by Richard Wren
“I don’t see it,” Les said
“It seems pretty plain to me. Ever since the unsolved case department found the DNA evidence and started talking about re-opening that old murder case, things’ve been happening. The guys in Mexico and now this. I think someone’s scared.”
Casey slowly added, “Someone scared enough to murder?”
“Someone with a lot to lose,” Countered Smitty.
At the hospital Sister Agnes used being a nun in a Catholic hospital to get a little more information from a Catholic nurse. She found that the news was worse than before. Evidently the shiv had been large and rough and had done a lot of internal damage. They were having trouble locating and stopping all the internal bleeding.
Smitty was obviously hit hard by the news, and Josie was quietly crying. Smitty was the first to recover. “We gotta get goin “, Smitty ordered. We need to get the sister set up at the house. Then Josie’n I will come back to make sure Gus gets the best attention.”
“What about the sister,” asked Casey.
“I think she’s figured it out; we just need to get her up to the house. Les can entertain her for a while.”
Three hours later, just as it was getting dark, Josie and Smitty got back and reported that Gus was still touch and go. They reported that he was still in emergency, still being operated on.
“The doctor said the reason he might not recover is due to what he was stabbed with. Some sort of a wide blade with a serrated edge, and it did a lot of damage.”
“Like I said a shiv, but an ugly one,” Smitty reiterated.
Casey shuddered, thought for a moment, then asked. “Are they keeping Gus safe? Maybe they’ll try again?”
“He’s safe enough there for a couple of days in the hospital, and there’s a police guard,” Josie offered.
“What can we do?” Casey wondered.
Smitty roughly answered him. “We do what we can do, that’s what. Right now we need to get the sister taken care of.
Josie found the sister in the kitchen. It turned out that the sister enjoyed her occasional glass of wine, and she and Les were having a great time with a chilled bottle of Gewurstraminer plus a sliced apple and some cheddar cheese. Josie sent Les down to help her dad.
The first thing the nun said was, “How is Gus, is he going to recover?” Josie was stunned by the sister’s perceptiveness and moved to tears. She had trouble answering between tears and sniffless. “We simply don’t know. The doctors don’t hold out much hope.” She paused, used a Kleenex, and attempted to go on. “I’ve known Uncle Gus all my life, he’s been like a father to me. He and my mom,” she started, and then broke into sniffles again for a moment, “grew up together and were like brother and sister. Dad loves him too. Ever since mom died, he’s been special to dad, kind of like an elder brother.”
“Let’s pray for him,” the sister responded and bowed her head as she took Josie’s hand in hers. For a few moments the room was silent as they each in their own way said a silent prayer for Gus.
Josie straightened up, wiped her eyes, and said, “thank you,” to the sister.
“Back to business?” the sister asked with a sympathetic smile.
After the routine, “How was the trip?” questions were asked and answered, Josie suggested: “We thought it would be nice if we had a small dinner and then get you settled this evening before getting down to business tomorrow morning?”
“A small dinner sounds delightful,” The sister answered just as Smitty, Les and Casey entered.
“Me too,” Les put in. “You know the old saying, breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen, and dinner like a pauper.”
Smitty looked at him as if he was nuts and Casey and Sister Agnes exchanged knowing glances.
Later that evening the sister had retired to her room after exclaiming about how pretty and comfortable it was. Josie was irate about the treatment Casey and Les had been forced to endure until they got to the part where the two murderers had shown up, and how they had been treated once the Abbess found out who did what to whom.
“I don’t really blame those two,” Casey commented. “They were simple guys who really thought we were down there to harm their beloved Sister Agnes. In fact, it was one of them that drove us the airport. He never really apologized for what he did, except he went out of his way to be nice to us on the drive.”
“Yeah, but you could have been killed!” Josie insisted.
“But I wasn’t, and we got what we went for. Right, Smitty?”
Smitty was not drawn in. “Tell him what’s going on with the trial,” he directed Josie.
“Okay,” She announced. “I’m doing everything I can to stall the case until we get some answers. The odd thing is the D.A.’s helping me. I don’t know that it’s on purpose, but he doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. Heck, at the beginning, they didn’t even book him, just held him as a material witness. Then when I asked the judge to delay the arraignment the D.A.’s office didn’t fight the motion. So we got a two-week delay on the arraignment. That’s bought us a little time.”
“So what is it you really need?” Casey asked.
Josie ticked off a list on her fingers. “One, I need the transcript of the original case. The police records, any arrest records, plus each and every documentation you can find. Second, I need newspaper accounts of the case. Thirdly, I need any witness statements you might round up, and then I need all the information our guest has to offer. Hopefully she’ll give us names that’ll help us get some of the aforementioned stuff. And then there’s the guy that Gus’s accused of murdering. He was a private investigator; maybe there’s someone around that knew him? It’s worth a try.”
Casey was silent for a few minutes as he digested all this.
“What’s the plan?” He asked.
“Threefold,” She flashed back at him. First, we find any legal holes or mistake’s the original police investigation made. Second, we discredit the hell out of the DNA evidence, and third, we find out who the real killer was.
“So we really need all the information we can get from the sister tomorrow morning.”
“No question. By the way, what was that remark Les said about eating breakfast all about?”
“You mean breakfast like a king, lunch like a queen, and dinner like a pauper?”
“That’s it. Where did that come from?”
“Believe it or not, it came from the sister. She said it was kind of an unofficial motto for the nunnery. And after the breakfast they gave us I believe her.”
“Hmmm. I guess I better be on my toes tomorrow morning then.”
Smitty and Casey both looked at her in surprise. Smitty spoke first, “You’re going to cook for us? I thought you were the soul of women’s lib.”
“I am, but I can cook if needed. Just don’t expect it from me,” she frumped.
CHAPTER 38
Josie was up and dressed early the next morning. She headed to the kitchen to put together a killer breakfast, only to find the sister already there sipping a cup of coffee.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she greeted.
Josie smiled. “You must be kidding. With this gang of miscreants? I’m surprised you haven’t been visited by a couple of the guys in their shorts.”
“Actually I have, at least one. I’ve never seen anyone go in and out of a door so fast in my life. One glimpse of me sitting here and he was gone.” They both laughed.
Josie asked, “You want to help? There’ll probably be at least nine for breakfast.”
“Only nine? I’m used to cooking for twenty or so most mornings. Of course we have a lot of helpers.”
Between the two of them, they had a large breakfast of French toast and bacon together with lots of coffee ready in no time. Smitty had just returned from the hospital where he’d had a chance to visit with the doctor and learned that Gus was barely holding his own. He confronted the sister, “Sister, you gotta pray for him, please,” He added.
She reached out and put her
hand on his arm, “I have been, and I shall continue,”
Smitty stood still for a second, then added, “They have police guards there, and they said the police, the guards, even the D.A.’s office is under investigation by the grand jury about how Gus got stabbed. Driving back, I was trying to figure out why someone’s so anxious to finish Gus off,” Smitty added.
“One idea,” Josie said. “The unsolved crimes department of the Police operates separately from the D.A.’s office. It’s possible they re-opened the case, and now someone’s trying to stop the investigation?”
Smitty stopped in his tracks, grabbed Josie’s arm and said, “So much they’re willing to murder? What in hell are we up against?”
“Maybe we should back down?” Josie asked.
“And let Gus down? No way not never,” Smitty vehemently responded.
Josie rejoined the sister in the kitchen, and Smitty joined the gang in the dining room.
As the sister and Josie made repeated trips between the kitchen and the dining room, Casey quickly and quietly warned the gang to be on their good behavior around their guest in his own inimitable style. “Keep the fucking swearing down,” he whispered.
“A sister? Living here? It’ll be like being back in school again,” one groaned.
“Don’t jump to conclusions. Remember the sister at school that had a better jump shot than you did? Well that’s this one. She’s a regular,” Smitty advised.
In a few minutes, Josie and the sister entered carrying a huge platter of breakfast and Sister Agnes announced herself. “Hi guys. I’m Sister Agnes, and I’m your new sous chef, at least for a while. You can call me Sister.”
Everybody introduced everybody, and they sat down to eat. There was a brief moment of confusion as the sister bowed her head to say grace just as two of the gang reached across the table to spear a slice of ham. With forks held high in mid-air they both realized their error and awkwardly brought their arms down and bowed their heads to join the sister. For the first time in Josie’s memory grace was said at her father’s breakfast table.
Several times during breakfast questions were asked of the sister about her role in the case. Casey suggested that due to the sensitivity of the subject, maybe they should wait until after breakfast to start her story.
“No need,” Sister Agnes stated. “If you’re referring to the rape that happened years ago to Jeannine? There’s no need to wait. As far as I’m concerned, Jeannine and Sister Agnes are two different people. Sister Agnes can talk or think about Jeannine with no sense of embarrassment.” She paused for a moment, and then with a sly look at the guy who had intruded on her in the kitchen, said, “Unless one of you finds the subject embarrassing?”
A quick babble of naysaying ensued, and she said, “Then fire away with your questions if you wish.”
Smitty looked at Casey. Casey looked to Josie. Josie tentatively said, “I don’t know where to begin.”
Sister Agnes stepped into the silence. “Why I don’t tell you what happened, and then you can ask your questions?”
Josie agreed, but insisted they clean up the table and move into the living room first.
Everyone pitched in and in a few minutes the dining room was cleaned up and the entire group moved to the living room.
“I was only eighteen then and pretty darn naïve,” she began, then added, “Just out of high school.” She turned to Josie. “You went to Cal, right?”
Josie nodded in affirmation.
“You know how intimidating it can be, a huge campus and hundreds of strangers.” She paused. “I was entirely on my own except for a couple of high school friends I roomed with.”
Josie sympathetically asked, “What about your family? We were told you didn’t have a family.”
“True, but who told you that?”
Josie hesitated. It had been Peterson who had mentioned what the killer Lanner had confided to him. She wished she hadn’t asked. They didn’t want Peterson to know about her and had sent him to another of the gang member’s houses.
“I’m not sure where I heard that,” she simply said.
“It’s true. My father was killed in Vietnam, and my mother died of cancer when I was seventeen. So I was really on my own. We had lived in an apartment, and when my mother found out she was dying, she paid the rent forward for a year and made the landlord promise I could stay until I graduated.”
All this was said without a trace of emotion, very matter of fact.
She continued, “I think it was the loneliness and no friends or family to rely on that got me in trouble. One day, I was approached by a girl from a minor sorority and asked if I was interested. To make a long story short, I jumped at the chance.
“At first it was great. Lots of new friends, older members that knew their way around, people to study with. Some partying. Everything was fine. Then toward the end of the school year, I found out they were affiliated with one of the fraternities and they had a must-attend social every year. I hadn’t been dating and wasn’t excited about going, but they told me it was a must, so I went.”
She paused and asked for more coffee. “To me, this is interesting,” she said as she sipped. “I’ve relived this many times in my mind, but it’s been years since I talked about it out loud. I’m having trouble saying “I” when I’m talking about Jeannine.”
“We understand. You’re doing fine,” Casey said encouragingly.
She smiled a thank you. “Actually, it was fairly quiet for a frat house party. Lots of drinking and dancing mostly beer. Quite a bit of intimacy, what we called necking back then. I felt a little left out, I guess, because most of the girls had been dating some of the guys there. The party got a little wilder as the evening wore on, and I noticed that some of the couples disappeared for a while.”
“Sounds pretty normal to me,” Casey injected.
Josie shot him a dirty look.
“I thought so too back then,” the sister agreed, then went on with her story.
“I was sitting alone by the punch bowl when this young man came and sat beside me. ‘Noisy isn’t it?’ he said. He had said exactly what I had been thinking. I had to agree. One thing led to another, and we had an intelligent conversation for quite some time. After a while, he offered to get me another glass of punch and suggested that we drink it out on the balcony where it was quieter.”
Everyone had a pretty good idea of what was to come and they were silently wrapped up in her story.
“That was a mistake. It was cold and the punch was hot, and I drank a lot trying to keep warm, and that was the last thing I remember until I woke up naked in a strange bed the next morning. It only took a few moments for me to realize I’d been drugged and raped. The next moment, I realized there was a naked man in bed with me. I was eighteen, naked, raped, and in a fraternity house. All I could think of was to get dressed and get out of there. I was so ashamed. Fortunately, the young man was sleeping the sleep of the dead and never stirred. At first, I couldn’t bear to look at him, but when I finally did, I saw it wasn’t the young man from the night before.” She hesitated, then resolutely continued. “I know the second guy raped me,” she hesitated again, “I mean there were signs.” Now she rushed through the rest of her narrative. “So the kid from the night before either drugged me and turned me over to that guy or they both raped me.” She stopped and bit her lip. Nobody commented.
In a moment, she shook herself and sighed. “And that’s what started the whole mess.”
They were all silent for several minutes until finally Josie shook her head and said, “You were drugged?”
“I must have been, although the guy said I’d been more than willing to go up to his room with him.”
“While you were unconscious? Hah!” Les snorted.
“So what happened?” Josie asked.
“Well I talked it over with some of the girls at the sorority, and they gave me all kinds of advice. They said that the guy I described that gave me the drug had to be Henry, Henny for s
hort, and that he was a senior and came from a rich family.
I decided to lodge a complaint with the Chancellor’s office, and they took me very seriously and called “Henry” in for an interview. Afterwards, they told me he denied spending the night with me and totally denied setting another guy on to me. The Chancellor’s office said it was his word against mine and there was nothing they could do.
“The bastard!” Casey exclaimed.
“Yes, probably so,” the sister agreed, still in a once removed story telling mode. She continued. “Anyway the girls at the sorority weren’t about to let them get away with something like that, and they raised a big stink with the Chancellor. Finally the University hired a private investigator to see if “Henry” had a history of this kind of behavior, or if they could link him to something called GHB, evidently a date rape drug.”
“That’s the least they could do,” Smitty observed. “If you’d been my daughter, I would’ve killed the bastard,” then quickly added, “Pardon my French, Sister.”
She ignored Smitty’s outburst. “That’s when things started to unravel. The Chancellor’s office called me and told me to be sure and stay within reach. They had received word from the private investigator that he had what he called exonerating information and would be over that afternoon and he wanted me present.
“I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through the whole explanation again with another party, but the Chancellor insisted, so I agreed. That was in the morning almost a week after I was raped. Then at four o’clock that afternoon, the Chancellor’s office called again and said it wouldn’t be necessary to come in after all. It wasn’t until later that I found out that the private investigator had been killed.”
Casey and Josie looked at each other. “Holy mackerel,” Casey whispered. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Josie nodded as the sister continued.
“Then that afternoon, I began getting scary phone calls.”
“Threatening?” Casey asked.
