The Devil's Own Crayons

by Theresa Monsour

  Rossi went over to a file cabinet parked in a corner of the room and tried the drawers. Locked. “Find a paperclip.”

  MacLeod opened the top of the desk. Fished out a key and tossed it to Rossi. “Will this do?”

  “Great,” she said, turning the key and pulling open the top drawer. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. No search warrant. Nothing. This is completely illegal.”

  “This is war,” said MacLeod.

  Khoury stood behind her as she rifled through the files. “Check for adoption records. Other background on the three little girls. Adeline, Cecelia and Babette.”

  “You can’t really believe the ankle biters are involved, can you?” asked MacLeod. “It’s the adults we should be worrying over. We’ve got nuns getting killed by flowers. Riots. Corpses catching fire. Blokes growing back legs. Adult stuff, this. No kiddies allowed.”

  Khoury and Rossi looked over at him. “Repeat that leg part,” said Rossi.

  “Overheard a conversation at the hospital,” said MacLeod. “Some bloke there claimed he’d grown back a leg. Doctor thinks it’s all rubbish. Trickery.”

  “You failed to mention this during our drive over here,” said Rossi.

  MacLeod shrugged. “Bunch of nonsense. Growing a leg back is...”

  “That’s the other healing,” said Khoury. “The janitor said they fixed his hand and there was talk about another man’s leg. They do it with their drawing, apparently.”

  “Why are these healings a bad thing?” asked MacLeod.

  “These little girls are being used,” said Khoury. “They’re being taught how to do harm.”

  “So they destroyed a waste basket,” said MacLeod. “I set a match to a few things when I was a lad.”

  “Did you sing and dance around the fire?” asked Khoury.

  Rossi stopped with her hand buried in the second file cabinet. “The girls sang, too?”

  “When they were dancing around the trash can,” said Khoury. “Ring Around the Rosy.”

  “Bloody hell,” said MacLeod. “There’s something he left out during the telling.”

  “Our cell phones were playing that song,” said Rossi. “The car radio, too.”

  “The radio?” asked Khoury.

  “Forget it,” said Rossi, resuming her forage through the files. “It’s a scare tactic. They’re trying to scare us.”

  “Who?” asked Khoury.

  She pulled her head out of the files and glared at the men. “Don’t stand there yapping. Start poking around.”

  “I’m poking,” said MacLeod, pulling open the desk drawers.

  Khoury went over to a wastebasket and picked through the crushed papers. Opened them and read. Crushed them and put them back. “This work isn’t as glamorous as I expected.”

  “Nothing here,” said MacLeod, closing the last desk drawer.

  “Same here,” said Khoury, setting books back in the bookcase.

  “What about you, lass?”

  “Emergency contacts and other background on the nuns. Nothing wild there. Paperwork for the old orphanage. Placement records. Children’s vaccination records. Copies of state inspections. No files with the girls’ names. In fact, no current files on kids at all.” Rossi closed the bottom drawer and pulled out the key. Tossed it to MacLeod, who slipped it back inside the nun’s desk.

  “What next?” asked Khoury.

  She ran her eyes around the room. They landed on a painting hanging across the room, over the couch. Madonna and the Christ Child. “I wonder.”

  “Hurry,” said Khoury, nervously eyeing the door.

  She knelt on the couch cushions and grabbed the picture by its gilded frame. Lifted the painting off the wall and smiled at her find. “Ave Maria.”

  “Why would the sisters need a wall safe?” asked Khoury.

  “Especially out in the country,” added MacLeod.

  Rossi set the picture on the couch and stared at the combination lock. “This isn’t my forte, boys.”

  “It is mine,” said MacLeod, knitting his fingers together and flexing them out to produce a distinct crack.

  “Why am I not surprised?” asked Khoury.

  While MacLeod worked the dial, Rossi took a quick peek in the hall. “How long does your average chapel service last?” she asked as she closed the door.

  “Not that long,” said Khoury.

  “Long enough for the master,” said MacLeod, and the safe door swung open.

  “Someone has been paying them off for something.” Rossi took out her cell and snapped a photo of the cash. Underneath the stack of bills were file folders. Rossi slipped them out and read the tabs. “One for each kid. Perfect.”

  Working quickly and taking one file at a time, she fanned out the contents on the couch cushions. Snapped photos while the men took turns peeking into the hallway. She was finishing up with the third folder when MacLeod warned her. “Someone’s coming.”

  “Shit,” said Rossi, gathering up the documents and stuffing them back inside the file.

  “I’ll keep her occupied for as long as I can.” Khoury went out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

  MacLeod leaned into the safe and reached for the money. “Get that mess inside here and I’ll set the pin money on top.”

  “One sec. I’ve got to put them in the same order.”

  While the Scot waited for her, he studied the bills. The most cash he’d ever hold. Longingly, his hand tightened around the mound.

  He blinked twice, and he was no longer in the lighted office, with a window looking out onto the rain and a crucifix on the wall. MacLeod was standing in the night. He looked up. No stars. No moon. Nothing at his feet, either. Straight ahead, in the distance, he saw something moving. Undulating and shifting shape. A giant amoeba. It was blacker than the inkiness around him. As it drew closer and larger, he grew more fearful. Though he wanted to flee, he knew there was no point. Wherever he would go, it would be there, waiting for him. Moving toward him. A hopelessness washed over MacLeod, and he closed his eyes. Felt his body grow cold. Felt the breath leave his lungs. A drowning victim who’d stopped fighting and was sinking in the icy water. Sinking into the liquid blackness. Surrendering to the inevitable.

  MacLeod sensed something leaving his hands, and inhaled sharply. Opened his eyes. He was back in the office, watching Rossi return the money to the safe. He’d never been so grateful to see the back of someone’s head, and wished he could bury his face in her red hair. Tell her everything, especially where he’d just been.

  To Hades and back.

  What did that mean? Was the original owner of that wad of cash headed to hell? Or was the person who’d been paid off making the trip south?

  Rossi closed the safe and hung the picture over it. Stepped back. Straightened the painting. Sat down on the couch. She patted the cushion and MacLeod took the other end.

  “Why are we afraid of a bunch of nuns?” Rossi whispered out of the side of her mouth. “They’re not so bad.”

  “Their patron may be,” MacLeod said cryptically.

  She shot him a quick, confused frown and turned to face the door.

  Khoury had done a good job of distracting the abbess. As Mother Magdalen stepped into the office, she was ripping his head off. “...doesn’t give you the right to barge into my house and tell me and my sisters what to...” She saw the pair on the couch. “Who are you?”

  Rossi and MacLeod stood up. “We’re investigators,” said Rossi.

  “This is about the autopsy, I suppose.”

  “There won’t be one,” said Rossi.

  The woman’s face relaxed, and she sat down at her desk. “Oh...That’s good.”

  “Why?” asked Rossi.

  “We can make funeral arrangements.”

  “Sister Rose Estelle’s body was destroyed.”

  The abbess sat forward. “What do you mean? Did the morgue make a mistake?”

  “As the autopsy was about to begin, her body caught fire,” said Rossi. “Her r
emains were completely incinerated.”

  “There was a fire at the hospital? An accident?”

  “You know it wasn’t an accident, Mother,” said Khoury.

  The abbess turned on the priest again. “This is none of your business, Father. You shouldn’t even be listening to this. You should be...”

  “What’s going on in this house?” asked MacLeod.

  The nun put the Scot in her crosshairs. “That’s not a Midwestern accent, and that long hair...You aren’t with the police. Who are you people?”

  Rossi took out her wallet. “FBI.”

  As if the ID was filthy, the abbess leaned back in her chair and curled her upper lip. “What do you want with us?”

  “We need to interview those little girls,” said Rossi.

  “No!” The abbess jumped to her feet. “They’re innocents! I won’t let you near them!”

  “We need to talk to them,” said MacLeod.

  “They’re minors.” The nun came out from behind her desk. “Unless you’ve got the proper paperwork, you might as well leave right now.”

  “We’re not going anywhere until we see those girls,” said Rossi.

  “They’re fine. There’s nothing wrong with them.”

  “They’re disturbed,” Khoury said. “Possibly something worse.”

  “That’s your opinion, Father - if you are a priest. You spent all of five minutes with them. You don’t know them.”

  “We know that there’s something...unnatural going on here,” said Rossi. “We know that you and this convent and those girls are in the middle of it. If you don’t open up to us and tell us what’s going on...”

  “One of my sisters died in a car wreck and her remains were lost in a stupid, senseless accident. If you want to call that unnatural, go right ahead.”

  Khoury: “The little girls...”

  “Got a hold of a lighter. It won’t happen again.”

  “The healings,” said MacLeod.

  “What healings? There’ve been no healings.”

  Khoury: “Your janitor and that blind girl. You said yourself that the girls were going to help...”

  “Out.” The mother superior went to the door. “All of you out, before I call the sheriff.”

  As soon as the abbess pulled the door open, they could see that the hallway was carpeted with black. Nearly every nun in the convent had gathered outside the office. Two of the younger ones had baseball bats in their fists.

  One of the unarmed sisters – a tall, big-boned woman with ramrod straight posture - stepped to the front. Behind her wire-rimmed glasses, gray brows wrinkled with concern. “Trey told us some strangers were here, claiming to be the police.”

  “He had a bad feeling,” said one of the baseball bat nuns, raising her weapon slightly. “We thought some of those morons could have come back.”

  “We heard shouting,” said the tall sister.

  Smiling smugly, the abbess turned to the trio in her office. “My sisters would never let anything happen to me. To our convent. To our girls.”

  Rossi: “All we want to do is...”

  “No.” The mother superior walked into the hallway and made a hole for the unwanted visitors.

  The trio stood their ground for a minute. Then MacLeod led the retreat. “I don’t intend to get into a row with a gang of nuns.”

  “We’ll be back,” Rossi said to no one in particular.

  “We’ll be ready – with an attorney,” said the abbess.

  Through the rain, the trio dashed to the Suburban. Rossi unlocked the doors and they piled inside.

  “What’s this?” MacLeod asked from the back seat.

  They turned around to see the Scot holding a large sheet, folded in half.

  Rossi ripped it out of his hands and opened it. “Caesar Cipher again.”

  “The door was locked,” said Khoury.

  “My window was open a crack,” said MacLeod. “Who left it?”

  Khoury saw the abbess watching them from the porch. “Someone from that house, while we were in the office.”

  “That would be the sane explanation.” Rossi set the note in her lap and made a U-turn in the yard. As she pulled out of the driveway, she checked the rearview mirror. Through the rain, she saw the abbess was still there, a black scarecrow standing vigil as the wind caught the edges of her veil.

  None of the three in the car noticed that in one of the upstairs windows, three small faces were peeking out at them through the blinds. Next to them was another veiled figure. Her assignment completed, the nun left their room and ran back downstairs – until she’d be needed again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Rossi hung a right out of the driveway. A quarter of a mile down the road, she pulled onto the shoulder and put it in park. Khoury handed her a pencil and notepad. She rested the pad on the wheel scratched frantically while referring to the note in her lap. It took her less than ten minutes to decipher. When she was finished, she showed Khoury.

  He read it out loud. “In flagella paratus sum.”

  “Which means?” asked MacLeod.

  “I am ready for the scourge,” said Khoury.

  Taking out her cell, Rossi went back to the Rome photos. When she found what she was searching for, she passed it over to Khoury. “I can’t read the inscription, but I’ll bet that’s what it says.”

  “Of course,” he said, and handed it over to MacLeod.

  “Crap,” spat the Scot, scrutinizing the picture on the small screen.

  The Latin came from one of the statues on the Ponte Sant’Angelo. The angel with the whip.

  “Someone followed us from Italy, or had someone waiting here,” Rossi said.

  “That’s the same paper the girls use for their pictures,” said Khoury.

  “How would they know how to write in Latin – in code, no less?” asked MacLeod.

  “Someone told them what to write,” said Khoury. “The girls didn’t know what they were doing. Half the letters are backwards. It’s a mess.”

  “I think an adult did it, and purposely made it appear childish,” said MacLeod

  “Still goes back to the Italian connection,” said Rossi. “Would have to be the same person or group that left the notes for us in Rome.”

  “Those wicked, wicked nuns. I say they’re involved.”

  Khoury turned to glare at him. “Why do you hate religious women so much?”

  “I was a victim of the Catholic school system in Edinburgh.” MacLeod held up his knuckles. “I became well-acquainted with the ruler.”

  “You probably deserved it,” said Khoury.

  “Aye. I’ll give you that one.”

  Rossi popped the glove box and dropped the note inside. “I’ll have the bureau analyze it later, not that Nardini cares who’s harassing us.”

  “Regardless of the scribe, what does it mean?” asked MacLeod.

  “Pontius Pilot had Jesus whipped before having him crucified,” said Khoury.

  “I’m up to speed on basic Christian studies, your holiness. But what does it mean to us?”

  “Whipping and crucifixion,” said Khoury.

  “Can’t be good,” said Rossi.

  Rossi’s cell rang in MacLeod’s hands. “Someone for you, sweetheart.”

  She took it and checked the screen. “Shit. The bureau. What do I tell Camp? Some of this is nuts.”

  Neither man responded.

  “Thanks for the input, guys.” Putting the phone to her ear, she gave Camp a brief summary of what had happened since they’d hit the ground that morning, up to and including the note. While acknowledging that she didn’t know where it was all headed, she reassured Camp that they were in the right place and that they’d tap the bureau when they needed help. Camp told her he’d pass the update on to Nardini.

  She hung up and asked no one in particular: “Did I come off like a lunatic?”

  “Maybe a little,” said Khoury.

  “Aye,” said MacLeod.

  “Thanks again, fell
as.” She turned to the priest. “You said someone dropped the blind girl off. Left her there.”

  “Yes.”

  She glanced in the rearview mirror. “We could park our asses here and wait for someone to pull in. Follow them when they pull out.”

  “The people being cured have no insight into what’s happening,” said Khoury. “The young man with the healed hand was in a fog the entire time I was there, and the only thing the blind girl knew was that she wanted to see.”

  “So?”

  “So I say we concentrate all of our energy and resources on the convent.”

  “Patrick?”

  “For once, I’m with Ry Guy.”

  Rossi drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, and then pulled away from the shoulder. The Suburban bumped along for another mile before she announced her plans: “We’re putting Hell House under surveillance.”

  “When?” asked MacLeod.

  “Right now.” Rossi took a sharp right off the road. The Suburban bounced into and out of a ditch and barreled into the forest, roughly following a narrow path that could have been made by man or animals.

  “Woo hoo!” shouted MacLeod.

  “Tree!” yelled the priest, pointing straight ahead.

  Rossi jerked the car to the right to avoid it, and kept going. Barreled through bushes and bumped over fallen limbs. The sides of the Suburban screeched from the scrape of branches. She didn’t brake until they were hidden from the road. “From here, we walk.”

  “It’s the middle of the afternoon,” said Khoury. “They’ll see us.”

  “Convent’s surrounded by woods; the trees will provide plenty of cover.”

  “What’re we watching for?” asked MacLeod.

  “Want to see who comes and goes. Blind girl’s ride, we’ll want to run those plates. Track her down, even if she doesn’t know much. Anyone else who comes around for a cure. We gotta get a handle on this miracle gig. Is it for real?”

  “It is,” said Khoury.

  “Big thing is I want to make sure that witch doesn’t take off with those kids,” continued Rossi. “If she does run, we’re gonna pull her over. Nail her for kidnapping or child endangerment. Something. If she leaves by herself, one of us will follow her and the other two will get back into the house. Get to those girls.”