Death Goes on Retreat (28 page)

“Are you almost done for the day, officers?” Felicita
asked “Or are you staying for supper?” Even her deepseated habit of hospitality couldn’t conceal her hope that she’d guessed right the first time.

“Can we get room service?” Little couldn’t resist a little jibe.

Flustered, Felicita glanced down at the tray. “Oh, this. It’s for Laura. Poor girl has eaten nothing all day but some soup. A little nourishment never hurt anyone.”

The two men watched Sister Felicita, black scapular swinging behind her, bustle into St. Philomena’s Hall. “Are you going to wait until she’s done eating?” Kemp asked. “Or do we go in right now?”

“Even the condemned get a last meal, right?” Little answered, feeling sapped of the energy and satisfaction he usually felt when he was about to arrest a murderer.

Kemp’s mirthless laugh was cut short by a splintering crash and the hollow ricochet of jagged screams.

“What the hell . . . ?” Little bolted toward the building, the slap of Kemp’s shoes behind him.

The steady shrieks drew them to the room where Laura Purcell was resting. Felicita, surrounded by cracked dishes, spilled water, and clumps of steaming goulash, sagged against the doorjamb. She groaned when she saw the two officers and waved a limp hand toward the bed. “She’s dead,” she whispered hoarsely, then hunched over and began to weep.

Bracing himself, Little moved toward the body. Laura Purcell was sprawled across the bed, almost as if she had tried to get up but had been pulled back. Her hair hung over the edge like a flaming waterfall. Her green, glassy eyes stared flatly at Little and her mouth yawned open.

Fighting down a sickening sensation, Little touched
her cold, waxy neck, then her bluish wrist, feeling for a pulse. There was none. Nor were there any apparent signs of a struggle. In fact, there were no visible signs of the cause of Laura’s death.

Little, moving his ankle, kicked against the leg of the nightstand. A sticky soup spoon clattered to the ground. Sister Felicita groaned. Despite the unbearable heat in the room, her teeth were chattering.

“Get her out of here,” Little mouthed to Kemp. Or soon we’ll have two corpses, he thought.

The spoon had fallen from an empty soup bowl. Bending over the table Little sniffed the contents. Tomato soup. Beside it, a small, empty brown pill bottle lay on its side. The prescription label was torn off, but a powdery film still adhered to the inside. It would be a piece of cake for the forensic team to discover what the bottle had contained.

“What do you make of it, Bob?” Kemp reentered the room.

“Looks like she may have overdosed.” He pointed to the empty bottle. “Time and forensics will tell.”

Kemp put his hands in his pockets and stared down at Laura’s body. “Such a waste.” He shook his head sadly and Little saw his bow tie bounce when he swallowed. “Why would someone so young and so beautiful kill herself? Unless you were right after all, Bob, and she did murder the boyfriend. That’s the only way it makes sense.” Kemp looked up at him with a kind of grudging admiration. “You’ve done it again, fellow, but this time I’ll be damned if I can figure out exactly what made you come to that conclusion.”

And I hope you never do, Little thought, leaving the
sweltering bedroom to make all the necessary phone calls.

Inspectors Kate Murphy and Dennis Gallagher arrived back at the Hall of Justice at about four o’clock. Kate was tired and discouraged. Their door-to-door interviews with Mrs. Rosen’s neighbors had yielded nothing more than sore feet and a slight headache. She sank back in her swivel chair and closed her eyes.

“Coffee?” Gallagher asked.

Kate shook her head. “By this time of day it tastes like battery fluid,” she said.

“When’s the last time you tasted battery fluid?” Gallagher muttered crankily, and without waiting for an answer, crossed the room toward the pot.

What a do-nothing day! Kate thought, conscious of the hum of traffic on the freeway outside the Hall. She hadn’t even been able to talk to that Santa Cruz detective. She’d left a message. Now she wondered if he got it. She hoped this morning’s meeting with Mrs. Johnson had done him some good. The day wouldn’t seem quite so completely wasted if at least one case, somewhere, benefited from her efforts.

The sudden ring of her phone startled her. It took a few words before she recognized Bob Little’s deep, friendly voice.

Yes, he had received Kate’s message. Yes, their visit was helpful. He had been about to arrest the Johnson boy’s girlfriend, Laura Purcell, when she was discovered dead. Suicide, which he took as an admission of guilt.

So Mrs. Johnson was right about Laura after all. Kate felt saddened rather than happy at the outcome. Something in her wanted Greg’s mother to be as wrong about his choice as Kate thought she was about almost everything else. But life was never that simple.

“The others, of course, will be free to leave,” Little said.

“Will be?” Kate asked, wondering how her two nun friends were faring.

“Yes, when I tell them,” Little said, “which I plan to do the moment I get off this phone. So, case closed and thank you, Inspector, for your help. If there’s ever anything I can do, I owe you one. And, if you’re ever in Santa Cruz, stop by and let me buy you a drink.”

Kate felt her face flush. Was that a come-on or did that deep, throaty voice just make it sound like one?

“Thanks, Sergeant,” she said, and hung up quickly. No sense even trying to figure it out. Jack was all the come-on she needed and she’d tell him so as soon as she saw him tonight. She missed their easy intimacy more than she’d ever imagined she would, and she hungered to have him back. No “place” was worth the toll it was taking on their lives. Tonight, even if it killed her, she’d make up.

The phone rang again. “Hi, hon.” Jack sounded frustrated. “I’m going to be late,” he said. “My case is breaking and—”

“I understand,” Kate interrupted, trying not to let her annoyance show. “I’ll be waiting for you when you get there,” she said, hoping she sounded like a doting wife and not like a half-wit.

The digital clock on the bedstand read 2:32 when Kate finally heard Jack’s key in the front door. She leaned over and switched on the bed lamp. Quickly, she ran a comb through her short red hair and put a drop of the Per Donna cologne on each wrist and on the nape of her neck. The delicate aroma of honeysuckle and jasmine floated on the air. Tonight, she was determined to make up, no matter what it took.

“Are you still awake, hon?” Jack sounded surprised. His jacket was off and he had unbuttoned most of his shirt on his way up the stairs.

“I’m waiting for you, pal,” she said, hoping she sounded like Lauren Bacall.

“Are you getting a cold?” Jack yawned.

Kate felt her temper fizz. Deliberately, she calmed herself, threw the covers back, and patted the space beside her invitingly.

Jack let out a deep breath. “I’m beat.” Giving her a perfunctory peck on the cheek, he climbed in. “Sleep tight,” he said, turning off the light.

In the shadows, his back rose in a giant hump beside her. Fighting down the urge to punch him, Kate ran one finger down his spine. “Jack,” she whispered, “don’t go to sleep yet. I have something I want to tell you.”

“Can’t it wait, hon, I’m really zonked.”

“It’s important.” Kate brought her lips close to his ear.

Jack rolled over. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Kate bit back her impatience. “Yes, pal, I’m just fine, but there’s something I want to talk about.”

Jack moaned. “At two-thirty in the morning?”

Leaning over him, Kate flipped the light back on. Subtlety and Per Donna were getting her nowhere. Tonight Jack required the direct approach. “I’ve made a decision about Cordero,” she said, biting off each word.

Jack raised himself up on his elbow and stared. “Which is?” he asked, his face white with fatigue.

“I’ll move,” she said flatly.

“What?” Jack ran his fingers through his dark curly hair.

Kate loved it when he did that. She slipped her hand onto his thigh. “I’ll move,” she repeated.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe you’re right about raising little John outside the city . . . the weather, the safety . . .” Kate glanced over. To her surprise, her husband didn’t look nearly as pleased as she expected him to. In fact, he was frowning. Maybe breaking the news to his mother was bothering him.

“Admittedly, your mother will have plenty to say.” Kate’s words tumbled out. She wanted so badly to put all the weeks of coldness behind them. “I’ll try to defend you when you break the news, Jack, but you are the one who will have to do it. Much as I love you, pal, and I do love you, I am not going to tell Loretta Bassetti that her ‘little family’ is moving across a bridge! For all I know, she still believes in killing the messenger.”

Jack let out a long breath. “I hadn’t even thought about her reaction.”

Kate shifted. “Then what the heck is bothering you? I thought you’d be ecstatic.”

“What happened to ‘whitebread’?” Jack asked.

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

“And moving because everyone else is moving?”

“I didn’t say that, your mother did,” Kate snapped. If she was going to have to deal with every objection that was ever made to this move, it was going to be a very long night.

“What is it, Jack?” she asked. “What is bothering you?”

Jack’s eyes avoided hers. “Since you were so opposed to the moving, I’ve been thinking about it, that’s all. Maybe you have a point. Maybe we should just stay put.”

Kate felt an unexpected flutter of relief. “So now you’re the one who doesn’t want to move?”

“No, that’s not it, exactly.” Jack put his arm around her shoulder. Swallowing her sudden roller coaster of disappointment, she snuggled into his familiar nooks and crannies.

“It’s just that I hope we’re not making a mistake,” Jack said.

“If we are, it probably won’t be our last.” She reached over her husband to turn off the bed lamp.

“You know what else, pal?” she whispered, her mouth close to his. “What I really want to do tonight is make up. I’ve missed you so much, Jack. I need you.” She felt his hands on her shoulders.

“What’s that smell?” he asked sleepily.

“You mean the Per Donna?” Kate sighed and, lifting her head, brushed his nose. Maybe it was worth thirty-seven dollars an ounce after all.

“No, not that one.”

It took several sniffs before Kate realized what smell
he was talking about. Irate, she sat up. “You mean the baby powder on my hands?”

“I just love that smell,” Jack said, reaching up to her and with both hands, slowly and tenderly, pulling her down to him.

Detective Sergeant Bob Little’s announcement hit the dining room like a bomb. Even now, several hours later, Sister Mary Helen was still stunned.

It was amazing how quickly the five priests had left the mountaintop. In fact, by now, even with traffic, they should all be back in their respective rectories, wading through mail and messages in an effort to put the gruesome murder and suicide behind them.

To his credit, the monsignor had stopped long enough to offer Eileen and herself a ride back to Mount St. Francis College, but they refused. Felicita would be alone. Too tired to answer a lot of questions, she had decided to wait until morning to notify her Sisters.