Страница 78 из 94
"Yes, down below Mosul. That's right. But he finished and came back around three or four months ago, Mike.
He's at Woodstock."
"Teaching?"
"No, working on another book."
"God help us! Don't you think he's too old, though? "How's his health?"
"Well, it must be all right or he wouldn't still be ru
"Yes, I suppose so."
"And besides, he's had experience, Mike."
"I didn't know that."
"Well, at least that's the word."
"When was that?"
"Oh, maybe ten or twelve years ago, I think, in Africa. Supposedly the exorcism lasted for months. I heard it damn near killed him."
"Well, in that case, I doubt that he'd want to do another one."
"We do what we're told here, Mike. All the rebels are over with you seculars."
"Thanks for reminding me."
"Well, what do you think?"
"Look, I'll leave it up to you and the Provincial."
Early that silently waiting evening, a young scholastic preparing for the priesthood wandered the grounds of Woodstock Seminary in Maryland. He was searching for a slender, gray-haired old Jesuit. He found him on a pathway, strolling through a grove. He handed him a telegram. The old man thanked him, serene, eyes kindly, then turned and renewed his contemplation; continued his walk through a nature that he loved. Now and then he would pause to hear the song of a robin, to watch a bright butterfly hover on a branch. He did not open and read the telegram. He knew what it said. He had known. He had read it in the dust of the temples of Nineveh. He was ready.
He continued his farewells.
IV: "And let my cry come unto Thee..."
"He who abides in love, abides in God, and God in him..." ---Saint Paul.
CHAPTER ONE
In the breathing dark of his quiet office, Kinderman brooded above his desk.
He adjusted the desk-lamp beams a fraction. Below him were records, transcripts, exhibits; police files; crime-lab reports; scribbled notes. In a pensive mood, he had carefully fashioned them into a collage in the shape of a rose, as if to belie the ugly conclusion to which they had led him; that he could not accept.
Engstrom was i
It was not from Karl that Kinderman had learned this. On the night of their encounter in Elvira's hallway, the servant remained obdurately silent. It was only when Kinderman apprised the daughter of her father's involvement in the De
Kinderman frowned at the rose collage. Something was wrong with the composition. He shifted a petal point---the corner of a deposition---a trifle lower and to the right.
Roses. Elvira. He had warned her grimly that failure to check herself into a clinic within two weeks would result in his dogging her trail with warrants until he had evidence to effect her arrest. Yet he did not really believe she would go. There were times when he stared at the law unblinkingly as he would the noonday sun in the hope it would temporarily blind him while some quarry made its escape.
Engstrom was i
Kinderman, wheezing, shifted his weight. Then he closed his eyes and imagined he was soaking in a lapping hot bath. Mental Closeout Sale! he ba
He opened his eyes and examined afresh the bewildering data.
Item: The death of director Burke De
Item: An expert on witchcraft, a Jesuit priest, had been seen making visits to the home of the MacNeils.
Item: The typewritten sheet of paper containing the text of the blasphemous altar card discovered at Holy Trinity had been checked for latent fingerprints. Impressions had been found on both sides. Some had been made by Damien Karras. But still another set had been found that, from their size, were adjudged to be those of a person with very small hands, quite possibly a child.
Item: The typing on the altar card had been analyzed and compared with the typed impressions on the unfinished letter that Sharon Spencer had pulled from her typewriter, crumpled up, and tossed at a wastepaper basket, missing it, while Kinderman had been questioning Chris. He had picked it up and smuggled it out of the house. The typing on this letter and the typing on the altar-card sheet had been done on the same machine. According to the reports however, the touch of the typists differed. The person who had typed the blasphemous text had a touch far heavier than Sharon Spencer's. Since the typing of the former, moreover, had not been "hunt and peck" but, rather, skillfully accomplished, it suggested that the unknown typist of the altar-card text was a person of extraordinary strength.
Item: Burke De
Item: Engstrom was no longer a suspect.
Item: A check of domestic airline reservations disclosed that Chris MacNeil had taken her daughter to Dayton, Ohio. Kinderman had known that the daughter was ill and was being taken to a clinic. But the clinic in Dayton would have to be Barringer. Kinderman had checked and the clinic confirmed that the daughter had been in for observation. Though the clinic refused to state the nature of the illness, it was obviously a serious mental disorder.
Item: Serious mental disorders at times caused extraordinary strength.
Kinderman sighed and closed his eyes. The same. He was back to the same conclusion. He shook his head. Then he opened his eyes and stared at the center of the paper rose: a faded old copy of a national news magazine. On the cover were Chris and Regan. He studied the daughter: the sweet, freckled face and the ribboned ponytails, the missing front tooth in the grin. He looked out a window into darkness. A drizzling rain had begun to fall.