Thyme to Live: A We Sisters Three Mystery

by Miller, Melissa F.

  I charged toward the man, waving the rake and shrieking a wordless war cry. I know, I sound ridiculous. I assure you, I looked equally ludicrous. A fact I know because Sister Mary Margaret’s seventh-grade media class just happened to film me through their second-floor window. “Crazy Rake Lady” was briefly a YouTube sensation—until I was displaced by a video of a tabby cat riding on golden retriever’s back as the dog ran up and down a set of stairs.

  As I later saw on the recording, I sprinted toward the man as he neared the edge of the grass and launched myself onto his back, landing with a thud and more or less pancaking him.

  “Gabriel Vasquez,” I said in a tone that sounded certain even though inside I was thinking, Please, please be Gabriel Vasquez.

  He strained, twisting his neck to look up at me. But I was on his back with the tines of the rake pressed down into his shoulders, so his range of motion was somewhat limited, to say the least. I could feel the fury rising off him like a wave.

  He erupted, shouting a string of Portuguese words, the only one of which I recognized was ‘puta’ because it’s also a Spanish curse word.

  “That’s no way to talk. You’re at church,” I scolded him, trying to sound tough and implacable, instead of how I felt, which was terrified and stupid.

  It occurred to me—some may say belatedly—that I was really not a match for an enraged, possibly psychopathic police officer. The realization hit me with full force when he started to buck in an attempt to throw me off. I dropped the rake and grabbed two fistfuls of his hair, hanging on for all I was worth. If he got me off his back, it was all over.

  Sister Mary Margaret’s class was shouting and pounding on the windows. I just had to hold on another minute or two. We’d caused such a commotion, and the grounds were crawling with police officers. One of them would be here soon.

  He went limp, but I’m not that stupid. I didn’t relax my grip on his hair. He turned again, his features oddly tight and flattened by the fact that I was yanking his scalp back. His eyes were black pinpricks of hate.

  “Just tell me,” he spat in accented English, “is that whore really dead?”

  My stomach turned, but I was saved from answering when a heavy, black lace up shoe crunched down hard on his right hand.

  He yelped and writhed. I tightened my grip and looked up to see my savior. Not Officer Thompson. Not Jennings, and not Yee. None of the uniformed officers. A very unimpressed nun looked back at me. She was about seventy years old, short and boxy, with a lined, weathered face. She was pointing a shotgun at Vasquez’s head, which was also where my hands were. I let go of his hair and jumped to my feet.

  “Who are you?” I couldn’t stop the question.

  “I’m Mother Superior. I’m the principal at this school. And this behavior is completely unacceptable.”

  * * *

  After the dust settled, and Gabriel Vasquez and his two thugs had been carted off to Central Booking, I went to fetch Audra from Sister Anastasia’s classroom. She was curled up on a nap map, looking at a picture book with another little girl.

  “How is everybody in here?” I asked Sister Anastasia in a low tone.

  “Our class members are too short to see out the windows, so we missed the halftime show on the lawn. They know something was going on because we heard the announcements that the doors were locked and everyone was to stay in their fourth period class until further notice, but they don’t know any details. We like to shelter the little ones as best we can from man’s ugliness to man.”

  I nodded. “Your Mother Superior is a real pistol.”

  A small smile formed on her lips and she wiped it away. “She takes her responsibilities very seriously.” Then she nodded toward Audra. “Audra’s a very kind girl. Her mother should be proud.”

  Would Cate be proud to hear that her daughter was kind? Could kindness skip a generation? I set these unanswerable questions aside to ponder later.

  “I’ll be sure to tell her parents. Thank you for keeping her safe during all the . . . chaos.”

  “What else would I have done?” she said simply. “But, unlike our students, she has some idea that something very bad happened in the church. She told me about the men with guns. Her parents should talk to her, see their parish priest or whoever they trust for spiritual guidance and counsel,” she suggested.

  I nodded.

  She walked over to the mat and rubbed Audra’s shoulders. “Look who’s here.”

  Audra saw me standing by the door and broke into a grin. She ran toward me, her hair ribbon flying behind her. After a flurry of goodbyes from her new friends and a hug from Sister Anastasia, Audra took my hand, and we walked out of the classroom.

  “Mommy and Daddy are okay?”

  “Your mommy and daddy are safe and sound inside the church. They can’t wait to hear all about your day. And Janie’s there’s, too. You’ll all go home together in the limo.”

  She beamed. Then her face fell. “You know what I was thinking, Thyme?”

  “No, what?”

  “I kept thinking about how the other veiled ladies are going to miss Helena.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, not really listening. My mind was on Victor and what had happened in the church while I was rolling around on the lawn with Captain Creepy.

  Audra started to skip. When she saw her parents standing in front of the church with Janie (who was holding a tote bag with a picture of a wheel of brie on the side), she broke out into a run. Cate bent down and opened her arms then scooped her daughter up into a hug. After a long moment, she passed her to her husband, who gave Audra a big squeeze.

  I walked up as their driver was ushering them all into the back seat of the limo.

  “I don’t know how to thank you, Thyme,” Cate said.

  I shook my head. “You don’t need to. The nuns said to tell you Audra’s a very kind girl.”

  In a moment of perfect self-awareness, Cate looked directly at me and said, “She gets that from her father.” Then she folded herself into the car and the driver closed the door.

  I stood on the sidewalk and watched them drive away. I felt someone walking down the steps from the church and turned to see Victor. He looked to be unharmed. He walked up to me, took me by my upper arms, and peered down into my face.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I have a few grass stains on my knees and some gross Gabriel germs under my fingernails, but I’m fine.”

  He laughed and pulled me close to his chest in a tight hug. I listened to his heart beating under my ear until he released me.

  “What happened in there?” I asked, jerking my thumb toward the front doors of the church.

  He gestured to the wide steps. “Let’s cop a squat. It’s a long story.”

  He waited until we were settled on the cool stone steps. Then he reached for my hand. “After you let the police out of the closet, they sneaked upstairs without those caterer dudes hearing them. They got Officer Thompson’s attention, and he went out to the hallway to talk to them. He uncuffed them using his key, then the three of them and Officer Jennings ushered us into that little room where the altar servers get ready.”

  “The sacristy,” I supplied.

  “Sure, whatever. They told us there were two armed men in the basement and Gabriel was on his way. They didn’t have any details on Gabriel because the caterers started speaking in Portuguese after they jumped the undercover guys.”

  That was consistent with what I’d overheard in the basement. “Okay, so then what? Did they just leave you there?”

  “Thompson and Jennings had a hell of a fight because he wanted her to stay with us and she wanted to be where the action was. Finally, Cate threatened to sue the department if they left us alone, so Officer Thompson stayed to babysit.”

  I could picture that mini-drama as clear as day. It was comforting to see that everyone behaved consistently in a crisis.

  “Was it awful?”

  He shrugged. “It was mainly boring. The cop y
ou found in the square showed up and Jennings made him sit with us. Then more police poured into the church. Given the numbers, I guess they took down Gabriel’s men pretty easily. The two undercovers got to do the honors of cuffing them. They were still pretty pissed. It was all over in a few minutes. Jennings and Thompson came and got me to translate the Miranda warning for the Portuguese guys. They demanded lawyers, so that was that.”

  “So what took so long?” I felt like I’d been out running around the building for a decent amount of time.

  “They wanted to hunker down and wait for Gabriel to show up. Jennings insisted it wasn’t safe to let us out of the sacristy until Gabriel was in custody.”

  “What did you guys do?”

  “Well, Mia filled me in on the suicide note, for starters.”

  I wrinkled my brow. “Mia?”

  “That’s right, you disappeared before I could introduce you. Mia Kim, Helena’s therapist, heard about the vigil on Cate’s channel. She came to tell me that Helena didn’t kill herself.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “Mia wrote the note. While Lynn was mixing up the stage blood, Helena went into the bathroom and called Mia. She told her that Gabriel had found her apartment and she was going to go on the run. She asked Mia to make sure I didn’t try to find her. She was terrified that Gabriel would latch on to me if we crossed paths and decide I was a close enough substitute to take his revenge on.”

  I thought about the gunshots shattering the rear window of the sedan and how we’d cowered under the table in that Hell’s Kitchen restaurant.

  “Well, she was right about that,” I ventured.

  His cheek twitched. “She might have been right about his intentions, but she was wrong to try to shut me down. What was she thinking? That I’d just walk away?”

  I didn’t really have a substantive response to that, so I went with a question. “So she wrote the note to dissuade you?”

  “Actually, she said she tried to word it in a way that would at least hint that Helena hadn’t written it and that she wasn’t actually dead.”

  “That worked,” I pointed out.

  “I guess so,” he said grudgingly. “I still think Mia should have told me what was going on, but she just kept yammering about doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  We sat in silence for a minute. Then he went on, “Anyway, Mia explained what happened. Cate was getting antsy even though the police had told her you’d taken Audra over to the school where she’d be safe. Officer Yee’s backup radioed that Janie was safe and accounted for. So we were just cooling our heels. I was getting worried about you because the receptionist from the school called over and said you were looking for a police officer.”

  “And then?”

  “And then, the next thing that happened was a very angry nun with a gun showed up dragging Gabriel by his ear.”

  I laughed. He joined me, and it felt really good to laugh. But after a moment his face clouded and he dropped his eyes to the ground.

  “What?”

  “We did all this, risked all these people’s lives, but we still don’t know where Helena is.”

  My smile faded. “Well, we did make it safe for her to come back. Gabriel’s never going to bother her again.”

  “Sure. If she ever finds out. But wherever she is, she must not be watching the news. The coverage of her own funeral didn’t make her pop her head up. And she didn’t tell Mia where she was going. I might never see her again.” He put his head in his hands.

  My heart was heavy in my chest because I knew he was right. I placed my hand on the small of his back and rubbed a gentle circle.

  “I’m sorry, Victor.”

  “She could be anywhere in the country. She could be anywhere in the world.” He spoke without lifting his head. His voice was muffled and miserable. It sounded like he was choking back tears.

  The nun who’d been with Sister Anastasia when she told me about the children’s area in the basement walked by on the path to the school building just then. She slowed her pace and shot us a concerned look.

  ‘He’s okay,’ I mouthed.

  She smiled a bit uncertainly but nodded and continued down the street. I watched the breeze lift her veil, or whatever her head covering was called, as she strode away. It fluttered behind her.

  I jumped to my feet and yanked Victor up by his hand. “I know where she is!”

  23

  “Where are we going?” Victor asked for what had to be the seven hundredth time as he panted, hurrying to keep up with me. “Also, why are we running?”

  “Sorry.” I slowed my stride. “Something Audra said made me think. Where’s the best place to hide?”

  “I don’t know. Is this a riddle?”

  “Come on. It’s in plain view—that’s the best place to hide. Why would Helena leave the city to avoid being found, when there are eight and a half million people here? She could get lost in a crowd without leaving her neighborhood.”

  He shook his head. “Too dangerous. Sure, most people are strangers. But someone could recognize her—the girl who does her nails or the guy where she gets her coffee. She’d never risk it.”

  “It’s the smart approach. Once Gabriel’s men established she wasn’t in the apartment, they assumed she fled. They didn’t hang out, canvassing the neighborhood.”

  “No, they were too busy trying to catch up with us.”

  A small shudder ran down my spine. “Don’t remind me.”

  Once Gabriel’s local talent had been booked and processed, Officer Thompson told us they were well-known to the violent crimes squad. They were wanted for the suspected murder of a Latina teenager, as well as a string of armed robberies. I shivered to think how lucky Victor and I had been to have emerged unscathed from our multiple encounters with the men. And how lucky we’d all been at the church.

  “You really think Helena would hang around her neighborhood?”

  “No, actually I don’t. I think she hung around the Whittier-Clays’ neighborhood.”

  He stopped walking and started laughing. “Listen, Helena definitely wouldn’t blend in with the titans of industry and millionaires of Carnegie Hill.”

  “Every day when I go to train Cate, I get off the subway at Ninety-Sixth Street, stop for a chai latte, and then race around the corner to the apartment.”

  “So?”

  He followed me down the stairs to the subway station.

  After we’d swiped our cards and were standing on the platform, pressed in against the rest of the early commuter crush, I returned to the subject at hand. “So, every day I pass Audra’s favorite playground—it’s right near the apartment building. She and Helena used to go there three or four times a week, easy. I’ll bet that’s the playground where Helena met Lynn.”

  “Probably. Okay, go on.”

  “The playground is diagonal from the main entrance to the Islamic Cultural Center. When I went to collect Audra from the nuns, she told me ‘the other veiled ladies’ would miss Helena. At the time I was still an adrenaline bomb, and it didn’t really register. But once I was capable of processing thoughts again, I knew where we should look for your sister.”

  As comprehension lit in his dark eyes, the train came screeching to a stop at the platform. We fought our way on and claimed a foot of floor space. As my hip brushed his, he leaned over and whispered, “You think she’s hiding there?”

  “I’ll bet anything she probably made a friend or two who would have been happy to lend her a veil. We could have walked right past her and wouldn’t have noticed her in a million years.”

  * * *

  When we ascended the steps to the street, the stairway deposited us directly in front of the playground.

  “Is this the playground Helena and Audra came to?” he asked, nodding toward the bright blue and red climbing equipment, teaming with squealing kids.

  “Yep.” I pointed to orient him as well as myself. “There’s the Whittier-Clays’ building. And right over there, there’s t
he Islamic Cultural Center.” The three locations made a perfect triangle—each point was maybe a two-minute walk from the next. I could just feel in my gut that I was right.

  He stood motionless and stared at the slide and merry-go-round. I knew he was picturing Helena, her long dark curls flying behind her, as she pushed Audra in dizzying circles. To be honest, I was, too.

  He shook his head and turned to me. “Now what?”

  “Yeah, um, I’m not sure. Can we just show up unannounced?” I gestured toward the mosque’s imposing dome and geometric, glass windows. It was breathtaking, imposing, and more than a little bit intimidating.

  “We probably shouldn’t. Right?”

  I crossed the sidewalk to enter the playground and located a bench that hadn’t yet been claimed by any of the nannies and au pairs who dotted the playground in groups of twos and threes, keeping a close eye on their charges while they chatted.

  “I have no earthly idea,” I told him as we settled ourselves on the chilly bench. “If you thought I seemed out of my element in the church, you should see me in a mosque. Or a synagogue.”

  “Your parents weren’t religious?”

  “Um, not exactly.” I decided not to mention their brief flirtation with Wicca and the Yule Circle they’d hosted one year on the winter solstice. It hadn’t ended well. The details were fuzzy but I seemed to remember a bonfire that had grown out of control and brought every firefighter in town running to the resort with buckets of water.

  “I don’t know much about Islam, either,” he said. “But I’m guessing your dress is, uh ... your cleavage ... never mind.” He stammered and averted his eyes from the front of my dress.

  “You picked it,” I reminded him as I ineffectually tried to pull up the bodice.

  He blushed. “You look great. But maybe a little immodest for a visit to a mosque.”

  I ignored the compliment and checked my watch. “It’s after five. Why don’t we just hang out where we can see the doors and maybe we’ll catch a secretary heading to the subway or something?”