Sister Eve and the Blue Nun (35 page)

“The boyfriend,” she said, watching him smile.

FIFTY-FIVE

“It was Peter Pierce,” she said, feeling so much better than she had in days. She was even able to sit up a bit without the sense that she was going to pass out. She cleared her throat.

Earl Lujan was sitting beside her. He was wearing a UNM sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, looking more casual than she had remembered ever seeing him. He was smiling. “You want some water?” He stood next to her.

Eve nodded and he handed her a cup of water.

He watched as she drank it all. She handed the cup back to him, and he poured more from the pitcher on the stand beside the bed. He gave her the cup.

“Peter Pierce,” she said again. “Did you get him?”

“How did you know that?” he wanted to know.

She hesitated. “Well, it's usually the boyfriend.”

“In the Connelly mysteries,” he added, recalling the author she had mentioned when they were waiting for the ambulance.

She smiled. “He didn't really love her.”

“And how did you know that?”

“When I met him with his wife, she said he had a thing for the coeds, a history with them. Apparently he had a problem with monogamy. I doubt he really even planned to marry Kelly, just told her that to keep her affections.”

Lujan didn't respond.

“And he had debts, which I didn't check out, but I'm guessing you did.”

“There is a clear motive,” Lujan replied. “He owed some folks a large sum of money.”

“And it wasn't a long amount of time, but it was enough time to frame Anthony. It's not hard to find a monk's room at a monastery. You just ask anybody.” She sat up a bit more in bed. “So he set him up, hid some things in his room, cash. He heard about the fight with her brother from Kelly and used it to his advantage. And I guess he just got lucky with the tea.”

“We figure he was there at the monastery before anybody knew it and saw Anthony put the tea out there.”

“See! I knew he wasn't telling the truth about his arrival. I knew he got there in time to do the murder and set up Anthony.”

She faced the detective. “So, what about him? What do you have?”

Lujan sat back down. “Well, there's some good news and bad news about him.”

Eve took a sip and waited.

“We definitely got him with a hit-and-run charge. Found him at a hotel near the airport right after we got you to the hospital. We went over license plates of guests at the monastery, looking for
evidence of an accident. Found out he was gone and had returned his rental car, which the agency reported had a fair amount of damage done to it. He had great coverage, but he also had a record of the transaction. We tracked him down. He confessed to hitting a truck, but he claims he didn't think anybody was in it at the time, said it was parked on the side of the road and he just smashed into it because it was dark and he didn't see it.”

Eve started to speak.

The detective nodded. “I know, it's a lie. He says he was visiting the monument, drove out to see the place where the bilocation occurred.”

Eve rolled her eyes.

“You know, there's been something bugging me since we arrested him,” Earl said.

Eve waited for his explanation.

“Why did he wreck you? What did he think you knew? You were after Barr, so why did he chase you all the way down there and try to kill you?”

There was a pause as she considered both the question and her answer.

“He thought I had something,” she confessed, remembering their one encounter, the trap she had set.

“What did he think you had?”

“A page,” she answered.

“A page from what?”

“I let him use his own imagination about that.”

She felt his eyes on her and knew he was waiting for more.

“When we met, I had this suspicion he wasn't telling the truth
about his relationship with Kelly or about the time of his arrival at the monastery, so I just thought I'd put something out there. I wanted him to think I knew more than I did, had something he wanted; I wasn't sure at the time.” She blew out a breath, rested the back of her hand across her forehead, winced, and returned it to her side. “I told him Kelly had given me something. I wanted to see his reaction. I guess it wasn't the smartest move to make.”

Detective Lujan shook his head but didn't make a comment about the wisdom of her actions. “How do you think he knew where you were?”

“I guess he followed me when I was following Barr. We went right by the monastery; maybe he saw me then. Or maybe he was watching all along. He must have searched my room back at Pecos, and when he couldn't find anything, he came for me to see if I had it with me.” She hesitated, recalling the crash. “I guess he took the bait.”

“I'd say he took the bait, all right.”

“He's in jail, though?”

“Metropolitan Detention Center, indeed he is. And we got a high bail set because he's a flight risk.”

Eve took another sip of water. “So what's the bad news?”

Lujan shook his head. “We can't really charge him with the murder of the professor yet.”

“You couldn't get him to confess?” She handed him the cup.

“No, and it wasn't for lack of trying. He lawyered up right away, and we couldn't talk to him about anything other than the hit-and-run.”

“No cyanide in his briefcase?” She was starting to feel a bit tired again.

“That would have been helpful, but no.”

“No ancient writings worth millions in his suitcase?”

He smiled and shook his head, but something on his face told Eve there was more to that part of the story.

“What?”

He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out what appeared to be a receipt.

“What's that?” she wanted to know.

He opened it and read it to her. “Pecos Post Office, dated three days after the murder. Sales receipt for a Priority Mail three-day delivery with extra insurance and a tracking number, scheduled to arrive in Austin, Texas, with the zip code the same as the one listed for his residence.”

“Three days? Why three days, and what day marks today?”

“Well, funny you should ask. Three days is actually today, the day Dr. Pierce was scheduled to fly out from Pecos to Austin, the day he was planning to arrive back home.”

“And pick up his mail,” she added.

“And pick up his mail,” he confirmed.

She felt a bit confused. “But why was he staying three more days?” she asked, thinking that if he was the killer, he would want to get away from the murder scene as quickly as he could.

“That part is a little unclear to us, but we do know his calendar had a few meetings scheduled for the last couple of days.”

“Let me guess, dealers in religious artifacts.”

Lujan nodded. “Sketchy dealers,” he noted. “None of whom are willing to confirm any such meetings.”

Eve rested her head back on the pillow. “Well, that makes sense.” She took in a deep breath; it felt good to be alert and alive. “So, I assume you have someone at his house waiting for the mailman.” She looked over at the officer.

“And a warrant to open any package from Pecos, New Mexico, arriving sometime today.”

“Thereby granting you the evidence you need to add a few charges to one jail inmate, Dr. Peter Pierce.”

“That's our hope.”

Eve smiled and closed her eyes.

There was a pause.

“You want to take a nap, go back to sleep?” He stood up as if preparing to leave.

She glanced over at him and shook her head. “No, just thinking about everything,” she answered.

He sat back down. “Can I ask you a question?”

She nodded.

“What made you go to John Barr's house?”

She shrugged. “Just a hunch. I saw his truck leaving the monastery the night of the murder. He and Brother Anthony are friends; I figured Anthony left and Barr gave him a ride, maybe took him to his cabin in Tererro.”

“Makes sense,” Lujan commented.

“When I got to his place, there was no evidence that Anthony had been there, but I did find some strange things.”

“Like what?” the officer asked, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees.

Eve remembered the blue cloak, the one she had found that matched the piece of cloth clutched in the victim's hand. “Uh-oh, I have another confession,” she said.

Lujan leaned against the back of the chair. “Besides setting traps for dangerous murderers?”

She nodded.

“Okay, let's hear it.”

“I found something in Kelly Middlesworth's hand the night of the murder.”

He waited.

“It was a piece of blue material, and I took it.”

She cleared her throat and started to finish.

Lujan interrupted. “And when you got to Barr's place, you found a cape, a blue one, torn at the bottom, and I'm guessing it was a perfect match to the piece in the victim's hand.”

She was surprised that he knew about the discovery.

“We did a thorough investigation of Barr and a very thorough search of his cabin. The cape was an interesting find. It looked a lot like the one the Jumanos recorded as being the cloak of Sister Maria, but we didn't know when or where it had been torn or why he had it.”

Eve turned to Lujan, giving him a surprised look.

“What? You think I didn't do my research?”

Eve shrugged, suddenly feeling her injured shoulder for the first time. She winced.

“You okay?” he asked, noticing her pained expression.

She nodded.

“Anthony said the cape was in his room after he found his sister. He thought it was a sign of his sin, and after he found it—”

“He decided to take his own life.” This time she interrupted him.

“Apparently he had some sleeping medications that had been prescribed for him a couple of months ago. He hadn't taken any of them until that night, and he took them all.”

Eve felt a sadness overcome her. She hated the thought of her friend being in such despair.

“After the police arrived at the monastery, Barr got worried and went to find his friend, expecting that he would be upset about his sister's passing and knowing a bit about the evidence that was starting to stack up against Anthony. He was in the room next door to Kelly, heard some things.” He drew in a breath and continued. “By the time he found him, Anthony had taken the drugs and was unconscious. Barr found a suicide note and the cape, and he thought his friend was guilty of murder, thought he had taken the cyanide poison he had given the victim and needed help.”

“So he snuck him out of there,” she surmised. “Weren't you curious about the person in the room next to Kelly? Didn't his disappearance raise some concern?”

The detective cleared his throat. “A very definite mistake on our part. If you recall, right after the murder there was a bit of overlap between the investigations of the sheriff 's department and the city police, so we just missed him. We thought the deputies had questioned him and released him with the other guests. They thought the same thing. When we did finally get to him, a few hours after we arrived, a few hours during which he had driven Anthony to his cabin and then driven back, he was sitting in the dining room, packed and ready to go home. He had no more motive than any of
the other guests, and we got his contact information, but he wasn't really on our radar.”

“So, he did take Anthony to his house?”

“Just for that first night, and then once we got all his information, once he got back and answered our questions, he drove him to Mountainair.”

“Where he hoped to revive him as well as keep him hidden.” Eve was putting the pieces of the story together. “But why did he go back to his cabin if he thought Anthony was dying?”

“He was gathering some of his own things, thought he was going to have to leave the country with Anthony. He had been trying to find the antidote to cyanide, and once he thought the monk was stable, he went home to take care of things, find a place for his dog, close up the place. He also planned to destroy the cape that he had taken from Anthony's room. He thought he might not return.”

“I guess I scared him even more,” Eve responded.

“Probably more when he came upon the wreck. He said that when he found you, you had been hit by another vehicle, and even though he knew he should take you to the hospital, he was worried that you knew he had Anthony and would bring the police to him.”

Eve nodded, understanding that if she had not been hit by Pierce, that's exactly what she would have done.

“So Barr is actually the good guy.”

Lujan shrugged. “I suppose if you think someone harboring a fugitive is a good guy, then yes.”

“But Anthony wasn't a fugitive.”

“But Barr didn't know that.”

Eve considered all of this information. It was almost too much to take in. She was starting to feel tired from so much talk.