False Witness (26 page)

A moment later, Tom appeared in the hall and motioned to her. She joined him inside one of the curtained partitions. Terri was lying down, her cuts now cleaned and her bruising even more pronounced under the harsh lights. An IV was hooked up to her arm, providing glucose, according to the labeled plastic bag.

“Terri, I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Sister Agatha said softly.

“It was my own fault, Sister. I decided to go to the Siesta Inn and check things out on my own. When the maid was there the windows were open and, although I didn’t see either
man, I saw a bed filled with crossword puzzle magazines. That’s when I knew. Jimmy Garza was addicted to those.”

“So you decided to run?” Tom asked.

“Yeah. I wasn’t about to stick around and take dumb chances. I drove back to my place, packed a couple of suitcases, and took off. But I think either Jimmy or Ralph must have seen me peeking in the window and then followed me home. I figured I was safe when I checked into the motel in Albuquerque, but again, I must have been followed. When I left my room to get something to eat, I got tasered and passed out. When I woke up, I was in that awful house.”

“I’m missing something,” Sister Agatha said. “If James Garza wanted revenge, why didn’t he just kill you? What do you have that he wants?”

“Nothing
. He just thinks I do—that’s what kept me alive. I let him think that I knew where all that stolen money was—but I don’t. I think Mark Rio took it, and since he’s dead, we may never know,” she said. “But don’t kid yourself, Sister. Jimmy wanted revenge, too, so I doubt he would have ever killed me outright. He not only wanted the money, he wanted me to
suffer
. My testimony forced him to hide and change his entire life. He’s hated me ever since the trial.”

“We have both your kidnappers in custody,” Tom said in a hard voice. “Ralph Simpson was heading out of town, but I was able to set up a roadblock and corner him. Simpson, who’s now facing a kidnapping charge, has the most to gain by talking. We’ll get the whole story soon enough. If you’re holding back on me, lady, I’d advise you to reconsider before it’s too late.”

“I don’t know how many lies they’ll spin for your benefit, Sheriff, but Jimmy Garza is not only a killer, he’s sick inside—a sadist. Just look at what he did to me,” she said through
busted, swollen lips. She started coughing and asked for a drink of water.

A nurse walked in then and shook her head at Tom and Sister Agatha. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut this short, Sheriff. Her room is ready and she needs to rest.”

Tom remained silent as they stepped out of the curtained enclosure and walked down the hall. “She’s lying to us,” he said at last. “Or at least not telling us all of the story.”

“I agree with you,” Sister Agatha said. “There’s something else that just doesn’t add up. If Terri
does
know where the money is, why didn’t she just take it once the heat was off?”

“It’s got to be somewhere inaccessible to her. That’s the only answer that makes sense.”

“What does Garza have to say about all this?”

“He’s insisting that Terri—Angie—is the killer, and that he was framed. He admits stealing the money, but claims that Rio was his partner and had the bulk of the cash in his possession. Garza’s story is that Angie had to be the one who killed Rio. Her testimony during the trial revealed just how much she knew about what was going on. Garza says he didn’t come back here for the stolen cash, only to make sure Angie was caught and made to pay for what she’d done to Rio. Turns out he really
is
rich. He bought himself a fake identity using the Gutierrez name when he relocated in Colorado. Under that name, Garza made a fortune in real estate.”

“So I was right, but wrong as well. What about his illness? What’s the story there?” Sister Agatha asked.

“He’s in the last stages of cancer. He had a brief remission, but faked some of the more serious symptoms to get your sympathy. I checked with his doctors in Denver and they believe he’ll be dead inside two months.”

“Some of his story has checked out, so we’ll have to see how it goes with Angie now,” Sister Agatha said. “Will you be returning to the station?”

“Yeah. When you get there, why don’t you stick around for a while. Unless I miss my guess, Simpson will crack soon. Then we’ll see how close his story is to Garza’s.”

“Just put Pax in the room with him,” Sister Agatha muttered. “That’ll speed things up.”

Tom laughed. “Why, Sister, what a positively diabolic—though admittedly satisfying—suggestion.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that,” she said.

“Now you know how a cop feels … and how some brutality cases are born.”

“It still doesn’t excuse either of us,” she answered with a sigh. She’d be doing penance over it later.

While Jimmy Garza and Ralph Simpson were being questioned, Sister Agatha sat alone with Pax in Tom’s office. On his desk was an open file folder with Terri Montoya’s name on the tab.

Sister Agatha debated the ethics of actually sneaking a peek, but then yielded to temptation. A stack of photos taken at the monastery was inside, along with a note explaining that they’d been downloaded from a disk found at Terri’s home.

Spreading all of them out on the desk, she stared at the impressive array of photos taken of the monastery’s garden, specifically the area adjacent to their cemetery. Although taken from many angles, they all had one thing in common—the statue of St. Francis.

Sister Agatha examined the photos for several long moments.
She’d been under the impression that Terri had taken a few snapshots, but this selection looked more like a detailed survey of one portion of their grounds. Obviously there’d been a lot of photos Father Mahoney hadn’t known about.

When Tom walked in thirty minutes later, he found her at his desk, still staring at the photos. He brushed off her apology and added, “I meant to tell you about those,” he said. “We found the disk taped beneath a drawer. Interesting, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” she said pensively, “and that just builds on a theory I’ve been developing. But first, did you get anything from Garza or Simpson?”

“Nothing that moves the investigation any further ahead. Garza claims to have had a small stash—his idea of small is $250,000—that he used to get his businesses going under the name of John Gutierrez—but still says that Rio had the rest of their cash. He admitted trying to force Terri to confess she’d killed Rio and reveal where she’d hidden the money.”

“Come look at these,” Sister Agatha said.

Sister Agatha left Tom’s chair and he sat down, taking a closer look at the photos. “He may actually be telling the truth and has no idea where the money is,” he said at last. “I think your theory is right on the money, Sister, if you’ll excuse the wording.”

“So the cash is probably hidden on our land, near or around the statue of St. Francis,” Sister Agatha said. “It makes sense if you think about it, with the body being found just a few hundred yards west of the monastery. I remember that back then, we were still in the process of putting up the high wall around the monastery grounds. The chain-link fence had already been removed, and our grounds were totally unprotected.
We all felt really vulnerable after hearing that there’d been a murder so close by. We didn’t have Pax to watch over us during those days, either.”

“So you’re thinking that Angie buried the body down by the levee, then went to the monastery to hide the cash,” he said.

“Exactly. It was the perfect place. The distance from the crime scene insured it wouldn’t be uncovered by deputies searching the perimeter. But when Angie came back, she discovered that getting the money was going to be a lot tougher than she’d expected. We were locking up at night now, and we also had a very big dog. He’d set off an alarm for sure. But her stash was definitely safe, so she could bide her time.”

Tom nodded pensively. “Then Garza, who didn’t really know where Angie was, bought the winery, guessing the location of the stash was probably within walking distance of where the body was found. He may have had people keeping a watch out for her. That’s what I would have done in his shoes. That would explain those people you all kept seeing in the area.” Tom crossed his arms across his chest.

“Garza is the one who arranged the destruction of our gate, I’m sure of that now,” Sister Agatha said. “He was hoping that our lack of funds would give me an incentive to take the job of locating Angie. And just to sweeten the deal, he even offered us a buffer zone.”

He nodded. “It all fits, but if the money is on monastery property, that gives us a lot of ground to cover, even if we focus our search to the area around the statue. These photos don’t narrow it down much.”

“The statue was moved, too, when the wall went up, so it’s not in the exact location it used to be. But a metal detector may help, providing she hid the cash in a metal box.”

“I’ll get a detector for you. If you do the preliminary search, it’ll save me time and paperwork. But let me know immediately if you find anything. The murder weapon is still missing, too, so it may be with the cash. If you find anything, don’t touch it. While you’re off taking care of that, we’ll work on Simpson.”

“You’ve got it.”

A half hour later, Sister Agatha was back at the monastery, sweeping the grounds around the statue of Saint Francis with the detector. She’d left Pax inside, knowing that he’d be tempted to dig in the wet earth, and his muddy paw prints would drive the sisters wild.

It was humid and the setting sun had gone behind the clouds again, but Sister Agatha ignored the penetrating cold and the ache in her hands—a constant reminder that she’d forgotten to take her pills. As the minutes ticked by, she started to shiver. The light was fading fast.

Concentrating on her duty, she never saw Sister Bernarda approach. “Your Charity, go inside and get warm,” Sister Bernarda said, handing her a jacket and setting down the lantern she’d brought along. “I’ve used minesweepers and metal detectors before in a previous life. I’ve even probed the ground with a knife searching for booby traps. Just tell me what you’re looking for.”

Sister Agatha turned to explain, the long metal wand moving with her, when suddenly the beeping intensified. Sister Agatha froze, then moved the wand slowly toward the wooden bench, then beneath and behind it, until she pinpointed the source. It was somewhere beneath the flagstone that was now part of the walkway leading to the cemetery.

Though she tried to tell herself that it could be anything, even a lost gardening tool, Sister Agatha’s heart began to hammer. “We need to remove a few flagstones and dig here.”

“Okay, but let me do the digging. That’s something else I learned to do well in the Corps,” Sister Bernarda said.

Unwilling to call Tom prematurely, Sister Agatha worked with Sister Bernarda, first setting the stepping stones aside, then waiting as Sister Bernarda dug up the section below. Originally, the path to the cemetery had been nothing more than a dirt track with bricks lining the walk. Maybe one of those had been Terri’s original marker, but the path had been altered after the wall had gone up.

Sister Bernarda worked energetically. After removing almost two feet of earth, she discovered the shredded remnants of a black plastic trash bag wrapped around a metal briefcase.

“I’ve got to call the sheriff, Sister Bernarda. Don’t touch anything.” She was now glad Sister Bernarda had brought a kerosene lantern for light. She had a feeling they’d be outside for quite a while, and the lantern would provide a little heat along with the illumination.

Sister Agatha reached the sheriff on the second ring. “Tom, we found what looks to be a metal briefcase. Should I pull it out to make sure? I could get the monastery’s camera and shoot some photos first.”

“Photos are okay, but don’t touch anything. I’m on my way.”

Sister Bernarda found their camera in the parlor, then took several shots, using a pair of gardening gloves to provide some scale in the photo. They’d also turned on the outside lights, which would help them get a better exposure than with a flash alone.

By the time they’d finished, Tom drove up. Using leather
gloves, he pulled the box out gently and set it on the ground. It was larger than they’d believed—more the size of a small suitcase. “It’s locked,” he said, “but I think I can force it open.”

As they watched, Tom brought out an oversized pocketknife that had a screwdriver blade. He inserted the blade between the top and bottom halves and, with a twist of the handle, popped open the box. As the lid sprang back, exposing the contents, Sister Agatha gasped.

“I’ve never seen that much money in my life,” Sister Bernarda said.

Sister Agatha stood beside Tom, leaning forward. “There’s something else sandwiched in there. I can see it from this angle.”

Tom followed her gaze then, using his pen, lifted a layer of cash. “It’s a revolver—the missing murder weapon, no doubt.”

“Not bad for a day’s work,” Sister Agatha said softly. “Not bad at all.”

Thirty minutes later, in a dry habit, Sister Agatha sat in front of Tom’s desk at the sheriff’s office.

“Good news and bad,” he said. “There are no prints on the briefcase or the gun. Terri’s prints are on some of the bills, but that isn’t damning of itself since she could have handled money at anytime in the office. Garza’s are there as well, along with Mark Rio’s and others that we haven’t identified yet. The trash bag used to wrap the briefcase held together for quite a while, and the case was sealed tight, so the pistol is in pretty good shape—hardly any rust. One of our lab people is taking it apart to try and lift prints from the harder-to-reach areas. Afterward, they’ll do a comparison between bullets fired from this weapon and the round that killed Rio.”

“What if the pistol is no longer operable?”

“We can attach the barrel to the frame of another weapon of the same model and caliber. While the firing-pin mark will be different, it’s really the barrel rifling that we’re anxious to compare. We’ll get what we need one way or another.”

“Good. Has Terri been released from the hospital?”

“No, but I hear she’s planning to sign herself out. I’ve managed to get her hospital paperwork put on the slow track, and I’ve also offered to have a deputy drive her home. I’ll be notified when they leave the hospital.”