuted for what I thought he’d face.  In fact, a far worse
crime was exposed.”
    “God’s will,” the priest said.  “Go in
peace, my son.  Your sins are forgiven.”
    “No atonement?”
    “I think your sense of guilt and shame have
been punishment enough, but if they continue to plague you, perhaps
we could talk again.  I’m here, in the confessional every
morning.  And God is always with you.”
    Johnny nodded and slipped out of the
confessional.
     
     
    Wendell waited five minutes before pushing
the door open a crack.  A man in a monk’s robes lurked in the
shadows across the room.  He stepped out of the confessional
and swiftly strode to the doors of Saint Agnes and barred the
entry.
    The monk’s hood flipped back and Datello
stared at him.  “What are the odds that he would show
up here?”
    Wendell grinned.  “I chose this parish
because it was once the place Johnny attended regularly when he was
a young man.  Knowing him as I do –”
    Datello’s snort interrupted.  “You know Johnny Orion?”
    “As a matter of fact, I do.  Not only
have we met face to face and spoken over the telephone, I’ve been
building a dossier on the man since my fortuitous death.  Like
it or not, Danny, my daughter’s husband truly is one of the good
guys, and if you doubt me, let me remind you that your uncle’s
dealings with terrorists were exposed because Johnny is a
good man.”
    “He’s been trying to put me in prison for
years,” Datello snarled.
    “A misunderstanding, one that we shall count
on Helen to rectify, but only if your continued existence is
exposed.”
    “What makes you think she won’t run straight
to him when she finds out I’m still alive?”
    Wendell laughed.  “You really don’t
know Helen at all.  How do you think I managed to get out of
Attica?”
    Danny’s eyebrows rose.  “Helen?”
    “She got the ball rolling, provided a way
out that I and someone who has helped me from the outside for years
couldn’t quite manage to plan.  And Johnny thought she’d been
abducted again because that’s what Helen let him believe. 
Trust me.  She understands that keeping secrets is often
necessary.  When I convince her that she made a mistake about
you, she’ll be helpful.”
    “Your daughter isn’t exactly the type of
woman to darken the doorway of a church, let alone a confessional,”
Datello observed dryly.  “Or haven’t you learned that in all
of this extensive research of