"Coyne, John - The Shroud" - читать интересную книгу автора (Coyne John)

The Shroud
Copyright 1983 by John Coyne


CHAPTER ONE
December Twenty-fourth, Evening
Feast of Saint Gregory of Spoleto

Mary Margaret O'Donnell knelt before the nativity crib and mumbled. Then, as the wind howled around her, she crossed herself and began the Apostles' Creed. She could no longer remember the entire prayer, so she kept repeating the first few lines: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. And I believe in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son."
Her bones ached from the kneeling. She felt the pain in her joints, in her left hip where a cop had kicked her that fall, chasing her from LaFayette Park, but she offered up the suffering, making it a special penance for her sins. One less day in hell, she thought, dimly recalling how as a little girl she had said dozens of rosaries, offering them up to God for plenary indulgences.
Then her memory gave out completely and she only stared at the nativity scene. It was well past midnight in LaFayette Park and in the swirling snow the light of the streetlamps was dim. But the outdoor creche had been carefully spotlighted and Mary Margaret could see every detail of the life-sized figures of Joseph, Mary, and the Christ Child. "So beautiful," she muttered, and her gray eyes glittered with tears. "So real, all the little animals, the sheep and shepherds, and, oh, look at the Wise Men with their camels! All of them in Bethlehem to praise dear sweet Baby Jesus. Oh, dear Lord of heaven, I love you." Her tearful voice cried out in the dark empty park.
In the late night silence, no one heard or noticed the bag lady kneeling at the deserted creche. She was swathed in layers of old clothes. A long wool coat was pulled over sweaters and skirts, and her face and head were wrapped up in a babushka. Surrounding her were half a dozen shopping bags that she kept pulling closer, as if for comfort.
Mary Margaret no longer knew why she carried these bags. When she first arrived in the city she had had a suitcase, but hadn't been able to remember her name or where she was from. In summer she slept in the park, and in the winter she slept in the doorway of the nearby Cathedral. When she could, she sneaked inside.
She glanced furtively around, looked across the wide avenue at the huge Cathedral. Once early that night the sexton had chased her from the church. He had spotted her in Our Lady's Chapel unwrapping a sandwich she had salvaged from the trash can, and he had swooped down, yelling like an Apache, and sending her scurrying. She had barely had time to gather up her bags and get out the side entrance.
She had stood awhile on the north porch, begging money from the few parishioners that passed her on the way to Midnight Mass, but then it had begun to snow. The large, wet flakes stuck to her cloth coat and seeped through the worn soles of her shoes. Within minutes she had lost all feeling in her feet. She had left the Cathedral and stumbled across the street. There was no one on the avenue. Not many people still lived downtown by the river, and only at Christmas did they come in from the suburbs to hear mass at the city's old Cathedral.
Now, kneeling before the creche in the park, Mary Margaret O'Donnell began to cry. She was unaware of the tears. They ran the length of her rough, red face, washed the dirt from her cheeks in warm rivulets. She had fallen recently and been beaten by a gang of kids. They had found her sleeping in the doorway of a vacant tenement and pounced on her shopping bags, searching for money. She had tried to fight them off, but they had beaten her face and knocked her unconscious. The cuts had healed, but her lips and cheeks were still bruised and puffy from the attack, and she was now more afraid than ever of strangers, of people who came close to her. She didn't wash. She had learned that no one came near her when her body stank.
Mary Margaret heard a car door slam in the distance. She ignored it. The park was safe after dark, she knew. No one, not even the police, came there late at night. Besides, she was having a good time watching the Holy Family in their Bethlehem stable.
She heard footsteps next, heavy boots crunching the deep snow. Her heart stopped and she clutched her clothes. Someone was approaching, coming toward the Christmas creche. She didn't look up. It was better if they couldn't see it was a woman. He was close now; she could see him from the corner of her eye. Tall and dressed okay, in a black overcoat. He was no cop, that was sure, and no bum either. He knelt down beside her, before the Holy Family. She edged away on the makeshift kneeler.
He shifted over, moving toward her. Mary Margaret fumbled in the pockets of her old coat. She had a small knife somewhere, a kitchen knife she had lifted from someone's garbage.
"Wait," the man said. He reached out and touched her lightly.
Mary Margaret knocked his hand off her arm and swore. "Keep away," she told him. She grabbed her shopping bags and stood up, backed away from the lighted creche.
"Oh, now, Agnes," he said, standing, following her.
"My name isn't Agnes!" she shouted, spinning away from the man in the deep snow.
"Here now, don't worry." He grabbed her again, seized her arm this time and held her.
This time she swung at him with both hands, doubling her old fingers into one small fist. She wasn't afraid of him. She could take care of herself, but then she felt the soft cloth over her mouth and nose and she couldn't breathe anymore.

The light was in her eyes. A bright light. She squirmed and tried to sit up, to get away from it, but she couldn't move. She was tied down flat, and her arms were at her side.
She was sick. Something had made her nauseous and involuntarily she vomited on herself, retched her trash-can sandwich onto her face and neck. She turned her head sideways, away from the mess, and saw him coming at her with the needle.
"I haven't got no money," she cried out. "I haven't a thing, dear God, only these old clothes, a few scraps of paper, some pictures of my mommy and daddy. They're dead. They're all dead now."
"Easy, Agnes," he whispered, coming out of the darkness.
She pulled up her thick legs and tried to kick at him. She realized she was on a wet rubbery sheet, tied to a table. The place was damp and her body was shaking from the cold and her fear.
"Please, don't," she asked, and in that small corner of her mind where some sanity still remained, Mary Margaret knew that he was going to kill her.
She felt the needle, felt the sharp, painful jab at her neck, and she gasped, gargled one last breath. And she didn't care, didn't fight the man, and for the first time since she had come to the city, Mary Margaret felt warm and safe and secure. She was indoors now, out of the snow, and she wept softly as the liquid spread through her body, found her aching heart, and stopped her life.


CHAPTER TWO
December Twenty-fifth, Morning Feast of the Nativity
Christmas.

"Bah, humbug!" The young priest smiled. He couldn't quite pull it off. He loved Christmas, especially on such a lovely, snowy dawn. He sat in the bay window of his bedroom in the rectory, staring down onto Church Drive, the short, residential street that dead-ended into the parking lot behind the Cathedral.
"Merry Christmas," he whispered experimentally. He sipped his herb tea and yawned. He was tired, yet he was too excited from his long night with the Cardinal to sleep.
The view from his third-floor window wasn't beautiful-burned-out lots, abandoned brownstones, the panorama of urban decay. But it had been snowing since before midnight, the large, soft flakes softened the landscape, made the shabbiness almost quaint.
All that bothered him on this Christmas morning was that so few people had come out for Midnight Mass. Despite all his telephoning, the arm-twisting of the Holy Name Society, the special bus for the Knights of Columbus and their families, the huge Cathedral had been only a quarter full. Well, there had been the snow, he reasoned. He couldn't have predicted a storm. Of all the goddamn luck.
He could still see the Cardinal's face as he stepped from the sacristy and saw the half-empty church. He had really wanted to pull it off for the Cardinal, especially since the Boss was celebrating the High Mass himself, and had even come early to have Christmas Eve dinner at the rectory with him and Monsignor O'Toole.
"I haven't forgotten you two," the Cardinal had said, pushing away from the dining table. "I think of this old Cathedral as our missionary effort, and you as my Maryknolls down here among the poor." Then he had smiled and nodded around the table at the half-dozen other priests he had brought along with him from the Chancery-uptown priests, the kind who did important jobs in the archdiocese and never paid a sick call.
It was a big festive occasion by Cathedral standards-too big, in fact, for the rectory's housekeeper, Mrs. Windmiller. She hadn't been able to manage for so many, especially since the menu the Cardinal had requested was complicated and unfamiliar.
So a delegation from Christ the King parish had come to the rescue-younger, suburban women who had taken enough cooking classes to manage saumon en croute in a watercress sauce. The homemade mayonnaise had been a drop too oily, but the Cardinal had overlooked it, beaming at the women as they assembled in the kitchen doorway for their moment with His Eminence. They wore their best Sunday dresses, and Christmas corsages on their aprons.
The Cardinal said grace after the meal, then stood to address the room. He was good at these after-dinner talks, and they all knew it. Already several of the priests were leaning back, crossing their legs, smiles of anticipation on their faces as they glanced about.
It was an old act. The young priest had seen the Cardinal this way a hundred, a thousand times before. It was something he'd missed, all those years in Rome after the seminary, and it was one of the best things about being back. He could remember sitting on the older man's knee when he was just five years old and the Cardinal-then just a parish priest-had been playing Santa Claus. The young priest smiled in spite of himself, remembering.
Then later, when he'd been in high school, and later still at the seminary, the same easy routine: the slight pause, the shuffling in the pocket of his black suit coat for a cigar. Always a little stage business of unwrapping a thick Havana. "I have a connection," he said, as he always did, winking. He took his time, knowing how the priests would wait for him. Everyone, always, waited for His Eminence.