Whirlwind

by Hilary Norman

  ‘Good Lord,’ William Osborn said. ‘Is there to be no end to this?’

  ‘At eight, he knew all about hell and purgatory and all the Commandments. And when he was ten, he killed his own cat and brought it here, to this church, and he put it on the altar, dripping blood – right up there—’ Tilden pointed. ‘And when the vicar came in and found him – it was the day before Easter—’

  ‘It was Holy Saturday,’ Reaper said.

  ‘And you told the vicar that an angel had made you do it,’ Tilden said. ‘A goddamned angel, for Christ’s sake, and you were covered in blood, and poor Thomas Pike didn’t know what the hell to do, so he locked you in here and came to find me, and he agreed you were sick in the mind, and we came back here together and got you home.’

  Reaper leaned forward, over the pulpit, his eyes boring through his spectacles into the man now floundering before him like an ugly fish on a hook.

  ‘And after Pike had scurried back to clean up his church – “his” church was what he called it – my poor, sweet mother tried to stand up for me, and you did what you always did, John Tilden. You lost your temper, and you shoved me and I stumbled against my mother, and she fell over and hit her head on our fireplace, and she died.’

  Her blood still so vivid in Reaper’s mind after nearly fifty years that the tears of boyhood sprang, hot and fresh, into his old, sore, still rage-filled eyes.

  ‘And what did you do then, John Tilden? Did you grieve for Naomi, your wife? Did you comfort me, her son, your son?’

  Reaper moved suddenly, left the pulpit and the shotgun and walked down the chancel steps, barely needing his cane now, his old fury enough support for him as he closed in on Tilden, who was cringing now, not daring to look up at the man who was his son.

  ‘You did neither, did you, old man,’ Reaper went on. ‘What you did instead was call Pike back.’

  Liza stopped listening.

  The first two mentions of that name had done no more than snap at her overloaded brain, but that third time …

  Thomas Pike. The missing Shiloh man.

  The retired vicar of St Matthew’s.

  A small shudder ran through her, but she made herself go on with the job, her ‘assignment’, Reaper had called it, and if there was a break any time soon, she would share that connection with whoever was listening out there, but for now …

  ‘You told him I’d been hysterical,’ Reaper was saying, ‘that I’d caused Naomi’s fall, that it was obvious that I badly needed “help”, but before you called Dr Plain, you wanted to be sure you had Pike’s understanding.’

  Liza’s eyes flicked to her grandfather and saw him shake his head, nothing more.

  ‘You’d always be in Pike’s debt, you told him, if he helped you with this problem,’ Reaper said. ‘But Pike said that however much he wanted to help, he was only a vicar, he didn’t have the contacts, and besides, it was Holy Saturday, and he had to get back and lead the Vigil, and the only person who could help you work this out for the best was Donald Cromwell.’

  Liza looked at Michael, saw that this, too, was as new to him as to her.

  ‘So I assume it was Cromwell who made it all happen so fast,’ Reaper said, ‘who helped have me taken away. And looking back at it all over time – and I had a lot of time to do that – I came to see how that must have irked you, Father. Owing so much to a powerful man like Cromwell.’

  He turned away from Tilden again, tiring suddenly, moving back toward the chancel, pausing to lean against the platform.

  ‘I was admitted the very next morning,’ he told the congregation, ‘to the Ames Residential Home for Emotionally Disturbed Children and Adolescents.’ He looked up at Michael. ‘So you see, Isaiah, this man’s grievance against Cromwell started long before his second wife turned to your grandmother for comfort.’ He saw that Simon Keenan had come back through the vestry door. ‘As for me, bereft boy that I was, my greatest confusion was not that my own father had turned against me, but that the church had.’ His lips tugged in a thin smile. ‘All I wanted, age ten, was to serve the Lord. But they wouldn’t let me. They wouldn’t even let me go to my own mother’s funeral.’ He paused. ‘There are people here tonight who must have been there, who must have wondered where I was.’

  Liza kept the camera on Reaper, but her eyes traveled back to her grandfather again.

  If the words caused him discomfort, there was no sign.

  ‘Any of you care to stand up?’ Reaper asked. ‘Make yourself known?’

  No one moved.

  ‘I thought not,’ Reaper said.

  Liza watched as Michael Rider stirred, walked slowly down the chancel steps and stopped a few feet from the man he had till now known only as Reaper.

  ‘I still don’t know your real name,’ he said.

  FIFTY-NINE

  I was born Joshua Tilden,’ Reaper said.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ Stephen Plain said quietly.

  Liza heard through her earphones, cast another questioning glance, but received no response.

  ‘Is it true?’ Gwen Turner leaned across the aisle.

  ‘It could be,’ Stephen Plain said. ‘I have no way of being certain.’

  ‘I’ve used a number of names over the years,’ Reaper went on. ‘Tilden as infrequently as—’

  A commotion in the nave halted him.

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’ Amos, in the aisle, was pointing his shotgun at two young men in the eighth row, halfway out of their places, frozen now. ‘OK, you—’ The big gunman motioned to one of them, a choir member named Eddie Leary, red-haired, angry-eyed but scared rigid by the gun. ‘Move back a row – climb over the damned pew and sit down.’

  He waited while the young guy clambered cautiously across and sat.

  ‘And your little pal—’

  Liza, trying to focus, saw it was the young guy with the dyed hair and the ear stud who’d goaded Gwen earlier when she’d hesitated about naming Susan Cromwell, wondered what they’d been doing to get Amos so worked up.

  ‘Same deal for you,’ the gunman ordered, ‘but stay halfway along, OK?’

  ‘OK, man.’ The teenager, whose name was Mitch Roper, vaulted the pew with ease. ‘Jeez,’ he said.

  ‘I got my eye on you,’ Amos said.

  ‘All done, Amos?’ Reaper called, returning to the pulpit.

  ‘That’s up to them,’ Amos said.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Janet Yore called out warily. ‘I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need the bathroom.’

  ‘Me too,’ Gwen Turner said. ‘It’s been over five hours, for God’s sake.’

  Voices erupted all over the nave.

  ‘Everyone shut the fuck up!’ Amos yelled, shotgun raised.

  Silencing everyone.

  ‘Thank you, Amos,’ Reaper said. ‘Ms Plain? Are you recording?’

  ‘Yes,’ Liza said.

  ‘I have a little more to say, and I want it heard.’

  ‘He’s going to pass sentence,’ Mark Jackson said. ‘Betcha.’

  Amos spun around, found the farmer in the sixth row, leaned across and aimed the gun right at his head. ‘You want a goddamned bullet?’

  ‘No.’ Jackson was ashen, his wife and daughter both crying.

  ‘Then shut your mouth,’ Amos said. ‘One more word.’

  ‘Thank you, Amos,’ Reaper repeated.

  Amos backed off, positioned himself two rows back.

  Reaper began to speak again.

  ‘I was in that place for eight years, and at the end of that, I was told there was no place for me in Shiloh, that arrangements had been made for me to go into a group home. I didn’t much care for that idea, so I left the Ames, walked to a church about four miles away and told the vicar I was seeking shelter in exchange for work. I told him where I’d been, but that it was still my hope to study, to work towards a Masters in Divinity, told him that I’d been called by God to serve. The man got edgy and told me to leave, said that if I didn’t, he’d call the cops, and having anoth
er vicar treat me that way made me mad, so I punched him as hard as I could, knocked him down and ran.’

  Everyone waited.

  ‘And then?’ Michael broke the silence.

  ‘Then is another story,’ Reaper said. ‘Suffice it to say, I was caught and sent to the Garthville House of Corrections for assessment, and, given my history, they deemed me a danger to myself and others, so there I stayed.’

  ‘In the psych wing?’ Michael asked softly.

  Liza remembered the name, realized that had to be their link, saw Reaper’s nod.

  ‘How long?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Most of my life.’ Reaper paused. ‘Long enough for it to become my world, and once I was used to the hell of it, I learned how to make things work for me.’

  ‘When did you get out?’ Michael asked.

  ‘When they knew I was dying.’

  ‘So you were there while I was.’

  No one moved or spoke, most newly unsettled by what had just become an almost private conversation.

  ‘It’s a big place, as you know,’ Reaper said. ‘But I’d read about you, felt bad for you. And being a person who appreciates coincidences, I kept tabs on you after you were out.’

  ‘So you could use me,’ Michael said.

  ‘Definitely,’ Reaper said. ‘And try righting a few wrongs at the same time.’

  ‘Am I allowed a question?’ John Tilden said.

  ‘It’s a free country,’ Reaper said. ‘So I’m told.’

  ‘How did you know what I’d done?’ Tilden said.

  ‘Let’s be good and clear for these people, and for Ms Plain’s record,’ Reaper said. ‘You’re asking how I knew that you’d set up Donald Cromwell and murdered a little child. Not forgetting the puppy.’

  Tilden flushed. ‘That’s what I’m asking, yes.’

  ‘I found that out in several ways,’ Reaper said. ‘But one piece of evidence will suffice for now. The hair ribbon.’

  Tilden was ashen again, dots of heat on his cheek.

  ‘That’s right, John Tilden. The ribbon that Alice Millicent’s mother probably tied around her daughter’s hair on the last morning of her life. It was, when I saw it, long and pink and horribly twisted from having been used to strangle her.’ Reaper raised his voice. ‘Whichever law enforcement agency with jurisdiction is hearing me, either live or later, on Ms Plain’s recording, I’d suggest you visit the Shiloh Inn when this is over – not before, since the doors to that place have been wired with explosives too.’

  ‘Dear God,’ Eleanor Tilden said.

  ‘So when all this is finished, go to Tilden’s office and take a look in the locked bottom drawer of his wooden file cabinet, in a dinky little trinket box, also locked. I can’t say I know where the keys are now, but when I let myself in one night a good long while ago, they were in John Tilden’s coat pocket hanging on the hat rack in his office.’

  ‘How in hell …?’ Tilden stopped.

  ‘How did I come to be in your office? Walking around your inn?’ Reaper smiled again. ‘That’s not for you to know. I may yet share that information, but not with you. You can just twist in the wind, John Tilden.’

  This was her chance, Liza realized, as Reaper fell silent. She’d waited, galvanized along with the rest, but for all she knew, time might be running out, and she had to ask.

  ‘I have a question, too.’

  Her voice carried, loud and clear, across the nave.

  She felt all eyes turning to her.

  ‘It’s about Thomas Pike,’ she said.

  SIXTY

  Reaper shifted his gaze from John Tilden to Liza.

  ‘What about Thomas Pike?’ he said.

  ‘We all know that he’s been missing for nearly two weeks.’ She faltered, took a breath, pushed on. ‘So I’m wondering now, in view of the part you say he played in helping your father “put you away”, if you might—’

  A sound intruded.

  From outside the church.

  Just a distant siren heard through a brief lull in the gale. Too far away to imagine it might be coming to Shiloh on a night like this when all kinds of emergencies had to be devouring resources, yet still …

  Liza spoke quickly into the mike. ‘We just heard a siren,’ she said. ‘So in case that’s the police or FBI coming to our aid, we urge you again to be very careful. Do not attempt to enter Saint Matthew’s or the Shiloh Inn through any door. And for all we know, there may be other booby trap devices elsewhere.’

  ‘Ms Plain,’ Reaper said. ‘You were wondering.’

  She looked at him through the viewfinder, tried and failed to read his gray eyes.

  ‘I was,’ she said. ‘About Thomas Pike?’

  ‘A missing person, as you said. And no time for that now.’ Reaper cleared his throat. ‘Whirlwind’s mission being far from over.’

  He stood very still for a moment, then raised his voice again.

  ‘We’ve reached the next stage of our operation. Joel, please fetch Jeremiah and bring the Glovers back into the nave.’

  ‘You can’t ask them to leave their daughter,’ Keenan said.

  ‘They can’t stay there unguarded, Vicar,’ Reaper said. ‘The exit near your parlor has been wired, and I wouldn’t want to place them in further danger.’

  He nodded at Joel, who left his position at the south-east door, moved swiftly up to the chancel and out through the vestry door, and seconds later, angry voices were heard, but then the Glovers were back as ordered, the two gunmen behind them on the chancel, Jeremiah’s face still masked.

  ‘You really have no shame at all, do you?’ Adam Glover asked Reaper.

  ‘Please take your seats again,’ Reaper told him.

  ‘What about Tilden?’ Seth Glover said.

  ‘For now,’ Reaper said, ‘he waits.’

  ‘For what?’ Tilden burst out.

  ‘Be quiet,’ Reaper told him.

  ‘If you’re going to kill me, why don’t you just get it over with?’

  ‘Nothing so swift,’ Reaper said. ‘Everyone please sit down.’

  He watched, Liza continuing to record as the shattered family returned to their pew, only feet from the darkening stains left by Grace Glover’s fatal wound, as Jeremiah moved to the north-east door, and Joel back to the exit on the opposite side of the nave.

  ‘William Osborn, would you please stand?’ Reaper said.

  ‘I think not,’ Osborn said.

  ‘Amos, please escort Mr Osborn to the undercroft.’

  Osborn looked around, saw the powerful gang member heading his way, and stood up quickly. ‘No need for assistance,’ he said.

  ‘What do they want with you?’ Freya Osborn whispered, agitated.

  ‘One distinct possibility comes to mind,’ her husband told her gently. ‘Don’t worry yourself, Freya, and do as they tell you. I want us both home safe by Christmas night.’

  Freya grasped his hand and Osborn stooped to kiss her forehead, then turned to face Amos and walked ahead of him to the undercroft door, casting a look of distaste at John Tilden as he passed.

  ‘Please be careful, Bill,’ Freya called out as Amos opened the door.

  ‘Always.’ Osborn raised a hand, went through ahead of the gunman and the door closed behind them.

  ‘Now then, Ms Plain.’ Reaper was brisk. ‘I need you to bring your equipment and follow them in order that you may bear witness to the next part of the proceedings. Nemesis will accompany you.’

  ‘Don’t go with them, Liza,’ Stephen Plain called out sharply.

  Surprised by his urgency, she turned, and managed a smile. ‘Seems like I have to, Granddad.’

  ‘Proud of you, Liza,’ Gwen Turner called. ‘You’re doing an amazing job.’

  ‘Just please be careful,’ Jill Barrow shouted after her.

  ‘You too,’ Liza said. ‘Everyone.’

  ‘You can leave the tripod,’ Reaper told her. ‘Just take the camera and backpack, and make sure they stay connected.’

  Liza busied h
erself, trying to suppress the new surge of fear engulfing her, because who knew what she was heading toward now, and glancing at Michael, she saw that his eyes were on her too, their expression anxious.

  ‘Will I be coming back?’ she asked Reaper.

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ he said.

  She looked up at him again, at this man, so old before his time, and she hoped that someone out there had picked up on the fact that Reaper was dying, because it almost certainly made him a man with nothing to lose.

  ‘Come on.’

  Liza turned, saw that Nemesis, still masked, was behind her, holding out Liza’s parka.

  ‘To whoever’s out there,’ Liza spoke rapidly into the microphone, still connected, ‘you’ll know that I’m leaving the nave. I’ll continue broadcasting if I can, though we’re apparently heading down into Saint Matthew’s undercroft, so I can only hope the signal will carry. If not, I’ll get back on air just as soon as I can.’

  The woman called Nemesis leaned over her shoulder.

  ‘For now,’ she said sharply, ‘that was Liza Plain signing off.’

  Liza realized abruptly that she hadn’t mentioned the parka and the possibility that it might mean they were going outside, which might mean an exit being defused, which the police or the FBI needed to know.

  Nemesis leaned forward, put her hand over the microphone.

  ‘No more,’ she said.

  Raised her shotgun a little, as a warning.

  SIXTY-ONE

  Special Agent Clem Carson was always snow-ready. It was a big issue with him, a skill gleaned from his former life in Buffalo, New York, and a modest source of personal pride. His old Jeep Wrangler, complete with snow tires and emergency kit, was safely garaged, and he’d been out shoveling, snow-blowing and salting the driveway, sidewalk and road outside his Spragueville house at regular intervals since the snow had begun, even though he’d been laid up with the flu for a week and was now officially on leave.

  Always on call, though, in his line of work, always good to go, even in a blizzard, and he’d gotten a reputation for that in the Providence satellite office, where they called him The Snowman. Which was part of why he’d gotten a call, five minutes ago, from Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge David Balfour, and why he was already warming up the Wrangler, his laptop open on the passenger seat, earphone in his right ear, listening to the terrifying nightmare apparently breaking loose in a church over in Shiloh Village.