Chapter Twenty-one

awful sense of evil within, was still close to the surface.
"I'll give you ten minutes," Mike told the reporter.
"Your office, please. I might be talkin' about my life, Inspector."
The bus came as Mike and Terry were entering the pre­cinct house. Sitting alone as it swayed along,
Jonathan tried to prepare himself for what he was going to find at the hospital. But he could not. A few
hours ago Patricia had dazzled him with her beauty. Now she was the victim of somebody who despised it.
Somebody dark and wicked.
He sucked in breath. For an instant he had wanted to run, just to let his body take over and somehow
escape the situation.
He remained on the bus as if frozen to his seat, unable for a time even to move.
By the time the bus reached the huge Art Deco hulk of the Poly, full sunlight bathed the streets, the
white walls of the building, the sea of glittering windows. He got up and forced himself out onto the
sidewalk. He passed through the en­trance to the old building.
Once in the lobby he sought the information desk. It was manned by a fat guard complete with Sam
Browne belt and pistol. Queens Poly didn't fool around. It was a hard place, where the borough's desperate
emergencies came. This man often confronted people who were crazy with shock and grief.
"I'm trying to locate a woman named Patricia Murray, a rape victim, badly injured."
He consulted a computer printout. "Here—Murray, Patri­cia, Intensive Care Unit, Ward C, Section Five.
That's the fifth floor, end of the corridor."
Jonathan got on an elevator jammed with interns, nurses, and two patients in wheelchairs. It stopped for
an intermina­ble time at each floor. At last, though, he arrived at the nurses' station that controlled the ICU.
"I'm here to see Patricia Murray," he said to the nurse at the desk.
"Visiting hours start at nine." She flipped through a file. "Oh. Are you related?"
He lied because he knew he had to. "Yes."
"She may be awake. But you'll have to observe her through the window. No direct contact yet."
He followed the nurse down a hallway cluttered with medical paraphernalia, IV stands, wheelchairs,
rolling beds, electronic equipment.
Patricia lay swathed in an olive-drab surgical gown. Her legs were spread and a tent of plastic obscured
her head. An OXYGEN IN USE sign flashed on and off above the window that looked into the room. Her
whole belly was covered with gauze and bandages, and more bandages were on her arms. Even beyond
the evidence of great wounding, it was her absolute stillness that made Jonathan feel the strange, deep
anguish of the bereft. Only if she were dead would she be more still.
He stood looking at her, feeling the tears burn in his eyes and a tightness constrict his throat, and wishing
that some­how it could have been different.
What terrible thing had happened last night?
Was he wrong, or had her head slowly turned toward him? With the wrinkled plastic oxygen tent making
a clear view of her impossible, it was difficult to tell.
Yes, she had definitely looked his way.
But what was the expression on her face? Was it love, or terror—or was it madness?
He strained and peered at her, but he could not tell. After a few minutes the nurse nudged his elbow, then
drew him away.
As he went down the hall exhaustion hit him hard, and with it came a great sorrow. His brief love was
destroyed.
He thought of her, lying beneath him in his dream. He crept from the hospital like a guilty man.
27 JUNE 1983
MOST PRIVATE
To: The Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Defense of the Faith
From: The Chancellor for the Inquiry in North Amer­ica
Your Eminence:
I am sorry to inform you that the Night Church has surfaced publicly with a bloody ritual at a parish
in the New York City borough of Queens.
Location: Holy Spirit Parish, founded 1892, church dedicated September, 1894. Present population
16,231.