Rob reached into the box, producing a yellowed newspaper clipping, handing it to her. Leah took it with trepidation, unfolding it and staring at the photograph.
“That’s you?”
Leah could barely breathe. She had been young during WWII, but she was old enough to remember the oppressive feeling of the era, as if the entire world were being strangled by one madman, his boot on the throat of the very notion of freedom. She remembered kids at school calling each other “Nazis” and getting in trouble for even saying such things. And she was looking at a picture of her husband in full Nazi uniform, hand raised in Hitler’s salute, standing amidst a full line of similarly attired and at-attention soldiers.
“My parents were German immigrants to this country.” Rob took the article from her trembling hands. “They came over in 1899. They were in their early twenties, newly married. They settled in with the Poles and other German immigrants in Detroit and my father opened a meat market. They thought they couldn’t have children until I came along in 1915. My mother was almost forty. They were both gone, Dad of a heart attack and Mom from complications of pneumonia, by the time I graduated from college.”
“Oh Rob…”
He held up his hand, shaking his head. “I was raised speaking German. When I was drafted-I wanted to enlist, but Susan wouldn’t let me-the U.S. Army found my ability to speak German immensely useful and they sent me over to this new little unit they had called the Office of Strategic Service. Their job was intelligence.”
“You were a…spy?”
“You could say that.” He nodded. “Unfortunately, Father Patrick had a Xerox of this article.”
Leah shook her head. “How?”
“Susan.” He grimaced, putting it back in the box. “She gave it to him before she died and told him if I didn’t agree to raise Erica in the Mary Magdalenes, he should come to me with that photograph. She knew, even if the truth came out, that it would ruin my professional reputation. I’d never work anywhere again.”
“My god.” Leah glanced down at the pictures still spread out on the bed between them. “What kind of monster was she?”
“She’d been raised in it. She didn’t know anything else. She looked at that charlatan like he was some sort of God walking around on earth.”
“So what did you do?”
He laughed, a sad, bitter thing. “I made a deal with the devil. I sold my soul for vengeance.”
“But how did you end up in all… all this?” Leah asked, watching him gather the photos and put them back in the box.
“I called the man who had been my commanding officer during the war, who now had a high ranking position in what used to be the Office of Strategic Services. He was now the head of the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Bureau.”
“The CIA?”
“Yes. I told him about the photograph and the priest who was threatening to reveal it. I also told him about the rituals, the abuse of young girls, and told him the church was filming these events and selling them to very rich collectors.”
“They were?” Leah gaped at him. “How did you know that?”
“Susan and Patty showed one to me, about two weeks before my wife died. You see, I didn’t believe her, about the Mary Magdalenes. It sounded…”
“Crazy?”
He glanced over at her. “Doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” She nodded. Of course it did. Who would believe such a thing?
“He said he was very interested, and he believed his friend, J. Edgar Hoover at the F.B.I would most definitely take an interest in such activity. He told me to sit tight and he’d call me back.”
“And then?” Leah prompted when Rob trailed off, staring into space.
He shook his head to clear it. “He got back to me about a week later and said the F.B.I. and specifically J. Edgar Hoover himself was particularly interested in the filming of the rituals and the selling of pornography. They wanted me to continue to find out as much as I could. He asked if I thought I could gather intel, and I told him I was pretty sure I could arrange that.”
“To what end?”
Rob looked at her. “They wanted to gather enough evidence to close it down.”
“Magdalene House?”
“The church.”
Leah gasped. “The entire Catholic Church?”
“From the top down.”
“What did you do?” she whispered.
“I did what I was ordered to do. I gathered evidence. I shut up and took pictures. I filmed the rituals. I took still photographs of girls for the ‘art books’ you found under my developing table in there. The church sells them for a tidy profit on the black market. Many of those girls would go on to become Magdalenes in their rituals.”
“Why did Father Patrick let you do that? He obviously didn’t trust you and had plenty of reason to resent you.”
“I had far more reason to resent him,” Rob replied darkly. “It was like the Cold War between us. I knew too much about him and he knew too much about me-or he thought he did. The longer our relationship, the more he began to rely on me. That’s the way intel works. People trust the familiar, the things they see every day. I simply offered my services, and he accepted.”
“Well… don’t you have enough evidence now?” Leah asked. “Can’t you tell him, your contact, whoever he is… can’t you tell him it’s time?”
“It’s not time. Not quite.” He smiled sadly, taking her hand. “The ritual that Erica participated in-” He choked over those words, clearing his throat. “It’s a yearly event in each Mary Magdalene chapter, but once every ten years they do that same ritual in Rome. Father Patrick facilitates. They do it on years ending in eight, something about the eight beatitudes. They even hold the ritual in an octagon built under the city.”
Leah remembered the tunnels under the church at St. Mary Magdalene’s leading to the circle in the center with all the cubbies on the sides where naked bodies writhed on red or white pillows. It wasn’t a circle after all-it was an octagon.
“And, of course, the eight on its side is the symbol for infinity. These are their biggest rituals, the most well- attended, by the highest of church officials. Including, so I hear, the Pope himself. They had one in 1918, 1928, 1938-that’s the one Patty and Susan participated in-and then again in 1948. The next one will be…”
“1958.”
“Next year.”
“Oh my God.”
“I think Father Patrick has his sights set on Erica for next year’s ten-year ritual.” Rob’s jaw tightened as he considered this. “I don’t intend to let that happen, but regardless, I do know that I have to film it. I need that evidence.”
“But Rob, you can’t keep doing this!” Leah protested. “If someone finds out before then, you’re going to get stuck holding all of this… and the picture of you in that Nazi uniform will just be the icing on the cake.”
“It’s just a little longer, Leah.” He put his arms around her. “Hang on with me a little longer. I’ve been doing this for five years, gathering evidence for
“Oh my God.” She buried her face against his chest, unable to take it all in. She didn’t like it, any of it, but she understood what he was saying. “I feel trapped. Like there’s no way out.”
“There is.” He rocked her, kissing the top of her head. “I promise you.”
“So Erica really is my sister.” Leah tried this on for size. They’d always been like sisters. No wonder they’d never wanted to be apart. If Leah wasn’t at the Nolans then Erica was at Leah’s. They’d always been inseparable. They could never stay mad at each other for long. It made perfect sense, in hindsight.
“Yes.” He stroked her hair. “You get tell her. Unless you want me to do it?”
“No, I’ll do it. She’s too mad at you right now.” Leah pulled away, frowning at him. “So…my mother was
