The Shroud Codex Part 7

"It's the parish priest here at St. Joseph's," Ferrar answered. "Father Paul Bartholomew is inside, hearing confession right now, and these people have lined up to see him."

"I'm Catholic, too," Robin Blair said in astonishment, "and I can't believe it. You mean you've got a line there that runs blocks long just because people want to go to confession?"

"That's right, Robin. People have lined up outside St. Joseph's because they believe Father Bartholomew has the ability to do more than just forgive their sins. They also believe he has the power to heal their illnesses."

In his Fifth Avenue apartment, Castle had just turned on the television with the remote, but he stopped surfing channels when he heard Ferrar mention Father Bartholomew.

Castle had settled into his recliner in his s.p.a.cious living room overlooking Central Park, ready to watch a Yankees game on his wall-sized flat-screen television. He had decided not to go to the Bronx that evening to see the game in person from his season box behind third base. It had been a long day and he wanted to relax, with the likelihood he would drift off to sleep, especially if the Yankees got a comfortable lead in the early innings. This was one of the final games of the regular season and the Yankees were going into the postseason playoffs with the best record in the major leagues.

Even better, it was a year that had the possibility of turning into a subway Series, with the Mets looking like they could win the National League Champions.h.i.+p Series. If that happened, he planned to see every World Series game in person. Castle was one of those New York fans who liked both the Yankees and the Mets, depending on which team was doing best in any particular year. In a subway Series, he would resolve his conflict by pulling for whichever team happened to be the home team that night.

Once he saw the news report come on about Father Bartholomew, he forgot momentarily about the baseball game.

"Tell me, sir, what are you doing standing here in line outside the church?" Fernando Ferrar asked an older gentleman standing in line.

"I'm here to see the priest," the man said.

"Is St. Joseph's your neighborhood parish?"

"No, I'm not even Catholic."

"Then, if you don't mind me asking, why are you here to go to confession?"

"I'm here because they say the priest can heal illnesses and my arthritis is so bad I can barely walk, even with this cane."

"How about you, ma'am. Are you here to see Father Bartholomew?"

"Yes, I am," the woman answered, a little nervous. "Am I on television now?"

"Yes, ma'am, you are."

"Well, I've never been on television before."

"Do you have something you want the priest to cure?"

"Not me, it's my daughter. She just learned she has breast cancer. I want to see if Father Bartholomew can cure my daughter. She's supposed to have an operation next week."

"That's about it, Robin," Ferrar said, speaking directly into the camera. "Hundreds of people lined up around the block just like you see here, to go to confession with Father Bartholomew here at St. Joseph's on the Upper East Side."

"He is the same priest that people say suffered the stigmata, the nail wounds of Christ on his wrists," Robin Blair asked. "Isn't that right?"

"Yes, the same priest."

"Does he still have the stigmata?"

"I haven't seen Father Bartholomew today," Ferrar replied, "but from what those coming out of the church say, he still has the bandages on his wrists."

"Well, there's probably going to be a lot more people tomorrow, after this report," Robin Blair said, wrapping up with Ferrar.

Castle's cell phone rang and he could see on the caller ID that it was Archbishop Duncan.

"Are you watching the local news?" Duncan asked, with concern obvious in his voice.

"Yes, I just saw the news report with that Spanish reporter outside St. Joseph's," Castle said.

"This could turn into a circus," Duncan said, obviously alarmed. "Are you sure releasing Father Bartholomew from the hospital was a good idea?"

"The priest is obviously well if he can hear all those confessions," Castle answered. "Unless you want me to commit Father Bartholomew to a psychiatric facility, we don't have much choice."

"Just the same, this situation is beginning to get out of hand."

Castle understood the archbishop's concerns. Yes, putting the priest in a psychiatric facility would limit the access of the press. But, in his gut, Castle wanted more data. He wanted to see what would happen when Father Bartholomew returned to St. Joseph's. Seriously disturbed psychiatric patients had a way of acting out their illnesses that made treating them easier. With Father Bartholomew back in the parish, would the stigmata heal or flame up again?

Since he took Father Bartholomew as a patient, Castle had studied enough about Padre Pio on the Internet to realize that Padre Pio had manifested stigmata for what amounted to around four decades. At fifty-four years old, Castle did not have four decades left for active psychiatric practice. Besides, a million dollars was a lot of money, but even a million dollars did not pay for decades of a.n.a.lysis with a priest who was determined to act out for the rest of his life the pa.s.sion and death of Jesus Christ. Bartholomew was yet a young man. Castle wanted to know what was going on with him right now, not after the years of psychoa.n.a.lysis it might take to cure him, if he could be cured at all.

"Committing Father Bartholomew will cause a lot of attention, too, especially after the reports on the stigmata begin circulating," he said. "Besides, I'm scheduled to see Father Bartholomew in my office on Monday. Let's give it until then."

Reluctantly, the archbishop agreed. "We'll leave it in G.o.d's hands, then," he resolved.

"At least for now," Castle said. "But I share your concern. With the media publicity Father Bartholomew is already getting, this is not going to be a case confined to New York City for long."

"Next thing we know, people are going to be camping outside the church all night, just to get in to see Father Bartholomew," Duncan said. "From there, word of mouth will take over and we will have people all over the country-probably all over the world-following what happens at St. Joseph's. How many people do you think there are with cancer in this city that would like an instant cure? If there's one, there's thousands and pretty soon they will all be demanding to see Father Bartholomew in the confessional."

"Wait until Fernando Ferrar catches on to the Shroud," Castle noted. "When he figures out how much Bartholomew looks like the Shroud, it will be the perfect story to go viral on the Internet. All it would take is for Ferrar to do another YouTube video about Father Bartholomew, Jesus, and the Shroud of Turin to add to the videos on the Internet showing Father Bartholomew getting the stigmata while saying Ma.s.s."

"No need to wait," the archbishop said with a tone of resignation. "The videos showing how much Father Bartholomew and the man in the Shroud of Turin look alike are already running on the Internet. Just go to YouTube and search Father Bartholomew's name. You will find one running that's particularly well done. By my count, a half million people have already viewed it."

"This case just gets bigger and bigger," Castle said, amused.

CHAPTER TEN.

Sunday evening St. Joseph's Parish Day 11 Outside St. Joseph's the street scene was mayhem. People were running from the church screaming. "Get help quick" summed up the panic as people dialed 911 on their cell phones. Inside, the faithful who had lined up to have their confessions heard by Father Bartholomew stood up or kneeled in bewilderment, worried that the collapsed priest lying on the church floor had died. Dozens of people were recording the scene on cell phone videos, determined to be the first to broadcast Father Bartholomew's collapse to their friends or to the world via the Internet. Outside, hundreds who had lined up around the block, waiting for their confessions to be heard, started pushed their way inside, determined to get a look for themselves before the miracle priest died.

"You've got to get over here right now," Morelli insisted to Dr. Castle on his cell phone. Morelli's voice sounded panicked.

"Slow down," Dr. Castle said, trying to get Father Morelli to calm down enough to explain what's going on. "Where are you and what's happening?"

"I'm at St. Joseph's. Bartholomew is unconscious. He was hearing confessions again tonight and he had some kind of seizure. Evidently, he staggered out of the confessional and collapsed on the church floor. There were a lot of people in the church waiting to go to confession and there's a large crowd outside that was waiting for their turn."

"Where's Bartholomew now?"

"We just carried him off the main altar. We're in the sacristy."

"Okay, stay with him. I'll be right there."

There was no time for Castle to call his driver and limo. Hailing a cab would be a lot quicker. With any luck, if he left immediately, he would be at the church before the ambulance arrived.

Running out of the apartment, he grabbed his medical bag. He had called downstairs to the doorman and by the time the elevator landed him on the ground floor, the taxi was waiting for him.

Driving the few blocks to St. Joseph's, Castle called the emergency room at Beth Israel and ordered them to be ready to receive a priest who was likely to be in a coma after suffering a seizure. He wouldn't know if the priest had suffered a stroke or heart attack until he got to the church in what he estimated would take less than five minutes.

Pus.h.i.+ng through the crowd outside the church, Castle made his way to the sacristy. Father Bartholomew was lying on the floor, unconscious.

"Can you tell me how Father Bartholomew collapsed?" Castle asked, opening his bag to get his stethoscope.

"I didn't see how it happened," Morelli answered. "The nuns called me after Father Bartholomew had already collapsed. Evidently Bartholomew was hearing confessions and he had some kind of seizure. He came out of the confessional holding his heart and he fell unconsciously to the floor right outside the confessional. The nuns carried him to the altar. When I arrived, the nuns helped me move Father Bartholomew here, into the sacristy, where we could get him away from the people in the church."

Just then the paramedics arrived and took over.

"His pulse is weak," Castle said, "and I'm having trouble getting a read on his blood pressure. He's likely going into shock."

Quickly the paramedics lifted Bartholomew to the stretcher.

"I'm riding with you," Castle said, showing the paramedics his identification. "He's my patient."

The paramedics agreed, but they moved to block Morelli from getting into the back of the ambulance.

"This priest works for the Vatican," Castle intervened. "He needs to ride in the ambulance with us."

The paramedics looked like they were going to object, but in the rush they decided it was easier just to agree. Giving Morelli a hand, they lifted him into the ambulance and closed the doors.

"Head directly to Beth Israel," Castle directed. "I'm on staff there and I've already called ahead."

Once they were safely in the ambulance and the door was closed, the driver did his best to rush down Lexington Avenue with the siren blaring and the lights flas.h.i.+ng. Within a block, a police cruiser joined them and led the way. Fortunately, it was almost 8 P.M. P.M. on a Sunday evening and the midtown traffic was relatively light. The ambulance and its police escort made quick progress toward Union Square. on a Sunday evening and the midtown traffic was relatively light. The ambulance and its police escort made quick progress toward Union Square.

Inside the ambulance, the paramedics and Dr. Castle were doing their best to stabilize the priest. Castle took a hypodermic from his medical bag and injected Father Bartholomew with a stiff dose of tranquilizer.

But instead of the tranquilizer causing Father Bartholomew to rest quietly, the priest began twisting violently. Castle wondered what could possibly be going on in the priest's mind to cause this apparent seizure. Was this an allergic reaction to the tranquilizer, or was it something else?

The paramedic riding in the back with them tightened the straps on the stretcher to hold the priest down. There was nothing in Bartholomew's medical history to suggest he was an epileptic, but Castle almost instinctively checked to make sure the priest was not swallowing his tongue. Still, Castle was concerned to see Bartholomew's eyelids begin fluttering. Then, suddenly his eyes opened and he began looking here and there, his eyes darting with the type of rapid eye movement a.s.sociated with sleep disorders. What is going on? What is going on? Castle wondered. Castle wondered. Is Father Bartholomew hallucinating? Is Father Bartholomew hallucinating? Next, the priest screamed out a string of incomprehensible words and his face contorted in fear. Next, the priest screamed out a string of incomprehensible words and his face contorted in fear.

"Is he having an epileptic seizure?" one of the paramedics asked Dr. Castle.

"I don't think so," Castle answered. "I know the symptoms look like that, but there's nothing in his case history to suggest he is an epileptic."

"What's going on, then?" the paramedic asked urgently.

"It's hard to explain," Castle answered. "I'm his psychiatrist as well as his physician. I know it looks like an epileptic seizure, but I don't think it is. How far are we from the hospital?"

"Five minutes tops!" the driver shot back. "I'm doing the best I can!"

BARTHOLOMEW'S MIND WAS tripping in time once again. tripping in time once again.

In a jolt, he was back in ancient Jerusalem, this time being roughly led by a group of Roman centurions into a courtyard. His hands were bound with a rope the centurions used to force him forward against his will. After a few steps, he gave up struggling, realizing it was to no avail. He was headed to wherever the centurions were leading him. Once inside a small inner courtyard, the soldiers used the rope to fix his bound hands to a round iron ring that had been driven at about waist height into a small marble pillar ominously positioned at the courtyard's center.

A dozen or more soldiers poured into the courtroom, fighting with each other for position to get the best view from which to enjoy the intense beating they knew was about to take place.

Bartholomew could feel his robe being torn violently from his body. In an instant he was stripped naked, shamed to be standing there, completely exposed and totally vulnerable in this company of rough men.

"So this is the King of the Jews," the soldiers taunted, bending in mock bows before him as if he were on a throne, taking turns to approach him and spit on his naked body, aiming squarely for his face and genitals.

Struggling to recover from the insult, Bartholomew filled with fear as he saw two centurions with bulging arm muscles take up wooden-handled whips. Each flagrum consisted of three leather straps with lethal-looking, dumbbell-shaped lead weights attached to the ends.

Bartholomew froze in terror as the two centurions positioned themselves on each side, ready to get at his back, positioned out to them from the pillar. The centurion on the right was slightly taller than the centurion on the left, but both were impressively strong and had legs that looked like tree trunks.

The soldier on his right extended his left arm and flagrum above his head to get his full weight and force behind the blow he was about to flay across Bartholomew's back. Bartholomew buckled upon the impact. He cringed as the metal dumbbell ripped into his skin, then tore away tissue as the centurion forcefully pulled the flagrum away. In tandem, the second centurion lifted his whip with his right arm and repeated the scourging from Bartholomew's left side.

IN THE AMBULANCE, Castle and Morelli could not comprehend what was happening. Even though he was strapped tightly to the stretcher, Bartholomew's body twitched violently every few seconds. He screamed in pain and his head thrashed from side to side. Castle concluded that Bartholomew was experiencing some inner agony that was yet another manifestation of his neurosis, but Morelli was simply mystified. He took out his prayerbook and stole in preparation to give Father Bartholomew extreme unction, the final rites given by a Catholic priest at the death of one of the faithful.

Right then, Castle became alarmed to see that Bartholomew's s.h.i.+rt was filling with blood. He quickly loosened the stretcher straps around Bartholomew's shoulders so he could unb.u.t.ton his black priestly s.h.i.+rt and examine him.

Exposing Bartholomew's chest, Castle could not believe what he was seeing. Accompanying every violent movement of Bartholomew's body, new wounds were appearing as if from nowhere. Castle's mind raced. It almost looked like Bartholomew was being wounded from the inside, especially since no one in the ambulance was striking him and there was no outside explanation for why new wounds were showing up right then before Castle's eyes.

Bartholomew looked as if he were trying to escape by violently twisting this way and that on the stretcher. It occurred to Castle that Bartholomew was desperately trying to turn his body completely around, to flip over from back to front, or even to position himself on one side or the other. Every time Bartholomew managed to twist around enough to expose a new section of his body, fresh wounds began appearing there, inflicted from some mysterious and unseen source.

Castle had never seen anything like this happening ever before, but his mind flashed to Bartholomew's description of how he had suffered the stigmata. While Castle discounted the possibility it was real, his immediate intuitive reaction was that Bartholomew was suffering a severe scourging, and the thought of ancient Roman whippings came to his mind. Castle's mind flashed on the scourging Jesus had received at the pillar as part of his torture leading up to his crucifixion and he began to worry that Bartholomew's neurosis was pus.h.i.+ng him even deeper into personally experiencing the pa.s.sion and death of Christ. Could it be possible that here in the back of the ambulance, Castle and Morelli were watching the scourge wounds appear on Bartholomew's body, adding the injuries of Christ's scourging at the pillar to the stigmata in Bartholomew's wrists?

To stop Bartholomew from thras.h.i.+ng about, Castle quietly injected a second dose of the tranquilizer, again to apparently no effect. Bartholomew's body continued twitching in spasms of pain, as if he were being beaten.

WITH HIS MIND back in the ancient courtyard, Bartholomew felt like a trapped animal. There was no escape from the repeated blows that drove him to his knees. The instant he fell, the centurions taunted him to get up. "What kind of man are you?" they jeered. "Can't even take a little beating?" back in the ancient courtyard, Bartholomew felt like a trapped animal. There was no escape from the repeated blows that drove him to his knees. The instant he fell, the centurions taunted him to get up. "What kind of man are you?" they jeered. "Can't even take a little beating?"

Since he was unable to get back to his feet, the centurions with the whips stopped long enough to kick him, then grabbed him by his arms and lifted him back to his feet. Once Bartholomew was upright, the beating resumed.

Bartholomew struggled to twist around to expose his front to the whips, thinking the soldiers might not beat him on his chest and genitals, but he was wrong. While he saved his back for a moment from further injury, the centurions whipped his forelegs and chest, not sparing his stomach and abdomen. No matter which way Bartholomew twisted, front or back, he suffered the continued blows of the flagrum, the lead weights tearing his skin away. With his wrists bound to the short marble pillar, there was no escape from the torture. For what seemed like more than an hour, they beat him, the centurions with the whips and the soldiers in the courtyard seeming to get an almost s.e.xual pleasure from his suffering and pain.

"Why can't you save yourself?" the soldiers taunted, mocking his agony. "Where's your army now, King of the Jews? Why have your legions abandoned you?"

They laughed as he fell to his knees or fell to the ground, his upper body hanging from the metal ring, his bound hands suspended back above his head by the rope that held his wrists to the ring. "You cry like a woman!" they jeered. "This is the way a child would die. Do you want your mother? Stand up and take your punishment like a man."

More than once in the throes of his pa.s.sion, Bartholomew's mind froze with alarm, realizing how the goal of his torturers was to bring him as close to death as possible, but not so far as to actually kill him, just prolong his agony and intensify his pain. Bartholomew knew this was a beating from which he would never recover. Somehow, he comprehended that this scourging was just the first act in a prolonged drama of death that would have several acts. The soldiers would beat him to a point where the injuries would cover every inch of his body, but he was by no means the first victim these brutes had tormented and he would by no means be the last.

In his horror, Bartholomew realized that these Roman centurions dressed in their military garb, with their wine-red tunics and tight-fitting leather bindings, were not savage beasts. To the soldiers this cruel courtyard was their temple of pain and Bartholomew their victim, with his hands bound by leather to their short marble altar of cruelty.

What they wanted was to intensify and prolong his anguish so as to intensify and prolong their pleasure at watching him suffer.

Even in their most s.a.d.i.s.tic impulses, these Roman centurions weren't so foolish as to allow their victim to die, lest they themselves be beaten for inept.i.tude. Prolonging the scourging was essential to the torment.

Bartholomew's entire body throbbed, but every time his mind threatened to go blank, the soldiers doused him with water, reviving him for more punishment.

The centurions paused only when it was time to pa.s.s the whips to fresh hands. The soldiers competed for the privilege of beating their bound victim, pus.h.i.+ng one another aside as they lined up to be the next man wielding the flagrum.

AS THEY ARRIVED at Beth Israel, Bartholomew's b.l.o.o.d.y body went limp. at Beth Israel, Bartholomew's b.l.o.o.d.y body went limp.