by Dorien Grey
He’d just have to risk it.
And with John becoming more and more a separate and distinct—and stronger—individual, Elliott wanted to do whatever he could to bring the entire matter to a conclusion.
When Cessy called Sunday morning to ask him over for dinner, he accepted without hesitation. He figured he could use the opportunity to ask if she would be willing to set up a meeting with Sister Marie. So that Brad wouldn’t object or think he was trying to interfere with the police investigation, he could explain that since he and John had been such close friends, he was just curious as to what had happened in his life after they’d lost touch. Whether Brad would buy it or not was another story.
Buy it he did—at least he didn’t express any overt reservations. Cessy said she was sure Sister Marie would be happy to talk with him some day after school, and that she would send a note with Jenny to school on Monday.
* * *
As he’d promised, Monday night he helped Steve take Steve’s paintings to the gallery and waited as Steve and the owner discussed various details of the opening. Elliott was impressed by the gallery’s support, which included sending invitations to all their regular clients and patrons as well as sending out posters and press releases. Of course, it was in the gallery’s own best interests to do everything it could to make the showing a success, but he was impressed nonetheless.
After spending a couple hours at Steve’s, helping him unwind, he returned home around ten thirty to find a message from Cessy, saying Sister Marie would be happy to talk with him, and that if he wanted to stop by the school Tuesday after classes, she would be there.
“Oh,” Cessy added, “the invitation to Steve’s showing arrived today. I’m so happy for him, and of course we’ll be there. I can imagine how excited he must be. Call me if you get home early enough. Bye.”
While he knew she and Brad were probably still up, he decided to hold off until morning to call.
* * *
He pulled up to St. Agnes just as the students were pouring out of the doors at the end of their day. He drove around the block to allow time for some of the parked cars with waiting parents to leave, then easily found a parking spot.
Jenny had told him that Sister Marie’s room was 212, and as he ascended the front steps and entered the building, he was transported back to his own school days. There was an almost palpable aura that emanated from old schools—the faint scent of chalk and books and floor wax, the distinctive echo of footsteps on the hallway’s tiled floors, the unmistakable spacing of classroom doors, the glass-fronted display cases along and in the walls, the row on row of identical lockers with identical locks. He knew he could instantly recognize being in a school even if he were led in with his eyes closed.
A large central staircase led up to the second floor, and he took it, noting the worn and pockmarked wood of the dark polished railings, the ever-so-slight indentations along the front edge of each stair where countless feet had slowly worn down even the wood.
Most of the doors on the second floor were closed, and the rooms, he could see by looking through the mesh-reinforced windows, were empty and unlighted. He had yet to see another person, and idly wondered where everyone could have gone so quickly.
The door to Room 212 was open, and the lights all on. As he approached, he saw Sister Marie seated at a desk at the front of the room. He paused in the doorway to knock. She looked up at him and smiled, rising from her seat to come toward him.
“Elliott,” she said with a warm smile. “How nice to see you again!”
“And you, Sister,” he said.
“Please, come in,” she said, extending her hand.
“I appreciate your seeing me, Sister.”
She continued smiling as she gestured him to a chair next to her desk. He waited until she had moved around it to take her own seat.
“It’s my pleasure,” she said. “It’s so nice to reconnect with people from the past. I remember how close you and John were and how much fun you had together. I’m grateful to you for that. I’m afraid John didn’t have many friends as a child.”
He assumed she was alluding to the difficulties inherent in having a wealthy and notorious father, and an obnoxious bully for a brother. Either one would make forming normal friendships difficult.
“If it hadn’t been for our mother,” she continued, “I fear it would have been much worse for him.”
“And you,” Elliott added.
She smiled again. “Yes, I suppose,” she said. “But I always had God to turn to, even as a little girl. And my mother was always there for me. It was harder for John.”
He remembered Al’s bullying, and while he almost never had any contact with Vittorio Collina, he could imagine how difficult the combined pressures from his father and brother must have made John’s life.
“So what would you like to know, Elliott?” Marie asked.
He decided the best thing to do would be to try to work into his main purpose gradually. “I’ve been thinking a lot about John ever since I heard of his death,” he began, “and I was wondering what had happened to him since your family moved to Lake Geneva.”
Marie swivelled her chair slightly toward him and leaned back, her elbows on the armrests, and placed her spread fingertips together as though she were holding an invisible globe.
“Johnny always had a special place in my heart,” she said, with yet another small smile that Elliott thought was tinged with sadness. “He had a good, kind, gentle soul, which is one of the things, I’m sure, that led him to join the Peace Corps.
“Alphonso was in every way almost a carbon copy of my father, which made it very difficult for Johnny. His relationship with both of them was never better than strained, and it became more so as we grew up. And then, when Johnny was between his sophomore and junior year in college, my father abruptly disowned him.”
Elliott took advantage of her pause to say, “Because he learned of Johnny’s sexual orientation?” He was positive Marie had known about her brother’s being gay, but he wanted to see if there was any reaction to indicate any possible homophobia on her part. There wasn’t.
Marie gave a reluctant shrug. “Yes, I’m afraid so.” She did not seem surprised that Elliott knew of John’s being gay.
“And what happened to him then?”
“My father threw him out of the house and forbade my mother or me to have any contact with him. But we did, of course, surreptitiously. We’d keep in touch through letters sent through one of my mother’s friends, and Mother helped support him financially.”
“Until your father found out,” Elliott said, remembering John’s having mentioned it.
Marie looked at him very strangely. “Yes, but how could you have known that?”
“Sorry, just an assumption,” he lied.
“It is hard sometimes to live up to our Lord’s teachings,” she said with a sigh. “Of course I loved my father, and I love Alphonso. But even those of us who serve God can admit that there are those who are really not very easy to love, and I’ve had to struggle with that fact for many years now.
“But anyway, yes, Alphonso somehow found out that our mother had been sending John—he’d stopped being Johnny by then—money and told my father. My father reacted…well, let’s just say in a terrible manner. Shortly thereafter, we heard of John’s death.”
She paused, and Elliott could see her eyes misting.
“And now to find out that he hadn’t died in Africa, that he’d been murdered right here in Chicago! It was…” she paused again and quickly wiped her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Sister,” he said. “I really didn’t intend to bring up painful memories.”
She made a slight waving gesture with one hand. “No, no, that’s all right. There are just so many questions. Of course I can understand now why he pretended to die in Africa—to spare our mother our father’s wrath. But to think…”
He regretted having opened doors Marie had obviously chosen to keep closed, but decided h
e had reached the point of no return.
“Were you aware,” he asked, “that Al’s DNA did not match the body of the man you identified as being—and I firmly believe is—John?”
She looked surprised. “No, I didn’t know that. How could that be? John and Al had different mothers, but…”
“I’m not quite sure either, Sister. But I was thinking: the police tested Al’s DNA, not your mother’s. Do you suppose there might be something at your Lake Geneva home that might have her DNA? A hairbrush, perhaps?”
“A hairbrush, surely,” she said. “Mother’s rooms are just as she left them.”
He was silent a moment, trying to think of how to say what he had to, and when he was unable to come up with anything, he simply began.
“Sister, what I’m about to say may sound very odd, but please believe I am sincere. Ever since I heard of John’s death, I’ve been bothering my brother-in-law Brad, who as you know is one of the detectives on the case, to keep me as posted as he can as to what is going on. And I’ve been—I told you it would sound odd—having dreams of your home in Lake Geneva. I’ve never been there, but I get a clear picture of a large Mediterranean-type villa on a rise, with a green-tiled roof and a lawn stretching down to the water. There’s a boat house and a dock…”
Carefully watching her reaction, he saw her eyes open wide, and some of the color fade from her face.
“That’s our home,” she said, then her expression changed to one of mild suspicion. “How could you know?”
“I don’t know,” he lied again. “But I see it clearly. And I am convinced that there are letters in the house, written to your father shortly before his death, which are somehow important to finding out who killed John and why.”
She was staring at him, now, her face expressionless.
“So, you think John is telling you this, somehow?”
Elliott was extremely uncomfortable but hoped it didn’t show. “I really don’t know, Sister,” he said, chalking up yet another lie. “But I can assure you I’m not delusional, and I have never experienced anything like this before in my entire life. But I’d be willing to bet every penny I have that those letters are there.”
He forced himself to keep his eyes on hers.
“And just where in the house are these letters?” she asked, finally.
He sighed. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea. Perhaps among your father’s papers?”
“Alphonso went through them all within days after our father died and threw out everything that might have been considered personal—though our father was hardly a romantic and probably didn’t have many papers that didn’t relate in some way to legal or financial matters.”
It occurred to Elliott that if Al had indeed found anything incriminating to himself he would have destroyed it or kept it for his own purposes.
“What about your mother’s papers?” he asked.
“Mother entrusted all her legal and financial papers to her lawyer. I rather suspect so that Alphonso couldn’t go through them. But as to her personal letters and things, she did keep some in a secret compartment in her desk, again, I suspect, to prevent Alphonso’s snooping. He may have found them, but I doubt it.”
John had mentioned a desk. He could only hope it was the same one. “Have you gone through the desk since your mother’s death?”
She sighed. “Not yet. I couldn’t bring myself to do so—I suppose I consider it an invasion of her privacy. Silly of me, I know, but…”
“Not at all,” Elliott responded. “I understand completely. But the possibility that there might be something there, would it be too great an imposition to ask you to check?”
Marie looked thoughtful, was quiet a moment, then sighed again. “No, I think it’s time I at least went through them. It would help if I knew what I was looking for, though.”
“I wish I could tell you,” he said. “I’m pretty sure they were written to your father, though, just before his death. I don’t know how many there might be, but probably not many.”
“Frankly, I’d be surprised if there were any. As I’ve said, my father wasn’t the type to keep letters. I would imagine he would simply have torn up any personal letters sent him after he’d read them. And how my mother would have come by them if they were written to my father, I can’t imagine.”
“Nor can I, but I believe with all my heart that those letters are there, and that they will be helpful to the police investigation. Would you be willing to look?”
“You really believe they might have something to do with John’s death? My father had enemies, but that they might retaliate against John, and so long after my father’s death….”
Elliott found the comment interesting, and surprising. That the killer might be someone a little closer to home simply didn’t occur to her. Or she wouldn’t let it.
“I can’t say, but I’ve seldom felt more certain about anything in my life. The only way to know if I’m right or wrong is to go through the papers. I’m sure you’ll recognize them when you see them.”
He could only hope that what John was talking about would indeed be in that particular desk and not somewhere else in the house.
“If you really feel that strongly about it…”
“Believe me, Sister, I do. I’m sure I could arrange for Cessy to drive you up there at your convenience. Perhaps you could bring the hairbrush back with you.”
Marie was silent again for a moment before saying, “I might be able to get away this coming Saturday, if Cessy really wouldn’t mind. I’ve been meaning to get up there to pick up a small box of things my mother kept from my First Communion, and I’m afraid I’ve been putting it off.”
“That would be wonderful, Sister,” he said. “I’ll check with Cessy tonight and have her get in touch with you.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall over the blackboard. “I really shouldn’t keep you any longer,” he said, starting to get up from his chair. “Thank you so much for talking with me.”
“One more thing,” she said, pausing him in mid-rise and making him settle back down. “What do I do with the letters if I find them?”
It was a good question and one he hadn’t considered. “Well,” he said extemporaneously, “you might just give the hairbrush to Cessy and ask her to give it to Brad, but as to the letters…I know it’s a lot to ask, since you don’t really know me all that well, but would it be possible for me to look at them first to confirm what I suspect? If they are what I think they are, I’ll turn them immediately over to Brad. If they’re not, I’ll give them right back to you and promise I will keep anything I read in them in strictest confidence.”
She thought that through. “I trust you, Elliott. Whatever they contain—if they do exist—is part of the past and of no real interest to me now, unless you are right in their providing some information on what happened to John.”
“I truly appreciate that, Sister,” he said, then once again rose from his chair. “Thank you again for your time.”
Sister Marie rose at the same time, extending her hand. “You’re quite welcome.” Her eyes searched his face and her own face reflected an odd sadness. “They will catch whoever killed John, won’t they?”
“Yes, Sister,” he replied. “They will. I promise.”
* * *
He called Cessy on his cell phone even before he got back to his car, rather surprised at himself for not just waiting until he got home. He suspected his impatience may somehow be influenced by John. The sense of John’s presence, like John, had been undergoing a subtle change, becoming more an integral part of him, which was mildly disturbing.
If Cessy was surprised by his request, she didn’t let it show. He merely told her that in the course of his conversation with Sister Marie she had mentioned her hopes to get up to the Lake Geneva house to retrieve some of her things, and that he’d said he’d see if Cessy could take her. Not a lie, but far from the total truth. He did not mention the letters or the hairbrush, though he was sure Marie would say something ab
out it at some point. He fervently hoped it wouldn’t be until they were at least on the way—he didn’t want to risk Brad’s finding out about the letters until Elliott knew for sure that they existed.
He knew full well that if Marie found the letters and turned them over to the police, he could not escape being required to provide an explanation of how he knew they existed, let alone where they were, but he wanted to put it off as long as he possibly could.
“BJ has a soccer game Saturday afternoon,” Cessy said. “But it’s not until three, and I’m sure we could make it up to Lake Geneva and back in time if we could leave early. I’ll talk with Sister tomorrow and see what we can work out. It was very nice of you to think of it.”
Elliott felt a strong twinge of guilt. “I’d have offered to drive her myself,” he said, more by way of justification to himself than Cessy, “but I didn’t think it would be appropriate.”
He could almost see Cessy grinning. “Well, the church has gotten considerably less rigid about what nuns can and can’t do, but you’re probably right. And I’ll be glad to do it.”
“I appreciate it, Sis.”
“And we’ll see you Friday at the opening? I assume you’re going with Steve?”
“Actually, I’ll be meeting him there. He’s probably going to be too busy to care whether I’m there or not.”
“Right, Elliott. This is me you’re talking to, remember. You can always ride down with us.”
“That’s okay, Sis, but thanks. I’ll sort of leave everything open.”
“All right. We’ll see you there, then.”
* * *
As happened with seemingly increasing frequency the older he got, he suddenly found himself at Friday afternoon, the preceding three days being little more than a blur. He’d heard nothing from Brad and had no conversations with John. He had talked with Steve a couple of times, noting, despite Steve’s outwardly casual attitude, a rising anticipation of the opening. And though Elliott didn’t care much for semi-social occasions, he was looking forward to the opening for Steve’s sake.
He had taken a steak out of the freezer Friday morning, and had an early dinner of steak and a baked potato in front of the TV as he watched the news. He’d decided it would be easier to take the el rather than fighting traffic and battling for a parking place.
