Pawler was his usual self; by now I’d gotten used to his stiff military-style personality. I could swear you’d get better conversation out of one of those crash dummies. But he was good protection, and that was what we needed. I could imagine him blowing someone away and going back to work the next day as if nothing had happened. “Tough as nails” was my best description for old “Iron-Heart” Pawler.
I had never seen this church before, but I’d read a little about it—the oldest church in Maryland and in many surrounding states too, for that matter. I had always been intrigued by history, and this church and cemetery screamed of history. As we pulled up closer to the sprawling grounds, I could see the oldest monuments and cemetery stones I’d ever laid eyes on. Many of the names and dates chiseled into the stones were worn smooth and no longer legible.
The oldest graves were the closest to the church and the entranceways on each side of the ancient red brick church. We drove right up to the front of the church, and I stared at massive double wooden doors trimmed with heavy iron ornamentation that appeared to be original. The doors had to be around twelve feet high, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much they weighed.
My mind wandered as I studied the tall, ancient, red brick structure with large bells hanging in the bell tower of its steeple. I wondered how many men it took to build the church, how long it took, and how difficult it must have been without modern equipment.
Sergeant Pawler took the lead into the church, even though several officers were standing inside and outside guarding against any additional intrusion.
The church was magnificent inside, with very high ceilings of hand-painted religious pictures, high stained-glass windows, and pews that were aged and appeared to be of hardwood oak. I had no idea what was original and what was refurbished, but it gave me the feeling that God was inside the very structure I was walking around in.
The captain motioned for me to join him near a wall to the right center of the church.
“You see here, Lou, this is precisely where Wally placed his remote fire-bomb device. As simplistic in design as it was, the entire church would have been engulfed in minutes. Wally had two locations set to go off simultaneously in the church. Once he made a call to his two cell phones with the lit candle resting on top of them, that would have set off a chain reaction leading to the firebomb and the ultimate explosion once the gas lines were compromised. And depending on our exact location in the church, we all would have been trapped by smoke and fire.”
“How did Wally figure all this out?” I said.
“Wally was a master mechanic with a keen knowledge of mechanics, mathematics, and construction in general.”
I looked all around the walls for any recent structural changes and saw none. I walked behind the main part of the church, hoping I could find some well-hidden box or anything that would shed some light on the nearly century-old murders.
The captain looked at me and said, “Lou, I will warn you that my men and the bomb squad have been all through this structure with a fine-toothed comb. I don’t know what you think you will find here. I think you’re going to hit a dead end.”
We spoke some more, and I asked if I could have a few moments alone to say a prayer. He agreed immediately, and I moved to the very first pew in the front of the church. No one else was in the pew near me. Graham stayed with Pawler and the captain, talking about the attempt to fire-bomb the church.
I sat in the first pew and looked out onto the altar, the large hanging cross, and the fresco painting across the entire wall behind the altar. I am not a very religious man, but I do say my prayers and talk to God on my own time schedule and when I’m in the mood. I have nothing against any kind of religion, as long as it is helpful to those who participate.
But today was different. Today I needed to pray. I needed to thank God for my life, for protecting me like a cat with nine lives. I needed to acknowledge that I was a changed man after meeting and talking with Lolita, and after falling for Felicia. How very special I felt to be alive after all that I had been through. God could have let me die after finally finding the only woman who was truly meant for me. But He didn’t.
I sat and I spoke from my heart to God, and acknowledged everything good I had in my life. I didn’t kneel, because I didn’t want God to see me being phony, but rather as myself.
A strange thing happened, though, as I gazed at the large painting behind the altar. All kinds of images were depicted in the painting—objects, men, children, trees—but as I stared, I could swear that I could make out the full form of the Virgin Mary in a flowing gown holding a string of rosary beads across her two hands. Now, I knew that the Virgin Mary was not a part of the painting. Everything that was meant to be recognized in the painting was clear as day and visible to the eye.
I looked away, knowing that my mind was playing tricks on me, as could well be expected in my exhausted state. I focused on a crucifix for a few long moments then I looked at the mural again, staring at various objects. Then, once again, I focused on the spot where the Virgin had suddenly come out to me from among the objects in the painting, and once again, there she was, in all of her glory, dressed in the same flowing gown.
“There, you’ve really done it now!” I said to myself in a low voice, thinking that she had appeared to me as a sort of warning because I had made her angry. “I must be in trouble now.” Maybe I should have knelt. Oh, well, too late now. So I spoke from the heart to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, for about ten minutes straight. And every so often, I would try to fool myself into thinking that the picture of the Virgin wouldn’t pop out at me from the background of the painting. But I was wrong. She was there every time.
“Are you studying to be a priest?” The voice from behind me startled me, making me jump up.
It was Graham.
Somewhat spooked, I answered, “Just thanking God for Felicia and still being alive, bro.”
“You know, you can pray anywhere, and they hear you,” he said.
“Yes, but the last time I fell off the bar stool and said a prayer, I don’t think it got through!” I laughed.
“Ah, but you’re wrong. Perhaps that is the only real prayer that made it straight through,” he said with a smile, and clasped his arm around my shoulders.
I sat in silence for a moment and thought. That time in the bar when I was cockeyed drunk probably was the lowest point of my life. And I did plead for help, though it was only a five-second request until someone helped me off the barroom floor. Graham must be right.
“Come on,” he said, “the captain wants to go down below and investigate the other areas.”
We went down some old steps that had become concave with wear from all the years of service. It appeared that no one had upgraded the downstairs area of the church. The walls were some old form of mortar, rough and rustic. Large areas of the downstairs weren’t being used and could be used as a bomb shelter if needed. I took it all in carefully.
The pastor used one big area as an office, and it was decorated with the oldest gray steel office furniture I had ever seen. No wasting the congregation’s donations here. The captain, with Graham and me looking on, went through the file cabinets and desk drawers, but he found nothing unusual—just plenty of dust and cobwebs.
According to the contents of his office, the pastor was as pure as could be. Not one bad thing could be found to discredit him. It was so hard to comprehend that the vicious Sy Trylan was the pastor’s brother and had come from a long line of religious leaders.
“Captain, we have to check the walls of this basement. I feel there is something . . . .”
“Lou, stop looking for something that isn’t there. You’re looking for evidence from ninety years ago. Face the facts, you can’t just wish to find something and then make it suddenly appear.”
“But I know it’s here somewhere.”
“Okay, we’ll amuse you a little more, but I’m warning you. When I say it’s over, it will be over!”
S
ergeant Pawler stared at me long and hard. Although he didn’t say a word, his eyes said it loud and clear: “Asshole!” But I still loved the man who looked after me so well.
This entire trip to Hagerstown was doing me in. The more I tried to calm down, the worse I stressed out. Now I felt my forearm muscle spasm uncontrollably. I wondered if my newfound nervous condition was reflected in my face. I felt like an idiot.
I was sure those many visions of Lolita’s visions and mine were a definite sign. There was something on the grounds of this church. But would I be closed down far too soon before finding anything useful?
Graham looked at me and then at the others. He didn’t have faith in me at that moment, and I couldn’t blame him. And quite honestly, at that very moment, I had the urge to go back upstairs, sit in the first pew again, and see if I could still locate the Virgin Mary, who seemed to appear from nothing in the wall-to-wall mural behind the altar.
But I knew full-well that the very moment I stopped forging ahead in pursuit of the ninety-year-old evidence, that would be the moment the captain would call it quits and shut the whole operation down.
“Captain, can we please investigate the grounds around the church?” I asked, while Pawler shot me a glance that said, “I’d rather grab a few brews at the corner bar.” I paid him no mind. He was a real hammerhead.
“Sure, sure, you go right ahead, help yourself,” the captain said, rather sarcastically.
As we all walked up the stairs and out of the church, Graham asked me, “Any gut feelings, Lou?”
“Not a clue,” I replied in a low voice.
He glanced at me with what looked like pity.
We walked all around the exterior of the church. Pawler and Captain Krolm were speaking about certain tombstones of their ancestors and other prominent Hagerstown citizens.
Whenever I’ve walked around a cemetery—there have only actually been a few times—I have been amazed at the tombstones, especially the ones over two hundred years old. Many still declare the name, birth date, and death date of an individual clearly and plainly, as if the stone had been erected only yesterday. Still, it made me sad as I calculated the ages of some of the deceased. Many children had only lived months or a few years. They were from the 1800s, but it still made me sad to think of how many children had died so young, and the grief their parents must have experienced.
As I walked on, I felt transported back in time, looking at the stones and the dates. There was not a cloud in the sky, the bluest skies reflected down onto the cemetery, as we slowly walked around. The air was warm, but the sun was now at an angle at that late time of the day.
I tried to recall the diary description, the conversations with Lolita, and the few visions I had experienced. For a while I continued walking on my own, strolling briskly among the headstones, waiting for something to strike me as familiar. Nothing. As I studied the church, I couldn’t help but marvel at the brick and stone structure. How long can bricks hold up? I wondered. Bricks can weather, but most of the time one cannot put an exact age on a structure made of brick. This structure was no different, being over two centuries old and still standing strong.
I must have been strolling, studying, and contemplating on my own for twenty minutes while the others huddled near the entrance of the church, patiently waiting for me to get frustrated and get this whole investigation thing out of my blood. I kept glancing at the captain, who was shooting me looks. I knew I had only a few minutes before he made us return to the precinct.
I was some distance from the right side of the church when I suddenly felt dizzy and tired. Maybe I was getting dehydrated. Or maybe I was overtired from lack of sleep for days. I slowly backed up and leaned against a fairly new, upright cemetery headstone. The spinning slowed down to that of a slow-moving merry-go-round that was just about to stop.
Graham was way in the distance with the officers, but he saw me sitting and quickly rushed toward me. The others stayed, gathered and talking. As Graham made his way over, I watched his blurry form then looked at the sky again. It was then that I saw another strange blurry figure, not moving, but rather facing me and staring at me. I blinked several times to focus my eyes better. . As I stared at the strange man, Graham arrived by my side.
“Are you all right, buddy?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m fine,” I said without making eye contact looking in the distance..
“So, you’re just going to take a nap while Pawler and the captain are ready to chew everyone’s head off?” He laughed.
“Aw, let them wet themselves!” I snapped, like I was some tough guy. Then I realized that the man I was seeing in the distance, though not completely in focus, was Walter Klug, Lolita’s millionaire uncle, the doctor. I got up and slowly walked toward the form. Slowly, his body became better focused until he appeared to be a man of eighty years, with white hair and beard, tall and slim, in a dark suit.
Graham was following right behind me.
I stopped and said, “Graham, do you see anyone directly in front of us, standing by the wall of the church?” I knew what his answer would be.
“Ah, no . . . .”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Why? You see someone standing there?”
I didn’t answer him.
“You sure you’re all right? Maybe you need some water or something to eat. Let’s just get out of here. This place is freaking me out anyway.”
I walked closer, maybe fifty feet from the man, who was motionless; he just stood there looking at me. He stared, expressionless. I didn’t even blink.
As I made my way ever closer to the side of the church, I came upon the oldest and largest monuments. One in particular was directly in line with where the old doctor stood standing idle and looking right at me.
I suddenly stopped short in my approach, looking first at the monument, then at Lolita’s uncle, whom no one else could see. There, right in front of me, was a six-foot-tall granite monument, with a cross on top of it, also made out of stone. This was the cemetery stone that Lolita had visualized so many times, and the stone cross I had seen in visions sent to me. As I looked at the cross atop the monument, which faced the side of the church and had its back to me, it blocked out the doctor somewhat. And then suddenly, while I was looking at the cross against the profile of the doctor, he just disappeared completely.
I just stood there staring for what seemed like minutes but was merely seconds, waiting for the old man to magically reappear. I was hoping he could give me the answers I was so desperately searching for.
Graham came real close to me and studied my face as if I had some strange and foreign disease that could take my life.
“Buddy, you’re making me very nervous now. Do you have a fever? Let me feel your forehead,” he said, reaching for me.
I pulled back from him. “I’m perfectly fine, Graham!” I yelled. “I just saw something that could help us. Just work with me here!”
“Well, work quickly, bubba, ’cause the law is quickly approaching us. I think they’ve had their fill of this place, but especially of you. They keep going on about how they need a good strong cup of coffee.”
I ignored Graham and stared in the direction of the old doctor, who was no longer visible. Then, while in somewhat of a daze, it dawned on me. The doctor had been trying to get me to walk up to where his ghostlike form had been standing. Now that he had disappeared, the cross was lined up to the side of the church. I quickened my steps with Graham tailing me, and from the corner of my eye I saw Pawler, the captain, and two other officers closing in on Graham’s back.
When I reached the side of the building, I closely studied the structure from two centuries earlier. The foundation of the church came up about two feet, made up of square stone blocks. Above the two-foot mark of stone were the original red bricks that the entire church was made up of.
I looked closely at the stone.
The captain sneaked up behind me and startled me. “Let’s wrap it up, my friend. We gave
it a good—”
“I’ve got it!” I screamed.
“Holy crap, you see someone else?” Graham shouted. “I think I’ve got to be somewhere . . . .” He laughed nervously.
“No. I think I have a real lead here.”
“Where? Now where are we going, I’ve about had enough of this merry-go-round,” the captain said impatiently.
“No, it’s right here! It was right here all along. This is what everyone was visualizing for years. It was right here in the side of the church all along.”
“I don’t understand you, so humor me, please,” the captain said sarcastically.
Sergeant Pawler snapped, “He ain’t got squat, Captain. He’s just wasting—”
“Please, let him talk!” the captain commanded.
Everyone was silent after that.
“I can’t tell you exactly why I know this,” I said hesitantly, “but there is evidence right behind this wall here.” I pointed at the square stone foundation.
“And how did you come to this conclusion, may I ask?” The captain narrowed his eyes in doubt to my response.
“Look, I don’t know how to explain it, Captain. I just know that this wall is holding answers to the 1923 murders. Look right here,” I said, and I pointed directly to a specific block of stone. He studied my eyes like I could be out of my mind.
Then everyone moved in real close and looked at me, and then at the stone.
“You see the bricks on top of the stone here? Look closely. You see the chips around the edges, and the uneven mortar all around this particular stone? It has clearly been removed from the wall and re-cemented in again later.”
Everyone looked at the first row of red bricks lining the top of the foundation. Then they looked very closely at the one square stone that had chips around it.
Defying Death in Hagerstown Page 22