Free Halloweenland by Al Sarrantonio Page B

up and then the face was gone. But that girl looked at me, the face blank, and I knew who it was. It was Marianne’s baby, I’ll swear on it. I didn’t see that Samhain, the one in the cape, and I didn’t feel his presence, but for all I know he was driving the damn Lincoln. It started up then and pulled away from the curb but Iwent down to the street and I’ve got good eyes and I took down the license plate number. Maybe that’ll help you.”
    Grant began to breathe. “Yes, it might. Can you give it to me?”
    Janet Larson read out numbers and letters. “I hope it helps. That face was so . . . I don’t know, dead. Not dead, like that Samhain’s face, but something worse. If you can be worse than dead. What will you do when you find her?”
    “I don’t know,” Grant lied.
    “Whatever she is, she’s half my sister, you know.”
    “That’s true.”
    “If you find her would you let me know? I’d like to know if she’s anything like Marianne, if anything of my sister, my family, is inside her. I don’t know. It’s just that I thought you had the best chance of finding her.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Larson.”
    “Since Chuck and I divorced, I’ve been thinking a lot about what family I have. Maybe I’m nuts.”
    “Anything but, Mrs. Larson.”
    Janet Larson laughed. “Anyway, I hope you can find her.”
    “Me, too.”
    “And I hope you believe me when I say I’m sorry for the way I felt about you. You did what you thought was right.”
    Grant let her ramble on a little more, spilling out her apologies and regrets, and then he gently got her off the phone after lying again that he would get in touch with her when he found the girl.
    He stared at the cell phone and pushed the off button, watching the LCD screen go blank after flashing the word “Good-bye.”
    “Good-bye, indeed,” Grant said out loud, filled with the first hope he’d had in five years.

C HAPTER T WENTY-SEVEN
     
    It took twenty minutes to trace the car, and only that long because he was no longer employed by the Orangefield Police Department, and had to talk one of the uniformed cops—who turned out to be Paige, who had escorted him home yesterday—into running the plate number for him.
    It matched up to St. Bartholomew’s Church in Newton, Massachusetts. Grant found the phone number of the rectory. After speaking with Mrs. Finch, and then a deacon named Brandywine, he was eventually put through to a priest they thought might be able to help him.
    “Father Coughlin?”
    There was a cough on the other end, followed by a pronounced throat clearing. Detective Bill Grant expected the voice, when it finally spoke, to be raspy or weak. It was neither—it was strong and clear as a bell.
    “Yes?”
    Grant identified himself, and briefly stated the reason for his call.
    “Do I know you?” the priest asked.
    “No, but you will.”
    The brief silence ended in a snort. “You ended my afternoon nap. We used to call fellows like you wisenheimers. Did you by any chance go to Catholic school?”
    “Wrong religion. Episcopalian.”
    Another snort. “Virtually the same thing, though neither of us likes to admit it.”
    “Except for the nuns. And we still use the communion rail.”
    “I wish we did, too. Would you be willing to drive over so we can have a proper talk?”
    “That would be fine. Though I’d like to ask you now—”
    “A proper talk, like I said. You don’t by any chance follow football, do you?”
    “No. Baseball fan.”
    There was something artificial and almost scripted about the way the priest was talking. He sounded like a movie cliché—Barry Fitzgerald in
Going My Way
.
    “Good. Then you won’t be looking at your watch. We’ll have a nice long talk. Say, tomorrow at three in the afternoon?”
    “I’m looking forward to it.”
    “Me, too, Detective Grant. Me, too.” Grant expected the priest to chuckle, but there was only silence.
    The line went dead before Grant could say good-bye.

C HAPTER T