Private Detective: BENNINGTON P.I.: A thrilling four-novel political murder mystery private detective series...

by D. W. Ulsterman

  Father Barnes looked up at me, his jaw clenching several times.

  “The more rational part of me says yes. People die in car accidents all the time, but I also know there is evil in this world, Mr. Bennington. It exists, and is all around us. Clearly we are moving against very powerful forces here. My research threatens those with a great deal of money and influence, certainly enough of each to carry out the killing of others.”

  I looked down the hallway to see Dr. Styles making her way quickly down the hallway, and true to her word, a security officer walked alongside her.

  “Where to now, Father?”

  The priest had also noted Dr. Styles coming our way, his eyes watching her for a second before he looked back at me and then began walking toward the elevator.

  “Follow me, I have a safe place we can hide out at to discuss options.”

  Father Barnes set a near running pace, neither of us stopping to speak to Doctor Styles as we passed each other in the hallway. I could feel her eyes on me though. The woman didn’t like us. Not one damn bit.

  Once outside and standing in the parking lot of the George Washington University Hospital, the priest motioned in the distance toward a domed structure atop which sat a large marble crucifix.

  “That there, that’s a half mile’s walk from here. We make it there and we’re under the protection of God himself.”

  I grasped the priest’s right arm.

  “Wait, what is that place?”

  Father Barnes shook himself loose from my grip and began walking, calling back to me as he did so.

  “Stop with the questions and move your ass!”

  I was about to do just that when the piercing noise of squealing tires reverberated across the parking lot. My eyes located the source of the sound – a late model, black four door sedan with government plates that was heading with increasing speed directly for the priest, who stood frozen between a row of parked cars.

  At the very last moment before impact, Father Barnes catapulted himself to the right, landing on his side and then rolling away from the car’s fender that passed just inches from his body.

  Without thinking, I found myself running toward the car, trying to get a glimpse of who was inside. The car roared past me and then stopped no more than forty yards away where it began turning back toward both me and Father Barnes.

  “Get out of the way, Bennington!”

  I looked to my left to see the figure of the priest once again holding the same handgun he had pointed at my head during our first meeting. The weapon was now aimed directly at the front windshield of the black sedan.

  The vehicle sat motionless, the sound of its motor barely louder than the sound of the bottom of the priest’s dark leather shoes scraping across the parking area concrete as he continued to move toward the car that had nearly killed him.

  “I am the minister of God and to you who do that which is evil, be afraid, for I do not bear this sword in vain! I am God’s hand to bring righteous wrath upon him that doeth evil!”

  The vehicle’s tires screeched an angry cry as it propelled itself toward Father Barnes. The priest stood with his legs apart and fired two rounds into the vehicle’s windshield, the sound of shattering glass competing with the roar of the car’s engine.

  The distance between machine and man was no more than thirty yards. The priest fired another round, his body tensing for what would be a terrible impact and most certain death. The black sedan veered to the right, its hood smashing into the back of a parked SUV just a few paces from where I had crouched low, hoping to avoid being shot.

  The driver’s door glass was darkened, making it difficult to see who was driving. It was a man, unmoving, his body slumped over the steering wheel. I couldn’t tell if anyone else was in the vehicle.

  “Bennington! Let’s go!”

  The priest was once again on the move, leaving me to try and catch him. For those of you who checked out my first assignment with the T3 Group, you already know that running isn’t my thing. In fact, my running motion is actually more of an awkward, half ass, shambling shuffle. After getting just halfway across the parking lot, I had the added bonus of sweat already pouring down the sides of my face.

  Yeah, I know ladies – we’re talking straight up dead sexy.

  It took me nearly a minute of side cramp inducing motion to catch up to the dark clad priest as he darted between cars, shrubs and trees on his way to the building he had pointed out to me just moments earlier. Whatever shock I may have experienced over the attempt on Father Barnes’s life, and his impressively quick and deadly reaction, was left behind as I now silently instructed my heart to keep on beating and not leave me face down on the ground as it had done before. Inside my chest I could feel the presence of the pacemaker, and took some comfort in knowing it was there to help keep everything working right.

  At least for the moment.

  15.

  By the time we reached the large, fenced structure the priest had pointed out earlier, my legs were leaden poles, aching with each shuffling step as my lungs angrily wheezed oxygen into my body as if to ask me what the hell I was doing running around the streets of Washington D.C.

  Because the gun toting priest yelling about being the hand of God told me to, so shut the hell up about it because right now, I guess that just makes perfect sense.

  Father Barnes moved alongside the nine foot, black iron fence that enclosed the perimeter of the property, disappearing into a row of shrubs that grew up against the fence.

  “Bennington – c’mon!”

  I shook my head as I ducked into the shrubs, following a narrow path that appeared to have seen considerable use recently. A few yards ahead of me, the priest crouched low as he pushed against a hidden gate, his body moving quickly to the other side of the fence.

  The priest was on the move once again, running across the neatly manicured lawn toward a set of stone stairs that led down to what must have been the building’s basement area. As I reached those same stairs, I could hear the sound of a heavy door being pushed inward.

  My left hand reached out for a rusted steel railing, not wanting to find myself falling down the steps, though the glowing light from the other side of the just opened door made my descent a bit safer. Once inside, Father Barnes closed the door and then slammed a steel rod down across the door frame, an effective if somewhat crude way to ensure no one would be able to gain entrance from the outside.

  I looked around and confirmed what was in fact a low ceilinged basement. Just how large of a basement was impossible to tell as the room’s interior disappeared into darkness. The area we stood in was illuminated by a single floor lamp in the far left corner, next to which was a narrow, single mattress bed that sat just off of the compacted, dirt floor. The smell of the dirt mixed with another scent that though familiar to me, I couldn’t yet recall.

  “What is this place?”

  The priest had taken a seat on the bed and then extended his left hand toward the surrounding darkness.

  “We are underneath a Catholic monastery Mr. Bennington, one of the oldest buildings in Washington D.C. This room here is a place of refuge, available to Jesuits during times of conflict for over a century. I assume you do not know the entirety of the Jesuit tradition in the church, do you Mr. Bennington? We are sometimes called God’s warriors. It is our duty, and our privilege, to protect the Holy Path so that others may walk upon it.”

  You know the music that plays during the circus when the clowns are all piling out of a car? Yeah, that’s the sound I heard in my head when the priest started explaining where we were.

  I’ve put my safety in the hands of a crazy man.

  “I know you find that description to sound outlandish, Mr. Bennington. I don’t expect you to understand so easily the nature of who I am, and what my duties are. Rest assured though, we are safe here. No harm will come to us in this holy place.”

  I didn’t want to sound disrespectful, but the fact is, nature was calling, and it wasn�
��t gonna be ignored.

  “Uh, Father Barnes, my prostate is not what it used to be, and I got to piss – real bad. Does this holy place of refuge have a restroom, or will God magically relieve me of my full bladder on his own?”

  I tensed as I saw the priest’s eyes glare back at me, his hands clenching the sheets of the bed. His anger passed quickly though as he then shook his head and laughed.

  “You’re a rather straightforward type, aren’t you? I had assumed you would first be asking me about the attempt on my life.”

  I shrugged, feeling the urgency of my needing a bathroom growing exponentially with each passing moment.

  “It’s clear somebody doesn’t want you snooping around. In my line of work, you kind of expect people to want to shut you up. It also means that whether or not we know it ourselves yet, you got somebody spooked, and that means we’re getting closer to an answer here. So the fact you almost became parking lot road kill, is in a way, good news. Now about that bathroom…”

  The priest grunted, and then stood up from the bed and began walking into the darkness, his voice calling out from behind him.

  “Right this way Mr. Bennington.”

  Great, I’m following the self proclaimed hand of God into the unknown yet again.

  I had not taken more than a few steps when my eyes closed tightly in reaction to the blinding light that suddenly confronted them. After several seconds of adjustment, I was able to look around at the room’s entirety, and the sight left me both impressed and amazed.

  The priest stood at the beginning of a long hallway housed on either side by a series of massive shelves filled with volume after volume of leather bound books of varying age and condition. That was the smell I recalled – that of old school library from my childhood.

  “This place, it’s a library?”

  Father Barnes offered a brief smile.

  “Of sorts, I suppose. What you see here, is but one example of many where the texts of the ages are kept safely stored away.”

  Rows of recessed lighting were housed in the low hanging ceiling of the basement, and I could hear the faint hum of what was likely some kind of air circulation machine, working to keep the humidity at a level that would better protect the books.

  I stepped toward one of the shelves and reached out to retrieve a particularly thick, leather bound volume.

  “Can I have a look?”

  The priest’s low growling response caused my hand to make a hasty retreat.

  “No – absolutely not. But you can use the bathroom.”

  The bathroom was at the end of the hallway, some fifty yards from the small bed. It was a simple, sheet rocked enclosure with a door, inside of which I found a toilet and sink. Given the increasing demands of my bladder, it may have been the most beautiful toilet I had ever seen.

  Having relieved myself, I stepped back out into the hallway and noted a single, steel framed door at the end of the hall.

  “That door goes upstairs?”

  The priest simply nodded, but said nothing, already making his way back to the other end of the basement. After turning the overhead lights back off, he took his place back on the bed while I stood a few paces away.

  “So who is this guy you mentioned, the one who might remember the formulation for Dedra’s treatment?”

  Father Barnes placed a hand atop each of his knees, seeming to brace himself for the ordeal of explaining who this mystery person was to him.

  “He’s called Gabriel. I have no idea if that is his real name or not. He just showed up at my lab a few months after I had published a research article six years ago that outlined possible alternative cancer treatments. He was holding a copy of the article in one hand and extending his other hand to shake my own. My initial reaction was to call security, but there was something about him, an earnestness, a kind of manic sense of wanting to help, that instead had me inviting him in and listening to what he had to say.

  “He’s French. At least that’s what he said, though his accent seemed different from time to time. Claimed to have been a part a group that was attempting to develop an AIDS vaccine in the 1990s. I contacted the research group he said he worked with though, and they denied ever meeting him. Gabriel knew almost as much about the theoretical foundations of various alternative treatments as I did, but lacked the practical application experience. His mind, it can focus on a single paradigm, uninterrupted, for hours, days, even weeks at a time, and then it all breaks apart, and he disappears into this incoherent stream of consciousness that was impossible for me to follow.

  “At his best, he proved invaluable to my research. He could remember vast amounts of details, every calculation – it was remarkable. Gabriel was the one who altered the formulation, changing the components and making it far more effective. It was that formulation that I was using on Dedra. It was all experimental of course, the hospital cautiously allowing it only after Dedra signed several hold harmless agreements. But it was working. Within days, her cancer stalled, and then after a few weeks, it began to slowly retreat into itself, just as Gabriel had promised it would.

  “And then Gabriel’s demeanor devolved into constant paranoia. I don’t think he was sleeping much, if at all, likely using some form of amphetamine to remain awake. He would disappear, then show up again unannounced, even more agitated than before. First he warned me that the establishment was coming for us, and then he began accusing me of being that establishment. This went on for several more weeks, until he finally disappeared – for good. Like I already told you, it’s been over a year since I last spoke with him.”

  My mind quickly processed what the priest told me of this Gabriel. I knew there was more to tell though, the kind of information that could lead us to him if in fact he remained somewhere hidden in Washington D.C.

  “How old is Gabriel?”

  Father Barnes shrugged, his eyes lowered toward his feet.

  “I’m not sure, late 30’s, perhaps early 40’s.”

  I took a couple steps toward the bed, wanting to have the priest’s full attention.

  “You said he seemed to be using some kind of drug, or drugs, to stay awake. Any other habits you noted? Was he a drinker, a smoker, things like that?”

  The priest looked up at me, his eyes narrowing slightly as he considered the question.

  “He smoked – a lot. Reeked of it. He was always standing near the small window of my lab smoking. I’d estimate at least three, maybe four packs a day. When he was more coherent, especially at the beginning, he did like to discuss good wines. He said he grew up in the Loire valley of France, and wanted to show me the beauty of that area some day.”

  I took another step toward the bed, looking down at Father Barnes, whose voice had taken on a far away, reflective tone.

  “What about women? Did he have a girlfriend, a wife, was he promiscuous?”

  The priest’s eyebrows jumped upward as he nodded.

  “Actually, that was one of his favorite topics when he wasn’t warning that we were in danger. He was fascinated by my vow of celibacy, unable to comprehend a life without sex. There were a few times he went on for hours asking me how I managed to do so, questioning my honesty when I repeated I was in fact, celibate. He claimed such a thing was impossible for any fully functioning man with God given, biological desires.”

  “But did he mention a girlfriend, anyone specific that he was seeing?”

  Father Barnes shook his head.

  “No, he did say once, that being with an uninhibited woman was paradise on earth. He followed that up by offering to pay for my time with a woman, which I refused of course.”

  I was unable to suppress a grin.

  “Of course.”

  My profile of the mysterious Gabriel was quickly forming into something I could use to locate him. The thing is, with almost all men, life boils down to some very basic needs, namely eating, drinking, pissing, shitting…and fucking. This Gabriel, despite his other unique and perhaps unsettling attributes, appeared to
be no different.

  “I need to go see someone who I think can help us find Gabriel.”

  Father Barnes stood up quickly, his eyes boring into mine.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Whether the priest’s demand to come with was out of a desire to help protect me, or because he didn’t yet fully trust me, didn’t really matter at that point. The clock was ticking for Dedra, and we needed to find Gabriel. If the alleged Frenchman still had the formulation for the cancer treatment rolling around in that distracted globe he called a mind, finding him was likely the only chance Dedra had to live, and her living was the only option I was willing to consider.

  16.

  “Ivanka, it’s Frank. I need to talk. Are you available?”