The Sanctity of Sloth Read online

  Carlos dropped to his knees and shined the light into the black hole they should have been covering. He examined the far wall, the right, across the center of the space to the left corner. Nothing. No mattress. No camp toilet.

  Could they be against the closest wall? There were blind spots on each side of the opening. The only way he could be sure was to go inside. He shivered. As much as Abby liked small hiding places, that's how much he didn't like them.

  He lay on his belly and pushed his upper body into the hole. His shoulders stuck. He broke into a sweat, twisted onto his back, and shoved.

  His upper half popped into the anchorhold like a baby being born. He wriggled his lower body through and sat up. Moonlight streamed across the floor, shining on the area he hadn't been able to see from outside. It was no good. The mattress and toilet were gone. He stood and made a slow revolution. The anchorhold was clean.

  The police must have found it. That had to be why Sylla questioned Paul about its construction. Carlos stepped to the squint and looked out. He could see why she was interested. It was a perfect spot to see and not be seen.

  This had been Abby's only view for a month. He couldn't imagine it. The idea of willingly walling himself in was beyond him. But looking through this window made him understand her in a way he never had before. If Abby was willing to limit her life to this small opening for six weeks, he had to rethink his attitude toward the book. It was more important to her than he'd realized.

  Abby tried to see the world from other people's perspectives. She loved history. She loved to read, especially authors from different cultures. She'd learned about flowers to understand him better. What had he done to get into her world?

  He'd tuned out whenever she talked about anchorites and retreats and society's problems. If it wasn't interesting to him, he didn't listen. Abby did. She was thoughtful, caring. His opposite in almost every way. He was outgoing, always had lots of friends. She was shy and reserved.

  He was two years older than her, so they'd been in high school at the same time, but he'd never noticed her. The first time he'd seen her, really seen her, was a little over two years ago.

  He'd walked into a friend's backyard barbecue beer bash, and there she was leaning against the fence at the far side of the yard. She wasn't talking to anyone. She wasn't with a group. She was alone watching the party. He'd never understood the expression "alone in a crowd" until he'd met Abby.

  She'd won his attention that night because she wasn't trying to. Most of the girls he'd dated since college needed attention the way a junkie needs a fix. Those relationships never lasted.

  Abby had a quiet beauty. Her light brown hair was so soft it seemed to float around her head. She had the most incredible eyes he'd ever seen, brown with bits of gold in them. How had he missed those eyes in high school? She looked like an angel. He'd asked her out that night, and they'd dated ever since.

  He'd call her in the morning. Tell her the police found the anchorhold. They'd have to come up with a story. Together. Get Paul on board. And soon, when this was over, he'd bring up marriage again.

  He left the hold the same way he'd entered, pushing and wriggling and sweating. He breathed a sigh of relief when he was out in the open again. He gathered the things he'd brought, useless now, and carried them to the wall. He climbed to the top, stayed there long enough to be sure no one was around, tossed his things onto the sidewalk, and clambered over.

  It was one o'clock by the time he got to bed. He had to get up the next morning at 4:30 to meet with his guys, make sure they had their assignments for the day, and the trucks loaded the way they should be. But he couldn't sleep.

  His mind was racing. Paul had built the room. No one denied that. And Carlos was pretty sure he'd read somewhere the Swallows Nest exhibit was designed to be a temporary structure. Paul had just altered it so that it would last, become a permanent part of the museum grounds. That's what they'd said. That's the story they'd stick to. The police couldn't prove anything else. His breathing slowed and deepened.

  Just as he was nodding off, another thought shot through his mind. He sat up. Fingerprints. Abby's fingerprints had to be on the camp toilet. She worked at a school, so they were on file.

  How would they explain that? The only thing he could think of was the truth—a truth Abby didn't want to tell. Carlos lay down, stared at the ceiling, and began arranging and rearranging facts like they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. But no matter how many different ways he put them together, they always made the same picture. He didn’t get much sleep after that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 8:25 AM

  The Wife

  I FINISHED MY second cup of coffee, rinsed my cup, and let it air dry on the dish drainer. Sunlight beamed low through the slats of the window blind. I'd gotten up before the family so I could have some quiet time. I'd reacted instinctively when I'd heard my son had been seen. I'd panicked. It had taken me several days to calm down and think things through. But I had.

  Seb was right about one thing, Paul Travers did have to be taken care of. He'd seen our son. My son. If my husband's idiocy was discovered by the police, my family would be destroyed. I couldn't allow that. But Seb wouldn't take care of the problem, and the job had been left to me.

  Paul Travers wasn't our only problem however. There was another, possibly larger, threat—Seb Skandalis himself. I didn't trust the man. He had proven to be both cruel and incompetent, not the kind of man I'd choose to get in bed with. Figuratively speaking, of course.

  How to deal with him was a thornier puzzle than the first. Poor Paul Travers wasn't a criminal. Therefore, he didn't think like one. He was as vulnerable as a yearling lamb.

  But Seb Skandalis was a different kind of animal. He was a predator. He understood danger, because he was dangerous.

  My husband wasn't out of bed yet. This was unusual, but everything had been unusual since the night he brought Hannah to our home. The past few days, while I thought, he'd staggered through life.

  Seb's sloppy attempt at Paul Travers's life had only complicated things. It had revived the police's interest in what had been quickly becoming a cold case. I mean really, who cares about a girl with no name, no identity? A girl no one is looking for?

  It wasn't even murder. The authorities took their time with the autopsy, but finally announced she'd died of an advanced case of tuberculosis. My husband's decision to leave her out in the cold had hastened her death, but it was inevitable. A fact I found fortifying, if not exactly comforting. But, regardless, Paul Travers's accident had caused the authorities to take another look at the Mission.

  My husband dragged into the kitchen and fell into a chair. He looked terrible. His hair was slick with grease, his complexion gray. The pressure had taken its toll on him. Strangely, I felt exhilarated. I'm not saying I'm glad it happened. Certainly, Hannah's death was a tragedy. But this threat to my family awakened something in me I hadn't known existed.

  "Do you have coffee made?" His voice was wan and impotent. I poured him a cup and brought it to him.

  "You're not going to work today?" I said.

  "No. I called in sick." He barked a pathetic cough as if to demonstrate.

  "Good. I have something else for you to do." His head shot up—the first rapid movement I'd seen from him in days. "You said Seb was a bachelor, correct?" He nodded, his eyes becoming suspicious slits. "He lives alone?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "And he's at work today?"

  He lifted his shoulders in a tense shrug. "How would I know?"

  "You could call the office, then you would know."

  "Why would I do that?"

  I explained to him the conclusions I'd drawn after studying the situation. "If we had something on Seb, it would neutralize the information he has on us," I concluded.

  "But we have nothing on Seb. Nothing but our word against his."

  "Then we need to get something."

  I opened the refrigerator and remove
d two eggs and a loaf of bread. I didn't want to send him on my errand with an empty stomach. "You mentioned that Seb had a couple of passports with photos of girls who looked like Hannah."

  "Yes. I saw one when I picked her up from him. I only got a quick glance, but I could see the girl wasn't her. Very similar, but not her."

  "We need that passport."

  He spent some time blowing on his coffee and taking tentative sips. He was thinking, which wasn't good for either of us. He made a show of setting his mug down. There was a modicum of the old, authoritative air in the gesture. "And just how do you propose we get it?"

  "You go to his house and find it. Today. While he's at work."

  His eyes grew wide. "You're mad. How would I get inside? Where would I look if I did get inside? What if he came home while I was searching? This is the wildest idea you've had yet."

  I sat in the chair opposite him, leaned onto my elbows and brought my face close to his. "Our son can and does break into our home regularly. He is always forgetting his house keys. If a teenage boy can break into a house, surely a grown man can do the same."

  He stared at me.

  "You look for an open window. You bring a credit card and shimmy it into a side door lock. I don't care how you do it, but you do it. Then you find the passport and bring it home to me."

  He retreated as from me as far as his chair allowed. "If I do this, Seb will know. He won't be happy."

  "Seb Skandalis will always be a part of our lives if you don't. Don't you see that?"

  The small bit of spine my husband had displayed crumbled. He deflated into his chair. "What do you mean?"

  "He will hold your stupid mistake over your head as long as you live. You are his. He's already ordered you to kill a man. What will he ask of us next?"

  He gripped his hair and moaned. I loved my husband, I did. But at that moment I despised him. My hand snapped forward of its own accord. A slap rang in my ears. Stinging needles pricked my palm. I'd hit him.

  I was as surprised as he was, but it did the job. The moan cut off. His arms dropped onto the table.

  "Stop whining. I'll clean up after you and Skandalis for our son's sake." My voice was a hiss. "But we need to arm ourselves against that man. If you take the passport, he may know who did it, but he won't know where it is. I'll hide it somewhere he won't find it. And then we negotiate. We assure him, we're no threat to him as long as he is no threat to us."

  "You don't know him. He's not a nice man."

  "He doesn't know me." I rose and turned on the flame under the frying pan. "Go call his office and get dressed. I'll make you something to eat before you go."

  He left the kitchen, his movements less sloth-like than when he'd entered. Although he'd never admit it, I could see he felt better already. Direction, a strong hand, that's what he needed. I cracked the eggs into the pan.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 10:35 AM

  American families have been known to make untold sacrifices in the hopes their child would win a role on a reality show. They tear up their homes both literally and figuratively so they can be mended while the nation watches. These shows demean the participants in the name of entertainment.

  This unhealthy penchant for abasing ourselves publicly to win approval isn't unique to our day and age. Saint Wiborada's agony was also put on parade. She accompanied her brother Hatto when he entered the Benedictine Monastery of St. Gall. After several years in service there, she desired to become an anchoress. Whether she was accused of a scandal, or had to prove her worthiness for some other reason, the leaders required her to endure a trial by fire before they gave their permission.

  The most common method was to force the person to walk nine feet over red-hot plowshares, or walk the same distance holding a hot iron. The wound was then bandaged. Wiborada was allowed to enter her cell because the burn healed. If it had festered, she would have been pronounced guilty.

  The public is a hard taskmaster, so why do we crave its attention?

  From the first draft of She Watches - An Anchoress Perspective by Abigail Travers

  ***

  AFTER SETTLING HER father in front of the TV with a plate of scrambled eggs and toast, Abby poured herself a cup of coffee and sat to write. She didn't want to. The project had taken on the ambiguous, unpleasant aura of a bad dream. When she thought about it, a rush of anxiety, guilt, and other negative emotions she couldn't name flooded through her. She had begun to associate the book with the dead girl, her father's accident, danger, and Sylla's suspicions.

  Writing is work. Writing doesn't have to flow. Writing has to be done. Do it.

  She'd start with the story of Christina of Markyate. It had a fairy tale quality that had always captivated her. She flipped open her laptop and eased herself into the book.

  About a half hour later, rapping on the front door jarred her from her work. She sat, confused for the moment it took to time travel forward from the Middle Ages. The rapping came again. Someone was impatient. She stood, the knocks like shots from a repeating rifle assaulting the door as she made her way. Cold began at her core and seeped outward to her limbs. Something was wrong.

  Sylla stood on the porch, two uniformed officers behind her. Her face was calm. Expressionless, until a closed lip smile cracked the mask. "Is your father in?"

  "Of course." Abby sounded defensive even though she'd done nothing wrong. She adjusted her tone. "He's in the living room. May I help you?"

  "I'd like to speak to him."

  "He's still recovering."

  "Abby, who's there?" Her father's voice boomed.

  "Sounds as if he's on the mend," Sylla said.

  Did Abby hear menace in her voice? Warning bells went off in her head. She wanted to barricade the door, but she stepped back and let the officers enter.

  "Detective Sylla, good to see you. Any news on the driver?" Her father was oblivious to the clamor inside Abby's brain. Why didn't he hear and feel the danger in the air?

  "No news yet." Sylla angled herself between him and the TV. He reached the remote around her, switched it off, and tipped his head to one side like a dog expecting a treat. An unexpected wave of love crashed over Abby. A fierce desire to protect him came with it. But protect him from what?

  The police were their allies, their defenders. Civil servants sworn to protect the innocent. And he was an innocent. He saw the best in everyone whether they deserved it or not. But the way Sylla stood before him now reminded her of a mountain lion preparing to attack.

  "I need you to come down to the station with me," she said.

  "He can't. He's not well enough," Abby said.

  "I don't know what more I can tell you." Her father's brow furrowed, as if he only now sensed the current in the room.

  "It's not about the accident."

  "What is it about?" he said.

  But Abby knew. It was about the anchorhold. Maybe they suspected him of building it to spy on tourists like some twisted voyeur. Maybe it was because they thought he'd lied about the night the girl died, that he'd seen the men up close, from the hold.

  "I'd rather talk about it at the station," Sylla said.

  "We can't discuss it here?"

  "No."

  "He's not well enough." Abby moved into the tight space between Sylla and her father.

  Sylla shifted her weight onto one hip. "I only need a statement. I'm not putting him on a chain gang."

  "I'm fine." He grabbed Abby's arm and used it to heft himself from the chair. "Just let me get some shoes on."

  "I'll help you." Abby shot Sylla a cold look and followed her father into the bedroom. "Listen." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Carlos went to the Mission last night to get the camp toilet and my bedroll. He was going to grout the stones in place while he was there. I don't know what happened though. I haven't spoken to him."

  Her father's eyebrows raised. Abby knelt and held a shoe while he shoved his foot in. "I think this is about the anchorhold. If it is,
if they know someone was living there, tell them it was me. We can't keep this going any longer. I'll talk to them. Show them my manuscript. We've got to come clean."

  Pain creased his face, and he exhaled. She waited until it passed and helped him with the other shoe. "I don't want you taking the blame for anything anymore. I know we'll have to admit you lied to them, but I'll explain. I'll tell them I coerced you. You did it for me."

  She felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder. "Let's not jump the gun, okay, honey? I'll go down there. I'll see what they want. And we'll figure it out from there."

  "I'm going with you."

  "How are we doing?" Sylla leaned into the doorway.

  "I'm ready," he said.

  "I'm coming." Abby rose to her feet.

  "Suit yourself." The investigator shrugged.

  An image of her father getting into the back of a cop car out in front of the house, where the neighbors could see, crashed into Abby's mind. "I'll drive him."

  Sylla paused, shrugged, then walked out of the doorway.

  "Your sweater, Dad." Abby lifted it from the back of a chair and shoved it into his hands. She followed him to the front door, sputtering a steady stream of words. She wished she could stop, but worry and guilt had overflowed the banks of her heart and there was no damning them up. "Let me just get your antibiotics. You have to take another one in an hour. I'll bring a snack too. So you don't have to take them on an empty stomach."

  She stood in the kitchen window watching the black and white traverse the driveway and her father head to her car. She felt numb, useless. She'd gather his things and bring him to the station. It was all she could do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 12:35 PM

  WHY WOULDN'T ABBY answer? Carlos stared at the phone. She should be waiting for his call. She knew he was going to the Mission to clear out the anchorhold. Didn't she want to know what happened?