The Mother's Day Murder

by Lee Harris

  When we finished and Joseph had poured coffee and we had eaten our dessert, I decided the time had come. “Jack and I have been talking,” I said. “We were both quite sure that whoever Randy’s mother was, she wasn’t responsible for Randy’s death. Jack believes that Randy came into your office one night when everyone was asleep and spent a lot of time going through your files.” I glanced over to the large metal cabinets she kept along the wall behind where I was sitting.

  “That’s possible. I sometimes work late in here but once I go to bed, I don’t come back till after breakfast.”

  “And no one else comes in.”

  “They have no reason to.”

  “When Randy came to our house, she knew I was your friend. Do you think she could have found that out from a file you have with my name on it?”

  “I would think she could reasonably deduce it.”

  “We think she may have learned information on other people from your files and that the way she handled that information led to her death.”

  “It sounds possible. She was a clever girl. She lived in one of our empty dorm rooms and no one knew it. She took a novice’s habit and used it for her own purposes. She stole Tina’s handbag so she could pose as a novice. I’m sure what you’re suggesting would not have been out of the question.”

  “I’d like your permission to look through your files while I’m here.” My voice almost gave out as I made my request. It was so preposterous, I didn’t have to listen for the answer.

  “You know I can’t do that, Chris. You know that I would never disclose personal information to anyone.”

  “I had to ask.”

  She smiled. “Just on the chance that you had caught me in a very weak moment.”

  “Why do I think you have a good idea who killed Randy Collins?”

  “Because you think the answer lies in my files. I would guess it isn’t there.”

  “But it might provide an opening,” I said.

  “Because of the nature of this murder, I know many of the facts that you usually come to tell me when you need help. So let’s turn things around. Tell me what I don’t know—or what you don’t know, the tantalizing little things that just don’t seem to fit.”

  “How Randy got to my house,” I said. “She told me she took the train and then a taxi from the Oakwood station. No cab driver has a record or a memory of driving her from the station to anywhere near my house. She was dressed like a novice. No driver would forget her.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I think it’s possible she walked. It would be a long walk and she would have had to ask directions. But it’s more likely that someone drove her.”

  “That sounds right. Especially if no one saw her. She would be hard to forget in the habit.”

  “There was no car or taxi outside when I opened the door.”

  “She might have waited till it left,” Joseph said. “Or she might have asked to be let off around the corner.”

  “And the person who drove her may have come back on Sunday morning and killed her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she knew something about him. Because she blackmailed him.”

  “It certainly makes sense, especially if Randy’s birth mother knew nothing about any of this.”

  “There’s another thing,” I said, stepping into more forbidden territory. “You weren’t at mass at St. Stephen’s that Sunday morning.”

  “That’s true. I attended mass somewhere else.”

  I didn’t expect her to tell me where or why, but I wanted her to know that this was one of those puzzling little problems, and that I believed there was a connection to Randy in Joseph’s absence from mass at the St. Stephen’s chapel. “I believe you know who the killer is,” I said.

  “I don’t know either firsthand or secondhand. I wasn’t there and no one has told me he was the killer or that he knows who the killer was.”

  Which didn’t answer the question I had alluded to. “I understand.”

  “What do you understand?”

  “That you would never break a confidence.”

  “And that’s as true for anyone I know as it is for you, Chris.”

  “I have to go,” I said. “I want to see if I can locate your brother.”

  “Please give him my love,” Katherine Bailey said.

  25

  I called information for a number for Tim Bailey at the address Joseph had given me. I expected to be told that there was no one by that name at that address, but to my surprise, the operator gave me a number. I waited till late afternoon to dial it.

  The voice that answered was that of an older woman. I asked for Timothy Bailey.

  “They’re still gone,” she said.

  I noticed the “they.” “When do you expect him back?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he has any plans to come back right now.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “I guess he’s still in Alaska.”

  “Do you have a number for him there?”

  “I must have it somewhere. Is this some kind of emergency?”

  “It’s a family matter. It’s important that I speak to him.”

  “Just a minute.” The phone was put down with a clatter. She stayed away for about a minute, then picked up again. “Here it is.” She read the number off to me.

  “Is he working there?” I asked.

  “Well, I certainly hope so.”

  “May I ask who you are?”

  “I’m his mother-in-law.”

  “I see. Thank you. I’ll try to call him at this number.”

  “Who are you?”

  “This is Chris.”

  “OK, Chris. Nice talking to you.”

  As I hung up I thought that I had come further than I had expected. I was still a little surprised that Tim Bailey was even listed in the phone book, especially at an address that he obviously hadn’t lived at for some time and had no immediate plans to return to. Eddie was happy working on some toys, so I picked up the phone again and dialed the number in Alaska the woman had given me.

  “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice and I heard a dog barking somewhere.

  “Mrs. Bailey?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d like to talk to Tim, please.”

  “Just a minute.”

  I assumed, since it was after five on the east coast, that it was four hours earlier where I was calling. Still, even in the middle of the afternoon, he was home.

  “Hello?” It was a deep voice with a friendly edge, I thought.

  “Is this Tim Bailey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “My name is Chris Bennett. I’m a friend of your sister Katherine.”

  “Katherine? What’s wrong? What’s happened?” His voice went from easy to worried.

  “Katherine is fine. All your sisters are fine.”

  “OK. I’m glad to hear it. How did you find me?”

  “Your mother-in-law gave me your number.”

  “Is that what she called herself?”

  I didn’t respond to the question. “Mr. Bailey, I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask you about some things that happened a number of years ago.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “About twenty years ago, Katherine took a year off from the convent and went back to Ohio.”

  “Yeah. When a cousin of ours was sick.”

  “That’s right, B.G. I talked to his son recently. During that year, you moved out of your mother’s house.”

  “Around that time. I don’t remember exactly. What’s this all about?”

  “During that year a woman gave birth in Good Samaritan Hospital to a baby girl that she gave up for adoption.” I paused, but he said nothing. “She used the name Katherine Bailey. I think you may know who that woman was.”

  “My sister is a nun. She’s never had any children.”

  “I know that. What I’m saying is that another woman used her name to disguise the
fact that she had a baby without being married.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do. The telephone number the woman gave the adoption agency was the number of the phone in your apartment.”

  “How did you dig this up?”

  “Do you know who the woman is, Mr. Bailey?”

  “Yeah, I know who she is.”

  I took an immense breath. Sometimes I can hardly believe how far I have traveled, metaphorically speaking, from the beginning almost to the end, in this case from a girl in a novice’s habit lying dead on the ground near a chopped-down tree to a man in Alaska who was her father. “And you know she used your sister’s name in the hospital and with the adoption agency?”

  “I know. I’m sorry. We were young, she was pregnant, I couldn’t see myself married much less a father, and this seemed a way out for her. No one would ever know and she could go back to her life without her family being upset, all of that stuff.”

  “I appreciate your honesty, Mr. Bailey.”

  “Does Katherine know this?”

  “Yes. We don’t know who the woman was, but it doesn’t matter.”

  “You want her name?”

  “No. I just wanted to clear up the use of Katherine’s name.”

  “Tell her I’m sorry.”

  “I will. And she asked me to send you her love.”

  I called Joseph and told her quickly what I had learned. She asked for the phone number in Alaska and I gave it to her. It was a short conversation. I had Eddie’s dinner to put together as well as ours and there was nothing further to discuss. The mystery of Randy’s parentage had been solved. I would never know who Randy’s mother was, but I didn’t need to. Her parentage and her murder were separate, except that it was her search for her mother that had led to her demise.

  When Jack and I talked later, I told him where my thinking was leading me now. “Randy spent a week or two in and around St. Stephen’s. During that time she befriended Tina Richmond, stole her purse, took a novice’s habit from the laundry, and, we’re both pretty sure, went through Joseph’s files. She found me there and decided I might be able to help her approach Joseph, although I think she got cold feet about that. She told me she had come here by train and taken a taxi from the station.”

  “But none of the drivers admit driving her here.”

  “So let’s assume that someone at St. Stephen’s drove her.”

  “You mean one of the nuns?” I could hear the shock in his voice.

  “Maybe a nun, maybe someone who works at the convent. There’s a cook, her helper, the groundsman, and some other people who work there. Some of the nuns have cars. The people who work there have cars. Randy could have asked one of them—maybe paid them—to drive her here.”

  “That’s a lot of people to interview. Do you know which nuns own cars?”

  I shook my head. “Randy needed two things, a ride to Oakwood and information about Joseph. Maybe one person gave her both, maybe it was two separate people. She wanted to find out who Joseph was, where she came from, whether she could have had a child, things the nuns wouldn’t ordinarily tell her. I’m going to sit down and review every person I can think of at St. Stephen’s and see if I can figure out which one might be blackmailable.”

  “Just by thinking about it?”

  “As a first step anyway.”

  “Hey, if you can do this all in your head, I know a thousand detectives who’d like to get in on your method. They’ll put you on the squad payroll. Their case clearance rate will skyrocket.”

  “Let’s see if I succeed first.”

  “Good luck, kiddo.”

  That’s the way I felt. I was sure of one thing: No one would gossip about Joseph to a stranger. After dinner I started writing down names as they came to me. As each name appeared on my sheet, I was faced with the impossibility of considering that that woman could have been blackmailed and, even worse, could have fired a bullet into Randy Collins.

  There were the elderly nuns in the Villa. It was crazy to think that a woman—a nun—in her seventies or eighties could have been part of this. There were the active nuns, all of whom I knew, none of whom I disliked, mistrusted, or feared. Angela was a friend. Grace had embroidered the beautiful chapel cloth that my mother-in-law had given to the convent as a gift in honor of our marriage. I considered one after the other, trying to think of gossip I might have heard, a hint of a possible scandal. What kind of scandal can a woman who has lived in a convent for twenty or thirty years become involved in?

  I pushed away the sheet of paper and started another. Harold the groundsman. Harold has dedicated his life to the convent. He is grumpy and difficult, but there is no question he loves his job and reveres the nuns.

  I knew nothing about the cook, Mrs. Halsey. What had Joseph known when she hired her? Maybe there was something there. And then there was Mrs. Halsey’s assistant, Jennifer, who had recognized Randy’s picture but had not seen her wearing the habit. Jennifer was close to Randy’s age. If she didn’t have her own car, maybe she had borrowed her mother’s and taken twenty or thirty dollars from Randy to drive her to Oakwood. She would have to work a number of hours to earn that much money.

  I started feeling encouraged. Maybe this would prove fruitful. And maybe, instead of calling Joseph tomorrow to ask about these two women, I would ask Angela. Angela had her fingers on the pulse of the convent.

  I sat back and pushed myself to think of other people that might have known personal information about Joseph or who had a car, or both. Some kind of cleaning service came in to clean up the dormitory and the classrooms. I would have to get their names.

  And then it hit me. There were men working on renovating dormitory rooms. I had met them and they had denied knowing Randy, but people don’t always tell the truth. Randy could have met them, especially as she was squatting on the same floor in the dorm that they were working on. Perhaps one of those men had driven her to Oakwood. I tried to recall how old those men were and how many there had been.

  “You getting somewhere?” Jack asked, looking up from the newspaper.

  “Maybe.”

  “Got a coupla nuns who’re murder suspects?”

  “Don’t be nasty. I’m thinking of workmen in the dormitory.”

  “OK. Sounds a lot better than a nun.”

  “He could have driven her down here that Thursday afternoon and dropped her off at the corner.”

  “Why’d he come back on Sunday?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  “Maybe he was going to drive her back to St. Stephen’s on Sunday and he came early.”

  “Who did Sister Joseph meet on Sunday morning?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe she just decided to go to mass somewhere else.”

  “It’s a loose end, Chris.”

  “Only if I can’t put my finger on a killer.”

  In the morning I called the convent. Angela answered and I asked her what she knew about the men working in the dormitory.

  “I’ve never seen them, Kix. Joseph hired them and they’ve been around for a while. They should be finishing up soon.”

  “Are they there today?”

  “They should be.”

  “Can I talk to Joseph?”

  It took a few minutes before they found her and when she answered I could tell she was in or near the kitchen because of the noise.

  “Joseph,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about people at St. Stephen’s who might have driven Randy to my house. I’d like to come up and talk to the workmen working in the dormitory.”

  “They’re here today. That won’t be a problem.”

  I said I would leave very shortly and would bring Eddie along. Before I left, I called and let Jack know where I was going.

  “You better watch yourself,” he warned. “I don’t need a hostage situation with my wife and son as hostages.”

  I promised I’d keep Eddie away from my su
spects, which didn’t satisfy him very much, and we took off.

  Two of the nuns in the Villa took Eddie for a walk while Joseph and I went to the dorm. Upstairs the men were working, talking loudly enough that we heard them as we climbed the stairs. When they saw Joseph, they quieted down and became very deferential.

  “This is my friend Mrs. Brooks,” Joseph said. “We would like to ask you gentlemen some questions, one at a time so that we don’t stop your work.”

  “You’re the lady with the picture of the dead girl,” one of the men said.

  “That’s right.”

  “We told you we didn’t see her.”

  “There are other things we want to talk to you about,” Joseph said. “Mr. Grassly, would you like to come with me?”

  The man who had just spoken put down a tool and wiped his hands on his white cotton overalls. He followed us to the room Randy had lived in and Joseph unlocked the door.

  “I’ll wait outside,” she said. “Take your time.”

  “What’s this about?” Grassly said. “We told you we never saw her.”

  He seemed a lot more nervous than when I had spoken to him eleven days earlier. “Mr. Grassly, I think you may have driven that girl somewhere about two weeks ago.”

  “I never saw her. I don’t know who she is.”

  “What kind of car do you drive?” I opened my notebook and took out a pen.

  “I don’t have to tell you that. The police were here last week. We all talked to them. We told them we didn’t see her.”

  “That was last week. I know a lot more today than I did then. I think she came and asked you men for a ride. Mr. Grassly, this girl was murdered. I need to know how she got from St. Stephen’s to the next place she went.” Having made a terrible mistake in my questioning of Barbara Phillips, I was being extra careful now not to give anything away.

  He stared at me. He was sitting on the desk chair and I was on the bed. Nothing of Randy’s was in the room. It was an unlived-in dormitory room, waiting for a student to move in.

  “She came to us,” he said. “She said she needed a lift, she would pay us. I said, ‘OK, I’ll take you.’ ”