The Portal Page 18

  In the Savior’s place, a nude Reverend Snow hung on the cross over the altar. Yellow nylon rope bound his arms and feet in place. His head hung low, face-down, eyes wide-open because the eyelids were gone. What had been done to him was almost beyond comprehension.

  The reverend had been flayed alive. Long thin strips of skin hung down from his feet, nearly touching the altar. Each two-inch-wide strip started at the reverend’s shoulder, and the band of skin had been methodically trimmed from the underlying muscle. From his neck down, the body was red exposed tissue, like an anatomy book picture.

  Below him, the reverend’s blood splattered the white altar cloth. Around the altar, snuffed sacred candles stuck from pools of hardened wax, drooping in silent guilt for illuminating the night’s torturous process.

  Scott went to Allie. He knelt before her to block her view of the crime, and pulled her close. She collapsed in his arms, buried her head in his shoulder, and wept.

  Scott looked up above the main doors of the church. Two concave triangles inside a circle were burned in the back wall. Underneath was scrawled:

  Return my Portal.

  “Goddamn Oates,” Scott whispered.

  If this could happen in a church, to the reverend, nowhere was safe.

  Chapter Forty

  Chief Scaravelli’s long night promised to turn into a long morning.

  After his escape from the Rusty Nail, Scaravelli had spent the evening at home in the company of a Mr. J. Daniel, who hailed from an oaken barrel in Tennessee. He drank to forget, but all he could do was remember. His present and future were in the hands of Oates, and he dreaded both. The more he drank, the freer his imagination became, and the more terrifying the possibilities. By midnight, he was stumbling around the house with an empty bottle in his hand, praying he would pass out. He finally did.

  Hours later, with sand-blasted eyes and a pounding head, he reentered the conscious world. The clock was black, electricity out. He rolled over to pick up the phone. Dead. His stomach slid south into a pit of anxiety. Anything out of the ordinary the last few days was Oates’ work. What had ended last night as something going wrong for Scaravelli had developed into something going wrong for all of Stone Harbor. His venal sin had turned mortal.

  Scaravelli vaguely remembered a call from Milo in the wee hours of the morning, or he might have dreamed it. He squinted at the painful daylight leaking through the curtains.

  Little Milo’s going to be relieved late this morning, Scaravelli thought. A few more hours playing dress-up cop will get him excited.

  He swung his feet out of bed. His head swam in a sea of vertigo and he gripped the edge of the mattress.

  He had to get to work. Without power and communications, the locals would be looking for him to save the day, something to rekindle the hero stuff he heard last night. With enough shoveling, maybe he could keep his little sandcastle in one piece against the waves. Oates would leave soon, the tide would go out, and he would be Chief for Life.

  An hour later, driving down Clipper Street, Scaravelli got the first big clue that his sandcastle had long since washed away. A beat-up blue hatchback faced him in the middle of the street. He recognized the car, a summer-long fixture at Wheeler’s used-car lot. The hatch gaped open. Someone sat in the back, feet dangling over the bumper. Rough work boots and black slacks.

  Scaravelli crept by. The man sitting inside was one of the reprobates from up on Canale Road. He still wore a black FBI jacket. Scaravelli wondered how many other intersections Oates’ thugs had commandeered. The story got worse when he saw that the man absentmindedly cradled an assault rifle in his lap. The pistol at Scaravelli’s side would be useless against a weapon like that. Scaravelli’s anxiety meter maxed out. Scaravelli was too tired and hungover, and in no mood for a fight, especially one he couldn’t win.

  The man gave a casual wave as the cruiser rolled by.

  The town might have turned against him, but Oates’ crew still thought he was on their side. When the thugs pulled out, he’d get credit for that. It was the last bit of hope he could foster about his life in Stone Harbor.

  Scaravelli looked ahead just in time to jam on the brakes. He nearly collided with old Mel Feingold’s silver Cadillac El Dorado, stopped dead in the middle of the street. It was a bullet-ridden mess.

  Both front tires sagged flat. Rounds that missed the tires had punched a pattern of holes in the fenders. Thick green liquid puddled under the car’s nose where the Caddy had bled out its antifreeze before expiring. The driver’s side door hung wide open.

  Mel’s corpse lay under the open door, face-down, arms and legs spread to his sides. One leg of his gray slacks had ridden up to expose a thin black sock and a band of pale calf. Two tight entrance wounds punctured the back of his yellow button-down shirt. A spray of drying blood dappled the asphalt around him.

  Scaravelli could see what happened here. Mel had left his home, for whatever ill-advised reason. The thug in the hatchback shot the Caddy to a standstill, yanked Mel out, tossed him to the ground, and wasted him. Then as a warning to the neighborhood, he left his handiwork on display for all. His casual wave to Scaravelli said he was sure the chief of police would approve.

  Scaravelli swiftly abandoned any illusions that this shit was going to work out all right. A corpse lay on a residential street. Who knew how many bodies Oates and his armed sociopaths had dropped around the island? Lifetime tenure as chief of police? Christ, he’d be lucky to avoid prison time.

  Scaravelli reached the station hung over and depressed. He wanted to see little go-getter Mimms as much as he wanted to change a two-day diaper. The last thing he needed now was his insipid officer jumping around like a Chihuahua begging to do his next trick.

  When Scaravelli walked in the door, Milo’s jaw dropped. Scaravelli looked down and realized he looked like a shit sundae. His wrinkled uniform looked like he’d stored it on the floor overnight (which he had) and his face told the tale of his night of drinking. He really didn’t give a crap.

  “Chief?” Milo said.

  “Milo.”

  Milo came around from his side of the desk.

  “The power and phones are still out across the island,” Milo said. “I’ve been here like you said, in case anyone came in, but the streets are deserted. Everyone’s staying inside, which is probably safer.”

  “Yeah, safer,” Scaravelli said.

  He brushed by Milo and plopped down in the chair. He had his own problems and his own agenda. He remembered the bottle of vodka in the top drawer of his desk, just what he needed to take the edge off this hangover. Milo needed to get the hell out of here so he could take care of business.

  “Kyler has men placed all around,” Milo said. “I checked out the town at sunrise. They have the main roads and dock blocked off.”

  Scaravelli barely heard him. His head pounded in thunderous harmony with every beat of his heart.

  “Chief, there’s something strange about all the dogs too.”

  The vodka in his desk sang to Scaravelli, and it was a sweeter tune than Milo could carry.

  “Christ,” he said. “Go the hell home, Milo. It’s been a long night. Anyone you see, tell them to get back in their houses. Tell them this will all be over soon.”

  “Chief, do you want me to─”

  “Just go home!” Scaravelli yelled. Shouting just made his head hurt more. “Go,” he whispered.

  Milo turned and took a few steps toward the door. He stopped and looked back.

  “Chief,” Milo said, “who’s Oates?”

  Scaravelli felt the blood drain from his face. “Where did you hear about him?”

  “I overheard Kyler mention him,” Milo said. “It sounded like Kyler took orders from him.”

  Scaravelli took a long bleary look at Milo. For a moment, Scaravelli’s alcoholic haze lifted. A sprout of decency emerged from his twisted
personality. He looked at Milo and felt sorry for him.

  “Stay clear of Oates,” Scaravelli said. “As far and as wide as you can if you want to get out of this alive. Am I clear?”

  “Sure, Chief,” Milo said, a little taken aback. “I’m going right home. See you tonight.”

  Scaravelli made a grunting noise and looked down at his desk. Milo went out the front door.

  As soon as the door closed, Scaravelli unlocked and pulled open his desk drawer. The vodka bottle rolled toward him, stopping right next to his gut like a special delivery.

  He pulled it out, unscrewed the cap, and took a swig. The vodka burned all the way down, and it felt good. Just the kind of help Scaravelli needed to get through the day.

  He put the bottle down and looked in the drawer. He knit his brow. The Dickey girl’s necklace he’d taken from Krieger’s apartment was in the drawer, but out of the evidence bag. He picked it up and searched the drawer. The bag was gone. His heart stopped when he realized so was something else.

  The gun he’d planted on Krieger was missing.

  “Goddamn Milo,” he said, all sympathy for his officer evaporating. “Son of a bitch moved it somewhere.”

  The fuzzy, distant cop part of his brain raised a few objections. Milo didn’t know the pistol was in his desk. Milo didn’t have a key or a motive to move the gun.

  But Milo was the only suspect Scaravelli dared put on his list. Because the person who would know the pistol was in the desk, who wouldn’t need a key, and would have some twisted motive, was Oates. Scaravelli was in no condition to deal with that reality.

  He wiped some dirt from his coffee mug, and filled it full of vodka.

  * * *

  Outside, Milo pulled away in his cruiser, smirking with pride. Scaravelli didn’t suspect him. Kyler didn’t suspect him. That gave him the freedom to travel at will. He had a pistol at his side, so he also had some firepower, though strictly defensive compared to what he saw Kyler and his men were packing. All he needed was a little help, and he’d find a way to keep as many people safe as possible.

  Milo did find out one important thing from Scaravelli. He’d asked about Oates and Scaravelli went white. The thug Ramirez also turned terrified when Kyler mentioned Oates. Whoever Oates was, he was running the show, including Scaravelli. That put Scaravelli a mile outside Milo’s circle of trust.

  He’d thought all night about who to put in that circle. He came up with one name. Someone who could be trusted to do what was right, even though it was hard, and someone who loved the town, loved it enough to give up a great job to come back and stay.

  He needed to find Scott Tackett.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The Lord won’t give you more than you can handle.

  Allie approached the edge of a mental cliff over an abyss, and replayed Reverend Snow’s words. If they were true yesterday, they still had to hold true today, no matter how awful today had become.

  Yeah, well, the Lord gave the reverend a bit more than he could handle, hadn’t he? she thought. Tortured to death in his own church. Looked like God was on break when that happened. She couldn’t get the vision of his kind face, the echo of the reverend’s supportive words out of her mind. Why did this have to happen to him?

  Scottie had lowered the cross that bore Reverend Snow, wrapped him in some altar cloths, and laid him in the sacristy behind the altar. She owed Scottie for taking care of Reverend Snow alone. She sat in the church’s last pew. Scott walked back down the main aisle. He sat next to her.

  “I’m sure he didn’t tell them,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” Scott said.

  “He wouldn’t give up the Portal,” she answered. “They’d come here because they couldn’t find it, hunting for people who might know about it from their family history. Reverend Snow would have been first on the list. He’d never tell.”

  Allie shuddered at the vision of the dead Reverend Snow. She took a deep breath because…

  The Lord won’t give you more than you can handle.

  …she could handle this. Rage at the reverend’s torture replaced sorrow. The reverend had asked her for her help and she promised it to him. Time to deliver. She’d grieve for him later, when the town was safe. Allie stood.

  “We need to know what he knew,” she said. “The Portal’s history is in the church somewhere. He as much as told me so. He said that each year on Christmas Eve, the generations would gather here and retell the story, to pass on the responsibility of protecting the Portal.”

  “Why does that mean there’s some physical history here?” Scott said. “They could have just told the story to each other.”

  “No, no,” Allie said, shaking her head. “It’s too important to trust to an oral history alone. That could get changed over time. Look around here.” She pointed at the church walls. “The stained-glass windows adorned with saints and the Stations of the Cross are all pictures. The reverend always said artwork filled great cathedrals to keep the stories of the church alive and accurate for people who were quite probably illiterate. A family of ministers would know that passing down a responsibility took more than word of mouth. That history is in here somewhere. Why else would they meet here every Christmas Eve, instead of somewhere more comfortable?”

  “Christmas Eve in the 1700s had to be cold and dark in this drafty church,” Scott said. He started to look convinced. “Okay, let’s start looking.”

  Scott started on the left and Allie on the right. They looked on, under and around every item in the church. They took pictures from walls, checked for hidden panels, and scoured the stained-glass windows for hidden messages.

  After several hours, the search appeared fruitless. There were no clues in any of the art in the church. Decades of old paint coated the walls in unbroken uniformity, dimming hope of any hidden doors or panels. The altar area yielded no surprises. The pews were bolted to the solid wood floor, further sealed by layers of wax and varnish. Allie’s hope for finding information on the Portal began to wane.

  She stood at the rear of the church, running her fingers over the seams of the walls for the tenth time. She was about to have every child’s dirty fingerprint there memorized.

  “Where would they hold this Christmas Eve meeting?” Scott called from the altar. “As the reverend, where would I go that special night each year to tell my son the most important story of his life, that it was his destiny to save Stone Harbor, and the world, from the reign of Satan?”

  Her first inclination was the altar area, but that holiest of places, where the host was consecrated, would be the wrong place to discuss such monstrous evil. Besides, she and Scottie had been all through there.

  Allie remembered her Christmas Eves here. The bright light of the evening service made the stained-glass windows reverse their role and send a kaleidoscope of pastel rays out to illuminate the chilly winter darkness. Organ music wafted out into the night, and the lights of the star on the steeple drew the congregation as the Star of Bethlehem drew the Wise Men. A full-scale carved manger scene always stood beside the church entrance, a hundred-year-old tradition, almost as old a tradition as the steeple star.

  The steeple star!

  “The lit Christmas star in the steeple,” she said. “If the Snows met in the actual church, townspeople would have wondered why the stained-glass glowed late into the night. But if they met in the steeple, the extra light there would be normal, expected on Christmas Eve. It would also be isolated, so that no one could overhear what the family passed on. It would be perfect.”

  Scott walked back from the front of the church. He looked leery.

  “Allie, that steeple is so rickety that the bell hasn’t been rung since the end of the Civil War. What’s to keep you, me, and the bell from crashing straight to the ground? We didn’t dodge that dog outside to kill ourselves in here.”

  “I know it’s up ther
e, Scottie,” she said. “We have to look. The door is in the choir loft behind the organ.”

  Allie grabbed Scott’s hand and pulled him up the stairs into the choir loft. The dark oak organ sat in a small nave at the rear, centered under the steeple. An array of dull brass pipes rose up from behind it and covered the wall like a metallic fan. The paneling on the nave’s left and right looked identical, but on close examination, the right side was actually a door with recessed hinges and a small knob.

  Allie pulled Scott to the door. She turned the handle. It was locked.

  “That would be expected,” Scott said. “How about a key?”

  “No idea,” Allie said.

  Scott quickly surveyed the choir loft, then released Allie’s hand.

  “Stand back,” he said. Allie stepped away and Scott slid the organ’s heavy oak bench over to the steeple door. He flipped it up on the short end, and lifted it up over the knob.

  He released the bench. The bench dropped and severed the brittle metal knob. The bench hit the floor with a crash. The knob dropped and rolled behind the organ.

  Scott slid the bench back out of the way and went down on one knee before the door. He put his finger in the empty socket and pushed. The knob on the other side hit the wooden floor. Scott hooked his finger in the open hole and pulled.

  The door creaked open. A cloud of dust rose along the edges.

  In contrast to the richly finished choir loft, the timbers in the steeple access were a dull, unfinished gray. Hundreds of years of summers had dried every drop of moisture from the wood. The little room was just a few feet square, with a rough-hewn ladder running up the back wall all the way to the bell tower proper. The light coming in through the door was all that illuminated the access way.

  Allie stepped on the dry wooden ladder. The rung emitted a complaining groan as she rested her weight on it.

  “Allie, seriously,” Scott said. “We’re lucky the bell doesn’t come crashing down on us.”