False Witness (21 page)

Before Sister Agatha could even take a breath, a dark-haired man built like a refrigerator with arms suddenly appeared at her window, knife in hand.

Seeing the weapon, Pax lunged at him, but the angle was wrong and he missed the man’s hand by inches. Startled, the man flinched, and Sister Agatha took the opening. She threw open her door, slamming him backward onto the road.

More angry than afraid now, Sister Agatha dove out of the car and kicked away the knife, which her assailant had dropped. Pax jumped over the seat and out the front door, attacking the man before he could stand up.

Once she was sure the knife was well out of his reach, she gave Pax the command to stop. “Pax, out!”

The dog obeyed reluctantly, and remained less than three feet from the man, snarling and baring his teeth.

Sister Agatha grasped Pax’s collar, and held him. “If you give me the slightest reason, I’ll release the dog. And, just so you know, you can’t run fast enough to evade him.”

“Okay, okay!”

“Who are you and what do you want?” she demanded.

“Are you crazy? I was having car trouble. I came to ask for help but you and that dog attacked me!” The man was looking in every direction, trying to find the means to escape.

“Your defense is that you got jumped by a middle-aged nun and her dog? The knife will have
your
prints on it, pea brain.”

Before he could reply, she heard sirens. The help Tom had sent would soon arrive. “You may not realize it, but God smiled on you today. This dog is trained to take out an armed opponent. It’s a miracle you’re still in one piece.”

W
HATEVER YOU WERE PAID —IT WASN’T ENOUGH,”
sister Agatha called out to the assailant as Tom’s deputy led him away.

“No kidding,” he grumbled as the deputy placed him in the back of the squad car.

“Nice work,” Tom said, giving Sister Agatha a thumb’s up and scratching Pax behind the ears. “We’ll find out what he knows and who hired him. Follow me to the station. We’ll have your official statement typed up and then you can sign it.”

“You already know all I know, Tom. Could we finish the paperwork tomorrow?” Sister Agatha asked, trying to suppress the shivers. Anger, after being cut off the road, had given her momentary courage. Now only a lingering, bone-chilling fear remained. “I’d like to go home. I have a feeling Sister de Lourdes will need me to pitch in with the scriptorium work after recreation.”

“I thought that no one spoke at night over there,” he said.

“We don’t, not after Compline, but we can work in silence in the scriptorium,” she replied. “And write notes.”

“Okay, go ahead. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The following morning, after Terce, which commemorated the Third Hour, when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles, Sister Agatha set out to town once again in the Harley with Pax. It was eight-fifteen, and Sister Bernarda was acting portress this morning while Sister de Lourdes handled their scriptorium work.

So far, they’d had no more problems with either the computers or the orders. Wilder’s identity, and that of the person who’d vandalized NexCen’s warehouse, remained a mystery.

Sister Agatha arrived at the station a short time later and saw Tom coming out of the bull pen. “Good morning,” she greeted as he came out to see her.

“I’m glad you’re here. I have news,” he said, leading the way down the hall. Tom didn’t say anything more until they were inside his office and the door was shut. “Have a seat.”

Sister Agatha made herself comfortable as Pax lay by her feet.

“The guy you two ran into last night is a lowlife by the name of Benny Kowalski. Benny claims that Garza contacted him through the mail and hired him to scare you off. He didn’t want you meddling in his business. Garza refused to meet Benny face-to-face and that made Benny curious, since they’d been friends and all. So Benny did some checking and heard that Garza had cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance. Apparently, he doesn’t want anyone to connect his new face with his old identity.”

“What exactly was Benny supposed to do to me and Pax?” Sister Agatha asked, her voice taut.

“He was told to scare you—the method was left up to him. He got five hundred bucks for the job.”

“They’re both creeps,” she said softly, then lapsed into a long silence. “Tom, I’d really like a look at the Garza case file.”

“Since the man remains at large, it’s considered an active case—off-limits to those outside of law enforcement.”

“Garza may be in this community right now and I really need to know everything I can about him. Come on. If you can’t trust a nun, who can you trust?”

He smiled. “I’ll leave the file on my desk while I go get myself a Coke—which shouldn’t take me more than five minutes. Got it?” He went to the cabinet near his desk and pulled the file out. “Want a Coke?”

“Split one with me?”

“I’ll bring two cups and a Coke … in five minutes,” he said, and left.

Sister Agatha leafed through the pages quickly, skimming the investigator’s reports. She’d already gathered most of what was in there from the papers and other sources, including transcripts of the hearing. Then, as she read the report from the medical investigator, her blood turned to ice.

She’d known that Mark Rio’s body had been found not far from their monastery, but she’d never realized how close. By her estimate, Rio had been buried in a shallow grave just a few hundred yards from their walls.

By the time Tom walked back into the office, she was sitting bolt upright in her chair, one hand on her rosary.

He placed a foam cup filled with cola in front of her. “What’s on your mind?”

“Mark Rio’s body was found pretty close to our monastery.

Put that together with the fact that we had someone crash through our gate, taking part of the wall with it, and that someone’s been watching our monastery recently. There’s a circumstantial case building here.”

“What exactly are you thinking?”

“Maybe Terri
does
know where the money’s hidden. In fact, she might have been the one who crashed through our wall to make sure she had access to the grounds at night. She’s always been interested in the monastery. So let’s say that the killer hid the money near Rio’s body—someplace where it was bound to be safe—like on our grounds. Maybe
that’s
where the money is and why we’ve had so many problems lately.”

“Even if I buy that theory—which is filled with lots of speculation and very little evidence, I might add—why did Terri decide to come back now? She could have recovered the cash a long time ago.”

“No, not really. She was in protective custody, and when she left the program, she had to watch out for Garza,” Sister Agatha said, then after a thoughtful pause, continued. “When she came back to town, she discovered that a lot of things had changed, too. We’d had a new wall put up, for one. When that was compromised, we began using Pax to guard us so there was still no way for her to get in. Now with the threat of developers coming into the area, she may have been scared that the sudden influx of people would guarantee that the money would stay out of her reach forever. Or even worse, it could have ended up in some lucky heavy equipment operator’s pocket.”

“It’s a
theory
, but that’s all it is.”

“It also has a few holes in it,” Sister Agatha admitted reluctantly. “Terri’s not tall enough to have required the SUV
seat to be pushed all the way back, which is where it was after the crash,” she said. “And I’m convinced that I saw a man running away, not a woman.”

“If Garza has Terri, her life is hanging by a thread. Her cell phone is still out of service, but I’ll check out Terri’s computer today. That’s usually a treasure trove of information.”

“Have you searched Terri’s computer at work?”

“I can’t—not unless Catholic Charities gives me permission.”

“I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that under the circumstances. She’s a missing employee, and the computer records aren’t
her
property,” Sister Agatha said. “While you’re busy with all that, I’m going to dig a little deeper into John Gutierrez’s past. I have an idea I want to check.”

“Okay, but be careful.”

Once outside, Pax jumped gracefully into the Harley’s sidecar. “We’re going to the rectory, Pax,” she said, and the dog barked almost as if in approval.

A short time later, as she pulled up behind the church, she spotted Father Mahoney up on a ladder. He was trimming some cottonwood branches that were right above a utility wire. Seeing the ladder sway, Sister Agatha ran to steady it. “Father, what on earth are you doing?”

Frances came out just then. “Father, you
told
me that you were only going to cut a few low branches!”

“I finally got the hang of this tree cutter thingie so I wanted to keep going,” he said.

“The diocese doesn’t need an injured priest, Father,” Frances said sternly. “My cousin’s got a crane with a bucket on the end. He’ll be by later to take care of those branches.” She glanced at Sister Agatha. “Thank God you pulled up when you did. I
heard the motorcycle, looked outside, and that’s when I saw what Father was up to!”

Father Mahoney looked at Frances, then at Sister Agatha. “I’m perfectly capable of doing this. But, if it’ll make you both feel better, I’ll wait for Frances’s cousin.”

“Good,” Frances said.

Father Mahoney smiled at Sister Agatha. “So what can I do for you and your trusty sidekick today?”

“I really need your help. Can we go into your study?”

“Of course, Sister Agatha.”

As they reached his office, he gestured for her to make herself comfortable, then closed the door behind them. “Tell me what’s troubling you, Sister.”

She told him how she’d found, then lost, Terri—really Angie Sanchez. “If John Gutierrez’s search for his niece stems from the best of motives, then I should continue to work for him. Heaven knows the monastery needs that buffer zone and the extra money for our gate. But what if there’s more to it than that? What if we’re both being used by Terri’s most dangerous enemy—Jimmy Garza?”

“I’m not sure how to advise you on this, Sister Agatha,” he said slowly. “I know you’ve discussed the criminal aspects with the sheriff, but there’s much more than that to consider here.”

“Father, you’ve got access to something that might help me decide what I should do next. Father Anselm kept files with bios and information on benefactors who could be counted on to help financially whenever the need arose.”

He nodded. “Yes, that file’s still in the computer. Let’s go have a look.” He typed a few commands, then called up the file. “And here’s a John Gutierrez—date of birth is December 10, 1940. There’s no Social Security number listed. But he hasn’t made a donation since 1991. Here’s a note saying that
he began making donations to the monastery instead. It’s dated a year before Father Anselm died.”

Sister Agatha nodded, then did some quick math in her head. “From the birth date, that would make him sixty-seven. It can’t be the same man. The John Gutierrez I’m dealing with doesn’t look anywhere near that age.”

Father Mahoney shrugged. “Have you ever looked at Dick Clark? A face lift—okay, several—some hair dye, and it’s hard to figure out anyone’s age.”

Sister Agatha nodded. “Good point.”

“The more I think about Terri, the more I wish I’d been more alert right from the beginning,” Father said. “I should have realized that there was something weird going on. Remember I told you how interested she always was in the monastery?” Seeing her nod, he continued. “One time I even found her taking photos of the grounds when my back was turned. I was furious. I asked her for her camera, one of those digital ones, so I could erase the images. But then we got distracted by a delivery. I went back to help Sister Bernarda. And you know what? I never did get the camera from her.”

“What was she photographing, do you remember?”

“Come to think of it, she was taking photos of the grounds, not the buildings.”

The phone rang and Father answered it. After exchanging a few quick words with the party at the other end, he glanced at Sister Agatha. “One of our parishioners needs me. He’s been very sick, and his daughter has been pressuring him to request an anointing. He wouldn’t hear of it because, in his day, anointing the sick was called Last Rites. But now he’s asking me to come, so things must be really bad. I better hurry. I should be back in a few hours, if you want to talk again,” he said, then hurried out.

Alone, Sister Agatha walked to the kitchen. As she’d expected, Frances had a box of dog treats open and was chatting with Pax as if he were human.

Seeing her, Frances smiled. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee, Sister, or maybe a glass of iced tea and a sandwich? It’s nearly lunchtime and I bet you haven’t eaten anything. Isn’t lunch the big meal of the day at the monastery?”

She nodded. “It is.”

Frances pulled out some French rolls from the canister. “I made these earlier today,” she said, beaming. “Came out great, too, if I say so myself.” She then began to layer several different kinds of cheese, tomatoes, lettuce leaves, and turkey slices. “Wait until you taste this, Sister.”

“I didn’t mean for you to go through so much trouble,” she said. “I would have been happy with peanut butter and jelly.”

“Not if this is going to be your main meal today,” she said, piling it on. “Take a taste while I get you some iced tea.”

Sister Agatha took a bite and smiled. “This is truly beyond good, Frances.”

Frances picked up a glass from the dishwasher, looked at it with a critical eye, then washed it again in the sink. “I’ll get your drink in a jiffy, Sister. Just let me rinse this glass.”

A second later, Frances placed a glass of iced tea in front of her. “I think I got all of the marks.”

“Forget it. It’s fine,” Sister Agatha picked up the glass, took a swallow, then, as she set it back down, saw the clear imprint of her finger on the glass. Slowly an idea began to form in her mind.

Finishing lunch quickly and thanking Frances, she hurried out with Pax to the Harley. She knew exactly what she had to do next.