"So you think the Church is likely to change its position on supes?"
"Yes, inevitably. How soon depends on who the next pope is, but there's already a lot of sentiment in the College of Cardinals that Paul VI's condemnation of supernaturals was shortsighted, as so many of his views were."
"How about you, Father?" I asked him. "What's your view of supernaturals?"
"My view is that we are all God's creatures, and thus worthy of His love. If God did not want vampires, for instance, to exist, then they wouldn't."
"But that's not an opinion shared by the Church of the True Cross, I take it."
"Hell, no. Those guys would like nothing more than the return of the Inquisition – but with them in charge, of course. They'd be burning vampires and werewolves left and right."
"And witches, too?" I asked quietly.
"Yes, witches, of course." He stopped and looked at me for a second or two. "That's what this is about, isn't it? Those poor women who have been burned alive in the last few weeks."
"That's part of what it's about," I said. "But there may be more going on than that – a lot more."
"I wish I could say that I'm surprised," Duvall said grimly.
"How did these True Cross guys get started, anyway? I tried to look up the Wikipedia article on them, but it's been taken down."
"That's because the True Cross propagandists keep trying to rewrite it to conform to their own cracked version of history."
Duvall steepled his fingertips and looked at them for a few seconds. "OK, you know how the Puritans came over here and settled New England because the old England just wasn't holy enough for them?"
"John Winthrop and all those guys."
"Right – and the logical conclusion of the Puritans' extreme self-righteousness was the Salem witch trials of 1692, in which, uh–"
"Twenty," I said.
"Yes, twenty innocent people were executed. You know your history," Duvall said.
"That's the kind of history I'm supposed to know, just like I know that something like twelve other people were executed for witchcraft around New England, years before Salem."
"Not many people know about those," Duvall said, nodding his approval. "But it all goes to show the lengths fanatics will go in order to preserve their power."
"You're saying the Church of the True Cross is like the Puritans?"
"In some respects, yes. Their church was founded in 1994, when a group of people broke with the Society of St Pius X, which was founded by Marcel Lefebvre, himself a defrocked archbishop and heretic."
"He was the guy who thought the Second Vatican Council was a Commie plot to take over the world, right?"
"Something like that," Duvall said. "He came out of the tradition of right-wing French Catholicism, and there's nobody more reactionary than that crowd."
"Except for the Church of the True Cross," I said.
"You got it. They decided that Lefebvre and the Society were too accommodating, because they weren't calling for John XXIII to be lynched after the reforms that brought us out of the Middle Ages. All Lefebvre did was put on his boogie shoes and leave Mother Church. But that wasn't enough for 'Bishop' James Navarra – he wanted a more militant posture. So he split, and took a bunch of the Society's members with him."
"How big a bunch?" I asked.
"Seventy or eighty, something like that."
"I take it they've grown some since those days."
"Oh, sure," Duvall said, "although they refuse to release any membership numbers. In terms of people who regularly attend his services here in Scranton, maybe a couple of hundred. That doesn't count the curiosity-seekers who go once and are so turned off that they never go back. And there are a number of people from outside the area who send him money, although how much is between him and the IRS."
"Some folks will send money to anybody," I said.
"Sad, but true – but here's the ironic thing: Navarra and company don't even need it."
"Why the hell not?" I asked.
"Because he's got a sugar daddy – a rich nitwit who's been bankrolling the Church for years."
"Anybody I might have heard of?"
"Probably not," Duvall said. "But I bet you've heard of one of his kids. The guy's name is Patton Wilson. He's got six kids, one of whom is Matt Wilson."
"Mister Kiss-Kiss-Bang-Bang? The movie star?"
"The very same. Although I don't think Matt talks much about his dad in public – he's probably too embarrassed."
"Is that the source of Dad's money – his movie star kid?"
"Not at all," Duvall said. "Dad's filthy rich all on his own. Used to own a chain of newspapers in the Midwest, I understand."
"Used to?"
"Far as I know. He cashed in and sold all the papers years ago, or so they say."
"I wonder," I said. "So Dad's a true believer, is he?"
"Hard-core, all the way. Some say he's even more extreme than Bishop Navarra, although I figure that the good bishop is exactly as extreme as Patton Wilson wants him to be."
"It's like that, huh?"
"I believe so," Duvall said. "Wilson pulls the strings, and Navarra dances as required."
"You said these guys are dangerous? Why? There's no shortage of religious nuts around."
"Most religious nuts don't have millions of dollars to play with," Duvall said. "And Navarra preaches a gospel of hate, pure and simple. He's like Hitler, in the 1920s – except Navarra wears a clerical collar, to which he is not entitled. And I'm no longer sure that he's all talk and no action."
I leaned forward, which didn't make the chair any more comfortable. "Father, I think you'd better tell me exactly what you mean."
"Duvall says there's supposed to be twelve of these guys," I said. "You know, like the twelve apostles."
"Twelve enforcers," McGuire said.
Karl looked at me. "There's eleven of 'em now."
"Apparently, they've been trained by some ex-special forces types," I said.
"Commandos," Karl said with a snort.
"Duvall said he's pretty sure these guys do the Church's dirty work," I said, "although he had no specific idea of what that work might be."
"But he mentioned the witch burnings," Karl said.
"That's what he thought of when he saw them on the news – that it was the kind of shit these guys might be willing to do."
"Why the fuck didn't Duvall come in?" McGuire said.
"He has no proof," I said, "and without that, he figured we wouldn't be interested in talking to him."
"If only he knew how desperate we've been for a lead," Karl said. "Hell, speculation without evidence would've been an improvement over what we had, which was nothing."
Whatever McGuire was going to say was interrupted by the ringing phone on his desk. He never did get around to finishing the sentence.
"McGuire. Yeah." I watched the knuckles of his phone hand slowly turn white with the pressure of his grip. For some reason, he glanced at me. "Of course." He wrote something on a pad. "I'll put somebody on it right now. Thanks."
He hung up the phone and sat staring at it. "Looks like the Church's enforcers have been busy." He spoke softly, as if talking to himself. Then he looked at me.
"There's been another witch burning," he said. His voice was not quite steady.
I immediately thought of Rachel. Did they send someone to finish the job, with Rachel not expecting trouble anymore?
"They have an ID?" I asked, my chest tight.
"No. All I've got is this." He pushed the pad toward me. Written on it was "921 North Webster Ave."
"Son of a motherfucking bitch," I said. "That's my house."
As Karl and I walked, very fast, out to the parking lot, I opened my phone and keyed 911.
The woman who answered was not Christine.
"Emergency services. How may I assist you?"
"I want to talk to Christine Markowski – she's one of your operators. Put her on the line."
"Sir, I'm sorry,
but this number is only for–"
"This is Detective Sergeant Stanley Markowski, Scranton Police Department, badge number 4341. I don't know who you are, but if you don't put Christine on right now, I promise you'll be charged with obstruction of justice. Now do it!"
"Y-yes, sir."
The line went silent. God doesn't hear from me all that often these days, but I was praying in my head now, for all I was worth.
Please don't let her come back and say that Christine didn't make it to work tonight. Please don't let—
"Hello, Daddy. What's wrong?"
You can have your symphonies and concertos and angelic choirs singing. As far as I was concerned, the sweetest sound in the universe right then was my little girl's voice.
"Chris–" I tried to speak, but my throat was clogged. I cleared it noisily and managed, "Christine."
"Yes, I'm here – what's going on? You scared Roberta half to death."
We were at the car now. It was my night to drive, but I flipped the keys to Karl, who didn't need any explanation. I got in the passenger side and slammed the door.
"Christine, in case we get cut off somehow, you need to know this: do not go home this morning. Do. Not. Go. Home. Understand me?"
"Yeah, OK, sure. I can crash at a friend's place. But what the fuck is going on?"
"There's been another witch burning – apparently at our house."
"What? Our house? Why?"
"I dunno," I said. "But they haven't ID'd the victim yet, and for a second I thought the evil bastards had moved up from witches to vampires, and the charred body was you."
"Oh, my God, you must've been – no, I'm fine. I've been here the last three hours or so."
"Baby, I am so glad you're all right," I told her. "I've got more calls to make, so I have to go. I'll call you tomorrow night. Don't go home until I tell you it's OK – all right?"
"Sure, Daddy, that's no problem. Make your calls – I'll talk to you tomorrow."
"OK, bye."
Karl had the flashing light on the dash going, and the siren screaming. Under other circumstances, he'd have been grinning like a kid. But his face was serious as he glanced at me.
"Christine's OK, then?"
"Yeah, thank God."
"Thank God is right."
I brought up the directory in my phone and pressed a number.
"Who're you calling now?" Karl asked.
"Rachel."
Rachel's line started ringing. One. Two. Three. If she didn't answer, that didn't necessarily mean anything bad. She could be out getting a cheeseburger, or something. Four. "Come on, Rachel, answer the fucking–"
"Hello?"
"Rachel, it's Stan."
"What's wrong? It's bad, I can tell."
"There's been another witch burning. I was afraid it was you."
"Another one? But I thought the man doing that was dead!"
"He is. Apparently he'd got friends."
"Oh, goddess – that poor woman, whoever she is."
"That spell you used the other night," I said, "the freezing one – I'd reactivate that, or whatever the proper term is."
"Yes, of course. I'll do that at once."
"And you might want to call your sister witches and put the word out. Tell them the danger hasn't passed."
"All right, Stan, I'll take care of it."
"The other witches are probably OK for tonight," I said. "These bastards have never done more than one a night. But then, they never did one in my yard, either."
"Your yard! Oh, Stan, that is so awful–"
Karl made the corner onto my street on what felt like two wheels. Ahead, I could see flashing lights.
"We're almost there. Gotta go. Talk later. Bye."
I wasn't even surprised to see Scanlon anymore. He stood at the bottom of my front steps, hands in his overcoat pockets, and watched me approach. Karl went to talk to the uniformed officers who'd responded first.
I took a few seconds to look at the tree, a poplar that I'd planted on the day Christine was born. But I saved most of my sympathy for the victim. Like the others, she was reduced to a charred lump of meat, tied to the tree with rope at her chest and shins. The odor was – well, it was all too familiar by now, although I never imagined that I'd be smelling it here.
"Ten minutes ago, McGuire said you didn't have an ID on the vic. Anything change since then?" I asked.
"No, she's still a Jane Doe," Scanlon said. "We'll do the usual – send dental work out, DNA, look for a missing persons report that fits. We'll probably have an ID in a couple of days, if the earlier cases are any indication."
I made myself look at what was tied to the tree. Without taking my eyes away, I said, quietly, "I wonder what husband is asking, right about now, where his wife is, or what kid is worried because Mom is late getting home. Or what father– " I had to stop for a second. "What father is going crazy because his daughter's missing."
"You talk to Christine?" Scanlon asked.
"Yeah, she's fine."
"How about Rachel Proctor?"
"Talked to her, too. She's OK."
We stood there in silence, gazing upon the remains of one of the cruelest things one human being can do to another. Finally Scanlon said, "I thought this was supposed to be done with."
"Yeah, we all did."
"As that partner of yours would say, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?"
"I'm pretty sure I know what happened," I said. "Problem is, I can't prove diddly-squat."
"Tell me what you think."
He listened closely as I told him what I'd learned about the Church of the True Cross.
When I was done, he was quiet for a bit, then asked, "What do you figure the point was of doing this in your front yard? Revenge? Defiance? A warning?"
"I think it was their way of saying, This isn't over, motherfucker. And you know something?"
"Um?"
"They're right."
I had to let homicide detectives traipse through my house, to make sure there wasn't anything in there connected to the atrocity out front. I guess Scanlon had told them not to be annoying about it, because they weren't – for the most part. But just having a couple of cops walking around inside your home is enough to annoy most people, me included.
Finally the forensics techs had all the photos and soil samples they wanted, the body of the victim was on its way to the morgue under a Jane Doe tag, and I was free to go back to work.
Once we were in the car, I pulled out my wallet and started sorting through all the junk I've stuck in there and keep meaning to get rid of.
Karl watched me for a few seconds. "What're you doing?"
"Looking for – ah, there it is." I retrieved from amidst all the crap a piece of paper with a phone number on it. I got my phone out and, before Karl could ask, said, "There's an ogre I need to call."
Karl looked at me. "An ogre."
"Yep."
As I started touching numbers, Karl nodded calmly.
"Makes perfect sense to me," he said. Maybe he'd read somewhere that you're supposed to humor lunatics.
Midway through the second ring a voice answered. "Yuh?"
"I'm looking for Ivan." If he asked me for a last name, I was sunk. I didn't know if ogres share phones, or what the hell they do.
"This Ivan."
"This is Sergeant Stan Markowski, Scranton Police Department."
"Mark who?"
I tried not to sigh into my mouthpiece. "The cop who could've shot your brother Igor, but didn't."
"Oh, yeah, Markowski. OK, I remember. Hi."
"You said you owed me a favor, remember?"
"I did? Oh, right, 'cause you didn't kill Igor. Yeah, I owe you, Markowski."
"Well, tonight's the night I collect on it. I need to talk to you somewhere, face-to-face."
"You wanna talk? That's the favor?"
This time, I couldn't stop the sigh from escaping.
"No, I want to talk to you and tell you what the favor is."
"
Oh. OK."
I waited, but the ogre didn't say anything more. "Where can I meet you?" I asked, finally.
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