Embracing Darkness (61 page)

“Take this,” said the priest, “and get away from here. When you can, send me word of where you are, but not by phone or mail. Mrs. Garrison at the post office likes to steam open people’s mail. And since we share a party line with two other households, and with the operators listening in from time to time, I don’t want you calling. Let me know your whereabouts by etching it into the south side of the maple’s trunk. Come back to Holly in a few weeks when things have died down, but come late at night. Sneak up the hill, and be sure you have a knife with you to inscribe the message.”

“Can’t I just come into the rectory?” asked Billy.

“I don’t want anyone to see you. I’m not sure whether Ransom will find out about you kids, but if he does the last thing any of us needs is to get caught contradicting one another. Ziggy and the other young ones might slip and say they’d seen you. If there’s going to be a warrant out for your arrest, I could get into serious trouble if they decide to press charges against you and if it’s discovered that I know where you are and where you’ve been. I don’t feel comfortable with your even slipping a message under the rectory door. One of the boys might find it first. And it won’t do us any good hiding it somewhere outside. The wind might take it away, and with our present luck it’ll land right in Ransom’s lap. It’s for the best if only I know where you are. I don’t know whether Ransom will come back up here. If the boys don’t know anything, there’s no risk in their spilling anything to him. Etch your whereabouts into the tree. When Walt comes back, I can just say he scared you so badly that you ran away.”

Billy understood now why Father Poole was doing things this way. Phineas kissed Billy’s forehead, much as he’d done with Jessie, and made the sign of the cross. “Go with God,” said the priest.

Billy hugged Father Fin tightly and then ran out of the office. Within two minutes he was gone, not even getting to say goodbye to Jessie.

Father Poole was once again startled by a sudden clamor at the rectory’s front door. The visitors were an emotional Walt Hartley accompanied by Captain Ransom and two other officers.

“Father Poole,” Captain Ransom called. “Are you in there, Father Poole?”

Phineas opened the door. “Gentlemen,” said Phineas. “Please come in.”

“Thank you, Father,” replied Captain Ransom, and the four men entered.

Ransom got right to the point. “Mr. Hartley here claims that one of your altar boys brutally assaulted his daughter. We need to speak to the boy and perhaps have him come with us.”

“He’s not here,” answered the priest.

“What do you
mean
he’s not here?” Walt Hartley interjected.

Ransom turned to the irate father of Sue Ellen. “Take a walk, Mr. Hartley, and get some air. I need to speak to Father Poole for a moment.”

“You scared the daylights out of him,” Father Poole called to his neighbor as Walt walked down the stairs. “The boy was afraid for his safety, so he ran off. Can you blame him? He’s only a kid.”

Walt Hartley didn’t reply. Father Poole watched Walt shrink into the distance as he walked toward his house, where he began to pace up and down on his property. In fact, Father Poole kept watching Walt, even when Ransom offered the priest a cigarette and then began to question him.

“What exactly is your relationship to Billy Norwin, Father Poole?”

“He’s one of my altar boys. He comes up here most Saturdays to practice and then either sleeps over in one of the guest rooms or comes back the following morning to assist in Sunday Mass.” Father Poole reflected on how easy it had now become for him to lie. It scared him that he was getting so good at deception.

“Is that all?”

“Yes, why? Did Hartley tell you differently?”

“No. Why should he have?”

“Not at all, Captain. As you know, Jonas left us, and since then there hasn’t been another charity case like him. The two or three children who come here are altar boys, nothing more.”

“I see.” Ransom walked around the hallway of the rectory and listened but didn’t hear a peep. “Where’s that nun of yours, Father?” asked Ransom. “Sister… ?”

“Ignatius. She’s visiting relatives in Exeter.”

Phineas didn’t know why he didn’t tell Ransom the truth about Sister Ignatius. He supposed it was because he found it easier to say that she was visiting family rather than that she was sick in a hospital and possibly had cancer.

“Do you think the boy will come back?” Ransom asked.

“Captain,” Father Poole began. “I don’t think he did it. Billy Norwin is not a violent boy.”

“Norwin, Norwin. Isn’t he a resident of Holly? I know I’ve heard that name before. Oh, wait. Is that Stevie Norwin’s boy?”

“I believe so.”

“So he’s a local lad. Perhaps he’s run home. We can try finding him there.”

“No, I don’t think so. His father’s in a bad way.”

Captain Ransom observed Father Poole closely. The priest looked worried, perhaps for the boy or perhaps for himself. The Captain struck a match and lit the cigarette he’d been holding idly in his hand since they’d arrived. Father Poole immediately protested, telling the policeman that smoking was not permitted inside the rectory. Ransom apologized, dropping the cigarette on the floor and stepping on it, which insulted Father Poole more than had Ransom just smoked the damned thing.

“I think there’s something you’re not telling me, Father,” said Ransom.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Does his old man know that Billy comes up here? Is the kid even a Catholic? I ask all this because it seems as though you don’t want me to talk to Stevie Norwin. You wouldn’t by any chance be keeping Billy up here illegally, would you?”

“No, and I can tell you right here and now that Mr. Norwin doesn’t care that his son is up here assisting in Sunday Mass.”

“I never would have taken Norwin for a Catholic. No offense, Father. It’s just that in my experience people named Smith or Jones or Williams or Norwin tend not to be Catholic. I mean, I wouldn’t bat an eye if, say, his last name was Fitzgerald or Jankowski
.
Norwin is an odd last name for a Catholic to have.”

“Are we done here, Captain? I’m worried about Billy, and I would like a chance to look for him.”

“Very well,” replied Ransom, making his way to the door. “I want to speak to the Hartley girl anyway. But if you find Billy Norwin, Father, I trust you’ll know to do the right thing and bring him to me for questioning. Can I count on you to do that?”

“You needn’t treat me like a child who is not to be trusted, Captain Ransom. I’m a man of truth.”

As he said this, Father Poole inwardly snickered at Ransom, thinking that truth was an idea that Ransom knew as much about as a twelfth-century astronomer did about the moons of Uranus and Neptune.

“Sue Ellen Hartley’s just been through a traumatic experience,” said Father Poole, finding it hard to keep silent about Ransom’s stereotyping of Catholics and putting a cigarette out on his floor. “Surely you can wait until she’s feeling better.”

Ransom put his hat back on as he and the other two officers walked out of the rectory. He faced Father Poole again and said, very matter-of-factly, “If Norwin
is
innocent, then what she has to say might clear him!”

We all stayed quiet in the maple while the police went over to the Hartley house. This drill was nothing new to us. Whenever somebody from the archdiocese came up from Manchester, Father Poole knew ahead of time what the date and general time would be. Then we’d all hide in the tree, with the exception of Ziggy and General Lee who would lie low with Jessie in the Benson house. Even Mrs. Keats would have to escape notice in her pantry closet.

None of the townspeople aside from St. Andrew’s parishioners, who all kept mum about the boys living in the rectory, bothered with the hill. To residents of Holly the hill might as well have been on the moon.

Thus it was not surprising that this was the first time since Jonas left six years ago that Captain Ransom had occasion to find himself back on the hill. He and Mr. Hartley walked into Sue Ellen’s room with the two police officers at their heels. The Captain removed his hat as he entered.

“Hello, young lady,” he said.

When Ransom then rounded her bed and sat on its edge, she recoiled. She didn’t trust any man right now, and Sue Ellen wanted nothing more at that moment than for these police officers to go away.

“He’s here to help you, honey,” said her father, as though he were talking to a newborn kitten that had gotten tangled in briars.

“I just need to know one thing, Sue Ellen,” said Ransom. “Did you actually
see
Billy Norwin attack you?”

Ransom got Swell’s attention immediately by his blunt question.

“Of course she saw him, Captain!” Walt shouted. “I mean, his head was bleeding, and she had his skin and blood under her nails.”

Ransom replied, “There’s no way of telling that the blood and skin under your daughter’s fingernails are Norwin’s.”

“What are you saying? That kid was injured, no doubt because my daughter was able to fight him off.”

“That could be a coincidence. You know how kids get hurt all the time. Anything could’ve done that to the Norwin boy.”

Swell zoned out, staring into blankness and listening to her father arguing with Ransom.

“Your daughter still hasn’t answered my question,” Ransom said to Mr. Hartley.

Sue Ellen swiftly snapped out of her stupor. She thought that, if she confessed that it wasn’t Billy, they’d then ask her who she thought the rapist to be. She’d have to tell them she didn’t know because her assailant’s face was covered by a hideous mask of a deformed pig. Then they’d probe even further. They’d ask where it happened. And if she told them the truth about being below the rectory, naked and waiting to have sex with a boy, her father would lose all respect for her. Billy was an ideal scapegoat on whom to place all the blame.

“Sue Ellen?” asked Captain Ransom. “Can you tell me that it was Billy Norwin for sure?”

“Yes, it was Billy,” she said softly.

“You’re sure?” Ransom replied.

“Of course she’s sure!” Mr. Hartley interjected. “Why the hell would she say it if she weren’t sure? It’s an open and shut case!”

Ransom paid Hartley no mind. “Sue Ellen, did he just beat you, or did he do something worse?”

“CAPTAIN, THAT’S ENOUGH!” erupted Hartley. “I called you up here because my daughter has been assaulted. I never said anything about… .”

“Okay, forget that last question,” interrupted Ransom, “but I want you to be sure, Sue Ellen. Because if you are, young Billy Norwin is going to be in a lot of trouble.”

Swell felt sorry for Billy, but she wasn’t going to risk her relationship with her father and the ridicule of the whole town just for him. “Yes, it was Billy Norwin,” she said and turned around in her bed, pulling the covers up to her chin.

Ransom thanked Sue Ellen for her time and excused himself. He and the two officers were led down the stairs by Mr. Hartley.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said.

“We’ll be in touch, Mr. Hartley,” said Ransom. As he and the two accompanying officers started down the porch stairs, Captain Ransom stopped and turned back to Sue Ellen’s father. “One more thing, Mr. Hartley. When you saw Billy Norwin, did he have any visible wounds?”

“His head was bleeding good and proper.”

“How about the rest of his body?”

“No, not really.”

“No marks, no scratches?” asked Ransom.

“None that I could see,” said Hartley. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s nothing. Good evening, Mr. Hartley.”

Captain Ransom and the two officers walked back down “The Path to Salvation” a minute later. The first officer asked Ransom, “Sir, why did you seem so reluctant to believe the girl’s story?”

Ransom took another cigarette from the pack in his breast pocket. “Well,” he began, “when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you see the signs.”

“Signs?” asked the other officer…

“That’s right,” Ransom replied. “Signs.”

“I don’t know, Captain,” said the first officer. “Like he said, it seems like an open and shut case.”

Ransom took a deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled. “It just doesn’t make much sense. Her father said he found her sitting in the tub. Why would she run to bathe herself after an assault? And she wouldn’t even look at me when she had a chance to nail the son of a bitch for what he’d done. It was as though she were protecting someone. I think there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

“Maybe she’d been so beaten up by the kid that she didn’t want to look another man in the eye,” observed the second officer.

“Yeah?” said Ransom. “And when do females behave like that? When they’ve been violated, right?”

The two officers nodded.

“Our girl isn’t being completely honest with us,” Ransom continued. “And if she’s lying about what happened to her, my guess is that she’s probably also lying about who did it. I mean, she really shied away from me when I asked her whether Billy Norwin was responsible.”

“Maybe she just likes Billy Norwin so much,” suggested the first officer, “that she doesn’t wanna get him into any trouble, despite the fact that he beat the shit out of her. You know how girls are. When they have the hots for a boy, it’s hard for them to see their faults.”

“Yeah,” added his counterpart. “And if she was raped, couldn’t Billy Norwin still have done it?”

“I don’t know how you have sex, Lupin, but when a girl scratches a boy so bad during sex that she gets his skin and blood under her nails, it ain’t from his scalp.”

As the officers made their way down the hill, Zachary Black, known to everyone as Jack White, finally emerged, bare-chested, at the top of “The Path to Salvation.” He watched as Ransom and the two policemen got smaller and smaller until they were finally out of sight. The sun was almost down, and a strong breeze started to kick up on the hill. Black slowly took the long-sleeve shirt he’d been holding and put it back on, feeling a dull pain from the scratches that scored his back. He ignored it, as he did any pain he’d ever felt, and smiled his crooked smile, as he watched the sun finally set in the distance, signaling the close to another Saturday.