The Case Against Satan (14 page)

Gregory said, “We admitted no such thing.”

“A girl who tried to kill one man and is quite capable of killing another. But she can't be blamed, you say. And also she wasn't insane, you say. But my talking to her—that, you say, will
drive
her insane! Put yourself in my place. That's a pretty tall story, isn't it?”

“You must—” began the Bishop.

“I must be a cop, that's what I must. I'm sorry. I'm really
sorry, but nothing in this case meshes and it's all because of that damned girl. Father, I'm talking to her. I'm talking to her and that's final. I'm going to wake her up and question her if I have to take the whole bunch of you down to the station and lock you in the bullpen.”

“You wouldn't dare!” Mrs. Farley roared, belligerently.

Quietly, Berardi told her, “Go get the girl, ma'am.”

“I will
not
.
”

Berardi turned to Gregory. “Father?”

“I can't.”

“All right,” said Berardi, walking toward the stairs, “you don't leave me any choice.”

Gregory leaped in front of him, blocking the stairs. “No!” he said. “She didn't do it! You must not!”

“Get out of my way, Father.”

“No! I
know
she didn't do it!”

“Get out of my way!”

Will he push me aside? wondered Gregory. Will he lay hands on a priest of his Church and then hate himself for it, poor man?

But the questions were never answered, for at that moment the doorbell rang.

With the bitter humor of frustration, Berardi said, “Saved by the bell, Father. I'll get that—it's probably one of my men—but I'll be back. And when I come back I'm going straight upstairs whether you and His Excellency like it or not.”

He walked swiftly out of the room, into the vestibule. The people in the living room heard the door open, then heard a quick soft exchange of male voices.

Followed by Berardi, Father Halloran entered the room.

Mrs. Farley greeted him with tears: “Oh, Father, it's good to see you . . . things have been so terrible here since you left . . .”

Gregory greeted him with silence, fearing what might now come.

The Bishop greeted him with a question: “James, my son—why have you come back?” He looked into Father Halloran's face. It was haggard, taut, the eyes ringed with the poison of sleeplessness and shrouded in an anguish such as the Bishop, in all his years, had never seen in the eyes of man or woman.
When Father Halloran answered the question, his voice was a whisper so dark, so low, so full of haunt, that at the sound of it the Bishop's skin suddenly prickled with cold dread.

Father Halloran said, “To confess.”

 • • • 

“Wait!” Berardi said immediately. “Don't say a word, Father Halloran.” Berardi was on the phone in a second, barking orders to bring a tape recorder to the rectory. It was there within fifteen minutes. While waiting, Father Halloran accepted a small glass of brandy from Gregory and said words of comfort to Mrs. Farley.

The transcript of the tape was typed for Berardi that evening.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
The man Garth came to me one day to confess. He told me—

BISHOP CONRAD CRIMMINGS:
James!

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
I know, Your Excellency. You're shocked that I am about to betray a secret of the confessional. And well you should be. But the betrayal, I'm afraid, has already been committed, as you will see, so what I say now can't make it any worse.

BISHOP CONRAD CRIMMINGS:
You betrayed a penitent, James?

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
Yes.

LIEUTENANT FRANK BERARDI:
Go on, Father.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
He had been carrying a terrible burden with him for a long time, and at last he had to shake it off. Several years before, I think he said six, he deliberately allowed his wife to drown. Pushed her into the water from a rowboat. I asked him why he had committed that terrible crime. “For the money,” he said. “For the insurance money.” He said there was a $10,000.00 policy. I know $10,000.00 is a great deal of money, but to
kill
somebody for it—your own wife—the amount did not seem to match the enormity of the crime, and I was profoundly shocked. However, men have killed for less, I know. For a warm coat or a crust of bread.

Then I began to ask him details. The insurance money, who was the beneficiary?

“I am,” he said.

Nobody else? I asked him.

“Susan,” he said. “We're joint beneficiaries.”

And that frightened me. He had killed his wife for the money, and the money was not even his alone. Why should he stop with one murder? What was to prevent him from killing the daughter, too, so the money would be all his? A six-year interval—it was enough to offset suspicion. I voiced my fears frankly. I told him I could not absolve him, that he was not in a state of grace if there was another murder in his heart.

He said, “No, I couldn't do that, I could never kill Susan, I love her too much, I love her, you must believe me, Father!”

And I did, I did. If you had heard him, you would have believed him, too. He sounded completely sincere—and yet when he spoke of his love for his daughter, something—I've never known what, I could not pin it down—something told me that things were strangely awry.

He left the confessional, after assuring me he would give himself up. Days went by. I would see him—on the street, in church on Sundays—free as air. The days turned into weeks and still he had not given himself up.

And now I began to have the first of many sleepless nights. I was helpless—I knew of a murderer who might murder again, and yet I could tell no one. Nights, I would lie sleepless on my bed, devising plans, ways by which I could arouse the suspicions of the police without actually telling them.

But even as I evolved these elaborate schemes, I knew I could not put them to use. It is not only by revealing the
words
he hears in confession that a priest violates the confessional. If he uses the information in
any way
it is a violation. He must go about his duties as if he had never heard the confession, as if it had never been spoken. It must not affect what he does or says in any way at all.

I remembered an example they used to give us in the seminary. If a priest hears, in the confessional box, that someone has placed a time bomb under his bed, he can do nothing about it. He must not use the knowledge in any
way that will cause him to vary his usual routine. He must not remove the bomb, he must not sleep elsewhere that night. He must do only what he would ordinarily do—go to bed, in his own bed, at the usual hour.

So you see, there was nothing, absolutely nothing I could do with the information in my possession, even though I feared for the life of the daughter.

Day after day went by, night after night, and still Garth the murderer was free. I went to his home, talked to him privately. I urged him to confess his crime to the police. I ordered him. Finally, I pleaded with him. I said I would not leave his house until he had, in my presence, called the police and given himself up. He said he would give himself up as soon as he and Susan returned from a little vacation in the country they were taking in a few weeks. He had promised it to her for so long, he said, and it was the last thing he could ever do for her, after all.

He made me believe it. I left. But later, here at the rectory, I began to think. A vacation in the country. Why? The better to kill her, just as he had killed her mother?

Then, Your Excellency, word came from you that there was a post for me at Guardian Angel. I felt immediately relieved. At the orphanage, with new work to occupy me, without the sight of Garth before my eyes every day, perhaps I could forget my dilemma, and my frustrations would cease. Well, it didn't happen that way, actually. At the orphanage I saw girls of Susan's age, even one or two as pretty as Susan. They acted as reminders, and the feeling that I had abandoned her to murder never left me. I dreamt of seeing her dead, drowned like her mother, I dreamt of her accusing me of leaving her, even though in my rational moments I knew I could have acted in no other way. But all this is beside the point.

When Father Gregory here arrived at St. Michael's, I introduced him to the people of the parish and passed on to him any information I thought he would find useful. But I kept putting off introducing him to Garth and his daughter—out of weakness—because I feared I would be
tempted to violate the confessional. On my last day, Father Sargent and I were making our final rounds. Among others, we stopped in to see Mr. Hennessy, the pharmacist.

“You wouldn't be stopping by the Garths, Father?” he asked me.

I said no—or, rather I started to—and then I realized that I could put it off no longer, I could not avoid meeting with the Garths again. So I told Hennessy yes.

“Perhaps you wouldn't mind dropping off a prescription?” Hennessy asked me. He's been doing that for years; it's become a kind of joke almost. I told him I'd be glad to.

LIEUTENANT FRANK BERARDI:
Yes, go on, Father.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
Father Sargent can confirm the fact that, later that evening, I handed Garth a bottle of pills.

LIEUTENANT FRANK BERARDI TO FATHER GREGORY SARGENT:
Can you, Father?

FATHER GREGORY SARGENT:
Yes. That's right.

LIEUTENANT FRANK BERARDI TO FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
The wrong pills?

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
Yes.

LIEUTENANT FRANK BERARDI:
The druggist made a mistake?

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
No. Hennessy's prescription was correct. The blame is mine.

LIEUTENANT FRANK BERARDI:
I don't understand.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
It wasn't until just this morning, at the orphanage, that I discovered
my
terrible mistake. We are having an unseasonably warm September there, too, and I've always been subject to heat prostration when the weather is sultry. I reached into my pocket for my salt tablets, which I always carry this time of year. I found the little bottle, opened it, shook out a tablet and was about to take it, when I noticed there was a
label
on the bottle. My bottle had never had a label on it. This one had. Although it was exactly the same size and shape bottle as mine, and although the pills were at first glance very similar in appearance to my salt tablets, this bottle bore the label of Hennessy's pharmacy and, typed on it, “Robert Garth. Take as directed.” I had given Garth my salt tablets. And he had a bad heart, I knew.

The first thing I did was pick up the phone and call the pharmacy. I wanted to tell Hennessy to get another bottle of pills to Garth right away—the pills he had were worthless, worse than worthless. Dangerous. But before I could tell Hennessy the reason for my call, he gave me the news of Garth's death.

LIEUTENANT FRANK BERARDI:
News sure travels fast in this neighborhood.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
So I didn't say anything about the pills. I fabricated some excuse for calling, and then I got here as quickly as I could.

BISHOP CONRAD CRIMMINGS:
James, we understand how you feel, but you mustn't blame yourself.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
Yes. Yes, I must.

BISHOP CONRAD CRIMMINGS:
But why?

LIEUTENANT FRANK BERARDI:
His Excellency's right, Father.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
No. I am to blame. Truly to blame. Ask Father Sargent. He knows what I mean.

BISHOP CONRAD CRIMMINGS:
Do you, Gregory?

FATHER GREGORY SARGENT:
I may.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
It was just a mistake, yes, but why do people make mistakes? Father Sargent—you know about such things. The unconscious mind, slips of the tongue and the hand; seemingly meaningless, seemingly accidental slips that are really an expression of anxieties and hostilities deep within the mind. Isn't that so?

FATHER GREGORY SARGENT:
Yes, but—

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
Hennessy put in the palm of my hand the little bottle that contained Garth's heart medicine. His life. And when I withheld it from Garth, I murdered him. Not only did I murder him—I also violated the confessional, for I
used
my knowledge. Unconsciously, yes, but I used it all the same, just as if I had removed a time bomb from under my bed. That's what it was like—a time bomb in my brain, ticking and ticking for days and nights, for weeks, until—dear God forgive me!

BISHOP CONRAD CRIMMINGS:
My boy, there is no question of God forgiving you. You cannot be blamed for the workings
of your unconscious mind. The Church would never consider what you did a violation of the confessional.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
Perhaps the Church simply has never had anything quite like this to contend with.

BISHOP CONRAD CRIMMINGS:
Nonsense, nonsense.

FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
Are you so sure, Your Excellency? Can you be sure? Think of it. If a priest can violate the confessional at the whim of his unconscious mind, if he does not have control over his total self, then the confessional is meaningless! It becomes a farce! Oh God. Think about it, Your Excellency. Think hard about it, I beg you.

LIEUTENANT FRANK BERARDI TO FATHER JAMES HALLORAN:
I'd like you to come with me and make a short statement, Father.

Gregory had always disliked snow. Its beauty was transitory, for after that first smooth white quilting, it became a thing of depressing ugliness; lumpy, rigid, veined with dirt and offal, a thing to offend the eye, snarl traffic, and make walking a joyless drudgery. From heavenly to hellish it could go in a single day—a sign, perhaps, of how a piece of God's work could be snatched away and perverted by God's Enemy.

But now, as he walked up the snowy pathway to the rectory door, his arms loaded with packages, his hat and coat-shoulders sequined with white, he forgot his dislike. On the porch, he stamped his feet, loosing the packed snow that clung to them, but he stamped without his customary resentment. Inside, he pried off his rubbers in the vestibule, not bothering to make mental note of its drabness.

Pungent aromas met him—the mingled scents of Christmas tree and brewing coffee. Christmas shopping and the brisk weather had given him an appetite. Dinner would not be ready for more than an hour, but perhaps he could talk Mrs. Farley out of a pre-dinner slice of her voluptuous holiday fruitcake and a deep cup of that coffee.

Bearding the housekeeper in her den, the rectory kitchen, Gregory succeeded, but only after putting up with her admonitions about “spoiling your supper.”

“Any calls while I was gone?” he asked as he prepared to carry away the snack.

“Just Mrs. Barlow,” said the housekeeper.

“Oh?”

“She's giving a party or somesuch Saturday night and says she'd love to have you. Said she'd call back.”

“Fine. I'll be working in the study, Mrs. Farley. Call me when dinner is ready.”

“That I will, Father.”

He carried the fruitcake and coffee into his study, smiling inwardly at the thought of Mrs. Barlow. Ever since she had been proved so seriously in error last September, she had become overly attentive and solicitous, inviting Gregory to dinners and gatherings at least once a week, so often that Gregory could not accept all the invitations. Since he had in a sense bested her, stood up to her, she now respected him and considered him her equal rather than her lackey. She was a bright woman and a lively hostess who drew interesting people to her. Gregory had come to find her little soirées not unattractive.

Alone in his study, he munched the fruitcake and opened the Christmas cards that had arrived while he was shopping. One, a simple Nativity scene, was signed in ballpoint,
Frank Berardi & family
. Gregory had grown quite friendly with the Lieutenant after the trouble had blown over. Berardi, though a rough man with sketchy education, was blessed with a rich vein of humor and a shrewd intelligence that was without arrogance. The two professional men had found themselves liking each other almost at once, hungrily exchanging theological and criminological lore.

An expensive and rather vulgar card, resplendent with gilt and flocking, had come to Gregory from
The Glencannons
(not signed; embossed). Bruce Glencannon had augmented the embossing with a personally endowed message: “Sincerely hope we can get together soon.” Gregory had talked with Glencannon at one of Mrs. Barlow's gatherings, and Glencannon had seemed to have come away satisfied that Gregory was a good sort, even though—like Father Halloran—he had discouraged the idea of confession-by-Dictaphone.

A very plain envelope was the last of the group awaiting Gregory. The address had been typed:
Gregory Sargent
(the “Father” was glaringly absent),
St. Michael's Church, City
. Gregory tore it
open. It contained a single sheet of cheap paper, on which was printed in hand-set type: LET'S PUT THE X BACK IN XMAS. CHRIST WAS A POWER-MAD JEW. It bore no signature, nor did Gregory require one to know the sender. He made a mental note to call upon him after the holidays. Gregory was confident he possessed enough know-how to demolish the pamphleteer's arguments in any debate.

His mail attended to, Gregory opened a drawer in his desk and took out a notebook. He turned the pages of a journal he had been keeping. From these hasty, private notes, he would soon compose the formal report on the exorcism which the Bishop was expecting from him.

He read here and there, sampling what he had written, frowning slightly when he came upon passages which shied away from an explicit expression of belief in a literal Devil. These passages would have to be recast with great tact, for the Bishop—still worried about Gregory's attitude—would read them closely, ready to pounce upon any small kernel of doubt or hesitancy.

Gregory picked up a pencil and wrote at some length:

One thing seems clear to me at any rate: there was an attempt by Garth to gain incestuous knowledge of Susan. I say “attempt,” although I have no way of knowing it was not in fact consummated. I prefer to believe it was no more than an attempt, and it seems unlikely we will ever know the full truth. Susan has told me there is a blank day in her life, a day she can never remember—all she recalls of this mysterious day is that her father spoke of his love for her at that time. It would appear—though I am still only guessing—that the love he spoke of was the physical variety; that he made actual advances and perhaps even consummated an act; that Susan, horrified and repelled, suppressed the entire loathsome incident. This could account for the blank day. And Garth's conduct in the rectory bedroom, his over-excitement when the subject of incest was brought up, his cursing of Susan in the very words we were told he used at an earlier time—“Damn you, damn you to Hell”—all point convincingly toward an attempted or successful act of incest. Until such time as Susan can undergo
analysis in depth, possibly with the aid of hypnotism or sodium pentothal, we will never know. For the only other person who ever possessed the knowledge is dead: Garth.

Gregory sipped his coffee, then turned back a few pages of his notes and read:

Mrs. Farley would like me to support her belief that Garth was—is?—Diabolus. She doesn't really hold with the heart condition explanation. I keep telling her that Garth's physician—traced through the druggist—confirmed the coroner's findings. I also point out that signs of his coronary condition were plentiful when Garth was alive—breathlessness and discomfort when excited, a disinclination to do anything physically taxing such as running
(
I believe he actually described himself to me as “not a well man” during that first interview
).
I tell her, too, that the fear of being accused and convicted of heinous crimes—incest and possibly murder—that the unpleasantness of that final argument, the closeness of the weather, the terror he must have felt at witnessing an exorcism
(
no Catholic, even a defected Catholic, could witness that ritual without a powerful response
),
that on top of this to have a bolt of lightning strike dangerously close to him—all this would be enough to destroy a heart sounder than Garth's.

What I do not tell Mrs. Farley is that the heart condition, and even the bolt of lightning
(
though not in itself lethal since it did not hit him
)
might be called by some the Hand of God at work. I'm afraid this would only confuse her—as I confess it confuses me.

Gregory turned the pages, picked up the pencil and began writing again:

The week following the exorcism I visited Susan at her home, just before she left to live under the care of Father Halloran at Guardian Angel Orphanage. I saw the cross-shaped place on Garth's bedroom wall, and I found myself speculating as to why he had removed the crucifix. He had done it after the death of his wife, and I had suggested to him that murder-guilt had made it impossible for him to sleep under the crucified Christ. Was this indeed the reason, or had the shame of incestuous thoughts and deeds made it unbearable
for him to live in the sight of the cross? Had it been no more, perhaps, than the insidious propaganda of John Talbot that had so soured Garth on the Church that he had ripped down the crucifix as a gesture of his new line of thinking? Garth is not here to tell us. There is only that mute, ghostly cross on the wall of that empty flat. And when a new tenant moves in and cleans that wall, even the cross will disappear.

I will not allow myself to consider the possibility of its not disappearing, of its remaining there, a strange miraculous glow, through countless desperate washings and paintings. . . .

Gregory read over the last paragraph, then drew a large X through it. Even though these were only informal notes, there was no place in them for sensational speculations.

He returned the notebook to the desk drawer and picked up the telephone. It was Christmas time, time for phoning friends and relatives and proffering greetings of the season. Susan was strong in his thoughts, and he dialed the orphanage first. He talked to Father Halloran briefly, and then Susan came to the phone.

“Hello, Father,” he heard her say.

“Hello yourself, young lady. Merry Christmas.”

“Thanks. The same to you.”

“How are you?”

“Wonderful!” Her voice was bright with joy. “You have no idea how simply
super
Father Halloran is! If all orphanages were like this one . . .”

“Let's hope they will be, some day.”

“And Father Halloran has been letting me help him a lot. In the dispensary, and doing some of the office work, typing and things like that. He keeps me pretty busy. And of course I'm ready to
drop
from all the Christmas fuss!”

“But you love it.”

“Yes. Yes, I do. When are you coming to see us again?”

“Oh . . . soon. I've been pretty busy, too, you know. Christmas keeps a parish priest on the go. But I'll drop around again soon. Right after the first of the year.”

“Good. I'll have something to tell you then.”

“What is it?”

“Oh, I'll wait until I see you.”

“No, tell me now.”

“Well . . . in about a year and a half I'll be eighteen, you know. I won't be an orphan any more, technically. I can leave. And I'll have to
do
something.”

“Yes.”

“I've been doing a lot of thinking; and I've talked it over with Father Halloran. I think I'll become a med student. Be a doctor. What do you think?”

“It sounds fine. Only thing is, the few lady doctors I've ever known personally have been—not too easy on the eyes. It's a bit of a strain on the imagination to picture you in that role. You'll certainly be the prettiest lady doctor in these parts.”

Susan giggled. “But I may not be in these parts. I've been thinking about becoming a medical missionary, going off to Africa or something like that.”

“A splendid idea,” Gregory said. “But some young
male
med student might try to change your mind. If he does—don't fight too hard.” Susan made a sound of scorn; Gregory laughed and said, “I have to sign off now. I'll see you soon. God bless you, sweetheart.”

“Thank you, Father. Bye-bye.”

He dialed his sister's number. He heard her phone ring a few times, and when it was lifted from its cradle, he heard a background medley of childish shrieks, television, and groans from a harassed father. His sister's voice greeted him, they chatted for a few minutes, and then his brother-in-law took the phone.

“Merry Christmas, Greg,” he said.

“Merry Christmas, Bill. Sounds hectic over there.”

“It is. Bah, humbug. But this too will pass. I'll slip some phenobarb into the kids' plum pudding. Say, tell me something . . .”

“Sure.”

“Remember that time last September when you called me to check out some stuff for a case you were writing up?”

“Yes . . .”

“What was the upshot of all that? Did they ever find out what was wrong with that girl?”

Gregory did not speak for a few seconds. His mind, a
kaleidoscopic jumble in regard to this subject, balked for an instant. Then the kaleidoscope suddenly fell into a symmetrical pattern, and Gregory—more surprised than his auditor—heard himself say, “Yes, they did. She was possessed of the Devil. They cast him out. She's fine now. Merry Christmas again, Bill . . .”

After he hung up, Gregory looked at the phone for many minutes, his own words echoing in his mind. “Just like that,” he muttered to himself. “‘She was possessed of the Devil. They cast him out.' Just like that.”

Slowly, he dialed the Bishop.

 • • • 

His Excellency was laden with the special duties of the season and a few extra problems as well. A young couple who were to be married in January had asked their parish priest for permission to have the familiar
Lohengrin
and Mendelssohn music played before and after the ceremony. The priest had relayed the request to the Bishop. In the Bishop's younger days as a parish priest, it had not been uncommon to hear that music at Catholic weddings—he had performed marriage services and had heard the music many times himself. But of more recent years, it had been decided that, in Catholic churches, music by Catholic composers only would be played and sung. It made good sense, but would it satisfy the young couple, to whom a wedding without those two familiar pieces might seem no proper wedding at all? Would they accept and understand that, thrilling as the Mendelssohn march is, it was written by a Jew converted to Protestantism, and hence had no real place in a Catholic church? And as for Wagner, the composer of
Lohengrin
—not only was he no Catholic, he was a near-mad anti-Semite besides. Though Catholics were by no means forbidden to hear his music in the opera house, it would not be fitting to play it in a Catholic church. The Bishop was mentally rehearsing the manner in which he would explain all this, when he heard his telephone ring. His housekeeper informed him that Father Sargent was on the line and wished to speak to him, and His Excellency took the call.