The Mother's Day Murder

by Lee Harris

  “Where did you take her?” My voice was almost soft. I felt as though, if I weren’t careful, some fragile bond between us would break.

  “Down almost to the city.”

  “To where?” He had caught me off guard.

  “To the city, you know, New York. She wanted to go to New York but I wouldn’t take her all the way. I hate driving in New York. I found a subway station, must’ve been on Broadway, way up in Manhattan. I let her off there and I got back on the highway and came back. I never saw her again.”

  “What day was that?”

  “I gotta think.” He pulled a little booklet out of his pants pocket. It was one of those agendas that you get free from stationery stores or banks. He flipped a few pages that were dirty with thumbprints. “It coulda been that Thursday two weeks ago.”

  “What time did you drive her in?”

  “After work.”

  “And you think it was Thursday.” Randy had shown up on my doorstep that Thursday in the early evening.

  “Maybe Wednesday. Yeah, I bet it was Wednesday. I hadda get something to take home that day. I did it on the way back.”

  “Were any of the other men with you?” I asked.

  “Nah. I was driving the truck. The others had their cars, at least one of them did. I took her myself.”

  “Did she tell you where she was going?”

  “She said New York. That’s all she told me.”

  “What did you do the Sunday after you took the girl to New York?”

  “Sunday?” He seemed confused. “I don’t know what I did Sunday. I went to church. Maybe I watched some baseball in the afternoon.”

  “You didn’t meet anybody that day?”

  “I told you: I never saw that girl again. I never heard anything about her till you came and showed us that picture.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Grassly.”

  I don’t know what I expected but certainly not that the first man I questioned would turn out to be the one I was looking for. I was so used to finding my source at the end of the trail rather than at the beginning that I must have looked confused myself as I left the room. Grassly went back to work, somewhat deflated. Joseph was talking to two students, apparently having a pleasant conversation. They were all beaming. When she saw me, she gave each girl a pat on the shoulder and crossed the hall to where I was standing.

  “He drove her,” I said.

  “To your house?”

  “To upper Manhattan. He wouldn’t go any farther. He hates Manhattan traffic.”

  “Where does that leave you?” she asked.

  “With a whole new idea,” I said.

  26

  Maybe I should have felt discouraged. My brilliant thought had not panned out as I had hoped, but it had taken me halfway to an answer. It was the second half, the dark part, that had to be illuminated. I just needed the source of the light.

  I hadn’t even stayed to have lunch. Eddie had been given his and as soon as I started the car, he fell asleep. Aside from the need to stay alert on the road, I was free to think.

  It was possible that Grassly had lied. But all he knew about me was my name. He had no idea where I lived unless Randy had told him, which I doubted. She knew how to keep things to herself and he was a stranger who needed to know nothing. If he had driven her to Oakwood, I thought it was very likely he would have told me.

  When he said he didn’t like to drive in the city, it had rung true. If you’re used to suburban or country driving, navigating the streets of New York can be more than a challenge; it can be a downright threat. I’ve had my share of narrow misses on the streets and avenues of the big city.

  So what did the situation look like now? Randy took a lift from Mr. Grassly, who let her off near a subway station. She could have stayed overnight with a friend from school or, for all I knew, she could have sat on a park bench till Thursday morning. But why had she gone to New York? As it happened, taking a train from New York to Oakwood was a lot easier and more direct than doing the same from St. Stephen’s. But no one had seen her at the Oakwood station. So maybe someone in New York had driven her to Oakwood.

  But that would exclude all the nuns (thank the good Lord) and all the other people based at St. Stephen’s. And it wasn’t very logical to think that a college friend would turn around and kill her. It had to be someone else. Somehow it had to be connected with those files that Joseph, properly, refused to let me see.

  When it came to me, my head almost exploded.

  Eddie woke up as the car came to a stop at our house and I carried him in while he went through the slow process of becoming fully awake. We sat at the kitchen table and he drank some milk as I ate some cheese and carrot sticks to ease my hunger pangs.

  “I want to make a phone call, Eddie, and then we’ll go outside and play.”

  He hopped off the chair with my help and got his own brightly colored telephone and started to make his own calls. I just hoped that whoever he was talking to would keep him occupied for a few more minutes.

  Jack answered and asked how it had gone. He seemed surprised that my guess about Randy getting a ride anywhere had been right.

  “But it wasn’t to Oakwood and I think someone in New York may have driven her up on Thursday.”

  “Name your suspects.”

  “I only have one, the former nun I visited while Randy was still here, Jane Cirillo.”

  “Interesting. What led you there?”

  “Randy may have read something damning about her in Joseph’s file. She may have tried to blackmail Jane into telling what she knew or suspected about Joseph, without realizing Jane would have told her anything she wanted to know without being coerced. Jane doesn’t have any warm fuzzy feelings about St. Stephen’s.”

  “And then you came down a couple of days later and Jane figured Randy was telling all anyway.”

  “Right.”

  “So what can I do for you? I gather this isn’t a ‘Hi honey, how’re you doing?’ call.”

  “I want to know if Jane owns a car.”

  “OK. How ’bout a licensed handgun, same caliber as our friendly neighbor’s?”

  “That, too.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  I knew it was a long shot but all the facts fit. Jane had left the convent under a cloud and the reason for her departure might well be in the file. It must have seemed much more than a coincidence to her to have two people come to her in the space of two or three days and ask about Joseph’s whereabouts twenty years ago, but in truth, Randy and I had been drawn to her from very different directions. Randy had found something in Jane’s file that could be used against her. I was merely looking for someone who had been at the convent twenty years ago and wouldn’t mind gossiping about it.

  But there it was: Randy appeared on Jane’s doorstep, asked her questions about Joseph, and got a ride to my house the next evening. Then, only about twenty-four hours later, there I was asking some of the same questions. It made it look as though Randy had gotten what she wanted from Jane and then gone ahead and spilled her secrets anyway.

  Jack came home with the news I was waiting for. “She owns a car,” he said. “So far so good for your assumptions. But no handgun. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have one, just that she hasn’t registered one. She could have picked up a gun in another state and brought it back to New York illegally. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “So Randy could have knocked on Jane’s door on Wednesday night and found out what she wanted to know about Joseph. Then Jane could have driven Randy up here on Thursday.”

  “Jane Cirillo works,” Jack said. “I did a little checking. She has a job at a bank in Manhattan.”

  “That’s why Randy arrived Thursday evening. Maybe Jane has flexible hours and took Friday off when I drove in to see her.”

  “That’s possible. But working for a bank, if she did any funny stuff at the convent, that could lose her her job if it became known.”

  “And that’s exactly the
point. She must have done some ‘funny stuff’ and there’s a record of it in Joseph’s file.”

  “You know, you don’t have enough to get a warrant, but you’ve got enough to make me think you’re on the right track.”

  “Me, too.”

  “But I can’t let you go see her alone, Chris. I don’t mean to act the heavy, but if you’re right about her, this is a shrewd woman who owns a deadly weapon that she might easily use for the second time if you’re alone with her in her apartment.”

  “I could take her to lunch,” I said. “With you at the next table.”

  “Joe Fox and me at the next table. This is his case, whatever you think of him.”

  To be honest, I didn’t think much of him, but Jack was right. I couldn’t chance being alone in an apartment with a killer who very likely still had her weapon. “If you’re there, I’ll accept it.”

  “Let me give him a call.”

  It took a little doing, a couple of calls to Jane, one to ask if she would join me for lunch the next day, the second, after talking to Joe Fox who set it up with the restaurant, to tell her where we would meet.

  Elsie took Eddie. The farther away from criminals that I can keep him, the better off we’ll be. Jack and I drove into the city earlier than our appointment so that Jack and Joe Fox could look around the restaurant and be seated when I arrived. I knew from talking to Jack that detectives like to get to a meet early, check out the area, especially the doors and windows inside and out. It cuts down on surprises if the meet goes bad or gets ugly.

  Jane had not met either of them so they could sit in the open without being recognized. Jack went into the restaurant at noon. I had told Jane we would meet at twelve-fifteen. At ten after, I went in and took my seat, leaving empty the one closer to Joe Fox who was at the next table, his back to ours.

  Jane was late but not very. She was less casually dressed than the first time I had seen her. Today I could believe she worked in a bank Monday through Friday. She sat down and ordered a drink and we exchanged a little small talk.

  “Was I any help to you last time we met?” she asked finally, sipping a whiskey and soda.

  “A lot. I really appreciated your taking the time. I wanted to ask you a few more questions. I understand Randy Collins came to see you.”

  Her face clouded. “Never heard the name. Is that a man or a woman?”

  And then I remembered. Randy had been playing a part the last days of her life. “I meant Tina Richmond.”

  “Tina. Yeah. I did run into a girl named Tina. What’s the connection?”

  “I think she was also interested in Sister Joseph.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Did you meet with Sister Joseph the Sunday before last?” I asked.

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything. She didn’t attend mass at St. Stephen’s that day and she’s refused to say where she was. I think she met with you.”

  “Why would she do that?” The smile had gone. Jane was on guard now.

  “Because you called her and said you wanted to talk to her. You thought she had broken a promise to you.”

  “What’s this about, Chris? What’s the point of these questions?”

  “I need to find the truth.”

  “The truth? About what Joseph did on a Sunday morning? About where Joseph spent a year of her life when you were a kid?”

  “I know about what she did twenty years ago. I need to know what happened the Sunday before last. I’d like to know where you were.”

  “Sleeping in my own little bed.”

  “I don’t think so. I think you met the girl who called herself Tina and you shot her. And I think after that you met Sister Joseph and told her she had betrayed you.”

  She stared at me over our appetizers, her fork in her hand, her eyes cold and hard. “What business is it of yours who I met, where I went, what I did?”

  “It’s my business because that girl ended up dead down the street from my house. And she was a guest in my home at the time.”

  “Next thing you’ll tell me she had an ax in her hand.”

  My heart did something crazy. “Why did she chop down the tree?” I asked.

  “She was one of those adorable little girls who wanted to set the world straight. She told me some crazy story about that tree and the trouble it was causing for two families. She could set everything right if she just got rid of it. That’s how I felt about her.”

  It was chilling hearing her say that. “So she chopped it down.”

  “I turned the corner and there she was. She had called me the night before and told me she had gotten herself in a mess, nothing was working out, whoever she was staying with didn’t believe her story, and she was out of money. Money was what she wanted, of course. I said I’d meet her early in the morning and give her some and said she’d better get out of my life. But that never works, you know.”

  “Blackmailers don’t give up,” I said.

  “Never.”

  “She would have. It wasn’t the money she wanted; it was information.”

  “I told her what I knew.”

  “So you called Joseph and set up a meeting for later that morning.”

  “You bet. You were right. She had betrayed me.”

  “I don’t think Joseph has ever betrayed anyone in her life. I think the girl who called herself Tina found some things out about you that she had no right to know and she used that information to her advantage.”

  “That’s what you say.”

  It was what I knew. “So you shot the girl to keep her from telling what she knew about you.”

  “I would have lost my job. I would never have gotten another one. I might have been prosecuted.”

  “What did you do, Jane?” I had a few ideas but I wanted to hear the truth. I didn’t think Joseph would ever tell me.

  “You might say I robbed the poorbox. Let’s leave it at that. You’d be surprised what goes on up there. I could tell you—”

  “I don’t want to hear,” I said angrily. Then I said, “The poorbox,” more to myself than to her. Surely she had not murdered Randy over something so minor, albeit unethical. I tried to think back. I had been at St. Stephen’s when Sister Jane Anthony disappeared and no one would talk about it. How many years ago had it been? Eight? Nine? I couldn’t put my finger on it. And then I remembered. I had gone to the chapel one morning to pray and had noticed something amiss. Several beautiful old icons were missing. At least one was gold with jeweled eyes. I had intended to ask what had happened to them but with my busy schedule, the day had passed and when I went to the chapel for evening prayers, everything was back in place. I had assumed some cleaning had been done, but now I knew better.

  “You took the statues,” I said. “The gold one with the jewels and all the beautiful old silver pieces.”

  “You have a good memory.” She drained her glass.

  “And Joseph knew it was you and made you put it all back.”

  “She caught me red-handed. She said she wouldn’t turn me over to the police if I signed a statement saying what I had done and got the hell out of St. Stephen’s before noon. She said if she ever heard that I’d been involved in felonious activity—that’s how she put it—she’d haul out my sworn statement and turn it over to the authorities. She had one of the nuns witness my signing.”

  “And then she put the statement in the Sister Jane Anthony file,” I said.

  “I don’t know where she put it. I had an uncle who got me a job where you’ve got to be squeaky clean and Joseph wrote a letter of recommendation that I’d been a nun at the convent for so-and-so many years and had left of my own volition. Even without the usual accolades, I got the job. My uncle was an officer and who could quarrel with a nun’s cloistered life?”

  “I suppose Joseph filed a copy of her recommendation, too.”

  “And then,” Jane went on, ignoring my comment, “this Tina shows up a couple of weeks ago and starts asking questions. She
’s a novice at St. Stephen’s, she tells me, and there are things she needs to know about Sister Joseph. I told her I had nothing to say and she pulls out stuff about my past that I couldn’t believe. She knew where I worked. She knew what I’d done. The only way she could have found all that out was from Joseph. Or maybe from the nun who witnessed my signature, but I don’t think she really knew what was going on.”

  “Joseph never told anyone, Jane,” I said. “She never even told the police that she’d seen you that Sunday morning. She was as good as her word.”

  “You think this Tina went through the convent files?”

  “I’m sure of it. What did you tell her?”

  “The same thing I told you, that Joseph had taken a year off a long time ago. That I didn’t think she had boyfriends. Then this Tina asked me for some money so she could take the train somewhere. I told her I’d drive her. After work, I drove her up to a place called Oakwood.”

  “And she knocked on my door.”

  “Small world,” Jane said.

  We had begun eating. I was being very careful not to look at the table with Jack and the detective but I sensed they were aware of what was going on at my table. Detective Fox had a canvas bag slung over the back of his chair and I thought it was likely he was recording at least Jane’s side of the conversation.

  “When did Tina call you back?” I asked.

  “Some time on Saturday, I think. Nothing was going right. She was out of money. We’ve all heard it before. I didn’t like where this was going.”

  “Where did you get the gun, Jane?”

  “I got it. What difference does it make where?”

  “Why didn’t you shoot Sister Joseph, too?” I asked. “When you saw her that Sunday morning. You thought she betrayed you. Why did you let her go on living?”

  She smiled a little at that. “I assumed she’d left word where she was going. She’s a nun, after all. She couldn’t just get up and leave the convent and go off somewhere without telling someone where she’d gone. If she turned up dead or missing and my name and address were on her desk, I was in big trouble.”

  That was good thinking. It was even possible Joseph had left such a note on her desk, and then destroyed it when she came back. “How did you come to be home the day I dropped in on you?”