Absence of Faith (33 page)

Her face soured immediately and
Nick noticed.

"Well, yeah, okay, but I have to
get home," she said.

The elevator doors opened and they
stepped inside.

"Thanks. I only have a few
questions. Did you know Doctor Henry Graber?" Nick said and pushed
the button labeled "L1."

"Oh, yeah, he was a fine man. We
worked together. It was terrible the way he went," she
said.

"Have you heard about any doctors
or nurses belonging to a Satanist cult?"

She looked at him and Nick saw a
tinge of nervousness flash through her eyes.

"No, but there was another
detective asking about that, too," she said calmly. "Is there a
cult here at the hospital? That would be awful."

"Not that we know of," Nick replied
watching her as if she was prey. "You're not involved in a cult,
are you?"

"Me? The whole idea repulses me.
I'm a nurse. I'm here to help people, not wish evil on them or
glorify death. I see enough death and suffering here to last ten
lifetimes," she explained.

The elevator stopped and the letter
"L" above the door lit up. The doors opened.

"Well, you've been very helpful
Miss Doherty. Thank you."

She walked out ahead of Nick, and
turned left towards a corridor that led to the rear of the hospital
where the employees parked. Nick walked towards the front entrance,
but when she turned a corner, he headed back towards the rear
entrance. He walked down the corridor to the double glass doors
that led to the parking lot. He watched her get into a dark gray
BMW. He rushed up to the doors and read the number on the rear
license plate. He went back to his car and called
headquarters.

"Hello Sam. This is Vancuso. Patch
me to Irene in DMV," he said.

"Sure." Nick waited a few seconds
for the connection then heard the low melodic voice of Irene, one
of the DMV information specialists.

"Hello, DMV," she said.

"Hi, Irene, this is Nick Vancuso. I
need an ID on this number.

Tango, Romeo, November, five, four,
one, eight."

"One second."

Nick watched a middle-aged woman
help a bony elderly man into the passenger side of a blue
Ford.

"The car is registered to Janice
Doherty, 784 Old Creek Road, Neptune. It's off Sandy Point Road out
in the boondocks," Irene explained.

"Thanks. I owe you one," Nick
said.

"You owe me everything," she
replied. "When are you gonna let me cook dinner for
you?"

"I gotta go."

"Bye."

Nick drove to the address and was
disappointed because the road was wooded on both sides for about a
half of a mile in each direction. He couldn't park and stake out
the house without being seen. The long dirt driveway disappeared
into the woods, so he couldn't tell if she were home because he
couldn't see the car. He knew he would have to come back after
dark.

Nick drove to the Drunken Pelican,
a local bar and grill that served the best cheeseburgers in the
county. Nick often had lunch and dinner there. He pulled into the
white gravel parking lot and suddenly he relaxed. He walked the
long wood-planked walkway as he had many times before memories of
better times flooding into his consciousness - memories of Friday
nights there with his wife. When he opened the heavy wooden door
made of several ships’ hatch covers it creaked like a door in a
haunted house. Inside, the air smelled of cigarette smoke, beer,
and perfume. The bar was dark except for small, wall lamps that
illuminated each table. A few people filled the nightspot, where a
local band would play on weekends. Nick made his way towards a
booth on the side of the bar, where he had line sight of the door
and where he could catch the bar conversations if he wanted to
listen in on other people's problems. The conversations were easily
captured from the bar by the upside down dingy hanging from the
ceiling that clearly amplified the sound and channeled it into
Nick's booth. He always sat there and the waitresses began calling
it Nick's booth. Nick ordered his usual, a cheeseburger with
tomatoes, lettuce and a tangy house dressing with a hint of
barbeque and smoked cheese. Nick was content occasionally glancing
at the door and out the window to view the boats sailing by on the
Red River. The waitress brought his cheeseburger after several
minutes and Nick took his first bite of enjoyment that day. Then
the door creaked and as it slowly opened Nick's eyes widened. He
immediately turned towards the wall pretending to read the tent
card next to the buoy shaped salt and pepper shakers.

N
urse Janice
Dotherty was dressed in blue jeans and a white loose-fitting blouse
that hid her small breasts as she pushed the heavy wooden door open
and entered the Drunken Pelican. Feeling confident and at peace
with herself, she had tied back her hair into a braded ponytail
that extended to the top of her butt, and she wore makeup -
something she rarely used. The thin nurse walked to the bar and
took a seat. Nick saw her walk in and quickly moved to the other
side of his booth with his back to the bar so she wouldn't spot
him. He stopped eating so he could hear her talking.

"Kyle come in yet?" she asked the
burly bartender.

"Due in a few minutes, and I hope
he's on time. Steve wants to leave early," he said. "Want a
beer?"

"Sure."

Nick took a few more bites of his
cheeseburger, a thick juicy affair on a hard roll with poppy seeds,
tomato and a special house dressing. He couldn't believe the luck
he was having today. It was like hitting a home run after a season
of no hitters. Nick took another bite of the sandwich. It was the
best he had ever had. He was thoroughly enjoying it when the door
creaked open again. A tall young man with long brown stringy hair
entered. His hair was parted in the middle and reached his
shoulders. Nick could barely see him in his black t-shirt, jeans
and black boots. He walked towards the end of the bar where the
nurse was sitting.

"Kyle. Hi!" the nurse said. "I was
waiting for you." Her voice was sensual.

"Hi." he said. "Nice to see you,
too."

"I was wondering if I can come to
your place tonight? I'd like to talk to you about the meeting at
the coven stead. I have a lot of things I want to talk about and
I'll make it worth your while."

"Yeah, sure, okay," he
said.

Kyle reached into his pocket and
pulled out a single-ringed key chain with six keys on it. He
located a tarnished brass key with a round head and peeled it
off.

"Here's the key. What’s a coven
stead?"

"It’s the place where we meet,
silly," her wide mouth smiling and her eyes beaming.

"Oh. Sounds like something out of a
western."

"You’re so silly," she said and
kissed him on the cheek.

Nick perked up when he heard
Doherty say "coven stead" the cult's meeting place and home base.
He knew she had lied to him in the elevator earlier. Now, he had
another possible link - Kyle the bartender. Doherty had a second
beer and stayed another hour talking with the bartender and Kyle.
Nick ordered two more beers and slowly consumed the brew waiting
for the nurse to leave. He could not let her see him for she would
surely recognize him and suspect that he was following her. He
didn't mind waiting - he was enjoying his small victories, the
atmosphere of his favorite bar, and the beers he consumed that were
making the night so pleasant.

The bar began to fill up and the
noise level escalated. Nick could no longer hear them talking at
the bar. He was just about to order another beer when he saw the
long ponytail of the nurse walking towards the door. Nick began to
move out of the booth, and then stopped. The nurse turned around
and waved to Kyle with a big, bright smile. When the door closed,
Nick counted to ten slowly and left. He moved quickly since the day
was almost gone and she would not recognize him in the gray light
of the approaching night. He walked quickly to his car, keeping his
eye on her gray BMW as she pulled out of the parking lot. He was as
stealthy as a cat. He followed the BMW to Anchorage Apartments, a
short distance from the Drunken Pelican. She parked behind building
2950 next to a row of garages. Nick moved quickly - he parked the
car and ran towards the front of the building, but she had
vanished. He stopped there. If he went inside and started looking
around, she could pop out anytime and see him. He knew the night
was too good to be true, but nothing was lost. He had the name of
the apartments and the building number. Besides, the beers had made
him feel lazy and he really wanted to go home. He decided to leave
and come back in the morning.

* * *

Nick had a slight headache when he
arrived at the superintendent's apartment in the late afternoon. He
had worked most of the day on other cases that needed his attention
and now he was feeling a lull in his energy. He rang the bell and
waited. The door opened and a short, older man wearing blue
coveralls appeared. His gray hair and wrinkled face suggested he
was not fit for the job.

"Hello, are you the
superintendent?" Nick said.

"Yeah."

"I'm Detective Nick Vancuso of the
Middletown Police and I need to know if you have a man named Kyle
living in building 2950."

"I don't know. You'll have to talk
to the secretary. She can look it up for you," the man replied.
"What's this for? He do something wrong?"

The man opened the door wider to
let Nick enter.

"I just want to talk to him," Nick
said and walked into the apartment.

The living room contained a desk
against one wall, filing cabinets and a long table covered with
small piles of papers. A tall, pretty girl with her hair styled in
a pageboy worked on a computer at the desk.

"Hello, can I help you?" she said,
looking up from the computer.

"I'm Detective Nick Vancuso of the
Middletown Police. Do you have a man named Kyle living in building
2950."

"That would be easy enough," she
said and her fingers began to move on the computer
keyboard.

"Here he is."

"May I?" Nick asked.

"Sure."

Nick walked around the desk so he
could see the computer screen. He took out a tiny pad and a thin
gold pen.

"Here," the girl said pointing to
Kyle's name and address.

Nick copied the information in his
pad.

"Thanks. You've been helpful," Nick
said.

"Working on a big case?" she asked,
her green eyes sparkling.

"No. Just routine stuff," Nick said
and left.

Nick parked in the back of the
building hoping that if Kyle was going to make a run for it his car
would be back there. Nick walked around to the front and entered
through a double door entrance. Overhead fluorescent lights
illuminated the long carpeted hallway. The tacky rug was black with
large orange octagons that connected each other. It should have
been retired years ago, Nick thought. He found 295C and rang the
doorbell. He waited a few moments listening for sounds inside, and
then knocked on the door. No one answered.

"Kyle Mabus?" Nick said. There was
no response. Nick went to the door across the dark hallway, raised
his fist to knock, and then stopped. He decided to leave. Outside,
he felt someone was watching him as he walked back to his car. He
pulled away, turned left out of the parking lot and parked nearby.
Then he ran back to the apartment building, hid behind a row of
bushes, and watched the entrance. After an hour, Nick was tired and
went back to his office. There, he gathered his briefcase and then
informed the dispatcher he was going home.

Nick fired up his Crossfire and
pulled out of the parking lot in the rear. He turned left and
headed towards Ocean Village. He decided to avoid the traffic and
turned off onto a small one-lane county road that went in the same
direction. The road was empty as the day succumbed to darkness. The
faint lights of far-away houses occasionally peeked through the
dense trees that lined the road. Nick liked this road because of
its hills and tight curves - he really liked to see how fast he
could negotiate the turns. He was a kid again, who had just
received his driver's license when he drove on this road. He
approached a downhill straightaway that curved sharply at the
bottom. He pushed the accelerator down and the car shot away like a
rocket. This was his favorite stretch of the road. He would brake
hard near the bottom to make the curve because he wanted to beat
his last record of 40 miles per hour. He waited until he was a few
hundred feet from the curve before he lifted his foot off the
accelerator and placed it lightly on the brake pedal. He turned
carefully as he approached the curve, glancing at the speedometer
occasionally. Suddenly, the car slipped and moved sideways instead
of following the road. The tires screamed as they tried to grip the
road, but the loose sand was no match for them. Nick instinctively
turned the wheel in the direction of the skid and pressed lightly
on the brake, but he didn't have the room to let the car move any
further off the road because it was so narrow. He had only one
choice - he turned the wheel sharply in the opposite direction and
slammed on the brake, hoping the car would spin completely around
and stop facing the opposite direction. The car spun around, but
not all the way. The driver's side rear slammed into the trunk of a
small tree causing the car to ricochet off the tree and head
straight into a large oak. Nick kept his foot hard on the brake and
gripped the steering wheel with all of his strength.