The Undoing of Saint Silvanus

by Beth Moore

  “I’ll get a couple of towels,” David whispered, trying to recover a straight face.

  “Take your time” was all Adella could say, bent over the way she was.

  CHAPTER 44

  CAL CHARGED FULL FORCE into the storage unit, yelling and shoving boxes and crates out of his way. Frank shouted to the other officers, “Make some space! We’ve got a body here!”

  Cal dropped to his knees and slid his left hand under Jillian’s shoulders and his right hand behind her neck. He pressed his face to hers. She was cold—but not the cold of death. He lifted his head and bellowed, “She’s still alive! Get me an ambulance!”

  The whole place erupted in light and sound. The officers were shouting and the siren of the approaching police car was earsplitting.

  “Careful there, buddy,” Frank spoke from behind him. “We don’t know the extent of the injuries. Keep your head.”

  Cal cut the duct tape off her ankles and wrists and winced for her as he removed the strip across her mouth. She showed no reaction. He cupped his hand under her left ear and said, “Hey, girl. You’re safe. You’re gonna be okay. We’ve gotcha.” He dropped his head on her shoulder. “I’ve gotcha.” He wiped a smudge of dried blood from her forehead. “Hey, talk to me. Insult me. Come on, I know you’ve got something to say.” He checked her pulse and gently patted her face, trying to elicit a response. “You see that, Frank?”

  “What, boss?” Frank was leaning over him, his hands on Cal’s shoulders.

  “Her eyes twitched.”

  Frank took a few seconds before he responded. “I think I did.” Cal would learn later that Frank had lied, but he was glad he did. He wouldn’t have wanted to hear what those three officers thought her chances were.

  “Where’s that ambulance?” Cal shouted without taking his eyes off her.

  “On its way.”

  “She did it again!” Cal put his hands on her cheeks. “Jillian, you’re not getting off this easy. You’ve got some scores to settle. Heck, you still have at least one more dance lesson to endure. I feel like you’ve got some potential. I’d bet a plate of crawfish on it.”

  She began shaking violently. Cal tore off his jacket and put it over her. “Frank, there was a blanket in that box. Throw it to me.” He tucked it around her and rubbed her arms as briskly as he thought she could stand. He slipped his hand behind her head to see if he could determine the size of the wound. Her hair was caked with blood, but at least she wasn’t lying in a pool of it. He could hear the ambulance getting closer, so he craned his neck for any glimpse of it. Even with red-and-blue lights flashing in his eyes, he could tell a small crowd of officers had joined them on the scene.

  When he looked back down at Jillian, he saw her lips move slightly. He leaned over her. “What is it? Tell me one more time, a little louder.” He could hardly discern her breath, let alone any sound. He shouted to the officers, “Could you get this place quieted down? I think she’s trying to talk!”

  It was no use. The squad cars were silenced but the ambulance was screaming bloody murder. Medical personnel were on the property and out of the vehicle, heading with a stretcher into the storage unit, in what seemed like seconds. “Let’s get out of their way, boss,” Frank coaxed. “Let them to her.”

  Cal carefully removed his hand from under her head and got to his feet. A paramedic circled around him before he could step to the side. “What do we have here, Officers?”

  Frank answered. “We suspect a blow to the back of the head. There may be other injuries. That’s as far as we got.”

  As the paramedic checked her fingertips, toes, and the bottoms of her bare feet, he glared at the raised flesh around her ankles. Cal saw him glance at the same red rash on her wrists and around her mouth and quickly survey the vicinity. Cal knew what the paramedic was looking for. “Frank bagged the strips of tape. Need to see them?”

  The man shook his head, searching for a vein that hadn’t collapsed. Another paramedic flattened the stretcher, moved in beside him, and handed him an IV kit.

  Jillian had been left in the dark and exposed to the cold for over two days. Crawley seemed convinced she was dead, but once Stella realized she wasn’t, she obviously left her alive on purpose. Considering the condition she left her in, compassion could be ruled out as a motive.

  Cal shook his head with frustration when the first three attempts at an IV proved unsuccessful. “Officer,” one of the paramedics said, “if you could give us a little wider berth here, it might help. You’re blocking some light.”

  “Well, could you talk to her or something? Tell her what you’re trying to do?”

  The man swung his head around, looking like he was about to take Cal’s head off at the shoulders.

  “Her name’s Jillian,” Cal stated and moved out of the light.

  He never heard the paramedics say her name, but he heard both of them reassure her even in her unresponsiveness. When they found a workable vein at the ankle and inserted the line, Cal was certain he saw her foot jerk and he lurched toward her. Without turning around, one of the paramedics motioned him to step back and Cal complied. With the drip started, the medics bandaged her head, moved her carefully onto the gurney, and strapped her in.

  The moment they raised it, Cal stepped in beside her and took every step the medics did. The rain had grown thin but a large drop from the eave of the roof hit the back of Cal’s neck as they exited the storage unit. It rolled down his spine, raising the hair on his arms. He swallowed hard against the acid creeping up his throat and considered the possibility, as foreign as it was, that he might be about to throw up. “They’re going to take good care of you, Jillian. They’ll get you to the hospital and get you warm.”

  Frank joined Cal a few feet away from the ambulance. “Let’s let them get her where she needs to go. We’ve got a suspect to find. That’s what you and I can do for Miss Slater.”

  Cal nodded and stepped away from the stretcher as they slid her inside and one of the paramedics joined her in the back. Taking one last look, Cal piped back up. “Wait—I think she’s trying to open her eyes.”

  “We’ve got her, sir. She needs to get to a hospital.”

  Frank slapped Cal on the back and yelled over the siren, “I’ve got to take this call. This should be an update on Crawley.” He jogged toward his car so that he could close himself inside and hear the caller.

  Cal paused, waiting for the ambulance to take off. A minute later when it still hadn’t budged, he shouted even if no one could hear him, “What are you waiting for? Go!” He hit the side of the vehicle twice with the palm of his hand, hoping to signal the driver that all was a go.

  The siren ceased and the back doors of the ambulance reopened.

  “She’s dead,” he whispered. Cal knew the assumption didn’t add up. He knew, had she coded, they would have taken off all the faster and performed emergency procedures en route.

  “You Cal?” the paramedic yelled.

  “Yeah! What’s the holdup?”

  “The patient’s saying your name. Hurry it up. You’ve got ten seconds and we’re taking off if you want her to ever say it again.”

  Cal jumped into the back of the ambulance and knelt right beside her. “Jillian, it’s me. It’s Cal.”

  She seemed to be trying to open her eyes.

  “What is it? Talk to me.”

  Jillian moved her lips but made no noise.

  “I can’t wait any longer, Officer. You better disembark and let us get out of here. Track us down later and I’ll tell you if she says anything.”

  Jillian made an attempt to lick her lips and uttered, “She.”

  “She? Is that what you said?” Cal put his ear as close to her mouth as he could. He sat back up and stroked her face gently with his thumb, looking for some hint of green between her eyelids. “Jillian, talk to me. She what?”

  Again, “She.”

  “Okay. I got that part. She . . . ?” He leaned in closely again.

  “Killed.”<
br />
  “Pulse is erratic, Officer. We need to go.”

  “Jillian,” he said quickly, “they’re about to make me get out of this ambulance. Tell me what you want me to know. Say it. Whatever it is, take a stab at it.”

  With those last few words, she clenched her eyes, grimaced, and mouthed the words “Killed . . . my . . . dad.”

  “Out, Officer! Her pulse is spiking.”

  The siren wailed, and in less than twenty seconds, Cal was out the door and the ambulance on its way.

  As it took the curb and turned out of sight, he dropped to his knees, threw back his head in the pelting rain, and cried like Bully.

  CHAPTER 45

  THE TROLLEY STOPPED just down the block from Saint Sans, and Bully saw several people disembark. What he’d give for Jillian to be one of them and for all of this to turn out to be a huge miscalculation. Crawley could have been hallucinating about doing harm to Jillian. It seemed to Bully that she could have run smack into his big barrel chest and busted her nose. A nose could bleed like nobody’s business, he didn’t care what anyone said. And somehow, with all that blood, Crawley feared her good as dead. Thought he’d even killed her. Stranger things had happened. What was to say she couldn’t have taken off on a road trip with Stella with, at the worst, a crooked snoot?

  He leaned forward and took a good look at the people who’d gotten off the trolley. Two of them were well on their way down the sidewalk, but one was loitering a bit like she was waiting for someone. On the other hand, maybe she was lost. Best Bully could tell, it was a girl. It was well after dark, and he’d never been keen on women being alone after sundown near a city park. He’d just go over there and check. He didn’t know this area like the Eighth District, but he was pretty sure he could help her get where she was going.

  Bully crossed the two streets and the neutral ground in between and walked her direction. He called out to her from about a hundred yards to keep from scaring her. “You need some help?” Sure enough, she was turned around. Bully was familiar with the bistro she was trying to find to meet some friends. It was only a few blocks away and around the corner to the right. “I can walk you as long as I can still keep an eye on that house right there.” She couldn’t have been more than nineteen and was as nervous as a cat. She actually thanked him and let him see her to the second corner. He watched her until she was out of eyeshot. She waved and so did he. That was something else about this part of town. The waving.

  Bully walked back toward Saint Sans wishing he had another update from Sarge or Frank, either one. Last he’d heard, they hadn’t turned up anything else suspicious at the storage unit. The residents might have another long night ahead of them with no news. Bully hoped not, for all their sakes, unless no news was good news. Sarge had Sanchez sitting tight at central, keeping tabs on all the incoming and outgoing information. Others on the force could do the same thing but the sergeant had taken such an interest in this case that he wanted somebody in his own unit deciphering what was significant and what was not.

  Squinting from a block away on the opposite side of St. Charles, Bully studied the curb adjacent to Mrs. Fontaine’s driveway. He hadn’t seen that car there earlier. Or had he? He focused as hard as the drizzling rain would let him. On second thought, he couldn’t have missed a car parked that close to Saint Sans even with the headlights off. In all probability, it belonged to somebody visiting a neighbor. He quickened his pace and pulled out his flashlight just the same. He’d have to knock on a few doors to find out. Bully was pretty sure the neighbors were getting tired of police cars and inquiries, but the way he saw it, they could consider themselves safer than they’d been in years. Some neighborhoods paid a fortune for extra security. Theirs had come compliments of Mrs. Olivia Fontaine, who some might say had the tightest rich fist in all of New Orleans.

  He crossed the street and the neutral ground with the tracks and walked down the westbound edge of St. Charles toward Saint Sans. At a good hundred feet away, Bully shone the light on the windshield, and even with the glare, he could see that the car was empty. At least the front seat appeared to be. He swiped the beam over the hood of the car and down the fender to identify the color and model and started toward the neighbor’s front door to ask about it.

  A shot of adrenaline went through Bully like a geyser. He turned around and started jogging toward the parked vehicle, trying to hold his phone steady enough to bring up information from the APB distributed earlier. The car was a match. Bully radioed the officer inside Saint Sans as he ran toward the car to confirm the license plate. About twenty feet from the vehicle, the rumbling of a motor competed with the sound in Bully’s ears of his own labored breathing and hammering pulse. When the beam of his flashlight caught the steering wheel, he saw a woman sit up. The motor revved loudly, and before Bully could process the sight and leap out of the way, the gas pedal was floored.

  It was strange how Bully never felt the impact. He was deafened to the sounds. He tasted no fear. He smelled absolutely nothing. All of his senses deferred to his sight. He watched the flashlight twirling in the air in slow motion, carving circles of white into the dark night.

  CHAPTER 46

  SUMMER 1921

  THE ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD stretched out her thin arm, reaching for a mossy stick floating nearby.

  The outing, though begun in conflict, had become a peaceful interlude for the family. Raymond felt confident he had been right to insist upon it. The air was comfortably warm with barely a breeze to chill his frail daughter. He and Evelyn Ann both reveled in hearing the child’s giggles and exclamations of delight. One might almost believe she had never been ill.

  As the mild current swept the twig farther from Brianna’s fingertips, she stretched for it. Unexpectedly, the boat lurched. Raymond jumped to his feet to steady her, lost his balance, and they both went overboard.

  He would never be able to remember what happened next. His memory became as murky as the waters that sucked them into its depths.

  He was a strong swimmer. The boat had capsized in water only a few feet deeper than an average man’s height. He could not explain why he’d been unable to save the girl, who could not have weighed more than seventy pounds, except that panic had flooded his lungs.

  He had no memory of Evelyn Ann hitting the water, though clearly she had.

  Reverend R. J. Brashear alone emerged alive on the shore that day. He bore bruises and scratches from his attempts to save his daughter and his wife, though exactly how he’d tried had completely escaped his mind.

  The congregation of Saint Silvanus Methodist Church flocked to his side, wept with him, stood beside him, and held him on his feet as his family was laid to rest. All mourned, and every hymn in the chapel found its pitch in a minor key.

  The sentiment of the psalmist was the salt of their tears.

  By the rivers of Babylon,

  there we sat down, yea, we wept,

  When we remembered Zion.

  We hanged our harps

  upon the willows in the midst thereof.

  CHAPTER 47

  JILLIAN HEARD VOICES around her and tried to pry open her eyes. Her lids felt like they were coated in molasses and her body like deadweight, heavy as lead on a concrete floor. Maybe she was having a dream. She’d tried to awaken herself from dreams before that became dark rooms with no doors where she’d found herself trapped and alone. All four walls would start closing in around her with a screech as maddening as nails on a chalkboard.

  She braced herself, anticipating the wave of terror that always engulfed her with an unfolding nightmare.

  Oddly, it didn’t come. There were no walls. Nothing closing in. She could tell the room was brightly lit, even with her eyes closed. Don’t move, she told herself. Just open your eyes. She willed her eyelids upward and peered through the slender opening. A form was there. Something moving.

  No, not something. Someone. Nodding, maybe. The sounds were muffled, but they harkened back to something familiar. She blinked her eyes
in slow motion.

  “Jillian? Can you see me?”

  No, but I can hear you, she thought loudly, wondering if she’d managed to make a sound. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could, attempting to rouse them from their slumber and remind them to work. When they responded to the prompt, she gave equal force to popping them open. A face as rich as milk chocolate was inches from hers. She flipped through a mental Rolodex of names. Adella. That’s who it was. She couldn’t tell if Adella was smiling or frowning. Jillian felt the woman’s warm hand on her forehead and then the gentle brush of fingernails combing back her bangs.

  “Jillian, can you see us?” It was another voice, equally familiar. Another brown face alongside Adella’s. This one was definitely smiling. It was Caryn.

  Beside her face, a paler one. A man’s face. A kind face, also smiling. “We’re right here.”

  Jillian’s mind scrambled for a moment, trying to land on a name.

  Always the gentleman, he saved her the struggle of placing him by filling in the blank. “It’s David.”

  Yes, David. She liked David so much. Jillian hoped she was grinning. She was trying to, anyway.

  A voice from Adella’s left. “Mr. Winsee wanted to come too. But he was indisposed with the Times-Picayune and Olivia was chomping at the bit. She nearly drove over David’s foot pulling out of the driveway. Caryn opened the door while we flew in reverse and he dove in like Clint Eastwood. You should have seen the audience running for cover. At the first stoplight, I tugged my seat belt so tight my girdle felt loose.”

  Trying not to move her throbbing head, Jillian willed her gaze to follow the voice. Mrs. Winsee’s hair was done and her lip pencil was the least awry Jillian had ever seen it. An unexpected lump knotted in her throat. She didn’t know why. She felt happy as far as she could tell, but her heart didn’t seem to know what to do with it.