I tipped my head at him. “Didn’t hit it off?”
He stared at the ground, scuffed the gravel. His silence, I figured, was as much an admission as he could make. The fact was, he had behaved as shamefully as any human being could on the night of the exorcism. He’d been revealed as an adulterer, a drug user, and the architect of a sleazy double life. Yet far worse than these revelations was the decision to unleash Officer Jack Bittner on Ron’s own son.
When Ron looked up at me, he must’ve read all of these memories in my face, for his eyes filled with tears, and his voice broke as he said, “Please talk to me, Father. I’ve got nowhere else to turn. Danny hates my guts, Liz slapped a restraining order on me. I can’t even—” He choked back a sob. “—can’t even see my kids.”
“Don’t you think that’s best?”
He leaned forward on the Civic’s lusterless gold roof. “I know I don’t deserve mercy, clemency…whatever you guys call it.”
“Absolution?”
“That either. But I’m still a person, right?”
“It’s debatable.”
He peered at me in the soft pink gloaming. “Can’t you at least let me talk a little? I’ve got no one, Father.”
“What about your other wife?”
He made a face. “Jesus, she wasn’t my wife. Now she’s worse than ever. Wanting this and that. You know how much she’s asking for?”
I didn’t particularly care how much his mistress was blackmailing him for, but I asked the question anyway.
“Two hundred grand a year,” he said, eyes wide and aggrieved. “Two hundred Gs, Father, and that won’t be the end of it. And it’s not like I make millions at the Mercantile. Yeah, I do all right. Most guys would kill for the kind of income I’ve got. But that shit adds up. And she acts like it’s nothing.”
“It’s a truly sad plight,” I said and unlocked the Civic. I climbed in, rammed shut the door, and keyed the engine.
“Wait!” came his frantic plea. He hustled around the rear of the car, and some shadowy part of me—not the region governed by Malephar, I must confess—longed to wrench the car into Reverse and back over the bastard.
Ron was peering at me through the driver’s window. I could feel his need, his pitiful desperation broadcasting over me in waves. I exhaled and slouched onto the steering wheel. Reached over, pushed the Unlock button.
Ron trotted around the front bumper, let himself in, and plopped down next to me. “Where’re we going, Father?”
I jerked the Civic into Reverse, backed out, and guided us toward the business district. “The 7-11 on Clark.”
“I gotta tell you, Father,” Ron said as we cruised through the church-owned property, “it’s nice to finally see a friendly face.”
“I’m not your friend.”
“Oh, I know that, I know that. But I was just thinking… have you talked to Liz?”
“Very little,” I lied.
“That’s interesting,” he said, glancing out his window. “I’d have thought, after the other night… you know, you guys going through so much together…I figured Liz’d be really grateful to you for helping Casey. Beholden, even.”
I looked at him sharply. “What are you implying?”
“Not a thing.” He shrugged. “Only that… you know how traumatic experiences tend to forge a special bond. Soldiers in battle, that sort of thing.” He whistled softly. “Craziest goddamned thing. Two men killed under my own roof. Right on my property.”
I had a quick flash of Father Sutherland’s broken body lying facedown on the concrete, the strobing lightning illuminating his splayed limbs.
“It was a nightmare,” I said.
“But you haven’t seen Liz?”
I shook my head, wondering where she was right now. I wished I were with her.
Alone.
“What about Danny?” Ron asked. “You two seemed pretty tight.”
It took all I had not to bray laughter.
“What?” he demanded.
“Leave it,” I said. “Where are you staying?”
“A friend’s.”
“Your mistress’s.”
Ron glared at me. “What about you, Father? I heard you were over there this morning. Over at my house.”
I realized with dawning alarm that this might have been the true reason Ron had called on me this evening. To pump me for information about Liz. Or to learn if my relationship with her had evolved beyond the platonic.
I had no desire to reassure him.
“Your ex-wife got a restraining order for a reason, Ron.”
“You mean my wife,” he said.
“If you want to believe that. Either way, I don’t believe it’s my place to tell you what she’s doing.”
“Or who she’s doing,” he muttered.
I jerked the wheel and skidded to a stop. “Out,” I said.
“Hey!” he said, palms up. “Don’t go batshit on me. I didn’t mean—”
“The hell you didn’t,” I snapped. “This is exactly the kind of crap that got you into trouble in the first place.”
“It was my son getting possessed by a goddamned demon that got me into trouble.”
“Your marriage was doomed anyway,” I said, angry at myself for getting into this argument, but too full of rage to shut my mouth. “Liz married you for your money, she said so that night.”
“Oh yeah? And what else did she say to you? ‘Stick it in me, Father’?”
“I want you out of my car,” I said. “Right the hell now.”
“Yeah, you didn’t look very priestly sneaking up my drive at three fucking AM.”
I shot him a look.
“That’s right, Crowder. I was there. Hell, you thought you were being clever, parking on the street like that. You parked right behind me. I watched you slinking into my house.” His upper lip curled. “But I didn’t see you leave.”
I couldn’t conceal my shock, but there was something else nagging at me now, something of even greater importance. “If you saw me go in…” I started.
“Yeah, I watched Danny drive up too. You guys were probably having yourself a threesome with my wife, weren’t you? Goddamn perverts.”
I barely heard him. “Where did Danny go when he left?”
Ron grunted. “That’s a good point. I guess he didn’t bone my wife, not unless he’s a one-pump chump. Guy was in and out of the house in under fifteen minutes.”
“That’s right,” I said, more to myself. “He left pretty hastily.”
“I didn’t say he left,” Ron corrected. “I said he was out of the house.”
I stared at him, bewildered.
Ron grinned nastily. “I thought you might not have known that. And here I thought he was just watching out in case I showed up.” There was a speculative gleam in Ron’s sharkish eyes. “Maybe it was you he was keeping tabs on. Making sure you weren’t up to anything. You know, sneaking down the hall to Liz’s room. Or one of the kids. I know you priests like ‘em young.”
The muscles of my forearms tightened. “Shut your mouth.”
Ron smirked at me. “Or what?”
I forced myself to look away. “You’re telling me Danny never left?”
“Not while I was there. I pulled out… Oh, musta been five in the morning.”
“And Danny was…”
“Still in the side yard. Staring up at the guest bedroom. The one I’m guessing you spent the night in. Unless you got horny.”
Bile tingled in the back of my throat.
Ron nodded. “Maybe Danny knows secrets about you, Father.”
“You’re a fool.”
“Maybe. But if Danny thinks you killed Sutherland and Bittner, he’s gonna arrest your ass any day now.”
I reached across him, threw open his door. “Stop stinking up my car.”
Ron giggled. “Sure, Father. I’ll get out. I’ll even accompany you across the street.”
“What are you—”
“The 7-11,” he explained, p
ointing at the building catty-cornered from us. “It’s right there.”
¨¨¨
To my chagrin, Ron was as good as his word. He moved with me across the street, making comments about the approaching thunderheads, and followed me into the convenience store.
I nodded to the clerk, a young Indian woman with a fetching smile. I’d never introduced myself properly, but we were cordial to each other and comfortable in each other’s presence.
Or as comfortable as I could be around a pretty woman.
“This your favorite night spot?” Ron said, looking around. “I haven’t been to one of these in years. Liz does our shopping.”
I was sick of Ron’s patter and didn’t respond. Plucking a cherry-red basket from the stack, I crossed the entryway and ambled down an aisle populated by cookies and potato chips. I reached the refrigerated area, opened a glass door, and selected a couple microwavable meals, one of them lasagna, the other sweet-and-sour chicken. They weren’t gourmet, but they were edible.
Ron eyed the frozen dinners with mock appreciation. “Nice choices, Father. You gonna wash those down with some good Irish whiskey?”
“Tired stereotypes,” I muttered, moving down the aisle. “If you had any originality, Liz might’ve found you more interesting.”
Ron hooted, drawing the stares of an older couple, a black man and a short woman who might have been Filipino. “That’s the spunk I’m used to. The way you spoke to me the other night, I couldn’t believe Sutherland let you get away with it.” Ron’s voice grew contemplative. “Maybe it was his lax attitude that got him into trouble, huh?”
I turned, the basket I grasped swinging so violently it almost knocked over a Gatorade display. “Don’t speak of Father Sutherland. At least he tried to help your son. You wanted Casey dead.”
Ron took a step back, as if seeing me anew. “So the gloves come off.” His eyes grew shifty. “You still believe that stuff about my sic’ing Bittner on Casey?”
“I witnessed it, Ron.”
I became aware of several sets of eyes on us. The couple a few feet away; a gaunt man to my left, whose wiry white beard gave him a vaguely homeless look. A pair of teenaged girls in the next aisle over, maybe sophomores in high school, who looked too innocent to be alone at twilight.
Ron crossed his arms. “What if I wanted Bittner there for Casey’s protection, you ever think of that?”
“He wanted to kill your son.”
“I told him to haul Casey in. I wanted my son out of that house. He was a danger to himself. Bittner was the only one big enough to handle Casey in that state.”
“You’re detestable.”
“You’re the one who needs to give answers. No one saw what happened between you and Sutherland—”
“It wasn’t between me and Sutherland,” I said, elbowing past him
“Sure it wasn’t,” Ron said, following. “It was the demon, right? The demon who hitched a ride in that priest’s body and made him jump out the window? Just like the fucking movie.”
I snagged a half-gallon of two-percent milk, shoved it into my basket. Ron’s words had rattled me. The comment about The Exorcist was the same comment an investigating officer had made while taking my statement at the hospital. Had I time, I might have come up with a less derivative story to explain Peter Sutherland’s death, yet it was the only one that fit the evidence.
Other than the truth, of course.
But I wasn’t about to admit I’d thrown my mentor through that third story window. Or that Malephar had endowed me with the strength to commit murder.
“I was wondering,” Ron continued, his breath hot and yeasty on my neck, “can priests get absolution when they screw up? Because you sure as hell need to spend some time in the confessional booth. Murder, coveting another guy’s wife, telling lies so you can get in her pants—”
“Listen,” I said, turning to stare him down. “You better shut your mouth before this goes any further.”
(Kill him)
I tensed at Malephar’s whisper. My rage must have awakened the demon—or coaxed him closer to the surface.
Ron’s eyes went wide, his thick eyebrows disappearing under his shaggy black hair. “Tough words for a man of the cloth,” he said. “You talk a big game, Father.” A glance at the onlookers, Ron reveling in the audience. “You maybe want to do something about it?”
(Kill him, Jason)
“See,” Ron went on, “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. You know, remembering how slick you were, how well you managed to insinuate yourself into my place.”
The black man muttered something to the short woman, something about paying for their items and leaving.
Ron ticked off his points on his fingers. “You’ve been eyeing my wife on Sundays, and since I’m not one for church, I had no idea you were hitting on her all those mornings.”
Sweat was beading on my forehead, the eyes of the bystanders crawling over me like thirsty ants. “This is absurd.”
(Do it! Tear his throat out!)
“And Casey. You come to his rescue, save him from the monster, and Liz thinks you’re some big hero.”
“Ron,” I said, controlling my voice with an effort, “you and I have nothing to say to each other.”
“Oh we don’t, huh? When a man takes my place, sleeps in my bed—”
“I did not sleep in your—”
“—or maybe you were too busy boning Liz to sleep—”
“I did not—”
But I never finished. Because at that moment, three men in masks burst through the front door. They were shouting at everyone to get on the floor.
They were carrying guns.
Chapter Eight
“Open the goddamned register!” one of the gunmen shouted and leveled the gun through the Plexiglas at the Indian woman. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, and seemed out of place working in a convenience store. I wondered if her parents owned it, then brushed the thought away as frivolous, considering the circumstances.
And the circumstances were dire. The other two gunmen had already dispersed through the store, bellowing at the horrified patrons to get the fuck on the ground, to put their goddamned hands on the backs of their heads, to not say a fucking word. And if anyone went for a cell phone, they’d blow a hole through his motherfucking face.
One of the gunmen stalked down the aisle toward me, his eyes blue and fierce under the black ski mask. “Are you a moron, Father? Do you fucking comprehend English?”
In the confused jumble of my thoughts, I wondered how he knew I was a priest. Then I remembered my Roman collar, and on the heels of that, my reasons for wearing one. The majority of the priests at St. Matthew’s eschewed them. While I respected their decision, I had always aligned with Father Sutherland and Father Patterson’s view, which was that a priest should advertise his vocation plainly. Not as a vain demonstration of pride, but as an outward expression of faith. “We need to show others that we care about pleasing God first,” Father Sutherland used to remind me. “We need to make it clear that we’re ambassadors of Christ, conduits through which His everlasting love can flow to those who will open their hearts to Him.”
The gunman thrust his gun at my face. “I’m not gonna ask again, you fucking retard. Get on the goddamned floor!”
The next aisle over, a girl was moaning, and though she was shielded from my view, I was certain it was one of the teenagers. It appeared that the third gunman, a mountainous guy whose barrel-shaped torso stretched the black fabric of his hooded sweatshirt, was mashing his foot into her back, or at least that was my guess based on the way he was shifting every time she moaned.
“You think I won’t do it?” the gunman in front of me demanded. I could see how puny his arms were, how the black hoodie drooped as though sodden. His blue eyes were very pale, the swatches of skin visible around them so white I was reminded of a skeleton bleached by the sun. “You think I give a flying fuck about your religion, Father? I was raised Catholic,” he
said, showing yellow, scummy teeth. “You think that shit helped my mom when she got sick? You think it helped me when I needed money for school?”
I gazed into his pale blue eyes. Lost, haunted eyes. “You believe that God makes people suffer?” I asked.
“I believe He doesn’t give a shit,” the young man said. “If He exists at all.”
“He exists,” I said. “And He’ll never abandon you.”
But the gunman wasn’t listening. “You holier-than-thou bastards. You judge everybody and hide behind the Bible and tell people what they can’t do and then you cut ‘em loose the moment they mess up.”
I understood his anguish, had wrestled with it myself. Very frequently, life wasn’t fair. And God was the easiest scapegoat. If He was omniscient, the hurting heart demanded, didn’t He know when something bad was going to happen? And if He knew, and He allowed the terrible thing to occur, wasn’t He devoid of feeling? Or worse, wasn’t He a cruel, pitiless deity rather than a loving one?
Yes, I understood this man all too well. But I had to try, had to do what I could for this lost soul. “God doesn’t want to push you away. And he certainly doesn’t orchestrate human suffering. His son showed us that love is the greatest power.”
The gunman’s eyes opened wide. “Are you telling me you love me? Are you really trying to peddle that bullshit now?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s what I’m telling you. I do love you, and so does Christ.”
He jammed the gun against my chin, the muzzle fitting neatly into my dimple. “I’m gonna waste you, you lying son of a bitch. So help me, I’m—”
“Dylan!” someone shouted.
The gunman’s trance broke. He blinked, glowered over his shoulder. “We’re not supposed to use names.”
“When you’re about to fuck up the whole thing,” the massive gunman growled, “he’s gotta get your attention, right?”
“Still shouldn’t’ve used my name,” Dylan muttered.
“Get ‘em over there in one spot,” the gunman at the front of the store shouted. “As far away from the door as you can.”
Exorcist Falls Page 18
