Page 75 of Dead to Rites

When he finally spoke, his attention was fixed on the floor, his voice almost monotone, as though what he was describing were somehow detached from him, as if they were things another man had done in a different lifetime.

“I told Father Frank I’d give him anything. Money. A wing in Sacred Heart named after him. I told him I’d handle it and that I’d talk to Grandma and convince her to let it go. But he said it wasn’t his place to negotiate. He said Grandma’s soul was hers and the truth belonged to Tomás Padilla and his family. Then he said he wouldn’t break confidence, but he wouldn’t stop encouraging her, either. I told him she was ninety years old and didn’t have time to be ruined by the truth.” Something that might have been a chuckle emerged from Wes’s throat, rusty and raw. “Then Father Frank said the truth didn’t ruin people. He said the truth was what set them free. The guy was quoting Scripture at me.” He stopped there, gaze still fixed on the floor, on the Persian rug in soft pastels that covered the old oak boards. “I wanted to hit him,” he went on. “But I didn’t. I went home instead. Then I came back to Sacred Heart two days later and tried again. He was the same, still stubborn, still refusing to see what was actually the right thing to do. And the third time I went to him, I knew what I had to do.”

Meg made a small, almost whimpering sound. Finally, Wes raised his head and looked at her, and his face crumpled, even though he didn’t cry.

“Grandma, I didn’t want to. But I also couldn’t watch this destroy you and ruin whatever time you have left. I couldn’t.”

She stared at him. In a voice as papery and thin as the dead leaves that lay on the ground outside, she said, “Wesley, what did you do?”

He didn’t answer her, though. Instead, he looked over at me.

“How did you figure it out?”

“A lot of small things,” I replied. He hadn’t made any threatening moves, so I thought it was safe to talk. Maybe he wouldn’t pull anything with both his mother and his grandmother watching. At least, I really hoped he wouldn’t. “The break-in didn’t go too well for you — Mack Donovan saw you, even if you didn’t see him. And — ”

“Who the hell is Mack Donovan?” Wes demanded, and I realized I’d goofed.

Of course Wes couldn’t see Mack. No one could…except me.

“An old friend of Hazel’s,” I said hastily.

Wes was rattled enough that he didn’t push, and I could only be relieved by that. I didn’t think it would go over too well if I tried to explain that he’d been ratted out by a ghost.

“Anyway,” I went on, “Hal Pruitt knew your grandfather was hiding something, and I noticed how your mother steered me away from your grandmother at the reception after Father Frank’s vigil.”

From the doorway, Diane winced but didn’t said nothing. No doubt she was scolding herself for being so obvious.

“And I also knew that you were the one who sealed up the connecting door, and that you supposedly knew the bar’s bones better than anyone alive. I just started putting things together.”

Wes placed his hands on his knees. They were a workman’s hands, callused and rough, with dirt embedded around his fingernails that no amount of scrubbing would completely get rid of.

Those hands were probably one of the last things Father Frank had ever seen while alive.

“I came in through the neighbor’s store,” Wes said, still in that almost absent voice, as if, by disassociating enough, he wouldn’t have to face the terrible thing he’d done. “I did a roof job for them three years ago, and I still have the key because they never asked for it back. I built a hidden access into the connecting door from the neighbor’s side when I sealed it — but I rigged the release so it only worked from the neighbor’s side. The whole point was that nobody on the bar side would ever know it was there or be able to get it open. Not even me, not without going around through the shop.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked, genuinely curious. “That would have been long before your grandmother was talking to Father Frank, long before you would have had any idea of what she was hiding.”

Now Wes looked shamefaced in a way that didn’t seem quite like his guilt over murdering the priest. “I was seeing a woman who worked there,” he said, again with his gaze fixed on anything that wasn’t his current audience. “I didn’t want anyone to find out.” He hesitated, then added in a tone so low I had to strain to hear it, “She was married. I knew her husband. It was the worst thing I’d ever done…until it wasn’t.”

I glanced over at Diane. Her pretty face might as well have been a mask, which was all I needed to see to realize that she’d known about the affair as well and hadn’t spoken of it to anyone, either.

But I wasn’t here to dig into that old affair. It seemed to be over now, and it was between Wes and the unknown woman…and her unsuspecting husband.

“The police checked the door, though. They didn’t find anything,” I said, and now Wes finally lifted his head, looking almost proud.

“They wouldn’t have,” he replied. “I’m good at what I do. They wouldn’t have seen it unless they took the door apart.”

I supposed that settled that. Or rather, I’d consider it settled until I could go back to the bar with Jude and look at the sealed-up door much more closely than the police had.

“Okay, so you came in through the shop next door,” I prompted, and Wes pulled in a breath.

“Yeah, I came in that way, hid in the men’s room until Frank came in alone, did…well, did what I did, and went out the same way. I was supposed to go to the school concert with Terry, but I blew her off. I suppose she didn’t think anything of it because I canceled on her all the time.”

Jerk, I thought. And sure, Wes Lindley was guilty of a lot more than casual cruelty to the woman he was dating, but still, this part of his confession didn’t make me any more inclined to think kindly of him.

But at least now I could be certain that Terry Gallego had nothing to do with any of this mess.

Then he went on, “Afterward, I locked up the neighbor’s store behind me and went home.”