A/N: More Southern detection.

Big Swamp

Chapter Eight: Confessional

I feel better about things the next morning. Tuesday. Not great — and I'm not looking forward to the task I have planned today, but I feel better about things.

I drive from Opelika to Auburn. Father Casey is the priest at St. Dunstan's, a beautiful brick church rooted beneath tall trees near the center of town, across the street from Toomer's Corner. I sing in the choir, as I mentioned, and we'll have practice tonight, but I want to talk to Father Casey before I head to Ed's.

I need to talk to Hannah but I'm still not sure what to say. I hope Father Casey, direct line to the heavens and all, will help me figure it out. I park my car out front and take the side steps up to the church. I go in the door.

"Chuck!" I turn to look in the door of the small room from which the voice issued, and see Father Casey's secretary, Diana Beckman. She's the only woman — or man, for that matter — I rate a match for Bolonia Grimes. Like Bolonia, Diana's short in stature but tall in spirit, towering, a woman to be reckoned with. Father Casey believes that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord and the fear of Diana Beckman.

He keeps the commandments of each.

"Hey, Miss Diana," I say in return, waving into the room, "is the big guy around?"

"Depends on which one you want," she says, grinning at me from her desk chair. "One is omnipresent, ubiquitous, and I'm pretty sure that means He's around; the other is located, but large enough to take up more than his fair share of space. You'll find him in the Sanctuary."

She looks back down at the paperwork on her desk, done with me for now. Our routine is for me to stop again as I leave for more talk. But she doesn't like to latch onto visitors until they've met with Father Casey.

I walk across the sitting room, in front of the large fireplace, and through the open double doors leading into the Sanctuary. Father Casey is standing in the back of the large room, looking up toward the altar. He notices me in the wide doorway but does not say anything. He focuses back on the altar, tilting his head side-to-side.

I watch in silence. He walks slowly toward the altar, between the two rows of pews. He stops as he reaches the first pew, the last in the direction he is walking. "Women's committee wants to put some flowers here on the edge of the altar." He points to a spot near where I am standing and then to another on the opposite side. "They mean well but I think the Sanctuary itself is beautiful. No need to gild refined gold, to paint the lily."

Shakespeare. Despite Father Casey's relationship to The Book, I sometimes forget that he's a bookish man. His manner disguises that fact about him most of the time.

I walk to stand beside him and look at the spots he pointed to. "I'm with you, Father. Unnecessary. Kindly meant but unnecessary,"

He glances at me with amusement. "Are you willing to go to their meeting tomorrow and tell them that?"

I gulp and shake my head. He laughs softly. "And they think that Daniel's sojourn in the lion's den cannot be repeated today. Oh, ye of little imagination!"

He laughs again and I laugh with him.

"What can I do for you, Bartowski? Your text last night didn't tell me what we are going to chat about."

He sits down on the first pew. It creaks under him. He unbuttons his grey suit jacket and tugs at his collar. "Gonna be another hot one. I wonder sometimes, Bartowski, if that's the secret to the Christ-haunted South — it's so hot no one can forget about Hell."

I mull that over without comment.

"So, Bartowski, confess." He faces me and waits.

"I'm going to talk to Hannah today, square things with her, and I just wanted to talk to you about it before I do it."

He nods slowly. "You want me to pretend to be her?"

He may be joking; he may be serious. This is one of the dangers of talking with Father Casey, not knowing until it gets you smacked — but only verbally. Please, only verbally!

I look at him, his gray coat, his black, tab-collar clergy shirt, his gray pants, and his black shoes, his heavy shoulders.

I don't think I can pretend he's Hannah. Nope.

"No, I just wanted to tell you, generally, what I'm going to say."

"Well, then tell me, generally."

I lean forward onto my elbows, stare at the gleaming hardwood floor. I can almost see myself in it. "So, I need to tell her that I don't, you know, right now, don't...um...have any romantic interest in her. Other interests, sure: she's my friend and I admire her, you know, really, a lot, but I don't...love her, not that way, and I don't...um..."

Casey shakes his head a little, smiles, but he's angry.

"Articulate you aren't, Bartowski. But you can surely spin word salad. Lord, you can't manage to say that without gumming up the works?"

I shrug. "I'm nervous. I spiral when I'm nervous, bog things down with unhelpful qualifications…"

"Yes, you do. But we both agree Hannah deserves better."

I nod my head. "Yeah, we do."

Casey shifts in the pew, grunts, and stares out the double doors, but not at anything in particular.

"Look, Chuck," his use of my first name is a measure of his seriousness, "Chuck, is there someone you're romantically interested in?"

My mouth opens and works, guppy-like. Didn't see that question coming. Casey's tone makes it clear he already knows the answer. Heat rises in my face. "Yes, yeah, Wylie Stroud's niece, Sarah Walker."

He nods. "I ran into Bolonia Grimes at the Piggly Wiggly. She told me you were money."

"Moony?"

"I understood. — So, you have a hankering for the big blond and not the small brunette?" He extends his arm along the top of the pew, drums his fingers on its top. "What do you know about her, the big blond?"

"Not much. She's from California. Burbank. Her uncle Wylie encouraged her to come here for a visit. He told me he thought she needed to get away from there, to 'slow down', as he put it. That she wanted, hoped, to slow down."

"And?"

"And...that's all. That's all I know."

"But you've spent time with her? Went to that party? Saw her at the Club?"

"How'd you know that?"

"Other women's committee members. It's like my own version of Sherlock's Baker Street Irregulars."

I chuckle, imagining those wealthy ladies as London street urchins. "Yes, I went to the party with her, saw her at the Club, where I did learn one more thing about her. Once upon a time, she had a boyfriend named Bryce Larkin, and he and his abs are currently in town."

I realize that except for the brief conversation on the phone, Sarah and I never talked about Bryce yesterday. Not at all. I'm tempted to feel good about that until it starts to worry me.

Father Casey is watching my face. "Envy's a deadly sin, you know. The only deadly sin that lacks a honeymoon."

I have no idea what that means and he can tell. "All the other deadly sins, pride, anger, sloth, gluttony, greed,..lust," he lifts his eyebrows a bit, "they all seem like good ideas at the time, at first. A honeymoon. But envy never seems like a good idea, not even at first."

I mull that over, along with the eyebrows' twitch. "I suppose that's right. — Are you hinting, somewhat subtly, that my interest in Sarah is less romantic, more...um...basic?"

Remembering my reaction to her yesterday makes the heat in my face intensify.

Casey regards me for a moment, then answers. "Just trying to get you to examine yourself, your life. I know you — you're not all surface, Chuck, like most folks are. I love them all, as Jesus told me, but I know them too, as Jesus did. — You'll be unhappy with someone who's all surface, and, I confess, after meeting Sarah Walker, she not only seems all surface to me, she seems all mirrored surface. The human equivalent of a pair of sunglasses. All reflections. She's a beauty, no doubt. A stop-and-stare, double-take beauty. But you know nothing about her. You managed to tell me all you know in a few seconds. And yet you're choosing her over Hannah? Because that's what you're doing. If Sarah Walker hadn't shown up, you'd have dithered a while longer about Hannah, then finally asked her out, started dating her, and married her. And you'd be happily married to her, tiptoeing home for afternoon quickies, and keeping her abed all morning on Fridays."

He pauses for a moment. I'm shell-shocked: I've never heard so many words from him at once. — And 'quickies' and 'abed'?

He's uncomfortable with his own speech, but after readjusting in the pew, looking around us, he continues. "You know that's true, Chuck. It's why you're having such a hard time. You know the sort of future you'd have with Hannah and it's no bad future, but you're wondering about something else...a different future."

I don't say anything but I find I am nodding my head.

"But be honest: do you have any reason to believe you have a future with Sarah Walker? Any reason to think she's here long-term?"

Now I'm shaking my head. "So, you're planning to follow her back to California?"

This time I speak. "No, I don't want to live anywhere else, God help me."

Father Casey laughs silently. "God help us both, kid. — So what're you doing? I haven't told you a single thing you don't know, despite your refusal to tell it to yourself. You want Sarah Walker and, priest or no, I'm a man, I get that. But do you see anything real happening with her? Can you forecast any future? And if you can't…" He shrugs.

I say no more. He says no more. We just sit together in the Sanctuary until, a few minutes later, he stands, squeezes my shoulder, and walks past the altar, and out the rear door.

I sit in silence for a few minutes more. My insides are jumbled. I stand and walk back through the double doors, heading back the way I came in.

"Chuck!" It's Diana. I stop and enter her office. She's just put her phone down. "You're going to be here this afternoon for choir practice, right?"

"Yes, sure, Diana. I'll be here unless something comes up at work."

She grins at me, her eyes sparkling. "Big cases, I bet?"

"No, a couple of things are going on but I don't know if either is a big case."

Diana devours detective novels. I can see one, an aged paperback, peeking out from under the spreadsheet on her desk, Richard S. Prather's Always Leave 'Em Dying. Good book. It has one of the great detective novel lines: "It was one of those rare, smog-free days when you can see Los Angeles from Los Angeles."

Diana's a big fan of Burny Lennox books, but she has no idea he's my detective, that I am Logan Smythe, the author of the books. She talks to me about them sometimes because I'm a detective. I plan someday to tell her my secret, but it won't be today.

She gives me a look like she doesn't believe my claim about no big cases. She glamorizes my life. I should have her sit through a long summer afternoon in the office with just me, Morgan, and a few stray flies.

"I know detectives can't talk about their work, really," she winks at me, "so I understand you. Say, do you know when the new Burney Lennox novel will be out?"

I picture the legal pad back at the house. "No, but I think I read somewhere it may still be a few months, maybe a year."

"Shit," she says, then turns radish red and looks around, "I mean, shoot. I've re-read all the others. I'm ready for a new one."

"Me too," I say, meaning something other than what she means. I need to finish Do I Not Bleed? I've been fiddling with it too long. When I was working on it the other night, I kept trying not to turn the central female character into Sarah Walker, so I made little headway.

"Will you still be here when choir practice starts?"

"Probably, it's a busy day around here. Father Casey has a lot on his schedule — you're just the start — and I have to keep him straight, and keep the church running."

"He depends on you."

She beams. "Like to think so."

"See you later, Diana."

"You too, Chuck."

I suspect that detective novels are a big part of my problem.

Problems.

I suspect they're part of my problem with Hannah. Father Casey's right. I would be happy with Hannah. I'd almost certainly come to love her. But I can't imagine Hannah as the central female character in one of my novels, in one of the novels I admire.

— Don't get me wrong. I'm nursing no obsession for so-called Femme Fatales. I'm no fan of that archetype in stories or life. Maybe there are seductively deadly women out there, but I doubt there are many, and they wouldn't interest me anyway. I'm not chasing a touch of evil.

But I am chasing what Sarah Walker can do to me, has done to me. Her ability to make everything vanish but her, to recreate my world in her image. Maybe I shouldn't chase that, and I don't know if I knew I was before she appeared in my office, but I am, and now know I have been. Hannah doesn't do that; she's lovely, she's good, but she can't make the world disappear.

And, despite my respect for Father Casey, I don't reckon the difference is a difference between a woman I'm lusting after and one I'm not.

I can't deny I want Sarah, but that desire, intense as it is, is not what allows her to make the world disappear. The truth is, I want Hannah too. — Or I did. Maybe not as intensely, but intensely enough. I was just too cowardly or diffident to act on it. But, even when I wanted her, Hannah couldn't make the world disappear.

I've been pondering this on the way to Ed's.

I park and get out, take a deep breath. Purposely, I'm here after the breakfast rush.

I need to talk to Hannah.

As I expect, Ed's is nearly empty. Hannah's leaning against the counter in front of the coffee maker. She's got a cup of coffee in her own hand. She half-smiles over it at me as I enter.

"Hey, Chuck." Her tone's reserved but I expected that.

"Hannah, hey! May I have a cup of coffee?"

"Anything to eat?"

"No, I don't think so. Just the coffee." I slide into a booth away from the other few customers.

Hannah places her cup in a bus tray, puts a cup and spoon on a saucer, pours coffee in the cup, and brings it to me.

"Can you sit for a minute, Hannah?" I ask softly.

She nods but there's dread in her eyes as she slides into the opposite seat. "What's on your mind, Chuck?"

I still don't have a plan, a speech, but I will do the best I can. "Hannah, I'm sorry about Friday night. About the mixup about the party, about the dust-up with Shaw. About it all." She's looking at me intently — as if waiting. "I'm sorry about Sarah."

A slight shift in her expression reveals that the last was what she was waiting on, dreading. She blows out a sigh. I stir my coffee cup but don't take a sip.

"I saw you with her at the party, Chuck. Saw you dancing with her, saw you look at her. I'm not a dull girl. A woman who's worth her salt knows when she's lost on points, so she should sure know when she's lost by knockout. And I do know, but I appreciate you coming to tell me so. I know you, Chuck; this isn't much easier for you to say than it is for me to hear. — Maybe we missed our chance back during that summer after high school." She shrugs sadly but smiles through it. "I don't know. Timing matters."

"I don't know either, Hannah. And I am sorry — for everything."

She's controlling herself; her effort's obvious. I stir my coffee again, finding it hard to look at her.

"So, Sarah's relocating to Alabama?" she asks.

Ouch. "I don't know. I haven't heard that she has plans to stay. I don't know her plans." I'm embarrassed admitting this after what just passed between us.

Hannah leans forward. "But you know her — already?" I can tell she regrets that last word as soon as she says it.

I don't have a clear answer to that — though perhaps that is the answer, perhaps that means the answer is no.

But, — well, here's the thing. For all the hot and cold, the kisses and the dances and the distances, I do right now feel like I know her. I can't describe what I know. She swamps my descriptive categories, and yet I know her. In the past few days, I've glimpsed her. Not continuously. Maybe not deliberately — on her part. But I have. I've glimpsed her. I have.

That's the faith that's within me. — What's the line? Father Casey said it to me weeks ago in a different context. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

This is going to end badly for me, likely. I foresee it coming; maybe I even expect it. But I'm hoping for another outcome. No risk, no faith.

"I believe I do, Hannah."

She looks at me doubtfully but doesn't challenge me.

Hannah and I manage a few more cursory remarks, but neither of us wants to continue our conversation now.

I excuse myself and pay for my coffee.

I drive to the office and go inside. I've got my notebook from the glove compartment in my hand. Morgan's eating an egg salad sandwich and drinking black coffee, playing some video game — but I don't look carefully enough to know which one. After a wave at him, in return for his at me, I retreat into my office, shutting the door.

As I sit down, hoping work might make me feel better, I pull out my phone and call Jill Roberts at the DMV. It takes me a minute to get her extension.

"Jill Roberts," I hear her say.

"Hey, Jill. It's Chuck. I'm hoping you will do me a favor."

"Indeed? You know the drill. Tit for tat. What's the offer?"

"I will watch the boys Friday night, let you and Will go out to dinner." Her boys are five and seven. I like them but they are not fully domesticated. Jill appreciates the offer.

"Really? From when to when?"

"Um, 5 pm until you two get back."

"You must want this bit of information."

"I do." She knows I once had a crush on her. I worry that she still likes to think I do.

"Ok, deal. Give me the plate. I'll call you later."

I give her the number and hang up. I pass on lunch and spend the afternoon shut in my office, studying the music for choir practice and making notes for Do I Not Bleed? But mostly I am waiting for calls, the one from Jill I expect, and the one from Sarah I hope for.

The second never comes but the first does, just as I am getting ready to leave the office.

"The vehicle, a Ford pickup, belongs to a man named Bill Peppers."

She gives me his address and his place of employment. He works at Briggs and Stratton. I underline that.

I'm already late when I get off the phone and so I don't follow up on Mr. Peppers. I rush out to the car and drive back to St. Dunstan's.

I take the side stairs in a leap and hurry through the door.

"Chuck!" I turn at the door to Diana's office.

Sarah Walker stands beside Diana and holds a hymnal in her hand.

"Hey, Chuck, meet Sarah Walker. She just joined the choir!"

A/N: More soon.