The Voice had come to him early in the night, while he’d been sleeping dreamlessly. It had been clear. Concise. Reverberated without interruption from the tinny little voices of white noise that often preceded Its arrival. As he’d lain in the bed, the Voice had told him precisely what he was to do.
God had forgiven him!
But there was a price to pay.
An atonement.
And this was it.
The Reviver wouldn’t blow it again. His nerves jangled. He realized he was being tested.
He’d driven for nearly eight hours and arrived in the predawn, the neighborhood not yet waking, the streetlights glowing as he’d found the address.
She was inside.
Only her car was parked in the driveway, as the Voice had told him.
Boldly, he backed his truck into the driveway, confident that the Florida license plate he’d ripped off at an all-night diner outside of Mobile wouldn’t be missed for a while. The tags were current, and that was all that had mattered. The owners of the Dodge sedan might notice the missing front plate in the morning light, but by then it would be too late to identify him. His mission would be accomplished.
He drew his gun, complete with silencer, and slipped into the backyard. The sliding door to the patio was unlocked.
With a smooth whoosh, the door opened.
He braced himself.
No dog barked.
No alarm system began bleating.
But he heard voices…soft and low. Every muscle tensed, but he couldn’t give up, couldn’t flee. He looked down a dark hallway and saw the flickering blue light of a television showing through an open door.
Carefully he inched toward the master bedroom. A floorboard in the hallway creaked. He froze, expecting to hear someone shout or feet hit the floor, but there was no disturbance, just the voices from the television, dialogue from a movie. Cautiously he peered inside and saw the bed in the reflection of a mirror mounted on a wall.
She was lying on the mussed covers, her dark hair tangled over the pillow, her eyes closed, her mouth open. Soft little snoring sounds were nearly muted by the television. He pushed the door open a bit, slid inside. There were pill bottles on the table, next to a bottle of Vodka and a box of tissues. Wadded-up used Kleenex littered the floor and night table. Two of the pill bottles were open.
For an instant, he panicked.
What if she’d already tried to kill herself?
Oh no, that wouldn’t work, wasn’t part of the plan.
He couldn’t mess up again. God had been specific.
She had to be alive! Had to!
He stepped forward anxiously, and he nearly tripped over a shoe she’d kicked off at the end of the bed. His knee slammed into the footboard, and he bit back the urge to curse.
On the bed, she stirred. Lifted her head, pushed back her tangle of hair, and blinked. “Kyle?” she said, already reaching for the phone or bedside light. “Is that you, baby?”
He sprang.
His body landed over hers.
“Ooof!” The air blasted out of her lungs.
In an instant she was fully awake, writhing, wrestling, trying to throw him off her as she opened her mouth to scream. One gloved hand covered her mouth. With the other he shoved his Glock to her temple, the barrel pressing into the flesh next to her eye. “No, honey,” he rasped, enjoying the fear that he saw in her wide eyes, the terror he felt in her stiff body, the pure, wonderful horror that was evident in the rapid rise and fall of her chest, “I’m not Kyle.”
“Found him,” Zaroster said. She stepped into Bentz’s office holding a memo pad. A triumphant smile creased her pixielike face.
“Ronnie Le Mars?” Bentz asked.
“Father Paul Lavender Swanson.”
“Lavender?”
“No wonder he became a priest,” she said dryly. “If anyone in high school ever found out, the poor kid would have been laughed out of school.”
“Or become the toughest guy on the football squad.”
“Maybe so. He’s in a nursing facility not far from here. Just across Lake Pontchartrain, in Covington.” She flashed him another grin and stripped a piece of paper off the memo pad. “Here’s the address. Still working on Ronnie Le Mars.”
Bentz was out of his seat in a second. “Tell Montoya where I am. He can call me or catch up with me there.”
“You got it.”
She returned to her desk. Bentz grabbed his jacket then headed through the maze of cubicles where other detectives were talking on phones, staring at computer screens, taking statements, and shuffling papers. He nearly plowed into Arvin Noon, a junior detective hauling in a suspect who reeked of whiskey and vomit. The guy’s hair was stringy, his clothes filthy, and his wrists were cuffed behind his back.
“This is Herman Tessler. Got caught trying to rip off a convenience store.”
“And?” Bentz asked. There had to be a reason for Noon to haul the suspect’s ass up to the homicide department, though sometimes the big detective’s methods weren’t conventional. “Tessler claims he was at the Black Bird Restaurant the other night, combing through the dumpster, and he saw what went down between Officer Tiggs and a guy in a dark blue pickup. Says a bullet ricocheted off the truck, and that’s consistent with the shell casing found at the scene. Officer Tiggs’s gun had been fired.”
“But the bullet missed Tiggs’s attacker?” Bentz asked.
Tessler, the drunk, was nodding.
Too bad.
“I’m taking his statement then letting him sober up before I talk to him again. Show him some pictures, see if he can pick our guy out of one of our albums.”
“Why bother having him make a statement now?”
Tessler was obviously drunk.
The younger cop’s blue eyes flashed with a bit of defiance. “I just want to compare what he has to say. Sometimes inebriation helps bring out true feelings.”
“Sometimes it just brings out bullshit.”
“I’ll do this my way. All right with you?”
Bentz gave the younger man a long look. “Handle it however you want. Just let me know the outcome.” He didn’t have time to get into a pissing match with the junior detective. Let him work it out with Tessler. The drunk would sober up, make his statement, and that would be that. So Noon was a bully, so what?
He grabbed his sidearm, jacket, and keys, then patted his pockets to make certain he had his wallet as he hurried downstairs.
Once in the department parking lot, he unlocked the door of his assigned Crown Vic and was getting inside when he spied Montoya’s Mustang wheeling into the lot. Bentz flagged him down.
Montoya, his mood obviously as black as his goatee, jogged up to the cruiser. “Somethin’ up?”
“Father Paul’s in the St. Agnes Nursing Home in Covington.”
“Let’s go.” Montoya slid into the passenger side, and Bentz nosed the Crown Vic toward the freeway. Though the day was overcast, the interior of the car was warm. Bentz hit the AC as he blended into the thick of afternoon traffic. He headed north toward Metairie and the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, a twenty-four-mile bridge that spanned the vast estuary and ended up not far from Covington.
“I just came back from the hospital,” Montoya said, slouching down in his seat. “Tiggs has been upgraded from critical to serious.”
“That’s good.”
“Well, maybe. Part of his face is missing, and there could be brain damage. He’s lookin’ at tons of plastic surgery, physical therapy, and God knows what else.” Montoya glowered out the window, staring at the endless stretch of water as Bentz drove onto the causeway.
Pelicans skimmed the lake’s surface, and gulls, calling noisily, floated higher in the air. The sky had taken on the ominous hue of an approaching storm.
“Shit, man, Tiggs has a wife and two-month-old little girl. Two months! She’s so little, she probably doesn’t even recognize him. Now he’ll never be the same. Lose his job. Be on disability. Who knows if he’ll ever…Oh hell! It’s all just bullshit, I’m telling ya. Bullshit!”
Bentz didn’t say anything, just let him rant. Everyone on the force had been in the grim spot Montoya was now occupying. It was part of the job. But it never set well. Never. From the console, the police radio crackled and sputtered, officers talking back and forth, cutting out over the static while the cruiser’s engine rumbled smoothly. Neither of them spoke for a while. Then finally Bentz said, “Sometimes this job can be a real bitch.”
“Yeah,” Montoya agreed. “And that’s on a good day.”
On the north side of the causeway, Bentz drove through Mandeville and along Highway 190 until they reached the outskirts of Covington. Once inside the city limits, it was only a matter of a few blocks before they found the parklike setting of the care facility, a newer two-story building that housed individual apartments and could only be entered by means of a code punched into a keypad or a buzzer that called an attendant.
They buzzed, showed their badges to a woman who appeared on the other side of the glass door, and were allowed inside the cheery edifice. She took them to meet the on-duty manager, Alyce Smith, a robust African-American woman with neatly cropped hair and half-glasses perched on her nose. She occupied a meticulous office filled with bookshelves, cabinets, and a huge desk. A Bible lay open on a stand, a crucifix dominated one wall, and windows overlooking a courtyard allowed some natural light to filter through the blinds and diaphanous panels. The room smelled of jasmine, compliments of an air freshener plugged into a wall socket.
Again, upon Mrs. Smith’s insistence, they showed their IDs and explained that they wanted to see Father Paul Swanson on police business.
“Just be cognizant that Father Paul is frail and tires easily. He also suffers from dementia, so I’m not certain how much he can help you.”
“We need to talk to him,” Bentz insisted.
“Please don’t upset him,” she said, flashing a smile that showed off a tiny gap between her teeth but did nothing to reveal any real warmth. She meant business. She hit a buzzer, and a girl of about eighteen appeared. “Sherry, please show Detective Bentz and Detective Montoya to Father Paul’s room.”
They followed Sherry along a hallway, trying not to notice the stares from the nursing staff and patients, some in wheelchairs, others with walkers or canes, as they approached an elevator. They silently ascended to the second floor then turned down a short hallway, passing a single window that overlooked the same courtyard they’d viewed from Alyce Smith’s office.
“He’s not always clear,” Sherry said. “It kind of depends on what kind of day he’s having.”
Montoya was accepting no excuses. “We still need to talk to him.”
“Of course.”
The studio apartment was furnished sparsely with a twin bed, dresser, television, and recliner. A large crucifix, identical to Alyce Smith’s, decorated one wall; a calendar with pictures of the saints, another. And again, the air freshener, to help disguise the smells of a body slowly dying.
The occupant, a tall, excruciatingly gaunt man with sunken features, was sprawled upon the recliner. He was dressed in a plaid shirt and cardigan sweater, slacks and slippers, no sign of a clerical collar. His eyes were closed, his mouth agape, and he was snoring softly over the muted tones of an announcer for a golf match playing on the televison. “Father Paul?” Sherry said loudly.
The priest snorted and opened one eye.
“Father Paul? You have visitors.”
“What?”
“Visitors. These men are with the police,” she nearly shouted as he fumbled with his hearing aid.
“I don’t know any policemen.”
“No, they’re here to ask you some questions.”
“Questions?” he repeated. Blinking from behind glasses that made his eyes appear owlish, he scrabbled with one hand for the handle of his recliner, pushing the footrest down with some difficulty in order to force the chair and himself into a sitting position.
“Detectives Montoya and Bentz,” the aide said, pointing to each of the cops in turn.
“We need to talk to you about Faith Chastain,” Bentz said loudly. When Father Paul didn’t respond, didn’t seem to understand, he added, “She was a patient at Our Lady of Virtues when you were the priest there.”
“Faith,” he repeated dully. Something clicked, and his eyes cleared a bit. “Oh, Faith. Yes. Lovely but confused, very…Ah, well, she died. Fell from a window…I think. A pity.”
“Yes.”
“It was a long while ago, wasn’t it?” He blinked up at Bentz as if he really didn’t know. Then he swiped at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Yes.”
“Sad…Faith? Yes…yes…”
“But she had a baby while she was at Our Lady of Virtues, by a Cesarean section.”
“And Sister Rebecca, she died too,” he said, his face twisting with sudden agony. “Someone killed her. I read about it. A terrible thing, that. A pity.”
“Yes.”
“But she is with God now,” Father Paul went on, running a hand over his head and smoothing some wayward gray hairs over his bald pate.
“What can you tell us about Faith Chastain and the baby she gave birth to about twenty-eight years ago?” Bentz decided it best not to bring up the name “Adam,” the still-birth issue, or the fact that Eve Renner’s DNA said she was Faith Chastain’s daughter. Even though Sherry had warned them that Father Paul was in and out of lucidity, and that much was evident, Bentz wanted to see what the priest could remember without being given any prompt.
“The child,” Father Paul said softly and gazed so long at the floor Bentz thought he was memorizing the pattern of the carpet. Finally he said with more clarity than Bentz would have expected, “I suppose it’s time someone knew the truth. Before anyone else is hurt.”
“Or killed,” Montoya put in. “Who was the baby’s father? And what happened to it? We found the coffin in the cemetery. Someone had dug it up, put a pig’s carcass inside.”
Father Paul winced. “So it’s come to this.” He rubbed his large hands on his knees. Guilt settled on his narrow shoulders, stooping them even more. “Faith was confused and active…. She had men to whom she bestowed favors.”
“She was abused by members of your staff and other patients,” Bentz corrected.
“But she wanted the attention.” He glanced out the window, where a wren was flying toward the roof.
Bentz and Montoya waited for more, but minutes passed with no further response. They exchanged glances.
The priest seemed fascinated by, even fixated on, the bird outside the window. The sky was dark and menacing. Raindrops began to pepper the glass.
“She wanted attention from whom?”
He started, as if he hadn’t remembered anyone was in the room with him.
“Faith Chastain. You said she wanted attention?”
“Father James. He counseled her.”
“James McClaren?” Bentz supplied, his gut twisting. The familiar name sent his mind down pathways he’d rather not travel. But it was imperative that he did.
“Oh, I don’t know…McCafferty?”
“McClaren.”
“Oh…Father James…yes.”
“He was assigned to the parish.”
Bentz felt Montoya’s gaze on him.
“Yes. No…Oh, for a while.” Father Paul was obviously troubled, his forehead wrinkling as he tried to call up the memories. “I think he and the woman, the patient…”
“Faith Chastain.”
“Yes, yes. That’s the one. She had a baby. No.” He shook his head, and one long, gnarled finger moved in the air as he thought. “She had two babies. I was there. They thought the boy child died.”
“He didn’t?”
“Oh no.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “It was just after the nurse left the room that the doctor…Dr….”
“Renner.”
“Yes, Renner. That’s it. He realized the baby was alive, and then the other one…The woman was in so much pain. There was nothing to do.” He looked up pleadingly then sat back hard in his chair. “I, we, vowed…never to tell. Never. I prayed about it.”
“Can you tell us about it?” Bentz asked, pulling up a chair.
He folded his hands and bent his head. “Yes…”
In fits and starts, with Father Paul moving from periods of clarity and guilt to cloudiness and what seemed total loss of memory, he told them of the more dark secrets within Our Lady of Virtures. It took nearly an hour to pull out the story, and they were left in silence, absorbing what the old priest had told them.
Father Paul revealed that when Faith delivered, two babies were born. The first was a boy, who was originally thought not to have survived the birth. He was born vaginally, the cord wrapped around his neck, and he was blue…but, “Miracles of miracles from the Holy Father, the boy child began to breathe.”
The discovery that the boy was alive had apparently happened after Nurse Chaney was excused from the birthing area. Then there were complications. Father Paul wasn’t clear, but it seemed from what he said that Faith had started to have more contractions, and the doctor had realized she had another baby to deliver. For another unclear reason, the delivery had been performed by C-section, though the nurse was not called back into the room. The hospital was ill equipped for that kind of procedure. The priest wasn’t sure if Faith knew she had delivered twins, only that she was not “thinking clearly” and very “confused,” possibly “delusional.” All he knew for sure was that Faith thought she had one baby, a boy named Adam, who died at birth. For her, nothing else registered except shame and fear and desperation. “She confessed to me often and was always in tears, but I’m not sure she knew why she felt such overpowering guilt.”
Nor, it seemed, did Father Paul any longer. He could provide no information about the people who had adopted the boy, only that both babies were put with “people of strong faith.” The girl had ended up with Renner, but the boy’s parents and identity were a mystery. Father Paul recalled nothing of them, not even if they were parishioners, though he did mention that Dr. Renner took care of all the paperwork, whatever that meant. That was also how Renner adopted Faith’s daughter with no questions asked.
When the priest was asked about the grave where Faith’s child was supposed to be entombed, he sighed. “Another lie,” he muttered unhappily, rubbing his hands nervously. “To protect her from the truth.”
“Protect who?” Montoya asked.
The priest opened his mouth and closed it again. He seemed to drift into a place far away but finally whispered, “Everyone.”
They asked a few more questions. Bentz even brought up Ronnie Le Mars’s name, but they got nothing further, not the least flicker of recognition in his eyes. The old man seemed to have shut down. When the nurse came in with his medication, they left.
They took the stairs down and exited through the main entrance. Bentz wondered if the boy Faith bore might still be named Adam. His adoptive parents may have changed his name to make his adoption all the more anonymous.
At least now they had something to go on. Renner probably had fabricated some of the information, but hopefully he hadn’t switched dates or times of birth. There still should be some kind of record for them to find.
As they drove off, Montoya said, “Half of what the old guy said could be fantasy. Just in his mind.”
“Possibly, but enough of the facts agreed with Chaney’s.”
“Can you believe that crap? Hidden babies, falsified records, illegal adoptions? Who are these people who think they’re God and can just bend or break the rules to suit their needs because a kid, a damned human being, was inconvenient or even an embarrassment? Jesus H. Christ! All in the name of religion.”
“This has nothing to do with the Church. It’s people abusing power, thinking they were doing the right thing.”
“All to avoid a scandal. Unbelievable!”
Bentz glanced back in the direction they’d come. “Do you think Father Paul is safe? Sister Rebecca was at the birth. So was Terrence Renner. Both of them were murdered. So is there a connection, and, if so, what about Ellen Chaney and Father Paul? Are their lives in danger?”
Montoya pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll tell the FBI and the local authorities for Covington and in Ellen Chaney’s hometown.”
“Call Zaroster too and have her check vital records. Get a copy of Eve Renner’s birth certificate and see if there are any other birth records for boys who were born on the same day, in the same area. Anyone named Adam. That might have changed, but maybe not.”
“And about Father James…You going to tell Eve Renner you’re her uncle?” Montoya asked.
“Right after I tell Kristi she’s got a sister,” Bentz said flatly.
“There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep this from Abby so, let me know, will ya?”
Bentz nodded and flipped on the wipers.
The house was clean, the locks changed, and yet when Eve walked through the familiar rooms and hallways, she could feel her skin lift into gooseflesh. This, the home she’d loved, the place she and Nana had baked pies and cookies, the house where she’d felt on the top of the world in the turret room.
She glanced at Cole but didn’t say anything as she dropped Samson to the floor. The cat skittered up the stairs ahead of her, and Eve trudged up dutifully, steeling herself. She was glad for the sound of Cole’s footsteps behind her.
On the second floor, everything was the same as she’d remembered it. Nothing had changed, but in the turret room, when she pushed open the door and the clean and gleaming room greeted her, she still cringed. She’d bought new bedding, including a new mattress pad. Even so, in her mind’s eye, she still saw the bloodstains on the mattress, quicksilver images of her doll lying facedown on the coverlet, along with images of Sister Vivian’s body in the attic of the old hospital.
The doorbell rang, and she nearly jumped from her skin.
“I’ll see who it is,” Cole volunteered. He was down the stairs before she could protest. She hurried to follow him, and as she reached the first floor she spied Detective Bentz in the foyer. He was grim as ever, and Cole was still holding on to the edge of the door as if he intended to slam it closed the minute the cop left.
Bentz looked up at her, and she saw that whatever he had to say, it wasn’t good news. He barreled right in. “I met with Father Paul, who was the priest who worked at Our Lady of Virtues the night you were born. He confirmed what I’d already guessed: a priest by the name of James McClaren is your biological father. He’s also my half brother, so technically, you’re my niece.”
She stopped short. “Your niece?” He nodded, and she saw that what was about to come next was difficult. “There’s more.”
He sighed. “It’s a complicated story, but the long and short of it is that James McClaren also happens to be my daughter, Kristi’s, natural father.”
“What?”
“My first wife had an affair with my half brother, who also happened to be a priest.”
“Why the hell is that guy a priest?” Cole asked, his own disbelief evident.
“Good question. But too late. He’s dead.”
A dull roar started deep in Eve’s ears. “So I’m related to you and to Kristi on…on my father’s side and to Abby and Zoey Chastain on my mother’s?” She couldn’t believe it. She’d gone from being an only, adoptive child to a woman with three sisters and an uncle in one fell swoop.
“Are you kidding me?” Cole demanded as if he smelled some kind of trick. “What are the chances that Eve would be related to both you and Montoya?”
“Technically not Montoya. Only by marriage, if he and Abby tie the knot.”
They were all still standing in the foyer, the door open, the wind and rain slapping onto the front porch.
“Close the door, please,” she said to Cole.
“So, what does this have to do with the investigation?” he asked. “It’s interesting history, but so what?”
“We think Eve has a twin.”
“A twin?” Eve repeated, lips parting.
“A boy, now a man. A boy called Adam, who was thought to be stillborn. It was his grave we dug up at Our Lady of Virtues, but it was a fake.”
“Wait, you’re going much too fast,” she said, her head spinning.
Bentz said by way of apology, “It’s a lot of information. We don’t know how, but we think he might be a part of this. I thought you might want to know about it.”
“Yes…I do. Come in, Detective,” she said. They walked into the parlor, a room rarely used, and she waved Bentz into one of her grandmother’s Queen Anne chairs. She settled on a corner of the sofa. “Go on, please.”
Bentz launched into his tale while Eve listened and Cole, standing in the archway from the foyer, crossed his arms and stared at Bentz as if there was some kind of trap lurking in Bentz’s words.
Eve listened quietly. It was a wild tale. With her father right in the center of it. Was it really possible? Did her father and the staff at Our Lady of Virtues hide two births for twenty-eight years? She glanced over at Cole, who was glowering.
“So,” Bentz finished, “we’re trying to find your brother, see what he has to say.”
“And you’re linking him to the crimes somehow? As a killer or a victim?” Cole finally asked, the defense lawyer in him coming to life.
“That’s a question I’d really like to ask him.”
Bentz’s phone rang, and he looked at the screen, saw it was Montoya, and picked up. “Bentz.”
“Thought you’d want to know. The suspect that Noon brought in, Tessler, he picked Ronnie Le Mars out of the photo lineup.”
“I’ll be right there.”
“That’s not all, Bentz,” Montoya said, his voice dark with anger.
“What?”
“Tiggs just died.”