by J. A. Jance
Once on Whidbey, I left the Clinton Ferry Dock behind and drove north, past the turnoff to Useless Bay Country Club and onto Double Bluff Road. Evidence of downed trees was everywhere. The entrance to Saint Benedict’s was barred with an imposing iron gate. Alongside were a keypad and an intercom.
When the invisible gatekeeper allowed me entrance, I was amazed. The convent grounds had been lovingly landscaped into something that rivaled Victoria’s famed Buchart Gardens. On this midwinter day, nothing was in bloom, but the snow was mostly gone, and the carefully tended beds were clean and empty and ready for planting. A coveralls-clad woman with a noisy leaf blower was herding the last few fallen leaves off the manicured and graveled pathways. She looked up and nodded as I drove past, but she didn’t stop what she was doing.
The convent’s several buildings, nestled in a slight hollow, looked old and European. Thick hay-bale walls were covered with whitewashed stucco. The roofs were covered with red clay tiles. The centerpiece of the place was a tiny chapel, no bigger than a two-car garage.
As I stopped beside what appeared to be the main building, the door to the chapel opened and Sister Mary Katherine stepped out. She was dressed in an old-fashioned flowing habit.
“I was saying prayers for Elvira Marchbank,” she said. “If you’ll come in and wait for a few minutes, I’ll change into civilian clothing for our drive into town.”
She led me into the main building and left me seated on a couch in front of a cheerfully crackling fire. The fire may have been cheerful, but I wasn’t. Not telling Sister Mary Katherine to stay away from Elvira Marchbank had been a serious error on my part. I hadn’t mentioned it because it hadn’t seemed necessary. It never occurred to me that Sister Mary Katherine would want to have anything to do with the woman who had helped murder her friend, Mimi. I understood that my refusing to give Paul Kramer information about the cold case I was working hadn’t caused Elvira’s death, but it was likely that she had been killed because I was working the Mimi Marchbank case.
One way or the other, that made what had happened my fault. But even with all that free-floating guilt, somehow the warmth of the fire got to me. I was dozing in front of it when Sister Mary Katherine opened a heavy wooden door and reentered the room. She was wearing the same skirt, blouse, and cardigan she had worn the first time I saw her. “Ready?” she said.
I nodded and stood.
“It’ll be a long time before the next ferry,” she announced. “We could just as well drive around.”
“How long will it take us to get to downtown Seattle from here?”
“Two hours or so. Maybe more, depending on traffic.”
I called Detective Jackson and gave him our ETA. Then, once we were in the Taurus, I waited until we had left the convent grounds before I lit into her. “What were you thinking?” I demanded. “Why on earth did you go see Elvira?”
Sister Mary Katherine seemed totally unperturbed by my question. “I didn’t do the right thing when I was a girl,” she returned. “I wanted to talk to Elvira about it. I wanted to know if she was sorry for what she’d done—and she was.”
I could just imagine how hearing that would go over with the Seattle PD detectives. “So you actually spoke to her about Mimi’s murder?”
“Yes, of course I did. I already told you that. I went up to the door and knocked. When she opened it and I told her who I was, she invited me in and we had tea.”
“How civilized. You sip tea and talk murder.”
“We sipped tea, and I prayed with her,” Sister Mary Katherine corrected. “I believe Elvira was glad to see me—glad to have a way to put what she and Albert had done behind her.”
This was not going to go over at all well with my fellow detectives. “When did you leave?” I asked.
“About three-thirty,” Sister Mary Katherine said, “but I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I may not be thinking that,” I grumbled back at her, “but other people will be. Like the Seattle homicide detectives working the case, for instance. I don’t know about the time of death, but if you were one of the last people to see her—”
“I’m not a detective,” she interrupted. “I’m a woman of God. Once I remembered what had happened, I admit, my first reaction—my very human reaction—was to want to see Elvira Marchbank punished for what she did. But after I left you at the Westin, I came to my senses. My real purpose in life is saving souls, not in seeing that the guilty go to prison. In the case of Elvira’s soul, I think I may have been of some help.”
“She confessed to you, then?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” Sister Mary Katherine responded. “I’m a nun, not a priest. She’s an Episcopalian, you know.”
“So she didn’t come right out and admit to you that she helped murder Madeline Marchbank, but she said she was sorry?”
“She didn’t have to say she did it. I know she did it,” Sister Mary Katherine said, verbally underscoring the word know. “I saw her do it, remember?”
We rode for some time in silence. I tended to believe that Sister Mary Katherine was telling the truth, that she had gone to Elvira’s house in hopes of saving the woman’s soul. I doubted my former colleagues in the homicide section of Seattle PD would see things in that same light.
“I’m sorry if what I did disappointed you,” she added finally. “We seem to be working at cross-purposes here. Tell me, who exactly are we meeting with once we get to town?”
“We’re meeting with four Seattle PD homicide detectives. Two of them are assigned to Elvira’s case. The other two are working Madeline’s.”
“They’ve reopened it?”
“Yes.”
Sister Mary Katherine sighed. “But Elvira’s dead. So that will finally be the end of it.”
“Probably,” I agreed. “For Madeline’s homicide, anyway. Closing a case with a dead defendant isn’t nearly as difficult as convicting a live one. Detectives don’t have to develop evidence that will hold up in court, and they don’t have to prove culpability ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ In Elvira’s case, however, it seems likely that you may have been one of the last people to see her alive. That means you may be considered a person of interest, if not a possible suspect. You probably shouldn’t go to this meeting without counsel.”
“I have counsel,” she said firmly.
“If you’re thinking of me as counsel, you need to know I don’t count. You should have an attorney present. Maybe your friend at the archbishop’s office could help.”
“Our Father in Heaven is my counsel,” Sister Mary Katherine declared. “He’s all I need.”
It would have been rude of me to mention the number of vehicles I’ve seen hauled away from accident scenes to wrecking yards while still proudly displaying their “God is my copilot” bumper stickers. So I kept my mouth shut and kept driving.
Heavy snowfall followed by two days of warm drenching rain had brought every river in western Washington above flood stage. As we drove east toward Mount Vernon, the fields on either side of the road were inundated with water, making it seem as if we were on a causeway rather than a highway. Living in the city, it’s easy to forget that out in the hinterlands people often have to resort to sandbags in order to wage hand-to-hand combat with Mother Nature.
Just north of Marysville, my cell phone rang. “We’ve got a problem,” Kendall Jackson told me. “Captain Kramer wants to see you ASAP.”
“Since Sister Mary Katherine and I are already on our way to meet with you, that should be easy to arrange.”
“Not as easy as you think,” Kendall responded. “It’s about Wink Winkler.”
“What about him?”
“He’s been reported missing. From his retirement home in West Seattle. According to the person who called it in, he left in a cab shortly after talking to you—left and never came back.”
I thought about the bulldog-faced woman at the nursing home to whom I had given my card. With that card and with Wink Winkl
er having at one time been the lead investigator in the Madeline Marchbank homicide, it hadn’t taken long for Kramer to connect the dots. I was connecting the same dots. If Winkler had disappeared after talking to me, then in some way I didn’t yet understand, I was probably responsible for that disappearance. No wonder Kramer was on the warpath.
“Tell him I’m on my way. I’ll see him when I get there.” I hung up the phone.
“Winkler,” Sister Mary Katherine mused. “Isn’t that the name of the detective on Mimi’s case?”
“That’s right. I talked to him yesterday afternoon, about the same time you were talking to Elvira. Now she’s dead, and he’s missing. The nursing home said he left in a cab shortly after I did.”
“A cab?” Sister Mary Katherine asked suddenly. “What kind of cab?”
“I don’t know. Detective Jackson didn’t say. Why?”
“There was a yellow cab parked right behind my van when I left Elvira Marchbank’s home. I noticed it because it was parked so close to my bumper that I had to work to get out of the parking place without hitting the cab or the car in front of me.”
I picked my phone back up and dialed Detective Jackson. “Check with Yellow Cab,” I told him. “Find out whether or not they’re the ones who picked Wink Winkler up. If they did, find out where and when they took him.”
“Will do,” Jackson said.
When I glanced back in Sister Mary Katherine’s direction, I found that my phone call had left her shaken. “What if he’s dead, too?” she asked.
Sister Mary Katherine had dealt with the news of Elvira’s death with far more equanimity than she showed at hearing that Wink Winkler had gone missing. Where Elvira was concerned, Sister Mary Katherine was operating with the firm conviction that the woman had gone to her death with her soul saved. If Wink was dead now, too, she couldn’t be so certain.
“He may have just wandered off,” I suggested, trying to make us both feel better.
“No,” Sister Mary Katherine insisted. “All of this is happening because of me—because I turned up after all these years and brought Mimi’s death back to the forefront.”
“That may be true,” I agreed. “But the real problem is that there are still people around here who, even after all this time, don’t want Mimi’s homicide solved.”
“But why?” Sister Mary Katherine asked.
“Once we know that,” I told her, “we may know everything.”
When we reached Seattle PD we had to go through the routine of collecting our visitor’s badges before we were met by Detective Jackson and escorted upstairs. I thought we’d be going into one of the interview rooms. Wrong. We were taken directly to Homicide and crammed, cheek by jowl, into Kramer’s new glass-lined office. In the old building, we’d have been inside the glass-lined Fish-bowl with everything done there coming under the scrutiny of the entire squad room. In his new office with glass walls opening on a window-lined corridor, only passing seagulls and pigeons had a bird’s eye view. Dealing with Paul Kramer in relative privacy didn’t make it any easier.
Kramer is one of those negative people who go through life spreading ill will and divisiveness in their wake. I had been hoping to establish a good working relationship with Detective Jackson and the other investigators assigned to the two Marchbank cases, but Kramer’s MO was to lop cooperation off at the knees. He’s also one of the enforcers of that old saw “No good deed goes unpunished.” Most homicide cops would have been happy to have a leg up in an investigation. Not Kramer. His opening question to me, asked without benefit of introductions, made his lack of gratitude perfectly clear.
“How is it you happen to know that Wink Winkler left Home Sweet Home yesterday afternoon in a yellow cab?” he demanded.
“I didn’t actually know anything of the kind,” I said. “I merely asked the question. Are you saying that checked out?”
I glanced at Detective Jackson. He nodded slightly in my direction but said nothing while Captain Kramer glowered at both of us.
“Yes, it did,” he answered. “According to Yellow Cab’s log, they dropped him off—”
“In front of the Marchbank Foundation,” Sister Mary Katherine interjected.
I shot her a look that was meant to say “Stifle,” but my warning came too late. It was as though everyone and everything in that seventh-floor room went into a state of suspended animation. No one spoke or moved except for the hands on the clock on the credenza behind Kramer’s desk.
“And who exactly are you?” Kramer demanded.
I answered first. “This is Sister Mary Katherine, mother superior of Saint Benedict’s Convent on Whidbey Island.”
“All right. Fine. Glad to make your acquaintance.” Then he turned back to me. “But what the hell is she doing here?”
“Excuse me, Captain Kramer, is it?” Sister Mary Katherine asked. “I’m perfectly capable of answering questions on my own without requiring Mr. Beaumont’s help. Years ago I was an eyewitness to Mimi Marchbank’s murder. It’s been suggested that you or someone like you might want to talk to me about it.”
Kramer’s eyes narrowed. His forehead bulged. “An eyewitness?” he asked. “To a homicide that happened more than half a century ago?”
“I was quite young at the time.”
“And where have you been since then? What kept you from coming forward until now?” Kramer asked.
I had Freddy Mac’s videotapes in my briefcase and was prepared to show them. I started to say as much, but Sister Mary Katherine silenced me with a wave of her hand.
“It was a brutal murder,” she said evenly. “Seeing it was traumatic enough that I repressed the memories completely. Only recently, with the help of a hypnotherapist, have I been able to bring them to the surface.”
Kramer looked shocked—like a little old lady who has suddenly encountered the unexpected use of the F-word in public. “A hypnotherapist?” he repeated, but he was looking at me. “You set up this meeting with four of my top homicide detectives—pulled them off the streets—to discuss the findings of a hypnotherapist!”
It was a statement, not a question. I simply nodded.
Kramer stood up. “I always knew you were a crackpot, Beaumont. If this is where your yellow cab information came from, it just about takes the cake. Good-bye. Get out of here, and don’t be wasting any more of my detectives’ and my valuable time.”
I was more than ready to take the man at his word. I stood up to go. Sister Mary Katherine didn’t budge.
“I understand Elvira Marchbank died yesterday,” the nun said. “I believe I was one of the last people to see her alive. I should think you would want your detectives to speak with me even if you’re too busy.”
“My dear lady,” Kramer said in his most condescending fashion, “you being a nun and all, you might not be aware of this, but whenever news of an unexpected death happens, there are always plenty of people who line up outside waiting to tell us what they know.” He used his fingers to create imaginary quotation marks around the word “know.” “If what you have to tell us is what some quack was able to dredge up while you were under his suggestive spell, I doubt it’s going to be of much help. Now, if you don’t mind, we have work to do.”
I had sidled over to the door. Now Sister Mary Katherine stood, but she leveled a reproving look at Captain Kramer through her wire-framed glasses. “There are people in this world, Mr. Kramer…” His use of the word “lady” may have deprived Sister Mary Katherine of her rightful title, but at least none of her subordinates had been in the room to hear it. Kramer wasn’t so lucky. His demotion from captain to mister fell on the ears of four of his top detectives. Sister Mary Katherine knew it, he knew it, and so did everyone else in the room. None of his rapt detectives cracked a smile. Neither did I.
“…people,” Sister Mary Katherine continued firmly, “who pray to God for help in their hour of need and then refuse to accept that help when it’s offered. If the answer doesn’t arrive in exactly the guise they expect, the
y assume no answer was given. I regret to say, Mr. Kramer, that you may very well be one of those unfortunate people. For a man in your position, that’s not only surprising, it’s also quite unfortunate. Good day to you, Mr. Kramer. And good luck. You’ll most likely need it.”
As we walked down the corridor, I glanced back at Kramer. His face was beet red. He looked ready to explode. I was glad I would be out of earshot when it happened. His quartet of detectives wouldn’t be that lucky.
“What a disagreeable man!” Sister Mary Katherine exclaimed as we walked unescorted toward the elevator. “Are all police captains that incredibly rude?”
I laughed. “Don’t judge everybody by Paul Kramer. He’s in a class by himself.”
We were handing in our visitor’s badges downstairs when my cell phone rang. It was Detective Jackson. “We’d still like to talk to you and Sister Mary Katherine, only not officially. If you happened to be going to lunch somewhere where we just might run into you…”
“I’m feeling a lot like a turkey sandwich,” I said.
In the world of Seattle PD the words “turkey sandwich” and a place called Bakeman’s on Cherry west of Second Avenue are synonymous. It was close enough to police headquarters to make the idea of “running into one another” a lot more believable. It was also right next door to the place where I’d parked my rented Taurus.
Bakeman’s is a deli—a joint that’s open for lunch and that’s it. Every weekday they roast nine turkeys, make thirty pounds of meat loaf, and bake eighty loaves of bread, and the food is good enough that it’s all gone by the time they close at three in the afternoon. Knowing the head cook’s propensity for yelling at indecisive customers, I handled the ordering.
Sister Mary Katherine and I split a huge turkey sandwich on fluffy white bread and waited for Detective Jackson and his cohorts to show up. We were done with our sandwiches and still waiting when Sister Mary Katherine reached into her purse and pulled out a small manila envelope, which she handed to me.
“I thought you might want to see these,” she said. “It’s what I saved from the box of mementos my foster mother kept for me all those years.”