Avenue Of The Dead

The Devil You Know-2

“You may speak with him only if he has sufficiently recovered and is able and willing to speak with you, Captain. My patient comes first, before your investigation, is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” I replied, knowing that Father Rodrigo would be in good hands under the care of this young doctor who so obviously put the welfare of his patients at the top of his list of medical priorities.

Thanking him again, I wished the doctor goodnight, promising to return in the morning, but asking him to telephone me if the Father awoke before I returned to the hospital. He agreed to do so, again, under the conditions he had already stipulated.

Back in the car, I radioed in to headquarters, and waited no more than a minute before the chief himself came on the radio at the other end.

“Well, Juan,” he asked. “Did you discover anything about what happened to the good Father?”

I could do no more than repeat what Doctor Guerrero had told me, and though the chief was as frustrated as I at the lack of any concrete evidence to be going on with, he accepted that we must wait until Rodrigo had recovered sufficiently to be able to tell us how he'd been injured.

I slept badly that night. Even with the air conditioning working flat out, the heat in my bedroom seemed oppressive. I tossed and turned, and the face of Father Rodrigo disturbed the dreams that visited themselves upon me in the few brief snatches of sleep I managed to achieve. I kept wondering if he had fallen, or could he have been pushed? There had been too many strange things happening at the Church of the Virgin of Light in recent months. Four members of the choir, all young boys under seventeen, had simply disappeared, in addition to two other boys who assisted the Father at the altar. It had not been my case. Santiago Merced had been in charge of the investigation, but obviously the chief now wanted a fresh face on the job.

First thing in the morning, feeling weary and bleary-eyed, I visited Santiago in his office at headquarters. My fellow detective expressed himself more than happy to pass everything over to me. He had experienced no luck, no breakthrough, and with nothing to go on, and no apparent hope of a resolution, he had become totally disillusioned with the whole case. Reading through his notes, I could see why he'd fallen into such lethargy where the disappearances were concerned. He'd followed all the correct procedures, spoken to the families, friends and acquaintances of the boys, only to hit a brick wall with every single inquiry. Father Rodrigo had been more than helpful, but even the celebrated priest had been unable to throw any light on the disappearances. To all intents and purposes, it appeared that the boys had simply vanished from the face of the earth. Surely, I thought, if they'd been murdered, at least one body would have been discovered by now? If, on the other hand, they'd been abducted, the question became, who by, and for what purpose? Again, all of Merced's lines of inquiry led to the same result. Nothing, not a clue, nor a hint of anything useful that could lead him to finding out what had happened to the boys. The time to revisit the Father was fast approaching by the time I replaced Merced's notes in the file and placed them in one of my own desk drawers. Though they told me little, they would form points of reference during any future inquiries I may have to make in connection with this latest twist in the happenings at the church.

* * *

I arrived back at the hospital at eleven thirty. On my arrival at the ward, the sister in charge of the day shift informed me that Father Rodrigo had just woken, and that the doctor would like to speak to me in his office. Rodrigo's physician looked as though he'd not been to bed at all. If anything, his dishevelled state and heavy lidded eyes made me feel grateful for the few short periods of sleep I'd managed. He didn't bother to rise as I entered his office.

“He's awake,” Doctor Guerrero said, “but he doesn't seem to be making much sense. As I said last night, there may be some damage to his brain. He can speak with difficulty, but when he does he seems to be capable of nothing but quoting biblical passages, and, oh yes, he says he's seen the Devil!”

“And is this condition likely to be permanent, Doctor” I asked.

“At this stage, it's too early to say, Captain. He may remain like this indefinitely, or he may regain the faculty of normal speech in time. We'll conduct a brain scan and further tests as he gains strength, but, for now, we just don't know.”

Standing up at last, Guerrero walked out from behind his desk, and he led me the short distance from his office to Father Rodrigo's room.

I looked down at the priest lying in the bed before me. He looked deathly pale, and extremely vulnerable. His eyes seemed to be staring at a fixed point somewhere in the middle of the ceiling, and as I watched him, I saw something else, a look of terror on his face, terror such as I had never seen before, and would certainly never want to see again.

“Rodrigo, Father Rodrigo?” I spoke gently, quietly, not wanting to terrorise him any more than he already appeared to be. “Can you tell me who did this to you? Was it an accident? Did someone push you from the tower?”

Father Rodrigo's eyes never moved. He continued staring at that point somewhere on or beyond the ceiling, but in a cracked voice he replied,

“El Diablo, The Devil, The Devil is in my church, I have seen him, El Diablo is here. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.”

“Psalm 4, verse 8,” came a voice from behind me. I turned to see the face of Bishop Armando Entierro smiling at me from the doorway. The bishop and I had met a few times in the past.

“How are you, Juan?” he asked. “More importantly at this moment, how is poor Rodrigo?”

“I'm well thank you, your grace. As for Rodrigo, only time will tell. You can see for yourself what a pitiable state he's in at present.”

The bishop looked at Rodrigo, his face a mask of benevolence and compassion for the wounded priest.

“This is a bad business, Juan. First the disappearances, now this assault on Rodrigo within the sanctuary of the house of God.”

“You heard what he said, your grace? The Devil was in his church. He said he saw him!”

“And do you believe him, Captain Morales?”

The bishop used my official title, indicating the seriousness of the question.

“I believe he saw something that instilled sheer terror into him. Look at his face. Have you ever seen such fear, such abject horror reflected in a man's eyes?”

“May I?” asked the bishop, indicating his wish to speak to the unfortunate priest lying in the bed. I nodded my assent.

“Rodrigo, my son,” intoned the bishop quietly and reassuringly, “It is I, Armando Entierro. In the name of God, Rodrigo, tell me what happened.”

Rodrigo's eyes never faltered from their focus on that point above him, but then his mouth trembled as he replied,

“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”

“He's quoting from the Book of Revelation!” the bishop told me. “He speaks of Satan's expulsion from heaven.”

“He thinks Satan is here right now,” I replied.

“He is, Juan, he is all around us. Satan and his legions are always ready to tempt us, to seduce us, to lure unsuspecting souls into their infernal clutches. Believe me, Satan's here alright!”

I looked at Rodrigo again, and my heart cried inwardly for the man in the bed, the priest, the soul, the goodness cowering behind some inexplicable terror. The bishop spoke again.

“You two were very close once, Juan, weren't you? Rodrigo spoke of you often. What happened between you?”

“A stupid argument, your grace, about six years ago. You know I was divorced from Elena? Well, Rodrigo was unbending on the subject. I know it's against the Church's teaching but life sometimes throws us a curve ball, and well, despite everything we tried to do to hold the marriage together it happened. Anyway, Rodrigo and I had one of those once in a lifetime arguments when neither one will bend or compromise and we fell out in a big way. We haven't seen or spoken to each other from then until today,”

“How sad, Juan, how very sad, and now, you must try to solve this mystery, eh, amigo?”

Nodding to the bishop, I turned to face Father Rodrigo once again, and spoke with a softness that surprised even myself.

“Rodrigo, please tell me, if you can, who did this to you. Does it have anything to do with the missing boys? Did you find out something about what happened to them? Did someone do this to you to try to stop you from talking to the police, or to the bishop perhaps?”

Again, the priest trembled bodily, his lips quivering as he spoke, “And the burnt offering that the prince shall offer unto the Lord in the sabbath day shall be six lambs without blemish, and a ram without blemish”.

“Old Testament,” Bishop was thinking. “Yes, that's it! Ezekiel, chapter 46, I'm not sure of the verse.”

I smiled a little.

“Shame on you, Bishop Entierro, I thought you knew the good book inside out”.

“Must be my age”, he smiled back at me. “But what does he mean, Juan? Why all these references to the Bible. Why can't he communicate with us properly?”

“I don't know, your grace. Something in his brain has shut down, and the only thing that seems to be functioning is his knowledge of the book by which he has always tried to live his life.”

At that moment, my brain seemed to click into a new gear, as though someone had flicked a switch on in the deepest recesses of my though processes. I suddenly became aware of something, previously hidden behind the mask of Biblical quotes, but now very evident to me. Yes, I was certain of it! Rodrigo was attempting to tell us something. Seeing my sudden agitate state, Bishop Entierro looked at me, and c****d his head to one side, quizzically, as though waiting for me to enlighten him on my personal revelation. I spoke excitedly.

“Your grace, listen, six lambs without blemish, six missing boys, all presumably virgins, a ram without blemish, a catholic priest, PURE AND CELIBATE! He's trying to tell us it's all connected. I'm sure of it. But, how? Why would someone want to kill or abduct six choirboys or altar boys or whatever, and kill, or at least attempt to kill a priest? If they have been killed, where are the bodies? Lieutenant Merced and his team never found any evidence of foul play when they investigated the missing boys, and if someone wanted to kill Rodrigo, why didn't they make sure they'd succeeded when he fell from the tower? There were no witnesses so I assume they would have had the time to make sure they'd finished the job.”

“And if it was Satan himself, I can assure you he would not have failed if that was his intent,” the bishop added.