Devious (32 page)
Authors: Lisa Jackson
“
J
ust don’t tell me she was pregnant,” Montoya said to Lynn Zaroster the next morning as he poured himself another cup of coffee in the small lunchroom at the station. He was talking about the latest victim at St. Marguerite’s: Sister Asteria McClellan, all of twenty-two.
J
ust don’t tell me she was pregnant,” Montoya said to Lynn Zaroster the next morning as he poured himself another cup of coffee in the small lunchroom at the station. He was talking about the latest victim at St. Marguerite’s: Sister Asteria McClellan, all of twenty-two.
“Too early to know. Autopsy’s scheduled for later today; they put a rush on it.”
“Good.”
“Anyone talk to the family?”
“Parents and six siblings, younger, most of whom still live at home, all in Birmingham.” She glanced down at her notepad. “Jacob and Colleen McClellan are the folks. They’re being notified this morning.” She glanced at her watch. “Should be happening now.”
Montoya gritted his teeth. Notifying next of kin was a hard job, necessary and oftentimes informative, but giving out the news that a loved one had died was hell.
It was eight o’clock in the damned morning, and he was powering up on coffee and a couple of cigarettes he’d snuck on the way into work, a sure sign that he was running on empty. Yeah, there was the adrenaline high of being on a big case, one that was now attracting national attention, but today, after less than four hours of sleep, he was at the end of his very short rope.
He’d been at the cemetery until after three, interviewing all the novices and nuns again, but Sister Charity and Father Paul were stonewalling him, putting up roadblocks. They’d outwardly cooperated, answering questions, allowing access to all the people who lived within the confines of St. Marguerite’s, but there had been several mentions of “talking to the archdiocese” and “keeping the bishop” informed. Montoya’s translation: Attorneys for the church were about to be called in, even though, as Sister Charity had said, “we will do everything in our power to help find the tortured soul who is doing this.”
Father Frank had been stunned, nearly apoplectic, to the point his face had faded to a sickly color of white and he’d held on to the wall so that his knees wouldn’t buckle. “No,” he’d whispered, and closed his eyes to say a silent prayer, his lips moving, no sound escaping from his throat.
Had the two dead novices been close?
No one could really say; they hadn’t seemed to hang out together any more than anyone else.
Had they both been involved with Father Frank? There had been no evidence of that, though a few of the nuns had blushed at the thought. Edwina, Devota, Charity, of course, and Maura had all nearly squirmed in their chairs.
This time Lucia was not alone when she found the body; Sister Edwina had been with her. Lucia had been awoken by something, not a noise she could or would name, and Edwina had said she’d gotten up to use the bathroom, though that story didn’t quite jive with Lucia’s.
He settled behind his desk while the sounds of the department buzzed around him. Phones were already jangling, voices rising, the antiquated air-conditioning system kicking on with a familiar growl. The wheels of the investigation were turning. More cops talking to anyone associated with Sister Asteria, her last few days scrutinized, any anomalies in her life noted, even the smallest connection to Sister Camille put under a microscope. The lab work was being done, collected evidence sorted and studied, Asteria’s body being prepared for the first incision of the autopsy. Two detectives had been sent to St. Elsinore’s, where Camille had worked, though it seemed Asteria’s daily routine didn’t include the orphanage on the other side of Lake Pontchartrain.
He thought of Asteria with her freckled face and red hair, and his gut twisted. Another short life cut off mercilessly. Hideously.
All he had to do was figure out who had gotten her into the old wedding dress, then overpowered her and garroted her, only to leave a pattern of blood drops at the neckline and ensure that her rosary was threaded through her fingers.
Sick prick.
He turned his attention to his computer screen and began checking his e-mail, hoping that the phone records for Camille Renard had been sent, when his office phone rang.
He snagged the receiver before the second blast. “Montoya.”
A female voice said, “This is Officer Joan Delmonte, SFPD. I’ve been looking for Lea De Luca, that novice who left St. Marguerite’s Convent a while back?”
The other nun supposedly involved with Frank O’Toole. “Right.”
“So here’s the problem. I can’t locate her. Checked all the nunneries around here and no one has heard of her. Even called the archdiocese but got nowhere there, too.”
“Wait a second.” He checked his notes, found the date, and offered it up.
“Yeah, I know. But I’m telling you, so far Sister Lea De Luca doesn’t exist, at least not anywhere in the Bay Area.”
Montoya felt his skin crinkle in apprehension.
“You got the name of any relatives? Someone we could talk to other than anyone connected with the church?” she asked.
“I’ll get it to you.”
“Be a big help, if this is that important.”
“It is,” Montoya assured her, his stomach twisting the way it did when things didn’t add up, when he felt that he was being manipulated. “Keep looking and go beyond the church, if you can. If she’s not a nun, she could be a layperson, a teacher maybe. I think she had her credentials, at least here in Louisiana.”
“Will do.”
“Thanks. I’ll get back to you later about the relatives.”
He hung up and stared at the phone a second, then called the number he had for the SFPD and asked for Joan Delmonte. Just in case. There was a log of all the calls that came into the department, but he wanted to hear the woman’s voice, to convince himself that he wasn’t being played.
“Delmonte,” the same woman answered after he’d gone through an operator.
“Montoya, NOPD, just thought you might want my cell number.”
“Sure.” She laughed, deep and throaty that ended with a smoker’s cough. “Don’t kid a kidder, Montoya. We both know why you called. Just in case I was some nutcase yanking your chain. Sorry to disappoint. I’m the real McCoy. But give me that number anyway.”
He rattled it off and hung up.
Zaroster appeared in his doorway. “Next of kin for Asteria McClellan has been notified, and the press is all over the story.”
“Tell them—”
“I know, I know. To talk to the public information officer. Sinclaire’s preparing a statement.”
“Good.”
“Won’t stop the likes of Brenda Convoy.”
Montoya scowled. “Yeah, I know. Thanks.” He felt the electricity crackling within the department, the second homicide at St. Marguerite’s so quickly on the heels of the first creating a newfound urgency. Nerves were strung tight, and no doubt the Feds would be calling.
So what was the connection between the two victims, other than the obvious that they were two novices at St. Marguerite’s Convent here in New Orleans? Were they close? Closer than other members of the cloister? He ran a hand around his face, felt the beard stubble surrounding his goatee. His eyes burned.
He finished his cup of coffee and turned toward his computer monitor again where he’d put up the two pictures of the victims on the screen. Both lying supine, rosaries clutched, dressed in ancient bridal dresses, with the distinctive pattern of blood dropped around the necklines.
Both scenes were staged.
The altar cloth on the first placed by the mother superior.
One in the chapel, under the looming figure of Christ upon the cross, the other in a cemetery, near a tomb where a sculpted angel rose high into the night sky.
Was there more of a link between the two victims?
Why were they culled out of the habited flock?
“Come on,” he said, as if the two images on the computer could hear him and talk. “Come on.”
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Bentz appear in the doorway. His partner held his favorite old coffee cup in one hand and a plastic ziplock bag in the other. Inside the bag, a book was visible. “We’ve got company,” Bentz announced. He looked ragged around the edges, freshly showered, his hair still wet, but the creases near the corners of his eyes more pronounced.
“Hopefully not a reporter.”
“Nope. Better. Vic one’s sister and her husband. They brought us a present.” He handed Montoya the plastic bag.
“What’s this?” Montoya asked, but he knew. Before Bentz told him, he realized he was looking at Camille Renard’s diary.
“The book we’ve been looking for.”
“Where the hell was it?”
“St. Elsinore’s. In her locker or cubby or whatever. The husband lifted it yesterday.”
“He did what? Oh, for the love of God, what an idiot.” Outraged, Montoya was on his feet, the bag still in his hand. “What the hell was he thinking? He should have just left things alone, called and let us handle it. Now there’s no evidence chain—we can’t prove that someone else didn’t get a hold of the diary since it was put in the locker.” Montoya was furious. Fuming. The frustration of the case that had been building inside exploded white-hot. “A defense attorney will have a heyday with this. Even if Slade Houston swears it was with him from the moment he pulled it out of St. Elsinore’s, it creates doubt, no police record. Shit!” He kicked his chair back to the desk. “He probably contaminated evidence and compromised the whole damned case.” Raking fingers through his hair, he forced himself to calm a bit. “Where are they?”
“Interrogation room one.”
“Let’s go!” Hauling the plastic bag and diary with him, he was out of his office in an instant, impotent fury propelling his long strides. “Wasn’t she a cop or something?”
“Detective with a county in Texas.”
“Detective? Yeah, that’s what I thought. I don’t know how they train ’em in Texas, but she should have known better!” Montoya was striding down the short hallway. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered under his breath. “Son of a goddamned bitch!”
Val knew she’d be hung up by her hamstrings for taking the diary, and she wasn’t disappointed. Detective Montoya was rabid in his anger as he stood in the interrogation room, the plastic bag and Camille’s diary on the table in front of her. “This is a police matter; there are rules that we have to abide by so that our case isn’t compromised, so that all parties are protected.”
“We found it and brought it in,” she said, her hackles already raised as she sat in the stiff, uncomfortable chair next to Slade. So far they hadn’t split them up; that was probably coming, but who cared. Their stories would match. They were only telling the truth. “Someone else was killed last night, another nun from St. Marguerite’s,” she said. “It was on the news this morning.”
Montoya hesitated for a second, slightly derailed. “Sister Asteria McClellan.”
“Oh, God,” Val whispered, her hand flying to her mouth as she remembered the fresh-faced girl with the red hair and freckles, the one who, in the garden, had gazed up at Father Frank O’Toole with such open adoration as she’d held out a single white rose to the priest.
Val felt sick to her stomach. “Oh, no.” She shook her head.
“You knew her?”
“No, but I met her.” She told Bentz and Montoya about running across Asteria in the garden with Father Frank.
“I couldn’t judge his reaction,” she admitted, though just the thought turned her stomach. “But it was obvious she was in love with him. She handed him the flower and seemed to bathe in just being around him.” Hearing herself, she shuddered. “Sorry. I maybe way off, but that’s the way it appeared to me.”
“You were the only one there?”
“The mother superior, Sister Charity, she’d let me into the garden where they were meeting. And probably Sister Zita; she was the first one I talked to.”
“She’s the African American nun.”
“One of them—maybe the only one,” Val said, nodding.
Montoya didn’t appear to like the connection to O’Toole again. Val read the disbelief in his dark eyes. Frowning, he asked, “Was Asteria close to your sister?”
“I . . . I don’t know.”
Montoya persisted, “Did she ever mention her?”
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