The Smoking Nun

by Dakota Cassidy

  My shoulders went back to sagging. “I don’t get it, Tansy.”

  Tansy scratched her head and nodded. “Me either, love. I just can’t figure who’d want to kill a harmless nun…and that makes me wonder if she didn’t have secrets no one knew about.”

  “If she did, I didn’t know them, if that’s what you’re asking. We were very friendly, but we didn’t confide anything no one else knew.” Well, almost anyway. Sighing about my own secrets, I asked, “What about the CCTV? Anything of interest?”

  “There isn’t one in the alleyway by the exit door, but we did check the surrounding areas, and so far, nothing suspicious. Not even remotely suspicious, matter of fact.”

  People had begun to assemble at the steps of the church by Sister Ophelia’s smiling picture along, with Father Rico, who I assumed would say a few words. There’d be no burial until Sister Ophelia’s body was released, but mourners sometimes needed a religious rite of passage—a symbolic event to ease their grief. This would have to do for now.

  “Well, thanks, Tansy. I appreciate you keeping me up to date. I’ll talk to the deacons and see what I can learn. Though, I will tell you, I don’t know how much they’ll open up. Deacon Cameron’s a little awkward with me due to my ex-nun status, if you’ll pardon the description. I think he thinks I decided to leave the church to follow Satan. He takes a wide berth with me. And Deacon Delacorte is new. He just arrived a few days ago. He might not feel comfortable talking to me.”

  Tansy rubbed my arm and smiled warmly, her specialty when she knew I was afraid I’d fail. “Everyone is comfortable talking to you, Miss Marple. That’s just who you are, love. But you do as you see fit. Not a fig of pressure you’ll get from me.”

  “Thanks, Tansy. You’re the best boss who doesn’t pay me ever.”

  Tansy chuckled as she started to take her leave. “There’s my favorite sassy pants. Bravo, Miss Marple. Now, I’m off to canvass and keep a watchful eye for anyone suspicious because…?” she asked with a coaxing tone.

  “Because sometimes the killer will return to the scene of the crime to watch it all play out,” I replied dutifully.

  She grinned and bobbed her blonde head. “Good on ya, Trixie Lavender. Now, if you need me, for anything at all, love, just text and I’m there.”

  “Thanks, Tansy,” I whispered into the blowing wind as she wound her way through the crowd and disappeared.

  Someone handed Father Rico a mic and as he began to speak, I found myself watching everyone’s faces, most with tears pouring down their cheeks, and still I wondered who’d killed a nun, who everyone appeared to love, with such brutal force?

  “Fair maiden,” a voice whispered in my ear. “’Tis I. Here to pay my respects to the beloved Sister Ophelia of the fine establishment Our Lady of Perpetual Grace.”

  I knew Solomon was in my midst even before he spoke because of his scent. I think he’d missed his shower time this week. We’d talked about the importance of cleanliness on many occasions, but Solomon was the captain of his own ship.

  As I peered into his face, lined with many a battle scar from living on the streets, I noted his eyes were soft with sympathy. He’d even removed his Viking hat and left his grocery cart full of his favorite things parked somewhere other than here at the vigil. So okay, he hadn’t taken a shower, but he had attempted to show respect in his own way, and that made me proud.

  Though, he was using his medieval speak as his safety net, which meant he was feeling insecure and scared.

  So I played along the way I always do because I know it makes him comfortable. “Aye, my liege. I’m so happy to see you here. It shows how much you respected the lovely Sister Ophelia. She liked you a great deal, you know.”

  “Aye,” he mumbled, letting his scruffy chin drop to his chest as he drove his usually fluttering hands into the pockets of his tattered peacoat. “Sister O was kind, she was. She… She told me I was beautiful, and God loves me just the way I am. She did. She said that.”

  Tears stung my eyes and the wind bit my skin. That sounded like Sister Ophelia. She’d been partial to Solomon due to his essentially undiagnosed autism. She worried for him, lit candles for him at mass to keep him safe from harm. She’d even bought him his favorite Gobstopper candies from time to time because she knew he loved them.

  “Sister Ophelia was indeed a good soul, and she cared about your well-being, Solomon. I’m glad you came to pay your respects. I know she’d like that.”

  He looked at me then, imploring me with his glistening eyes. “Can I stand next to you, Trixie? Will you hold my hand?”

  When Solomon felt his most unsafe, he reached out for human contact. It wasn’t often, but I knew he needed to share his sadness so it wouldn’t overwhelm him.

  My heart constricted and tightened as I held out my hand to him. “Of course, Solomon. You can always hold my hand.”

  His fingers fluttered against mine before he pressed them against the back of my hand, which I suppose was Solomon’s idea of holding my hand. Whatever made him comfortable was fine with me.

  As Father Rico continued his soothing words and talked about how valuable Sister Ophelia was to the congregation and the church, I absorbed them, allowed them into my heart, and tried to decipher this tragedy by using the balm the father poured out over us.

  We all were deeply invested in Father Rico’s words—he had an incredible way of expressing what we were all feeling. In fact, we were so invested, the scream we heard, the one that eventually made us all turn around, took a few seconds before it sank in.

  But when it did, it stayed with me for days afterward.

  The sound of Carla Ratagucci, screaming so loudly, with such gusto, she could be heard over the sound of late-evening traffic.

  I spun around, turning my ear to the direction I’d heard the scream coming from as people began to disperse. Parents clung to their children’s hands and Solomon had mine in a steel grip.

  So I latched on to him and began to push my way through the crowd, coming to a dead halt when we reached the top of the stairs at the entry doors to the church.

  There stood Carla Ratagucci, her eyes wide open in horror, her raven hair tousled from the wind with a hand over her mouth. My eyes followed her line of vision, and I fought not to follow her lead and put my hand over my mouth in horror, too.

  In the doorway of the small storage closet at the rectory entry, there was a rolled-up tarp that blew with each slap of the wind as it whooshed in the doors.

  When the wind blew the top of the tarp away, partially revealing the contents, I stopped short, my feet like lead.

  It was a body.

  But not just any body.

  A headless body.

  Chapter 7

  I gripped Solomon’s hand, pulling him closer to me to keep him near, and turning him to face the other direction, suddenly feeling quite exposed.

  Spotting Coop a step or two down from the landing, trying to keep people from climbing the stairs to see the horror inside, I yelled her name as I made my way toward her. “Coop! Over here!”

  In an instant, she was beside us, her glittering green eyes searching mine with a question. “Solomon? I want you to stay with Coop, okay? I’m going to go help Carla. Stay right near her, all right?”

  Coop held out her hand to him, her eyes beseeching Solomon’s, asking permission to touch him. “Solomon, will you take my hand, please?”

  Solomon didn’t blink once nor did he hesitate. Instead, he reached for Coop’s hand and pulled it under his arm while I patted his shoulder and made a break back up the steps toward Carla.

  She had her arms around her waist, almost doubled over as though she were in pain, tears falling from her eyes in big wet splotches to the church’s entryway floor as I reached for her.

  “Carla!” I called, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her to me to shield her vision from the horrible sight.

  “Oh, Trixie! It’s—it’s so awful!” she cried against my shoulder as I led her away from the
closet and back outside toward Coop. Unfortunately, the crowd continued to grow as more and more people began to rubberneck the steps, climbing them with curious faces.

  “Don’t look,” I ordered, turning her away from the sight. “Just keep walking toward Coop, okay?”

  But she whimpered, stumbling over the slick hardwood, her heels wobbling. “I’ll never get that out of my head, Trixie! How can I ever forget that?” she squealed, and it sounded like she was on the verge of hysteria.

  Sister Patricia showed up out of nowhere, her face filled with distress, her hands reaching out for Carla, but Carla rebuffed her and turned away. Which was odd. Sister Patricia wasn’t a favorite, by any means. She was rigid and inflexible, according to Sister O, but in a time of need, I’d think that would go by the wayside.

  I didn’t have much time to think about it before I saw the deacons. Deacon Delacorte stood tall in the throng of people gathering at the top step, his gorgeously angelic face racked with concern. “Miss Lavender?” he called to me in an emotion-choked voice, offering his hand to Carla. “Is that…is that what I think it is? Is he…or she…head…” He didn’t finish the sentence due to what I’m sure amounted to his disbelief.

  Deacon Cameron was directly behind him, his wrist over his mouth as he turned away, too.

  “I don’t know, but let me go and see if I can help, okay? Will you stay here with Carla, please? Coop? You, too. Just all of you stay together, and please call Tansy and Higgs,” I instructed before I pivoted on my sneaker, tightened my sweater around me, and made my way toward the storage closet door.

  There was no blood, no signs of a massacre, which one would think a crime scene like this would include when the end result was a beheading. The inside of the closet was lined with battery-operated candles, Bibles, and some boxes with no labels—tame compared to what lie on the floor at my feet.

  What lie at my feet had to be addressed, and I was determined to investigate this like I would any other crime scene, gruesome or otherwise. On a deep breath, I sat on my haunches, keeping my hands in the pockets of my sweater so as not to contaminate.

  The haze of the lights from above, soft and yellow, cast a far too gentle glow on what I was seeing, but I forced myself to scan the body and the surrounding areas.

  My resolve lasted all of about two seconds before I had to stuff my fist in my mouth. I don’t typically suffer from a weak stomach, but this…this headless body, so carelessly wrapped only in a tarp with some loose rope around it, had to mean something, didn’t it?

  Who would almost nonchalantly throw a body in a storage closet in a church? And was it connected to Sister Ophelia’s murder?

  And the nature of the crime was almost as upsetting as the actual crime itself. Who would do something so horrible?

  Yet, I forced myself to look, to absorb what I was seeing, to memorize the placement of the body, because I’d need that information later. Maybe I’d see a piece of evidence that triggered something—anything—that could help find who’d done this.

  Was this related to Sister Ophelia’s strangulation? And if it was related to Sister Ophelia, how was it related? It wasn’t strangulation—or was it strangulation gone too far? My stomach rolled as though I was on a roller coaster ride, but I kept fighting the urge to vomit what little food I had in my stomach and persisted with my perusal of the crime scene.

  I inched closer to the open door and peered down at the tarp, eyeing the body before inhaling deeply.

  Details, Trixie. Focus on the details.

  Whoever it was, I couldn’t tell if it was male or female. However, if I had to make a semi-educated guess, I’d guess male. His thighs, bulging though the tarp, and the width and length of the body made me draw that conclusion.

  His legs were longish, and what I could see of his shirt—a plaid flannel in red and blue—looked more like something a man would wear than a woman. Plus, the buttons to the shirt were on the right side, which typically indicated a male’s shirt.

  The tarp was thin, and certainly not at all sturdy. It looked more like a painting tarp used to cover a floor than one you’d use to wrap a body, and it appeared as though whoever had wrapped this particular body had done so in a hurry. There was no rhyme or reason to how it was covered or the way the rope was tied.

  Which in and of itself was curious. But if you were going to dump a body—a headless body, no less—why would you dump it in, of all places, a church?

  And the ugliest question of them all? Where the heck was the head that belonged to the body?

  I looked up then, just as I heard Tansy and Co. rush up the stairs, the sound of their feet and the bark of orders comforting me.

  “Trixie!” Tansy called to me as her officers moved inside en masse and began to shuffle everyone back out the church doors.

  “Over here,” I mumbled weakly, raising a hand in the air. I wanted to be strong. I really did, but I finally had to turn away from the body and inhale deeply before I gagged on what little saliva I had left.

  The wind began to rush in through the doors as Tansy shouted orders to her people and I managed to keep from vomiting. When she finally approached me, her eyes were soft and sympathetic.

  She propped an arm over my shoulder and patted and turned me away from the storage closet door, the bright lights of the interior of the church making my eyes water.

  “Are you up to this, love? I feel like I’ve asked you that more’n once in the last two days, but this is particularly gruesome. I don’t want you so upset you’ll be ill.”

  I patted her hand and nodded, determined to do what I was here for—to help, to be of service.

  “I think I am. As long as I can do it out there?” I asked, pointing to the doors of the church and the landing above the steps, where Carla stood with Coop and Solomon.

  “So Carla found him…er, the body, eh? Poor love. She must be all out of sorts. Will you come with so I can have a chat? Do you think you’re up to it?”

  “Of course. But let me warn you, she’s beside herself.”

  “I can only imagine.” Tansy nodded curtly at her men before shouting more orders as she steered me back outside into the rain. Oz saw us and instantly threw up an umbrella over our heads. I smiled my gratitude as I reached out for Carla’s hand.

  She let go of Coop and collapsed against me, her svelte body crumbling, her hands and arms trembling almost violently.

  So I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a tight hug, hoping to calm her shudders. “It’s all right, Carla. You’re all right now. You’re safe and the police are here. I’ll stay with you every step of the way, okay?”

  “Please,” she whispered raggedly against my shoulder. “Please don’t leave me, Trixie. It was so awful. I was just going to look for more candles and…and…”

  Leaning back, I gripped her upper arms and nodded, brushing her hair from her eyes. “I understand. But I need you to give a statement to Tansy, okay? I’ll stay with you the whole time, but it’s really important if we want to catch whoever did this.”

  “I’ll stay, too, Miss Ratagucci,” Deacon Delacorte chimed in, his dark hair plastered to his skull from the rain. “As will Deacon Cameron.”

  Deacon Cameron, under a red and white umbrella himself, nodded briskly, looking out over the crowd of mourners. “Of course. Anything you need.”

  “Miss Ratagucci? I’m Tansy Primrose from Cobbler Cove PD. I’m so sorry for this misfortune, but I’d like a chat with you while it’s all still fresh in your mind, yeah? Why don’t we go inside where it’s warm? I have word from Officer Meadows that Father Rico’s been kind enough to offer his office to us.”

  Carla stiffened at the idea, but I patted her arms with reassurance. “I promise you won’t even have to look in that direction, okay? I’ll be right here.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, her voice husky and gruff from crying.

  As I led her back into the church, I steered her directly to the left and toward the long hallway leading to Father Rico’
s office door. I didn’t want to see the crime scene any more than she did.

  What I did want was to wrap my head around this tragedy enough to find some answers.

  I just couldn’t seem to get my feet under me.

  An hour later, sitting in Father Rico’s office, we didn’t have much more information than what had been obviously visible to even the most casual observer.

  Father Rico’s office was austere to say the least. He’d surrounded himself with burgundy curtains and stately rather than comfortable furniture. A dark-stained bookcase full of all sorts of tomes on Catholicism sat behind his large desk, with a lone reading lamp in gold on an end table near a corner chair. The décor was very different than the light and easygoing Father Rico.

  As Carla sat in a stiff-backed chair, her legs tucked under the seat, her hands clenched together in a fist, she repeated herself once more in that shocked, monotone voice she’d adapted since we’d all sat down.

  “I was just looking for more candles. I knew they were in the storage closet because when Sister Patricia called me to ask for help, I volunteered to hand them out to everyone in the first place. But we ran out…” she mumbled, her eyes filling with more tears.

  I handed her another tissue and patted her leg. “So you didn’t see anyone near the closet? No one at all? Not when you were helping Sister Patricia to organize the vigil? No one you didn’t recognize?”

  She shook her dark head, her hair now dry from the rain and curling around her pretty face in frizzy clumps. “No! I’m telling you, Trixie, when I went into that closet about two hours before the vigil, there was no one in there, or even around there. I knew everyone who helped Sister Patricia. There was nothing in that closet but…but…things that are supposed to be in a storage closet! I promise you, I’m telling the truth.”

  Tansy, leaning against the edge of Father Rico’s enormous walnut-colored desk, licked her lips and scribbled on her pad. “So you needed more candles,” she prompted.