The Dead Soul (29 page)

63

Sunday, September 14 - 7:01 A.M.

During its heyday, the Our Lady of Peace Orphanage wasn’t a dark and gloomy facility conjuring images of emotionless people with decaying souls walking around like kids from a Frank McCourt book. Nor did the sisters, dressed in the traditional black and white penguin habits, slap rulers against their palms and threaten the kids with disciplinary action.

A red-brick building, Our Lady had seventy-five beds. It was equipped with a full gymnasium. Kitchen. Cafeteria. Two dozen classrooms. An old banner said Our Lady was focused on
God’s Word and Goodness
. The nuns running the place were rarely seen without smiles. The priests who visited left the boys and girls yearning for their return. The teachers—save for maybe Micah—throughout the fifty years of Our Lady’s existence were gentle, kind, informative. Always willing to show patience where the children were concerned.

“The homes they are from are troubled, not the kids themselves,” Mother Ophelia liked tell outsiders. “None of this is their fault.”

Jake and Dickie walked onto the grounds and into the waist-high grass on that early Sunday morning. It was ten years since Our Lady had been shut down because of budget cuts and law suits. Strange, Jake considered, how buildings, once they stopped pulsating with life, decayed and rotted, much like the human body.

“You talk to Father John this morning, Jake?”

“Yeah, he’s checking into that priest. We’re moving Bren and Dawn just to be sure.”

“I won’t ask where.”

Jake wasn’t offering.

Most of the windows in the building had been shattered by vandals long ago. Jake kicked open the main door, walked in underneath a fallen timber. “Come on, Dickie.”

“Remind me why we’re going into this cobwebbed place John Carpenter would find attractive for a movie set?’

“Because it’s fun, Dick. Move your fat ass.”

Standing inside the lobby, peering into the empty rooms, Jake looked puzzled. It was as though an announcement had been made that the world was soon coming to an end and everyone abandoned the building at once. Things had been left in their place. Notebooks sat on counters next to coffee mugs and phones. The furniture was torn and covered with dust, dirt, rubble. There was an early Windows personal computer on the counter near a sign that read PASTOR’S OFFICE.

Walking down the hallway, glass crunching underneath their heels, Jake and Dickie found a door marked records.

“After you,” Jake said with a magician’s wave of his hand.

The room was filled with filing cabinets. They looked pillaged. Papers scattered across the floor. Unreadable. Smudged and damaged from all the water leaking into the room.

Dickie opened one of the drawers with a rusty squeal.

“Nothing.”

“Open them all.”

“Come on, Kid, we won’t find anything here.”

“We still have another hour before anything in town opens.” Jake glanced at his watch. Then unfoiled a piece of nicotine gum from its plastic seat, stared at it, and tossed it on the floor before popping it. He sat down on a metal crate and, instead, took out a cigarette from a pack in his pocket, fired one up, and looked around. “Quite a place, huh?”

Dickie looked in one of the file drawers. “I see you’re doing well with quitting, huh, boss?”

“Yup.”

“There’s nothing here, Jake.”

Jake was staring at the floor. “You wanna tell me where, or, actually, why you hid Rossi’s notebook from me last night?”

“Couldn’t find it, huh?” Dickie smiled. Pulled open more drawers.

“Nope.”

“Because I know it’s killing you to know what she wrote about you.”

“And?”

“And, well, a lot of things.”

“About?”

“Jake, I know what you asked Rossi to do. She and I were tight. She asked, and I told her to do whatever you said. I could care less. This thing with Mo, you cannot save the guy. He’s drowning. Just watch your ass. Talk is that you’re going with him.” Jake shook his head as Dickie spoke. Squinted his eyes. “You need to calm down. You shouldn’t allow yourself to get carried away by all of it.” Dickie leaned over an open drawer. “I know this case is eating you up. I realize you need to prove yourself.” Dickie walked over to where Jake sat. Glanced down at him like a father to his son. “That shit with the little girl—that wasn’t your fault. You’ll come through it. You’ll be fine.”

“Appreciate the advice, Dick.” Jake looked up at him and blew out a ribbon of exhaled smoke to a sound of satisfaction.

Dickie went back to digging through the files.

“I saw you last night,” Dickie said. “Outside on the balcony of the hotel. Bet you didn’t sleep two hours.” Jake stood as Dickie continued with his guidance. “Your brother, your father, that little girl, you harp on that shit and you’ll be back in the loony bin, man. Trust me. I’ve seen tougher cops go down. That, or you’ll turn to something.”

“Southie, Dick. Not a good place. I thought it hardened me growing up. Mo always told me that a kid who made it through life in Southie could survive anything. Mo was so different then.” Jake walked toward Dickie. “I think I need to give all this chasing bad guys up, Dick. I’m not cut out for it anymore.”

“Part of the problem is, Mo brings back all that stuff about your dad. My advice, hey, just let Mo go.”

Jake dropped his head. He didn’t know what to say.

“You need to keep your job, Jake. You know, there’s always somebody who’s going to tell you you’re unworthy. Forget about making everyone happy. I understand you want everyone to like you. But you need to find that here,” he pointed to his own heart, “before you expect it from anyone else.”

“Shit, Dick … you TiVo-ing Oprah now?” They laughed. Jake paused. Rubbed his temples. “Just tell me what Rossi wrote.”

“Rossi didn’t write about any of that Mo bullshit. Pretty loyal girl. Smart, too. She wanted to impress you—and, I should note, she looked up to you.”

“No kidding?”

“Yeah, she was keeping notes of meetings and cases. Like studying. She wanted to impress us both. Thought maybe she could solve this case particularly. Now, can we get out of this shithole? My feet are wet and cold.”

Jake turned. “You hear that?” Sounded like breaking glass.

Dickie looked toward the door, eyes wide. “What the hell?”

“Shh.” Jake whispered. “Hold on. Don’t move.” They palmed their Glocks. Jake inched toward the door. He whispered: “You stay here.”

“You won’t get an argument out of me.”

“Watch my back.”

Jake walked out into the hallway. Light shone in gold beams from his right, the sun just rising over the mountain in back of the orphanage. The glare had a majestic, alluring pull to it, inviting Jake to walk that way. He looked left and went for it.

Then the noise—breaking glass and blowing wind—again. Jake’s stomach tightened. He turned. Dickie had his head out the doorway, covering the opposite end of the hall with his pointed Glock.

Jake continued into a hallway on his right, out of Dickie’s view. There was a room, orphan beds lined up along the walls. A gust of wind came at him in through the corridor and made a whipping sound, rattling all the loose fixtures, shaking the broken glass in the widows and the beer bottles along the floor. It sounded as if a group of people were whispering all at once.

There it was again. Someone was outside the window.

Jake called out for Dickie. “Come on. Over here.” With the barrel of his weapon, Jake waved Dickie over to the window.

They stood on both sides of the opening.

“On three.”

At once, they popped up and stuck their guns out the window, each in opposite directions.

A tall man with white hair ran into the woods. Looked to be older. He had a shotgun in his hand. Jake thought he might have recognized the way the man moved.

Dickie leveled his Glock. “By the time we get outside, we’ll never find him.”

Jake used his hand, pushed the weapon down and away. “Let him be. Probably some local-yokel nosing around.”

Dickie walked around the deserted room, a long and narrow space full of rusted iron bed frames without mattresses. Some of the beds had trunks—like those full of gold coins pirates pillage in kid stories—at the foot. There was debris scattered all over the floor. Fallen beams. Ceiling tiles broken into bits and pieces. Rat feces. Decomposing animal corpses. Torn up linens.

A gust of wind kicked up and whooshed through the room, as if the building took a deep breath.

The noise was ominous. It was there, but then again, it wasn’t. Jake’s mind filled in the blanks. “You know what that is?” He looked around the room.

Dickie shrugged. “Do I want to?”

“Echoes of the undead—the memories this building has, Dick. They’re speaking to us. We’ve come to the right place, my friend.”

64

Sunday, September 14 - 8:04 A.M.

He slept in his priestly vestments. He had put the white collar, vest, black pants, shoes and jacket on the night before and went out to the local Taco Bell to see how people reacted. By night’s end he had blessed three old ladies with crooked backs who carried rosaries in their pocketbooks, heard one hasty confession in the restroom, and promised a young couple they were doomed to hell if they continued along the path of their marriage.

The black and whites fit him well. He considered the idea that if he had followed his first calling, he would probably be out in the world working in some parish, doing incomprehensible things to the community’s children.

The man who called himself Charles Howard had blood on his soul.

He got up off the couch. Put some coffee on. No breakfast. Today was a day to let adrenaline and caffeine fuel his body. Food would only slow him down.

He straightened the vestigial tab—the white cube hiding the Adam’s apple—displayed through the square cutout in his black shirt. Then looked at himself in the mirror. After fixing each button of his shirt, he patted down a few stray hairs with a wet thumb. He didn’t need to shave. The two-day growth gave him a contemporary look.

“Father Rainn Meyers.” He said it out loud and it sounded good. Even had a ring to it. Meyers was his namesake. He’d changed Randy, his given name, to Rainn, only because he liked the way it looked on paper. Rain was how he felt, anyway. Gloomy, wet. Irritating. Who liked rain?

“You were chosen,” he heard the Teacher say, “because I knew you could take it, Randy—and you would continue what I taught you.”

Fawning over himself in the mirror, he considered the idea that not every abused kid grows up to be an abuser. It took an unusual breed. He knew he was one of them.

Special.

Chosen.

He straightened his jacket by pulling down both front flaps at the same time. Brushed a piece of lint off his shoulder. He could hear the coffee machine in the kitchen making that familiar, pleasant steam-popping noise as it percolated. It was almost done. Smelled good, too. Fresh, like the morning should.

He pointed and talked to himself. “Time is short. I must get on the road. Busy day ahead.”

He turned. Stopped. Went back to the mirror. “Father!”

Sitting at his kitchen table, Rainn Meyers checked his watch. The convent was a forty-five minute drive. On the way, he needed to make an additional trip off the beaten path. Just in case.

Micah.

This time the image of the Teacher’s face brought with it a smile.

65

Sunday, September 14 - 8:12 A.M.

Dickie pressed the voice mail button on his cell phone. Put the speaker to his ear. Listened. He and Jake were parked outside, facing the Bainbridge Sheriff’s Department, waiting for the sheriff to arrive. It was a small building. Looked like maybe an old converted schoolhouse or library.

“You have two messages …”
the mysterious cell phone lady’s voice said.

Beep: “
Honey, I made it here okay. I’m fine. Don’t worry ‘bout me. Love you.”

Caroline. Such a bastion of purity. Always doing the right thing.

Beep: “
Shaughnessy, Matikas …”
Dickie hit pause. Tapped Jake on the shoulder. Pushed speaker:
“We found something on the Taylor kid’s computer… and zeroed in on a postal station out of Revere … that paint chip backed it all up. Tell Cooper—asshole must have shut off his phone—word is that his boy Mo is being indicted any moment now on extortion, bribery and corruption charges, the papers will be filed soon … I’m hearing there are several others under the indictment, but no word on names.” 

Jake stirred in his seat. He didn’t like the sound of that. He looked out the window, focused on the hedges.
Ted Williams Tunnel.
Jake saw himself as a young cop running over to a construction trailer at Mo’s request to pick up a package and bring it to the station house.

Don’t ask, don’t tell.

Mo had involved him.

Sonofabitch.

“Yo, there’s the sheriff now,” Dickie said, slapping Jake on the arm. And they watched a monster of a man, six-four, three hundred pounds at least, blue jeans, Stetson. He exited a black Ford Tahoe and marched up the steps toward the sheriff’s department front door.

“Thought they did away with the cowboy hats after those two troopers got sucker-hit with bats because they couldn’t see beyond the rim of the hat?”

“Why am I thinking … Chuck Norris and Billy Jack?” Dickie offered.

“Let’s not fuck with this guy, Dickie. He’s all business—that’s obvious.”

“Sheriff?” Dickie yelled, opening the car door. “Sheriff?” Dickie flipped through his little notebook as they walked toward the stone steps. “Sheriff Townsend? Can we get a minute, sir?” Dickie sounded like a reporter. He had called ahead the previous day for an appointment. But the deputy laughed at him. Something about “appointments being for you city folk.”

The big man turned. Looked at the two of them. Spat a dime-sized tab of chewing tobacco on the steps and, without answering, continued into the building.

Jake and Dickie picked up their pace.

The sheriff stood on the opposite side of a wooden saloon-like gate into the small office area. There were three desks cordoned off by a partition. “Cal, show these boys here to the conference room, would you?” The sheriff opened the door to his office and slammed it shut behind him.

Deputy Cal Sheraton said, “Follow me, boys.”

They walked behind the vivacious deputy to the rear of the building.

“The sheriff here, well, he took the liberty of collecting all the records he could find for Our Lady after your lieutenant called last night and told us you was coming.”

“Why would you people laugh at me when I asked for an appointment?”

Cal smiled at Dickie. “The sheriff here doesn’t meet with people, Detective. He’s got the business of watching over a county to contend with. Just the way he does things is all. Don’t take offense.”

Dickie and Jake looked at each other. Strange country people.

Inside the conference room were ten boxes of files, a few additional folders of medical records, and a large crate of remainders from the orphanage—diplomas, medals, certificates.

“Sheriff says you might want to go out and talk to Buster Turbach. Buster’s the only employee from that old place there who is still alive and living in town. Buster’s old. But sharp as a new sickle.”

“Can we thank the sheriff?” Jake said. “Can you ask him to come out here?”

“Nope, busy. Doesn’t want to be disturbed.” Cal used his fingers to make quote marks, as if
disturbed
was a new word for him. “You need anything, however, you just call on ole Cal here, and I’ll take care of it for y’all.”

Jake wondered if they were in Maine or Kansas.

“We were out at the old Orphanage. Some old guy with white beard, overalls, a shotgun, scared us half to death. Any idea who he is, what he wanted?” Dickie asked.

“Nope.”

“Where’s Buster live?”

Cal took a piece of paper from his front pocket, stuffed it inside Jake’s suit coat pocket as Jake followed his hand. Cal tapped the pocket. “You’ll find his address and directions on there. Buster don’t have no phone. Now, anything else?”

“Deputy. Anything else you can tell us would be helpful. We’re looking for a kid who might have caused some trouble up here in town after getting out of the orphanage. Anything like that.” Jake wasn’t sure what he was fishing for.

Cal tapped a finger on his lips. “Not sure, Detective. None of that rings a bell.”

“Anything you think of, let my partner here know. He’ll be around most of the morning going through these boxes.”

Dickie rolled his eyes.

“Well, the Meyers kid. Sumbitch done put a pickaxe to good ol’ Charlie.”

“What’s that?” Jake jerked up his head quickly. “Any reports on that would be helpful.”

“Nope, can’t help you there just yet. That case is still open. You’ll have to get your DA to call our guy and get word to the sheriff that you good old boys from the city need to dig into the file. Otherwise, sheriff here, he won’t let you see it.”

“Goes by the book, does he? Well, okay, Cal. Thanks.” Jake decided not to push it. He turned to Dickie. “You go through these files. I’ll pay a visit to Buster and get what I can. Call the DA and get her ass working on that Meyers file.”

“Ask Buster ‘bout ole Charlie and that Meyers kid. He can tell y’all what that sumbitch evil kid done did. I think he escaped from the orphanage, went on a rampage. Something like that.” Cal whistled as though he had dodged a close call. “I was a boy then. But heard things.”

Dickie sat down. Put his head in his hands.

“Get going on that reading. I’ll bring you back a coffee.”