The Cin Fin-Lathen Mysteries 1-3 (16 page)

“Maybe it is time to let go some more.  All this commotion
has sobered me a bit, even though this Manhattan hasn’t, and I want to move on.
 But first I want to ask Maurice a couple of questions.”

“You’re not the only one,” I said and got up to make two
more drinks and stopped.  “Angie, would you like to wake up the Father, while I
make three more of these.”

Angie rose and fussed with her hair.  “I think I’ll go check
on him.”  She started up the stairs and stopped and sang a line to me.  “It’s
so nice to have a priest around the house.”

“Anna,” I thought, "your daughter is going to be
fine." 

~

Father Michael descended the stairs dressed in jeans and a
flannel shirt opened at the neck.  His hair was combed and his beard was
showing that it was well past four.  He gratefully accepted the drink I made
him, walked into the kitchen and began rooting around in the breadbox and came
back with a fistful of scones.  I was sitting at the dining room table working
on my list of suspects.  He nosed his way over and looked at the two papers I
had written.  His eyebrows lifted at the mention of his uncle, but he didn’t
say anything except tell me the Forensic Science Service had promised he and
his aunt results tomorrow or the day after.  His aunt would be in London early
on the second day.  Hopefully he would be able to share some information with
me at that time.

Angie stuck her head in and said she was going out for some
wood for the stove.  Father Michael’s manners kicked in, and he said he would
join her in the enterprise.  This gave me uninterrupted time to finish my
lists.

THIRD
CRIME:  Bobby Bathgate pushed down 2nd story escalator.

MOTIVE: 
Stop Bobby from coming to Bathgate.

SUSPECT:
 Bruno Vanchencho – Positive Id by art student, confirmed by Interpol.

QUESTION:
 Who hired Bruno?

FORTH
CRIME:  Arson/attack on Angie Bathgate

MOTIVE: 
Removal of evidence.

SUSPECTS: 
Bruno Vanchencho, Maurice Sherborn, Horace Beaufort, Ivan Bendonovich, Bentley
Hughes.

COMMENT: 
Not enough evidence to convict Bruno.  Angie did not see her attacker.

FIFTH
CRIME:  Angie Bathgate shot – attempted murder.

MOTIVE:
 ?

SUSPECTS:
 Same as Crime Four.

COMMENT:
 Attacker a cigarette smoker.  Two shots fired.  One creased Angie’s skull. 
Chief Superintendent Browning has one bullet and several cigarette butts in
evidence.

SIXTH
CRIME:  Attempted abduction of Angie Bathgate.

MOTIVE:
 ?

SUSPECT:
 Bruno Vanchencho – Positive ID by Cin Fin-Lathen.

QUESTION:
 Who hired Bruno?

SEVENTH
CRIME:  Attempted murder of Cin Fin-Lathen. 

MOTIVE:
 To stop Cin from revealing that Donald Williams was at Bathgate during the
time of his disappearance.

SUSPECT: 
Bruno Vanchencho – Positive ID by Cin.

QUESTION:
 Who hired Bruno?

I spread all the papers out on the table and looked for the
common thread.  Bruno Vanchencho was one.  Maurice Sherborn was the other.  Did
Maurice hire Bruno?  I put my head in my hands.  I needed more information.  I
needed rest.  I needed food.  What was that wonderful smell?  Chicken?  Fried
chicken?  I piled my papers and walked into the kitchen just in time to see
Father Michael in an apron showing Angie how to make Southern fried chicken.

“Thought you might be hungry,” Father Michael said as he
wiped the sweat from his brow.  “Pull up a chair.  We already have coleslaw, my
aunt’s recipe, and hushpuppies, my recipe.”

“Wow, I’m impressed.  I hope you made a lot because I hear
the young ones outside.”

Noelle banged in followed by Paz who was semi-attached to
Billy.

“I smell fried chicken.  I haven’t had fried chicken since I
left Florida,” Noelle said dreamily.

“I never had fried chicken, but it sure smells fine.”  Billy
pulled up a chair and sat down.

Paz walked over and watched the process.  “A lot of grease.”

“Grease is good,” Noelle laughed.

“Sit down, Paz,” Angie ordered.

“Yes, Mum.”  Paz obeyed and sat next to Billy.

“I thought you guys were going to eat in town?” I asked.

“We did, but it was hours ago, Mom.”  Noelle grabbed a
hushpuppy and popped it in her mouth.  “Oh, oh, this is good.”

Angie and Michael finished preparing the meal and sat down
with us.  We ate until everything was gone.  Billy got roped into doing dishes
with the girls, and the older adults retired to the back porch to take in the
night air.

“All this seems so unreal.  I just finished writing down
eight crimes that have happened.  All are connected to Bathgate.  And here we
sit on the back porch without a care in the world, amazing.”  I twisted my body
trying to crack my back.

“Here let me do that.”  Father Michael pulled me to my feet,
turned me around and lifted me by my upper arms.  It sounded like firecrackers
going off as my spine loosened up.

“Thank you.”

“You’re very tense tonight,” Angie remarked.

“I guess I just want this done.  We can’t move forward until
we have more information.  I have this horrible feeling if we don’t get a grip
on this very soon, someone else is going to die.”  I noticed that I was pacing,
flattening the grass in front of the porch.  “Sorry, bad habit.”

“Paz said she expected information on the students
tomorrow.  We can’t move until we know what we are dealing with,” Father
Michael reasoned.

“I know.  It’s just scary.  I don’t like not having
control.”

“Come on you two, let’s go in and make an early night of
it.  That way tomorrow comes sooner.”

“Ah, the old Christmas Eve strategy.”  I smiled at her.

“Worked for fifteen years.”

“Still works,” Father Michael said walking up the steps. 
“When my nieces and nephews get all worked up, off to bed they go.”  He opened
the door and held it for Angie and me.

“There is one thing tonight, I am really going to enjoy,” I
said as I passed him.

“What is that?” he asked. 

“Having a man in the house to protect us.”

“Amen to that,” Angie said.

Father Michael stood just a moment taking in the compliment
and then he shut the door smiling. 

~

I was all tucked into bed by the time the girls entered the
dormitory room.  Noelle came over and sat on my bed.

“Slumming?”

“Yes, but this bed is so very comfortable.  I hope I’m not
cramping your style.”

“Only if you continue to use that 1960’s language.”

“Sorry, when one gets old, one resorts to childhood phrases
and sometimes childish behavior.”  I saw Paz lurking in my peripheral
eyesight.  I patted the bed.  “Room for you too, Paz.”

“You’re amazing Mom, the way you’ve embraced the detective
role that has been foisted on you, even in the face of physical danger.  Oh and
speaking of amazing.  Woo hoo, on Father Michael.”

“I didn’t make him.”

“But you brought him home.  Always collecting strays.”

“That’s me.  Now, Paz, I realize I still don’t know much
about you.  Noelle just takes for granted she tells me things.  All I know is
that you go to her college, and, you have lots of blokes.”

“Aye, I do.  Just friends though, nothing like Billy.  I
have two busy parents.  They were old hippies, hence the name Paisley.  I have
lived just outside of London all my precollege days.  I love books, so I
decided to study literature, get the highest degree and probably end up at a
bookshop somewhere.  I have no ambition besides keeping up with Noelle.  She’s
teaching me some martial arts, and I am teaching her how not to take life so
seriously.”

“Good luck there.  Never worked for me.”  I reached over and
hugged my daughter.  “But she is a comedian.  Very surprising considering we
don’t come from Canada.”

“Wha...Canada?”

“Yeah, all the best comics come from Canada, but, Mom, I
think that the Irish may be better.”

“Sarcastic wit.”

“Self-depreciating wit.”

“Ah, that’s because there isn’t anything to do there,” Paz
summed up.  “I have a mate from there, Montreal. When he isn’t complaining
about the crown, he’s cracking me up.”

“Is he a student?” I asked.

“Nah, I think he’s a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman.”

“Really?  How did you meet him?”

“British museum.  I hang out there when I’m home.  Never
know whom you’ll meet. He was chatting me up.  I accused him of being an
American, so he showed me his badge.”

“Technically, Canada is in America, North America,” Noelle
corrected her.

“You know what I mean,” Paz growled.

“Mom meets a lot of people in the community bands she’s in. 
But they’re all old.”

“Like your mother?”

“Hey now.”

“Nah, real old, like Angie.”

“Yah mean they have enough air to blow a horn?”

“Come on you two.”

“You.”  I shook my head.  “Get off my bed, I am getting some
sleep.  Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get your bloke’s information.  I really need
to find Donald’s killer and find a way to neutralize Bruno before he spoils my
vacation.”

“Neutralize, like kill him?” Paz said in awe.

“No, but...”

“Cayne said you carved that guy up like a Halloween
Pumpkin.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“Cin, here is a question more for the morning than late at
night, but since I am thinking it now, might as well say it.  Could you kill
someone?”

“Yes, if I was defending myself or protecting a loved one. 
I think that I would have to do what I had to do.  Afterwards I would probably
puke.”

“I could do it.”

“You think so, Paz?”

“I think us women, we have the female lion in us.  We are
very passive until we or our little ones are put into danger.  Then we strike,
and we strike big.”

“You guys are scaring me.  Great, another night of
nightmares,” Noelle complained.

“Are you still having nightmares?” I asked my daughter.

“Yes, not as much as when I was a teenager, but I still have
a lot of them.”

“You think too much.”

“I know, but it is what I do.”

“I think it is all that past life stuff personally,” Paz
offered.  “I think you have to work out all that miserable stuff out of your
soul, baby.”

“Don’t you call me baby, midget.”

“That’s it off my bed.  Go argue over there.  Night, girls.”

They left and were surprisingly quiet.  I looked over and
both girls had on their headphones, each listening to their own choice of
music.  Music is such a vital part of growing up.  There’s music to calm you
down, some to make you want to dance, breakup music (sad or angry), and there
is music to make you feel every emotion possible.  That is the music I like to
play.  Sometimes during a performance I actually cry.  I’m fortunate that I sit
far into the row because sometimes I am just so moved I let the music carry me
away.  Like tonight, I have a tune in my head that will gain me entrance into
the land of dreams.  I rolled over and hugged my pillow.  My eyes closed to the
strains of “
Gymnopédie No. 3
” by Satie.

Paz and Angie were conspiring in the kitchen.  They kept
looking over at me and whispering.  I finally had enough and walked in there.

“What?”

“You’re wearing the same outfit again.  That’s three days
now,” Paz pointed out.

“Pardon me, but I have lost three pairs of shoes and one
ensemble.  The bog smell wouldn’t come out no matter how many times I washed
it, and there aren’t any stores handy.”

“You look so blah.”

“Okay, what do you think I can do considering the three
women in this house are all tiny?  Father Michael is a bit attached to his
habit, I don’t see him loaning it to me.”

Angie walked over and turned me around.  “I may have some
things you can have, but they’re vintage.”

“I don’t understand, vintage?”

“She means they were her mother’s.  Honestly, get a clue,”
Paz contributed.

“So you want to play dress up with me?” I groaned.

“Go on be a sport.  Give us something to do while we wait on
the phone,” Paz said through a mouthful of biscuit.  “Angie will get you some
clothes, and I will do your hair.”

“Noelle, I’m surprised you’re not in on this.”

“Father Michael and I are going down to Sennen Cove.  I want
to show him the cliffs.  Paz lent me her car.”

“Be careful and remember he’s a priest and not the flying
nun.”

“Ahem,” his voice came from behind me.

I didn’t turn around.  I was caught and blushed red as a
beet.

“If my aunt calls, take down the number, and I will get back
to her.  Tell her I’m cliff climbing, she will be no doubt jealous.  She has
been a climber for years.”

“She sounds very interesting.  Between Angie and your aunt I
don’t know if I could keep up with, to quote Tom Brokaw, the greatest
generation.”

They left, and I was left to the mercy of Paz and Angie.

~

Angie had her mother’s things stored in a cedar-lined
armoire in the fourth floor attic.  We had the advantage of the sunlight to
take the gloom out of the space.  Angie pulled open the doors and the odor of cedar
enveloped us.  Carefully she moved her hands over dresses and skirts.  She
pulled out several that she thought would fit.  The dresses had muted floral
prints and full skirts.  Some of them were from the flapper era, and each had a
matching purse or hat.

She pulled out a red wool coat, and a bundle rolled out and
fell at our feet.  It was a canvas sack about thirty inches tall.  It felt like
heavy cloth inside.  Angie opened the bag and peered in.

“Oh look at this.”

She pulled out some needlepoint seat cushions.  They were
rolled over heavy paper.

“My mother was working on new covers for the dining room
chairs.  She started this project in 1920 and was still working on them when I
was in the hospital.  She never finished.  Anna was very frugal; she reused
some of the manuscript paper that we had made errors on to roll the finished
seat cover on.  See this one is the ‘Happy Farmer’ by a Leonard Toad.  He must
have been a student.  I don’t think he did well, and judging from what I see
here he wouldn’t.”

She pointed out mistakes in key.  I acted like I could tell
by nodding my head smartly.  She rerolled the seat cover and put it in the bag
with the others.  Angie tied the bag and pushed it back under the dresses.  She
opened up a drawer and clapped her hands.

“We have struck gold!”

The major find was shoes, delicate little leather slippers
large enough for my size nine feet.  Paz encouraged her by oohing and ahhing
over everything.

“These things are too nice,” I cautioned.

“I would rather see them on you than behind glass in a
museum.  My mother loved clothes.  She did regret leaving behind all her
concert ensembles, but I think she made up for them here.”

Paz nosed around and found another armoire.  “What’s in this
one?”

“Go ahead and open it.”  Angie stood back and watched her.

Paz
opened the doors to more clothing.  This time they were small and petite.  “Are
these yours?”

“Yes, go ahead and see if anything fits.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, but don’t be too disappointed, you won’t find anything
fancy in there.  I was a very practical girl.”

We waited till Paz had an armful before heading down to the
dorm room to try on the clothes.  Angie had found some things she thought
Noelle would fit into, and she placed them on her bed.

I smiled, thinking she didn’t want Noelle to feel left out
when she returned.

Anna Bathgate and I were the same size.  It wasn’t too
surprising since we both had some German peasant blood in us.  Everything I put
on made me feel beautiful.  I chose a rose-colored cotton housedress to wear today. 
I slid on pale pink shoes and twirled around letting the full skirt fill with
air.

“You look like a bell!” Paz said.  She had chosen to wear a
yellow twin set with white pants she and Angie were having a disagreement over.

“Capri pants,” Paz said.

“Peddle pushers,” Angie insisted.  “I wouldn’t be caught
dead in Capri pants.”

“Whatever they’re called, you look so different.”

“Whatcha mean by that?”

“It is a softer look than your usual, zippers and leather.”

“Here, look in the mirror,” Angie directed her.

Paz took one look at herself and screamed.  “I look like my
mother!  Bloody hell!”

“Well, your mother must be very beautiful.  I think Billy
would just melt if he saw you in this,” I said.  “The yellow is very nice with
the purple streaks in your hair.”

Angie joined in, “And look how the little pearl buttons on
the sweater compliment the piercing in your ears.”

Paz twisted this way and that scrutinizing her form in the
mirror.

“Think of it this way, you’re a new and improved vision  of
your mother,” I said offhandedly.  “I wish I looked more like my mother.  She’s
petite and beautiful.  I’m a stretched out version of her.  She was probably
mistaken for Judy Garland when she was your age.  Now she lights up the room
when she enters. Her eyes are full of mischief, all the time.  My son has my
father’s green eyes, but no doubt the twinkle of mischief in them came from my
mother.”

“Well, me mum’s not a bad cracker at that.  If I was to get
a small pearl to put on my eyebrow piercing...”

“I think I may be able to help you.  Come along, girl, and
we will search my this-and-that box for an errant seed pearl.”  Angie guided
Paz out of the room and towards the stairs.

I had just pulled my hair up into a curly knot when I heard
Angie scream.  I found the women on the stairs.  Angie was almost in a faint
and was being supported by Paz on the landing.

“What happened?”  I asked out of breath.  Angie pointed to
the windowsill where a ginger cat sat resting in the sun.  I walked up to the
cat and carefully reached out and touched it.  I turned to Angie, “It’s real.”

“Hey,” called Noelle from the second floor landing.  “Has
anyone seen a cat?  It ran in when Father Michael was holding the door.”

“It’s up here, we found it.”  I picked up the purring cat.  It
smelled of the outdoors, and its fur was matted here and there.  “I would say
this is a stray.”  I kept petting it, watching the color come back into Angie’s
face.

“I thought...” Angie started.

“I know me too.  It isn’t a ghost.  Ginger here just decided
that Bathgate needed a good house cat.  If the animals are coming back then so
are the mice.”

“So you’re saying this ginger cat ought to stay?” Angie
said.

Paz relaxed her grip on Angie.  “I think the cat has decided
to stay.  Looks like gingerbread to me.  You ought to call it Ginger or
something dull and classic like that.  I am going to leave you two to the cat
naming.”  She headed down the stairs.  “Noelle, close your eyes, I have a
surprise for you.”  Her voice faded away as she headed down the hall for the
first floor staircase.

“You look like my mother holding that cat,” Angie’s eye’s
misted.  “The dress, the hair and the cat.  Here give me that rascal.”  She
lifted it up.  “It needs a good cleaning, and I think we better think of
another name.”

“Why?”

“Ginger is a girl’s name and this is a tom.”  Our eyes
connected over the cat.  “Tom it is then.  Come along, Tommy, yer going to get
some milk.”  Angie walked down the stairs carrying a much-contented tomcat with
her. 

I followed, but was waylaid by Father Michael who asked me
to come into the blue room.  His ears and cheeks were pink from the cool ocean
wind.  He kept passing his notebook back and forth between his hands.

“Are you all right?”

“The phone was ringing when we let the cat in.  It was my
aunt.  She told me the FSS finished the autopsy, and she wanted me to call them
so I could hear the report first hand.  So I did.”  His eyes were tragic, and
he kept looking up as if asking for guidance.

“Here, first sit down.”  I cleared a mass of clothing out of
the rocker.  “Take your time and compose yourself.  I’ll run down for some tea
or...”

“No, that’s okay. I can do this, but I will sit down.”

I pulled the dressing table chair over and sat as close as I
could, a difficult maneuver considering the rockers.

He began, “They found areas that suggested he was in a
fight.  His skull was battered and his arms and hands had trauma to them.  They
found a bullet in his or what was left of his stomach.  The report suggests he
was shot in the stomach, which is a very painful wound.  He must have been
dragged to the bog as the heels of his shoes were worn.  Then he was thrown
into the bog alive.  He asphyxiated on the sludge that dragged his body down.

“He died alone still fighting.  Probably didn’t occur to him
he couldn’t save himself.”  His eyes filled up and he turned away from me and
looked out the window.

I didn’t know what to say.  “Michael, your faith will give
you the answers that your heart is searching for.  I don’t know anything about
what happens after we die, but I can tell you something.  He never left here. 
He kept fighting.  He looked after Angie, he saved me, and it was his music I
heard.  You and your aunt need to take him home.  Bury him in Savannah. Bring him
home, he needs to move on.”

“He died so brutally.  He should have died of old age,
receiving last rights…”

“Only God knows what our end will be.”  I felt so inadequate
talking about God with a priest.  I only knew what I carried inside of me. 
“Your uncle was a good man.  I’d like to think there is something more than
this black and white existence.”

He sat back and closed his eyes and rocked. I got up.

“I'm going down to get you some tea.”  I left him rocking.

Angie was fussing over the cat in the kitchen, and the girls
were following Angie’s instructions on some baking project.  Paz had an apron
on so large that it wrapped twice around her small frame.  Noelle had flour on
her face.  I made two cups of tea and stopped at the bar and added a little
Irish to both cups.  Walking upstairs I chided myself for being so harsh.  I
guess I could scratch grief counseling off my talent list.

He was still rocking, looking out the window.  I handed him
the tea.  Michael took a small sip.  His eyes shot open.

“Did you add a little tea to the whisky?”

“Maybe.  Listen I’m sorry.  I have a big mouth and very
little control over it.”

“You meant well, and you have some valid points.  I think
you don’t quite get what I or my comrades are about.  I would like to have
equal time with James Joyce.  You only read one account of Jesuits, and it was
an Irish account.”

I took a sip.  “Fine, when we’re out from under all of this
I will give you as long as you want, but don’t try to convert me.  It’s been
tried before, and people just get frustrated and stop talking to me.”

“I am made of sterner stuff.”

“You never had a parish did you?”

“No.  Why do you ask?”

“Because if you did, you would understand that death isn’t a
by the book occurrence.  The grieving don’t want to hear the ABCs to any
faith.  They want comfort.  You can’t be thinking Donald is damned because he
didn’t get his last rites.  Policemen die without last rites.  Not to mention
the military.  I see you’re not thinking too clearly.  Maybe you should call
whoever gives you guidance.  Bet you your rosary that I’m right.”

“And what will you be putting on the line?” he asked
sarcastically.

“My car.”

“You must be pretty sure of yourself.”

“I’m sure.  I don’t bet my car on anything I can’t win.”  I
walked over and dug into my purse I had left in there with my clothes the night
before.  “Here, take it.”  I handed him one of my precious phone cards.  “Ninety
minutes on me.  Call.”