I remember a guy whose faith was so challenged following a tragedy that it drove him to kill. Here, I'll tell you all about it...
"And there will be such intense darkness/That one can feel it."
--Exodus 10:21
It was a bright, quiet Sunday morning, "a day of rest," as Catherine said. I was making breakfast for the three of us when I heard the sound of glass shattering. My instincts took over, and I went to see what it was.
Poor little thing...A small bird crashed beak-first into one of our windows.
The next thing we knew, Jordan ran over to take a look. Her worried face almost gave way to tears as she asked us if it would be all right. I tried to console her, tell her that it was just a little dazed, but Cath and I knew that it would only fly across the Rainbow Bridge.
For once, I found myself at a loss for words! Fortunately, the phone's ringing saved me from digging myself any deeper. So much for "a day of rest," Cath...!
The call took me out to a small church in Tacoma. An old colleague of mine and now fellow Group member Ardis Cohen, and a detective named Kerney joined me at the crime scene. (You might have gotten it into your head that we're an "all-boys' club" at the Group. That's not remotely true: The Group's membership is based 100% on merit. I'm proud to say that we've joined the 20th and 21st Centuries.)
Actually, Ms. Cohen and I have a little bit of history, and this particular murder ties into it. See, back in 1992, she and I were part of an FBI investigation following the murders of several religious leaders.
The vic's name was Father Silas Brown. 61; graduated from Georgetown; taught at Brussels' International Institute of Catechetical and Pastoral Studies. In other words, a Jesuit.
Now, here he is: burned at the stake.
A couple things jumped out at Ardis and me during our examination. First, the killer put a sanbenito on Fr. Brown. Yes, that's a technical term: It's a cloak that a heretic would wear before the church barbecued them.
Second, the killer has quite the eye for detail. This morbid display before me is totally authentic: the stake is cut to ancient specs, and he used peat and wood to keep the fire going. In fact--and you could ask her--Ardis and I saw this exact pattern back in '92...we never caught that guy.
Third, and this is the weirdest one, he had a peseta--a Spanish coin--burned into his tongue. I surmised that it might be some new thing, some refinement of the usual M.O. Whatever it is, it has to have some symbolic meaning. I'd have to go home and have a good long think about it.
As soon as I stepped out of the morgue, I ran into a one Father Schultz, a close friend of the deceased. This guy might be a person of interest...Time to make myself known. I introduced myself, tried to offer some kind of comfort, but my words rang hollow as I spoke them. In fact, I felt like a sham in his presence. Couldn't imagine why; it was just kind of gnawing at the back of my head. His take on the whole thing was that people sometimes feel disconnected, and they expect faith to help them reconnect; and they end up shooting the messenger if the message doesn't stick. It sounded a little too trite to my ears, but then again, sometimes the simpler answer makes the most sense.
======================================================
Downstairs in my "Sanctum," I was looking through a book full of old illustrations from at least the Spanish Inquisition, if not earlier. Grisly and barbaric, yet somehow...creative, inventive even. A beep from my computer interrupted my grim reverie. It was an email from Ardis, a set of photos from that case back in '92. Just about everything between then and now is identical.
The murder's been on the news for a while, and it's got Cath scared, but not for my safety. No, it's something much bigger, something I relate to every day--she's terrified of the world we're trying to raise our daughter in, a world in which everything's unraveling and nothing is sacred.
And all I can do is assure her that I'll bring this guy to justice and try to explain why he does what he does.
After she left the room, I took a closer look at Father Brown's stake. There was something at the top--some writing. With a little fine-tuning, I could make out "SERMO GENERALIS," and I cross-referenced it with that book on the desk. Sure enough, there was an illustration captioned, "The grand ceremonial proceeding of heretics."
Later that night, after putting my little rascal to bed, I got another email from Ardis. Something went down at a golf course in Wyoming...a Rev. Marcus Crane, found bludgeoned and drowned in an "Ordeal by Water."
The next day, I found myself in Wyoming. Here's where it gets interesting: Our little madman just killed a Presbyterian. Ardis thought we'd have to widen our net, but I disagreed, arguing that he's getting more precise. He's going through all the motions--the stake, the cloak, burning, drowning--more for his own benefit than for ours.
Something nagged at me, a feeling that Rev. Crane didn't drown--he choked on something in his throat. Ardis and I went to the place where the workers originally dragged his body out of the water, and I found a woman's engagement ring with a man's wedding band soldered onto it. It was initialed "J.M.M."
======================================================
The case took me from Wyoming to Rockford, IL. This time, a church secretary walked in on an intruder, who whacked her upside the face and then ran off. Fortunately, she was alive and well at Froedert Hospital.
Once the secretary had recovered, she looked to see if any of her files were missing. She called Ardis and me, and said that he had taken a year's worth of christening records. I asked her who did the christenings, and she gave me two names: first, the late Rev. Lorans; and second, Rev. Harned, still very much alive...but for how much longer?
Panicked, I called Mr. Harned and warned him not to let anyone in, but it was too late: "I already have," he said. Ardis, Det. Romero of Rockford PD, and I got into a car and raced to his home. By the time we got there, he was already dead. Covered in wounds, but there was no blood. Looks like his killer cauterized the wounds.
Unthinkingly, I looked out the window, and I saw a woman's face wreathed in flames. She was trying to escape some terrible danger. Suddenly it began to make sense. I realized that he was already in the house when we called, but he still took his time to complete his ritual. This was like a homecoming to him.
Back at the police station, we gathered around a computer as Romero pulled up a file on a guy named Galen Calloway, whose wife and daughter died in a house fire back in November 1989. He survived, of course, but he got third-degree burns on his arms and hands.
He taught religious studies at Edgewood Catholic High; his mother's name was Janice Marie Mosier...that must have been her initials on the wedding ring we found earlier. Charged with DUI manslaughter in '92; sentenced to five years but paroled in three...and here we are, chasing him.
He's going to hit another church sometime soon, and I can narrow it down to two, both of them Protestant. It's either the one where he laid his wife to rest or the one where he witnessed his daughter's baptism.
Poor little thing...A small bird crashed beak-first into one of our windows.
The next thing we knew, Jordan ran over to take a look. Her worried face almost gave way to tears as she asked us if it would be all right. I tried to console her, tell her that it was just a little dazed, but Cath and I knew that it would only fly across the Rainbow Bridge.
For once, I found myself at a loss for words! Fortunately, the phone's ringing saved me from digging myself any deeper. So much for "a day of rest," Cath...!
The call took me out to a small church in Tacoma. An old colleague of mine and now fellow Group member Ardis Cohen, and a detective named Kerney joined me at the crime scene. (You might have gotten it into your head that we're an "all-boys' club" at the Group. That's not remotely true: The Group's membership is based 100% on merit. I'm proud to say that we've joined the 20th and 21st Centuries.)
Actually, Ms. Cohen and I have a little bit of history, and this particular murder ties into it. See, back in 1992, she and I were part of an FBI investigation following the murders of several religious leaders.
The vic's name was Father Silas Brown. 61; graduated from Georgetown; taught at Brussels' International Institute of Catechetical and Pastoral Studies. In other words, a Jesuit.
Now, here he is: burned at the stake.
A couple things jumped out at Ardis and me during our examination. First, the killer put a sanbenito on Fr. Brown. Yes, that's a technical term: It's a cloak that a heretic would wear before the church barbecued them.
Second, the killer has quite the eye for detail. This morbid display before me is totally authentic: the stake is cut to ancient specs, and he used peat and wood to keep the fire going. In fact--and you could ask her--Ardis and I saw this exact pattern back in '92...we never caught that guy.
Third, and this is the weirdest one, he had a peseta--a Spanish coin--burned into his tongue. I surmised that it might be some new thing, some refinement of the usual M.O. Whatever it is, it has to have some symbolic meaning. I'd have to go home and have a good long think about it.
As soon as I stepped out of the morgue, I ran into a one Father Schultz, a close friend of the deceased. This guy might be a person of interest...Time to make myself known. I introduced myself, tried to offer some kind of comfort, but my words rang hollow as I spoke them. In fact, I felt like a sham in his presence. Couldn't imagine why; it was just kind of gnawing at the back of my head. His take on the whole thing was that people sometimes feel disconnected, and they expect faith to help them reconnect; and they end up shooting the messenger if the message doesn't stick. It sounded a little too trite to my ears, but then again, sometimes the simpler answer makes the most sense.
======================================================
Downstairs in my "Sanctum," I was looking through a book full of old illustrations from at least the Spanish Inquisition, if not earlier. Grisly and barbaric, yet somehow...creative, inventive even. A beep from my computer interrupted my grim reverie. It was an email from Ardis, a set of photos from that case back in '92. Just about everything between then and now is identical.
The murder's been on the news for a while, and it's got Cath scared, but not for my safety. No, it's something much bigger, something I relate to every day--she's terrified of the world we're trying to raise our daughter in, a world in which everything's unraveling and nothing is sacred.
And all I can do is assure her that I'll bring this guy to justice and try to explain why he does what he does.
After she left the room, I took a closer look at Father Brown's stake. There was something at the top--some writing. With a little fine-tuning, I could make out "SERMO GENERALIS," and I cross-referenced it with that book on the desk. Sure enough, there was an illustration captioned, "The grand ceremonial proceeding of heretics."
Later that night, after putting my little rascal to bed, I got another email from Ardis. Something went down at a golf course in Wyoming...a Rev. Marcus Crane, found bludgeoned and drowned in an "Ordeal by Water."
The next day, I found myself in Wyoming. Here's where it gets interesting: Our little madman just killed a Presbyterian. Ardis thought we'd have to widen our net, but I disagreed, arguing that he's getting more precise. He's going through all the motions--the stake, the cloak, burning, drowning--more for his own benefit than for ours.
Something nagged at me, a feeling that Rev. Crane didn't drown--he choked on something in his throat. Ardis and I went to the place where the workers originally dragged his body out of the water, and I found a woman's engagement ring with a man's wedding band soldered onto it. It was initialed "J.M.M."
======================================================
The case took me from Wyoming to Rockford, IL. This time, a church secretary walked in on an intruder, who whacked her upside the face and then ran off. Fortunately, she was alive and well at Froedert Hospital.
Once the secretary had recovered, she looked to see if any of her files were missing. She called Ardis and me, and said that he had taken a year's worth of christening records. I asked her who did the christenings, and she gave me two names: first, the late Rev. Lorans; and second, Rev. Harned, still very much alive...but for how much longer?
Panicked, I called Mr. Harned and warned him not to let anyone in, but it was too late: "I already have," he said. Ardis, Det. Romero of Rockford PD, and I got into a car and raced to his home. By the time we got there, he was already dead. Covered in wounds, but there was no blood. Looks like his killer cauterized the wounds.
Unthinkingly, I looked out the window, and I saw a woman's face wreathed in flames. She was trying to escape some terrible danger. Suddenly it began to make sense. I realized that he was already in the house when we called, but he still took his time to complete his ritual. This was like a homecoming to him.
Back at the police station, we gathered around a computer as Romero pulled up a file on a guy named Galen Calloway, whose wife and daughter died in a house fire back in November 1989. He survived, of course, but he got third-degree burns on his arms and hands.
He taught religious studies at Edgewood Catholic High; his mother's name was Janice Marie Mosier...that must have been her initials on the wedding ring we found earlier. Charged with DUI manslaughter in '92; sentenced to five years but paroled in three...and here we are, chasing him.
He's going to hit another church sometime soon, and I can narrow it down to two, both of them Protestant. It's either the one where he laid his wife to rest or the one where he witnessed his daughter's baptism.
==============================================
It was a hostage situation. Calloway was inside, giving a sermon of his own. He'd already shot one of them in the leg. Outside, we waited, a SWAT team armed and ready. I tried to reason with him over the phone, but it was no good. I'd have to do this the old-fashioned way...in person.
=================================================
So there I was, on my knees. He swore he'd kill me if I told a lie. Telling the truth was pointless--he'd kill me one way or another. Still, there was no other way out.
He asked me if I was afraid to die. "Yes," I said. He twisted that around to mean that I don't believe in God. I admitted that my faith has lapsed. I've seen too much meaningless violence and too many innocent people slaughtered to maintain any kind of faith.
Calloway's line of reasoning came to me in a flash. "I am afraid," I said, "but not like you. You're afraid to die because you fear God's judgment. You try to kill your faith with the tools of your own belief because of your pain, because you think God's forsaken you. You think that you can get rid of your pain by slaughtering the faith that's inside you." Whether I lived or died that night, I didn't care. I just wanted to help this sad little man. I reassured him: "God doesn't want you to kill yourself or anyone else." But it was no good appealing to his beliefs. He moved behind me and cocked the hammer on his gun. There was a gunshot, and I fell forward. Didn't even see my life flash before my eyes. It wasn't my time to die after all...Someone's watching out for me, that's for sure.
I knew at that moment what I was going to say to Jordan: Bad things can happen, but we still have to keep our faith alive, or else we'll end up like the late Mr. Calloway: so consumed by grief that we lose first our faith and then our humanity.
It was a hostage situation. Calloway was inside, giving a sermon of his own. He'd already shot one of them in the leg. Outside, we waited, a SWAT team armed and ready. I tried to reason with him over the phone, but it was no good. I'd have to do this the old-fashioned way...in person.
=================================================
So there I was, on my knees. He swore he'd kill me if I told a lie. Telling the truth was pointless--he'd kill me one way or another. Still, there was no other way out.
He asked me if I was afraid to die. "Yes," I said. He twisted that around to mean that I don't believe in God. I admitted that my faith has lapsed. I've seen too much meaningless violence and too many innocent people slaughtered to maintain any kind of faith.
Calloway's line of reasoning came to me in a flash. "I am afraid," I said, "but not like you. You're afraid to die because you fear God's judgment. You try to kill your faith with the tools of your own belief because of your pain, because you think God's forsaken you. You think that you can get rid of your pain by slaughtering the faith that's inside you." Whether I lived or died that night, I didn't care. I just wanted to help this sad little man. I reassured him: "God doesn't want you to kill yourself or anyone else." But it was no good appealing to his beliefs. He moved behind me and cocked the hammer on his gun. There was a gunshot, and I fell forward. Didn't even see my life flash before my eyes. It wasn't my time to die after all...Someone's watching out for me, that's for sure.
I knew at that moment what I was going to say to Jordan: Bad things can happen, but we still have to keep our faith alive, or else we'll end up like the late Mr. Calloway: so consumed by grief that we lose first our faith and then our humanity.
==========================================================
"Pilot" used its killer to introduce us to Frank Black's world.
"Gehenna" and "Dead Letters" used their madmen as plot devices around which a larger story was told.
"Kingdom Come" marks a turning point for Millennium: The episode humanized its killer by giving him a little bit of backstory and allowing a little bit of his humanity to show at the climax. He kills not to fulfill a prophecy or to make his mark on the world, but to resolve his own personal crisis of faith, a crisis which has ultimately robbed him of his more human qualities.
Among its other positives, "Kingdom Come" gives all of its characters a moment to shine, even the minor, incidental characters. Right at the beginning, we get to see Frank be a husband and a father, which I just had to include because it's just such a break from the usual film-noir stuff. On top of that, it gave his daughter, Jordan, her first little glimpse into the realm of death, and it's such a wonderful "little kid moment" that it's almost funny in comparison to everything else. I like that there's a little space for some kind of normalcy, separate from the gruesome world outside.
One thing I will say for Millennium: There's almost no wasted space from episode to episode. Every line of dialogue, every minor detail, is an illumination if not a plot point. For example, after the first murder, Frank deduces that Father Brown was a Jesuit priest; Kerney bitterly recalls his days at a Jesuit high school. "Left a lasting impression...if you know what I mean." It's calculated to sound like it marks a recurring plot point, but "Kingdom Come" mercifully drops the thread in favor of a twist revelation: the killer is suffering from a years-long crisis of faith following the deaths of his wife and daughter in a house fire.
...Let me take a quick detour and go back to "Pilot," just for a moment. On the commentary for that episode, series creator Chris Carter explained how a viewer complained that the show left her shocked and offended. He responded, "That's what Millennium is supposed to do."
That being said, however, explaining the killer's motivation as that particular kind of trauma may have been a little too strong for the time. Also, the eventual revelation we do get unintentionally reveals another rule within Millennium's internal logic: No matter what happens, the killers' actions are theirs and theirs alone. If his motivation had been childhood abuse at the hands of the Church, then the narrative would then have to set the Millennium Group against the institution.
THIS WOULD UNRAVEL THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE SERIES.
It's taken six episodes, but Millennium has finally caught up with what I've been getting at: The Millennium Group is a shadowy external agency which acts as a force for order, and thus as a force for good. The institutions we hold dear--the church, the law, etc.--represent order and stability. Serial killers, deviants, and other madmen represent chaos. Chaos attacks order; order eventually re-establishes itself. That is the core premise of Millennium.
Were the Millennium Group pitted against the Church in this episode, it would change the core premise from "order vs. chaos" to "order vs. order," and this would force the series to adopt a new identity. Six episodes is far too early for a series--especially one that's doing as well as Millennium is at this point--to adopt a new identity.
======================================================================
I think now's a good time for me to take a small break from writing the Episode Guide. It occurs to me that I haven't had a chance to really introduce you to the characters we've encountered so far.
So, come back next time for Bonus Material, Chapters 1 and 2!
===========================================================
(Millennium copyright 1996, Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All screenshots are property of Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All rights reserved. Special thanks to Millennium--This Is Who We Are for episode transcripts, which helped me adapt the episodes.)
"Pilot" used its killer to introduce us to Frank Black's world.
"Gehenna" and "Dead Letters" used their madmen as plot devices around which a larger story was told.
"Kingdom Come" marks a turning point for Millennium: The episode humanized its killer by giving him a little bit of backstory and allowing a little bit of his humanity to show at the climax. He kills not to fulfill a prophecy or to make his mark on the world, but to resolve his own personal crisis of faith, a crisis which has ultimately robbed him of his more human qualities.
Among its other positives, "Kingdom Come" gives all of its characters a moment to shine, even the minor, incidental characters. Right at the beginning, we get to see Frank be a husband and a father, which I just had to include because it's just such a break from the usual film-noir stuff. On top of that, it gave his daughter, Jordan, her first little glimpse into the realm of death, and it's such a wonderful "little kid moment" that it's almost funny in comparison to everything else. I like that there's a little space for some kind of normalcy, separate from the gruesome world outside.
One thing I will say for Millennium: There's almost no wasted space from episode to episode. Every line of dialogue, every minor detail, is an illumination if not a plot point. For example, after the first murder, Frank deduces that Father Brown was a Jesuit priest; Kerney bitterly recalls his days at a Jesuit high school. "Left a lasting impression...if you know what I mean." It's calculated to sound like it marks a recurring plot point, but "Kingdom Come" mercifully drops the thread in favor of a twist revelation: the killer is suffering from a years-long crisis of faith following the deaths of his wife and daughter in a house fire.
...Let me take a quick detour and go back to "Pilot," just for a moment. On the commentary for that episode, series creator Chris Carter explained how a viewer complained that the show left her shocked and offended. He responded, "That's what Millennium is supposed to do."
That being said, however, explaining the killer's motivation as that particular kind of trauma may have been a little too strong for the time. Also, the eventual revelation we do get unintentionally reveals another rule within Millennium's internal logic: No matter what happens, the killers' actions are theirs and theirs alone. If his motivation had been childhood abuse at the hands of the Church, then the narrative would then have to set the Millennium Group against the institution.
THIS WOULD UNRAVEL THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE SERIES.
It's taken six episodes, but Millennium has finally caught up with what I've been getting at: The Millennium Group is a shadowy external agency which acts as a force for order, and thus as a force for good. The institutions we hold dear--the church, the law, etc.--represent order and stability. Serial killers, deviants, and other madmen represent chaos. Chaos attacks order; order eventually re-establishes itself. That is the core premise of Millennium.
Were the Millennium Group pitted against the Church in this episode, it would change the core premise from "order vs. chaos" to "order vs. order," and this would force the series to adopt a new identity. Six episodes is far too early for a series--especially one that's doing as well as Millennium is at this point--to adopt a new identity.
======================================================================
I think now's a good time for me to take a small break from writing the Episode Guide. It occurs to me that I haven't had a chance to really introduce you to the characters we've encountered so far.
So, come back next time for Bonus Material, Chapters 1 and 2!
===========================================================
(Millennium copyright 1996, Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All screenshots are property of Ten Thirteen Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. All rights reserved. Special thanks to Millennium--This Is Who We Are for episode transcripts, which helped me adapt the episodes.)
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