by Lisa Jackson
“Or killed,” Montoya put in. “Who was the baby’s father? And what happened to it? We found the coffin in the cemetery. Someone had dug it up, put a pig’s carcass inside.”
Father Paul winced. “So it’s come to this.” He rubbed his large hands on his knees. Guilt settled on his narrow shoulders, stooping them even more. “Faith was confused and active…. She had men to whom she bestowed favors.”
“She was abused by members of your staff and other patients,” Bentz corrected.
“But she wanted the attention.” He glanced out the window, where a wren was flying toward the roof.
Bentz and Montoya waited for more, but minutes passed with no further response. They exchanged glances.
The priest seemed fascinated by, even fixated on, the bird outside the window. The sky was dark and menacing. Raindrops began to pepper the glass.
“She wanted attention from whom?”
He started, as if he hadn’t remembered anyone was in the room with him.
“Faith Chastain. You said she wanted attention?”
“Father James. He counseled her.”
“James McClaren?” Bentz supplied, his gut twisting. The familiar name sent his mind down pathways he’d rather not travel. But it was imperative that he did.
“Oh, I don’t know…McCafferty?”
“McClaren.”
“Oh…Father James…yes.”
“He was assigned to the parish.”
Bentz felt Montoya’s gaze on him.
“Yes. No…Oh, for a while.” Father Paul was obviously troubled, his forehead wrinkling as he tried to call up the memories. “I think he and the woman, the patient…”
“Faith Chastain.”
“Yes, yes. That’s the one. She had a baby. No.” He shook his head, and one long, gnarled finger moved in the air as he thought. “She had two babies. I was there. They thought the boy child died.”
“He didn’t?”
“Oh no.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “It was just after the nurse left the room that the doctor…Dr….”
“Renner.”
“Yes, Renner. That’s it. He realized the baby was alive, and then the other one…The woman was in so much pain. There was nothing to do.” He looked up pleadingly then sat back hard in his chair. “I, we, vowed…never to tell. Never. I prayed about it.”
“Can you tell us about it?” Bentz asked, pulling up a chair.
He folded his hands and bent his head. “Yes…”
In fits and starts, with Father Paul moving from periods of clarity and guilt to cloudiness and what seemed total loss of memory, he told them of the more dark secrets within Our Lady of Virtures. It took nearly an hour to pull out the story, and they were left in silence, absorbing what the old priest had told them.
Father Paul revealed that when Faith delivered, two babies were born. The first was a boy, who was originally thought to have not survived the birth. He was born vaginally, the cord wrapped around his neck, and he was blue…but, “Miracles of miracles from the Holy Father, the boy child began to breathe.”
The discovery that the boy was alive had apparently happened after Nurse Chaney was excused from the birthing area. Then there were complications. Father Paul wasn’t clear, but it seemed from what he said that Faith had started to have more contractions, and the doctor had realized she had another baby to deliver. For another unclear reason, the delivery had been performed by C-section, though the nurse was not called back into the room. The hospital was ill equipped for that kind of procedure. The priest wasn’t sure if Faith knew she had delivered twins, only that she was not “thinking clearly” and very “confused,” possibly “delusional.” All he knew for sure was that Faith thought she had one baby, a boy named Adam, who died at birth. For her, nothing else registered except shame and fear and desperation. “She confessed to me often and was always in tears, but I’m not sure she knew why she felt such overpowering guilt.”
Nor, it seemed, did Father Paul any longer. He could provide no information about the people who had adopted the boy, only that both babies were put with “people of strong faith.” The girl had ended up with Renner, but the boy’s parents and identity were a mystery. Father Paul recalled nothing of them, not even if they were parishioners, though he did mention that Dr. Renner took care of all the paperwork, whatever that meant. That was also how Renner adopted Faith’s daughter with no questions asked.
When the priest was asked about the grave where Faith’s child was supposed to be entombed, he sighed. “Another lie,” he muttered unhappily, rubbing his hands nervously. “To protect her from the truth.”
“Protect who?” Montoya asked.
The priest opened his mouth and closed it again. He seemed to drift into a place far away but finally whispered, “Everyone.”
They asked a few more questions. Bentz even brought up Ronnie Le Mars’s name, but they got nothing further, not the least flicker of recognition in his eyes. The old man seemed to have shut down. When the nurse came in with his medication, they left.
They took the stairs down and exited through the main entrance. Bentz wondered if the boy Faith bore might still be named Adam. His adoptive parents may have changed his name to make his adoption all the more anonymous.
At least now they had something to go on. Renner probably had fabricated some of the information, but hopefully he hadn’t switched dates or times of birth. There still should be some kind of record for them to find.
As they drove off, Montoya said, “Half of what the old guy said could be fantasy. Just in his mind.”
“Possibly, but enough of the facts agreed with Chaney’s.”
“Can you believe that crap? Hidden babies, falsified records, illegal adoptions? Who are these people who think they’re God and can just bend or break the rules to suit their needs because a kid, a damned human being, was inconvenient or even an embarrassment? Jesus H. Christ! All in the name of religion.”
“This has nothing to do with the Church. It’s people abusing power, thinking they were doing the right thing.”
“All to avoid a scandal. Unbelievable!”
Bentz glanced back in the direction they’d come. “Do you think Father Paul is safe? Sister Rebecca was at the birth. So was Terrence Renner. Both of them were murdered. So is there a connection, and, if so, what about Ellen Chaney and Father Paul? Are their lives in danger?”
Montoya pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll tell the FBI and the local authorities for Covington and in Ellen Chaney’s home-town.”
“Call Zaroster too and have her check vital records. Get a copy of Eve Renner’s birth certificate and see if there are any other birth records for boys who were born on the same day, in the same area. Anyone named Adam. That might have changed, but maybe not.”
“And about Father James…You going to tell Eve Renner you’re her uncle?” Montoya asked.
“Right after I tell Kristi she’s got a sister,” Bentz said flatly.
“There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep this from Abby so, let me know, will ya?”
Bentz nodded and flipped on the wipers.
The house was clean, the locks changed, and yet when Eve walked through the familiar rooms and hallways, she could feel her skin lift into gooseflesh. This, the home she’d loved, the place she and Nana had baked pies and cookies, the house where she’d felt on the top of the world in the turret room.
She glanced at Cole but didn’t say anything as she dropped Samson to the floor. The cat skittered up the stairs ahead of her, and Eve trudged up dutifully, steeling herself. She was glad for the sound of Cole’s footsteps behind her.
On the second floor, everything was the same as she’d remembered it. Nothing had changed, but in the turret room, when she pushed open the door and the clean and gleaming room greeted her, she still cringed. She’d bought new bedding, including a new mattress pad. Even so, in her mind’s eye, she still saw the bloodstains on the mattress, quicksilver images of her doll lyi
ng facedown on the coverlet, along with images of Sister Vivian’s body in the attic of the old hospital.
The doorbell rang, and she nearly jumped from her skin.
“I’ll see who it is,” Cole volunteered. He was down the stairs before she could protest. She hurried to follow him, and as she reached the first floor she spied Detective Bentz in the foyer. He was grim as ever, and Cole was still holding on to the edge of the door as if he intended to slam it closed the minute the cop left.
Bentz looked up at her, and she saw that whatever he had to say, it wasn’t good news. He barreled right in. “I met with Father Paul, who was the priest who worked at Our Lady of Virtues the night you were born. He confirmed what I’d already guessed: a priest by the name of James McClaren is your biological father. He’s also my half brother, so technically, you’re my niece.”
She stopped short. “Your niece?” He nodded, and she saw that what was about to come next was difficult. “There’s more.”
He sighed. “It’s a complicated story, but the long and short of it is that James McClaren also happens to be my daughter, Kristi’s, natural father.”
“What?”
“My first wife had an affair with my half brother, who also happened to be a priest.”
“Why the hell is that guy a priest?” Cole asked, his own disbelief evident.
“Good question. But too late. He’s dead.”
A dull roar started deep in Eve’s ears. “So I’m related to you and to Kristi on…on my father’s side and to Abby and Zoey Chastain on my mother’s?” She couldn’t believe it. She’d gone from being an only, adoptive child to a woman with three sisters and an uncle in one fell swoop.
“Are you kidding me?” Cole demanded as if he smelled some kind of trick. “What are the chances that Eve would be related to both you and Montoya?”
“Technically not Montoya. Only by marriage, if he and Abby tie the knot.”
They were all still standing in the foyer, the door open, the wind and rain slapping onto the front porch.
“Close the door, please,” she said to Cole.
“So, what does this have to do with the investigation?” he asked. “It’s interesting history, but so what?”
“We think Eve has a twin.”
“A twin?” Eve repeated, lips parting.
“A boy, now a man. A boy called Adam, who was thought to be stillborn. It was his grave we dug up at Our Lady of Virtues, but it was a fake.”
“Wait, you’re going much too fast,” she said, her head spinning.
Bentz said by way of apology, “It’s a lot of information. We don’t know how, but we think he might be a part of this. I thought you might want to know about it.”
“Yes…I do. Come in, Detective,” she said. They walked into the parlor, a room rarely used, and she waved Bentz into one of her grandmother’s Queen Anne chairs. She settled on a corner of the sofa. “Go on, please.”
Bentz launched into his tale while Eve listened and Cole, standing in the archway from the foyer, crossed his arms and stared at Bentz as if there was some kind of trap lurking in Bentz’s words.
Eve listened quietly. It was a wild tale. With her father right in the center of it. Was it really possible? Did her father and the staff at Our Lady of Virtues hide two births for twenty-eight years? She glanced over at Cole, who was glowering.
“So,” Bentz finished, “we’re trying to find your brother, see what he has to say.”
“And you’re linking him to the crimes somehow? As a killer or a victim?” Cole finally asked, the defense lawyer in him coming to life.
“That’s a question I’d really like to ask him.”
Bentz’s phone rang, and he looked at the screen, saw it was Montoya, and picked up. “Bentz.”
“Thought you’d want to know. The suspect that Noon brought in, Tessler, he picked Ronnie Le Mars out of the photo lineup.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“That’s not all, Bentz,” Montoya said, his voice dark with anger.
“What?”
“Tiggs just died.”
CHAPTER 33
Eve was going stir-crazy. For the past three hours they had been working with a security expert from a local company. Cole wasn’t satisfied with the locksmith who had come and done his job. He was insistent that Eve have the entire house rewired for a security system. As soon as Bentz had left, he’d called the same company he’d used on the house he’d had to sell.
“I don’t even know if I’m going to stay here,” she’d argued, but he wouldn’t hear a word of it.
“Even if you sell, where are you going to live in the meantime? A hotel? For how long?”
“Maybe your friend Petrusky could find me a place,” she’d teased but had given in. And so here they were on the back porch discussing how much it would cost for the system. She heard her cell phone ring in the kitchen, where it was charging, while Cole told the guy exactly what kind of high-tech security he envisioned for a house that had, in all its history, survived without the aid of security cameras and laser beams and access codes. From Cole’s description of what he wanted, Eve was certain this old Victorian would rival the White House for a high-tech alarm system. “Seems a little over the top to me,” she’d confided in Samson three hours earlier when this had all started.
“I’ll be right back,” she said and hurried inside. By the time she reached the phone, it had stopped ringing.
She saw that the last caller was Anna Maria. She pressed return call but was thrown to her sister-in-law’s voice mail. She waited then called her own voice mail and heard the message from Anna, who, upon Eve’s advice, had returned to New Orleans and wanted to meet. Anna suggested a bar downtown and said she’d be there in fifteen minutes. Eve called her back immediately but again Anna didn’t pick up.
Sometimes high tech was nothing but frustrating.
She walked back to the porch, where Cole and the security guy were still hashing out the details of the new system, going over pages of several different models. “That was Anna Maria. She wants to meet me for a drink down at Gallagher’s.”
“Give me half an hour and I’ll come with you,” Cole said. “We’ll have this figured out then, won’t we?”
The security tech nodded. “Sure. Piece of cake.”
“Mmmm. Why don’t I go on down, and you meet me later. I’ll scope out how she’s feeling, you know, about everything, and once I see that she’s okay, I’ll call and give you the green light.”
He hesitated. “I don’t like you going out alone.”
“Oh for Pete’s sake, it’s just downtown.”
“Give us a minute, would you,” he said to the security guy as he shepherded Eve into the kitchen.
“No problem.” The man was flipping through pages of diagrams for a variety of systems.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Cole said, shutting the door behind him.
“Obviously, but I think I should see her. She needs a friend, and my brother is being a real jerk. She drove all the way back here because I asked her to.”
“She’ll wait a few minutes.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want you there. You’re not her favorite person, and this is probably just some kind of girl talk. I’ll call you the minute I get there and then again when it’s okay for you to join us.”
He shook his head.
“Look, Cole, you can’t keep me on this tight of a rein, no matter what the reasons. I get it that you’re worried. Really. And no, I haven’t forgotten what happened right upstairs or that there’s a nutcase on the loose, but I can’t live my life inside a cave.”
“I’m just asking you to be smart.”
She let out a huff of air. “So…how about this, and let me tell you, I don’t like it. You follow me down there, just see that I get inside safely, then vamoose before Anna spies you.” She heard her own words and rolled her eyes. “Oh God, that sounds so ridiculous. Like I’m some pathetic little woman who can’t handle her own
life.”
“You’re just being cautious.”
“Yeah, and I’m letting some kook determine how I’m going to run my life!”
“Not a ‘kook,’ Eve, a killer. A sadistic, deranged serial killer who’s focused on you.”
She let out a long breath and met his gaze. “Sorry, Cole, I can’t live this way. I’ve got things to do. As soon as I know that Anna Maria’s all right, I’m going to call Abby Chastain and meet with her to discuss all this business about being sisters. After that, I’ll need to talk to Kristi Bentz. So you can handle the security system, okay? I’m pretty booked up today.”
He wasn’t buying her light and breezy mood. “This is serious, Eve.”
“I know, but I think I’ve got a couple of policemen watching over me. Even though I told Montoya and Bentz I didn’t want the extra security, I don’t think they listened.”
“Oh? Not that I wouldn’t think they might do something behind your back, but why do you think you’ve got your own personal bodyguards?”
She took his hand and led him upstairs to the turret room and ignored the eerie feeling that stole through her blood whenever she crossed the threshold. She guided Cole to a window that overlooked the neighboring street. “See that red Pontiac?”
He nodded.
“It’s been there for a couple of hours. Two people inside. Before that, there was a blue Blazer parked about two spaces down. It was there when Bentz was here.”
“How do you know it’s the police?”
“I don’t, but I’m willing to put fifty bucks on it. You watch, when I leave, if they follow.”
“It could be the killer.”
“Nah…not with two people.” She turned and pecked him on the cheek. “Face it, Counselor, the cops are watching our every move. So go figure out the alarm system, and I’ll keep in touch with you via cell phone.”
A muscle worked in his jaw. He obviously wanted to argue with her, but she was hearing none of it. She felt stronger today, ready to take on the world. Though the room still bothered her, she might eventually get over it.