Death Goes on Retreat (15 page)

“Dammit! What now?” Jack Bassetti said when the phone rang. He stared across the table at Kate as if it were her fault; as if she had somehow willed it to ring right in the middle of their discussion. Their argument, really.

If I could have, I would have, Kate thought, staring right back.

“Hold that thought,” Jack said gruffly, and went into the front hall. He picked it up on the fourth ring. Kate heard him attempt to sound polite. Thank goodness the baby was asleep. Little John was so sensitive to everything around him. Their angry voices would surely have upset him.

“It’s for you,” Jack growled.

Kate recognized Mary Helen’s voice immediately and knew exactly what she wanted. She cut short the old nun’s apologies for calling so late and for getting her involved again and plunged right into her interview with Marva Johnson.

“What was it she accused Laura of, exactly?” Mary Helen asked.

“Of leading her son astray. Of generally being his downfall. Nothing specific. ‘An occasion of sin’ is the way she put it, I think.”

“What do you suppose she meant by that?”

“That they were living together, I assumed.” Kate flushed, remembering a time when, before they were married, Jack and she had lived together. Mary Helen was not judgmental then, nor was she now.

She did seem genuinely shocked when Kate told her Mrs. Johnson insinuated that Father Tom Harrington might have had something to do with the murder.

“What possible reason?” she asked. “Did she explain?”

Kate didn’t have the answer. “Something that happened when Greg was assigned with Father Harrington?” she guessed.

“Do you think there is any truth in that?”

“I wouldn’t discount it completely, but I wouldn’t put too much stock in it either. Remember Marva Johnson actually said that she’d sooner have done it herself than let Greg continue on the road to perdition.”

Kate heard Mary Helen groan. “What do you make of it?” she asked.

“I’d say that the woman is a bit of a religious fanatic,”
Kate said. “You know, very sure, very righteous.”

And we all know there is absolutely no cure for self-righteousness, Mary Helen thought. Thanking Kate for her time, she hung up.

“Another murder, right?” Jack said, the moment she reentered the kitchen. “I rest my case, Kate. Where does the victim’s mother live? Right on our own block. And you want to raise a kid in this city?”

Kate wanted to kick herself for telling him about Greg Johnson. It gave him more ammunition for the battle they had been waging for months. Like most battles, it had started with a small scrimmage. Jack was assigned a child rape case. Actually, the little girl was about the same age as their John. Jack was deeply moved, as well he might be. The case was appalling. Kate admitted that much.

The fight escalated. Jack watched her bundling up John for the baby-sitter, and threw in the weather. “We both grew up here,” Kate countered, “and neither of us has terminal frostbite, do we?”

“Hon,” he had said one night, “several of the guys in my detail are buying in Cordero. I think that’s where the O’Connors live, too, isn’t it?” he asked, tossing in a detective from homicide. He proceeded to make the small Marin County suburb sound as if it were the safest city in America.

“Whitebread!” Kate announced, unmoved.

“Where is this kid going to play?” he asked one Saturday.
“On Geary Boulevard? Talk about telling a kid to go play in the traffic.”

“Where the hell do you think I played,” Kate shouted. “And all the other kids that grew to old age in this neighborhood?”

“That was then. This is now,” Jack said in that annoyingly patient tone of his.

Over the last few weeks the subject had become open warfare. Undoubtedly, tonight they were having the most decisive battle of their marriage. Kate did not want to move. She loved San Francisco. She loved this old house that had been her parents’. She wanted to live right here. She wanted to raise her family here with streetcars and fog and ethnic diversity and all the charm and beauty and culture that San Francisco offered.

“I’m not suggesting New Zealand, for chrissake, Kate. It’s only twenty minutes away.”

Kate would have hollered about traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge if their front doorbell hadn’t rung. “Who the hell is that?” Jack shouted, stomping out of the kitchen.

“Ma!” Kate heard him say. “What are you doing out this late at night? What’s wrong?”

“What am I? Some sort of Cinderella. I turn into a pumpkin at midnight, Jackie? Besides, it’s only a little after nine o’clock.” Loretta Bassetti pushed her way past her son and headed for the lighted kitchen. “It’s my bridge night. I was at Mrs. Molinari’s around the corner. It was her turn. When I went into her kitchen for a glass of water, I could see your kitchen light still on.”

And you were trying to find out why, Kate thought.

“Since I was so close, I decided to pick up my good
Dutch oven. God knows when you’d return it, and I need it for your sister Angie’s birthday dinner on Friday night. You haven’t forgotten your sister’s—” She stopped mid-sentence. Her glance jumped from the table, cluttered with dinner dishes, to the stove, where her pot sat, still unemptied and unwashed.

“What’s wrong?” She crinkled her short nose, as if to sniff out the tension.

“Wrong? What do you mean?” Jack smiled stiffly.

“What do you mean, what do I mean? This is your mother you’re talking to, Jackie. It’s nine-thirty at night. You two are still sitting at the table, the dishes not done. The faces on you look like you have just received a death sentence.” She caught her breath. “Something is wrong with the baby?”

“No, Ma. The baby’s fine.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Kate?” Her bright brown eyes grew large, panicky.

“Loretta, the baby is absolutely perfect. In fact, he’s upstairs sound asleep.” Kate flushed. For a minute, she thought her mother-in-law might climb the stairs to make sure. That’s all she needed tonight, Mrs. B. in full bustle.

“Sit down, Ma,” Jack said, trying hard to sound hospitable. “Let me fix you a cup of coffee.”

“Not on your life.” His mother clutched her handbag in front of her bosom like a shield. “If the baby’s okay, then I’ve walked in on the middle of a fight. So, I’ll go.”

But not before you’ve put in your two bits’ worth, Kate thought.

Predictably, Mrs. Bassetti dived right in. “Every young couple has fights. It wouldn’t be normal not to.
Best for the in-laws to stay out of fights. Only muddies the water. But remember”—she shook a pudgy finger in warning—“it is not good to go to bed angry. So, I’ll let you settle this before you’re up all night.”

“Ma, sit down. Really, we are not angry. We are not even fighting. We were discussing.” Kate knew from his expression that he wasn’t even fooling himself.

“What kind of a discussion makes two faces look like yours?”

Innocently, Jack stepped into his fatal error. “I was just talking to Kate about the possibility of our moving to Marin County.”

Mrs. Bassetti flopped into a chair as if she’d been punched. “Move?” she said, hardly audible.

“Yes, Ma, move. To a better climate, a safer community. A place where a kid can play outside on flat, traffic-free streets.”

His mother raised her chubby hand as if to ward off his attack. “You, Jackie, my own son, want to move my only grandchild away from me? Across a bridge?”

“Twenty minutes away, Ma, forty at the most. To sunshine.”

“You want to take my little family across a bridge?” Even Kate thought she made it sound like across the Sahara Desert.

“For chrissake, Ma. You’re willing to drive alone through Golden Gate Park at ten o’clock at night. Why couldn’t you drive across the Golden Gate Bridge?”

“Bridges scare me,” she said. Her eyes filled with unexpected tears.

“Nothing living or dead scares you!”

“Don’t you dare raise your voice to your mother! And
you, Kate?” Before Kate could reply, she answered her own question. “There would be no fight if you wanted to go, too.”

Mrs. B.’s backbone stiffened. She reached over and patted Kate’s hand. Any coldness between them disappeared in that instant. Kate had an invincible ally. She almost felt sorry for Jack.

With blazing eyes, Mrs. B. turned on her son. “What kind of a man did I raise? What kind of a man wants to take his wife away from her family home? The place where she has lived all her life—a nice place—and transport her to Marin? Bad enough you let her work and strangers take care of your child.”

Oh, oh, thought Kate, here it comes. But she was wrong. Child care was small potatoes compared to a move.

“Now you want to move away from your family. Why? What is wrong with us?”

“Ma, you’re getting crazy. It’s just that I think it might be a better place to raise a kid.” Jack ran his fingers through his dark curly hair.

“What do I hear? You call your own mother crazy? Then you say I didn’t raise you in a good place? What was wrong with your home? It wasn’t good enough for you? Your father, God rest him, would turn over in his grave if he knew that the house he worked his fingers to the bone for wasn’t good enough for his big-shot son.”

“Nothing was wrong with my home.”

“What then? You turned out to be a criminal or you have TB from the fog? No. You turned out to be a cop and you are never sick.” She considered that for a moment. “What you are getting is a little thick in the middle,
Jackie. Even Mrs. Molinari thinks so, and she has bad eyes. Maybe you need more exercise. You get that thickness from your father’s side. None of the Bassettis exercised enough.”

Foolishly, Jack took the diversion as a concession. “So, Ma. It’s getting late. Maybe you should get through the park.”

Acting as if she didn’t hear or see him, Mrs. B. turned her full attention on Kate. “Some of his friends have moved over to Marin. That’s what it is. Jackie was always like that, even when he was little. No mind of his own. He had to have what his friends had, even if it wasn’t good for him. I remember, one time, BoBo Spencer down the block got a BB gun. Nothing would do but Jackie wanted one too. His father said no, it was too dangerous. Jackie threw a fit. Acted like we had deprived him of his heritage. When BoBo shot out Mrs. Brady’s windows and she called the police, it wasn’t such a good thing.” She stopped and gave a satisfied smile.

“If she brings up the motor scooter, I swear I’ll strangle her,” Jack mouthed to Kate.

“Then there was the time with the motor scooter . . .”

“I am a grown man, Ma!” Jack shouted. Even Kate jumped.

A piercing wail drifted down the stairs. Mrs. B. turned on her son. “See what you have done, grown man? Shame on you! Your yelling frightened that sweet baby.” Before either Jack or Kate could react, she ran up the steps.

“God, she can get to me,” Jack said by way of apology.

“You walked right into that one,” Kate couldn’t resist remarking.

“Why did I think she’d be on my side?”

Kate kissed him gently on the cheek. It was warm and moist. “If she has to choose between you and that baby, pal, you’re history.”

“See, John, sweet baby, Mommy and Daddy are not mad.” Mrs. B. stood in the kitchen door bouncing her grandson.

John’s round, downy face was pink with sleep. His tiny lips turned down threateningly. He looked from his mother to his father to his grandmother. His brown eyes were wary. Where the pajama top stretched to reach the bottom, small patches of tummy showed through the gap, reminding Kate of how fast he was growing. He’d need a new pair soon.

“See Daddy kiss Mommy,” Mrs. B. cooed.

Jack kissed Kate on cue. Kate kissed him back and little John did look happier. Maybe her mother-in-law had a point.

“Everyone kiss Nonie.” Mrs. B. extended her face.

John giggled when his father bussed Nonie’s cheek, and stuck out his arms to be taken.

“What kind of a grown man wakes up his own child by yelling?” Mrs. B.’s pleasant tone did not betray the sting of her words. She put the child into her son’s arms. “By the way, Jackie,” she called, heading for the front door, “he has a full diaper. Not even moving to Cordero can change that.”

The nuns sat on two hard plastic chairs in the dimly lit vestibule of St. Agnes’ Hall. In a low voice, Mary Helen filled Eileen in on the details—which were amazingly few—that she’d missed listening to only one side of the phone conversation with Kate Murphy.