Red Army Spies and the Blackrobes Trilogy

by Patrick Trese

  “You figure maybe they had a fall,” said Moore. “Maybe they can’t get to the telephone to call for help, you know?”

  Pendleton ignored the interjection.

  “We rang the front doorbell. No answer. Blinds were drawn. We couldn’t see in. The side door was unlocked. So we went in. Cecil here called out for Mrs. Vogel. She didn’t answer. We checked the cellar first because the stairs were right there. She could have fallen down them. Or gotten electrocuted or something like that.”

  “There was no sign of anything wrong down in the basement,” said Moore “but the first floor was messed up. Not so much the kitchen, but the living room had really been gone over.”

  “When I saw that living room,” said Pendleton, “I knew Mrs. Vogel was dead. Got that feeling right in the gut.”

  “I felt the same way,” said Moore. “Saw the mess and just knew it.”

  “So we didn’t waste any more time looking around downstairs,” said Pendleton. “We went upstairs real careful in case somebody was up there. But there wasn’t. Just poor Mrs. Vogel. Whoever killed her was long gone.”

  “I felt awful,” said Moore. “I used to go over to her house for cookies after school when I was a little boy.”

  “Yeah, she was a nice lady,” said Pendleton. “Anyway, we checked the other rooms and the attic, made sure nobody was hiding up there and then called in.”

  “We used the kitchen phone,” said Moore. “I was going to go out to the car, but Jake told me to use the phone in the kitchen. The newspaper monitors radio calls.”

  “The captain got to the house pretty quick,” said Pendleton. “He told us to stay there and work with the state troopers. He’d already called them and asked them for help with the scientific stuff. So we stayed at the house. We sealed off the whole lot and the neighbors were pretty good about keeping their distance. So were the reporters and cameramen when they got there. I’m telling you that so you’ll understand that we had ideal circumstances for a thorough examination of the crime scene.”

  “And we came up with nothing,” said Moore.

  “Not one damn thing. Not even a fingerprint. Nothing that didn’t belong there. And I can tell you everything got checked. The state troopers brought a rookie they were training in forensics and they had him dusting every inch of that house, combing the rugs, vacuuming under every pillow, looking on top of every cabinet. They came up with a big zero.”

  “And we should’ve come up with something,” said Pendleton. “Maybe not a fingerprint, but something. I mean, there weren’t even any tire tracks in the driveway.”

  “You think it was more than one person?” asked Brother Krause.

  “Two, at least,” said Pendleton. “Had to be.”

  “Two professionals,” said Brother Krause.

  “That’s what I thought at the time,” said Pendleton. “Thinking back on it, I’d have to say they were not professionals. I mean, they weren’t professional burglars. They were too methodical.”

  “Take the books,” said Moore. “The Vogels had a lot of books. The forensic guys said that every single book on those shelves had been pulled out and either tossed on the floor or put back. They could tell from the way the dust on them had been disturbed or something. Can you imagine, every single book?”

  “So we figure every room in that house was examined just as carefully,” said Pendleton. “And damn quickly, too. Judging from what the neighbors saw—or what they didn’t see—the killers must have arrived after dark and left before dawn. That’s not much time to take apart everything in a whole house and put it back together again.”

  “Never saw a burglary like that one,” said Moore.

  “What did they take?”

  “Hard to tell,” said Pendleton. “They didn’t take anything heavy or bulky, like the TV set or the sewing machine. Just small stuff and whatever money was in the house. Couldn’t have been much cash, I don’t imagine. They took the good silverware and a silver tea service.”

  “I know Professor Vogel had a pretty nice coin collection,” said Moore. “I remember looking at it with him when I was a kid, but I have no idea how valuable it might have been. If Mrs. Vogel held onto it after he died, they probably took that too. We didn’t find it in the house.”

  “They took the broom,” said Pendleton. “Would you believe it? We asked a couple of Mrs. Vogel’s friends to see if they could tell what was missing and this one lady noticed there was no broom. I would never have picked up on that, but she said: ‘Every housewife has a broom.’”

  “They probably needed it to cover their tracks,” said Brother Krause. “I mean literally.”

  “Well, you may be exactly right,” said Pendleton. “Probably had something that needed sweeping someplace else. But we’ll never know where or why. Not unless we catch them someday and they tell us.”

  “Have you had anything similar around here since then?”

  “Neither before or since,” said Moore. “Nothing anything like it.”

  “No copy-cats?”

  “No,” said Pendleton. “But we kept a lid on the details just for that reason. Matter of fact, Brother Al, you now know more about it than anybody except Cecil and me. We would have filled in the FBI, but they didn’t seem particularly interested in talking to anybody who actually knew something.”

  “Anything unusual about the actual murder?”

  “Yeah,” said Moore. “It was too damn neat. The only word to describe it: neat.”

  “No signs of struggle,” said Pendleton. “We found Mrs. Vogel sprawled on the bed with a pillow case over her head. It had been secured with a length of cord from the living room window shade. Cut off clean with a very sharp knife. The cord tied around her neck, but only just tight enough to keep the pillow case in place.”

  “How many shots?”

  “Just one,” said Moore. He tapped his finger between his eyes. “One right here.”

  “From up close?”

  “Hell, no. Not close at all. There were no powder burns on the pillow case.”

  “Whoever fired that gun was damned confident,” said Pendleton. “Standing back that way and putting a round right where he wanted it.”

  “And there were no signs of a struggle?”

  “No,” said Pendleton. “Seems like Mrs. Vogel just sat there and took the bullet.”

  “None of the neighbors heard the shot,” said Moore. “It was summertime and a lot of bedroom windows were open, but a third of the people on the block had window air conditioners going. That includes the houses next door and the three right across the street. So nobody heard nothing. Anyway, the forensic guys said they used a factory-made silencer, not a potato or a pillow they just grabbed up. Something they brought with them.”

  “Any make on the gun?” asked Brother Krause.

  “No,” said Pendleton. “Probably a .38 caliber weapon, judging from the entry and exit wounds. We did not find the slug. They dug it out of the wall with a knife and took it with them.”

  Brother Krause poured himself another cup of coffee from the brown plastic pot the waitress had left on the table. “You said some of the books thrown on the floor had been returned to the shelves.”

  “That’s right,” said Moore. “Exactly twenty-two percent was on the floor.”

  “You actually counted all the books?”

  “What the hell,” said Moore. “It was something to do. I don’t remember the numbers off hand, but I do remember it was exactly twenty-two percent.”

  “What about the contents of the books? Did you get any feeling for what they took and what they left?”

  “Well,” said Pendleton, “in a regular burglary, you’d imagine they were rifling the books looking for any money that was tucked away in them. If there was any cash hidden in the books, they took it. We sure didn’t find any. The books on the floor were empty. There was no cash in them, but there had been some newspaper clippings, bookmarks, holy pictures, receipts and that sort of thing. They were in a pile o
n the floor, like they’d been dumped out, you know. But nothing of any interest.”

  “And the books on the shelves?”

  “Yeah,” said Pendleton, “they were different. They had personal stuff in them. Notes, snapshots.”

  “Did you find a family album?”

  “Matter of fact, we did. Sort of like the broom, eh? Every family has a broom and an album. They took the broom, but they left the family album. And they left the family Bible, too. That’s how we got a line on Mrs. Vogel’s family. From the birthdays and weddings and deaths she recorded.”

  “There was a letter from Mrs. Vogel’s brother—Father What’s-his-name—in one of the books,” said Moore. “An old letter. I found it in a book that Professor Vogel had written. Reflections, it was called.”

  “How come you remember that, Cecil?” asked Pendleton.

  “Oh, Professor Vogel gave a copy to my dad when it came out. I read it when I was a kid. Because I knew him, you know? It was a book of essays.”

  “What happened to the letter?” asked Brother Krause.

  Cecil Moore smiled and reached into the breast pocket of his uniform.

  “I thought you’d like to see a photocopy,” he said. “And I bet you’ve brought something to compare it to. Am I right?”

  “Right as rain,” said Brother Krause. “A copy of a letter he sent to us once.”

  He put his napkin on the tabletop and placed the letters on it side by side. The handwriting in the Bellefonte letter was more vigorous, more youthful, than on the letter Father Beck had received from Russia. But the same individual had written both.

  “This is the only letter from Father Samozvanyetz you found?” he asked. “You’d think she’d have saved more than that.”

  “That was the only one,” said Moore. “I can’t swear that there weren’t some others tucked away somewhere. But we really went through that house with a fine tooth comb.”

  “I believe you,” said Brother Krause. “I just wonder why she saved this particular letter from her brother and not the rest? Mind if I keep this copy?”

  “Sure thing. I made it for you,” said Pendleton. “But there isn’t anything special in the letter. Just routine family stuff. I’m fine, hope you are too.”

  “We did find a dozen or so letters upstairs from Mrs. Vogel’s sister,” said Moore. “Her sister was a nun. Died a number of years ago, we found out. By the way, is Mrs. Vogel’s brother still alive?”

  “As far as I know,” said Brother Krause. “He was overseas in the missions when all this happened. Had been for years, since before the war. But I’ll make sure he gets the correct information this time.”

  Pendleton and Moore walked Brother Krause to the parking lot.

  “So they came here just to murder Mrs. Vogel,” said Moore. “I guess we all agree on that.”

  “But why kill a sweet little old lady like Mrs. Vogel?” said Cecil Moore. “We could never figure out any motive. Not until we got your phone call. Now I wonder if the murder has something to do with her brother.”

  “I wonder about that, too,” said Brother Krause. “So be sure to let me know if you find out anything new on that angle.”

  “You can count on that, Brother Al,” said Jake Pendleton. “And you better believe I won’t just leave a message with one of the nice ladies in your office.”

  Brother Krause laughed. “Yeah, we all learned that lesson, didn’t we?”

  With that, he got into his rented car and left the parking lot.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Half an hour beyond Bellefonte, Brother Krause found a public phone booth outside a gas station and called the Provincial’s office collect. “It was no ordinary burglary homicide,” he told Father Novak. “Mrs. Vogel was executed by professionals.”

  “Good Lord! I wasn’t expecting anything like that,” said the Provincial. “I suppose that means Father Samozvanyetz could be in some real danger.”

  “Not necessarily. Somebody wanted to shut her up for good. But her murder may have more to do with something she and her husband got mixed up in, something dangerous or illegal, something Father Samozvanyetz wasn’t involved with or even knew about. I doubt whoever had Mrs. Vogel killed has any interest in killing her brother. Or even knows he exists.”

  “Even so,” said Father Novak, “it would be prudent to move him somewhere safer than Milford.”

  “I don’t know where that would be, Father. If the people who killed Mrs. Vogel wanted to get rid of Father Samozvanyetz, they’d find him anywhere we put him.”

  “Then what should we do?”

  “I’d leave things the way they are for the time being. The FBI probably has the novitiate under some kind of surveillance and I don’t think we should mess around with what they’ve got set up. I can call Herb Coogan and get his advice on this, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Sure, go ahead,” said Father Novak. “Better still, keep the rental car and go see Herb Coogan at his office in Cleveland tomorrow morning. I’ll let him know you’re coming.”

  “Okay,” said Brother Krause. “How’s Father Beck? Any news?”

  “Well, it wasn’t his appendix. They took it out and examined it but it was okay, so they’ve been doing more tests. Father Thornton and Brother Hegstad are going to the hospital to talk with the doctors. So give me a call from Cleveland tomorrow and I’ll be able to tell you and Coogan what the doctors had to say.”

  C H A P T E R • 4

  It had been a slow night at Malley’s Chocolate Shoppe & Ice Cream Parlor in Lakewood. Charley Coogan was filling in for one of the regular soda jerks who had taken sick. He hadn’t been working for the Malley family that summer because he was getting ready to leave home, but he was more than happy to work behind the counter one last time before leaving Lakewood, probably forever.

  Charley wished some more people would come into the store so he could keep busy and stop thinking about all the other familiar places he wouldn’t be seeing again. The beach, the outdoor ice rink, Rocky River valley, his grammar school, his own house, his own room.

  The waitress snapped him back to the job at hand with an order for two chocolate sodas. He made them the way Mike Malley had taught him the summer before his freshman year at Ignatius.

  “Never skimp,” his first boss had told him. “Always give the customers a little more than they’re expecting and they’ll keep coming back.” Generosity was just one of the things Charley had learned from the stout, rosy-cheeked candy-maker. “Never argue about the correct change,” was another of Mike Malley’s admonitions. “I’d rather lose a few cents than lose a customer.”

  And then there was Mike’s house rule that Charley learned the hard way one night at closing time: “Never turn away a customer even if you have to stay and work late. Turn people away when you’re closing and you’ll guarantee that they’ll never come back when you’re open for business.”

  He’d learned a lot working at Malley’s and now here he was, one last time, pumping the chocolate syrup into the bottoms of the tall soda glasses and agitating it with the hard, narrow spray from the fountain, digging out the French vanilla ice cream and dropping two generous scoops into each glass, angling the narrow spray, just so, down the side so that the chocolate syrup infused the seltzer and covered the ice cream. All with the smile and the flourish he’d learned from Mike Malley.

  Charley put the sodas on a tray for the waitress to pick up. Then he rinsed off the scoop and dried his hands on a clean dishtowel. Well, he thought, I won’t be doing this anymore. There were a lot of things he wouldn’t be doing anymore, not where he was going in a couple of weeks. He wished his last shift had been busier, but no more customers arrived and those few at the tables were finishing up and leaving. And after they left, so did the last waitress.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Charley had just hung up the CLOSED sign and was locking the front door when two women appeared in front of him, registering acute disappointment. Before they had a chance to walk away, Charle
y reversed the key, swung open the front door and ushered them into the empty shop. “Hope you don’t mind sitting at the counter, ladies,” he said with a Malley smile. He seated them and filled their order.

  After that, there was nothing for Charley to do except to stand at the service end of the soda fountain and wait for them to finish and leave. Charley couldn’t help hearing the conversation between the two women sitting on stools at the other end of the counter.

  The butterscotch pecan sundae was doing most of the talking. The chocolate marshmallow was mostly just listening and clucking every now and then. He tried not to listen but the butterscotch pecan had a high-pitched nasal voice that pierced right through the piped-in music.

  “Eight miserable years I spent with that S-O-B,” she was saying to her friend. “I kind of knew it was a mistake even before I married him.”

  “So why did you?” asked the chocolate marshmallow.

  “Oh, I was young. And I fell for all his B-S at first. Then, after a while, he started getting on my nerves. But everything was moving right along, one thing after another.

  “First, there was the engagement picture in The Plain Dealer, then the wedding invitations, then the dress fittings, then the shower, then the presents arriving. My mother had been making all the arrangements; my father was spending all that money on the reception. All of a sudden, I’m walking down the aisle with that grinning dimwit waiting for me at the altar. And I couldn’t think of any way to get out of it. When the time came for me to say ‘I do,’ that’s what I said. I wanted to scream, ‘I don’t!’ But I couldn’t because it was just too damn late!”

  The women left, finally, and Charley was able to lock up and go home. He wished he hadn’t heard any of that stuff. But he did hear it and he couldn’t get it out of his head. It kept rattling around until he fell asleep.

  C H A P T E R • 5

  Next morning, Father Beck did not know what to pray for. He had been in the hospital long enough to sense that this day was going to be different. The morning routine had changed.