Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense

by Linda Landrigan

  The cardinal stiffened. “Errand?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “It was God’s business.”

  “It was your business.”

  “The reason you were sent to retreat in the first place was to teach you that it wasn’t your place to make such judgments.”

  Brendan suppressed a sigh. “Why did you ask me to come here, father?”

  The old man looked away from Brendan, toward the altar and beyond at the huge, painted wood figure of Christ nailed to a cross. “I’ve told you I shall die shortly. I have my secular affairs in order, and now I am trying to do the same for my soul.”

  “What is it you want from me, father?” Brendan asked in a neutral tone.

  “I want you to hear my confession.”

  Brendan could not believe he had heard the other man correctly; if he had, it could only mean that his being asked to come here was the sad joke of a dying old man, or that the mind of that dying old man was deteriorating. Brendan said nothing.

  “You would refuse the request of a man who is so close to death?”

  “I don’t understand the request.”

  “I don’t ask you to understand it, only to grant it.”

  “I’m not exactly qualified to hear your confession, am I? Why should you wish to participate in a heretical act? Some of your more conservative colleagues might say you’ve committed heresy merely by making the request—that’s assuming you’re serious.”

  The old man opened his mouth and made a strange, rasping sound. It took Brendan a few moments to realize that the other man was laughing. “Since when have you concerned yourself with what the church did or did not consider heresy? I don’t think you much cared even before they defrocked you.”

  “What concerns me is my business, father,” Brendan replied evenly. “Forgive me for saying that you’ve played games with me before, and I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t just part of some other game.”

  The cardinal abruptly looked away; when he looked back at Brendan, his pale, watery eyes seemed unnaturally bright. “This is not a game, Brendan,” he said forcefully.

  “Your sins have nothing to do with me.”

  “You know that isn’t so.” He paused, leaned forward in the pew, added: “Some sins have a way of coming back to punish you in this life. Listen to me.”

  “I won’t hear your confession.”

  The cardinal sighed, leaned back in the pew. “Why do you accuse me of having played games with you? You were asked to perform an exorcism. As a result of your miscalculations, the mother of the young girl in question committed a mortal sin by killing herself. Church authorities determined that the suicide of this woman was a direct result of your malfeasance—your lack of proper preparation and perhaps even your lack of faith and purpose; the sin, it was decided, was yours, not hers, and the punishment was your excommunication. That judgment may have been harsh, but it was influenced by your past attitudes and writings and your reputation and actions as a dissident priest. You were consistently involved with organizations, social and political causes that the Holy See deemed inappropriate. You were warned more than once. Those are the facts. Do you dispute them?”

  “I do not. Those are the facts. But the truth lies someplace else.”

  “Oh? Just what is the truth?”

  “You sent me out to perform a rite for which you knew I wasn’t prepared and in which you suspected I didn’t believe.”

  “You don’t believe in demonic possession?”

  “I believe in obsession founded on greed, lust, hatred, or a dozen other human evils. But it’s hard enough to get people to take responsibility for their actions without providing them with the potential excuse that the devil made them do it.”

  “It’s not like you to be flippant or disrespectful of ideas other people take very seriously, Brendan.”

  “I’m telling you the truth you claimed to want to hear. If you think I’m being flippant, you still don’t understand me and you can never understand what happened. Lisa Vanderklaven wasn’t possessed by demons; her erratic behavior was, under the circumstances, rational and healthy. She had a very good reason for defying her father and continually running away from home, namely that she was being persistently and brutally abused by the same man who had made her mother his mistress and who was her father’s close business associate. When Lisa told her father about the abuse, he refused to believe her. Henry Vanderklaven preferred to believe that his daughter was possessed by demons, for to accept that she was being molested by Werner Pale would have interfered with his business interests and cast considerable doubt on his ability to judge character. Lisa Vanderklaven needed protection, not exorcism.”

  “In my initial interview with Lisa, she broke down; she couldn’t believe that her father could actually believe she was possessed. That was when she told me that Pale had not only been molesting her, but had been involved in a sexual relationship with her mother for some time; Pale had bragged about it to her. At the time, I didn’t feel I had any choice but to talk with Olga Vanderklaven, not only to try to confirm Lisa’s story but to offer the mother my help, if she wanted it. That was my mistake. Faced with the fact that Lisa and I knew about her lover, and that the lover was molesting her daughter, she committed suicide.”

  “If anybody in that family could have been described as possessed, it was Lisa’s father, and he’d created his own hell out of a deadly combination of greed and self-righteousness. Vanderklaven’s greed was what led him to employ a man like Werner Pale in the first place. Vanderklaven was an arms dealer, as you well know. What you might not have known was that Werner Pale was a murderous soldier of fortune whom Vanderklaven employed to train provocateurs. Those provocateurs were kept busy whipping up brush wars in various parts of the world in order to keep up the volume of sales of the arms Vanderklaven manufactured. He saw nothing wrong with what he did; he was an impossibly self-righteous man who could not see the evil around him that he’d created. He was a zealous Catholic with powerful friends in Rome, a church benefactor who gave millions to various church causes. He was so assured of his reservations in heaven that he could destroy his family and be blissfully unaware of the cause—the evil he had brought home with him, the man he considered a friend as well as a business associate. When Lisa told him that his friend was raping her, Vanderklaven demanded that she see a psychiatrist; when she ran away, he sent Werner Pale to find her and bring her back. When she ran away again, he went to his golf buddy—you, eminence—and asked you to arrange for an exorcism to free his daughter from her demons. Demonic possession was the only explanation he could think of for her behavior.”

  “I believe, eminence, that when you heard the story, you knew it would not withstand the scrutiny and investigation Rome requires before declaring officially that someone is demonically possessed, and that it was highly unlikely you would be able to get a trained exorcist to intervene in the affairs of this very troubled family. But you were afraid to offend Henry Vanderklaven by telling him the truth; you were afraid he might tighten his purse strings to the detriment of the church’s interest, perhaps even afraid he might complain to his friends in the Vatican about your lack of sensitivity. And so you looked around for another solution to the problem he’d handed you, and I was it. You would send this young priest you were trying to break to go through the motions of performing an exorcism; once again you would force me to submit to your will while at the same time making Vanderklaven happy. I failed, father, yes, and because of my failure as a human being to fully perceive and deal with Olga Vanderklaven’s torment, she committed suicide as a direct result of my inquiries. Well, Rome was not about to declare that the soul of the wife of this important lay pillar of the church would burn in hell; in their view, and perhaps yours, it was preferable to consign my soul to burn in hell, and I was subsequently excommunicated. I didn’t disagree with their action then, and I don’t now. I was responsible for the woman’s death, because I should have ignored you
r machinations, scrapped the whole idea of an exorcism, and referred the case to social workers. Olga Vanderklaven died because of my failure as a priest, eminence, but she also died because you sent someone you knew to be spiritually unequipped for the task of performing a rite that wasn’t even called for to meddle in an incredibly raw emotional situation. That, eminence, is the truth.”

  Brendan waited, anticipating defense or denial. Instead, the cardinal simply said, “You are right, priest. That is the truth.”

  “If you understand that, it seems to me that you have confessed all you need to.”

  The old man slowly turned to face Brendan, and his pale eyes went wide. “Understand this, Brendan,” he said in a trembling voice. “Satan himself was there. It was Satan himself you were battling against.”

  Brendan studied the other man’s face, saw real fear there—as well as something else he could not read. “I assume you’re speaking metaphorically, father.” He paused, frowned when the cardinal responded by shaking his head. “Werner Pale?”

  Now the cardinal nodded. Brendan ran his hands back through his black shoulder-length hair, looked down at the floor as he resisted the impulse to say something flippant or sarcastic that he knew he would regret. Finally he looked up, said, “No, father. Pale was a murderous psychotic and a totally useless human being, not Satan. Believing that is just your way of avoiding taking personal responsibility for what happened. That’s what Henry Vanderklaven did, and it’s what killed his wife.”

  The cardinal’s eyes went even wider, and his hands began to shake along with his voice. “But what if I’m right, Brendan? What if it was Satan?”

  “What you believe is none of my business, eminence,” Brendan replied evenly. “Believe what makes you at peace, but don’t then ask me to help resolve the conflicts that remain.”

  The old man took a deep breath, slowly exhaled. His trembling eased, and he sank back wearily in the pew. “I would very much like to know what happened afterward,” he said in a voice so low Brendan could barely make out the words.

  “Didn’t Vanderklaven tell you?”

  The old man sighed, producing an odd rattling sound in his lungs. “Henry Vanderklaven put a bullet in his brain soon after returning here from Europe, which was about three months after the events we have been discussing transpired. I believe it was because of something you said or did to him.”

  Brendan searched inside himself for some feeling of pity for Henry Vanderklaven, a man who, according to his belief system, had sentenced himself to eternal damnation. He felt nothing. He believed the man had done nothing to himself except end his life. He found he no longer believed in hells or heavens, save for those created by living human consciousness and deeds, and perhaps never had. His faith had always been about living each day as a human trying to live up to the example set by Christ, not eternal rewards or punishments. What he did believe, what he knew, was that Henry Vanderklaven had created a hell for others that still tormented them, and he was glad the man was no longer alive.

  “Brendan?” the cardinal continued softly. “What happened?”

  “After Lisa ran away for the second time and came to the children’s shelter, I promised her she would be protected from any kind of demons—human or otherwise—until I had investigated to try to determine the truth,” Brendan said in an even tone that belied the turmoil once again building inside him. “I failed her. Not only did her mother commit suicide as a result of my bungling questions, but Werner Pale—acting on the father’s orders—kidnapped her a second time while I was otherwise occupied trying to defend myself against excommunication. Then father, daughter, and Werner Pale left for Europe. As far as law enforcement and social welfare agencies here were concerned, the matter was out of their jurisdiction. But it wasn’t a situation I could live with. I’d promised Lisa she wouldn’t be harmed. I searched for them, and I found them. The details aren’t important. What matters is that I finally found a way to make Henry Vanderklaven face up to the fact that the friend he relied on to stir up his business of death had cuckolded him and raped his daughter repeatedly. He saw, finally, how his own greed had blinded him, destroyed his wife, and caused his daughter to hate him. I didn’t know he’d killed himself. For all his outward zealotry, he apparently didn’t believe in forgiveness, not even for himself, and he certainly must not have believed in redemption.”

  “And where … is the girl now?”

  “In New York. She’s happily married, with a child. She works for a private children’s social service agency.”

  Now the old man again slowly turned to look at Brendan, studied his face for some time. Finally he said, “Ah, yes. It’s the same agency, I presume, for which you have done such good work, the one operated by the former nun with whom you are rumored to have a … relationship?”

  “I don’t think that’s really a part of this story, eminence, is it? The point is that Lisa is safe now, with her own life to lead. She still has nightmares, but those will pass with time.”

  The cardinal nodded slightly. “And … Werner Pale?”

  “He’s dead. I killed him.”

  Brendan watched the other man react with what could have been surprise, but also with something else Brendan could not quite determine. “You, priest, killed this professional soldier?”

  “He was trying to kill me. We fought, and I was lucky. He’d planned to burn me to death, but he was the one who fell into the fire.”

  Once again the old cardinal, apparently lost in his own thoughts, was silent for some time. At last, he said, “I’ve heard it said that you’ve killed a number of men since you left us. Can you have changed so much, priest?”

  “How much I have changed is not for me to say, eminence. I’ve harmed no one who was not trying to harm me, or sometimes a child. I’ve told you what you wanted to know. Are you satisfied?”

  “Would you care to hear what has happened to me over the past five years?”

  “If you feel the need to tell me, I will listen.”

  “God has turned his face from me, Brendan. I wronged you, and I’ve been punished. While it’s true that the decision to excommunicate you came from Rome, the same people ultimately blamed me, for they knew the truth you spoke of. I often feel as if I have been excommunicated along with you. There has been no peace for me during the past five years.”

  “It sounds to me as if you’ve been busy punishing yourself, eminence. You made a mistake, and God will forgive you. Where is your faith?”

  The cardinal shook his head impatiently, with renewed vigor. “It was more than just a mistake. It’s true that I never believed the girl was possessed, and yet I sent you to perform a sacred ritual simply to mollify her father. That is blasphemy, sacrilege. I need not only God’s forgiveness, but yours, Brendan.”

  “You have it.”

  “Hear my confession.”

  “I believe I already have.”

  “In the confessional. Please.”

  “I don’t think so, eminence. This is the second time you have asked me to perform a sacred rite under inappropriate circumstances. The—”

  “Precisely!”

  “—first time neither of us believed in what we were doing, and death and my excommunication were the results; now that I have been excommunicated, church authorities would not recognize the sanctity of any confession you made to me. I don’t understand what it is you really want, but I do know that it can’t be the sacrament of confession.”

  The old cardinal slowly rose to his feet, turned to face Brendan, drew himself up very straight. Suddenly his eyes were very bright. “If you do not understand, priest, then you have not been listening to my words carefully, as I asked you to. I need to confess to you so that I can hear you say the Hail Marys.”

  Suddenly Brendan felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck, and he resisted the impulse to make any sudden movement. “As you wish, eminence,” he replied in an even tone, bowing his head slightly.

  “The confessor will come to
you,” the cardinal said in the same strong voice, and then turned away.

  Brendan forced himself to remain still, to breathe evenly, as he watched the old man hobble across the sanctuary and disappear through a door to the right of the altar. He waited a few seconds, then rose and walked toward the ornately carved wood confessional stalls to his left. He hesitated just a moment before entering the priest’s section of the confessional and sitting down.

  Sins have a way of coming back to punish you in this life. Listen to me.

  Almost five minutes passed, and then Brendan heard the door in the section on the other side of the wood screen open. Brendan glanced through the screen and watched as a stooped figure wearing a white robe with a cowl entered.

  Even without the cardinal’s cryptic request to hear him speak Hail Marys, which was a reversal of the rite and all wrong, he would have sensed danger now, for this robed and hooded figure wore the white sash, the alb, around his neck, and that was wrong; a priest wore the alb to receive confession, not to enter the box as a penitent.

  His earlier sensation of being watched had not been a fantasy, Brendan thought, but the eyes watching him had definitely not been those of God.

  … Are you carrying a gun?

  Brendan stood and hurled himself at the screen, hitting the wood with his right shoulder and placing his left forearm across his face to protect his eyes from splinters. He hurtled through the fragile latticework, landing against the robed figure, and they both fell to the floor of the stall. Brendan used his left hand to grab the wrist of the man’s right hand, which had emerged from the robe holding a .22-caliber pistol, while he drove his right fist into the man’s midsection.

  The cowl slipped back, revealing a face that was a nightmare mass of milk-colored, puckered scar tissue and lines of pink scars that could only have been the results of a series of failed operations. Werner Pale writhed beneath Brendan with the strength born of bottomless hatred and rage, swung at his head with the steel hook that had been used to replace his left hand. Brendan ducked under the blow but felt the sharp tip against his back as the steel began to dig its way through his leather jacket toward his flesh. He reached out with his free hand, found a shard of wood from the shattered screen, wrapped his fingers around it. As the steel tip sliced through his jacket and touched skin, he raised the stake in the air, then drove the tip down into Werner Pale’s throat.