I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’ll tell you who the Sweet Sixteen Killer is. It’s Da—”
A sledgehammer crashed into my breastbone. I dropped to my knees, groaning, straining for breath. A thunderbolt of pain rode all the way from my right shoulder to the tips of my fingers. Distantly, I heard Patterson shouting, rushing toward me, but I pitched forward, the world already going dim.
I told you I would do it, Malephar declared. I told you I would stop your heart.
Please, I begged, forgetting my pride, forgetting my loathing of the fell presence inside me. Please let me live. Please forgive me.
FORGIVE YOU? Malephar bellowed. And then the demon let loose with such a raw-edged spate of laughter that I was certain my life was forfeit. Though Patterson was supporting me, I felt as though I were floating above my body, the pain in my shoulder a howling dirge. Tears streamed freely from my eyes. I’m sorry, I thought. I’m so sorry. And in my extremity I had no idea whose forgiveness I sought. God or the demon’s, Father Patterson’s or Father Sutherland’s.
Or was I trying to forgive myself?
I have no idea how long I lay slumped in Patterson’s arms, but at some point I became aware of his steady breathing, the erratic drip of the restroom faucet. I opened my eyes, and at first Patterson’s face was an unfocused square. Then, his features swam into view, and I saw his expression was one of relief.
“I thought you were gone,” he said.
Then why didn’t you call a doctor? I wanted to ask.
His stare was unblinking. “I need to make a confession.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a killer too.”
“I am,” he said.
I looked at Patterson, saw the torment in his eyes.
“I killed my daughter,” he said.
Chapter Thirteen
Sitting across from me on the floor of the women’s restroom, Patterson asked, “You ever heard of a place called Turkey Run?”
“The state park in Indiana?”
Patterson’s eyebrows rose. “Surprised you’ve heard of it. It’s only about four hours south of here, but if folks in Chicago saw it they’d think they were on a different planet.”
“I grew up in Indiana,” I explained. Then gestured impatiently. “Are you going to let me call the police on Raines, or do I have to fight my way past you?”
“When I’m done, maybe you won’t feel the need to call the cops.”
“What the hell does that—”
“Listen,” Patterson commanded, a measure of his intensity returning. “As your superior, I’m telling you to shut your mouth and listen. If you still want to go to the authorities when I’m done, I won’t stop you.”
“Who says you could stop me now?”
He chuckled. “Please. I’m twice your size, and meaner than you’ll ever be. You don’t want to get into a dick-swinging contest with me.”
I was taken aback. I’d never heard Father Patterson utter such coarse language.
He grinned. “Don’t look so affronted, Crowder. I’m a human being. And I wasn’t always the urbane man of God you see before you.”
“No?”
“Uh-uh. But by my late twenties, I’d gotten out of inner-city Gary. You been there?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “I’ve been through it.”
“Good thing you didn’t stop. Skinny white kid like you, they’d have gobbled you up and spat out the bones.”
“Get to it,” I said.
“I met a gorgeous woman, married her. She was white, not that that mattered.” He scowled, rubbed his forehead. “I don’t even know why I mentioned it. Maybe because it mattered to her family.”
I knew Patterson wasn’t married now, and I was surprised he’d been before. Then again, it wasn’t uncommon for someone to enter the priesthood after a divorce.
“Laura loved nature. I swear, we hit every state park in the Midwest those years we were together. Potato Creek, Brown County. We had little Ariana one year after we got hitched and had a blast toting her around. A kid that young…she was pretty portable.” He smiled. Then the smiled faded. “One time we went to Turkey Run.”
I found it difficult to give him my full attention. It wasn’t just the fact that a murderer had fled St. Matthew’s and was about to start his shift with another, more prolific murderer. It was that nagging thought that wouldn’t quite grab hold, that inchoate sense of urgency that wouldn’t crystalize in my conscious mind. Something to do with those strobing thoughts I’d seen when Malephar grasped Danny… something about one of the faces…
Patterson continued, going over to the sink and washing his hands. “My wife called me the Safety Monitor. I guess I was obsessed with Ariana’s safety. But I’ve always been a trifle paranoid, and when we had our daughter…” He shook his head. “…I guess that paranoia kicked into hyper-drive.”
I listened, thinking to myself that, for the first time, I could relate to Joe Patterson.
He scrubbed his hands. “My wife, on the other hand, was a free spirit. Always talked about positive and negative energy. She claimed I emitted too much negative energy. Said my manias would stunt Ariana’s emotional growth. I told her, ‘If we don’t take care of her physical well-being, her emotional growth won’t matter.’ She told me to stop being such a downer, and then we’d usually laugh a little. You know, marveling at how different we were.
“That made life an adventure. Her always telling me to lighten up, me telling her we had to be careful, that it only took one moment of carelessness for things to go wrong.”
“How did your daughter feel?”
“She was young. She probably didn’t think anything of the way her parents teased each other.“ Patterson sobered. “But some of the time I wasn’t teasing at all. Some of the time, I was absolutely terrified of something happening. It’s a scary world. You can do what you’re supposed to do and be as careful as you want, but if someone else isn’t paying attention…” He fell silent, regarded the sink. “It only takes once.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I waited for Patterson to continue. He came over, eased down, and leaned against a stall divider a few feet away from me.
Patterson smiled. “She loved the parks, though. Loved nature.”
“Your wife?”
“Ariana. She got cranky when she was tired, but most of the time she just ran around and squealed with joy. God, she was a great kid.”
His mouth twisted, and he looked away, collecting himself.
“We were at Turkey Run when it happened. If you’ve been there, you’ll know about the river that runs through the park.”
I frowned. “Sugar something?”
“They call it Sugar Creek, but it’s bigger than a creek. A lot bigger.” He shook his head. “Heck of a lot of water there. I was always nervous around water.
“But Laura claimed I was just being a downer. Told me to lighten up. So I did like I always tried to do, which was to lighten up. I mean, a guy doesn’t want to be the one bringing everyone down, does he? Especially the two people he cares about most?
“We spent the night there. It was while we were looking at the brochures in our cabin that Laura learned of the falls.”
“Wait, waterfalls?”
He nodded. “I was surprised too. ‘In Indiana?’ I asked her. Little Podunk park in the middle of the heartland? But there they were as big as life the next morning. Ever since Laura showed her the brochure, Ariana was obsessed with seeing the falls. According to the pictures, you could actually observe the waterfalls from inside the caves. So of course we just had to go there. If we hadn’t, Ariana and Laura would’ve made me the bad guy.”
He sounded bitter, haunted. I had little doubt something terrible had happened at the falls, but my desire to catch Raines was returning. He’d likely wait to do anything horrible until nightfall, but what if he didn’t? He wasn’t Danny Hartman, after all, and therefore might decide to kill on an entirely different schedule.
“I remember the sm
ell of those caves,” Patterson said. “Like the inside of a faucet. Cool and coppery and damp.” He breathed in, as though scenting the aroma.
“They found a tunnel. Later on, I learned there were a dozen spots like the one we found ourselves in. Places where you could approach a waterfall from the inside and watch the curtain of water shimmering over the void.” He glanced toward the single rectangular window, which was composed of frosted glass. “I remember the way the falls looked. About fifteen feet high and twenty feet wide. The water must’ve come from some large tributary, or maybe it had been raining a lot. Whatever the case, it was roaring something fierce when we approached.
“I was scared to death. Not for me, but for my daughter. The air was thick with moisture, and the ground was slick and mossy. I was afraid Ariana would fall and crack her knee, or worse, that she’d try to break away from me. Obviously, I was a lot stronger than her, but everything was slick. I held her back at first, told her we were close enough to the waterfall when we were actually about thirty feet away. But the way I looked at it, the falls were a hundred feet up from the creek, and if someone took a tumble from that height, there’s no way they’d survive. But my wife, she tells me to stop being such a party pooper, and she goes right up to the waterfall. The ground there sloped a little, but not so much I worried about her falling. Laura was sure-footed.” His mouth went tight. “But I’d be damned if I’d let my daughter walk right up to the edge with her.”
He shook his head. “It caused a fight. A big one. Laura rarely used profanity around Ariana, though she used to cuss like a sailor before we got married. In any event, Laura started cussing me up and down, telling me I was worse than a Jewish mother. That made me mad. All stereotypes make me mad, but that one hurt not only because it was a religious one, but because it was her way of emasculating me. Laura was like that, though. Use whatever she could to her advantage. That became apparent during the divorce. But I already knew it from our time being married. If it suited her, she’d play the ‘You should cherish me because I’m a woman card.’ In the next breath, she’d accuse me of treating her like she was too delicate, say I was being a chauvinist. Then, she’d want me to be sensitive, but whenever I exhibited behavior she didn’t feel was manly enough, she’d call me a Jewish mother or a Debby Downer.
“The fight got so bad—mostly it was Laura shouting, but I overreacted too—that she ended up getting between me and Ariana to prove her point. She took our six-year-old by the hand and hustled her right up to the edge of the cave. I was sure the both of them would tumble right into the water, but they stopped, and then it was like there hadn’t been a fight. Laura told Ariana to look up at the waterfall, and then to hold out her hand.”
Patterson faltered. “My daughter was little, even for her age. Laura was short, and Ariana took after her. So when Ariana held out her hand, she wasn’t able to catch the stream of water the way Laura did. So Laura had her lean out farther. I was already sick seeing how close my wife had let Ariana get to the lip of the cave, and when I saw my little girl leaning on tiptoes over a drop of a hundred feet, I guess I lost it. I went to grab her…you know, snatch her back from the edge…but Laura stepped between us. We collided, and one of us must’ve nudged our daughter. One moment she was there, on her tippy-toes, trying to catch the spray with her fingers. The next she was just… gone.”
Patterson took a moment to collect himself.
“She didn’t even scream, least not that I could hear. The roar of the falls was so loud, it…” Patterson compressed his lips. He gazed down at his lap, cleared his throat. “They didn’t find her until a diver went in. The water was deep, we found that out later. If I’d have known…but in my mind, I thought it’d be rocky. Shallow.” He broke off, tears streaming down his cheeks. He’d clasped his hands, was staring down at them.
I said, “It was an accident. You loved your daughter.”
He glared up at me. “No, Crowder, I love my daughter.”
“What happened wasn’t your fault—”
“Don’t you see? It wasn’t just that she fell. I know that if my wife had been smarter, less intent on proving she was right, Ariana never would’ve been in that situation.” His eyes widened. “It was the fact that I didn’t jump in after my daughter. If I had, I might’ve saved her life. I told myself I was being responsible, that if I died, she’d die too. So I sprinted through the cave and wound my way down to the water as fast as I could, but all the while I recognized the error in my thinking. If I’d have jumped, and if I died in the jump, that meant Ariana had already died too. But if she’d made it to the water alive, if the impact with the water didn’t kill her, and if the water below wasn’t too shallow, that meant there was still a chance. That meant I could have made the leap too, and I maybe could’ve saved her.”
Though I dreaded the answer, I had to ask, “Did they ever determine the cause of death?”
“Drowning,” he said flatly. “My daughter drowned because no one went in to save her. Not fast enough, at least.”
We fell silent, the drip of the faucet our only companion.
I regarded Patterson’s bowed head and finally understood why he was so cynical. And though I should have thought only of his emotional pain, I couldn’t help but remember the eight murdered girls.
Kate Harmeson.
Mary Ellen Alspaugh.
Shelby Farnsworth.
Katie Wells.
Joy Smith.
Ashley Panagopoulos.
Makayla Howell.
Julia Deveroux.
Each girl had only been a decade older than Patterson’s daughter, and though Ariana’s death had been a tragedy, it hadn’t been premeditated, hadn’t been authored by someone’s twisted desires.
But the Sweet Sixteen killings had been choices. None of those young women should have died. Yet they had.
Danny Hartman had claimed the first seven girls, and now he had an accomplice, or, to use Danny’s own word, an apprentice.
I had to go, I decided. I had to stop Raines before he could kill again.
I rose. “Look,” I said, “I’m sorry you lost your daughter. I’m sorry it ruined your marriage.” Patterson got to his feet, looking ready to protest, but I cut him off. “I know that affected you, Father Patterson. It was probably the reason you became a priest. To save as many souls as you could to make up for Ariana’s death.”
He lowered his chin, his face taking on a threatening cast. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, Crowder. And don’t speak of my daughter.”
“Fine. But if the story you told me was intended to coerce me into silence, I’m sorry, Father, but it didn’t work. I’m going to put an end to this madness once and for all.” I started past him. “I’m going to have Tyler Raines arrested.”
Patterson’s big hand shot out, clamped over my bicep. His grip made me wince, despite my efforts to appear impervious. “You won’t get anywhere with that. You think you’re the first priest to go to the cops? It’s your word against his. It’s a dead end, even beyond the morality of it.”
“The morality of it?” I snapped. “How about the morality of killing—”
“Would you just listen?” he yelled, swinging me around. Six inches from my face he said, “We’re gonna stop Raines together, you dumb shit. We’re gonna catch the other guy too, the Sweet Sixteen.”
He let me go, straightened the cuffs of his shirt.
“You believe me?” I asked.
He glanced at me. “You ever see an innocent man act the way Raines did?”
“I don’t get it. What are you proposing?”
“We spend the evening watching him.”
“And then?”
“Then maybe he’ll lead us to the Sweet Sixteen.” Patterson’s eyes were hard, his voice flat. “I want both of these monsters, and I want them tonight.”
¨¨¨
Malephar did not protest until I climbed into the shower. Then, as if the hot water roused him from some uneasy slumber, he railed at me. You’re sh
attering our covenant!
We’re following Raines, I answered. Not Danny.
Danny will be with Raines, you cocksucker!
I haven’t told Patterson, I countered. It was his idea to do surveillance on Raines.
You led him to Danny.
If he discovers Danny doing something he shouldn’t, that’s not my fault.
Lying CUNT! Malephar roared.
There’s nothing you can do about it, I said, soaping my armpits.
Is that what you believe?
I haven’t broken our agreement. It’s Danny’s fault for making his butchery a group endeavor.
No answer from the demon.
Sharp needles of dread began to poke the nape of my neck. Malephar?
The pain was so sudden and exquisite it dropped me to my knees. On the way down my forehead smacked the temperature control knob hard enough to draw blood from my brow. I knelt under the boiling spray, shuddering and groaning at the pressure in my torso. It was as though someone had encircled my chest with a stout rope and was cinching it inexorably tighter. I pawed at my chest, my ribcage, but the invisible rope only tightened, stealing my ability to breathe. I fought for breath, actually embedding my fingers in the indentations between my ribs as though I could relieve the pressure there, but it was of no use. Panic set in. The base of the tub was a haze of steam, the moist air entombing me. My belly and torso leaden, I leaned over the edge of the tub until I flopped onto the floor. In the improved glow of the overhead light, I caught a glimpse of my bare chest, saw how it pulsed and twitched as though giant centipedes teemed under my flesh. Yet that grisly sight scarcely registered because I was suffocating, my breath coming in shallow, labored sips. I heard a cracking sound and thought that one of my knees had broken a floor tile. Then two more cracking sounds erupted, and I realized I was hearing my ribs fracture. Instinctively, I pressed a hand over a spot where the pain was especially bad, and I was horrified to feel one of my ribs crunch outward, the jagged shard of bone poking me from beneath its tent of skin. Horrified, I felt scalding heat in the base of my throat and realized the violence being inflicted on my torso was causing severe internal bleeding. The hemorrhaging blood elevatored higher, slopping over my bottom lip and further clogging my airway. Blood splatted on the ivory tile. My body spasmed, racked with peristaltic waves of geysering crimson. Frantically, I thrust out a hand, hauled myself onto the sink, somehow made it to my feet, gazed into the mirror.
Exorcist Falls Page 25
