Pious Deception (30 page)

“Do you think he could be with a parishioner?” Kiernan asked gently.

“No. No one here,” she said, clearly making an effort to control her outburst. “The call was long distance. Collect.”

“This call, Mrs. Johnarndt, when did the bishop get it?”

“Right before he left. About an hour ago.”

“Do you have any idea who it was from?” Kiernan asked.

“That Joe Zekk, up there in the mountains. Collect, like all those other calls from there.”

“What did Zekk say?” Kiernan held her breath.

“I don’t know. Bishop didn’t say. He didn’t say
anything.
He just walked out.”

Kiernan exhaled deeply, angry at Bishop Dowd for the pain he’d caused his housekeeper, frustrated at her own helplessness, and furious that she’d discovered just enough to know she didn’t know enough. She offered a few more words of comfort and hung up.

Grabbing a pair of jeans and a clean blue oxford-cloth shirt, she headed into the bathroom. She took a shower, penciled on eyeliner, and rubbed some pink stuff over the circles under her eyes. But no cover-up could mask the effects of the last three days. However, Dowd, if she found him, was hardly likely to notice. With what Zekk would have told him, Dowd would have plenty on his mind.

She stopped at the motel desk and checked for messages. There was one from Stu Wiggins: “3 of Austin V’s lg. dist. calls to monastery in CA. Taking archdiocese law. to dinner. Call you
A.M.
Stu.”

Pocketing the note, she walked to the Jeep. She rolled the window full open and felt the invigorating sting of the breeze on her face as she drove along Baseline Road toward the Pima Freeway. The night air felt surprisingly cool. The thick smell of grease from the chicken takeouts and burger joints in the shopping centers mixed with exhaust fumes from pickups and bursts of music that were too tantalizingly short to recognize.

She pulled onto the freeway and then off before the Gila River Indian Reservation.

Had Vanderhooven been calling that monastery in California for advice? Or had he planned to connect his own monastery with whatever order ran that one?

She pulled around the corner by the blue-and-yellow gas station, open but empty, as it was on the night she arrived in Phoenix. Beyond it, the houses of Azure Acres Homes were dark. The night of her arrival she had been taken aback by the stark whiteness of the mission church, and by Bishop Dowd with his faded chestnut hair and tightly arched eyebrows. But tonight the courtyard lights merely served to emphasize the darkness within the church itself. There was no light in Vanderhooven’s house either.

She climbed back into the Jeep and headed into town.

It was nearly eleven
P.M.
when she pulled up in front of Dowd’s rectory, a two-story Spanish-style house on the outskirts of Encanto Park, one of the most desirable downtown neighborhoods. The porch light was burning. But the carport was empty.

She checked with Dowd’s housekeeper (who looked just the way Kiernan had imagined, except for her apron, which had an Indian design). Dowd hadn’t returned, Mrs. Johnarndt said. Father Simmons and Father Bastent were at a retreat in Tucson. Monsignor Valdez was visiting his sister, who was dying. Bishop Dowd hadn’t called; no one else had called.

Kiernan headed back to the freeway, back to Mission San Leo. At twelve-thirty she pulled up in front. Both the church and the rectory were still dark inside. “Damn!” she muttered. Where was the man? She could drive to Dowd’s residence once more. She could call Mrs. Johnarndt again. Sighing, she fingered the steering wheel and pondered.

If Vanderhooven built a monastery on the land but no retreat, Dowd had good reason to want him dead. But why now? Dowd had had plenty of time to see the danger his underling posed. If he was going to kill him, why hadn’t he done it earlier? Or why not wait till later? Vanderhooven hadn’t been contacting his financial backers for a year. Nothing was happening with the building project. Why kill him now? What was happening now?

Kiernan slapped both hands on the steering wheel in triumph. John McKinley was dying now, that’s what! John McKinley was waiting for Vanderhooven to return something. What? Surely not McKinley’s will. If he had changed his mind about the will, all McKinley needed to do was make a new will. But who would make a new will for him? The 1937 will had been drawn up by a lawyer. So chances were that McKinley would have had a lawyer handle this one too. But McKinley never left Rattlesnake. No lawyer came out there. So who would carry the forms? Certainly not Zekk. No, it would have been the one man McKinley was waiting for, Austin Vanderhooven. If John McKinley was waiting to sign the will, that would explain why he had been refusing the morphine.

Kiernan extricated McKinley’s will and read over it. Then she drove to the gas-station phone booth. Behind her four teenaged boys moved around a pickup truck, yelling back and forth. She pulled the door shut, amazed at the relative quiet within the booth, and dialed Stu Wiggins.

This time Wiggins was home. “Let me tell you about my buddy, the archdiocese lawyer,” he began before she could speak. “The man can’t chew and think at the same time. He’s so busy shovelling in, it’s hard to get an answer to anything, much less—”

“Stu, I’m at a gas station.”

“Then don’t waste time making small talk, tell me what you want.”

She told him. In the twenty-seven minutes before Wiggins called back, the teenagers clambered into the pickup, to be replaced by one after another payload of adolescents. On the street, cars whizzed by in all eight lanes.

Finally the station emptied, and almost immediately the phone rang. She pulled the phone-booth door shut and listened as Wiggins said, “You owe me. I’ve talked to Gilbert Hayes and he did indeed draw up a will for John McKinley. Kerry, you know what it’s like to get ahold of a lawyer at one
A.M.
on a Sunday morning? He could have been drunk. He could have been “entertaining.” Fortunately, Gillie’s the type who’s in bed by ten. But I’ll tell you, Kerry, that didn’t make him a mite happier to hear from me at this hour. Do you know how much fast talking I had to do to get him thinking about a will he drew up for an old man he never saw? His father drew up the last one, and old Gil’s been dead for twenty years. ’Course Gillie read over the original will before he drew up this one. He also wouldn’t tell me what’s in it.”

“That’s okay for now. I just needed to know a new one existed. Did he tell you when he drew it up?”

“A week ago last Monday. And Kerry, here’s a little boon for you. You know who carried McKinley’s requirements to Gillie, and who picked the will up?”

“Austin Vanderhooven?”

“Smart lady! Vanderhooven picked it up from Gillie that Friday. He was supposed to bring it back the following Monday, but he called to say McKinley wanted more time to go over it. Said the old man didn’t read any too good to begin with, and what with being in a lot of pain, he needed time. Said he’d get the signed document back to Gillie the following Monday.”

A green Chevy convertible pulled in by the self-service pump. The radio blared Willie Nelson. Kiernan put her free hand over her ear and shouted. “Austin Vanderhooven planned to go to Rattlesnake yesterday. And take the will to Hayes tomorrow!” The radio stopped. In the relative silence, Kiernan said, “It’s almost comical, Stu. Vanderhooven’s killer is searching frantically through the rectory and Vanderhooven’s dome, and all the time the will is still down in Rattlesnake with the McKinleys.”

“Reckon we could be safe in saying our killer doesn’t know that.”

“Reckon we could, Stu.”

“Right. But Kerry, that’s not the boon I was offering you.”

“It’s not?” Nervously, Kiernan eyed the Chevy driver, a longhair in cutoffs and a T-shirt with a picture of a foaming beer glass and “Wet Arizona” on it. He was holding the gas nozzle but eyeing his silent radio. “Come on, Stu, what?”

“Well, Gillie Hayes is a stickler for having everything above question. Gillie’s good on paperwork, but he’s no ball of fire in court. He’s lost cases a first-year law student could have won. He knows it. And he goes out of his way to make sure there are no loose ends. You get the picture?”

“Right, Stu.” “Wet Arizona” turned the nozzle end up and hoisted it back into the pump.

“So, Kerry, you can imagine what state poor Gillie Hayes is in when he gets handed the will of a client he’s never seen, an old mountain man who could have a brain of mush for all he knows. Gillie sees himself walking into a court challenge with a will witnessed by a couple of bumpkins who are related to the inheritors, and he’s worried. You can picture that, right?”

“Stu, it’s going to get noisy here in a minute.”

Clearly undaunted, Wiggins said, “And then Gillie realizes he’s got an educated man available, a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. It’s a miracle. Or as close to a miracle as an officer of the court is likely to come. So what do you think he does?”

“If he’s been worrying as long as you’ve been keeping me in suspense, he’s too weak to do anything. What, Stu?”

Swallowing his laughter, Wiggins said, “He tells Vanderhooven it’s essential that he be one of the witnesses. And what that means for us—”

“Is that Vanderhooven was not an inheritor in the new will, right?”

“Right. How ’bout them apples?”

All the tension of the day bubbled up; Kiernan threw her head back and laughed. “Wet Arizona” stared at her, then flipped his radio back on full-blare. He revved up the engine, sending gusts of black exhaust toward her. And when he pulled out the screech of his tires drowned out the radio.

Kiernan stood a moment watching the exhaust float up and around the booth. Then, taking advantage of the quiet, she said to Wiggins, “So what Vanderhooven was ‘returning’ to McKinley was what McKinley had allowed him to use all along—what McKinley had given him in an earlier will so the gift would be legal when the old man died …”

“The retreat land?”

“No, that he had deeded over years ago. Besides Vanderhooven wanted the land for his monastery.” She grinned. “No, Stu, now let’s see how you handle being strung along. What could Vanderhooven return to the villagers that in itself would assure that the retreat land could be used for a monastery but not for a fancy retreat?”

Stu didn’t reply.

“A fancy retreat with a swimming pool, Stu, with seventy-five rooms and seventy-five showers—”

“Ah-hah!” Stu laughed as loud as Kiernan had.

“I thought as a veteran of water-right battles you’d appreciate that one. Am I correct in assuming that without Rattlesnake’s water rights, the church could build nothing more than a small self-sustaining monastery?”

“You are. You are. They could drill down to the underground aquifer and get enough water for a couple dozen monks, leastways monks who didn’t wash too often. But that’s it.”

“And the great retreat would be gone forever. Unless they could kill Vanderhooven before he witnessed John McKinley’s signing of the new will.”

“And they did!”

“Right. And what they were looking for was the new will!”

“They? Who? You got an idea?”

“I’m going to make another stab at finding Dowd.”

At Mission San Leo nothing had changed in the last hour. Frustrated, Kiernan jumped down from the Jeep and headed through the courtyard gate around the side of the church, toward the house.

There was an odd smell. Something burning? She stopped and stared back at the church. A hazy, dim light wavered behind the stained-glass windows. It hadn’t been visible from the street. Of course it hadn’t; the church had no windows on the front. But she didn’t find that reassuring. Moving more quietly, she climbed the steps and pushed the brass handle on the big wooden door. It didn’t budge. She pushed harder, but the massive door stood firm.

If Bishop Dowd was in the church, he would have entered through the sacristy in the back.

Careful to move quietly, Kiernan hurried around back. A date palm stood near the sacristy door, its fronds blocking out the moonlight. Kiernan tried the door—locked. She fished out Vanderhooven’s keys and tried two before one worked.

The sacristy was dark. The acrid smell of incense hit her. She made her way carefully across the room and felt along the wall for the door to the chancel and pulled it open. Clouds of incense poured through the doorway. She leapt back and shoved the door shut. She felt around for one of those robes she’d seen hanging here earlier, ripped off a wide strip of cloth, and, holding it over her mouth and nose, opened the door again.

The whole church was filled with incense. She coughed. Her eyes were watering. Her nose filled with the harsh smell. The dry heat pricked at her skin. She felt for the light switch and flicked it on. Nothing happened. Four blurs of light came from the rear of the altar table. The altar candles? She moved toward them, but even close up they gave off little light. Beyond, lines of lighter gray might have indicated windows—she couldn’t tell.

“Hello?” she called.

No answer. She pulled the nearest candle from its holder, dripped wax on the marble surface of the altar table, and stuck the base of the candle in it. The metal candlestick was eighteen inches tall. Too heavy for a protective weapon, but it would have to do. Carrying it by the top, she moved slowly, silently forward to the far side of the chancel. Again she stopped, listened. Again there was no sound. “Anyone here?” No response.

The incense was not coming from the altar but was flowing forward from the pews and the deep shadows by the heavy wooden doors beyond them.

The heat made it hard to breathe. It was like being in a forest fire. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Bishop Dowd?” she called. “Your housekeeper is very worried about you.” Still there was no indication of a listener. She felt her way down the chancel steps into the nave. Ahead were the wooden pews, barriers that could hide an army of silent watchers. To the sides were the two small side altars.

Pressing the cloth to her nose with her left hand, she inched forward till her hip touched the first pew and made her way in front of the pews to the side aisle. The incense was thicker, stronger, the air hotter. She started down the side aisle, looking down the length of the first pew, knowing anyone could be hiding at the far end, hidden by the thick fumes. Unable to stop herself, she coughed. Her foot hit something hard, and hot ash sprayed over her ankle. She jumped back, grabbed her ankle, brushing away the stinging ash.