The Perfect Patsy

Three-1

Three

AFTER A STOP BY THE Rectory to clean up, change clothes, and explain to Anna why I’m covered in blood again, I’m on my way to the Beckets’ home to change their lives forever.

I’ve called to let them know I’m coming. I didn’t tell them why, but the strained tone in her father’s voice tells me they know I have nothing good to tell them.

After all, a priest doesn’t call asking to see you late at night to deliver good news.

I try to pray for them, to prepare myself for what I am about to do. But instead, I’m preoccupied with the events of the last hour or so and trying to figure out what they mean.

First, Nate is covered in blood, but none of it appears to be his. It all appears to be Ashley Becket’s.

Second, in order to do what he seems to have done, he would have had to have gone completely insane since I last saw him.

What would cause such a thing? I don’t really know, but I’ve heard stories about severe head injuries that change people’s personalities. It seems unlikely that Nate could sustain such an injury without me hearing about it, so I move on to the next possibility: Nate has been drugged, either voluntarily or without his consent. If it is the former, then his actions are his own fault, though most likely in no way premeditated; if it's the latter, then the real culprit is the person or persons who drugged him.

I just cannot believe that Nate would have killed another human being, no matter what his mental state.

I mean, this is Nate Rodriguez we’re talking about. He’s one of the meekest souls I’ve ever come across. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him express the desire to hurt another person.

Except Richard Davenport, but that’s understandable. Nate was enraged by what he thought the older man had done to Gladys.

Which brings up a third explanation, the one Dan mentioned.

Nate was in some kind of incredible rage, rage that was so out-of-control that he slaughtered another person.

But to take his rage out on an innocent young woman like Ashley Becket? Who may not have been all that innocent, but was certainly in no way deserving the fate that befell her?

What could she have done to make him so angry?

Unless he wasn’t angry at her, but himself.

I am, of course, avoiding the other major question.

Even if Nate didn’t kill Ashley, what was she doing in his bed?

Naked.

Tied up.

The obvious answer is the one I’m afraid I’m having an easier time accepting.

There’s been something wrong between him and Gladys ever since she told him about her extensive and varied s****l history. While on the surface, all seemed OK after their initial conversation, there’ve been troubling signs. Like Nate no longer attending Mass with Gladys. Like Helen telling me that he’s cancelled dates and not returned texts and phone calls right away. We all accepted the excuse that he was busy getting his crime scene cleanup business off the ground.

But maybe there was a darker reason.

Right now, it certainly looks that way.

By the time I get to the Beckets’ about 11 p.m., I realize that this may not be the hardest conversation I’m having tonight.

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