The Sanctuary

15

SATURDAY

TWO DAYS COULD be a lifetime: this is what Danny already knew but learned once more as he hung from the wall in the bowels of Basal. The human body was an incredibly durable vessel: this is what he had learned too many times in Bosnia and never wanted to learn again.

When the body was subjected to an overload of pain, it tended to spare the mind prolonged duress by shutting down. Unconscious, it does not shiver uncontrollably or feel pain or scream. Danny was comforted only by the thought that he’d likely spent at least half of his time in that oblivious state before his body rebooted in darkness and flared with agony.

Conscious, he also had to live with his thoughts and his emotions, which flogged him just as relentlessly. Strapped to the wall, he was acutely aware that his thoughts and emotions, though only temporal things, could affect as much pain in him as harm to the body could. Through the years he had willed himself to live in simple consciousness, stripped of the thoughts and emotions that dragged him into suffering. The brief periods of time in which he succeeded filled him with peace and clarity.

He’d often wondered if such a place of clarity was the closest thing to heaven to be found on earth. Finding it this time proved more difficult than before because of his incessant fear for Renee’s safety and his empathy for Peter’s circumstance.

Some advocated surrender as the path to peace, but Danny had always known that his mind was too strong to surrender to anything. Instead he controlled it with raw determination and willpower, a process that sometimes worked better than others.

He’d once been taken captive by the Serbian Christians in Bosnia and, because he was suspected of numerous infiltrations into their strongholds, was questioned over a two-week period before he managed to escape. Their interrogation methods had become increasingly forceful. It was the first time he’d been forced to endure tremendous amounts of carefully directed pain.

Marshall Pape’s version of hell did not match that torture, but the pain of deep meditation was severe enough that a boy like Peter would likely never survive a second encounter.

And wasn’t that the purpose of the warden’s sanctuary? To scare the wayward straight by subjecting them to the threat of extreme punishment?

Doing his best to ignore the pain in his nerves, his thoughts, and the torment inflicted by his emotion, Danny sought the stillness beyond, peering into the darkness, searching for awareness of God’s love and beauty in his own spirit. It wasn’t easy to find.

Bostich did not come with water as promised. No one did. No one came at all. The promise of water was only a hope deferred to make the heart sick, one little twist of the knife to increase his suffering. Without any food or water, his body might have shut down completely had they not come for him after forty-eight hours.

When Bostich and Mitchell did come, they came with a hose, which they used to wash him down while he still hung on the wall. He sucked in as much of the water as he could.

They finally released him from his restraints, a process that heaped pain upon pain, then stood back as he collapsed in a heap.

“Get yourself together. We’ll be back.”

Bostich left a neat pile of folded clothes on the table and left Danny to recover, this time with the light on. It took him an hour to get to his feet, work out enough of the aches in his joints to dress, and compose himself.

“I’d like to see the warden,” he said when they returned.

“Well, you’re in luck, ’cause he wants to see you too.”

Several minutes later, Danny sat in the same chair he’d first used outside the warden’s office, waiting for an audience. The clock on the wall read 7:26. Saturday evening, if he guessed correctly. He’d been at Basal for a mere six days that overshadowed his entire three years at Ironwood.

And yet he wasn’t disheartened. His resolve had not been compromised. He was only glad that he and not Peter had endured deep meditation.

As for his own reward, he expected to be presented with an opportunity to determine what the warden might or might not know about Renee. If his suspicions were confirmed, Danny would set his mind on discovering a way to warn her. Confined as he was by both prison and his resolution never to resort to violence, his options would be limited, but there were always options.

There had to be; Renee was all that mattered to him now. Renee and, to a lesser extent, Peter, the boy who was as innocent as she herself once had been—Renee and Peter and those trampled underfoot by society’s failures.

And yet his determination to defend the weak had proven pointless once before. No man had the right to exercise ultimate judgment over another man, certainly not the way Danny had.

He could not save Peter by killing Pape.

Nor could he sit by while Peter suffered.

Two compulsions in conflict. The disparity threatened to fracture his mind. Something was askew in his worldview.

The warden’s door swung open and Pape’s familiar form emerged, smiling. “There you are. All cleaned up and ready to join a more reasonable world, I trust.”

Danny got to his feet slowly. The pain in his joints had already begun to fade, but he knew it would return with a vengeance after a night’s sleep.

“Need some help?”

“No thank you. I’ll manage.”

The notion that he was more pathetic than noble whispered through his mind. What kind of weakness would prompt a man to say “No, thank you” to a man like Pape in a moment like this?

“Please come in.”

Danny entered the office and sat. The warden picked up a black pen and tapped it on a form before him. For a few long moments he watched Danny, expressionless.

“You’re a strong man, I’ll give you that. Unfortunately, it only means I have to work harder to get through to you. It’s only my job, you must realize that.”

Danny was here for Renee’s sake, not his own, so he kept his mouth shut.

“I’m sure you feel that my methods are extreme. That’s understandable. But as I pointed out in the dining hall, they are no more extreme than other methods condoned by your God.”

After another moment of silence the warden continued.

“Although I admire your mental strength, I need you to respond so that I can determine your progress. Is that fair?”

The man seemed more gentle somehow. Amenable even.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Good. Then you do understand that harsher methods than mine were at one time condoned, even embraced, by good people.”

“I can see how you draw that conclusion, yes.”

“But you disagree with them…”

“It’s not my place to judge your treatment of me. I accept that I’m your prisoner.”

“I’m not referring to my treatment of you. I was thinking more of the others.”

“Meaning whom?”

“Meaning Peter, for example.”

“We both know that Peter’s innocent.”

“Must we really go through this again? Innocent of what? Rape? And is rape more or less deviant than other expressions of deviant behavior? Everyone is guilty of some infraction of the law, Danny. Everyone breaks the law. It’s my job to correct those deviants, once and for all. Murderers, for example.”

The warden studied him with knowing eyes.

“You know about murder, don’t you?” He tapped his pen on the surface of the desk. “Why did you kill them, Danny?”

“Kill who?”

“Please, I know you killed more than the two men you confessed to as a part of your plea bargain. The question is, why? There’s no clear motivation cited.”

“I was foolish enough to think I could change the world.”

“By what? Setting a few of the wayward straight?”

“As I said—”

“Then we’re the same, aren’t we? You see people in need and you rush to their defense. I see society in need and I rush to its defense. In a way I admire you for attempting to do outside the law what society has failed to do within that law. Isn’t that why you killed?”

“A few years ago, I would have agreed.”

“But not now?”

“No.”

The man watched him for a long moment, then stood and approached the family portraits on the wall, hands behind his back.

“Maybe it would help if you understood my own motivation.” He nodded at the picture of himself with his wife, his daughter, and his son. The daughter was perhaps fifteen, a younger reflection of her mother apart from her hair, which was straighter than the wife’s fluffy curls. Both had bright blue eyes, the same sharp nose, rosy cheeks, and small mouths. Both were beautiful and wore red dresses.

The son looked more like his mother than the warden as well. He wore a crew cut and was perhaps two years younger than his sister.

Pape pointed to his daughter. “This is Emily. She was fourteen when this picture was taken. Nate, my son, was eleven. Everyone says they both look like my wife, Betty. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Very similar, yes.”

The warden glowed with pride. Nothing about his pleasure seemed remotely disingenuous. Reconciling Marshall Pape the warden with Marshall Pape the loving father might prove difficult for many, but Danny had seen a thousand hardened soldiers in Bosnia who fought out of love of their families, he being chief among them.

Marshall Pape was first of all a human being, in the same way that the inmates under his thumb were. Really, none of them was a monster. They were all just trying to make sense of their world in this subculture called prison.

“They’re now six years older,” Pape said. “Emily’s studying medicine at UCLA, Nate’s the starting quarterback on his high school football team, quite a player at only seventeen.” He faced Danny, still smiling. “Perhaps one day you’ll father a child, Danny. I can assure you, there’s nothing more rewarding than watching a child grow through the years. Nothing.”

There was a heaviness in the warden’s voice that forecasted the frown that slowly overtook his face. He looked at the photograph again.

“But who am I kidding? Those are only my dreams. Unfortunately, I’ll never see Nate or Emily grow up. In truth, this is the last picture taken of them before they were killed. Ten days after we sat for this photograph, actually.”

Danny recoiled at the revelation.

Marshall Pape faced him. “They were both at a convenience store in Santa Monica when a paroled felon named Jake Williams came in with only drugs and money on his mind. The store owner had a gun, and in the ensuing face-off, Nate was killed by the felon. Emily was accidently hit in the head by a bullet from the storekeeper’s handgun. They both died at the scene.”

The warden had suddenly and dramatically become a victim along with his children. Danny could not ignore his empathy for the man.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how you must have felt.”

“The store owner received a two-year sentence for involuntary manslaughter. The felon was killed. My wife suffered a mental breakdown and left me a year later. She still blames my son’s and daughter’s deaths on me. Do you know why?”

“Because you are a warden, responsible for keeping people like Jake behind bars.”

Pape forced a smile. “Very good. It’s a stretch, don’t you think? But she had a point, Danny.” He held up two fingers. “Jake Williams had two previous convictions for robbery. He did his time in one of those monster factories only to be paroled, unchanged at his core. So you see, the system failed my son, and weak gun laws failed my daughter.” His eyes were glassy, misted with tears. “Now both are dead.”

“I am so sorry, sir. I’m truly terribly sorry.”

“I lost my children, I lost my wife. I also lost my sister, Celine, who was murdered before all of this,” Pape continued. “I knew then that God was sending me a message, and I took an oath. Never again would I oversee deviants without helping them accept their failure in the very core of their being. Never again would a single soul under my supervision rejoin society without first being completely changed from the inside out. Three years later, I became the first warden of Basal.”

This was Marshall Pape’s religion, to help deviants become new men, transformed by the renewing of their minds, a noble pursuit to say the least. He was just going about it wrong.

“I can understand your ambition,” Danny said.

“Yes, I suppose you could. Is that why you killed? To help men see the light?”

“Yes.” And then he said something he was sure the warden couldn’t know. “My mother and my two sisters were raped and killed in Bosnia.”

The warden’s eyes held on him, wide. “Then you do understand.”

“God’s love and grace are the path to healing. Not condemnation or punishment.”

“Then your world is full of naïve idealism,” Pape said. “Grace is only a word that masks a new kind of law. Like I told you before, true grace doesn’t even exist. He who offers it still demands adherence to some kind of behavior. A new law. There is no free ride. And breaking the law always comes at a cost. There must remain the very real threat of punishment and torture. I’m surprised you don’t seem to understand that, being a priest.”

Danny remained silent. The warden’s argument, however uniquely put, represented the conundrum that faced all religions and institutions that sought to modify behavior for greater good. From Pape’s perspective, Basal made perfect sense.

“In the end the quality of life is always about some kind of law. You would think I’d be agreeable to a man gunning down the murderer of my son and daughter before he had the chance to kill them, wouldn’t you?” the warden said.

They were on dangerous ground; Pape was describing Danny.

“But you would be wrong,” Pape continued. “That would be illegal. The law is in place as it stands for good reason, tested by centuries of trial and error. I lost my family because both a well-meaning man and a felon deviated from the law. The law, my friend. No one must break the law. Ever. Everything I do at Basal is geared toward this one end. You may not like my ways, but I do it for the millions of Nates and Emilys who only want to go to the convenience store for an ice-cream sandwich. I am their protector.”

He returned to his chair, eased himself down, and sighed. “But you, Danny, you would break the law to save an innocent boy like my son, wouldn’t you?”

Danny hesitated, careful not to take the warden’s bait.

“No? You wouldn’t kill a man to save an innocent boy? How about someone like Peter?”

“No.”

“So you would not cut off a man’s penis to stop him from abusing an innocent boy, is that it? Danny?”

The air went still. There was no mistaking Pape’s reference to the pedophile that Danny had first killed—Roman Thompson, son of Judge Franklin Thompson. How could the warden know? Who else had known? Renee. And a handful of victims he’d shared the detail with as a means of motivation.

Renee would never share the knowledge, that much he knew. Which left those victims he’d shared the episode with, all of whom he was sure were dead.

Or were they?

“So you see how closely our worlds are entwined?” the warden said. “I know more about you than you might have guessed. I have powerful friends who can change lives with the stroke of a pen. But you’re wondering how I know about Roman Thompson, the pedophile you killed. Am I right?”

At least the pedophile’s death in no way implicated Renee. He’d killed the man years before she’d come into his life.

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” Danny said.

“Then let me refresh your memory.” The warden sat forward and rested his elbows on the desk. “The man you killed had a father. A judge named Franklin Thompson. Surely you know that much. What you can’t possibly know is that the Honorable Franklin Thompson knows more than you think he knows. He has no physical evidence, of course, you were too good for that, but he isn’t without his means.”

“So that’s what this is all about? Forcing a confession out of me?”

“No.” Pape leaned back in his chair, comfortably smug. “No, I doubt I could ever manage that. My objective is to help you see who you really are, so that you can truly repent and be whole. And to that end, I will now confess that there’s more to Peter’s story. How do you think a young man like Peter ended up in Basal?”

The facts lined up in Danny’s mind like crows on a high wire. A ghost had come out of his past to haunt him. The father of his first victim had found a way to send an innocent boy accused of rape to Basal, not to teach Peter a lesson but to destroy Danny.

They intended to push Danny to his end.

“So, now you think you know. An eye for an eye. How far will you go to protect Peter? Hmm? Me, I think you would kill again. That your vow of nonviolence is only an empty promise to appease your guilt. I intend to find out if you still have self-righteousness in you. And I promise to push until you do. Randell isn’t my wolf, Danny. You are.”

Danny let the judgment sink in, aware even as he sat across from the warden that he now faced a world of impossible choices. Already the heat of familiar rage was spreading up through his chest and face.

“How about Renee?” the warden said. “How far would you go to save your precious wife?”

Danny’s mind went dark, then brightened with panic. But he didn’t dare reveal his terror at those words. He couldn’t allow any focus to linger on Renee.

“She’s not my wife,” he said, bringing all of his resolve to mind.

“No. No, she isn’t. You’d better prove that you’ve changed, Danny. You’d better come clean and tell me everything and show me that you’re a fully rehabilitated man no longer willing to deviate from the law. Each of my children is unique, each with his own rehabilitation plan. But you’re special. You’re a man of the cloth; you should have known better.”

“Then deal with me on my own. Don’t subject Peter to punishment to teach me. Let me prove myself to you on my own terms.”

The warden drew his hand across his mouth to dry his lips. The man was still reeling from his own tragedy.

“Well, my friend, as it turns out, I’m one step ahead of you. I always will be, remember that. In this case, I’ve already had Peter transferred to the privileged wing as a sign of good faith. The boy’s suffered enough for the time being. As the good book says, ‘There’s a time for peace and there’s a time for war.’ But know that I’m watching you. If you slip—if you allow your ugly, violent nature to emerge without my express direction or permission—then it’s war. Fair enough?”

Danny hesitated, then nodded. “Thank you.”

“You see, I am a reasonable man. I only want to know that you’ve truly changed, Danny. Punishment will haunt those who do not confess their sins and embrace a new life at my mercy. Are we clear?” He stuck out his hand. “Friends?”

Danny had little choice but to take the man’s hand. “Again, thank you for showing the boy some kindness.”

“Grace, my friend. As the good book says, ‘It is through grace that you are saved.’ No need to boast, but I feel good about myself in moments like this. Don’t you?”

Danny felt a measure of relief that Peter had earned himself some peace. But he felt no connection whatsoever with the warden’s form of grace. And the warden’s earlier claim that grace was no grace at all floated like a harbinger in the back of Danny’s mind.

“Yes,” he said. “I suppose I do.”

“Good. One last thing and I’ll let you go. Like I said, I have friends, many more outside these walls than inside. Breathe a word about deep meditation to a soul, now or ever, and I will have you hunted down and killed. Am I clear?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He pressed the intercom. “Send Mitchell in. The prisoner’s ready.”

The gaunt facilitator with big eyes came in, restraints in hand.

“No need for chains.” Pape waved them off. “We have an understanding.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Take him to the hard yard as we discussed. I’m sure the man would appreciate some exercise before lockdown.”