Boy Crucified (21 page)

“Charlie,” I said.

He looked at me and frowned.

For a long time, I said nothing, merely looked at him. There were times, on my job, when I didn’t really want to catch the killer. Sometimes I understood the pain and hurt that had led to the killing in the first place. Or the love. Sometimes I felt sorry for the person.

“Where’s Brother Leo?” I asked, very quietly.

Charlie’s eyes darted, quite subconsciously, up to the hayloft where I suspected Brother Leo had been hiding all this time.

“Why are you asking me?” he replied, his eyes narrowing.

“It’s got to stop now, Charlie,” I said. “I know what you’ve been doing.”

Charlie began to look around, as if to see if there was a way to dart past me.

“Daniel, I think you should get on the phone to Grubbs and tell him we might need some backup,” I said.

“Boss?”

“Just do it,” I said.

“My phone’s in the car.”

“You might want to go get it,” I said.

Charlie’s eyes continued to dart back and forth, then he made his move. There were two sets of doors in the barn. He ran toward the set farther down, pushed through them, and ran off into the rows of corn beyond.

“Call Grubbs!” I shouted to Daniel. Without waiting for a response, I rushed off, following Charlie into the cornfield and immediately regretting it. Although the field had been harvested, the cornstalks left behind were as high as I was, and it was impossible to see much of anything. In addition, many of the stalks had been broken, and I was in constant danger of tripping over them.

Since he was wearing sneakers and much younger, Charlie hurried off and was quickly lost from sight.

I raced after him, hoping I was heading in the same general direction. Up ahead to the left, I caught a flash of his flannel shirt as he cut sideways through the field. I did the same, pushing dried-out cornstalks out of my way.

I reached the end of the field just in time to see him vanish into the trees that bordered it. I went into the trees, unnerved by the silence. Which way had he gone? I heard twigs snapping, but they seemed to be coming from everywhere. I called out for Charlie to stop, to talk to me, but of course he did not.

After several frantic minutes of running, I slowed to a walk. I could not see him, had no idea where he was now. I was in good shape, but no match for a teenage boy who was comfortable with woods and farmlands. And I’d forgotten how large those woods and farmlands could be when one was on foot. We were perhaps a mile from the house, perhaps more.

For many minutes I walked deeper into the woods, down ravines, through clearings, spooked by the silence, chilled by the wind and the coldness of the day.

In my pocket, my cell phone rang. The sound of it was startling. I hurried to answer it.

“Boss?”

It was Daniel.

“Did you call Grubbs?”

“Boss, you’d better watch your back. Brother Leo was in that barn. He jumped down out of the loft and was gone like a shot. He went straight after you. You hear me?”

I stopped, turning around. “I hear you.”

“Man, where the fuck are you?”

I allowed as to how I had no idea in hell.

“Well, Grubbs is coming, a whole shitload of guys, in fact, so find a road, if you can, flag someone down. But for God’s sake, watch your back. Why didn’t you tell me that prick was up there? Jesus!”

“I wasn’t sure about that,” I replied, now wishing I had prepared him better. It hadn’t occurred to me that Charlie would make a run for it, or that I would foolishly run after him, leaving my partner behind. Damn sloppy work, that was.

“I’m going to try to retrace my steps,” I said. “Charlie could be anywhere out here. Grubbs and his men will have to beat the bushes and find him. He can’t go far anyway, can he?”

I rang off, feeling both annoyed and a bit frightened. I hated woods. In fact, I hated Mother Nature. I hated animals—rodents, mammals, red in tooth and claw and all that. I despised reptiles. Snakes made my skin crawl. Even birds frightened me. I could see myself being attacked by a flock of them, my eyes getting pecked out. Give me the city any damned day.

I struck off in what I thought would be a northeasterly direction, certain I would either come across the road or the cornfield, one or the other, within the next ten or fifteen minutes. I hadn’t been chasing after Charlie for longer than that. Or at least I didn’t think I had. I found what appeared to be an old, abandoned road, and began to follow it. About three minutes later, I saw Charlie standing in the road up ahead, staring at me.

I was so surprised, I didn’t know what to do.

“They made me do it!” he called.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?”

“Tell you about what?”

“About Frankie? Brother Boniface? What you and Brother Leo did?”

I thought I saw his shoulders hitch up, as if he was fighting back tears.

“Where’s Brother Leo?”

He slowly shook his head.

“Why, Charlie?” I asked.

“He made me do it,” Charlie said.

There was about twenty feet of old road between us. If he took off, I would not be able to catch him. Obviously he knew that. Yet he seemed to want to talk, which was what I had originally suspected—that he was an unwilling partner, caught up in something he couldn’t get out of.

“I can help you,” I said.

“He made me do it!” he said again, more forcefully.

“You’re in love with Brother Leo, aren’t you?”

His face was stricken.

“But Frankie and Eli told on you, didn’t they? Told on all of you. And when you found out about it, you had to shut them up, didn’t you?”

Charlie shook his head.

“And when Brother Boniface came along on Friday and jumped in the van to take Frankie to Kansas City, he must have been surprised, because there you were—you and Brother Leo. All of you took Frankie to Kansas City, didn’t you?”

“They made me do it,” Charlie said again, despair in his voice. “They had pictures of me! I didn’t want to get in trouble!”

“What happened, Charlie?”

“We told Brother Boniface to not get involved,” Charlie said.

“That doesn’t mean you had to kill him.”

“We told him to get out!”

“So you killed him, didn’t you?”

“I don’t have to tell you.”

“Well, I already know, so it doesn’t matter, Charlie. Then there was Eli. You know, if you hadn’t done that, I would never have figured it out. But you couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

Charlie started to cry. He was caught. He was guilty. He couldn’t hide it, couldn’t deny it. Tears were only natural. Tears were a way of saying
please pity me, please feel sorry for me, don’t be mad
.

“Admit it,” I said.

“They made me do it!” Charlie replied forcefully. “Those fuckers made me do it!”

Of that, I had no doubt. But I wanted a confession, an admission of guilt. I wanted him to implicate Brother Leo and Bishop James.

“You were happy to help them, weren’t you?” I shot back. “Because you were in love with Brother Leo and you didn’t want him to get caught. So you helped him, didn’t you?”

“Yes!” he exclaimed angrily.

“And Brother Leo was right there helping you, wasn’t he?”

“Yes!”

“And the bishop was proud of both of you, wasn’t he?”

“Yes!”

“And I’ll bet the bishop even promised to stop hurting you as long you helped him, didn’t he?”

“He said he would take care of me, that I could join the monastery and be close to him.”

“And you believed him?”

This produced a look of confusion.

“You were next on the list, Charlie. Don’t you understand that? After you helped kill Frankie and Eli, you were next. That’s why you need to tell me where Brother Leo is.”

He wiped at his eyes, looking miserable and lost.

“They wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Just like they wouldn’t do that to Frankie and Eli?” I countered.

“But why?” he asked.

“Because you know too much, Charlie. You think they’re going to let you walk around, knowing what you know? They’re just using you.”

I moved closer and he made no move to run. Instead, he began to cry and crouched down in the road, hugging his arms around his knees.

I walked up to him, slowly, and bent down to put my hands on his shoulders. “It’s going to be all right, Charlie,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to do all those things,” he said through his tears.

“I know you didn’t. The police will know that, too, Charlie.”

“But I’m going to be in trouble.”

“I’m going to help you, don’t worry.”

He buried his face in his knees, tears wracking his body. He was crying so loudly that I did not hear the footsteps behind me until it was too late. I turned just in time to see Brother Leo swing a two-by-four, which connected rather solidly with the left side of my face.

After that, everything went black.

III

I
WAS
jolted into consciousness by the sound of a hammer, and an agonizing pain in my left wrist.

My eyes flew open.

Brother Leo, aka Andrew Mattling, was kneeling next to me, grinning, holding a hammer in one hand, a large spike in the other.

I jerked on my arms, surprised to find them stretched out and bound to a two-by-four, like the ones Frankie and Eli had been nailed to. At first, I thought Leo had hit my hand with the hammer. Then I realized it was a nail. Nausea swept through me.

The trees above were a brilliant canopy of color and the sun was off to my right. The smell of earth was strong, and I looked about: I lay on a bed of leaves, my feet duct-taped together, my arms duct-taped to the two-by-four. My jacket and shirt had been opened and my pants and underwear pulled down so they were bunched around my calves. It must have been a rush job, the stripping. They must not have had time to do it right.

I felt humiliated. Scared. Confused. I looked to my left, at my wrist, surprised to see a spike sticking out of it.

What the hell? But why should I be surprised? The kid had tricked me. I should have seen this coming.

Brother Leo stood and handed the hammer to Charlie, who was ashen-faced.

“It’s your turn,” Leo said. “You do the other one. Just like before.”

“Please,” Charlie replied, making a face. “Don’t make me do it.”

“You got him involved,” Leo said. “Now you’re going to help me get rid of him. It’s you and me. Remember? We’re in this together, Charlie. All the way. We finish off this pig and that’s that. We’re out of here. No one will ever know. The bishop is going to send us to the house in Canada, and we’ll be safe.”

I tried to call out Charlie’s name, but there was duct tape over my mouth.

“I don’t want to,” Charlie said, wiping at his tear-stained eyes. “Please, I can’t stand it anymore!”

“You and me, kid,” Leo said gently. “You’ve got to help me here. You know that. That’s what we agreed on. You remember? You and me. We’ve got to help the bishop. We’ve got to do it for the church. We’re almost done now. It’s almost over. Just get rid of this cop. That’s all.”

“But he didn’t do anything wrong,” Charlie said.

“He’s a worldling. He’s part of the Antichrist and the Antichrist spirit. He’s just like all the rest of those Jew-loving communist faggots who are trying to destroy the world. Don’t forget that, Charlie.”

Leo handed him the spike, encouraging him to get on with it.

The pain in my left wrist was making it hard for me to catch my breath, and I watched the two of them out of the corner of my eye, my body still in denial. Surely that man hadn’t just pounded a spike into my wrist? Oh, but he had. Now he was ordering Charlie to put a spike into the other. Involuntarily, I jerked both arms, met with the same restraints as before, and was rewarded with fresh agony shooting up my left arm and down into my chest.

Christ, it hurt!

Brother Leo looked down at me, smiling. “You’re a remarkably stupid man,” he said. “A city boy, obviously, running around in the woods like a fool. You made it far too easy.”

He looked at Charlie, who squeezed his eyes shut in fear.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Leo demanded, glaring at him.

“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Charlie said again.

“Hurry up!” Leo exclaimed, giving Charlie an angry look.

My eyes darted to Charlie, hoping he would do no such thing.

Leo grabbed up a backpack that was lying on the ground. He withdrew from it a whip, the sort that must have been used on Frankie Peters: there were a variety of leather thongs hanging from the handle, small bits of barbed wire curled around their ends.

“Don’t tell me you feel sorry for this nigger-loving pig?” Leo demanded, again giving Charlie an angry, disappointed look.

With a sudden jerk of his arm, Leo brought the whip down, raking it across my exposed chest.

I went into a spasm of pain and agony.

He struck again, and again, and again.

“It’s time to finish it,” Leo said, glaring at Charlie, panting from his exertions.

My body felt like it was on fire. I twisted about, helpless.

Leo held up the whip menacingly, as if he meant to use it on Charlie.

“Okay,” Charlie said meekly. “Okay. Fine. I’ll do it.”

He took in a deep breath.

Leo turned his gaze down to me, once more smiling. “You pigs make me sick,” he said, bringing the whip down again, catching me across the upper chest.

Spots danced in front of my eyes.

Charlie was hesitating.

“Do it!” Leo shouted. “Do it, or so help me God….”

“Okay,” Charlie said, breathless. “Okay.”

With his left hand, he clutched at the spike. With his right, he lifted the hammer, testing its weight.

“Okay,” he said again.

He knelt down and put the tip of the spike against my right wrist, glancing at me as if to say, with his eyes, that he was sorry for all this. Very sorry indeed.

Then he lifted the hammer and prepared to strike.

I closed my eyes, wishing I could scream.

But instead of striking the large nail in his hand, Charlie thrust the hammer suddenly sideways and nailed Brother Leo on the shin bone.