A bit too passionate for my taste, Mary Helen thought, still staring down at the young couple. Then, unexpectedly, Tony pulled away. Shielding his eyes against the glare, he scrutinized the hill. Embarrassed, Mary Helen drew back. Good night, nurse, she chided herself, you are getting to be a regular Miss Marple! At least, Agatha Christie had the good manners to let Miss Marple be bird-watching. You’re just plain gawking! The decent thing to do, old girl, is to let young love have a little privacy.
Back on her bench, Sister Mary Helen flipped open her book. In the distance she heard the sounds of four feet on dried pine needles. There were no more digging noises.
The flat clang of the bell from the college belfry tolled dinner. Tucking her book under her arm, Mary Helen tramped down the path and onto the driveway.
The parched campus was deserted. Long shadows played across the buildings and the formal gardens. With most of the faculty and students gone for the day, the stately college buildings crested the hill with an aura of peace. Sweet peace, she thought, and stopped for a moment to pull in a long, deep breath.
The sudden shriek of tires warned her that someone was taking the service road too fast. A dark green sports car shot from behind a shield of trees and squealed onto the driveway. Looks like the Devil himself is chasing whoever that is, Mary Helen thought as the car sped past her. Two men were in the front seat. She caught a quick glimpse of the driver. Professor Villanueva! Why was he driving so fast? And at this time of day? What business did he have on the service road?
That was the last time Sister Mary Helen ever saw Professor Phillip Villanueva alive.
Inspectors Murphy and Gallagher were on duty when the call came in.
“Murder at your alma mater, Kate.” Slamming down the phone, Dennis Gallagher hitched his pants over his paunch. “Let’s go!”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Kate Murphy grabbed her wool jacket and followed him out of the Homicide Detail room.
“Who got killed?” she asked, watching Gallagher hook a red light in the window of the city’s Plymouth.
“Some professor. Villanueva’s the name. Skull fractured with a statue. A nun reported his body right after the quake. Thought it was an accident. The guys answering the call weren’t so sure. Coroner says they’re right. Looks like homicide.”
Cautiously, Gallagher pulled out of the Hall of Justice parking lot and turned left toward the college.
For several blocks, the two drove in comfortable silence. The other men in the Detail had nicknamed them “the odd couple.” Red-headed, fiery-tempered Kate Murphy was Homicide’s token woman; easygoing, soft-hearted Dennis Gallagher, its senior inspector.
Actually, Gallagher had agreed to take Kate on as his partner because of her father, Mick Murphy. A prince of a man, Gallagher always called him, and when Murphy died, Gallagher considered it his duty and privilege to look out for Mick’s only child.
After two years of riding together, Gallagher still felt fatherly and protective toward Kate. He had to admit, however—though never to her—that his respect and admiration for her work had grown. Kate Murphy was a sharp gal and one helluva good cop. Her private life he considered something else again. Why, poor Mick must be rolling over in his grave. He could just hear him. “Bad enough living in sin, but living in sin with an Eye-talian!”
“This is the perfect case for you, Kate.” Gallagher cleared his throat.
“For me? Why?”
“You went to that fancy school. You’ll know how to talk with these nuns.”
Kate stared in amazement. Gallagher was a devout, practicing Catholic. She’d never noticed any hesitancy in his talking with nuns.
“So will you, Denny,” she said.
“Nuns always like the girls better than the boys.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Besides, it will be good for you to get back into contact with them.” Gallagher made a left onto Turk Street. Picking his stubby cigar out of the ashtray, he stuck it into the corner of his mouth.
So that was it! Dennis Gallagher was having a sudden attack of Father Knows Best! Although they had never discussed it outright, Kate knew he disapproved of her living arrangements with Jack Bassetti. Not that Gallagher disliked Jack. He didn’t. What he disliked was their living together without—What did he call it?—“benefit of blessing.” Denny never passed up an opportunity to extol the joys of marital bliss. Ad nauseam, in Kate’s opinion.
Tonight Gallagher was on a new tack. Turn Kate over to the “good sisters.” Maybe they could straighten her out. She could almost hear her father’s brogue saying the same thing.
“What exactly did you mean by that last snide remark?”
“What snide remark?”
“Good for me to get back in contact with the nuns.”
“Nothing, Katie. You’ve just not been around the school for a while. It would be good.”
“Good for what, Denny? For making me feel guilty about living with Jack?”
“Who mentioned Jack?” Gallagher’s face reddened.
“I did!”
“Don’t slam the door,” Gallagher started to yell as the car came to a halt in the parking lot, but the bang reverberated through the Plymouth.
“Sorry, Denny,” Kate grinned, turning to him. “I know you care, and I appreciate it, but I’m a big girl now.”
“Poor Mick Murphy. God rest him!” she heard Gallagher mutter as she climbed the steps into the main college building.
“For the love of heaven! Look who’s here!” Sister Eileen jumped to her feet.
Mary Helen looked up. A smartly dressed young woman in her late twenties came through the office door. An older, pudgy man followed her in. Without looking left or right, he slid past into the inner room.
“Kate Murphy!” Eileen hugged the young woman affectionately. “How nice it is to see you!”
“Sister Eileen. I’m surprised you remember me.”
“Now, who could forget you?” Eileen turned toward Mary Helen. “Sister Mary Helen, I’d like you to meet Kate Murphy, who was one of my favorite students. Kate, my friend, Sister Mary Helen. She’s newly arrived at the college.”
“How do.” The nun extended her hand.
Kate Murphy’s quick smile lit up her open, freckled face. Short, auburn hair set off her eyes, the color of fine Wedgwood. Nice face, Mary Helen thought, as Kate turned to meet Sister Anne.
“You work with the police?” Mary Helen asked.
“Kate is an illustrious alumna. Her father was with the San Francisco police for years. After graduation, she followed in his footsteps.” Eileen squeezed Kate’s hand. “She’s the college’s one and only police inspector. And in Homicide, at that!”
“Homicide?” The color drained from Sister Anne’s face. “But we thought the death was an accident. Just a freak accident.”
The blond, freckle-faced patrolman, who had arrived on the scene earlier and who was now leaning against the door jamb, snorted. “Not unless the statue walked at least two feet from the shelf before it hit the guy, Sister. Inspector Gallagher wants you inside,” he said to Kate.
“Did you get statements from these nuns?” she asked.
“Right away.”
“And a list of everyone else who could have been around?”
“Yep. Plus a statement from the girl who discovered the body. Except she’s pretty hysterical. Lying down now in the convent. You may be able to do better with her tomorrow.”
Kate checked her watch and then looked at the nuns sitting bleary-eyed on the bench. “It’s late, and you look exhausted. You can go now. If we have more questions, we’ll get back to you in the morning.”
Slowly, the three nuns walked in silence toward the Sisters’ Residence. The city lights danced below them. In the bright moonlight, the tree-lined driveway shone white. They were too emotionally exhausted to talk.
Sister Therese opened the front door for them. “What happened?”
“Professor Villanueva. He’s dead
. Skull fractured with a statue,” Sister Anne said.
Therese gasped, blessed herself, and double-locked the front door.
Might as well give her the full shot, Mary Helen thought. “The police think it was murder.” That would put quite a kink in Sister Cecilia’s smooth-running operation.
“Murder!” Therese’s brown eyes opened wide. “Murder! I’d better tell the others.”
“Murder!” She pattered down the corridor muttering to herself. Before rounding the corner into the Community Room, she turned back to them. “This very night I’m starting a novena to . . . to . . .” She hesitated, obviously fumbling for the proper saint. “To St. Dismas! And you mark my words, before the nine days are over we’ll have the”—the words stuck in her throat—“the murderer!”
“Who did she say she was starting a novena to?” Anne frowned at Mary Helen.
Another generation gap. “St. Dismas. You remember, the Good Thief. He’s the patron saint of thieves and murderers.”
Anne’s mouth sagged open.
“Never underestimate her clout.” Mary Helen put her arm around the young nun’s thin waist. “Look at it this way, Annie. Put yourself in Dismas’s place. What would you do if, out of the blue, right in the middle of enjoying a peaceful eternity, Sister Therese got on your case?”
Second Day
Early next morning, the college swarmed with official-looking men in conservative business suits asking questions, dusting for fingerprints, making phone calls, taking notes, and all talking, it seemed to Sister Mary Helen, out of the sides of their mouths.
She bumped into them in the kitchen, in the convent, on the campus. A clean-shaven fellow with a full head of curly hair questioned her again about how she happened to come upon the professor’s body. He was one step up on the hierarchy from the patrolman, she guessed. Carefully, she told him everything she had told the patrolmen the night before. Therefore, she was surprised when at about ten o’clock she was summoned again to room 203 in the main college building.
Oh, oh, Mary Helen thought, spotting Sister Therese coming from the other end of the hall. She watched, fascinated, as Therese, like the proverbial bird with rumpled tail feathers, picked and pecked her way through the bevy of police officers.
“I’m on my way to chapel for my novena prayers,” she muttered to Sister Mary Helen as they passed each other. “And this!” Therese made a large dramatic gesture toward room 203. “The poor girls! Exposed to this! What must they think?” Not waiting for an answer, she continued her short staccato steps down the hall.
“They probably think it is the most exciting thing that’s happened around here in years,” Mary Helen mumbled, making sure Therese was safely out of earshot.
“Come in, Sister,” a heavy-set fellow called from the professor’s inner office. Mary Helen recognized him as the same man who had slid in behind Kate Murphy last night. He must be the top of the line, she thought.
“I’m Inspector Gallagher.” He motioned to the chair facing the desk. The Inspector balanced his ample bottom on the desk’s highly polished top. His gray tweed suit, which had a slept-in look, strained when he reached for his note pad.
Mary Helen wriggled into the chair. She pushed her bifocals up the bridge of her nose and covertly studied the man.
She’d try not to let him catch her staring. He looked like something right out of a “whodunit.” Already his tie was loose. It jig-jagged down the front of his white shirt, exposing tiny buttons straining over a paunch which hung slightly below his belt. Mary Helen could barely see the double G’s on the belt buckle. Gucci! She was surprised, not to mention what Gucci might have been to see his gold G’s holding up pants she felt sure must have a shiny seat. The belt was probably a gift from a long-suffering wife, or a daughter who hoped to spruce up Pop!
Perched on the desk, facing the elderly nun, Gallagher was doing some covert studying of his own. He ran his hand across his bald crown. She was certainly not what he had expected. No siree! This one wasn’t like the good sisters who’d taught him at old Saint Anne’s. They had been veiled, and black from head to toe, with a white linen coif hiding everything but a smooth, ageless face. Here, this old gal sat in a smart, navy blue suit, her gray hair styled in an attractive feather cut. If you looked carefully, you could still see the faint skin discoloration where her coif had once covered the sides of her face.
One thing she still had for sure, Gallagher noted, was nun’s eyes. Those peaceful, piercing eyes he remembered from grammar school, eyes that seemed to be able to read minds. They came in all colors—blue, brown. This gal’s came in a speckled hazel. Gallagher cleared his throat.
“Tell me, Sister . . . ah . . .”
“Mary Helen.”
“Yes, Mary Helen. Tell me exactly what happened last night. How you found the professor, who was around, everything you can remember.”
“Inspector, I have already told everything I know to two police officers. Both have taken copious notes. Perhaps you could simply read their notes. Those must be they, right in your hands.” She folded her hands and waited for his explanation.
“This is routine, Sister. Just routine.” He yanked at his tie. “Please, if you will, start from the beginning.” Gallagher shifted his eyes to avoid hers.
“Inspector, is this a test? Are you trying to see if I am a bumbling old lady or just an old lady who still, however, has all her wits about her?”
“Of course not,” Gallagher said. Damn! They can read minds. He suddenly felt thirteen years old. Where the hell was Murphy? He checked his watch. She should be back any minute. Let Murphy handle it, he thought. What I don’t need is another strong-minded woman on my back. This old gal might do the kid some good, too. Gallagher looked down at the penetrating, speckled eyes. And even if she doesn’t, he thought, these two gals deserve each other!
“Just routine, Sister,” he repeated.
Pedantically, Mary Helen began to recount the earthquake, her running from the convent to the college, finding Luis, hearing Marina scream, feeling a presence in the hall, finding the professor’s body, calling the police and the priest.
One helluva sharp old lady, Gallagher thought, listening to her reconstruct the events of the previous night. His face reddened. After eight years in the parochial school, he knew “helluva” was not the proper adjective to describe a sister. But, still, she was one helluva spunky old gal. Must be seventy, at least. Sharp, very sharp.
“How did I do, Inspector?” Dimples played on Mary Helen’s lined cheeks. “Did I pass the senility check?”
“Fine. Thank you, Sister.” Gallagher caught the glint of humor in her eyes. Where the hell was Murphy?
“May I go now, Inspector?”
“Yes, Sister. Thank you for your help. We’ll get in touch with you if we need more information. You aren’t going to be transferred anywhere else for a while, are you?” Gallagher didn’t think she was. She must be retired. But with this old gal, you couldn’t be too sure.
“My next change, Inspector, will probably be to Holy Cross Cemetery,” Mary Helen said, leaving the office.
When Mary Helen finally stepped out of the main college building, the morning fog had lifted and lay waiting in a thick roll over the Pacific. She breathed deeply, trying to relieve the tension that had stiffened her neck and shoulder blades. The campus and the city below sparkled in the crisp, autumn sun. San Francisco was enjoying a glorious Indian Summer day. It seemed so incongruous. Last night a man had been bludgeoned to death on this hill. Yet, this morning, except for the policemen and police cars and a tension in the air, the world went on with “business as usual.”
“Hello, old dear. I was just going to look for you,” Sister Eileen called from behind her. Eileen was the only person Mary Helen knew who could make “old dear” sound like a compliment. Perhaps it was the lilt in the brogue.
Mary Helen turned toward her friend. Dark, blue-black circles ringed Eileen’s deep-set, gray eyes.
“Didn’t slee
p much?” Mary Helen asked.
“You don’t mean to tell me you did.” Eileen shivered. “That poor, poor man.” Eileen controlled the tremor that had crept into her voice. “Shall we take a quick walk before lunch? Perhaps down to Geary Street and back?” she asked. “The exercise will probably do us both some good.”
Walking, Mary Helen knew, was one of Eileen’s panaceas.
“Sure,” she said.
Silently, the two turned the corner of Turk and headed down the Parker Street hill toward Geary. Before them, Tiburon—or was it Belvedere? Mary Helen could never remember—dominated the Bay. Dozens of white sails bobbed and dipped around the massive island.
“I should have realized something had happened the moment we saw that falling star,” Eileen said as they walked.
“Falling star in the sky, sign someone will die,” Mary Helen repeated to herself. Sure enough! She marveled that Eileen remembered all those superstitions. She never was too sure, however, whether or not Eileen believed them.
“It gives me the shivers, Mary Helen. To think that someone can come right off the street into our college and kill.”
“What makes you think it was someone off the street?”
“Because the only people on campus last night were Leonel and Tony, who live here—and we weren’t even positive they were here—Luis and Marina, whom we saw, and the nuns, and I don’t see any of them as a murderer.”
“How do you know they were the only ones on the campus? Remember, I told you I thought I saw a shadow move in the upper hall.”
Eileen trembled. “That’s worse yet. That shadow you saw could have been the killer, and you were right there! It proves my theory, however. It was probably some crazed fellow right off the street.”
They walked a few yards in silence. “What do you think?” Eileen asked.
Mary Helen shrugged her shoulders. No sense upsetting Eileen with what she thought. “You’re probably right,” she said. Abruptly, she changed the subject. “Look, Eileen.” She pointed to the Golden Gate. “Isn’t it glorious on a clear day?”
A Novena for Murder Page 3