Somehow he managed to keep driving. Earlier in the evening he'd gone to the bank and emptied out his savings account. He had a few hundred in cash and that was it. There would have been more if he'd settled his folks' estate, but he hadn't pushed on that so it was still pending.
A few hundred wouldn't take him far, but he didn't care. He really didn't have the heart to run. Would have preferred to turn himself in at the nearest precinct house and have done with it. But they'd want to know where Danny was. And they'd keep on him until he told them. And when he finally broke down and told them they'd be out digging up Danny's body so a different crew of doctors could take it apart.
Bill couldn't allow that. The purpose of tonight's horrors had been to lay Danny to rest, to give him peace.
Bill didn't want to face a murder trial either. Too many other people, innocent people, would suffer—the priesthood in general, the Society in particular. That wouldn't be fair. He'd done this on his own. Better to disappear. If they couldn't catch him, they wouldn't know Danny was dead. If he wasn't in court and in the papers every day, the furor would die down. People would forget about him and what he'd done.
But Bill would never forget.
He thought of heading for the East River, of locking the wagon's doors, opening the windows a couple of inches, and driving off one of the embankments. Who knew when they'd find him?
But someone might find him too soon. They might save him. And then he'd have to go through the court scenario.
No. Better for everyone if he kept on the move.
So he drove for hours. The snow accumulated steadily as he wound through the residential streets of Queens, avoiding the area where the Loins had lived, and avoiding the St. Francis area as well. The police would be looking for him now and they'd certainly be watching those two places.
It was near dawn and he was somewhere on the western rim of Nassau County when he saw that his fuel was getting low. He found an open 7-Eleven and filled up at the self-serve. In the store he made himself a cup of coffee and grabbed a buttered bagel. As he was paying the Middle Eastern clerk for everything, he glanced at the little portable TV behind the counter and almost dropped his coffee. His face was on the screen. The clerk saw his expression and glanced at the set.
"Terrible, is it not, when you cannot trust your children to a priest?" he singsonged in his high-pitched voice. "It is getting so you cannot trust anyone."
Bill tensed, ready to run, sure the clerk would see the resemblance. But perhaps because the screen was so small, and Bill had been clean-shaven, well rested, and years younger when that photo had been taken, the man made no connection. He shrugged and turned to the cash register to ring up the gas and food.
Then the phone began to ring. A long ring that wouldn't stop. The clerk dropped the change into Bill's trembling hand and stared at the phone.
"What on earth?" the clerk said.
Bill, too, stared at the phone. That ring! He spun and scanned the empty store, then peered through the windows into the snowy dawn. No one was about. He looked back at the phone as the clerk lifted the receiver.
How?
Faintly he heard that familiar, terrified little voice.
"What?" he heard the clerk say. "What are you saying? I am not your father, little boy. Listen to me…"
No one knew he was here, no one had followed him—-it couldn't be!
Unless… unless the caller wasn't hampered by human limitations.
But who? Who or what was tormenting him, mocking him with Danny's cries for help?
One more stratum of proof that his life had fallen under thrall to something as evil as it was inhuman.
His heart pounding like an airhammer, Bill hurried for the door. Out—into the snow, to the safe and sane interior of the station wagon, and back onto the streets.
He realized that if he was going to remain free he'd have to get out of the city, out of the state, out of the Northeast. But to do that he'd have to go through Manhattan.
No—he could go over the Verrazano Bridge, cut across Staten Island, and slip into New Jersey.
He headed south toward the Belt Parkway.
They put the call through to Renny. It was a foreign guy, his voice accented but easily understandable.
"Mr. Detective, sir, I believe I have seen this priest you are searching for."
Renny grabbed a pencil.
"When and where?"
"In the store where I work in Floral Park, not more than one hour ago."
"An hour! Jesus, why'd you wait so long?"
"I did not know it was him until I come home and see his picture on my TV screen. He did not look the same but I believe it was him."
Not exactly a positive ID, but it was all they'd had.
"Was he alone?"
"Yes, he was. There was no child with him, at least none that I saw."
"Did you see what kind of car he was driving?"
"I do not remember."
"Didn't you look?"
"Perhaps, but I was too upset by a telephone call that—"
Renny was suddenly on his feet.
"Telephone call? What kind of call?"
The man described a call exactly like the one Renny had picked up in the hospital, same ring, same frightened child's voice, everything.
What was Ryan up to? And what was the story with the phone calls? Was Ryan making them, using them as a distraction? Or was someone else behind them?
This whole thing was getting loonier by the hour.
Long Island… hadn't Ryan grown up on Long Island? Monroe Village or something like that? Maybe that was where he was headed. Headed home.
He reached for the phone.
The morning had lightened but the sun stayed locked behind the low-hanging clouds that sealed off the sky and continued to pump the blizzard at the city. The whole world, the very air, had turned gray-white. Bill had the roads pretty much to himself. After all, it was New Year's Day and snowing like crazy. Only crazies and those who had no choice were out. Still, the going was slow and difficult. The Belt Parkway wasn't plowed and the wagon handled like a barge in a typhoon, slewing this way and that on the curves. He wished he had front-wheel drive.
But things improved when he got on the lower level of the Verrazano. There was blessedly little snow on the protected stretch of bridge. Down the slope lay Staten Island; beyond that, New Jersey and freedom.
Freedom, he thought grimly. But no escape.
"So where the hell is he?" Renny said to anyone who would listen.
He was seated at his desk in the squad room trying to coordinate the search for Father Ryan. He waited for one of the other detectives seated around him to offer a brilliant answer but they only sipped their coffee and looked at the floor.
All Renny could do was wait. And waiting was pure hell.
They had the Monroe police force, what there was of it, keeping an eye out for their local boy. Other than that, the bastard could be anywhere on Long Island. Hell, he could have skidded off the L.I.E. and be lying in a ditch freezing to death… and that poor kid freezing along with him. He could—
"They think they spotted him on Staten Island!"
It was Connally, rushing through the squad room waving a sheet of paper.
Staten Island? Renny thought. Ryan had been spotted in Floral Park before, due east of the medical center. How could they spot him in Staten Island? That was west.
"When?"