Death Goes on Retreat (8 page)

“Why don’t you go join the others,” Little suggested. “We can talk later.”

With a nervous bob of her head, Felicita hurried to do just that.

Little and Kemp worked their way up the steep hillside. Loody in his tan and forest-green uniform stood
like a giant tree guarding the entrance to Madonna Grove.

Little scanned the clearing. It was small and flat with a carpet of dried pine needles, sheltered from view, and from the rising heat, by tall trees. To one side was a homemade log bench.

Even with all the activity of the crime unit, the place had an uncanny quiet. A peaceful, secluded spot, Little thought, noticing the large Madonna in the burned-out tree stump. A perfect spot for praying. And for murdering.

A camera flashed. “Want to get a look now, Bob?” a man called. “Or do you want to wait until I’m done? I’ve only got a couple more.”

“Go ahead,” Little answered. “I can wait.” To tell the truth, he’d prefer to wait forever. The first view of the victim, any victim, was something he dreaded. No matter how often he did it, he never got used to it. The sight, the smell, the fear of death itself—he didn’t know what it was. All he knew was that every time, no matter how he tried to prevent it, he had to fight down the sickening sensation of bile rising in his throat and the weak, watery feeling in his knees. This time was no exception.

“Overkill,” Kemp pronounced. Little stared down at the victim. Greg Johnson was covered with slashes. His arms where he had held them up to defend himself were crisscrossed with knife strokes. After he had fallen, any one of the multiple gashes and stab wounds on his body could have killed him.

“You got that right,” Little tried to keep his voice steady, waiting for the nausea to subside.

“Clearly, a crime of passion. We just need to find out who’s passionate about the guy,” Kemp said, obviously buoyed up by Little’s encouragement.

“In a murder case nothing is nearly as clear as it seems,” Little said. In time, Kemp would learn that by himself, but there was no sense letting him turn into an officious know-it-all too. One per department was enough and Loody already was their designated pain in the butt. Judging from the reaction of the dining room, he had just shown his colors to the priests and nuns.

“He was a handsome dude,” Kemp said, somewhat subdued. “Has he a significant other?”

Little wondered if that was still the politically correct term.

“I got her name from the nun.” Loody, watching from the sidelines, could no longer contain himself.

Little bristled. Although it was hard to put his finger on, there was something about Loody that rubbed him the wrong way. The man was a good officer, exact, hardworking, but he was so self-important, so righteous, so punctilious—now, there was a good Sister Mary Immaculata word—so punctilious. So damn annoying, actually.

Even the way his nose sat on his face, as if he were looking down it at you. That, Little realized almost as he thought it, was hardly fair. No one can be held responsible for the placement of his nose!

“Great!” Little said with as much largesse as he could manage. “Let me write it down.” He pulled a small notebook from his jacket pocket.

“The girl’s name is Laura Purcell.” Loody spelled both names slowly, Little noticed with annoyance. “She
goes to the university and worked here at St. Colette’s as a dishwasher. Until last night. She and the victim were almost engaged, and according to the nun”—Loody dragged out the word
nun
as if it were a minor offense— “the two went off together last night.”

Again, with insulting exactitude, Sergeant Loody read Laura Purcell’s address and phone number.

Meanwhile, Kemp, keeping out of the way of the forensic team, was making his own notes. “Looks to me like he was killed right here,” he said, his bow tie bouncing on his Adam’s apple.

Little, whose stomach was beginning to settle, wondered if Kemp, too, was having trouble keeping his breakfast down. The blood-soaked ground around the body was a mess of smudged footprints. Little knew that if any one of them proved identifiable, it would undoubtedly belong to one of the religious, who in good faith went to see what they could do for Greg Johnson. What they had managed to do, of course, was to ruin most of the physical evidence.

Little pulled on the end of his mustache. What really puzzled him was what Greg Johnson was doing in the grotto in the first place. He was a big fellow. Who or what could have forced him up here without his yelling or running? Or had he been unconscious? If so, how had someone got that much dead weight up the steep hillside? Was he dealing with Godzilla? Two murderers? A murderer with a wheelbarrow? Shaking his head, Little scouted the area for a hint of tire tracks, and silently cursed all do-gooders.

He was glad to see the coroner’s men enter the grove with the stretcher and the green body bag. They’d get
complete reports from the pathologist and the forensic team. If there was anything else to find, those boys would find it. Right now, he needed to get back to the living. One of them, after all, had the real answers.

A bright yellow ribbon cut St. Colette’s off from the rest of the world. The parking lot was overrun with sheriff’s cars and men, in and out of uniform, carrying cases and brown bags for gathering evidence. The coroner’s gray van stood as a silent reminder of where all this was leading.

The nuns and priests who had wandered over from the sundeck watched, mesmerized by all the activity. Only the hot sun beating down on her head and shoulders reminded Mary Helen of the passing of time.

Finally, Monsignor McHugh broke the silence. “We’ve none of us said Mass yet this morning.” He looked toward Felicita, who had just joined the group. “Do you think that we can concelebrate?” he asked.

Felicita dragged herself back from wherever her mind had taken her. “Yes, of course.” She sounded happy to have something else to worry about. “Just let me get the chapel ready.”

“No fuss,” the monsignor called to her fleeting back.

But Mary Helen knew he called in vain. As an obvious expert in the fine art of fussing, Felicita needed some fresh and new things to gnaw on. And the more the better.

The five priests gathered around the stark marble altar in the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. Behind them a wall of windows let in all the beauty of the mountainside without any of its heat or bugs.

Directly above the altar a magnificent stained-glass window depicted the Holy Spirit. Seven cinnabar rays shot down from an enormous azure dove hovering with widespread wings over a core of fire that burned and leapt like a torch. The midday sun caught the colors and sent rainbows skittering across the marble floor.

“Come up on the altar with us,” Con McHugh invited.

And although Sister Felicita and Sister Eileen joined the men, Mary Helen declined. Not for any theological reason, but let them guess. Actually, her legs ached. And her hands and knees still burned from her run down the hill. She preferred to sit in the cool wooden pew and let the words and ritual refresh her very drooping spirit. With one finger, she pushed her slipping glasses back onto the bridge of her nose and waited.

“This Mass is offered for the repose of the soul of Greg Johnson,” the monsignor began. He made a few loosely connected remarks about Greg and St. Aloysius Gonzaga, the Jesuit whose feast the Church celebrated on this day and who was the protector of students.

“Not that he did a very good job with this kid,” Ed Moreno quipped irreverently. He’d snatched the thought right out of Mary Helen’s mind.

Appropriately, the monsignor chose the first reading from the Book of Wisdom. “The just man, though he dies early, shall be at rest. For the age that is honorable
comes not with the passage of time, nor can it be measured in terms of years. . . .”

Poor boy surely did die early, Mary Helen thought sadly. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-eight or twenty-nine. She prayed for his family and for Laura.

The monsignor’s deep voice resounded in the still chapel. “Having become perfect in a short while,” he read, “he reached the fullness of a long career; for his soul was pleasing to the Lord, therefore He sped him out of the midst of wickedness.”

Wickedness itself, not God, is what had sped Greg out of his young life, Mary Helen reflected with annoyance. Why blame God when it is human wickedness all along? But whose? she wondered, suddenly. Whose wickedness had destroyed Greg Johnson’s life?

“Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.” The final blessing was shattered by the ringing of the Berkeley ferry bell. Apparently for Beverly, tragedy or no, it was business as usual.

Like automatons, the group filed into St. Jude’s dining room and stood amid the tables in a tense tableau waiting for Beverly to appear.

Much to their obvious relief, it was Detective Sergeant Little who pushed open the swinging door. “I thought my ringing that bell would get you,” he began. His friendly voice bounced off the silent walls.

A thin chuckle ran through the group.

“There’s no law that I know of against eating during a murder investigation.”

Again, they all laughed appreciatively.

“Actually, we might all think better if we’re not hungry. And since Ms. Benton prepared a hot lunch, I suggest we eat it.”

Before Little had finished speaking, Beverly wheeled in a cart laden with platters of steaming spaghetti oozing with meat sauce, baskets of French bread, and bowls of crisp green salad.

The condemned ate a hearty meal, Mary Helen thought, spotting the lemon cups left over from last night’s supper. Now cold, they were arranged on a heavy silver tray.

With no more finesse than she had displayed on the previous evening, Beverly flung things down on the Formica tabletop.

Although Deputy Kemp jumped at one thud, Little continued to smile pleasantly. Nerves of steel, Mary Helen thought, watching him choose a place next to the monsignor.

With the cart unloaded, Beverly frowned at them, then started for the kitchen.

“Ms. Benton,” Little’s voice stopped her. “Please join us. There’s plenty of room. There,” he pointed, “next to Sister Felicita.”

Both women looked as if they’d just been given a death sentence. Felicita was the first to recover her composure. “Surely,” she said, moving over to make additional room.

To Mary Helen’s surprise, Beverly’s face flushed as she lowered herself into the plastic chair. Do I detect shyness? Mary Helen wondered.

The table, clearly designed to seat eight adults comfortably,
was quite a squeeze for eleven. Somehow, by pulling chairs up to the corners and straddling the table legs, they managed.

Oddly, no one suggested moving to an adjoining table. Mary Helen wasn’t really sure why. Perhaps it was Little’s unspoken expectation that they all sit together. Or perhaps, like her, no one wanted to miss a moment of the interplay between Little and the group. Not that she’d admit it.

Fascinating chap, that Little! Good night nurse! She was beginning to sound like one of the English thrillers she’d been reading recently.

Regardless, he was a personable young man, yet very commanding. What was the old saying? “An iron hand in a velvet glove”? Or was he more of an “iron fist”? Time would tell.