by Jonas Saul
“I didn’t tell you everything about the first few victims,” Hirst said.
“Now’s your chance.”
He didn’t hesitate. “The first two priests were sodomized. Both had their rectums ruined after death.”
Parkman shuddered.
Sarah asked, “Were those the two under suspicion for touching children?”
Hirst nodded.
“Sounds like you have your case. Find a man who has a personal vendetta against the Church and is pretty angry at what it’s done in the past. When I looked up the Catholic Church, the list of horrors committed by it was long. We’re talking millions of people killed since the days Jesus walked the Earth. The original crusaders were called the Knights of Christ. The crusades alone cost the lives of over three million people. During the sacking of a German town in the 17th century, over 30,000 Protestants were killed. They found fifty women in one church, beheaded, their infants still sucking the breasts of their dead mothers.” Sarah shook her head. “I can see how this guy is angry at Catholics. The more I learned, the more I began to despise Catholicism.”
The two men remained quiet, taking it all in.
“Maybe that’s why my sister isn’t really helping,” Sarah added.
“How’s that?” Hirst asked.
“This guy is only killing priests under suspicion of deviant behavior. He isn’t attacking random Catholics. He appears to be a religious vigilante.”
“And …”
“Why would Vivian and I, somewhat a vigilante myself, expend too much effort stopping another vigilante from ridding the world of scum?” She raised her hands before either man could say anything. “I’m not saying what he’s doing is right. The guy’s deranged and he needs to be stopped. What I am saying is, maybe Vivian will step in before he hurts an innocent.” She pulled the note out of her pocket. “She specifically said, ‘Everybody and everything has its time.’”
Hirst wiped his face with his hands. Parkman pulled a fresh toothpick out of his pocket and slipped it in his mouth, tossing the old one in the garbage.
“Anyway,” Hirst got up off the bed and walked to the door. “I came by to thank you two for coming down, but this thing got too big too fast. Too many dead priests. Sorry to waste your time, but with a task force being put together, we’re done here.”
“No, no,” Parkman said as he walked over to join Hirst at the door. “No waste of time at all. Glad we could come down, take a look at the case. Just sorry we couldn’t help you more.”
“Sorry, Sarah. Wish we could’ve solved this together. I’d love to see you in action.”
She nodded.
I thought we had until the weekend? What changed?
Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Hirst opened the door and stepped into the hallway.
“Detective Hirst?” Sarah said. Parkman held the door open. She had a direct line of sight to him. “Are you under pressure to get rid of the psychic girl? Were you told to send us home?”
Hirst looked unsure how to answer. For such a seasoned detective, she was surprised how much he wore his heart on his sleeve. Something about this decision was tearing him apart. Maybe she would have to dig deeper into the relationship between Hirst and Parkman. What had bonded these two men so deeply?
“No, Sarah.” Hirst avoided looking at Parkman. “This is just how it is. There’s no case anymore. No need to have you here. Go home. Leave soon.”
Leave soon? What the hell does that mean?
“There’s still a case,” she said.
“It isn’t mine. Nor is it yours.”
Sarah looked away, the debate pointless. Parkman said goodbye and closed the door. He stood by it a moment, then reopened it.
“I’ll go pack my things. Maybe we can get to Santa Rosa by nightfall. You should be resting that foot at home, anyway.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Sarah, you heard the detective. We’re done here.”
“I’m not. Everybody and everything has its time. Just like my sister said.” She pivoted on her chair and looked at him. “I’m staying until this guy is caught whether the police like it or not.”
“Oh shit, here we go …”
Her hand numbed. She grabbed a pen but couldn’t find paper. The white paint on the hotel’s wall drew her eye.
She slipped off the chair as her arm numbed, always mindful of her broken ankle, and lunged toward the wall, pen hand first.
She passed out before she made it.
Chapter 4
Mike stood under the shower too long. His skin had reddened and the glass doors had fogged up. He could no longer see Evelyn on the bed. He shut the water off and slid the shower door aside.
Eve lay spread out, arms secured above her head, gag in her mouth. She turned toward him and glared. He smiled back. There was nothing quite like having someone hate you. He would have to get used to it. Love was the business of the church. Hate was his business, despair and cruelty his currency. He was Satan’s instrument. Hell would offer him a suffering that nothing on Earth could match. Eve’s hatred of him was simply an appetizer of things to come.
Last night had been wonderful. After leaving his crime scene, he had found Eve in the parking lot she usually inhabited on Sunset Blvd. Mrs. Routine. Seven days a week she turned tricks and fed her drug habit. All this at the tender age of eighteen.
He toweled himself dry and stepped into the bedroom naked.
“You look scared, even frantic, panicky.”
Her wide eyes blinked rapidly. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she pulled on the handcuffs that locked her wrists to the metal headboard of the bed.
“Withdrawal,” he said softly, trying to sound sympathetic. “You’re going through withdrawal.” He walked around the bed and examined her womanhood. “I’ll be busy today. When I’m done, and your withdrawal symptoms have minimized, we’ll spend the weekend together.” He crawled onto the bed, his body hovering over hers, his member dangling down far enough to caress her labia. “We’ll have a good time without the effects of drugs. How does that sound?”
She twisted her head back and forth, moaning behind the gag, bucking her hips.
He lifted off her, picked up his clothes and began to dress.
“No more streets for you, Eve. The rest of your life starts now. I am your savior.” He slipped a T-shirt over his head. “The men who offered you security, those pimps you paid, they won’t see you again. They’ll have to live off the backs of other whores. Trust me. You’ll like your new life. It’ll be warm, comfortable, and safe. Your new life will be nothing like the streets. And as much sex as I can physically have in a day will be nothing to the ten or fifteen random men you were sleeping with daily. Can’t you see? I’m doing you a favor here.”
She moaned and kicked her feet.
“It does no good to fight it. Soon enough you’ll be quiet on the inside. You’ll sleep. From here on in we’ll be like Adam and Eve in the Garden. Just you and me. Naked. No sin. Unless, of course, you tempt me.” He pointed at the large cage that housed his precious beast on the floor in the far corner. “That’s an African Rock Python. He’s just over twenty feet in length and weighs north of one hundred and fifty pounds.” He looked back at Eve. “Those things eat monkeys, crocodiles, dogs, goats, pigs and even deer. If you tempt me, as Eve tempted Adam, I may have to release the snake.” He spread his hands out wide. “It couldn’t be a complete Garden of Eden without the snake, now could it?” He lowered his hands to his side. “You’re what, a hundred pounds wet? Those things,” he pointed at the cage again, “have been known to kill ten-year olds. I read once that an African Rock had the capacity to eat a human. You wouldn’t want that serpent released in here while you’re tied up. He’s seriously hungry. Hasn’t eaten in over a month.”
Mike grinned and turned away to slip into his shoes. For today’s kill, his job was done. The room downstairs was ready. Asbestos lined the walls and every inch
of the room had been sealed. The sulfuric acid sat calmly, almost innocently, in its holding tank and the cyanide pellets awaited their mission. Everything he needed to place Father George into his homemade gas chamber was set up. Within hours, the world would be missing another priest.
At the door, he turned back to Evelyn.
“Be back shortly. Don’t go anywhere.” He laughed at his own joke.
The look on Eve’s face was one of strain and effort. This was good. Suffering was good. It was what Lucifer had asked of him. Cause the most suffering he could and send the vilest to Hell. The first battle that ever took place was in Heaven when Satan was cast out and the angel had fallen. The last battle would take place on Earth with Satan and Mike at the helm.
He closed the door and headed downstairs. The day was rife with possibilities and exciting adventures. The thought of watching Father George die made him feel like a kid again. His parents had been extremely religious. Fundamentally so. When they caught him hurting a frog, one of God’s creatures, they did not spare the rod. When they caught him reading, they did not spare the rod. And when they caught him using the Lord’s name in vain, they did not spare the rod.
Mike wouldn’t spare the rod either.
Satan’s staff was long and barbed and it spared no one.
Just the way Mike liked it.
Chapter 5
Sarah snapped awake and shook off the vestiges of her sister’s presence. The pen had made marks and indentations across the lower part of the wall. The first word was barely legible, but the second word could be read easily.
“Mercedes?” Sarah asked out loud. “What could Vivian mean? And why not give me a message when I’m more prepared to take it?” She turned to Parkman. “One day Vivian’s going to have to let me in on how much freedom she has in offering me information. It would be so much better to just spell everything out instead of this.”
Parkman scanned the message. He knelt down and ran his fingers along the wall where the pen had tried to make a mark but missed. He looked at it from the left and then the right. After a moment, he turned the small desk lamp on and moved it to the edge of the desk. The lamp highlighted the rest of the words by casting a shadow where the ink failed.
“Okay,” Parkman said. “I’m reading Mercedes, Bing’s parking lot. Sunset. 101 2-3. Then there’s an A and the start of another letter. You seeing the same?”
Sarah nodded. “But what’s after the A? Another word or just a letter?”
Parkman pointed at her computer. “Do you mind?”
“No, go ahead.”
She looked over his shoulder as he typed in a search for Bing’s in Los Angeles.
When the screen filled, she asked, “Which one do we go to? There’s so many.” She stood back and stared at the message on the wall, frustrated. “Vivian, couldn’t you be more specific?”
Parkman clicked between the Bing’s restaurants on the screen. “Maybe it has something to do with the sunset.” He rolled his toothpick to the other side of his mouth.
Sarah’s stomach grumbled. She hadn’t eaten breakfast yet and with the talk of Bing’s restaurants, she started thinking about eggs and bacon. “Maybe at sunset we are to go to a Bing’s and locate a Mercedes. Could be the killer’s car is a Mercedes.”
Parkman typed hard on the keyboard. The screen changed again.
For a brief moment, the word sunset rolled through her mind as if someone else thought it. Like a part of Vivian’s essence lingered in her consciousness. After Vivian had channeled through Sarah’s body in the basement of that house in Canada, Sarah had felt closer to Vivian. Like they both occupied space under Sarah’s skin. It was creepy, but at the same time, welcoming, comforting.
To take over her consciousness and perform her automatic writing, Vivian already had some kind of control over Sarah. In the past there had been times when Vivian had manipulated Sarah’s muscles. Once she made Sarah trip and fall in Italy which had saved her life. Channeling messages through Sarah was one thing. Actively taking over Sarah’s body was stuff of horror movies.
Maybe the Catholic Church could perform an exorcism on me.
“Parkman, the word sunset has nothing to do with the sun.”
“What?”
“Check how many Bing’s there are on Sunset Boulevard.”
He brought up their webpage and clicked on the store locator link. “Looks like at least two.”
“Is there one on Sunset Boulevard near the Hollywood Freeway?”
“Why the Hollywood Freeway?”
“Just look.”
After a moment of searching, he turned in his seat and stared at her. “There is.”
“The Hollywood Freeway is the 101. See,” she pointed at the wall, “the message says Bing’s parking lot. Then it says Sunset, and then 101. That’s the Bing’s we need.” She thought about it again while Parkman stared at the wall. “Could the 2-3 with the A after it mean, 2:00 to 3:00 am?”
Parkman clapped his hands. “You got it. That’s what it looks like it says to me.”
“Perfect.” Sarah hopped on her good foot until she got to the bed where she plopped down. “I’m going to get dressed. After that, I want to eat. Then I want to do more research on the Catholic Church and take a nap. I’m thinking it’ll be a long night.”
“What do you expect to find tonight?”
“I have no idea but I do know we’re looking for a Mercedes. Inside that car, we’ll probably find the madman Detective Hirst is investigating or we’ll find another body.”
“Shit.” Parkman got up and walked to the door. “We should be armed.”
Sarah nodded. “Can you handle that?”
“I’ll try. Hirst’ll be no help. We’re supposed to be leaving.”
“Do your best, Parkman. We need weapons.”
He opened the door and exited without another word.
Sarah looked up at the ceiling of the hotel room. “Vivian, you have got to make this easier.”
She slipped out of her track pants gingerly, mindful of her broken ankle, feeling every bit a stranger in her own body.
Another presence lingered in her mental shadows. Vivian remained close. So close that Sarah could almost smell her. Like they were twins inhabiting the same body. The only creepy parts were the thoughts and memories that popped up from time to time. Ones that weren’t Sarah’s. Ones of a different date and time.
An image of her parents had formed in her mind two days ago when her parents were in their twenties. A time before Sarah was born.
Goose bumps accompanied that image. It was impossible for Sarah to have seen her parents, listened to them, walked with them, in those years.
Only Vivian knew Caleb and Amelia then. Only Vivian had those thoughts and memories.
But why would Vivian’s human presence be coming through to Sarah? Could it be a result of what happened in Canada when Vivian had completely taken over Sarah’s body?
If so, what would happen to Sarah if Vivian did it again? Would she lose more of herself? Could Vivian ultimately take over and lock Sarah out of her own body in some way?
She shuddered at the thought.
“Just help me stop this killer, Vivian. Then carry on. Sanity is something I kind of enjoy having.”
Sarah was afraid for the first time what her gift might be doing to her.
Could Vivian’s purpose pull Sarah out of depression all those years ago, effectively saving her life, only to kill her on the inside because she had channeled through her too often?
“Only time will tell,” she whispered to the empty room.
Chapter 6
Father Adams examined the night stars for a sign from God. When none came, he donned his black hat and gripped the door handle of the church. From just outside the door, he could hear Father George offering a sermon on sin. It was a good sermon. One Father Adams had performed himself over the years. He entered the church, taking pains to remain as silent as possible.
The church had a good crowd as F
ather George was popular with the congregation. He was gentle, kind and good with kids. Perhaps a little too good. Ultimately Father George had been shuffled around the Catholic Churches of America until he landed in the big city of Los Angeles under the watchful eye of Father Adams. Today was a day Father Adams dreaded as he needed to give Father George a sermon of his own.
“God is ready to heal those who sincerely wish to amend their lives,” Father George said from the pulpit. “But he won’t take pity on the obstinate sinner.”
Father George’s eyes stopped on Adams. He paused, nodded, and then continued.