In Tongues of the Dead (8 page)

Eastman nodded at the monitor. The static stopped, the guard slowed the film to normal speed, and Father McCallum saw the hall outside the Voynich display room. There was a slight blur of motion, as though the door was opening, and then the picture went fuzzy.

“It's like that all the way back to the entrance,” Eastman said. “It's as if someone or something left, but we couldn't tape it.”

“Something?” Father McCallum exclaimed. “What are you talking about? It was this Larry guy. The security guard. Did you find him yet? Do we know where he went?”

“Oh, we know where Larry is,” one of the police officers said.

“What?” Father McCallum yelled. “Well, get him. We need to get the Voynich back!”

“Come with me,” Garrett Eastman said and took Father McCallum's arm. He led him through the library to the Voynich room. A policeman stood in front of the door.

“Forensics is still in there,” he said to Eastman. “Do you need to go in?”

“I just want Mr. McCallum to have a look.”

Father McCallum stepped to the doorway and looked in. Two men in white paper suits crouched near a library security guard uniform. The priest frowned. There was something else, something inside the uniform. He gasped and turned away.

“What is that?” he asked weakly.

“That,” Eastman said, “is what's left of Larry Zarinski.”

Jake stood in the doorway of his waiting room looking at nothing in particular. He was listening. Gladys Warbeck had just left after her appointment and should be reaching the staircase soon.

Bang!

He heard the heavy crack of the fire door, which meant Gladys was on her way out. Jake's third-floor office was one of only four on this top floor, and all were connected by a dark, granite hallway. There was only one way on or off the floor and that was via the large staircase at one end. Without physically watching his patients leave, Jake gauged their departure by the slam of the staircase door.

And in the case of Gladys Warbeck he wanted to make sure she was gone. He couldn't bear the thought of running into her in the hallway. She'd come to his office about a month earlier on a referral from the Workers' Compensation Board Return to Work program. Gladys had hurt her lower back on the assembly line at the Hershey's chocolate factory in Dartmouth. She'd been off work for nearly six months, and although her physical injury was healed, she still complained of debilitating pain.

Jake's role, paid for by the wcb, was to help Gladys live in spite of her pain. He met with her weekly to review her activity levels, teach cognitive reframing strategies around the pain, and mentally prepare her to get back to full-time employment. Working with Gladys was regimented, straightforward, and boring. Jake hated it.

Now that Gladys was gone, he could make a coffee run before his next appointment. It was still early on Friday morning but he already needed more joe.

He walked slowly down the stairs, not wanting to catch up to his patient. Her chronic back pain made her a fairly slow mover.

He didn't see her when he exited the Brewery Market and headed west up Salter Street away from the harbor. He normally went to Tim Horton's on Barrington or, if he was short on time, up the hill to Cabin Coffee on Hollis. Today he was short on time.

He jogged up the street and pushed through the front doors of Cabin Coffee to inhale the rich aroma of fresh coffee. The place was rustic and friendly, full of worn furniture and extra-large coffee tables. Lots of people wasted entire afternoons settled deeply into the leather couches and sipping lattes. Jake had never sat in the place; he'd go in, get a coffee, and be gone. Time was precious. To him, maybe the most precious thing.

He waited at the counter until the server came over. She was an extremely attractive young woman. “What can I do for you?”

He laughed but suppressed the urge to answer with something suggestive. “Just a coffee. Large.”

“House blend?”

“Sure.” She turned, and he let his eyes wander down her back. Between her cropped shirt and low-cut jeans he could see a tattoo on the small of her back. He liked the young woman even more.

“Dr. Tunnel?”

The clerk had distracted him. He turned to find one of his patients standing right next to him. “Harold! What are you doing here?”

“I saw you come in and just wanted to say hi.”

Jake turned to the counter where the server was setting his coffee down. He handed her a two dollar coin and asked for a receipt. Without looking around, he asked, “You aren't following me, are you, Harold?”

“Oh, no, Dr. Tunnel,” Harold said earnestly. “I just saw you go in here.”

“But our appointment isn't for another hour.” The barista tried to give him change but Jake accepted only his receipt.

“I don't want to be late. I always come down early and just walk around.”

Jake nodded. “That's great. I'll see you later, then.” He started for the door.

“Yes, Dr. Tunnel. Thank you.”

In the past few days, Harold Grower had been popping up at odd times. He said the encounters were accidental, but Jake wasn't sure. Harold was a vulnerable man who needed constant reassurance from others — especially Jake. Jake knew that soon they would have to discuss the encounters in therapy. When unhealthy attachments couldn't be fixed, it often meant terminating the therapy sessions and referring the patient elsewhere. Jake tried to keep a professional distance to avoid feeding into Harold's dependence.

But the frequency with which he showed up was increasing. Jake and his family would be at Mic Mac Mall and see Harold. They'd have dinner at East Side Mario's and Harold would be sitting somewhere nearby. Jake thought the guy was becoming a pest — a smiling, enthusiastic, appreciative pest.

As he headed back down Salter Street he pushed Harold out of his mind and focused on his next client, a guy whose treatment-resistant schizophrenia made for some bizarre sessions.

It just never ends
, he thought, and rolled his eyes as he pushed open the doors of the Brewery Market.

Father McCallum sat on his bed. His head ached. His body felt sick. He had waited much of his life to understand one book, and now that book was gone. Some lunatic had stolen it just when the mystery was going to be solved. Everything was ruined.

He'd run from the library as soon as he could, and driven the rental car home, wanting only to crawl into his bed and pull the covers over his head.

But he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep.

All the questions the police kept asking him swirled through his head.
Who'd want to steal it? Why? How much is it worth? Who'd pay for it
? He'd been able to give only half-answers. He couldn't tell them the value of the book — he didn't know its value. And if he told them the Vatican had been watching the Voynich for years, they'd never believe him.

So he ran home.

He felt light-headed. Should he have some breakfast? He wasn't sure he had the strength to go downstairs. He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.

“Ronald!”

Father McCallum bolted awake. “Yes?”

“Ronald!”

The sound came from all around him. He opened his eyes, his head in a fog.
How long have I been sleeping
?

But he wasn't in his room.

Nothing looked familiar.

Except it
was
familiar. He was lying on the steps by the
communion rail. It was dark, but he could just make out the altar and the first row of pews.

“Thou are not of this Church,” the voice boomed. “There is no welcome for thee in my house.”

“Where am I?” He could hear his voice shake.

“Thou shalt not address that which is and has always been, world without end. Thou hast become an abomination in my sight. A horrible mistake. A blight on the world. Thou wilst be removed.”

“What are you talking about? How did I get here?” Father McCallum felt a surge of panic. He wanted to stay calm and focused.
Just take a deep breath
, he told himself. He stood, using the communion rail to pull himself up. His eyes were adjusting to the darkness. He was definitely in a church, a familiar church. Then he recognized it.

It was the church he had been baptized in. Our Lady of Grace, in West Babylon, New York. Why was he here?

“Thou hast brought shame to the order of things. The balance is lost,” the voice said.

The voice seemed louder, more commanding. He couldn't place it.

“And behold I bring a flood of waters upon this holy place to destroy thy flesh. I will take thine own breath of life and thou wilt be lost. I will destroy all that I have created. The mistakes of an unholy union will be hidden.”

“What?” Father McCallum asked. He didn't have time to say more. There was an enormous crack, as though the church had been struck by lightning. He turned toward the doors to the sanctuary and felt a current of air strike him.

Then, without warning, he felt a surge of water flow around his legs. He yelped. The water was cold and dark, and was rising quickly. His back was to the massive crucifix on the wall. He had no place to go.

“Help!” he screamed, although he knew it was futile. He was going to die here.

The water swirled past his hips.

“Die!” the voice boomed. “Die!”

“No!” Father McCallum begged. He saw a door and tried to swim toward it. But the water rose faster and the swells grew more violent. They pushed at him, slamming him against the pulpit, the back wall, the crucifix.

He strained and strained, but the water lifted him and tossed him around like a rag doll.

A swell brushed over his head, and he fought to find the surface, then broke free and gasped for air. Before he could take a breath another swell forced him down.

I'm going to die
, he thought.

“Ronnie?”

I'm going to die
.

“Ronnie,” a pleasant voice called again, “are you up there?”

He opened his eyes. The voice was different — a female voice.

His face was slick with sweat, and as he rolled over he realized the bed was also soaked in sweat.

My bed! I'm in my bed. It was just a dream
.

He listened.

“Ronnie?” It was Evelyn, calling from downstairs.

“Yes,” he answered.

“You have a visitor,” she sang up the stairs.

Father McCallum shook the dream from his mind and tried to focus on the present.
The Vatican is here about the Voynich!
“I'll be right down.”

“Remind me again why we're staying in a shit motel,” Jeremy said. It was Friday morning and he was lying on one of the double beds in a small room in the Roadside Motel. The yellow wallpaper and its bright flower border smelled of years of smoke and dirt. The twenty-inch jvc was securely bolted to an aged dresser, and Jeremy had almost given up trying to get the remote to work.

Maury pulled the heavy drapes closed on the second small window and turned to his brother. “We're staying here because this shit motel is a short drive from Yale and the Beinecke Library. We're staying here because it's right on the highway. And we're staying here because shit motels like this let you pay in cash. Places like these never care about anything.”

Jeremy seemed unconvinced. “You'd think the Vatican would have a better system. Can't they get fake credit cards or set up some hideouts around the country?”

Maury flipped open his suitcase. “Maybe the church doesn't want to waste any money on a dead ass like you.”

Jeremy laughed and tried the remote again. He desperately wanted to get something out of the piece-of-crap television — something to keep his mind occupied. He pressed the buttons carefully. He'd lost almost all feeling in his fingers, and didn't want to snap one off.

Maury held a bottle of pills up and shook it. “Did you take your ten-in-the-morning pill?”

Jeremy kept pushing buttons on the remote. He held his other hand out, and Maury dropped a large purple pill into his palm. Jeremy popped it in his mouth.

Maury also took a pill then set the bottle down. “I'm going
to call the church. Keep the volume down.”

Jeremy looked at him with disgust and held the remote in the air. “I can't even change the volume with this piece-of-shit remote.”

“Whatever.” Maury pulled a large phone out of his suitcase. It looked like an antique cell phone. It was really an untraceable satellite phone with a dedicated line. From anywhere on the planet they could flip the phone open and be directly connected to Cardinal Espinosa. Maury turned the phone on, waited until the signal-strength bar showed, and pressed send.

The line rang three times before a voice answered. There was no greeting, no small talk, just the accented voice of the cardinal. “You have arrived?”

“We're here,” Maury told him.