“Why can’t you issue a statement telling people what you just told me?”
“Because this isn’t my town, these aren’t my people, and it isn’t my job. I’ve already been labeled the Antichrist, remember? This is your job, Sheriff Analyze some of the ‘tears’ from these weeping Madonnas, and I’ll bet you any sum you like that you’ll find they’re common tap water. Check the faces for any residual traces of grease; take a couple of them apart and see what’s inside. Investigate these so-called miracles, and you may even turn up your killer along the way; You’ll be working in an official capacity, investigating a suspicious death, so you won’t need anyone’s permission or cooperation.”
“Jesus, Furie. People will hate me. They’ll try to run me out of town. They want to believe.”
Brendan sat down on the edge of the bed, spoke in a low, deliberate tone as he stared hard at the other man. “Listen to me carefully, Sheriff I can’t be certain of it, but my guess is that the people I work for are going to be watching very carefully what happens here in Craiggville over the next few weeks and months. This town is a kind of model for what they believe is going to happen in other communities all over this country and the world as the millennium approaches. You no longer trust some of your own deputies to keep the peace because, in a virtually literal sense, their heads are in the clouds as they anticipate the Second Coming.
“We’ve already had a Secretary of the Interior who was giving away public lands because he thought Jesus’ landing on earth was imminent. He may have been a harbinger of the future. How long before the people elect a president who may harbor the same beliefs and who thinks it may not be such a bad idea to lob a few nuclear warheads into trouble spots around the world so as to make Jesus’ job easier when He does arrive?
“This is only one of dozens of scenarios produced by this mathematical model I mentioned. Impossible? My employers not only think it possible that something like this is going to happen, but probable, and they’re putting their money where their minds are. They estimate it will take hundreds of millions of dollars to develop an educational program and train mental health officials to administer it in order to bring our species back from the abyss.
“But maybe they’re wrong. Maybe all it takes in each community is a single person—someone like yourself—who is respected, clear-headed, and courageous enough to say that these miracles are only a miasma, and the real demons in our midst are the Bible- and Koran-thumping demagogues. I plan to include this conversation in my report—I have to. With your permission, and only with your permission, I’d like to identify you by name as the person I said these things to.”
The sheriff was silent for some time. Finally he rose, put his hat back on his head. “I don’t care what you put in your report, Furie. What I do care about is doing my job.”
“An excellent response.
“There’s one more base I have to touch, Furie. I know you interviewed Father Reilly at the beginning of the week. I’d like to hear what he had to say to you”.
“There’s nothing on that tape that will help you find his killer.”
“I can’t take your word for that.”
Now Brendan rose to his feet, stiffened slightly. “I can’t allow you to listen to the tape, Sheriff”
“Why not?”
“I guaranteed that whatever he said to me would be held in confidence.
“He’s dead.”
“His family, friends, and colleagues in the Church aren’t, and he may not have wanted to share his thoughts on this matter with them. I assure you that nothing he said gave the slightest indication that he wanted to kill himself.”
“I’ll get a court order.”
Brendan shrugged resignedly; “There’s nothing I can do about that. Serve me with papers, and I’ll have to play the tape for you. When you verify that I’ve told you the truth, I trust you’ll respect his privacy.”
“I’ll be back in the morning,” the sheriff said, moving toward the door as Marla stepped to one side. He paused in the doorway, turned back, continued quietly; “I’ll give some thought to what you said, Furie.”
Brendan nodded, and the other man walked quickly to his car. Marla smiled at Brendan, then left, closing the door behind her.
Brendan was deeply saddened by the death of Father John Reilly; but he forced himself to go back to work at the small desk in the motel room. He had made his way through about a third of the material when he glanced at his watch and found it was after seven, an hour past their regular dinnertime.
Normally, Marla would have come and gotten him. He turned off the computer, splashed his face and put on a clean shirt, jacket, and tie, then went out of the room. The first thing he noticed was that their car, which had been parked in front of Marla’s room, was gone. When he knocked at her door, there was no answer. It was decidedly odd, he thought—odd that she would go anywhere without telling him, and even odder that she had not returned by dinnertime.
He was not overly concerned about her safety. The beautiful, silent, blond woman that the mysterious Mr. Lippitt, to whom Brendan reported, had assigned to travel with him was, he had discovered early on and to his considerable amazement, not only a judo master, but an expert with both knives and guns. He often wondered what her previous occupation had been, and how she had met Mr. Lipitt, but he had never inquired, one reason being that he suspected she would not tell him. He returned to his room and phoned for a pizza to be delivered, and then went back to work.
At ten fifteen there was a soft knock on the door. A moment later the door opened and Marla, dressed in black leather jacket and pants, entered the room.
“Marla….”
The woman came over to him and squeezed his shoulder. She picked up his briefcase from the floor, took out the tape recorder and a questionnaire. She put the items into his hands, then motioned him toward the door.
“Marla, it’s past ten o’clock at night. Where the hell do you want us to go?”
The woman’s response was to gesture toward the door even more urgently; When Brendan did not move, she pulled him to his feet, smiled sweetly; and gave him a hard push. Shaking his head, Brendan walked from the room to their car, which was now parked outside his room.
In the six months they had worked together, the woman had already saved his life three times, and she was an expert at quickly shepherding him out of situations that threatened to grow ugly; but it was not for these reasons that Brendan was willing to go out with her at night on an unspecified task. Above all, he had come to trust Marla’s instincts and judgment, and if she wanted him to come with her now, it was for a very good reason.
As always, Marla slipped behind the wheel. She drove them back into and through Craiggville, to a gas station and convenience store on the highway at the edge of town. She drove into the darkened parking area, stopped beside a gas pump and motioned for him to get out.
Now thoroughly puzzled, Brendan looked through the window, surveying the scene. Hung above the row of three outdated gas pumps was a freshly painted, hand-lettered sign that read,
MIRACLE GAS STATION AND CONVENIENCE STORE.
The prices posted on the pumps were about the same as at gas stations throughout the region, even a cent or two lower. But stacked haphazardly next to the pumps were other, crudely lettered signs with different prices indicating that, at some time in the past, this particular station had charged upward of fifty cents more per gallon. The owner had started to paint the exterior of the otherwise shabby convenience store, where signs advertising exorbitant prices had not been taken from the windows, but had apparently abandoned the job halfway through. Piled on the sidewalk outside were rain-soaked cartons of merchandise that had not been sold.
Marla reached over his shoulder and pointed off to his right, and then gave him a not-so-gentle nudge in the back. Brendan opened the door and got out, angling through the gas pump parking area toward the corner of the convenience store.
When he rounded the corner he could see
light spilling from living quarters, little more than a shack, behind the store. He glanced down at the tape recorder he carried, and was surprised to see that Marla had flipped a switch changing its recording mode from manual to voice-activated, which he never used.
He reached out to switch the mode back to manual, then dropped his hand back to his side. Hefting the recorder, which now felt like a weapon, in his palm, he walked up to the door.
He stiffened in alarm when he heard the screaming of a woman and the crying of a little girl coming from inside, then the harsh sound of a palm striking flesh. More screams. Brendan knocked hard on the door, and when the screaming and crying did not stop he began to pound.
Suddenly there was silence. The silence lasted almost half a minute, and then the door opened a crack to reveal the flushed, suspicious face of Frank York, who reeked of bourbon.
York blinked his bloodshot gray eyes a few times, and then recognition came. “What the hell do you want?” he growled, slurring his words.
“You said you wanted to be interviewed,” Brendan replied evenly. “I’m here to interview you.”
“It’s eleven o’clock at night!”
Brendan glanced over the man’s shoulder, and between the doorjamb and the man’s head he could see the startled and terrified face of a woman whom he judged to be no more than middle-aged, although her hair was snow white. Her bruised face was puffy and streaked with tears, and one of her eyes was turning purple. Clinging to the woman’s torn dress was the little girl Brendan had seen in the church.
“God doesn’t keep a timetable,” Brendan said, looking back into Frank York’s face with its alcohol-ruptured veins.
“You comparing yourself to God?”
“I’m saying you’re a man who claims he not only saw the Madonna weep, but heard her cry out and call your name. As I was sitting in my motel room, it occurred to me that this was just too important to leave out of my report. I have to leave town in the morning, so I came right over. Considering the sign God sent to you, I didn’t think it would matter to you what time it was.”
“How’d you find me?”
“I’m a crack private investigator,” Brendan answered dryly.
York’s bloodshot eyes opened and closed a few times while he thought about it. “Just a minute,” he said, and closed the door.
Brendan heard him shouting at the woman and child, ordering them to leave the room, and a few seconds later the door opened again.
“C’mon in,” York said, stumbling slightly as he moved to one side.
Brendan entered the cramped living room that smelled of cooking grease and body odor, stopped in the middle of the room.
“You’re gonna’ make sure people in the country hear about all the miracles happening here, aren’t ya?” York continued.
“A report will be made, Mr. York.”
“Why don’t you sit down?”
“No, thank you. This won’t take long. I don’t want to take up any more of your time than is necessary;
York slumped in a torn, overstuffed chair, belched, and then reached out for a can of beer on a dust-streaked side table. “So, you want me to tell you how the Virgin talked to me?”
“First I want you to fill out this form,” Brendan said, taking the questionnaire from his pocket and handing it to the other man. “When you finish, you can talk about your experiences into the tape recorder.”
York took the five-page questionnaire and held it close to his face. His lips moved as he scanned the questions on the first page. He had read halfway through the second page when he suddenly looked up sharply; “What’s all this business about bed-wetting, masturbation, and sexual fantasies? What the hell does that have to do with the Virgin talking to me?”
“I don’t make up the questions, Mr. York.”
“Yeah? Who does?”
“A team of psychologists and social scientists. They’re quite insistent that anyone I interview completely fill out that questionnaire.”
Frank York slowly and deliberately tore the form in half, dropped the pieces to the floor. “Well, you and your psychologists and social scientists know what you can do with this. I ain’t answering none of these questions. I don’t need you. By this time tomorrow night Craiggville’s going to be in the news again. Everybody’s gonna’ want to know about the miracles happening here. There’ll be television reporters all over the place, and then word will get out again.”
Brendan felt a chill, and he stared hard at the other man. “Why is that, Mr. York? Why will reporters be coming to Craiggville tomorrow?”
York leered, revealing bad teeth. “You’ll know soon enough, big shot. Wait’ll you see the papers tomorrow.”
“It doesn’t make any difference whether you answer the questions or not, Mr. York,” Brendan said quietly; putting the tape recorder in his pocket. “I realize now why I was sent here.”
York frowned. “What do you mean, ‘sent here’? Who sent you here?”
“I’m here to stop you from abusing your wife and child.” York’s face darkened even more. He tipped over the can of beer, then lurched to his feet, where he swayed unsteadily; “You got a hell of a nerve, mister! My family ain’t none of your business!”
“An abused child is everybody’s business.”
“I got a good mind to -.”
“Shut up,” Brendan said evenly; “Here’s the drill. After I talk to your wife and daughter, I think they’ll agree to come with me. There must be a woman’s shelter somewhere in the county; if there isn’t, I’ll find someplace else to put them for the night. In the morning I’ll make some calls and see if I can’t arrange some help for all three of you.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before I let my wife and kid walk out of here with you. They won’t want to.”
“In that case, you’re going to help me convince them that it’s the right thing to do. Because, if you don’t, I’m going to make sure that Frank York gets more publicity than he can handle. I’ll tell all those reporters who’ll be gathering here tomorrow about how a lay deacon of the local church where the Madonna first wept, a man who actually heard the Madonna speak to him, still couldn’t find it in his heart to stop brutalizing his wife and child. We’ll see what miracle they make of that.”
“I’m going to kick your ass,” York mumbled, staggering toward Brendan.
“Frank, stop it!”
Brendan glanced to his right to see Frank York’s wife standing in the room, having just entered from the kitchen. Her white hair was still disheveled, and dried blood stained her lips, but her head was held high and her mouth was set in a firm line as her pale eyes blazed. The terror Brendan had glimpsed in her before was gone, replaced by an air of steely determination. Her daughter was with her. Standing between them, an arm around each of them, was the source of the woman’s strength: Marla.
It took York a few moments to comprehend the situation, and then he bellowed, “I told you two to stay in the kitchen! What’s that bitch doing in my house?”
The woman ignored him, spoke directly to Brendan. “I heard that you were a man of God, mister, and who else but God could have sent you and this woman to this house tonight? It’s a miracle, and I’m going to listen to God and thank Him for sending you to save us. I realize now that we don’t have to live like this.”
“God wants us to be safe and happy. Dotty and I will be grateful if you’ll take us with you. Frank did something real bad today; I know it. He started to get drunk even earlier than usual, and he started ranting about teaching some priest a lesson. Finally he started beating on me and Dotty, like always. This time I thought he was going to kill me, but then you and this woman came.”
“Now I will kill you, bitch!” York roared, and stumbled toward his wife.
Marla stepped in front of the woman and child and brought the heel of her right hand up sharply under the man’s chin. Frank York’s head snapped back and he slumped to the floor, unconscious.
The woman started to go to him,
but Marla held her back, gently folding her in one arm at the same time as she caressed the cheek of the child standing next to her. Brendan went to the phone and dialed the sheriff’s office. As the phone began to ring he turned and smiled at Marla, who smiled back at him.
Craiggville was the last place on earth he would have expected to feel the breath of God.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George C. Chesbro (1940–2008) was the author of twenty-eight books, including the renowned Mongo Mysteries, starring private eye Dr. Robert Frederickson, aka Mongo the Magnificent. He also wrote the Chant Mysteries and the Veil Kendry series, both featuring characters from the Mongo universe, as well as a few standalone novels.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
These stories originally appeared in the following publications: “First Strike,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Dec. 1991; “The White Bear,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, May 1992; “Lone Wolf,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, July 1993; “Haunts,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Oct. 1993; “The Problem with the Pigs,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, June 1997; “The Lazarus Gate,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Oct. 1996; “Unmarked Graves,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Sept. 1997; “Priests,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Sept. 1991; “Tomb,” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Oct. 1993; “Model Town,” Unholy Orders, Nov. 2000;
Lone Wolves Page 25