Death Goes on Retreat (18 page)

When did that ever stop you? Kate wondered.

“But I think you may be having some sort of a row.”

“What makes you think that?”

“More than forty years of marriage.”

Despite herself, Kate laughed. “We never fight.” Her voice trembled and she tried in vain to steady it. “At least, we never used to, but for the last few months, we have been arguing about a move. It started out as a civilized discussion, but it is moving into downright war.”

“What kind of a move?” Gallagher sounded apprehensive.

“Jack thinks it would be better for the baby if we moved to Cordero.”

To her amazement, Gallagher said nothing except “And you?”

“Me? I love the city. I always have. As far as I know so has Jack. It has an energy, a verve that makes me feel alive. I want little John to grow up here. Experience the same feelings I did. I always thought Jack wanted that, too. After all, we both grew up here. We have a perfectly
nice house, paid for, in a perfectly good neighborhood. But I don’t know if it’s worth hanging on to my opinion. Our fighting is affecting everything, Denny, and I do mean everything!” Kate fumbled in her purse for a tissue and noisily blew her nose.

“That reminds me of the old Irish couple?” Gallagher said. “On their wedding night, they vowed never to go to sleep angry with one another. And they never did, although one time, they were awake for three months.”

Kate chuckled and waited for her partner to comment. Gallagher always had some free advice, solicited or not, and nine times out of ten he agreed with Jack. His silence was so out of character. He simply cleared his throat. What was it? Could it be that this time he agreed with her? That was it! And the words simply stuck in his throat.

Kate began furiously to twist a lock of her hair. With both her partner and her mother-in-law on her side, was she so right after all? She almost never agreed with either of them on anything. Now to agree with both of them at once? It gave her pause.

A few minutes before nine, Detective Sergeant Bob Little turned into the driveway of St. Colette’s Retreat House. He was surprised to see Beverly’s old brown Chevy just ahead of him. He hadn’t expected to see her.

He was even more surprised to see Sergeant Loody wave her right through. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a grin on Eric’s sunburned face. The sly old devil! “Morning, Sergeant,” Little said.

With a perfunctory nod, Loody touched the rim of his doughboy hat. His large face, Little noticed, was once again frozen into his sniffing look.

Little parked his car up next to St. Philomena’s Hall and waved across the lot to Beverly. In all the confusion, he supposed no one had told her not to come today, so she had. At least the food would be good. The very thought of food made his stomach growl. He could hardly wait until Beverly rustled up some breakfast. He’d had nothing but a cup of coffee. Lately Terry had been too busy with work to grocery-shop, and for some reason it never occurred to him to do it, so their cupboard had hit an all-time record for bare. This morning he’d been unable even to rout out a piece of dried bread or a hunk of mildewed cheese.

When Little arrived at Madonna Grotto, Deputy David Kemp was already there. “Going to be another hot one, huh?” Kemp pulled on his bow tie.

Although the giant redwoods were doing their best to block out the heat, the temperature was rising quickly.

“What’s the forensic report?” Kemp asked, knowing that was what Little had waited for.

“Just like you thought, Dave, Greg Johnson was killed here. They found traces of ordinary white cotton in his mouth and on his wrists and ankles. Apparently, he was gagged and tied before he was brought here. Some rock and soil samples stuck in his tennis shoes. They’re checking to see if they can make a match. Threads from a car were on his clothes. Those too need to be checked. It’s only a matter of time, even though most everything around the scene itself had been thoroughly trampled by the time we were called. Looks like the victim was
stabbed around four on Monday morning. Give or take an hour or so. The old nun stumbled on the body around seven.”

“So that’s why nobody heard him holler.” Kemp swatted at the gnats that swarmed up from the floor of pine needles. “You gag and tie the guy, drive him here at, say, four or four-thirty in the morning, and get away before anyone’s up or it’s light enough for anyone to see you.” His eager cobalt-blue eyes fastened on Little for approval.

“Unless the murderer never left,” Little said, not because he believed it. He just wanted to keep Kemp honest.

Kemp gave a good-natured shrug. “So, what else did you get from forensics?” he asked.

“That the cuts on the dorsal side of his arms indicate that the kid tried to defend himself against his attacker, who was shorter than he was. There was a recent bruise on his temple, which looks like he hit his head against something sharp. The edge of a car door or something. There are seven separate stab marks scattered across his chest, two on the nape of his neck, and one on the left occipital bone. The stroke that finally killed him was the one that pierced his heart.”

Kemp’s face paled. Little didn’t blame him. The thought of the anger that must have provoked such a savage attack could make anyone lose color.

Kemp cleared his throat. “Anything special about the knife?” he asked. “Anything that could give us a lead?”

Little shook his head. “Just your common ordinary fillet knife. Your wife probably has one just like it in her kitchen.”

Kemp winced.

“An overdose of tranquilizers is what killed the dogs, if that’s of any interest.”

“Why not use the knife again?” Kemp asked.

“Maybe the death of the dogs was accidental.”

Kemp looked surprised. “How do you figure?”

“There was really no need to kill them, only to quiet them. . . . Who knows how many grams of Valium a German shepherd can safely handle?”

“A vet,” Kemp said.

“Well, then, we know that our killer is probably not a vet, don’t we?” Little asked facetiously.

Above them a red-headed woodpecker bored into the bark of a tree. A brown squirrel sat on his haunches, nervously nibbling an acorn while a swarm of gray-and-white pygmy nuthatches pecked among the fallen pine needles. Actually, the yellow ribbon cordoning off the area was the only sign that a murder had been committed in this peaceful grotto.

“Nothing more here.” Little took a final look around. The large blank eyes of the Madonna reminded him of Laura Purcell’s eyes. “Maybe we should talk to the girlfriend,” he said, although he wasn’t looking forward to it. Too much like torturing a wounded animal. The two officers descended the steep path toward the main building.

“Did you find anything on Beverly Benton?” Little still could not place her, although he’d known from the moment he laid eyes on her that he’d seen her somewhere before.

“Nothing much more than we already knew, except that she has no outstanding warrants for her arrest.”

“Too bad.” Little ducked his head to avoid a tree branch. “At least we’d have accomplished something.”

“Maybe when we’re finished here, I can run over and talk to some of Benton’s neighbors, if you think it’s necessary.”

Little grunted. He wouldn’t know that until after he’d questioned Laura Purcell.

Kemp pointed to the massive shape of Eric Loody guarding the entrance to the parking lot. “At least we’re safe from intruders and the press,” he quipped.

“Maybe it’s the people already in here that we should be afraid of,” Little said. “Which reminds me, see if you can find Sister Felicita and ask her to gather up all the retreatants’ car keys. I’ll call the boys at Crime Scene.”

Watching Kemp disappear into St. Agnes’ Hall, Little placed his call. “I want all the cars on the property checked for hair, fiber, dirt, leaves, bloodstains, anything that could be used as evidence on how the victim was transported,” he said.

He was relieved when the deputy answered. “Yeah, yeah, yeah! You don’t have to tell us how to do our job. And, by the way, we found the victim’s car.” Little listened eagerly while the officer filled him in on all the details.

When Kemp returned, his coat pocket jingling with car keys, Little pulled back the door to St. Philomena’s Hall and gave him the news about Johnson’s Camaro.

“Where’d they find it?” Kemp asked.

“In the emergency parking lot of Dominican Hospital, right here in Santa Cruz.”

“Find anything?” Kemp stamped dust from his polished shoes.

Little shook his head. “Nothing much. The keys were still in it. The complete door, including the handle on the driver’s side—all wiped clean.” A trickle of sweat ran down his back and he wondered how long before he could shed his sport jacket.

“He must have met his murderer there,” Kemp muttered. “Did anyone remember seeing anything unusual?”

“Nothing. A deputy asked around, but no one remembers seeing him either. Emergency was exceptionally busy on Sunday night, what with it being Father’s Day. It was pretty much what you’d expect. Broken bones from hikes and picnics, burns and cuts from kitchen accidents, traffic accidents, domestic violence. One dear old drunken dad even got himself shot by his son-in-law. I imagine by three in the morning, the emergency staff was too tired to notice if Jack the Ripper was in the parking lot.”

Kemp smiled. “Not your typical Hallmark holiday, right?”

“Not at the emergency room anyway,” Little said.

“Any signs of Johnson’s blood in the area?”

“None, so far.”

“Then Johnson must have gone in another car with someone he knew. Someone who could make his getting in seem plausible. Or maybe that’s when he got the bump on the head.” Kemp unhooked his bow tie and the top two buttons of his shirt. “God, it’s hot!” he said.

“The autopsy report shows our boy consumed quite a
bit of alcohol. There is the possibility that he was a bit sloshy when he met his murderer.”

“I wonder where they went.”

“No one knows,” Little said. “Not yet, anyway.”

Softly, Little knocked on Laura Purcell’s bedroom door. The nervous knot in his stomach reminded him of how much he was dreading this interview. He wondered what her reaction to him would be this morning.

During his years with the Sheriff’s Department, he had been the bearer of bad news to dozens of next of kin and it never got any easier. It was impossible to predict reactions. Shock made some stoic. It made others babble, while still others refused to believe the news, as if denying it made it disappear. Some cried. A few, like Laura, became hysterical. One thing he had learned was that the initial reaction was no indication of whether or not the person had committed the crime. One case in particular he remembered. A distraught husband, hellbent on avenging his wife’s violent death, turned out to be her murderer.

Little knocked again.

“Just a minute,” a hoarse voice called out.

When Laura Purcell finally answered the door, she was wrapped in a pink chenille bedspread with clearly nothing underneath it. Embarrassed for her, Little watched her pad barefoot across the room, then settle herself, cross-legged, in the middle of the rumpled bed.

All the color drained from her face, she clutched the spread under her chin and stared at him. Long strands of auburn hair pulled by static electricity took on a life of their own. Her whole pose took on a Medusa-ish appearance.

Little tried his friendliest smile. Eyes glassy-green, Laura continued to stare. Obviously she was waiting for him to speak first. “Were you able to get any sleep last night?” Little asked. One look at her and you wouldn’t have to be a detective to know the answer.

“Some.” She sounded as if someone had opened a spigot and drained out all her energy.

“Do you feel up to telling me what happened Sunday night?” Little asked gently.

“I guess,” Laura said.

Kemp took out his notepad. Fear skittered across Laura’s face. It was the first bit of emotion she’d shown since the two detectives entered her bedroom.

“Do you mind if Dave takes a few notes?” Little asked.

Laura shook her head, although everything about her shouted
Yes, I mind very much.

“Sunday night? After you left here?” Little coached. “Can you remember what happened, Laura? Try not to leave out anything. Even if it doesn’t seem important to you, you never know what bearing it might have on the case.”

In a flat, detached voice, Laura recited the events of Sunday night as if she’d done it all before: the movies, stopping for champagne; the details of their lovemaking.

Kemp coughed nervously. My fault, Little thought, avoiding his partner’s glance. I asked her to be specific. Laura continued, zombielike. A single tear ran down her cheek when she told him about the early morning phone call, waking and finding both Greg and the car gone. She didn’t make a move to wipe it away.

“You know the rest,” she said, and fell into a brooding silence.