Working Murder (10 page)

“What interests me also—and forgive me for interrupting you, Mr. Cassidy”—Sadd was master
of the tactful interruption—"is the Cassidy-Cavanaugh connection. I'm a genealogy buff,
and my curiosity is thoroughly aroused.”

“Let's see...” Father Dever looked at Martin with the encouraging smile of a good host.
“Can you sort that out, Marty?”

Martin opened his mouth, shut it again, and fixed his eyes on the door. Footsteps in the
hall—surely the tread of angels, his face seemed to say—heralded the arrival of the
sherry. Father Dever took the tray from Rosie and put it on the coffee table, saying
matter-of-factly:

“One glass, Marty.”

The sherry was poured and passed, Sadd and I accepted it, Martin seized it, and Frank
Cassidy declined it. Father Dever sat back, sipped his, looked from the Cavanaugh to the
Cassidy contingent, and apparently decided that the conversation was more likely to
flourish in the hands of the latter.

“Frank,” he said, “you'd best untangle it for Mr. Saddlier.”

Mr. Cassidy said he'd changed his mind and would like some sherry after all. It was
poured, and he said, not drinking it:

“Maura Dever was my half sister. Her father died and her mother married my father. Maura
was the oldest of the first family and I was the youngest of the second, so she was
really more like a half mother. When Maura married Jim Cavanaugh and came to this
country, she brought me with her. That was in 1924. I was eleven and she was
twenty-five. I remember how happy she was to see some other Devers, Father's family.
They lived in Yonkers.”

“We'd been starving in Ireland,” said the priest cheerfully, “so our branch had piled
over right after the first war.”

Mr. Cassidy wet his lips with the sherry and went on: “Now, there were at the time of
Jim's arrival back in the States relatives of his living in Flatbush—”

My head swam a bit. Where had I heard that cadence, that phrasing ... “there were at that
time shepherds keeping their flock in Flatbush"? Were all the Irish poetical in spite of
themselves?

“—the family of Jim's brother, Martin. A fine, big family. Marty here was the youngest.
He and I became friends.”

Martin nodded and put his empty glass imploringly back on the tray. Father Dever said: “I
remember such pleasant times at the Cavanaugh summer place in Patchogue the summer I was
ordained—”

He stopped suddenly and sat upright, a startled look on his big, kind face. “Dawson,” he
said, looking at me, “you said your name was Dawson. The lady who died in New York just
the other day—the mother of that lost girl—was she related to you?”

“My aunt,” I said.

There was an instant of silence, then Father Dever put his hands on the arm of his chair
and pushed himself to his feet. He said: “Excuse me a moment, please.”

He went out. Sadd moved slightly, but I couldn't risk looking at him. I said: “Mr.
Cassidy, did you know Ellen?”

“I saw her once or twice that summer. And I know the case, of course.”

“Did Ellen die?” emerged from Martin.

Sadd said: “Martin, where would you like to go for lunch? We'll have to leave it in your
hands. We don't know the area.”

The concept that Martin would “know the area” relative to civilized lunching caused a
strangled feeling in my throat. But he was not without a useful preference. He said:
“Chinese.”

“Good,” said Sadd. “Love the stuff myself.”

Father Dever came back into the room holding an envelope; it took no prescience to know
what it contained. He said, standing in the midst of us:

“I received this letter about two weeks ago, and it upset me greatly. When I heard the
poor lady had died, I could only see it as the good Lord sparing her more pain.” He
pulled the letter from its envelope and extended it to me. “Will you read it aloud, Mrs.
Gamadge?”

I took it and looked at the signature and said, clearing my throat, which was dry: “It's
signed ‘May Dawson.'”

“Dear Father Dever:

“You are probably wondering who I am and why I am writing to you. Think back to the
summer of 1938 when the Martin Cavanaugh family attended your ordination. With them was
a young girl, my daughter Ellen Dawson, who was visiting them. Perhaps you heard that a
year later she disappeared and was never found.”

“Perhaps I heard!” Father Dever sank into his chair. “As if the whole country didn't
hear! Excuse me—go on.”

“I am approaching ninety years of age and have been taken with a great longing to try
once more to trace my daughter. It is my intention to reopen the investigation and I am
contacting everyone still living whom I can think of who knew or met her within a year
of that time. Ellen spoke of meeting you and being impressed with the beautiful ceremony
of your ordination. Might you remember speaking to her on any subject that could furnish
a lead? I would welcome any information, any crumb...”

I handed the letter blindly back to him, and the kind man said:

“There now—you see—and I'm so sorry—but it's done to you just what it did to me. I wept.
And how could I reply? While I was still puzzling—even thinking of going to see her to
beg her not to—she was called to her reward. Well, I must admit I feel a bit better
having shared this with you. I hope it hasn't upset you too much, Mrs. Gamadge.”

His great arm around my shoulder and Sadd's gentle hand-patting brought me up. Mr.
Cassidy sat looking straight ahead, and Martin uttered only one word by way of
consolation: “Chinese.”

“Yes, we should be getting along.” Sadd stood up and then we all did, and Mr. Cassidy
said there was a place called Hong Kong Gardens about six blocks down on the right.
Father Dever pulled Martin's coat up smartly and buttoned it under his chin, saying:
“Not too many mai tais, Marty,” and we all went into the hall.

I said: “We'll be glad to take Martin home since you were kind enough to bring him, Mr.
Cassidy.”

In perfect tandem, he and Father Dever said no, no, just bring him back to the rectory,
and if their words weren't identical, their message was: Martin's digs were either
unmentionable or inaccessible. Fine with me. I didn't relish the prospect of Sadd
barging about in the snow looking for a Tom-All-Alone. We maneuvered Martin down the
steps and around the corner. As he and I stood waiting for Sadd to pry the car loose,
Martin waxed positively chatty. He said:

“I usually have a beer with lunch.”

But we weren't going to risk disgrace while Martin was in our custody. Besides, he would
need his wits about him. I'd glimpsed an inch of string at his neck, so I knew he was
prime for the sortie. But I felt like a lousy hostess when Martin repeated wistfully
over chow mein:

“I usually have a beer with lunch.”

“So do I,” said Sadd, “but this hot tea tastes so good on a cold day like today, I think
I'll stick with it.”

“Me too,” I piped. “Have some of this pork, Martin, it's delicious.”

“By the way”—Sadd heaped food on Martin's plate—"Mrs. Gamadge and I are very curious to
see the Dawson mausoleum. Aren't we fairly near Holy Martyrs?”

“We sure are.”

“Will you be our guide?”

“Sure I will.” He brightened a little, and it broke my heart. Maybe one beer? Besides,
the shaky hand with which Martin poured tea made me wonder if after lunch he might ask
to be excused in order to head home to the source. Sadd would probably murder me, having
heroically passed up the drink I knew he wanted, but he shouldn't have one anyway in
view of the impending tour through the snowy canyons of Holy Martyrs.

I said: “I believe I'll have a beer after all. Will you join me, Martin?”

The aurora borealis was nothing compared to Martin's face. I ignored Sadd's glare.

TINA WAS RIGHT.

Holy Martyrs had to be seen to be believed. Even from the expressway, the prospect was
surreal, especially with the thousands of monuments crusted with snow giving the
impression of a marble forest.

The sun went under as we drove through the gate—one of six, Martin said—and into a vast
preserve where every symbol of Christian consolation met the eye, numberless stone
angels looked homeward toward Brooklyn, and granite saints galore pointed to a smoggy
horizon.

“Drive straight ahead till I tell you.” Martin leaned forward and breathed fragrantly on
my neck. Whether from enforced sobriety or the excitement of the jaunt, he'd become
increasingly talkative as we approached the sacred premises. Sadd, thanks perhaps to the
Chinese tea, now maneuvered the narrow, not perfectly plowed roads extremely well,
squeezing past oncoming cars and edging around mourners on foot. He said:

“This is a Siberian maze! Martin, how can you possibly know where you're going?”

“I have Maura's poem.” Martin took from his pocket a crumpled paper. “I kind of know it
by heart, but I've never been here in the snow before. Things look different. Here—you
read it, Mrs....”

Whatever your name is. I took the paper and held it to the poor light of the window. Sadd
peered out of his and said:

“The paths are named. This one is ... St. Ignatius.”

“Good.” Martin actually bounced a bit. “Only two more to St. Ambrose.”

I read the smudged, penciled words aloud:

Left on St. Ambrose, right on St. John

Cross St. Peter, then go right on

Till you come to Lazarus wearing a crown

Turn left on St. Joachim and Dawson you've found!

“Wonderful!” Sadd chuckled. “Sounds healthily male-dominated. Here we are at St. Ambrose,
where we hang a left. Did Maura Cavanaugh write it? The girl was a dream.”

“She was an angel.”

I shivered. How many angelic girls had crossed Jim Cavanaugh's path? I said:

“Then Maura knew about the mausoleum before she—she went back to Ireland?”

“Oh, sure. She used to come out here and watch while it was being built. She said it was
the ugliest thing in the United States of America.”

“Whoops!—right on St. John!” Sadd made a sudden turn, and we lurched around a corner to
where the road wound between increasingly bigger monuments and what looked like small
houses.

“The vaults begin here,” said Martin.

“What's the difference between a vault and a mausoleum?” I asked.

“Just size,” said Martin. “The mausoleums are the biggies.”

We moved along between higher and higher snowbanks. The day was growing grayer.

“Martin,” I said, laying some groundwork, “you showed me a key to the Dawson mausoleum
the other night. Do you have it with you?”

“I always have it with me.”

“Do you suppose we could take a look inside?”

“Sure. Uncle Jim loves visitors. So do his buddies.”

Sadd's hands tightened on the wheel. He said: “Tell us about these buddies. Who else
besides you knows they're in there?”

“Cassidy.”

“Frank Cassidy?” Sadd and I spoke as one, startled.

“'Across St. Peter'”—Martin pointed ahead—"'then go right on.' What comes next, Mrs....”

“Er—‘till you come to Lazarus wearing a crown.'”

Cassidy?
Sadd was looking at me with a wild, questioning frown. I began to feel a
little giddy. Oh, Henry Gamadge, oh, darling Henry, how you would have loved this!

“Is that Lazarus?” Sadd pointed to a corner monument. “Looks more as if he's wearing a
cake.”

Indeed, Lazarus's crown was topped by a glistening pile of snow frosting.

“'Turn left on St. Joachim,'” chanted Martin, “'and Dawson you've found!'”

“It may not scan,” said Sadd, making the turn, “but it sure does the trick.” He slowed to
a stop.

dawson.

It's a creepy feeling to see one's name—even a former one—cut in great letters on a
building that is notorious and despised. I was astonished by the size of the thing. It
looked like a dwarf church, tower and all, humped, queer in shape, poor in design, the
badly proportioned, stubby tower topped by a too big cross. How could even that revered
symbol, slightly tipped against the dull sky, manage to look ungodly?

I wasn't the only rapt gazer. Sadd had gotten out of the car and was leaning against the
hood, transfixed. He said: “Aren't you glad you got married and changed your name?”

Martin, veteran visitor to the shrine, had no cause for contemplation. He'd scrambled out
of the back seat and now stood looking at the bank of snow between himself and the door
of the mausoleum. He called:

“Somebody's been here.”

I didn't understand at first. Sadd and I walked up and looked at the deep prints sunk in
the snow that led to the grille door.

Sadd said: “Jim Cavanaugh's had other visitors. Today.”

“Jim never has visitors except me.” It was almost a snarl. Martin scrambled into the bank
and, dragging his heavy coat, hideously shiny and green against the snow, fought his way
to the grille. He grasped the bars with both hands and stood rigidly looking in, then he
called over his shoulder:

“Come on!”

Sadd and I looked at each other like a pair of old timers caught playing a game too young
for us. I said:

“Department of broken hips. You first.”

“Frankly, I don't think I can make it.” Sadd stared at the stretch of snow, not more than
fifteen feet, but it seemed like a frozen Sahara. “I doubt if I can get my knees that
high. If I go down, you'll never get me up.” He cupped his hands. “Martin, you can't get
the door open against this snow. We'd better come back.”

Something clicked in me. Let Henry Gamadge down? Never! I looked around. Not a soul, not
a car, a condition devoutly to be wished for and perhaps not to be repeated. I plunged
into the snow. It closed over the top of the short, chic boots Tina had loaned me, and I
shrieked.