by Kara Lennox
If nothing else, Theresa’s gaunt face, hollow eyes and labored breathing reminded Claudia how very lucky she’d been to escape her assault with only minor scrapes and scratches.
“Theresa? Hello, my name is Claudia,” she began. “I know you’re probably not feeling up for a conversation, but if you can understand me, would you squeeze my hand?”
At first there was no response, and Claudia feared the patient had dropped back to sleep. But after a few seconds she felt a squeeze to her hand, very weak but definite.
“Good, good,” Claudia said soothingly. Then, for the benefit of the recording she was making of the conversation, “Thank you for squeezing my hand. Do you mind if I record our conversation? Squeeze my hand if it’s okay to record.”
Theresa squeezed.
“Thank you. That was another squeeze.” Claudia pulled her tiny digital recorder—which was already turned on—out of her pocket and placed it on the tray table next to the bed. It was very sensitive and would pick up everything, even a whisper, if the whir and hum of the medical equipment didn’t drown out the sounds they wanted to record. “You’re in the hospital. You’re injured, but you’re getting better and the doctors think you’ll make a full recovery.” Claudia didn’t know if this was true, but she figured giving the patient positive expectations couldn’t hurt. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Again, a barely discernible tightening of Theresa’s hand.
“That was another yes. Good. Some men came into your home and attacked you. Do you remember that night?”
Another squeeze.
“Again, yes. I’m working with the police to try to catch the men who hurt you. Did you know them? Just squeeze my hand if you knew the men who hurt you.”
Theresa’s eyes opened briefly, reflecting naked fear. Maybe the woman was recalling emotions from the night she was attacked. Or maybe she was afraid to name her assailant.
Claudia soldiered on with the interview. She’d been hoping for a miracle, that Theresa would open her eyes and clearly speak the names of the men who tried to kill her.
No such luck.
“Okay. No squeeze that time. Very good, Theresa. You’re doing great. Were the men looking for something?”
No hesitation this time; Theresa squeezed Claudia’s hand hard. She seemed to be gaining strength. Maybe she felt encouraged that the police were working to solve the crime that had been perpetrated upon her.
“Another yes,” Claudia said.
This was where it got tricky. Claudia couldn’t simply ask, “Were they looking for coins?” Because Theresa might very well be answering yes to most of the questions just for the novelty of being able to communicate, or because she wanted to please Claudia. Claudia’s patients tended to want to make her happy.
“Can you tell me what they were looking for?”
This time, Theresa didn’t squeeze Claudia’s hand. Instead, the muscles of her face tensed and she worked her mouth, as if trying to persuade it to function properly.
Claudia stood and leaned over the bed, placing her ear close to Theresa’s mouth. She brought the recorder close to Theresa’s mouth, as well. “You don’t have to speak very loudly,” Claudia said. “Or very clearly. Just try.”
Theresa made a noise like a snake. Sssss. It was a start.
“Can you try again?” Claudia asked. “I got the sssss part.
Next, Theresa whispered something that sounded like liver.
Sssss plus liver.
“Silver?”
“Mmm.” Theresa squeezed Claudia’s hand.
Claudia felt disappointed. Maybe the home invasion wasn’t connected to Eduardo’s disappearance after all.
“Yes to the word silver. Good. Did they take the silver?”
“No.” That was the first clear word Theresa had spoken. “Dint have…dint know.”
Every word was a supreme effort, but Claudia got the gist of what the woman was saying. “So you didn’t have any silver to give them, and they got mad and hurt you?”
No hand squeeze. And Theresa was becoming agitated. Her heart rate went up slightly; the steady blip-blip-blip of her monitor had accelerated.
“Theresa, please relax. Whatever it is you need to tell me, I’ll keep coming back until I understand, okay?”
That seemed to reassure her. “Silver,” Theresa said, getting the word right this time. “Gold. Money.”
Silver, gold, money. Claudia inhaled sharply. Could be coins. But it also could be the standard stuff burglars stole.
Finally, Theresa said something unambiguous. “Eddy.”
Now it was Claudia whose heart rate accelerated. “Do you mean Eduardo, your brother-in-law?”
Theresa’s hand trembled.
“What about Eddy? You don’t have to be afraid. He can’t hurt you here.”
“Fantasma.” Her eyes opened wide. “Espíritu. Muerto.”
Claudia hesitated to ask for a translation. She had the words on her digital recorder; she sort of knew what they meant, but Billy would be able to translate for sure, and her time was running short.
“It’s okay, Theresa. You don’t have to be afraid. You’re safe here.” She hoped so, anyway. “I just have one more question. Before your sister, Mary-Francis, was arrested, did she give you anything? Something to keep safe?”
Theresa thought for a moment, then squeezed Claudia’s hand so hard the bones were in danger of cracking. Theresa opened her eyes again and opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“What was it, Theresa? What did your sister give you?”
“Tesoro español. Ocultado en la estatua.”
That was when the nurse came in. “You’ll have to leave now. You shouldn’t have gotten her all riled up.”
“I’m sorry,” Claudia said. “I didn’t mean to. But she had something important to tell me.”
“Her? She’s talking?” The nurse sounded skeptical. Maybe she hadn’t gotten the memo that Theresa was awake.
“In two languages.” Claudia collected her recorder. “I think I understand, Theresa. I’ll be back, and we’ll talk some more, okay?” She thought Theresa might have smiled, but it was hard to tell.
Both Billy and Hudson jumped to their feet when Claudia returned to the waiting room.
“Did you get anything?” Billy asked.
“Did she talk?” Hudson asked at the same time.
“She did. But some of what she said was in Spanish, which I don’t speak very well, especially when it’s slurred.”
“I’ll figure it out,” Billy said.
Since they were the only ones in the waiting room, they all listened to the short recording Claudia had made. She set it on a table, and the three of them leaned their heads in to hear every word.
“Holy crap,” Hudson said under his breath when Theresa mentioned Eddy.
“Wait, it gets better.”
Billy listened, nodding, then quickly translated. “She said ‘Ghost.’ Then, ‘spirit’ and ‘dead.’” He paused, then laughed and turned to hug Claudia. “You did it. Cielito, you did it!”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Spanish treasure hidden in statue.’ You were right all along. Mary-Francis hid the coins in the statue, and someone stole it.”
“More important,” Hudson said, “she identified Eduardo. She might have thought he was a ghost, but she recognized him as one of the men who attacked her.”
“And he was looking for the coins,” Billy said. “When Angie turned the Torres house upside down and couldn’t find them, he must have figured out that Mary-Francis gave them to her sister for safekeeping.”
“Theresa knew where they were,” Claudia murmured. “But she didn’t tell. Even when they beat her nearly to death. That is one brave woman. Unfortunately, so long as those coins are still out there somewhere, she’ll be in danger.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“SO IS THE CASE CLOSED?” Claudia asked as they headed back to Billy’s truck. “I mean, once Fitz is ba
ck from his cruise, Theresa should be strong enough to tell him herself… Ah, hell.”
Billy was shaking his head. It was the same old problem. Theresa presumably would say anything to free her sister; her statement about seeing Eduardo’s ghost wouldn’t convince Fitz of anything.
“Father Benito,” she reminded him.
“Claudia, you don’t really want to browbeat a priest, do you?”
“I just want to talk to him.”
“Even if he knows something about these coins, it’s not going to help free Mary-Francis,” Billy reasoned.
“Yes, it could,” she argued. “Eduardo obviously wants the coins—badly. We find them, maybe we find Eduardo. Boom. Mary-Francis goes free.”
“Sure, and maybe we dig one of those pits with the pointy sticks at the bottom, cover it with grass and lure Eduardo into it.”
“I think you’re making fun of me.”
“It’s just that my job is to prove innocence, not catch crooks, not solve crimes, though sometimes solving a murder is a side effect of what we do.”
They had reached the truck, but Claudia didn’t get in. She leaned back against the door, folded her arms and met Billy’s brown-eyed stare, her own gaze steady, unwavering. “I’ll go by myself if I have to.”
He maintained eye contact a few more heartbeats, testing her resolve, perhaps. Finally he looked away. “If we go see the priest, will you lay low afterward? Hang out in my apartment so I can get some work done without worrying about you?”
Though his bossiness rankled her, she knew she wasn’t going to get a better offer. “Deal.” She let Billy help her into the truck.
Billy seemed to relax slightly as he got behind the wheel. “I guess going to church isn’t such a bad idea. This case could use a little divine intervention. Maybe while we’re there, we can light a candle and pray to the patron saint of DNA that we get a hit.”
“Is there a patron saint of DNA?”
Billy laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Only a little. According to the Catholic girls I went to school with in seventh grade, there’s a patron saint of almost everything.”
“Well, we have the patron saint of scientists, Saint Albert the Great. That’s about as close to DNA as I can get. Then there’s Father Raymond Nonnatus, patron saint of those falsely accused.”
“We should take all the help we can get.”
* * *
THE CHURCH OF OUR LADY of Perpetual Hope was a small, squat redbrick structure in a downtrodden section of downtown Houston. It was the third-oldest continually operating church in the city, dating back almost a century.
“I never even knew this place was here,” Claudia commented as she approached Billy, who fed quarters into a meter.
“My fourth-grade class went on a field trip here,” Billy said. “I hadn’t thought about it for a long time.” Now, though, the images of elderly Sister Ruth, shuffling lines of uniformed kids around the Stations of the Cross, flitted through his mind.
Claudia had been champing at the bit to take a crack at Father Benito, but now that they were here, she lingered on the sidewalk, gazing at the humble church. Only a few of its original stained glass windows remained, covered now with burglar bars and a protective layer of yellowing Plexiglas. The roof was missing a few shingles, and a rain gutter was hanging off the roof edge, ready to crash to the ground any second. A couple of lush pecan trees offered shade from the brutal south Texas summer sun, but that was the only thing that resembled landscaping.
“How do you think we should approach him?” Claudia asked.
Billy shrugged. “This was your idea, remember?”
“Are you really uncomfortable questioning a priest?”
“Twelve years of Catholic school can’t just be swept aside.”
“So your Catholic school experience was good? You liked the priests and the nuns?”
“Sure. If not for a couple of priests who were constantly on my case—and one old nun with a ruler who makes Celeste look like a Girl Scout—no telling where I’d have ended up. Illiterate and in jail, probably.” He started to launch into what he thought was a funny story, then paused when he saw the frown on Claudia’s face. “I’m guessing you had a not-so-nice Catholic school experience.”
“I was told repeatedly that I was going to hell because not only was I not baptized, I didn’t go to any church. Once during recess, Judy McGill got her friends to hold me down while she baptized me. But I never felt that I was quite saved.”
Billy struggled not to grin. The way she told it, it was kind of funny, but he suspected at the time it had been terrifying.
“Not all Catholics are like that.”
“I know. I can’t picture you forcing baptism on anyone.”
“No, I was more the type to steal communion wine and try to get drunk. Which was impossible because it was just grape juice.”
“I was going to ask if you’d put in a good word for me when you die, but it sounds like you’ll be busy trying to get your own sorry self through the pearly gates.”
Billy didn’t laugh. His sins weighed heavy on his conscience. An image of Sheila’s face, grinning and full of life, slammed into his mind, followed by how she looked thirty seconds after she’d been shot through the heart.
“I didn’t mean that,” Claudia said quickly. “I don’t mean to make light of your faith. I’m sure you’ll be a shoo-in.”
“Doubtful.” He adjusted his Stetson and headed for the church’s faded wooden doors.
Inside the church it was surprisingly cool and hushed. Though Billy couldn’t detect the whir of an air conditioner, the thick brick walls and the shade trees shielded the building from the worst of the heat.
The church was better maintained inside than out. The tile floor, though chipped and cracked in places, was immaculate and the battered wooden pews bore the sheen of recent waxing. The scent of candles, incense and old hymn books assailed him, and immediately he was awash with memories of other churches, other times.
On the tidal wave of nostalgia, he walked over to a bank of candles, put a couple of folded bills through the slot of a locked brass box and lit a candle for Sheila.
He used to do it once a week, but as his churchgoing had slacked off, so had this ritual. He knelt on a worn velvet kneeler nearby and said a quick prayer for his old partner—his lover—but he imagined she was already in that joyful place good people ended up.
After a few moments, he realized Claudia was watching him intently—not in the respectful way that most people he knew observed Catholic rituals they weren’t familiar with, but like a scientist observing a subject.
She was still trying to decipher him, pull every last secret from his soul, and he chafed at her intrusion.
They were alone in the nave of the church, but Billy figured there was someone here or the building wouldn’t be open. In this part of town, an open, unattended door was an invitation for anything not nailed down to disappear.
Or worse.
Just as Billy was wondering where someone in charge might be lurking, Father Benito himself strolled into the nave, easily recognizable from the video. He wore the traditional cleric’s clothing of black pants, black shirt and white-tabbed collar. A brass ring with several keys dangled from his belt.
“Hello,” he said with a pleasant smile. “I’m Father Benito, and welcome to Our Lady of Perpetual Hope. Would you like to take a tour? It doesn’t take long.” He had a slight Spanish accent, but it sounded as if many years in the States had blunted it.
Billy strode toward the priest with his hand outstretched. “Hi, Father, I’m Billy Cantu. This is my associate, Claudia Ellison. I’d love to learn more about the church.”
The priest assessed them shrewdly. “But you’re not tourists.”
His reading of nonverbal hints must have impressed Claudia, because her eyebrows shot up.
“That’s true,” she said. “We want to talk to you about one of your parishioners, Mary-Francis Torres.�
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Father Benito’s face immediately clouded up. “Ah, Mary-Francis. That is a very sad case. She’s actually not my parishioner. This little church doesn’t have a regular congregation anymore. They all go to the bigger, newer churches now. The diocese maintains the church mostly for its historical significance, though I still say an occasional Mass here and administer other sacraments. Weddings are popular.”
“But you’re a friend of the Torres family,” Claudia said. “You presided over the memorial service for Eduardo Torres.”
“I’ve known the family for many, many years. In fact, Mary-Francis and her sister came from the same small village in Mexico as I did, Rio Verde.”
The door opened and an elderly nun wearing a traditional black habit hobbled in, leaning heavily on a cane. Father Benito nodded to her, and she nodded back, then worked her way to a front pew and levered herself to her knees to pray.
“Sister Marguerite,” he whispered. “She comes here every day to pray but never says much.” He resumed speaking in a normal tone. “Perhaps you’d like to go into the vestry? It’s quiet there, and more private.”
Billy would actually have preferred to conduct their interview right in the church. Surely a priest would have a hard time lying in a place so filled with the presence of God. But Claudia had already agreed to the change of location, and soon they were all three squeezing into the small room that housed priestly vestments and other liturgical objects, as well as a small desk and an old-fashioned computer shoved against one wall. Father Benito invited them to sit at a tiny table in the center of the room, with two chairs. He dragged in a third chair from another room for himself.
“Can I offer you some cold water? I’m afraid that’s all I have in the way of drinks.”
“No, thanks,” Billy said. “We just have a few questions, and we’ll get out of your hair.”
“Are you two with the police?” He didn’t seem upset at the idea, just wanting to know.
“I’m Mary-Francis’s counselor,” Claudia said smoothly. “We’re looking into some matters at the behest of Mary-Francis herself. There are many things she would like to set right before her execution date comes around.”
Father Benito bowed his head. “Yes, of course.”