The Mother's Day Murder

by Lee Harris

  “She told you that?”

  “Yes, she did, and she denied the truth of the accusation. She couldn’t give me any more information because she said you were the one who got it firsthand from the girl.”

  “I was.”

  “OK, then.” He flipped a page. “Let’s do it.”

  I told him what I knew, mentioning the hospital, the adoption agency, and Mrs. DelBello. I assured him I had no idea who the dead girl was. During the brief period that I knew her, I had been convinced she was Tina Richmond.

  We finished fairly quickly and I asked him if he could give me a picture of the dead girl. He asked what I wanted it for.

  “Someone at or near St. Stephen’s must have seen her,” I said. “I’d like to see if someone recognizes her face.”

  “We’ll be looking into that ourselves.”

  “Sister Joseph and I may think of people that don’t occur to you.”

  He stared at me, kind of sizing me up. Then he reached into a pocket and pulled out a small snapshot. “If you find a connection, I hope you’ll share it with me.”

  “I will.”

  He handed me the picture and I looked at it, a chill running through me. It was surely the face we had seen this afternoon, cold and pale and unmoving, but I wondered if it would be recognized by people who had known her when she was warm and filled with color and life.

  “Not pretty,” he said.

  “Do you know yet if she was shot with Mr. Kovak’s gun?”

  “Not yet. The autopsy’s tomorrow. I only got these pictures because I made a special request.”

  Two minutes later I was knocking on Joseph’s door.

  “I didn’t expect you to tell him,” I said to her.

  “Chris, I really couldn’t let you put yourself in a position of withholding information.”

  “I told him what Anita told me. There’s nothing else. He gave me this.” I showed her the picture.

  “Will you come up to St. Stephen’s yourself or shall I show it around?”

  “I’ll come up tomorrow. I’ll bring Eddie.”

  “He’ll get plenty of attention.”

  “Joseph, this is very awkward. I don’t know your name. If I’m going to look into this, I’ll need it.”

  “I was christened Katherine Marie. My family name is Bailey. Both my parents are dead. I have two sisters who are married and still live in Ohio and a brother who is somewhere on God’s earth, but we don’t know where. His name is Timothy.” She took the little notepad by the side of the telephone and wrote on it. “Here are my sisters’ names and addresses and the address where I grew up.”

  “What about the insurance company you worked for the year of your leave?”

  She wrote on a second sheet. “Anything else?”

  There was something else but I didn’t want to ask. “I think that’s it.”

  “I’ll give you the name of my cousin’s son, too,” she said.

  I took the small pieces of paper and put them in my bag without looking at them. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Happy Mother’s Day,” Joseph said.

  11

  Jack and I talked about it, of course. I mentioned that I had thought he might stand beside me as my attorney when I was questioned and he admitted he had thought about it, but decided there was no reason to and doing so would just have antagonized the police. It really wasn’t until after we had both been questioned the first time that the issue of the ax had come up.

  “You think it’s ours, don’t you?” I asked.

  “I’m sure of it. Ours is missing. What the hell was that girl thinking?”

  “Mel and I talked about the tree with her yesterday. She seemed very distressed that people would fight over something so inconsequential. I think maybe she decided to take care of it her own way. She could have chopped it down, put the ax back in the garage, and gone back to bed before we were up.”

  “It sounds crazy, but I told you, she struck me as not very stable.”

  I had showed him the picture. “I’m taking Eddie up to St. Stephen’s tomorrow to try to see if anyone up there recognizes that girl.”

  “Better be careful. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Oakwood cops take a trip up there themselves. They have to start somewhere and that’s about the only place to begin.”

  “I’m really troubled by the coincidence of this girl being born in that hospital during a time when Joseph was in the area.”

  “You don’t really think—”

  “I don’t. But she visited that hospital. She was there a lot. She may never have been on the floor where new mothers are, but she went up and down in elevators with people who did visit that floor. There’s a connection somehow. I have to try to find that Mrs. DelBello and see if she remembers handling an adoption that year from that hospital.”

  “Go to it.”

  “That was a great dinner, Jack.”

  He gave me a grin and leaned over and kissed me. “Suitable for a great mommy. Not to mention a great wife.”

  “Wow. I’m starting to feel victim to the sin of pride.”

  “You deserve it. For myself, it’s lust I have to watch out for. You look very sexy right now.”

  I gave him a hug. “Yellow roses, filet mignon, chocolate cake to die for, and now he says I look sexy. You must be looking for a nomination for perfect husband of the year.”

  “Too many contenders. Let’s go up and work off all those calories.”

  Eddie and I drove up to St. Stephen’s the next morning. Angela knew I was coming and ran out to greet us, as always the first happy face we saw on our arrival. This time Eddie remembered her and went off happily without me.

  Before that, I showed the picture to Angela, who already knew what had happened in Oakwood.

  “I don’t know, Chris,” she said, holding the picture in front of her and looking at it from different perspectives. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her, but I could be wrong. I sit in that little telephone room and people pass and I just don’t see them.”

  “Well, I’m going to ask around. Have fun, you two.”

  I watched them toddle off, Eddie hanging on to Angela’s finger. Then I went around the outside of the Mother House and entered through the kitchen.

  While many of the nuns enjoyed cooking and got the chance to do so on weekends or special occasions, most of the serious cooking was done by a paid staff, a cook and her helper. They also did the clean-up so they were busy many hours of the day. It was a little after eleven when I stepped into their domain. The cook knew me, but her young assistant was new in the last year or so and we hadn’t met.

  I explained that I was going to show them a picture of an unidentified young woman who was dead and who might have been around the St. Stephen’s kitchen. When they agreed to look at it, I set it on the large wooden counter that they used to prepare the food. I ran my fingers over the worn surface as the cook, Mrs. Halsey, looked at the picture first, taking it in her hand and holding it at arm’s length.

  She shook her head. “They run in and out of here; you know how it is. Maybe I seen her, maybe I didn’t. But I don’t think so.”

  I took the picture back and handed it to Jennifer. “How about you?” I asked. “You think you ever saw her?”

  She walked away from her boss and bent her head over the picture, looking at it intensely, perhaps because she had never seen a snapshot of a dead person. “Maybe,” she said, coming back. “Maybe I saw her outside.”

  “Was she a novice or a student?” I asked, giving her the only choices.

  She shook her head. “Not a novice. You can hardly see their faces anyway the way they walk. She’d’ve been a student.”

  “Thanks, Jennifer.”

  It didn’t mean she was a student, just that she dressed like one. If you saw a girl in street clothes on campus, you assumed she was a student at the college. And there had been secular clothes in the duffle bag I had looked through.

  From there I went to the laundry
. One of the charges of a nun might be to run the washing machines on a particular day, then fold the laundry and distribute it. Habits were generally shared, a nun picking up as many as she needed for the coming week. There was no way of knowing when Anita had acquired her habit but if she hadn’t actually taken it from the real Tina’s room or from the room of another novice, I could think of no other source. The convent orders habits from a distributor and they are sent by mail or by a package service. You can’t exactly walk into Bloomingdale’s or Sears and buy a Franciscan habit.

  All the washing machines were going when I walked in. A nun was pulling clothes out of a dryer and I waited for her to turn around.

  “Kix!” she said, calling me by my old nickname. “Where’s the little one?”

  It was Sister Magdalena, a woman about sixty whom I’d known since I went to live at St. Stephen’s. “He’s having a good time with Angela. How are you?”

  “My knees hurt. I bet you’ve heard me say that before.”

  “Only about a hundred times. Maybe you shouldn’t be doing work that makes you bend and lift.”

  “Oh, it’s better that I do it. My knees are already gone. No sense making someone else suffer.” She grinned at me and picked up a plastic laundry basket and set it on a table, ready for sorting.

  “I want to ask you if you saw the girl in this picture.” I held it so she couldn’t see it. “She’s dead in the picture. I want you to prepare yourself.”

  “Well, we’ve been hearing about this all morning, I guess. Let me see it.”

  I handed it to her. She wore large bifocals and she peered through them at the black-and-white face.

  “She could be a student. I don’t know many of them anymore. You should really talk to Sister Bernadette. She’s in the laundry more than I am. Is it the laundry you’re interested in?”

  “I think she may have taken a novice’s habit.”

  “So that’s where it went.”

  “Where what went?”

  “One of the novices said she was missing a habit after the others took theirs.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “Oh, maybe a week, maybe ten days.”

  “And they never found it?”

  “Not that I heard. You ask Sister Bernadette. She’ll tell you.”

  “Where can I find her?”

  She looked at the big round clock on the wall. “I’d guess she’s setting the tables for lunch right now.”

  “Thanks. You’re a doll.”

  “That’s what they all say,” she said, her face all lit up. “That’s what they all say.”

  I found Sister Bernadette exactly where I had been told to look. She was distributing silverware in the dining room for the noonday meal and she dropped a bunch of it noisily when she looked up and saw me.

  “I saw Angela walking around with a little boy so I figured you might be around. I didn’t think he’d come up here by himself yet.”

  “Not quite yet. How are you doing?”

  She told me in some detail, making light of a problem that had hospitalized her a few months ago. The average age of this convent was getting older and older as the number of novices declined and the women who had been vigorous forty-five-year-olds when I came to live here were now in their sixties and somewhat less vigorous.

  When we had finished our chat, I told her about my conversation with Sister Magdalena and showed her the picture.

  “I probably saw her,” she said, studying the picture. “But I couldn’t swear to it. There are always groups of girls walking around the grounds.”

  “Then she was a student.”

  “If I saw her, I saw her with the students. But I don’t know her name.”

  “Sister Magdalena told me a novice’s habit was missing a week or two ago from the laundry.”

  “Yes, it was. I remember that. It never turned up. One of our girls went to pick up her fresh laundry and she was one short.”

  “Did anyone ever ask you where to find a habit?”

  “Who would ask? If you live here, you know where to look.”

  That was surely true. I was about to say good-bye when Angela dashed in, carrying Eddie.

  “Chris, Chris, I’ve been looking all over for you. Joseph said to tell you that Tina came back last night and you can talk to her anytime you want.”

  “That’s great. Where can I find her?”

  “I think she’s in her room.”

  She told me the number and I went upstairs. Eddie would eat with Angela and then she would see if he would nap. In the meantime, I was happy for the opportunity to talk to the real Tina Richmond.

  I tapped on her door and she called, “Come in.”

  There was no similarity between her looks and those of the imposter. The real Tina was heavier and darker than the girl we had met. Her face was fuller, her eyes were brown, and she had none of the other girl’s paleness and fragility. I told her who I was and she said Sister Joseph had filled her in on some of what had happened.

  We sat down, she on the bed and I on the desk chair. I took the picture out and showed it to her.

  She nodded. “I know who she is. We were in a class together.”

  “Did she tell you her name?”

  “Randy something. I don’t know if she ever told me her last name.”

  “Was her name called on the roll?”

  “I don’t think so. I think she just sat in on classes sometimes.”

  “Where did she live?”

  “I’m not sure. She was kind of weird. I think she worked in town. Maybe in a bakery.”

  “So you never met her family.”

  “No.”

  “Did she tell you anything at all about herself?”

  “Nothing that I can remember.”

  “Did she drive to the convent, Tina?”

  “She must have. How else could she have gotten here? It’s an awfully long walk from most of the town and it’s all uphill.”

  “Did you notice her with anyone else? Did she mention any friends at the college?”

  “No. We talked mostly about the class. And she asked me a lot of questions.”

  “What about?”

  “About being a novice, what we did, how we lived, what our rules were. I thought she might be interested in becoming a nun.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She asked about some of the nuns, what they were like.”

  “Do you remember which ones?”

  “Sister Joseph, some of the others. And she wanted to know about the Villa, who lived there.”

  It sounded to me as though the imposter had picked up a lot of useful information from Tina. “Sister Joseph said you lost your purse. Can you tell me about it?”

  “I was carrying a lot of things and I must have left it behind somewhere. I went back to all the places I could remember being and it wasn’t there. I was really lost. It had all my identification and I knew I was going home for the Mother’s Day weekend and I might need it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I got another college ID before I left.”

  “The girl in that picture was carrying your purse.”

  She looked at me. “You think she stole it from me?”

  “She got it somehow. Do you remember the last time you saw her?”

  “I really don’t. But it was more than a week ago, I think.”

  “Is it possible that the last time you saw Randy was when you missed your purse?”

  She thought about it. “It could have been. This is awful. Why would she want my purse? I didn’t carry much money in it. Anyone who knows novices knows they don’t have a fortune with them.”

  “It may have been the ID that she wanted. Tell me, Tina, did you know who I was before today?”

  “I’ve heard your name mentioned. I think I saw you once when you came up with your little boy.”

  “Did you know where I lived?”

  “No.”

  “Did Randy ask you about me?”

/>   “Not that I remember.”

  I heard bells and I looked at my watch. “It’s lunchtime and I don’t want to keep you. If you think of anything else, I’ll be here for a while this afternoon and Sister Joseph can always get a message to me. I hope you’re happy at St. Stephen’s.”

  She smiled. “I am. Very happy.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

  * * *

  I joined Joseph in her office for lunch. It had just arrived when I got there and she had the long conference table set up with our trays.

  “Your motel room seemed very nice. I hope you slept well,” I said when we sat down.

  “I did, but I had that poor girl on my mind. There was a call for you from Jack a little while ago. I didn’t know where you were so I talked to him. Detective Joe Fox called him this morning and said Jack’s fingerprints and the girl’s fingerprints were on the ax.”

  “I’m not surprised.” I looked at the tray with appreciation. There was a cup of wonderful-smelling soup, a salad with chicken, a soft roll and butter, and some cookies. Joseph had a carafe of fresh coffee for our empty cups.

  “I’ve just been talking to Tina Richmond. She knew the other girl and said her name was Randy. She really didn’t know much else about her. She said they talked about the class. This Randy appeared to be auditing it. Her name was never called on the roll.”

  “So she must have followed Tina one day to see where she was going because she knew she wanted to play the part of a novice.”

  “She also asked questions about being a novice and about some of the nuns. Tina remembers that your name came up.”

  “That fits with what we know.”

  “Why did she pick me to come to?” I asked.

  “Perhaps she knew we were friends.”

  “I wonder if she was living with someone nearby. She certainly wasn’t living at the convent.”

  “It’s hard to find out when we don’t have a name. If she rented a room in town, who would notice she was gone until the next rent day?”

  “Joseph, do you have any empty rooms in the dorm?”

  She left the table and went to the file cabinet near her desk. She pulled a folder from a drawer and brought it back to our table. “You’re thinking she might have been a squatter in an empty room?”