Embracing Darkness (35 page)

Father Poole didn’t like Ransom’s intonation. He got up and withdrew a step or two, not taking his eyes off the policeman. “Excuse me?” he said, sounding nervous.

Ransom walked behind the bar. “Would you like a drink, Father Poole?”

“It’s far too early for that.”

“Then you’re a drinking man?”

“Isn’t the consumption of alcohol illegal?”

“That depends on where you do it.”

Father Poole thought that Ransom looked like the cat that swallowed the canary. He bent down and disappeared completely from Father Poole’s view before reappearing with a bottle in his hand. “It says ‘Concord grape juice’ on the label,” Ransom said, “but can we assume that it’s something a bit more… fun?”

“Illegal if it is, Captain.”

“Illegal, Father Poole, unless you have enough dough to grease the right palms, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m no fool, Captain Ransom. I know that an establishment such as this could never exist if the law weren’t involved in some way.”

“We’re not involved. We just don’t
enforce
the law. They give us enough of a reason not to.”

Ransom put the bottle haphazardly on one of the shelves and walked out from behind the bar. “And when it comes right down to it, Father Poole,” he continued, “everyone does it. So how bad can it be?”

“Do you mean that everyone drinks or that everyone pays for kickbacks?” asked Father Poole, a distrust of Ransom now evident in his voice. He then added, “What was that shooting last night, Captain? Where are the boy’s parents?”

“Dead,” said Ransom coolly.

Father Poole suddenly felt as though he’d been struck in the chest. He fell back in his chair and buried his face in his hands.

“Lord Almighty,” mumbled Phineas.

He heard footsteps coming toward him and then the sound of chair legs screeching along the floor, but still he didn’t want to look up. He felt racked by guilt that all fingers would point at him for his interference with the Hodges family. He even suspected that Ransom would find him at fault. Father Poole felt an even stronger sense of guilt for worrying about himself when there were so many other victims—Jonas, Wilma, and Ezra.

“The way we see it, Father, is like this,” Ransom began. “The woman, Wilma Hodges, had a gun to her husband’s head. One of my boys came in as she was pointing it at him. The gun that we found belonged to a Heathcliff Knight. The man was beaten senseless by Mrs. Hodges’s husband, a man by the name of Ezra Hodges who worked here. The family was new in town, and several people in the area said that they had often heard violent fights between Hodges and his missus. Seems to me this thing’s been brewing for a long time. She finally had a chance to rid herself of this scum, but one of my men cut her down after she’d done it. Believe me, Father, my men are good at what they do. They followed the proper procedure. He warned her several times to put the gun down. It wasn’t until he heard the shot fired at Hodges that the officer reacted and did his duty. A tragedy, yes, for all concerned, especially for that boy you got up there on your hill.”

Ransom touched Father Poole’s arm. “So my question to you now is: what are we going to do with the boy?”

Father Poole stood up slowly. He knew exactly what the policeman was after. Moving toward the bar, Phineas said, “You didn’t want to offer me a drink, did you, Captain? There was another reason for your discourse on the morals, or lack thereof, of the people of Holly. You wanted to send me a message. Well, I got the message, Captain Ransom, loud and clear.”

Ransom got up and opened the front door. Immediately a gust of cold air rushed in, causing the back door to slam against the wall. Zachary was startled, and both men jerked their heads around at the same time. Zachary rushed out, unseen by Captain Ransom but noticed by the priest.

“An initial payment of ten dollars,” said Ransom, no longer paying the back door any mind. “That’s my fee for not turning the boy over to the state. Cash only, of course, and
only
you should be performing the transaction, Father. But I’ll show you what an upstanding fellow I can be to a religious man such as yourself. I’ll make things easier on you and come up your hill to collect. I’d hate to make you come into town every month. Besides, no one needs to know our business.” Because the policeman in front was gone now, no one except Phineas Poole was around to hear Captain Ransom incriminate himself. “Then subsequently, each month, five dollars should suffice.”

“Five dollars!” Father Poole said incredulously. “For how long?”

“Until the boy is gone once and for all from your residence. It could be years, unless you find that it’s too expensive. Then I’d suggest handing him over to Dolores Pennywhistle. After all, the boy’s an orphan now, and he
should
go there.”

“As I’ve already told you, I promised his mother. I can’t let him go to any orphanage now.”

“But the situation has changed slightly, don’t you think? You made that promise to her when she and her husband were still alive. You shouldn’t feel obligated now to keep the boy for the rest of his natural life.”

“As of the other day,” replied Father Poole, “Dolores Pennywhistle had no more room.”

“Children are adopted every day, Father. You
could
try her again.”

Father Poole knew better than to go to the orphanage. He needed to avoid Dolores Pennywhistle so that she wouldn’t remember little Jessica Benson. He didn’t think Miss Pennywhistle cared where Jessica lived one way or the other, but he couldn’t take any chances. It had all been part of his compromise with Sister Ignatius. He’d get to keep Zachary and Jonas if she got to keep Jessica.

“You know,” Father Poole began. “I could report you for soliciting a bribe. I may only be a priest, but I know when something’s straight and when it’s crooked.”

Ransom guffawed. In fact, he jerked his head back with such force that some of the ashes from his cigar fell onto his tie. He casually brushed them onto the floor.

“And with whom are you going to lodge this complaint of yours, Father? Mayor Aberfoyle? He takes more bribes than anyone in this town. So go ahead! Implicate me in a scandal. If you publicize what everybody in this town already knows but doesn’t admit, I guarantee that you’ll hear from our illustrious mayor within a day’s time. He’ll see to it that your little church up there is pulled down and that other building connected to it turned into a scenic hotel.”

Father Poole erupted in anger. To threaten him personally was one thing, but to threaten his church and what she stood for was not to be borne. “The archdiocese owns the land,” he retorted bitterly, “not this town.”

“Ah yes, Father. You’re right about that. But how fast do you think they will continue to pay money for its upkeep if the truth were told that it’s just a waste of space?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“This town is not known for its abundance of Catholics, a fact of which I’m not so sure your current bishop is aware. And as for the Catholics who
do
live here, how many go up to St. Andrew’s on Sunday? I mean, it would be just as easy to hop into an automobile and drive to Exeter for Mass, or even walk there. Folks often fancy a walk to Exeter on Sunday mornings when the weather’s fair. So I ask, why have that palace on the hill over yonder? To waste the Church’s money? I think not, Father. And I’d bet you that, if you threaten the way this town does business, Aberfoyle will explain the current state of St. Andrew’s to your bishop. He’ll offer more money for the land than it’s worth just to make the deal go through more quickly. I’m sure the bishop will jump at the offer.”

Father Poole now feared the very people he had come to love as part of his community. With a deep sigh and burdened conscience, the priest nodded his head. “Alright, Captain Ransom. You’ve got a deal. I’ll have the money to you by this afternoon.”

Father Poole left the speakeasy eager to find Zachary, who now appeared to have run off. He searched in the malt shop, candy store, bookshop, general store, drug store, and even over by Wheelwright Academy, but there was no sign of him. So the priest reluctantly made his way back up Holly Hill via “The Path to Salvation.” He had many things on his mind. Where had Zachary gone? How would he tell Jonas that his parents were dead? How would he come up with five dollars extra per month in the budget?

The hardest thing for Father Poole, however, was that he couldn’t help but feel responsible for the deaths of Jonas’s parents.
If
I
hadn’t
gone
into
that
bar
, he thought,
if
I
hadn’t
promised
his
mother
I
would
take
the
boy,
she
wouldn’t
have
felt
as
though
she
had
nothing
to
lose.
My
God,
what
have
I
done?

For the rest of the day the priest prayed fervently in the sanctuary. Phineas genuflected before the altar with his rosary beads and prayed for the souls of Ezra and Wilma Hodges. He prayed for the strength to tell Jonas about his parents. He prayed for money to buy Ransom’s silence. He even prayed for Zachary to find his way to God. He probably would have prayed well into the night had not one of his prayers been quickly answered. Zachary had entered the sanctuary and was slowly walking toward the altar.

EIGHTEEN
A Holiday of Betrayal
 

While the spiritual business was transpiring inside the church, outside it was the dreary and depressing season of late November in New England. The mercury usually hovered in the upper thirties, and the sky remained overcast for days at a time. The trees were now barren of leaves, which long since had fallen to the ground.

The maple tree behind the rectory was no exception. She was bare now. Although the tree still swayed with the wind, her dance was nothing like that when she’d been clad with leaves.

For half the year she was superbly elegant, standing atop the highest peak for miles and performing a ballet. Her branches swayed at the summit as if waving hello to the imposing Atlantic, which lay no more than seven or eight miles away. On especially breezy days the saltwater air from the New Hampshire coastline would sail through the maple’s branches. Ben Benson had detected it up there many times. He had always told his son, and Father Poole in later years, how he believed this was the ocean’s way of returning the maple’s hello. And no one ever made fun of the old man when it came to his superstitions about the maple.

Father Poole was so deep in prayer that he didn’t hear the howling of the wind or the presence of Zachary just behind him. The boy was careful not to make a sound as he stood motionless, his feet planted firmly on the wooden floor and barely breathing as he watched Father Poole. The priest was on his knees clutching a rosary and muttering prayers under his breath. From the corner of his left eye, a tear was slowly sliding down his cheek.

Father Poole reached the end of his rosary and began again and Zachary Black still bided his time. He wanted to wait for the perfect moment to tell the priest his news, yet that moment never presented itself. While Zachary continued to wait ever so patiently, Father Poole prayed over and over again for the salvation of Jonas’s parents as well as Zachary’s.

An entire hour passed, and Father Poole continued to pray. Behind him Zachary Black stood all the while like a mannequin. It was almost as if Zachary had the ability to put living on some sort of hold until he was ready to live again, much like a grizzly bear that hibernates through the winter. He needed to remain a ghostly presence so that he could watch Father Poole as long as he was able. He
liked
doing it. If the priest happened to turn around, then so be it. If Sister Ignatius walked in unexpectedly, so be it. It didn’t matter. He now knew that he had power over Father Poole, and it felt good.

By 1:00 in the afternoon Father Poole began to notice something strange within the confines of the church. He stopped his praying, slid slowly out of the pew and began walking toward the front entrance. Getting closer he now recognized what had been queer to him just seconds before. It was an odor in the air and it smelled familiar. He looked to his right and there, lying on the end of one of the middle pews was Zachary’s empty sack. The priest surveyed the sanctuary, yet the boy was nowhere to be seen. Adding to his anxiety was the fact that he hadn’t seen Zachary since early that morning when the two of them had gone down to “The Watering Hole.”

It didn’t make any sense. Why would a boy give up something he owned after having lost as much as he had? And if he had run away, how would he carry his things? The only logical explanation was that the torn satchel had been left as a message to Father Poole. The message was simple:
Zachary
Black
was
here,
Father.

As the priest walked outside, the wind kicked up a powerful gust and blew his hair into his eyes. He ran across the grass to the rectory door. It would have been easier to go from inside the church to the kitchen’s side door, but Phineas was sure that Zachary had not taken that route. Something told him that the boy was close to making a terrible decision.

When the sun began to set on the horizon, Father Poole decided to give up his search after three turns around the hill’s summit, ranging from the front of the church past the rectory to Ben Benson’s and the Keats’s houses. He even went so far on his second round to search inside both Ben’s and Mrs. Keats’s residences.

It was upon walking up the stairs to the rectory that he encountered Jonas Hodges, whose face looked despairing.

“What is it, son?” asked Father Poole. “Missing your mother and father?”

Jonas, who had quickly grown comfortable with Father Poole, shrugged his shoulders and hung his head. The priest recognized the signs of misery that stem from solitude. What was more miserable than living eighty feet above almost every living soul in town, cut off from interaction with others of his age? What qualified as being emptier than a child’s counting the hours left in the day until night arrived, when drifting off to sleep was the only refuge from boredom?