The Devil's Labyrinth

by John Saul

  “So you and Kip were roommates last year, too?” North heard Peterson ask Clay Matthews, scanning his notes as if he didn’t already have every word of them memorized.

  “Yeah,” Clay said. “They stuck him with me when he first came here.”

  “And you requested each other as roommates again this year?”

  Clay nodded. “We got along great.”

  Detective North pulled the sheets off Kip’s bed, shook them out, and then lifted up the mattress.

  A copy of Playboy was stashed between the mattress and the springs, which North picked up, fanned through, then tossed onto Matthews’s bed.

  “I’ll take that,” Brother Francis said, stepping forward quickly to seize the offending literature.

  As Peterson shrugged sympathetically at Matthews, North turned his attention to Kip’s footlocker. It was unlocked and he flipped the top open. Inside were books and photographs, a pair of sandals, and a hockey jersey autographed on the shoulder by someone from the Chicago Blackhawks.

  “Has Kip ever taken off like this before?” Detective Peterson asked. Clay shook his head. “Okay, so let’s get to the big question,” Peterson went on. “What about drugs? Adamson ever use them?”

  North looked up from the footlocker to watch the boys’ reactions.

  Both boys shook their heads.

  “Come on,” Peterson prompted them. “Not even a little pot once in a while?”

  Matthews shook his head again, this time more emphatically. “I’d know. He used to do drugs before he came here, but he didn’t anymore. He said he’d decided he’d gotten in enough trouble, and he was done with it.”

  “He thought people who did drugs were stupid,” Darren Bender offered.

  Peterson’s gaze shifted to Bender. “And yet he grabbed a woman from behind and slit her throat,” he said softly. “How do you suppose that fits with his decision to stay out of trouble?”

  “How should we know?” Bender countered. “I don’t even get that he could do it.”

  “But he did,” Peterson said, sounding every bit as puzzled as Darren Bender. “So if it wasn’t drugs, what could it have been? Can either of you think of anything that might have made Kip do such a thing?”

  Darren and Clay looked at each other, and North saw nothing in either of their expressions that looked like they might be trying to hide something.

  “Anything at all,” Peterson urged. “We need some help here. Can’t either of you think of anything that was different about Kip lately?”

  Clay Matthews hesitated uncertainly, then: “Well…”

  Both detectives’ attention instantly focused on the Matthews boy.

  “Now that I think about it, Kip has been acting a little weird,” Clay said.

  North’s eyes narrowed. “Weird like how?” he said sharply enough that the boy actually jumped.

  “I don’t know, really,” Clay said, his voice taking on a defensive note.

  “It’s okay,” Peterson soothed and North, finished with his search of the footlocker, moved on to the closet. “Just tell us whatever you can. Anything at all could help.”

  Clay relaxed a little. “He was always kind of a loner, you know? Ever since he first came here. But lately he started to act kind of strange.”

  “Strange how?” Peterson asked.

  Matthews shrugged. “I dunno. He sort of stopped wanting to hang out with any of us—even me. And the other day, he couldn’t find a pen and he threw a regular shi—” He cut his words short, glanced guiltily toward Brother Francis, and reddened slightly. “I mean he got really mad—like throwing things! Over a lousy pen! I mean, it wasn’t even like it was some kind of good pen. Just one of those cheap ones.”

  “How bad was it?” Peterson pressed. “The scene?”

  “Really bad. His face was all red and he accused me of stealing his stuff. And he seemed like he just wanted to break things.” He walked over and pointed at a black mark on the wall. “See this? He threw his shoe at me. Hard, too. Over that crummy pen, which he found five minutes later on the floor next to his bed.”

  “And that was unusual behavior for him?” Peterson asked.

  “Definitely,” Clay replied. “Kip was a loner—he was always quiet.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me that?” Darren Bender asked. “He got that way on the basketball court, too. He missed a shot, and all of a sudden he’s kicking the wall in the gym. Just because he missed a basket! I mean, it’s not like he made that many in the first place—he really sucked at basketball. I thought he was going to break his foot or something.”

  North emerged from the closet. “And neither of you think he was doing drugs?” he asked as he started going through Kip’s desk. “Like steroids, maybe?”

  Clay spread his hands helplessly. “I wouldn’t even know what steroids look like. And he wasn’t a jock, so why would he be doing something like that anyway?”

  “Okay,” Detective North said as he finished with the desk and turned to Brother Francis. “There’s nothing here we need. You’re free to release all his belongings to his family.” He turned to the boys, and decided to try prodding their memories one last time. “So that’s it? There’s nothing else? Nothing at all you want to tell us?”

  Clay and Darren looked at each other and Clay started to shake his head. But then Darren Bender spoke. “There was one other thing. He started going to confession practically every day.”

  “Confession?” North echoed. “Every single day? Why?”

  Now both boys spread their hands helplessly. “How would we know?” Darren asked. His eyes darted toward Brother Francis. “It’s not like we get that much chance to do anything worth confessing around here.”

  Brother Francis’s eyes rolled. “If it were up to me, you’d all be confessing three times a day, and there still wouldn’t be time to get you all absolved.” He turned to the detective. “Do you think it’s important? About Kip’s confessions, I mean?”

  “Very,” North replied. “So who do we talk to about what he might have been confessing?”

  “You don’t,” Brother Francis replied. “The Church has changed a lot in the last few decades, but the sanctity of the confessional hasn’t changed. It is absolute.”

  “Even when the person who made the confession is dead?” Kevin Peterson asked.

  Brother Francis’s expression hardened. “Even then,” he assured them. “It is absolute, under any circumstances at all.”

  As they got back in their car ten minutes later, Patrick North stared up at the thick slabs of oak that were the school’s front door. “What do you think?” he mused as Kevin Peterson handed him his keys. “Any way of finding out what that kid was confessing?”

  Peterson shook his head. “Not a chance.”

  “So that’s that? We’re just supposed to give up?”

  Peterson’s expression hardened, losing all trace of the friendliness Clay and Darren had seen only a few minutes ago. “Not me,” he said with a quietness that belied the steel in his words. “Something made that boy kill that woman, and I intend to find out exactly what it was.”

  CHAPTER 12

  TERI MCINTYRE PARKED HER car on the narrow lane that wound through the cemetery, decided that it didn’t really matter that she’d forgotten to bring flowers for the first time in the two years she’d been coming here to visit her husband, and picked her way carefully across the grass. Coming to the headstone that marked Bill’s grave, she placed her hand on the cold granite.

  “Hi, honey,” she said softly enough that no one would have heard her even if she hadn’t been alone in the cemetery. “Well, it finally happened—I forgot to bring you flowers. Forgive me?” She decided that the unbroken silence that fell over the cemetery as she paused for a moment, implied his assent, then she slowly lowered herself down until she was sitting cross-legged on the grave. “I hope you feel like listening,” she sighed, “because I sure feel like talking.” She unfolded her legs and stretched them out, unconsciously fall
ing into the same position she used to use back in the days when they would sometimes sprawl on the bed for hours at a stretch, neither sleeping nor making love, but just talking. The grass felt cool beneath her, and she ran her hand across the dark green surface, finally picking a blade as if it were a piece of lint clinging to the coverlet of their bed.

  “Ryan got hurt at school on Friday—hurt pretty badly. He was beaten up by some kids, and I have to tell you, it scared me to death.” She waited for a second, not really as if she were expecting Bill to say something, but just to collect her thoughts. “I’ve about decided to take him out of Dickinson and send him to St. Isaac’s. I—well, I guess I just feel like he’ll be safer, at least until he graduates.” Tears blurred her eyes but she brushed them away, almost impatiently. “Don’t worry,” she said, determined not to give in to the grief that was threatening to overwhelm her. “I’m not going to start crying. And I know this isn’t what we’d do if you were here.” Now her voice started to tremble in spite of herself. “But you’re not here, and I need to make the decision myself. She hesitated, then got to the true reason she’d come here today. “Except that I’m not making it all by myself. I—” She fell silent for a moment, then pressed on. “I’ve met someone, Bill. His name is Tom—Tom Kelly—and—”

  And what? And she was lonely, and frightened, and miserable, and Tom Kelly had been there for her last night and helped her deal with the hospital and Ryan and the police and everything else Bill should have been there to help her with. But how could she say it? How could she say any of it without sounding cold and callous and uncaring that the only man she’d ever loved—ever intended to love—had died and left her alone to be lonely and frightened and miserable? But it was Bill that was dead, not her, and—

  And she had to go on.

  “Anyway, he’s a good man. You’d like him.” She managed a wan smile despite the bleariness in her eyes. “And Ryan will learn to—I know he will. Anyway, Tom was able to arrange a scholarship for Ryan, so it won’t cost us anything. I don’t like the idea of him living away at school, but it’s only for a year and a half, and it’s only a few miles away, so I’ll see him a lot.” She reached out and touched the headstone again. “And I hope it’s okay with you.” She fell silent again, then went on. “And I’m not talking about just Ryan, either. I’m talking about Tom, too. I hope you can understand about him, wherever you are.”

  She turned over onto her back and looked at the sky through the leaves in the lone tree on the hill. “He misses you,” she said, a tear leaking out and sliding down the side of her face. “He keeps your picture on his desk. And I know he thinks I’m being disloyal by seeing Tom, but I hope someday he’ll understand. I know you want what’s best for both of us, and right now I need some help and some support.” Her voice began to tremble. “The kind you can’t give me anymore.” She fished in her purse, found some Kleenex and wiped her eyes. In the tree overhead a bird began to sing, and suddenly Teri felt lighter and strangely unburdened. “And Ryan needs a father figure. I’m not saying that I’m going to marry Tom or anything like that, but I think he’s going to be good for Ryan.”

  Above her, the bird sang a few more notes, and Teri decided to accept the bird’s chirping as the sign she was looking for.

  She smiled. “You should see Ryan, honey,” she went on, the tremble in her voice steadying as her tears dried. “He’s becoming a man. He’s so tall—the last time you saw him, he was still a little boy. Remember how gangly he was? Well, now he’s filled out, and started shaving, and every time I look at him, I see you. And he’s decided he wants to go to Princeton, which is another reason to send him to St. Isaac’s.”

  The bird chirped one last time, and flew away and Teri got to her feet. “Got to get going,” she sighed, slung her purse over her shoulder, kissed her fingertips, touched them to the top of the headstone, and stepped back to stare at the name that was deeply engraved in the granite:

  Captain William James McIntyre.

  “Tom Kelly is a good man,” Teri whispered. “But he’s not you. There was only one of you, and you’re still my hero. And you always will be.” Tears welled in her eyes once more, but they were no longer those of the horrible, wrenching sorrow that had gripped her for most of the last two years. “I’ll come back soon,” she said. “No matter what happens between me and Tom, I’ll come back to tell you about Ryan.”

  As the bird wheeled in the sky and came back to perch once more on the branch above her, Teri turned and began to retrace her footsteps on the path back to her car.

  Bill had heard her, she was sure.

  Heard her, and understood.

  Clay Matthews watched silently as Brother Francis and two girls he didn’t know—but who must have done something wrong to earn them the penance of having to help pack up Kip’s belongings—finished clearing out Kip’s half of the closet. The weird thing was that after complaining all last year and most of this one that Kip had too much stuff, suddenly Clay was feeling like not only the closet but the room as well was far too empty. And it wasn’t that Kip’s stuff would soon be gone, but that Kip himself was gone.

  He was gone, and he wouldn’t be back.

  He was dead.

  Even now the word didn’t seem quite real to Clay. In fact, it felt wrong; people his age didn’t die—old people did. People like his grandmother, who had died of cancer two years ago, and Mr. Endicott, who had lived across the street in Brookline, and had died last year just because he’d gotten too old.

  But now Kip was dead and suddenly Clay wished he didn’t have to live in this room anymore. Last night, at least, he’d been able to turn the lights on when he couldn’t go to sleep, and look at Kip’s stuff, and sort of pretend that maybe it was all a mistake. But even last night he hadn’t really been able to make himself believe it. Somehow, in a way Clay didn’t quite understand, all the stuff that had belonged to Kip had changed. It was as if just overnight it had all turned into nothing more than old clothes nobody would want, and beat-up shoes that should be thrown away, and clutter that wasn’t really good for anything, but just filled up a lot of space.

  And now it was all being packed up and taken away and instead of making Clay feel better it was just making him feel worse. Kip’s desk looked naked without his books and CDs, and the bed, stripped of its sheets, blankets and bedspread, didn’t just look bare.

  It looked abandoned.

  The gaping lid of Kip’s footlocker—now jammed with nearly everything Kip had owned—seemed almost like the maw of some kind of beast that was swallowing up every last trace of Clay’s roommate.

  “Am I going to be in here by myself for the rest of the year?” he asked, doing his best to keep his voice steady.

  Brother Francis shook his head. “I would be very surprised if a new student didn’t arrive tomorrow.”

  An odd mixture of resentment and relief rippled through Clay. He didn’t really want another roommate, but he didn’t want to be alone, either. “Who?” he asked, even though it didn’t really matter. Whoever it was, it wasn’t going to be Kip.

  Brother Francis shrugged. “I’m afraid that’s something no one consults me about,” he said. “I know there’s a waiting list, and I know there are at least a dozen names on it. If Father Laughlin hasn’t already made the decision, I suspect he will have by tomorrow morning.” He scanned the area around Kip’s bed and desk, and then turned to the two girls. “Good job—I think you two can be excused now.”

  The two girls wasted no time scurrying out of the room before Brother Francis could change his mind, and after they were gone, Brother Francis laid a hand on Clay’s shoulder. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked, his eyes clearly reflecting the concern in his voice.

  Clay nodded halfheartedly.

  “Okay. I’ll go get a dolly for the footlocker. See you in a few minutes.” Brother Francis left the room, glanced back at Clay, then gently closed the door.

  Clay took a deep breath, his eyes fixing on the bare
mattress where just a few days ago Kip had sprawled, listening to his iPod, playing air guitar and drumming on his knees. And now he’d never see Kip again.

  Never hear another one of his stupid jokes.

  Never play cards with him.

  He was gone.

  But where? Where was Kip’s spirit, the presence of him that had always been in this room even when Kip himself was not? Was it in Heaven? Or was it in Hell, because he had killed that woman?

  Or was it just gone?

  Who knew what really happened to somebody’s spirit after they died?

  Clay flopped down onto his bed, punching up the pillow beneath his head. As he gazed over at the bare mattress on the other side of the room, his eyes suddenly fell on the seam in the wainscoting next to Kip’s bed.

  Detective North’s questions about drugs came back to his mind.

  Was it possible that Kip really had been using drugs?

  If he had, he’d been lying for as long as Clay had known him. But if Kip had been using drugs, Clay knew where he would have kept them.

  The one place the two detectives hadn’t found, and that Clay hadn’t told them about. He got up, walked around the far side of Kip’s bed, and carefully removed the panel of wainscoting he and Kip had discovered no more than a month after they’d moved into the room, when Kip had become certain that the wall behind the panel was hollow. Sure enough, once they worked the panel loose they found a hole in the plaster behind the wainscoting that some previous occupant of the room must have cut in order to make a secret compartment where all the things no one would want Brother Francis—or anyone else—to find during dorm inspections could be safely stored.

  Clay reached in, and his fingers found what he expected: two large plastic ziplock bags.