William Krueger - Blood Hollow

“There’s more you should see.”

Mal led him to a door that stood slightly ajar, and pushed it open wide.

What hit Cork first was the smell, sweet and smoky. Familiar. Cork realized it was the scent of the frankincense used during the services at St. Agnes.

The room was large, probably designed as a master bedroom when the house had been a single-family dwelling, but it was almost bare now. There was a cot with a thin mattress that looked handmade from a brown sheet. From the bits of straw that protruded at the open end of the mattress, the nature of the bedding on which Gooding slept was quite clear. Except for a crucifix above the head of the cot, the walls were empty. Next to the cot stood a small stand with a Bible and a candle. The candle had been burned to a nub. At the foot of the cot was a tiny table that held a white, enamel wash basin, a bar of soap in a small dish, and a clean, folded towel.

“Looks like a monk’s cell,” Cork said.

“One from the Middle Ages, maybe. Believe me, they don’t look like this today.” Mal walked to the closet and beckoned to Cork. “Have a look.”

Inside, hung on wire hangers, were all manner of priestly garb. A number of thin rope fingers fell over the edge of the closet shelf above.

Cork reached up and took down a whip. It was a homemade device, a sawed-off broom handle twenty inches long, with four lengths of thin, jute rope tied through a hole near the end. Each length of rope was about three feet long and knotted every three inches along its length. The end of each lash was glued to prevent unraveling.

“A discipline,” Mal said. “That’s what I’ve heard it called. It’s a scourge for self-flagellation. I’ve never actually seen one before.” He looked around him at the spartan room and then back at the whip. “My God. This man sings in our choir. He’s in charge of our youth program. How could we not have known?”

“Who he is, he’s hidden well from everyone.”

Cork put the whip back on the shelf.

Far back, in a corner too dark to be seen clearly, were two stacks of large sketch pads. The top pad on one stack looked as if it had been slashed with a knife. Cork picked up the pad and took it into the light of the room.

They were pencil drawings and charcoal sketches. Nude studies mostly. All of them of Charlotte Kane, and all of them cut in some way. Cork went through the sketchbook slowly, page after page.

“Did she pose for these, do you think?” the priest asked.

“No. I think he imagined her. According to Glory, Charlotte had a birthmark on her hip. It’s not in any of these drawings. This is pretty obsessive stuff.”

“He saw her in church every Sunday. My God, did it begin there?”

“Or maybe during his investigation of the vandalism at St. Agnes. I suppose it’s possible Charlotte tried to play him then, came on to him. Whatever, it’s clear she touched something in him that he didn’t know how to control, maybe didn’t even want to acknowledge.” Cork flipped through the slashed pages. “If we’re right about him, he’s killed several times. I don’t suppose he’d have any difficulty at all justifying in his own twisted thinking one more. What I don’t understand is the sin eating.”

Cork returned the sketch pad to the closet and picked up the top pad from the other stack.

“What are we going to do?” the priest asked.

Cork didn’t answer. The sketches in the other pad froze his blood.

Mal saw the look on his face. “What is it?”

Cork held out a drawing toward the priest.

Mal Thorne’s mouth formed a stupefied O. “My God,” he said.

It was Annie. Annie naked on a bed, her face done in heavy makeup, her hands cupping her young breasts, offering them lasciviously.

Cork’s thinking went rapidly over the events of the last week or so, and he locked on the tall figure who’d kept to the shadows, stalking Annie, and the fact that only the night before Gooding had just happened to bump into her. He dropped the pad into Mal’s hands, went quickly to the phone in Gooding’s living room, and called home.

Jenny answered.

“Is Annie there?” Cork said.

“Upstairs, I think.”

“Check.”

“Dad-”

“Go check. Now.”

Silence. The static long and grating. Then Annie.

“What is it, Dad?”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Listen to me. Stay there in the house. Don’t open the door to anyone, especially Randy Gooding. I’ll be home in a minute.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just do what I say. I’ll explain when I get there. All right?”

“Okay.”

Cork hung up.

“What now?” Mal said.

“We put everything back just as we found it. I don’t want Gooding to know we’re onto him. Then I talk to Cy Borkmann, who gets a search warrant, and we put an end to this.”

Outside, the whole sky had been overtaken by storm clouds, and a wind was rising. Mal Thorne glanced back at the house.

“Think Mrs. Torkelson had any idea what was going on above her?”

“None of us knew about Gooding.”

The priest rubbed a hand over his forehead and closed his eyes. “Jimmy Crockett. I never would have guessed. God, if only I’d…” The priest stopped there.

What was the use of trying to grab onto the past, hoping to change what no human could. The best thing to do was simply to let it go, but Cork knew that was easier said than done.

“I’m going to pick up Annie and then hit the sheriff’s office. Want to come?”

“No.” The priest looked toward St. Agnes. “I’ll be at the church if anybody wants to talk to me.”

“Rose is there.”

“Really?”

“She got a call from the office this morning. I guess they needed her.”

“From the office? I don’t think so. Hattie’s on vacation, and Celia couldn’t come in this morning. Dental appointment. Nobody’s been there all day as far as I know.”

“Somebody called.”

“I can’t imagine who it would have been.”

Cork looked at Gooding’s Tracker parked on the street. He glanced toward St. Agnes, visible only a block away. And he remembered something.

“Gooding knows about you and Rose. Annie told him last night.”

The priest squinted at Cork. “You don’t think…”

Cork was already on the street, making for St. Agnes at a dead run.

Cork flew up the front steps of the church, the priest at his heels. The door was locked.

“The office,” Mal shouted, and they veered across the grass to the office/classroom wing.

Cork grabbed the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. Mal pushed Cork aside, jammed his key into the lock. As soon as the door was open, Cork rushed inside, the priest a split second behind him.

The desk of the reception area was empty, the hallway dark, the wing dead silent but for the heavy breathing of the two men.

“Maybe he’s not-” the priest began.

“He’s here. They’re both here,” Cork said. “There’s no other way to play it. Get on the phone to the sheriff’s office. Get people here. Do it now, Mal.”

Without waiting for a response, Cork headed down the short end of the hall, away from the sanctuary, toward the offices. He checked each room, found them all empty. When he came back to the reception area, the priest had disappeared. Cork had no idea where Mal had gone, but he hoped he’d made the call. He moved down the hall in the other direction, making sure each classroom was clear as he passed. Just before he reached the open door that led from the office wing into the church itself, he came to the stairway that led to the basement. He paused, considering whether to check the lower level first.

Then he heard Mal Thorne’s voice coming from the church beyond the door.