Murder Makes a Pilgrimage

by Carol Anne O'Marie

  This is going to be a lengthy tour, Mary Helen thought, searching the area for a quiet spot, someplace to sit and talk. With a scrape and a creak, the wooden doors of La Perla Café unfolded. Perfect!

  “How about something hot to drink?” she suggested.

  The proprietor stood in the open entrance, scanning the sky. Mary Helen followed his gaze. Rain clouds piled up into an ominous mound. Any moment now it would pour. She hurried the other two toward a small round table.

  “Ah, señoras.” The proprietor greeted them warmly and called over their order to a countergirl. “Tapas?” he inquired hospitably.

  Heidi looked blank. Eileen leafed through her pocket dictionary while the man waited patiently. Finally she shrugged and said, “Why not?”

  “I hope we don’t discover ‘why not?,’ ” Mary Helen said, watching the proprietor hurry away to help the countergirl.

  Within moments, he reappeared with three steaming cups of cafe con leche, as well as a plate full of thick, cold squares of Spanish omelet topped with asparagus and tomato slices.

  “Where was your faith?” Eileen asked, smiling at the man and scooping up a square.

  When he left, Sister Mary Helen hunched forward. “If we plan to be detectives, we are going to have to act like detectives,” she pronounced in her firmest voice.

  “How do you mean?”

  Was Heidi frightened? Mary Helen softened her tone. “I mean that we must not let any detail slip by us. Everything you remember is important, Heidi. In fact, your memories are essential.”

  Heidi’s bottom lip began to quiver.

  Eileen shot Mary Helen a warning glance. “What Sister means”—she patted Heidi’s chubby hand—“is that we’ll help you try to remember as many details as possible. You just relax and do the best that you can. We will start by asking you some questions.”

  “I’ll try.” Heidi’s voice was tentative.

  The gentle ripple of rain against the cafe windows provided a soothing background for their whispered conversation.

  “Did Lisa say anything when she returned yesterday afternoon?” Mary Helen began.

  Heidi looked blank.

  “From her walk with Dr. Fong?” Eileen prodded.

  Heidi brightened. “Only that he was a drag. She did say that she was sorry she left me alone. I was really mad when she got back to the room, and I told her so, too. It was my trip, you know.”

  Mary Helen did know. Heidi had mentioned it several times.

  “I guess I was screaming because she told me to be quiet.” A dark cloud of anger passed across Heidi’s plain face. “But I wouldn’t be quiet. I’m real sick of Lisa telling me stuff like she knows everything. You know what I mean?”

  Mary Helen nodded, studying Heidi. “Carries anger as the flint bears fire.” Strangely Shakespeare’s words jumped into her mind.

  “Anyhow, when I finally got so mad I stopped screaming and started to cry, Lisa said that she was sorry.”

  “What else did Lisa say?”

  “Nothing. We just hugged and made up, like we always do.”

  Mary Helen figured as much. Obviously Lisa had had Heidi down to a system, although she doubted that Lisa had realized how deep and genuine her friend’s anger really was. The pattern was probably set while they were still toddlers and continued until . . . It was difficult to think of Lisa as dead. It was harder still, dead or not, to think well of her.

  “At dinner it certainly seemed as if you two had buried the hatchet,” Eileen said cheerfully.

  Mary Helen grimaced. Not into each other, I hope. She tried to shake the image of Lisa’s open skull, blood snaking across the raspberry lamé.

  “Tell us about last night, Heidi, everything that you can remember.” Eileen encouraged the young woman, loath to drop her line of questioning.

  Much to Mary Helen’s chagrin, Heidi did just that. She regaled the nuns with everything that happened during the entire evening. She chronicled every morsel they ate, every drink they drank, and every witty thing, however insignificant, that Pepe said.

  When Heidi finished, Sister Mary Helen knew few more pertinent facts than when the girl had begun: The Bowmans were the first to leave the public room. The Fongs left next, with Rita very angry. That was probably the loud arguing in the hallway. Before long the DeAngelos followed. Pepe and María José had quarreled, with Pepe returning to dance the evening away. She had not known about the midnight walk around the university, although she suspected that Pepe and the two girls were the three o’clock gigglers.

  “Then there was the note under the door,” Heidi added as an afterthought.

  Eileen and Mary Helen bolted upright in their chairs. “What note?” they asked in unison.

  Heidi frowned. “Only an old note for Lisa. Someone shoved it under our door.”

  “Who was it from?”

  “I don’t know.” Heidi’s slit-eyed glance was almost cunning. “She told me it was from an ‘admirer,’ but I don’t think it was.”

  “Why not?”

  “ ’Cause she wouldn’t let me see it and she acted kinda mad when she read it.”

  “Mad?” Pumping Heidi was becoming as tedious as playing pickup sticks.

  Heidi shrugged. “Yeah, kinda. She tore it up in little pieces and flushed it!”

  “Did Lisa say anything about meeting someone early this morning?”

  Heidi shook her head.

  Dead end! Mary Helen felt deflated. No name. No note. No nothing! Surely the note was from the murderer. He or she had planned a rendezvous with Lisa, a rendezvous that angered Lisa. Then why had she gone?

  “You slept soundly the rest of the night?” With one of those half questions of hers, Eileen picked up the trail.

  “Yeah.”

  “You heard and saw nothing else?”

  “Not until Pepe knocked on my door this morning. Lisa’s stuff was all over the place, and her bed was empty. I was half asleep myself when Pepe told me that she was . . .” Heidi’s eyes began to fill.

  This was exactly what Mary Helen was hoping to avoid. “Let’s not forget your postcard for your cousin.” She grasped at a straw.

  With much counting of pesetas, they settled their bill, and Mary Helen jotted down the amount in her travel diary to study later. She was curious to know just how much they had spent on tapas and coffee. With so many zeroes, it was difficult to tell.

  Outside, the rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun, leaving the buildings and streets with a silver glistening. The impressive Convent of St. Francis forgotten, they began the walk back to the hostal, window-shopping as they went.

  Sister Mary Helen scarcely saw the trinkets on display. Her mind whirled and spun, plucking at the details of their trip. Three short days ago Eileen and she were in San Francisco, their fellow peregrinos unknown. And less than a month ago, Santiago de Compostela and its Holy Year the farthest thing from their minds. And now?

  She replayed all that Heidi had related. Surely the answer was there if she just knew where to look. And there was something else, another question she’d wanted to ask, but it hung at the edge of her mind just beyond her reach.

  With a fistful of postcards, Heidi emerged from a small curio shop, Eileen right behind her. Mercifully she held only a single card. She must have noticed the expression on Mary Helen’s face.

  “We had better send the nuns one at least,” she said defensively.

  “We’ll get home before it does,” Mary Helen answered.

  “Thank God for small favors.” Eileen slipped the postcard into her purse.

  By the time they reached their bedroom, Mary Helen was exhausted. The time change, her lack of sleep, and today’s tensions were catching up with her. After kicking off her shoes, she spread out on the high, canopied bed, feeling like a beached whale.

  At the desk Eileen chewed the end of her pen and stared down at the postcard. “What can we say that isn’t a lie if they find out what happened and we didn’t tell them, yet doesn’t tell th
em what happened if they never find out?”

  It took Mary Helen’s tired brain a few moments to untangle the syntax. “Oh, what a tangled web we weave,/When first we practice to deceive!” she said with her eyes closed.

  “I know what.” Eileen ignored the allusion. “I will just say, ‘We are having a very interesting time,’ and I’ll underline very .”

  Mary Helen’s eyes smarted. The room was quiet now that Eileen had written the postcard and climbed atop her own bed for a short rest. Mary Helen heard her steady, rhythmic breathing. The velvet window drapes billowed out in the breeze. Everything was so still. Mary Helen’s eyelids grew heavy, pulling her toward sleep.

  With a start she remembered the question that had been eluding her. She tiptoed to the telephone and dialed Heidi’s room.

  “Hello.” An eager Heidi picked it up on the first ring.

  Ah, youth, Mary Helen thought sleepily. “Heidi, I was just wondering. On the plane, after the turbulence, when we all were going off to sleep, I remember hearing Lisa go toward the back of the plane. I think someone went with her. Do you have any idea who?”

  “Why do you want to know?” Heidi asked. She sounded almost belligerent.

  “As we discussed before, it’s just the detective thing.” Mary Helen’s patience was strained.

  After a momentary pause Heidi spoke. “The teacher. You know, Roger. He went back after her.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure, I’m sure. I sat behind him and his wife. I saw him go, and I saw his wife get up and look where he went. She was mad,” Heidi added with malicious pleasure.

  Odd duck, this young Heidi, Mary Helen thought, replacing the receiver. She tiptoed back to her bed, pulled the comforter up over her feet, and closed her eyes. Actually both young women were odd ducks, she thought. The professor, the doctor, Pepe, even Bud Bowman—Lisa had gone after them all. Did she have a need to vanquish men? And if so, why?

  And butterscotch Heidi—very young for her age, an innocent, really, with a streak of what? Meanness? That seems too strong. Orneriness? Something like that. She doesn’t miss a trick either. She knows exactly where Lisa was and who was with her. Actually Heidi makes an excellent detective. Unless, of course—Mary Helen caught her breath—unless she is the villainess.

  Nonsense. She jockeyed into a more comfortable position on the high bed. The girl simply has an uncluttered mind. Fuzzy with drowsiness, Mary Helen tried to unclutter her own mind. A little snooze before dinner would do her a world of good.

  “Mordre wol out, certein, it wol nat faille.” Unexpectedly those long-forgotten words and their source came to her. The Canterbury Tales, “The Prioress’s Tale.” The human mind is a gift of Memory, the mother of Muses, and its power has no bounds, Mary Helen thought, muddling the ancient philosophers. And it was the last thought she did have as she mercifully fell into a deep sleep.

  “I guess nobody’s home at Gallagher’s.” Kate Murphy held out the telephone receiver so that her husband could hear its hollow ringing. Immediately interested, the baby stopped banging his plastic keys on the high chair tray, turned his head, and listened, too.

  “Too nice a day for anyone to stay home.” Jack poured what remained of his morning coffee down the kitchen sink. “You know, hon, we should go somewhere—Golden Gate Park, the Marina, out to the beach. Even out in our own backyard. Right, buddy?” He picked up little John, who gurgled in agreement.

  Jack carried him over to the kitchen window, and together they looked down on the overgrown tangle of flowers and weeds, the remains of a once-well-tended garden.

  “On second thought,” he said, “maybe we should skip the backyard.”

  Kate winced. She had promised herself that she’d do something about that garden during her maternity leave, but somehow she never quite managed.

  Just as she was about to hang up, she heard someone knock Gallagher’s receiver off the hook, then fumble for it with butter fingers.

  “Hello.” Dennis Gallagher’s voice was groggy.

  “Are you still in bed, Denny?” Kate asked, glancing up at the kitchen clock.

  “Where the hell else would I be at this hour of the morning on my day off?”

  “Sorry.” She hoped she sounded contrite. “You’re not sick, are you?”

  “No, I’m not sick. I’m just dead. And what the hell is so all-fired important that it can’t wait for a decent hour?”

  “I wouldn’t call ten o’clock exactly indecent.” Kate tried to sound reasonable, but Gallagher cut her off.

  “What the hell do you want, Murphy? And it better be good!”

  This was not going at all well. Kate wanted a favor, and this was not the way to get it. She tried the humble approach. “Sorry I woke you, Denny. Why don’t you go back to sleep and I’ll call you again in an hour or two?”

  “Too late now,” he said, then sighed dramatically. “What is it you wanted anyhow? Everybody’s all right, aren’t they?”

  Kate caught the note of concern in his voice. Good, he was softening up.

  “Yes, thanks. Everyone here is fine, but you’ll never guess who I’ve heard from.”

  “Jeez, Kate, first you wake me up out of a sound sleep. Now you want to play guessing games? Damn it, who called? This better be good.”

  “A couple of hours ago, actually at the crack of dawn”—she dropped that tidbit hoping he’d feel fortunate—“I received a call from a Comisario Ángel Serrano. He’s with the police in Santiago de Compostela in Spain.”

  Gallagher was quiet. Good. She’d hooked his interest. “An American tourist, a member of a group originating here in the city, was murdered in his jurisdiction. Serrano is pretty convinced that another member of the tour is the perp, and he needs some background information on these other members. You know, the usual stuff.” Without a twinge of guilt, Kate skipped the fact that she had volunteered to get Serrano the information.

  “A police commissioner from Spain called you at home? Why the hell would a police commissioner call you and not another police commissioner, may I ask?”

  “It’s somewhat of a long story.”

  “I’ve plenty of time,” Gallagher said, his tone dangerous.

  Kate cleared her throat. “Actually I received two calls from Spain. The commissioner called early this morning, and around midnight last night I received another call from—you’ll never guess who. Our old friend Sister—” That was as far as she got.

  “Sister Mary Helen,” Gallagher roared. Kate held the receiver away from her ear. “What in the hell is that old busybody nun doing mixed up with murder, again? See what I mean, Murphy? It never fails. I swear, she’s getting to be a regular goddamn Sister Mary Typhoid Helen.”

  “She didn’t commit the murder,” Kate said, but Gallagher was off and running.

  “Honest to God, Kate, I hope this time they lock her up and throw away the key. She—neither one of them, and I assume that her sidekick Sister Eileen is with her, has any business at all going out of the country in the first place. Jeez.” He exhaled a long, sad sigh. “We’re all going to hell in a handbag. You know as well as I do that nuns should be home in the convents, praying their beads, and minding their own goddamn business.”

  “What in the world bit you?” Kate heard Mrs. G’s voice ask from the background.

  “It’s those goddamn old nuns again.”

  “Dennis Gallagher, I hope you’re not talking to Sister like that. If you are, give me that phone this instant. And if you aren’t, stop it anyway. What kind of example is that for the children?”

  “The children? What children? The children don’t live here anymore, thank God, unless you just brought one of them home with you from the grocery store. And if it’s up to me, I say let’s keep it that way.”

  “You old coot, you don’t mean one word you’re saying.”

  “I mean every goddamn syllable of it. Every time our kids and their kids come near here, they eat us out of house and home. Don’t they have houses of t
heir own? It seems to me we’re always helping one or the other of them to get their own place. Why can’t they stay in it?”

  Gallagher had switched to another of his pet peeves, and Kate decided she had caused enough damage for one Saturday morning. “Denny,” she shouted into the fracas, “shall I call you back with the list of names that the commissioner wants you to check?”

  “No,” he grumbled. “I’m wide-awake now. Might just as well let me write ’em down. But remember I’m off this weekend, so I can’t promise anything until Monday at the earliest. When’s this tour scheduled to come home anyway?”

  “A week from today, I think.”

  “With the time difference, this guy might have the thing worked out before I get him the info.” Gallagher gave a loud yawn.

  “That’s true.” Kate tried not to let her disappointment show in her voice. Actually she was surprised by it herself. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted to get involved in this case.

  “Jeez, if this Serrano guy can’t figure it out in a week, he might put the whole goddamn bunch of them back on a plane.”

  “Then does it become our problem or the feds?” Kate wondered aloud.

  Gallagher perked up. “Our problem? Do I take it you’ve decided to come back to work?”

  “I haven’t decided anything yet.”

  “Tell Kate I said hello,” Mrs. G called from the background.

  Saved! Kate thought and quickly began to pronounce and spell the names of each member on the tour. She threw in Jose Nunez, aka Pepe, and Señor Carlos Fraga, owner of the Patio Español, for good measure. Not wanting to give Gallagher more fuel for his tirade, she purposely omitted Sister Mary Helen and Sister Eileen, but he couldn’t let it slide.

  “And the nuns? Doesn’t the poor unsuspecting slob want background on those two screwball friends of yours?”

  “Friends of ours, Denny.” Kate felt her own temper fizzing up. It felt good. It had been too long since she and Denny had had a real screaming fight. Maybe that was part of what she missed about her job. “Friends of ours! Let’s not forget how helpful those two old screwballs have been,” she shouted. “I don’t know if we’d have done nearly as well solving those murders without them.”