Thin June sunlight streamed through the window of Chris’s bedroom as she folded a blouse on top of the contents of a suitcase on her bed and then closed it. She moved quickly toward the door. “Okay, that’s all of it,” she told Karl, and as the Swiss came forward to lock the suitcase, Chris went out into the hall and toward Regan’s bedroom. “Hey, Rags, how ya comin’?” she called out.
It was now six weeks since the deaths of the priests. Since the shock, since the closed investigation by Kinderman. And still there were no answers. There were only haunting speculations and frequent awakenings from sleep in tears. Merrin’s death had been caused by coronary artery disease, but as for Karras… “Baffling,” Lieutenant Kinderman had breathed out emphysematously. “No. Not the girl,” he’d decided. She hadn’t done it: she’d been firmly secured by restraining straps. Therefore, Karras had ripped away the shutters, leaping through the window to deliberate death. But why? An attempt to escape something horrible? Kinderman had quickly ruled that out, for had he wished to escape, the priest could have gone out the door. Nor was Karras in any case a man who would run. But then why the fatal leap?
For Kinderman, the answer began to take shape in a statement by Dyer making mention of Karras’s emotional conflicts: his guilt about his mother; her death; his problem of faith; and when Kinderman added to these the continuous lack of sleep for several days; to the concern and the guilt over Regan’s imminent death; to the demonic attacks in the form of his mother, and then, finally, the shock of Merrin’s death, he sadly concluded that, shattered by guilts he could no longer endure, the Jesuit psychiatrist’s mind had snapped. Moreover, in the course of investigating the mysterious death of Burke Dennings, the detective had learned from his readings on possession that exorcists themselves had at times become possessed, and in circumstances much the same as had been present here: strong feelings of guilt and the need to be punished, these added to the power of autosuggestion. Karras had been ripe. Although Dyer had refused to accept it. Again and again he returned to the house during Regan’s convalescence to talk to Chris, asking over and over if Regan was now able to recall what had happened in the bedroom that night, but the answer was always a head shake or a no, and finally the case was closed.
Chris poked her head into Regan’s bedroom. With two stuffed animals in her clutch, she was staring down with a child’s discontent at the packed and open suitcase on her bed. They were catching an afternoon flight to Los Angeles, leaving Sharon and the Engstroms to close up the house, and then Karl to drive the red Jaguar cross-country back home. “How are you coming with your packing, honey?” Chris asked. Regan tilted her face up to her. A little wan. A little gaunt. A little dark beneath the eyes. “There’s not enough room in this thing!” she said, frowning and with her lips in a pout.
“Well, you can’t take it all, now, sweetheart. Come on, leave it and Willie will bring all the rest. Come on, baby. Gots to hurry or we’ll miss our plane.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“That’s my baby.”
Chris left her and went quickly down the stairs. As she got to the bottom, the door chimes rang and she went to the door and pulled it open.
“Hi, Chris.” It was a long-faced Father Dyer. “Just came by to say so long,” he said.
“Come on in. I was just going to call you.”
“No, that’s okay, Chris; I know you’re in a hurry.”
She took his hand and drew him in. “Oh, come on! I was just about to have a cup of coffee. Have one with me.”
“Well, if you’re sure…”
She said that she was, and they went to the kitchen, where they sat at the table, drank coffee and spoke pleasantries, while Sharon and the Engstroms bustled back and forth. Chris spoke of Merrin: how awed and surprised she had been at seeing the notables and foreign dignitaries at his funeral; then for moments they were silent together while Dyer stared down into his cup and into sadness. Chris read his thought. “She still can’t remember,” she said gently. “I’m sorry.”
Still downcast, the Jesuit nodded. Chris glanced to her breakfast plate. Nervous and excited, she hadn’t eaten. The rose was still there. She picked it up and pensively twisted it, rolling it back and forth by the stem. “And he never even knew her,” she murmured. Then she held the rose still and flicked her eyes up at Dyer. He was staring at her intently. “What do you think really happened?” he asked Chris softly. “I mean, as a nonbeliever. Do you think she was really possessed?”
Chris pondered, looking down as she absently toyed with the rose again. “I don’t know, Father Dyer. I just don’t. You come to God and you have to figure if there is one, then he must need a million years’ sleep every night or else he tends to get irritable. Know what I mean? He never talks. But when it comes to the Devil…” She looked up at Dyer. “Well, the Devil’s something else. I could buy that; in fact, maybe I do. You know why? Because the creep keeps doing commercials.”
Dyer stared at her with fondness for a moment, then said quietly, “But if all of the evil in the world makes you think that there might be a devil, Chris, how do you account for all of the good?”
Chris held Dyer’s steady gaze. The words had made her squint and frown in thought until at last she looked aside and gently nodded her head. “Never thought of that,” she murmured. “Good point.” The sadness and shock of Karras’s death had settled on her mood like a melancholy haze, but she tried now to focus on this modest invitation to hope and to light by remembering what Dyer had said to her once as he had walked her to her car at the Jesuit cemetery on campus after Karras’s burial there. “Can you come to the house for a while?” she’d asked him. “Oh, I’d like to, but I can’t miss the feast,” he’d replied. She’d looked puzzled and so he’d explained, “When a Jesuit dies, we have a feast of celebration. For him it’s a beginning.”
“You said he had a problem with his faith.”
Dyer nodded.
Chris lowered her head a bit and shook it. “I can’t believe that,” she answered abstractedly. “I’ve never seen such strong faith before in my life.”
“Car is here now, Madam!”
Snapped out of her reverie, Chris called out, “Okay, Karl! We’re coming!” She and Dyer stood up. “No, you stay, Father. I’m just going upstairs to get Rags.”
Dyer nodded absently. “Okay.” He was thinking of Karras’s puzzling shout of “No!” and then the sound of running steps overheard before his leap through the window. There was something there, he thought. What was it? Both Chris’s and Sharon’s recollections had been vague. But now Dyer thought again of that mysterious look of joy in Karras’s eyes. And something else, he now remembered: a fiercely shining glint of … what? He didn’t know; but he thought it was something like victory. Like triumph. Inexplicably, the thought seemed to lift him. He felt lighter. He walked to the entry hall, hands in his pockets, and then leaned in the open doorway watching Karl help the driver stow luggage in the trunk of the limo. Dyer wiped his brow—it was humid and hot. He turned his glance to the sound of footsteps coming downstairs, Chris and Regan, hand in hand. They came toward him. Chris kissed his cheek, then held her hand to it as tenderly she probed the priest’s sad eyes.
“It’s all right, Chris. I’ve got this feeling it’s all right.”
Chris said, “Good.” She looked down at Regan. “Honey, this is Father Dyer,” she said. “Say hello.”
“Pleased to meet you, Father Dyer.”
“And I’m so very pleased to meet you too.”
Chris checked her wristwatch.
“Gotta get going now, Father.”
“It’s been peachy. Oh, no, wait! I almost forgot!” The priest reached into a pocket of his coat and extracted something. “This was his,” he said.
Chris looked down at the holy medal and chain that was cupped in Dyer’s open and upraised hand. “Saint Christopher. I thought you might like to have it.”
For long, silent moments Chris stared down at the medal thoughtfully, her brow lightly furrowed as if debating some decision; then, slowly, she reached out a hand, took the medal, slipped it into a pocket of her coat and said to Dyer, “Thanks, Father. Yeah. Yeah, I would.” Then “Come on, honey,” she said to Regan, but as she reached out to take her daughter’s hand, Chris saw that she was frowning and squinting up fixedly at the Jesuit’s round Roman collar as if at sudden remembrance of forgotten concern. Then suddenly she reached up her arms to the priest. Surprised, the young Jesuit leaned over, and with her hands on his shoulders Regan kissed his cheek, and then, dropping her arms, she looked off with a frown of puzzlement, as if she were wondering why she had done so.
Her eyes abruptly moist, Chris briefly looked away, then, taking Regan’s hand, she said softly and huskily, “Oh, well, we’ve really gotta go now. Come on, honey. Say good-bye to Father Dyer.”
“Bye, Father.”
Smiling, Dyer wiggled the fingers of a hand in farewell and said, “Good-bye. Safe journey home.”
“Father, I’ll call you from L.A.,” Chris said over her shoulder. It would only be later that she would wonder what he actually meant by “home.”
“You take care now.”
“You too.”
Dyer watched them move away. As a driver opened a door for them, Chris turned and waved, then blew a kiss. Dyer waved back and watched her climb into the back of the limo, next to Regan. As the car pulled away from the curb, Regan stared at Dyer hauntingly through the rear window until the car turned a corner and was gone from his sight.
Dyer turned and looked left as from across the street he heard a squealing of brakes: a police car. Climbing out of it was Kinderman, who walked quickly around the front of the car and then waved as he hurried toward Dyer, calling, “I came to say good-bye.”
“You just missed them.”
Crestfallen, the detective stopped dead in his tracks.
“Really? They’re gone?”
Dyer nodded.
Kinderman turned to look down Prospect Street regretfully, turned back, lowered his head and shook it. “Oy!” he murmured. Then he glanced up at Dyer. He walked up to him and somberly asked, “How’s the girl?”
“She seemed fine. Really fine.”
“Ah, that’s good. That’s really all that’s important.” Lifting an arm, the detective glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, back to business,” he said; “back to work. Bye, now, Father.” He turned away and took a step toward the squad car, but stopping, he turned his head to stare speculatively at the priest. “You go to films, Father Dyer? You like them?”
“Oh, well, sure.”
Kinderman turned back and moved closer to Dyer. “I get passes,” he said weightily. “In fact, I’ve got passes for the Biograph tomorrow night. You’d like to go?”
“What’s playing?”
“Wuthering Heights.”
“Who’s in it?”
“Who’s in it?” The detective’s eyebrows bunched together in a scowl as he gruffly answered, “Heathcliff, Sonny Bono and in the role Catherine Earnshaw, Cher. Are you coming or not?”
“I’ve seen it.”
The detective stared at the Jesuit limply, then looked away and murmured ruefully, “Another one!” Then he turned back to Dyer with a smile and, stepping up to the sidewalk, he hooked an arm through the priest’s and started walking him slowly up the street. “I’m reminded of a line in the film Casablanca,” he said fondly. “At the end Humphrey Bogart says to Claude Rains: ‘Louie—I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’ ”
“You know, you look a little bit like Bogart.”
“You noticed.”
In forgetting, they were trying to remember.