Shrouded In Silence

13





An unexpected fall rain dumped a rapid downpour across Rome in the late evening. Standing outside in the black pants and coat he had worn the first time he broke into the Townsend's offices, Klaus Burchel huddled against a building across the street from Santa Maria Church and watched the church's guttering pour the night's runoff into the street. Lightening crackled and lit up the dark sky; thunder pounded on his eardrums. Burchel's umbrella kept the splattering rain out of his face, but the thunderstorm proved too fierce to keep him from getting wet in the cold rain.

If he could get inside the church and hide until the middle of the night, the cloudburst might pass over. Klaus glanced at his watch. Even though it was only 10:00, the church doors appeared to still be open. Couldn't be many people in there at this hour. Stein wouldn't like it, but the demanding jerk didn't have to stand out in the rain with a backpack on either. Enough of the fall weather had already arrived that the coldness had started to cut to the bone. Shifting his weight back and forth on his damp feet, he finally decided it was worth the effort to get inside the church. Turning the collar on his coat up, Klaus made a mad dash across the street and up the steps of the church. With a hard yank, he pulled the massive front door open and slipped inside.

Since night had fallen, light inside the church had become dim. The high altar hovered in the dimness of candlelight, leaving the nave filled with shadows. For a moment, Klaus considered ducking under a pew until he dried out, but someone might still be around and could see him. Big trouble would erupt from getting caught looking like a curled-up dog hiding in a corner. In fact, he needed to quickly find a room to hide in. Only then did he notice the dark entrance to his left and the stairs leading down into the blackness. Without further thought, he bounded down the ancient stone steps.

Only at the bottom of the stairs did he realize that he had stumbled into the crypt that ran under the entire church. A brass plaque on the wall explained that the Capuchin monks had once used the building as a monastery and more than four thousand monks had been buried there between 1528 and 1870. The graves situated around him were considerably more than he bargained for. Klaus shuttered. Barely making a sound, he crept forward into the funerary.

Klaus realized that his bravado and swagger on Rome's streets had been an attempt to cover his extreme superstitiousness. Growing up in Germany in a time of economic and social upheaval, he had worried that monsters hid in his closet at night, waiting to devour him as soon as he went to sleep. The blackness of the unseen in the dark always appeared filled with creatures of death ready to flay him with razors. The craziness of those childhood fears arose again in the shadowy gloom of the ancient cemetery surrounding him.

Pressing against the stone wall, he turned a dim corner and came face-to–face with a skeleton shrouded in a deteriorating brown robe tucked in a recess in the basement wall. The boney jaw hung at a skewed angle as if it were about to drop from the face at any moment while the bones of the hand dangled from under the brown robe. The obscure darkness of the skeletal eyes seemed to stare directly at him. Klaus's mouth went dry, and he leaped backward nearly falling on the rock floor. His heart roared like a drilling rig pounding on solid rock. He started to run, but saw nothing opening before him accept more murkiness. Backing up against the granite wall, he tried to catch his breath and fight off the certainty that death was stalking him down these corridors. Reaching around to his backpack, Klaus rummaged through the contents until he found a large hunting knife in a leather sheath. Pulling it out, he tucked the blade in his belt where he could grab it at a moments notice.

Surely, no one came down into these crypts at night. At least, he couldn't imagine such a thing. Probably the candlelights of the crypt were kept lit day and night so a person wouldn't have to worry about being left alone in the total darkness. All he could do was suck it up and stay crouched in the shadows. It was either that or go back out in the cold rain.

Klaus pulled the knife out of his belt and crawled back in a black corner with the blade pointed at anyone that might show up unexpectedly. Even though he had the gun Stein had given him, he knew that the sound of a gun firing would bring the police. Klaus couldn't have that. There was no choice but to fight off the fear that kept boiling up inside of him. For a moment, he thought about this stinking job he'd taken with Stein and cursed the fact he'd ever gotten into it. Then, again, he needed the money and the opportunity to disappear before the police caught him. What a stupid mess he'd gotten himself into.



Father Raffello awoke with a sudden jerk and nearly fell out of his chair. He blinked several times before staring at his wristwatch. It was 2:25 in the morning! How had he done such a thing? Fallen asleep on the job! The priest couldn't believe his slovenly behavior. He must have drifted off somewhere around 10:00 in the evening and left the front door of the church unlocked. Good heavens! How could he have done such a thing? Never, never had he drifted off in sleep like that before! Who knows what in the world could have happened with the edifice remaining wide open. Even though he was eighty, Father Raffello prided himself on running Santa Maria with skill and precision. How had he done such a thing? Terrible. Terrible.

Slipping off the chair he was sitting on in the confessional booth, he stood up and then abruptly stopped. He hadn't simply awakened; something had awakened him. A noise. A sound. Something unexpected. Pushing the curtain aside, he peered out into the nave. The creaking noise came again. Someone was coming into the church at 2:30 in the night? No, someone was going out.

Father Raffello took a deep breath. No person could have been walking around in the church all this time and not be up to no good. He shot a glance at the altar to make sure they hadn't tried to carry off the great golden candlesticks, but there they were in position with candles burning as always. But what about the poor box? A thief could have grabbed the money for the poor.

The old priest rushed up the center aisle and into the narthex. In a second, he could see that the lock remained secure and jerking the box he determined the coins had stayed inside. Yet, he thought it worthwhile to check out every aspect of the entryway, but nothing was missing. Father Raffello still wasn't satisfied. A nagging suspicion haunted him, and the old man always found his intuitions to be important to follow up on until he was completely satisfied everything was in order.

Some kids might have come in and could be stealing a few bones from downstairs under the church. Yes, that was it. Every now and then, teenagers showed up for just such a prank. Grabbing a candle, the priest hurried down the stone steps into the crypt. He had been down there so many times that he could quickly recognize any loss. Hurrying up and down the long corridors, he found nothing amiss, but as he turned to leave, Father Raffello noticed muddy footprints on the floor. Decades earlier, dirt from the Holy Land had been sprinkled on the floor of the crypts and never removed. Someone had been walking around that evening leaving muddy footprints in the loose dirt. Kneeling on the floor, the priest could tell the footprints were much larger than the usual size of teenagers. No question about it! He had heard that person leaving and that was what woke him up. Father Raffello rushed back up the steps.

If nothing was amiss in the church proper, possibly the intruder might have gone around to the back and was working on the Townsends' offices behind the church. If nothing else, it was worth a look. Father Raffello pushed the large front door open and peered out. The rain storm had passed and the heavy clouds moved on so he could walk around the building without an umbrella, but the night air felt brisk. Quickly, the priest returned inside and unlocked a closet at the side of the narthex. Pulling out a black cloak, he fastened it over his robe and pulled the hood over his head. Undoubtedly slinking through the early morning hours, he looked as scary as the dead monks propped up against the stone walls in the crypts below.

As quietly as possible, the priest found his way along the side of the tall church and started down the cement path. Just as he reached the back of the church, a tiny light flashed on in one of the rooms. Father Raffello froze. He looked again. No light. Possibly, he had made a mistake. The windows were filled with darkness. Yes, he had only imagined the light. Breathing a sigh of relief, he tucked his hands in his robe and thought of returning to the church.

A small light flipped on again.

Father Raffello caught his breath. No question about it! Someone was walking around in those offices. He should run back in the church and call the police, but if he did the thief might leave and he'd miss seeing who it was. If nothing else, he could stand there and get a good view of the crook so he could identify the thief at the police station. That might prove to be the most useful thing to be done. Just wait. Then again, that was certainly a dangerous path to take.

The door knob turned. The man was coming out. No time to run. Just watch.

The figure quickly shut the door behind him and turned as if doing something to the lock. In a matter of seconds, the black figure turned back around and started to leave the porch. Only then did Father Raffello realize the man had a black mask over his face.

"Stop!" the priest demanded.

The man's scream echoed off the stone walls of the expansive church before he launched forward with a vicious thrust.

Father Raffello felt the excruciating pain of a knife blade plunging into his stomach. The torment was so severe that he couldn't scream. All the strength went out of his body and the priest crumpled to his knees. He felt the blade pulled out only to come again at his upper chest. Blackness instantly swallowed the priest.