Strange Highways

stairs. Gazing into that darkness, Joey said, "You've gone to church here for most of your life, right? Is there an outside entrance to the basement?"
     "No. Not even windows. It's all below ground."
     P.J. wouldn't be able to get into the church that way either, which left only the front doors.
     Returning with Celeste to the sanctuary, Joey wished that they had been able to bring a card table or other small piece of furniture to serve as an altar. But the low, bare platform itself would have to suffice.
     He unfolded the twisted ends of the sheets, with which he had formed the sack, and he set aside the hammer, box of nails, red and green candles, votive candles, matches, crucifix, and statuette of the Holy Mother.
     At Joey's instruction, Celeste helped him cover the platform with the two white sheets.
     "Maybe he nailed her to a floor while he ... did what he wanted," he said as they worked. "But he wasn't just torturing her. It meant more to him than that. It was a sacrilegious act, blasphemy. More likely than not, the whole rape and murder was part of a ceremony."
     "Ceremony?" she asked with a shudder.
     "You said that he's strong and difficult to rattle because he believes in something. Himself, you said. But I think he believes in more than that. He believes in the dark side."
     "Satanism?" she asked doubtfully. "P.J. Shannon, football hero, Mr. Nice Guy?"
     "We both already know that person doesn't exist any more - if he ever did. Beverly Korshak's body tells us that much."
     "But he got a scholarship to Notre Dame, Joey, and I don't think they encourage Black Masses out there in South Bend."
     "Maybe it all began right here, before he ever went away to the university or eventually to New York."
     "It's so far out," she said.
     "Here in 1975, okay, it's a little far out," he agreed as he finished straightening the sheets. "But by 1995, a troubled high-school kid getting into Satanism - it's not so unusual. Believe me. And it was happening in the sixties and seventies too - just not as often."
     "I don't think I'd much like this 1995 of yours."
     "You're not the only one."
     "Did P.J. seem troubled in high school?"
     "No. But sometimes the most deeply disturbed ones don't much show it."
     The cloth was pulled taut across the altar platform. Most of the wrinkles had been smoothed. The white cotton seemed to be whiter now than when they had first unfolded the sheets - radiant.
     "Earlier," Joey reminded her, "you said he behaves recklessly, so arrogantly it's as if he thinks he's blessed. Well, maybe that's exactly what he thinks. Maybe he thinks he's made a bargain that protects him, and now he can get away with just about anything."
     "You're saying he sold his soul?"
     "No. I'm not saying there is a soul or that it could be sold even if it existed. I'm only telling you what he might think he's done and why that ugly little fantasy gives him such extraordinary self-confidence."
     "We do have souls," she said quietly, firmly.
     Picking up the hammer and the box of nails, Joey said, "Bring the crucifix."
     He went to the back of the sanctuary where a twelve-foot-high carving of Christ in blessed agony had once hung. No overhead spots were focused on the wall; instead, the plaster was washed with light from a pair of floor-mounted lamps. The rising light had been meant to lead the eye upward to the contemplation of the divine. He drove a nail into the plaster slightly above eye level.
     Celeste slipped the brass loop over the nail, and once more St. Thomas's had a crucifix behind and above its altar platform.
     Glancing at the rain-streaked windows and the unrelieved night beyond, Joey wondered if P.J. was watching them. What interpretation might he put upon their actions? Did he find these developments laughable - or alarming?
     Joey said, "The tableau that he seems to want to create here - a mockery of the twelve apostles, arranged in a deconsecrated church, at the expense of twelve lives - it's not just an act of madness. It's almost ... an offering."
     "A while ago, you said he thinks he's like Judas."
     "The Betrayer. Betraying his community, his family, his faith, even God. And passing along the corruption wherever he can. Pushing thirty dollars into my pocket in his