The Mother's Day Murder (15 page)

“That was her name.”

“Do you remember what she looked like?”

“She was probably in her twenties. Medium hair. It wasn’t blond, it wasn’t red, it was just hair.”

I smiled at that, sensing a description of myself. “Do you remember whether it was long or short?” This was a rather crucial question. The nuns at St. Stephen’s have always worn habits and they keep their hair cut very short. Even if Joseph had been out of her habit for a few months when she first went to see Mrs. DelBello, her hair could not possibly be long.

“It was short, I remember that. She kept it neat. She was a neat-looking person. If you think she looked like a floozy, I can tell you she didn’t.”

“Do you know how tall she was?”

“She wasn’t short. I’d say she was taller than me, but I’m not very tall myself.”

Nothing she said was making me happy. “Do you remember if she wore glasses?”

“Oh, I think she did. Not all the time, you know, but she wore them.”

Joseph wears them all the time now, but twenty years have passed. “Do you remember how she dressed?”

“It’s twenty years, dear. I can tell you she didn’t wear those miniskirts the girls were all wearing at that time. I remember when I met the prospective mother, she had on a skirt that left little to the imagination. But she was a nice woman and you can’t make judgments on fashion. If you did, you’d rule out half the people in the world.”

“How did it work, handing over the baby and all that?”

“The arrangements were all made before Katherine went to the hospital. She had the right to change her mind, but she seemed dead set against that. I notified the Collinses when she went in and they were in my office the next day.”

“Did they ever get to see the birth mother?”

“We never allowed that. I brought the baby to them and they cried over her. She was such a pretty little thing.” She sighed. “I can’t believe she’s dead, poor thing.”

“Her parents are in shock,” I said. “This has been a terrible blow.”

“I can’t think of anything worse.”

“So they never met, the adoptive parents and the birth mother.”

“Never. And the Collinses didn’t know the name of the birth mother. Or the other way around. I assured Katherine that they were good Catholics—I checked up on that myself—and good people. And I told them that Randy’s mother was a nice young woman who had made a mistake and wanted her daughter to grow up in a home with a father and mother and be well treated.”

“Did Katherine ever tell you that she came from somewhere else? That she was leaving Ohio?”

“It never came up. What she did after she gave up her baby was her business.”

“Did anyone visit her while she was in the hospital?” I asked.

“No one was ever there when I came to see her. I went a couple of times. I had to make sure her plans were firm.”

“Did she share a room with anyone?” I asked, coming to the end of all my attempts to prove that the Katherine she was talking about was not Sister Joseph.

“It was a single room. She wanted it that way because of her situation. Imagine the pain of sharing a room with a woman whose husband comes to visit, a woman who knows she’s taking her baby home with her.”

“It must be terrible,” I agreed. “Were you there when she signed the final papers?”

“I brought them over myself. She asked for a few minutes alone, I remember that—so she could read them over in private. She seemed very nervous. I left the room and went down the hall to the waiting room and gave her some time. When I came back, she was ready to sign. I asked her if she wanted to see the baby one last time, but she didn’t. Some of them do, some of them don’t. If you hold that baby enough, you won’t want to give it up.”

“I think you’ve answered all my questions,” I said, not very happy with what I had learned.

“Can you tell me why you came all this way to ask them?”

“I think I know Katherine Bailey. She says she never had a baby out of wedlock.”

“Well, it’s twenty years, dear. I’m sure she’s married now and she doesn’t want her family to know. I understand how she feels. Let it be. What difference does it make?”

The difference between being indicted for murder and not, I thought. “You’re probably right.” I thanked her, told her to stay put, and went out to the car.

16

I drove a few blocks and pulled over to the curb. It was still late morning. I could get back to the airport and take an earlier flight and see my husband and child this evening, but nothing that Mrs. DelBello had told me had relieved my anxiety. While the description of the baby’s mother was not a match for Joseph—no verbal description could have been—it was close enough to make me concerned. It certainly didn’t rule out Joseph.

I had my notes and my file with me. I was reluctant to question Joseph’s sisters because they would surely become very distressed at the direction of my queries, but if I had to, I would. There was the insurance office she had worked in and I could probably get there and back to the airport before my plane left. And then there was Joseph’s cousin’s son.

Jack and I had looked at a map together last night and I had a good idea of how to get to each of those places. I was hungry at this point and wanted to get some lunch before doing anything else, so I drove until I found a coffee shop and went inside with my file.

The waitress was very helpful and while I ate a fruit salad, I decided to try the insurance office. She directed
me to the right highway and a few minutes after my lunch, I was on my way.

The insurance offices of Fine and Houlihan were on the second floor of an office building. I had not thought about it until that minute but it sounded like rather an ecumenical partnership. I took the elevator up and found the door with their names painted on frosted glass. Inside, a receptionist doing work at a computer asked who I wanted to see. I told her either Mr. Fine or Mr. Houlihan and she lifted the telephone.

“Mr. Fine will see you.” She got up and directed me through a door into a large work area and then to another door.

Abraham Fine had a smile and a good handshake. He was about sixty, losing his graying black hair, and dressed in his shirtsleeves, wide suspenders on his shoulders. He was surrounded by files. The room was small but nicely carpeted and freshly painted. There were certificates framed on the wall and one window that brought light into the room.

“You are Christine Bennett?” he said.

“Yes. I flew in from LaGuardia this morning.”

“That’s a long way to go to buy insurance.” He smiled broadly.

“You’re right, and I hope you make it worth the trip.” I sat in a chair opposite his desk and laid my file on the chair next to it.

“It looks as though you’ve done a lot of research. What brings you here?”

“I need some information, Mr. Fine. It’s about a young woman who worked here for a while twenty years or so ago.”

“That’s a long time.”

“I know, but it’s very important. Her name was Katherine Bailey.”

“Katherine Bailey, Katherine Bailey. You’re right, it was about twenty years ago, but I remember her. Can you tell me why you flew in from LaGuardia to ask me about her?”

“I can tell you that I know her, that I admire her, and that she may be falsely accused of a terrible crime. What you remember about her may save her from that.”

“Very interesting. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

“No, thanks. I don’t want to take up a lot of your time and I’m hoping to get back to my family this evening. I just want to know what you remember.”

“Katherine was a lovely woman. She walked in here one day looking for a job because someone she knew had recommended us. I think we’d lost someone and had started looking around for a replacement. I liked her the minute I met her.”

“She’s a wonderful person,” I said.

“She was very up front with us, said she needed a job for six months or a year and she’d be leaving after that. My partner, Jerry Houlihan, said it would be too much trouble to train someone for so little time, but I persuaded him. I just had good feelings about her. I didn’t think she’d take a long time to learn what she had to do and I always thought, if she liked the work, maybe she’d stay.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “She certainly is a person that inspires confidence.” I didn’t bother mentioning that she had a job far away that was more than a job; it was a way of life.

“So I called her the next day and hired her.”

“Do you remember how long she actually stayed here?”

“I’ll find out. Give me a minute.” He left the room and came back with a file folder. “We weren’t very technologically sophisticated twenty years ago. All we had were paper records and this is her file.” He sat at his desk and opened it, leafing through the pages inside. “Looks like she was here just a little less than a year.”

“Was her health good? Did she call in sick very much?”

“I don’t think she ever called in sick. What I do remember is that toward the end someone in her family died, I don’t remember who. I don’t think it was a surprise but it gave her a pretty hard time. She took off a couple of days when that happened. We didn’t dock her pay. It was a family emergency and she was entitled to the time.”

“Can you describe her to me?”

“A good-looking woman, but dressed very plain. Didn’t wear a lot of makeup, maybe a little lipstick. Some of the girls here look as though they’re going on stage. Not Katherine. She wore glasses most of the time, no jewelry. I don’t think she was married. Said she was living with her family. I have the address here if you want it.”

“Please.”

He wrote it down and handed me the slip of paper. It was the address Joseph had given me for where her family had lived that year.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“She wore her hair kind of short and I remember that at that time all the girls were wearing it long. And her
skirts were long when all the girls were wearing theirs short. I figured it evened itself out.”

I smiled. “Did she change in any way that year?”

“Change? Like what?”

“Her looks, her behavior …” I let it hang.

“Can’t say that she did. She looked about the same when she left as she did when she walked in that front door.”

“What did you know about her, Mr. Fine? Besides her work in the office.”

“Not much. I took her to lunch—Jerry and I both did—when she was getting ready to leave. That’s about all the contact we had with her outside the office. But she was bright, I’ll say that. And she was a pleasure to have around, did anything you asked her, learned quickly, filled in for people who were out sick.

“I did know one thing about her, come to think of it. She had been a nun somewhere. Did you know that?”

“I did know that.”

“That’s why—it comes back to me now—that’s why her hair was so short. It grew in while she worked here, but it was always pretty short.”

“So except for the hair, you think she looked the same when she left as when she came.”

“Yeah, right. Is that important?”

“I don’t know. It may be. Did you ever hear from her after she left?”

“Oh, sure. She sent us Christmas cards from someplace in New York. She went back to being a nun, you know.”

I flipped a couple of pages in my notebook till I found the date of Randy Collins’s birth. “Was Katherine working here in the month of May?”

“Oh, yes. She came in the fall and stayed through most of the summer.”

“And the only time she took off was for that death in the family.”

“That’s right.”

“I think that’s it, Mr. Fine.”

“That’s it? You’re done?”

“I think so.”

“Hang on. You come in here and tell me Katherine Bailey’s been accused of a terrible crime and that’s it? You’re not going to say anything else about it?”

“I’d rather not. She hasn’t been accused and I’m hoping she won’t be, because she hasn’t done anything. If the worst happens, I promise I’ll let you know.”

“How did you happen to come to me?”

“She gave me your name. She said she enjoyed working here.”

He smiled and he looked like a happy man. “I’m glad to hear that. I’m glad we felt the same way about each other.”

We shook hands and he walked me to the door. Downstairs I found a pay phone and I called Jack.

“Hey, good to hear from you. How’s it going?”

“Hard to tell. How’s Eddie?”

“I just talked to Elsie. They’re doing fine so stop worrying. Are you coming back tonight or don’t you know yet?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ve seen Mrs. DelBello and one of the partners in the insurance company Joseph worked for. I’m about to call one of her sisters. If she’s not there, I’ll probably go right to the airport.”

“Well, don’t rush home because of us. We guys know how to have fun without a woman around.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“I gotta tell you something. Joe Fox wants to check Sister Joseph’s DNA against Randy Collins’s.”

“No!” I said it so fast it was out of my mouth before I knew I was going to say it.

“Why not? It’s absolute. If Randy isn’t related to Sister Joseph, that’ll clear her.”

“I don’t want Joseph subjected to that. She said she wasn’t Randy’s mother. That’s enough for me and that should be enough for the police.”

“You sound like Arnold. That’s just what he said.”

I felt a sense of relief. “Good. He’s right. I don’t want her to be part of that.”

“Chris, it’s like fingerprints. If you weren’t there, your prints aren’t there.”

“Jack, I feel very strongly about this. I have a theory. I think maybe one of Joseph’s sisters had the baby and she used Joseph’s identity. She would know Joseph’s Social Security number, she would be within a few years of Joseph’s age—”

“OK, it’s a good theory to work on. But if you can’t prove anything positive, DNA can prove the negative.”

“Let’s leave that for a last resort.”

“OK, honey. I’ll pick up Eddie and we’ll go somewhere exciting for dinner.”

“Like Pine Brook Road?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“I’ll call you later.”

I hung up feeling better and worse, better about my family, worse about Joseph. I hated the thought of her being considered a suspect in a murder she could not and would not have committed, whether she was related to the victim or not. I looked at my watch, knowing that
the chances of my returning home tonight were diminishing. It was really more important that I talk to Joseph’s sisters than that I spend the night in my own home. Air travel was too expensive for me to contemplate yet another trip when this was done.