Page 18 of The List
She was hard to figure. They’d been friends since grade school.
Riding bikes. Swimming in the lake. Playing as children and teenagers do.
Only during the last year had they become close, spending most of their time only talking.
Before tonight, there’d been no indication either wanted to burn the bridge from friendship to lovers.
She straddled his lap in the middle of the front seat, short shapely legs bent at the knees. He gripped her supple waist, his fingertips almost touching.
“What do you want, Brent Walker?”
She loved to ask questions like that, always more interested in others than herself.
It was one of the reasons he found her so fascinating.
She reveled in sharing dreams and aspirations.
Their conversations always steered toward where they’d be twenty years from graduation. She was so different from other girls.
“I want to be a lawyer,” he said.
“Since when?”
“Since a few days ago when I decided. You’re the first person I’ve told.”
“Going to defend the weak and protect the poor?”
He smiled, her dainty face only inches away. “Hardly. I’d like just to work in Concord and help out the people I know.”
She wiggled closer, her smell intoxicating. Lately, he even savored it when she wasn’t around. She kissed him again. Longer and harder than the first time.
“You know I love you.” Her voice was matter-of-fact.
“No… I didn’t know that.”
“You should.”
He wasn’t even sure what love meant. He certainly loved his mother and father, his aunts and uncles, his grandparents, and his cocker spaniel.
A few girls he’d cared for, but he’d never really considered the depth of his feelings beyond that.
Toward Ashley he certainly felt different.
Something about her he couldn’t explain.
Something he didn’t want to explain. But if love meant being able to speak his mind unabated, opening his heart, and not feeling ashamed about expressing genuine emotion, then maybe he might love Ashley Reed.
He kissed her again.
“I ought to kick your ass,” Ashley said, when they parted. “You’ve been home a whole day and not even one phone call.”
He smiled. She was as light as ever, her smell still familiar, a faint floral scent, like roses and jasmine combined. “I didn’t know postal regulations allowed wearing perfume.”
“I wore it for you. Figured I’d see you before the day was through.”
“You know you’re nothing but trouble.”
“Trouble you can’t live without.”
“You’re cocksure of yourself.”
She hopped down and stood on the street before him. “I’m staring forty-two dead down the barrel, but I’ve held up.”
She raised her arms and twirled around. Yes, she had.
Same happy eyes. Cheerleader freckles. And honey-colored hair cut boyishly short.
She didn’t look a whole lot different from when she used to flit down the halls of Woods County High, turning every head along the way.
That, and later visions of her, had stayed with him for years.
Now the apparition was live flesh and bones standing before him.
She stepped back close to the open car door. The smell returned, as certain as a new car and equally appealing. “I want you, Brent.”
And, God help him, he wanted her too.
But the guilt from Paula still haunted him. He heard again what she said the last day of her life. “ You love her? Don’t you? ” But before he could feel any worse, Ashley kissed him again, then asked, “So when do you plan to ask me out all proper and all?”
He smiled. Not a thing bashful about her. He vividly recalled the time, not long after college graduation, when they’d first made love. In Eagle Lake. Thrashing around like fish in heat. He’d worried the whole time someone would come along and catch them.
“You going to give me a chance to get situated?” he asked.
“Not much of one.”
Hell, what choice did he have? And did he really want one? “How about lunch tomorrow?”
“You got it.”
She backed away. “Right now, I gotta tend to my route. If I stay much longer we may end up in the back of that van.” A twinkle in her eye accompanied the observation. “No lunch break today. I’m getting off early. Papa Evans is going to be buried at two.”
“I heard Mr. Evans died.”
“He was old and frail. No surprise, really. But still awful. Gary asked me to go. He’s ripped up.”
Gary Evans had been her third husband, his father, Fred, her father-in-law for the short time that the marriage lasted. Papa was the nickname, though, everyone called him.
They talked a few minutes more, then she kissed him goodbye and drove off in the van. He hated to see her go.
She made him feel so good.
And so guilty.
5:46 P.M.
“P LEASE BLESS ME, F ATHER, FOR I HAVE SINNED, IT HAS BEEN A month since my last confession and these are my sins.”
Chris Bozin paused.
“Eight times I let my greed dominate the brotherly spirit I should show others. And I practiced deceit more than I should have.”
“Selfishness is a sin all of us are guilty of at one time or another,” the priest whispered, the face on the other side a shadow through the stitched screen.
“I’m afraid, Father, my sins are of a magnitude more grievous than you realize.”
“Neither Christ nor the church distinguishes among sins. To Our Lord the violation is identical, the penance the same.”
“I’m also afraid, Father, my time may be short.”
“In what way?”
“My health is failing.”
The priest offered no salience. “If such be the case there’s little you can do to affect it.”
“But there may be something I can do for my soul.”
“Do you do this simply because your time may be short?”
“I do it because my eternal soul deserves better than what my mortal consciousness has provided.”
“You do realize that mortal consciousness is a measure of the eternal soul.”
“But is not forgiveness the keystone of both the church and God?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then I seek absolution in the name of the Lord.”
“I absolve you of all your sins, including those of greed, selfishness, and vanity, you have committed during the past month. For your contrition please recite three Hail Marys and one Our Father. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you may go in peace.”
The priest slid the panel shut.
Chris reverently made the sign of the cross, said a quick Our Father, then slowly pulled himself up off his knees.
He was inside the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, which sat in the shadow of the Georgia state capitol, an olden brick-and-stone structure topped with spires, towers, and bells, one of the first Catholic churches built in Atlanta.
He’d been a regular attendee for over thirty years, turning to religion for some measure of serenity.
Surprisingly, though, he’d found a degree of personal satisfaction.
And through the years he’d willingly maintained his membership, becoming a prodigious contributor, his tithes legendary, all the priests becoming close friends.
The voice of the associate who just heard his confession was new, the young man obviously yet to hear about Christopher Bozin.
He slipped out of the confessional.
A young woman rose from the adjacent pews and approached.
He held the oak door open until she was inside, then crept toward the main altar, his steps cushioned by the crimson carpet runner.
High above, from the peaked central nave, murals of Christ and the Virgin Mary gazed down.
To his left, rows of tiny candles flickered from a side altar.
He knelt in the first row of pews and silently said the contrition of the four assigned prayers.
Then he sat, and quietly waited for the start of 6:00 mass.
7:05 P.M.
T HE C ADILLAC WOVE THROUGH EVENING TRAFFIC AND DREW TO A halt in front of the church. Slowly, Chris climbed into the back seat and sank into the soft leather. The car belonged to him, the driver one of four domestic aides he employed.
He lived in southwest Atlanta simply because Hamilton Lee and Larry Hughes lived toward the northeast, his home a three-story neoclassical mansion built to reflect a love of things Italian.
He’d modeled it after country estates visited in Tuscany, the main house perched among ten lush acres surrounded by sycamore trees and an eight-foot-high brick wall topped by sharpened wrought iron.
He’d incorporated all the required amenities.
A halo-shaped swimming pool, fountains adorned with Roman statues, and a beautifully manicured Italian garden that had won four Coweta County Garden Club awards.
He possessed no immediate family, his closest relatives a few nieces and nephews he rarely heard from.
Most people were nothing but passing acquaintances.
Occasionally a friendship would mature, none ever reaching the point of being close, though.
Only Nancy. They’d been together a long time.
He trusted her. Probably even loved her.
But he could never do anything about it.
How could he? Bad enough he lived with the knowledge of his evil ways, no way he could involve anyone else.
Instead, he opted for the solitude of his own thoughts and the occasional adulation others provided.
He maintained a reputation as a respected member of the chamber of commerce, past Rotarian, longtime Mason, and active church member.
Since he controlled Southern Republic’s purse strings he was the contact point for countless charities.
He gave yearly to the Heart Association, Cancer Society, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
His picture regularly appeared in newspapers, brochures, and magazines handing out check after check. All part of his crafted facade.
In reality, though, he was simply a cold-blooded killer.