The Reality Conspiracy (33 page)

Because he'd never done anything like this before, it frightened him. Still, underneath, it wasn't so bad. Maybe it was even—just a little bit—exciting.

Mouthing a silent prayer, McCurdy braced himself to work his way through scattered groups of sweating travelers. He was on the lookout for signs that would direct him to the rental car area. Hertz would have a vehicle waiting for him. It would be prepaid by the SAC base in Plattsburg, New York, and would be for Col. William P. Northey—the name that appeared below McCurdy's photo on the passport.

There would be a weapon under the seat.

Now
, he thought,
the easy part is over
.

He paused to check his watch—10:00 A.M. Then he computed rapidly: as of now, he was no more than two and a half hours from Jeffrey Chandler.

McCurdy gripped his briefcase more tightly, hugging it against his chest. His phony passport would get him across the U.S.-Canadian border, no questions asked. From there an hour's drive south would deliver him to Burlington, Vermont.

Waterville, Vermont

"Y
ou the one wants to see Clem Barry?" A white-suited orderly spoke as he trotted down the stairs.

"That's right." Father Sullivan noticed the tattoo on the man's left forearm: a dragon breathing fire, a woman squeezed in its talon. He also noticed the sweat-stained T-shirt below the neck of the man's white shirt.

"You're gonna freak him out, man. I mean, Clem never gets no visitors."

"I'll take my chances," Sullivan said coolly.

Sullivan followed the attendant up the stairs and through a rambling complex of green-walled hallways that connected building to building at the Vermont State Hospital.

The air was pungent with the sharp, sweet odor of some industrial-strength cleaning fluid. Occasionally, they'd pass another white-clad figure who'd nod solemnly without pausing. The attendant stopped when a pudgy young woman with a pock-pitted complexion stepped into the hall. She wore a gray uniform and held a stethoscope in her hand. Smiling at the attendant, she ignored Sullivan.

"You goin' swimmin' up the dam after work?" the attendant asked her.

"Sure. You?"

"Well, a'course."

"Great! See ya there?"

"You bet."

Sullivan felt an anger growing inside him. He wrestled with it as he might struggle to control a cough. He wanted to say something about the patients being better off in the streets, but he held his tongue. This young orderly, for all his apparent deficiencies, was not to blame.

Passing a vacant nurses' station, they walked toward a wooden screen door dead center at the end of the hall. A slack-lipped giant with drool glistening on his chin pushed his mop bucket, his mop, and himself out of their way.

Without breaking stride, the attendant said, "When you get the floor washed, Andy, you might try washing your face." He patted the patient on the shoulder, a gesture of condescending camaraderie.

Andy giggled nervously. Sullivan cringed. The attendant stopped at the door to the sun porch. "You wait right in here, Father. I'll go get Clem and bring him down."

"That'll be fine," Sullivan said with ice in his tone. He stepped onto the porch and sat down on the bench of a picnic table constructed from pressure treated-lumber. On the tabletop someone had carved, "The penis mightier than the sword." Sullivan smiled.
I'll have to remember that one
, he thought. Possibly the poet's envious understudy also tried his knife at wit: "Wanda drinks tolit wader."

When Sullivan looked up, the orderly had returned, holding another man by the arm. He pushed the man forward, "This's Clem Barry. Call me when you're done with him, Father."

Done with him? Sullivan bit his lip before finding a smile for Clement Barry.

The patient didn't smile back.

Barry was a slight man, fortyish, dressed in green, sharply creased work pants and a blue loose-fitting pocket tee. His head was shaved nearly bald, the skin of his face was white as a mushroom.

Gripped tightly in Barry's right hand, Sullivan saw a wrinkled white handkerchief. Vigorously, the patient used it to clean his left. Then, as soon as the orderly was gone, Clem used the handkerchief to scrub the spot where the man had handled him.

"Hello, Mr. Barry. I'm Father Sullivan, Bill Sullivan. I'd like to thank you very much for agreeing to see me."

The man pulled away. Sullivan knew he was afraid to be touched. Anticipating a handshake, Mr. Barry had backed off.

"Would you like to sit down?" Sullivan asked, indicating the bench opposite his own.

Barry looked at the seat, then at Sullivan. Slowly, he turned his head, looking around the sun porch. He saw a pile of newspapers on a table between two faded easy chairs, the arms of which extruded clumps of off-white stuffing.

Sullivan knew what the man was going to do before he did it. He watched Clem take a sheet of newspaper, shake it open as he might a linen napkin, and place it on the bench of the picnic table. Then, moving very slowly, he sat on the newspaper. Again he used the handkerchief to clean the fingers that had touched the paper.

Sullivan studied the man's face. If his drug-dulled eyes expressed anything at all, it was suspicion.

"I need your help, Mr. Barry."

Barry turned his head very slowly to the side, but his eyes remained fixed on Sullivan. When he opened his mouth, Sullivan saw his white-coated tongue. It looked dry as talcum powder. Sullivan heard a dull smacking noise as the tongue separated from the roof of Barry's mouth. The man was heavily medicated.

Barry's lips moved, but no words came. He cleared his throat, swallowed noisily, and tried again. "Whatcha want . . ."

"I think you may know a very good friend of mine, another priest."

Barry's eyes moved slowly to the right and then to the left. "I dunno no priests. 'Cept maybe Father Bissonnette. He comes here for mass on Sunday afternoons."

"No. The man I have in mind is very old now. He used to be the priest in Hobston. Isn't that the town you come from?"

More suspicion darkened Barry's expression. "How d'you know that?"

Sullivan smiled. "Hobston is my parish, now. I found your name on some old announcement sheets. Then I asked around. If I'm not mistaken, you used to celebrate mass with him. You were an altar boy, weren't you?"

Barry looked down at his hands. His left was cleaning the right with the handkerchief. He whispered, "Father Mosely?"

"That's right. Father Mosely. When I was a boy, Father Mosely was . . . well, he was very much like . . . a real father to me."

Clement Barry lifted his head and looked directly at Sullivan. His eyes and cheeks glistened with tears "Whatcha want me for?"

"I'm trying to find out what happened to him."

"Whatcha mean?"

"If I tell you, will you help me? I need your help, Mr. Barry. I need it very badly . . . ."

Again Barry's mouth made the sticky smacking sound. Sullivan tensed as the man's lips formed a circle that seemed to forecast a negative response. Instead, Clem Barry said, "Okay."

"Thank you," said Sullivan. "Now, you used to live in Hobston, am I right about that?"

"Yes."

"And you were one of Father Mosely's altar boys?"

Barry nodded.

"Mr. Barry, I have recently seen Father Mosely. He was being cared for in a Canadian hospital for old people. He was in a coma."

Barry's eyes were wide, his expression noncommittal. Sullivan wondered to what degree he was being understood. Determined, he pushed on, "His doctor told me he had been hurt when he when he tried to perform an"— Sullivan cleared his throat. Why was it so difficult to say the word?— "an exorcism. Do you know anything about that, Mr. Barry? Do you remember anything at all?"

Now Barry was rolling the handkerchief between his palms. He molded it into a long, thin shape that resembled a white serpent. "I told him I would help him, but he wouldn't let me."

"So you do remember!' Sullivan tried to control his enthusiasm. "You're the only person I've talked to who admits remembering."

Barry nodded his head slowly. "Father Mosely, he kept it all pretty hush-hush. It's better folks don't talk about it."

"Why do you say that?" Sullivan cursed himself for the question. He didn't want to scare the man. He didn't want to push him too hard. Questions starting with "Why" were likely to sound accusatory, challenging, like an interrogation. But it was done, and Mr. Barry didn't seem any more agitated.

"Why? Because look what happened to me. If people talk about it, why then they'll sound crazy. And besides, I don't think many people in town knew about it. Father Mosely didn't tell 'em. I didn't tell 'em. It was a secret."

Sullivan folded his hands together and put them on the table in front of him. "Mr. Barry, please try to remember. What I need to know is this: Who required the exorcism? Which house did it take place in? Can you remember?"

Barry looked at him blankly. "Things flew around. I seen things rise right up off the floor. I seen it! Big things, heavy things, floatin' in the air. I heard banging. Powerful banging. Like thunder. Worse. It shook the walls, should've broke 'em; should've cracked the plaster."

"You saw all this?"

"Saw. Heard. I even felt stuff." His face twisted into a grimace of disgust. ". . . things touchin' me. Rubbin' on me. Scratchy, wet things . . . swimmin' in the air. They snuck under my clothes, made me itch and burn." Clement Barry worked the white handkerchief vigorously between his palms. "I couldn't see 'em, though. They . . . they were invisible things. Dirty. I could smell 'em. Awful. An' sometimes it was like they crawled inside me. Like I could—"

"So it was your house, Mr. Barry? Father Mosely performed the exorcism at your house?"

Clement Barry looked around. He looked at the floor, under the table, through the open door. He looked at the hospital grounds through the confining mesh that closed in the sun porch. Then he looked at Sullivan.

Leaning forward, he pushed his face toward the priest. "No," he whispered, "not my house. It was at his house. It was at the rectory. Father Mosely fought it there. Then he tricked it. Somehow he got it to follow him. He led it into the church. Wanted to trap it. Inside the church. Trap it so it couldn't get out. So it couldn't get into the town. So it couldn't hurt no other people. So it couldn't get inside of 'em, and . . . and . . ."

"Then what happened, Mr. Barry?"

Barry looked at him sadly, slowly shaking his head.

"You don't remember?"

"Remember? A'course I remember. He wouldn't let me go into the church with him. Father Mosely locked himself in there with the thing. They had to smash down the door to get him out after he had his . . . I don't remember what you call it?"

"A stroke. They tell me Father Mosely had a stroke."

"Yes. That sounds right. A stroke. I remember he wasn't very well. He was old. Awful old. Sick, too. He should have let me help."

"And the exorcism? Did it work?"

Clement Barry sat quietly for a long time, staring across the green fields toward the Winooski River. He wadded the handkerchief into a ball and squeezed it so hard his knuckles turned white.

"I think so," he finally said. "I think maybe it worked. Yup. The invisible stuff left me alone after that. Maybe Father Mosely got it to go away, I can't say. But I know one thing: they didn't open up the church again. They closed it down and they kep' it closed. Maybe, I don't know for sure, but maybe the thing is still trapped in there."

Sullivan tried not to betray the rippling sensation of dread that engulfed him right then. He simply nodded. "Mr. Barry, do you know what the thing was called? Did Father Mosely ever call it by any kind of name?"

"Name? I don't remember no name. Maybe it didn't have no name. I thought it was some kind of ghost, or something, you know? But Father Mosely, he said it wasn't no ghost. He said it was a demon. A demon in the church." Barry chuckled uncomfortably, "Weird, eh?"

"Do you know if Father Mosely told anyone what was going on? Did he talk to the bishop? Any of the parishioners?"

"Not's I know of. He was real tight-lipped about it. Didn't want to upset people. Didn't want to scare 'em away from the church."

"He must have trusted you very much to tell you about it."

"Maybe. But I knew about it on my own. I was the first one to see anything. It was the holy water. I saw the holy water in the basin had turned all red, like blood." Clem Barry shook his head.

"Mr. Barry, do you remember if Father Mosely kept any sort of records?"

Clement looked at Sullivan as if Sullivan were crazy. "Records? Whatcha mean, records?"

"You know, did he keep a diary, or journal? Did he write about any of this?"

"Yes. He wrote. He kept notes. He said he put 'em somewhere the demon couldn't find 'em."

"Where? Do you remember? Where are his notes?"

Clem Barry stared at him. His right cheek swelled as if he were pushing his tongue from the inside. His eyes darted from side to side. Then he froze as if listening to something Sullivan could not hear. The motion of his hands on the handkerchief had slowed, almost stopped.