Murder Makes a Pilgrimage

by Carol Anne O'Marie

  “No reason, really. It’s just that we are all from the same area, a rather small area, really, and it just seems likely that we might have some connection.” Her explanation sounded feeble, even to herself. It was obvious from the amusement in Neil’s eyes that he wasn’t buying it at all.

  “Sister, doing your own police work can be dangerous,” he said softly.

  Mary Helen felt her face flush. She was sorely tempted to flutter like a heroine in a Victorian novel and ask, “Whatever do you mean, Doctor?” Instead she opted for the honest approach. “Was it that obvious?”

  “Direct questions out of context usually are, even to Rita.” He turned toward his wife.

  Rita shot him a “don’t-push-your-luck-with-those-smart-remarks” look and latched on to an unsuspecting middle-aged woman who had unwittingly brushed shoulders with her.

  Neil blinked several times. “Rita has a tendency to talk a lot when she’s nervous,” he said in a soft voice. Obviously he did not want his wife to overhear.

  Not that Mary Helen blamed him. If Rita talked that incessantly when she was nervous, imagine her tirade when she was angry.

  “She told you everything but our Social Security numbers and my weight.” He held out his glass to a passing waiter.

  Again, Mary Helen declined. “Why is your wife so nervous?” she asked.

  “For the same reason we all are.” Neil’s dark eyes, sharp as needles, stared over the rims of his glasses and fastened on her. “Because one of us is a murderer,” he said in a tone that turned Mary Helen’s spinal cord to ice. “And only one person knows which one.”

  Excusing herself, Mary Helen headed for the door with the word Damas inscribed in the center of a large brass cockleshell. It was a two-room affair, part lounge, part lavatory.

  Still reeling from Rita’s barrage and Neil’s single sentence, she sank down on a small, overstuffed couch that ran along one wall. The couch and two matching chairs, set across from an enormous mirror, formed an intimate “conversation group,” should any of the damas wish to gossip in the bathroom. Flushing toilets and running basins provided a watery background for all conversation.

  Glad to be alone, Mary Helen dug through her pocket-book for Eileen’s cream and Anne’s travel diary. Her palms stung, and the cream soothed them. That done, she opened the diary to jot down some thoughts, not that she’d forget, but sometimes when things are fresh . . . “Evasive,” she wrote next to the DeAngelos’ names. “Stonewalling—possibly a better word.”

  With a swish of cold air, the lavatory door swung open and Mary Helen was aware of a person approaching her. The first thing in view was a pair of black shoes. She knew they must be fashionable, but to her they looked for all the world like something Minnie Mouse would wear. The feet were small and splayed.

  Mary Helen’s eyes climbed up the black leotards to a swirling, voluminous black cashmere skirt and fitted top. An enormous fringed challis scarf, a riot of teal and red paisley print and black hound’s-tooth, was draped across one shoulder and knotted on one shapely hip.

  When Mary Helen finally reached the face, she was not at all surprised to see María José.

  “Hi, Sister,” the girl chirped happily, her breath smelling of wine. “You are just the one I am looking for.” She sank down on the couch beside Mary Helen, pausing for a long moment to examine herself in the mirror and tuck a few strands of magenta hair back into her tight French braid.

  “Me? Why are you looking for me?” Mary Helen asked when María José’s attention shifted back to her.

  “To see how you are feeling. My uncle—” She stopped abruptly. Her face colored. Obviously she had let the last two words slip. At last the vino theory was paying off.

  “Your uncle? Who is your uncle?” Mary Helen asked.

  María José’s eyes avoided Mary Helen’s steady gaze. Her lips moved as if she were practicing an explanation but having very little success making it sound plausible. Finally, with a resigned sigh, María José laid her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. “The comisario is my uncle,” she said in a voice so low that Mary Helen nearly missed it.

  “Ángel Serrano is your uncle?” Mary Helen was surprised. For some reason she had not thought of the comisario as a family man. Once she did, her mind clicked, and several small pieces snapped together. It explained why his face had registered surprise on Saturday, when he found María José among the tourists in the hotel’s catchall room, and why she had never returned. Undoubtedly he’d sent her home. And it accounted for her actions today. He had asked her to go along on the trip, then stay behind in the bus and look for clues.

  “Are you working with the police?” Mary Helen asked. Her direct question was jarring, she knew, but time was a-wasting. The cocktail hour would soon be over, and she wanted to get back to the DeAngelos.

  The pleased expression on María José’s face answered her question. A wannabe, Mary Helen thought, recognizing a kindred spirit.

  “I had a difficult time convincing my uncle to let me go along today on the tour bus,” María José began, a note of triumph in her voice, “because I am not a police person.”

  Mary Helen did not miss the emphasis on the nonsexist title.

  “But now he is happy that I did, or else he would never have known that you were accosted in the tower.” Her dark eyes sparkled with excitement.

  “You told him that?”

  “I overheard you say so when you reboarded the bus today. And that Pepe caught you.”

  “What did your uncle say?”

  “He huffed and puffed about my not doing as I was told, but I knew from the look on his face that he was glad for the information.” She glanced at her watch. “Soon they will miss me at home.” Leaning forward, she took Mary Helen’s hands. Turning them over, she frowned, and a little round column of concern formed between her eyebrows as she examined them. “We will find whoever did this,” she promised earnestly.

  “How do you know Pepe?” Mary Helen asked.

  Startled by the change of subject, María José let go of Mary Helen’s hands. “Actually, I never met him until we sat next to each other on the plane from Madrid to Santiago.”

  “You mean you met him on the day we arrived?”

  María José nodded. “I was flying home from a visit with my cousins in Madrid, and Pepe’s seat was next to mine. We started talking, and very soon into our conversation he told me about leading an American tour group to Santiago and knowing very little about the city. I told him I was a native, and before I knew it, he asked me to go along on the tour as a consultant. It sounded like an unexpected opportunity to try out the tourist business, and what, I thought, could possibly be the danger?”

  Mary Helen was flabbergasted. “What did your uncle say to that?”

  María José’s eyes clouded. “My uncle, my whole family really do not take me very seriously.”

  No small wonder, Mary Helen thought, what with sudden business alliances with perfect strangers. Not to mention the magenta hair.

  “They think that I am just headstrong, going through a phase.” María José’s nose rose in the air until her chin jutted out in a determined V. “But, Sister, I am a Galician woman. Galician women are strong and resolute. We possess white magic.”

  We could use a little of that all right, Mary Helen thought.

  “You do trust me to help you, don’t you?” The young woman searched Mary Helen’s face.

  For some inexplicable reason Mary Helen did. She sensed that somewhere between the Minnie Mouse shoes and the magenta braid was a backbone of cold, solid steel. She knew from experience that that kind of determination and stick-to-it-iveness produced a magic power all their own.

  When Mary Helen finally returned to the cocktail party, the noise level had risen in direct proportion to the alcohol intake. It was difficult to hear the stringed quartet. She searched the crowd for the DeAngelos, but they were nowhere in sight. It was just as well, Mary Helen thought. Her hip and knees we
re beginning to stiffen.

  Finally letting the waiter refill her wineglass, she carried it with her upstairs.

  Sister Mary Helen was surprised to hear the bath water running. “Eileen, it’s I,” she called, closing their bedroom door behind her.

  The door to the bathroom opened a crack, and a billow of steam softly scented with lavender poured out into the room. “I’m just out of the tub.” Eileen’s voice rose above the sound of running water. “I took a chance you’d be right behind me, so I ran one for you.” The faucets screeched off, and Eileen came out of the bathroom. “Why don’t you jump into the tub and I’ll order us room service, and when we’ve settled, we can—”

  “I am not an invalid, you know!” Mary Helen snapped. Despite the soreness in her back, she had no intention of giving in.

  Eileen’s eyebrows and shoulders shot up simultaneously. “Invalid? Who said anything about an invalid? Did I say, ‘hobble or crawl to the tub’? Did I say, ‘I’ll help you to the tub’? If I remember correctly, I said, ‘jump into the tub.’ Does that sound like I think you’re an invalid? I don’t know about you, old dear, but I’ve had a long and nerveracking day, and I am bushed. So you do whatever you want.” Tired, angry tears welled up in Eileen’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” Mary Helen said, regretting her impatience. She smiled meekly at Eileen, who refused for the moment to smile back. “Thank you for thinking of me,” Mary Helen said, and for the first time since lunch she really looked at her friend. With a stab of guilt, she noticed that beneath the flush from the tub, Eileen’s face was pale and small pouches had formed under her eyes. She looked absolutely exhausted.

  “I’ll be out in a few minutes,” Mary Helen mumbled, and made her way like a medieval penitent to soak in the hot tub.

  After a few prickly moments, smoothed over by steaming bowls of sopa de crema de espárrago, crusty bread, assorted pastries, and a bottle of aromatic white wine, the two old nuns settled down peacefully to work.

  “Neither Bowman holds much promise as our murderer.” Eileen tried unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. “They are your ordinary run-of-the-mill ‘small-business-makes-good’ story. Bud never went to college, worked as an electrician, bought his own shop in Daly City, invested wisely, and now buys Cora, who is, by the way, his first and only wife, expensive jewelry.”

  “So that’s why she was wearing emeralds and diamonds on Friday night.”

  Eileen nodded. “Fortieth wedding anniversary gift, Cora told me. She worked as his bookkeeper for years. They have one son, and now that he can easily take over the business, Bud wants to travel.

  “They are nodding acquaintances of Carlos Fraga because they eat at the Patio Español once or twice a month. They never heard of any of the others before they won the prize, and if Cora is to be believed, they never want to hear of them again once it’s over. Maybe they’ll even give up the Patio Español.

  “Bud told me they should have started with Club Med, but Cora couldn’t pass up the free trip.” Eileen yawned again. “Dead end number one,” she said.

  “Did you learn any more about Heidi?”

  Eileen shook her head. “If you ask me, the girl is becoming a bit unglued. She’s very distressed about Lisa’s murder, I’m sure, but to hear her talk tonight, she was more concerned about how angry her mother will be. Why would her own mother be so angry?”

  Mary Helen had no idea.

  “She makes no pretense about liking Lisa and is very relieved that a police matron packed all her belongings and took them away.”

  “Do you think by some remote chance she could be our murderer?” Mary Helen wondered aloud.

  Eileen closed her eyes, apparently deep in thought. She looked so drained that Mary Helen wondered if she’d dropped off to sleep.

  “No.” She paused. “Although I have no reason to say that. She is just not enough.”

  “Not enough?” Mary Helen was genuinely puzzled.

  “You know, angry, but not angry enough. Jealous, but not jealous enough. Shrewd, but not shrewd enough. Crazy, but not—”

  “Enough! You’ve made your point. To your way of thinking, she’s dead end number two. What about Pepe?”

  “As I told you on the bus, I’d never cast Pepe in the murderer’s role, yet he does put a new spin on the word enigma. Charming, with a scoundrel of sorts hidden not far below the surface. The well-traveled man of the world with that touch of a Spanish accent.”

  “Could be a combination of listening to his uncle and to I Love Lucy reruns on the tube.” Mary Helen refilled both wineglasses.

  Eileen smiled. “I’ll wager he’s gone no farther from home than Yosemite.” She sipped her wine. “He did attend college. Even though he wears that ostentatious signet ring, I doubt if he graduated. ‘All show and no go,’ as the girls say. He admires and appreciates his uncle, but we both are well aware of the other side of that story.

  “Yet after all I’ve just said, he really has no apparent motive. He claims that he never met Lisa before this trip, and I believe him. So although he may not be a complete dead end, he is, at best, a cul-de-sac.”

  Mary Helen agreed. “Do you know who else he never met before?” she asked.

  Eileen shook her head.

  “María José!” Wasting no time, Mary Helen told Eileen about the Fongs, most likely dead end four, the disappearing DeAngelos, and, saving the best until last, the deadest end of all, María José.

  Relief washed over Eileen’s tired face. “I don’t know why, but having someone even remotely connected with the police along on that bus with us makes me feel better.” She yawned so hard that her eyes watered. “Let’s call it a night,” she said.

  Mary Helen pushed herself up from the chair. Her knees were stiff, and a spot on her left shoulder felt sore to the touch. “I don’t know why it makes you feel better after what happened today.” She grinned at Eileen. Still contrite for her earlier peevishness, she added, “But there must be an old saying back home to cover it.”

  “Indeed, there is,” said Eileen, who recognized true repentance when she heard it. “A trout in the pot is better than a salmon in the sea.”

  Not ten blocks away Comisario Ángel Serrano was having a sleepless night. A sliver of moonlight cut through a small opening in the heavy drapes and lay across the bedcovers. Beside him in the light, he watched Julietta’s stomach move up and down, up and down, in deep, contented sleep. He tried to match his breathing to hers but failed.

  Frustrated, he rolled onto his side. Despite his best efforts he kept replaying the account of the Americans’ trip to La Coruña. He could not block it from his mind.

  María José was so certain that the old nun had been accosted. Maybe she was exaggerating. First thing tomorrow he would check with the Sister. If his niece had embellished the story, he would personally go over to his sister’s home and throttle María José. And his sister, Pilar, too, if she objected. The pleasure of the thought embarrassed him. What violence for a peace-loving man! But Pilar did that to him.

  If he were honest, María José’s observations were helpful, if one considered knowing that a killer was on the loose and disposed to kill again helpful. He, Ángel Serrano, must prevent it. One murder in Santiago, American or no, was quite enough.

  To find the murderer, he must first find the motive. That was obvious, yet he knew so little about this group of Americans. That was what made it difficult.

  The clock in the downstairs hallway chimed two. The time difference was driving him crazy. It was still Sunday in San Francisco. He must wait for Monday to arrive there. He must wait until this Kate Murphy had an opportunity to pull up information. Wait, while a murderer was on the prowl. He was not good at waiting.

  Ángel kicked his feet out of the bedcovers. Sleep! He needed sleep. Tomorrow he had a whole day to get through.

  His stomach complained. Pilar never serves enough food, he thought testily. Maybe he was hungry. Maybe that was why he could not sleep.

  Cautiously Á
ngel tiptoed down the stairs, avoiding the steps that creaked. No sense waking up Julietta, too. He opened the refrigerator door and peered into the covered bowls, hoping to find some leftover soup.

  “What in the world is worrying you?”

  Ángel jumped and waited until his breath caught up.

  Silent as a spider, Julietta had followed him downstairs and now, in only her nightgown, stood in the door frame of the kitchen. Her long dark hair flowed freely over her shoulders and covered her breasts.

  “It’s this American murder case and María José,” he said. “I cannot sleep.”

  “Sit down,” Julietta said, and bustled past him.

  He watched her deftly heat his soup to a perfect sipping temperature, butter a slab of soft bread, and pour him a tall glass of milk.

  While Ángel ate and talked, Julietta listened and nodded encouragingly. When he finished, Ángel felt much better.

  It was only as Julietta, holding firmly to his hand, led him back up the creaky stairs that he realized that once again she had simply agreed with him. How wise this wife of his was and how fortunate he was to have her.

  With a surge of love, he grabbed her full hips. Moving her hair, he kissed the nape of her neck and smelled the fresh, clean scent of lilac.

  MONDAY, OCTOBER 11

  Feast of St. María Desolata

  Torres-Acosta, Foundress

  Clenching her teeth, Sister Mary Helen eased out of the high, canopied bed. Her legs were stiff, her shoulder and back ached, and there was a purple bruise the size of a fist on her hip.

  “How are you doing this morning, old dear?” Eileen sat in one of the velvet chairs studying the room service menu. “They say you will feel better if you move your sore spots, you know.”

  “Who says?” Mary Helen groused.

  “Undoubtedly someone who never bounced off the walls at the Tower of Hercules.”

  Mary Helen, her whole body tense, sat on the edge of the bed, examining her hands. “I look—and feel—more like I played for the Forty-niners yesterday,” she said with a twinge of homesickness. Why in the world had they ever decided to take this blasted trip?