by Vic Kerry
The door opened, and the detective walked in. “Time’s up.”
Ashe nodded and stood to leave. “Anything else?”
Smalls looked at him and licked his lips. “Sometimes sulfur is called brimstone.”
The detective looked at Ashe with an expression that told him she didn’t get what the priest was talking about. If he had to tell her the truth, he didn’t either. Stress must have been getting to Smalls for him to make such a random statement.
Cybil sat on the couch with her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. She’d found Ashe’s note on the door but didn’t understand what it meant. All he said was gone to jail. Had he been arrested again? She had called the jail, but was told nothing because of privacy issues. Her Vespa was gone as well. She had no idea what that meant.
The high-pitched rumbling of a vehicle echoed outside. It sounded like her scooter. She jumped to her feet and tossed open the front door. Ashe parked her Vespa behind his car. He wore her skullcap helmet, which looked funny, but she was overjoyed to see him.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“I left a note. Didn’t you get it?”
“All it said was ‘gone to jail’. I had no idea what it meant.
He walked up the sidewalk while removing the helmet. “They arrested Father Smalls for Hortense’s murder. They have a man on video that matched his description.”
“What does that mean?”
He took her by the arm and led her back into the house. It felt warm and welcoming because she’d stepped out in just her T-shirt.
“He says that he didn’t do it, but there are some circumstances that make him a very likely suspect.”
“Like what?”
“He’s a sex addict. That’s how he and Erik met, at a sexual addictions meeting.”
The fact that the priest was a sex freak surprised her, but Rogers not so much. She went back to the couch and sat down. He joined her.
“I tried to call your cell, but.”
“I left it at school because I was in such a hurry to get away.”
“It’s been found, and I don’t think the person who has it will give it back.”
She looked at him. His voice sounded worried. “Why?”
“He threatened us again. Said we needed to get out of town before it was too late. I hope this doesn’t upset you more. Erik told me how bothered you were by Hortense’s death.”
“I ran out because he fondled me,” she said.
“What?”
“Your colleague might as well have threatened my life today,” she said. “I didn’t want to tell you but I need to. He told me to be careful and mind my business then he groped me.”
“He threatened you? I wonder if he was the one on the phone.”
“I don’t know but he said that he was being pressured by some heavies who didn’t like being listened in on. He said that they were protecting their interest in his research.”
Ashe put his arm around her and pulled her closer to him. It felt good and comforting. She wanted to cry, but wouldn’t. Only vulnerable women in bad movies did that.
“I’ll talk to him about this tomorrow after I go to St. Mary’s-by-the-Bay.”
“What do you have to go there for?” she asked.
“Smalls needs a book that’s stored in the basement. He said it’s important to figuring out what’s going on, but I don’t know.”
“Why? I still trust him even if he’s a pervert,” she said.
“I think he’s going crazy. He told me something completely insane when I left him at the jail.”
“What was it?”
“Sometimes sulfur is called brimstone.”
She looked at Ashe to see if he was joking, but he wasn’t. “That is weird, but I’m sure he had a reason.”
“I think he’s going for an insanity plea,” Ashe said. “I really think he might have killed Hortense. I’ve been thinking, and we really don’t know very much about him. He hid being a sex addict from us. What else might be hiding?”
Now everything seemed topsy-turvy. If the man who seemed to know so much about how to handle this kind of situation might be causing the problems, Cybil didn’t know what to think.
“I think I want to lock the doors,” she said.
“I’ll get the back door if you’ll get the front,” Ashe said. “Don’t forget to throw the dead bolt.”
The air in the vestibule of St. Mary’s-by-the-Bay smelled stale. Ashe hadn’t been to many Catholic churches in his life. If he was honest with himself, he hadn’t been in many churches period. Cybil had come with him. She said that she didn’t want to go back to school after her encounter with Rogers. He tried to convince her to file a grievance with the dean of students, but she said that it wouldn’t get anything accomplished. Ashe knew she was right.
“I am sorry I wasn’t ready for you,” a priest said, coming out of a door near the bathrooms. “Father Smalls called me this morning to let me know that you would be coming by to look through his books, but I just lost track of the time.” He motioned for Ashe and Cybil to follow him. They stopped in front of a small ornate door beside a statue of some saint. “We get a lot of confessions around this time of year. Almost as many as on Easter, but nothing close to the amount we get between Christmas and a few days after New Year’s.”
“That’s interesting,” Ashe said as if he cared. The priest seemed very excited about hearing people’s problems. “How hard do think it will be to find this book?”
The priest unlocked the door and pulled it opened. A small flight of stairs descended into the darkness. The air that came out smelled staler than the vestibule.
“I’ve got no idea. He put a bunch of boxes down there a few years ago. The man has a huge library.”
“We’ll find you when we get finished.” Ashe reached inside and flipped a light switch.
A single bulb in a fixture attached to the wall lit up. The light didn’t chase many of the shadows away. The stairs down were made of stone. Ashe felt a little bit like a character in an Edgar Allen Poe story walking into an ancient crypt. The cool air was heavy with the stale smell that so many basements had. Cybil stayed close behind him. He could feel her brush against his back. By the time he stepped into the low-ceilinged basement the feeble stairwell light was gone. He felt along the wall for another light switch. It was an old-fashioned button type, which he’d only seen in movies. He pressed one of the buttons and several bare bulbs hanging from naked fixtures flickered on.
Ashe walked a little deeper into the basement, keeping his head bent to avoid hitting it. Cybil still stayed close behind him. She whistled.
“That guy wasn’t lying, there are a lot of boxes down here,” she said.
Ashe was trying to not focus on the number of plastic boxes stacked down there. The wall of multicolored containers looked like a giant Lego-block wall. They went almost to the ceiling, and he couldn’t tell how far back. The idea of finding this book in there seemed like the old needle in the haystack saying. He sighed and took down a box. Cybil did the same. They began rummaging through the books looking for the text.
By the time they got to the last two boxes, Ashe’s back hurt. Every time he lifted a new heavy container of books, it felt like he was ripping pieces of his back muscles away. Cybil sat Indian-style on the floor. He handed her one box, and opened the last one. His box was full of psychology journals. The white covers with black writing looked like what they had found in a majority of the containers. He dug down into the box, but only felt the slick glossy binding of the journals.
“Nothing but journals,” he said.
Cybil held up a glossy magazine-like book that could be a mirror image of the ones he looked at in his box. “Same here.”
“This has been a total waste of time.” He flung a journal back into its box. “A wild goose chas
e.”
Cybil put the lid back on the box she had been searching. “I thought someone had to put you up to a wild goose chase.”
“I’m not sure that he didn’t.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?” the priest said from the stairs.
Ashe looked at him. “No. We found mostly old psychology journals.”
“Like I said earlier, he has a lot of books. Perhaps he just forgot where he placed this one, but I’m glad that you’ve finished all the same. Someone needs to see you,” the priest said.
“Who?” Ashe asked.
“Archbishop Harrington,” the priest said. Ashe gave him a look that he hoped said he had no idea who the bishop was. The priest smiled larger. “He’s the head of the Archdiocese of Mobile.”
“Why?” Ashe asked.
“I am afraid I’m just the messenger and not privy to such information.” The priest leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I will tell you that if he has come here personally it must be very important.”
Ashe looked over at Cybil and motioned for her to start upstairs. She quit what she was doing and walked to the stairs. He gave the room one last look to make positive that there were no more boxes that hadn’t been scavenged through. Once he was convinced that all of them had been searched he went to the steps after the priest.
During the walk back to the vestibule, he pondered why Smalls would have sent him to look for a book that wasn’t there. This led to the question of why the Archbishop of Mobile would want to talk to him. Cybil waited on him when he stepped out into the well-lit foyer area of the church. The priest bounced on his heels like a kid in a hurry to get somewhere.
“Come on this way, His Excellency is a very busy man,” the priest said.
“He can wait as long as he needs to,” Cybil said. “He called for us, not the other way round.”
The priest stopped bouncing and stared right at Cybil. “He actually just asked to see Dr. Shrove. You can wander around out here or if you will stay quiet, you can sit in the back of the sanctuary or do anything else you feel necessary.” He looked at her. “Are you Catholic? If so, our confessional is open.”
“I’m not,” she said, “and if I were, I have nothing to confess.”
“Just telling you,” the priest said. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Sure you didn’t,” she said.
“Take me to the archbishop,” Ashe said. “Before this comes to blows.”
“Of course, come this way. I have him in the reverend monsignor’s office.”
Ashe followed the fidgety priest across the vestibule and into a side hall. At the end, a large wooden door with an elaborate stained glass window that depicted a gruesome scene of the crucifixion rested in the wall. The priest knocked and slipped inside. Ashe stared at the glass visage of Christ. Ruby-colored drops of glass speckled his forehead where the intertwined crown of thorns represented by gold glass rested. More red glass gushed from the wound just under the man’s ribs. He’d never seen such a gory depiction of the scene, especially not in stained glass. It almost looked like it might come to life.
The priest’s shadow moved on the other side of the window. It darkened the vibrant colors of the glass. Ashe remembered a story from his childhood that he’d heard on one of the occasions he had gone to church. As he remembered, when Christ hung on the cross an eclipse occurred, plunging the world into darkness. The priest’s shadow seemed to be doing this to the stained glass scene. The door opened, and Ashe was happy. He couldn’t stare at the dying man much longer.
“You can come in,” the priest said.
Ashe stepped inside. The smell of rich old wood filled his nostrils. A large window with a red rose in the middle of it was in the back wall. Each of the sidewalls was lined with books. A man with a beak of a nose sat behind a large desk. His hair was plastered to his head, and his jowls hung loose. The priest smiled at Ashe and held his hand out to the other man.
“Dr. Ashley Shrove, this is His Excellency Archbishop Harrington.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ashe said, stiff and uncomfortable. “Am I supposed to bow or something?”
Harrington laughed. His jowls shook back and forth. “No, you can just shake my hand.”
Ashe stepped closer to the desk and extended his hand. “I’m sorry about that. I’ve never met an archbishop, and I’m not Catholic.”
Harrington took his hand and pumped it. “Nobody’s perfect.” He motioned to the priest. “You can leave us.”
Ashe sat in one of the visitor’s chairs. He sank into the overly plush cushion. Harrington said nothing until the door to the office closed. He smiled at Ashe. It didn’t look like a sincere one. The silence between them seemed to last a very long time.
“So what is it that you needed me for?” Ashe asked.
“Right to the point. I like that.” Harrington reared back in his chair. “I understand that you are a friend of Father Smalls.”
“I guess you could say that. I’ve only known him around a week or so. I don’t usually consider that a strong and lasting friendship.”
“How did you meet him?”
“My coworker, Dr. Erik Rogers, introduced us after the death of my fiancée. Because Father Smalls is a psychologist, Erik thought he might be someone good for me to talk to,” Ashe said. “We really haven’t talked about Marianne’s death though.”
“Dr. Rogers? I know him well. He and Father Smalls have been friends for a while. I can’t say that I care too much for him,” Harrington said. “I guess that’s a horrible thing for an archbishop to say.”
“Trust me, not many people like him,” Ashe said. “I still don’t understand why you needed to see me.”
“What have you and Father Smalls been doing if not talking about the death of your fiancée?”
“Research.”
Harrington leaned onto the desk, propping himself on his elbows. “What kind of research? And remember that I am man of God.”
“I’m not supposed to tell. The police might take issue with it, and I don’t think the confessional privilege counts in this situation.”
“You’ve been investigating the bodies that have walked out of the morgues,” Harrington said. “Your fiancée was one of them.”
Ashe huffed. “If you knew that then why all this show?”
“You know that Father Smalls is in jail suspected of murder and sexual assault.”
“Yes, I’ve met with him there. That’s why I’ve been in your basement for the last two hours looking for a book that isn’t there.”
“Do you know why he became a priest?”
“He said he joined to help his sexual addiction,” Ashe said.
“That is correct, and up until now, there has never been an issue concerning Father Smalls and sex, but there have been many occasions when he has come dangerously close to heresy.”
“Heresy?” Ashe had to keep from laughing. “I didn’t know that still existed.”
Harrington pulled out a drawer and reached inside. He took out a large old book. When it hit the desktop, the noise thundered through the wood. Even across the desk from the tome, Ashe could smell how old it was. The archbishop opened to about midway through the volume.
“This book is restricted. A papal decree made it forbidden to any Catholic, especially clergy.”
“What’s so bad about it?” Ashe asked. “It just looks like an old book to me.”
“The problem is that Father Smalls had this book. Because he does a lot of research into psychoreligious phenomena, the archdiocese could overlook the fact that he owned it. I assume it is a good guide to finding out what is real and what isn’t, but he didn’t let us know about it.”
“Do you give up the right of privacy when you join the church?” Ashe asked.
“Somewhat. I found this when I accompanied the police in
a search of his apartment.” Harrington seemed to notice the look of concern that Ashe felt cross his face. “Don’t worry, they had all the legal paperwork and a justifiable cause. I had justifiable reason because of the PR nightmare this whole thing could start if it got out. So far, the Mobile police have done a good job keeping it covered up.”
“Just like Marianne and the others walking out of the morgue.”
“Exactly. You may be aware that the murder of the doctor happened at the hospital that is under my jurisdiction.”
Ashe shook his head. His patience was wearing out quickly. He needed to find that book or find out why he couldn’t. The day was getting away from him, and there were other things that needed to be handled before he and Cybil sequestered themselves in the house. After Smalls’ arrest and Hortense’s murder, they decided to stay inside as much as possible.
“I don’t understand why you need me.”
“I have the book that you are looking for,” Harrington said. “I also want to suggest that you get out of town. For some reason, you have been singled out for all this to happen to you. It’s not going to get better, just worse.”
“What about Father Smalls? He needs that book to figure out what’s going on.”
“I’m going to get the book to him, along with this one.” Harrington jabbed his finger into heretical text. “He’ll be out soon, but you need to be far away.”
“Who’s after me?” Ashe asked.
“I’m afraid it might be more like what’s after you. In a short and sweet way, the Devil.” Harrington crossed himself. “He’s getting closer and closer with every new person that dies.”
Ashe looked at the archbishop. There was no sign of levity in his face. He was serious.
“I don’t believe in the Devil,” Ashe said.
“That’s what he wants. When people believe in him, they avoid him at all cost, but when people do not, he can walk around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.”
The crazy man from the parade said something very similar. Not only that, much of the imagery of his most recent dream seemed satanic. Cybil even said her nightmare was about Hell.
“Where did you hear that phrase?” Ashe asked.
