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Part IV: Ghosts of the Past
"I've actually been wondering about that," Jamie said, folding her arms, "Barring an Act of God, and any ghosts, the only way I could see people just dropping dead would be with poison."
"Poison?" Tony cocked an eyebrow, "How'd they get it? Something in the box?"
"The box wasn't opened when Acosta died," pointed out Anne, "Anyway, something tells me Mr. Murray's death was something different."
"You don't think he was alive when they put him in the statue?"
"Nothing like that..."
"And there's another thing, I thought his wife ditched him? Why would he even be..."
"That's it, isn't it?" asked Anne, "It was his wife who separated from him, at the same time retaining all their property."
"Do you think she had something to do with it?"
"It makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, you saw her..."
"Oh, no, she's got Black Widow all over her..." Tony shrugged, "But the statue?"
"I'm not saying I understand it. Just that it's odd she was so quick to tell us she had no idea where to find him. You'd think he'd at least have left a forwarding address."
"Like she knew that she wouldn't ever have to contact him again, right?"
"But...but putting him in...she couldn't..." Tony wrapped his arms around himself, "You don't just do something like that, not without some kinda help!"
"Maybe she had some," Anne looked around the room furtively, "We should leave."
"Where to?"
"Not after the good Dr. Galdamez, I'll tell you that."
"He led us here, didn't he?"
"Convenient, isn't it?"
"Oh, please."
"Oh please!" Anne retorted sharply, "Pardon me, if I trust my own judgment over a 15-year-old!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Dare I even begin to explain?"
"I'll explain it to him," Jamie said, unfolding her arms and looking at Tony.
"Why the hell SHOULD we trust that quack? For all we know, he's setting us up or something."
She loooked back to Anne and asked, "Right?"
"Quack? Correct me if I'm wrong, Jimbo, but he was right!"
"We don't even know if that is Jason Murray..." began Anne, but Tony spoke over her, "You know, I don't know why I bothered with you in the first place. You've been nothing but trouble since you showed up, and now you want to talk like you've got opinions! Please."
"Silence can be a virtue," Jamie retorted, looking back to Tony, "Clearly one you never learned."
"Oh, that's rich!" said Tony, "That's really rich. That must be why you you only open your mouth to say what your sister said first."
"Oh come on, we're all thinking it," Her fingers started to twitch. This wasn't going to end well...
"Come to think of it, a few other things crossed my mind too."
"Oh, well, do tell." prompted Tony.
"Like how convenient it is that your Grandma had, probably, the only copy of that tape in existence," There was no backing out now, "How would she know ANYTHING about it, if she wasn't involved somehow?"
"Oh, you bitch, don't even try that!" Tony snapped, "I'm not saying she wasn't part of it, but if you're trying to get at something, why don't you say it?"
Jamie was trembling in anger now.
"I'm saying that maybe we should have left you at the lake."
Maybe if they had, they wouldn't be on the run now. Maybe that Nun would still be alive if they had just left him...
Anne stiffened, folding her arms, her lips pressed into a thin line.
Tony stepped back, teetering on his heels, "Yeah," he nodded, "Maybe you should have."
He turned, sweeping out of the room. His steps could be heard all the way down and out.
There was a silence before Anne spoke, "Did you mean that?"
Jamie took a deep breath.
"Maybe I did."
"He's stupid and scared, and I might possibly be a murderer on his account," Anne pointed out, "You brought him into this, Jamie, not the other way around. Because you did care enough to stop for him and see what was the matter."
She folded her arms, "He's trouble, Jamie, but you invited him in. And me too. The time for cutting losses passed in that vault beneath the convent.
"He's shady as fuck. He's a fucking idiot..." Jamie started trembling.
Oh God, what had she done?
"And I'm one too."
"Idiot is a harsh word," Anne said softly, "But we just turned a traumatized orphan boy onto the street. There are no less than four mysterious dead bodies around town, and we're implicated, in some way, in at least three of them."
She leaned against the wall, "Jamie, there are times when the common good outweighs individual feeling. Believe me."
"Fuck..." Jamie banged her head against the wall, before taking a deep breath.
After a few moments of silence, she said, "We got to get him back."
"That's not the only thing," Anne folded her arms, "Galdamez took off so quickly, I'm half-tempted to think I hallucinated him. Now, we didn't tell him everything, but when it comes out what happened to Eunice, and what's happened to the sheriff, I don't doubt he'll start putting pieces together, and I don't know if we can trust him to keep that mouth of his shut. Frankly, I don't know what to think about him at all."
She sighed, "And then there's this..."
She indicated the bones in the cracked statue.
"The Medieval church brought bones back from the Crusades. From tombs and temples they'd raided. They would bring them all the way back to Rome, claiming they'd found the bones of ancient saints, old as Christ. Most of the time nobody could prove this, but the Pope didn't care. It drummed up the story they needed. Reclaiming the Holy Land. So the bones were interred in sacred places, beautiful bits of jewelry for tiny bone fragments, and...for skulls, they would create busts."
She looked at the skull exposed in the cracked face of St. George.
"Relics of the saints were supposed to be sacred. Saints could not decay, they could not rot, and maybe their remains had healing properties. But really..." she looked away, "It's just bones."
"So this might not be Jason?" Jamie looked back to Anne, "It could be some nobody?"
"That's not quite what I was getting at," said Anne, "But it might be."
She turned to Jamie, "Nothing in this life has value, Jamie, until somebody assigns it. Be it a puzzle box, or a relationship..." she looked around, "Or a saint."
"I think I get your point," Jamie swallowed.
"But it's weird, coming from a Nun. You know that, right?"
"Yes," Anne bit her lip, "It is, isn't it?"
She crossed to the door, "We should get out of here."
"Let's," Jamie replied, quickly following her.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Monsignor," the Mother Superior opened the convent's side door, peering out at the stooped old man, "You could not have come soon enough."
She turned on her heel at once, already sweeping for the stairs, "It's urgent."
Monsignor Victor Schiano, being a man of extreme age, stood stooped in the doorway, weary from the short-notice trip. "I must imagine," he drawled, entering the building to shelter himself from the rain. "You call me from my chambers late at night, yet provide me no details as to why you are summoning me." He hung his soggy biretta on the nearest hook and flapped his Cossack in a futile attempt to dry it off. "I must meet with the altar boys to prepare for the Battista girl's confirmation. You of all people should know how vital that sacrament is to a young girl's life, to her...maturity. Whatever this is, it must be..." Monsignor Schiano looked up from his dress flapping to find the Mother Superior had already fled down the stairs. "...fast. Oh, good Lord..." The aged priest followed her down the stairs to the best of his ability, wheezing along the way. "Please, what is it that you're showing me? The holding me in suspense, it's bad for my heart, the doctors say..."
"Your heart's endured worse than a few silences," Alice-Marie told him, sweeping down the winding stair, "Do you think I would have called you if it weren't a matter of life and death?"
She opened the door to the chemical dispensary, "We face a crisis, Monsignor, such as we have never faced. I already have one girl in the wind, and this other..."
She paused in the open door to the vault, indicated the great, grotesque form sprawled out inside, "The wind will never touch her again."
She turned, slowly, to the Monsignor, "I felt it in my bones. By the cross, there is something stirring. I know it."