by G. M. Ford
They rode to the top of the next incline in silence. Overhead, a slate gray sky flowed eastward, dark and sensuous, like cooling lava. A swirling wind lifted the last derelict leaves of fall and sent them aloft in dirty spirals. As they rounded a sharp corner near the summit, a ragged patchwork of shingled roofs appeared spread out over the valley floor. Here and there the spires of churches poked up through the social fabric, like slender white fingers pointing the way home.
“The place looks way better from up here,” Dougherty commented as she wheeled the Ford around the narrow corner. “These rust belt cities have always given me the willies. Makes me feel like I need a shower.”
“Allentown used to run on iron and coke and chromium steel,” Corso said. “When the coal ran out, all of a sudden it didn’t run on anything at all.”
She wrinkled her nose at the acrid air. “Why do people stay in places like this?”
“Because they were born here. It’s all they know. And because they were promised that if they behaved themselves and worked hard, there was a life for them here. A place where they could raise kids and root for the Phillies and maybe retire to their front porches to watch the Fourth of July parade.”
She wheeled the car around another pair of corners, then sneaked a peek at Corso. “That how you envision your golden years, Frank? Waving a little flag on the porch?”
Corso snorted. “Not me,” he said. “Not you either, honey bunny. We’re not part of the scheduled programming. We’re fringe people. Neither of us is ever gonna be the one bringing stringbean casserole to the Elks or the Eagles or the Eastern Star. We’re always going to be on the outside looking in. That’s what we do.”
He expected an argument, but instead she pointed out over the top of the steering wheel. “There,” she said. “That’s gotta be it.”
It was a big old-fashioned cemetery. Maybe thirty acres of the dearly departed nestled beneath a towering grove of oaks and maples whose black branches spread like bony fingers across the sky. The burial ground was surrounded by a six-foot-tall wrought-iron fence. From where he sat, Corso’s eye could follow the meandering, frost-heaved line of the barrier as it wandered drunkenly away from him toward the northern horizon. In other times and places the fence would have been worth more than the ground it guarded, but in an iron town like Allentown—a town where for sixty years the red glow of the steel cauldrons lit the edges of the night sky—for a town like this, half a mile of iron fence was nothing special. Just a rusting divider between what was…and what was yet to be.
Something was burning. Something oily and thick whose inky, airborne ash rained down from the skies like a misty morning in hell. The air was caustic and rough to the throat. As he paced back and forth in front of the grave, Corso felt the glands in his neck beginning to ache.
The headstone was simple. A rough-hewn block of local granite polished smooth on one side. Etched leaves as a border. “Sissy Marie Warwick,” it read. “September 4, 1957–September 4, 1972. Beloved Daughter. May the Grace of God bring Eternal Peace.”
A violent shiver brought Corso to a halt, as a waking dream flickered before his eyes. As if looking through layers of gauze, he saw the thin, wavy shadow of a girl, hands clasped, hair blowing in the wind. Before he could move or speak, she turned her head his way, widened her hollow eyes, and then, as the wind gusted again, she was gone. He blinked twice, then turned away, embarrassed by his sudden flight of fancy.
Dougherty had her hood up. She rocked on her heels as she gazed toward the gathering sunset. He was relieved. She hadn’t seen. Corso pulled his coat close around his body and hunched his shoulders.
“She stood right here,” he said.
“Who?”
“The new Sissy Warwick.” He made an expansive gesture with his hand.
“She stood right here somewhere. Saw this head-stone and read those words and decided that Sissy Warwick was going to be her new name.”
Dougherty thought it over. “You think maybe she even saw the burial?”
“That’s an interesting thought, now isn’t it,” he mused, looking around. “Maybe from a distance,” he said. “Maybe over there behind that oak thicket.” He walked in a slow circle. “Yeah…I’ll bet she did. That feels right to me.” He turned to Dougherty. “This was a person with a plan already in place. Less than a week after the real Sissy Marie went in the ground, somebody was already using her identity to get a birth certificate and a Social Security card.”
“But how can we be sure she’s the same Sissy Marie Warwick who shows up in Avalon, Wisconsin, a year later?”
“The woman in Avalon used the same birth certificate and Social Security number when she married Eldred Holmes a year or so later.”
She eyed him hard. “How do you know that?”
“The sheriff told me,” he said quickly.
Her expression said she didn’t believe him, but “Weird” was all she said.
“What’s weird is that it pretty much had to be a kid.”
She frowned.
“Think about it,” Corso said. “The real Sissy Warwick died on her fifteenth birthday. It stands to reason that whoever decided to take over her identity had to be somewhere in the vicinity of her age. Probably had to be a little older, rather than younger. You get much younger than fifteen, and I start to have doubts about your ability to put the thing together.”
“A kid, huh?”
“Don’t see how it could be any other way,” he said.
Dougherty didn’t argue. Instead she slipped her arm through his. “Let’s go,” she said, tugging gently on his elbow. “Color me silly, but I don’t want to be standing out in the middle of a graveyard when it gets dark.”
Arm in arm, they began to wind their way among the graves. No straight lines here. No military precision. The arrangement of the graves was haphazard, as if the stones and bones had been scooped into a giant hand and rolled out like dice.
This was the final resting place of the city builders. If they were Catholic, they ended up here. Rich and poor. Old and young. Slag skimmers and steel barons alike. Simple stone plaques covered with debris lay scant feet from ornate family mausoleums whose baroque marble angels, green and grimy with age, looked down upon the less fortunate with eternal disdain.
Fresh flowers decorated occasional graves, but most were grown over and ragged, as if the dead had been forgotten. On Corso’s left, a fallen headstone lay in the grass, its uprooted base festooned with spidery roots and a weathered one-eyed Pooh Bear. Against the black of the upturned earth the remains of Mylar balloons gleamed slack and silver in the waning light.
The grass upon which they trod was a thick, spongy mat of leaves and dead, frozen grass. To the south, the hill fell away. Allentown now rested beneath the pall of blue smoke rising from its chimneys, spreading over the peaks and valleys of the rooftops like dirty cotton.
“What next?” Dougherty asked.
Corso thought it over as they walked. “I guess we lay hands on the local phone book and see how many Warwicks we can find.”
She dropped his arm. “That’s all you’ve got? We beat the phone book?”
“That’s it.”
“That’s pretty damn desperate,” she said.
“You’re telling me.”
To the north, a collection of buildings peeked from among a wall of trees. It wasn’t until they’d walked another fifty yards that Corso looked that way again. When he did, he stopped. Pointed. “The one in the middle,” he said. “It’s a church.”
“Sure is.”
The sharp slope of the steeple had been lost among the riot of branches. Four buildings, including the church. A pair of three-story blocks on the left. Dark and sharp-edged against the fading sky. A smaller building squatted on the right of the church, its stone chimney adding a thin column of smoke to the gathering blanket of smog. Three dimly lighted windows cast shadows out onto the ground.
“Probably the Sisters of Whatever,” Dougherty said.
&
nbsp; Corso nodded. “Yeah.”
She turned and started away. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder. When Corso didn’t move, she wandered back to his side. “Let’s go,” she said. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“Let’s visit the Sisters,” he said.
“Nuns make me nervous,” Dougherty said. “Some-thing about them always makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong and should confess.”
“You can wait in the car if you want.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Oh yeah, like I’m gonna sit in a graveyard waiting for…” Corso wasn’t listening. His black overcoat was quickly blending into the night as he strode in the direction of the lights. Dougherty weighed her options. Looked around the graveyard. Then stretched her long legs and ran headlong after Corso.
14
Somebody was inside. Corso could feel it. He pulled the iron handle again. Kept pulling until a full foot of rusty chain emerged from the bricks, then let it go. Inside the rectory, the dull clank of clapper on bell echoed in the darkness.
“Place looks deserted to me,” Dougherty said. “I’m bettin’ they just leave the lights on for security.”
“There’s somebody in there,” Corso insisted. “I can tell.”
“X-ray vision, huh?”
“I come from a long line of folks who don’t answer their doors. Trust me, there’s somebody inside.”
The wind was stronger here. Overhead, the trees circling Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow’s driveway swayed like ghostly dancers. The circular drive hadn’t seen a car in ages. The bricks were littered with dead leaves, acorns, and small shards of broken branches. The untended flower beds, grown tall in the summer sun, were bent double now, their brown stalks cracked and frozen in place. The wind carried the fecund odor of mold and decay and death.
The rectory’s ancient front door consisted of half a dozen maple planks held together by ornate wrought-iron hinges. The arched entrance had a little built-in sliding speakeasy window. Corso used his thumb, trying to slide the metal plate aside, but it wouldn’t budge. As he tried again, the window suddenly slid open, pinching his thumb between the metal and the wood. Instinctively, he brought his thumb to his mouth.
His thumb was still in his mouth as he bent at the waist and peered through the opening. Whoever was on the other side was standing right up against the door. All he could see were a pair of rimless glasses and two sparkling blue eyes.
“We weren’t expecting you until morning,” a woman’s voice said.
“Excuse me?” Corso said.
“You’re the movers, aren’t you?”
“No, ma’am. We’re not. I wanted to ask someone about the cemetery.”
He heard a sigh. “We’re no longer accepting internments,” the voice said.
“No, I wanted to ask about one of the graves that’s already there.”
Corso thought he heard whispering but wasn’t sure.
“Which grave was that?” the voice asked.
“Over on the east side of the cemetery. Sissy Marie Warwick.”
This time, he was positive. The whispering took on a more urgent cadence, and then, without warning, the little window slid shut with a bang.
“Having your usual effect on women, I see,” Dougherty sneered.
As Corso raised his fist to the door, a series of metallic clicks and scrapes filled the air, and the door swung inward, until it stopped on a thick black chain. A nun. Hard to tell how old. Seventy-something at least. Wearing the basic nun’s headdress over a plain gray dress and black stockings. A black metal cross hung from her neck like an albatross. She looked Corso up and down. Her eyes came to rest on his bruised brow. “What happened to your head?” she wanted to know.
“Car accident,” he told her. “Banged myself up pretty good.”
She was momentarily startled when Dougherty stepped into the light. “Oh,” she stammered, “I thought…I didn’t realize…a young lady…”
The door closed for a moment. The sound of urgent voices seeped through the maple planks. Corso couldn’t make out the words, but the rhythm of the phrases suggested a heated debate. The chain rattled, and then the door eased open again.
Corso was momentarily taken aback. Something was different. Same face, same glasses, same everything, except that this time she wore a black cardigan sweater over her dress.
“Won’t you come in,” she said.
Corso stepped aside, but when Dougherty hesitated, he stepped in first. The air was thick and warm and smelled of brewing tea. Dougherty followed. The door swung shut on its own, leaving them standing in a narrow flagstone hallway.
There were two of them. Identical in every way except for the sweater.
“We’re sisters,” Sweater said.
Before Corso could respond, the other one piped in, “Really sisters. Not just Sisters in Christ.”
“Twins,” said the other.
“Ah,” Corso said.
“This is Sister Agnes. I’m Sister Veronica,” Sweater said.
Dougherty started to speak, but Corso cut her off. “I’m Frank Falco. This is Meg Dolan.” Dougherty cast Corso a quick look that said she didn’t require any help remembering her alias. She put on her canned smile and began to rub the warmth into her red hands.
“Can we get you some tea?” Sister Veronica inquired.
“That would be great,” Dougherty said.
Corso and Dougherty followed the women down the narrow hall to a small kitchen at the back of the building. A plain wooden table and four chairs held down the center of the room. Every other flat surface was covered with cardboard boxes, taped closed and marked in red. Plates. Utensils. Cookbooks.
Sister Veronica apologized for the clutter. “Amazing what people collect over the years,” she said with a wan smile.
Her sister scowled and made a dismissive noise with her lips. “Some people are entirely too worldly for their own good,” she said. Her mouth was pinched and wrinkled around the edges like a snare.
“My sister means Father Jonathan,” Veronica explained. Her hand swept around the room. “He lived here in the rectory for thirty-seven years,” she said. Her eyes crinkled with a smile. “Father did like his comforts.”
“Far too much,” Agnes added. “His habits were the death of him.”
“He died back in February. Heart attack.”
“Sloth and gluttony,” said Agnes. “The perils of the acquisitional life.”
Sister Veronica rolled her eyes. “Please excuse my sister,” she said. “Even after these many years in the service to our Lord, she’s never become resigned to the foibles of human nature.”
“This world could use a little more righteous indignation,” Agnes said.
“Perhaps a little,” her sister chided. “Just a little.”
The lines sounded rehearsed. As if they’d been playing the same parts for so long, they’d become bored with their own banter. Sister Veronica touched Dougherty on the elbow. “We promised you some tea, now didn’t we, dear?” She gave a laugh. “What a space cadet I’m getting to be.”
She was still chuckling at her own forgetfulness as she crossed to the stove and dug a plain white mug out of one of the boxes. She looked at Corso with a question in her eyes. He shook his head. She set the cup in the sink and then filled it from a small porcelain teapot. She returned, holding the cup in both hands, like an offering, and handed the mug of steaming tea to Dougherty. “I’m afraid we’re out of cream and sugar,” she apologized. “We’re leaving in the morning.”
“Would have been a waste,” Agnes said quickly.
“Where are you moving to?” Dougherty asked, sipping from the mug.
“Muncie, Indiana,” Agnes said. “Our order has a facility there.”
“The Archdiocese is closing the church,” Veronica said.
“Selling the property.” Agnes shook her head. “After a hundred and twenty-five years. Like the house of God was a meat market or something.”
“T
hings change, sister,” Veronica said, her voice weary.
Corso could feel the moment slipping down the well of their personal disagreements. “They sell the cemetery too?” he asked.
Veronica looked offended. “Of course not,” she said. “How could they—”
“If they could have, they would have,” Agnes snapped. “It’s all about money, these days. Nothing but the almighty dollar.”
Veronica sighed. Behind the rimless glasses, her eyes looked inward. “When we first came here, there were forty-two Sisters. Now it’s just us.”
“When was that?” Dougherty asked.
“Nineteen fifty-nine,” they said in unison.
“We were teachers,” Agnes explained.
“Mathematics and literature,” Veronica said, indicating first her sister and then herself. “That was before the school closed, back in eighty-one.”
“You said—” Agnes began.
Her sister cut her off. “We had eighty girls then. Twenty boarders and sixty town girls. We were the largest Catholic girls’ school in…”As she spoke, her voice took on an artificial quality, theatrical and bright, as if she were talking to herself in the dark to keep from being afraid. As if her words, and only her words, could keep the darkness from sinking its claws into her back.
Sister Agnes was having none of it, though. Her face was a mask of determination. She stepped between Corso and Veronica. “You said you were interested in the Warwick grave,” she said in a voice far too loud for polite conversation. While her statement was directed at Corso, her eyes never left Sister Veronica. They passed a long look, so full of avarice and recrimination it could only have been shared by people who’d spent far too much time in one another’s company.
“I seem to have touched a nerve,” Corso said to nobody in particular. Dougherty hiccuped and spilled tea on her hands. Neither nun noticed. They stood, six feet apart, locked in silent combat.
“Sister, please…”Veronica said finally.
“It’s an omen,” Agnes said. “Don’t you see?”
“Don’t you blaspheme,” the other woman warned. “Don’t you dare.”