Cupped in the warm, green hollow of the Georgetown University campus, Damien Karras jogged alone around an oval, cinder-covered track in khaki shorts and a cotton T-shirt drenched with the cling of healing sweat. Up ahead, on a hillock, the lime-white dome of the astronomical observatory pulsed with the beat of his stride while behind him the medical school fell away with churned-up shards of earth and care. Since release from his duties, he came here daily, lapping the miles and chasing sleep. He had almost caught it; had almost eased the grief that clutched his heart with the grip of a deep tattoo. When he ran until he wanted to fall, exhausted, the grip grew much looser and at times disappeared. For a time.
Twenty laps.
Yes, better. Much better. Two more.
With powerful leg muscles blooded and stinging and rippling with a long and leonine grace, Karras thumped around a turn when he noticed someone sitting on a bench to the side where he’d laid out his towel and his sweatsuit jacket and pants. It was a portly, middle-aged man in a floppy overcoat and a pulpy, crushed felt hat. He seemed to be watching him. Was he? Yes. His stare always following as Karras passed.
The priest accelerated, digging at the final lap with pounding strides and then slowing to a panting, gulping walk as he passed the bench without a glance, both fists pressed light to his throbbing sides. The heave of his muscular chest and shoulders stretched his T-shirt, distorting the stenciled word PHILOSOPHERS inscribed across the front in once-black letters now faded by repeated washings.
The man in the overcoat stood up and began to approach him.
“Father Karras?” Kinderman called to him hoarsely.
The priest turned around and tersely nodded, squinting into sunlight as he waited for the homicide detective to reach him, then beckoned him along as once again he began to move. “Do you mind? I’ll cramp,” he said pantingly.
“Not at all,” the detective answered, nodding with a wincing lack of enthusiasm as he tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat. The walk from the parking lot had tired him.
“Have—have we met?” asked the Jesuit.
“No, Father. No, we haven’t. But they said that you looked like a boxer; some priest at the residence hall; I forget.” He was tugging out his wallet. “I’m so terrible with names.”
“And what’s yours?”
“Lieutenant William F. Kinderman, Father.” He flashed his identification. “Homicide.”
“Really?” Karras scanned the badge and identification card with a shining, boyish interest. Flushed and perspiring, his face had an eager look of innocence as he turned to the detective and said, “What’s this about?”
“Hey, you know something, Father?” Kinderman answered with an air of sudden discovery while inspecting the Jesuit’s rugged features. “It’s really true, you know, you do look like a boxer! Excuse me, but that scar there right over your eye?” He was pointing. “Just like Marlon Brando, it looks, in On the Waterfront, Father; yes, almost exactly Marlon Brando! They gave him a scar”—he was illustrating, pulling at the corner of his eye—“that made his eye look a little bit closed, a little dreamy all the time, a little sad. Well, that’s you,” he concluded; “Marlon Brando. People tell you that, Father?”
“Do people tell you that you look like Paul Newman?”
“Always. And believe me, inside this body, Mr. Newman is struggling to get out. Too crowded. Inside here is also Clark Gable.”
Half smiling, Karras slightly shook his head and looked away.
“Ever done any boxing?” the detective asked him.
“Oh, a little.”
“Where? In college? Here in town?”
“No, in New York.”
“Ah, I thought so! Golden Gloves! Am I right?”
“You just made captain,” Karras told him with a sidelong smile. “Now then, what can I do for you, Lieutenant?”
“Walk slower.” The detective pointed to his throat. “Emphysema.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, sure.”
“Do you smoke?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Listen, what’s this about? Could we get to the point, please, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, of course; I’ve been digressing. Incidentally, you’re busy? I’m not interrupting?”
Karras turned a sidelong look to Kinderman again with a smile of bemusement in his eyes. “Interrupting what?”
“Well, mental prayer, perhaps.”
“I think you’re going to make captain soon, you know that?”
“Father, pardon me. I missed something?”
Karras shook his head. “I doubt that you ever miss a thing.”
“What’s your meaning, Father? What?”
Kinderman had halted them and mounted a massive effort at looking befuddled, but seeing the Jesuit’s crinkling eyes, he lowered his head and ruefully chuckled. “Ah, well, of course … a psychiatrist. Who am I kidding? Look, it’s habit with me, Father. Schmaltz—that’s the Kinderman method. Well, I’ll stop and tell you straight what it’s all about.”
“The desecrations,” said Karras.
“So I wasted my schmaltz,” the detective said quietly.
“Sorry.”
“Never mind, Father; that I deserved. Yes, the things in the church,” he confirmed. “That’s correct. Only maybe something more than that, Father.”
“You mean murder?”
“Yes, kick me again, Father Karras. I enjoy it.”
Karras shrugged. “Oh, well, Homicide Division.”
“Never mind, Marlon Brando. People tell you for a priest you’re a little bit smart-ass?”
“Mea culpa,” Karras murmured. Though he was smiling, he felt a regret that perhaps he’d diminished the detective’s self-esteem. He hadn’t meant to. And now he felt glad of a chance to seem perplexed. “What’s the connection?” he said, taking care that he wrinkled his brow; “I don’t get it.”
Kinderman moved his face in closer to the priest’s. “Listen, Father, could we keep this between us? Confidential? Like a matter of confession, so to speak?”
“Yes, of course,” Karras answered. “What is it?”
“You know that director who was doing the film here, Father? Burke Dennings?”
“Yes, I’ve seen him around.”
“You’ve seen him,” the detective said, nodding. “And you’re also familiar with how he died?”
Karras shrugged. “Well, the papers…”
“That’s just part of it.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, part. Only part. Listen, what do you know about witchcraft?”
Karras grimaced in puzzlement. “What?”
“Listen, patience; I am leading up to something.”
“I hope so.”
“Now then, witchcraft—with this subject you’re familiar? From the witching end, Father, not the hunting.”
Karras smiled. “Yeah, I once did a paper on it. From the psychiatric end.”
“Oh, now really? Oh, that’s wonderful! Great! That’s a bonus, Father Brando! You could help me a lot more than I thought. Now then, listen…” He reached up and gripped the Jesuit’s arm as they rounded a turn and approached a bench. “All right, me, I’m a layman and not very well educated. I mean formally, Father. But I read. Look, I know what they say about self-made men, that they’re horrible examples of unskilled labor. But as for me—I’ll speak plainly—I’m not at all ashamed. Not at all, I’m—” Abruptly he arrested the flow and, looking down, he shook his head. “Schmaltz,” he moaned. “I can’t stop it.” He looked up. “Look, forgive me; you’re busy.”
“Yes, I’m praying.”
The Jesuit’s delivery being dry and expressionless, the detective abruptly halted their walk. “You’re serious?” he asked; and then he answered his own question. “No.” He faced forward again and they walked. “Look, I’ll come to the point. The desecrations,” said Kinderman. “Do they remind you of anything to do with witchcraft?”
“Yeah, maybe. Some rituals used in Black Mass.”
“A-plus. And now Dennings—you read how he died?”
“Yes, in a fall down the ‘Hitchcock Steps.’ ”
“Well, I’ll tell you, and—please—confidential!”
“Of course.”
The detective looked suddenly pained as he realized that Karras had no intention of resting on the bench. He stopped and the priest stopped with him.
“Do you mind?” he asked wistfully.
“What?”
“Could we stop? Maybe sit?”
“Oh, sure.” They began to move back toward the bench.
“You won’t cramp?”
“No, I’m fine now.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Kinderman settled his aching bulk on the bench with a sigh of deep content. “Ah, yes, better, much better,” he said. “Life is not totally Darkness at Noon.”
“So okay now: Burke Dennings. What about him?”
The detective stared down at his shoes. “Ah, yes, Dennings, Burke Dennings, Burke Dennings…” He looked up and turned his gaze to Karras, who was wiping sweat from his forehead with a corner of his towel. “Burke Dennings, good Father,” the detective said evenly and quietly, “was found at the bottom of those steps at exactly five minutes after seven with his head turned completely around and facing backward.”
Peppery shouts drifted thinly from the baseball diamond where the varsity team was holding practice. Karras lowered the towel and held the lieutenant’s steady gaze. “It didn’t happen in the fall?”
Kinderman shrugged. “Sure, it’s possible,” he said.
“But unlikely,” the priest finished broodingly.
“And so what comes to mind in the context of witchcraft?”
Staring off pensively, Karras sat down on the bench next to Kinderman. “That’s supposedly how demons broke the necks of witches.” He turned to the detective. “Or at least, that’s the myth,” he said.
“It’s a myth?”
“Oh, well, sure,” the priest answered, “although people did die that way, I suppose—likely members of a coven who either defected or gave away secrets.” He looked off. “I don’t know. That’s just a guess.” He looked back at the detective. “But I know it was a trademark of demonic assassins.”
“Exactly, Father Karras! Exactly! I remembered the connection from a murder in London. And that’s now, I’m talking, Father; I mean, four or five years ago only. I remembered that I read it in the papers.”
“Yes, I read that too, but I think it turned out to be a hoax.”
“Yes, true. But in this case, at least, you can see some connection, maybe, with that and the things in the church. Maybe somebody crazy, Father; maybe someone with a spite against the Church; some unconscious rebellion, perhaps.”
Hunched over, his hands clasped together, the priest turned his head for an appraising stare at the detective. “What are you saying? A sick priest?” he said. “That’s your suspicion?”
“Listen, you’re the psychiatrist. You tell me.”
Karras turned his head, looking off. “Well, of course, the desecrations are clearly pathological,” he ruminated, “and if Dennings was murdered—well, I’d guess that the killer’s pathological too.”
“And perhaps had some knowledge of witchcraft?”
Pensive, Karras nodded. “Yeah, maybe.”
“And so who fits the bill, also lives in the neighborhood and also has access in the night to the church?”
Karras turned and held Kinderman’s stare; then at the crack of a bat against ball he turned back to watch a lanky right fielder make a catch. “Sick priest,” he murmured. “Maybe so.”
“Listen, Father, this is hard for you—please!—I understand. But for priests on the campus here, you’re the psychiatrist, right?”
Karras turned to him. “No. I’ve had a change of assignment.”
“Oh, really? In the middle of the year?”
“That’s the Order.”
“Still, you’d know who was sick at the time and who wasn’t, correct? I mean, this kind of sickness. You’d know that.”
“No, not necessarily, Lieutenant. Not at all. It would only be an accident, in fact, if I did. I’m not a psychoanalyst. All I do is counsel. And besides, I know of no one who fits the description.”
Kinderman tilted up his jaw. “Ah, yes,” he said, “doctor’s ethics. If you knew, you wouldn’t tell.”
“No, I probably wouldn’t.”
“Incidentally—and I mention it only in passing—this ethic is lately considered illegal. Not to bother you with trivia, Father, but lately a psychiatrist in sunny California, no less, was put in jail for not telling the police what he knew about a patient.”
“That a threat?”
“Don’t talk paranoid. It’s nothing but a casual remark.”
Karras stood up and looked down at the detective.
“I could always tell the judge it was a matter of confession,” he said wryly, and then added, “Plainly speaking.”
The detective stared at him dismally. “Want to go into business, Father?” he asked him, and then stared out at the baseball practice field. “ ‘Father’? What ‘Father’?” he wheezed; “you’re a Jew who’s trying to pass but let me tell you, you’ve taken it a little bit far.”
Getting up from the bench, Karras chuckled.
“Yes, laugh,” said the detective as he glared up at Karras moodily. “Go ahead and enjoy, Father; laugh all you want.” But then he beamed, looking impishly pleased with himself, as he looked up at Karras and said, “That reminds me. The entrance examination to be a policeman? When I took it, one question on the test was ‘What are rabies and what would you do for them?’ and someone answered, ‘Rabies are Jewish priests and I would do anything that I possibly could for them.’ ” Kinderman raised up a hand and said, “Honest! It happened! Swear to God!”
Karras smiled warmly at him. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your car. Are you parked in the lot?”
The detective looked up at him, reluctant to move. “Then we’re finished?” he asked disappointedly.
The priest put a foot on the bench, leaning over with a forearm resting on his knee. “Look, I’m really not covering up,” he said. “Really. If I knew of a priest like the one that you’re looking for, the least I would do is let you know that there was such a man without giving you his name. Then I guess I’d report it to the Provincial. But I don’t know of anyone who even comes close to the man that you’re looking for.”
“Ah well,” said Kinderman, looking down and with his hands again stuffed in the pockets of his coat; “I never thought it was a priest in the first place. Not really.” He looked up and gestured with his head toward the lower campus parking lot. “I’m parked over there,” he said. He stood up and they started walking, following a path to the main campus buildings. “What I really suspect,” the detective continued, “if I said it out loud you would call me crazy. I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know. All these clubs and these cults where they kill for no reason—it makes you start thinking things. To keep up with the times, these days,” he bemoaned, “it seems you have to be a little bit demented.” He turned to Karras. “What’s that thing on your shirt?” he asked him, motioning his head toward the Jesuit’s chest.
“What do you mean?”
“On the T-shirt. The writing there. ‘Philosophers. ‘What’s that?”
“Oh, I took a few courses one year,” Karras told him, “at Woodstock Seminary in Maryland. I played on the lower class baseball team and we were called the Philosophers.”
“Ah, I see. And the upper-class team?”
“Theologians.”
Faintly smiling, the detective lowered his gaze to the pathway. “Theologians three, Philosophers two,” he mused.
“No, Philosophers three, Theologians two.”
“Yes, of course, that’s what I really meant to say.”
“Of course.”
“Strange things,” the detective said broodingly; “so strange. Listen, Father,” he said, turning to Karras. “Listen, doctor. Am I crazy, or could there be maybe a witch coven here in the District right now? Right now today.”
“Oh, come on,” Karras scoffed.
“Aha! Then there could be!”
“ ‘Then there could be’? How’s that?”
“All right now, Father, I’ll be the doctor,” the detective declared with an air of pouncing as he poked at empty air with an index finger. “You didn’t say no, but instead you were smart-ass again. That’s defensive. You’re afraid you’ll look gullible, maybe: a superstitious priest in front of Kinderman the rationalist, the Age of Reason made flesh and now walking beside you! All right, look at me in the eye now and tell me that I’m wrong! Come on, look already! Look! You can’t do it!”
Karras turned his head to stare at the detective now with a mounting surmise and respect. “Why, that’s very astute,” he told him. “Very good!”
“Well, all right, then,” said Kinderman. “So I’ll ask you again: could there maybe be witch covens here in the District?”
Karras turned his gaze to the pathway, looking thoughtful. “Well, I really wouldn’t know,” he said, “but there are cities in Europe where Black Masses are said.”
“You mean, today?”
“Oh, yeah, today. In fact the center of Satan worship in Europe is in Turin, Italy. Weird.”
“Why so?”
“That’s where the Burial Shroud of Christ is kept.”
“You’re talking Satan worship just like the old days, Father? Look, I’ve read about those things, incidentally, with the sex and the statues and who really knows what. Not meaning to disgust you, by the way, but they did all those things? It’s for real?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just your opinion then, Father. It’s okay. I’m not wearing a ‘wire.’ ”
Karras shifted a wan, wry smile to the detective and then turned his gaze back to the pathway.