Final Edge s--4

by Robert W. Walker

  "A French village, city now…Lourdes, France, Our Lady of Lourdes…the movie they made of it, Song of Bernadette? About the village girl to whom the Virgin Mary appeared, thus Our Lady of Lourdes. She is said to have appeared on several occasions."

  "I've heard of it, of course. Bernadette had visions when she was a child. An angel told her where water would spontaneously appear out of the earth, right?"

  "At the mouth of a grotto, yes."

  "A cave."

  "Yeah, like a cavern mouth, and to this day, a spring created by the Angel of Lourdes wells up in the town, and it has been made a shrine to which people the world over make pilgrimages in hopes of a miracle cure for various illnesses."

  "Lourdes, sure. Didn't they make the little girl a saint?"

  "Not before she was put through hell. Religious celebrities are put through the ringer by the Vatican."

  'Tell that to Joan of Arc."

  "Eventually, after years of examinations and investigations, Bernadette was made a saint, but by then, she could not live comfortably in Lourdes. She joined a convent and spent her adult life in the service of Christ."

  "So now you're thinking there's a definite link between Our Lady of Miracles convent and our victim, Mira Lourdes, that it's too much coincidence to be just a twist of fate or happenstance?"

  "The killer's hand is all over this chance fluke. He gave us the convent as a return address, and he gave us enough of Mira to identify her-her teeth and next her head. And how many times have you told me that you don't believe in coincidences in a murder investigation?"

  "Touche. So our killer is a saint killer?"

  "Perhaps contemptuous of Catholic icons-pictures, symbols, idols, and saints."

  "So we're chasing someone who might have a history of destroying or disfiguring…say…a statue of Saint Francis of Assisi?"

  "Or even a crucifixion cross, or a painting of mother and child-the Pieta-an altar, or an image of the baby Jesus."

  Lucas drove with one hand and used his radio with the other, calling into headquarters and speaking to Kelton. "Get the word out, Stan, that we're interested in any reports of religious vandalism in Catholic churches, schools, graveyards, anywhere in the city, understood?"

  Kelton replied, "We get calls like that all the time, Lucas."

  "Anything recent, say in the past week?"

  "Usually turns out to be corner-hugging teens so bored out of their skulls they don't give one damn thought to the consequences of their actions," Kelton replied.

  "Any unsolved, recent vandalisms of religious icons, gravestones, statues, or paintings, Stan?"

  "Fact is, we got an outstanding on a grave site at Green- haven Meadows off Berwyn."

  "Whose grave, Stan?"

  "Some guy named Blood…John Blood, as I recall. I can look up the report. Came in from the caretaker. Said the dirt around the grave was disturbed, and the stone was cracked from what had to be a sledgehammer."

  "Anything else? Anything to do with a church?"

  "No, nothing."

  "Keep an eye out for such things, Stan."

  "I'm on it." Kelton was gone.

  They drove on in silence under the increasingly overcast sky, each taking silent counsel, she with her training in human nature, he with his grandfather's words in his head, and both weaving what little they knew of the killer with the puzzling scraps they had collected thus far, and now this new notion involving the Catholic Church. Meredyth's profession didn't like coincidences of this size any more than did Lucas's Native instincts. This matter of Our Lady of Miracles being Our Lady of Lourdes, and their victim being a Lourdes. Had the poor young woman paid the ultimate price because she bore the name of the convent?

  Meredyth broke the stillness, saying, "There's too much here to be called mere coincidence, Lucas, and…and there's something else I have to tell you."

  He looked at her, her tone signaling a confession of some sort. "What is it, Mere?"

  "Almost twenty years ago, when I was a psychiatric intern doing social work for my degree, I had some dealings with the orphanage at Our Lady of Miracles."

  "Another strange harmony?"

  "What astrophysicists call a concurrence, I think. Ongoing occurrences on a collision course."

  'Too close for comfort," he agreed.

  "But Lucas, it's the first real clue that the killer may have targeted me for some specific reason other than my notoriety as a forensic psychiatrist."

  "And what reason is that, Mere?"

  "I…I didn't recognize the name of the convent orphanage right off, but since you mentioned it, I've been sitting here struggling, dredging up a twenty-year-old memory."

  "Connected to the convent?"

  "It's our first real connection to the killer. My history with this place we're going to. The killer intentionally pointed us in this direction."

  "And what is the history, Mere? Were you once thinking of joining the convent? Did you go there as a child?"

  "No, no! I had very little relationship with the convent really, and it was all so long ago."

  He turned sharply into a small street, causing a pedestrian a bit of distress, the man shouting an obscenity at Lucas.

  Lucas merely waved and kept going. "Go on," he told Meredyth.

  "I was a teenager, my first year of college, and I knew I wanted med school. I was a student trying to get brownie points by getting my sociology requirement out of the way early on, you know, to impress my academic counselor. I kinda had a crush on him."

  "That's the extent of your association with the convent? You did your sociology internship there? What, one quarter term? Seems pretty weak as connections go."

  "No, not even that. I did my internship with Child and Family Services with the county, and I helped place a handful of children with the convent orphanage. I spent all my time at the courthouse downtown. I never saw the orphanage itself. Never set foot in it actually."

  "That's it, huh?" He took another turn. They passed storefronts, taverns, eateries.

  "I haven't been associated with them since those days in my first year of college. I represented indigent single mothers in cases involving newborns, to give them a home."

  "Damn lot of responsibility for a kid."

  "I was aggressive, and the caseworker I was helping out, she was swamped. I mean, case files to the ceiling. She was glad to have my help, and no one questioned it. Hell, it was 1984 and it was benevolent work."

  "So you worked in finding foster homes and making adoptions possible?" he asked. "Benevolent work."

  "My responsibilities ended at the courthouse door. I merely counseled and helped out the mothers who turned their children over to the orphanage for adoption. The county, the court, the nuns, under the mother superior, they saw to the actual adoptions. I just facilitated the paperwork and acted as advocate for the mother, and by extension, the child."

  "Then your job was to…to…?"

  "Expedite the transition for the mother; help her with her decision after weighing all options. Basically, all I signed off on was the mothers' understanding and state of mind…you know, sound mind, clear understanding of adoption. Had to make sure Mom knew what rights she was signing off on. It was just interview work."

  "I see, and you never actually handled the children involved?"

  She shrugged. "Occasionally, one of the infants was thrust into my arms when the mother needed to locate a proof of address or needed both her arms to sign papers."

  The drive had taken them onto the Interstate, and after passing several exits, Lucas found Crockett Avenue, where he exited onto the surface street. The grim and growing cloud bank had engulfed the city, thrusting them into a daytime night. The car now moved through a crowded little neighborhood of narrow streets and boxy houses.

  Meredyth continued speaking in a level voice. "Frankly, almost all of the women that I helped in my year of internship with the legal system didn't really have any options, hooked as they were on drugs."

  "Yo
u spent a year at this social work requirement?"

  "Well, two college terms, eight credit hours, a fall and a spring."

  "And how long ago was this?"

  "It was like two freaking decades ago, 1983…'84 may be."

  "Given the fact the killer has pointed us to the convent, we need to look over the records of your cases that year."

  "The case files should be on record with the courthouse downtown. I have no idea what sort of records we'll find at the orphanage or what condition they will be in, but my name isn't likely to be on anything there."

  "And you spent no time at the convent school?"

  "Like I said, my job ended at the courthouse steps. The children were taken by the nuns from the judges' chambers."

  Lucas wondered aloud, "How many kids are we talking about, Mere?"

  "A handful…a dozen at most that I handled, certainly no more."

  He pulled the car over and parked outside a Starbucks. "How about a cup of coffee and a grain of truth?" he asked.

  "All right, I'll tell you about it."

  Lucas and Meredyth sat at a table inside the coffee shop and watched the drizzling rain against the windows. Tentatively sipping at her steaming coffee, Meredyth began her story.

  "A terrible situation had evolved in the seventies and into the eighties, when I started this internship-against the wishes of my parents, I might add. I was more surprised than anyone when I found myself making life-and-death decisions for drug abusers and their children."

  "Were they all drug abusers?"

  'To a woman, yes. Heroin, cocaine…hard-liners, most of them, their arms full of tracks, their noses pink red. I despised them, Lucas, for what they did to their babies. I was unable to have children, am unable to have children, Lucas. Something you have a right to know."

  He reached across and took her hands in his. "Go on."

  "And here these women were, slaves to addiction, giving no thought to how they were harming their children's health, poisoning their unborn children. I took it all quite personally, and it wasn't long before I knew I couldn't do this kind of work objectively."

  "You were just a kid, Mere."

  "It was a time of rampant drug use among pregnant teens. This created so many thousands of crack mothers having crack babies. These typically single-parent mothers were unable to fend for themselves, much less take care of a sick child's multiple needs." Meredyth paused to drink her cooling coffee.

  Lucas picked at a giant cinnamon bun he'd placed between them to share. He said nothing, but she felt a disapproving coolness had come over him, something in his eyes, a judgment.

  "Look, Lucas, organizations and high-minded institutions-"

  "Like the Harris County court, the government, the Catholic Church?" he finished for her, interrupting.

  "Yeah, like the Church…they took an interest in helping the children, many of whom were born with mental and emotional problems, some with serious, irreversible damage and retardation. Few doors were open to them, and there weren't a lot of people or resources to throw at the problem."

  He sipped at his coffee to the sound of FM music piped in, a Gordon Lightfoot tune…don't you come creepin' round my back stair…and angry words rising from another booth in the cafe. Lucas glanced at the couple arguing. Something deep within him wanted to go over and yank the man to his feet and plant a fist in his face. Instead, when Meredyth squeezed his hands, he returned his attention to her. "Go on. I'm listening."

  "The orphanages were filling up with many thousands of such children, and Our Lady and other such homes opened their doors wide. They were constructing more housing! We took advantage. Here was hope, a chance to find decent homes for them."

  "Or a lifetime in orphan care."

  "I always believed it the lesser of two evils as did the lady I worked for, as did the system."

  "Your ever think of adopting one of them yourself?"

  "There was one, yes. She had no name, Lucas. Her mother hadn't given her a name. I thought that so sad."

  "That is sad."

  "I assume because the mother didn't want to get attached, knowing she was giving the little girl up. She'd made that decision before I even got involved. But I was a kid in college myself, my plans laid out, my days and nights filled. Her mother pleaded with me to find her a good home. I did what I could and went on to fulfill my dream to become a forensic psychiatrist. I just wanted to earn my degree, go on to help people."

  "Like these destitute, addicted women who had no chance of ever getting their children back, right?"

  "There were programs in place, rehab programs, but for most"-she grimaced and shook her head-"the program was an impossibility until they broke the cycle of loss of identity, loss of self-esteem, loss of direction, values, faith."

  He remained stone-faced, his Indian features impossible to read.

  "Whatever you're thinking, Lucas, don't condemn me for what we did for those children back then. We did what we had to do. Nobody wanted to deal with the problem."

  "Anyone think to keep records on these children? To see how they did one, two, three years later?"

  She shook her head. "We're talking about sick children. The fact we found orphan homes willing to take them was reason for celebration."

  "And no one kept trace of the crack mothers, right?"

  "Correct." Her long face dropped. The noise level at the other booth had continued to rise. Lucas glared at the couple, realizing now that the woman had an infant in a little plastic carry on the seat beside her. Take it to the Maury Povich Show, he wanted to shout, but kept his calm.

  Lucas thought of the thousands of Native American children who, in the early part of the 20th century, had been ripped from their parents by state welfare systems across the West-placed in "good" white homes by well- meaning white officials anxious to Christianize and Anglicize these heathen children. It was nowadays considered one of many disgraceful episodes in U.S.-Indian relations sanctioned by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs; it had been a part of the "war" to end once and for all the aboriginal problem of the Native American races, to homogenize, tame, incorporate and blend them into the white race and make farmers of them all. The policy of assimilation of the races had begun as early as the 1820s, with successful results in the peace-loving Five "Civilized" Tribes led by the Cherokee Nation and including the Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole.

  In 1861, when war broke out between the states, the Cherokee Nation had more English-speaking schools and post offices flying the American flag than did neighboring whites in the state of Arkansas, and American Indians formed regiments in both the Federal and the Confederate armies. The Five Tribes fought at Pea Ridge, Arkansas, up and down the Oklahoma Indian Territory, along the Texas corridor, and struggled for control over the Indian Capitol of Tallaqua. Federalist Indian regiment soldiers lost-alongside their Confederate brothers-more casualties per capita in the Indian State than did any other state in the Union or the Confederacy, yet it never appeared in a U.S. history book. No Hollywood film or Ken Burns documentary had ever been made of their heroism, either in the war or as leaders in following the White Path of peace over the Red Path of war against the people who had forced them on to the Long Walk of the Trail of Tears. Only a handful of dust-laden studies and historical treatises on these lost facts dealt with the Indian regiments of the Confederacy and the Union.

  After the Civil War, and after the loss of Lincoln as their president, all the civilized Indians of the Territory were punished for the actions of those who sided with the Con-federacy. Five Tribes simultaneously stripped of all the dignity and freedom they had earned as U.S. citizens in their once-proud U.S. Protectorate, not to mention their land and businesses. The president of the Cherokee Nation, John Ross, lost his dream along with his steamboat company, but the tribes had lost the entirety of their treaty lands, seeing them given away to white settlers flooding into the Cherokee Strip to create the state of Oklahoma. Strip was the right word for it. Government-sanction
ed, the rape of the Indian Territory was overseen by armed military forces. Then came the sweeping missionary influx and the welfare brigades. And in far too many instances, Native American children were forced to renounce their heritage and very DNA and take on the manner and characteristics, the language and religion of the majority race without any protest allowed beyond the tears shed when they were taken from their loving parents. The biography of such men as Jim Thorpe told the story. In too many cases, these children were taken out of perfectly fine family environments and placed with foster homes, causing the children as adults to be alienated in a white world. Jim Thorpe had beaten the white world at its own game, only to be stripped of his Olympic medals, left in the end depressed and beaten, left to drink himself to death.

  "Where did you go, Lucas Stonecoat?" Meredyth asked. She'd quietly studied his strong features and iron eyes, a beautiful brown with specks of green and incredible depths she could easily lose herself in. "Where were you just now?" she repeated when he did not answer.

  "Bad times."

  'Tell me about these bad times."

  He shared his thoughts on the history of lost Native American children who had grown up a generation of lost adults. "My father had been one of them," he confessed, "and he died the ignoble death of a drunken Indian, drowning in a mud puddle on the Coushatta Reservation, thousands of miles from the lost ancestral home where his fathers were born, lived, died, and joined the netherworld."

  "I'm sorry, Lucas, very sorry for your pain, but…but you can't compare what the Bureau of Indian Affairs did from the nineteenth century through nineteen-thirties and nineteen-forties to what we tried to do in the nineteen- eighties. Our intentions were good and honorable."

  "So were those of the missionaries. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Isn't that what Anglos say?"

  "I'll see you at the car," she said to this, standing and starting away.

  He grabbed her wrist, saying, "I'm not saying it's the same thing, but it brings back bad memories, that's all."

  She pulled away. "I need a moment alone."

  Lucas sighed heavily, finished his coffee, and tossed down a tip for the hardworking busboy. He glanced out the window to where Meredyth sat in the car, pensively waiting for him.