Agnes Among the Gargoyles

by Patrick Flynn

  With lights and sirens flashing and wailing, Tommy and Agnes sail across the Manhattan Bridge. They easily outdistance the D train creeping beside them; its slow pace is part of the city's efforts to save wear on the fragile old span.

  "That was pretty brave," he tells her. "I don't know if I'd have had the balls to go in there alone."

  "I fucked up. I had the wrong guy."

  Tommy cuts the lights and siren when they reach Brooklyn Heights, an enclave of wealth surrounded by mayhem that tries to avoid calling attention to itself. The streets are dark; the streetlights cannot penetrate the poplars. Tommy turns a corner. Agnes points to Father Clarence's Cadillac, which hugs a corner in a parking spot too small for it. Another turn and they are in front of Sybil Pike's house.

  Backup is on the way. Tommy checks his revolver and starts to get out of the car.

  "Can't you wait for the rest of them?" says Agnes.

  "You didn't."

  He checks his ankle holster. "Stash your pocketbook, Agnes. We don't want anyone finding that gun of yours."

  That he knew about Gandalf surprises her, and she takes comfort in his small warning to her. She shouldn't be surprised—he is, after all, a cop. Does he also know that she almost did in Wegeman?

  He climbs out of the car and jogs toward the Pikes' building.

  Agnes holds her throbbing wrist. The radio crackles ominously. A procession of police cars approaches the Pike house. Agnes jumps out of the car and follows Tommy to the rear. There is foreboding in the air. Agnes just knows something terrible is about to happen. She can see Tommy's silhouette climbing the fire escape. He reaches the roof and then descends. Slowly, slowly—he is in front of each window for only a moment, but that is too long. The second floor window is blown out in a blizzard of gunfire. Agnes's ears ring from the sound; the glass seems to fall forever to the pavement. Tommy lies in a heap. There is a scream within Agnes, a cry of fury churning and bubbling, but she can't let it out. Father Clarence, the Minotaur of the Labyrinth, steps out the window, gathers up his cassock and passes down the fire escape with barely a glance at the fallen cop. He moves by Agnes like an apparition. She is close enough to smell his cologne.

  Then she screams Tommy's name.

  She tries to, anyway. What comes out in an unintelligible cry of fright and loss and pain, as though she were the one hit by the bullets.

  She goes to him. His head is smashed and bloody. The fire escape gyrates as men climb it. Two medics push Agnes out of the way. Dozens of cops ascend. Someone turns on a spotlight. Diaz is there, ready to cry.

  Someone who turns out to be Whitey Walker leads her into the house. The furniture is dark and massive, mahogany taken to an unpleasant degree. They step around the corpses of two Siamese cats, one white and one black. The white one's head has been smashed to a pulp.

  Whitey puts Agnes into his car. He wraps her in a blanket.

  "You saw him, right?" says Whitey

  "Yes."

  "Was it Clarence?"

  "Yes."

  Agnes listens to Whitey's radio. The children had been chloroformed, but they are alive and unharmed.

  Agnes follows the pursuit of the suspect on the radio. There is a long period of silence. She snaps off the radio.

  "I'll read the book," she says.

  She slips away. She vanishes into the mists of Brooklyn Heights. The sun will be up in an hour. The houses are dark except for the occasional shifting nimbus of a television set in an upstairs room. When Agnes comes to the corner of Montague Street she can hear the rushing of sewer water in the grate. She can hear the clicking of the traffic lights as they change for no one.

  She stands on the Promenade and cries. The light turns gray, then gets lighter and lighter, as though someone were removing layers of bandages from Agnes's eyes. She cries as she looks at Manhattan.

  She returns to the Heights. She supports her left wrist on her right hand. Montague Street buzzes with police activity. There is an apartment building under construction just next to the Ihpetonga Fish House, and a sign proclaims it to be ANOTHER WEGEMAN MASTERPIECE. The wooden fence around the construction has been covered with posters and handbills, including one for Beatrice Slade's cabaret act, "Songs Sondheim Wishes He Wrote." There she is, decked out in full blond Monroe regalia for her interpretation of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend."

  "Agnes!"

  Tommy is on a stretcher. He lives.

  He has a superficial bullet wound in his temple and a possible concussion. His head is wrapped like the fife player's in the Spirit of '76. He has a bullet wound in his forearm, and about a thousand glass lacerations.

  He wouldn't think of going to the hospital until they found Agnes.

  He tries to sit up. Agnes practically falls on top of him. They hold each other until the pain is too great for him.

  Agnes weeps. "I was so scared. I thought you were dead."

  "No. They just couldn't wake me up," says Tommy.

  "Who could blame him?" says Whitey.

  "There wasn't much to wake up for," says Tommy. "Except you,"

  They lose themselves in a careful kiss.

  The police have captured the murderous cleric, and are hoisting him onto a stretcher. An oxygen mask covers half his face; under the plastic his mouth twists open and shut spasmodically. When the medics force open his eyes only the whites are visible.

  "They chased him over the rooftops," Tommy tells Agnes. "He's quite a climber."

  Diaz bends over the priest. He opens his cassock. Underneath the vestment Father Clarence wears a red pullover sweater with a white "T" on the chest. This is what Willie Boyd wears—he is a letterman in track at Tremont High.

  "Sick," says Detective Diaz. "This is one sick fuck."

  "We always knew that," says Tommy. "Cucullus non facit monachum."

  "Is that a prayer?" asks Diaz.

  "Just an old saying: 'The cowl does not make the monk.'"

  "Never heard it before."

  "I remember it from sophomore Latin," says Tommy. "I never thought I'd get to use it."

  Chapter Seventy

  Ten women murdered and two rescued, thanks to Agnes and Tommy and the NYPD, for a team average of .166--not very good, but better than the Mets, who are having a dreadful year at the plate.

  When the detectives unspool the typewriter ribbon taken from Father Chris's machine, they find the texts of letters to several bishops and Father Chris's paper on the Gnostic Gospels. They also find the Minotaur's last letter. It is sandwiched between pages fifteen and sixteen of the term paper.

  Father Clarence makes a complete statement.

  "Naturally, I am an advocate of confession," he says.

  Barbara Foucault interviewed with him for Scenes From Shakespeare. Her dyed hair set him off. He thought she was the most sexual creature he had ever seen. He had to pretend she was Prudence and kill her.

  He had wanted to do this to women for years, but had kept his impulses in check. Once he got a look at Barbara he couldn't curb his desires any longer.

  He dressed as a Hasidic Jew and went to her neighborhood. When he saw Mrs. Bloch and Barbara returning from the store, he knew he had hit the jackpot. He would have a Rosalie to kill as well.

  It was a sloppy job, says the Minotaur. Unbelievably sloppy to have that kid looking in the window.

  The fibers found at several of the murder scenes came from an old Oriental rug in the entranceway of the rectory. "Mrs. Criswell is always complaining about the way that thing sheds," says the Minotaur.

  He had been meaning to have the glockenspiel repaired for ages. He had taken to carrying the piece around with him as a reminder. He toyed with it when he was tense. "Like Queeg and his ball bearings," he says. He has no idea how it wound up in the turtle tank.

  The Minotaur is asked how he chose his victims.

  "Whatever caused me the least sweat," he tells the detectives. "When I see a woman in a wig or with her hair dyed, I imagine her as trying to look like Prudence or
Rosalie. Isn't that odd? Obviously I like to get a light one and a dark one together. That's the best."

  Why two methods of death each time.

  "I bore easily," says the Minotaur. "I never drive the same route twice, either."

  Why Miss Lenihan? Why someone that close?

  "I lost control. The wig drove me crazy. If she had spent a little money on it, nothing would have happened. But the wig was so cheap, it was that bluish-black color. The exact same shade as Rosalie's hair."

  What about the other fibers, the long white woolen ones?

  "I had been to a rehearsal of the military band. I cleaned two shakos with alcohol."

  The Minotaur leads his inquisitors to a locked closet in the sacristy of St. Basil's church that is supposed to be used for storing incense and wine and sacramental oil. Instead the detectives find two handguns, a .32 snubnose and the .38 Hi Standard Polaris with the cracked grip; Barbara's chef's knife; the oxford shoes that will undoubtedly match casts of footprints taken at several of the sites; and the disguises: the wig and beard and hat and sidecurls, the room service waiter's outfit, the Redcoat uniform. About the last, the Minotaur says, "I had it since my days in the seminary. We did a Hasty Pudding kind of thing. I wanted to see the looks on the Chesser girls' faces when I popped out of nowhere dressed that way. They thought I was a ghost. Or at least a nut."

  There are several Prudence and Rosalie comics stashed with the disguises and weapons. "The 1970s is my favorite era for Pru and Ro," says the Minotaur wistfully. "I like hot pants and platform shoes. I think about the girls being reduced to prostitution at Tremont High. Look here how Prudence's breasts are really conic. It's like she's wearing a bra made out of party hats. Did I mention that I owe the bulk of my collection to my nephew? He donated them for a charity auction, but once I got hold of them I couldn't bear to let them go. Father Chris's apartment was an inspired hiding place, wouldn't you say? I typed the letters on his machine, of course. If things had worked out a little differently, he might have taken the fall. I tried to keep that option open."

  The psychologists spend as much time with him as the detectives. It makes a ludicrous scene, the analysts and the killer-priest thumbing through comic books, probing one man's erotica.

  "How can you hope for any order in the world?" says Agnes. "Forty years ago, some anonymous artist has a fight with his wife and doesn't get laid. He goes to work horny, Prudence and Rosalie take on a more salacious cast, and ten women die for it."

  Myra Cummings and Dr. Molly Meeter ask him about the letters.

  "What did you mean—" they ask, but he cuts them off.

  "I meant nothing," he says. "Like my sermons, my letters were meant to entertain rather than inform. I strive for art and artifice."

  "Have you ever been in Britain?"

  "No."

  At the press briefing, the reporters ask Chief Larry Codd about the letters sent by the Minotaur.

  "I think he was trying to fool us," says the Chief. "He wanted us to think he was from England or something."

  "Wasn't the Department operating on that assumption, Chief?"

  "We weren't operating on any assumption. We didn't know where to start looking."

  "So his attempts to mislead you didn't work?"

  "Personally, I don't put any stock in these sorts of letters. I wouldn't even read them. I'd throw them away."

  "Would you check for fingerprints first, Chief?"

  "Absolutely. Don't be a wise guy."

  The mayor commends Agnes's bravery.

  "Agnes Travertine is keeping the streets safe for us," he says. "And we haven't paid nickel one into a pension fund for her. That's good fiscal management."

  "Tell Agnes I bear her no ill will," says the Minotaur. "Good triumphed, fair and square. She is in my prayers."

  "I wonder what manner of thing he prays to?" says Agnes.

  There is one detail of the Minotaur case that is never explained satisfactorily. What about the mud that was found at the crime scenes? It came from one of the beaches in Queens or Brooklyn. The Minotaur has no explanation. He hates the beach, he says.

  But Agnes solves the riddle. She notices, while flipping through Women's Wear Daily, a small item about Louisiana Bayou Clay, the fabulously expensive moisturizing mudpack used by the most glamorous women in the world. Federal agents have closed the processing plant and impounded the inventory. It seems that the "Louisiana Lode" has been dry for several years, but the soil taken from Neponsit and several other beaches in the Rockaway area makes an almost indistinguishable counterfeit.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Jackie, the owner of the Blarney Castle, hasn't been feeling well. He says it's the flu. He has been uncharacteristically quiet, and he keeps bumping into things. At nine o'clock one night he gives Bezel the keys and goes home. Bezel works the stick until the bar empties out. He locks the door and counts the till. He looks out the window as a cab pulls up. A smallish woman with two suitcases gets out. The cab pulls away, and she stands hesitantly on the sidewalk before knocking on the window of the Blarney Castle. Bezel, assuming she is lost, lets her in.

  "Thank you so much," she says. "Are you closed?"

  "Just closing now."

  "I wouldn't bother you, but this is very important."

  She puts down her cases and opens her purse. She hands a photograph of the Frenchman to Bezel.

  "My brother is missing. I am afraid that he is in trouble. Do you know him?"

  Bezel gives her back the picture. He shuts the front door and locks it. "I think you'd better have something."

  Bezel pours the best brandy he can find. The lady's hands are shaking.

  "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your brother is dead."

  Her eyes snap shut. She gulps the drink. She is younger than the Frenchman. Her hair, cut short, flares pleasingly at the ears. Bezel notices that the back of her neck is razored, which excites him. She is a clean-looking woman.

  "I have been waiting for that news for many years," she says. "It is strange to finally hear it. He is already buried?"

  "Potter's Field."

  "Potter's? What is that?"

  "For people with no money, or no one to bury them."

  Her face darkens. "I will take him back to Canada."

  Bezel pours a drink for himself. "How do you know about this place?"

  From her purse she takes out an Old Gestorben beer mat. It has the address of the Blarney Castle printed on it. "A long time ago, he left this at my house. One must sometimes play detective."

  She shivers. She drapes her trench coat over her shoulders. "I don't even know your name," she says.

  Bezel introduces himself as the owner, Jackie.

  The presence of this woman is driving him half mad. She has a marvelous smell to her. He can't pin it down—almonds, camphor, lavender, what?

  Bezel gives her the details of her brother's death, omitting some big ones.

  "I can't believe it was an accident, Jackie," she says.

  "Why not?"

  "My brother was a fish. He knew the water. He understood it. With people, he was terrible, but he knew the sea."

  She turns sideways on her barstool and extends her legs. "I am not naive. My brother associated with bad people."

  "He left some things in the cellar," says Bezel. "Maps and charts and things. I'll get them for you."

  It takes Bezel a half-dozen tries to find the right key to the cellar. Marguerite gets off the stool and joins him.

  "I don't want to stay up here alone," she says.

  Bezel guides her down the stairs.

  "I must call my husband and let him know I arrived," she says. "I haven't even been to the hotel yet."

  Bezel looks for the Frenchman's sea chest. "Unfortunately, my phone isn't working."

  "A tavern without a telephone?"

  "It's been out all day."

  "I don't imagine things breaking in America."

  He sets the chest down in front of her. />
  "Thank you, Jackie. You are most kind."

  She goes through her brother's things. She looks quickly through letters, maps and papers. At the bottom of the box, wrapped in a map of Indonesia, is a framed picture of her family.

  "This was taken in Tours," she says dreamily. "I can still remember the music they played that day, and how the jelly cakes were full of sand." In the picture, the Frenchman looks slim and rakish and full of possibility in a linen suit. Marguerite is a stick of a girl.

  "This is my favorite picture, and look how he treated it!" she says. "No glass in the frame."