“And you know who took it?”
“Claudia. She followed me to Spain.”
“Why’d she do that?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Shit!” Bill expostulated.
“So what happens now?”
“Well, if we’re lucky, no more pictures will surface in the rubble.”
There was a timid knock at the door. “Bill?” Susan’s voice could barely be heard. “I think you should come out here. There’s someone in the house across the street.”
Billy pushed open the kitchen screen-door and sprinted across the lawn toward the ruins left by the fire. Yellow police tape cordoned off the area, but that hadn’t stopped a woman from entering the prohibited area and scavenging for any surviving treasures.
“Hey, lady,” he called out. “This is a crime scene. You’re not allowed to be there.”
The woman paid him no attention and continued to dig through the rubble with her bare hands, like a hungry dog in single-minded search of a bone.
“You hear me?” Billy stopped in his tracks. It was Claudia. A Red Sox baseball cap protected her hair, but her face and clothes were caked with soot. Even the filth, he thought, couldn’t entirely conceal her beauty. But the glaze in her eyes indicated he was a stranger to her.
“It’s Bill Wilde from across the street,” he explained, approaching her slowly. “I’m sorry, Claudia. We can’t have you going though the property just yet. Maybe in a few days, when the investigation is over.”
Her eyes widened in bewilderment. “But this is my house. I live here.”
“I know you do, Claudia, but we need a little more time. So come with me, will you?”
But she had already gone back to her digging. She pulled a silver vase from the wreckage, examined it closely, then threw it aside. “They’re here,” she muttered. “They’ve got to be here.”
“What, Claudia?”
“Things of mine. Important things my mother was saving. Somewhere in the house. For later.”
“If we find anything we’ll return it to you,” Billy said comfortingly. “But we need you to leave the premises now, so we can get on with the investigation and find the people who did this.”
Claudia stood up abruptly, her eyes blazing. “You’ll never find them! You are way out of your league here, Mr. Wilde. The power that caused this to happen is not within your jurisdiction.” She laughed hoarsely and threw him a look of scorn. “So you get the fuck out of here. You can’t order me about in my own house.”
“I’m afraid I can,” Billy said, his patience fraying. “The sooner you leave, the sooner we can solve this crime.”
“It’s your job to stop crime from happening.” Claudia spat the words at him. “You live right across the street and you couldn’t prevent this. What on earth makes you think you can solve it?”
She picked up a frying pan, its shape distorted by the intensity of the fire, and then threw it aside with disgust. “My mother was right from the start. She told me how mighty the spirit of evil could be. I didn’t really understand until now. But look! Look what they did to her!” Her eyes were wild with hysteria, no longer a young woman’s, but those of the mother herself, enflamed with bitterness. “Do you think it ends here, Mr. Big Deal Policemen? A few people dead. A house burned to the ground. Well, it doesn’t! This is just the beginning. And you won’t be able to do anything to stop it. Nothing at all!”
All at once she fell silent and her body froze. The transformation stunned Billy. It was as if a movie projectionist had stopped the film, cutting off the actress in the midst of her big scene, leaving her speechless, reduced to a single motionless frame. Claudia stared so intensely at something over Billy’s shoulder that he turned to look. It was Mano. He was crossing the street. She seemed alternately hypnotized and petrified by his approach, as she would by a cobra.
“She warned me,” she mumbled to herself. “She said only bad would come from him. She was right.”
“Who? Who warned you?” asked Billy, bewildered. Claudia ignored the question.
“See what you’ve done,” she yelled toward Mano, her eyes blazing up again. With a sweeping gesture, she indicated the remains of the house. “This is all your fault.”
“Claudia, I wasn’t here. I was with you!”
She let out a wail that could be heard across the street. “Don’t say that! I don’t want her to know.”
Billy frowned. “Who is this ‘she’”?
Mano stopped closer to Claudia. “You’re not to blame, Claudia. We were together when this happened.”
“Stop saying that!” Claudia turned her gaze away. “But, of course, she knows everything now.” She picked up a charred piece of wood in the vague form of a cross. And began talking to it. “I’m sorry I never believed like you did. How could I have been so stupid? So weak! Give me the courage that I lacked before. The strength. The resolve.”
She seemed to be rambling, caught up in the flow of words, and unconscious of the presence of either man. “I see now what she meant. There is only deception and duplicity, deceit and betrayal in this world. We are just pilgrims here. Our real home lies beyond this one. And there will never be any security as long as we live in the flesh.” Merely saying the word flesh appeared to sicken her. She backed away from Mano into what was once the kitchen area. Tripping over a beam, she fell backwards into a sitting position. As Mano approached to help her up, she pulled a knife out of the wreckage beside her and stared at it, as if it were a foreign object and had only now just understood its use.
“Put the knife down, Claudia. No one is here to hurt you,” cried Billy.
“How can you look at all this crap and say that?” asked Claudia. “He killed my mother.”
“That’s not true, Claudia,” insisted Mano. “We were together when this happened.”
“Enough!!!” She cast her eyes upward. Beyond a thin filter of smoke that still hovered over the house, the sky was pure blue. “I know I can never be forgiven for my sin. I will take whatever punishment you ordain, so ordain what you will!” Then in a flash, she drew the blade of the knife across her right wrist, then her left one. The blood gushed forth.
“Oh, my Christ,” shouted Billy, who turned and yelled to his wife, “Susan, call 911.” Mano dropped to Claudia’s side and lifted her head gently out of the ashes. Her eyes flickered open. Her lips were dry and she appeared unable to formulate her words. Summoning the last of her strength, she closed her fingers around the handle of the knife. “It’s going to be all right,” Mano whispered in her ear. “We’ll manage to get through—-.”
Before he could finish the sentence, she raised the knife off the ground and with one last shriek, plunged it deep into Mano’s side. The first sensation he experienced was the taste of metal in his mouth, then pain ripped through his body.
“Don’t worry,” she murmured, as their eyes met. “Dying is the easiest thing to do.”
2:45
As if he were drifting up from the ocean depths, things around him became less murky. The bed he was lying in, the IV at his side, the gauzy curtain slowly acquired definite contours. He was even able to identify the blur of bright colors filtering though the gauze as a TV set in the cubicle next to his. The hosts of a morning talk show were addressing the latest attempt at rehabilitation by a young pop singer. Mano heard a concerned female voice say, “Will Tiffany finally get the help she so desperately needs?” before letting his mind wander.
He tried to sit up and felt a sharp jab in his side and some of the details came back to him - the rubble of a burned house, the taste of metal in his mouth, an ambulance ride to the emergency room of what he would later learn was Lowell General Hospital. He figured he must be drugged since none of it seemed particularly urgent. It appeared to him Tiffany was in far greater danger right now.
“And how are we doing this morning?” The curtain was pushed aside and a young Pakistani doctor poked his head through the opening. He checked the clipboard at the
foot of Mano’s bed, then came around to the side and took Mano’s pulse. “Things appear to be progressing nicely. You are an incredibly lucky young man. None of your vital organs were touched. It was like a surgical incision. Clean, neat, precise. Couldn’t have done a better job myself.” His good cheer was infectious.
“That’s good news.”
“No, it is great news. You’re going to feel sore for quite a while, especially when you bend over. But we’ll give you something for the pain. I suggest you don’t overdo it, though. Only when absolutely necessary. You’re still on painkillers right now, but a nurse will be taking you off the drip this morning. I recommend as little activity as possible for the next two weeks. Just rest and watch TV. Then come back and see us.”
“So I can leave?”
“Not quite yet. We’d like to keep you under observation for a while. But what can I say? You dodged a bullet, young man, or maybe I should say, a knife.” The doctor made a few notations on the clipboard, then said, “you’ve got a few visitors if you’re up for it.”
The reddish-pink hair was the giveaway, even before she’d entered the room.
“Hello, Mrs. Rizzo.”
“If you don’t stop with that Mrs. Rizzo crap, I’ll stab you myself. It’s Teri! Okay? I feel old enough as it is. Bad enough the last time I saw you, you were sleeping in a laundry basket.”
“Okay, but you have to start calling me Mano then. Everyone else does.”
“My man Mano! Sure why not? So how are you?”
“Recuperating rapidly.”
“How’s the food?”
“The drip is all you could ask for.”
Teri let out a whoop. “Remind me to bring you over one of those hamburger specials from the diner you like so much! By the way, your uncle’s here.”
The appearance of Billy suddenly brought the previous day’s events into sharp focus. He loomed uncomfortable and his enthusiasm sounded forced. “The doctor says you’re doing great. Your family will be relieved to know. We are, too, of course. Susan sends her love. She really wanted to come today, but we thought it wiser she stay home.”
“I understand … tell me, how’s Claudia?”
“They say she’s going to be okay, Physically, at least.” Billy assumed his official posture, glad to be back on professional ground, “They’re running some blood tests on her now – for drugs and things. She’s heavily sedated, and they’ve got someone in there with her round the clock, it being a suicide attempt and all. She still hasn’t come to…Listen, Manning, I need to talk to you about pressing charges.”
Mano shook his head; the effort made him wince.
“Well, I think it’s something you should give due consideration to. It’s an open and shut case.”
“No, I don’t want to do that.”
“You have witnesses,” Teri volunteered. “We all saw it happen.
“That’s okay. It’s not her fault. I’d rather forget it.”
“It’s your call, Manning,” Billy said. “If you change your mind …”
He let the sentence hang in the air, but the relief in his face was clear to Mano. Billy wanted his family involved as little as possible in the incident. It could be explained away as an accident during a rescue mission, if the press got curious. Claudia wouldn’t be talking to anyone soon, as it was.
“So,” Billy said, “I’ve got a few details to clear up here. Your parents are flying in today. I’ll stop by later. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you in the hands of Mrs. Rizzo.”
“Him, too!” complained Teri, once he’d left. “If your mother calls me Mrs. Rizzo, I swear I’ll jump off a bridge.
“Don’t make me laugh, Teri. It hurts.”
“Then we don’t have to say a thing. We can just sit here and think positive thoughts.”
In the silence, they became aware of the television set in the neighboring cubicle. Tiffany’s drug problems having been disposed of, a chipper announcer was urging home viewers not to go away. “When we come back, interviews with people who have actually met the young man many are calling the YouTube Jesus. You don’t want to miss it.”
Mano looked at Teri, as if he weren’t sure he had heard correctly. “Did he say…?”
“Yes, he did,” she confirmed. “Wanna see what it is?”
“Not really. But I better.”
She flicked on the TV set, suspended above the foot of his bed. They sat through what seemed like an endless series of commercials, before a shiny blonde announcer came on the screen. The heavy eyeliner, rouged lips and dangly earrings suggested that she was going to a cocktail party immediately after the broadcast.
“An interesting development in the case of the YouTube Jesus,” she said. “As we reported yesterday, a photograph of the young man, published in a Spanish newspaper, showed him in the Cathedral of Oviedo, while the holy cloth, a revered relic, was being displayed. Now several people are coming forward to say that this young man has actually performed miracles!” The broadcast switched to tape and the blind German woman who had spoken to Mano in the Camara Santa. In her hand, she held the dark glasses that had made her look like a bug. Her real eyes were a sickly yellowish-green as if symptomatic of malaria. Her husband looked at her beamingly.
“Since the age of six, she has seen nothing but darkness,” said the on camera interviewer. “But she is blind no more. Listen to her amazing story. The German woman blinked several times and said, “When I touched the young man in the Camara Santa, my eyes started to tingle. Then after we left the cathedral, I looked up and saw the color blue for the first time in forty years. The impression lasted almost an hour. The next day, I saw the blue again, but this time it was mixed with purple. Then I saw red.” Although the woman spoke in German, simultaneously translated into English, her fervor was tangible. Tears of happiness were running down her cheeks.
“Are the colors related to actual objects?” asked the interviewer. “If I hold something in front of you can you distinguish the color?”
“No, no. What I am seeing is different, indescribable,” replied the woman. “The colors swirl in front of me, creating the most spectacular patterns. It is more beautiful than anything I remember from my childhood, more beautiful than a sunset. I am convinced that what I am seeing is not of this world.” Her husband nodded vigorously in agreement, as if he, too, had seen the divine swirl.
The broadcast switched back to the studio announcer. “But perhaps the most dramatic testimony concerns an event witnessed by at least twenty people in a small fishing village. We now go to the northern coast of Spain.”
The camera panned the painted cubes in the harbor of Llanes, then crossfaded to a man in a hospital bed. His head was bandaged, and his face was bruised, but he spoke clearly in Spanish, translated into English for American viewers, about the accident that had almost taken his life. “When my wife saw the picture in the newspaper, she said, ‘This is the man who saved your life. I’d recognize him anywhere.’ But he didn’t save my life, I told her. He restored my life. I was already dead, gone from the world, when I heard a voice saying, ‘Don’t worry. I’m here. I’m here.’ And I felt this rush of energy. I thought it was an angel talking, but when I opened my eyes, it was his face, the man’s face, the one in the newspaper, that I saw. And I knew I had experienced a genuine miracle.”
The announcer cut in to say, “We have asked the church for comment, but so far authorities in Oviedo have chosen to remain silent. Whether you believe or not believe, one thing is certain, this story of the YouTube Jesus is not going away soon…And now a break and we’ll be back with a special report on the flooding in Malaysia.”
“Turn it off,” Mano said.
“Is that really you they’re talking about?” asked Teri. “Do you remember that weird lady touching you?”
“Get me a nurse, will you?”
“Sure thing.” The broadcast had changed Mano’s mood. He had withdrawn into himself. “No more jokes for a while,” Teri told herself.
Alone,
he stared at the blank screen, but the images of the blind woman and the injured man wouldn’t go away. He closed his eyes and still he saw them - grateful, reverent, misguided. They and others like them would be with him forever. He couldn’t deny the growing realization that there was only one way to stop this.
Teri returned several minutes later with a robust, red-cheeked nurse, radiating good humor.
“How’re you feeling? Something we can do for you, Manning?”
“The doctor said the IV was coming out this morning. I was wondering when.”
The nurse checked Mano’s chart. “It just says this morning. I can do that for you right now, if you’d like.”
“I would, please.”
She removed the needle from his arm, swabbed the area with alcohol and applied a band-aid. “Good as new! You call me if you need anything else.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Two floors above Mano, Claudia remained so heavily sedated in the hospital bed she appeared unconscious. Only an occasional guttural utterance indicated her continuing connection with life outside her mind. Whenever she grunted, her eyelids twitched, but never opened. Otherwise, her face was a pale mask. Billy wondered if she was dreaming about the fire and its aftermath.
“Any indication of drugs in her system?” Billy quietly asked the female doctor who accompanied him.
“Traces of aspirin.”
“Nothing else?”
“No. The analysis was very thorough.”
“Alcohol?” Billy was fishing for clues.
“Clean as a whistle. Drugs didn’t cause this, if that’s what you’re suggesting, detective.”
“Then what? She was acting in a completely irrational manner. Screaming crazy accusations. Doctor, this is a girl I saw grow up across the street. There was never anything abnormal about her. Yesterday it was like seeing a totally different person.”
“A trauma can do that,” replied the doctor.
“Explain it to me, please.”
“Well, it’s actually very simple. When people have been severely traumatized, they can experience radical personality changes. From what I understand, this young woman was in an extremely stressful situation. Finding herself in the house where her mother died so violently proved too much for her and appears to have pushed her over the edge. In such extreme situations, people sometimes feel there is no way out. To us it appears crazy, but in their own minds it’s their only choice.”
The Son, The Sudarium Trilogy - Book Two Page 22