Exorcist Road (11 page)

Chapter Twelve

The back staircase hadn’t fallen. The demon either hadn’t worried about our escaping that way or hadn’t thought of it. At any rate, we made it to the first floor without issue. As we crept through the back hallway, through the kitchen and into the ruined foyer, I kept expecting some new menace to leap out at us. And why not? The whole night had been like a horror movie, after all, and it was still pitch black outside. Navigating the wreckage of the staircase made me wish we’d gone out the rear of the house, but after a few uneasy moments we reached the front door.

A glance at the grandfather clock told me it was only three thirty in the morning, which didn’t seem possible. The others’ faces showed the same strain I assumed showed on mine. Casey and Carolyn had dark circles under their eyes. Danny looked more than ever like he could use a drink.

Liz still looked radiant.

Ron came scurrying out of the darkness behind us and said, “What, you’re just gonna leave me here?”

No one answered him. Casey, I noticed, didn’t even spare his father a glance.

Danny glanced at Liz. “You got somewhere you can go for a little while?”

“The Tomlinsons,” she said. “They live up the road. Sarah’s my best friend. She’ll let us stay without asking questions.”

Carolyn tugged at her mom’s arm. “Can I sleep in Anna’s room?”

Liz smiled. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Ron said, “Should we pack some stuff?”

Liz’s eyes swung up and came to rest on her husband’s. “You’re never going near these children again.”

Ron’s lips moved soundlessly. He hesitated, then made to put a hand on her shoulder.

Liz said, “And if you touch me, I’ll have Danny arrest you.”

Ron flinched. He cast an unbelieving glance at Danny, who said, “It’s true, Ronnie. You don’t deserve these three, not after the stuff we found out tonight.”

Ron shook his head, put his hands on his hips. “So that’s it, huh? Some crazy spirit says a bunch of shit about me and you all believe it. I’m guilty without even giving my side of the story.”

“That’s right,” Liz said. “You’re guilty, and you’re a revolting excuse for a human being.”

I resisted an urge to kiss her.

As we made our way out onto the covered porch, Ron said, “Hold on a second… Where the hell am I supposed to go?”

“How about your other wife’s place?” Liz said. “I’m sure she’d love to have you.”

The door closed, leaving Ron gape-mouthed in the foyer.

On the porch I glanced at Liz’s lacerated forehead. “Those need stitching up.”

“It’s shallow,” Liz said. “You’re the one who needs a doctor.”

I nodded down at my missing fingers. “I guess I’ll never be a concert pianist.”

“I’ll take you to the hospital,” Liz said.

“I’m okay to drive,” Danny said.

“Okay to drive
safely
?” Liz asked.

Danny smiled wanly. “The Father and I’ll go to the hospital once we get you guys somewhere safe, okay?”

Liz tilted her head. “Still trying to prove how tough you are, Danny?”

Danny chuckled, nodded at the kids. “I’ll get ’em into the cruiser,” he said, and hustled Casey and Carolyn toward the police car. “Back window’s busted,” Danny muttered, “so you two’ll have to pile in the front.”

“We get to sit with you?” Casey asked.

Danny opened the passenger’s door for them, and they climbed in.

Leaving me with Liz on the porch.

“I’ll let you sit on the side with the window,” I said. I took off my robe and folded it. “You can put this under you in case there’s any glass.”

She smiled. “What about you?”

“I’m already so banged up a few more cuts won’t make a difference.”

She chewed her lower lip and touched my jaw, which was puffy from Father Sutherland’s hard-fisted blows. Her hand lingered against my chin. She seemed to debate with herself a moment. “Jason…I want to—”

“You don’t have to thank me for anything.”

She gave me a wry smile, cute dimples forming in her cheeks. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

I closed my mouth, chastened.

“What I was
going
to say,” she went on, “is how much I’d like to see you again.” She swallowed. “I mean, in more than a professional capacity.”

“I know what you meant.”

She smiled again, and despite the fact that her husband might very well still be in the foyer and only separated from us by a wooden door and about eight feet of space, I felt a powerful urge to take her into my arms.

But I didn’t, and this time my resistance had nothing to do with fear of women.

I said, “There might be a time when we can see each other.”

She looked crestfallen. “But not now?”

“There are things that must be done.”

She searched my face. “What kind of things?”

“It’s better if I don’t tell you. Not yet, at least.”

She didn’t seem satisfied, but she said, “All right, Jason. But when you finish with these—”

“You’ll be the first person I call.”

She watched me a moment longer. Then, I put an arm around her, and together we walked through the moonless night to Danny’s police car.

After dropping Liz and the kids off at the Tomlinsons, Danny drove us to the hospital. We rode mostly in silence, though occasionally Danny would remark on how the storm seemed to be letting up.

On the way to Saint Joseph Hospital, Danny and I got our stories straight. We kept it as simple as possible, deciding that we should tell the truth about the demon possessing Casey, about Bittner committing suicide. We’d claim that Sutherland killed himself after attacking me. The damage to my face certainly bore the tale out. Danny got out his cell phone, which unsurprisingly was working again, and called Liz. He told her our version, and she agreed to tell the same one. Since Ron hadn’t been in the room with me and Sutherland, there was no need to let him in on the deceit. Anyway, I doubted Liz would call Ron even if we wanted her to.

Everything settled, Danny radioed in to the precinct, and we went inside the hospital.

We were both discharged in the early afternoon. Despite the pain medication I was given, my hand was a shrieking holocaust, and my face ached nearly as badly. Danny had received stitches in half a dozen places, but though it was difficult for him to sit upright, he still managed to drive me home.

The story we’d told had been met at first with incredulity. But after a team had been dispatched to the Hartmans’ home and the place had been examined, even the most skeptical investigators had to concede that our story was consistent with the state of the place. It was difficult to argue with the crumbled staircase.

Though I’d never been a believable liar, I felt I acquitted myself rather well. Of course, having Danny to corroborate my story helped a great deal. Many of his fellow officers acted almost apologetic as they asked him questions.

So it was at two o’clock that we headed back to the rectory. Neither of us said much on the way there, though Danny kept eyeing my heavily bandaged hand grimly.

He pulled up to the cottage and slid the cruiser into Park.

“I wanna thank you for all your help, Father.”

I sighed. “I’m afraid we did more harm than good.”

“You don’t mean that. If it weren’t for you, Casey would still have that…that thing in him.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “And Liz wouldn’t know about her husband’s other family.”

“Hey, man, you screw around on your wife, she’s bound to find out.”

“Liz deserves someone better,” I said.

“That she does, Father. That she does.”

We sat in companionable silence for a moment before he said, “You realize it isn’t done.”

I nodded, thinking about the deaths of Jack Bittner and Peter Sutherland. I had no idea if Danny’s story about the priest would float, nor did I have the slightest clue what Danny would say about his partner. I knew he wouldn’t want to incriminate Casey, but what else could explain the man’s abrupt decision to blow his own brains out? I supposed we could claim that Bittner and Sutherland had made a suicide pact. Or were merely playing a high stakes game of truth or dare.

“What are you smiling about?” he asked.

I realized I had been smiling and briskly sobered.

He seemed to hesitate. “How much time do you need?”

I frowned at him, unsure of his meaning.

“Father Sutherland’s,” he explained. “We need to check his study.”

I swallowed, but cringed when I felt how raw my throat was from all the shouting I’d done in Casey’s bedroom.

But Danny was not to be put off. “If it’s Sutherland, we need to tell my bosses. If it isn’t…well, I suppose the investigation has to go on.”

“Do you think he’s the killer?”

“You mean
was
,” Danny said. He slouched in his seat, peered out the side window. “I don’t want him to be the one, but at the same time, I do, you know? I mean, if he’s the one who did all those terrible things to those kids…then that means it’s over. It means you ended it. You did the dirty work. Stuff like that isn’t pretty, but somebody’s got to be willing to do it.”

For some reason those words frightened me deeply. I didn’t like to think about what I’d done to Peter Sutherland. I was already second-guessing myself, sure I’d made a mistake. Somehow the prospect of searching Sutherland’s house was scarier than not searching. If we left it alone, I’d never know if I’d slain an innocent man. And if it had been Sutherland doing the killings, well, the city would soon realize the reign of terror had ended, and I could gradually return to a seminormal life.

“Father?” Danny asked.

I met his gaze with difficulty, and after a time, I nodded. He was right, of course. We had to know. It was the only way.

Evidently satisfied by what he read in my face, he nodded.

“An hour,” he said. “Get cleaned up, and I’ll come back to get you then.”

“An hour,” I agreed.

I went inside already feeling like a condemned man.

Chapter Thirteen

I had been inside Father Sutherland’s stately brick Queen Anne home perhaps a hundred times over the past decade, yet somehow the atmosphere within its aged walls already seemed different. As though the house itself understood that an irrevocable change had taken place and that its owner would not be returning. I was skittish on the way to Sutherland’s study, and that sense of foreboding grew as we opened the door and switched on his desk lamp.

Danny fingered the bandage the nurse had taped over the gash in his forehead. Blood had already soaked through the white bandage. “You sure this is the room?”

“I’m not sure of anything,” I said. I suddenly felt absurd, like a hapless gumshoe on some old television mystery show.

Danny eyed me in silence as I walked around, studying the familiar objects on Sutherland’s shelves. I saw his hymnal, several books examining the dual nature of Christ. It was one of Sutherland’s primary interests. I continued through the study, glancing at several pictures of the priest with important members of the clergy and various foreign dignitaries. There was a snapshot of Sutherland shaking my hand on the day I was appointed to my post at St. Matthew’s. Looking at the faded picture, I felt a pang deep in my chest. I crossed the room, as if to escape from the image, and as I did, the floor creaked.

I froze. Danny was staring down at my feet. He moved closer, placed a foot on the same board on which I stood and tested it with the toe of his sneaker. The board wiggled perceptibly. I stepped away from it and watched with apprehension as he produced a pocketknife, knelt and used it as a pry. Though the plank was thick and long, it took very little to unseat it. Very much as though someone had been removing the plank and replacing it on a regular basis for a good while.

I watched in speechless dread as Danny levered up the board.

We both gazed at what was inside.

I’m afraid I began to weep.

There were no souvenirs from six dead girls in the two-inch deep space beneath the floorboard. There weren’t trinkets of any kind.

Just a pair of girly magazines—a recent
Penthouse
and a very old
Hustler
.

These, I realized, were Father Sutherland’s great sins. For these petty crimes I had sentenced him to death. My mentor. My best friend.

Danny was watching me with sympathy. “Maybe there are…you know, other hiding places. It’s a big house.”

I nodded, but I knew before we resumed our search that we would find nothing. At least nothing to incriminate Peter Sutherland in the Sweet Sixteen murders. I had been deceived. The demon had used me to effect its revenge on the best man I’d ever known, the man whose love and faith made me what I was.

We scoured the house for more than two hours, and when we came together at the base of the staircase, Danny removed his hat and said, “I’m sorry, Father Crowder. I can’t seem to find anything.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing to find.”

The silence drew out.

Into it I asked, “Will you arrest me?”

Danny compressed his lips, appraising me. There were tears streaming down my cheeks, but I was very much in control of myself. Mine were silent, passionless tears. Danny lowered his eyes, perhaps in embarrassment.

“I won’t resist,” I said, offering up my wrists.

Danny’s voice was gruff. “Put your hands down, Father.”

“I’ve committed the worst sin imaginable. I took a good man’s life.”

“You didn’t do it out of cruelty,” Danny said. “You thought it was the right thing. And you saved Casey.”

“That doesn’t excuse—”

“You know what you did,” Danny interrupted. “You know, and you’ll have to live with that. I can see how it’s weighing on you. I think Father Sutherland would have forgiven you.”

Somehow, this made me feel even worse. The wet heat in my throat was unbearable.

Danny put his hat on. “There’s been enough horror already. Our church will need you to help us through this. And there’s still a killer out there. People will need you to help them keep the faith.”

I knew there was truth in what he was saying, but I also knew he was letting me off too easily. Danny wouldn’t meet my bleary eyes, but I could see he was choked up too, already mourning Father Sutherland and Jack Bittner. Even after everything that had happened, I was amazed at man’s capacity for good. For forgiveness.

“Come on,” he said, nodding toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

It was while we were leaving the dead priest’s house that the idea first occurred to me. We were on the front porch, and though the yellow daffodils and white hyacinths had started to bloom in Sutherland’s front beds, and the pink blossoms of the magnolia trees loomed over the porch like grieving loved ones, there was a chill in the air that day, and while we’d been inside the house, an unbroken caul of clouds had smothered the pink light of dusk.

I locked the door with the key Sutherland concealed beneath a statue of Saint Francis in his backyard. Danny moved down the steps slowly, as if burdened by the weight of our shared secret.

But I stood on the top porch step, frowning.

Danny stopped and looked up at me. “Something wrong, Father Crowder?”

“I was just thinking of something you said to me last night.”

Danny smiled his boyish smile. “Never assume anything about people?”

I looked at him, the corrosive taste of bile searing the back of my throat. “That’s not it. It was something you said after I killed Father Sutherland.”

Danny glanced uneasily up and down the sidewalk, scratched at the nape of his neck. Coming up the steps, he said, “You might wanna keep it down, Father. I know why you did what you did, but others might not feel the same.”

“When I murdered him, you didn’t seem bothered by it. You acted like it was the right thing to do.”

Danny shook his head. “It was, given what you knew about him.”

I stared deep into his brown eyes, my thoughts racing. “But you weren’t in the room when Casey said most of those things. How could you know about that stuff?”

Something guarded came into Danny’s face then, but he shrugged, glanced down at a couple strolling slowly past Sutherland’s black wrought-iron gate. “Maybe I had my suspicions too, you know?”

I felt short of breath. “You were raised in the same part of Greece as your brother.”

“So?”

“You would’ve spoken the language too.”

“Of course I did,” he said, laughing a little. “It was like a badge of honor for my mother’s family. Doing our part to keep tradition alive, you know? We all spoke it. Jesus, Father, what are you trying to imply?”

“Sutherland said the killer spoke that language.”

“Sutherland knows everything about everybody in the church,” Danny countered. “You ever think of that? Maybe he was trying to fool you. Frame Ronnie or me.”

“‘Sometimes you gotta be willing to do a little dirty work’. That’s what you said.”

“What of it?”

“You were glad when I got rid of Father Sutherland.”

Danny’s smile was gone. “You must think I’m a hell of a bad person, wanting a good man like Peter Sutherland dead. And here I thought you appreciated my keeping quiet about what you did.”

“Is that a threat, Danny?”

“It’s Officer Hartman from now on, and, yeah, if you wanna take it that way, sure.”

“You’ve got the physical strength,” I said. “You were the one person Casey didn’t touch.”

“Christ,” Danny muttered. “You’re just like Bittner. You realize there are damned near
three million people
in Chicago? What are the odds of you finding the killer when the best detectives in the city can’t?”

I scarcely heard him. “Why did you put me through this whole charade? Searching Sutherland’s house when you knew we wouldn’t find anything?”

“You’re delusional.”

“And you were staying in the same house with Casey when the demon invaded him.”

“What does that have to do—”

“Sutherland said demonic possession could occur as a result of some terrible sin by a family member. You’re Casey’s uncle, his godfather.”

“So now you’re blaming me for Casey too?”

“But why not get rid of me in Sutherland’s house?” I asked. “Did you think I wouldn’t figure things out?”

A change came over him. His eyes became hooded and absolutely cold. “Maybe I should do something about it now, huh?”

“But I’m not a girl,” I said. “And I’m a lot older than sixteen.”

His lips bunched together, trembling with what might have been rage. Then, as if dismissing me, he turned and stalked down the porch steps.

He was almost to the gate when I called, “Is that how old she was, Danny? The girl who broke your heart?”

He froze, his hand outstretched for the gate lock. For a time he stood there, motionless, and I took note of how broad his back was, how muscular.

He looked back at me then, and when he did, I suppressed a gasp of shock.

Gone was the affable policeman I’d known for so many years. Gone was the man who’d stood shoulder to shoulder with me in a battle against blackest evil.

In its place was a face so malign, so shot through with wickedness and depravity, that it took all I had not to faint at the sight of it.

Danny Hartman grinned a grin no less sinister than the demon’s had been on Rosemary Road, grinned at me and said, “We all have our secrets, Father. I’ll keep yours if you keep mine.”

Turning away, he opened the gate and strode down the sidewalk as though he didn’t have a care in the world.