The Devil's bed

chapter
thirty

The doctor had sent Bo home with pills. Penicillin to fight infection. Codeine to deal with residual pain. And Xanax to help him sleep. Bo sometimes had nightmares about Wildwood. The faces of the men and the woman who had died there haunted him. Often, in the nightmares, he relived the confrontation on the bluff with Moses. Sometimes in the nightmares, it was Bo who went over the cliff, and as he fell, he realized Kate was going to die, too. That nightmare always wrenched him from his sleep.

Awake in the dark one night, he got up to take some Xanax. He settled in front of the television and caught a late-night news program on cable. It was called “Profile of a Madman” and was subtitled “The David Solomon Moses Story.” In the wake of the attack on Wildwood, most networks had thrown together reports, profiles, documentaries of one kind or another. In most respects, the one Bo watched seemed a rehashing of what he and everyone else already knew by now. Moses, the brilliant, troubled man with a horrendous history. The romantic obsession for Kathleen Jorgenson. The assaulton Kate after she made it clear to him that she didn’t return his affection. The choice between prison and military service. There were a couple of new twists. While in the army, David Moses had served with Special Forces. There were positive comments about him from superior officers who felt he’d distinguished himself during a number of assignments. His history after his discharge was vague but included rumors of psychiatric treatment in several VA facilities across the country prior to his arrest for manslaughter in Minneapolis. Bo thought about the alphabet boys. CIA, NSA, DOD. They had the resources to create a smoke screen past for Moses, a man whose association with them, if indeed there’d been one, they would certainly want to hide. Of course the documentary chronicled yet again all the bloody spectacle at Wildwood, which was explained (this was the popular theory) as an adolescent obsession finally finding an outlet in the adult fury of a deranged man.

The profile ended with footage of a simple burial in a cemetery in River Falls, Wisconsin. The final shot was a lingering image of Moses’s gravestone. The marker was small. Chiseled there were his name, the date of his death, and a brief inscription: Forgive us our trespasses.

The only man Bo knew who’d befriended David Moses while he was alive had presided over his final rest in death. Father Don Cannon.

In the morning, Bo called the priest and arranged to meet with him.

“I made the request for disposition of the remains,” Father Cannon said. “Nobody else wanted him.”

They were having coffee in the priest’s home in River Falls. They sat on a patio in the backyard. There was a feeder on a pole at one corner of the patio, and a hummingbird hovered there with its long beak thrust into the tiny tube from which it sucked colored sugar water.

“I would never have believed that the boy I knew could be capable of such brutality,” the priest said.

“People change, Father. Or they fool us. Especially when we’re inclined to want to believe the best.” Bo sipped his coffee, a good dark French roast brewed from beans the priest had freshly ground. “It looked like you were alone at the service.”

“There were no mourners, if that’s what you mean. A lot of reporters unfortunately, stumbling over gravestones and one another. I’d hoped to keep it quiet, but newspeople…” He shook his head, and his wild beard brushed his chest.

“Did you pay for the plot and stone?”

“No.”

“Who did?”

“An anonymous donor.”

“Anonymous,” Bo said. “Understandable. How were you contacted?”

“A card that contained the money.”

“You still have the card?”

The priest gave Bo a wary look.

“Sorry, Father. Instinct.” He waited a moment, then asked, “Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Could I see it?”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I’m looking for some kind of closure. What would be the harm, if it’s anonymous?”

The big priest considered, then stood up. The hummingbird shot away from the feeder, fast as a bullet. In a few minutes, Father Cannon was back, the card in his hand.

It was a simple note asking to be allowed to contribute to a resting place for David Moses. In return, the donor requested that, if possible, the gravestone contain an inscription. Forgive us our trespasses. Except for the inscription, which had been handwritten in a florid script, the text had been typed.

“You granted the request,” Bo said.

“The contributor was more than generous. And the only one. And I quite liked the sentiment.”

“Do you still have the envelope it came in?”

“If I did, Bo, I wouldn’t let you see it. Anonymous, remember? I don’t want you speculating from a postmark.”

“The inscription is handwritten. Risky for someone who wants to remain anonymous, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure it was never meant to be seen by anyone but me. Please don’t make me regret I showed it to you.”

“I’m sorry, Father.” Bo watched the priest put the note away in his pocket. “By the way, is the cemetery plot hard to find?”

The middle of a hot August afternoon wasn’t, apparently, a popular time to visit the dead. Except for a groundskeeper on a small tractor mower that moved lazily along the fence, Bo and Father Cannon were the only signs of life. The priest directed Bo to drive toward a far corner of the cemetery. As they approached, Bo saw a mounding of fresh earth under a lofty ash tree.

“Moses?” Bo asked.

The priest nodded.

Bo parked, and they walked together to the grave. Long before they reached it, the priest exclaimed, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

Across the polished stone, someone had spray painted in black: MURDERER!

Standing beside the grave, Bo felt no sorrow for Moses. The memory of the agents killed at Wildwood and of the First Lady kneeling for execution, as well as the ache of Bo’s own wounds, were all painful reminders that for Moses, dead was best.

After a while, the priest asked, “Enough?”

“I guess,” Bo said. “I don’t know what I was hoping for. Answers only he could give.”

“The only answer you’ll get is right there in front of you. And it’s not a bad one.”

Bo looked at the vandalized stone. The black paint nearly obscured the inscription.

Forgive us our trespasses.