Exorcist Road (10 page)

I heard a cough and jerked my head around, thinking the demon had somehow escaped from Casey’s body and managed to ambush us. But I saw that Danny had crawled into the doorway and now leaned against the jamb, the bloody scar gleaming dully in what light filtered in through Casey’s windows. Danny looked battered but strong enough to recover. Maybe he’d be able to help us break the news to Liz, I reflected. At least he was family.

I jolted as Casey’s body twitched beneath me. I scrambled to retrieve my Bible, which I’d laid on the floor, but as I prepared to resume my battle against the demon, I discovered Casey’s eyes were riveted on mine.

They were normal again. The boy watched me, his brown eyes wide with uncertainty.

I fear I smiled then, for I realized how I must look to the child. I was bloody, my clothes and hair wild and sweaty from a battle of which he likely had no recollection. All he knew was that I’d pinned him down, and he no doubt felt the pain from his various wounds.

Feeling strangely guilty, I climbed off him. He sat up on his elbows, made to scuttle away from me, then winced in pain. He clapped a hand over his chest, where the crucifix had burned him, and whimpered. I wanted to help him, but at that point I wasn’t even sure he knew me. After all, the Father Crowder with whom he was familiar was a skinny but presentable young priest who greeted him with warmth and formality each Sunday morning at St. Matthew’s. The man staring at him now resembled a deranged scarecrow.

Thankfully, Danny saved us both the embarrassment of an explanation. With a tenderness I admired, he gathered Casey into his arms, and with a nod in my direction, carried the young man out of the room. Toward his mother and sister, I assumed. Liz would get her son back. Smiling, I sat back and tried to restore my heart rate to something approximating normalcy.

A voice at my ear said, “Are you all right, son?”

I swiveled my head and gazed into Father Sutherland’s solicitous face.

My smile shrank.

“We did it, Jason,” he said. He squeezed my shoulder. “You did it.”

“Don’t touch me.”

He frowned. “Jason, you’ve had a—”

“I know the truth,” I said, pushing to my feet.

He only stared at me uncomprehendingly. Then he took a step toward the door.

“You’re not leaving here,” I said.

He turned, and his expression began to change. I fancied I discerned more than surprise there. I was sure I saw rage. And something infinitely cunning. “After all that’s happened tonight, you would deign to question my honesty?”

“Show me what’s under your floorboard. Right now. You and I and Danny will go to your house.”

His eyes burned into mine. “I will do no such thing. How…
dare
you accuse me of such atrocities?”

“You hide it very well,” I said. “No one would ever suspect a man your age of such prodigious physical strength.”

He shook his head slowly, circling me now. “You ungrateful,
gullible
boy.”

“I’m not a boy,” I said. “Not anymore.”

His hands knotted into fists. He brandished one at me, stepping closer. “I
made
you, Jason. Can’t you see that? Just a quiet, backwards, neurotic child in seminary who’d never had a decent family—”

“That won’t work, Sutherland.”

“That’s
Father
Sutherland, you impudent boy. You had nothing when I found you—”

“How did you choose them, Sutherland?”

“—brought you into my church, trained you. I was patient with you despite your awkwardness. I counseled you—”

“Were they girls you saw around town, or were they all connected to the church?”

“—and never asked a thing from you. Not a thing. I gave you money, told my superiors that you were improving. I helped you through your fear of women—”

“But you don’t like women, do you, Sutherland? Just nubile girls.”

“I did not kill those girls!”
he shouted, his face inches from mine. “I’ve made mistakes, dammit, but that’s the lot of every man!” His face was a deep crimson. Spittle flew from his lips. “How dare you believe the word of that fiend…that
monster
over the word of your mentor? Are you such a fool to be taken in?”

I shoved him.

He stumbled back several paces, likely because he wasn’t expecting me to lash out. But when he regained his balance, he glared at me with an expression of blackest mockery. “So you’ve made your decision. You’ve chosen to side with evil.”

“You’re not leaving this room. My conscience won’t allow it.”

“To hell with your conscience!” he bellowed. Then a look of awe came over him. “Maybe you’re the killer. Where were you the night of the first murder, Father?”

I took a step toward him, mindful of avoiding Bittner’s motionless body. The huge man’s brains lay on the floor like the pulpy remains of a beached jellyfish. Sutherland was near the foot of Casey’s bed, and I had a fleeting moment of recollection, the first time Sutherland and I had approached the possessed boy. It seemed a lifetime ago.

“Nothing to say?” he asked, smiling bitterly. “Were you the one who tortured and raped those girls, Father Crowder?”

“You’ve blamed everyone but yourself,” I said, edging closer. “Me, Bittner, Ron. Even Danny.”

He shook his head wonderingly. “Fool.”

“You were the reason we didn’t take Casey to a hospital. You were the one who wouldn’t touch him.”

He exhaled loudly. “I’ve heard enough of this.” And made to move past me.

I barred his way.

Nose to nose with me, he clenched his jaw. “Out of the way.”

“Get back!” I thundered and pushed against him with all my might.

He flew backward, his legs tangling, and only saved himself from falling by clutching the footboard of Casey’s bed. I advanced on him, thinking to subdue him and perhaps use Danny’s handcuffs to prohibit his flight from the house.

But he surprised me by pivoting toward me and springing out of his crouch with a violent, right-fisted blow. It caught me flush on the jaw, sent me spinning toward the interior wall.

Sutherland was on me before I could recover. He rained blows on me, grunting words like
betrayal
and
satanic
and
deceiver
, and though I soon grew numb to the bludgeoning of his hard fists, my alarm grew and grew. I knew a loss of consciousness could mean death. If Sutherland was the Sweet Sixteen Killer, that meant he was a seasoned murderer. If he’d tortured and executed those girls, why would he scruple to take the life of a man who could lead to his ruin? And what of Danny, Casey and Carolyn? What of Liz? Would Sutherland trust them to believe his story—that he’d beaten me to death in self-defense—or would he silence them too and thus ensure his flight to safety in some faraway place?

Perhaps it was the thought of this, the image of Father Sutherland preaching before a new congregation somewhere else, that brought me back to myself, brought me back to the brutal onslaught taking place in that bedroom.

My fingers curled into fists. I timed Sutherland’s blows. Just when he was about to clout me in the back of the head again, I rolled sideways and came up with my fists raised.

He was breathing heavily, but when he saw my boxing pose, his face broke into a caustic grin. “So you’re still convinced, eh? Still think I’m the killer?” And he unleashed a haymaker at my face. Prepared as I judged myself to be, the blow nevertheless connected, and when it did, something within me changed. The scent of my own blood was suddenly intoxicating, a pleasing scent rather than a disquieting one. I palmed blood off my forehead. The sight of it on my fingers, black and oily in the gloom of the bedroom, incited me. I looked up at Sutherland.

Whatever he saw made him suck in air and retreat, his arms thrown up in a warding-off gesture.

I followed.

Apparently realizing he’d committed a tactical error, he pushed away from the window and lunged toward the door.

I caught him. Caught him and slammed him against the wall. The base of his skull crashed against the hard plaster, and he rebounded toward me.

I opened my jaws wide and bit him in the throat. He howled out an inarticulate cry and slapped at my ears. Ripping out a chunk of his flesh, I spat blood in his horrified face, set to throttling him, his head whipping forward and back like a road sign in a violent storm.

“Please!” he said in a choked whisper.

I balled a fist and hammered him in the face. He went flailing back against Casey’s window, his head shattering a large pane and letting in the maelstrom that raged outside. As the wind began to swirl through the opening, a stronger need surged through me. Sutherland would have killed me, I realized, had I not fought back. The others in the house weren’t coming to my aid. Only one of us would leave the bedroom alive.

Grinning, I lifted Sutherland off his feet and smashed his upper body against the damaged window. This time the whole thing gave way. The room churned with icy wind and stinging rain. Sutherland was pleading with me now, and I reflected grimly that he’d at last taken refuge in the ideas he’d so hypocritically espoused in his years as a priest. He begged for mercy, for forgiveness, for one more chance.

Snarling, I cast him out of the window.

I stumbled forward onto the jagged aperture, glimpsed Sutherland’s form plummeting toward the Hartmans’ concrete patio. The priest landed face-first, his skull shattering on the unforgiving surface, a plume of blood spouting from his mouth like vomit. His broken body lay unmoving, the rains washing his blood away like a remorseless tide.

I gazed at Sutherland’s shattered body for perhaps a minute. Then I turned and discovered Danny Hartman watching me from the doorway.

Chapter Eleven

Danny stood there blinking at me. The wind rocketing from the west conjured fierce eddies in the bedroom, worrying Danny’s already disheveled hair and pelting both of us with a fine spray of rain. In the scant bluish light, he looked like a kid just out of high school, not a battle-scarred veteran police officer. But if the light had been better in the bedroom, I suspected he’d look far older than his forty-one years.

I eyed the gun in his holster. I couldn’t help it.

“I don’t figure you’ll take me at my word,” I said.

Danny was quiet so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer. Or was going to train the gun on me. Had he done that, I’m not sure how I would have responded. I likely wouldn’t have. After killing one man—a man who’d been a father figure to me, after all—my taste for conflict had pretty well evaporated.

But Danny didn’t do that.

“Tell me why,” he said.

I glanced at the shattered remains of the window. “He knew too much.”

“About the dead girls?”

I nodded.

Danny reached up, touched the bloody swath gouged in his forehead, then regarded his wet fingertips. He didn’t look like he was in any condition to pull a gun on me, but so great was my guilt at that moment that part of me felt I deserved a bullet.

At length, he said, “Let’s get Casey and the girls.”

I took a step toward him, then hurried to his side as he lost his balance. I grasped Danny around the shoulders, supporting him until he regained his equilibrium.

“Thanks, Father,” he said, slowly straightening.

“Listen, Danny,” I began, “if you need to take me in, I won’t—”

“You’re no killer,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought it of Father Sutherland, but I started to wonder earlier.”

“Earlier?”

Danny frowned. “I don’t know. He was just so emphatic about not going to the police…not calling a doctor…I wondered why he’d be so afraid to bring others into this.”

I had shared the same concerns, of course, and was about to say so when a voice from the corridor startled us.

“You guys okay?”

Danny and I both looked up and saw Casey standing in the doorway, an arm wrapped protectively around his little sister’s shoulders. Other than a couple scrapes and bruises, he looked much as he always had—a healthy, guileless fourteen-year-old boy.

Liz appeared behind him and looked at me with apprehension. I realized with a start that I hadn’t cleaned my face after my battle with Sutherland. Turning away, I used my robe to mop some of the blood away.

Danny said to Liz, “Father Sutherland didn’t make it.”

I heard Liz’s sharp intake of breath and knew this was the moment of decision. Would Danny consign me to a life in prison? Illinois no longer executed those convicted of murder, but the prospect of living out my days in a cell did not excite me.

“Where is he?” a small voice asked. Carolyn, I realized.

I faced the others, ready to tell them the truth and have them condemn me, but Danny said quickly, “He jumped out the window.”

Liz covered her mouth.

“Why?” Casey asked, looking like he might cry.

“It’s not your fault,” Danny said. “That’s the important thing. Whatever reasons Father Sutherland had for doing what he did are between him and God.”

And me,
I thought.
His executioner.

Danny put a hand on Casey’s shoulder. “You okay?”

Casey nodded, but he looked troubled. For a moment I forgot all about Father Sutherland and my new existence as a priest killer. I wondered what kind of memories Casey retained from his nightmarish ordeal. None, I prayed.

“Can we go?” Carolyn asked.

Danny chuckled, ruffled Carolyn’s hair. “You got your mother’s brains, you know it, kiddo?”

And for the first time that night, I saw the girl smile.

The lights came on less than a minute later.

We had made our way out of the bedroom, moving with the uneasy silence of war-weary refugees, and had turned away from the ruined staircase in the hopes that the rear staircase was still intact.

Ron was in the bathroom, sobbing. I thought at first Danny would pass the closed door by, so it surprised me when he stopped and called, “Ronnie.”

No answer.

I had an arm around Casey’s shoulder. Liz was beside us, Carolyn clutched protectively to her side.

“Ronnie,” Danny said with more force. “Open the damned door.”

Ron continued to sob.

Danny tried the knob, but found it locked. Without hesitating, he brought up a foot and slammed it sideways into the door. The heavy door banged open, a bit of the frame splintering.

Ron glanced up at us. He looked seventy years old. There were bloody cotton balls jammed in both nostrils.

“I didn’t know Bittner would try to kill him, Danny, I swear it.”

“How’d you get him out of the cruiser?”

Ron’s mouth worked weakly—mentally fumbling for some sort of lie, I was sure. Evidently unable to think of one, he said, “I used a rock.”

“Bet you had to hit the window a few times.”

Ron didn’t answer.

Danny nodded. “So you’d rather turn that mad dog loose on your son than risk anyone finding out about your other family. The money you took from your clients.”

Ron muttered something unintelligible.

Danny crossed his arms. “I always knew you cared too much about money, Ronnie, but I never thought you’d do the things you’ve done.”

Ron hung his head lower, his fingers threading through his thick, greasy hair.

Danny went on. “Say Bittner did shoot Casey. What then? We still would’ve known about your thieving. I would’ve known. Father Crowder here would’ve known.”

Ron regarded his little brother with a look that I found chilling, even after all I’d witnessed that night. “I didn’t think that far ahead. Maybe Bittner would have killed you guys too. Maybe one of you guys kills Bittner, and nobody remembers what was said about my business dealings.”

Danny tapped his own chest. “
I
would’ve remembered.”

Ron shrugged. “Maybe I could’ve bought you off.” Ron nodded at me. “The Father here too. I notice he’s not above coveting another man’s wife. Maybe he’s as enchanted by money as he is by a nice set of tits.”

“Father Crowder’s worth a hundred of you, Ronnie.”

“Says the man who showed up tonight with a homicidal partner.”

“That’s right,” Danny said. “And now he’s dead, thanks to you.”

Ron’s voice rose an octave. “
You’re
the one who brought him here. He was your partner; why didn’t you keep control of him?”

“I did,” Danny said. “I locked him in the back of the cruiser, remember?”

Ron buried his face in his hands. “Casey would’ve told; I know he would’ve. He was that kind of boy. Always black-and-white, no gray.”

I had held my tongue up until that point but could hold it no longer. Making sure to keep Casey out of Ron’s view, I said, “You’re a wretched excuse for a father.”

“Go to hell,” Ron answered. “I didn’t want him to die… I’m just saying a kid like that doesn’t realize the pressures…keeping up a lifestyle…”

“Two lifestyles,” Liz said from behind me.

Ron glanced in her direction. “Oh my God… Honey…”

Liz’s expression remained impassive. “You selfish bastard.”

“You’re where he gets it,” Ron said, an edge to his voice. “You’re the reason he never listened to me…”

At that point, Casey limped into the bathroom.

Ron gawked at him. His expression would have been comical if the situation hadn’t been so ghastly. “Casey! You’re okay!” He rose unsteadily, his arms outstretched to embrace the boy.

Casey said something I didn’t catch. Ron didn’t either, judging from the look on his face.

Danny put a gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Case, you don’t have to—”

“I remember everything,” Casey said to his father. “I
saw
everything you’ve done…when it touched you.”

Ron stared at his son, thunderstruck.

Without another word, Casey turned away and left his father standing there, still apparently hoping for a hug.

I thought Danny would slug Ron in the face then, or perhaps slap the cuffs on him for his white-collar crimes. But, instead, he said, “You can put your arms down now,” and left the room.