St. Patrick's Day Murder (24 page)

Ray was just walking up the driveway when we pulled into it. He unlocked his door, and we followed him inside.

“Look,” he said when we had dropped our coats on a chair, “I have a very competent lawyer who knows what he’s doing and the best thing you can both do is stay out of the case.”

“Chris has learned a lot in the last couple of weeks,” Jack said.

“I don’t want to talk to Chris,” Ray said irritably. “I don’t want to talk to you, either, buddy. Look, you’re a nice girl, Chris, and I know your heart is in the right place, but I wish you’d leave this to the professionals.”

I really hate being patronized. I started to say something when Jack stepped in. “It was Chris that figured out that you were the target, not Scotty, and that when the killers found
out they’d gotten the wrong guy, they decided to set you up for the killing. You take the collar, they take a walk.”

He didn’t look at us. He got up off the sofa he’d been sitting on and walked nervously away, then back again. I kept trying to see him as Scotty, the long, lean body, the hair that might once have been gold. The only difference was the facial details and the lack of a smile. Scotty had always seemed to be on the verge of smiling.

“I knew something was going on,” he said, stopping and shoving his hands in his pockets. “I’d gotten a couple of warnings on the phone, nothing specific, just somebody saying, ‘Mind your own business.’ ”

“Any idea who it was?” Jack asked.

“Yeah,” Ray said, with a little laugh. “I thought it was McMahon till they found him dead.”

“Why McMahon?”

“Because I saw him in what you might call a compromising situation and I don’t mean sex.”

“At the party on Labor Day?” I said.

He said, “Yeah,” and I could tell he was impressed that I knew.

“Who else was there?” Jack asked.

“I didn’t know the others. I hardly got a look at them. I’d seen McMahon, I knew who he was, and he knew I’d heard what was going on in that room.”

“What did you hear?” Jack and I asked almost together.

“There was going to be a raid. They didn’t mention a place or a time, but it was obviously something that was ready to go down. And this was going to be a big one, big enough that they could do their scam. They didn’t say anything specific, but it was pretty damn clear they were going to hold back a sizable chunk of the haul and merchandise it themselves, somebody said a key.” He looked at me. “A kilo. It was also clear they’d done it before, but I got the feeling they didn’t do it every time, just selectively, when they thought they could get away with it. Understand I didn’t hear much, but I didn’t have to. I knew what the hell they were doing. And then the door opened, and I was looking right into McMahon’s face.”

“You get on it?” Jack asked.

“Sure I got on it. I talked to McMahon’s partner and got nowhere. I even asked you about McMahon because I knew he was at the Six-Five.”

“I remember.”

“You didn’t tell me a damn thing I could work with.”

“You didn’t tell me what you were looking for.”

“I wanted to keep the trouble in my own house.”

“Well, you sure did that.”

“Ray,” I said, “I think it may have been McMahon who called you the day after you were charged and told you they were coming with a warrant to search your apartment.”

“Why?” he asked, suddenly interested in what I had to say.

“Because I think McMahon was trying to help you without blowing his cover. He may have known about the .44-caliber bullets. It was probably McMahon who arranged to meet with me a week ago tonight near Lincoln Center, but he never came.”

“They must have gotten to him first.”

“I bet you were warned to keep quiet about what you heard on Labor Day or they’d expose your relationship with Jean McVeigh.”

“It wasn’t a relationship,” he said in a low voice.

“Were you?” Jack asked. “Threatened? Blackmailed?”

“I told you, it was a couple of calls. One said, ‘Keep quiet or we’ll talk about your girlfriend, the redheaded Irish one.’ I didn’t want to get Jean in that kind of trouble. It would have killed Scotty.”

I didn’t mention that it already had. “How many were in that room?” I asked.

“Maybe four besides McMahon. Maybe only three. I only saw inside for a second.” He turned away from us and rubbed his forehead. “You know, besides the threats, someone did call to warn me before St. Patrick’s Day. Just a quick call, something like, ‘Watch your back, Ray.’ If you’re right, that could have been McMahon.”

“Ray, could anyone have seen you and Jean together the night you went to the motel?”

“I’d say that’s pretty near impossible. I didn’t know it was going to happen until it happened.”

“Did the threats mentioning your Irish girlfriend start after that night?”

He didn’t stop to think about it. “No. That came later, after I’d moved out of the house.”

“Then how the hell did they know?” Jack asked.

“Beats me. After they found those .44 bullets in my drawer, I figured if someone broke in here to leave them to incriminate me, someone must have broken in earlier and found the letter.”

“But the letter is signed ‘Jean,’ ” I said. “There’s no return address. Even if someone read it, it’s not an obvious connection.”

“Well, someone sure as hell made it,” he said, with anger. “I never talked about it, and I’m sure Jean didn’t, either.”

I felt a small sick sensation. “Did you give Petra a key to this apartment?” I asked.

“Leave Petra out of this,” he said, his voice rising.

“Did you?” Jack asked.

“This is crazy. Petra has nothing to do with any of this.”

“Answer me, Ray,” Jack said.

“I didn’t give her a key till St. Patrick’s Day. That afternoon, when we got home from the parade. OK?”

I didn’t want to pursue it further. I liked Petra. I trusted her. I was absolutely convinced she was crazy about Ray. But I couldn’t overlook the obvious. “Did you ever leave her alone in the apartment?”

He stopped pacing. His back was to us. “Once or twice,” he said dully. “After we met. I went out to buy some cake or something. She stayed here to make the coffee.” He turned around. “OK, it’s possible, but I don’t think it happened that way.”

“Did she know who Jean and Scotty were?” I asked.

“Sure she knew. I talked about them. I talked about you guys. I think she met them.” He stopped. “Not long after we started going out.”

He looked grim now, worried. He was a professional who asked questions for a living, put two and two together and saw them add up when others told him it couldn’t be, it wasn’t possible, it was all a mistake. His face showed what he was going through, the metamorphosis from witness to investigator,
lover to accuser. He was starting to look at this as a case and himself as the detective in charge. I felt deeply sorry for him, sorrier still that I had a hand in generating all these suspicions.

“OK, we have a possibility,” Jack said. “Let me get something straight. Did you indicate to the guy who called that you’d cooperate and keep quiet?”

“At first, yes. I wanted time to see where it was going, to find out who was involved. And I wanted to keep Jean out of it.”

“But you changed your mind.”

“I never changed my mind, damn it! I was just waiting for the right time to get those bastards. What I said to them and what I was doing were two different things.”

“When was the last time you heard from them?”

“Before St. Patrick’s Day. A few days, maybe a week.”

“And you lost your cool,” Jack said.

“Right. I told them to go to hell.”

And that had signed Scotty’s death sentence.

Jack turned to me. “Anything else?”

There
was
something else. Betsy had said Ray was in a bedroom with a woman during the Labor Day party. Jean had sworn it hadn’t happened. The time had come to clean up loose ends. “You were in a bedroom with a woman at the party on Labor Day.”

Ray’s lips loosened to a half smile. “Right.”

“Would you mind telling us who it was?”

“You’re not going to believe it, but here goes. The woman was Sharon Moore.”

He was right that I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t even find my voice to say something.

“Lay it out,” Jack said.

“I saw her outside the house. I’d never met her before. She was sitting alone, looking depressed. I sat and talked to her. It was almost two years since her husband had been killed and she was feeling it.”

“What was she doing there?” Jack asked.

“Lieutenant Connelly had run that little group Moore was part of.”

The big house, the marble bathrooms, the lush green acreage. Pretty nice for a lieutenant just earning his salary. “Ray,” I began.

“You don’t have to ask. She started to cry and I took her into the house. It wasn’t a bedroom, it was a study on the second floor. We just sat and talked. I went out to use the bathroom and that’s when I heard the conversation in the bedroom and McMahon opened the door. I went back to Sharon and we talked till Betsy called and I went downstairs. Sharon stayed in the study. I never saw her again.”

“Did she know your name?” She hadn’t said anything about having met him when I talked to her.

He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. It wasn’t a very big deal. She was more wrapped up in her grief than about who I was.”

I said, “Thank you,” and Ray nodded.

“We done?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Jack said. “The name Tom Macklin mean anything to you?”

“Yeah. It does.” Ray sat down across from us. “Sharon
Moore mentioned him that day. He was part of Moore’s team. She said he came to the house to bring her the news the night Moore was shot even before the chaplain came. That’s not procedural.”

I looked at Jack but didn’t say anything. Sharon Moore had said her husband was killed in an out-of-the-way place on his way to a bust. A week ago the boys who had presumably shot him had been arrested. How did Macklin happen to be the person who carried the bad news to Moore’s widow? It didn’t seem right; it seemed like an amazing coincidence.

“He’s the guy who picked up one of Moore’s killers last Friday night,” Jack said.

“Sounds like he’s always first man on the scene. Why don’t you two tell me what you know? I’ve been answering a lot of questions tonight. You owe me a little information.”

“Chris found a connection between Moore and Harry Donner.”

“Interesting.”

I told him about it, adding what Sharon Moore had told me that morning, that her husband had become very nervous after Donner’s death, taking his family out of the city and far away during that summer.

“You think after Donner got it, Moore thought he’d be next?”

“It looks that way,” I said. “But I don’t think his wife had any inkling.” As I spoke, something occurred to me.

“What’s wrong?” Jack said.

“Sister Benedicta. Ray, may I use your phone?”

He pointed to it, and I called information for the number of the convent. I must admit that after I wrote down the number, I stopped and reconsidered. Nuns go to sleep early because they’re up at five for morning prayers. Old nuns go to sleep even earlier. It was now after eleven and the entire convent would be asleep, but I knew I had to do it. I dialed and bit my lip.

“Yes,” a woman’s voice said shortly.

“Excuse me, Sister. My name is Christine Bennett and I am concerned about Sister Benedicta who lives in the villa. I visited her—”

“She isn’t here.”

“Can you tell me where she is?”

“No, I cannot. She had some business in New York and she took a train there several hours ago. I don’t know what all this interest is in Sister Benedicta, but—”

“Has someone else called?” I asked, interrupting.

“They have called, they have visited, they have upset my convent.”

“I’m very sorry,” I said. “Did Sister Benedicta leave an address with you where she can be reached?”

“Yes, she did, and I am not giving it to you or anyone else. And now, if you don’t mind, we have come to the end of this conversation.”

I hung up and turned back toward the large room that was Ray’s entire apartment. “She’s gone.”

“Gone where?” Jack got up.

“She wouldn’t tell me. There have been calls and visits. She said Sister Benedicta had business in New York. I’m worried, Jack. I’ve left a long trail in the last two weeks and Moore’s old group may have questioned some of the people I’ve talked to. It wouldn’t take much for someone to find Sister Benedicta just the way I did.”

“Who would she see in New York?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Macklin or another member of Moore’s group lured her into the city. But I can’t believe they’d talk to her in a station house. An old nun in a long white habit is very visible.”

“They could have met her at the train and taken her somewhere.”

I started to feel panicky. “Let’s go. I have to think.” But what I was thinking was scaring me to death.

“We won’t get anything out of Macklin,” Jack said as we got into the car. “We have to build a case against him.”

“I know. What I’m worried about now is Sister Benedicta. With Donner and his wife gone, there can’t be anyone she’d go to unless someone convinced her somehow that he was working to find Harry’s killer.”

“How savvy is she?”

“She’s no innocent, Jack. She once found some people in the hospital embezzling. She worked it out herself. And Harry told her Moore had come to talk to him. Maybe she just left the convent to protect herself.”

“You want to get some sleep?”

“Desperately.” I laughed. “But I think we should talk to Petra first. Before Ray does.”

“Let’s do it.”

We had to ring several times before Petra answered on the intercom. People trying to get into an apartment house often ring several bells, hoping someone will buzz them in, so if you hear a ring in the middle of the night, your instinct is to ignore it.

“Who is it?” she called finally.

“It’s Chris Bennett. Can I come up?”

“Chris? Now?”

“Please, Petra. It’s very important.”

The buzzer rang, and Jack pushed the door open. The elevator was on the ground floor, and we rode up, saying nothing. I leaned sleepily against Jack until the elevator lurched to a stop.