Being nine, I had no idea how to express these thoughts.
The one thought I did express, incessantly I’m sure, was a desire to help knock down a wall Phil had marked for demolition. Situated between the small galley kitchen and the dining room, Phil had decided to raze the wall in an attempt to create a more open floor plan. Since the cottage had been built in the early fifties, the walls were constructed of plaster, which necessitated the use of the heavy blue-handled sledgehammer I’d spotted in the bed of Phil’s truck. Maybe wanting to give me a chance to prove my worth, or more likely, to shut me up, Phil had finally agreed to let me strike the wall first and thus begin the demolition.
I knew I was in trouble the moment Phil hefted the sledgehammer and placed it in my hands. The weight of it made me stagger, though I did what I could to maintain a rugged demeanor. Cocking an eyebrow, Phil had instructed me to choke up on the sledge and to aim for a spot he’d marked with a penciled X. The spot, he said, was on a level with my face and should be an ideal starting place for the tear-out. Further, he explained, the electrical wires were situated about eighteen inches from the floor, which meant my aim would have to be, in his words, “worse than a blind man’s” to miss my mark badly enough to do substantial harm.
Assuring him I understood, I strained to raise the sledge. Phil asked me if I needed help, and I shook my head no. When the sledge was about stomach-high, I realized I couldn’t raise it any higher, but this, I decided, wasn’t a problem. Once the sledge was in motion, I told myself, I’d be able to swing it in an upward trajectory and hit the large penciled X. But a third of the way through my swing, my muscles failed, that familiar impotence overwhelming me. I did what I could to redirect the heavy iron head of the sledgehammer, but my efforts were useless. In slow motion I watched it plummet lower, the force of my swing more than potent enough to punch through the plaster and crush the electrical wires lurking beneath.
The hole I’d made began to flash. Blue and gold sparks spat through the broken plaster. Growling obscenities and something about a faulty circuit breaker, Phil thrust me out of the way and grasped the sledge’s handle. I went sprawling on a pile of nail-ridden boards, sustained an ugly puncture wound just below the elbow, and cried out. This was met with more obscenities from Phil, who’d wrestled the sledge out of the wall, but was now faced with an injured child and a potential fire. He disappeared through the doorway. Moments later, the sizzling and zapping sounds ceased from the severed wires, and Phil reentered the room, sweating and flushed.
He stood over me, heedless of the blood that dribbled between my fingers. “Goddamned breakers,” he said, mopping his forehead. “Things shoulda tripped when you damaged the lines.” He looked around, shook his head. “Whole damn place coulda gone up in flames, kid. You shoulda just told me you couldn’t do it.”
Those words resonated with me now. I’d wanted to help Phil, but I couldn’t do it. As a teenager I’d wanted to enjoy all the things my peers were doing—dating, playing sports, making friends—but I couldn’t.
And tonight, I had proven impotent again. Sure, I’d stopped Ron from being executed and prevented the teenage girl from being further violated, but it hadn’t been Jason Crowder doing those things, had it? It had been the demon sating his warped desires. I hadn’t actually done anything except relinquish control.
“Quite a mess you made here, Father,” a familiar voice said.
I whirled and found myself face-to-face with Danny Hartman. I hadn’t even heard him drive up.
He grinned broadly, relishing my surprise. “Relax, Father. From what Ron told me, you deserve a medal. Am I right?”
When I didn’t answer, he said, “Sure makes me wonder though. I’ve been mulling over what’s different about you since that night. You know, the night of the exorcism? I’ve been doing some reading on demonic possession and I’ve found some fascinating stuff.” He pretended to consider. “Most sources claim you can’t kill a demon. You can drive it out of someone, but it has to go somewhere. According to you, it went into Father Sutherland, no? But even if it did, he died when his head splattered on the concrete. Which means the demon would’ve been freed from his body.”
“Not necessarily,” I said, dry-mouthed.
Danny ignored me. “So I’ve been looking around for signs of demonic possession in my brother’s neighborhood. Seeing if there’s anybody speaking in tongues or barking at the moon. So far, I’ve got nothing.” He gave me a meaningful look. “Nothing except a priest who crushed a guy’s face tonight and somehow overpowered two other hardened criminals.”
I couldn’t endure that knowing smile. I turned away and saw someone else approaching from Danny’s cruiser. This new policeman was younger than Danny, lankier. He had blond hair, a sunburned face, and wore the same dark blue uniform that Danny had on. I put him in his mid-twenties.
“Feels like it’s about to cut loose again,” the new policeman said, eyeing the cloudy black sky. “I’ve lived here all my life, and I’ve never seen a month with so much rain.”
Danny nodded at the new cop. “This is my partner—my apprentice—as of yesterday. Father Crowder, meet Tyler Raines.”
Raines nodded, offered his hand. “You really kill those bastards?”
I felt like I was going to be sick.
Danny whapped me on the back. “Father Crowder here’s got a guilty conscience, Tyler. I’m afraid this business happened at the worst possible time for him.”
Raines lowered his head in sympathy. “Yeah, Danny told me about that. Sorry about your friend, Father. He sounded like a great man.”
“He was,” Danny agreed. “It’s a damn shame Father Sutherland died. Sometimes I wish it would have been one of us instead.”
I shot Danny a look, but he only eyed me blandly.
“So,” Raines said, swinging his arms a little, “you took down three dirtbags, huh?”
“Only one,” a voice said. I turned and saw the detective in the Goo Goo Dolls shirt staring at me from a few feet away. I tried to control my galloping heart, but I feared I was coming undone.
“That’s right, isn’t it?” the detective asked.
When I didn’t answer right away, Danny said, “Detective Ambrose asked you a question, Father.”
I bit my lower lip. “I already told that other officer—” I nodded at the red-haired woman, “—everything that happened. I don’t feel like reliving it.”
“Relive it anyway,” Detective Ambrose said. “Or you’ll spend the night in custody.”
So I recounted it again, down to the last gory detail. As I had earlier, I told the story as it occurred, the only omissions involving the role of Malephar. This wasn’t difficult. Whenever Ambrose asked me why I did something, I explained that I was trying to save innocent lives.
When I got to the part about Myron Meeks, Ambrose asked, “How do you think God would feel about the way you mangled that guy’s face?” A protracted pause, Ambrose staring. “You think He’d be proud of a priest who did that?”
“I won’t speculate about God’s feelings,” I answered.
“You mean you don’t want to,” Ambrose said. He looked at Danny and Raines. “I don’t blame him. You won’t believe the carnage this guy left behind.”
“I believe it,” Danny answered.
Ambrose glanced at him, seemed about to say something, but I resumed my story hoping Danny wouldn’t elaborate. When I got to the part about Connelly shooting himself, Ambrose waved his hands. “Hold on a second, Father. This is the part that makes no sense to me. You two are scuffling, correct?”
“That’s one word for it.”
“And you smash his face through a glass door.”
I tasted acid on my tongue, tried to rid my mind of the way Connelly’s face had molted off his skull. “Yes.”
“Then you say something that nobody but you and Connelly can hear… and then Connelly just carves up his own throat?”
I didn’t answer.
Ambrose shook his head. “I’m sorry, Fa
ther, but that doesn’t wash. Why the hell would he fight you, then just decide to take his own life? Whatever you said to him must have been pretty bad to get a reaction like that.”
I forced myself to meet Ambrose’s shrewd stare. I was conscious of Danny and Raines watching me as well.
Ambrose uttered a little laugh. “You gonna make me ask the question, Father?”
When I didn’t speak, he said, “Okay, fine. Be coy. I’ll ask you: What did you say to make Connelly kill himself?”
And I repeated the lie I’d told the red-haired officer, the lie that made me despise myself to an even greater degree.
“I told him I forgave his sins.”
This was met with silence. After a time, Raines said, “Well, at least there’s that, right? I mean, at least Connelly got right with God before he bit the big one.”
“You’re forgetting something,” Ambrose said. “Suicides go to hell, don’t they?”
I swallowed. “Opinions vary.”
Ambrose chuckled. “Whose opinions? I never heard of an alternative view, at least not among Catholics.” He paused, scratched the skin beside his mouth. “And what I find most interesting is how this same exact thing, a man killing himself in Father Crowder’s presence, happened earlier this week.”
My muscles seized up, a new fear gripping me. All this time I’d been brooding about my soul, but I’d never really considered the possibility I’d be arrested.
Just how could I account for the similarity between Randy Connelly and Jack Bittner, both men taking their lives in my presence?
Irrationally, I found myself looking at Danny for help.
He eyed me in silence. Then he scratched his jaw. “The Bittner thing was different, Ambrose. I can tell you without question that Father Crowder had nothing to do with that.”
“But Crowder was alone with him,” Ambrose said. “Doesn’t that seem like an odd coincidence to you?”
“Not really,” Danny answered. “Not if you’d been with Bittner as long as I had. The guy was a time bomb. What his ex-wife did to him, taking his daughter away like that. It was only a matter of time before it all built up.”
“But why that night?” Ambrose pressed. “Why when only the Father here was around?”
“Casey was there too.” Danny frowned. “And whatever was inside Casey,” he added quietly.
Ambrose sighed. “I’m sorry, Danny, but I still can’t buy all that horror movie shit. I know you believe it, and I’m sure the Father here believes it, but…nope. Stuff like that doesn’t happen. At least, not in Chicago.”
There was another silence. I worried Ambrose would push harder to make a connection between the suicides, but Tyler Raines saved me.
“Should we tend to them?” Raines asked, motioning toward the onlookers who’d congregated along the yellow tape strung across the parking lot. I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed before, but there were maybe fifteen or twenty people rubbernecking at the 7-11.
“I’ll stick around,” Danny said. “Why don’t you deal with that other business, Tyler?”
Raines began to protest, but Danny stilled him with a raised palm.
“Listen,” Danny said, holding his partner’s gaze for a beat. “You need to file that traffic stop. I can handle this. You just go and get the paperwork done. I’d rather be out of the office anyway.”
Raines nodded, but his expression was troubled. Was Danny throwing his weight around with the new guy?
I didn’t know, and I didn’t really care. Because the assaulted girl kept casting too-inquisitive glances at me as she sat there on the sidewalk, a blanket thrown over her shoulders.
Ambrose muttered something and drifted toward the store. Raines set off toward the police cruiser, leaving me and Danny alone.
His face only inches from mine, he nodded at the girl who’d been assaulted. “I understand how you felt, Father. Seeing those guys terrorizing that kid.” He shook his head. “Makes you question mankind, you know? You wonder how evil like that can exist in the world.”
The wound in my head began to emit a sharp pulse. I studied Danny’s boyish face and marveled at how such monstrous thoughts could reside in such a seemingly innocent shell.
“Then again,” Danny went on, “I get it, you know? The urge to hurt things? You look around at all the bad stuff going on, and part of you wants to go crazy too. Take those killings, the Sweet Sixteen business…”
My entire body had gone leaden. I couldn’t breathe.
Danny let out an embarrassed little laugh. “If I was the murderer, I’d be getting pretty antsy. He killed that black girl the other day, but it was so good, he probably needs to indulge the urge again.” Danny leaned toward me. “He’s getting ready, Father. I think he’s gonna kill another young honey.”
As unstoppable as I’d felt when Malephar had commanded my actions, at that moment, standing under the orange-hazed streetlights with a serial killer, I’d never felt more helpless. If I revealed Danny for what he was, would anyone believe me? He’d gone undetected for months. Who’d take my word over his? If I went to the authorities with what I knew, would they investigate him, or would they arrest me for spurious accusations? If they gathered DNA from Danny, I’d no doubt they could convict him. But to get that deeply into the process, they’d have to cross-reference the murders with Danny’s whereabouts on those dates, and I had no doubt he’d have alibis.
All this was moot, I knew, because of the deal I’d struck with Malephar. I’d sworn to allow Danny to continue his reign of terror, and if I opened my mouth to accuse him, Malephar would simply stop my heart.
Danny was eyeing me now, awaiting my reaction.
I said, “It’s late. I need to get back to the cottage.”
A glance at my hairline. “Funny thing,” he said. “When we got here, that ear of yours looked like hell. Bunch of red-and-yellow crust glistening around it. Like someone had tried to make a sheet cake and botched it badly.”
I began to walk away, cursing myself for refusing medical attention.
Danny called after me. “Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, right? You’re a hell of a quick healer, Father. Those fingers of yours grew back like a salamander’s tail.”
¨¨¨
After a few minutes of driving, I spotted a shimmering body of water far below and turned in that direction. I followed the downward-trending reservoir road until the asphalt leveled out. Then I guided the Civic into an open parking space, killed the engine, and climbed out.
The Jewel Reservoir was one of my favorite spots in which to ruminate and sort through my worries. The perfect place, I decided, to wrestle the complex issues facing me tonight. My eyes on the moonlight-spangled water, I thought about the carnage in the convenience store, the bloodcurdling pleasure I’d experienced while Malephar had murdered those men with my body.
I mounted the concrete walking path, began strolling along the rim of the reservoir.
From the perspective of the authorities, I had now been involved in two violent episodes in the space of a few nights. How long would they view me as a hero? How long would their good will last?
At what point would suspicion creep in?
Soon, I decided, if not already. My stomach performing a sick lurch, I stopped and leaned forward on the steel railing, my eyes lowering unseeingly to the Jewel Reservoir, which was part of Chicago’s Deep Tunnel Project.
As always, the dark waters fascinated me.
Having lived in the city for more than a decade, I’d read often of the project, a colossal undertaking that aimed to prevent the flooding the city periodically suffered. Since it had rained a great deal over the past month, the network of runoff tunnels had surely been taxed to its limit.
I became aware of a dull roar. Peering out over the water, I saw, perhaps a football field away, a trio of huge cement openings from which gushed robust jets of excess rainwater. The tunnels were arranged like a stoplight. The lowest cylinder hung perhaps twenty y
ards over the churning surface of the manmade tarn, the middle cylinder thirty yards above that. The highest tunnel jutted eighty yards above the water.
Abruptly, the noise began to agitate me. I realized why. The reservoir was ordinarily dormant, the water level low. But tonight the surf was tempestuous and far too similar to my emotional state for me to find peace here.
I turned away and moved toward a dense thicket of trees, an area I typically avoided because I worried it was unsafe. But now, it seemed, I was the danger.
To escape the thought, I wandered through the thicket that comprised the eastern edge of Farris Park. Intrigued by the silent forest, I strode on, my unrest quickly dissipating. I gave myself up to the balmy night air, no longer concerned with the convenience store, with Danny Hartman, with anything.
I drifted through a grove of cedars, the path so lightless I could scarcely discern what lay ahead of me. Yet I moved forward, unperturbed. Aspens and willows brushed at my wrists. A squirrel chittered in the undergrowth. A piercing shriek split the night, but when I spun I realized it had only been an osprey searching for a mate. I closed my eyes, my arms outstretched, and in that moment the restlessness that had plagued me siphoned away, the park and the trees and the wildlife portending better times ahead, a life without murder and demonic spirits.
How long I wandered in the darkness, I had no idea. But when I again became aware of my surroundings, I found myself on an unfamiliar street surrounded by looming apartment buildings that were falling into disrepair.
I halted, my brow furrowing. Had I just experienced a fugue state? Had Malephar taken hold of me?
Pondering these questions and many others, I stuffed my hands in my pockets and continued down the shadowy side street. After a time, I discovered a path leading back to the reservoir road.
As I walked, I realized what I needed to do. I might not be able to escape punishment forever, but I could certainly keep an eye on Danny. He’d all but told me he was going to strike again in the next twenty-four hours. If I followed him, I might find a way to prevent—
You will die if you do, coward!
Exorcist Falls Page 21
