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Unfinished Business

by Bluewolf

"The monks at St. Sebastian's partly finance the monastery by renovating items like stained glass windows for churches in the cities down the Washington coast," the commentator said. He turned to the monk sitting beside him. "Brother Jeremy, what exactly - "

"Boss!" The elderly man watching the television jumped up and ran through to the other room. "I know where Dave Irons is!"

"What? How - "

"You'll never believe it - he went religious!"

"He... what?"

"Come and see for yourself!"

The two men went back into the room with the TV, where the commentator was still speaking to the man he was calling 'Brother Jeremy'.

"Look at his hand!" the first man said.

Rico Moretti stiffened. "That ring... "

"Can you see anyone else having one like it?"

"Irons might have sold it... "

"Come on, Boss! No way! You know Dave's story. That was the one thing of his father's he was able to keep when his old man went bankrupt and killed himself. His creditors took everything else, even the kids' toys - Dave only saved the ring because it was on his father's finger in the funeral parlor and he was able to get it just before the funeral director screwed the coffin shut. No way was he ever going to sell it.

"And where Dave is - Jackie Kozinski won't be far away."

***

It seemed so easy - get one of their men into the monastery, get him to identify Kozinski and kill him.

It was relatively easy to discover when someone new was going to join the order at St. Sebastian's; easy for Moretti's man Brannan to follow that man on his way to St. Sebastian's, kill him and take on his identity.

But that was the last thing that was easy. Brannan, now known as Brother Anthony, found it impossible to identify the man once known as Jackie Kozinski. That the photo he had been shown of Kozinski had been taken fully twenty years earlier didn't help. All right, there were some of the younger monks he could ignore... except one or two who seemed inordinately inquisitive... and while he was almost certain his cover would hold, he couldn't risk the possibility that one of them - that secretive young Timothy, for example - might discover something. Vow of silence, indeed! As if the two hours daily that everyone had to observe wasn't enough!

Yes... Timothy would have to die... And Christopher - he had too much interest in detective stories. He just might suspect something...

And Moretti certainly hadn't expected that the monastery would have visitors, in the form of a young student who was well-known there... and his friend, who was a cop.

Bad enough that a couple of the monks were inquisitive bastards - the last thing Brannan needed was a cop in the place!

Brannan frowned thoughtfully.

***

Killing Timothy had been easy, but somehow Ellison had realized that the brat's fall hadn't been an accident. Getting Ellison out of the way had become more urgent.

Brannan had no objection to killing... but he drew the line at the obvious killing of a cop. The cops had unpleasant ways of reacting to anyone who killed one of their 'brothers'. Hmmm... time to get inventive...

***

Brannan finally decided that he wasn't going to identify Kozinski, so he gathered all the monks together - plus their two guests -  but when he threatened them, and one admitted to being Kozinski, he thought he had been successful - but then other monks claimed to be Kozinski, and he lost patience.

He had successfully hidden his cell phone when he arrived at St. Sebastian's, and now he called Moretti. "Yeah, it's me. Okay, so it took a little longer than I thought. Just get up here, will you? No. It doesn't matter. I'm going to do them all anyway just to make sure."

Setting fire to the place... nobody could pin the cop's death on him if he died in a fire! But he didn't bargain for that same cop managing to get out of the building, down to the ground, and stopping him.

But he could pin his hopes on Moretti's imminent arrival.

***

Moretti was not in a tolerant mood. "You've had two months to find Jackie Kozinski and dispose of him! You have one last chance!" He gave Brannan a gun. "Kill the lot of them!"

But between them, the cop and his friend - helped by Brother Jeremy, of all people - managed to stop Moretti and his men - and Brannan had forgotten that Brother Theodore had set out the previous night to walk to the nearest town and call the police.

But in the shooting, some of the monks were hurt; and Moretti, from the car in which he was being taken to town, watched with some satisfaction as a blanket was drawn over the head of the monk they had eventually identified was positively Kozinski. He grinned in satisfaction. "I got you, Kozinski!" he yelled. His grin widened as the student, his face twisted in grief, made as if to lunge forward, and was pulled back by his cop friend.

What if his tame lawyers couldn't get him off and he did have to serve some years in prison for the assault on the monastery? It was worth it, knowing that after all these years Kozinski was no longer unfinished business. The rest of Moretti's men would know that treachery would never go unpunished... even after twenty years.

He never did learn that Kozinski didn't die that day, but went on to live many more years as Brother Marcus, a major worker in St. Sebastian's fund-gathering repair shop.