Decatur (26 page)

Gar saw the silvery net of Marilyn’s essence moving in and around her body and it made him dizzyingly ravenous. His tongue flicked and the anticipatory saliva filled his mouth, he could almost taste the orange, rosemary, cedar and sea salt of the source. Now he would be made whole as its light would finally fill him and he would be reborn and able to continue his journey into the darkest rings. He lowered himself to his haunches, bending over her beautiful face with the candy reddened lips. “At last,” he whispered, pushing her all the way to the floor so he could climb over her and devour her being into his own nothingness. He inhaled, catching just the barest filament of it in his mouth, pushing down the fear of
what would happen to her when he took her. It couldn’t matter, he had to have her. Loss was the price of living.
He held it like the monster he was in his teeth.
No, it was just too
beautiful to rush; he could feel it quivering with the Presence, connected. Would the Divine feel his pull when he swallowed her,
he wondered with a shiver of anticipation. You will know me, he thought.
It was perfect, she was undamaged and whole, he would suck the first shimmering thread of her now.

Marilyn felt an icy whoosh; he had a piece of her in his mouth. He was going to suck her down to a place where she would never escape. The terror rushed up, nearly overwhelming her concentration on the vibrating saber. It was moving off the fasteners.
Now
, she willed all her being to the saber as it hovered in the air for a split second as if enjoying its new freedom.

Rowley was at the door wedging his way in as he saw the man Gar bending over Marilyn with a tiny piece of her light being in his mouth. As an animal he was always aware of his own light being and knew its preciousness.
Now
, he thought,
sink deep teeth
as the blood and fang instinct pulled him through the doorway and with a snarl he leapt, flying towards Gar’s neck.

The saber fell, remembering its glory days buried deep in its steel blade when it had charged through the taut flesh bodies of Confederate boys.
Now,
it flew off the stone wall and sliced the cheek of a man and then, falling still, cut through a shimmering thread he held in his mouth, taking off some of his lips. Clattering proudly on the stone floor, the blood showered all around.

Gar felt the blade slice open his cheek and slash through the filament of Marilyn’s essence he held in his mouth. Howling in pain he frantically sucked the remaining gossamer stub down. It fell through him ephemeral as a lightning bug, not enough to matter and damaged on top of it. Yet there it was, all he had, like a candle guttering out as the emptiness rolled in. He was devastated in his loss but still grabbing at Marilyn as she scooted away from him, a blood rain coming down from his face, so much so that he never saw the dog until it was on him.

Marilyn rolled away screaming as Gar tried to snatch her back. She felt an icy wound in her soul, a tiny black hole that seemed infinite and it was only when she saw her dog Rowley leaping onto Gar’s neck that she was able to pull herself back from the brink of mind-numbing despair that threatened to overpower her. Rowley was risking his own being for hers and in that moment of love she was able to kick away from Gar and scramble back up on her feet, the tiny black hole shrinking.

Rowley went for the big vein throbbing in Gar’s neck. His jaw clamped down hard as his fangs ripped at the unnatural man’s throat. It opened up like a blossom, and the killer instinct was on him now as he tore at it. Gar roared and backhanded him. Rowley felt his teeth rattle as his jaw absorbed the blow and he was thrown across the room smashing his head on the stone wall. He felt his brain move in his skull and then the light went out.

Marilyn ran across the room to Rowley slumped against the stone wall as Gar held his neck, the deep bite spurting blood. She knelt down and scooped him up just as she had when he was a puppy so many years ago. She pressed his warm limp body against her own and staggered up, carrying him towards the crypt’s doors.

Gar was blinded by a rush of red. He felt his lips, there was a fleshy flap hanging from the side of his mouth. He might be disfigured. No, it would mark him, he thought in a fury of despair and anger. He saw the saber that had cut him on the floor. You’re mine now, he thought, as he bent down to take it, even as the blood poured from his lips, cheek and neck. As his big hand closed around the curved handle worked in copper and gold he saw Marilyn with the dog in her arms squeezing her way out the door and he slipped in his own blood, coming down hard. His ankle buckled under him and he felt the muscles twist. She was getting away again. She had used her powers to protect herself and now she was escaping as she had before. He was cursed. She was more powerful than he knew; now able to command objects to her will. Like him she had been gaining things all along their twisted pursuit.

Marilyn was running awkwardly down the path away from the ruin with Rowley in her arms. “Wake up, wake up,” she said over and over as she ran, unable to bear the thought of him dead. Thunder rumbled in the background. It felt like the apocalypse.

Rowley was at a lake with a large full moon shining in it. Tall pine trees whispered secrets on the wind and all the animal spirits were one with the great mother. Wolves howled at the moon in a circle and gestured him to join them. “Well done, brother,” they said to him. He felt a deep contentment. He had fulfilled his purpose, the trees said, he could go and join his brothers. He was in a warm cradle and he just had to let go to be one with the great mother and the animal spirits. But something held him back, some scent from long ago, the scent of human fingers that smelled like oranges and rosemary, sea-salt and cedar. Marilyn’s fingers.

Rowley’s eyes were slits but they were open; Marilyn fell to her knees behind a grave marker. “Come on puppy, you got to walk, he’s after us,” she whispered in his ear. “I know of a hiding place, you can make it.”

The moon wobbled in the lake. The biggest wolf turned his head and looked at Rowley. “It’s alright brother, we’ll be here,” the wolf said to Rowley and then the animal spirit lake disappeared as Rowley fully came back into his body, every muscle aching and his jaw feeling bruised and swelling.

They ran as best they could then not looking back, weaving through the cemetery they knew so well and coming out on the weedy side where a railroad trestle ran over Chestnut Street. Marilyn tugged him gently down the slippery embankment, the asphalt road fifteen feet below them. “Come on,” she said softly and crawled towards a narrow ledge that ran underneath the trestle. Rowley didn’t like it and he was beginning to shake, feeling sick and weak from his injuries. It didn’t look good to him, they could fall into traffic and after running across the street today he had a better feeling for what that could mean. “Now,” she said her voice steely, “Come.” Rowley did as he was told and slinked his way towards her on the ledge. She put her arms around his shaking body and held his jaw gently closed in her hand. They both shivered together on the dark and narrow ledge as the rain began to fall as it had threatened all morning. It wasn’t very long before they both heard it together, the feet pounding the railroad ties, the heavy breathing, it sounded like he might be dragging a leg, as Gar painfully ran over and past them in their hiding place.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A Morning Appointment with the Feds

Mrs. Napoli greeted Agent House and Colby like she might have greeted armed intruders, which is what they were to her. Agent House’s mare’s nest of wild hairs on his left eyebrow seemed more off kilter than ever and even Colby was scowling when they were shown into the parish office at 9AM that Tuesday morning. Father Weston hadn’t slept well, still wired from the previous evening. He had drunk so much coffee while pacing the rectory hallway wondering if he should try to rouse Father Troy for the interview that he was jittery and exhausted before they had even begun. “Make it go away,” Bishop Quincy’s order whirled in Father W’s brain as he seated himself behind the office desk and waved the agents to the visitors’ chairs.

“Father, it seems you’ve been harboring a possible suspect in the double homicide of the drug dealing carnies and haven’t thought to bring it to our attention or anyone else’s for that matter.” House leaned over the back of the brass buttoned leather chair, his white short sleeve shirt revealing sinewy arms, cracking his knuckles at the hollow-eyed priest in an accusing way. This bastard was hiding behind a Roman collar and he intended to stick it to him anyway he could. Country-clubbing with a cross around his neck: House knew the type. A priest that preferred the company of left-leaning alternative-lifestyle intellectuals to hard-working parishioners, oh yes, he just knew the type. House had taken off his jacket and laid it across the red leather seat of the visitors chair so Weston could see his holstered gun. Get his attention that way, he thought.

Colby consulted his notebook, annoyed with the both of them. House was laying it on thick when it was Tooley they should be roughing up. He was the one who had blown it in the interview with the other priest, Father Troy.

“Agent House, believe me, I have come to the conclusion that Gar is entirely capable of murder and I assure you we will be offering you our full cooperation in the matter,” Father Weston said, wondering if Father Troy was going to come out of his room at all today. He was supposed to be covering the first shift at Monsignor Lowell’s visitation starting at noon, but Father Weston was already thumbing through his mental rolodex for a substitute, perhaps Sister Petra, the head of the grade school. House and Colby seemed like just another hassle to get through until it was time to meet Tooley and go to the Surrey to see Marilyn.

“Gar? Doesn’t this guy have a last name?” asked Agent Colby as he noticed out of the corner of his eye that a Decatur Police Department van had just pulled into the parish house driveway. The corner window of the rectory office overlooked the driveway and through the white sheers offered a clear view. Colby had an unsettled feeling, knowing that the locals had been told to stand down and let the feds take the lead on the case. So what the devil was a police van doing in St. Pat’s rectory drive?

“Not that we know of,” Father Weston said, unaware from behind the desk of the van in the driveway.

“We’re going to have to talk to Father Troy, where is he?” House said, leaning in closer and Father W couldn’t help but notice that the FBI agent needed to get his nose hairs under control along with his crazy eyebrow.

“Not feeling well, I’m afraid,” said Father Weston.

A skinny officer in plain clothes, windbreaker and jeans with a pencil mustache got out of the van and then, out of the passenger side, Agent Tooley emerged. Colby tried to catch House’s eye but he was too busy looking intimidating for the priest. “What’s going on?” he said, hitching his thumb towards the window. House looked annoyed for a split second and then swore. Father Weston got up then from behind the glass-topped desk.

“I’d prefer if you could keep the cursing to a minimum, Agent,” he said, not because he was really bothered but to jerk House’s chain.

The skinny plain clothes officer pulled the van doors open and lifted out a three- speed black bicycle and put it down in the drive. The bike had a wire basket attached to the handlebars and was dented. The FBI agent folded his arms over his chest as if to say, “Come on, I got the goods.”

Father Troy pushed the heavy pebbly cotton drape in the upstairs hallway aside; the exotic plant print from the thirties always made him think of his mother’s deck furniture cushions in Ely, Minnesota and right now that wasn’t a pleasant association. Out in the driveway was a Ford sedan belonging to the FBI agents downstairs with Father W, and now a police van. He watched the black agent get out of the van along with a policeman as his stomach churned. His invisible shields had lowered sometime in the night and, staring up at the ceiling, he came back into himself somewhat. He had acted like a fool last night going to the waitress’s home and if truth be told been a lousy priest all the way around since Gar had come into their lives. He had fallen in love with Gar to the point where he had lost his judgment, Father Troy realized as he saw them pull his bike out of the van. The daydreams underneath the library tree burned into his brain. He was a priest, a modern day Vatican crusader; he couldn’t let Gar ruin his life. Why was it so hard, he wondered, the choice between honor or love? It seemed so unfair. His black bicycle stood in the driveway like an accusing finger.

“
Help me, St. Francis. I call on your mercy
,” Father Troy whispered to himself and started down the stairs, his black frock coat kicking out in front of his leather sandals.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Tooley?” Agent House was out the front door of the rectory striding across the drive towards the local cop and the other agent.

“This is Detective Trent, local PD,” Agent Tooley said, “I’ve been in touch with Inspector Danson and brought him all up to speed.”

“You’ve been what?” sputtered House. Tooley wasn’t the least bit rattled and the skinny bastard just stood there looking smug.

Colby and Father Weston joined their tense little circle just as Father Troy came out of the parish house door. The younger priest looked almost as dented as his bicycle as he slowly made his way across the drive to the other men.

“This your bike, man?” Agent Tooley said in an unhurried, kind voice. He felt for the younger priest who really wasn’t such a bad cat after all. Just a queer. Queers happened. He never understood it but it didn’t bother him either. The twin spires of the church towered over them and he saw the shame in the priest’s blue-grey eyes behind his little hippie spectacles.

There was a long pause. Everyone looked at Father Troy and he felt the invisible shields starting to come around his feet but then Father Weston patted him on his shoulder.

“Mark, just tell the truth,” Father W said.

“It’s, it’s mine,” Father Troy finally said.

“Well, that’s it, boys,” the skinny Detective Trent said.

“What’s it?” asked Agent Colby, truly confused and a little worried.

“Agent Tooley will fill you feds in, but this investigation has been transferred back to the local police department where it should have been all along and we’ll be working with Tooley on any loose ends,” said Detective Trent with more than a trace of triumph in his voice.

“He sure will fill us in,” said House, but inside his guts were turning to ice water. What had gone wrong with his mob and drug case? He could almost feel his promotion slipping through his fingers in the heavy soybean stink of that Decatur morning.

“Suzanne Cleary was the tipster on Gar from the get-go and Father Troy’s bike was the last piece in the puzzle.” Agent Tooley loved it when all the little squares got filled in and this case was starting to come together like his Sunday morning crossword.

“This bike is evidence that he chased Suzanne Cleary off the road and caused her death. It was found abandoned at the scene. We’ll be bringing murder charges against Gar, last name unknown, in Suzanne Cleary’s death, which may get downgraded to manslaughter, but we’ll go ahead and see if we can’t get him to confess to the murders of the carnies which we suspect he did as well. You filled in enough now?” Detective Trent asked in a sarcastic way.

Father Troy sagged then, seeing Gar riding out of the driveway waving goodbye in his mind. Gar would never confess to any murders, they didn’t know how smart he was, they wouldn’t be able to trick him into telling them a thing. Oh, don’t let this be real he thought, suddenly picturing himself going to Joliet State Prison to visit Gar on death row. The Death Row Priest, that’s what they’d call him because he knew he’d be there every week. And then unbidden the thought came into his mind:
at least I’ll get to see him for the rest of his life. And with appeals that could be a very long time.

“Thanks for everything then, Tooley. We’ll see you back in Springfield,” House said in a way that made it clear that water cooler conversation wouldn’t be even close to cordial in the future. House and Colby nodded curtly then and got back into their sedan backing out of the driveway with a swerve.

“Roger that,” Tooley said. He didn’t much care anymore. Inspector Danson had his back on this one for putting it together and getting their field resources out of a case that they didn’t belong in. House and Colby had been wasting time while the professor had helped him identify the killer and he wouldn’t forget that. The sooner they picked up Gar the better - because if he really was the psychotic head case that Max Rosenbaum described, Decatur wouldn’t be safe until he was caught.