by Lisa Jackson
“. . . oh, God, no. No! No! No! Not Mary. Please, please, you must be wrong!” Virginia LaBelle was trembling, her blue eyes wide, her head shaking violently from side to side as she stood next to her husband. Her face had turned white, her legs wobbled, and if not for the steady arm of her husband, she, no doubt, would have crumpled into a heap onto the glossy marble floor of her three-storied Victorian home. Tears rained from her eyes. “Not my baby,” she cried and Montoya’s guts twisted as he looked up the curved wooden staircase to the landing, where a huge gold-framed picture of a vibrant, beautiful girl had been hung. Bright blue eyes, gold hair that curled past her shoulders, dimples visible around a radiant smile. A beautiful girl. In his mind’s eye he saw the female victim with her bloated face and waxy complexion and felt sick.
“I’m sorry,” Montoya said and he meant it. This was the worst part of his job. The worst. Dealing with the dead was preferable to informing the living of the loss of a loved one. Especially a child. “Her identification said Courtney.”
“She goes by Mary. Has from the time she was old enough to decide, somewhere around the fourth or fifth grade, I think,” the father, Clyde, said. Tall, with a large frame, ruddy cheeks over a short-cropped silver beard that matched his thinning hair, Clyde LaBelle aged before Montoya’s eyes. His shoulders drooped beneath his tan sport coat, the color washed away from his skin, leaving his complexion pasty, and his blue eyes, behind gold-rimmed spectacles, seemed to fade.
“Third. She had Sister Penelope for a teacher,” Virginia said, still blinking against her tears, denial etched on her face.
“You’re certain this is our child?” Clyde asked softly.
“Yes, but I’ll need someone to identify the body.”
Another piercing wail from Courtney’s mother as she lost control of herself.
“There has to be a mistake.”
“I’ll do it.” A muscle tightened in Clyde’s jaw and Montoya witnessed him physically stiffening his spine.
“It can’t be, it just can’t be,” Virginia muttered.
“Shh . . . honey . . . shh.” He pressed his lips into her hair but he didn’t say the obvious lie of everything’s going to be all right.
Because it wouldn’t be. For the rest of their lives this well-to-do couple would mourn their daughter and nothing else would matter. Everything they’d worked for, dreamed of having—this stately old house, the tended grounds, the silver Cadillac parked in the driveway—would be meaningless.
“Perhaps you should lie down,” Clyde suggested to his wife, but she would have none of it.
Wiping at the bottoms of her eyes with a long, manicured finger, she whispered, “I want to hear what the officer has to say. It’s wrong, of course, but I need to hear it.”
“Ginny, Detective Montoya wouldn’t come here if he wasn’t certain—”
“But it has to be a mistake. We both know it.” She drew in a slow, shuddering breath and extracted herself from her husband’s grip. Her legs were unsteady but she managed to stay upright, her spine suddenly ramrod straight. “Please, give me a second.” Touching her hair as if realizing it had become mussed, she walked to what appeared to be a nearby bathroom, her gold sandals clicking across the veined marble floor.
“I’m a psychiatrist,” Clyde said. “I’ll prescribe something to calm her down.” He glanced nervously at the closed powder room door. “And I’ll call our parish priest. Father Michael has a way of soothing her.”
Montoya took note of the carved wooden cross mounted above the archway that led to the back of the house. A heavy leather-bound Bible rested prominently upon a small occasional table near the foot of the staircase. The ceiling of this entry hall rose two full stories, allowing the foyer to open to a gallery on the floor above where more pictures of the LaBelles’ only daughter had been artfully arranged.
The door to the powder room opened and Virginia LaBelle, her makeup restored, her frosted hair no longer mussed, managed a wan smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Please, Officer, if you would follow me into the parlor.” Her voice wobbled and for a second she seemed about to dissolve again, but she tugged on the hems of her sleeves, gathered her breath, and said, “We could discuss this matter further. I’m certain that there has been a vast, horrible mistake.”
Clyde sent Montoya a look but followed his wife into a cozy room filled with peach-colored chintz, ornate antique tables, and lamps that dripped with crystal. Flipping a switch, Virginia turned the fire on, though it had to be eighty degrees in the house, then she sat on the edge of a small settee. She folded her hands in her lap and tried like hell to appear composed, to slip back into the world of Southern gentility to which, Montoya guessed, she’d been born. “Would you like something to drink? I could have Ada get us some sweet tea.”
“I’m fine,” Montoya said.
As her husband joined her, Montoya took a quick survey of the room. Over the fireplace was another huge portrait of Courtney and upon the wide marble mantle was a gallery of pictures of the girl in various phases of her life: photos of her as a towheaded toddler, others in the awkward age when braces glinted in her mouth and small granny glasses covered her eyes, still other shots that were more recent, pictures of a young woman with a fresh face and placid smile.
“She’s going to be a nun,” Virginia said with a touch of pride as she fingered a diamond cross at her throat, so similar to the one found around her daughter’s neck.
A nun?
That was a curve ball Montoya hadn’t expected. Montoya eyed the mother carefully, wondering if she’d gone off her rocker. “She was going to join an order?”
“We know it’s not a common calling for a young woman these days and goodness knows her father and I tried to dissuade her.” She sent her husband a knowing glance. “We want grandchildren, you see . . .” Her voice drifted off again as she looked up at the mantel to the pictures of her only child. A single tear drizzled from the corner of her eye.
Montoya’s stomach soured. As gently as possible, he explained what he knew, what he could tell them. About the cabin. About Gierman. About the gun that had been found in their daughter’s hand. About the wedding dress.
Throughout it all, Courtney Mary LaBelle’s parents listened. Raptly. Sadly. Without comment. Rain splashed against the tall paned windows and the gas logs hissed, but Clyde and Virginia huddled together on the tiny couch, holding hands, wedding rings catching the firelight, and didn’t say a word. It was almost as if he were talking to mannequins. Only when he mentioned the pistol did the father wince and blink, guilt stealing through his eyes.
“I gave her that gun for protection,” he whispered, his voice thick. “I never thought . . . Oh Jesus.” He buried his face in one hand and his shoulders began to shake.
Surprisingly, his wife touched Clyde’s shoulder with her free hand, as if to offer him strength.
“I shouldn’t have done it. If I hadn’t, then she might be alive today,” he said.
“Shhh. No. Clyde. Whatever happened, it’s not your fault. You’ll see. This is a mistake.” She turned her sad eyes on Montoya again. “Mary doesn’t know Luke Gierman, I’m sure. He’s the man with that horrible program on the radio, isn’t he? The one who’s being banned everywhere?”
“He worked at WSLJ. Was known as their shock jock.”
“Well, there you go. Mary doesn’t know him. Wouldn’t. And she doesn’t own a wedding gown, believe me. You’ve got the wrong girl. Someone who just happened to have our daughter’s ID with her.”
“Have you talked to your daughter in the last two days?” Montoya asked and thought of the picture he was carrying, the one of the dead girl, but he couldn’t bring himself to take it from his pocket.
“Well, no.”
“The picture on her student ID and driver’s license is of the same woman we found.”
A small high-pitched sound of protest came from Virginia’s throat.
“I could call Father Michael for you,” Montoya offered, knowi
ng that he would get nothing more from these tortured parents today.
“No, no . . . I’ll take care of it.” Virginia offered up a tremulous smile, then walked to a desk where she picked up a phone and pushed a speed-dial number. She spoke into the phone for a few minutes and then hung up, her hand resting on the receiver a second longer than necessary, as if she was hesitant to break the connection.
“You mentioned that Courtney, er, Mary had decided to become a nun,” Montoya said as the girl’s mother returned to her spot on the settee, found her purse, and retrieved a tissue from within. “When did she decide to join an order?”
Clyde frowned. “Six, maybe eight months ago, I think.” He glanced at his wife for confirmation.
“Last Christmas.” Virginia twisted the tissue and looked out the window as if she could will her daughter to appear on the front walk. “She visited the order at Our Lady of Virtues.”
Montoya felt something inside him click.
“At least it was close by,” the mother said again and Montoya’s gut tightened. “And I guess, we have some affinity for the order. Clyde was a doctor on staff of the hospital and I was a social worker. We met there.” Her smile was quick, tremulous, and dissolved instantly. “They’re tearing down that old hospital, but the sisters are still going to live in the convent. I hear they’re going to build new apartments and an assisted-living facility, and as the nuns age, they’re guaranteed living and care expenses free-of-charge. This is after they can no longer care for themselves, or the order can’t care for them any longer.” She closed her eyes and sighed, still winding and unwinding the tissue in her hands.
Montoya had heard about the renovations to the old hospital. His own aunt had joined the order years earlier. Was still there.
Clyde said, “We just asked that she spend a year at college before she actually took her vows, but . . . she’d already made up her mind.”
“Do you know why?”
He hesitated. Tugged at his silver beard and cast a glance in his wife’s direction. “She felt as if God had spoken to her.”
“Personally?”
“Yes.” He nodded and looked away.
So would-be Sister Mary, aka Courtney, might not have been so normal after all.
“I know how it sounds, Detective. I work with people who hear voices all the time—”
“This wasn’t the same!” Virginia intervened. “Mary . . . she just thought God was answering her prayers, that’s all. She wasn’t schizophrenic, for God’s sake!” Her lips pulled into a tiny knot of disapproval. “She is a normal, sane, lovable girl.”
Right. Like Joan of Arc.
Clyde slipped his arm around his wife’s shoulders.
Montoya asked, “Did she have any boyfriends?”
“Nothing serious.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.” The wife answered but both parents nodded.
“Could there have been someone who might have been interested in her, but she wasn’t returning the favor?”
“Mary gets along with everyone, Officer,” Virginia said. “Though she could have dated a lot of boys, a lot, she hasn’t. She’s already promised herself to God. That’s what the ring is for.”
“The ring?”
“The one she wears on her left hand,” Clyde offered and Montoya’s mind flashed to the battered and bruised ring finger of the victim.
Virginia added, “Where other girls wear their boyfriend’s class ring, or an engagement or wedding ring, Mary wears a promise ring. It’s something she picked out herself on her eighteenth birthday, the day she promised herself to the Father.”
“As in God.”
“Of course.” Virginia’s shoulders stiffened as if she were girding herself to defend her child.
Montoya didn’t know what to say. Things were getting weirder by the minute. He glanced up at the portrait again. It was a posed shot where the girl’s hands were folded over the back of a couch. Sure enough, on the ring finger of her left hand, she wore a filigreed gold band with a single square-cut red stone.
“So she wasn’t getting married?”
“What? No! Of course not.” Virginia let out a disgusted sigh.
“Did she own a bridal gown?”
“No . . . why would she? I told you, she didn’t even date!”
“Did she pick All Saints for a reason?”
Clyde said, “We did. We wanted her to be close enough to reach her, but far enough away that she would experience college life. She could have gone to Loyola, of course, the Jesuits there do a wonderful job. It’s an institution around here, I know. I even spent a few years on the staff there.”
Virginia started shredding the tissue. “Clyde felt it would be good for her to get away from under our wing, meet new people, even if she were going to join an order.” She blinked rapidly and sniffed. Her chin trembled. “Clyde wanted her to experience a bit of the world.”
Courtney’s father’s face drew together in anguish. “I just wanted what was best for her.”
“We both did.” Virginia sniffed, then dabbed at her nose.
“I understand,” Montoya said, lying because he didn’t understand it at all. These days eighteen-year-old girls didn’t run off to nunneries. Beautiful, supposedly popular girls dated boys. Unless they were gay. Then they dated girls, and if Courtney “Mary” Labelle was into girls, then what the hell had she been doing with Luke Gierman?
By all accounts the two victims couldn’t have been more unalike.
Montoya talked to the LaBelles until he spied a bronze-colored sedan pull up to the curb outside the house. It was Montoya’s cue to leave. To let the grieving parents have some time alone with a priest. A tall man, maybe six-two or six-three, wearing a black suit, black shirt, and stark white clerical collar, stretched out of the car. Thick white hair, rimless eyeglasses, and a few lines on a weather-beaten face suggested he was near seventy, yet he stood straight and with a quick, sure stride he walked to the door.
The doorbell pealed in soft, dulcet tones.
Mrs. LaBelle was on her feet, and once the priest entered, her tenuous facade fell completely away in a wash of tears and sobs.
Montoya was glad to get away from the perfect house, a near shrine to a daughter who wasn’t returning. He strode to his cruiser, climbed inside, and fired the engine. Before he backed into the street, he called the station on his cell phone and was connected to Lynn Zaroster, a junior detective who happened to be manning the phones.
“Hey. It’s Montoya. Can you check with the crime lab, see if there was any jewelry found on Courtney LaBelle, the female vic who was found with Luke Gierman this morning? Also, find out if Gierman was wearing any jewelry.”
“I think he was au natural. Weren’t you there?”
“Yeah, and that’s the way it looked to me, too.” Montoya did a quick U-turn, then hit the gas. “I didn’t see that he was wearing anything, but double-check and get back to me, would ya? The girl, she supposedly never went without her promise ring.”
“Got it.”
“Is anyone still at Gierman’s town house?”
“Brinkman and an investigator from the crime-scene team.”
“Call and tell them to crate the dog. I’ll be by to pick her up.”
“The dog?”
“Yeah. Gierman’s ex wants the dog back. Seems as if she lost her in the divorce.”
“The dog?” Zaroster repeated.
“That’s what I said.”
She said something about lunatic, fanatic dog lovers under her breath, then more loudly added, “I don’t suppose you’ve heard about the calls into the radio station the other day?”
Montoya wheeled around a corner and cut through two lanes of traffic. “No. What?”
“It was the day they aired a show on vindictive exes.”
Montoya’s hands tightened over the wheel. “What about it?”
“The station keeps a log of anyone who phones in. The telephone numbers flash onto the computer
display.”
“Who called?”
“Lots of people. Irate. Or ones who had stories to share with old Luke. The thing is, one of the people who phoned in hung up before she said anything.”
Montoya felt it coming.
“That caller just happened to be his ex. Abby Chastain. She didn’t bother saying anything, probably thought better of talking to her ex-husband on the air. If it were me, I would have held my tongue, too. But she had definitely been listening and I just heard a replay of the program. He reamed her, but good. If I would have heard that and it had been my ex, I’m thinkin’ I might have killed him.”
“You’re saying Abby Chastain might have offed her husband and Courtney LaBelle?” No, that didn’t seem quite right. Not with the bridal gown and the size twelve shoes.
“Don’t know about the girl, but man, oh, man, that Gierman, what a piece of work. He gave his ex-wife a powerful motive. That’s all I’m suggesting.”
“Save the tape. I want to hear it.”
“Got it right here,” she said and he heard a couple of raps, as if she were patting something for emphasis.
“Has his car been found yet?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Let me know when it’s located,” Montoya said before hanging up and driving to Luke Gierman’s town house, located in the French Quarter. Gierman’s end unit was a full two stories of old, painted brick and decorated with tall, paned windows, hurricane shutters, and fancy wrought-iron balconies. The private entrance, a small courtyard, was cordoned off with crime-scene tape.
Eyeing the place, Montoya pushed open the door. One of Bonita’s investigators, Inez Santiago, was closing up her evidence collection kit. She looked up at Montoya as he stepped into the foyer.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she teased, her teeth flashing white against golden skin. Santiago was a looker, blessed with a dancer’s body and long, coffee-colored hair that she highlighted with streaks of red, and when she was working, scraped away from her face in a crisp, professional knot. Her eyes were green, intelligent, and didn’t miss a damned thing.