THE DEAD SOUL: A Thriller

by M. William Phelps

  “Jake, you need to let it all go. Just show up and not think about the big picture. That’s faith, son. If Mo broke laws, he will need to take responsibility. Same as you.”

  “Come on, Father. We either believe or we don’t. Faith is measured by belief. It’s a gift—you’ve said it yourself. I lost that gift on the day that little girl stopped breathing underneath two feet of dirt. Maybe I never had it.”

  Father John understood how Jake could fuse the two—and both, his faith and Mo included, had let him down.

  “You’re here, Jake. You believe enough to sit with me and talk about it.”

  “Where else would I go?”

  “That’s fine. I understand that—”

  Jake cut him off. “I need to not come here for a while. I hope you understand.”

  Father John put his arm around Jake’s shoulder. “If you don’t believe, Jake, then what I’m wearing, this tunic, the amice, alb, cincture and my normal everyday collar and blacks, it’s nothing more than a silly costume. This church is nothing more than a set. I must look like a fool to you.”

  Jake walked away. The first time they spoke after that day was when Father John showed up at Jake’s house, unannounced.

  As Father John came out of the memory, he took a sharp left off Route 2 and onto the entrance for Route 126. He was ready for the final descent into the Walden Pond State Preservation.

  The priest wasn’t paying attention as he drove. Because if he had been, he would have certainly noticed an SUV, black with tinted windows, that had gotten on his tail as he left the church, trailing about a half-mile behind him.

  67

  Sunday, September 14 - 9:21 A.M.

  Buster Turbach would have looked less like a redneck had he purchased himself a good set of dentures. Playing with his gums, as if grinding grass like a cow, didn’t help. His lower jaw poked outward, the front end of a surf board sawing back and forth.

  Buster stood in a pumpkin patch, most of which had rotted into the ground because of a recent drought. He smacked at the roots of an old elm with an axe, stopping every so often to take off his hat and, with a hankie he kept in his back pocket, wipe his brow.

  The dirt driveway left a trail of dust behind Jake’s Crown Vic. He drove the half-mile strip into a gravel lot in front of Buster’s white clapboarded farmhouse.

  Buster walked toward Jake’s car as though he was expecting him.

  “Mr. Cooper, I presume.” The farmer stuck out his hand.

  “Detective Cooper, actually.”

  Buster laughed. “Right. Okay. Let’s clear this up now. That big city crap won’t work with me out here, son. I have the info you want. Be glad to give it to you. Just don’t play any silly, city-slickin’ games with me. I’m a straight shooter.”

  “Fair enough.” Jake sounded defeated. “I’m in no position to bargain.”

  “Come on in then.” Buster took off his gloves and—like two chalkboard erasers—slapped the dust from them.

  The storm door whined as Buster opened it ahead of Jake.

  “Nice place you got here.”

  “Wipe those feet, Cooper, would you?” Buster let the handle go and the spring swung the door back and slapped against the frame.

  In the kitchen, magazines were stacked as if they were being distributed from Buster’s house. Dishes were piled in the stained sink. The cat litter box hadn’t been changed in, Jake guessed, weeks.

  “Sit.” Buster had to clear off a chair. “What is it, exactly, that I can do for you, Detective?”

  “Tell me about Stuart Micah. You worked up at Our Lady during his day?”

  Buster sat back in his rocker. Took a deep breath. “Good ole Mr. Micah.” He explained how much the kids at Bainbridge liked Micah, trusted, and looked up to him. “He was just that kind of teacher. He knew what to say. They ate it up. He selected a group of kids as the years passed. Kids that, you know, were drawn to him more than the others.”

  Jake tapped out notes on his iPhone as Buster spoke. Snapped Buster’s photo without the old man suspecting anything. Emailed it into the database as they spoke. Looked up every so often while he waited for a response. “How many kids we talking ‘bout, Buster?”

  “Oh, I don’t know … five or six.”

  “When did the problems begin?”

  “Started with one kid, Alston Sinclair, or so he called himself. His real name was Corey Hatch. The kid talked about how he was from Rockefeller blood and his family would come to rescue him one day. He was delusional, but nice. Well, Micah saw that vulnerability in the boy. Exploited the hell out of it. The boy came forward but had a hard time explaining himself. No one believed him.”

  “Did you?”

  Buster picked up his pipe. Packed it. “Naw. I thought he was full of shit, to be honest. We all did.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  Buster smiled. Jake could see his pink gums, white tongue. A faint chime sound went off. Jake had his response from K-PAC.

  “What was that there noise?”

  “Just the phone.” Jake flashed the screen at him. “Somebody called me.”

  “Well, two more kids came forward. Then that one kid, the Meyers boy, escaped. Disappeared. I started to go back and think about things. I started to look for—and you should appreciate this—clues.”

  “Meyers. Cal mentioned him. What about this Meyers boy?” Jake allowed Buster to talk while he read the text report.

  SUBJECT FROM BAINBRIDGE, ME,

  WORKED FOR M.A.S. MAINTENANCE

  FROM 1963 TO 2001. DOB: 7/6/1923.

  SS# 002-45-8991. NO FELONIES.

  “Rainn Meyers was a smart kid. Lots of potential. Much smarter than the others. Mr. Micah took a true liking to this one. The kid was fascinated with animals.”

  Jake didn’t realize Buster was so observant. “Let me change the subject for a moment. What’d you say the name of the company you worked for was?”

  “I never done said that. But it I worked for Masterson, Atlas and Stevenson Maintenance—at least that’s what it said on my check.” He laughed a phlegmy gurgle.

  “Great. Continue. What happened next?”

  Buster sparked his Bic. Brought it down on top of the packed tobacco. Took a deep pull from his pipe. Smelled like vanilla. A heavy, thick cloud of blue tinted smoke hung there between the two of them. Buster reminded Jake of a character from “Hee-Haw,” a variety show he used to watch with Casey when they were kids. “Well, this Meyers boy, he was ultra-religious when he showed up. I think, and you’ll have to go back and check the file, but I think, well, he done come from St. Paul’s, down in your neck of the woods.”

  “What ’d you say?”

  Buster got up and took two cans of Narragansett beer out of the fridge. Jake thought it was kind of early, but what the heck, he didn’t want to insult the guy.

  “Yeah … St. Paul’s Church in South Boston, I believe. That be it. Why, mean something to you, Detective?”

  “Ah, yes, actually, it does.” Jake took a pull from his beer. The taste reminded him of being a kid, drinking hot hose water that had been sitting in the summer sun all day.

  “There came a time when Micah became unnerved when he heard or saw that the Meyers boy and one of the sisters was talking. Micah would stop class in the middle if he saw Meyers talking to anyone in an authority position. Run over. ‘What are you two talking about?’ The Meyers boy, he would turn and run, lock himself in the bathroom. Or take off into the woods.”

  “How old was the kid then, Buster?”

  “Oh, Meyers must have been maybe sixteen by then. No one wanted to believe him. He started telling these crazy stories of being taken down into some basement at night by Mr. Micah. Finally, a priest came in to talk to the child. Thought he might have been possessed.” Buster rolled his eyes. “Sat him down, got his entire story. It was awful. No one wanted to hear it. This is, what, I don’t know, early eighties? Things was different. People didn’t talk about that stuff like they does toda
y.

  “So the kid, you know, he spins this wild yarn. Then he lifts up a pant leg one day and there they are, these fuzzy scars. Never forget-m. The kid’s own initials carved on the meaty portion of his calves. Must have been burned in there or something. It was frightening to look at. Had the texture of nightcrawlers.”

  Jake was overwhelmed by this detail.

  Buster continued. “No one believed him still. We thought he did it to himself.”

  “No kidding. Did you?”

  “Yep. Some time later, everyone’s asleep, the boy packs a bag and takes off.”

  “Gone?”

  “Like a raccoon shooed away from a garbage can with a rock.”

  Okay …

  “Any idea where he went?”

  “Well, this is where that file comes into play—the one Cal—what a bastard he is, friggin’ wannabe sheriff—wouldn’t let you see. Howard Charles Markmann. Old Howard lived by himself about three miles south of the orphanage. They found him three days later when the neighborhood mailman reported an odd odor coming from the kitchen.”

  Jake stood. “Continue … please, I need to make a call.”

  “Take a moment and make your call.”

  Jake dialed Matikas. He was gone. “Ing, tell Ray to check out the name Rainn Meyers with the post office. See if you can nail down a postal carrier by that name. Meyers is our guy. I want him taken into custody immediately.”

  Jake paced as he apologized to Buster and asked him to continue.

  “Howard Charles Markmann, a good man, God-fearing. You know what I mean.”

  “I do, Buster.”

  “Well, that Charlie worked hard all his life. Retired. Wife passed on. Lived alone. Someone took a pickaxe to him. Sheriff found a rabbit’s foot there on scene.”

  “And?”

  “I saw the Meyers boy with the same little relic. You know the kids how they had those lucky rabbits feets, all purple colored and stuff. The Meyers boy liked to tie his to a belt loop.”

  “That’s some story, Buster.”

  “I ain’t got to the best part yet. Later, clearing out Meyers’s room, cleaning, checking inside walls and underneath floorboards, I find this box.” Buster got up, walked over to the closet. He returned with a cigar box, old and tattered. “This one here.” He handed it to Jake. “Don’t tell Cal I done kept it.”

  “Smells.”

  “The Meyers boy. He kept his little treasures in there.”

  “ ‘Treasures,’ Buster?” Jake had a here we go look on his face.

  “Animal parts. Squirrel legs. Rabbit legs. Cat legs. You name it. After killing the animals, he must have kept them as some sort of souvenir. He dyed them all a whitish blonde by pouring bleach on the fur. Things began to make sense after that. I used to find dead animals all over the property—many of them missing limbs.”

  “Question, Buster. Does Markmann have any family still livin’ up there by the old orphanage?”

  Buster pondered the question. “You know what, as a matter a fact, he does. Brother. Name’s Louis. We called him Loopy Louie.”

  “White hair? Feels pretty protective of the old building?”

  “Uh-huh. He bought the old place after his brother was killed. No one never knew why.”

  68

  Sunday, September 14 - 12:39 P.M.

  Jake was on his way to pick Dickie up when Dr. Kelsey text-messaged. He pulled over and called the pathologist.

  “You ready? I got something.”

  “Figured.”

  “A match to that indent we molded from Lisa Marie’s back.”

  Jake had nearly forgotten about it. “Go ahead.”

  “It’s from a 1999 Shimano deep-sea fishing reel. The base, where all the gears are housed. The molds match perfectly.”

  “You’re good, Doc.” Jake was impressed. “Excellent work.”

  “We’re working on the dealers in the area. He could have gotten it online, but I doubt it. Those items, people like to try them out before they make a purchase.”

  “Let me know when you do. And thanks for the call, Kelsey, not to mention staying on this. It’s Sunday.”

  “Least I could do, Cooper.”

  Before pulling back out into traffic, Jake keyed the information into his profiling program. Then sent an email to the K-PAC computer with the new details.

  12:45 P.M.

  Dickie wondered if Cal had turned the heat on in the room to bust his chops. He had sauna-like sweat pouring off his brow. His red hair, now a dark maroon, was saturated. Digging through the files was actually not that bad of a job. Beyond the fact that the dust made him a little congested, Dickie tossed aside files easily after determining that the years did not correspond with their case.

  Then he picked up a tattered manila folder, its corners crushed and torn. Looked at the name on the little tab.

  And that handwritten, faded marker pen changed everything.

  The file contained Micah’s medical and educational records. Combing through, Dickie ran into a document with several diagrams stapled to it. The drawings appeared to be a room inside the orphanage where one of Micah’s students had been sent for detention. Apparently, a boy, Randy Meyers, 16, a transfer from St. Paul’s Parish in Southie, acted out in class one day. He grabbed a fellow student by the throat and choked him to the ground. The incident caused peripheral bruising around the kid’s neck, sending him to the infirmary. That same day the Meyers boy pulled a knife on another student. He was placed in a special time-out room overnight.

  Stuart Micah came forward and said he wanted to go in and speak with the boy. The sisters had a meeting. Micah knew Meyers best. So they agreed.

  Micah spent two hours talking to the kid.

  When he left the room, the boy carved Micah’s name with his index fingernail all over the walls. Took him all night to do it. By morning the tip of his finger was bloodied and worn down to the middle of the nail.

  “Holy shit,” Dickie said, slapping the page.

  69

  Sunday, September 14 – 1:00 P.M.

  The man dressed as a priest did not own a gun. There was no emotion, no sense of power, behind the trigger of a weapon like that. On the other hand, there was not one chance in a million that Detective Cooper had sent his wife and child into hiding without some sort of armed guard. There had to be cops protecting Dawn and Brendan. The only way to get to them, the man who called himself Rainn Meyers knew, was to drive into where they were hiding, past the cops, then back out the same way.

  “Use your head, not your muscle.” It was the one idiom that made sense Meyers had taken away from Father John O’Brien, his childhood parish priest.

  Steve’s Market was near Baker Farm Drive, a mile from an unnamed dirt road that led to Father John’s cabin. It was the only general store for miles. Steve’s had been a staple since—so the sign out front proclaimed—1926. Steve sold Walden knickknacks. Fuel. Soda. Live bait for fishing. Maps and Save Walden Woods refrigerator magnets.

  Father John pulled into Steve’s parking lot to refuel. Meyers stayed far enough behind the priest so as not to be seen. He sat with binoculars, watching and waiting. A winning chess player, Meyers knew, had to be patient.

  After pumping fuel, the white-haired clergyman walked into the store to pay. Looking on, Meyers hoped the priest would get caught up in a conversation with the clerk, which would open up that little window of opportunity he needed.

  After blessing the store per Steve’s hasty plea, Father John got back into his car and pulled out of the driveway.

  As he turned onto the unnamed dirt road and disappeared into the woods, Meyers popped up from behind Father and put a straight razor against the priest’s freckled neck. With such a small frame, Meyers had managed to wiggle his way into the backseat floorboards, covering himself with the Father’s suitcase and trench coat. Returning from the store, Father John never thought to look in the back.

  “Keep driving.” Meyers sounded angry with his serial killer stage v
oice. “Do not touch anything but the steering wheel, or you will meet Jesus Christ today. I promise you that, Father.”

  Father John looked in his mirror. He couldn’t get a clear view of the face.

  “It’s okay, Father. You wouldn’t remember me, anyway.”

  That voice. Father John recalled its distinctive affect. “Take me,” Father John said, driving through the woods. “Kill me. Leave the woman and child alone. They’ve done nothing to you.”

  “The perfect martyr.” Meyers laughed. “Jesus would be proud of you.” Father John’s insides turned over every time the man used the Lord’s name in vain. Randy Meyers pressed the razor more firmly. “Keep driving, Padre.”

  The road was riddled with ruts and large stones. Father John had to carefully watch where he was going. As they passed over the larger potholes, the shocks on his 1997 Ford Taurus not what they once were, Meyers bounced up into the mirror’s small rectangular window and Father John got a good look at him.

  “You’re a priest now, I see.”

  “Funny, Father. And you’re a comedian.” He nicked the priest’s skin to let him know the blade was not in his hand for show.

  “This can end now, son. Right now. No more killing.”

  “End? There is no end, Father. There is only a lull. Does persecution ever end? You should know all about that.” He had a tough time keeping the knife steady. Every bump sent his hand out a few inches, away from Father’s neck, then springing back, nicking a flabby section of skin hanging over the priest’s collar. The white cube of Father John’s choker was flecked with blood spots.