by Nora Roberts
The amice was cool against his skin, against his heart, as he murmured the response. “Thanks be to God.”
They rose for the Gospel. Matthew 7:15–21. “Be on your guard against false prophets.”
Isn’t that what the Voice had told him? His head began to ring with the power of it as he sat very still. Excitement, fresh and clean, sang through his tired body. Yes, be on your guard. They wouldn’t understand, they wouldn’t let you finish. She pretended to understand. Dr. Court. But she only wanted to have him put in a place where he couldn’t finish.
He knew the kind of place—white walls, all those white walls and white nurses with their bored and wary looks. A place like his mother had been those last terrible years.
“Take care of Laura. She breeds sin in her heart and listens to the devil.” His mother’s skin had been pasty, her cheeks flaccid. But her eyes had been so dark and bright. Bright with madness and knowledge. “You’re twins. If her soul’s damned, so is yours. Take care of Laura.”
But Laura had already been dead.
He heard the last of the gospel. It spoke to him. “Lord, Lord, who will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does my heavenly Father’s will?”
He bowed his head, accepting. “Praise to you, O Christ.”
They sat for the sermon.
Ben felt Tess’s hand slip over his. He linked fingers, aware that she knew he was uncomfortable. He’d resigned himself to sitting through Mass again, but it was a different story when a priest sat a foot away. It reminded him, clearly, of the few times he’d gone to church as a boy and discovered, to his embarrassment, Sister Mary Angelina sitting in the pew ahead of his family. Nuns weren’t as tolerant as mothers when little boys played with their fingers and hummed to themselves during Mass.
“You were daydreaming during Mass again, Benjamin.” He remembered the trick Sister Mary Angelina had had of slipping her white hands into the black sleeves of her habit so that she looked like one of those egg-shaped, bottom-heavy toys you couldn’t knock down. “You should try to be more like your brother, Joshua.”
“Ben?”
“Hmmm?”
“The man there.” Tess’s voice was light as a feather near his ear. “The one in the black coat.”
“Yeah, I saw him before.”
“He’s crying.”
The congregation stood for the Creed. The man in the black coat continued to sit, weeping silently over his rosary. Before the prayer was finished, he rose un-steadily then hurried out of the church.
“Stay here,” Ben ordered, and slipped out to follow. When she made a move to go with him, Logan pressed her hand.
“Relax, Tess. He knows his job.”
He didn’t come back through the Offertory prayers or the washing of hands. Tess sat with her hands clasped in her lap and her spine trembling. Ben knew his job, she agreed silently, but he didn’t know hers. If they’d found the man, she should be out with him. He’d need to talk. She stayed where she was, acknowledging fully for the first time that she was afraid.
Ben returned, his expression grim as he leaned over the back of the pew and touched Logan’s shoulder. “Could you come out here a minute?”
Logan went without question. Tess found herself taking a deep breath before she followed them into the vestibule.
“The guy’s sitting out there on the steps. His wife died last week. Leukemia. I’d say it’s been a pretty rough time. I’m going to check him out anyway, but—”
“Yes, I understand.” Logan glanced toward the closed doors of the church. “I’ll take care of him. Let me know if anything changes.” He smiled at Tess and patted her hand. “It was lovely seeing you again.”
“Good-bye, Monsignor.”
They watched him walk outside into the crisp bite of the November morning. In silence, they went back into the church. On the altar was the Consecration. Fascinated, Tess sat to watch the ritual of the bread and wine.
For this is My body.
Heads bowed, accepting the symbol and the gift. She found it beautiful. The priest, his vestments making him large and wide at the altar, held the round white wafer up. Then the gleaming silver chalice was consecrated and lifted as offering.
As sacrifice, Tess thought. He had spoken at length of sacrifice. The ceremony she found beautiful, even a little pompous, would only mean sacrifice to him. His God was the Old Testament God, righteous, harsh, and thirsty for the blood of submission. The God of the Flood, of Sodom and Gomorrah. He wouldn’t see the lovely ceremony as a bond between the congregation and a God of mercy and kindness, but as a sacrifice to the demanding.
She reached for Ben’s hand. “I think he’d feel … full here.”
“What?”
She shook her head, not sure how to explain.
From the altar came the solemn words, “… as you were pleased to accept the offering of holy Abel and the sacrifice of our father Abraham, and that of your high priest Melchisedec, a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim.”
“A spotless victim,” Tess repeated. “White for purity.” She looked at Ben with a dull horror. “Not saving. Not saving so much as sacrificing. And when he’s here, he twists all this so that it reinforces what he’s doing. He wouldn’t fall apart here, not here. He feeds off this in the most unhealthy way.”
She watched the priest consume the wafer, then after the sign of the cross, drink the wine. Symbols, she thought. But how far had one man taken them beyond symbols to flesh and blood?
The priest held up the host and spoke in a clear voice. “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world. Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. Speak but the word and my soul will be healed.”
Members of the congregation began to shift out of pews and shuffle down the aisle to receive communion.
“Do you think he’d take communion?” Ben murmured, watching the slow-moving line.
“I don’t know.” She suddenly felt cold, cold and unsure. “I think he’d need to. It’s renewing, isn’t it?”
The body of Christ.
“Yeah, that’s the idea.”
The man who’d been paging through the hymnal rose to go to the altar. The other man Ben had watched kept his seat, with his head bent either in prayer or a light doze.
There was another who felt the need and the longing rise up urgently inside him. His hands nearly trembled with it. He wanted the offering, the flesh of his Lord to fill him and wash away all stain of sin.
He sat as the church filled with voices.
“You’re born in sin,” his mother had told him. “You’re born sinful and unworthy. It’s a punishment, a righteous one. All of your life you’ll fall into sin. If you die in sin, your soul is damned.”
“Restitution,” Father Moore had warned him. “You must make restitution for sin before it can be forgiven and absolved. Restitution. God demands restitution.”
Yes, yes, he understood. He’d begun restitution. He’d brought four souls to the Lord. Four lost, seeking souls to pay for the one Laura had lost. The Voice demanded two more for full payment.
“I don’t want to die.” Laura, in delirium, had gripped his hands. “I don’t want to go to hell. Do something. Oh, please, God, do something.”
He wanted to clasp his hands over his ears, to fall on his knees at the altar and take the host into himself. But he wasn’t worthy. Until his mission was finished, he wouldn’t be worthy.
“The Lord be with you,” the priest said clearly.
“Et cum spiritu tuo,” he murmured.
Tess let the freshening breeze outside play on her face and revive her after over three hours of services. The frustration was back as she watched the stragglers from late Mass stroll to their cars; frustration and a vague, nagging feeling that he’d been close all along.
She linked her arm with Ben’s. “What now?”
“I’m going into the station, make a few calls. Here’s Roderick.”
Roderick came down the ste
ps, nodded to Tess, then sneezed three times into his handkerchief. “Sorry.”
“You look terrible,” Ben commented, and lit a cigarette.
“Thanks. Pilomento’s checking out a license plate. Said a guy across from him mumbled to himself through the last service.” He tucked the handkerchief away and shivered a bit in the wind. “I didn’t know you’d be here, Dr. Court.”
“I thought I might be able to help.” She looked at his reddened eyes, sympathizing when he was wracked with a fit of coughing. “That sounds bad. Have you seen a doctor?”
“No time.”
“Half the department’s down with flu,” Ben put in. “Ed’s threatened to wear a face mask.” Thinking of his partner, he looked back at the church. “Maybe they had better luck.”
“Maybe,” Roderick agreed, wheezing. “You going in?”
“Yeah, I’ve got some calls to make. Do me a favor.
Go home and take something for that. Your desk’s up-wind from mine.”
“I’ve got a report.”
“Screw the report,” Ben said, then shifted as he remembered he stood a couple of yards from the church. “Keep your germs home for a couple of days, Lou.”
“Yeah, maybe. Give me a call if Ed came up with anything.”
“Sure. Take it easy.”
“And see a doctor,” Tess added.
He managed a weak smile and headed off.
“Sounds to me like it’s heading into his lungs,” she murmured, but when she turned back to Ben, she saw his mind was already on other things. “Look, I know you’re anxious to make calls. I’ll take a cab home.”
“What?”
“I said I’ll take a cab home.”
“Why? Tired of me?”
“No.” To prove it, she brushed her lips over his. “I know you’ve got work you want to do.”
“So come with me.” He wasn’t ready to let her go yet, or give up whatever private, uncomplicated time might be left of the weekend. “After I tie things up, we can go back to your place and …” He bent down and nipped her earlobe.
“Ben, we can’t make love all the time.”
With his arm around her, he walked to the car. “Sure we can. I’ll show you.”
“No, really. There are biological reasons. Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
He stopped by the car door. “What biological reasons?”
“I’m starving.”
“Oh.” He opened the door for her then went around to the driver’s side. “Okay, so we’ll make a quick stop at the market on the way. You can fix lunch.”
“I can?”
“I fixed breakfast.”
“Oh, so you did.” She settled back, finding the idea of a cozy Sunday afternoon appealing. “All right, I’ll fix lunch. I hope you like cheese sandwiches.”
He leaned close, so that his breath feathered over her lips. “Then I’ll show you what people are supposed to do on Sunday afternoons.”
Tess let her eyes flutter half closed. “And what’s that?”
“Drink beer and watch football.” He kissed her hard, and started the car as she laughed.
He watched them huddled together in the car. He’d seen her in church. His church. It was a sign, of course, that she should come to pray in his church. At first it had upset him a little, then he’d realized she’d been guided there.
She would be the last one. The last, before himself.
He watched the car pull out, caught a glimpse of her hair through the side window. A bird landed in the branch of the denuded tree beside him and looked down with bright black eyes, his mother’s eyes. He went home to rest.
Chapter 12
“I think I found a place.”
Ed sat solidly at his desk, hammering away two finger-style at his typewriter.
“Oh, yeah?” Ben sat at his own, the map of the city in front of him again. Patiently, he drew lines with a pencil to connect the murder scenes. “A place for what?”
“To live.”
“Umm-hmm.”
Someone opened the refrigerator and complained loudly that their A & W had been stolen. No one paid any attention. The staff had been whittled down by the flu and a double homicide near Georgetown University. Someone had taped a cardboard turkey onto one of the windows, but it was the only outward sign of holiday cheer. Ben put a light circle around Tess’s apartment building before he glanced over at Ed.
“So when are you moving?”
“Depends.” Ed frowned at the keys, hesitated, then found his rhythm again. “Have to see if the contract goes through.”
“You having someone killed so you can rent their apartment?”
“Contract of sale. Shit, this typewriter’s defective.”
“Sale?” Ben dropped his pencil and stared. “You’re buying a place? Buying?”
“That’s right.” Ed patiently applied Liquid Paper to his last mistake, blew on it, then typed the correction. He kept a can of Lysol spray at his elbow. If anyone who looked contagious walked by, he sprayed the area. “You suggested it.”
“Yeah, but I was only—Buying?” To cover his tracks, Ben pushed some excess paper into his trash basket on top of the empty can of A & W. “What kind of dump can you afford on a detective’s pay?”
“Some of us know how to save. I’m using my capital.”
“Capital?” Ben rolled his eyes before folding the map. He wasn’t getting anywhere. “The man has capital,” he said to the station at large. “Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me you play the market.”
“I’ve made a few small, conservative investments. Utilities mostly.”
“Utilities. The only utilities you know about is the gas bill.” But he studied Ed with an uncertain eye. “Where is this place?”
“Got a few minutes?”
“I’ve got some personal time coming.”
Ed pulled his report out of the typewriter, cast a wary glance over it, then set it aside. “Let’s take a drive.”
It didn’t take long. The neighborhood was on the outer and rougher edges of Georgetown. The row houses looked more tired than distinguished. The fall flowers had simply given up for lack of interest, and stood faded among tangles of unraked leaves. Someone had chained a bike to a post. It had been stripped down of everything portable. Ed pulled up to the curb.
“There it is.”
Cautious, Ben turned his head. To his credit, he didn’t groan.
The house was three stories high, and narrow, with its front door hardly five paces from the sidewalk. Two of the windows had been boarded up, and the shutters that hadn’t fallen off tilted drunkenly. The brick was old and softly faded, except for where someone had spray painted an obscenity. Ben got out of the car, leaned on the hood, and tried not to believe what he was seeing.
“Something, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, something. Ed, there aren’t any gutters.”
“I know.”
“Half the windows are broken.”
“I thought I might replace a couple of them with stained glass.”
“I don’t think the roof’s been reshingled since the Depression. The real one.”
“I’m looking into skylights.”
“While you’re at it you ought to try a crystal ball.” Ben stuck his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Let’s have a look inside.”
“I don’t have a key yet.”
“Jesus.” With a mutter, Ben walked up three broken concrete steps, pulled out his wallet, and found a credit card. The pitiful lock gave without complaint. “I feel like I should carry you over the threshold.”
“Get your own house.”
The hall was full of cobwebs and droppings from assorted rodents. The wallpaper had faded to gray. A fat, hard-backed beetle crawled lazily across it. “When does Vincent Price come down the steps?”
Ed glanced around and saw a castle in the rough. “It just needs a good cleaning.”
“And an exterminator. Are there rats?”
“In the basement
, I imagine,” Ed said carelessly, and walked into what had once been a charming parlor.
It was narrow and high ceilinged, with the openings of what would be two five-foot windows boarded up.
The stone of the fireplace was intact, but someone had ripped out the mantel. The floors, under a coating of dust and grime, might very well have been oak.
“Ed, this place—”
“Terrific potential. The kitchen has a brick oven built into the wall. You know what bread tastes like out of a brick oven?”
“You don’t buy a house to bake bread.” Ben walked back into the hall, watching the floor for any signs of life. “Christ, there’s a hole in the ceiling back here. It’s fucking four feet wide.”
“That’s first on my list,” Ed commented as he came to join him. They stood for a moment in silence, looking up at the hole.
“You’re not talking about a list. You’re talking about a lifetime commitment.” As they watched, a spider the size of a man’s thumb dropped down and landed at their feet with a noticeable plop. More than a little disgusted, Ben kicked it aside. “You can’t be serious about this place.”
“Sure I am. A man gets to a point he wants to settle down.”
“You didn’t take me seriously about getting married too?”
“A place of his own,” Ed continued placidly. “A work-room, maybe a little garden. There’s a good spot for herbs in the back. A place like this would give me a goal. I figure on fixing up one room at a time.”
“It’ll take you fifty years.”
“I got nothing better to do. Want to see upstairs?”
Ben took another look at the hole. “No, I want to live. How much?” he asked flatly.
“Seventy-five.”
“Seventy-five? Seventy-five thousand? Dollars?”
“Real estate’s at a premium in Georgetown.”
“Georgetown? Christ on a raft, this isn’t Georgetown.” Something bigger than the spider skuddled in the corner. He reached for his weapon. “The first rat I see is going to eat this.”
“Just a field mouse.” Ed put a soothing hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Rats stick to the basement or the attic.”
“What, do they have a lease?” But he left his weapon secured. “Listen, Ed, the realtors and developers push back the borders so they can call this Georgetown and take idiots like you for seventy-five-thousand dollars.”