The Mother's Day Murder (12 page)

“You’re telling me you didn’t ask them not to cooperate.”

“I would never do that,” I said. “My husband is a police officer. It would be disloyal of me to do something like that. And I have no reason to.”

“Let me ask you something I haven’t asked you before. When did you call Sister Joseph yesterday to tell her that a girl you thought was a novice had been murdered?”

“I’m not sure. It was all so hectic. It was after we came back from mass.”

“So what are we talking? Nine? Ten? Eleven?”

“I think we went to church at nine, so I would have called her about ten, maybe a little later.”

“And she was there when you called.”

“Yes.”

“OK, so by ten she was back at the convent.”

“What do you mean, ‘back at the convent’?”

“She wasn’t there earlier.”

“Detective Fox, you said the nuns wouldn’t talk to you. Now you tell me they said Joseph wasn’t at the convent yesterday morning. I don’t understand.”

“Father Kramer didn’t see her. He talked to me.”

I felt the seeds of panic inside me. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying she can’t account for her time Sunday morning. I’m saying she could have been in Oakwood early Sunday, gotten back to the convent by the time you called, and come down here to identify the dead girl.”

“Why would she have been in Oakwood early Sunday morning?” I asked, keeping my voice as even as I could manage.

“You’re the smart one. Put it together. This girl knew something that could damage the sister’s life and career. The girl calls the sister and says she’s willing to talk about it, the sister drives down, maybe picks up the girl in front of your house early in the morning, and—”

“I don’t want to hear any more of this,” I said, feeling angry and betrayed. “Sister Joseph told you something, a fictional story concocted by a disturbed young woman, in order to keep me from being put on the spot. Now you’re using that story, for which you have not the slightest proof of its truth, to make her seem like the worst sort of criminal. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Calm down, Mrs. Brooks. Let’s not forget that a girl
was murdered, that someone aimed a gun at her and pulled the trigger. She’s dead. Let’s keep that in mind. Your husband’s prints are all over the ax that was found out by that tree.”

“So were hers,” I interjected.

“So were hers, I’ll grant you that. But I can make a case that your husband killed her. He not only owns guns, he knows how to use them.”

“That’s absurd.”

“To you it may be absurd. To me it’s a line of inquiry. But I don’t think your husband had anything to do with it. I do think there’s a possibility that Sister Joseph, who has a strong motive to keep that girl quiet, could have.”

I can hardly explain how I felt. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to kick him out of my house and lock the door after him permanently. I think I actually wanted to hit him. I did none of those things. I controlled my mouth, my breathing, and my hands. I made sure I did not cry, which would have embarrassed me to no end. I was about to say something when he said, “I’ve made you very angry.”

“Angrier than I can remember ever feeling. I think you should leave, Detective Fox. You have totally betrayed my trust and Sister Joseph’s. I am through cooperating. I have nothing else to say to you so there’s no reason for you to be here.”

“I wanted to congratulate you on finding where that girl was staying.”

“You don’t have to congratulate me for anything.”

“It shows you’re smart. I’m not sure I would have thought of looking on campus for her.”

“I have experience. I use it.”

“We’re not charging anyone at the moment. But if we do, I’ll be back.”

“Forget it. You’re not welcome here.” I stood and went to the living room, the detective following me.

“I have a feeling I’ve handled this badly,” he said.

“Take your feelings and go, please. I hope you come to your senses. You will never find Randy Collins’s killer if you continue looking for him at St. Stephen’s. That’s a guarantee.” I opened the front door. “Good night, Detective Fox.”

“Good night, Mrs. Brooks. I’m sorry to have upset you.”

I closed the door with more pressure than I needed and I turned the bolt. Without looking out the window, I could hear the car in front of the house start up and drive away.

This was simply crazy. I knew I was overwrought but my distress was justified. Joseph was as good a human being as anyone I had ever met. I knew that good people sometimes did bad things but I knew, too, that she would not. The very fact that she had told Detective Fox about Randy Collins’s ravings demonstrated her integrity. I knew it was dangerous to vouch for another person, but I would vouch for Joseph before anyone else I knew.

I am aware that the day may come when my son comes home and tells me lies about where he has been and what he has done. I am sure my heart will break if and when that happens. But Joseph would not lie to me.

I went upstairs and looked in on Eddie. He was fast asleep, the picture of innocence. I felt tears in my eyes, a combination of the anger I had felt a few minutes before and the peace that now came over me. I stroked Eddie’s hair. It was still so soft and silky.

A car pulled into the driveway. I left the room, closing the door behind me. Jack was home and I would have to tell him what had happened.

13

“He said what?” Jack was carrying the jacket he had worn to work, along with a briefcase that he now frequently took with him.

“I was so angry I threw him out. I wasn’t polite, I wasn’t nice, I wasn’t cooperative. I just wanted him out.”

“You did the right thing. You don’t have to cooperate. I think you should call Sister Joseph and tell her what Fox told you and then think about calling Arnold. He’s good and he knows her.”

“OK.”

“You look all worn out.”

“I feel that way. This has just been devastating.”

“I’ll be down in five minutes and we can eat. It’ll give me a little more time to think.”

Our dinner was nice and easy, leftovers from yesterday’s wonderful banquet. Fortunately, all I had to do was reheat, and in the condition I was in, that was taxing enough. By the time we had finished eating and Jack had heard all about my day, we had decided I should call Joseph and tell her what Detective Fox had said and ask her if she wanted me to call Arnold. Arnold is Arnold Gold, not only a great defense attorney but a dear friend
since I left St. Stephen’s, a mentor to Jack, and an admiring acquaintance of Sister Joseph.

Jack took over the dishes and I started with Joseph. It took a few minutes for the evening switchboard operator to locate her, but finally she came to the phone.

“We had quite an afternoon with Detective Fox,” she said, sounding her usual calm self. “I’m not sure he left knowing any more than when he arrived, except that I told him what you’d learned and gave him the backpack you found in Randy Collins’s room.”

“He ended up on my doorstep this evening,” I said. “Did he talk to you today?”

“He asked me a few questions, but mostly he was interested in what you’d discovered. He sealed up the room that Randy stayed in. He’s sending over a crime-scene unit tomorrow morning to go through it. I told him we couldn’t have men walking around the dormitory at night.”

“Joseph, I don’t know how to say this. Detective Fox thinks you could have committed the murder.”

There was hardly a beat before she said, “Well, he must really be at a loss. I didn’t go to Oakwood till you called me and I gather she had been dead for several hours by then.”

“He says you can’t account for your time yesterday morning. Joseph, you don’t have to give me any explanations. I believe you and I threw him out of my house. Jack thinks that one of us should call Arnold Gold. You may need the protection of a good lawyer.”

This time there was a pause. “If Jack thinks so, I’ll take his advice.”

“Would you like me to call him for you?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“I’m sorry to have upset you. Detective Fox was peeved that none of the nuns would help him. I told him they didn’t know anything, but even so, he thought I had put them up to it, not answering his questions. I told him he’d never solve this murder if he kept looking for a killer at St. Stephen’s.”

“You’re right, but I don’t like this new turn of events.”

“I’ll have Arnold call you as soon as possible.”

In my book, Arnold is a great man. I’m sure there must be potential clients that he turns down, but I have seen him take on cases that were lost causes and win them. He is a firm believer in the Constitution and he doesn’t get on well with the police if they try to circumvent the law.

Besides all that, he has been very good to me, so much so that I have come to consider him a surrogate father. He gives me work when he has it and included me in his office health plan until I married Jack, to make sure I was covered. When I left St. Stephen’s, there were a number of things I had very little knowledge about and I was grateful that he looked out for me.

He met Joseph at our wedding, which was at St. Stephen’s, and he was greatly impressed with her knowledge and wisdom, as she was with his. I knew what I was going to tell him would distress him, but there was no choice.

I called him at home and had a quick chat with Harriet, his wonderful wife. He came on the line with a breezy, “So, what’s up? Baby OK? Jack doing well?”

“Everyone’s OK, Arnold. It’s good to hear your voice. I’m afraid I need your help. You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you.”

He must have sat down at that point and turned down the music. There is always music in the background when I talk to Arnold. His life is incomplete without music. I think that’s wonderful.

I started at the beginning with the girl in a novice’s habit appearing on my doorstep less than a week ago and finished with the visit from Detective Fox this evening.

“I don’t want to hear any more,” he said as I took a breath. “Give me Sister Joseph’s phone number. Can I reach her now?”

“I’m sure you can. And if the switchboard is closed, calls go directly to her room. She’ll answer.”

“Are you going to continue working on this, Chris?”

“I don’t think I have a choice now. I’ve got to prove that this defamatory story is wrong and I’d like to find out who killed that poor girl.”

“They’ll probably come together at some point. It sounds as though you may have to travel to talk to some of those people. How’re you going to manage?”

“I really don’t know. I just know that this is too important to leave to the professionals.”

I heard a chuckle. “Good point. OK. Let’s say good night and let me call before those nuns all go to sleep. Thanks for bringing me in on this. Even though I feel my blood pressure going up, I’m rarin’ to go.”

Nothing new as far as I could see. But I felt much better when I hung up.

Almost as soon as I was off the phone, it rang. Jack did me a favor and picked up. It was for him and as he spoke, I realized he was talking to Detective Fox. Happy that I had avoided even the required pleasantries at the start of a conversation, I leafed through the
Times
and then picked up scattered toys.

Jack got off the phone and joined me in the family room while I was on my hands and knees. “Joe Fox,” he said as I scrambled up. “He offers you a heartfelt apology for the misunderstanding he caused when he was here.”

“There wasn’t any misunderstanding.”

“What else could he say? He’s in a box. He went back to his office after his ordeal with the nuns and then you—I had to laugh when he said the nuns wouldn’t talk to him.”

“They don’t know anything, Jack.”

“Anyway, the autopsy on Randy Collins was done today and the report was on his desk. The single bullet could have come from the missing gun that our neighbor, Mr. Kovak, owned and allegedly lost. A Smith and Wesson Chief model, Z barrel, same caliber, thirty-eight with a standard lead round-nosed bullet. Nothing exotic there. It could have been fired from any one of about half a million handguns. The clincher here would be to find the gun, do a few test firings, and match the known bullets with the recovered bullet. If the grooves are the same, the lab technician can testify as to the match. But we still don’t know whose finger pulled the trigger, or why. If it was Kovak’s gun, he’ll have a major problem. Ballistics can tell you a lot about the weapons, but not much about the people who use them. What else?” He had taken notes on the back of an envelope, more my style than his. “She was killed about six yesterday morning, give or take an hour. She hadn’t eaten anything since the night before.

“Then he said he’d spoken to Randy’s parents. Needless to say, they were shocked out of their minds. Randy has been a student at an Albany college for two years, a
pretty good student, they said. They told Joe she was adopted when she was about a week old. They have no idea who her natural mother was but they said Randy had expressed some interest in finding out for herself. They neither encouraged nor discouraged her. They believe she was a happy, well-adjusted young woman and they don’t know what she was doing in Oakwood or anything else that happened in the last few days. I guess he didn’t tell them about her taking a room at St. Stephen’s. What he told them was enough for one night.”

“How did they account for her not being at the college she was attending?”

“I think you put your finger on it the other day. She had finished her exams and told them she was visiting a classmate in New York or near New York. She didn’t give them a phone number but she called every day and said she was fine and having a good time.”

“And meanwhile she was at St. Stephen’s finding an empty room, making friends with Tina Richmond, and stealing a novice’s habit. I guess parents believe what they want to believe.”

“She also told them she might look for a job in New York for the summer. That gave her a good excuse for not coming home.”

“She must have decided to play the part of a novice because she guessed I’d be more receptive to that than to a kid who landed on my doorstep with a wild story about Joseph.”