Exorcist Falls Read online

  Bittner didn’t move, but his eyes flicked irresolutely from Sutherland to the boy.

  Sutherland continued, “He is restrained. He poses no danger to you nor anyone else. Whether or not he has anything to do with the murders you so commendably want to solve is an issue we’ll address later tonight. For now, Officer Bittner, I implore you—let us do our jobs.”

  At this last he nodded at me, and I made sure to reflect in my bearing and expression the same aura of dignity that Sutherland projected. I fought an urge to wipe my hands on my robe. The blood on my fingers felt slimy.

  Evidently satisfied by my look, Sutherland said, “You shall respond to my reading, Father Crowder. Are you ready?”

  “Wait,” Ron said. “You’re not going ahead with it, are you?”

  Looking impatient but demonstrating what I considered admirable restraint, Sutherland said, “How Casey responds to the reading will be one of the indicators of his true condition. Now, please, Mr. Hartman.”

  “You wanna hear how Ashley Panagopoulos’s head sounded while I bashed it on the floor of her bedroom?” the croaking voice from the bed asked.

  “Motherfucker,” Bittner said, his lips drawn back.

  The Casey-thing leered at Bittner. “Or would you rather know what your daughter’s squeals will sound like when I sodomize her with a carving knife?”

  Bittner pounced.

  I couldn’t believe how easily he bulled through us, swatting us aside like rotten saplings in his eagerness to get his hands on Casey.

  “I could just take you in,” he said, grasping the boy by the T-shirt, “but I’m not gonna let you off that easy.”

  Danny grabbed at Bittner, but with a single jab Bittner sent Danny reeling toward the wall.

  “I’ll rape your daughter, Bittner,” the Casey-thing said. “I’ll make her beg for mercy before I disembowel her.”

  “You’ll be dead first, you bastard.”

  The monstrous face on the bed changed, a new idea occurring to the presence inhabiting Casey. “Maybe I’ll make you watch while I do her!”

  Sutherland tried to intervene, but Bittner thrust him roughly aside. Bittner cocked a fist.

  The awful grin on Casey’s face split wider. “Give it to me, Jack. Give it to me hard.”

  Bittner complied.

  The boy’s head whipped sideways with the blow, a splat of blood stippling the ivory headboard.

  “Don’t touch him!” Sutherland shouted.

  But this time Bittner’s rage brooked no interruption. He grabbed Casey by the shirtfront and began shaking him, the boy’s head thrashing up and down in crisp, brutal arcs.

  “Leave him alone, Jack!” Danny shouted, but the moment Danny reached for Bittner, the big man whirled, seized Danny by the shoulders and head-butted him. The sound made me ill, like a blunt ax chunking into an oak tree. Danny staggered back, a crimson starburst of blood glistening between his eyebrows.

  Sutherland made for Bittner again, and while the older priest did not succeed in wrestling the giant cop away from Casey, he was able to deter him long enough to allow Ron and me to join the fray.

  Grabbing hold of one of Bittner’s railroad-tie-sized arms, I marveled at Sutherland’s ability to keep the man at bay so long. Likely attracted by the cacophony, Liz had joined us too. She was gamely hauling back on the collar of Bittner’s coat. Danny lay in a heap near the wall, apparently knocked insensate from Bittner’s attack.

  The four of us had just begun to achieve a measure of progress in our attempts to move Bittner away from the boy when Casey spoke up again in a new voice, one that chilled me with its wheedling cruelty.

  “Oh my, Jack,” the voice said in a tone so derisive and full of revelation that we all turned and looked at the boy, “I never would’ve guessed it of you. You love your daughter all right, but you lust after her friends.”

  Bittner’s eyes flared. “You son of a bitch.”

  “You dream of bending them over, of punishing them, of—”

  I lost the next part in the melee that ensued, which was just as well. The things Casey was saying were some of the vilest I’d ever heard. And coming from a priest who has taken thousands of confessions, that’s saying a great deal.

  Bittner slugged Sutherland in the gut. Sutherland went down, and without him there to aid us, I knew our resistance wouldn’t last long.

  Ron shouted something about brutality, but whatever it was only served to incite Bittner further. He grabbed Ron by the face and bounced the back of his head off the wall. Ron slumped to the floor, looking like he wouldn’t get up anytime soon.

  With Liz and me still clinging to the huge cop like barnacles, Bittner waded toward Casey.

  “Tell them!” Casey crooned, the sour odor of his breath making my eyes water. Casey laughed, the smell of rotten eggs and dead insects wafting over us. “Tell them how you dream of deflowering your daughter’s friends! How you imagine them spreading their legs for you and writhing in pain while you rut away your frustrations!”

  “Shut your sick mouth,” Bittner growled and backhanded Casey in the face. Blood squirted from the boy’s nose, drenching his already blood-spattered T-shirt so that it now looked as if Casey were wearing a red bib.

  Liz and I struggled with Bittner, but our attempts had little effect. I’m ashamed to say I was the next one to be discarded. The mad cop half spun and cracked my underjaw with a cudgel fist. My jaw aflame, I collapsed and watched in dismay as he tossed Liz toward where her husband lay against the wall.

  “Oh, Jack,” Casey moaned in a voice eerily like a young woman’s.

  “Stop it,” Bittner muttered. Another backhand to the boy’s face, this one sounding like a mallet striking a deer carcass.

  But Casey went on. “Oh, Jack, oh, Jack. Please give me your big cock!”

  “Goddammit,” Bittner muttered. He walloped Casey in the face again, this time with a closed fist.

  I attempted to intercede, but Bittner anticipated me, aiming a vicious, blunt elbow that caught me flush in the cheek. The pain was exquisite. I sagged to the floor.

  I looked up in time to see Bittner fumbling for his gun. I doubt he would have been so clumsy under normal circumstances, but his rage was too great to allow sure-handedness. He’d just freed his firearm from his hip holster, with the apparent intention of shooting the child, when a voice behind us bellowed, “Don’t you dare!”

  I glanced up and beheld Danny Hartman holding a gun on his partner. Danny’s feet were planted wide, his arms extended. The barrel of the pistol was six feet from the back of Bittner’s head.

  Bittner didn’t turn, but he seemed to realize what was happening. He didn’t make a move on Danny, but he didn’t holster his weapon either. His back to Danny, he said, “You really want to do this, partner?”

  Danny’s face was slick with blood, and he looked distraught. But there was resolve there too. “I don’t want any of this. But I’m not gonna let you kill this boy.”

  Bittner turned, on his pitted face a look of ruthless irony. “This boy? You mean this killer of children? This rapist? This monster who speaks filth about my daughter and her friends? Who for all we know has been casing them to pick out his next victim?”

  “Put the gun down, Jack.”

  “Why should I?”

  Danny licked his lips. “Because we don’t know he’s done anything wrong.”

  “He attacked his family. He beat up his little sister. He knows everything about the murders. How the hell can you say he hasn’t done anything wrong?”

  Bittner’s gun was rising.

  Danny’s voice was taut. “Last warning, Jack.”

  I don’t know what would’ve happened had Bittner raised his gun high enough to shoot Danny Hartman. Maybe Danny would’ve shot him. Maybe Bittner would have slaughtered us all. At that moment he looked crazy enough to do it.

  Good thing Sutherland hit him first.

  All I saw was a flash of silver over Bittner’s head. Then he dropped soundlessly to t
he floor as though struck dead by divine judgment.

  Father Sutherland lowered the aluminum bat, looking like the holiest man to ever win the Triple Crown.

  “Thanks, Father,” Danny said. “I sure didn’t want to shoot him.”

  “That’s because you’re a good soul, Danny. Now let’s put Officer Bittner in some place safe.”

  “How about jail?” Ron suggested. He was on his feet, but he looked groggy. Liz, too, was rising.

  Danny brought up a trembling hand, massaged his forehead. “That won’t work.”

  Ron turned to his little brother with an expression of slow-dawning amazement. “Wait a minute. You’re telling me I’m supposed to keep him in the house? After what he did? After he beat up my Casey? Threatened to kill him?”

  Danny’s voice was level. “You turn Jack in to the precinct—that is what you’re proposing right? —you do that and how long do you think it’ll be before he tells them everything that’s gone on here tonight? How long do you realistically expect them to wait before they take Casey in too?” Danny glanced at the thing on the bed, which watched them with a sardonic gleam in its eyes. “You really want my bosses to see your son in this state? You think they’re gonna know what to make of it? Or be sympathetic to a kid who talks about the killings the way he’s been doing, not to mention beating up on his own family?”

  Father Sutherland moved around and got his arms under Bittner’s back. With an effortless heave, he had Bittner hooked under the armpits. Nodding, he said, “Get his legs, Danny. Jason, you get the door.”

  As Bittner’s motionless body was muscled across the room, Ron threw up his arms in exasperation. “Isn’t Danny gonna stay here and guard my son? Casey’s already shown how dangerous he can be.”

  I said, “Your son needs help, not an armed guard,” and Liz favored me with such an appreciative glance that my belly somersaulted. Then I was opening the door for Father Sutherland and Danny.

  But Ron was not to be put off. Stalking after our slow-moving group, he said, “Where are you taking him?”

  “The cruiser,” Danny said. “I’ll make him comfortable in the back and lock him in.”

  Ron groaned. “Hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t exactly Humboldt Park around here. What’ll happen when this gorilla wakes up and starts wailing? You think my neighbors are gonna go for that?”

  “How large is your lot?” Sutherland asked. As he and Danny lugged Bittner down the hallway, I could finally start to hear the strain in his voice.

  “What’s that got to do with it?” Ron demanded.

  “Two acres,” Liz said.

  Struggling to support Bittner’s considerable bulk, Sutherland said, “With all the trees and the distance…not to mention the storm raging outside…there’ll be very little chance anyone will hear Bittner’s cries. He’ll be inside the car, remember.”

  “Can’t you gag him?” Ron asked.

  Danny shook his head. “Don’t like to do that if I can help it. Some guys are mouth breathers. Or maybe just congested. Put a gag in the wrong person’s mouth, he could asphyxiate.”

  “Wouldn’t be much of a loss,” Ron muttered.

  I watched Liz shut the door to Casey’s room and stand there a moment, clearly overcome with anguish and sorrow. I waited for her, and as she approached, I murmured what comforting words I could. Without acknowledging me, Liz went down the stairs after the others.

  I descended a few moments later, but only after I gazed at that six-paneled door for a long moment. I didn’t want to go back in there.

  But I knew we had to.

  Chapter Five

  “What do you mean you don’t have enough proof?”

  Despite the aggressive way that Ron had approached him, Father Sutherland did not seem abashed. Standing beside the grandfather clock in the foyer—he and Danny and I had finally managed to arrange Jack Bittner’s hulking form in the back of Danny’s cruiser—Sutherland stood with his hands folded politely before him, looking for all the world as though he were about to deliver a sermon on the perils of greed.

  Sutherland said, “There are many requirements that must be fulfilled before we perform an exorcism, or even pronounce the child possessed.”

  “Requirements,” Ron repeated. “You’re telling me you can’t see it already?”

  “I will not rush to judgment. The only evidence I have is the child speaking in an unnaturally guttural voice—speaking in English, I might add—and a secondhand account of anomalous strength.”

  “What do you need? The kid’s head to swivel on his neck and spit pea soup all over you?”

  “That’s not funny,” Liz said.

  “Shut up,” he muttered without taking his eyes off Sutherland. “Whatever that thing is, it’s endangering my son. What if it kills him? What if Casey doesn’t recover?”

  The words were out of my mouth before I knew it. “Are you sure it’s Casey you’re worried about?”

  Ron rounded on me, and for a flickering instant I was convinced he’d punch me. “You got a mouth on you, you know it? You gonna do anything other than contradict me tonight?”

  “Maybe you should get a grip,” Danny said.

  “Screw all of you,” Ron growled, his voice echoing off the soaring foyer ceiling. “I should’ve taken care of this myself.”

  “Allowing Danny to contact us was the one correct thing you did,” I said.

  “Listen, I know I may not be anything as impressive as a priest or a cop—” he threw his brother a stony look, “—and I know you guys probably resent me for my venial lifestyle—”

  “Asshole,” Danny muttered.

  “—but I think you’re all overlooking the obvious here.”

  “And what is that?” I asked.

  “That Jack Bittner might have a good motive for claiming my son’s the butcher who’s been hacking up all those girls.”

  Liz’s pretty face twisted with distaste, but Sutherland asked, “What motive?”

  Ron spread his arms in amazement. “Bittner’s the killer.”

  We were all silent a moment as that sank in.

  “Wait a second,” Danny started.

  But Ron overrode him. “Think about it. The guy’s a beast. You all saw him up there. It took every one of us to bring him down—”

  “Father Sutherland brought him down,” I reminded him.

  Ron shot me a surly look. “The point is, the guy’s got the brute strength and then some. Secondly, he’s a cop. Who’d know better than a cop how to murder someone and get away with it? Hell, he might even be working it from the inside, planting false leads, putting them off his trail…”

  “You’re forgetting something,” Danny said.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I’m his partner.”

  Ron shrugged. “So? You had trouble passing shop class, Danny, so forgive me if I don’t place much faith in your deductive abilities.”

  Liz was twisting her crucifix necklace, her thumb and forefinger on the silver body of Christ. “He did seem quick to blame Casey.”

  “That doesn’t make him a serial killer,” Danny pointed out.

  “Doesn’t make him innocent either,” Ron said.

  Danny used a wet paper towel to dab at the cut between his eyebrows. “I know Jack was crazy up there, but you guys don’t know him like I do. He’s not a bad guy.”

  Ron uttered a harsh laugh. “‘Not a bad guy’. God, you’re gullible.”

  “We can’t all be pricks.”

  But Ron was shaking his head. “So goddamned sensitive… such a bleeding heart. Always have to be buddies with everybody, always trying to play nice.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” I said.

  Ron ignored me. “Hell, Danny, it’s no wonder you never married. Got your heart broke once, and now it’s like you don’t even notice girls.”

  “It sounds like Bittner notices them too much,” I said.

  Everyone looked at me.

  “What about
that, Father?” Liz asked. “How could Casey know Bittner’s thoughts?” She shivered. “Those awful things he fantasized about his daughter’s friends.”

  “Let’s be fair,” Danny said, “Casey could have been making that up. It doesn’t mean Bittner really thinks those things.”

  “Clairvoyance is not uncommon in cases of possession,” Sutherland said quietly.

  Liz shook her head. “But how—”

  “You saw how Casey’s face changed,” Sutherland said. “The moment Officer Bittner touched his skin, he seemed to surmise what was in Bittner’s mind.”

  “You believe it then?” Danny asked.

  “I believe nothing yet,” he said, “which is why we must go upstairs and perform the tests necessary to confirm or dismiss demonic possession.”

  My stomach plummeted.

  “Finally, someone sees the light,” Ron said. “I guarantee Bittner’s place is full of evidence.”

  But Sutherland turned a pitiless eye on him. “Jack Bittner is not the Sweet Sixteen Killer.”

  Ron scowled. “How the hell can you know that?”

  “Because the killer visited my confession booth three days ago.”

  It was as though someone had unleashed the gates of a spillway and doused us all in freezing water.

  Looking thoroughly displeased with himself, Sutherland went on. “I am bound by my vows to maintain secrecy in these matters. However, as this case is proving extraordinary, I will say this much: Based on what the man in my booth told me, I suspect very strongly that he is the individual responsible for the atrocities. He shared with me many specifics that have not been in the papers…items he’d collected from his victims and hidden in his home.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the authorities?” Danny asked.

  Sutherland met Danny’s accusation with neither defiance nor asperity. “I didn’t know what to do,” he said simply. “People look to me for guidance, for wisdom, but so many times I am as bewildered as they are. I don’t know the correct course of action any more than any other man. All I can do is beseech God for His guidance, for His wisdom.”