by A W Hartoin
Who to call first? Maybe Aunt Tenne. Sweetheart that she was, she might be willing to tell Mom and calm her down. Maybe Chuck. He was generally rational.
As I scanned through my contacts considering my options, there was a cough behind me. I ignored it. Somebody wanted a better shot. Not happy to oblige for your Instagram post, dude. Beat it. I’ve peoples’ days to ruin.
More coughing and it was a particular kind of coughing. I can’t say exactly how I knew who was behind me, but I did, on the third cough. There was no way to avoid it. I turned around and there, standing in the terminal, wearing black suits and exceedingly boring haircuts were two FBI agents, the rookies, Gordon and Gansa.
“Ah crap!”
They smiled, identical in their blandness, and Gansa gave me a finger wave. I flipped him off.
“Don’t be like that,” said Gordon. He was the taller of the duo by a half inch. I’d known them for months and I still had a hard time telling them apart, other than the height. Gansa was slightly blonder, but it wasn’t super noticeable.
“I’ll be however I want,” I said.
“We’re here to help you,” said Gansa.
“Doubtful.”
Gordon smiled. “We heard you had a little trouble getting on your plane.”
“Oh, really?” I asked. “You heard it?”
“We did.”
“Could it be that you put me on the No Fly List because you’re totally douchebags?”
The rookies almost had expressions. I think they were surprised, but whether it was about being called douchebags or me figuring it out, I couldn’t say.
“We want to talk to you,” said Gordon.
“The feeling is not mutual.”
“It’s important.”
“I’m sure you think it is.” I grabbed my suitcase and started pushing it in the direction that Uncle Morty stomped off in.
They rushed after me, protesting.
“It is important,” said Gansa.
“You want to hear what we have to say,” said Gordon.
“That’s where you’re wrong.” I broke into a jog. I don’t know where I was going. Away was my only goal.
They came after me and Gordon hissed, “We can get you off the list.”
“Piss off. I’m not that into going to Greece anyway.”
“You won’t fly anywhere ever,” said Gansa.
That is a problem. Nope. Don’t care.
I continued to wheel away and tried to use my phone with my bad hand.
“It’s about Kansas,” said Gordon.
“You mean the task force I got you on?” I asked. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
“We have to talk to you.”
“But I don’t have to talk to you.”
“We’ll arrest you.”
“Screw you,” I said, heading for the women’s bathroom. That might be safe.
Gansa grabbed my arm. “Trust me. You want to hear this.”
“Trust me. I don’t,” I said.
“It’s to do with your family,” said Gansa.
I got in his face and he backed up, bumping into a mom and her stroller. Still a rookie. “You mean about how your bosses screwed my parents over and then cut ties with my dad? Bite me.”
Gansa got a little less bland. “I’m not going to lie. That sucks. Not our idea.”
“Really not,” said Gordon. “We don’t want to hurt your parents.”
“But I’m fair game?” I asked.
“You’re not.”
“You put me on the No Fly List,” I said. “What is wrong with you?”
The rookies got in front of me. “We couldn’t get you to answer the phone. You’re avoiding us,” said Gordon.
“I wonder why?” I tried to dart past them and they grabbed me.
“We need your help,” said Gansa.
“And this is how you get it?”
“We’re desperate.”
I rolled my eyes. “The FBI is desperate for my help. Give me a break.”
Gordon and Gansa shuffled their feet and avoided eye contact.
“Wait a minute. Is this you two? Like just you two?”
“Well…there’s a situation and our superiors—”
“Hey!” Uncle Morty yelled across the terminal and then he did what I didn’t think he could do. He ran, coming at us like a bull in Pamplona. The rookies jumped out of the way and Uncle Morty chased Gansa around but being that Uncle Morty was about sixty pounds overweight, the rookie was never in any real danger of being caught.
Uncle Morty finally stopped and bent over, gasping, “They…put…you…”
“I know. I know,” I said.
“On…the…list.”
“I told you that I know.”
Gordon hazarded coming close and said, “Mr. Van der Hoof, we only want Mercy to come with us and get some information.”
Uncle Morty’s hand shot out and he yanked Gordon down to his level by his innocuous striped tie. “You’ll take her off the list?”
Gordon gagged out, “Yeah, sure.”
Uncle Morty straightened up and put his hands on top of his head, revealing the tremendous sweat stains under his arms. “You bastards. You got some nerve.”
“We couldn’t get her any other way and this is important,” said Gansa.
“So important they sent rookies?”
More shuffling of feet.
“Goddammit.” Uncle Morty pointed at them. “I want her off the list.”
They put their hands up.
“We just need a little help,” said Gordon. “It’s a case connected with the Kansas situation.”
Uncle Morty eyed them. “What about your superiors?”
“You see, they don’t think this is a case, but we think if we can just get a little more—”
Uncle Morty put up his hand. “Shut up. I don’t give a fuck.”
“But this is big. It could—”
“I don’t care.” He looked at me. “Go with them, Mercy.”
“They screwed over my mother,” I said. “Have you forgotten that?”
“Not these two dipsticks. Get off the list. I’m going to get a refund.”
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “They’re blackmailing us.”
Uncle Morty pulled me close. “Blackmail ‘em back.”
“What?”
He took my suitcase and carry-on. “I’ll expect an update by the end of the day. Beat it, losers.”
I’m pretty sure “losers” was referring to the rookies, but I was the loser that day. No doubt about that.
CHAPTER FOUR
GORDON AND GANSA put me in the back of an unmarked car and got in another car. My driver, as chatty as Homeland Security, drove with his mouth in a thin line.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Federal building.”
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
“No.”
Then I looked back and saw the rookies take a different ramp on the maze of highways outside Lambert.
“Hey! We took a wrong turn,” I said.
“No.”
No amount of questions or prodding—I did try poking him—got another word out of my driver. In the end, I had no idea if he was an agent or some kind of lackey roped into doing Gordon and Gansa’s bidding.
When we arrived at the Federal building, my door was whipped open, and I got out into a swirl of snowflakes. A guard directed me inside to the fifth floor, where I waited for an hour and drank the most God awful coffee you’ve ever had in your life. Just when I was about to say screw it and leave—I wasn’t under arrest—Gansa came in and gestured me through an unmarked door and through yet another set of hallways. There were so many hallways in that building I was beginning to wonder if there were any offices at all.
“Are you going to tell what this is about or what?” I asked.
“You’re going to tell me.” He stopped and opened a door marked “Conference RM E5”. “Here we go.”
I
walked in and to my astonishment there were two people inside, unsurprisingly Gordon and very surprisingly, my Great Aunt Miriam. Sister Miriam is my grandad’s older sister and you’ll excuse me for saying this, a kind of holy terror. She sat at the conference table, stiff as a grissini breadstick and just as skinny. She had her oversized black purse on her lap, the one she was known to put bricks in so she could whack unsuspecting pimps and drug dealers when she was doing the Lord’s work, mainly helping runaways and teenaged prostitutes.
Aunt Miriam didn’t glance at me or acknowledge my presence. She stared straight ahead. I’d call it a 1000-yard stare, but she was sharp-eyed and missed nothing.
“Sit down, Mercy.” Gordon pulled out a chair next to Aunt Miriam. I sat down and whispered, “What’s going on?”
She didn’t respond, but she had a death grip on that purse. I shouldn’t have sat so close.
Gansa sat down and said, “Now do you know why we’re here?”
“Nope. Haven’t a clue,” I said.
“Really?”
I plunked my purse on the chair next to me and crossed my arms. “Really.”
“I told you this was about Kansas.” He gestured to Aunt Miriam. “And here she is.”
“So what?”
The rookies exchanged a glance.
“We’ve interviewed Sister Miriam four times,” said Gansa.
“About what?” I asked.
Another glance and Gordon got a briefcase off the floor. He opened it and pulled out an evidence bag. I glanced at Aunt Miriam. She didn’t blink, but the line of her mouth got a tiny bit thinner. It took family to see it.
Gordon slid the bag over to me. “Do you recognize that?”
I glanced at the bag and shrugged. “It’s a St. Brigid medal.”
“But do you recognize it?”
The way he was looking at me said I was supposed to. So I picked up the bag and turned it over. The metal was crusted with dirt, but it was an ordinary medal as far as I could tell, other than it had initials engraved on the back, M.E.M.
“No,” I said. “It’s pretty common.”
“What about the initials?” asked Gansa.
I wracked my brain and came up with nothing. “No. How about you just get to the point? Did you find that in Kansas?”
“We did.”
“Whose is it?”
Gordon pulled a slim file out of his briefcase and slapped it on the table. I wasn’t impressed and Aunt Miriam didn’t seem to notice at all. Wherever she was, it was far from there.
“Nobody you know has a medal like that one?” asked Gansa.
Then I got it. My brain must’ve been fried by the terrible coffee. “Well, yeah, Aunt Miriam has one. I’m sure lots of people have them.”
“Do you?”
“Um…yeah, I think so,” I said. “What are you getting at?”
Gordon put the briefcase on the floor and steepled his fingers. “It’s hard for us to believe that Sister Miriam hasn’t told you about this.”
“Believe it,” I said. “I don’t know why I’m here and I’m caring less by the second. Are you going to take me off that stupid list or what?”
“If you get her to talk to us,” said Gansa.
I pivoted in my chair. “Aunt Miriam, talk to them so they’ll take me off the No Fly List.”
Aunt Miriam turned her head toward me in a way that I half expected it to go all the way around like an owl or that chick in The Exorcist. It chilled me to my core and made me nauseated at the same time. She didn’t say anything. She just looked at me with her icy blue eyes and then looked forward into nothing again.
“I’m going with she’s not going to talk to you ever about anything,” I said. “Can I go because I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“She’s your aunt,” said Gordon.
“That’s not a bonus prize in this situation.”
“Does the name Sister Margaret Mullanphy mean anything to you?” asked Gansa.
“No.”
“You’ve never heard that name before?”
I thought about it. I really did. “No. Who is it?”
Gordon got a picture out of the file and slid it over to me. I took a good look, but one glance was really enough. That was an old picture. Black and white. Sister Margaret, if that’s who it was, appeared to be about twenty-five years old and wearing an old school habit. They gave those up after Vatican II, well before my time. Hell, it was before my parents’ time.
“Nope. Who is she?”
He slid over another picture. This time a later one of a group of nuns without habits, wearing conservative twin sets, A-line skirts, and short veils. “Recognize anyone there?”
I barely looked. “It’s still black and white. Why are you bothering me with this?”
“We can’t get ahold of anyone else in your family,” said Gordon. “Your parents and grandparents are on vacation. Your aunts, uncles, and cousins hang up on us.”
“So you decided to pick on me,” I said.
“We could’ve brought your cousins in, but let’s face it, they don’t have the relationship with Sister Miriam that you do.”
“If by relationship, you mean she whacks me with her cane, then yeah, but I still have nothing for you.”
“She didn’t call you about this?”
I resisted the urge to scream. “No. No. And no.” I pointed at Aunt Miriam. “She’s not going to speak to you and I don’t know what this is about, so we’re leaving right now. Get up, Aunt Miriam. We’re hitting the bricks.”
Then the most remarkable thing happened. She did it. Aunt Miriam obeyed me. She stood up. I was so astonished that I didn’t move and that gave the rookies a second to regroup.
“It’s about murder, Mercy,” said Gordon. “Sister Margaret was murdered.”
Aunt Miriam swayed and I caught her, lowering her down into her seat. “It’s fine. Don’t listen,” I said.
She didn’t answer and went right back to staring.
“My aunt’s upset,” I said. “We need to leave.”
“How can you tell?” asked Gansa.
“I can tell. So say what you want to say and leave us alone.”
“This could take a while,” said Gordon.
It could’ve taken a while, but it didn’t. Sister Margaret Mullanphy was murdered in 1965. 1965, for crying out loud. She was found in the woods, strangled, and it was thought that a priest did it. Father Dominic Kelly threw himself off the Eades Bridge before he could be properly questioned and the case was closed.
“What in the world do you want me to do about it?” I asked.
“Your aunt was close friends with the deceased.” Gordon pointed at the group picture and there was Aunt Miriam, right next to Sister Margaret.
“So what?” I asked. “The case is solved.”
“It isn’t,” said Gansa. “Not really.”
“You said the priest did it.”
“That’s what they thought,” said Gordon. “But it wasn’t proven.”
“They must’ve had a reason for thinking he did it,” I said.
Gansa leaned over the table. “They had a priest jumping off a bridge because the nun he apparently loved was dead so he must’ve killed her.”
“Works for me.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be good at this?” asked Gordon.
“What do you want from me? I got you on the Kansas task force,” I said.
“We want to reopen the case,” said Gansa.
“Fine. Do that.”
The rookies gritted their teeth.
“We can’t. The higher-ups don’t agree. They think it’s a dead end,” said Gordon.
I picked up the medal and examined it. “But you don’t because this was found in Kansas?”
“Look at the initials,” said Gansa. “It’s Sister Margaret’s medal. We need your aunt to confirm it.”
I looked over at Aunt Miriam. Nothing. Not going to happen, although I couldn’t imagine why. If it was her friend’s medal,
what was wrong with saying so?
“Okay. So what if it is?” I asked, although I already had a feeling. That feeling that something wasn’t right. Aunt Miriam wore her St. Brigid medal constantly. You couldn’t see it, but it was there under her clothes, next to her heart. It had her initials on it. I remembered seeing them there and I was pretty sure, if I went home and dug around, I’d find my own medal with my initials on it, done in the exact same way.
Gansa took the evidence bag from me and shook it in my face. “It wasn’t found on her body. Her Mother Superior said she always wore it. Never took it off and it wasn’t on her body.”
“They thought Father Dominic took it?” I asked.
“They assumed he did.” Gansa shook the bag again. “But he didn’t. He couldn’t have. It wasn’t in his effects and, if he jumped off the bridge with it, it’d be at the bottom of the Mississippi river.”
“You found it in Kansas in the serial killer graveyard,” I said, feeling more sick by the second.
“The team did.”
“Where was it?”
“Between two bodies.”
Aunt Miriam stood up, walked around the table, and left the room. We just watched her go and it didn’t occur to me to say anything or stop her. It was Aunt Miriam and she undoubtedly had a brick.
“So have you identified the bodies?” I asked.
“We have,” said Gordon with satisfaction.
“And?”
“Shawn Gibson, nineteen, missing 1972 and Joan Gilbert, twelve, missing 2001.”
I swallowed and tried not to picture those two victims, the state in which they were found, what happened, but I couldn’t fight it. My mind went there. “Was it sandwiched in between?”
“Yes, it was,” said Gansa.
“You think Sister Margaret was killed by one of your serial killers.”
“Yes, we do.”
Gansa reached for the doorknob and said, “Get her to identify the medal. That’s all you have to do.”
“That’s all?” I asked. “Gee. No problem.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No. Not at all. Dealing with my aunt is a piece of cake.”
His incredibly smooth forehead got one wrinkle. “I feel like you’re messing with me.”
“Ya think?”
Gordon stepped up. “You want to fly to Greece, get her to do it.”