Death Goes on Retreat (11 page)

Kate nodded, but said nothing. She had the feeling that despite Gallagher’s warning, Sisters Mary Helen and Eileen were already in this, knee-deep.

Directly after lunch, Detective Sergeant Bob Little set up his command post in the small gift shop off St. Colette’s main lounge. It struck Mary Helen as a strange place, but she supposed the detective had his reasons. Maybe he figured it would be harder to lie in a room filled with religious pictures and statues. To her way of thinking, if you murdered someone, lying about it, even with a saint staring at you, was small potatoes.

“Be around somewhere so we can find you” was all that Little said to the group. Yet, one by one, they inexplicably wandered into St. Colette’s lounge and huddled together in a remote corner of the room as far away from the gift shop door as possible.

Someone had tried to make the enormous room cozier by grouping goldenrod and Chinese-red couches in small conversational squares around coffee tables. Here and
there, a teakwood table, a silk scatter pillow, or a porcelain figurine of a geisha girl in a kimono reinforced the Oriental color scheme.

“There’s strength in numbers,” Eileen said, climbing over Con McHugh’s long legs. She perched on the end of a hard vinyl couch.

Mary Helen followed her, taking care not to step on Tom Harrington’s highly polished Gucci loafers. She settled down on the other end.

“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.” Ed Moreno edged his wiry body between Mike Denski and Andy Carr. “See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil,” he said, referring, of course, to the three of them squeezed together on the couch.

“Who’s which?” Mike asked, his eyes darting from Andy to Mary Helen.

“Who cares?” Andy said rather savagely.

“Well, we know you’re not ‘speak no evil,’ ” Ed quipped. Even Andy smiled.

They sat there, knee to toe. Like survivors on a raft, Mary Helen thought. Clinging to one another for dear life. There was no denying someone had brutally stabbed Greg Johnson. They had all been here and they were all here now. Except Felicita.

She had gone with Laura. The poor girl was so overwrought that Little suggested Felicita give her a hot toddy and put her to bed.

Even from the dining room they had heard Laura’s protests; then a sudden silence. Undoubtedly she had agreed, although Mary Helen doubted if she would sleep. She had probably realized a bed was the one private
place where she could lie down and cry her heart out.

“Where do you suppose Beverly is?” Eileen asked.

Mary Helen had forgotten about Beverly.

“Maybe she’s in the kitchen.” Andy Carr toyed with his beard. “Or maybe she’s the one in with Little,” he suggested unconvincingly, staring at the floor.

Monsignor McHugh groaned. “Anyplace but making another meal,” he said. Apparently, the last two he’d consumed were still fighting it out.

With an unexpected bang, a side door slammed, letting in a burst of warm air and Sister Felicita.

“If I had a heart, I’d be dead,” Eileen whispered.

“Sorry!” Felicita’s black veil was askew atop her tousled angel hair. Her face was as flushed as if she’d wrestled with demons and barely won. “I feel about twenty years older than Methuselah,” she said.

Sister Mary Helen squeezed over to make room.

“Is it still Monday?” Felicita plopped down beside her.

“As far as we know.” Ed Moreno was trying his best to lift the mood.

Felicita’s eyes flicked around the square. “Has Detective Sergeant Little called anyone yet?”

Con McHugh shook his head. “No one, unless it’s Beverly, since the rest of us are all here.”

“Did you get Laura calmed?” Mary Helen asked, trying to make conversation.

“That poor girl.” Felicita’s pale blue eyes flooded. “I only wish there were something I could do to make this all go away.”

Her wish fell like a pall on the assembled religious. No
sound was audible from the gift shop. Every attempt at conversation fell like a kamikaze pilot on a mission. Tom Harrington toyed with the obi of the geisha’s kimono.

“This is slower than your confession line, Con,” Ed Moreno tried again. When Con McHugh didn’t rise to the bait, even Ed fell silent.

The relentless summer sun thudded against the plate-glass windows. With each passing minute the temperature in the lounge rose and the morale of those sitting in it plummeted.

Finally, the gift shop door opened and a florid-faced Beverly emerged. Without a word, she hurried from the room.

Deputy Kemp, minus his bow tie, stood by the open door. That gift shop must feel like ladies’ night in the Turkish bath, Mary Helen thought, watching the deputy focus on her.

“Sister.” He nodded pleasantly. “Can we see you now?”

“May we,” she heard Little’s voice correct. Congratulations to your English teacher, Mary Helen thought, following Kemp’s lead.

The small room was windowless and stifling. Mary Helen took the chair, still warm and moist from Beverly, across from Bob Little. She scanned the walls and shelves and almost gasped aloud when she read the saying on the poster behind Little’s head.

“Truth will rise above falsehood,” it read, “as oil above water.” She wondered if it was a coincidence or if Little had tacked it there intentionally.

Bob Little’s tall good looks seemed unwilted by the
heat. He studied her with friendly brown eyes—eyes that must drive the young girls gaga, Mary Helen thought.

He asked her to retell the events of the morning, which she did in detail. Deputy Kemp scratched away in his notebook as Little gently eased her through her grisly discovery.

“Did you see anyone on your way down the hill?” he asked when she’d finished.

“No. No one.”

“Whom did you run into first?”

“Monsignor McHugh.”

“Then?”

“Father Moreno came out of his room, and shortly after that Father Tom Harrington came out of his in his pajamas. But you can’t suppose . . .”

“Don’t worry.” Little’s face broke into a smile. “We don’t suppose anything yet. We’re just trying to get the facts straight, Sister. Can you remember hearing anything out of the ordinary during the night?” he asked. “Or in the early hours of the morning?”

Mary Helen thought. Actually, she had heard nothing at all until the cooing of the mourning dove awakened her. “I slept the sleep of the dead,” she blurted out, instantly wishing she could reswallow her words. Little didn’t seem to notice.

When Mary Helen left the room, she was feeling restless. The very thought of sitting in that hot, sticky lounge was too much. She needed some exercise. A walk around the grounds might clear her head. It might clear up something else that was bothering her as well. Where had those big dogs gone? The last time she saw them, they had loped off to chase something in the underbrush.

“Sister Eileen,” she heard Deputy Kemp say, “may we see you next, please?”

Choosing a shady footpath, Sister Mary Helen approached a screen door leading to the kitchen. She was surprised to hear voices coming from inside. Beverly and a man were talking. His voice sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly whose it was. They were talking softly, but from the tone the conversation was heating up.

Mary Helen eased toward the door. Both backs were toward her. Beverly fanned herself and ran her free hand up the untidy haystack of hair piled on her head. Beside her was a broad, thick tan-shirted back belonging to a man with short reddish hair. Sergeant Loody! Of course!

What kind of business could he have with Beverly? And why wasn’t he guarding the murder scene?

Even policemen need a coffee break, Mary Helen thought, hurrying past the door before they spotted her. She was in no mood for a confrontation or even a conversation with either of them.

She followed a secluded wooded trail up the hillside. Thankfully, it was far away from Madonna Grove, yet had the same wilderness beauty.

Live oak, white-barked sycamore, and waxy madrone shaded the path. Fragrant yellow broom and sword fern grew along its sides. Mary Helen walked a wide berth around the bright red poison oak leaves and stooped to examine the ballerina-shaped fuchsia blossoms.

Amid all this peace and beauty, how could she have
discovered something so heinous? She breathed in the fragrant air.

The angry buzz of swarming insects snagged her attention. Her stomach jumped and her hands felt cold and shaky. Was this going to happen every time she heard bugs buzzing? Was her mind going to conjure up imaginary evils even in this idyllic setting?

She moved toward the noise. They were after something. Bravely she stole a glance and her stomach pitched forward in a sickening lurch at what she saw. Her question was answered. There, lying rigid and stiff, in a field of miner’s lettuce and buttercups, were the two German shepherds. Except for their arched necks and their open, bulging eyes, they might have been asleep. The sound of her screams filled the silent woods.

“It was louder than the Berkeley ferry bell,” Eileen said later, but Mary Helen never did believe that.

Deputy David Kemp was the first to hear the scream. Eileen was the first to recognize it.

“It’s Sister Mary Helen,” she said, her brogue thick.

Detective Little threw back his chair. He heard it bang against the gift shop wall as he followed Kemp out the door.

The two men ran toward the noise. Surprisingly, the little old nun, Eileen, was not too far behind, puffing but keeping up.

“Atta girl!” he wanted to call over his shoulder, but he needed all his breath to keep going himself. Too
much time with Terry and not enough working out, he thought ruefully.

“What the hell’s Loody doing here?” Kemp pointed to the enormous figure bursting through the screen door by the kitchen. “Isn’t he supposed to be guarding the scene?”

“Maybe he needed to take a leak,” Little said, then hoped that Sister Eileen hadn’t heard him.

“Aren’t there enough trees in the woods?” Kemp called.

Before Little could answer, Mary Helen stumbled into the clearing, her face the color of pabulum. She swayed. He grabbed her. Her whole body was trembling.

“What is it, Sister? What happened?”

With great effort, Mary Helen sobbed out her grim discovery.

“Get somebody up there,” Little shouted, keeping his arm firmly around her.

Eileen caught up. Slowly, the two of them half walked, half carried Mary Helen toward the kitchen. Beverly filled the doorway.

“What you need is a good strong cup of coffee.” Little nodded toward Beverly, knowing she heard him. Without any change of expression, she went inside.

Where had he seen her before? He knew he recognized her from somewhere, yet he could not put his finger on where. A woman of her stature was hard to forget. This was his first visit to St. Colette’s, so it hadn’t been here. It had bothered him all during lunch. If he thought about it long enough, he knew he’d remember.

That was why he had called for her first, although his interrogation had shed no real light. Beverly Benton,
forty-one years old, had lived in the Bonny Doon area of Santa Cruz for about two years. Alone. Before that she had lived in San Francisco, working as a chef at an upscale restaurant on Kearny Street.