by Avery Corman
The chess tables were in an area behind a recreation center building and Father Connolly sat with an African American boy of about eleven, the two engrossed in their game. Father Connolly had grown older in the service of his faith since she had last seen him. He was a small, white-haired man, seventy-eight, five feet four, unimposing but for the face, and she nodded her head affirmatively seeing that face again, a wrinkled face with soft brown eyes, a countenance of endless empathy. He looked up as she approached the table.
“Father, it’s Veronica Delaney.”
“Veronica, my dear. Tony, we’ll finish tomorrow, all right?” The boy nodded and Father Connolly came to her.
“It’s so good to see you, Father.”
“What brings you here?”
“I’m not good. I’m not good,” and she began to sob. He held her until she subsided and then guided her to a patio table and chairs near the chess area and helped her sit. She told him her story—Richard, the signs of possession, the Satan manifestations—and he appeared to draw the pain unto himself.
“An exorcism? You must understand, it doesn’t always work, Veronica.”
“And sometimes it does. Father McElene said purity of faith was a main requirement for the exorcist. He’s talking about you.”
“I’m not the person for this.”
“You are to me. If you could call, they could give you permission—”
“Veronica, do you really believe in your heart of hearts that the Devil is in you?”
“I don’t know anymore. But even if it’s all psychological, which is what the therapist says, I’ve read that an exorcism can still help on that level, if the person believes it will help. I believe it will and that you can help me.”
“During the Second World War when I was a chaplain I did several exorcisms. The results were mixed. There were demons of war, as much as anything. Years later, a young woman in my parish claimed she was possessed. I wanted her hospitalized. I believe Satan is present in our world. I did not believe it for this woman. My superiors pressured me to perform an exorcism. It wasn’t successful. Soon after, she died in a drowning. I don’t know if it was an accident. I never performed an exorcism again.”
“But I want to live. That’s why I’m here.”
“I can’t do it for you, Veronica. I can’t take the chance if it’s the wrong remedy.”
“It’s my chance, not yours.”
“No, I would be very much involved.”
“Would you call Father McElene? At least tell him we spoke.”
“I’ll call him.”
“And would you please think about it? He said ‘several weeks.’ Can I hold myself together ‘several weeks’?”
“Stay here with us for a while in our convent. We’ll exorcise your demons with prayer and guidance and counseling.”
“You see how little good counseling did for me, Father. As for prayer, when my mother was dying, I prayed. It didn’t help.” She wrote her phone numbers down for him on a piece of paper. “You’ll think about it? You’ll call me?”
“I can’t let you just go like this.”
“I’m fine when I’m fine.” She patted him on his hand. “This is what I need. And you can do this. You’re a kind man. I trust you.”
She found a taxicab on Fordham Road and went back to the apartment. Bob came over for a dinner Nancy prepared and he was as upset as Nancy at the notion of Ronnie soliciting an exorcism. He blamed Richard for everything; “a terrible guy who turned you upside down.” Nancy was concerned with details, was Ronnie going to continue seeing Kaufman while her exorcism was in the works. Ronnie hadn’t given it any thought, but as she considered it she decided until she went through the exorcism, therapy might be counterproductive—two different belief systems. They managed to arrive at something of a compromise, she would consider returning to therapy, but only after the exorcism was performed.
As Bob was leaving he said to Ronnie, “I wish we could do more.”
“You’ve done more.”
Like a sleepwalker Ronnie arose from her bed. She put on her jogging outfit, sneakers, placed a few dollars in her pocket as she usually did before leaving for a run, and left the apartment to go jogging. She went past the sleeping doorman and jogged along the street toward Riverside Park. She was running, eyes open, oblivious, unconscious, at three thirty in the morning.
She was unaware of a figure in a car parked across the street. As she left the building the person made a call on a cell phone.
She entered the park and stopped to sit on the ground with her back against a retaining wall. She remained there awhile, drifted into sleep, then her eyes opened, she stood, and began to run through the deserted park, her face devoid of emotion. A few yards in front of her something was moving in the darkness. Her trancelike state lifted and she became aware of the movement. A man was in her path facing her menacingly. By the light of a lamppost she saw the man’s face. It was Randall Cummings. He had a lifeless expression, the walking dead. She tried to run past him, around him, but she had come upon him too quickly and he tripped her with his leg, sending her sprawling to the ground. As she turned to get up, he lunged at her with a knife. She spun out of the way and with a rapid swipe of her arm knocked the knife out of his hand. She was on her feet and now he came toward her, his hands outstretched to choke her. She ducked under his grasp, got to him first, her hands at his throat, and began choking him, pushing him backward, choking the air out of him as he gasped, pushing him as she choked hard, and then he tripped on a tree stump and as he fell back she saw it wasn’t Cummings at all, it was the man in the cardboard box. He was the reality, not Cummings. He fell away from her, tumbling down a hill that sloped from the walkway, screaming at her from the bottom, “You crazy bitch, you goddamn crazy bitch!”
In a panic she ran fast in the direction she had come, back toward the apartment, but in her path, swarming in front of her, were several howling, hissing black cats. She turned in the other direction to run and a few of them scampered across her path, howling as she ran faster, as fast as she could along the walkway to get away from the creatures until, finally, she was beyond them, the sound of the cats descending, and she was by herself running in the night. She ran at full speed in her panic until she was out of breath, and sprawled onto a bench on her stomach, gasping, bewildered, horrified—she nearly killed someone, nearly strangled him to death. The next thought was more than she could bear—did she kill Randall Cummings?
On a promontory in the park above the walkway was a figure who had been observing the near-strangling and Ronnie’s terrified run, watching with a look of amused satisfaction as if it were his entertainment for the dead of night. It was Richard.
16
SHE AROSE IN THE morning, her body aching, and made her way out of the park. She had to get to Father Connolly. She couldn’t wait on the bureaucracy. She knew that she was dangerous and losing her hold on reality. If he refused to perform an exorcism, at least he promised her haven in a convent. The sisters and their symbols of faith might help until the church worked through their procedures and found someone for her.
She had a few dollars in her pocket, she bought a newspaper to get change and dialed information at a pay booth. The church was listed, Father Connolly was not. She called the church, receiving an outgoing message; no one was in the office to take her call. She didn’t have enough money for a taxicab to the Bronx and went to the nearest subway station. She was going to sit outside the church to wait for someone to arrive. Proximity to the church seemed to her a better idea than being in the city at large.
Shortly after 8:00 A.M. she arrived at the simple gray brick Roman Catholic church. She rang the bell for the office, located in a small annex adjacent to the main building. No one answered. She sat on the church steps, in despair over the events of the night.
She was unaware that out of her line of sight, watching her down the street, was Richard, who had followed her.
Rourke asked Santini and Gomez to
come into his office, where Maria Sanchez, a uniformed officer in her twenties, was seated.
“Maria—” Rourke said, prompting her.
“We got a call a few minutes ago,” she told them. “Guy said a crazy woman tried to strangle him last night, middle of the night in Riverside Park. He was sleeping in ‘his apartment,’ he said, referring to the park, so it must have been some homeless guy. Said he was letting us know to spare ‘future victims.’ The woman was young, he said, in jogging clothes. He thought maybe he scared her in the dark, but he said that was no excuse. She choked him like she wanted to kill him. He tripped and fell down a hill and she lost her grip and ran away. That’s all he wanted to say. Didn’t want anything to do with the police. Just wanted us to know so no one else gets hurt. He was moving away. Didn’t want to be in any neighborhood where crazy women tried to kill you.”
“Can’t blame him for that,” Rourke said, “but here’s the kicker. Tell them where he said it happened.”
“Riverside Park around 113th Street.”
“Is that a fact?” Gomez said.
“Yes. And the Delaney girl lives?” Rourke asked.
“On 111th. Right near the park,” Gomez answered.
“Same MO as Cummings. Right near her apartment. Let’s bring her in.”
Nancy didn’t see Ronnie in her room when she awoke and assumed she went jogging early. She checked and when Ronnie’s jogging shoes weren’t in the closet, confirmed for herself this was the case. She left for a dental appointment prior to going to work and was not in the building when Santini and Gomez arrived looking for Ronnie. The doorman, who came on at seven, said that he had seen the roommate leave. He hadn’t seen Ronnie that morning. They buzzed up and when there was no answer Santini asked for the superintendent of the building. A muscular man in his forties appeared wearing work clothes. When he heard they were from homicide and needed to talk to Veronica Delaney, he got very excited. His cousin was a cop, he told them, and he opened the door with a key Ronnie and Nancy had left in case of emergency; not the emergency they had in mind.
When the detectives saw Ronnie was not there they went back down. A search of the apartment was not their priority, they had to find the suspect quickly. They spoke with Carter and Greenberg, who had arrived, and who were going to position themselves outside the building and intercept her if she appeared.
Gomez asked the superintendent and the doorman where in the vicinity Ronnie might be at this time of the morning, did they know if she had a favorite breakfast place? They didn’t know of any. A gym where she worked out? She jogged in the park, the doorman said. She jogged. They knew that. The detectives had Nancy’s work address from their earlier interrogation and needed her for Ronnie’s whereabouts.
First, they drove through the park, hoping to spot Ronnie, and when they did not they headed downtown for Nancy. They arrived at the Hawkins Literary Agency a few minutes after nine. Nobody was at the office yet. They were going to wait for the business day to begin and for Ronnie’s roommate to appear.
During this time, a picture of Ronnie taken from a magazine head shot was printed with her vital statistics under the line, “Wanted for questioning in the murder of Randall Cummings” and sent out as a police bulletin to all precincts. Rourke was furious when someone leaked it and this appeared on the cable channel New York News, a tip-off to the suspect and an invitation to flee. Ronnie, however, was not going anywhere. She was sitting on the steps of Saint Christopher Church in the Bronx, out of range of this activity, desperate, waiting for someone, anyone, from the church.
A few minutes after nine a robust African American woman in her forties approached the door leading to the church office. Ronnie quickly came over to her.
“At last.”
“Did you want to see Father Flynn? He’s out of town.”
“Father Connolly.”
“Father Connolly? He’s semiretired, you know. If he’s coming in today, won’t be until much later.”
“I have to see him right away. It’s an emergency.”
“Your name is?”
“Veronica Delaney.”
“Oh, right.” The woman unlocked the door. “We can call him up. He lives nearby.”
The church worker led Ronnie into a small, cluttered office, dialed a number, and handed the phone to Ronnie.
“Father Connolly—”
“It’s Veronica, Father. I’m at the church. I have to see you right now!”
“My goodness. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
She sat on a worn upholstered bench in a dimly lit waiting area outside the office. Father Connolly hurried in and she greeted him with an explosion of her torment.
“I almost killed a man last night, Father! I went running in the park in the middle of the night and I didn’t know I was doing it, like other times I blacked out, and then I saw what I was doing. I was choking somebody. The man could’ve died, I could’ve killed him, and if I could do that, then maybe I killed Randall Cummings. I was there, I was at his place the day he died, and he died from being choked to death, so it could have been me. Evil is in me. Father. I’m going out of my mind. We have to have an exorcism. We have to do it right now. You have to do it!”
He took her by the hands and said, “Veronica, I’ll try to help. But what you’re looking for can’t be something done to you. It has to be something from within you.” He put his arm around her gently. “Let’s go into the chapel. It would be a good thing.”
The chapel was a small, simple space in the annex portion of the building; basic artifacts for worship and a few pews. Father Connolly led Ronnie to sit in the first pew.
“What can get you through is faith. Faith in God. Faith in your essential goodness.”
“I lost my faith a long time ago.”
“You had it once, when you were a little girl. You have to find it again.”
The office worker entered, flustered.
“I’m sorry, Father. This man insisted—”
Richard brashly entered the room with a look of amusement at the entertainment value of the proceedings.
“Hello, Ronnie.”
“Father, this is the man!”
“What are you doing here?” Father Connolly said. “You’ve been stalking her?”
“I wouldn’t call it that. I’m a friend of Ronnie’s. And she was very—abrupt with me. I wanted to say to her, you can’t get rid of me so easily once you let me in, so to speak.”
“Father, make him go away.”
As Richard stood there, imperious, amused, Father Connolly studied him, trying to take his measure.
“What kind of behavior is this?”
Richard looked at him patronizingly.
“Who are you to ask?”
“Get out of here,” Ronnie said. “Father!” she appealed.
Father Connolly studied Richard in his arrogance.
“If he is the demon in your life, I’m afraid you’re the one who has to will him away.”
Suddenly, Randall Cummings’s assistant Cosmo Pitalis materialized, dressed in black, white-faced. He was livid.
“You killed Cummings.”
“No,” Ronnie said, terrified.
“You were angry with him and you snapped. You grabbed him by the neck, the last thing he expected, and it caught him off guard. He began to gag, and he couldn’t catch his breath, and you choked him to death.”
“I didn’t!”
Pitalis was gone, Ronnie saw just the two of them, Father Connolly and Richard. She was breathing rapidly, panicked.
“Say good-bye to yourself, Ronnie.”
“What is your purpose here?” Father Connolly said. “Leave this chapel!”
“And then? I’ll only follow her somewhere else. This is the confrontation, old man. Are you up to it?”
The man in the box suddenly materialized in front of Ronnie.
“You tried to kill me, you crazy bitch. If I didn’t trip, I’d be dead. Crazy killer bitch!”
He was gone, but she saw the scene in the park unfold again, her choking him, him falling backward.
She was shaking, overwrought.
“It’s over,” Richard said.
“He’s playing with you. You have to pray to God to give you the strength to deal with this.”
“Your mind is never going to be the same.”
“I don’t know who you are, but you might as well be Satan,” Father Connolly said. “You’re the purest embodiment of evil I have seen in a long, long time.”
“Is that a fact?” Then he turned to Ronnie. “Sad, isn’t it, when you have a good mind and it goes?”
“Don’t listen to him. Pray, Veronica. The words will lead you back to your faith and give you strength. Our Father, who art in heaven …”
The black cats suddenly appeared, hissing, scrambling through the chapel, in and out of the pews, under her feet. She screamed in terror. She was cold, shivering. She was holding herself in fear, feeling her strength dwindling. The cats vanished.
“Give in, Ronnie, let go,” Richard said. “It’s not a bad life, having people take care of you.”
“Don’t let him get to you. Say those beautiful words, Veronica. Our Father, who art in heaven …” He kneeled and looked into her eyes. “Your faith is deep within you. It never left. Find it and it will lead you out of this.”
Struggling, barely audibly, she said, “Our Father, who art in heaven …”
“Hallowed be thy name …”
“Hallowed be thy name …”
“Go on.”
“Give in, Ronnie, give in.”
Where Richard was standing, she now saw the dark angel, winged, menacing.
“No!”
“The words will lead you.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Thy kingdom come …” She was shivering, disoriented, her eyes darting, looking for what terrible thing would happen next.