‘I’mgiving you a chance, Dad. You can bury her and you can pray over her. You can visit her as often as you want — something you never did while she was alive.’
‘This is madness,‘“Father Julian says.
‘ What other choice do you have? I have kept her for you to bury.
She is here, at your church. You cannot go to the police, because you can’t afford your parish to know she was your daughter. Or that you have others.’
‘Ihave no other children.’
‘You have me. All you can do now is bury her and pray and maybe we’ll talk about it next time.’
‘Next time?’
But the man doesn’t answer. The confessional door opens then closes. Father Julian cries out for the man to wait: there are footsteps, then nothing. A few seconds later the tape goes quiet, and ten seconds after that a new voice comes through the speaker, confessing to an attraction to somebody who isn’t his wife.
I rewind the tape and listen through it again. The words of Rachel’s killer are chilling and form knots in my stomach. Hearing them again is almost enough to take me there, to be inside that confessional booth. I wonder where Rachel’s body was left, whether she was placed on a pew or dumped on the doorstep.
I picture Father Julian cradling her, part of him wanting to call the police, a greater part not wanting his secrets exposed. He was a coward who could not betray the confessional, a coward who asked Bruce, his son, to bury the girls and to bury the truth.
I check the log and find the date the second girl went missing.
I start forwarding through the corresponding tape, going through snippets of dialogue until I hear the same voice. I rewind it a bit and find the beginning of the conversation.
‘You lied to me, Father.’
‘I lied to you how, my son ?’
‘My son? That’s very accurate, isn’t it.’
‘Oh my God.’
I pause the tape and check the time stamp against the log.
This time Father Julian has written down Luke Matthews. Last time it was Paul Peters. I check off the rest of the dates and find more names that stick out: John Philips and Matthew Simons.
Four names that are mixtures of names of the Apostles. Father Julian never wrote down his son’s real name. Did he not know it? Was it a son he paid child support to? Or one he completely abandoned?
‘I knew there were others. And now Julie is the second.’
‘What have you done?”Father Julian asks. ‘Did you know her?’
‘What have you done?’Father Julian repeats. ‘You probably never saw her, did you.’
‘No.’
‘Then thank me. You can give her the same burial you gave her sister. My sister.’
Father Julian starts to cry. His sobs through the tape are the hardest things I’ve ever had to listen to.
I press pause and go into the kitchen. I make some coffee.
Suddenly I don’t want to go back into my office. I don’t want to listen to the rest of the conversation. I just want to burn the tapes and drive to the nearest bottle store and immerse myself in the bourbon that has kept me so numb for the last month. Father Julian’s sobs have brought tears to my eyes. I close them and the tears break away and run down the sides of my face. I am almost with him as he listens. I know how he feels hearing for the first time his daughter is dead. I went through it once. He has gone through it twice. Did he go through it more than twice? I think he did. I think he went through it four times. Did it get easier or harder? Did it age him, did it break him, did it make him deny his God, or make his faith stronger? He could not break the confessional vow. Even when there was a pattern and he knew what was happening, he did not break it. He could break it to blackmail adulterers, but not to save his children. What twisted morals Father Julian had, but then churches are full of people preaching one thing and practising another. Every day he must have struggled with the man he was. Perhaps he didn’t want to struggle any more. He hadn’t been to his safety deposit box in the four weeks before he died. He knew the key was missing, and maybe he knew Bruce took it. Maybe he even figured out that it had been given to me. I think he knew that in some way this was coming to an end.
I don’t touch the coffee. I leave it on the bench and walk back to the office.
‘You can pray over them, Father. You can pray at the same time.’
‘How did you know she was your sister?’
‘Perhaps God can tell you.’
The confession ends. I find the third one, and match the time stamp to John Philips.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Father Julian asks as his son tells him he has met another of his sisters. ‘What did they do to you?’
‘It’s what they could have done.’
‘Why any of this? Why come here and tell me?’
‘Because you’re the only family I have.’
I keep listening. The dialogue is similar to the others. Father Julian’s sobs are just as loud. A name comes up. Jessica Shanks.
She was the third girl to have gone missing and the oldest. She was the one Father Julian started paying for in the beginning, five years before Rachel was born.
I stop the tape and find the last confession.