by David Dean
Weller had almost reached the stairwell when Nick felt the door give behind and heard Fanny ask in a small voice, “Nick, is everything okay?”
Pointing excitedly at her, Weller exclaimed, “See… in your own office!”
Nick spoke quietly over his shoulder, “Just wait inside, Fanny. I’ll be right there.” After a moment he heard the snick of the closing door behind him.
“How are you going to explain all that, big man?” Weller wanted to know.
“Keep walking,” Nick warned him.
As Weller reached the top of the stairs, he added, “You might think you can blow me off, Nick, but you can’t keep all this at bay forever… you can’t keep covering up for your new squeeze any more than you can run interference for those priests of yours. You think the county prosecutor will stand by while you cover up for pedophiles?”
Nick began to walk rapidly down the hall towards Weller. “How did you know about that?” he demanded. “It sounds to me like you got an inside track here, Shad. Maybe you’re just a little too close to the facts—care to explain?” Weller didn’t wait for Nick’s arrival, but turned and fled down the echoing stairwell.
When Nick got to the landing he shouted down, “Don’t bother coming in tomorrow, Captain, you’re suspended for insubordination pending a hearing! Be sure and tell that to the prosecutor, too!
“Also, you sneaky sonofabitch, I’m confiscating your fuckin’ crayons until further notice!”
Nick heard Weller’s footsteps falter at this last, before resuming their former clatter as Nick began to laugh aloud. The sound of it boomed down the stairwell chasing Weller out of the building. When Nick heard the exit door slam he turned once more for his office and Fanny.
He continued to chuckle at his own bravado and the sad image of his captain making crude, hateful drawings of Monsignor Mulcahy, then furtively attaching them to the cars of parishioners. His malice and envy rendered him laughable in the final analysis, he thought—if only it rendered him harmless, as well.
By the time he reached his office the brief moment of levity had evaporated and when he opened the door it was to find Fanny standing and white-faced. She appeared ready to flee as well.
“Fanny,” he began, “I’m so sorry you had to hear all that. It’s been a long-running thing, I’m afraid…”
She cut him off, “Nick, I really should be going. I had no idea how much trouble I was going to make for you.” Brushing past him to the door, she stopped and said, “I don’t think it’s such a good idea for us to continue seeing one another… not until all this has blown over… if it ever does.”
Nick started to speak, but she slipped through the door and was gone. She’s probably right, he thought, sitting down at his desk and placing his face in his broad hands. After several minutes of silence, he murmured softly to the empty office, “My God, I’m in deep.”
?
Father Gregory shuttled down the nave of Our Lady’s from the altar toward the main entrance, his slightly bulging eyes sweeping the pews. What had once been the shared and rotating duty of securing the church for the evening had, with Monsignor Mulcahy’s illness, become his alone. Even so, he approached this task without resentment, as it also allowed him a small time to himself and his devotion to the Eucharist.
Turning off the overhead lamps as he progressed, the church was thrown into shadow by degrees, the dying sun, filtered through the mosaics of stained glass, coloring rather than clarifying the objects within. When he reached the large carved panels that opened into the greeting area, he paused and turned to regard the interior.
At either side of the altar figures clothed in blue, white, and scarlet cloaks raised their hands and eyes to the heavens from their shadowed alcoves. Mary, portrayed as Queen of the Universe, bore a crown of stars, her infant son cradled in her arms. In typical infant fascination of bright baubles, his chubby hands reached for her diadem.
Pulling the doors shut behind him, Father Gregory checked the vestry and the restrooms to ensure that the building was, indeed, empty. Satisfied, he proceeded to the small chapel off the lobby.
He knelt before the Monstrance, a gold cross fashioned to contain the blessed communion wafer, and housed within the open tabernacle. The wafer, paper-thin and white as snow, was incised with a cross and clearly visible behind the crystal oval it was sealed behind.
Grunting as he knelt, the priest cupped his face in his hands for several seconds in order to clear his mind, trying to think of nothing. Finally, he looked up to regard the Eucharist and contemplate its wonder. The cross, captured by several small and cunningly hidden lamps, appeared to hover within the tabernacle—the incised wafer a ghostly white presence at its heart.
Mumbling his prayers in rapid, unbroken succession, the room around him faded into nothingness, and he was unconscious of the rows of empty chairs behind him. A statue of St. Therese of Lisieux guarded his back in the gathering darkness.
Yet, after many minutes of this intense devotion, he began to grow aware of something beyond his absorption with this essential Mystery of the Church—his neck was growing cold. Having come from a land of debilitating tropical heat, his sojourn in America had found him unprepared for actual winter, and even after several years in New Jersey, he felt the approach of the cold with a near physical horror. Rising to his feet with another small grunt, he looked behind him into the spreading gloom. A small window that opened out onto the side yard swung gently on its hinges.
Father Gregory hurried over and shut it once more. Noticing that the latch was not functioning properly, he made a mental note to relay this to the custodian. When he turned back to the room he found a boy kneeling in the spot he had vacated just moments before. Completely caught off his guard, he stood there dumbly regarding the youngster’s lean back.
It wasn’t just the silence of the boy’s appearance that startled him so (though he could not account for how he had missed him while securing the building), but his apparent occupation with the Adoration that he found disconcerting as well—he had never witnessed a mere boy engaged in so esoteric a practice before. He didn’t know quite what to do.
Drawing closer, several things became apparent to him at once, the first was the smell—the boy’s body odor was a near-palpable presence in the close room, and in spite of his lifetime of experience with the unwashed beggars of India, he found the odor repellant. Next was the child’s appearance—his trousers were too short for his extraordinarily long legs and the same applied to the filthy shirt and his attenuated arms. More remarkable yet, his feet were unshod, the soles black as a dog’s pads, long and narrow, altogether unnatural looking. His hair was a tousled mop of neglected curls, strewn and littered with stems, dirt, and autumn leaves, the long exposed neck streaked with grime.
Father Gregory leaned down in the dim light. Partially concealed by the tangle of hair, the child’s ears peeked out. Were they pointed? wondered Father Gregory in a near dream-like state. What kind of child had wandered into his church? He knew without thinking that this was not the son of any parishioner that had crossed the threshold of Our Lady’s. Clearly this was a child in need of help. One thing was certain, he thought, never during his time in America had he seen a child such as this.
In spite of the wretched odor, he cleared his throat lightly in order not to startle the boy, before kneeling onto the hard floor beside him. He would not deprive the child of the kneeler when he was so wrapped up in his devotions, but would join him in prayer.
Bowing his head, he strove to return to his previous state of meditation, but the proximity of the odd child floated foremost in his mind’s eye and he could not rid himself of the unease he caused. Surrendering to his lively curiosity, Father Gregory cast a glance at his fellow worshipper from the corner of his eye… only to find himself being regarded in the same sly manner—the boy’s large, green eyes, blood-flecked and amused. For several long moments this held.
“You are different from the rest,” the child spoke at l
ast in a hoarse, sibilant voice, unnaturally loud in the silent chapel.
Flinching at the apparition’s address, the priest replied clearly, “What do you mean?” He felt a jolt of adrenalin course through his veins at the sight of the boy’s wide mouth, his long jagged teeth.
“I watch,” the child explained from his prayerful pose. “I watch when I am able… and you have no woman… or even man.”
This casual observation shocked Father Gregory, but he tried not to show it in his expression. After several moments, he managed to say, “Of course not, I am a priest.”
“And priests keep no mates, but kneel and watch their gold?” Gabriel asked, pointing a long taloned finger at the Monstrance.
Father Gregory rose to his feet at this, both in shock at the boy’s insolence and in terror of the awful hand that stopped just short of touching the cross—a terrible appendage. “I am not watching gold,” he protested, “but adoring God Himself made present in the Eucharist.”
Turning, Gabriel faced the frightened clergyman. “God,” he repeated as if trying the word on for size, rolling it around on his long tongue. “God… he is there?” Again the sinewy arm uncoiled, a cracked brown nail hovering but a millimeter from the object of their discussion.
Father Gregory took a step forward in spite of himself, so great was his concern for the blessed wafer. “Yes,” he assured his interrogator, “He is there. Do you know Him?”
Gabriel stretched as if he had not heard the question, sliding bonelessly from the kneeler onto the pew behind him. Draping himself, cat-like, along its length, he appeared to give the question some thought. Father Gregory observed these movements with a growing sense of unreality and horror. His meeting with Professor Howard in the coffee shop rose unbidden to his mind. What had he quoted? “There are more things under heaven…” Unfinished, it slipped away again.
“I listen, too,” Gabriel answered at last. “You eat this God… and drink his blood. I would like to drink his blood as well, I think.”
Swaying, Father Gregory fought to focus on the boy’s words, even as he struggled against his repugnance to his goblin-like features. He could not escape the impression that this face had never been meant for close inspection—could never truly pass for human. “This you may not do unless you have been baptized in the Church,” he answered.
The boy, raising the upper half of his body from his supine pose, regarded Father Gregory darkly for several moments. “You partake of this God, so if I partake of you, shall I not also drink his blood, by your will or no?”
Father Gregory took a step back, even as the wicked child’s eyes, glittering like silica, remained fixed upon him. As if by invisible threads, the feral boy began to rise with each step the little priest took, and Father Gregory groaned with fear.
Turning with almost superhuman effort, he seized the Monstrance protectively, clutching it to his chest and crying, “Who are you… what are you?”
Spinning back round to confront his unnatural adversary, he found himself alone in the chapel, the boy having vanished into the darkness. The small, stained glass window swung once more on its hinges. Like a spray of blood, the offering of roses to Saint Therese lay scattered spitefully at her feet.
CHAPTER TEN
Nick Catesby found himself waiting in the lobby of the Prosecutor’s office like any other citizen. It was not a good sign. His eyes burned and he noticed his hands shaking slightly. He was already regretting the bottle of bourbon that he had punished the night before and, when he thought of Fanny and how they had parted, his chest felt hollow and tender. A middle-aged woman, glancing up at him from her desk, offered him a timorous smile. He knew by her expression that he was in real trouble.
Outside, in the fields, woods, and salt marshes of Wessex Township, the final day of the search for the children had begun without him. After a week of fruitless activity and a steady dwindling of volunteers as a result, he had determined to bring it to an end. Nothing had been discovered that justified further effort on the ground—the outcome now lay squarely with the police investigators and their counterparts at the county, state, and federal level. The parents had been devastated at the announcement—it was tantamount to admitting that their children would not be seen again… at least, alive. Mrs. Guthrie had slapped his face, and her husband had begun openly weeping.
The summons from the prosecutor had been delivered by Jeff Gilhooly, a kindly man that Nick had known most of his life. He had been the prosecutor’s senior investigator for a decade. The fact that it was him was both a courtesy and a signal of the prosecutor’s serious concerns.
Having finished his instructions to the captains of his search teams, Nick turned command over to Jack Kimbo once more, before taking a final slurp of his fast-cooling coffee and following the messenger to the prosecutor’s office. Now he waited.
A phone rang at the woman’s desk and she answered it with a pleasant, “Yes sir?” A moment later she returned the receiver to its cradle, smiling once more at Nick. This time she tried to put more hope into it. “You can go right in,” she chirped, her plump cheeks crinkling with effort, “he’s ready for you now.”
Nodding to her, Nick rose and strode forth with all the confidence he did not feel. “Thank you,” he said as he passed her.
The office door opened ahead of him and Jeff, tall, balding, and soft-looking, waved him in with a strained smile. “Nick, I’m sorry about all this.” He gestured vaguely at the office in general, and followed him inside.
The county prosecutor, a graying man of medium height, some years older than Nick, sat behind a nameplate that read, “Anthony Calabria.” He rose as Jeff closed the door behind Nick, offering his hand. They had met many times before, but only in the most professional of circumstances.
Nick took a seat in one the leather chairs that Calabria indicated. “Thanks for coming in,” the prosecutor murmured, settling back into his own seat.
Nick made no comment on the fact that he had been given no choice. “I would have dressed up if I had had more notice,” he quipped, indicating the hiking boots, jeans, heavy wool shirt, and canvas jacket he was wearing in preparation for the day’s efforts.
The prosecutor’s mouth twitched at the edges beneath his thick, untrimmed mustache, never managing to break into an actual smile. Jeff continued to stand near the door. “I understand,” Anthony replied, “I wasn’t given much notice either.” Glancing at his right-hand man, he said, “Jeff, sit down will you, you’re making me nervous.” Gilhooly hastened to obey. “That’s better,” he pronounced, tenting his hands beneath his fleshy chin and looking straight into Nick’s eyes. “I suspect you know why you’re here, Nick.”
“Yeah, Pros, I suspect I do—you’ve had a visit from Shad Weller.”
Anthony nodded. “Yes, I did, Nick, and it would be understating it if I said he has a few problems with how you’ve been handling this case with the missing kids… understating it.” He paused and studied Nick for effect. “Sound familiar?”
“It certainly sounds like Weller,” Nick answered. “We had a little talk last night and he managed to make himself pretty clear on how he felt about me.” Nick felt the low pulse in his skull from the hangover grow stronger. “He may have said more than he intended to though.”
“Meaning…?”
Fishing the evidence bag from within his coat, Nick spread it out on the desk of the county’s top attorney. Within were the inflammatory drawings from Our Lady’s parking lot, dusted graphite coating the edges and revealing several sets of fingerprints.
“He may not have mentioned these to you,” Nick said. The prosecutor regarded them without comment, waiting for Nick to continue. “They were placed on the cars of some parishioners of Our Lady of the Visitation a few days ago. As you can see, in the light of the disappearances, they’re obviously meant to stir up trouble for the priests there. Weller slipped up last night and said something that made me think he might have had something to do with it.” Nick pointed at a pa
ir of clearly discernible prints at the edge of one of the sheets. “Those are his,” he announced, “no doubt about it—I had the sheriff’s ID unit check them against the card in his personnel file—they’re a positive match. He’s had nothing to do with this case, absolutely no legitimate reason to have handled these flyers.”
The prosecutor stared at the drawings for several moments. “Why?” he asked at last.
“I can’t be sure, of course, but I think he found out about the allegations in the Monsignor’s past and decided to take advantage of the current situation. Not that there’s any chance Monsignor Mulcahy had anything to do with the disappearances of Megan and the boys. I’ve had that checked out—the monsignor was in the hospital for a chronic lung infection when Megan Guthrie disappeared, and he is far too frail to have taken on two teenage boys… especially those two. Shad wouldn’t be the first anti-Catholic bigot to start a smear campaign.
“Lastly, it just muddies the waters, creates a distraction, and makes it harder for me to get to the truth of what’s going on around here. I think the bottom line is this—he wants me to fail so that he can crawl over me and get what he’s wanted all along—my job.”
Nick took a breath before continuing, “But whatever his motivations, Pros, it does speak to one thing—his integrity… of which he has none. So, if I’m being brought here to stand and deliver on his allegations then let’s begin with that understanding.” Nick found himself leaning forward in his chair.
Raising a finger into the air, the prosecutor answered, “I’ll be the determiner of the facts in this particular investigation.”
Turning to his own chief, he swept the evidence up from his desk. “Jeff, take charge of these, would you, and run down the sheriff’s ID personnel to confirm what Nick’s saying here.”
Jeff stood, taking the bag from his boss and smiling at Nick. “You know it’s not that we doubt you, Nick, but Weller’s made serious allegations and we have to treat this just like any other internal—in the long run, it will be to your own benefit… you’ll see.”