The Whitechapel Case
Fox-Trot-9

PG-13
Horror/Suspense/Mystery (How-Catch-'Em)
Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt or Death Note.

Part 3: The Usual Suspects
Chapter 4

Day 3—When Noll was finished telling the story, they just looked at him in silence. None of them said anything, only staring at the kid in disbelief and dread. Of all the horrifying developments that have popped up in this investigation, his latest horror story took three long minutes to sink into reality, and even then it was hard to take. But he didn't tell them everything. He left out the part where he turned around and fled from Reynard Malders; he would be damned if if anyone found out about that.

But that wasn't the worst part of it; it was Reynard's face that troubled him the most, the long smile, the toothy grin, the glowing eyes, the sheer weighty reality of such a sight that gave him chills down his spine. He couldn't get the image out of his mind. So he shut his eyes, willing the horror to pass; but all at once, he saw it again with brutal clarity—the man in the blood-stained white suit, the smile growing along the tearing flesh of cheek and muscle, the eyes glistening and growing into balls of hypnotic fire, all of this getting closer and closer with every step, until it was within a foot away and closing in, until he saw into those eyes and beheld—

His hands shook. So he stood up again but got dizzy.

Everyone moved.

"Whoa, there," said Bert, as he and Lin came in to catch him, though the kid still managed to keep his balance, "not so fast, man. You just got out of it; there's no rush to get back into it, okay? Just sit here and relax for a bit."

He fell back on the couch, clenching his hands into fists to stop them from shaking, trying to pull the veil over what he saw, trying to keep his mind busy with the details of the case and not linger on the vision. But he wasn't the only one. Everyone else was struggling to keep themselves in check, thinking horrible thoughts and fearing for Noll's health. In fact, Luella was was fuming at Lin for failing to protect him and all but silently cursing at her husband for getting Noll into this mess, while Martin stood there clenching his jaw and ruing his decision; as for Madoka, still angry at Noll for implicating Somina Gavvers, she nevertheless felt bad for his situation, bad for the horrors he had to endure and for the incomprehensible horrors yet to come.

And Mai, she just stared at him with disbelieving eyes; she had worried for Noll's health during the Yoshimi case when his use of psychokinesis landed him in the hospital, but never once had she seen him lose his composure the way it was slipping from him now. My God, Naru, what's happening to you? she thought. But deep inside she knew the answer the way she knew his smile was fake when she first met him, sending chills down her spine.

But more than anyone, Lin took the brunt of it. This case had tested his nerves like no other, though he had rationalized each incident into a false sense of security that he could protect Noll the next time it happened. But this was the last straw. Forget about Andrew socking him in the balls and spitting in Noll's face; forget about the near-catastrophic incident at the Allenshire House for the Insane, where he almost had a heart attack watching a possessed Penelope Fowler choking the life out of Noll; forget even about Martin's reprimand to protect his son, or get fired; or, for that matter, Luella's glares roasting the back of his sweating neck right now. He realized that there shouldn't be a next time; he knew he had to take charge. Now.

So he just stood there and crossed his arms over his chest, glowering over his young charge, making the kid look at him; then he said, "Noll, I suggest you take a break from this case for now."

"Lin, I'm fine—"

"No, you're not. Look at yourself! You can hardly stand after you had that vision of yours." That's when Noll decided to stand up to disprove him and confront him on equal terms, but Lin had other ideas; boss or not his boos, he wasn't letting the kid boss his way out of this one. "Sit down," and he punctuated it with a venomous glare that seemed to say, 'Sit down, or I will make you'.

The kid got the message and sat back down to everyone's surprise. You could almost hear a collective gasp from their mouths. It was enough for Luella to forget about her anger and just stare at Lin in silence for a few moments, then regain her composure and look at her husband, who was equally shocked. This relieved Martin, though; he looked at the surprise on his wife's face, then winked at her and gave her a knowing smirk, knowing full well that he had won a rare victory against her doubts about Lin. And she knew it, though she wasn't ready to admit it just yet; she just rolled her eyes and sighed, letting her shoulders relax as she looked on at Noll and Lin.

Mai gaped at Lin with wide eyes, then remembered what she was doing and shut her mouth before anyone saw her; Madoka had a similar reaction, along with Bert, Father Carmyne and even Jacob—all of them with varying degrees of surprise.

But of all the surprises this morning, Lin unleashed another one. "Noll, let me interview Father Carmyne this time; I'll let you know once you get control of yourself."

The kid was about to say something when Martin said, "Lin's right, Noll. You need to get yourself away from this case for at least an hour or so."

Noll glared at his father in defiance.

But then Luella cornered him with her own glare, saying, "Noll, I won't let you get up until you do what you are told."

His mother's words took the wind out his flapping sails, and he relented, albeit grudgingly; he hated it when others ganged up on him. Then he though about his brother, Gene. Though he and Gene were virtually identical, he was the anticlimactic cold fish to Gene's warm demeanor. Despite his intellectual superiority, he remembered his brother having one distinct advantage over him—charm. Even with Madoka, Lin, Martin and Luella ganging up on Gene whenever he got into trouble, Noll remembered Gene sweet-talking his way out of trouble like Harry Houdini escaping from a straightjacket, something Noll secretly envied his brother for. Knowing this, he looked at his mother and nodded.

"Good," said Luella. Then she looked at her watch, which showed 10:10 a.m. on the dial, and said, "I think it's time for a bit of brunch, don't you think? All this has already ruffled our feathers before lunch." She then looked at her companions, and they all assented, ignoring the fact that brunch didn't start until after 11:00 a.m.; they just wanted an excuse to get themselves out of the library to collect themselves.

Noll ignored that fact, too, and went with them. He figured that he might as well take a breather; no need to work yourself out of shape if he could help it. Besides, though his emotions were still aching in the pit of his stomach, he knew he needed some respite to keep his mind in order.

As the the group were about to step out of the threshold of the double doors, Madoka just happened to turn back and saw two people staying behind. She said, "Lin, Father Carmyne,"—Mai, Luella and Martin turned around at he entrance—"aren't you two going to come eat with us?"

"Oh no, not me," said the father. "I've already had breakfast, and I won't be hungry until around noon."

"What about you, Lin?"

"Just send us a few sandwiches when you're done. I'll be interviewing Father Carmyne in the meantime."

"Oh... All right, then," and she followed the throng going out ahead of her towards the Clocktower Cafe, her thoughts rolling around in her head; but then she doubled back, wanting to go up to Lin and tell him what's on her mind, but he and the father were out of sight, heading up the stairs towards the top floor. So she had no choice but to hold her tongue for a little longer, thinking, I've gotta know if Noll's wrong about her; she can't possibly have done what he said she did.

And dreading the possibility that he might be right.

Lin and Father Carmyne headed up the stairs in silence with a lot of things going through their heads, ignoring the stares from passing students and faculty. For Carmyne, he was thinking about the interview in which he had yet to divulge the true story behind and the many lies surrounding the 1949 Robert Cotraine exorcism, something that was bound to blow their minds to smithereens.

As for Lin, his mind was on something more immediate. He had just done something that was above and beyond the powers of an assistant; he had just ordered his own boss to relinquish part of his authority—at least until Noll came back—and got away with it. He tried to remember a moment when something similar happened in the annals of history, and apart from John Gotti whacking his former boss Paul Castellano in the 1980's, he drew a blank. He mused at his accomplishment, satisfied that he had saved his skin from Luella's unforgiving claws at the right place, at the right time and for the right reason; it was enough to make him smile even.

Which wasn't lost on Father Carmyne in the least. In fact, he whistled and said, "Lin, that's very brave of you to do that back there, especially to someone like Noll. I find him a bit pushy myself."

"I know. And I was only doing what I had to do, that's all."

"Exactly," he continued, "which makes it more praiseworthy in a man of your disposition."

That stopped Lin in his tracks; he had never heard a compliment like that before. "What do you mean by my disposition?"

"It comes down to duty, Lin, duty without inclination; you may know it as obligation. It's a basic premise of the Groundwork of Immanuel Kant (*). Ever heard of him?"

"No."

"Well, his thoughts on duty are complex—even convoluted in some translations—, but it all boils down to this: We can all support our friends when we want to, but it takes a true friend to confront them, even when it hurts. In other words, it's not our inclinations that define who we are, but our obligations that compel us despite them. I saw that in you back there, along with Martin and Luella and everyone else."

Lin looked at him for a moment. "Try telling that to Noll and see how far you get."

"Oh, don't underestimate him; he may be stubborn, but he's not stupid. He may not show it, but he has respect for those who tell him the truth as it is."

Those words left him deep in thought for a moment, at a loss for what to say. But the more he thought of it, the more it made sense. That's when Mai popped into his head. He remembered how she confronted Noll during the Urado Case, pleading him not to let Masako perform a seance after she experienced being murdered in one of her more intense nightmares; then he remembered how she scowled at Noll during the Yoshimi case when all attempts to exorcise a cursed piece of driftwood failed, goading Noll to do it himself if they can't. Lin had felt what she had felt when he confronted Noll. Then he remembered how she confronted himself in the Urado Case to judge people because of who they are, not because of what they are; then he remembered Gene, who said those exact words to him. Coincidence? More like fate, he thought.

When they entered through the double doors of the top floor and closed them, they were enveloped within the tomb-like silence of anticipation. Now was the time for answers. Now was the time for all the beans to be spilled.

And the father knew it. But before he answered anything, he said, "Lin, how much do you know about the Robert Coltraine case?"

"Only the information I've collected from the reports at the time, but most of those are contested, and much of what happened is still murky. But I overheard you talking to Noll about it back at the Allenshire Hospital; I think you know more about this than I do."

"Yes, but humor me for the time being." He then took his seat at the table where Jacob had told his harrowing tale of the cave an hour before, sitting on the same seat in fact, bidding Lin to join him. "I want to hear what you managed to unearth first before I tell you what I know." (Lin looked at him.) "So you'll understand the circumstances surrounding the case."

Lin nodded; he figured he might as well get it out of the way. So he picked up his folder of papers he printed earlier from his computer station, sat across from the old man and said, thumbing through the pages, "Half of the things I came across are from the news reports at the time, and the other half came from a single source: the diary of Father William Bowdern."

"Ah, yes. Lin, you can forget about the reports from the press; none of them are credible, because Father Bowdern lied to the press to protect Robert Coltraine's identity."

"Why would he do that?"

"Because the archbishop told him to," said Carmyne. "You see, Joseph Ritter (**), the archbishop of St. Louis at the time, was trying to keep it a secret from the public, because of the heat he took from his peers after he desegregated all the Catholic schools under his jurisdiction in 1946. He was afraid of stirring up a controversy if his dissenters, mostly white conservative segregationists and many people in the press, found out about the exorcism and cause him trouble."

"So Father Bowdern was protecting the interests of the archbishop as well as Robert Coltraine's?"

"You could look at it that way, yes. Now," he said, looking at Lin's folder, "as for the diary, do you have all the pages printed out?"

"Yes, only nine pages, but I suspect there were more pages since the last entry is incomplete. I spent most of last night reading them over. Why do you ask?"

"Well, there were originally sixteen pages; seven of those pages were taken out. I'll leave that for later. Ah—" Father Carmyne raised his hand to stop Lin from questioning him, saying, "I'll tell you about it later. For now, let's hear what you learned about the case from his diary, shall we?"

Well, this was a first for Lin; he had never had an interviewee control the interview before. But he relented and said, "From what I've read in his diary, it's titled 'Case Study by Jesuit Priests,' making this less of a diary written for personal reasons and more of a dossier to be filed for reference. I think that someone asked Father Bowdern to investigate all the events that happened in Robert Coltraine's possession. Who it was, I'm not so sure."

"It was archbishop Joseph Ritter; he told Father Bowdern to keep a diary of the events."

"How do you know this?"

"I'll leave that for later."

"But why do you keep delaying all this?" said Lin, eyeing him with suspicion. "Unless you have something to hide."

"No, it's not that; don't jump to conclusions just because you don't have all the details. I have valid reasons for doing this. You see, I've managed to get a hold of the seven missing pages of his diary. Ah—" The father again raised his hand to stop Lin from his questions. "Let me finish first, so you'll understand. The information found in those missing pages are relevant to this case, and Noll's account this morning partially confirmed my reasoning."

"Your reasoning? About what? You're speaking in riddles, old man."

The father remained silent, sighing to himself and shaking his head.

So Lin had to leave it at that; instead, he said, "At the Allenshire House for the Insane, I overheard you talking to Noll about your interview with Father Bowdern in 1980. Why did you interview him?"

"Because he needed to tell someone what really happened in that exorcism before he died, and he died three years after he told me. Now is that all?"

Lin thought for a bit, thinking of his words, then said, "One more question. You said Noll 'partially confirmed' your reasoning. Why is that?"

The father sighed again, exasperated as if he was trying to teach a dyslexic person to read. "Because I didn't get a chance to explain it all before he just barreled out of Penelope Fowler's room. You were there overhearing our conversation, so you should know."

And indeed Lin remembered his young charge rushing out through the doors. For someone with Noll's intellectual capacities, Lin rarely ever saw him act so impulsively; but then again, this case more than any other case had pushed Noll and Lin to their limits. He nodded.

"Good. Understand that I was in your position when I interviewed Father Bowdern; it took thirty years for me to understand why this is so important. Do you understand?"

Lin thought of the old man's words, rolling them in his mind the way his boss did; he thought for a few minutes, thinking of last night's harrowing briefing, focusing in particular on the only missing variable to this complex case, the one Carmyne himself suggested. "The death ledger," he said. "You were convinced that it was a ledger of some kind."

"Yes, yes, you do understand. Good, very good," said Father Carmyne. "That blasted ledger has proven to be the bane of everyone involved in the Spitalfields case, the William Street case and this case; and I suspect that it was this missing ledger, the ledger Reynard Malders is after, that got Father Bowdern killed."

That hit Lin like a beer-slap. Now he was entering the loop, but in what confidence or extent he had no way of knowing. But he had the gist that it had something to do with the ledger. But how? I know the ledger is involved in some way, but what does it have to do with Robert Coltraine's case? Are we even talking about the same—?

Lin stopped. It was the same ledger. After listening to Noll's account of how Lean Gordon died in this very library, that Reynard had killed him in order to look for the ledger, could it be applied to the mysterious circumstances surrounding Father Bowdern's death? It seemed unlikely at first, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. And if Robert Coltraine's exorcism in 1949 had provided the catalyst for the string of murders in the Spitalfields case, the William Street case and this current case, then something about Coltraine's case made him lose the death ledger.

Father Carmyne read Lin's eyes. "I hope this placates any further questions?" (Lin said it did.) "Good. Continue."

So he took up the pages of the diary, took a deep breath and continued, paraphrasing where he could, "On January 15, 1949, Robert Coltraine heard dripping noises in his bedroom and scratching noises under the floor boards every night from 7:00 p.m. till midnight. This continued for the next ten days. Three days of silence followed after that. Then he heard a squeaking on his bed that continued for the next six nights.

"On January 26, his aunt (Aunt Tillie), who had taught Robert to use the Ouija Board, died of multiple sclerosis at age 54. That's when his mother (Mrs. Coltraine) suspected that Aunt Tillie's death was connected somehow to the unusual events of the previous nights and tried to communicate with whatever was making those noises. During one of these events, when she challenged the spirit to confirm itself with three knocks, she was answered by three knocks underneath the floor boards. When she challenged it to knock four times to confirm if it was telling the truth, she was answered by four more knocks and scratches under her son's bed.

"On February 17, a local Lutheran minister named Reverend Shultz (***) had Robert spend the night at his house, where he stayed from 9:20 p.m. till 9:20 a.m. the next morning. The reverend reported scratching noises and saw the the bed on which the boy slept vibrating, a chair on which the boy sat tipping over, and a pallet of blankets on which Roland sat moving with incredible violence.

"On February 26, 1949, scratches appeared on Robert's person and continued for the next four nights. After the fourth night, scratches appeared on his chest that formed words; what they were, I have no idea," said Lin, noting the singe marks on the page where a word or phrase used to be. "When Mrs. Coltraine heard about them, she almost fainted. This led Reverend Shultz to consult Father Albert Hughes of St. James Catholic Church from Mount Rainier, who then told the family use blessed candles, holy water and special prayers to ease the hauntings. But when Mrs. Coltraine used the candles, a comb flew across the room and extinguished them. At times fruit flew across the room, a kitchen table turned over, milk and food moved off another table, a coat with its hanger flew across the room, a Bible flew off and landed at Robert's feet, and a rocker in which he sat spun around and threw him off, though his own father never mentioned it in a police interview a day later. Eventually he was removed from school, because his desk moved around class one day, which I later confirmed with an article from the school newspaper.

"At this point Mrs. Coltraine took a bottle of holy water and blessed everything in the house, but when she placed the bottle on a shelf, it flew across the room but didn't break. On another night, she held a lighted candle next to Roland, and the whole bed on which she and her son were sitting in began moving back and forth over and over. After that, Robert was baptized several time for three days at Georgetown University Hospital, during which he began cursing and raging at the exorcists.

"During the first week of March, Robert was taken to Normandy, Missouri, where many of his relations in Missouri witnessed marks form on his skin. Then on March 9, Father Raymond J. Bishop (****) of St. Louis University came in and witnessed the scratch marks form on the boy's body, as well as the motions of the bed. This prompted Father Bishop to contact Father Bowdern, the pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church, for assistance in another exorcism.

"On March 11, Father Bowdern read the Novena prayer of St. Francis Xavier and blessed Robert with a relic at 11:00 p.m. and fixed a crucifix under the boy's pillow for protection. After that, Robert's relatives left, and Father Bowdern and Father Bishop departed for the night, only to return when a loud noise woke Robert up in his room. Five of his relatives rushed to the scene and found a large book case fallen over next to the boy's bed, a bench turned over to its side, and the crucifix on the edge of the bed broken in two. They also found Robert's bed shaking until they crossed the threshold of the door.

"On March 16, the archbishop gave Father Bowdern permission to begin the formal rite of exorcism on Robert Coltraine. That night, Father Bowdern met with Father Bishop and Walter Halloran (*****), a Jesuit scholastic who was one of Father Bowdern's students, and began reciting the ritual prayers. This exorcism continued for another month.

"From March and into April, they moved Robert back and forth between Normandy, Missouri, a nearby rectory and the Alexian Brothers Hospital in South St. Louis. The rite was an ongoing ritual, taking much longer than most other rites of exorcism. In the exorcism, marks appeared on the boy's body, during which the boy cursed, vomited, urinated and used Latin phrases forwards and backwards. On one occasion, Robert broke off a bedspring from his bed and jabbed it into Father Bishop's forearm. In another round of prayers, a portrait of some kind appeared on the boy's leg, which Father Bowdern thought was the Devil. Later, Robert was transported back to Maryland for a short visit, during which on one of the train rides he began cursing and struck Father Bowdern in the testicles while taunting him."

After going over this part, Lin paused for a bit; he too had been hit in the testicles, though it came from a disgruntled ex-cop named Andrew Todd and not a possessed boy. His eyes steeled on that incident, which got Carmyne's attention. "Is something the matter?"

"No," he lied, before he continued. "On April 18, Father Bowdern forced Robert to wear a chain of medallions and hold a crucifix in his hands, taping his fingers around it; this calmed boy's behavior a bit. Then he continued the ritual, demanding to know who the demon was and when he would depart, to which the boy screamed that he was Satan. The recital continued until 11:00 p.m. when Robert interrupted the father, saying that he was St. Michael commanding Satan to leave Robert's body. After that he remained quiet, while a booming noise resounded outside the building's premises. Later that day, Robert told Father Bowdern that he saw St. Michael holding a flaming sword. Twelve days after the ordeal, Robert left Missouri and returned to Maryland." Then Lin put the pages down and said, "That's all it said about the case before cutting off mid-sentence at the very end of the ninth page. You have the missing pages. What do the missing pages say about this?"

Silence. One minute. Two minutes and counting.

Father Carmyne looked at Lin for a time, trying to gage if he was ready for it; Lin's expression didn't waver. Then he got out of his leather bag seven dog-eared hand-written pages and said, "Believe it or not, I got these pages in an unmarked enveloped in the mail, signed 'From Father B.' on it, the recipient listed in my name. When I opened it, it took less than a minute to recognize the handwriting on the pages as that of Father Bowdern, because I was doing research on the St. Louis exorcism of Robert Coltraine for a dissertation at the time; this was in 1980, and it was for different reasons, I assure you. Anyway, when I read over these pages, I was positively shocked at the contents. Also included in the envelope was a his calling card, so I contacted him immediately but with no success; all I got was his office answering machine. I tried an hour later and got through the line.

"When I talked to Father Bowdern about these pages, he said that he couldn't talk about it over the phone and told me I had to come over to St. Louis to hear him out. He agreed to pay my traveling fare, and I took the first flight there, where I met him at the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (******). Let me tell you, that place was already crowded back then, so I can't imagine how it is now. Anyway, we went to the St. Louis University High School (*******) and had our meeting in his office across from the Jesuit residences nearby. When I talked to him about these papers," he added, his breath becoming labored with anticipation, "he asked me if I had any interest in this case, and I said I did. In fact, I said I was researching the case for a thesis. Then he looked at me, looked at me hard in the face, and told me to forget about everything I heard about the case, the way I was telling you to forget about what you've heard about it in your research."

"If all of the stuff they said in the reports are false," said Lin, "then is the exorcism itself a fabrication?"

The father shook his head. "No; the exorcism, the strange events in the boy's residence, all of that is real; and I have every reason to believe in the testimony of Father Bowdern, Father Halloran, Father Bishop and Reverend Shultz. Anyway, Father Bowdern said that when he helped the orderlies clean up after the exorcism, he found a black book underneath the mattress; when he flipped through the pages, he found several names in English, including all the names of the people involved in Robert Coltraine's exorcism, even his own. And beside each of those names, dates were listed beside them. He said he couldn't figure it out, just thought it was a ledger of some kind and sent it to the lost and found; but nobody claimed it. Many people who happened to buy it said they had nightmares and returned it; one boy tried to burn it, but it couldn't be burned, so the boy returned it to Father Bowdern's office. Bowdern himself tried to burn it but to no avail. So he gave it to his archbishop, Joseph Ritter, who shelved it in his private library for the next sixteen years.

"Then Father Bowdern said that Ritter gave it to an anonymous source in 1965. Then two years later, Joseph Ritter died of unknown causes in 1967. Bowdern's friend, Father Bishop, died of unknown causes in 1978, just two years prior to our meeting. Father Hughes, another colleague, died just a month before my meeting with Father Bowdern. And during that meeting, Father Bowdern himself told me that he sent these papers to me, because he feared becoming the next victim to die, because he remembered the date listed next to his name, the date of his death; and that came to fruition three years later in 1983. Reverend Shultz died in 1995. Father Halloran died in 2005. Do you see a pattern going on here?"

Lin leaned in closer to hear, his heart pounding to an ugly realization. "All of them died of presumably unknown causes, and they all died on the dates written in the ledger."

"Exactly. And when I had Martin and Jake view the medical sheets for each one, except for Joseph Ritter, they found another thing in common."

"And what's that?"

"They all exhibited signs of massive blood loss, though there weren't any obvious signs of physical trauma on their persons, as if their blood had been taken out of them. Do you see another parallel here?" There was a long lugubrious pause, before he spoke again; in the silence between, the drops of yet another downpour of rain resounded above their heads like distant war drums.

Lin nodded yes, fixating on Noll's use of psychometry, fixating on his account of Lean Gordon's death at the hands of Reynard Malders. He had seen Noll collapse on the floor of the lobby, feeling the sickening dread pulse through his heart as he ran towards him and tried to revive him, trying to wake him up. And when he didn't, when his attempts to revive him failed, Lin was screaming for help until Madoka, Mai, Jacob, Bert, Luella and Martin rushed in after hearing all the commotion; he remembered himself screaming for Bert to call the ambulance when, in a few more minutes, Noll finally woke up. No doubt, he was stressed beyond the limits of any taciturn assistant of his position. He hadn't been that scared since the horror of seeing him on the ground in the Allenshire insane asylum, motionless on the linoleum floor next to a motionless Penelope Fowler, after Reynard had escaped the premises. He shut his eyes from the memory, only to be greeted by his own name.

He looked up.

Carmyne said, "Lin, what are you thinking? Is something the matter?"

"No," he said, getting up and pacing about the floor, trying to clear his head, trying to get back on the case. Gradually, his thoughts drifted back to the one thing that stood out in his mind before it he got clouded over in yet another near miss for Noll.

"Are you sure?"

He stopped and looked at the father still seated at the table. Several suppositions rolled through his mind, as he tried to clear the clutter and reach a satisfactory conclusion. "I was wondering about the blood loss found in each death except for Joseph Ritter. Are these events recorded in the missing pages of that diary?"

"Yes, they are. I see you have something in mind, Lin. What is it?"

"It just doesn't make sense," and Lin shook his head. "After hearing Noll's account and your account of how Reynard Malders killed his victims, I'm given two ways Reynard could've killed his victims. Judging from Martin's notes and everything we found out yesterday, Noll saw only one way of killing."

"True. But that was in the cases here in England, not the ones in St. Louis across the Atlantic, which we did not cover in our findings yesterday. St. Louis may been a different place to employ a different way of killing, mind you. Although, Joseph Ritter's death is the only one that doesn't fit the pattern."

"Plus, all these unexplained deaths in St. Louis, with the exception of Archbishop Joseph Ritter, took place at around the time of the deaths in England. But each death was planned out in advance years earlier during Robert Coltraine's exorcism, in which everyone involved in that case were alive. If that's true," said Lin, taking a blind leap in his deduction, "then something must have happened between 1967 (when Joseph Ritter died) and 1977 (during the Spitalfields murders). I just don't know what."

Silence. The downpour of rain continued in heavier sheets, resounding above their heads like a distant stampede in the sky.

"In think I see where you're going at, Lin. Father Bowdern said Joseph Ritter gave that death ledger to an anonymous source in 1965, just two years before his death. Do you think that has something to do with the change in how Reynard Malders killed?"

"Yes. Something must have forced him to change his killing methods," and then Lin fell silent, feeling something at the back of his mind urge him onto something, but what? He hadn't the slightest clue. He trudged through the shell-shocked recesses of his mind, trying to figure out where his intuition was leading him. He thought, Think, Lin, think! Something must have happened between 1967 and 1977; that's only ten years in which something changed Reynard Malder's killing methods. Then he looked at the folder he had compiled earlier today, now lying open in front of him. "Or maybe it was someone."

"Someone?" The father followed his gaze to the folder on the table, then said, "You mean, Joseph Ritter's anonymous source?"

"Yes. And I think I know who he is," he said, grabbing the folder and thumbing through its contents for the one thing that could set everything straight. "Did you check the flights leading to and from St. Louis in 1965?"

"No, I didn't; I guess I should have. Why?"

Lin found that one article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and skimmed through it before continuing, "Did Evan Moore ever go abroad?"

Carmyne shot him a blank stare, not knowing where that question came from. But on further reflection, he remembered Moore's second internship with a newspaper company he took in the states. "Actually, yes. He had his editor's internship in the states before he joined The Guardian, but I don't remember where or what newspaper he joined. Where did you—?"

Lin then handed the old man his folder, pointing at the article through the clear plastic sleeves, bidding him to read it. The old man looked at it and read:

"Exorcism under Fire"
By Evan Moore
February 10, 1965

St. Louis, Missouri.—In the sixteen years since the unusual events of the Robert Coltraine exorcism, the horrors of the ordeal still haunt many of the participants involved. Many of these participants, namely the family members of Robert Coltraine, could not be reached by phone or address; some have moved on to undisclosed locations, others have died, and still more have yet to tell their own accounts of the true events surrounding the exorcism. But of the ones willing to divulge a further glimpse into the matter, I have contacted the Archbishop of St. Louis, Joseph Ritter...

(End of article)

Father Carmyne leaned back in his seat, sweat pouring out of his face, his breathing labored with the quickening of his heart rate, his mouth hanging open in sheer disbelief. "Good God! Lin, are you saying Evan Moore had the death ledger?"

Lin nodded yes.

The father was silent for a moment, letting the shock percolate into something of a revelation too hard to take; he then leaned forward, pushing the folder with the damning article away, and rested his forehead in his hands, looking at nothing in particular with open dazed eyes. "My God, how can this be? I thought we had a chance to beat this thing, but it just keeps getting worse no matter what we did."

Lin looked at the pitiful figure before him and remained quiet for some minutes, causing the old exorcist to look up. "After all the progressed we've made in three days, are you giving up right now? Are you now saying—?"

"No, I'm not, nor do I ever intend to give up—so long as I am still alive, at least," and he sighed one long sigh. "When I talked to Father Bowdern in his office, he entrusted me with these diary pages, should there ever come a time when he would die before these horrors stop. He entrusted me to keep going with these findings, and I've done that for thirty years. It's just... Christ, none of us had any idea how far this case would reach; it has touched more lives than any of us thought possible! Now Lean Gordon is dead, and I fear that either Jacob Meiler or myself will meet our ends before this case does—should this case end at all. And all of these death for a God-forsaken ledger!" And he punctuated it with a slam of his fist on the table, before he sighed and looked at Lin with the gravitas of doom etched into his features.

"What do you want me to do?" said Lin.

"I'm entrusting you with these diary pages," he said, offering them to him, "and should either Jacob or I die at the hands of this monster, promise me that you and Noll will continue on and destroy this evil from the face of this earth. Promise me this, please."

Obligations. Most of Lin's life was filled with obligations, but this one proved far heavier for him to bear than even the promise he made to Martin to look after Noll while they were in Japan. This one was too big for one mortal man to carry, almost like a Hercules upholding the world in Atlas' absence, so he would have to confide this with Noll in private. Lin nevertheless said, "I promise," and that was the end of it.

For a few minutes, neither man spoke another word. Father Carmyne got up and walked some distance away from Lin before his tears, tears he had fought off during the interview, betrayed the fears of his own demise. And there he stayed from the only other occupant of the room, his back turned to Lin, wiping away tears of dread, tears of sorrow, tears of passing on the burden to another man stronger than he.

As for Lin, he took his seat and looked at the old man in silent pity. It was a familiar scene; he remembered Noll packing his things in the middle of that fateful night, the night when Noll had that terrible dream of his brother's death; and like Carmyne, Noll's back was also turned to him in denial of his fears. With that in mind, he thought of coming over to Carmyne and try to console him, but that would be awkward. What would he say to him? What could he say to him to allay so traumatic an ordeal as the death of an old friend? Nothing that I haven't already done, he thought, before moving on to more pressing matters.

He first thought of Evan Moore's possession of the death ledger. If he got the death ledger from Joseph Ritter during or after his interview with him in 1965 and kept it until his death in 1979, he reasoned, he must have kept it for most of that time, if not all of it. Since Reynard got to him but didn't ascertain it, then Moore either had it hidden or entrusted someone else to its possession before his death. Either way, that means that Reynard is still looking for it.

"What's on your mind, Lin?"

Lin looked up and saw the father looking at him intently; his eyes were a bit red, but that was all. "I'm trying to figure out the whereabouts of that death ledger."

"Ah, indeed. That's the rub of rubs, isn't it?" he said, taking is own seat again. "Now that we have narrowed down our search for that ledger, who do you think has it after Evan Moore's death? Or has he hidden it, and Reynard just hasn't found it yet?"

"I don't know. If Evan Moore hid it with no one else's knowledge of its whereabouts, his death would've covered it up; he could have committed suicide, and that would thwart Reynard's efforts to break into his mind to find it, if you accept Terry Haller's reasoning. But I don't think he did." But why? he thought, questioning the intuition that was pushing him along. If he died of exhaustion by writing out all those pages, then why would he create such a trivial message?

"Why not?" said Carmyne.

"Evan Moore wrote all those pages for a reason, and I don't think it had anything to do with converting anyone."

"You don't believe in Noll's argument?"

"Not all of it; his logic is faulty on the converting part. If all those writings were meant to 'convert' someone, Reynard did a bad job of it; those messages were meant for only four people—you, Jacob Meiler, Lean Gordon and Evan Moore—and no one else. If he was trying to convert someone, it would be through other means and with people other than those four. Also, the messages all had a different purpose. For you and Jacob Meiler, it was meant more as a warning or taunt; for Lean Gordon, if you accept Noll's account of what happened, he died before those words appeared, so it could not have been him to read. As for Evan Moore, he was the one writing it, not Reynard, so I can't expect him to convert himself to follow something he was trying to avoid."

"Then what do you think Evan Moore intended in writing all those pages?"

"I'm not sure. But I think it's some kind of..." Message? What kind of message? he thought. And for who?

"You still think it's some kind of message?" said Carmyne, reading the puzzlement in Lin's eyes.

"Maybe, but at this point, I don't know what it is."

Silence. Again the distant drum-roll of the rain eased up over their heads, protracting the silence into an eerie lull.

Martin broke it by saying, "All right, let's leave the 'what' part of it for later. Now tell me if you can, Lin; in your opinion, who was Evan Moore trying to reach? Do you know?"

Lin thought about it before he said anything, wading across the many awful memories of this case in search of something he thought he heard yesterday but couldn't pin down. He remembered meeting with Bert and having a late lunch at the Clocktower Cafe, before they all went to the Guardian headquarters at King's Place to meet someone—Jason Pickmasters. He remembered him saying something about staying at a bar where Evan Moore gave him a sheet of—

Then the door latch clicked open, interrupting Lin's train of thought.

Both men turned and saw Madoka walking in with her jacket closed over her torso, damp from the inclement weather, her shoes squeaking on the floor and leaving imprints in her wake. She was holding the dripping umbrella in her left hand, while carrying a big water-stained paper bag in her right. "I thought you'd be hungry by now, so I brought in some extra sandwiches." Then she looked at them, noting the grave looks on their faces and said, "Did I miss something important?"

Both men looked at each other; then Carmyne said, "No. In fact, you're just in time to hear the rest of it. But before we do, let's have some of those sandwiches; Lin and I are starving."

(To be continued...)

A/N: Here's the next installment of The Whitechapel Case... Hope you enjoyed... ( ^_^ )

(* Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. See "Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals" on Wikipedia.)

(** Joseph Ritter. See "Joseph Ritter" on Wikipedia.)

(*** Rev. Shultz. See Evil: Satan, Sin, and Psychology by Terry D. Cooper & Cindy K. Epperson)

(**** Father Raymond J. Bishop. See "Raymond J. Bishop" on Wikipedia.)

(***** Walter Halloran. See "Walter Halloran" on Wikipedia.)

(****** Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. See "Lambert-St. Louis International Airport" on Wikipedia.)

(******* St. Louis University High School. See "St. Louis University High School" on Wikipedia.)