crates, they finally found some promising old files labeled with black marker. They had to wipe away cobwebs and beetle debris to read the labels.
Lucas had gotten no answer from the elderly nun or Sister Audrey, and staring across the dimly lit room to where they stood in the doorway, he read a glazed dull look in the old woman's eyes, and a pained look in the younger woman's gaze. Shaking her head as if looking at a problem without solution, Mother Elizabeth chose to leave so as to not look at the problem a moment longer. Sister Audrey ducked out with her.
By this time, wheezing had evolved into sneezing for both of them, but Lucas had developed a case of nonstop asthmatic coughing. His eyes began to tear up from the particle dust and mites.
A handheld flashlight helped somewhat in the poorly lit area in which they worked.
'Here! I've found 1984,' announced Meredyth.
She pulled the box from beneath another as Lucas held and replaced the one that had sat atop it. Lucas then took the box from Meredyth's grasp, and he carried it up the stone steps, into a corridor, and out into the open church where at least some air circulated. He placed the box on a pew and Meredyth rifled through it, looking for any court papers with her signature on them. She found none. 'I'm trying to recall if I had any of these cases, but its all a blur. So long ago. None of these documents would have required a social worker's signature, so I have no way of tracking it from these files.'
'What about this Lauralie Blodgett? You find a file on her? Wouldn't you recall a name like Blodgett?'
'No, I don't remember the name. The mother was likely unmarried…likely using her maiden name.'
'Of course.'
'All the same, I'm looking for Blodgett now.' Meredyth began digging for the Blodgett file, but it was not in alphabetical order where it should be. She rifled through, searching other possible ways it could be filed, under L for Lauralie, under B for Blood. 'Nothing… it's not here,' she finally concluded. 'I'd hoped to locate a photo of her at the very least.'
'Maybe it's been filed in the wrong year,' he suggested.
'Or maybe Lauralie got at it a second time. Maybe she took it with her when she left this place.'
'Perhaps.'
'Do you think she sent us here? That she was the sexpot in the schoolgirl uniform Tebo took the package from?' Lucas continued to wheeze and cough. During a lull, he managed to say, 'Guess I gotta return this file box to the basement. Can't leave it here.'
'You don't want to get on Mother Elizabeth's bad side.'
'No ma'am, not never….'
Lucas returned the box, leaving Meredyth standing alone in the central church, staring up at the larger-than- life, yet lifelike depiction of Christ on the cross. She had been raised Catholic herself, and it had been literally years since her last confession. She had traded in her religion for her scientific bent and her profession, and she knew it. She had broken every vow, and she was now sleeping with and contemplating marrying a Cherokee Indian named Lucas Stonecoat whose beliefs were a mix of mysticism and native folklore. A man who found God in all of nature and whose own nature held a spiritual side that was loving and caring on the one hand, but quickly moved to anger and vengeance if he saw an injustice. He was a man also capable of great wrath, and the law of blood-vengeance for a relative- ran deep in his Cherokee genes. She had seen it over the years, his ability and willingness to track a man down and kill his prey, and walk away without remorse. It was what made him an exemplary detective, but more than once, she had seen him lose control under extreme conditions, as when he thought her life in danger. Lucas had rescued her from death on more than one occasion. He had been the one she called in any crisis.
Lucas credited his upbringing largely to his grandfather, who believed in the old ways and customs. A shaman of his people, Keeowskowee had made of Lucas a strong and determined man, yet Lucas's childhood remained as far from her upbringing as that of an Eskimo.
With these thoughts and misgivings swirling about in her head, Meredyth crossed herself and knelt before the crucifix. Then from behind, she heard someone's footfall. She wheeled, imagining it to be Sister Audrey come to check on their progress, or Mother Elizabeth, but no one materialized.
'Is there someone there?' she asked.
No answer.
The silence that had been the silence of this place only deepened. 'Is there anyone here?' she asked more empahtically. This time, when she received no answer, she returned her gaze to the face of Christ. Once more, to her rear, she heard a sound, and this time, she watched a shadow, someone in a hooded cloak, a priest who stepped into the confessional booth. Had the noise she heard been the priest? Had he moved that swiftly?
Was it a sign? she wondered. She took a step toward the confessional, thinking it would do her good to go to confession, but with Lucas about to return any moment, she stopped shy of the coffin like booth. She could hear the man inside yawning.
Then, out of the side of her eye, she saw movement again, a young woman dressed in the uniform of the convent school darting from a hiding place and out the door at the front of the church. It might have been any one of the girls she and Lucas had interviewed.
Was it perhaps Rachel? Wanting to tell Meredyth something out of Mother Elizabeth's earshot? 'Wait!' Meredyth rushed for the exit, but she was stopped at the holy water fount, seeing the unusual cigar-shaped item in the water, trifling swirls of blood creating a mosaic over what appeared a human finger. Like a pale dead fish, the finger floated just below the surface, submerged yet floating above the bottom of the fount-the source where the holy water originated, at least in the symbolism of the Church.
Whoever had left the ugly gift in the fountainhead knew its symbolic meaning, she was sure.
'What's going on?' asked Lucas, startling her, suddenly at her side.
'Look, the holy water.'
Lucas groaned at what he saw there. 'Damn it, they've followed us here; they've been on our heels.'
'I heard her back here, and I saw her dash out the front. It was a girl in the school uniform.'
He used a handkerchief to fish out the right index finger presumably left by the girl she had seen scuttling out into the rain.
'The confessional booth, Lucas!'
He turned to look down the aisle at the booth. 'What about it?'
'He's in the booth! Dressed as a priest.'
Lucas rushed the confessional and tore open the door to a wide-eyed, startled young priest whose glasses fell off when he threw up his hands to fend off the attack. Lucas pulled him from the confessional as he pleaded for mercy.
His hands tightly fisted in the folds of the man's robes, Lucas demanded, 'Who are you?'
'Sandy brown hair, glasses, but no mole on his cheek, Lucas.'
'I–I'm Father…W-Will-yam,' he choked out.
From behind them, Lucas heard Sister Audrey shout simultaneously, 'It's Father Will! Don't hurt him!'
Mother Elizabeth rushed in next, shouting, 'This is outrageous conduct, Detective. This isn't your reservation chapel. I will kindly ask that you two please leave Our Lady, now!'
Lucas, realizing the mistaken identity, desperately tried to smooth out the man's robes, and he reached into the booth to fetch his glasses, apology following apology. 'Sorry, Father William.'
'I apologize as well, but we had provocation,' Meredyth defended. 'Show them what was floating in their holy water, Lucas.'
Lucas held up the severed index finger.
'My dear God,' moaned Father William as he straightened his glasses and inched away from Lucas, shrinking away. 'I just used the fount to cross myself, and I saw nothing in the water when I entered.'
Mother Elizabeth and Sister Audrey collectively gasped at what they saw in Lucas's possession. 'Is it…' began Mother Elizabeth.
Meredyth nodded. 'Most likely from Mira Lourdes.'
'Found in our holy water…' Elizabeth slumped to a pew seat.
'Defiling the holy water?' asked Audrey.
'Yes, afraid so. I saw someone in the uniform of your school race out the door, but I didn't get a clear look at her.'
The old woman placed a hand across her heart. 'Give me strength.' Sister Audrey located a handheld
