Marker of Faith

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

Rodriguez pulled his coroner van into the church lot and parked under his favorite tree. He needed a moment of peace after the horror of this morning, and he'd always found comfort here. The giant, old oak stood outside of St. Michael's' Catholic Church for the last ninety-five years -- it was already old when Roddy was born. Sunlight filtered through the summer leaves making lazy patches of amber on the walkway and front steps.

He didn't say anything at the crime scene, but Roddy recognized the priest. This was his church and Roddy went here for Sunday Mass as a matter of fact. Father Burnley was a kind man who had gone out of his way to help the homeless around town. Roddy shuddered as he pictured the fractured corpse, the tattered shell of such a good man. Who could do such a vicious thing?

He leaned forward and put his head on the steering wheel. Doing the post on the priest's body was going to be hard. Then there was the matter of Dave Macken. Roddy hadn't really known him that well but he felt a deep sorrow for the man's death.

He also felt fear.

Roddy pictured Dave's face right before he pulled the trigger; he'd looked like a man possessed. What was it Dave said as he put the gun under his chin?

"John, be strong...this is for you."

What the hell did that mean?

A shudder rippled over Roddy and he squeezed his eyes shut, but the image of Dave's head exploding made him snap his eyes open, and he drew in a deep, shaky breath. His eyes drifted towards the church as the horror of the day flared again.

A breeze sighed through the oak tree limbs above him, releasing acorns onto the roof of his van. They landed with little pops that startled him. As they rolled off the roof Roddy imagined the sound as claws skittering across the metal, and he sank deeper down into his seat. He looked at the ceiling, expecting to see a ragged talon punch through to rake at his face, and held his breath as panic knotted his insides. An acorn rolled down the windshield, its little shell innocuous and talon-free, and Roddy let out his pent-up breath in a hoarse rush of sour-tasting air.

He sat up and looked down at his clothing in disgust. He should have stripped immediately and deconned at the scene and dumped everything in an evidence bag. For all he knew Dave was chock full of Hep, HIV, and the plague, thus the quick exit via gun barrel.

Now I'm going to go nuts and off myself, too.

Calm down. He wasn't sick This was something else.

Dave's blood caked in patches on his shirt and pants, and Roddy knew later he'd find nasty bits in his hair when he showered. He shuddered again and tentatively ran a hand over his head. His hair was indeed bristle-stiff with dried blood.

Roddy's skin tingled where Dave's blood soaked through his clothing, and he pulled his shirt away from his chest to break the contact. He shook his head sadly. Suicide was a one-way ticket to hell. He crossed himself and looked up at the church again.

"Not suicide," another's voice said from within him. "A sacrifice."

Confused, Roddy leaned his head against the steering wheel and scrubbed at his face with stained hands. Where did that come from?

That's great, I'm hearing voices now...I'm a fuckin' nut job. But the reality was he didn't feel that unnerved. The voice felt familiar.

A sacrifice, huh? Felt more like a warped gift that shouldn't have been unwrapped.

What the fuck am I thinking about this for? 'This is for you, John', that's a strange sacrifice, amigo. Shit, nothing makes sense anymore. What the fuck were you doing, Dave!

"Can't let this eat at you, Manuel!" Roddy said to the air. The thought of cutting into that priest, into Dave, made his stomach clench with bile; he already tasted the acid on his tongue.

"It's my job, damn it!" he hissed fiercely, arguing with his budding fear. He understood death, he catalogued it and solved its mysteries under all circumstances, but these deaths were different. They were tainted and unnatural. He'd always been at peace with the natural order of things. Death didn't frighten him, so even when it was bitter and tragic he accepted the inevitable and made it his duty to find answers and give comfort to those left behind. Even when the deaths seemed senseless, the product of cruelty or stupidity, he laid questions to rest with the remains he studied. It was the living that he had problems with. People were so quick to judge and be cruel, ridicule Roddy for his profession behind his back. The job left him with a dark edginess and biting sarcasm that most people found awkward to be around. But it was how he survived, how he kept the nightmares at bay when the questions had been answered and only the living left behind.

These bodies were more than a mystery. He didn't want to touch them. There was something dark and malignant about the priest now, unholy, and Dave...his death was tainted. Roddy saw things as a child, things he didn't want to remember, but Dave's death was trying to awaken the memories.

"A sacrifice," he said quietly.

He crossed himself and pulled away from the church slowly. In his rearview mirror Roddy saw shadows flit briefly through the branches of his beloved oak tree, thicker than the leaves and anthropomorphic, then disappear. His skin tingled and he knew darkness lay ahead of him as he drove to the morgue in misery.