Free Don't Ever Get Old by Daniel Friedman

middle of the night.
    I didn’t tear into him as much as I might have, though, because he looked pretty torn up already. He was ashen-faced and disheveled; certainly less confident and self-assured than he had been the previous evening.
    The whites of his eyes were pink, to match that unsettling reptile mouth of his. There was a rust-colored spot on his shirtsleeve. Could have been blood. Could have been some kind of food stain, maybe tomato sauce. His hair was lank and tangled; not his normal shampooed, Christian coiffure. He stank of stale cigarette smoke, cheap whiskey, and desperation.
    â€œReverend, do you have any idea what time it is?” I asked
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said. “I have to talk to you about Jim Wallace’s gold.”
    Well, obviously. I let out a distended, theatrical groan, to make sure he was aware of my annoyance.
    â€œJim Wallace was flat broke,” I told him. “You were at the funeral. You buried the guy in a cardboard refrigerator box.”
    â€œEmily came to speak to me after he died. She told me about Heinrich Ziegler, and about you. She says her husband is obsessed with the gold, and he thinks you’re going to find it and split it with him. You can’t let Norris Feely get his hands on that treasure. He’s not a nice man, Buck. He treats her quite poorly.”
    â€œFunny, he had so many nice things to say about you,” I said. And when he didn’t respond: “I guess you think the money should go to you?”
    â€œTo the church,” he said. “To further Christ’s divine mission.”
    Kind’s concern clearly had little to do with giving effect to Jim’s wishes. I could hear need around the edges of his voice and see it in the quivering corners of that lascivious pink mouth. He was hurting for cash.
    â€œI don’t know if there is any gold, or where it is,” I told the minister. “Norris Feely doesn’t know, and neither did Jim Wallace. What do you need that money for, anyway? Your church is enormous.”
    He looked at me, eyes brimming, and what he told me sounded like the truth. “Churches are built by the tithing of the flock and the grace of God, but they’re also built on credit. God has to make the mortgage payment like everyone else, or I do, rather, and God has led me to you, Buck Schatz.”
    I recognized the tone; recognized the look on his face. In Kind’s glassy pink eyes, I saw the sort of weary resignation that had crossed the faces of dozens, maybe hundreds, of suspects I’d stared down across an interrogation table. He was about to confess something to me. People had always liked to confess to me. I always told them I couldn’t help them. I was never dishonest about that. But they spilled their guts anyway.
    Kind could keep his mouth shut as far as I was concerned. Whatever his problems were, I didn’t see why I should care about them. “Dr. Kind, I appreciate the work you’re doing and the hospitality of the church when we went to the funeral, but there’s nothing I can do for you.”
    â€œPlease, Mr. Schatz, I’ve fallen to temptation. I owe too much at the casinos in Mississippi, and some of the money I threw down that hole belonged to the church.” Kind choked back a sob. “I’m underwater. You have to help me.”
    He pressed the back of his hand to his forehead, striking a mournful pose he must have thought exhibited his boundless oceans of regret. In their minds, people’s boring, puerile problems always take on Shakespearean proportions. This degenerate had no self-control; oldest story in the world. I didn’t need to hear it again.
    Desperate people always thought I had to help them. I didn’t have to help them. I was retired from hearing confessions, and even when I had been in that business, I was an instrument of punishment, not a vessel for absolution. But guilty people would get some vague notion