Blood on a Saint (7 page)

“Lovely story, isn’t it?” O’Flaherty remarked.

“Yes, it is,” Monty agreed.

“But that’s the extent of Brennan’s contribution. Otherwise, he leaves it to an oul’ fella to do all the work. Just when I should be gliding into retirement.”

“I’ll go out and tell the crowd you’re in delicate health, Michael, not up to the task.”

“Kind of you, Brennan, but the multitudes are restless. I can’t bring myself to disappoint them.”

“Disappoint them, Michael. Time they got used to it.”

“You know the real reason he doesn’t like this stuff, Monty.”

“No, I don’t understand. Father Burke is usually so co-operative.”

“He’s not able for it. Too squeamish! He can’t bring himself to describe the condition of those who were cured, people with running sores and pus and all the unappetizing manifestations of bodily ailments. That’s it, isn’t it, Brennan? Fess up, now.”

“Well, I . . .”

“You can’t talk about some of these cures without making reference to purulent discharges and feces. Can’t tell the stories of the illness, the cure, or the test results without getting your hands dirty, my lad.”

Brennan made no attempt to hide his distaste. Nobody could ever accuse Brennan Burke of avoiding the pleasures of the body. But he, like other people who had never been sick a day in their lives, wasn’t so hot when it came to its afflictions.

“Never mind him, though, Monty. What do you make of all this talk of miracles?”

“I have to confess to you, Mike, that I had never given it any thought before now. I’d hear the word Lourdes and it would go in one ear and out the other. I just assumed . . .”

“Yes? You assumed?”

“Well, that it was a bunch of pious claptrap. But that’s without knowing one single solitary thing about it.”

“Not exactly the scientific method.”

“No, not at all.”

“You’re not alone. There are a whole lot of people who say they swear by the scientific method, then abandon the empirical method of inquiry when it comes to evaluating claims from, say, Lourdes. They don’t read any of the case studies, any of the doctors’ reports, and just dismiss it out of hand. They come to a conclusion based on no evidence and no observation.

“And of course there are the conspiracy buffs, who think it’s all a gigantic fraud perpetrated by the Church and, presumably, by all those doctors. That would mean that a bunch of doctors, who don’t believe in any of this, pretend they do, at the risk of being mocked and derided by their colleagues and having their reputations ruined for good. Why would they do that?”

“I couldn’t tell you, Michael.”

“Thousands of doctors have looked at thousands of cases over the past hundred and thirty or so years. The standards are extremely rigorous; that’s why so many cures, even though medically inexplicable, don’t make the final cut as miraculous according to the Church. Contrary to the idea that the Church wants to claim miracles left, right, and centre, it is in fact extremely cautious about these claims. Here we are in 1992, one hundred thirty-four years after St. Bernadette at Lourdes, and only sixty-five cures have been accepted as miraculous. And of course, most people are not cured and that can’t be explained either! But it’s time to get out there. Will you be joining us, Monty?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“You might want to stick close to this fella,” O’Flaherty said, pointing to Brennan, “in case he gets weak at the knees. It’s de Rudder I’m going to be talking about.”

“Ah. Maybe I’ll have a shot of whiskey before I go, to give me strength.”

But no drink was taken, and the three of them left the rectory for the churchyard. It was a spectacular October day, and the leaves were gold and vermillion. The statue of St. Bernadette of Lourdes was surrounded on three sides by evergreen trees. There was about six feet of lawn all around the sculpture, between it and the trees, leaving a sort of living grotto in which people could gather on their feet or on their knees. The statue of the kneeling saint rested on a granite base, so the whole thing was about five feet in height. It depicted the fourteen-year-old Bernadette gazing upwards with her hands together in prayer. The figure was done in white marble but the sculptor had managed to convey the rough fabric of the girl’s dress and headscarf. Her round face was realistic, her expression one of awe and reverence. There was still a smear of blood on the saint’s face, a vertical slash the width of a finger, as if the murder victim had reached out to grasp the statue while falling. Only the killer would know.

A crowd of up to two hundred people had gathered around and in front of the statue. Monsignor O’Flaherty introduced himself, made some preliminary remarks about Bernadette and her visions of the Virgin, then told the group he would describe one of the sixty-five officially approved miracle cures.

Brennan scanned the crowd. Many of the faces were familiar by now. He saw Befanee Tate, with a circle of admirers. And, was that the boyfriend? What was his name? Brennan had put the run to him on a previous occasion, on the suspicion that he had been soliciting money from regular visitors to the statue of Bernadette. Now there were hundreds of punters to prey upon. Brennan had not had the time or patience to determine what line the young miscreant was using to get people to pay up, but he had the impression it was more than simple panhandling. Whatever it was, it was not going to happen on the grounds of St. Bernadette’s church, grounds filled with vulnerable, gullible people. There he was again. Tall, heavy-set, with a pockmarked face and thick dark hair that gave rise to the old word “pompadour.” Was he trying to imitate the preachers on American television? Brennan would make a point of hustling him off the property after O’Flaherty had spoken but for now he tuned in to what his pastor was saying.

“This was the case of Pierre de Rudder. This man didn’t actually go to Lourdes. He attended a Lourdes shrine in Belgium, so he certainly wasn’t subject to any kind of mass hysteria or autosuggestion, the kind of effect critics of Lourdes try to evoke as an explanation of the cures. By the way, if such a phenomenon is at work, why isn’t everyone cured? But this whole chimera of ‘autosuggestion’ is a non-starter anyway. As one of the presidents of the Lourdes Medical Bureau has pointed out, no kind of personal or collective suggestion could cause germs to neutralize each other, could fill in gaps in bones and tissue, rapidly form scars, or cause pus to be absorbed! And the Church refuses point-blank to consider any ‘hysterical’ or ‘neurotic’ cases; there has to be an organic, physical problem in the patient. One of the things that particularly astounds the doctors is that bones knit together, severed nerves are rejoined, skin wounds heal and form scar tissue — all of which, according to the laws of biology, take
time
. At Lourdes, they happen in minutes or hours.

“But I’ve gone off on a tangent. Back to Pierre de Rudder. He broke his leg in a fall. The fracture was so bad that, after the removal of some fragments, there was a gap of over an inch between the bones of his leg, and the lower part of the leg was no longer attached to the top; it swung back and forth in all directions. If that’s not enough to make Father Burke weak at the knees, there is also the fact that over the years an abscess formed around the wound, a grotesque running sore that necessitated a change of dressings several times a day. There was nothing the doctors could do for him, and they recommended that the leg be amputated. But de Rudder refused. After suffering through this for eight years, he decided to make a pilgrimage to a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes near the city of Ghent. He took the train to Ghent, then boarded the bus to the shrine. The bus driver complained because the open sore was discharging so much blood and pus onto the seat! Are you still with us, Father?”

“Barely, Monsignor.”

There was some soft laughter from those in the crowd who heard his reply.

“Good man. Anyway, Pierre de Rudder got to the shrine and prayed, but not for a cure. He asked Our Lady for the grace to be able to work and support his children, rather than have the family live on charity. Suddenly, he felt a change come over him. He got up and walked, without crutches. Within a few minutes at the shrine his leg bones reunited, his legs were of equal length, and he no longer had a limp. You’ll be happy to hear, Father Burke, that the offensive wound had closed.

“De Rudder’s doctor, an agnostic, refused to believe what he heard about the healing, so came to see it himself, and later wrote to the Medical Bureau that the cure had been complete and instantaneous, and was absolutely inexplicable. He could not explain how bone had somehow been created to fill in where he himself had removed the fragments. Twenty-eight doctors reviewed the case, and their work was supervised by both Catholics and non-believers. His cure was one of the few that made it through all the hoops to be declared miraculous.”

This was met with prolonged applause, and then Michael resumed his spiel.

“There was another cure that I’m sure will make our man Father Burke a little pale on the telling of it. Sister Marie-Marguerite. She had a kidney condition that caused swelling and fluid in her legs. She had blisters that discharged serous fluid. Running sores again, in other words. She was cured, and I know you’re wondering what happened to all that fluid. Aren’t you, Father?”

“No. I can’t say I am, Monsignor. I am content to hear that the worthy sister was cured. So if there’s nothing else you need me for . . .” Brennan wanted to go to the edge of the crowd and make sure Befanee Tate’s boyfriend was not out there fleecing the weaker members of the herd.

But his pastor had more to say. “I haven’t quite finished with Sister Marie-Marguerite.”

“Ah.”

“Her bandages fell off, because they were too big for her legs after they diminished in size. One would have expected all that fluid to pour out of the sores in her legs and onto the ground. Right, Father Burke? But no, there wasn’t a drop on the ground, and her linen was dry and clean. The doctors had to concede that this was a ‘material impossibility,’ yet it had happened.

“The case was so outstanding that it attracted the attention of a prominent neurologist in Amsterdam, Dr. Koster, who reported it to the Netherlands Psychiatric and Neurological Association in 1952. Dr. Koster was a Jewish fellow, by the way, not a Catholic, and he was very impressed with the scrupulous methods employed by the Lourdes Medical Bureau.

“So, my dear brothers and sisters,” O’Flaherty said, addressing the crowd, “some of the incidents you hear about are well-founded. But of course most are not. With that in mind, I urge you to think carefully about what you hear, use your common sense, and of course continue your prayers. That’s always good! God bless you, and we’ll see you next time.”

The people applauded again, and O’Flaherty wrapped it up. Brennan said to Monty, “Wait a second. I want to check on somebody out there.”

“Who?”

“Just a little gouger who seems to be running a franchise of his own.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not important. Hold on.”

Brennan walked briskly to the back of the crowd and looked around, but the boyfriend of the visionary had vanished from sight.

“All right, let’s be off,” he said to Collins when he returned to the statue.

“What’s going on?”

“I think that one’s boyfriend has been taking money off people in the crowd.”

“What do you mean? Robbing them? Befanee’s boyfriend?”

“Maybe not robbing them. Not at gunpoint or anything. Putting a good face on it, but I don’t want it going on here.”

“You’d better look into it, Brennan. You don’t want Bef and company helping themselves in the guise of helping the poor on your turf.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“I too will have to embark on some boyfriend research for the Jordyn Snider case. This kind of killing has ‘boyfriend’ written all over it.”

“True enough.”

“There’s something else I meant to ask you. When I saw you after the news broke about the murder, you mentioned seeing Podgis at the Midtown. What was that all about?”

“He showed up at the bar. Outside, when I was leaving. Started giving out to me about walking off his show.”

“What did he say?”

“Just asked who I thought I was, walking out on him.”

“And you responded.”

“More or less just told him to get out of my way.”

“More or less. What time was this?”

“It would have been around half-eleven.”

“So he got out of your way eventually. Then what? You walked home?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see where he went?”

“I didn’t look back at him. He said he had a date, so maybe he went to his hotel room to freshen up and make himself presentable for the lucky lady. But maybe things didn’t go as planned, since he ended up killing — or
allegedly
killing — Jordyn Snider. I don’t know how you can stomach the man as a client. A hateful creature like that. This must stretch your ‘innocent till proven guilty’ principles to the limit. But back to the Midtown confrontation, I paid him no more mind after I left.”

“That’s what he said? A date?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Anything more about that?”

“Not really.”

“What do you mean ‘not really’?”

“I didn’t prod him for details.”

“And you told this to the police.”

“Yes.”

“Have they contacted you again?”

“No.”

“They will. They’ll want you as a Crown witness for the preliminary inquiry and, if things go that far, for the trial.”

“Crown witness! The British Crown.”

“Well, even though the style of cause is
Regina v. Podgis
, it won’t be Her Majesty sailing over on the Royal Yacht
Britannia
in a wig and gown to prosecute the case. She has people who do that sort of thing for her. You are familiar with our Crown prosecutor service, I believe.”

Brennan was all too familiar with it, from his own time in the dock. But that was in the past. Now the tables were turned. He could imagine the reaction he would get from his Irish Republican relations in Dublin, if they got word that he might be an informer for the peelers, for the Crown! It did not bear thinking about.