Vicarious

by Jon F. Merz

  Curran took a look at the backgrounds of the victims. All of them, he concluded within five minutes, all of them were evil.

  An arms dealer, a drug dealer, a lawyer who defended only the worst criminals, the leader of a girl gang in East Los Angeles, various leaders of organized crime syndicates, and a serial killer – all had died mysteriously.

  The Soul Eater’s been busy, he thought. He frowned. Great, now he was thinking of this guy in supernatural terms.

  He sighed and leaned back. What the hell had happened in here last night? He’d already fielded enough questions about Harry to make him feel awful. The detectives had grown attached to the little guy. So had Curran.

  And now he was dead.

  Curran flipped through the other reports on his desk. Other cases from around the country. After Curran left the FBI, the killer hadn’t stopped. But Los Angeles showed the most deaths and tightest concentration. The other cases seemed piecemeal – scattered around the country in single and sometimes double incidents.

  Was the killer being careful?

  Or was there some method to his madness?

  To give the supernatural theory a go, it might make more sense that he had a mission of sorts. But if the killer was simply insane, then there’d be no figuring out the formula he used to pick his victims.

  The only way they’d catch him would be to be there as he was killing.

  Curran wasn’t so sure he wanted that.

  In fact, a big part of him simply wanted this guy to disappear out of his jurisdiction so Curran could go back to busting gangbangers and frustrated divorcees who off’d their ex-spouses.

  He wondered about Lauren again. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep her image out of his mind. He reached for the phone but stopped. She’d be out now, wouldn’t she?

  He sighed.

  His phone rang.

  Curran heart jumped. Maybe it was Lauren. He grabbed the phone.

  “Homicide. Curran.”

  “Get your ass down here.”

  “Jesus, Kwon, I only just left you a few hours ago.”

  The phone went dead in his ear. Curran hung up, grabbed his coat and jumped into his car. He made it back down to Albany Street within ten minutes.

  Kwon was waiting for him when he walked in.

  “Hit the flashing lights did you?”

  “You sounded so serious,” said Curran. “So, what's up?”

  They walked through the swinging blue doors and into the autopsy room. Kwon gestured to a small table and handed Curran a set of latex gloves.

  “Your little mouse there shouldn’t have croaked.”

  Curran looked at him. “You finished already?”

  “Yeah. And I know what you're thinking. I'm a physician. I don't know crap about animals. But I was going to be a vet before I switched. And if that's not good enough for you, I phoned up a buddy of mine who works for the vet school at Tufts out in Grafton. He drove up and took a look.”

  “He still here?”

  “No. Had to teach a class at one. But he confirmed my initial findings. The mouse – Harry you guys called him? He was in perfect health. No doubt helped by the large amount of handouts you clowns down at homicide must have fed him.”

  “The guys loved the little scruff,” said Curran. “They were pretty bummed when they heard the news this morning.”

  “Yeah, well, I don't know if you want to go spreading this around. Probably just better to let them think he was on his way out anyway.”

  “Are you telling me what I think you are?”

  Kwon motioned for Curran to look closer at Harry's still corpse. “See here?”

  “The flap?”

  Kwon nodded and handed Curran a small pair of tweezers. “Check it out.”

  Curran bent and used the tweezers to snag the edge of the flap.

  He lifted it.

  His heart sank.

  Kwon’s voice came close to his ear. “Want a magnifying glass?”

  Curran shook his head. “No.”

  He let the flap go and stood back up. “I take it mice brains aren’t supposed to be green, either?”

  “Not according to my friend.”

  “Nifty.”

  “Whatever can do this,” said Kwon. “Or whoever - I'll tell you what: I’ve never seen anything like it. There's no medical precedent. As far as science is concerned, this crap-” he pointed at Harry. “-just does not happen.”

  Curran nodded. “Which leaves us where?”

  “Pretty obvious to me,” said Kwon. “Might be time to look a little closer at the supernatural theory.”

  Just what he did not want to do. “You know where Harry died?”

  “In your office, right?”

  “Yeah.” Curran’s heart hammered in his chest. He needed a cigarette. “He died last night while I was working late.”

  Kwon’s eyes opened wider. “Steve-“

  “Yeah. That’s what I’m saying, pal. Harry here died while I was sitting only a few feet away.”

  “That means-“

  Curran nodded. His head hurt. Everything hurt. “The Soul Eater paid me a visit last night.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Has anyone ever told you that you smoke too many cigarettes?”

  Lauren watched the expression on Curran’s face change from serious to wry. “Everyone I’ve ever known.”

  “And yet you still smoke.”

  Curran shrugged. “Maybe I’m not ready to imagine a world where man has no vices. Maybe I think everyone has something they do that’s not altogether wise. Some type of activity that they ought not to do, but do it anyway.”

  “The good can’t exist without the bad, is that it?”

  “Déjà vu,” said Curran.

  Lauren glanced around Newbury Street. Throngs of people shoved their way toward the subway station while panhandlers held their cups out hoping for a brief glimpse of salvation. Most of the people walking by ignored them.

  She glanced back at Curran who ground out the butt of his cigarette. “What’s happened that you called me down here again?”

  “You don’t enjoy coming here?” He gestured to the street. “This place doesn’t do it for you?”

  “I don’t enjoy seeing the amount of misery the city inflicts upon others. I don’t know if I was made for city living.”

  “Not like you grew up in the country.”

  “No.” She watched another businessman shove past a beggar, the look of contempt clearly evident. “But a move there might be just what I need.”

  Curran stayed quiet for a minute, the weight of indecision evident on his face. “I think this guy – this Soul Eater – paid me a visit last night.”

  Lauren felt her chest heave. “What? Are you kidding?”

  “Wish I was.”

  Lauren listened as Curran told her the details. When he finished she simply stared at him.

  “You named him Harry?”

  “Wasn’t my choice,” he said. “Sometimes cops aren’t very imaginative.”

  “And Dr. Kwon did an autopsy on it? And the brain was green as well? Just like my brother?”

  “Yeah. And all those other people this Soul Eater guy has killed.”

  “Does Kwon have any idea why it turns green?” There hadn’t been any mention of the green brains in anything she found at the library.

  “Says there's nothing he's ever seen that explains it. Aside from the supernatural.”

  Lauren could see the frown etched across Curran’s face. “Why is it so difficult for you to accept the idea that he might not be of this world?”

  “You’re making him sound like he’s an alien.”

  “Alien in the sense that he doesn’t belong here.”

  Curran sighed. A stiff cold wind blew a newspaper past his feet. “You don’t think this guy is human even?”

  “I’ve never known any humans that could rip the soul of a man right out of his
body.”

  “Neither have I. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’m just not ready to accept the idea that he might be some kind of…I dunno…a demon.”

  “Demons come in all shapes and sizes, Steve.” She tried to smile. “I’ve wrestled with quite a few of my own over the years.”

  He chuckled. “And here I thought they’d all have scaly skin, horns, and smoke coming from their noses.”

  “Sometimes it’s the ones who look the most like us that are the worst.”

  Curran nodded. “Wish I could embrace the idea as easily as you seem to.”

  “Something’s keeping you back.” She touched his arm and felt him jump a bit. “What is it?”

  She watched him look up at the sky. Thick gray clouds streamed in from the west. There’d be more rain tonight. November’s cold soaking rain.

  At last Curran sighed again and reached for a cigarette. “Happened when I was a kid.”

  “What did?”

  Curran’s lighter clicked a small blue flame into existence that he touched to the tip of a fresh butt. She watched him close his eyes and inhale. When he exhaled, his eyes opened but they were already far away.

  “I had a friend. Named Joey. Joey and I, well we were about as close as two guys could be growing up. Played baseball, hung out, pitched cards, you name it, we did it. We got to the point where there wasn’t much need to do a lot of talking. We could just look and know what the other was up to. Pretty cool when you have a friend like that in your life.”

  I wouldn’t know, thought Lauren. I’ve never had anyone like that in mine.

  “Joey’s family, you know they were old school Italians straight over from Sicily. Very church-going. Every Sunday. Holidays. Feast of Saint Anthony’s – the whole nine yards. Joey, you know, he kind of poo-poo’d the whole thing being we were kids and all, but I knew he had a lot of respect for the Church.”

  “Did your family go to Church as well?”

  Curran shrugged. “We were German Protestants. I think the only time we used to go was midnight mass on Christmas. Otherwise, we were pretty relaxed about our religion.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” said Lauren.

  “Well Joey and his family – to them it was wrong. To them, we weren’t being respectful to our faith. They used to parade the fact that Joey was an altar boy and try to make it seem like my family was less than perfect for not going every Sunday.”

  Curran smirked. “My old man, it didn’t bother him a bit. He was like that – couldn’t give a damn what people thought of him. As long as he put in an honest day’s work and took home his pay to support his family – that was fine in his book.”

  “Did you ever wish you’d gone to Church more often?”

  “All the time. It would have made it easier visiting Joey, that’s for sure.”

  He paused and sucked down the length of the cigarette. Lauren watched his eyes narrow. “What happened, Steve?”

  “Joey changed.”

  “What – like you two grew apart?”

  Curran shook his head. “No. He changed. Instead of laughing and pal’ing around the way we used to, he got really…weird.”

  “Weird?”

  “I asked him about it, but he wouldn’t say anything. Just accused me of being paranoid. But I knew. I knew something was going on. We hadn’t been best friends for years for nothing. I could see something was bothering him. Bothering him bad.”

  “Did you find out what it was?”

  Curran’s jaw tightened. “Yeah. I found out.” He exhaled a long trail of smoke into the darkening air. “The next Sunday I went to church on my own. And I saw Joey do his thing at the altar. I watched the folks going up for communion, listened to the sermon by the old priest, and hung out. Joey didn’t know I was there. Why should he? I’d only ever gone once a year all those times before.

  “When the service was over, I hung back. I hid in a pew and waited until everyone had left. When it was just the priest and the altar boys there.”

  Lauren’s heartbeat increased. Oh God, she thought.

  Curran nodded. “You know already what I’m going to tell you. Well, it’s true. That damned priest took Joey into his office and raped him. Bent him right over his damned desk and had his way. Then the priest saw me and started to come for me. I ran. I ran so freaking fast I thought my legs would fall off.”

  Lauren could see the effort Curran was exerting trying to contain the mist in his eyes. She touched his arm.

  “That bastard hurt my friend. My best friend.” He shook his head. “And when I confronted Joey about it and told him we had to tell someone, he said that he already had told his family.”

  Lauren said nothing.

  “They didn’t believe him. His mother beat him for telling lies about the priest. She said God would never have made a man of the cloth such a monster and that Joey must have been lying.”

  Lauren remembered the fear she felt when her brother raped her. The dark nights. The cold scent of terror. “That poor boy.”

  “He was never the same. And I never went to Church again. For years after that I used to lay awake at night wondering how God could permit such a hellish person to exist. How could he let someone pervert his teachings to the point where he could pray on innocent kids? I never understood it. I still don’t understand it. Not to this very damned day.”

  A car horn blared a block away and Curran seemed to snap back to reality. “Cripes, it’s cold out here.”

  “What happened to Joey?”

  “The abuse took its toll. His family had him committed to a mental hospital and he died there a few years later. We’d moved in the meantime.”

  “What about the priest?”

  Curran looked away. “We should get going.”

  Lauren put her hand on his arm again. “Steve-“

  He turned and looked at her. “I told you before I’d killed only twice in my life.”

  “Yes.”

  “I lied.”

  She looked into his eyes and saw the cold black hatred that had been stirred by the evil of one man. And she wondered how Curran had managed to contain it for so long.

  He nodded. “Yeah. And that’s why I’m not a big fan of things involving the Church. Even today. Even with the abuse scandal being unraveled. The Archdiocese still has things it won’t turn over. And the courts put up with it. The tolerance for harboring pedophiles – serial rapists – nauseates me to no end. They ought to all be exterminated for what they did to those children.”

  “That’s a pretty harsh sentence, Steve.”

  “Well, I sure as hell don’t see God handing out any judgments.”

  “Maybe that’s because he does it when we die.”

  Curran nodded. “Yeah. Maybe. But you know what? I don’t think we should have to wait that long.”

  She could see the torment he’d endured over seeing his friend brutalized. “You’ve got a lot of pain inside you.”

  “I’m working through it.”

  Lauren felt another cold wind wash over them. In the evening air, it seemed like the city could simply envelop them in the cold drizzle and wash everything away.

  Some things definitely needed to be cleaned, she decided.

  “We need to stop this thing, Steve.”

  He blew another stream of smoke into the air. “I know it.”

  “You understand we might need the help of the Church to do that?”

  “Yeah. That’s what makes this such a bitch to bear.”

  “Can you do it?”

  Curran tossed his cigarette to the ground. “I don’t have much of a choice anymore, Lauren.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because this thing – this Soul Eater as you call him. The sonofabitch paid me a visit last night. And I don’t want that happening ever again.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Lauren caught the subway back out towa
rd Brighton after leaving Curran. She wasn’t entirely sure what she hoped to discover going back to the school, but the old nun there had been the only help she’d gotten so far.

  And there seemed to be something about her that led Lauren to believe she knew more than she let on about what they were going through.

  Or I might just be imagining it, she thought. Throngs of students crammed the car, pushing their bodies into the other passengers. They passed through Kenmore Square and thankfully most of them got off to head to Boston University. Lauren found a seat and sat, staring out of the window.

  The train roared up Commonwealth Avenue, its windows streaked now by the cold rain falling out of the black sky. Lauren fingered her cross and felt its cool metal soothe her.

  If only it was that easy for Steve. She frowned. Certainly seeing a best friend raped and then almost getting the same treatment would make anyone hate the Church. After all, Lauren could sympathize to some degree. After her brother had raped her, she’d lain awake at night questioning in much the same way Steve had.

  But her path had led her back to the Church, not away from it.

  Not like Steve.

  We’re so different, she thought. So different. And yet very similar.

  She smiled at the thought of having him as a boyfriend. She quickly chastised herself for thinking such a foolish thing. He was a cop, after all. She was going to become a nun. There was no way it could work.

  It shouldn’t work.

  She shouldn’t desire him at all.

  If only it was as easy as her mind told her it should be.

  If only this whole thing hadn’t happened at all. She’d never have known someone like Steve existed. And each of them would have gone on with their lives blissfully unaware of the other.

  God works in mysterious ways, she smiled.

  Maybe she was supposed to know Steve. Maybe they figured into one another’s lives in way they couldn’t yet see.

  She sighed and went back to looking out of the window. Maybe she just had a silly crush on him.

  ***

  The rest of the trip passed without event. Lauren got off at the final stop, skirting the campus of Boston College and heading down a side street toward the seminary and academic buildings of the Archdiocese. Streetlights overhead cast long shadows that danced ahead of her on the sidewalk. The rain had stopped for the moment.