The Devil's Harp String: Hexham Chronicles: Book One

by Anthony Barber

  “Slowly dear.”

  Although Grace was exhausted and beaten down from her recent battle and the subsequent semi-coma, her eyes gleamed with health. Jeremy moved around the bed to sit in the chair next to her. Grace did not take her eyes off of the priest. She smiled gratefully, as he put the cup of water back on the tray in front of her.

  “We will let you rest.” “Get your strength up so you can get out of here.” Jeremy nodded in agreement and kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hand.

  When they exited the room and entered the family lounge Mads was sitting on a small couch flipping through a magazine. Father John observed, with some humor, the cover read QUARTER HORSE MONTHLY. Mads stood up and walked over to the pair.

  Mads saw the look of relief on Jeremy Poole’s face. He’d been through hell, and the fact that his daughter was awake, and appeared to be recovering, was nothing short of a miracle to the man.

  Grace’s father told them the doctor’s believed it was all pneumonia-related. They spent most of the morning running tests on her but were optimistic Grace could be released within the week. She would be in ICU for one more night as a precaution.

  Mads carried a small gift bag from the hospital gift shop which she now handed to Father Peterson. The priest raised an eyebrow to her and reached into the bag and pulled out the small box.

  “Ma’ Bell had a face-lift Father, Catch up.” Mads grinned.

  The priest turned the box over. It was a cheap but serviceable cell phone. They burst out laughing.

  Chapter Eight

  Grace was released from the hospital four days later and convalesced the rest of the way in her own bed. She missed Thanksgiving, but her dad put together a make-shift one the day after came home. He invited Father Peterson and Madeline.

  Madeline begged off and spent the day at the rectory going over the New Orleans murder files.

  The rectory offered Mads a private room that was part of the library so she could spread out in privacy. The room, an apartment actually, once belonged to the priest whose sole duty was to maintain the rectory’s private library.

  The room was laid to ruin with large cardboard file boxes of photos and police reports from both the New Orleans and Boston murders. She also brought with her, all audio and video evidence recorded by Father Peterson on Grace’s possession. The apartment was self-contained with a half bathroom, hot plate, coffee percolator and mini-fridge.

  Mads now dressed in comfy clothes, armed with a fresh poke of tobacco, and coffee percolating, sat at the small table which served as both the deceased priest’s desk and kitchen table. It was situated next to the only window in the room. A large double paned job without a screen overlooking the rectory’s enormous garden. A large hedge shielded this part of the St. Patrick’s compound from the rest of the complex.

  The table was strewn with the Boston crime scene photos and police reports from 1987.

  Her cell buzzed. It was a photo from Father John. A blurred picture of the Poole’s dining room table and the Thanksgiving spread. She grinned and returned to the police reports.

  She concentrated on comparing both sets of murders, excluding all suspects. Madeline focused on the two final deaths in both events.

  Maria Thibodaux, a twenty-three old African American woman from Boston, was a mystery. Boston PD included few details about her, other than an address and next of kin. With Maria’s being the last murder it seemed almost an after-thought to the detectives. The murderer Friedkin had been arrested shortly after.

  The last known murder in New Orleans, at least as far as she could conclude with her inexperienced skills as a detective, was Father Walter Kline. He was not murdered as part of a family, nor was his body left for display in a cemetery.

  Comparing the two photos side by side, they were nearly identical. Aside from the priest being clothed in his death pose.

  No fingerprints or forensic evidence of any kind was found on either body. The cause of death in both cases had been a cervical fracture. Broken neck.

  The obvious answer as far as Mads was concerned was that this was a very elaborate copy-cat. The problem with this was, the public had never been made aware of occult style posing of any of the victims, including the twisted heads.

  Madeline did not have Detective Mills’ personal notes on the crimes, and could only guess as to what his thoughts were.

  Father John seemed to have little curiosity about the cases and wondered if his intent to help out New Orleans PD was genuine.

  Mads was at the end of her rope on the entire matter and informed Father John of her intent to return to Portland on Friday. Father John asked her to conduct her own, objective, interview with Grace before she left.

  For completion’s sake, Mads agreed.

  Madeline’s cell phone buzzed again. She ignored it and returned to the black and white photo of Maria Thibodaux.

  Chapter Nine

  The Airbus A380 landed in Frankfurt after midnight. The flight delayed by two hours due to heavy snowfall in Warsaw. The weather in Germany was even worse, and she had missed the transfer and would either have to find a hotel or tough it out on the hard airport benches until the alternate flight the next afternoon.

  When informed of her son’s death, Clarice Kline was knee deep in a muddy hole in Krosno Poland. She’d been working on a 3rd-century Roman archeological dig for four months.

  Thinking about that now, as the Airbus taxied onto the runway unloading zone, Clarice strained to control grief. She was a stern, scholastic woman who rarely showed emotion. In fact, when the young priest delivered the telegram informing her of Walter’s death in a car accident, she read it and placed it into the army green tactical vest she always wore on these digs and finished carefully brushing away clay from the most current find.

  Looking out the window onto the Frankfurt Airport tarmac, which was quickly accumulating a thick dusting of snow, Clarice Kline fought back tears.

  Clarice may have been an intellectually pragmatic mother, but she was not cold to her only child, Walter. She ran his life as efficiently as she ran her digs.

  .Walter started to show curiosity in religion from the age of ten. He was a solitary, intelligent child and Clarice did not discourage the interest. She simply disregarded it as a keen curiosity which would pass. It did not.

  When Walter, at the age of twenty, informed his mother of an intent to join the priesthood, she fought him with all of the scholarly tools she had in her kit. In the end, she lost. He was a stubborn kid.

  She kept in contact with her son as best she could, but her Indiana Jones lifestyle kept her on the move often. She would take sabbaticals to either write a new book or go on a lecturing tour. She hated this part of her life, but it paid the bills and kept her knee-deep in mud.

  She hailed a taxi in the loading zone in front of the airport and threw her large back-pack into the back seat. She spoke fluent German to the driver, directing him to the hotel she booked for her overnight stay. During the drive, Clarice contemplated the high point in her son’s career. He was offered and accepted an internship in archeological studies at the Vatican. Although her son chose the path of a cleric, he also shared her love of archeology. She hoped perhaps, during this period, his interest in the ancient world would overcome his love of the church.

  She visited Italy twice during this period to see her son, and it was the happiest days they shared together in many years.

  She could not hold back the tears. She wept. Clarice turned her head, facing the window. Outside, in the cold German night, the snow blotted out the sky.

  Mads returned to the dive hotel to gather the rest of her belongings and check out. She was now a temporary tenant of the rectory library at St. Pat’s. She poured through endless pages of police reports, cigarettes and innumerable cups of coffee.

  Father Peterson checked in on her several times.

  The evening after his Thanksgiving dinner with Jeremy and Grace Poole, he brought her a Tupperware container full of left
overs and a six-pack of beer. She gratefully accepted these, but shut the door on the priest and returned to the desk by the window.

  The next day, Mads managed to peel herself away from research in the library and take a stroll around the grounds of St. Patrick’s Church. Later in the afternoon, she would be going with Father Peterson to interview Grace. She left a voicemail with Detective Mills before her walk.

  Mads bundled up this morning in a heavy black well-fitted cable knit sweater, black jeans, and a beanie cap. It drizzled rain. Mads walked along the pave-stone path which ran along the hedge along the perimeter of St. Patrick’s Church.

  The grounds were nearly silent, and she was grateful for the peace.

  “Good morning Sister.” The priest stood up from the kitchen table where Mads had been doing her amateur detective work.

  “Good morning Father.”

  The priest was waiting for her to return. Mads walked past the priest to the small counter that doubled as a kitchen for the small room.

  “Coffee Father?”

  “Yes please, thank you.” Mads started the percolator.

  “Please sit Father.” She said and sat across from him.

  “You have been busy Sister,” he said looking around the room at the scattered cardboard boxes.

  Mads looked at Father John, a little irritated.

  “I really wish you would stop calling me that.” She plucked out a cigarette from behind her ear and lit up.

  “Well then, Detective Colombo.” Father John amended, grinning at her. “Detective Beauregard Mills may want to put you on the payroll.”

  Mads took a pull from the cigarette and tapped ashes into an ashtray she found in one of the cupboards in the small room. Oddly enough she wondered if the former occupant-priest enjoyed a side gig as a gambler. Embossed on the bottom of it in bold red lettering: GOLDEN WAGON WHEEL CASINO.

  She served them both strong coffee then sat down cross-legged in the chair across from the priest, surveying the mess of papers. “What do you think?” She asked.

  Father John was silent for a moment and took a sip of coffee and looked out the window into the early morning drizzle.

  “It isn’t over Mads.” He looked distant, sad, and much older now. The perpetual smile that touched the middle-aged black man’s eyes was gone.

  “Grace seems to have recovered, but I think it is a trick.” “You listened to the tapes and watched the video.” “That thing did not get bored and just leave her, and her condition isn’t mental illness.” The priest said this last more forcefully, now looking directly at her.

  “Madeline, we need to start making preparations.” Father Peterson stood and straightened his cassock. “I have a meeting with the boss this morning after that you and I have an appointment with a demon.”

  Mads, perplexed by the priest's sudden formality, stubbed her cigarette and walked with him to the door of the small apartment.

  “Eh, one more thing Fadduh?” Mads said in her best Peter Falk/Colombo voice.

  The priest grinned in spite of himself and turned to her.

  “What does this have to do with Grace?” She waved one had to the police reports strewn out on the table.

  “I am not sure it does,” he said.

  After Father John left, Mads stood at the sink eating breakfast; a piece of toast and coffee, then took a shower. She did an equipment check, which consisted of a small digital recorder, a notebook, holy water and her bible. She also threw in the remains of her tobacco and two protein bars.

  Detective Mills hadn’t returned her call. The only message retrieved from her cell phone was one from her manager at the convenience store in Portland. He asked her if she ever thought she might return to work, or did she take up a job as a stripper in New Orleans.

  Grace’s room was of a typical teen girl. Posters on the wall, a string of lights hung along the perimeter of the ceiling, and stuffed animals jumbled all over the floor. Her favorite, a giraffe larger than her, sat on the foot of the bed. His name, if a stuffed giraffe could be named or sexed, was Mortimer. Her father won it for her at a carnival when she was eight years old and it had been with her ever since.

  She was still worn out and was resting in bed after breakfast with her dad. She was pleased to see him in good spirits.

  She lay restless, but still too weak to do much. Her entire body ached from the bout with pneumonia. Grace looked out her window from the second floor. Rain pelted the window in the mid-morning gloom.

  Grace stayed in her pajama top and sweatpants after breakfast. Although her father kept the house very warm, she felt a chill.

  She tried to find interest in one of her trashy vampire books, but gave up two chapters in and started to doze listening to the comforting sounds of the storm.

  Grace fell asleep, shortly after her head hit the pillow but her eyes were open. If her father walked in to check on his daughter, she would appear quite awake. Her head was tilted to the side, staring at the window. A slow wheeze, slowly built into the low humming growl of a spooked cat. Grace slept. The thing inside her did not.

  Chapter Ten

  Mads awoke from a short nap. Father Peterson, apparently, was still deep in a meeting with church bureaucracy. She decided to take another walk around the grounds.

  A paved path led two or three hundred yards east of Father John’s cottage, and Mads decided to explore it. A large prefabricated metal garage sat at the end of the path. The doors were open and several cars, belonging to the church, were parked inside.

  The mechanic, Mads presumed anyway, a young white dude with a striking shock of blonde hair and grey coveralls was working on a motorcycle near the hangar-sized opening. The bike, braced on a jack-stand, being inspected by the man.

  “Nice bike.” Mads startled the man and he dropped the wrench he was holding.

  “Uh..uh..” “Oh hi there.” The mechanic stood up and wiped his greasy hands on a red rag he produced from the back pocket of his coveralls.

  The young man was attractive, in his late twenties, dark horn-rimmed glasses, the ones that seemed to be making a comeback these days, and green eyes.

  “Father Gilliam.” “Pleased to meet you,” he said and offered his hand.

  “Mads.” She grinned at the priest and shook his still greasy hand. “Madeline Hexham.”

  “Your bike?” Mads blushed despite herself and began inspecting the motorcycle closer.

  “Yes, Uh the church’s, I guess.” He corrected. “No one else here rides, since Father Corning died.”

  The young priest knelt down and continued to tighten the spokes on the rear rim.

  “The bike was wasting away, so I took it up in my spare time.”

  “Honda CB500 yes?” Mads asked as she looked over the engine and circled around to the young priest, bent over the bike tire.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Father Corning had great taste in bikes,” Mads said as she walked back around to the front of the motorcycle. “Does it run Father?”

  The young priest, engrossed in his duties on the rear tire, did not hear her.

  Father Gilliam finished tightening the last of the spokes, took the cycle down from the jack, stood up, depressed the clutch and made sure the bike was in neutral.

  The 1971 Honda was in good shape. It needed a washing, but other than that it looked like it had stored and well maintained. The priest sat astride the motorcycle and lay down on the kick-starter twice. The motorcycle came to life with an initial sputter, then a satisfying purr. Father Gilliam smiled broadly then revved the bike several times. He lowered the kick-stand and got off the bike.

  “Do you ride?” He asked.

  “Yes, but it has been a while,” Mads said warming to the smooth sound of the Honda’s engine. “It is hard to find one of these in such good shape.”

  “Would you like to take it for a spin Mads?” The priest asked, smiling.

  “Fuckin’ A!” Mads was already climbing onto the bike. She pushed it off the kickstand, revved
it twice, and roared down the driveway.

  Father Gilliam was left gaping, holding a helmet he retrieved from a bench in the garage.

  Father Peterson and Bishop Aguilar finished their discussion and were taking a walk around the grounds of the church. They were standing in the middle of the vast garden when Mads raced past them and out the front gates. The two men of

  God stared with their mouths open.

  Mads rode the bike around the length of Lake Pontchartrain for the next two hours. She would have been back sooner had she not ran out of gas half-way.

  Fortunate for her, a pair of fisherman returning from their early morning trip stopped. Mads forget her cell phone at the rectory. The chivalrous older gentleman filled the tank of her motorcycle from a spare can kept in the back of their pick-up truck.

  Father Gilliam straightened up from the hood of the newer black Lincoln, where he was changing the battery when he heard the distant thrum of the Honda.

  Mads pulled the bike back into the garage and cut the motor. Her long-ish afro windblown and her cheeks flushed with excitement. She was soaked from top to bottom. It rained during the entire ride.

  “How’d she do?” The young priest asked with a measure of pride.

  “Fantastic!” Mads said excitedly as she adjusted her jeans soaked with rain, which crept uncomfortably into her crotch.

  Father Gilliam handed her several sheets from a roll of paper towels.

  “She needed the cobwebs blown out.” Father Gilliam walked back over to the workbench next to the Lincoln, the Bishop’s official car. Mads followed him, drying her face with the towels.

  “Father, I didn’t catch your first name,” Mads said.

  The young priest, hefting a new battery turned back to the Lincoln and smiled at her.