Eleven Read Online Free PDF

death? How can one know true punishment for sin when dead?”
    I quoted the only scripture I knew. “The wages sin pays is death.”
    His crooked smile enlarged. “You know your Bible, yet you preach and do not apply. One of the greatest sins.” Bingham leaned across the table, and for some reason I found myself moving toward him. “Set things right before you meet with punishment.”
    Something in his eyes and his body language made me uncomfortable. “Are you threatening me?”
    “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
    The door opened and Jack walked through. “Time’s up.”

     
    “That son of a bitch threatened me.”
    Jack laughed.
    “You think that’s funny?”
    “I find it amusing how worked up you’re getting.” Jack’s walking pace for a man almost twice my age proved a challenge to keep up with. “He definitely has obsessive compulsive tendencies.”
    Jack’s comment came at me from an unexpected direction. He didn’t look over at me when he spoke but kept his eyes straight ahead. We walked through a bunch of corridors in the prison, which seemed unending.
    “Can you tell me why I said that?”
    “What the OCD thing?”
    “Yeah.”
    My mind was fixated on Bingham’s threat housed in a few words, set things right before you meet with punishment.
    “Did you learn anything in there?” Jack stopped walking and faced me.
    With the absence of our tapping shoes hitting the concrete flooring, the prison was silent. “I learned a lot.”
    “You don’t have to whisper, Slingshot.”
    I let out a deep breath.
    “Hmm.” Jack tapped his pocket. He craved another cigarette. I wondered how he had lived as long as he had without developing lung cancer or emphysema. “I’m waiting.”
    “He didn’t deny the murders. In fact, he toyed with the idea. He wasn’t disgusted by human remains or repulsed by the mention of removing intestines. He seemed intrigued by it.” I thought back to his words, to his permanent smile, and then how it had expanded. “He experienced pride when I mentioned a tenth body and asked who helped him out.” I took a deep breath and continued. “He didn’t like it when I said the intestines were removed after death.”
    “Sounds like a confession to me.”
    “But not the way he continued to play it. I know he did it, you know he did it, but until we can prove that there’s nothing we can do to him.”
    “Well, then I guess it’s best that we get on proving it. We know he’s not going anywhere. What else did you get out of him?”
    “He’s religious. He told me to—” I stopped there. Jack didn’t know about my extramarital affair, and I didn’t think it would please him to know it was with Paige.
    Jack just watched me, his eyes saying, continue .
    “He believes in confessing sin to be forgiven. He said that if the intestines were removed after death then the sinners would have been taught nothing.”
    “So he believes he’s doing the Lord’s work. Zach could be on to something with the religious connotation. Did he confirm the identity of the female vic?” Jack paused a few seconds. “You didn’t push him.”
    “I tried to get it out of him but ran out of time. You came in.”
    Jack’s face tightened; a hand flexed on his forehead. “Hmm.”
    “We’ll find out another way.”
    “We’ll find out another way?” Jack mocked my words. He pointed back down the hallway. “You had the opportunity to find out in there. You don’t let opportunities go. It may be the last one you get.”
    I took another deep breath. The threat issued by Bingham had receded to the background. My foremost concern now was keeping my job. “He’s religious. Based on his talk about sin, confessions and forgiveness, I would say he’s Catholic.”
    Jack didn’t say anything but kept eye contact.
    “He talked about people being sinners and needing to be punished. Maybe these people were from his church? He knew their secrets and made them pay for them?” I paused for a few