by Vince Milam
“Well, there’s so doggone much going on I haven’t had time to think. But I remember now. I remember thinking, how can a fellow that old move so fast?”
“Tell me, R.L. Every detail you can think of.”
“Well, I hauled butt toward the nursing home after the 911. The corner of my eye caught someone else running, but he must have taken off on a different angle when we got close. He sorta disappeared. Weird. But I hightailed it toward the emergency call and didn’t pay it much mind.”
With a nod, Cole signaled for R.L. to continue.
“Not a lot to remember, Sheriff. Except for that long old-man ponytail. And the speed.”
“Speed?” asked Cole.
“Ran to beat the band. Flat out moved. And I thought, how could someone seventy or eighty move like that?”
“The face? Did you get a look at his face?”
“Nope. Not a good look. Just enough to see he was old. Really old. Sorry, Sheriff. I was pretty dang intent on getting to the nursing home myself.”
Cole nodded again. “Good job, R.L. That may help.”
As details arrived, they pieced together Burt Hall’s timeline over the twenty-four hours prior to the murders. He had spent a desultory day on his shrimp boat with not much to show for it, according to the records at the packinghouse where the area’s shrimp boats unloaded. Then he drank for a couple of hours at a grungy local tavern. The bartender recollected that Hall drank with a tall stranger that night. R.L. highlighted that the bartender’s meth habit made for a mighty unreliable witness.
They had a name. Cole had called on Fanny Ulrich at the Breeze Inn about the pale stranger.
“Mercy, yes, I remember him,” Fanny said. “Gave me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Did you check his ID?” asked Cole. Fanny tended to skip this with guests.
“Oh, I wish you would!” barked Fanny at her pug dog, Trixie. Trixie had nosed close to a bowl of M&Ms set on a lobby table, accessed from a nearby chair. “I really do, dog.”
This led to a stare-down between owner and dog. It ended as Trixie got off the chair and commenced to grumble.
“Did I what?” asked Fanny.
“Check his ID.”
“Now, Sheriff, you know I always do that. I’ve got it right here in the register. And I remember that weirdo showed me a passport instead of a by-God driver’s license.”
He waited for Fanny to find the name.
“Moloch. Adal Moloch. Wrote it right here. Never seen the likes.”
Cole transcribed the name to a notepad. “Do you remember what kind of passport he showed?”
“Not American, that’s for damn sure. Blue cover. Lots of stamps and scribbling inside. A foreigner. Now, Cole,” Fanny continued as she leaned over the motel counter to cast for rumor fodder. “Did this weirdo have anything to do with the massacre?”
“You mean the recent murders?”
“One or two’s murder. This was a damn sight more than one or two.”
They stared at each other, neither blinking. Trixie flopped under the M&M-laden table, breathing loudly.
“Do you remember what kind of passport, Fanny?”
Fanny rose from her confidante lean. “I just told you. Foreign. I ain’t the United Nations.”
He continued to stare, waiting.
“Strange-ass writing on the cover. And some kind of symbol. Maybe a big bird,” said Fanny.
“Strange-ass writing?”
“Yes. Strange-ass writing. My foreign gibberish skills are a might rusty,” Fanny said.
“Big bird.”
“Maybe. Some kind of symbol. Do I get a prize for all this? I could use a new microwave.”
“Did you speak with him?” asked Cole.
“Only at check-in,” said Fanny. “And that wasn’t more than ten words. Weird accent. Fit his strange-ass appearance. He paid cash. Speaking of which, Sears is having a sale on appliances over in Corpus.”
He grinned for the first time since the murders. You had to love folks of Fanny’s character—independent, hard, and caring where it counted, demonstrated by her regular donations to the local food bank. “How about an elderly gentleman with a long gray ponytail? Seen someone who fits that description?” he asked.
“Sure. Every time our mayor holds one of her art festivals. Ain’t exactly a shortage of old hippies around here.”
It was worth a shot, although the odds of ID’ing the ponytail guy remained slim at best.
“Next cup of coffee’s on me, Fanny,” said Cole as he headed for the lobby door.
“How about a couple of M&Ms for the road, Sheriff?”
“And piss off Trixie? No, thanks. Adios, Fanny. Thanks for your help. I mean it.” Cole tipped his hat as he left.
Twelve dead, Cole thought. Nine of them senior citizens. A derelict shrimper on a rampage. No sign of drugs in his system other than a fair amount of booze. A strange foreigner flees the scene, after laying some kind of nauseous force on me. An old man sprinting after the tall foreigner. Why? And with what intent? And why my town?
Everyone would chalk it up to a madman named Burt Hall. But more lay there. It was an uncomfortable more, but more nonetheless. Time to get back to the office and face the media again. Cole glanced toward the heavens. Well?
Chapter 8
Cole strode through the front doors of the sheriff’s office building later than usual, and with a slight hangover. A bottle had provided poor consolation last night.
The clamor had died. No reporters and no cameras lurked. Three days had passed since the nursing home murders and the media had moved on, focused on other events.
He said “mornin’” to various members of the team as he headed for his office, looking forward to a day without drama. Quick footsteps signaled that someone followed him. The cowboy hat found its usual place on an old railroad spike that protruded from the wall—courtesy of the previous sheriff—and he turned and sat behind the desk. There, with an air of absolute certainty, stood a round, middle-aged priest wearing a dark suit, white cleric collar, and a brilliant scarlet pocket-handkerchief.
“I am here.”
“I can see that,” replied Cole, hands crossed across his lap.
“Francois Domaine, at your service.”
“Sheriff Garza,” said Cole, which evidently signaled the appropriate moment for the priest to light a Gauloises.
“Father, this is a no smoking building.”
Francois exhaled blue smoke, raised a hand in a Gallic dismissive gesture, and strode with authority to the window, which he opened with minimal struggle. Cole was impressed. Several years and at least one paint job had passed since that window had last been opened. The move also allowed for a clear view of the priest’s form-fitting Italian shoes, complete with small tassels.
Francois glanced at the windowsill and launched himself on it, holding the cigarette outside. “And so. Let us discuss the recent horror. Are you Catholic?”
Behind the priest no satellite trucks idled, bolstering Cole’s hope for a normal day. “Nope. Methodist.”
The priest raised a skeptical eyebrow. “And yet, your name. Garza. It is Spanish, no?”
“Long story.” A discussion of Christian sects with this stranger wasn’t on the morning’s agenda.
“And so. Then, s’il vous plait, address me as Francois.” He followed this with a deep drag on the cigarette and exhaled through the open widow.
“Okay. Francois. Do you represent a grieving family?”
“Only in such a way that is universal. The heat is quite fierce, no?” Francois leaned through the window as if to test this assertion, taking the full brunt of the Texas weather.
The open office door framed deputies and staff going about their duties. Some normalcy had returned. Unbeknownst to anyone, Cole had placed a call to an amazing friend to sleuth this Moloch guy. That phone call would remain private. If a tie-in could be established, he’d made a personal commitment to hunt Moloch down. For the time being at least, the open-a
nd-shut nature of the murders would remain the work of a lone madman.
The priest presented a minor and not unwelcome distraction. “Sir, what can I help you with?”
“Francois.”
“Okay. Francois. What can I help you with?”
“It is I that shall help you. A presumptuous statement, oui? But one quite valid. If you would be so kind as to inform me of the killings.”
The sound of a passing motorcycle carried through the open window, filling Cole’s silence.
“S’il vous plaît. Please.” Francois adjusted his seating on the windowsill and cocked his head.
“Everything the media put out just about covers it,” said Cole.
Francois maintained an intent gaze and ran a thumb and forefinger along each side of his bushy mustache. His other hand continued to hold the Gauloises out the window.
“Evil, no? The nature of this crime. I have read the newspapers. A madman. So easy. So clean.” Francois took another drag of the smoke and exhaled outside. “Completely without insight. Such a description explains nothing. To this, certainly, you can agree?”
“It’s the best we can do.”
“Ah! The best le système can do! But you, Sheriff. Is it the best you can do?”
Bingo, Padre, thought Cole. But that’s going to stay between me and my friend Nadine. He had plenty of other things to do. Piles of administrative cleanup remained in the aftermath of the killings.
“Sir, I’m afraid all of this relates to something I cannot discuss,” Cole said, standing to show his guest the door.
“Francois.”
“Yes. Francois. I appreciate you coming by.” He moved from behind the desk and extended a hand toward the exit in case the priest didn’t understand that the meeting had finished.
Francois took a final drag of the cigarette and tossed the butt into the outside rosebushes. He turned, closed the window and then, with a fierce intensity, addressed Cole. “Evil exists, Sheriff. True evil. It visited your town. It walks. It is real. I shall assume you have spent the time as sheriff long enough to know such a thing in your heart. But your mind?” Here Francois gave another Gallic shrug and pursed his lower lip. “Your mind may not accept it as of yet. But I have seen it. I have seen evil on this earth.”
The priest had an air about him, keen and focused. He exhibited little desire for social niceties or casual conversation. But the peculiar nature of his statements struck Cole as discordant in his small town sheriff’s office.
“What does your heart tell you, Sheriff?”
“My heart tells me you just threw a cigarette on my antique roses. A variety called Nacogdoches, to be exact,” said Cole. Martha had filled him with a passion for old roses. Their resilience, evidenced by still thriving in old cemeteries and abandoned homesteads across Texas, prompted him to use his own money and plant some outside the office.
Francois looked at the roses, feigned shock, and apologized. “Condoléances, Sheriff. They are quite lovely. Perhaps one cigarette will not devastate them. Now, back to your heart. What does it tell you with regard to the horror?”
My heart tells me I don’t understand what the heck’s going on, thought Cole. That look on Burt Hall’s face. Moloch and the old man who chased him. My heart’s torn in two knowing that somehow it all may relate to my precious Martha. That’s what my heart is tellin’ me.
“Look, Father. Francois. I’m pretty doggone busy right now. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”
Francois approached Cole with tight, forceful steps, akin to a bowling ball falling down stairs. “Do you believe in God?”
That type of question, out of the blue, could throw a man off. Plus those three aspirin this morning hadn’t stepped on the hangover to any great extent. Bluntness was called for with this forceful round man.
“Yes. I believe God exists. I don’t understand God. I think God sometimes screws with my head. I believe things happen and God—for whatever reason—doesn’t give a rat’s ass about explaining it to us.”
“Exactement! And what unexplained elements exist about these killings? What is not fitting? Your perception of this world. What does not fit?”
Francois had moved well within his personal space. Cole returned the favor by leaning into the face of the shorter man and providing what he thought was a pretty darn good badass stare. The priest did not back away one inch.
“I don’t know what fits anymore. Things have happened, and I can’t explain them. Yeah, I believe God exists. No, that’s not helping one dang bit. I can’t explain. And I’ll bet my bottom dollar that you can’t explain either, Father Francois.”
“Bon!” Francois stepped back with arms spread wide. Cole thought a hug might ensue from this short block of a man. “Good. Realization. To assist belief, one must first realize.” Francois turned and headed back to the window, repeated his earlier motions, and ended up perched on the windowsill. He lit another Gauloises. “Let us continue.”
Cole’s headache resurrected with a vengeance. This priest was like a bad rash, refusing to leave. “What do you want, Francois? Honestly, what the heck do you want?”
Francois showed respectful consideration of this question. He leaned out the window, took a long drag of the cigarette, and shrugged—communicating that imponderables existed.
“Ce qui est different?” He delivered the question to the rosebushes as much as to Cole. “What is the difference? This time. All your years as le gendarme, what is different? Out of the ordinary? Anything?”
Hauling a foreign priest out of the office by force opened up a PR issue that no one within a hundred miles of Rockport needed right now. He decided to put up with the priest a short time longer and then send him down the road.
“And your expertise with all this? You say you’ve seen evil. Does that make you some kind of ghost chaser?”
Francois smiled and said, “No. Ghosts and spirits. Another subject. One I understand you Americans are fascinated by. Perhaps for another time.” He exhaled smoke again out the window and wiped sweat off his brow with the scarlet handkerchief. “No. I have pursued an understanding of evil my entire life. Not ghosts. Evil as a true force.”
Cole remained planted in the center of the room. The priest sat on the sill across from him and smoked, while heat wafted in from the open window. Deputies and staff moved along the hallway, attending to their duties. “Sir, I have my doubts as to your understanding of evil given your life experiences. No offense. You’re a priest. I’m a lawman. I’ve performed this business of mine for some time, seen a lot, and still wrestle with what drives the terrible things I’ve seen, and how it all fits the human experience.” He paused and Francois waited. “I don’t mean to insult you, but the life of a priest is a heckuva lot different than that of a lawman.”
“A valid point,” replied Francois. “Allow me to provide some history. Some context. For many instances, I would agree. Perhaps you will see I possess some rather unique experiences.”
Francois gave a high-level overview of his work. He talked of possessions and exorcisms, his research into the nature and manifestations of evil, and his conviction that the human experience included evil external forces.
“It is not my intention to be intrusive, Sheriff. No. It is my intention to pursue a personal endeavor. Your knowledge of the current situation may be of great help. With such matters, I fear great danger for those unprepared. Therefore, I do not seek physical assistance. No. I seek your perspective. Private insights.” Francois extended his hands, palms up, as if to receive something.
Cole’s chin dropped to his chest and his defenses began to fade under the weight of uncertainty and isolation. Other than the phone call to Nadine to gather intelligence on Moloch, he had dealt with all of it alone. No definitive third-party ties or motives looped back to the nursing home horror. Burt Hall had killed his own mother, for God’s sake. But something didn’t fit. On a visceral level, something felt wrong. After three days, it had worn on him. Justice had not been fulfi
lled. He suspected answers might not be available through any normal or rational means. The thought of that dismissive SOB Moloch—flicking his damn hand—in the middle of that mess made for sleepless nights. Now this priest had arrived out of nowhere and clearly had no intention of leaving him alone. But the guy had different perspectives, for sure. There was a strange comfort in that.
He closed the office door. Francois stayed perched on the windowsill. Cole sat on the edge of the desk and let one leg dangle. The giggles of two young girls carried from the sidewalk through the open window, mixed with cigarette smoke and the musk of old-fashioned roses.
“I need to bounce some things off somebody, and do it without getting straitjacketed. Maybe …” Cole hesitated. “Maybe you can, or maybe you are able to—and I’m pretty hesitant to mention it—shed some light on some things. Things that I’d sure like answers to.”
Francois remained motionless, so Cole continued.
“I don’t know you. And I’m fixin’ to trust you with something. Something I haven’t talked with anyone about.” He was crossing the Rubicon, hell-bent on answers. “Sorta confessional, isn’t it?”
“You can trust me, Sheriff. I give you my word as a man of God.” Francois took another drag, crushed the cigarette against the outside brick wall, and showed Cole the butt as he tossed it in a nearby wastebasket. “And you can trust me as a man who can relate to your experiences.”
Gulls called from the outside salt air, and the sounds of coins as they slid into the soda vending machine drifted through the closed door from the hallway.
“There was someone.”
Francois slid off the windowsill and eased toward Cole, as if any sudden movements might spook the sheriff.
“You saw. Your eyes observed?” asked Francois.
At that moment, a clerk gave a cursory knock and stuck his head in the door to announce, “Sheriff, there’s a call on line two you’ll want to take.”
Francois raised both hands, blew out a puff of disgust, and gave the young clerk a glare that caused the door to slam shut. Cole snapped out of his reverie and moved back behind the desk, grabbed the phone, and punched line two on the antiquated system. “Yes, sir. No problem. No, sir. Three hours. Will do.” He set the phone down and turned to grab his hat. “I’m afraid I have to go, Father. Right now.”