The Killing Room (Richard Montanari) - By Richard Montanari Page 0,103

Jessica signed for the box, then took it to a small room next to the warden’s office. There wasn’t much to look through: dirty comb, a pair of used bus tickets, a battered wallet, a small wooden crucifix. Jessica opened the wallet. Inside was sixteen dollars, along with a page torn from the Bible. The 23rd Psalm.

Jessica opened the center of the wallet, lifted up the flap. Inside was a faded color photograph of a slender young girl, perhaps twelve or so. Behind the girl was a large truck. All Jessica could see was the beginning of the words painted on the side of the van, which looked to be HOLY and CARA. The girl held a flower in her hand.

Jessica flipped over the picture. On the back was a handwritten message.

DEAR MOMMA,

I’VE SEED SO MANY THINGS. THE OHIO RIVER IS BIG. I KNOW DADDY DIED OF HIS LUNGS, BUT HE WERENT GOING TO HURT ME. NOT REALLY. I KNOW THAT. I AM HAPPY NOW WITH THE PREACHER. I HAVE THE SPIRIT IN ME, AND I HOPE EVERYONE IS DOING GAYLY. LOVE ALL WAYS,

RUBY LONGSTREET

I wonder if she still holds the rose, Roland Hannah had said.

He was talking about the girl in the photograph. Ruby. This was the red-haired girl Ida-Rae Munson had spoken of, the one who had taken up with a preacher.

A preacher named Roland Hannah.

She had a devil-child.

FORTY-THREE

Byrne parked his car in front of St Gedeon’s. The posters announcing the upcoming demolition were affixed to the building itself, on the light poles, on the chain link fence that cordoned off the site. The building would be torn down in two days.

The knowledge filled Byrne with a deep sorrow. This had been the church of his youth. So much so that, in the neighborhood, they never called it St Gedeon’s. It was just church. Byrne had been baptized here, confirmed here, had made his first holy communion here.

He remembered Father Leone standing on the steps on Sunday mornings, on the hottest days of August and the frigid days of February, saying goodbye to his flock, as well as noticing – and cataloguing – who didn’t come to mass.

Byrne also remembered the call he had gotten that morning, the day Father Leone discovered The Boy in the Red Coat sitting in the last pew.

*

Byrne half-ran to the front doors of Villa Maria. The wind was bitterly cold and he had not brought a hat or a scarf or gloves with him.

As soon as the automatic doors opened he was greeted by the institutional smells of disinfectant and cafeteria foods – most notably, creamed corn and applesauce. He was also welcomed by a blast of warm, humid air.

He walked to the front desk, blowing into his hands. The woman standing guard was not the same one he and Jessica had talked to. This woman was older. She had a round, pleasant face, bright henna-treated hair. Her plastic nametag read SANDI.

‘Still cold out there?’ she asked.

‘Brutal.’

‘How can I help you?’

‘I’m here to see Father Leone. He’s in 303.’

The woman just stared at him. She said nothing.

‘Father Leone?’ Byrne repeated. ‘Father Thomas Leone?’

Still nothing, but now the woman began to worry the edge of the envelope in her hands.

‘Old guy?’ Byrne continued. ‘Kind of a Spencer Tracy meets Dracula?’

‘Are you a member of his family?’

Odd question, Byrne thought. But one fraught with peril. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Just a friend.’

‘Father Leone passed away last night.’

The words hit Byrne like a roundhouse punch. Yes, the man was in his nineties, in frail health, took a dozen medications a day, and was plugged into an oxygen tank. Still, Byrne was surprised. Father Leone was supposed to live forever. All priests were.

‘I was just here. He seemed …’ Old and frail, if the truth be told. But Byrne said it anyway. ‘He seemed fine.’

‘It happened during the night. I came on at six, and he had already passed,’ the woman said. ‘As to cause, I’m afraid I don’t know. He didn’t have any living brothers or sisters, so I don’t think anyone is going to order an autopsy.’

Byrne suddenly felt hollowed out, as if his entire childhood had been torn away and discarded. The memories of his time at St Gedeon’s came flooding back, the good and the bad, all of it shadowed by the recent, indelible image of Father Thomas Leone’s slight shoulders in that cheap cardigan.

‘If you want, you can call the morgue,’ the woman said, taking a pen out of a cup on