Murder Makes a Pilgrimage (16 page)

“Are you sure?”

“Sure, I’m sure. I sat behind him and his wife. I saw him go, and I saw his wife get up and look where he went. She was mad,” Heidi added with malicious pleasure.

Odd duck, this young Heidi, Mary Helen thought, replacing the receiver. She tiptoed back to her bed, pulled the comforter up over her feet, and closed her eyes. Actually both young women were odd ducks, she thought. The professor, the doctor, Pepe, even Bud Bowman—Lisa had gone after them all. Did she have a need to vanquish men? And if so, why?

And butterscotch Heidi—very young for her age, an innocent, really, with a streak of what? Meanness? That seems too strong. Orneriness? Something like that. She doesn’t miss a trick either. She knows exactly where Lisa was and who was with her. Actually Heidi makes an excellent detective. Unless, of course—Mary Helen caught her breath—unless she is the villainess.

Nonsense. She jockeyed into a more comfortable position on the high bed. The girl simply has an uncluttered mind. Fuzzy with drowsiness, Mary Helen tried to unclutter her own mind. A little snooze before dinner would do her a world of good.

“Mordre wol out, certein, it wol nat faille.” Unexpectedly those long-forgotten words and their source came to her.
The Canterbury Tales
, “The Prioress’s Tale.” The human mind is a gift of Memory, the mother of Muses, and its power has no bounds, Mary Helen thought, muddling the ancient philosophers. And it was the last thought she did have as she mercifully fell into a deep sleep.

“I guess nobody’s home at Gallagher’s.” Kate Murphy held out the telephone receiver so that her husband could hear its hollow ringing. Immediately interested, the baby stopped banging his plastic keys on the high chair tray, turned his head, and listened, too.

“Too nice a day for anyone to stay home.” Jack poured what remained of his morning coffee down the kitchen sink. “You know, hon, we should go somewhere—Golden Gate Park, the Marina, out to the beach. Even out in our own backyard. Right, buddy?” He picked up little John, who gurgled in agreement.

Jack carried him over to the kitchen window, and together they looked down on the overgrown tangle of flowers and weeds, the remains of a once-well-tended garden.

“On second thought,” he said, “maybe we should skip the backyard.”

Kate winced. She had promised herself that she’d do something about that garden during her maternity leave, but somehow she never quite managed.

Just as she was about to hang up, she heard someone knock Gallagher’s receiver off the hook, then fumble for it with butter fingers.

“Hello.” Dennis Gallagher’s voice was groggy.

“Are you still in bed, Denny?” Kate asked, glancing up at the kitchen clock.

“Where the hell else would I be at this hour of the morning on my day off?”

“Sorry.” She hoped she sounded contrite. “You’re not sick, are you?”

“No, I’m not sick. I’m just dead. And what the hell is so all-fired important that it can’t wait for a decent hour?”

“I wouldn’t call ten o’clock exactly indecent.” Kate tried to sound reasonable, but Gallagher cut her off.

“What the hell do you want, Murphy? And it better be good!”

This was not going at all well. Kate wanted a favor, and this was not the way to get it. She tried the humble approach. “Sorry I woke you, Denny. Why don’t you go back to sleep and I’ll call you again in an hour or two?”

“Too late now,” he said, then sighed dramatically. “What is it you wanted anyhow? Everybody’s all right, aren’t they?”

Kate caught the note of concern in his voice. Good, he was softening up.

“Yes, thanks. Everyone here is fine, but you’ll never guess who I’ve heard from.”

“Jeez, Kate, first you wake me up out of a sound sleep. Now you want to play guessing games? Damn it, who called? This better be good.”

“A couple of hours ago, actually at the crack of dawn”—she dropped that tidbit hoping he’d feel fortunate—“I received a call from a Comisario Ángel Serrano. He’s with the police in Santiago de Compostela in Spain.”

Gallagher was quiet. Good. She’d hooked his interest. “An American tourist, a member of a group originating here in the city, was murdered in his jurisdiction. Serrano is pretty convinced that another member of the tour is the perp, and he needs some background information on these other members. You know, the usual stuff.” Without a twinge of guilt, Kate skipped the fact that she had volunteered to get Serrano the information.

“A police commissioner from Spain called you at home? Why the hell would a police commissioner call you and not another police commissioner, may I ask?”

“It’s somewhat of a long story.”

“I’ve plenty of time,” Gallagher said, his tone dangerous.

Kate cleared her throat. “Actually I received two calls from Spain. The commissioner called early this morning, and around midnight last night I received another call from—you’ll never guess who. Our old friend Sister—” That was as far as she got.

“Sister Mary Helen,” Gallagher roared. Kate held the receiver away from her ear. “What in the hell is that old busybody nun doing mixed up with murder, again? See what I mean, Murphy? It never fails. I swear, she’s getting to be a regular goddamn Sister Mary Typhoid Helen.”

“She didn’t commit the murder,” Kate said, but Gallagher was off and running.

“Honest to God, Kate, I hope this time they lock her up and throw away the key. She—neither one of them, and I assume that her sidekick Sister Eileen is with her, has any business at all going out of the country in the first place. Jeez.” He exhaled a long, sad sigh. “We’re all going to hell in a handbag. You know as well as I do that nuns should be home in the convents, praying their beads, and minding their own goddamn business.”

“What in the world bit you?” Kate heard Mrs. G’s voice ask from the background.

“It’s those goddamn old nuns again.”

“Dennis Gallagher, I hope you’re not talking to Sister like that. If you are, give me that phone this instant. And if you aren’t, stop it anyway. What kind of example is that for the children?”

“The children? What children? The children don’t live here anymore, thank God, unless you just brought one of
them home with you from the grocery store. And if it’s up to me, I say let’s keep it that way.”

“You old coot, you don’t mean one word you’re saying.”

“I mean every goddamn syllable of it. Every time our kids and their kids come near here, they eat us out of house and home. Don’t they have houses of their own? It seems to me we’re always helping one or the other of them to get their own place. Why can’t they stay in it?”

Gallagher had switched to another of his pet peeves, and Kate decided she had caused enough damage for one Saturday morning. “Denny,” she shouted into the fracas, “shall I call you back with the list of names that the commissioner wants you to check?”

“No,” he grumbled. “I’m wide-awake now. Might just as well let me write ’em down. But remember I’m off this weekend, so I can’t promise anything until Monday at the earliest. When’s this tour scheduled to come home anyway?”

“A week from today, I think.”

“With the time difference, this guy might have the thing worked out before I get him the info.” Gallagher gave a loud yawn.

“That’s true.” Kate tried not to let her disappointment show in her voice. Actually she was surprised by it herself. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted to get involved in this case.

“Jeez, if this Serrano guy can’t figure it out in a week, he might put the whole goddamn bunch of them back on a plane.”

“Then does it become our problem or the feds?” Kate wondered aloud.

Gallagher perked up. “Our problem? Do I take it you’ve decided to come back to work?”

“I haven’t decided anything yet.”

“Tell Kate I said hello,” Mrs. G called from the background.

Saved! Kate thought and quickly began to pronounce and spell the names of each member on the tour. She threw in Jose Nunez, aka Pepe, and Señor Carlos Fraga, owner of the Patio Español, for good measure. Not wanting to give Gallagher more fuel for his tirade, she purposely omitted Sister Mary Helen and Sister Eileen, but he couldn’t let it slide.

“And the nuns? Doesn’t the poor unsuspecting slob want background on those two screwball friends of yours?”

“Friends of ours, Denny.” Kate felt her own temper fizzing up. It felt good. It had been too long since she and Denny had had a real screaming fight. Maybe that was part of what she missed about her job. “Friends of
ours
! Let’s not forget how helpful those two old screwballs have been,” she shouted. “I don’t know if we’d have done nearly as well solving those murders without them.”

“I’d liked to have had the chance to try,” Gallagher growled, but Kate knew it was more a matter of having the last word than of meaning it.

When she finally hung up, Kate walked over to the kitchen window and stood beside Jack and the baby.

“Ma, ma, ma.” Little John pointed to a red-throated hummingbird treading air. “Ma,” he screeched, watching it dart across the back porch and down toward the yard.

“Maybe the kid’s going to be a naturalist.” Jack put his free arm around Kate. “Just as soon as he gets you and the bird straight, hon, there’s no telling where he’ll go.”

“Very funny.” Kate watched the hummingbird stop, start, then dive into their small, narrow yard. And what a mess it was, she thought guiltily. The weeds shone green, and the square, seedy plot of grass was gray. Forlorn fuchsia plants drooped with red and purple dancing ladies, and dusty rhododendron and camellia bushes barely clung to life.

“Our yard is a disgrace,” Kate muttered, putting her head on Jack’s shoulder. “We’re probably the talk of the entire neighborhood.”

Immediately Baby John began a game of peekaboo, using his father’s head as a shield.

“What should we do?” Kate bobbed out. “Boo!”

“About what?”

“About the backyard, pal. Boo!”

“Get a shade for this window?”

Baby John giggled. Jack looked pleased. “This guy’s got a great sense of humor,” he said, planting a noisy kiss on the baby’s cheek.

After lunch Kate and Jack, at Kate’s insistence, tackled the backyard. Kate decided to weed, while Jack mowed the lawn or what was left of it, trimmed the edges, and turned soil. He unearthed the remnant of a tiny oval fish pond, slimy with decaying stems of water lilies.

Little John crawled and scooted along behind Kate, babbling, investigating rocks and twigs and pointing with glee at the earthworms that crawled out of the broken dirt. Finally, worn out, he lay down on the cool cement walk and fell asleep.

Gently Kate moved him to a blanket under the shade of the overhanging porch. She felt like joining him.

“Want to quit?” Jack squatted down beside his wife.

“I’m pooped,” Kate admitted. “How about you?” Her arms and legs were beginning to burn, and dirt was caked under her fingernails. Her stomach was queasy, probably from working in the heat.

“Tomorrow we’re going to feel muscles we didn’t even know we had,” Jack said. “It’s got to be five o’clock somewhere. How about a drink?” Taking Kate’s hand, he helped her up, then gathered up the baby, blanket, blades of dried grass and all.

They had just settled down in the living room when the front doorbell rang—once, twice, three times before Jack reached the door. “Ma!” he said, doing an admirable job of sounding glad to see his mother. “What brings you?”

“What brings me?” Loretta Bassetti bustled into the entranceway, her soft, full cheeks flushed with the heat. “Jackie, go out to the car. I’ve been cooking all day long. It’s in the backseat.”

“Hi, Loretta,” Kate called with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. “Come on in and sit down. We’ve been gardening.”

“It’s about time!” Loretta said without even looking at Kate. Instead she went directly to the playpen, where John still slept soundly. “Why isn’t my precious grandson in a bed like other children?” she asked in a stage whisper. “Why is he sleeping in this cage full of stuff?”

“What did you bring us?” Kate asked, reminding herself that Loretta meant well.

“How about an old-fashioned?” Jack called from the kitchen.

“Homemade ravioli, a little salad, and garlic bread. Put the ravioli in the oven, Jackie. Keep it hot,” she shouted, “and, yes, I’ll take you up on that offer of a drink.”

John stirred in the playpen. The piquant aroma of tomatoes and garlic and basil floated down the short hallway, and Kate realized how hungry she was.

Loretta accepted the old-fashioned but refused the invitation to join them for dinner.

“It’s good for a little family to be together,” she said and, with a
salute
, sipped her drink.

Kate bristled. “Little family” sounded so patronizing, as if they were munchkins playing house.

“We’ve had about as much togetherness today as any
little family can handle,” Jack joked, and showed his mother a blister on the palm of his hand. “I mowed the lawn.”

“What lawn? Last time I looked out your kitchen window, it looked like a hayfield. Maybe what you needed was a scythe.”

“It wasn’t that bad, Ma.”

“Ha! My friend Mrs. Molinari, who lives around the corner, says your backyard is an eyesore for the whole neighborhood.” She glared accusingly at her son.

“I told you so,” Kate muttered.

“What else does Mrs. Molinari say?” Jack asked.

“She says that I’ve got the most beautiful baby grandchild in the whole world”—Mrs. Bassetti moved toward the playpen—“and that’s why I’m still friends with the old buttinsky.”

Baby John stirred in his crib, eyes fluttering open at last. His grandmother could resist no longer. “Come to your Nonie,” she cooed.

To Kate’s relief John recognized her immediately, smiled, and held out his arms to be picked up.

Mama Bassetti rocked the contented baby. “If Kate ever decides to go back to work—and I don’t know why in the world she would, after all, what kind of son did I raise that can’t take care of a wife and one child?—you cannot leave this precious baby with strangers. Can they, sweetie?”

Much to her delight, John answered, “Na, na, na.”

“Sweet Mother of God.” Mama Bassetti was wide-eyed. “Did you hear that, Kate, Jackie? My sweet boy is saying my name.”