by Morgana Best
Still, he was an officer of the law, and I didn’t think I could hide from him. It would be better to get whatever he wanted over with. I hurried to my room and pulled on jeans and a tee shirt. I then went to the front door, hurrying down the narrow staircase.
When I pulled open the door, the cop had turned around, apparently giving up. He was halfway back to his car when he turned.
“Hello, Ms. Tyler,” the cop said.
“It’s Taylor,” I said, for the umpteenth time. How could he catch crooks when he couldn’t even get my name straight?
“Mind if I come in?”
“Sure.” I stepped back to allow him to pass me.
“Have you just woken up?” Sergeant Barnes asked in an accusing tone. He checked his watch. “It’s almost ten.”
“It’s my day off,” I said, suppressing the desire to go ahead and shut the door in his face.
The cop just shrugged and stepped inside. He followed me into the back room behind the shop.
“Have a seat,” I said, waving my hand toward the couch. “Mind if I make coffee? I get a caffeine deficient headache if I don’t get some into me quick, as soon as I wake up.” I realized I was babbling, but I didn’t care. I switched on the coffee machine before he answered.
I turned back to him, leaning against the countertop, while inhaling the heavenly aroma of the coffee. “What’s going on?”
“Well, the family, Mrs. Sutton’s family, they’re really pushing us to find the perpetrator.”
I nodded. “I thought you said it was a fall down the stairs?”
“Well, that’s what it looked like to me at first, but the family said otherwise. I guess you know about the husband who died some time back?”
I nodded. Mrs. Sutton’s husband had been a famous player in AFL way back in the early days. He was still talked about these days. His name had been Bert Sutton, and he had made quite a name for himself, having played for twelve years.
“Well this has gotten out a bit. The family doesn’t live around here, not anymore. They all moved to Victoria when they got old enough, the kids and that, but the story of Mrs. Sutton being found dead has been picked up. Sports blogs and all that,” Barnes said with obvious distaste. “I don’t go for the internet much, but this thing is picking up steam, and we’re getting pressured on both sides. There’s only two of us here, you know.”
“Where is your partner?” I asked as I poured coffee into my cup. “Would you like some coffee?”
Barnes shook his head and screwed up his nose. “He’s working on another lead.”
I sat opposite him, holding my mug in two hands, watching the soft winding line of steam rising from the hot liquid.
“I’m just doing some follow up. Some questions.”
I nodded.
“You were going to see Mrs. Sutton about some antiques?”
“Not antiques as such,” I said. “Second hand furniture.”
“But she called you, and mentioned something?”
“About the nuns,” I said, knowing he wouldn’t like that answer.
Barnes sighed, and ran a finger through his mustache. Nevertheless, he didn’t respond, but nodded and wrote down something on the small pad of paper he had resting on his knee. “Right, anything else?”
“I went over and she was dead. The front door was locked; the back door wasn’t. I went in and found her by the back door, holding Rosary beads.”
“And she wasn’t Catholic, you said?”
“No,” I said. “Definitely not. She was Protestant. She always used to go to the church opposite the vet clinic on the main road.”
The cop nodded and wrote some more. “Well, I gotta say, we got some prints there, and we took yours so we didn’t spend any time going after you, and we found some of yours there, on the back door and stuff, but we found a partial print on the Rosary beads, that didn’t belong to you or Mrs. Sutton. Now of course it could have been someone else, from before the death.”
“The murderer?”
Barnes narrowed his eyes. “I’m not convinced of that, yet. I’m just trying to cover all of the bases,” he said. “But there was a partial fingerprint, and we ended up getting what could be a match. It’s hard to tell without the whole thing, and so far we haven’t found any more of these prints there to pull a whole one, but we got a seventy something percent match from a lab in Sydney.”
“Whose is it?” I asked, not expecting an answer.
“Slim Eddie,” he said, “or so he’s known.”
My mouth fell open. I knew the name. Slim Eddie was one of the members of the Shadow Gang.
“You know him?” Barnes asked, fixing me with a glare.
“Of course — you know what I’ve been telling you about these nuns around here.”
Barnes held up his beefy hand. “I don’t want to hear about it — I know your complaints. I just thought I would share that with you.”
I was puzzled. “Why are you telling me any of this?”
“Well, I know you felt like something was going on, and as we’re looking into it, it’s turning out that you might be right.”
I was surprised by his admission. “Have you found anything else?”
Barnes hesitated for a minute, as if he were weighing up how much he should tell me. I was a civilian after all. “Did you go into the basement, or the barn for any reason?”
I didn’t even pause. I wouldn’t tell him Adam and I had gone back later that night. “No,” I lied.
“Well, we found evidence that someone was in both. We found some small windows open. I sure couldn’t ever fit into them, but someone else — someone your size, or maybe even a little bigger, could.”
I wasn’t sure if he was insinuating anything. I wanted to know if he had found the black cloth on the rose thorn, but I knew I couldn’t ask that.
The cop continued. “And, you know, the barn, well, there were some boot prints in a muddy corner. It looked like the mud there had been disturbed, maybe dug up. We’re trying to pull some prints there, too, but it’s a mess.”
“I know. I’ve been in the barn, but Mrs. Sutton never let me go through it. But yeah, it’s a mess,” I agreed.
The cop took a moment and then stood. “In any case, I just need to ask you to stick around town. You didn’t have any plans to leave, did you? No vacations coming up?”
I stood as well. “No.”
“All right.”
“Sergeant Barnes, am I a suspect?” My heart was in my mouth.
The cop paused for a moment and then he shrugged. “Person of interest, I guess. You found the body. And like I said, if someone came in through the windows, there was a window there that wasn’t quite shut, but if someone had to go in that way, it was someone small. I don’t know many men who could fit.”
“There are plenty of small men,” I said. “Slim Eddie is a small man, hence his name. Skinny and short.”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“I think a band of famous bank robbers are living under our noses posing as women. You better believe I’ve done my homework.”
The cop was going to say something, but he didn’t. He smiled thinly and nodded, placing a finger or two on the brim of his hat. “Thanks for your time.”
“Of course,” I said. I followed the police officer downstairs and shut and locked my door behind him. I climbed up the stairs and peered out the living room window, watching as the cop sat in his car for a few moments before cranking the engine and driving off.
I returned to the back room and poured more coffee into my mug. I sipped slowly as I thought.
I was shaken to be a suspect — or rather, a ‘person of interest’ as the cop had called it.
I thought of Slim Eddie. It wasn’t a complete match of course, but it had been enough to have him ding in the system. It had to be him. I had seen him before, the small man in a habit, posing as a woman. If anything, he was the most successful at it. The other guys were too big, too broad, too manly. Slim Eddie was som
ewhat feminine. He was pulling off the disguise wonderfully.
I washed my cup and then went back to my bedroom. I was surprised to see I had a missed call from Adam. I called him straight back.
“What are you doing Sunday?” he said by way of greeting.
“Nothing much, why?”
“I have an idea.”
I took a deep breath. I knew I was about to get into some trouble on Sunday.
Chapter 9.
On Sunday Adam stopped by in the morning to pick me up. As I climbed into his car, he explained exactly what we were doing again, even though he had already told me on the phone.
“So there’s a big to-do at the convent this morning,” he said. “A bunch of people will be there I guess, and some high-up Bishop is coming in from the Hunter Valley. I think we need to be there, ‘cause it might give us a good chance to snoop.”
“Snoop?” I asked. This was a new development from the conversation we’d had on Tuesday. I had thought we were going there simply to see how the fake man-nuns reacted with something they knew nothing about, such as mass. And now there was talk of snooping.
“This thing,” Adam said as he pulled out on the highway, narrowly missing a speeding truck, “it’s a celebratory Mass for the founding of something or other. The convent I guess. The point is, they’re going to be busy.”
“They won’t know what to do,” I said hopefully. “Everyone will know they’re a sham. At least the Bishop will.”
Adam shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m sure Sister Maria, or whatever her real name is, has drilled and drilled them. She won’t want to let it up,”
We didn’t talk much on the ride to the convent, and I was sure that Adam was just as nervous as I was. He had told me to wear something that would not draw attention to myself, so I had opted for black slacks, a gray shirt, and minimal make up. Gemma would have a fit if she could see me.
The parking area was packed, but I figured it was better for our cause if plenty of people were going to Mass. We blended in with the crowd as we stepped inside.
The church in the convent was small and was rapidly becoming cramped, and the lighting was dim. That suited me just fine. Adam and I sat on a pew in the back row and waited for Mass to start.
The Bishop who had come into town was an older man with a shock of white hair, though it was thin enough to see his pink sunburned scalp underneath. He was short and portly, and although he had a warm smile, his speech was high-pitched and excited.
After ten minutes Adam nodded to me and we slid from the pew. No one paid us any attention. Sister Maria and her fake nuns were in the front rows. I was sure that when they kneeled in prayer, a few hairy ankles would poke out from the hems of their habits. I hoped someone would pay attention.
Adam led the way back out of the church, and into the hall. I followed him as he cut to the left. Thankfully, no one was in the hall.
“How much time do we have?” I asked. I was trembling.
“I would guess an hour at the most,” Adam said.
“Where to first?”
“Bedrooms.”
I nodded and followed Adam into the convent proper. We soon found the bedrooms down a long hall. “I’ll check it out,” I said, nodding to the first door on the left. While I didn’t want to be alone, I knew I’d be out of there faster with the two of us searching separately. My mouth was dry and I had to fight waves of nausea. I’d wanted to be a spy as kid — now I wanted to be anything but.
I looked about the room. It was small, with a plain bed in one corner and a large but plain oak closet in another. A writing desk stood along one wall, and there was a small end table with a radio upon it next to the bed. I went to the writing desk first. I pulled open the drawer. Inside were handwritten envelopes addressed to Reverend Mother, and a few drafts of reply letters. And then in the bottom of the drawer, a fat envelope stuffed with money. I pulled out my cell phone and took a picture of the envelope and the money inside of it, and then quickly returned everything to the drawer.
I hurried to the large closet and opened the double doors. Hanging inside were several habits, and in a drawer below were sets of women’s underwear. I shut the closet and went out into the hall.
Adam had managed to get through two rooms. He was in the third one down when I found him.
“Anything?” I asked.
“Men’s boxers, men’s razors.”
“We already know that they’re men.”
Adam held up his phone. He too had been taking pictures.
“And now we have proof,” he said. “What did you get?”
I showed him the picture of the envelope stuffed with cash.
“Wow,” he said. “I didn’t find any in the guys’ rooms.”
“Sister Maria might be managing their ill gotten gains,” I guessed.
“You’re probably right,” Adam said. “Let’s forget the other rooms — I want to check out the other hall.”
I nodded and let Adam lead the way. We had to cross the entrance to the chapel, but everyone seemed to be still listening to the Bishop. I was glad for Catholic priests and their dislike of short services.
The other hall was just as long, but with fewer doors. The first door opened up into a shallow closet that was filled with mops and brooms, and was overflowing with cleaning equipment. The unpleasant and sharp smell of bleach flooded into my nostrils as soon as I opened the door, so I shut it quickly.
The next door opened into another restroom, like the one at the end of the living quarters hall. The next door was locked. Adam tried the doorknob a few times, no doubt hoping that it was merely stuck, but no, it was locked, a deadbolt turned tightly.
“I wonder what they have in there?” Adam said quietly.
“I’d love to find out — it’s the only locked door in the place,” I said. I wasn’t exactly sure that was true, as we still had many more doors to check. We were debating whether to try to find some way into the room, when I heard footsteps coming our way, nearing the corner.
“Come on!” I whispered, grabbing Adam by the arm and pulling him toward the janitorial closet. I threw the door open and practically jumped in, leaving Adam to do the same and close the door behind him.
We waited in the closet. My breath was caught in my throat. I was so scared that I didn’t even delight in being squashed into a closet with Adam. It was so quiet and still that I could hear my own heartbeat. It seemed so loud that I was sure whoever was now walking down the hall would hear it too.
The steps approached the closet door. I imagined someone throwing the door open and catching us, but to my enormous relief, there was no pause at the door and whoever was walking kept right on past.
Then the steps stopped, and I could hear the jangle of keys on a key ring.
“The door?” I risked whispering, and Adam nodded.
I could hear the door unlock — a loud metallic click that echoed in the otherwise quiet hall. That was followed by more footsteps as someone went into the room. I reached for the door handle, but Adam stopped me.
“We could see what’s in there,” I whispered.
Adam shook his head. “Too risky.”
Just then the footsteps grew louder, and I could hear the door being locked. The footsteps approached again and then mercifully passed. They faded from earshot as whoever they belonged to went around the corner, back toward the chapel.
“We need to get out of here,” Adam said, and I nodded. I needed no persuading.
We opened the door slowly, and I peered carefully into the hall. It was empty the one way I could see, so I could only hope it was empty in the other direction as well. I pushed the door open fully and stepped out, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one was there. Mercifully, the hallway was empty.
We rushed around the corner, and then to the front door of the monastery. We heard singing coming from the chapel, but we didn’t look back. Adam pushed open the heavy front door, and we both hurried down the stone steps to the sidewalk.
Then it was a running walk to Adam’s car.
As I opened the passenger side door, I threw a glance over my shoulder to the convent. There was Sister Maria watching us.
I was chilled to the bone. “Adam!” I said urgently.
“Oh,” was all he said, and then he sped away from the curb.
“How did she know?” I said. I pushed my feet into the floor in an attempt to stop my legs from trembling.
“Know what?” Adam asked.
“That we were there. Was she following us?”
Adam shook his head. “It had to be a coincidence — she only saw us when she stepped outside.”
Adam sounded sure of that, but I wasn’t convinced. Sister Maria was trouble. Apart from being the leader of a gang of vicious bank robbers, the woman was unbalanced. I knew that from our little chat at the festival. Still, I didn’t want to push the topic with Adam. I didn’t want to admit how much Sister Maria scared me, even more so than the man-nuns.
Chapter 10.
The day started like every other usually did. I made myself some coffee and then flipped over the sign that hung on the front door. I smiled as I looked out over the busy street. It looked like the tourists were already milling about, so I headed out the back to bring out some new furniture that I’d recently repaired and restored.
I lifted a large table from the work area and was carrying it to the front when the bell signaled that a customer had entered. I put the table down and made my way to the front. When I reached the sales floor, I slipped behind the front counter.
The customer was a tall, strong-looking man with sharp features. His face had a familiarity to it, but I couldn’t quite remember where I’d seen him before. I figured I must have seen him around town recently. Still, a little trickle of apprehension ran up my spine. “Good morning,” I said, looking at the man with a smile.
The visitor turned to look at some of the furniture that lined the left side of the shop. I figured that he hadn’t heard me, or perhaps was too lost in thought studying the pieces. After I few moments, I spoke again. “Good morning. May I help you with anything, or are you happy to browse?”
