Exorcist Road Read online

  Sutherland tried to intercede, 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 first. Somehow I doubt it. 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 the 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 h
im?”

  “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 some of the strain in his voice.

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

  “Two acres,” Liz said.

  Straining 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 Danny’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 ivory 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, not in some unfamiliar tongue—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. “That 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.

  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.”

  Ron’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “And I suppose God told you to sit on the information while that madman impaled girls on meat hooks—”

  “Don’t,” Liz said.

  “—while he mutilated their faces and skinned them alive.”

  “That’s enough, Ron!” Danny snapped.

  Ron spun on him. “And you’re just as bad as the Father here. You’re charged with protecting this city, and all you do is drink yourself into oblivion—”

  “Stop it,” Liz said. She put a hand on Ron’s arm, but he flung it off.

  “—and when I call you for help—the one fucking time I make the mistake of relying on you—you let that idiot of a partner attack my son.”

  Danny’s voice trembled. “Shut up, Ronnie.”

  But Ron laughed, his expression vicious. “Hell, I remember when Liz said we should make you Casey’s godfather. I said to myself, ‘Why not? Danny surely can’t find a way to screw that up’. Boy, was I ever wrong.”

  Danny looked for a moment like he might lunge at Ron, but before he could, Ron stalked off toward the kitchen, mumbling obscenities.

  Liz said, “Danny, don’t listen—”

  But before she could finish, Danny averted his eyes and said, “I’m gonna check on Carolyn.”

  Leaving the three of us in uncomfortable silence.

  “We’d better go to Casey,” Father Sutherland said.

  We’d started toward the stairs when Liz asked, “How do you know it wasn’t Jack Bittner? The man in the confessional?”

  Sutherland regarded her a long moment. “The man spoke Greek with a very specific dialect called Tsakonian, one that only people in the Peloponnese region still use. Earlier, Danny told us that Officer Bittner was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. He could hardly have acquired such an accent in that kind of environment.”

  Liz was standing very still, a troubled look on her face. I was about to ask her what was wrong, but before I could, Father Sutherland grasped my shoulder. “We must go to Casey now, Father Crowder. In one way or another, he needs our help.”