Marcie's Murder (30 page)

Hank smiled. “No problem,” he said.

2
2

Where Tuesday had been a
busy
day, Wednesday by contrast was dead.
When
Hank called Karen
just after 9:00 a.m.
to see if she’d had breakfast
,
he
discovered
she was already on the road.

“Nothing happening, so I thought I’d take a little solo time,
Lou.
Go for a drive, look around.”

“All right,” Hank
replied
. “I’ll call you if anything comes up.” He heard her grunt and mutter. “You okay?”

“Fucking grannies around here. Four lane divided highway and they still drive below the speed limit in the left lane. How the
hell
are normal people supposed to pass?”

Hank thought about it for a moment and decided not to comment. “Will you be back later in the day?”

“
Not sure
,” she said.
“
I’ll call you
, all right?”

“All right.”

“Stay outta trouble, Lou.”

When he arrived at
the police station
,
Branham was out. Louden was working the desk
,
and
Grimes was off. The dispatcher, Moll
ie
Roberts,
looked up
as he leaned on the counter.

“It’s deader than a doodle bug around here,” she sa
id. “Courier brought your stuff
.”

“Great.”

“
C
ome on back. I put it on the table in the interview room so you
can
make sure
everything’s
there.”

“Thanks.”

The first thing he went for was his firearm. After giving it a close inspection, he clipped the holster onto his belt and felt better. He
then
went through the rest,
which was packed in
three
large cardboard boxes. He
check
ed
off each item on the list, signed the form
,
and
handed
it to Mollie, who
kept a copy for herself
.

“Like bourbon, do you?”

“They’re for my mother.”

“
Just don’t let Hall see them or they’ll disappear
on you
.
”

“I’ll
keep that in mind
.”

“
You do that
.
”

Hank looked at her closely. Her shoulder-length dark brown hair was wavy and twisted in a style that looked careless
,
but probably had
been done
in a salon. Her bright tangerine dress hugged her plump form in the wrong places. She wore a necklace of glass and wooden beads, three bracelets on her left wrist made of woven hemp, and several large rings
.
Her dark-brown eyes stared back at him with a directness that made it obvious she had something she wanted to say. He raised his eyebrows.

“This is what you do, right? Investigate murders?”

He
nodded.

“You’ve done it for a long time?”

“For a
while, now.”

“You think
Billy
did it? Killed Marcie?”

“I don’t know
,” he said
.
“
I really don’t.”

“He’s got a mean streak
. Yo
u found
that
out
the hard way
.”

“
T
rue enough.”

“You’re sure the religious guy d
idn’t do it?”

“He didn’t do it.
How long have you worked here, Mollie?”

“Almost a year. Neil was the one hired me.”
She paused. “He’s nice.
Some of these guys I could punch in the mouth
, but
Neil treats me like a human being instead of a
. . .
”

“Dyke?”

“Hu
n
h.” She tilted her head. “Figured that out, did you?”

He smiled faintly. “I’m a cop, Mollie.”

“Yeah,
but you’re okay.” She looked away. “My partner’s a dentist in
Richlands
.
W
e live just outside Wittens Mills. I’d rather get something
down there
and
commute
with her
,
but there’s not a lot around these days.”
She looked at him again. “Do you think it’s dangerous for me here? I mean,
whoever did this
, would he do it again to somebody else?”

“
We’re not really sure right now
,” he
replied carefully
,
“
but Marcie’s murder looks more like an act of passion, something strictly between Marcie and her killer, than something
done
by someone stalking women
.”

“An isolated incident,” she said.

“That’s how it looks. But it wouldn’t hurt to
be careful
, just the same. Stay safe,
be aware of your surroundings, and
don’t take any unnecessary risks until this is resolved
.
We’ll find out who did it and put them away.
”

“All right,” she said, clearly not feeling any better.
“If you say so.”

2
3

As Karen pulled into the visitors
’
parking lot outside
the reception building of the Monastery of
God
,
she felt a brief twinge of doubt. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. She shut off the engine of her Firebird and looked at the car in the parking space next to hers. It was a two-year-old black Mercury Grand Marquis
that
she’d seen yesterday parked
in
front of the Harmony
p
olice
s
tation. It belonged to Gordon Garrett, who was no doubt here to follow up on yesterday’s events with Brother Charles.
They’d be making copies of Marcie Askew’s medical records
and
debating the merits of a lawsuit for wrongful arrest. She’d be an unwelcome visitor, showing up at an awkward time.

S
he got out of the car and went inside.
There was a different guy in a white robe at the reception desk than on Monday.
This one
called upstairs and
told her
that Brother Charles was in a meeting. It would take about ten minutes for him to come downstairs. She was welcome to wait in the comfortable seating area on the right. Would she like a cup of coffee or tea?

She felt like asking for a beer but settled for a cup of Earl
Grey
tea, black, one sugar.

As she sipped the tea, served in a bone china cup with matching saucer, she watched the hustle and bustle around her. This time as she’d driven into the valley she’d taken more notice of the signage and what not for the fall festival coming up on Saturday
. P
reparations were
obviously
well underway.
A few monks in white robes were evident
on the monastery grounds
,
but mostly
she saw
regular people in street clothes carrying boxes and files and plastic sacks, yakking nonstop about this and that. Volunteers,
probably
. Many of them were young,
likely
students from the college.
W
hile she sat there
,
s
he counted
three
separate courier deliveries
,
one
of which
was
also
a
pickup
. It was noisy and busy. She liked it. The tea was hot and damned good. Her stress level went down a notch. Maybe it was a sign.

Brother Charles came down the stairs and threaded his way through the bodies to
ward
her
with a guarded expression on his face.

“Y’all are going full bore around here,” she said, grinning
up
at him. “
On account of
the festival?”

“
That’s right, Detective Stainer.
There’s so much to do, and so little time to get it done. Thank goodness for vo
lunteers.
The festival committee has given us most of the responsibility for organizing things this year and
we’re
swamped
.
What can I do for you
?”

“Just a few minutes of your time,” she said, ignoring his tone
. She set aside her tea cup and stood up
.

“We sent our copies of the medical records to the
s
heriff’s
o
ffice. They were just picked up by the courier. Was there something else?”

“I’d like to ask a couple more questions. Maybe talk to Dr.
 
Long, if he’s around.”

“I understood that the investigation has passed to
the
s
heriff and that you folks
are
no longer involved.”

She shrugged. “This is what I do. Can we go scare up Dr.
 
Long?”

“Actually,” Brother Charles said, fingering his beard uncomfortably, “Ben’s in Rome right now attending a conference.”

“Rome
, as in Italy
?
Are y
ou guys Catholics?”

His eyes widened. “God, no. What made you think that?”

“Rome?”

He blinked for a moment, then abruptly laughed. “Oh, Rome as in the Vatican. Hell, no. He’s speaking at an EU conference on public health. Free clinics are a hot topic in Europe these days.”

“You swore.”

“Pardon me?”

“You swore,” Karen repeated. “You said ‘hell.’”

“I did?” He made a face. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t offend you.”

She snorted. “No. So if I swore, it
would
n’t
offend you?”

“Not especially.”

Thank fucking Christ
, she thought.
The effort to keep her language clean
had been
half-kill
ing
her.
“Okay,” she said, “what about the other guy who saw Marcie, this Dr. Orlov. He around?”

“He is. I’m sure he’d spare a few minutes for you. Come on,
we’ll go
over to the clinic and
see
.”

They left the reception building and set off along a cement sidewalk that wound across the campus toward the clinic. Karen noticed that as the mid-morning sun fell across his face Brother Charles
brightened
perceptibly. His shoulders dropped, his fists opened
,
and his facial muscles
relaxed
.

“Nice day,” she said.

“It is.” He glanced at her. “When I came out this morning to say my prayers, I counted six different kinds of birdsong. We have a little pavilion behind the residence. That’s where I like to go when the weather’s n
ice. I haven’t heard many birds
the last couple of days.”

It was a swipe at those responsible for
tossing him in
jail
, but she didn’t bite.
“So if you guys aren’t Catholic
s
, what are you?”

“Odd ducks.”

“My fiancé is with the FBI,” she told him. “He took a course
on cults
last year. I read through the handouts they gave him.
S
tack this high.” She held her hands about a foot apart. “I d
o
n’t
remember
you guys
being
mentioned
there.”

He looked sideways at her, tilting his head. “The FBI.”

“Uh huh.”

He was obviously trying to decide whether or not she was yanking his chain, so she held up her left hand to show him the ring.

“Congratulations,” he said.