Mind's Eye - Part 10
Parker took off her sunglasses as the day began to end. To her right, the sky was on fire with a brilliant gradient of colors that went from yellow to blue to black. Night was falling, but her senses were clear as midday. Sister Mary knew more, and Parker was determined to find out just how much more there was to the story of her mother and Black Arrow.
Georgetown, Delaware was settling in for the night. Lights blinked on as darkness fell. The stained glass windows of Saint Agatha's were lit up, displaying their brilliant blue and green mosaics depicting saints and miracles. There were cars in the parking lot when Parker pulled in, indicating a function within the church.
She got out of the car and headed for the convent. Lights bathed the lawn in front of the bay windows in a warm glow. Light dew was forming on the grass that weather forecasters had said would turn to the season's first frost by morning. The air felt chilled already as she approached the steps of the house. Before she got to the porch, the door opened. Sister Mary stood there like a sentry standing guard against attack.
"Have you come back for round two, Miss Parker?" she asked, the subtle smile playing on her lips. "I thought I made it clear this afternoon that we had nothing more to discuss?"
Parker rose up the step to the porch door and stood squarely in front of the nun. She decided to dial down her ire a notch and try the nice, diplomatic approach. She wanted to know more about her mother.
"Sister, we need to talk," she said, trying to convince her mind she was forcing her sincerity.
"I don't believe there's anything more to say."
"I think the children my mother asked you to take care of are in danger."
Sister Mary crossed her arms against the night chill. "Strange. You didn't seem to think that the case this afternoon when I asked."
"I know," Parker admitted, cringing at the fact. "Please, let me in, and I'll tell you what I know. You can decide for yourself."
Sister Mary drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She opened the screen door with her forearm and stepped aside to allow Parker entrance. She then closed the heavy white oak door behind them with a quiet bump.
Instead of going into Sister Mary's office as they had earlier in the day, Parker was led to the living room that was large and airy. Large overstuffed chairs sat semicircle in front of a fireplace that was lit. The air was fragrant with the smell of burning wood as it crackled in the hearth. Parker sat down, surprised the nun did not follow suit in the other chair.
"You look like you could use a drink," Sister Mary said with a tenderness that seemed alien to Parker.
"After what I saw this afternoon, maybe two or three," she admitted.
Sister Mary went to a foldout bureau near the terrace window and poured two scotches, adding ice cubes at a minimum. She returned to Parker and offered one. When she sat down, her manner seemed fatigued.
"It's quite a disturbing image to see young David being killed by Centre thugs, isn't it?"
Parker was astonished. "How did you know?"
"History repeats itself, Miss Parker. That exact video is what brought your mother here all those years ago, asking for help to hide the children from the Centre." She took a sip of her drink. "I was very much like you at your age. My skepticism was my own worst enemy. I opposed the children coming here when Father Montclaire asked me to help. I was not willing to risk the other students being in danger of forces beyond my own control."
"My mother knew David had been killed and brought the children here?"
"No," Sister Mary said shaking her head. "Actually, she brought the video first. Father Montclaire had informed her of my resistance. Catherine decided to meet me head-on and show me the truth. She knew that Doctor Raines was evil, that he had stepped outside the realm of human instinct."
Sister Mary adjusted her position in the chair. "Miss Parker, do you know what a devil's advocate is?"
"Religiously or metaphorically speaking?"
"Religiously."
"I'm not sure of the specifics, but it had to do with verification of saints."
"That's right. In the early days of the Catholic Church, when candidates for sainthood were nominated, the Vatican established the position of Devil's Advocate to debunk them. This was to ensure the candidate was truly worthy of recognition. Sometimes, the advocate would even discover traces of evil acts that were so contrary to the idea of sainthood. They looked for the dark side of a person who was proclaimed to be good. It was not the most popular position in Rome. The advocate was and still is known only to a few."
"I'm not sure I follow."
Sister Mary smiled fondly. "Your mother reminded me of a devil's advocate. She was willing to risk her life to bring about the truth of the Centre. She was willing to die to protect those children and so many others like them. She spoke the truth and took action against the Centre when it appeared to be a saintly organization."
Images of her mother flashed in Parker's mind. Her heart ached for the truth of her death, something she felt she might never learn.
"Sister, if you knew my mother, then you know she would have wanted the children to stay safe. I need your help if I am going to do that."
"Let me ask you this, Miss Parker. What guarantee do I have that you aren't lying and are trying to find the children so they can be hunted and killed by the sweeper teams?"
Parker immediately noted the nun's use of "sweeper teams".
"You seem to know a lot about Centre tactics."
"Your mother's greatest fear aside from the safety of the children was for those who helped her. She warned us what might come our way. The sweeper teams were in place then, as I'm sure they are now."
Parker finally brought her glass up and took a sip of the scotch. She felt like she was taking one step forward and two steps backward with every bit of their conversation.
"Look, Sister, I can't give you any guarantees. All I know is that the danger they're in right now is something my mother would fight if she were alive."
Sister Mary rested her glass on the arm of her chair. Her finger traced the contour of the glass in an idle, contemplative way. "Which seems to be the crux of the issue, doesn't it? You see, I have no doubt your mother would fight to protect them. She was willing to die for them; but what about you, Miss Parker? What are you willing to risk to protect them?"
Thoughts of Raines and images of Thomas dead on the porch flashed in Parker's mind. She had risked the one true love in her life and had lost. The images of her mother's body as it lay still in the elevator car haunted her nearly every day of her life, hours spent in the same halls Catherine had walked all those years. Now, Parker was walking them, lost and without purpose. The revelations coming to her slowly but surely as time passed were painful and maddening. Her own father would not reveal the truth to her, and she wanted desperately to trust him as she had when she was a child. She found no solace in his cloak and dagger tactics he claimed were for her own protection. The contradictions she felt were painful.
Still, despite the swirl of emotions raging inside her, Parker was not ready to tip her hand to Sister Mary. "That would depend on how much danger there is. You seem to have a better handle on that than I do.'
"If that's true, then I'd say you're sorely out of the loop at the Centre."
Parker's jaw clenched in frustration, but she maintained her demeanor. "Let's just say the truth is not at the top of the list when it comes to certain people there. What I do know for sure is someone wants to find these children for a reason, and it's not to send Christmas cards."
The floor creaked as someone stood in the doorway to the living room. They both turned to see Father Randall standing, a large book in his hand.
"Randall?" Sister Mary said, getting to her feet.
Father Randall walked forward to them and met Sister Mary. "You have to tell her, Mary. We can't protect them anymore. We're getting too old to fight."
"Randall, please," Sister Mary urged, "this is not the time or – "
"This is the right time and the right place," Father Randall said emphatically. He seemed remarkably more lucid than he had been in the afternoon. Alzheimer's disease in the early stages was cruel that way.
"The Centre has terrorized those people far too long," he said. "They need peace. This woman may be the only one who can bring them that."
Sister Mary looked desperately at Father Randall. She turned to Parker in defeat of the priest's argument. "I hope you're right, Randall. If you aren't, we've killed them already."
Parker was stunned at Father Randall's sudden return to lucidity. He had seemed so lost in time when she first met him. She felt eager that he was willing to give information. Sister Mary had been a successful roadblock, doing everything in her power to drag Parker along in the investigation.
"Father, I promise you, I will do whatever it takes to protect them."
Father Randall gave a cursory glance to Sister Mary at Parker's knowledge of the fates of some of the children. He held out the leather bound book to Parker. She took it in both hands, unsure if she should open it.
"This will explain all that we know about the children. As you said, most have passed on; but some remain hidden." Sister Mary pulled over a chair for Father Randall. She said, "I'll have to assume the Centre doesn't know where they are if you're looking for them?"
Parker's loyalties to the Centre felt challenged by the question. "If they did, we wouldn't be having this conversation."
Father Randall cleared his throat with an extended cough that threatened to develop into a spasm. When he had settled, he tapped on the book. "Open it."
She opened the book and began flipping through the first few pages. They were filled with various pictures of children Parker assumed were from Black Arrow. Each photograph was the same, similar to the one Jarod had sent. Not one child ever smiled, looking wholly scared to death of something not seen.
The fifth page revealed an article on David Stoltz. His picture was the centerpiece to a story detailing his killing of a park ranger in Prime Hook National Wildlife Preserve. His eyes revealed darkness so deep there seemed to be no end to the chasm into his mind.
Parker noticed Father Randall close his eyes. His chin quivered as tried to control his pain.
"You knew Peter Stoltz?" Parker asked.
He shook his head and composed himself. "No, he was one of two children your mother could not rescue from the Centre."
The equation began forming for Parker. "He and David?"
Sister Mary folded her hands in front of her. "Your mother told us of Peter, asking if we could take on one more child. Of course, we accepted and were waiting for him. You have to remember that these children arrived two at a time, at the most. Usually, they were alone because of the difficulty of smuggling them out of the Centre."
"She couldn't get Peter out," Parker said.
"No," the nun confirmed. "Peter was under lock and key with Doctor Raines. Catherine simply had no access to the boy."
Parker's eyes skimmed the details of Stoltz in the newspaper article. An assassin, whose weapon was never found, he was responsible for the shooting death of Ranger Deborah Warren five months earlier. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison. Again, a piece fell into place for Parker.
"Raines picked where he left off with Peter," Parker continued.
"We're not entirely certain of the details," Sister Mary said, "but that's a likely conclusion."
Again, Parker took notice of how upset Father Randall had become once Stoltz had been mentioned. She wanted the answers and knew Sister Mary would not willingly provide them.
"Father, there's more to this than just Stoltz being a killer," Parker said to Father Randall.
She looked down at the article. Her senses felt overwhelmed as she finally realized she was getting somewhere in the quest for the truth. "You knew the woman he killed, didn't you?" she accused.
A quiet sob escaped Father Randall. Tears fell freely from his eyes, rolling down his aged cheeks without resistance. He sniffed, trying once again to bring his emotions under control. Still, he could not speak. He answered Parker with only a nod.
Parker looked at Sister Mary. "Who was she?"
Sister Mary reached for the photo album and turned back a few pages until she came to the photo of her and the two children, the one Jarod had sent. Parker nearly dreaded the answer she knew was about to be spoken by the woman. It was all beginning to fall into place, piece by piece, moment by moment. The explanations were coming so quickly that Parker had to run to keep up with the two elderly religious.
"That's Jeanie Danziger, " Sister Mary said, pointing to the girl in the picture. "She was one of two of the first children your mother rescued."
"The boy was the other?"
"Yes, Nelson Cassidy. Jeanie and he became very close friends. They were practically inseparable."
The young child looked so familiar. Colorless images raced through her mind, snippets of the DSA records replaying at a furious pace. Then she hit on it. "He was in the hallway when David was killed," she said, tapping his form on the photograph.
Sister Mary's eyes closed in regret. "David," she said, "was Nelson's older brother."
Parker's blood felt chilled as her heart pumped it through her veins. No one could ever claim the Centre was a dull place, but the depth of its vulgar treatment of human life sometimes defied nature.
"How does the Jeanie fit in to all of this?"
Father Randall wiped at his face, drying away tears that spilled freely. His eyes reddened, he said, "She never lost contact with us. She was such a smart girl."
He took his turn to flip the album pages in Parker's hands. In the back was a small bundle of letters held by a rubber band. "A few months after she got settled in to her new home, she found the address to the church and sent us letters. Over the years, she let us know she was all right. Somehow, Jeanie knew it was important we have hope that some of the children were still alive. Later on, she fell in love. By then, her name had changed to Deborah."
"And Nelson?"
Sister Mary picked up her glass and took another sip of scotch. "Oh, he's very much alive and well. He captured Peter Stoltz after he shot Jeanie."
Parker gave a casual rub at her forehead, trying to organize the facts into something of value. "Wait a minute. Nelson Cassidy worked with Jeanie?"
"Yes," she confirmed, "they worked in the park system not too far from here."
Parker's hands flew back to the article in the scrapbook. She turned up the first sheaf of paper to reveal the continuation of the story. Deb Warren's – Jeanie Danziger's – face was clear as day. Broots had nailed the aging in the lab perfectly. The hair was close, but the face was on the money.
Parker took a moment to find her voice again. "Did he change his name, too?"
Father Randall shook his head. "He did, but she still called him Nelson because that was his given name. She never wanted him to forget who he was."
The need to find Nelson Cassidy was urgent for Parker. The shooting of Jeanie Danziger was not just a psychotic episode of a hunter gone bad. It was an assassination, a hit ordered by Raines, she believed. Peter Stoltz had carried out the task he was trained to perform. How he had located her was becoming irrelevant. The finger of blame kept pointing back at Raines, although she could not say for sure why. With Stoltz on the loose, it was anyone's guess what the next step of his mission was.
"We have to find Nelson and any of the other children," she told them sharply. Sister Mary began to object, but Parker cut her off with a raised hand. "Stoltz escaped this morning from prison."
"What?" Sister Mary exclaimed. "What do you mean 'escaped'?"
"There's a manhunt on for him right now."
"Oh dear God, no," Father Randall breathed, his tears renewed. He bent forward and clutched his face in his hands.
Parker's cell rang loudly in the pocket of her blazer. All three jumped, startled at the sudden sound. She snatched it up quickly and answered it. "What?"
Broots was stammering on the other end of the line. "M-Miss Parker, you told me to call you when I had something."
"And?"
"Well, I finished running that age comparison on Jeanie and the little boy in the picture. You're not going to believe what I found."
"I've had all kinds of surprises today. Try me."
"Okay, well, remember Stoltz was locked up for killing a ranger on the coast?"
"I'm already ahead of you, Broots. Jeanie is the ranger that was killed. Tell me something I don't already know."
Sydney joined in on the conference call. "Parker, we've been continuing our search through the archive to find out what Raines was up to with the children. Broots has managed to recover more information from the old storage units."
"And what's Doctor Plaid been up to in the archives?"
"It seems Stoltz was programmed to carry out his mission in a sequence of assassinations."
Her impatience reached a peak. "Cut to the details. Who, where and when?"
She took a look at the two elderly people around her. They were listening intently. She wanted desperately to go to another room and take the call there, but it was pointless. They had a vested interest in Peter Stoltz's plans as much as she did.
"You want my professional opinion or for Broots to do the math?" Sydney said with a hint of irritation.
"Just give me a direction. Who was next on the list?" she asked irritably.
Broots spoke up once more. "From the best I can tell from the reconstruction, Raines programmed Stoltz to operate in the order the kids were taken from the Centre, like some sick, twisted vendetta for them escaping."
"Starting with the girl," Parker stated.
"Right," Broots said enthusiastically, "that's where we made some progress on the aging composites. The boy in the photo with her is Nelson Cassidy, a.k.a. Neil Case. He's a ranger in the same park where she worked when she was killed."
"Keep going," she urged, annoyed that she was hearing facts she already knew, except now she had a name to go on to find Cassidy. It was one less thing she would have to drag out of Sister Mary or Father Randall. "Where is he now?"
Broots seemed dumbfounded by the question, as though the answer were so obvious. "Well, he never left. At least that's what the government says. He's the commanding officer of Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge."
The information was good enough for Parker. She snapped the phone shut, ending the call. Stoltz was headed to finish off the next child on the list, Nelson Cassidy. She would be there to head him off at the pass, to kill him if necessary. He was more valuable alive. She could present him to the Triumvirate, to show them that they had been duped.
She looked at the man and woman seated on either side. Their eyes looked childlike with fear and anticipation. She felt a pang of empathy, perhaps even sympathy, for their cause. Time after time, she learned more about the woman her mother was. Her bravery and her ultimate sacrifice of life for her beliefs were things Parker was now only beginning to understand. Her mother had once found trust and comfort with the staff of Saint Agatha's, confident they would not betray her or the children she fought to protect.
"I have to go," she told them, standing.
Sister Mary reached for Parker's arm to stop her. Her desperation finally surfaced, a deep contrast to the woman who had rebuffed her just hours earlier. "I'm begging you, Miss Parker, don't tell the Centre where they are. We've worked all our lives to protect them. Your mother died protecting the children who were taken. Please."
Parker's eyes closed, and her head dropped backward in despair. She had a duty to uphold with the Centre. The moral argument raging in her head, however, was an equal match. The repercussions of lying to the Centre had proven deadly in the past. The battle was firing volleys from side to side in her mind when her mother's face quieted the conflict. There was strength in the image, fortitude to the right thing in her mother's eyes that Parker found nowhere else within the Centre. Nowhere except in Jarod's eyes in the rare times they had come face to face since his escape.
Her eyes opened, focusing on Sister Mary LaGrange, the cynic who had come to the rescue of children she did not know so many years before Parker had even known about them. She did not see the stoic woman who had confronted her that afternoon. Instead, she saw someone powerless to fight the machine bearing down upon Saint Agatha's Church.
She looked at them both solemnly. "It'll be handled," she said simply.
She turned to leave when Sister Mary stopped her once more. "Wait, there's something I want you to have."
Parker was reluctant to stay any longer at the convent than was necessary. There was something about the nun's appeal that made her stay. Sister Mary walked out of the room and returned just a few moments later. Parker guessed she had gone to her office one room down the hall.
Sister Mary walked back into the living room, holding a silver picture frame in her hand. She held it out to Parker in offering. "I believe your mother would have wanted you to have this."
Framed within the palm-sized metal was a photograph of Catherine Parker, posing with a priest Parker did not know. The emotions that surged through her were painful, yet sweet and refreshing. It was a new image of her mother, one that was not in the things Parker had salvaged of her mother's past. She felt overwhelmed with the gift, even if it may have been a bribe. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, but she would not let them fall. Her days of grieving had to come to an end at some point. Even though she was fighting so fiercely to make that happen, she admitted she was failing miserably at preventing the tide of pain she still felt.
Her thumb passed over her mother's face, longing to feel the contours of Catherine's beauty and the warmth of her embrace. Parker's eyes closed again as she felt the renewed agony of memory sweep over her once more. In the distance, she swore she heard the whisper of her mother's voice, telling her the right thing to do.
"Oh, mama," she said to herself, the words echoing in the recesses of her memory.
She looked at Sister Mary and Father Randall once more, this time with conviction and absolute honesty. There was no double-speak, no hidden agenda to the sentiment. There was no risk of these two people betraying the memories Parker held dear of her mother.
A feeling of promise welled within her, a sense that not all of the world had gone to moral hell.
"It'll be handled," she said again.