Father John, still facing the suds-filled sink, and seemingly focused only on dishes cocked his head to one side.
“I was wondering when you would get to that,” he said.
The knock at the cottage door interrupted whatever the priest had to say about the book and startled them both.
Father John grabbed a small towel from the kitchen counter and walked past Madeline to answer it. She began reading the top of the next page in the old book. Old library smell oozed from the pages of the old book. She recognized the smell from hundreds of hours spent in libraries during college.
The top of the next, yellowed, page was lettering in large bold type.
TITUBA
Father Walter Kline was dead. The young seminarian who came to Father Peterson’s cottage that morning handed him a short note. The rectory received a call from a New Orleans Police Department Detective. Sergeant Beauregard Mills. He requested Father Peterson call him ASAP. There were no other details on the note.
Father John was not up with the times and did not have a cell phone. He still received most messages the old-fashioned way.
Father John borrowed her cell phone, then stepped outside for a moment. When he returned he walked over to Mads and closed the book in front of her.
“We will talk about that later.” “Right now we have to go.”
They arrived at the accident scene after ten. Detective Mills greeted them at the barricade to the south of the crash.
Detective Beauregard Mills, a lawman with over thirty years on New Orleans PD, was a short, heavyset man, and balding underneath his old-fashioned porkpie hat. He was sweating profusely and it showed through his white, and once crisp dress shirt. Suspenders held up his pants. No belt would fit. To Mads, he looked straight out of the noir films of the 40’s and 50’s.
Behind the detective, and further down from the deep shoulder, she could see the rear end of a car. She recognized it as the Impala Father Walter was driving yesterday. The emergency flashers blinked.
“Father Peterson?” The detective stretched out his hand to the black priest. John had not changed out of his black shirt, sweatpants, and ball cap.
“Detective.” The priest shook the detective’s hand. “What happened?”
Mads stood behind Father John, staring at the Impala’s flashers.
“We are investigating that Father.” The detective looked down at his shoes for a moment. He was uncomfortable about something.
“The reason we called you Father is, we found your card in his wallet with a note and an address.”
Father Peterson turned to Mads briefly. She did not like what she saw in his eyes. Not fear exactly, but a knowing. She was clueless.
A tow truck was waved past the barricade by a state trooper manning it. The truck pulled over on to the shoulder near an ambulance and two fire trucks with several paramedics and firemen, shooting the breeze.
“I want to see him.” Father John was looking past the detective at Impala.
“Normally I would advise against it, but I want you to see him.” “That is one of the reasons I called you.” The detective turned to Mads. “Sorry miss, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Sister Madeline.” Father Peterson interrupted on her behalf.
Mads gave him a curious but short glance and bowed slightly and stretched out her hand to the detective. “She is my assistant.”
She played along with it. “Pleased to me you Detective Beauregard,” she said.
The detective nodded and lit a cigarette, then quickly apologized.
“You don’t mind do you Father?” the detective asked.
“Not at all.” Father John said.
“The crime scene guys are almost done.” The detective guided them to his plain-looking grey sedan where he retrieved a small notebook.
“How long have you known Father Kline?” The detective squinted at his notebook through wafting cigarette smoke and searched his pockets for a pair of reading glasses with the other hand. “Dammit.” “Excuse me, Father.” Detective Mills walked around to the passenger side of the sedan and reached into the glove box through the open window. Mads noticed with some amusement, the floor of the vehicle was littered with candy bar wrappers and empty fast food containers. The detective returned, carrying an old pair of black-framed reading glasses.
“Much better.” The detective flipped through pages in the notebook.
“Two years detective.” “He transferred here after completing studies in Rome.”
“What kind of studies Father?” The detective asked while flipping to an empty page in the notebook.
“Anthropology and the Occult.” “What does that have to do with a car accident?” The priest asked, still looking past the detective.
Detective Mills ignored him, chewing on the end of a ballpoint pen.
Two New Orleans PD employees dressed in overalls with the letters CI (Criminal Investigation) in large white letters stamped on the back, approached the detective.
“All done detective,” one of the criminal investigators told him. To Mads, the young man looked white as a ghost.
Mads remembered now where she had seen the name, Beauregard Mills, before.
On the afternoon of her arrival in New Orleans, while watching the news report of the murdered families, one of the field reporters from the local news channel attempted an interview with the detective outside NOPD Headquarters. He brusquely pushed past the reporter with a “No comment,” as he entered the building.
“Father, this way.” He motioned towards the Impala. “You better stay here miss.” he turned to Mads briefly.
Mads ignored the detective and looked at Father Peterson. He was completely nonplussed by the detective’s statement.
All three walked to the car.
The car was empty. Mads and Father John exchanged glances. Detective Mills waved them further on past the front of the, seemingly unwounded Impala, into a set of hedges. There was a small open area in the middle of the foliage. To Mads it looked almost like an area children would use as a hide-out.
Father Walter’s head was twisted around 180 degrees. The body propped into a sitting position facing the opposite direction. No blood. His skin appeared to be a light shade of blue-grey and the priest’s mouth was gawping in a perfect O of terror as if in mid-scream. One eye opened in a mocking wink.
Mads and Father Peterson followed Detective Mills, not to New Orleans PD, but to a small diner two miles from the scene of the murder, and only three from the Poole house where Jeremy Poole still slept.
Detective Mills pulled into the diner parking lot where a converted turn of the century rail car now sat.
The pair pulled in next to the detective’s sedan and all three walked into Lucky 7’s Diner. After being waved into a booth by a waitress who seemed to be about forty years past her prime and missing most of her teeth, Detective Mills produced a manila envelope from the small leather valise he carried and was constantly teased about by younger detectives in the department.
The detective waited for the waitress to bring their coffee before opening it.
The grouchy looking diner employee lingered for a moment over the booth, looking curiously down at the envelope on the table.
“How would like a visit from the New Orleans Health Department?” Detective Mills grinned at her.
The waitress, wordlessly, walked away at the detective’s threat and stood behind the diner’s main counter, where the only other patron sat. She folded her arms and stared at them.
As Mads and Father John took furtive sips of their high octane diner coffee, Detective Mills produced a sheaf of crime scene photographs.
“This could get my ass fired,” the detective said and spread the photos across the table like a dealer at Vegas Casino.
Mads gasped mildly, but Father John betrayed no emotion as far as she could tell. After looking at each photo the priest handed them to her. She wasn’t a detective and the horror she was looking at was definitely above he
r pay grade.
“What gives?” She finally questioned the detective. Up until now she had followed Father Peterson’s lead and played the quiet assistant. She remained quiet at the gruesome accident scene of Father Walter, but now she was done.
Detective Mills looked at her, almost bemusedly.
“You’re not really his assistant are you?” Jabbing a thumb towards Father John. Mads shook her head.
“You’re fucking-A right,” she said a little more forcefully than she intended. The former nun blushed a little and looked over at Father John for a reaction. If he had one, it didn’t show on his face. He was still pouring over the New Orleans PD crime scene photos and pretending to ignore her colorful language.
“Not a Sister of the cloth either I take it.” Detective Mills grinned and the smile even touched his tired eyes.
“No.” She said and fell silent but held an icy stare on the detective.
“None of this has been released to the media?” Father Peterson said. It wasn’t really a question.
“No.” Mills pulled out the worn notebook from his jacket pocket, thumbed through several pages.
“After the first murders, we thought about it.”
Father John put one of the graphic photos in front of Mads.
“Look familiar?” The black and white crime scene photo, a white male in his twenties or thirties, nude and in a sitting position inside what appeared to be a mausoleum. Carved into the man’s back was a circular bloody symbol. Mads recognized it from the book on Father John’s kitchen table
The other photos were the same. All of the victims had been posed into various positions in two cemeteries, used as body dumps by the murderer. Or in Detective Mills opinion, murderers.
All of the victims were found nude with this same symbol carved into their bodies.
“How is father Kline related to this?” John asked.
“Father Kline was fully clothed, Copy-cat?” Mads asked, not looking up from the photos. “And does he have this symbol carved on him?”
“We don’t know yet for sure,” Detective Mills said, answering both questions. “We will have to wait for the coroner’s report.”
“Father Peterson I’ve called you at risk to my job, but I really don’t give a shit at this point.” “This is my last homicide case.” “I retire in a few months and would prefer not to hand this one off when I leave.” The detective fidgeted a bit in his booth.
The ill-tempered waitress returned with refills, but she didn’t linger.
“Father Walter belonged to the same parish and was your assistant.” “The Bishop gave me that much.” The detective said, and poured, what seemed to be six tablespoons of sugar into his coffee.
“That isn’t why you called me this morning though, is it detective?” Father John paused from the examination of the photos and looked up at Mills.
“Partly Father.” “These crimes have an occult bent to them, and according to Bishop Aguilar this one of your areas of expertise.” Detective Mills looked a little bit embarrassed by the statement.
“It was Father Walter’s also,” The priest said.
“You understand the steaming pile of goat shit that would come down on my head if the press found out NOPD was consulting with the Catholic Church on a homicide investigation?” The detective collected the photos and put them back into the manila envelope.
“Every university in the state and several others who have experts in the occult have been consulted in this.” “Of course they all have theories, but nothing solid.” The detective whispered this last with contempt.
“What about the FBI, Father John asked.” “Surely they have profilers assisting the PD on this?”
“Yes.” Detective Mills said. “They have agents from the behavioral unit here now.” “The profile they worked up is useless.” “They believe it to be a single perpetrator.” “There is a problem with this theory.”
The detective said, reached into his valise and produced a second manila folder. These photographs were from a much older crime scene.
“Father we need your help, opinion, or anything you can give us that would get our noses out of the mud.” “I’ve been told that you and Father Walter were consulting with a local family on a spiritual matter.”
Mads remained silent through this and quietly sipped her coffee. Father John ignored the new set of photos and slid them over to her for inspection. They were old and yellowed from age and tagged on the back with the controlling agency’s identifier and date.
BOSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT
C/N 19870129678 (12/06/1987)
Father John looked depressed.
“Has Father Walter’s family been notified?” he asked.
“Bishop Aguilar let us know they would make the notifications for us.” “You didn’t answer the question, Father.” The detective looked over at Mads then glanced back at Father Peterson.
“His Mother is on an archeological dig somewhere in Eastern Europe,” Father John looked down. “Poland I think.”
“Father, I would really like to know what Father Kline was assisting you with.” “Given the condition he was found in, it could be very helpful to us.” The detective said in an almost pleading tone.
“You know I can’t tell you that.” Father John said sternly, but apologetically.
While this battle of the wills between the priest and New Orleans Detective raged, Mads looked through the crime scene photos from Boston.
Except for the date and location, they were near duplicates of the ones from the New Orleans crime scenes. Several families, apparently from what Mads could tell, had been murdered, stripped of clothing and displayed in cemeteries. She guessed, in the Boston area. The last photo was a young black female in her twenties. The photos were grainy, but the woman was propped up in a mausoleum. The photo was taken from behind the woman. Her head had been twisted to face the camera, and on her back, a large symbol carved out with bloody precision.
“The Same perpetrator,” Mads said quietly. She pushed the photos in front of Father John. He ignored them. Father Peterson answered for the detective.
“No Mads. “They aren’t.”
“The priest wins a kewpie doll,” The detective said, this time smiling.
Mads opened her mouth to say something but shut it quickly. Father John ignored the photos.
“They caught the man who did this.” “Lawrence Friedkin.” The priest said, rubbing the palm of his hand across his rough cheeks. He hadn’t shaved this morning before starting this adventure.
“Go ahead Father,” the detective said as he waved the waitress over to their table.
“He was arrested in 1988 for the murder of three families in Boston.” “Sixteen total victims.” “Lawrence Friedkin, according to the Boston P.D. investigation, was the lone killer.”
“He died in prison in late 1996 of a heart attack.” Detective Mills finished the story.
Father John agreed to look over the case files for Mills. The detective thanked him and would arrange to have copies of the files and photos delivered to the rectory today.
After leaving Detective Mills at the Lucky 7s Diner, Father John borrowed Mad’s cell phone to check in with the rectory for any messages. He really needed to get a cell phone, Mads thought as she watched him from the passenger seat of the priest’s car in the gravel parking lot of the diner.
“Jeremy Poole called.” “He wants us to meet him at the hospital,” the priest said, climbing into the driver’s seat. He started the car, looking straight ahead. “Grace is awake.”
Beauregard Mills, a veteran detective with four hundred homicide cases under his belt, watched them pull out of the parking lot from his booth in the diner.
Father Peterson and Madeline Hexham arrived at Memorial Hospital thirty minutes later. The Father insisted they stop at a drive-thru on the way.
Mads wasn’t very hungry but nibbled at one of the greasy burgers Father John handed her. Her stomach was still queasy from reviewing the cr
ime scene photos with Detective Mills.
“I know this isn’t what you signed up for Sister.” The father said, pulling into the parking structure of the hospital.
Mads sat quietly in the passenger seat, contemplating what the hell she was in the middle of. She mindlessly plucked pickles from the burger and flung them out the passenger window. One splatted and stuck to the window of the security kiosk in the parking garage.
“I hate pickles,” she said.
The priest just shook his head.
After parking the car, Father Peterson went upstairs to meet Jeremy in ICU. Mads said she would be there in a few minutes and went into the hospital gift shop. The priest got into the elevator and pushed the button for the 3rd floor ICU.
Grace spent three days in a near coma, but last night she woke up. Her vitals improved and she seemed to be coming around.
The doctors tried to reach Jeremy last night, but he slept through the calls. When Father Peterson greeted him in the family lounge of the ICU, he could see exhaustion and relief on the man’s face.
Grace was sitting up in her bed, awake and in good spirits. A small cup, filled with ice water, sat on the tray in front of her.
The transformation was incredible. The last meeting with Grace at the Poole residence was still very fresh in the priest’s mind.
Three days ago, Grace’s teenage body was a ravaged marionette puppet of illness. Her face swollen and pale, with eyes ablaze with hate. When she wasn’t tranquilized, she was a screaming fever beast, who needed to be restrained.
Jeremy told Father John, Grace had no memories beyond her first meeting with him several weeks ago.
Grace smiled at him
“Hi Father,” she tried to croak out, but her mouth and throat were still sore from the intubation tube.
Father John waved her off.
“Don’t try to speak right now missy.” He walked over and kissed her on the forehead. Grace’s hand shook as she tried to take another sip of ice water. Father John took the cup from her and held the straw to her lips.
The Devil's Harp String: Hexham Chronicles: Book One Page 5