by Lee Harris
“I don’t think so. Officer Malcolm,” I added, “said a detective would probably question us.”
“I’m sure they’ll dig one up, maybe from the county. Are you going to tell Sister Joseph what Tina said?”
“I think I have to. It could be connected with her death.”
“Not if Kovak did it.”
“There’s so much going on here, Jack. How is it possible for a man to become so enraged over a tree that he would murder a girl who saw him cut it down?”
“Mr. Brooks?”
We turned around. Coming toward us from the driveway was another Oakwood police officer.
“I’m Jack Brooks. Something up?”
“Do you folks have an ax?”
“I think so. It’s in the garage. Why?”
“I’d like to see it, if you don’t mind.”
“No trouble.”
I checked Eddie, who was sitting on the patio and playing with toys. Then I followed them to the garage.
“You know where the ax is, Chris?”
“Along the right-hand wall somewhere. It should be hanging so that Eddie can’t reach it.”
“I don’t see it.”
I felt myself becoming impatient. What did this policeman want with our ax and why couldn’t Jack just find it? I walked in alongside my car and looked up. We had other tools hanging from hooks that Jack had installed after Eddie was born and we became more careful, a spade, a hoe, a rake, a leaf rake, even a pitchfork, which I had teased him made him look like a Russian peasant at work. I couldn’t find the ax.
“Any reason you’re looking for it?” Jack asked the officer.
“Mr. Kovak’s ax is in his garage and so is the Greiners’. We’re trying to find out where the ax that cut down the tree came from.”
“Well, it didn’t come from here,” Jack said, and I could hear irritation in his voice.
“But you own one?”
“Yes, we own one. I had to cut down some small trees last summer and I bought one. It should be right here.”
“On that empty hook?”
“Yeah, on that empty hook.”
“If you find it, will you give me a call?”
“I’ll do that,” Jack said. He wasn’t using his friendly, suburban homeowner voice. He was sounding more like a put-upon New York cop.
“This is not possible.”
We looked at each other, both of us too confused and surprised to know what else to say. “Was the garage door locked last night?” I asked.
“I don’t know. You don’t know either, I can tell.”
He was right. Although Jack is very security conscious, we weren’t very careful about locking the garage. Our garage is not attached to the house so it’s not a way inside. It’s very old, the lock might qualify as an antique, and we frequently have trouble locking and unlocking it. Usually, I park my car inside and Jack parks his just outside the garage door. The only things inside that can be stolen are garden tools and a couple of Eddie’s outdoor toys. So we don’t worry about it very much.
“You know what he’s driving at, don’t you?” Jack said.
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“Did you see the ax that was used to cut down the tree?”
“I saw it lying there but I didn’t go over to look at it.”
“You think it was ours?”
“Jack, it was an ax. It had a long handle and an ax blade. I’m not an expert on tools. I have no idea who the manufacturer of our ax is. I’m just starting to feel that we’re in the middle of something terrible.”
“That’s an understatement.” He looked as angry as I had ever seen him. “I’m going in and changing. Let’s get Eddie fed and off to his nap so we can go through the garage. Maybe I put the damn thing somewhere else, like the basement. I wish I could remember the last time I used it.”
We went inside and I got Eddie’s lunch started. While I was setting things out, the front doorbell rang. What now? I thought as I went to answer it.
“Flowers for Mrs. Brooks,” the young man holding a large box said.
“Oh.” Everything inside me melted. I forgot the missing ax, poor Tina, Joseph on her way to make a terrible identification. My husband had sent me flowers and as always happened, I felt teary.
“Enjoy them,” the young man called as he went back to the van parked in front of our house.
I opened the box in the living room and found a dozen yellow roses and a small card. I told Eddie I’d be right back and I carried it all upstairs to our bedroom. Jack was pulling a sweatshirt over his head when I walked in. As he looked at me, he smiled.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling tears tumble down my cheeks.
He took the box, put it on the bed, and put his arms around me. “Best mommy in the world,” he said.
“Thank you.” I kissed his neck. “Thank you, thank you.”
“Let me put my sneakers on and I’ll be right down.”
“They’re just beautiful.” I kissed him again and went downstairs.
Joseph arrived soon after Eddie had gone to sleep. Jack was out back looking for our missing ax and I was starting to think of this as a sick comedy rather than a tragedy, until I looked at Joseph’s face. She looked awful.
“This is not the kind of news I have ever gotten before,” she said when she was sitting in our family room. “I haven’t called Tina’s parents yet. I thought I’d like to see her first.”
“Sure. Let’s have a light lunch and then I’ll call the police. They’ll drive us over.”
“You don’t have to come, Chris.”
“Yes, I do.”
She looked at the vase with the yellow roses. “It’s Mother’s Day, isn’t it?” She smiled. “And someone remembered you.”
“Yes. He’s very good at remembering. He’ll be in in a minute.”
The door closed just about then and Jack came in. He’s very formal with Joseph, very respectful. They shook hands and he asked if she had had a good ride up. Then we sat down to our lunch.
“I hope you’ll stay overnight, Sister Joseph,” Jack said. “I’ve made a reservation for you at our local motel and I’m cooking dinner for us.”
“Let me see how the afternoon goes, Jack. Thank you very much.”
As soon as we were done, I called Officer Malcolm and he came over. I introduced him to Joseph and he apologized to have taken her away from her work.
“We have a detective on his way right now. He’ll be coming over to look at the room Miss Richmond slept in and to talk to you.” He said this to Jack who replied that it was fine; he had no plans to go anywhere at the moment.
We went out and sat in the back of the police car. Officer Malcolm assured us this would take very little time.
“Have you notified her parents yet?” I asked him.
“No, ma’am. I’d like her identified before we make the call.”
“I’ll call them,” Joseph said. “I think that would be much better than their hearing it from a police officer.”
He said nothing else for the rest of the drive, which took only ten minutes. I didn’t tell Joseph what I wanted to discuss with her, deciding that could wait till we were back at the house with no strangers present.
“I’ll drop off you ladies and park the car,” Officer Malcolm said as he entered the hospital complex.
“We’ll be glad to walk,” Joseph said, but he swung around the front of the building and stopped at the main entrance.
“Won’t take a minute.” I closed the door and he drove off.
“Thank you for coming, Chris. This is a terrible thing to have to do.”
“I wouldn’t have let you come alone. And besides, I want to make sure this is the person who stayed with us for the last few days. I didn’t see her face this morning.”
Officer Malcolm returned and led us through the hospital as though he knew the way, which surprised me. There weren’t many mysterious deaths in the Oakwood area.
I knew this hospita
l myself because until a few years ago my cousin’s home for retarded adults was housed in a wing and I visited him there frequently. I had even had an experience in the basement, where we were now headed, that I would be happy to forget.
“They know we’re coming,” Officer Malcolm said. “They’ve got her ready.” We were standing in front of a door that said MORGUE and I was feeling very jittery. “You ladies OK?”
We nodded and he opened the door. Inside there were two pallets with covered bodies on them. A woman in scrubs was sitting at a desk and turned when we entered.
“Officer Malcolm?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. This is Mrs. Brooks and Sister Joseph.”
“I’m Dr. Kenworthy. You’re here to see the girl who was shot this morning?”
“Yes,” we both said.
“I’m sorry we’re not set up with TV cameras to make it easy on you. I’ll draw the sheet back and you can see her face.”
We walked closer and Dr. Kenworthy turned down the sheet.
“That’s Tina,” I said, feeling the horror of seeing a young person lying stiff and without color.
Joseph moved a little closer. She took her glasses off and rubbed them on her habit, her eyes never moving from the still face. She put her glasses back on and stood for another moment. Then she shook her head. “I’ve never seen her before,” she said.
“That’s not Tina?” I asked.
“No. She’s about Tina’s age, but Tina doesn’t look anything like that.”
“Would you like to walk around and look at her from the side?” the doctor said.
“No. I’m sure. That’s not Tina Richmond.” She turned away from the body and I could see the distress in her face.
“Thanks, Doctor,” Officer Malcolm said.
The doctor looked startled. She stood beside the girl’s body and watched as we left the room.
9
There was a police car outside our house when we got back. Officer Malcolm thanked us and dropped us off on the driveway.
“I thought for a moment I just wasn’t recognizing her,” Joseph said as we walked toward the front door. “But that’s not Tina. I’ve never seen that girl before and she looks nothing like Tina. I’ll call her home when I get back to St. Stephen’s and make sure everything’s all right.”
“Joseph, I’d like you to stay overnight. I would have given you our guest room but it’s where Tina—or whoever she is—stayed and the police asked us not to touch it till they’ve had a chance to look at it. Jack and I are paying for your motel room and I think you’ll be very comfortable there. There are some things we should talk about.”
She looked at her watch. “If you think it’s important, I’ll stay.”
“I do. You can call St. Stephen’s and tell them. And call the Richmonds also. It looks like the detective is here, so I’ll have to answer more questions. Let’s go inside.”
The detective was upstairs looking at Tina’s room. Jack came down and I told him what had happened.
“This is weird. Is Sister Joseph staying over?”
“Yes. I told her I wanted to talk to her.”
“I’ll be going out in a while to get the makings of dinner so you two can be alone. Does she have any idea who this girl was?”
“None.”
“Well, they’re taking prints off the ax they found. I think it’s ours. They think it’s ours, too. Who the hell can that girl have been?”
“She was carrying Tina’s ID. I looked in the room before I was told not to. Tina’s Social Security card is in her bag.”
“I hope the real Tina is alive and well.”
“Joseph is checking on that now.”
It turned out to be rather a longer conversation than I had anticipated and before Joseph was off the phone, the detective came downstairs.
“You must be Mrs. Brooks,” he said affably. “I’m Detective Joe Fox. Sorry it took me so long to get here but they couldn’t find me.”
“That’s OK.” I offered my hand and we shook.
“Can we sit somewhere and have a little chat?”
“Let’s try the dining room,” I said.
We sat down at the table, which I used more for arranging my notes than for eating, and he took out his notebook and pen.
“Have you heard about the identification of the body?” I asked.
“Not yet. That’s where you just came from, right?”
“The dead girl is definitely the one who stayed here for the last three nights, but Sister Joseph, the Superior of St. Stephen’s Convent, says it isn’t Tina Richmond.”
“Well, that’s a nice turn of events. I take it she’s here for me to talk to.”
“She’s on the phone now, talking to the real Tina Richmond’s parents.”
“Who live in New Jersey,” he said, looking at a page in his book.
“That’s right.”
“Well, I’ll be talking to her when you and I get finished.”
He went through everything Officer Malcolm had gone through and then said, “Wayne Malcolm tells me this young lady had some kind of problem that you refused to talk about.”
“Detective, at this point, having found out that the girl I thought was Tina isn’t even Tina, I don’t think I should talk about something that involves other people and was probably a total fantasy anyway. And if there’s any truth to it, does it involve the real Tina or this poor dead girl?”
He looked at his notebook, which lay in front of him on the table, and frowned. “I see your point, but the story might help us find out who this ‘poor dead girl’ is.”
“I don’t think so. I think it may just hurt the reputation of people who have nothing whatever to do with this girl.” I was trying to be as vague as possible. I certainly didn’t want him to suspect that Sister Joseph was the person I was protecting.
“I’ve talked to your husband,” he said. “He won’t say anything about it either.”
“What he knows he heard from me. He’s not a primary source.”
“I’ll let you go on this for the time being. But if I have to come back, I promise you I won’t be Mr. Nice Guy the second time around.”
“Fair enough.”
“Let’s see if Sister Joseph is off the phone.”
He came with me into the kitchen. The phone was on the counter and Joseph wasn’t there. We went into the family room and Joseph stood up as she saw us.
“I’m Sister Joseph,” she said.
“Detective Joe Fox. Would you like to come with me, Sister?”
I went outside and found Jack still rummaging through the garage.
“You done?”
“For the time being. He’s in the dining room with Joseph. You want to run your errand now so we won’t all starve?”
He gave me a grin. “I’m on my way. And I promise you, nobody will starve.”
The detective left about fifteen minutes later. He said he was finished with the bedroom upstairs, that he had removed everything he needed from the room. Joseph offered to stay there, to save us the expense of the motel, but I felt she would be more comfortable by herself.
I knew Eddie would be up soon and I wanted to get as much of our conversation out of the way as possible before he joined us. We sat in the family room and I asked about her phone call to the Richmonds.
“Tina is there—I talked to her—and she has no idea who would be masquerading as her. She said one thing that was interesting. A few weeks ago she lost her pocket-book. It contained her wallet with a small amount of money, and some identification. She said her Social Security card was there. She thought she might receive the wallet back, minus the money—that often happens, you know; the thief throws away the bag after he’s robbed it—but it never came back, and just this week she applied for a replacement.”
“Where did this happen?”
“She said it was on a day that she was taking classes at the college.”
“So another student might have walked off with it.”
> “That’s right. But she has no idea who that could be, or even if it was a student. She said she was carrying books so she didn’t notice it wasn’t on her arm.”
I knew exactly what she meant. When Eddie was born, I had to carry so many things, I found that occasionally I left my bag behind because other weights took its place on my arm. “The body that we saw a little while ago, you’re sure that wasn’t a student at the college?”
“I’m not sure. I know I said I’d never seen her before, but I really meant that wasn’t Tina. I couldn’t swear I’ve never seen that girl. But she isn’t a novice at St. Stephen’s.”
“Do you usually know all the students?”
“I do usually recognize them. This is very difficult. I’ve been thinking about that poor child, wondering if she might be a student, if she might be someone from town who drops in and listens to lectures. That happens, you know.”
“Someone will report her missing,” I said.
“When she came to you she was dressed in our novice’s habit?”
“Yes. I recognized it immediately when I opened the door. And Tina’s Social Security card was in her handbag. And a newspaper clipping of Tina’s parents with their picture.”
“So there was enough information that this young imposter could have posed as Tina.”
“Where did she get the habit from?”
“I suppose it’s not all that difficult to snatch one from the laundry.”
“You know,” I said, thinking about the days that Tina was here, “I suggested to her that she say her morning and evening prayers. The first morning, she woke up fairly late. In fact, I went upstairs after Jack left and rousted her.”
“So she might not have been on a nun’s schedule.”
“Yesterday she made a point of telling me she had said her prayers.” I opened my notebook. “Joseph, I have to tell you what this girl, whoever she is, said was a problem in her life. It involves you and this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to talk to you about.”
“Go on.” She looked her usual implacable self. If she had any idea of what was coming, I certainly could not see any traces.
“This girl, I’ll call her Tina, told me that she was your natural child.” I had decided to say it as briefly as I could. The details, if Joseph wanted them, would come later.
