The Exorcist (19 page)

"Pardon me, I missed something?"

Karras shook his head; but the smile lingered. "I doubt that you ever miss a thing," he remarked. His sidelong glance toward Kmderman was sly and warmly twinkling.

Kinderman halted and mounted a massive and hopeless effort at looking befuddled, but glancing at the Jesuit's crinkling eyes, he lowered his head and chuckled ruefully. "Ah, well. Of course... of course... a psychiatrist. Who am I kidding?" He shrugged. "Look, it's habit with me, Father. Forgive me. Schmaltz--- that's the Kinderman method: pure schmaltz. Well, I'll stop and tell you straight what it's all about."

"The desecrations," Karras said, nodding.

"So I wasted my schmaltz, the detective said quietly.

"Sorry"

"Never mind, Father; that I deserved. Yes, the things in the church," he confirmed. "Correct. Only maybe something else besides, something serious."

"Murder?"

"Yes. kick me again, I enjoy it."

"Well, Homicide Division." The Jesuit shrugged.

"Never mind, never mind, Marlon Brando; never mind. People tell you for a priest you're a little bit smart-ass?"

"Mea culpa," Karras murmured. Though he was smiling, he felt a regret that perhaps he'd diminished the man's self-esteem. He hadn't meant to. And now he felt glad of a chance to express a sincere perplexity. "I don't get it, though," he added, taking care that he wrinkled his brow. "What's the connection?"

"Look, Father, could we keep this between us? Confidential? Like a matter of confession, so to speak?"

"Of course." He was eyeing the detective earnestly. "What is it?"

"You know that director who was doing the film here, Father? Burke Dennings?"

"Well, I've seen him."

"You've seen him." The detective nodded. "You're also familiar with how he died?"

"Well, the papers..." Karras shrugged again.

"That's just part of it."

"Oh?"

"Only part of it. Part. Just a part. Listen, what do you know on the subject of witchcraft?"

"What?"

"Listen, patience; I'm leading up to something. Now witchcraft, please--- you're familiar?"

"A little."

"From the witching end, not the hunting."

"Oh, I once did a paper on it" Karras smiled. "The psychiatric end."

"Oh, really? Wonderful! Great! That's a bonus. A plus. You could help me a lot, a lot more than I thought. Listen, Father. Now witchcraft..."

He reached up and gripped at the Jesuit's arm as they rounded a turn and approached the bench. "Now me, I'm a layman and, plainly speaking, not well educated. Not formally. No. But I read. Look; I know what they say about self-made men, that they're horrible examples of unskilled labor. But me, I'll speak plainly, I'm not ashamed. Not at all, I'm---" Abruptly he arrested the flow, looked down and shook his head. "Schmaltz. It's habit. I can't stop the schmaltz. Look, forgive me; you're busy."

"Yes, I'm praying."

The Jesuit's soft delivery had been dry and expressionless. Kinderman halted for a moment and eyed him. "You're serious? No."

The detective faced forward again and they walked. "Look, I'll come to the point: the desecrations. They remind you of anything to do with witchcraft?"

"Maybe. Some rituals used in Black Mass."

"A-plus. And now Dennings--- you read how he died?"

"In a fall"

"Well, I'll tell you, and--- please--- confidential!"

"Of course."

The detective looked suddenly pained as he realized that Karras had no intention of stopping at the bench. "Do you mind?" he asked wistfully.

"What?"

"Could we stop? Maybe sit?"

"Oh, sure." They began to move back toward the bench.

"You won't cramp?"

"No, I'm fine now."

"You're sure?"

"I'm fine."

"All right, all right, if you insist."

"You were saying?"

"In a second, please, just one second."

Kinderman settled his aching bulk on the bench with a sigh of content. "Ah, better, that's better," he said as the Jesuit picked up his towel and wiped his perspiring face. "Middle age. What a life."
     

"Burke Dennings?"

"Burke Dennings, Burke Dennings, Burke Dennings..." The detective was nodding down at his shoes. Then he glanced up at Karras. The priest was wiping the back of his neck. "Burke Dennings, good Father, was found at the bottom of that long flight of steps at exactly five minutes after seven with his head turned completely around and backward."

Peppery shouts drifted muffled from the baseball diamond where the varsity team held practice. Karras stopped wiping and held the lieutenant's steady gaze. "It didn't happen in the fall?" he said at last.

"Sure, it's possible." Kinderman shrugged. "But..."

"Unlikely," Karras brooded.

"And so what comes to mind in the contest of witchcraft?"

The Jesuit sat down slowly, looking pensive. "Well," he said finally, "supposedly demons broke the necks of witches that way. At least, that's the myth."

"A myth?"

"Oh, largely," he said, turning to Kinderman. "Although people did die that way, I suppose: likely members of a coven who either defected or gave away secrets. That's just a guess. But I know it was a trademark of demonic assassins."

Kinderman nodded. "Exactly. Exactly. I remembered the connection from a murder in London. That's now. I mean, lately, just four or five years ago, Father. I remembered that I read it in the papers."

"Yes, I read it too, but I think it turned out to be some sort of hoax. Am I wrong?"

"No, that's right, Father, absolutely right. But in this case, at least, you can see some connection, maybe, with that and the things in the church. Maybe somebody crazy, Father, maybe someone with a spite against the Church. Some unconscious rebellion, perhaps..."

"Sick priest," murmured Karras. "That it?"

"Listen, you re the psychiatrist, Father; you tell me."

"Well, of course, the desecrations are clearly pathological," Karras said thoughtfully, slipping on his sweater. "And if Dennings was murdered--- well, I'd guess that the killer's pathological too."

"And perhaps had some knowledge of witchcraft?"

"Could be."

"Could be," the detective grunted. "So who fits the bill, also lives in the neighborhood, and also has access in the night to the church?"

"Sick priest," Karras said, reaching out moodily beside him to a pair of sun-bleached khaki pants.

"Listen, Father, this is hard for you--- please!--- I understand. But for priests on the campus here, you're the psychiatrist, Father, so---"

"No, I've had a change of assignment."

"Oh, really? In the middle of the year?"

"That's the Order," Karras shrugged as he pulled on the pants.

"Still, you'd know who was sick at the time and who wasn't, correct? I mean, this kind of sickness. You'd know that."

"No, not necessarily, Lieutenant. Not at all. It would only be an accident, in fact, if I did. You see, I'm not a psychoanalyst. All I do is counsel. Anyway," he commented, buttoning his trousers, "I really know of no one who fits the description."

"Ah, yes; doctor's ethics. If you knew. You wouldn't tell."

"No, I probably wouldn't."

"Incidentally--- and I mention it only in passing--- this ethic is lately considered illegal. Not to bother you with trivia, but lately a psychiatrist in sunny California, no less, was put in jail for not telling the police what he knew about a patient."

"That a threat?"

"Don't talk paranoid. I mention it in passing."

"I could always tell the judge it was a matter of confession," said the Jesuit, grinning wryly as he stood to tuck his shirt in. "Plainly speaking," he added.

The detective glanced up at him, faintly gloomy. "Want to go into business, Father?" he said Then looked away dismally. " 'Father'... what 'Father'?" he asked rhetorically. "You're a Jew; I could tell when I met you."

The Jesuit chuckled.

"Yes, laugh," said Kinderman. "Laugh." But then he smiled, looking impishly pleased with himself. He turned with beaming eyes. "That reminds me. The entrance examination to be a policeman, Father? When I took it, one question went something like: 'What are rabies and what would you do for them?' Know what some dumbhead put down for an answer? Emis? 'Rabies,' he said, 'are Jew priests, and I would do anything that I could for them.' Honest!" He'd raised up a hand as in oath.

Karras laughed. "Come on, I'll walk you to your car. Are you parked in the lot?"

The detective looked up at him, reluctant to move. "Then we're finished?"

The priest put a foot on the bench, leaning over, an arm resting heavily on his knee. "Look, I'm really not covering up," he said. "Really. If I knew of a priest like the one you're looking for, the least I would do is to tell you that there was such a man without giving you his name. Then I guess I'd report it to the Provincial. But I don't know of anyone who even comes close."

"Ah, well," the detective sighed. "I never thought it was a priest in the first place. Not really." He nodded toward the parking lot. "Yes, I'm over there."

They started walking.

"What I really suspect," the detective continued, "if I said it out loud you would call me a nut. I don't know. I don't know." He was shaking his head. "All these clubs and these cults where they kill for no reason. It makes you start thinking peculiar things. To keep up with the times, these days, you have to be a little bit crazy."

Karras nodded.

"What's that thing on your shirt?" the detective asked him, motioning his head toward the Jesuit's chest.

"What thing?"

"On the T-shirt," the detective clarified. "The writing. 'Philosophers.' "

"Oh, I taught a few courses one year," said Karras, "at Woodstock Seminary in Maryland. I played on the lower-class baseball team. They were called the Philosophers.' "

"Ah, and the upper-class team?"

"Theologians."

Kinderman smiled and shook his head. "Theologians three, Philosophers two," he mused.

"Philosophers three, Theologians two."

"Of course."

"Of course."

"Strange things," the detective brooded. "Strange. Listen, Father," he began on a reticent tack. "Listen, doctor.... Am I crazy, or could there be maybe a witch coven here in the District right now? Right today?"

"Oh, come on," said Karras.

"Then there could."

"Didn't get that."

"Now I'll be the doctor," the detective announced to him, punching at the air with an index finger. "You didn't say no, but instead you were smart-ass again. That's defensive, good Father, defensive. You're afraid you'll look gullible, maybe; a superstitious priest in front of Kinderman the mastermind, the rationalist'' ---he was tapping the finger at his temple--- "the genius beside you, here, the walking Age of Reason. Right? Am I right?"

The Jesuit stared at him now with mounting surmise and respect. "Why, that's very astute," he remarked.

"Well, all right, then," Kinderman grunted. "So I'll ask you again: could there maybe be witch covens here in the District?"

"Well, I really wouldn't know," answered Karras thoughtfully, arms folded across his chest. "But in parts of Europe they say Black Mass."

"Today?"

"Today."

"You mean just like the old days, Father? Look, I read about those things, incidentally, with the sex and the statues and who knows whatever. Not meaning to disgust you, by the way, but they did all those things? It's for real?"

"I don't know."

"Your opinion, then, Father Defensive."

The Jesuit chuckled. "All right, then; I think it's for real. Or at least I suspect so. But most of my reasoning's based on pathology. Sure, Black Mass. But anyone doing those things is a very disturbed human being, and disturbed in a very special way. There's a clinical name for that kind of disturbance, in fact; it's called Satanism--- means people who can't have any sexual pleasure unless it's connected to a blasphemous action. Well, it's not that uncommon, not even today, and Black Mass was just used as the justification."

"Again, please forgive me, but the things with the statues of Jesus and Mary?"

"What about them?"

"They're true?"

"Well, I think this might interest you as a policeman." His scholarly interest aroused and stirring, Karras' manner grew quietly animated. "The records of the Paris police still carry the case of a couple of monks from a nearby monastery--- let's see..." He scratched his head as he tried to recall. "Yes, the one at Crépy, I believe. Well, whatever." He shrugged. "Close by. At any rate, the monks came into an inn and got rather belligerent about wanting a bed for three. Well, the third they were carrying: a life-size statue of the Blessed Mother."