“What kind of a discussion makes two faces look like yours?”
Innocently, Jack stepped into his fatal error. “I was just talking to Kate about the possibility of our moving to Marin County.”
Mrs. Bassetti flopped into a chair as if she’d been punched. “Move?” she said, hardly audible.
“Yes, Ma, move. To a better climate, a safer community. A place where a kid can play outside on flat, traffic-free streets.”
His mother raised her chubby hand as if to ward off his attack. “You, Jackie, my own son, want to move my only grandchild away from me? Across a bridge?”
“Twenty minutes away, Ma, forty at the most. To sunshine.”
“You want to take my little family across a bridge?” Even Kate thought she made it sound like across the Sahara Desert.
“For chrissake, Ma. You’re willing to drive alone through Golden Gate Park at ten o’clock at night. Why couldn’t you drive across the Golden Gate Bridge?”
“Bridges scare me,” she said. Her eyes filled with unexpected tears.
“Nothing living or dead scares you!”
“Don’t you dare raise your voice to your mother! And you, Kate?” Before Kate could reply, she answered her own question. “There would be no fight if you wanted to go, too.”
Mrs. B.’s backbone stiffened. She reached over and patted Kate’s hand. Any coldness between them disappeared in that instant. Kate had an invincible ally. She almost felt sorry for Jack.
With blazing eyes, Mrs. B. turned on her son. “What kind of a man did I raise? What kind of a man wants to take his wife away from her family home? The place where she has lived all her life—a nice place—and transport her to Marin? Bad enough you let her work and strangers take care of your child.”
Oh, oh, thought Kate, here it comes. But she was wrong. Child care was small potatoes compared to a move.
“Now you want to move away from your family. Why? What is wrong with us?”
“Ma, you’re getting crazy. It’s just that I think it might be a better place to raise a kid.” Jack ran his fingers through his dark curly hair.
“What do I hear? You call your own mother crazy? Then you say I didn’t raise you in a good place? What was wrong with your home? It wasn’t good enough for you? Your father, God rest him, would turn over in his grave if he knew that the house he worked his fingers to the bone for wasn’t good enough for his big-shot son.”
“Nothing was wrong with my home.”
“What then? You turned out to be a criminal or you have TB from the fog? No. You turned out to be a cop and you are never sick.” She considered that for a moment. “What you are getting is a little thick in the middle, Jackie. Even Mrs. Molinari thinks so, and she has bad eyes. Maybe you need more exercise. You get that thickness from your father’s side. None of the Bassettis exercised enough.”
Foolishly, Jack took the diversion as a concession. “So, Ma. It’s getting late. Maybe you should get through the park.”
Acting as if she didn’t hear or see him, Mrs. B. turned her full attention on Kate. “Some of his friends have moved over to Marin. That’s what it is. Jackie was always like that, even when he was little. No mind of his own. He had to have what his friends had, even if it wasn’t good for him. I remember, one time, BoBo Spencer down the block got a BB gun. Nothing would do but Jackie wanted one too. His father said no, it was too dangerous. Jackie threw a fit. Acted like we had deprived him of his heritage. When BoBo shot out Mrs. Brady’s windows and she called the police, it wasn’t such a good thing.” She stopped and gave a satisfied smile.
“If she brings up the motor scooter, I swear I’ll strangle her,” Jack mouthed to Kate.
“Then there was the time with the motor scooter . . .”
“I am a grown man, Ma!” Jack shouted. Even Kate jumped.
A piercing wail drifted down the stairs. Mrs. B. turned on her son. “See what you have done, grown man? Shame on you! Your yelling frightened that sweet baby.” Before either Jack or Kate could react, she ran up the steps.
“God, she can get to me,” Jack said by way of apology.
“You walked right into that one,” Kate couldn’t resist remarking.
“Why did I think she’d be on my side?”
Kate kissed him gently on the cheek. It was warm and moist. “If she has to choose between you and that baby, pal, you’re history.”
“See, John, sweet baby, Mommy and Daddy are not mad.” Mrs. B. stood in the kitchen door bouncing her grandson.
John’s round, downy face was pink with sleep. His tiny lips turned down threateningly. He looked from his mother to his father to his grandmother. His brown eyes were wary. Where the pajama top stretched to reach the bottom, small patches of tummy showed through the gap, reminding Kate of how fast he was growing. He’d need a new pair soon.
“See Daddy kiss Mommy,” Mrs. B. cooed.
Jack kissed Kate on cue. Kate kissed him back and little John did look happier. Maybe her mother-in-law had a point.
“Everyone kiss Nonie.” Mrs. B. extended her face.
John giggled when his father bussed Nonie’s cheek, and stuck out his arms to be taken.
“What kind of a grown man wakes up his own child by yelling?” Mrs. B.’s pleasant tone did not betray the sting of her words. She put the child into her son’s arms. “By the way, Jackie,” she called, heading for the front door, “he has a full diaper. Not even moving to Cordero can change that.”
The nuns sat on two hard plastic chairs in the dimly lit vestibule of St. Agnes’ Hall. In a low voice, Mary Helen filled Eileen in on the details—which were amazingly few—that she’d missed listening to only one side of the phone conversation with Kate Murphy.
“Father Tom, Laura, his mother, are suspects.” Eileen shook her head in disbelief. “That’s what Kate said?”
“Not exactly ‘said,’ but that’s my impression.”
The two old friends sat in perplexed silence, each chewing on her own thoughts. The throb of insects filled the air as the redwood forest settled down for the night. A moth blundered into the vestibule. Drawn to the light, it hit again and again against the heavy glass fixture, unaware that the glass was the only thing saving it from cremation.
All the poor creature is doing is knocking himself senseless, Mary Helen thought. Watching the fluttering moth, she felt much the same. “Why don’t we call it a night?” she suggested.
“I can’t stop thinking about Laura.” Eileen set her chin. “I know she didn’t have anything to do with his death. Nothing whatsoever!” she said in a “that settles that” tone of voice.
“Then, you think it was one of the priests? Father Harrington, perhaps?”
Eileen narrowed her eyes until they were almost slits. “Certainly not!” There was a reproach in her voice. “Just look at those men.”
“I have looked at them,” Mary Helen said, more for the sake of argument than for anything else. “They all appear to be good, dedicated priests.”
“Appear to be?” Eileen was aghast. “You make them sound like ‘whited sepulchers . . . full of dead men’s bones.’ ”
“I never said a thing about sepulchers and bones. You know as well as I do.” She closed her eyes and dug to remember that complicated discourse. “ ‘Things either are what they appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be.’ ” She opened her eyes and smiled, satisfied. “Epictetus,” she said.
Eileen stared at her. “So you are saying that one of the priests is guilty?”
“Of course not! I’m just saying things aren’t necessarily what they appear and that these priests are, after all, only human.”
“Then you should say what you mean,” Eileen snapped. “The March Hare.”
A wild howl from a coyote pierced the still night air. The plaintive wail made Mary Helen shudder. Suddenly she felt an overpowering weariness. Her legs, even her arms, were leaden. It had been a very long day.
“If not Laur
a or the priests, who then?” Eileen was on a roll. “The mother? That seems too unnatural. Sister Felicita? Of course not. She can’t even fire a cook. How could she possibly kill someone? And Beverly? What reason would she have?”
At this point Mary Helen saw no reason to comment since Eileen was answering her own questions.
“Then, who? Nobody—that’s who.”
“Somebody did,” Mary Helen said with her last bit of energy. “That’s the only thing we are sure of.”
Eileen glanced over and stopped. “You look like death warmed over, excuse the expression, old dear, and here I am babbling on and on.”
She took Mary Helen’s arm and helped her up. “Will you be able to sleep? Or will you be awake all night stewing?”
“Right now, I feel as if I could sleep for days,” Mary Helen whispered as she followed Eileen.
The narrow hallway was dark and still. Each step creaked on the waxed linoleum as they moved toward their rooms. The single sharp squawk of a quail carried up from the woods. The silence was so profound that even the jiggle of their doorknobs sounded loud.
How could someone have committed murder and not one of us hear anything? Mary Helen slipped into her cotton nightgown. Voices, sounds, magnify at night. She punched up the pillow under her head. It was very odd that nobody heard anything, she thought, stirring to find a cool spot on the sheets. It was the last thing she remembered thinking clearly all night long.
Tuesday, June 22
St. John Fisher,
Bishop and Martyr
St. Thomas More, Martyr
Day Three
The moment Sister Mary Helen awoke, her mind switched on. That phenomenon was happening less frequently these days, she reflected, her eyes still closed. Most mornings she needed a few seconds to remember what day it was and at least one cup of strong coffee to start her juices flowing.
But not this morning. Laura was on her mind immediately. She needed to talk to the girl before Sergeant Little did.
Opening her eyes, she was amazed to find that the sun, filtering through the evergreens, sent long, bright slashes across the bedclothes. The air, scented with pine, was alive with the chirps and peeps and whistles of birds, all foraging for breakfast.
I must have overslept, she thought, and tried to focus on her watch. Without her glasses, the face was nothing but a blur. Hoping it wasn’t as late as it felt, Mary Helen groped on the nightstand for her bifocals and was relieved to discover it wasn’t even eight o’clock. Surely the sergeant wouldn’t be here yet!
A small spider in the corner above the closet bounced down the wall on a single thread like a miniature mountain climber. “Get up . . . get up,” a woodpecker called sharply. At least, that’s what it sounded like just before he began his steady tapping on a tree trunk. Despite his injunction, Mary Helen still lay thinking.
Last night her mind was muddled with possible murder suspects: Laura, the monsignor, Greg’s own mother, Father Tom, Beverly, and Sergeant Loody; and yes, even poor flustered Felicita. Yet, no one had a reason.
But this morning it seemed quite clear. At the end of my mind, “beyond the last thought rises . . . a gold-feathered bird” of an idea, she thought crazily, as insistent as those blasted birds making all that racket outside her window.
Her idea was quite simple. If I can’t figure out “who dun it,” I’ll figure out who didn’t. If I can’t find out who had a reason, I’ll find out who didn’t have one. It amounts to exactly the same thing, she thought, swinging her feet out from under the covers. Laura seemed the logical place to begin.
From a police point of view, Mary Helen knew that the girl bore all the earmarks of a chief suspect. She had had opportunity. Undoubtedly, she had been the last person—save one—to see Greg Johnson alive. Means: the weapon, a heavy sharp knife, was not hard to come by. As the dishwasher in a well-equipped institutional kitchen, Laura had easy access to one. And finally, motive. As his fiancée, she was surely more emotionally involved with him than anyone, except, perhaps, his own mother. Maybe they’d had a bitter lovers’ quarrel. Laura did have a redhead’s temper. Or Greg had found another girlfriend. Father Tom mentioned the young man’s penchant for the ladies and Laura crazed with jealousy . . .
Even as she thought it, Mary Helen did not believe it. She was as convinced as Eileen that Laura Purcell was innocent of murder. Call it intuition or a hunch, but in her bones, Mary Helen knew that Laura genuinely loved Greg and was shocked by his death. No one, not even Sarah Bernhardt, let alone an undergraduate drama major, could have put on such a convincing performance.
Still, there was no denying that Laura was the most likely suspect. If the real murderer was to be found quickly, Laura was the first one who should be eliminated.
After she’d firmly crossed off Laura, Mary Helen would vindicate Greg’s mother. Marva Johnson was also an unlikely suspect. She would hardly have been in the area. Furthermore, if every mother who said she’d like to “kill” her child was up on charges, there’d be increasingly fewer mothers left in circulation.
And after Mrs. Johnson? Well, she’d have to see where the Spirit led.
Sister Mary Helen was nearly dressed when she heard a cautious tapping on the bathroom door. Sister Eileen peeked around its edge. “Up and at ’em, are you?” she said. “And let me guess. It’s off you are to visit Laura?”
Mary Helen could tell by the touch of the brogue that Eileen was upset. “I wasn’t going without you, if that’s what’s bothering you.” She sat on the edge of the bed and put on her sturdy walking shoes. “I was going to ask you—actually beg you, if necessary—to come along.”
“And what if I wasn’t dressed?”
“I’d wait, of course,” Mary Helen said, wondering why she hadn’t thought to wake Eileen. She really did want her friend along. Unreasonable as it seemed, Felicita was counting on her to clear up this mess. Mary Helen needed all the help she could get.
Without another word, Eileen disappeared and returned, obviously mollified, with two cups of steaming black coffee. “What’s our plan?” she asked. And Mary Helen told her.
The two nuns stopped outside Laura Purcell’s bedroom and listened. Nothing! Mary Helen opened the door a crack. If Laura was still asleep, she wouldn’t waken her. Poor girl was going to need all the rest she could get to face the day.
“Who’s there?” a flat voice asked.
Without any further invitation, they entered. Laura, propped up in bed by two large pillows, stared glassy-eyed. A white sheet pulled tight across her breast and tucked under her armpits left her thin tan shoulders bare. Waves of tousled auburn hair spread across the pillowcases. Her face, wrinkled from sleep, was puffy and pink from weeping.
The moment she saw them, Laura’s eyes filled with fresh tears. “Why did they kill my Greg?” Her soggy face pleaded with them to give her a reason, and her voice teetered before she broke into wild, uncontrollable sobs.
Good night nurse! Mary Helen sighed. This is no time for hysterics. What we need is answers. The girl must “tough up.”
Mary Helen was relieved when Eileen stepped into the bathroom and returned with a damp washcloth. She vaguely remembered reading that a cold, wet washcloth across the face shocks a person out of hysteria. Or was it out of a temper tantrum?
Whichever, Eileen applied the cloth across Laura’s swollen eyes more like a compress than a shock treatment.
“Quite frankly, I am afraid you make the best suspect,” Mary Helen said, hoping her remark would have the effect of a cold cloth.
Laura gasped.
Direct hit! “But I don’t think you did it,” Mary Helen added quickly.
Once bitten, twice shy, Laura peeked out from the end of the compress. “Why don’t you?”
“Because I believe that you were genuinely shocked and disconsolate when you heard the news.”
Slowly, Laura removed the cloth. Tears ran unheeded down her face. “I am so scared.” She sounded like a bewildered child. “And my heart
hurts. I love Greg. We love one another.”
With as much compassion as possible, Mary Helen began the questions she knew Sergeant Little would ask. “When you left St. Colette’s Sunday night, Laura, where did you and Greg go?”
“To the late show. Actually, the last show.” Dully, Laura gave the names of the theater and the movie, as well as the time it showed.
All easily checked, Mary Helen thought, and easily fabricated. “Did anyone you know, actually either of you knew, see you there?”
Laura was silent for what seemed much too long. “The kid at the candy counter might remember us. Greg argued with him about getting more butter on his popcorn.”
“He might,” Mary Helen said, although she doubted it. Half the people who buy popcorn at a show must complain about the little squirt of melted margarine that sits right on the top of the box.
“What did you do after the show?” she asked.
“We went home to our apartment.” Realizing what she had said, Laura’s lips began to quiver.
Mary Helen pretended not to notice. “Did anyone see you going in?”
“On the way we picked up a bottle of champagne at the 7-Eleven. Maybe the guy there would remember.” Laura brightened. “Not too many people buy champagne in the middle of the night.”
Mary Helen nodded. Not at the 7-Eleven, she thought, but didn’t say so. This was not the time to turn into a wine snob. “And?” she urged.
“When we got home, we drank some to celebrate my quitting St. Colette’s and then we made love. Greg was feeling ‘bubbly’ and he wanted to try some of the stuff we saw in the movie, but I just got sleepy.”
“About what time do you figure you fell asleep?” Mary Helen asked, before Laura felt obliged to supply any further details.
“I don’t know. I was asleep when the phone rang.”
Ah! Now they were getting somewhere. “The phone rang? What time was that?”
Death Goes on Retreat Page 11