Punish the Sinners Read Free

feeling came only from his own imagination. But he didn’t believe it, for as he climbed the steps to the porch of the rectory, he again felt something pulling at him, something from outside himself. Something in Neilsville.
    He glanced around for the doorbell as he crossed the porch. He was about to knock on the door when he saw a neatly lettered card taped to the inside of the glass panel in its center. “Please come in,” the card read. Balsam obediently tried the doorknob, and entered the foyer of the rectory. To his right stood a small table, and on the table rested a diver bell. Balsam picked up the bell, and shook it gently, sending a clear, tinkling sound through the house. A silent moment passed before he heard the click of a doorlatch somewhere down the hall and saw a figure emerge from a room. Then Pete Vernon was striding toward him, tall, purposeful, one hand stretched out in greeting.
    “Peter Balsam,” he heard the priest’s voice boom. “How long has it been?” A moment later, even before he had a chance to say hello, Balsam found himselfbeing propelled down the hall and into the room from which the priest had appeared a few seconds earlier.
    “Pete—” Balsam began tentatively, as Vernon dosed the door of what was apparently his study. Suddenly Balsam realized that he was even more nervous than he had thought. Something in his old friend had changed. He seemed taller, and more confident, and there was a brooding quality in his eyes, a darkness that Balsam found unnerving. “It’s been a long time,” he finished lamely. “Thirteen or fourteen years, I guess.”
    “Sit down, sit down,” Vernon said. He indicated two large easy chairs that flanked a stone fireplace, and settled into one of them before Balsam had reached the other. As he sank slowly into his chair, Balsam became acutely aware that Pete Vernon was examining him closely.
    “I’m afraid I’m a bit rumpled,” he said, grinning uncomfortably. “It’s quite a hill you have here.”
    “You get used to it,” Vernon said. “At least I have. Welcome to Neilsville.”
    The Monsignor saw Balsam’s grin fade, and his own brows furrowed slightly. “Is anything wrong? The apartment not satisfactory?”
    Balsam shook his head. “The apartment’s fine. I’m not sure what it is. It’s hard to explain, but ever since I got off the train, I’ve had this strange feeling. I can’t really put my finger on it I keep telling myself it’s only my imagination, but I keep getting the feeling that something’s—” He broke off, trying to find the right word. He hesitated over using the word “evil,” though that was the word that kept coming to mind. “—that something’s not right here.”
    He felt a sudden chill coming from the priest, and realized he’d said the wrong thing. Neilsville had been the Monsignor’s home for nearly fifteen years, and thefirst thing Balsam had done was insult the place. He tried to recover from the blunder.
    “But I’m sure I’ll get used to it,” he said quickly, and only then realized that he had committed himself to stay. The priest seemed to relax again, and smiled at
    him.
    “And your wife?” he asked smoothly. “Linda, isn’t it? When will she be joining you?”
    “I’m afraid she won’t be joining me at all,” Balsam said carefully. “I’m afraid we’re separated. Sometimes things just don’t work out”
    “I see,” Vernon said in a tone of voice that told Balsam he didn’t see at all. “Well, that’s most unfortunate.”
    Balsam decided to try to make light of it. There was no point in trying to explain what had gone wrong and no sympathy in the priest’s steely gaze. “That depends on how you look at it,” he said, forcing a smile. “From our point of view—Linda’s and mine, that is—it was the marriage that was unfortunate, not the separation.”
    Balsam’s smile faded as he watched Vernon stiffen. He had made another mistake: Pete Vernon was a priest, and a