"All right," he said resignedly. "You win. Merry Christmas, Father Bill."
Bill hung up and walked down the hall to check on the kids. The dormitory was quiet. Excitement had filled these halls all week, rising ever higher with the decorating of the tree, reaching a fever pitch here a couple of hours ago as he'd overseen the hanging of the stockings by the old never-used fireplace in the dining hall downstairs. But all the boys were in bed now and those who weren't already asleep were trying their best to doze off. Because everybody knew that Santa didn't come until the whole house was sleeping.
Christmas. Bill's favorite time of year. And it was being around the boys that made it for him. They were so excited this time of year, especially the little ones. The bright eyes, the eager faces, the innocence of their euphoric anticipation. He wished he could bottle it like wine and decant off a little at a time during the year to get him through the times when things got low and slow.
God knew there were periods since the fire last March when he could have used a couple of bottles of the stuff. Tomorrow was a milestone of sorts, a dread marker along his personal road: the first December 25th in his life when he wouldn't be able to call his folks and wish them a Merry Christmas.
An aching emptiness expanded in his chest. He missed them. More than he'd ever thought he could or would. But he'd weather tomorrow. The boys would carry him through it.
Satisfied that everyone was asleep or very nearly so, Bill padded downstairs and began unloading the gifts from a locked pantry closet. Most of them had been donated by the local parishioners and wrapped by the sisters who taught the orphans at Our Lady of Lourdes elementary school next door. Good people one and all, pitching in to see that none of the boys went without a couple of presents on Christmas Day.
When the gifts were arranged under the tree Bill stepped back and surveyed the scene: A scraggly limbed balsam laden with a motley assortment of hand-me-down ornaments and garish blinking lights stood guard over piles of brightly wrapped boxes, each tagged with a boy's name. He smiled. Bargain-basement decor, to be sure, but the real giving spirit of Christmas was there. It looked as if Santa had risked a hernia on his trip to St. F.'s this year. Bill was beginning to feel a bit of the old Christmas excitement himself, looking forward to tomorrow morning when he'd be standing in this same spot and overseeing the frenzy of paper-tearing as the overexcited boys unwrapped their gifts with trembling hands. He could hardly wait.
He unplugged the tree lights and climbed the stairs. Halfway up he heard his office phone ringing. He ran for it. If this was Nick again—
But it wasn't. It was Danny. And he was hysterical.
"Father Bill! Father Bill!" he screeched in a high-pitched voice bursting with terror. "You gotta come get me! You gotta get me outta here!"
"Calm down, Danny," he said, keeping himself calm with an effort. Even though he knew it was just another adjustment terror, the real fear in the boy's voice was sending his adrenals into high gear. "Just calm down and talk to me."
"I can't talk! He's gonna kill me!"
"Who? Herb?"
"You gotta come get me, Father! You just gotta!"
"Where's Sara? Put her on and let me speak to her."
"No! They don't know I'm on the phone!"
"Just get Sara—"
"No! Sara's gone! There ain't no Sara! He's gonna kill me!"
"Danny, stop it!"
"Father, please come and get me! Pleeeeease.1" He broke down into sobs but his words were still intelligible. "Father, Father, Father, I don't want to die. Please come and get me. Don't let him kill me. I don't want to die!"
The fear and abject misery in Danny's voice tore at Bill's heart. He was going to have to abort the adoption, cancel the whole thing. The boy simply was not ready to leave St. F.'s.
"Put Sara on, Danny… Danny?"
The line was dead.
Bill yanked open his file drawer and looked up the Loms' number. His hand was shaking as he punched it into the phone. A busy signal buzzed in his ear. He hung up and went to dial again, then stopped. If the line was busy, maybe Sara or Herb was trying to call him. If they both kept dialing, neither of them would get through. He sat back and made himself wait. And wait.
The phone didn't ring.
He forced himself to wait a full five minutes. It seemed like forever. Finally he'd had it. He snatched up the receiver and dialed their number again.
Still busy. Shit!
Bill slammed the phone down and wandered around his office, walked the halls. Over the course of the next half hour, he called the Loms' number a couple of dozen times, and each time the line was busy. Over and over he told himself there was nothing to worry about. Danny was in no danger. It was just the boy's imagination, his damned overactive imagination. Sara and Herb would never harm him, never allow anything bad to happen to him. Danny had just worked himself up into a panic and Sara had probably calmed him just as she had this afternoon.
But why couldn't he get through on the damn phone? An idea struck him and he called the operator. He told her it was an emergency and asked her to break in on the line; she came back and told him there was no one on the line. Nothing but dead air.
Had Danny left it off the hook? That had to be the answer.
But Bill could take no comfort in the explanation. He pulled on his coat, grabbed the car keys, and headed for the street. He knew he'd never sleep until he'd actually spoken to Danny and made sure he was all right. Imagined fears were just as frightening as real ones. So no matter how certain he was that Danny was in no danger, he had to be sure that Danny knew it. Then maybe he could rest tonight.
It was a beautiful night, snow falling on a gentle slant, the flakes flaring as they passed through the cones of illumination under the street lamps. The sounds of the borough, already subdued because it was Christmas Eve, were further muffled by the inch or so of white insulation that had already fallen. A white Christmas.
Bill wished he had time to appreciate the scenery but the inner urgency to get to the Loms' house overrode the esthetics of the night.
He guided the old station wagon down the Loms' street, past snowcapped houses trimmed with strings of varicolored lights, then pulled into the curb before number 735. The house was dark. No Christmas trim, no lighted windows. As he hurried up the walk to the front door, he noticed how perfect the layer of snow was, unmarred by a single footprint.
He pressed the doorbell button but didn't hear any chime within so he used the brass knocker. Its sound echoed through the silent night. He rapped it again. Twice. Three times.
No answer.
He stepped back off the front porch and looked up at the second story. The house remained silent and unlit.
Bill was worried now. Really worried. They had to be home. Their car was in the driveway. His were the only footprints on the snow.
What the hell was going on?
He tried the front doorknob and it turned. The door swung inward. He called out a few hellos but no one answered, so he stepped inside, still calling out.
Standing in the dark foyer, lit only by the glow from the street lamp outside, Bill realized it was as cold inside as it was out. And the house felt… empty.
A terrible, inescapable sense of dread crept over hirrk
My God, where are they? What's happened here?
And then he realized he was not alone. He almost cried out when he glanced to his right and spotted the faintly limned figure sitting in a chair by the living-room window.
"Hello?" Bill said, his hand searching for the light switch. "Herb?"
He found it and flipped it. It was Herb, sitting square in a straight-backed chair, staring into the air.
"Herb? Are you all right? Where's Danny? Where's Sara?"
At the mention of her name, Herb's head turned to look at Bill but his eyes never seemed to settle on him, never seemed to focus. After a few seconds, he returned to staring into the air.
Bill approached him cautiously. A part of him deep i
nside knew that something awful had happened here—or possibly was happening still—and screamed for him to turn and run. But he couldn't run. He couldn't—wouldn't—leave this place without Danny.
"Herb, tell me where Danny is. Tell me now, Herb. And tell me you haven't done anything to him. Tell me, Herb."
But Herb Lom only stared upward and outward at a corner of the ceiling.
Upstairs… he was staring upstairs. Did that mean anything?
Turning on lights as he moved, flipping every switch he passed, Bill found the staircase and headed for the second floor. Dread clawed at his throat as he called out the only names he could think of.
"Danny? Sara? Danny? Anyone here?"
The only reply was the creaking of the stair treads under his feet and the faint howl from the uncradled telephone receiver on the table in the upper hall.
He stopped and called out again, and this time he heard a reply—a hoarse whisper from the doorway at the top of the stairs. Unintelligible, but definitely a voice. He ran toward the dark rectangle, lunged through it, fumbled along the wall with his hand, found the switch…
… light… a big bedroom… the master bedroom… red… all red… the rug, the walls, the ceiling, the bedspread… didn't remember it being so red… Danny there… by the wall… naked… his head lolling… so white, so white … on the wall… arms spread… nails… in his palms… in his feet… face so white… and his insides… hanging out…
Bill felt the room lurch as his legs went flaccid under him. His knees slammed on the floor but he barely noticed the pain as he fell forward onto his hands and gripped the sticky red rug, retching.
No! This can't be!
"Father Bill?"
Bill's head snapped up. That voice… barely audible…
Danny's eyes were open, staring at him; his lips were moving, his voice was raw skin dragging through broken glass.
"Father, it hurts."
Bill forced his legs to work, to propel him across the red room. So much blood. How could one little boy hold so much blood? How could he lose it all and still be alive?
Bill averted his eyes. How could he be so cut up? Who would—?
Herb. It must have been Herb. Sitting downstairs in some sort of post-epileptic funk while up here… up here…
And where was Sara?
The nails. He couldn't think about Sara now. He had to get the nails out of Danny's hands and feet. He looked around for some way to remove them but all he saw was a bloody hammer. Bill fixed his eyes on the boy's bloodless face, his tortured, pleading eyes.
"I'll get you free, Danny. You just wait here and—" God, what am I saying? "I—I'll be right back."
"Father, it hurts so bad!"
Danny began screaming, hoarse, raw-throated wails that chased after Bill, tugging at the very underpinnings of his sanity as he raced downstairs. He pounded into the living room and hauled Herb from his chair. He wanted to tear him in half and he wanted to do it slowly, but that would take time, and he didn't think Danny had much of that left.
"Tools, fucker! Where are your tools?"
Herb's unfocused eyes stared past Bill's shoulder. Bill shoved him back into the chair that flipped backward with Herb in it. He landed in a twisted sprawl on the floor and stayed there.
Bill ransacked the kitchen, found the door to the cellar, and ran down the steps, fearing all the while that somewhere along the way he'd trip over Sara's remains. He was sure she was dead. He found a toolbox sitting on a dusty workbench. He grabbed it and raced back up to the second floor.
Danny was still screaming. Bill took the biggest set of pliers he could find and began working on the nails, removing the ones from his feet first, then moving up to the hands. As his ghastly white little body slumped to the floor, Danny's eyes closed and he stopped his hoarse, breathy, barely audible screams. Bill thought he was dead but he couldn't stop now. He pulled the spread from the double bed and wrapped the boy in it. Then he headed for the street, carrying Danny in his arms, racking his brain for the whereabouts of the nearest hospital.
Halfway to the car Danny opened his eyes and looked up at him and asked a question that shredded Bill's heart.
"Why didn't you come, Father Bill?" he said in a voice that was almost gone. "You said you'd come if I called. Why didn't you come?"
* * *
The next few hours were a blur, a montage of white streets seen through a fogged windshield, of battling skidding tires and locking wheels, of bouncing off curbs and near misses with other cars, all to the accompaniment of Danny's nearly voiceless screaming… arriving at the hospital, one of the emergency room nurses fainting when Bill unfolded the bedspread to reveal Danny's mutilated body, the ER doctor's blanching face as he said there was no way his little hospital could give this boy the care he needed… the wild ride in the rear of the ambulance, racing into Brooklyn with lights flashing and sirens howling, skidding to a stop before Down-state Medical Center, the police waiting for them there, all their grim-faced questions as soon as they wheeled Danny away to surgery.
And then came the thin, chain-smoking detective with yellow stains between his right index and middle fingers, mid-fortyish, thinning brown hair, intense blue eyes, intense expression, intense posture, everything about him aggressively intense.
Renny had got a look at the kid in the ER.
Twenty-plus years on the force and he'd never seen anything even remotely like what had been done to that kid. Turned his stomach upside down and inside out.
And now his chief was on the phone telling him he could pack it in until the day after tomorrow.
"I'm gonna stick with this one, Lieu."
"Hey, Renny, it's Christmas Eve," Lieutenant McCauley said. "Unlax a little. Goldberg's taking eleven-to-seven and what the hell is Christmas to Goldberg? Leave it to him."
No way.
"Tell Goldberg to cover everything else on eleven-to-seven. This one's mine."
"Something special about this one, Renny? Something I should know?"
Renny tightened inside. Couldn't let McCauley know there was anything personal here. Just play the cool, calm professional.
"Uh-uh. Just a child abuse case. A bad one. I think I got all the loose ends within reach. Just want to tie them up good before I call it a night."
"That could take a while. How's Joanne gonna handle that?"
"She'll understand." Joanne always understood.
"All right, Renny. You change your mind and want to pack it in early, let Goldberg know."
"Right, Lieu. Thanks. And Merry Christmas."
"Same to you, Renny."
Detective Sergeant Augustino hung up and headed for the doctors' lounge he had commandeered. That was where they were holding the guy who'd brought the kid in. He said his name was Ryan, claimed he was a priest but he had no ID and the sweatsuit he was wearing didn't have a Roman collar.
Renny thought about the kid. Hard to think about much else. They didn't know anything about him except what the so-called priest had told him: His name was Danny Gordon, he was seven years old, and until this afternoon he'd been a resident of St. Francis Home for Boys.
St. Francis… that was what had grabbed Renny. The kid was an orphan from St. F.'s and someone had cut him up bad.
That was all Renny had to hear to make this case real personal.
He'd left a uniform named Kolarcik on guard outside the lounge. Kolarcik was on the walkie-talkie as Renny approached in the hallway.
"They picked up the guy in the house," Kolarcik said, thrusting the handset toward Renny. "Everything there's pretty much like Father Ryan described it."
We don't know for sure he's a priest yet, Renny wanted to say but skipped it.
"You mean the guy was just sitting there waiting to be picked up?"
"They say he looks like he's in some sort of trance or something. They're gonna take him down to the precinct house and—"
"Bring him here," Renny said. 'Tell those guys to bring him here and nowhere else as so
on as he's booked. I want to get a full medical on this guy while he's fresh…just to make sure he's not suffering from any unapparent injuries."
Kolarcik smiled. "Right."
Renny was glad to see that this particular uniform was on his wavelength. No way that fucker in Queens was going to take a walk on a psycho plea,- not if Renny had anything to say about it.
He opened the door to the lounge and took a look at the guy who said he was a priest. Big, clean-cut, square jaw, thick brown hair graying at the temples, good build. Good-looking guy, but at the moment he looked crushed by fatigue and pretty well frayed on all his edges. He sat hunched forward on the sagging sofa, a cup of Downstate's bitter, overheated coffee clasped in his hands.
His fingers trembled as he rubbed his palms against the cup, as if trying to draw warmth from the steaming liquid on the other side of the Styrofoam. Fat chance.
"You connected with St. Francis?" Renny said.
The guy jumped, like his thoughts had been a thousand miles away. He glanced at Renny, then away.
"For the tenth time, yes."
Renny took a chair opposite him and lit up a cigarette.
"What order you from?"
"The Society of Jesus."
"I thought the Jesuits ran St. Francis."
"Same thing."
Renny smiled. "I knew that."
The guy didn't smile back. "Any word on Danny?"
"Still in surgery. Ever hear of Father Ed? Used to be at St. Francis."
"Ed Dougherty? I met him once. Back in seventy-five at St. F.'s Centennial. He's gone now."
The guy had said the magic words: St. F.'s. Only someone who'd lived there called it St. F.'s.
Okay. So he probably really was Father William Ryan, S.J., but that didn't absolutely mean that he had nothing to do with what had happened to that kid. Even priests got bent. Wouldn't be the first time.
"Look, Detective Angostino," Father Ryan said. "Can we make small talk later?"
"It's Awgustino, and there's no small talk and no later in something like this."
"I've told you, it was Herb. The husband. Herbert Lorn. He's the one. You should be out—"
"We've got him," Renny said. "We're bringing him down here for a checkup."
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