Catherine Coulter: Blindside

“The story from Homer Bean was that Reverend McCamy had experienced the stigmata when he was a child. Did you believe that?”

Elsbeth McCamy nodded. “Of course. It’s all he could talk about, all he could think about. He would picture it, envision it happening again over and over in his mind, but it never did. He was furious with his parents for not recording it for posterity-to show to his congregation, to prove he wasn’t like those crooked loud-mouthed televangelists, that he was blessed by God himself.”

“I’ve given it a lot of thought, Elsbeth, and do you know what I think?”

“If I don’t shoot you dead right this minute, I guess you’ll tell me.”

Katie stayed as still and small as she could. “I don’t think Sam suffered any holy stigmata. I think it was some sort of rash or exanthem, something brought on by his illness. I don’t think it was blood on his palms.”

“His mother believed it was blood. For God’s sake, she videotaped it! She could probably smell the blood. You can, you know. Smell blood, that is.” She shook her head, bringing herself back from some memory. “She gave the tape to a senile old priest whose sister recognized its value and knew a member of the Reverend’s congregation. That’s how it came to Reverend McCamy. Who are you to question any of this? You’re just some hick sheriff.”

“Let me ask you this, Elsbeth. Was Sam the only child like that Reverend McCamy had ever heard about, had ever tracked down?”

Slowly, Elsbeth nodded her head. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I suppose it doesn’t. I’m surprised and pleased that you managed to escape the fire, Elsbeth.”

“I doubt you’ll be pleased much longer. If I’d burned to a crisp with Reverend McCamy, you wouldn’t be looking death in the eye.”

“How did you get out?”

Elsbeth McCamy shrugged. “We had a little… playroom at the back of the closet. There’s a door that leads down from there and out of the mud room. Reverend McCamy was dead, I knew it, and I didn’t want to die with him, and so I got out of there really fast.”

“That little playroom, I saw it once.”

“That’s impossible. No one ever saw it.”

“Well, yes, I did. Agent Sherlock and I looked around your house once because we thought Clancy was there. I can understand why Reverend McCamy wouldn’t want servants hanging around to find it by accident. I’ll admit I was really surprised that Reverend McCamy was the sort of man who tied his wife down and whipped her.”

Elsbeth McCamy looked blank a moment, then she threw back her head and let out a high wild laugh, and that laugh blended in with the crashing water and sent puffs of cold breath into the air. Katie was ready, only an instant from jumping at her, when Elsbeth’s head came back down, her laughter cut off like water from a spigot, and she whispered, “I want to kill you anyway, Sheriff, so please, come at me, please.”

“Why did you laugh?”

“Because you’re so wrong about us,” she said. “Just like his damned aunt Elizabeth. I know that she snuck in there when we were building the room, looking, poking about. She believed Reverend McCamy was crazy, that he abused me and that I loved it, that I was a pathetic victim. But you’re all wrong. Before I shoved that old busybody down the stairs, I told her what we were going to use that room for. I told her why Reverend McCamy was having it built, and how much he needed it. He gave himself over to me when we were in that room, and he forgave himself for his faults for a few moments at least, when he was strapped down on his belly over that fur-covered block of wood and I whipped him, whipped him until sometimes the whip cut through and brought blood. And I could smell it. He dedicated that blood to God, and prayed that God would reward him with the return of the sacred stigmata.”

“Those vials in that cabinet. What did you use those for?”

“Reverend McCamy used them to help him mortify his flesh, help him transcend the pain of giving himself over to God, pain that was both corporeal and spiritual. He cried in that room, not from the pain, but from how exalted he felt in those moments when the whip split his flesh and his blood flowed off his body onto that beautiful marble altar.

“But you ruined our life, Sheriff, destroyed everything. I’ve thought of nothing else but killing you since my husband died.”

Now! Katie dived and rolled, hoping that Roosevelt’s sculpted cloak covered her, and jerked her derringer out of its ankle holster the instant she stopped rolling. It was nearly worthless at any distance at all, that little gun, but if you got close enough, it could kill.

Elsbeth fired, one shot, then another and another, all three of them striking the sculpture, ricocheting off, sending stone shards flying. Katie stayed down, protecting her face.

Elsbeth yelled, “Come out of there, Katie Benedict! You deserve to die for what you did! That statue won’t help you!”

Katie stuffed herself tighter against the sculpture. “Don’t come any closer, Elsbeth, I have a gun. Do you hear me? I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if you force me to. Give it up. Toss the gun over here. There are bodyguards here, two of them, FBI agents. They heard the shots. You don’t have a prayer, just give it up!”

Elsbeth suddenly appeared around FDR’s huge cloak. She stopped not three feet from Katie, smiled down at her. She didn’t see the small derringer. “You’re lying to me again, Katie. You don’t have a gun. You’re expecting your precious bodyguards to ride up like the cavalry and save you. But there won’t be time for that.” And she laughed again. It made Katie’s skin crawl, that laugh.

“You know something?” Elsbeth said, nearly choking. “I wish Reverend McCamy could see me now.”

“I could tell he was proud of you, Elsbeth.”

Those beautiful blue eyes lightened a moment with pleasure. Thank God, Katie thought. Maybe she’d bought herself some time. That big Beretta was pointed right at her head.

Elsbeth McCamy blinked, looked momentarily confused, then shook her head so hard her ski cap fell off. “He was my dearest mentor, a great man who had God’s ear and made me scream with pleasure when he made love to me. And you sent him to his death.”

As she flexed her finger around the trigger of the Beretta, Katie brought up her derringer and fired its two shots point-blank into Elsbeth’s chest.

Elsbeth stumbled backward, but she didn’t go down. “My God, you shot me! You miserable bitch, I won’t let you kill me like you did my husband!”

Katie threw herself at Elsbeth’s knees. She heard a gunshot close to her head. She could smell her singed hair burning as she used all her strength to shove Elsbeth down.

The front of Elsbeth’s coat was drenched with blood now. She raised the gun and fired toward Katie again, wildly now. Katie rolled into Elsbeth, pushing hard against her legs, throwing her arms up to dislodge the Beretta. She knew that at any moment a bullet would smash through her flesh.

There was a single shot, only one. Katie, her arms still pressing against Elsbeth’s knees, looked up and saw a frown of faint surprise on Elsbeth’s face. The frown was frozen in death. Slowly, she fell backward, landing hard. Katie jerked back and leaped to her feet. Her hip burned, and her heart was pounding.

She looked down at Elsbeth McCamy, surely dead this time, her eyes open, staring at nothing at all. Her beautiful hair spilled around her face. She looked very young, innocent even, without any evil or madness about her, just lying there on the ground, the front of her coat soaked with blood and the back of her head ruined.

She heard the sound of the cascading water and the wind whipping between the monuments. She heard the water running fast in the tidal basin, not fifty feet away. And her own harsh breathing, so deadened with relief that she couldn’t move.