MASS MURDER (46 page)

“Good morning, Detective.”
Whatever command he once had over his voice had been replaced by an empty, hollow sound that was hardly recognizable
.

“Good morning, Father.
I was wondering if we could talk.”

The
brown eyes searched Giorgio’s, perhaps looking for more bad news.
He dropped his hands and walked stiffly t
o a cement bench that sat
in front of some Arborvitae.
He slumpe
d down and
turned to Giorgio with vacant eyes.

“What’s going on, Detective?
This is madness.”

“What’s going on, Father, are a lot of lies and deception.
Starting with you.”

The caterpillar eyebrows arched in disbelief.
“
Surely you don’t think I had anything to do with those murders.”

“What about the drug deals going on out here in the garden?”

His face froze.
“The drugs?”

“And the affair with Ms. Peters?”

He glanced towards the nearest monk and then dropped his head as he realized there was no point in denying the charge.
“Yes, we were having an affair
, b
ut I had nothing to do with the drugs.
Or the murders.
You must believe me!”

“I need to know more about the secret passage you and Ms. Peters used.
How did you find it?”

He gazed across the garden as if talking to himself.
“
I found it q
uite by accident.
I spun the wrong combination on the wall safe in my office one day
,
and the whole wall opened up in front of my eyes.”

“And you told Ms. Peters?”

“
N
ot right away.
She was hired about six months later.
When we
…
when it appeared we had an attraction for each other and had no place to go, I came up with the idea to use the secret door.
”

“Does anyone else know about the
door and the
tunnel?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged.
“Perhaps Father O’Leary did.
He used to tell a story about a local man who pressured the Catholic Church decades ago to sell the property so he could sub-divide it into residential lots.
Of course, the monks refused.
According to Father O’Leary, the battle went on for months until local residents started reported sightings of a ghost in the bell tower.
You can imagine
it
would have
frightened the entire neighborhood.
According to Father O’Leary, the ruse was eventually discovered
,
and the man confessed to using a secret passage to pull off his stunts.
I’m afraid none of us
put much stock in
the story.
There is nothing in the church records
and none of the locals seemed to know about it.
Then I found it,
the secret door
.
I never told anyone
until Anya
…
I mean, Ms. Peters.”

“Did she tell anyone?”

“I don’t think so.
We were very careful.
Of course I didn’t know she was using the tunnel for other purposes.
Perhaps you should ask her.”

“I
’ll do that
.
And w
e’d like your permission to search the building again.”

The priest dropped his head in submission.
“By all means,
search all you want.
I just want this thing to end.”

The three officers concentrated their efforts on the
rooms adjacent to
Olsen’s.
Giorgio entered the supply closet on the monks
’
side.
The room was smaller than the one in which Mallery Olsen had been left on display.
There was a single wall sconce on the inside wall next to the door, but it didn’t work.
Shelves lined
only
the left and rear wall.
The wool blankets were folded on two wide shelves along the left wall, while the shelves along the back wall held rolls of toilet paper,
folded
sheets
,
and towels.
Giorgio pulled out his flashlight and began a thorough search, pulling items off the shelves in an attempt to get a
clear view of the wall behind.

The interior walls were made out of pine
,
and he pressed his fingers on any piece of wood that appeared to have a knot
. B
ut nothing happened.
He pushed his foot against the floor moldings and into corners and ran his fingers along all the edges of the shelving.
He pulled and twisted the light fixture, but it didn’t move.
He worked the light switch as he had before, but not only did the wall not move, the light never turned on
.
Unlike the closet downstairs, there was no hanging crucifix or embellishment of any kind.
Using the butt of his hand, he pounded on the inside wall hoping to hear a hollow sound indicating a passage on the other side
. H
is reward was Rocky’s voice calling back to him from the closet
outside of
Mallery Olsen’s room
.
Frustrated, he descended the stairs and joined Swan and Rocky.
Their search had been equally fr
uitless.

“If there is a secret way into or out of Mallery Olsen’s room, we can’t
find it,” Rocky almost pouted.

“I couldn’t find anyth
ing on the other side either.”

Giorgio did a quick search of the inside of the
second
closet, but it was almost identical to the one on the other side
except for
the color of the blankets.

“Damn!” Giorgio almost slammed the closet door closed and stood with his hands on his hips.
“We have to get our hands on the original plans of this building.
Rocky, why don’t you take a trip down to city hall and see if the original
plans are still on file there?”

“Okay.
What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to talk to Anya Peters.”

Chapter Thirty-
Three

Giorgio left Grosvner with McCready and headed for the county jail to interview Anya Peters.
He was forced to wait for Peters’ attorney, a young woman dressed
t
o intimidate men, probably not all men, just men like Giorgio whose mere presence seemed to piss her off.
Peters was as tight-lipped as ever.
She continued to deny any involvement in the trafficking of drugs and blamed Giorgio for planting evidence in the passageway.
She also denied knowing anything more about secret passageways.

He decided to interview
Colin Jewett who was housed in a separate building.
Jewett was much more cooperative once Giorgio implied that Anya Peters had laid all the blame at his feet.
Jewett’s attorney was a quiet, pudgy man who sat in a corner and listened as Jewett explained how he met Peters at a party about six months earlier.
Once she’d learned of Jewett’s past incarceration, Peters presented him with an offer he couldn’t refuse.
She knew someone who worked for a produce company in
Los Angeles
.
Drugs smuggled across the border were hidden in boxes of lettuce and shipped north.
Her contact routed the boxes to appropriate locations where the drugs were removed.
When Peters secured the job at the monastery, she decided it would be the perfect cover.
With her recommendation, Jewett got a job with the catering company
,
and Peters
got
Mary Fields
to contract with the
produce company.
Peters’ affair with Father Damian gave her an alibi and a reason to be at the Monastery late.
Colin Jewett confessed that Peters always dressed as a monk, but denied having ever seen the tunnel.
By the end of the interview, Jewett’s attorney
was asking for a plea bargain.

Giorgio returned to the station to talk with Swan who reported they had gotten a statement from the cleaning lady who confirmed she had found mud scattered across the floor in Poindexter’s room.
She had also removed an empty wine bottle and two used glasses from John Marsh’s room.

“McCready already told me about the mud in Poindexter’s room,” Giorgio confirmed. “But why don’t you find out who Marsh was entertaining?
By the way, where’s McCready?
I need to get Grosvner
,
and I want Poindexter’s address.
I think
it’s time I paid him a visit.”

Giorgio found McCready in the break room feeding corn nuts to Grosvner
.
He got Poindexter’s address and then loaded Grosvner into the car.
A few minutes later, he was handing off the dog to the kids, grabbing a piece of cold chicken from the refrigerator, giving Angie a kiss on the cheek
,
and heading for South Pasadena.

It was a little after five o’clock when he arriv
ed at Cory Poindexter’s Spanish-
style
apartment building.
Poindexter lived in a ground floor unit off an octagonal shaped courtyard planted with broad-leafed greenery and the occasional Hibiscus added for color.

Giorgio rang the bell and waited for seve
ral seconds before a young blonde
dressed in a beige slinky dress and heels answered the door.
She was
of
medium height
,
with larg
e green eyes and a healthy tan.

“I’m detective Salvatori with the Sierra Madre Police Department.
I’d l
ike to speak to Mr. Poindexter.

“He’s not home from work yet,” she drawled in an exaggerated Southern twang.
“It’s about that murder, isn’t it?”

“I have some questions for him.”

“Would you like to come in?”
She stepped aside, her green eyes mapping his face in a way that made Giorgio uncomfortable
.