In Plain Sight

5 The Incident

Alex fumbled at the buttons of his shirt as he jumped down the stairs, two at a time. When he reached the second floor landing, he stopped long enough to tuck in his shirt and buckle his belt, then he headed for the foyer.

“What’s going on?” Iggy’s voice came out of the darkness at him. It was a little after three in the morning and there weren’t any lights burning. Alex could see Iggy’s shadow in the open doorway to his bedroom. “Alex,” he said again. “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said, heading for the stairs. “Sister Gwen called from the Mission. She said someone’s dead. Maybe more than one, she wasn’t very specific.”

“Call a cab,” Iggy said, ducking back into his room. “I’ll get my bag and join you.”

Alex didn’t want to think, he wanted to run, but Iggy’s words penetrated the fog of his tired mind. He steadied himself, then walked down the stairs to the kitchen where the downstairs phone was mounted to the wall. He picked up the receiver and gave the operator the number of a cab company. A few moments later, he hung up and headed back up to his room to retrieve his kit.

“They said five minutes,” he called as he passed Iggy’s room.

Five minutes later Alex and Iggy stood on the sidewalk outside the brownstone, Alex with his kit and Iggy with his medical bag. Ten minutes after that, the cab pulled up in front of the Brotherhood of Hope Mission. It reminded Alex of the scene outside of Jerry Pemberton’s apartment, but with more squad cars.

Lots more.

“Steady,” Iggy said, putting a restraining hand on Alex’s arm. He paid the cabby and the pair of them got out.

“What are you doing here?” the cop at the door asked. Alex recognized him, the scarface cop from Chester Pemberton’s building, but he didn’t know his name.

“Sister Gwen … I mean Sister Harris called me,” Alex said. “Told me to come right away. She’s expecting me.”

The cop gave Alex and Iggy the once-over, then made up his mind.

“Wait here,” he said. The cop withdrew back to the open doors of the mission and spoke animatedly with someone Alex could not see. After a moment, he waived Alex and Iggy forward.

The foyer of the mission was relatively empty considering the number of patrol cars outside. Black and white tiles covered the floor, giving it the distinct look of a hospital. An oak reception desk, stained black with years of use, stood just inside the door with a long row of pegs for hats and coats on the opposite wall. Next to the pegs were the heavy oak doors that led to the great hall. These were open and a uniformed officer stood by them. The door to the kitchens was just across from the entrance and it stood open as well, but the room beyond looked empty. Lastly, behind the reception desk were the stairs that led up to the dormitories. Two people sat on the stairs — one was a raven-haired policewoman in the blue uniform of an officer, and the other was Sister Gwen.

Alex’s breath caught in his throat when he saw her. She had always been old and frail, for as long as he’d known her, but now she seemed to shrink in on herself as if an enormous weight pressed down upon her.

“Alex!” she cried on catching sight of him. She stood and lurched across the entryway to him, throwing herself into his arms. “Oh, Alex, thank God you’re here! I don’t know what to do.” She squeezed Alex around the middle so tightly he had trouble breathing. “What are we going to do?” she whispered. Alex put his hand on her trembling shoulder.

“Sister Gwen?” he said, but the elderly nun just buried her face in his side.

“She’s in shock,” Iggy said, putting his bag on the reception desk. He pulled a handmade tea packet from a jar in his doctor’s bag. “Where’s the kitchen?” he asked Alex.

Alex nodded at the open door across the hall.

“Take Sister Gwen in the kitchen and have her sit down,” he told the policewoman, handing her the tea packet. “Make her some tea with this and make sure she drinks all of it.”

The policewoman nodded and managed to pull Sister Gwen free of Alex.

“Don’t worry,” Alex told Sister Gwen. “I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”

Iggy put his hand on Alex’s shoulder as the policewoman led Sister Gwen away.

“You want me to have a look first?” he said. Alex shook his head.

“Come on,” he said, picking up his bag from where he’d dropped it when Sister Gwen had hugged him. He took a deep breath, then crossed to the open doors of the Great Hall. Inside, a dozen policemen were taking pictures or moving around the floor with notebooks. Two-dozen bodies lay on the floor; some were sprawled as if they’d fallen down, while others were lying in repose, with their hands folded atop their bodies. Still others were up on the long tables that served as a dining area, covered with blankets. A pair of policemen with bandannas tied over their faces were pulling the sprawled corpses from the floor and moving them to a neat line off to one side.

Alex saw people he recognized among the bodies, the Brothers in their black cassocks and the new nuns. The rest were vagrants, mostly men, but a few women, all dressed in shabby, threadbare clothes. At the end of the neat row the policemen had made, lay Father Harry.

Alex’s breath seemed to freeze in his lungs and his heart beat wildly. The big man lay on his side with his arm outstretched as if he’d simply gotten tired and laid down on the floor to rest. But he was dead. Alex struggled to believe it. He’d spoken to the man, sat at his side less than twelve hours ago. How could he be dead? How could God have allowed such a saintly man to die?

He felt his right hand clench into a fist and his left squeezed the handle of the old doctor’s bag that held his kit. Burning with righteous anger and indignation, Alex started forward into the room.

“That’s far enough,” a uniformed policeman said, holding out his hand to block Alex’s progress.

Alex turned and started to raise his fist, determined to strike the man down for daring to block his path to the Father. Iggy quickly seized Alex’s hand and stepped between them.

“The sister called for you and you talked to her, but this is a police matter,” the cop continued, seemingly oblivious to Alex’s rage. He was short and a little chubby, with plump cheeks and dark eyebrows but his uniform was clean and neatly pressed. This one would be a stickler for the rules.

Alex’s mind went instantly to the half dozen runes he could use to render the officious cop inert, but before he could settle on one, Iggy spoke.

“Where is your coroner, young man?” Iggy asked.

“Not here yet,” the officer said. Iggy handed him his card.

“I’m Doctor Bell. I consult for the coroner’s office. Since he isn’t here, I’m offering my services. Who’s in charge?”

The chubby policeman scrutinized the card, then nodded toward the back where a group of detectives stood.

“They grabbed whoever they could for this one,” he said. “I don’t know the Lieutenant in charge, but he’s back there.”

“Thank you,” Bell said, sweeping past the man. “Come along, Alex.”

Alex followed along, finally managing to control his anger.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

“Think nothing of it,” Iggy said “But get hold of yourself for now. There’ll be time for grief later.”

Alex wasn’t sure he agreed with that, but he knew Iggy was right about one thing, if he let his emotions get the better of him now, the cops would throw him out on his ear. As they crossed the hall, Alex noticed the bodies on the floor. Each was pale, with red lesions on their exposed flesh.

“Should we be wearing our masks?” he whispered to Iggy. The old doctor shook his head.

“Whatever killed these people did it in a matter of a few hours,” he said. “The police have been here long enough that if it were contagious, they’d already be showing signs.”

Alex didn’t think that conclusion was wrong, but it felt like they were betting their lives on it. Still, Iggy was almost never wrong.

Almost.

“Who’s the Lieutenant?” Iggy asked, as they reached the knot of suit-clad detectives.

“Callahan,” Alex said, recognizing the big man. “I thought they’d have you down at the warehouse.”

Frank Callahan looked at Alex and a sour look passed his face. “I was,” he said. “I was there all damn day and when they finally let me go home, I get sent here. What brings you around?”

“I know…I knew the priest here.” Alex turned and nodded toward Father Harry’s body. The pain of seeing the great man lying on the floor like yesterday’s garbage pierced him again, but much of its power was gone.

“So you’re the one the nun called?” he asked.

“Yes,” Alex said. “I lived here for five years after my dad died. Father Harry took me in.”

Callahan’s features softened. “I’m sorry,” he said. He opened up a spiral notebook and flipped to a new page. “What did you say the priest’s name was?”

“Harrison Arthur Clementine,” Alex said.

“The nun said you were here last night,” one of the other detectives said. Alex nodded.

“I’m a runewright. I was repairing the runes that keep out the rain. The roof’s leaked for years.”

“You see anything out of the ordinary?” Callahan asked.

“No. I got here around three and worked till just before eight — that’s when they start dinner.”

“All right,” Callahan said, flipping his notebook closed. “If you think of anything else, call me at the precinct. For now, go home.”

“No,” Alex growled, his hands balling into fists. “You need my help.”

One of the detectives casually slipped his hand inside his jacket, others wore scowls, but Callahan’s face remained calm.

“You’re too close to this, Lockerby,” he said. “You know it and I know it. Now go home.”

“He is, indeed, very close to this,” Iggy said, stepping up in front of Callahan. “But he’s also quite correct, you need his help. His and mine.”

“And who are you, Jeeves?” Callahan said, his gruff manner squarely back in place.

“I’m Doctor Ignatius Bell. I’m here to offer my medical services in lieu of your absent coroner.”

Callahan turned to one of the other detectives. “When’s the coroner supposed to arrive?”

“Just as soon as they sober him up,” a sardonic voice replied.

Callahan mulled it over for a long minute, looking back and forth from Iggy to Alex.

“Fine,” he said at last. “I want to get home before sun-up.”

“I very much doubt that will happen,” Iggy said. “You and all your men need to clear this room immediately.”

Callahan rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Why?” he asked in a tone of voice that clearly indicated that he didn’t want to know. Iggy pointed to one of the corpses, sprawled across a table as if he’d collapsed while eating.

“What do those lesions on his skin look like to you?”

Callahan shrugged and shook his head.

“Boils?”

“It looks like smallpox to me,” Iggy said. A murmur swept the assembled detectives.

“Are you saying that smallpox did this?” one of the detectives said.

“I doubt it,” Iggy said. “Smallpox takes days to incubate and a week or more to kill. Whatever happened here happened fast. My point is that we don’t know what we’re dealing with, and until we do, I suggest we limit possible exposure.”

“My boys have been in here for almost an hour,” Callahan said.

“And they’re probably fine, but let’s move everyone out of this room until I can run some tests.”

“All right,” Callahan agreed, then he shouted for everyone to stop what they were doing and go. “Don’t be too long, Doc,” he said once his men were gone. “I’m sure the Chief has heard about this by now and he’s going to want a report…soon.”

“We’ll be as fast as we can,” Iggy said and Callahan withdrew.

“You said you didn’t think it’s contagious,” Alex said once Callahan was out of earshot.

“I just wanted him and his men away from this room,” Iggy said. “It’s going to be hard enough to figure out what happened here without the police stomping all over everything.”

“How do we even begin?” Alex asked, looking around at the room full of corpses.

“Is this everyone from the mission?”

Alex looked around and nodded.

“There are four rooms in the sister’s dormitory and four in the brother’s. I see three sisters here and three brothers, plus … plus Father Harry.”

“With Sister Gwen outside, that’s everyone,” Iggy said. “I’ll get a photographer and someone to help out from the Lieutenant. Then we’ll see if we can identify any of the others.”

“I’ll see to Father Harry,” Alex said, turning.

Iggy reached out and caught him by the arm.

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “I know it’s bloody awful, but we’ll have time for grieving later.”

“He’s on the floor,” Alex growled through clenched teeth.

Iggy looked at him steadily. His look was determined, but there was compassion in his eyes.

“You know we have to investigate before we can move him,” he said. “The sooner that’s done, the sooner we can do right by the Father.”

Alex clenched his fists, then closed his eyes and sighed. Iggy was right. The only thing Alex could do for Father Harry was to catch whoever did this. If he wanted to do that, he had to find clues — evidence, and his chance was rapidly slipping away. Callahan and the policemen wouldn’t stay out forever. Alex met Iggy’s gaze and nodded, stuffing his feelings down deep.

“I’ll have a look around with the oculus,” Alex said. “Maybe there’s something here to be seen by ghostlight.”

“You think whatever happened here was magical,” Iggy said, nodding his head approvingly. “Good. Once you’ve done that, go find out what Sister Gwen knows. She’ll be calm enough to talk to by then.”

Alex set down his kit as Iggy moved off to have a word with Lieutenant Callahan. A moment later, he returned, followed by two officers.

If Iggy was right and whatever had killed Father Harry had done so in just a matter of hours, it had to be magical. Even the black plague took time to kill its victims. With that thought in mind, Alex strapped on his oculus and adjusted the lenses to reveal energy fields. Then he clipped a ghostlight burner into his multi-lamp and lit it.

Ghostly green light filtered out of the lantern’s lens, bathing the room in its glow. To normal eyes, it looked dim and indistinct, but through the oculus, the room became flooded with light, and the dark benches and tables stood out in stark contrast. As his eye swept the room, he could see pulses of energy crisscrossing in the open space, like ripples from rocks thrown simultaneously into a pond. The lines bounced off each other and rebounded, forming new patterns.

Alex followed each pulse to its source, but each one ended at one of the stones he’d inscribed with a barrier rune earlier. Each of them was functioning perfectly, radiating out its magic and keeping the rain at bay. Other than that, however, there was no other magic in the room.

What else can kill quickly? Poison?

Alex went back to his kit and took out a ring made of jade. This wasn’t the pale green, Asian jade, but rather a dark, forest green stone that came from Alaska, sometimes called nephrite. The stone had runes carved all around its circumference on each side and it hung suspended from a leather cord that had been cut from the belt of a poisoned man.

Taking the purity stone, Alex made his way to the table at the back where the big pot of soup sat. It was mostly empty, meaning that whatever happened here, it hadn’t started in earnest until the assembled vagrants had come back for seconds. About an inch remained in the bottom, cold and congealed.

More than enough.

Alex lowered the purity stone into the soup and counted to ten before withdrawing it. If the soup had been poisoned, the ring would have glowed a bright, sickly yellow, but when he pulled it free of the thick mass, it remained deep green.

For good measure, Alex tested all the bowls that still had soup in them. None of them had been poisoned either.

Dejected, Alex cleaned off the purity stone and returned it to his kit. Putting on the oculus once more, he removed the ghostlight burner and replaced it with the silverlight. This time the room lit up and glowed so brightly it took Alex’s eye a moment to get used to it. There were handprints, vomit, and urine everywhere. The leaky roof ensured that any old evidence had been washed away, so this was all new.

From the look of it, there had been chaos in the room at some point. Handprints showed where people had crawled and eventually collapsed as they succumbed to the strange illness. It looked like there had been a fight of some kind as Alex found traces of blood on the floor and even a tooth.

The greatest concentration of hand and finger prints were around and on the heavy oak doors that separated the Great Hall from the foyer and the dormitories. From the look of it, the doors had been locked, trapping everyone inside. That didn’t make any sense, though. Father Harry carried a key to this door in his pocket. He couldn’t have been locked in.

All of this was interesting, but after examining every trace, Alex was no closer to learning what happened than when he started.

Time to talk to Sister Gwen.

He returned his oculus and lamp to his kit and made his way to the kitchen.

“Learn anything?” Callahan asked when he emerged into the foyer.

“Not very much,” Alex admitted. “I’m going to talk to Sister Gwen.”

Callahan turned and followed him into the kitchen, opening up his notebook. Sister Gwen was sitting at the little table where the brothers and sisters of the mission took their meals, wrapped in a blanket. She still had the mug of tea in her hands and her trembling had subsided.

“Alex,” she said when she saw him. “You have to help us.” Her voice was distant but firm.

“I will, Sister,” he said, sitting down next to her. “Tell me what happened after I left last night.”

She took a slow breath and looked up into Alex’s eyes. He saw fear there, and pain — two things of which he thought the old nun incapable.

“We just opened the doors for dinner,” she said in a small voice. “I get tired helping with the cooking, so Father … Father Clementine lets me take a nap in my room until nine, when he holds the evening service for the poor. The bells wake me up, but…” Tears welled up in her eyes and she squeezed them shut, sending the water trailing down her cheeks. “But there weren’t any bells. I didn’t wake up till after two in the morning.”

“Then what happened?” Alex coaxed her.

“I went downstairs to make sure the front door was locked, but it was wide open. There wasn’t anyone at the desk, so I went to see Father Clementine, but his room was empty. I looked, but no one was in their rooms. I came back down here to check the Great Hall but the doors were locked.”

“Is that unusual?” Callahan asked.

“No.” Sister Gwen shook her head. “Anyone who needs a place to sleep can stay here, but we lock them in.”

“A few years ago, one of the vagrants got up in the middle of the night and attacked a nun,” Alex explained. “They lock the doors ever since.”

“Since I couldn’t find Father Clementine, I went and got the spare key from his office. When I came down and opened the door…” She shook her head as if trying to find the words. “Everyone was in the Great Hall.” She looked pleadingly up into Alex’s eyes. “They were all dead. “ She looked down at the mug in her hands. “All dead.”

Alex clenched his fists, feeling the nails digging into his palms. He’d always seen Sister Gwen as a paragon of strength and faith. To see her like this made him want to beat someone soundly.

“I promise you, Sister Gwen,” Alex said, managing to hide the rage in his voice. “I’m going to find out what happened here, and if someone did this, I’m gong to make them suffer for it.”

She looked up at him, her eyes suddenly clear, her old strength suddenly back. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” she said, her voice full of its old power. “If someone did this, you prove it, and you give them to the police, you understand?”

“I do,” Alex lied with a nod, and he could feel the weight of the semi-automatic pistol under his jacket. He would find whoever did this, and when he did, he wouldn’t bother the police.

He looked up to find Callahan watching him intently. It was obvious from his face that he knew what Alex had been thinking.

“What now?” he said.

“I have to check something,” Alex said, more to himself. “Take care of her,” he told the policewoman.

Alex left the kitchen and went to the big doors that separated the Great Hall from the foyer. He turned his back to the door and walked across the narrow foyer to the cast iron radiator on the opposite wall. A boiler in the basement heated the building and the radiator. It had been modified to use enchanted boiler stones to heat the water, but the rest of the system still worked normally. Being careful not to burn his hand, Alex felt around under the hot iron fixture, until he found what he sought.

“You find something?” the lieutenant asked.

“Father Harry’s key,” he said, holding the old-fashioned iron skeleton key up so that Callahan could see it.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I know what happened here, at the end anyway,” Alex said, standing. “Now let’s see if Doctor Bell can tell us how it began.”