The Prodigal Nun

by Aimée Thurlo

  “Thanks,” Sister Agatha said, then glanced over at Pax as they walked back out to the Antichrysler. “We’re going to visit a golf course, Pax. I know the temptation to run around those beautiful grounds will be great, but you’ll just have to resist. In particular, stay away from the trees.”

  Almost as if he’d understood her, he sighed long and loud, then lay down in the backseat.

  They arrived at the golf course around twenty minutes later. It was a beautiful New Mexico morning. There wasn’t even one cloud in the brilliant blue sky, and the parking lot was nearly filled with luxury cars and SUVs. As she pulled into an open slot several rows from the clubhouse, the Antichrysler backfired loudly. Used to it by now, she didn’t give it a thought until she climbed out of the car and saw three golfers standing beside a German-made SUV staring at her. Refusing to feel intimidated, she smiled and waved.

  With Pax on leash and at heel, Sister Agatha entered the cool, elegant clubhouse and continued to the front desk. “I’d like to see John Andrews. I’m told he’s here on the course.”

  The tall, slender blonde smiled. “Hi, Sister! Do you remember me? I’m Patti Gomez, now Patti Ortiz,” she said. “You taught religion at St. Charles when I was there—though that was a long time ago.”

  She studied the face, mentally changed the hair color to black, then nodded. “I do remember you. Back then you wanted to become a nun.”

  She laughed. “That lasted until eighth grade. When I discovered boys, everything changed.”

  “It happens that way sometimes,” she said, then quickly brought the conversation back on track. “About John Andrews…”

  She checked a list, then looked back at Sister Agatha. “You just missed him. His foursome teed off ten minutes ago. He’s probably somewhere between the first and third holes right now.” She turned to view the course with a powerful set of binoculars through a big picture window. “Yes, I’m right. They’re about to tee off at the second hole.”

  “Thanks. I’ll go and catch up to him on the fairway.”

  “No, Sister, you can’t. Nobody but guests and members of our staff is allowed out on the course. You’ll have to wait here until the golfers finish their round.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “They don’t have a cart, so it’ll be at least a couple of hours.”

  Sister Agatha didn’t argue. This was simply an opportunity to use a little creativity. She thanked Patti and led Pax out of the clubhouse.

  Instead of returning to the Antichrysler, though, Sister Agatha walked Pax over to the wooden fence that separated the course from an encircling access road. Following the fence line, she searched for the flags that designated where the greens were located. Once she found the one with a big two on it, she stopped.

  “It’s time to take a more active approach, Pax,” she said.

  Looking around to assure herself no one was nearby, she climbed over the low barrier, then called to Pax. He scrunched between the bottom and middle rails and joined her.

  “Okay, it’s showtime! Keep your head low and run fast. I’ll be right behind you, Pax.”

  Spotting the foursome walking down the fairway about a hundred yards beyond the tees, she pointed and gave Pax the command to leave.

  The dog ran off in the direction of the golfers.

  Pretending to chase after a wayward pet, Sister Agatha hoisted up her skirt and went after him.

  “Fore!” someone yelled loudly.

  Sister Agatha cringed instinctively as a golf ball whizzed by her at waist height. If she’d been playing baseball, it would have been a strike.

  22

  HEY, call off your dog, sister!”

  Looking up quickly, she saw the man who’d yelled out to her frozen in place. Pax had dropped to a sit directly in front of him as if he were trying to persuade the man to play ball.

  Sister Agatha recognized the man as a local heart specialist. They’d consulted him regarding Sister Gertrude’s condition.

  Sister Agatha ran over and leashed Pax immediately. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Kaplan. He got away from me.”

  She glanced casually at the faces of the three other golfers. One was the aide she’d come to speak to, the other a real estate developer.

  As her gaze drifted to the fourth, the blood froze in her veins. “Archbishop O’Malley.”

  “Ah, Sister Agatha,” the Archbishop said, his blue eyes twinkling. “I should have known. Would you care to explain?”

  Despite his soft, pleasant voice, Sister Agatha knew it hadn’t been a request. She apologized for interrupting their game, then, speaking rapidly in a hurried voice, continued. “Your Excellency, this was an unfortunate necessity. I’ve been gathering information that’ll help the sheriff find the person who killed a woman from our parish. With your permission, I’d like to speak with John Andrews for just a few moments. I can accompany him during play so it won’t slow your round.”

  He nodded. “I’ve heard of your success in helping law enforcement officials crack their cases. Archbishop Miera filled me in before he was assigned to Chicago. Just tell me one thing,” he said, coming closer and dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The dog didn’t run away, did he?”

  “No, Your Excellency. I gave him the command to leave,” she whispered back with a hesitant smile. “I needed a reason to come out onto the course, since time was of the essence.”

  “I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Sister Agatha,” he said with a chuckle. “I hope we get a chance to talk more in the future.”

  Her heart was still beating overtime when the Archbishop turned to John and asked him to join her. Sister Agatha could see that although Mr. Andrews certainly didn’t look pleased, he wasn’t about to refuse the Archbishop’s request.

  “So what can I do for you, Sister Agatha?” he asked, leading her to where his ball was resting on the far side of the fairway. His voice was as cold as ice.

  Sister Agatha kept pace, grateful that the other golfers had to go to three other locations. Once she was satisfied with the distance between them, she began. “I understand that you played golf with Sergeant Michael McKay the morning that Jane Sanchez was murdered.”

  “Yeah, I did. We were here, in fact.”

  They reached John’s ball. Since he was farthest from the pin, he would be taking the next shot.

  It took him almost a minute to decide whether to use a long iron or a wood, and the way he kept fiddling with his golf glove told her that he was ill at ease. A man with nothing to hide wouldn’t have been that uneasy around a nun.

  Finally he hit the ball, but he must have topped it, because it never got more than five feet off the ground. Fortunately for him, it went to the center of the fairway and rolled quite a ways.

  They remained where they were until the others took their shots, then continued down the freeway. She remained close to his side but said nothing. Sometimes people with secrets found long stretches of silence harder to deal with than anything else.

  As the minutes ticked by, he grew even more uncomfortable. While they waited for the two others to take their next shots, John pulled a club out of his bag and looked toward the pin. From what she knew of golf, he wouldn’t have much of a problem hitting it onto the green from here.

  “Sister, I want to finish my round, and to do that well I need to avoid distractions,” he said at last, looking at her. “Is there something else I can do for you?”

  “Are you and Michael McKay friends?” she asked without preamble.

  He nodded. “He’s always been there for me when I needed him. I fell off my roof last year trying to fix some shingles and ended up needing knee surgery. Mike took me to work every day and even volunteered to help my wife keep up with the yard work until I was off the crutches.”

  Sister Agatha was beginning to see the whole picture. “So you owe him.”

  He nodded. “I guess you can say that.”

  “But a murder has been committed, and by withholding information, you’r
e muddying the waters,” she said quietly. She’d wanted it to sound like a statement of fact, not an accusation. “It’s not a blessing to Sergeant McKay either, since it interferes with the process that could clear him.”

  He didn’t answer, but she could see he was considering all his options. John went over to line up his shot, addressing the ball. Finally he shook his head and stepped back, taking a practice swing.

  “If he isn’t guilty, no one’s going to railroad him,” she continued. “But if we don’t separate the innocent from the guilty quickly, a killer could go free.”

  He said nothing for a few more seconds, stepped up, then hit a high, arching shot that landed in the center of the green, bounced high, and rolled toward the pin.

  Satisfied, he finally spoke. “Michael did play golf with us that morning, but he had a stomach virus and had to excuse himself when we were on the third tee. He didn’t rejoin us until the sixteenth hole and still looked a little green. You can’t fake something like that, Sister Agatha.”

  She considered it. Judging from the relatively close distance between the monastery and here, his absence would have given him ample time to go kill Jane and return. Murder could have also explained the green cast on his face. An act of that nature, one from which there’d be no turning back, couldn’t have been easy for a police officer.

  “So Michael asked you not to tell anyone he’d been sick and gone for most of the round?” She wanted things clarified.

  “No, actually, Senator Holman did. Mike had pressured some Lobo coaches to score basketball tickets for him, and the senator didn’t want internal affairs leaning on McKay. Considering we all knew Michael, we went along with it.”

  “Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.”

  “Sister, try to keep my name out of all this, will you? I have a family to support.”

  “I’ll do everything I can.”

  Sister Agatha hurried with Pax back off the golf course, and made it without incident. She drove back to the sheriff’s office, told Tom what she’d learned, and handed over Jane’s prayer book.

  He held the page at an angle to his desk light and read it aloud. “Got photo of Gerry’s sergeant taking money from stranger. Who and why? Tell sheriff? Ask Sister A.”

  Tom set it down on the desk. “Now we have a motive. If this is accurate and McKay’s dirty, I want him off my department as soon as possible. That’s the only reason I’m not yelling at you right now. I’ll have this prayer book processed again ASAP and photos taken of the relevant page.” He stood and retrieved his holster and firearm from a desk drawer.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, following him to the door.

  “To the golf course. They have surveillance cameras covering their parking area. Some of their regulars have expensive cars they want looked after. I’ll check the day in question, find McKay’s truck, watch him leave, and figure out exactly how long it took him to get back.”

  “Four eyes are better than two,” she said in a hopeful voice.

  He nodded once. “Follow me there.”

  Twenty minutes later, Sister Agatha sat with the sheriff in the small clubhouse office. Checking the date and time as he went, Tom rolled the parking lot footage.

  “There he is,” Sister Agatha said, sitting up quickly. “I’d know that moose of a truck anywhere.”

  Tom leaned closer to the screen, trying to make out the details. “There’s something in the bed of that truck.” He stopped the DVD, ran it back a few frames, froze the image, and adjusted the focus.

  “It’s red,” Sister Agatha said, moving back and forth trying to find the best angle. “I see a wheel. It’s a bicycle, Tom—like the one that was stolen from Louis Sanchez!”

  Tom let the footage run, and they saw McKay climb out of the tall vehicle cab. When he lowered the tailgate to get the golf clubs out, they caught a glimpse of the bike.

  “There’s no doubt now what that is,” Tom said.

  Tom advanced the images forward, keeping his eye on the clock timer at the bottom of the video feed. Shortly thereafter, they saw McKay toss his clubs into the passenger side of the truck, climb inside, and back out of the parking space. The truck disappeared from view as it pulled out into the street.

  They continued running the footage, stopping to view things at normal speed anytime a vehicle pulled in. Finally, nearly two hours of video time later, a pickup entered the lot. Slowing to normal play now, they saw McKay park his truck, climb out with his clubs, and hurry into the clubhouse, disappearing from view.

  Tom stopped the image and zeroed in on the pickup. “I don’t see it anymore.”

  “It’s there,” she said, knowing he meant the bicycle. “Run it back for a moment. Now play it at normal speed,” she said, then pointed to the screen. “It’s closer to the tailgate and partially blocked from view, but you can still see the handlebars, and part of the saddle is sticking up. There’s that section of rail or whatever you call that part of a man’s bike. See the red?”

  Tom studied it, adjusted the focus, then finally nodded. “You’ve got good eyes.”

  “Why would McKay need a bicycle to play golf that Sunday—unless he planned to approach the monastery quietly and kill Jane? Taking the bike out of his truck farther down the ditch road meant nobody inside the chapel would hear him arrive. Silence was part of his plan. After he murdered Jane, he rode the bike back to his truck, returned to the golf course, and finished the last two holes. With the tall bed on that truck, only the high-angle camera could reveal he had a bicycle in there.”

  “Unfortunately, all we can prove is that he had a bike in his pickup. I’ve got another theory, too, that could explain the events and requires a lot less imagination.”

  “Go on.”

  “It could be argued that Bennett hired McKay to murder his mother-in-law. Jane did everything she could to work against Gerry, and he has never reacted well to threats. McKay must have known how obsessed Jane was if she ended up following him by mistake one day. Then, once he knew that she’d taken incriminating photos of him, McKay saw a way to put a quick end to his problems. He’d also have leverage to keep Gerry from nailing him on the IA investigation.”

  Before she could answer him, Tom’s cell phone rang. Tom spoke in single syllables, then hung up and summoned the security man who’d handed over the surveillance disk. “I’m taking this disk in as evidence. I’ll give you a receipt.”

  The golf course employee gave him a hesitant look. “I can’t authorize that, Sheriff. I’ll need to check with my boss.”

  “Make sure you let him know that I can get a warrant if he refuses to cooperate. The tribe will save themselves a lot of trouble and embarrassment, not to mention publicity, if you all play nice. You can burn a copy if you want, but I need the original.”

  While the young man went to get his boss, Sheriff Green looked at Sister Agatha. “The call I took was from our lab. They were finally able to pick up more numbers from the gun, and we got a hit. It looks like the weapon was purchased by a man we’d hauled in on a drug bust earlier this year.”

  “Who were the arresting officers?” Sister Agatha asked.

  “Gerald Bennett and Michael McKay.”

  She considered the new information. “Maybe you’re right. In a warped way, it makes sense that Bennett would hire McKay to kill his mother-in-law. There’s a clean, simple motive there. The problem is that we’ve still got too many loose ends, Tom. Nothing really fits all the way.”

  Sister Agatha placed a hand on Pax’s head, reviewed the possibilities, then looked up at Tom again. “I know how we can get to the truth.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Sister Agatha stood near the monastery gates as Senator Holman and John Andrews pulled up.

  “Senator, welcome back to our monastery,” Sister Agatha greeted him.

  Holman was all smiles, though Andrews appeared pale and nervous, not knowing what to expect but obviously concerned about his own future.

  “I’m happ
y to be here. The sisters at this monastery are part of my constituency, too. I wanted you to know that you have my full support,” he said, looking around. “Are we early?”

  He’d been led to expect the press, so Sister Agatha wasn’t surprised. “A little,” she replied. Smiling and nodding to John, she tried to reassure him without words that he wasn’t her target this time.

  “So when do you plan to have the memorial built for the victim?” Holman asked, looking toward the gates, obviously eager for the press to show up.

  “That depends on how soon we can raise the funds. We wanted you to see our plans and hopefully help us find a way to get our project off the ground.” Sister Agatha looked around. “I don’t see any reporters here yet, so while Sister Bernarda shows Mr. Andrews where we plan to erect the memorial, why don’t we step out of the sun? We can talk comfortably inside the parlor.”

  Sheriff Green arrived just as Andrews walked away with Sister Bernarda. After a brief handshake between the men, Sister Agatha urged Tom and Holman into the privacy of the parlor.

  Senator Holman stood by the window, looking outside. “The reporters are bound to arrive soon. You’ll want to greet them out on the grounds, won’t you?” he asked, obviously ill at ease.

  “Unfortunately, the reporters will be a bit delayed,” Tom said.

  Holman’s expression stiffened, and his eyes narrowed. “I’m a busy man. What’s really going on, Sheriff?”

  “I’m here to make you a onetime offer, Senator Holman. Provide me with enough evidence to bring Jane Sanchez’s killer to trial, and we’ll give you immunity on manslaughter, bribery, and conspiracy charges.”

  “Manslaughter? Is this some kind of joke? Surely you don’t think I had anything to do with Mrs. Sanchez’s death!”

  “No, not hers, at least not directly,” Sheriff Green answered, “though you might face conspiracy charges. I’m talking about Beatriz Griego. You were drinking that afternoon, and I now have a witness who’ll testify to that.”

  “Then your witness is wrong, or flat-out lying. Your own deputy gave me a field sobriety test.”