Sacred Trust. Meg O'Brien

to know.”

      “The ultimate cause of death, at least from what Ted can tell without toxicology results, was blood loss from an injury to the brain.”

      “What kind of injury?”

      He looks uneasy. “I think I should let Ted tell you about that. Okay?”

      “I…okay.”

      Again he hesitates. “Abby…those odd tiny wounds on her body. You saw them?”

      “Yes, they were all over her front.”

      “They’re on her back, too. I guess I told you. Anyway, the coroner says it looks like she was beaten with a whip of some kind. Something with small metal balls on it.”

      “Dear God.” I look at Marti and my eyes tear, thinking how much she must have suffered. “Ben, what if she was alive, even with the nails in her palms? She must have been alive while she was being beaten. What if she saw and felt everything?”

      I reach out to touch Marti’s cheek. It is cold as an ice floe, and I remind myself that this is only her shell. Marti isn’t here. She won’t be, not anymore.

      The absolute finality of her death hits me then. Before this, I have been cushioned to some extent by shock. Now the fact that I will never talk to my friend again, never laugh with her again, that she won’t be at the other end of the phone when I call, or leaving messages on my machine, smacks me in the face like a rock.

      Ben puts his hands on my shoulders once more and steadies me while I cry. My tears fall onto the white sheet like so many tiny veil pins, though there is no joke now, no responding laughter, no love.

      Ted Wright, the coroner, enters the room. A pale, slight man with intelligent blue eyes, he gives me a careful look.

      “I asked Ted to talk to you,” Ben says, “but only if you want him to.”

      I dry my face with the back of my hand. “I want him to.”

      Ted clears his throat, obviously uneasy. Though he deals with death and mangled bodies on a regular basis, he is a kind man, I know.

      “Don’t worry, Ted. I won’t fall apart on you.”

      His eyes behind the steel-rimmed glasses are filled with sympathy. “I’ll try to keep it simple,” he says, standing beside me to look down at Marti.

      “The first thing, and one that struck me as odd right off, is that certain rituals seem to have been observed. Not only the crucifixion, but the scourging—”

      He looks at Ben, who nods and says, “I told her.”

      Ted begins again. “I’ve done some reading about this, and the killer seems to have deliberately mimicked the kinds of crucifixion deaths that existed in ancient times, including a scourging with a whip. A flagrum, if you will. Such flagrums were constructed of leather thongs with small lead balls at the end of each thong. It is said Jesus of Nazareth and others condemned to crucifixion were scourged in this manner until they were nearly dead. Only after this were they nailed to a cross.”

      He sighs and removes his glasses, wiping them on his sleeve.

      “Ted, what is it?” I say.

      Putting the glasses back on, he shakes his head.

      “I’ve never seen anything like this. I’m sorry, Abby. My guess would be that this is some sort of execution-style killing. Possibly to silence your friend, or to send a message to someone else. Perhaps even revenge for something she did. The words that were painted on her chest, in fact, would seem to confirm this.”

      Ben tightens his arm around my shoulders, and Ted says, “Are you sure you want me to go on?”

      “Yes,” I respond in what sounds amazingly like my ordinary, day-to-day voice. “Go on.”

      I want to know everything, suddenly. I want every word burned into my brain so that when and if I ever meet up with the monster who did this to Marti, I will feel perfectly justified in killing him.

      “Her back…the skin on her back,” Ted says, “is in strips. And the fact that her feet were nailed to the cross, that she wasn’t simply hung on the cross with strips of cloth, is significant. In reported cases of crucifixion, the very act of hanging—without the feet being affixed to the cross, that is—would cause death to occur rather quickly from suffocation. That is, provided the victim didn’t die first of cardiac failure, blood loss or dehydration. The weight of the body on the cross pulled the arms upward, causing the pectoral and intercostal muscles to be stretched. This led to hyperexpansion of the lungs and an inability to breathe. The victim would attempt to raise himself with his arms to relieve the pressure, which caused muscle spasms. Unable to hold himself in that lifted position, he would die very quickly.”

      I close my eyes briefly, but to steady myself, not to ward off the picture. Ted’s recital is working. My anger is growing.

      He shakes his head sadly, looking at me, then down at Marti. “In your friend’s case, as I’ve said, her feet were nailed to the cross. I find this significant. In ancient times, when the feet were nailed, it was done primarily to lengthen the victim’s suffering. It gave the victim something to press against—to raise himself against, rather than using his arm muscles. In that way, he was able to breathe momentarily. He would alternate between slumping to relieve pain on the feet and then pressing against his feet, in order to breathe again. The pain caused by pressure on the nailed feet, of course, would have been terrible. Eventually the victim, who in many cases began this terrible ordeal with loss of blood, became too exhausted to lift himself any longer. The respiratory muscles became, you might say, paralyzed. Which led to suffocation and death.”

      He sighs. “This is a simplification, of course. There are other medical details…fluid buildup in the lungs and perhaps the pericardium, hypovolemic shock…I could go over these with you, but—”

      Ben shakes his head, and this time I agree. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forget this, even if Marti’s killer is one day caught and put to death. “Thank you, Ted. This is enough.”

      Then I remember something Ben said earlier. “Just one thing, Ted. Ben told me you thought Marti had actually died from a brain injury. Not suffocation?”

      He takes several long moments to answer. “Without having seen the results of her toxicology tests,” he says with obvious reluctance, “which will take a bit of time, that is my best guess.”

      “Are you saying she died from a blow to the head?”

      Ted looks at Ben, obviously miserable about having to do this with me. I would take pity on him, but I need to know everything.

      “Please, tell me,” I say.

      One of Ted’s hands goes to Marti’s forehead. He brushes it gently, as if brushing back her hair, though it’s hidden under the white sheeting. “As I said, I’ve done some reading about ritual murders, in particular religious ritual murders. What I found on your friend…Abby, have you ever heard of trepanning, or trephination?”

      “I don’t think so. It doesn’t sound familiar.”

      “Well, a trephine is a surgical instrument with sawlike edges. It’s used to cut disks of bone from the skull, in medical practice. The cult of trepanning, or trephination, however, is something else. It’s been around, off and on, for thousands of years, and seems to be making a comeback now, if you will. Followers of this cult believe that drilling a hole into the top of one’s head where the soft spot, or fontanel, was at birth brings a person a feeling of bliss—the greatest high one can experience.”

      “Drilling a hole? You can’t mean they do this to themselves?”

      “That’s precisely what they do, I’m afraid.”

      “Ted, that’s…it’s sick.”

      “I agree. However, there does seem to be historical evidence that this has been practiced by thousands of people