Chief Among Sinners

by Lois K. Gibson

  Halloween night, he got to Sally's a little after six. He drove around behind St. Timothy's to come into the alley the back way and pulled into the grove of trees near the Clark house, well behind the scary Halloween freak show Agnes used to scare away unwanted visitors. He remembered that even before he heard the sirens, he saw the chief's car backing out the other end of the alley to the street. Then he saw Frank Stevenson's police car pull into the alley ahead of the ambulance. He watched Frank join the medics, and then the chief seemed to appear out of the shadows.

  Grateful he had parked behind some trees, so the chief wouldn't see his car, Dan started to get out when he saw Sally running toward him, holding her coat around her and waving at him. He opened the door and she jumped in and told him to get out of there, fast.

  She said she didn't want to stay around hearing Maggie, her sister, scream, "He killed her!" Her fear was infectious, and Dan gunned the engine and pulled away. Once they were on the road, he asked Sally, "What's going on? What happened? Why the ambulance? Who's hurt?" And that's how he found out that Agnes Clark died in a weird Halloween accident.

  Surprised that Sally didn't want to go with Agnes in the ambulance or stay home and comfort Lucy whom she said she left hiding under the bed, he did as she pleaded with him to do and got out of there fast in the opposite direction from Main Street and headed straight for the casino.

  When they got back from Mortonville, he parked in the alley near the woods for the second time that night. It was midnight. The house was dark. The Jack o'lanterns were dark. The place looked deserted, but Sally assured him Maggie and Lucy were inside. There was no place else for them to go.

  She didn't have to explain to Dan that ever since their father was killed in the hit and run twenty-four years ago, the Clark family was barely tolerated in and around Oakton. After they moved into the old house in the woods, Agnes kept her day job, housecleaning for some of the best families, but Dan didn't know that weekends, Agnes was a regular at the casino, sitting at a table in a designated corner, straggly hair partly hidden under a bright scarf, a crystal ball on the table in front of her, telling fortunes and sometimes turning tricks to keep her girls in food and clothes. Hearing that, Dan wasn't surprised that they were shunned by the townspeople.

  The cool dark helped to change the mood, and Sally was very sexy and very obliging. She told him she was on the pill and trusted he was free of STDs. When they were exhausted from multiple, satisfying orgasms, Sally gave him one last big juicy kiss, hugged her coat around her, slid out of the car, and ran into the house. It struck him that Sally lived in the woods near St. Timothy's. Sally wasn't Catholic, but he wondered if she knew Father O'Reilly.

  Earlier that day, seeing the chipmunk in that blue box gave him a start because just before they had sex, he had given Sally a Halloween present; a silver bracelet, in a small blue box. He tried to remind himself there were lots of blue jewelry boxes like that one, and he shouldn't worry.

  Halloween still in his mind, he remembered not wanting to rush home, savoring a few post coital minutes in his car, but he was anxious to shuck his clothes, feeling messy from sweat, semen, and Sally's cloyingly sweet perfume. Clean pajamas and clean sheets were waiting for him at home. He put in a CD and drove away.

  Dan suspected Louise didn't really sleep until she knew her kids were home safe, like mothers around the world, so he assumed his mother heard him come in after midnight.

  When he went in the front door, he saw the chief in his bathrobe trudging up the stairs. Curiously, the chief didn't turn to see who came in, so Dan wasn't sure his father knew he was there.

  He went downstairs to the basement, shoved his clothes in the hamper, went up to the kitchen, poured a glass of milk, grabbed two Oreos and ran up to his room naked.

  Weeks later, sitting at the dining room table alone after their disastrous dinner with his mother and sister probably asleep, he tallied everything that had happened since then. His mother was leaving his father. His father had become abusive, bullying drunk. Kate was still in love with a priest, and there were dead animals on the back steps at St. Timothy's.

  He had two glasses of wine with dinner, really good wine, the kind he couldn't afford, and still he was cold sober. Maybe he should have gotten drunk like dear old dad. Then it wouldn't bother him so much that his family was falling apart. He got up and walked over to look at his father, settled deep into the big leather chair. Watching him breathe through his open mouth, drooling, snoring, oblivious, Dan thought that was it. Get drunk and you don't have to face anything. Still, it wasn't really his problem, unless he found out the old man laid a hand on his mother. Then it was his problem and he swore to himself he would kill Scott.

  He didn't hold out much hope that his mother and father would work something out. Instead, he focused on the St. Timothy mystery. That was the other side of town, far removed from the Addams household.

  He rummaged through a drawer in the kitchen and came back to the dining room, pencil and paper in hand. Laying the paper down on the polished table, he wrote: December 13, Monday.

  Halloween night peculiar gift of fish bowl with dead fish.

  Subsequent Sundays: dead chipmunk, bat, rat, this week birthing rabbit and note.

  He thought, 'Am I missing anything? I don't think so. Now, what do all these items have in common?' He continued:

  1. They're all mutilated.

  Who killed each one?

  Were they all killed by the same person?

  2. There's a red ribbon, on each box.

  Is the container significant?

  'Of course, dummy! Otherwise they could have been wrapped in yesterday's newspaper.'

  Was the lining in each box the same?

  Was the red ribbon new, or scavenged scraps?

  Did Father O'Reilly touch all of them without thinking of fingerprints?

  "Of course he did!" Dan cursed loudly. His father grunted, lifted his head for a second, then slipped back into his stupor. Dan bit his tongue. 'Boy, that was close.'

  He turned back to his list. Lots of people handled those boxes, and evidentiary integrity was out the window. Growing tired and with his list getting him nowhere, Dan was ready to pack it in for the night. Running his hands through his hair, he thought, 'What to do with drunken Daddy?'

  Dan gathered his notes, turned out the dining room lights, stood by the leather chair, and gently poked the chief's arm. Nothing happened. He kicked the chief's leg. Still, no reaction. Deciding, the hell with it, he turned a lamp on low and started up the stairs thinking, 'It's no problem. In the remote possibility that I hear him wake up, I'll run down and steer him into the den.' Dan dragged his feet upstairs into his room. He threw his notes on his old desk, fell on the bed, still in his clothes, and slept.

  Louise lay awake in her big, empty bed. The events of the evening were too unsettling for Louise to just close her eyes as if nothing happened. She tried to remember the last time Scott and she had sex, caressed, or even talked.

  There were things she hadn't shared with her children, things she didn't have the courage to admit to her family. She never told them that about five years ago, after they both left home, Scott once gave her a black eye. She had dragged him to a psychologist who said he would have him arrested by the county police if he didn't sign up for anger management. Scott had gone to three sessions at the high school, telling his staff he was checking to see if they could benefit from the program. He hadn't struck her since, so it must have worked. That was what she told herself when he became angry like he had at dinner. But she couldn't tell any of this to Kate or Dan because she wasn't sure one of them wouldn't arrest him. The only person she had told was Herb Gordon.

  She smiled softly at the thought of Herb, but her mouth set in a hard straight line as the rest of that evening's conversation came back to her. 'I remember that Sunday night of Halloween, when Scott came home looking stressed but relatively cheerful. I felt he was hiding something. It could have been because it was Hall
oween weekend. That's always an uneasy time for the police.' Louise knew better than to ask. If he didn't want to talk, the answer was always the same. "It's police business."

  She concentrated harder. 'Yes, that was when things got really strained.' He kept making excuses about coming to bed, and in the mornings after sleeping in Dan's room, he would explain it was late, he didn't want to disturb her, he was being thoughtful.

  Aloud, she muttered, "That can hold water for one or two nights, but soon, that bucket gets leaky holes." He came to bed one night after Dan came home because it would have been awkward to explain sleeping in the den. Later he told Dan he was sleeping in the den because he was tired and had a lot on his mind.

  Louise got out of bed, turned on the light and looked at herself in the dresser mirror. 'Yes, I'm older, but so is he, and he got a lot fatter. I'm still the size eight I was in high school.'

  Scott hadn't given her a reason to care about her looks in years. He only ever saw her dressed up at the annual police and fire department fundraiser picnic. It was at those picnics that she had gotten to know Rabbi Herb Gordon, and they had become very good friends.

  It was for Herb that she cared how she looked. At social events, she made a pretext of introducing Herb to young women—she knew rabbis didn't stay single for long—he could polka with. Herb could Hora better than he could polka, but the band seldom played a Hora, so Herb became reasonably good at the polka. Louise liked to watch the man dance.

  He usually polkaed with several young ladies at the parties they found themselves attending, and once in a while the bands would play a Hora and Herb would dance that one with Louise. It was their special dance, just for them.

  'I love Herb Gordon,' Louise admitted to herself. 'He flatters me outrageously, appreciates me, and he's very affectionate. Scott is such a slob, and such a bim bam, and not even a 'thank you, ma'am.' I like having Kate and Dan home, but they sure crimp my style. No more movie afternoons.' She watched a blush spread across her face.

  Her affair didn't shame her. She was sure Scott had something going on the side as well. There just didn't seem to be any reason left to stay with him. 'As soon as the kids leave, I'll be someplace else, too, maybe with Herb. That's a hoot, knowing how Scott feels about Jews.'

  Louise got back into bed, turned off the light, and stretched her arms and legs across the queen size emptiness. In the dark that enveloped her, she listened for sounds from below. The thought of his fat body pressing against her and his stale alcohol breath in her face made her gag.

  She cleared her throat, welcomed the dense silence that surrounded her, and smiled.

  Nine

  Terry O'Reilly sighed in relief at the end of the stressful holiday season. Christmas was over, but even with the help of Kate and Dan, they were no closer to any answers about the wee beasties.

  December hadn't been all bad. The best part of this holiday season turned out to be the time he spent with Kate. He knew they would never be lovers, but they cemented their relationship as good friends. He was glad that Kate and Herb got along so well because they were both very important in his life. The added bonus was Lou­ise spending time with them, too. It was nice to see how friendly Herb was with Louise, and how easily the rabbi integrated with Terry and the members of his congregation.

  The last hectic week behind him, Christmas over yesterday, he had enjoyed this past Sunday in church, filled with happy faces thankful for their many Christmas blessings and ready for the new year. He almost danced through the different services, looking for­ward to this one Sunday evening when there would be no six o'clock Fellowship and, hopefully, no horror waiting for him when he came back from the graveyard.

  For two weeks there hadn't been a wee beastie outside his door, but then that evening there one lay. Thank God it wasn't something as horrific as finding the mutilated rabbit in the act of birthing. That had been so grotesque, so unnerving, he almost called the bishop. There were not hat pins with this one, no screaming mouth, just a strange baby doll, a large doll partially stuffed with straw. It was wrapped in a dirty baby blanket wearing ragged clothes, the cracked plastic face had open eyes and a red, rosebud mouth. It looked as if it had been scrounged from a dumpster, except for the pretty pink knit bonnet tied on with pink ribbons, and pinned to it a note that read: WHY DON'T YOU HELP ME?

  This doll and the note made him feel there was some obscene curse on him. Why was some insane person plaguing him, for so long? Could it be so idiot simple that he was supposed to buy a new Christmas doll for some poor child?

  He couldn't help thinking that dark spirits were abroad, ever since Halloween. In their conversations Dan and Kate had reminded him that night was the first wee beastie and then Agnes Clark died, and was he the only one thinking it more than peculiar to break your neck falling off a kitchen stool?

  Still, the back steps of St. Timothy's were his special problem. Counting on his fingers from the beginning, the mutilated animals made no sense to him or anybody else, and he hated the feeling of helplessness that overwhelmed him, seeing each silent screaming mouth and hat pin pierced brain.

  Many sleepless nights he cried out to God to show him the way through this mystery, but there was no path, no light, only the dark­ness of winter, dead bodies, and then the baby doll. If he wasn't a priest, he might have invoked voodoo or black magic to find an answer.

  Tonight there was no Fellowship, and with the new year coming, he hoped that meant the horrors of the past were over and done with, that the mystery was only about a missed Christmas present for a neglected child.

  He comforted himself with those thoughts as he walked toward the old cemetery. Even without a moon, the snow and yellow lights from the nearby road created a bright, frosty Christmas card glow through the tall trees alongside the path.

  His breath caught in his throat when he came closer to the huge fir trees surrounding the cemetery, bent with the weight of snow on their branches, almost touching some of the headstones. From one angle they looked like a protective barrier, and from another they seemed to be menacing the sorry victims of the Indian massacre bur­ied at their roots. The snow covered tombstones jumbled together on the ground looked to him like Christmas ornaments fallen from the trees now that the holiday was over.

  When he clicked open the squeaky gate, he couldn't shake a queasy feeling deep in his gut. Trying to push down that feeling of dread, Terry focused on the hard crunch of frost under his boots. He walked around the graveyard and tried to brush away the crusted snow on the headstones. He slapped his gloved hands together to get his circulation going in the cold.

  Satisfied with his turn around the cemetery, he clicked the gate shut and stood quietly in the snow for a moment. The priest inhaled great gasps of cold air, exhaled, and his frosty breath hung in the air so long that he reached out to let his fingers ruffle through it. Letting out another long breath and watching it fade into the blackness of the nearby forest, he felt energized, a little chilled, and hurried back down the path to St. Timothy's.

  At first he didn't hear anything. Then not sure what he heard, he bent his head, stood still, listening. 'Is it an owl, or trees, rustling in the wind?'

  Another step and he stopped, listened, and heard it again, a mewling sound; maybe a small animal, a kitten, a baby fox. Stepping softly, it got louder as he moved closer to the back steps. "Please, God," he cried out. "Not another one. Not tonight!"

  The awful sounds, half mewling, half moaning, were coming from the shed. He was sure he had snapped the padlock. Now he saw the slatted door ajar, broken from its hinges with the padlock still in place. Flinging the door aside, he let his eyes adjust for a moment before he was able to see a small child writhing in the dirt. Reaching inside to get hold of the child, he yelled, "Mrs. Murphy! Mrs. Murphy, hurry! I need help here!"

  Gently moving his arms under the child, he was able to pull her out, cradling her as he lifted her clear of the shed. In the light from the kitchen window, he saw she was covered in muck, blood,
dirt, leaves, and straw. To him she looked to be eleven or twelve, painfully thin so light in his arms. She had no coat, just a thin shift covering all but her head and hands. She reached out her arms, but they fell to her sides. He tried to see her face, to see if he recognized her, but her long brown stringy hair hid her face from him, and he didn't have a free hand to brush the hair aside.

  As her whole body seemed to convulse against him, Mrs. Murphy appeared with a warm blanket, wrested the child from his arms, and started to coo a simple Irish tune to calm and soothe the little girl. Mrs. Murphy stopped long enough to tell him that just before he called out to her, she thought she heard something and assumed it was another beastie. "The poor dearie. Well? What are you doing there, gawking like a ninny? Here." She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and said, "Call for help."

  He dialed 911 and yelled into the phone, "Get an ambulance to St. Timothy's, quick."

  Terry stayed on the line with the operator while he hurried behind Mrs. Murphy as she carried the child up the back steps into the warmth of the kitchen. Together they laid the child on the kitchen table. While she struggled into her coat, Terry watched Mrs. Murphy put her ear close to the child's face, crooning and also, he thought, listening for the small chance the child would at least tell them her name.

  Mrs. Murphy told him the little girl was pregnant and probably in labor, and he immediately recalled the small dead baby rabbit emerging from a dead mother rabbit. He gagged, put his hand over his mouth, and swallowed the bitter tasting bile, but he didn't throw up.

  He asked Mrs. Murphy if the child said anything she could understand. She told him she heard some murmurings but couldn't make out anything intelligible. They looked up when they heard sirens scream through the neighborhood, and with both of them holding onto the child, they rushed through the church and down to the street as the ambulance screeched to a stop in front of St. Timothy's.

  Coming around from the ambulance cab, Terry recognized the same EMTs who took Agnes Clark away on Halloween; Tom Halloran, one of his parishioners, and Jack Evans.