by Rick Mofina
They all called.
Jason wasn’t sure about this one. Tango offered possibilities on why Sister Anne was murdered. A gang thing? Maybe. Or maybe he was trying to play him for information.
Or maybe Tango was the killer?
There was no way for Jason to know.
It’s why he had a habit of taping his calls. After the line went dead, he checked his microrecorder and replayed a bit. Good. He had it. He would follow up later. It might be useless. It might be gold. He returned to polishing his story. Once he finished, he e-mailed it to the Mirror ’s web staff, who worked 24/7 in Redmond, a few miles east of Seattle.
It would be posted online within minutes.
Then he sent the morning assignment editor an e-mail with contacts and suggestions for the day side staff to follow when they got in, a few hours from now.
Leaning back in his chair, he finished the last of his potato chips, downed his Coke, and considered Tango’s tip. The nun’s murder was payback for something she did. What could that be? He ran a quick check of the Mirror ’s databases but it didn’t yield much.
His body ached for sleep and he contemplated things as he started his Falcon and headed home. Ever since the Brian Pillar fiasco, he’d embarked on a selfassigned special project. He’d been randomly mining old stories as candidates for anniversary features. Missing persons, unidentified corpses, unsolved murders and robberies.
Some went back for decades.
He’d learned the value of revisiting old files-most cops welcomed attention to their coldest cases. It often resulted in a fresh lead, a good read, and a new source. He’d also learned that it was critical to check all details of a fast-breaking crime story for links to previous cases.
But as for tonight-nothing had come up when he searched the scant details he had on the nun’s murder. Other than a few urban-life features on the Sisters of the Compassionate Heart of Mercy and their work, there was nothing that would point to anything gang related. The shelter helped down-and-out types, people from the street, some with criminal records. Maybe the link was there, he thought, heading northbound on the Aurora Avenue Bridge.
He wasn’t sure.
He found a soft-jazz station and glanced at the lights of Gas Works Park as he drove over Lake Union. He liked to come to the bridge to watch the sailboats, or the ships navigating the Ballard Locks and the Lake Washington Ship Canal on their way to the Pacific.
He looked in his rearview mirror at the twinkling lights and the skyline and his thoughts went beyond the city’s beauty to a cold, hard truth he’d learned as a crime reporter. Death was his beat and for him metro Seattle was a burial ground. Cases like the Green River killer, Bundy, the mall shooter, the firefighter’s arson, the unsolved hooker killings, the deadly heists, and the baby abduction marked its history like headstones.
And now we have a nun, slain near Yesler Terrace.
It would never stop.
It was Jason’s job to understand it, write about it, to try to make sense of it while finding the nerve to ask a grieving mother, father, husband, wife, sister, brother, daughter, son, or friend for a picture of the victim.
“ All of Seattle shares your loss. ”
Contrary to what most people thought of reporters, he hated that part of the job. It took a toll on him, too. Keeping his emotional distance from a story never, ever got easier, no matter how many tragedies he’d covered. It was always a struggle to keep from numbing himself with a few beers, because a few beers would lead to a few more.
Which would lead to…
Forget it.
He was exhausted and hungry as he came to the edge of Fremont and Wallingford, where he lived in a huge nineteenth-century house that had been carved into apartments. His one-bedroom unit was on the third floor.
He’d moved here when he was still in college and wanted to be on his own-for a lot of reasons. The big one being that he’d needed to put some distance between himself, his old man, the brewery, and the crap that had permeated their lives.
Since moving in, he hadn’t changed the place at all. He had the same two secondhand leather sofas discarded by a dentist who was closing his office. They faced each other over the same low-standing coffee table, which was covered with newspapers. At the far end of his living room, a giant poster of Jimi Hendrix, his beloved god of rock, overlooked a thirty-gallon aquarium.
Jason was hungry and grabbed his last can of baked beans.
He loathed this, the loneliest time of his day. He put a spoonful of cold beans in his mouth to kill his self-pity and sat before his tank. It cast the room in a soft blue light. His tiny tropical fish gliding among the coral, the sunken ship, the diver, and bubbles soothed him as he chewed on his thoughts.
Had he been too hard on Grace? What was up with her, anyway? She seemed to want to call a truce. He wanted her to know that he was still pissed off at her. Still wounded.
And how long was he going to sulk?
She still drove him wild. He’d never met anyone like her and he couldn’t believe she’d ended it with him. He couldn’t get her out of his system. Maybe he should try to talk to her? God knows, he was going to need all the help he could get on this homicide.
After finishing his beans, he tossed the can, brushed his teeth, went to his bedroom, undressed, then fell into bed.
Tango.
And his line on payback for something Sister Anne did. What the hell was that? Could be something to it? He had to follow up on it, maybe even take it to Grace. Proceed with caution. Maybe that was the way to approach things with this story.
And with Grace.
He couldn’t sleep. He was thirsty from the beans and went to his fridge. It was empty but for a halfeaten can of ravioli and an unopened beer. The bottle stood there as a personal test to prove that he was stronger than the temptation.
He settled for a glass of water from the tap.
See, he was not like his old man.
His father.
Cripes, he’d forgotten about his old man, getting the bar to call him when all he was doing was sitting there. Alone, staring into his glass. And that nasty cut on his hand. “ Jay, you have to help me, son, I don’t know what to do here. ” Something had been eating his father, something that was going to push him off the wagon, something that compelled him to call for help.
Guilt pricked at Jason’s conscience and he glanced at the time. Why had he been called away just when his father needed him? He’d have to try him later. Man, he prayed it wasn’t too late, that his old man had been able to hang on.
Jason rubbed his hands over his face, took in a long breath, then slowly let it out before picking up the printouts of the old stories he’d retrieved on the nuns with the Compassionate Heart of Mercy. He found Sister Anne’s face in a group shot that accompanied one of the stories.
He stared at it.
She was smiling, but her eyes seemed to hold a measure of sadness.
Chapter Nine
J ason woke from a deep sleep and didn’t know why.
Then his phone rang again. He cursed and grabbed it.
“You up, Wade?”
“No, what time is it?”
Eldon Reep’s voice kick-started Jason’s brain and he braced for trouble.
“Did we have the murdered nun’s name last night, Wade?”
“It was never confirmed when I filed for our web edition-besides they usually wait to notify family.”
“Her name is Sister Florence Roy, according to everybody but the Mirror. ”
“Florence Roy?”
“That’s right, twenty-nine years old. Arrived at the order from Quebec. Our competition’s got her damn picture online already. We’ve got squat. We look stupid. I don’t like looking stupid, Wade.”
“Listen, that name can’t be right. Who confirmed it?”
“Did you even go to the scene?”
“Yes, I went to the scene. Who confirmed her name last night?”
“Neighbors, friends. Apparent
ly, people all over this city.”
“What about the Seattle PD or the ME? They complete an autopsy?”
“Get your ass in here, now.”
“I’m on nights, I’ve hardly slept.”
“Get in here now.”
Tension knotted Jason’s stomach as he showered. After shaving, he tried reaching Grace Garner for confirmation of the name. No luck. Dressing, he fired up his laptop, scanning Web sites of Seattle news outlets, where he met the face of Sister Florence Roy and a wave of self-doubt.
How could he have been so far off the mark?
While driving to the Mirror, Jason ate two apples for breakfast. As he listened to Led Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain,” he reflected on his competition’s stories, finding some comfort in the fact nobody- nobody so far -had the angle that the homicide may be linked directly to something in the nun’s past.
Whoever she was. Sister Florence. Sister Anne. Was his angle dead now?
Where would he take the story from here? He had to get a handle on it. But how? As he searched Seattle’s skyline for answers, he remembered something important.
His old man.
Jason seized his cell phone, called his father but got his machine.
“It’s me, I’m sorry, I’m jammed up with the story on the nun’s murder. I want to talk about what’s troubling you. Hang in there, okay?”
The metro editor’s office was empty when Jason got to the newsroom, so he headed straight to his own desk and began working the phones, relieved when he connected with a trusted sergeant he knew.
“Man, I need help,” Jason said, “Is Florence Roy the victim?”
“No. And this bull that’s getting around about it is causing us grief. Good thing you held off, Wade, or you’d be off my Christmas card list.”
“Great, I’m thrilled, can you tell me-wait, hold on, that’s my cell. Got to take it.”
Answering the call, Jason saw Eldon Reep far across the newsroom, emerging from a news meeting an unhappy man.
“Jason it’s Grace returning your calls-all six of them.”
“Thanks, I’ve got a lot of questions.”
“You’ve got about thirty seconds.”
“Who’s Florence Roy?”
Grace took a moment to decide on the shape of the conversation, knowing that Jason often received information that could help, or hurt, an investigation. It was a delicate dance. “I’m off the record, got it,” she said.
“Anything I use, I’ll put to ‘sources.’”
“Fine.”
“Who’s Florence?”
“She’s the nun who found the victim. Some loudmouth TV reporter had called into the town house, got Florence’s name from a distraught nun, got confused-got the story wrong-and now we have this mess. We’re going to issue a statement clarifying things after the preliminary autopsy’s done and ID’s confirmed.”
“When?”
“Should be later today.”
“So is it Anne Braxton?”
“Don’t publish Sister Braxton’s name yet, Jason, until we put it out. But yes, you’ve got it right. The victim is Anne Louise Braxton.”
“Have you notified her family yet? I’m going to start talking to people about her.”
“We’re sorting that out today with the sisters. Go ahead, but stay low-key.”
“What was the last thing Sister Anne did before arriving at her apartment last night?”
“She’d worked at the shelter overseeing meals for street people. We’re canvassing there and the driver of her bus route. You could put out that we’re looking for people who took that bus. I’ll text you the route and time.”
Jason saw Reep standing at the doorway to his office.
“Wade! Get in my office, now!”
Jason held up his hand, indicating that he was nearly done on the phone.
“Grace, do you have any suspects?”
“I’ve got to go, Jason.”
“Me, too, but you do have a weapon-a knife, right?”
“I can’t talk about those things. I’m getting another call.”
“What about a link to her past? I’ve heard this is tied to something in her past. Maybe even gang related, something about payback?”
“We’re hearing a lot of rumors. It’s too soon to rule anything in or out. Sorry, I have to go.”
When the call ended, Jason buried his face in his hands, thinking that at least he had something to build on. Then his office line rang.
“You’ve got five seconds to haul your ass in here!” Reep said.
One wall in Eldon Reep’s office was a theme park of “damn-I’m-good” displays of framed photographs and front pages. Jason stood before Reep’s desk. Reep glared at him, then held a quarter-inch of air between his right thumb and forefinger before his eyes.
“I’m this close to suspending you, Wade.”
“For what?”
“I understand you were in a bar last night when the nun murder broke.”
“My father is a recovering alcoholic. He was struggling with a personal issue, and called for me from a bar, which was a family emergency. I was at the murder scene, on top of the Yesler story from the get-go.”
“You can prove it?”
“It’s all in my overnight note I’d sent to you. Did you read it?”
“If you were on the story, why did you miss the name?”
“I didn’t. The victim is Sister Anne Braxton. Not Sister Florence Roy. Florence is the nun who found her. Why are you so quick to crap on the work of your own staff?”
“You listen to me, Wade. Our penetration in the metro market is eroding. If we keep losing circulation we’ll have to cut staff. This is about our survival. It’s crucial for us to be first.”
“First to get it wrong? What kind of award do you win for that?”
Reep ignored Wade’s last salvo, rolling up his sleeves, consulting his notes from the meeting.
“This is how we’re hitting the story. Jenkins will do a metro column on good and evil in the city-innocence lost kinda crap. Anita Chavez is trying to pull information on the nun from the Mother House.”
Jason took notes as Reep continued.
“Chad Osterman is on his way over to the Archdiocese. And Mirabella Talli will give us a feature on the history of nuns, the order, and its works. Wade, you will work on the investigation and profile the victim. And you damn well better give me exclusive breaking news that ensures that the Mirror owns this story. This is your chance to redeem yourself.”
“Redeem myself for what?”
“The fiasco with Pillar.”
“I resent this.”
“Cassie Appleton has asked me to put her on the story. I’m assigning you to work with her.”
“What! No thanks. I work alone.”
“You work with her, or you don’t work at the Mirror. ”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Cassie’s had a rough time since Pillar. She needs to regain her confidence as a reporter in this city and build some street cred at this paper.”
“You’re making a big mistake.”
Jason walked out of Reep’s office, grabbed his jacket, and left the newsroom to pursue the story. As he stepped into the elevator, the red message light on his office phone began flashing.
Chapter Ten
L ess than twenty-four hours after Sister Anne had offered hope to those who had lost it, her naked corpse lay under a sheet on a stainless tray.
Her spiritual journey had carried her to the white cinder-block walls of the autopsy room of the King County Medical Examiner’s Office, in the Harborview Medical Center, downtown near the bay.
Her life had been reduced to this summary: Anne Louise Braxton, Caucasian female, age 49 years, weight 131 pounds, height five feet six inches. Cause of death – hemorrhaging attributed to a fatal, deep force incise wound transecting the internal jugular and carotid arteries, consistent with a sharp, or serrated blade, of four to six inches in length. Decedent’s i
dentity confirmed through dental records and direct visual identification.
In a small office beyond the autopsy room, Detective Garner watched Sister Vivian Lansing as she paused from reading the documents the medical examiner’s staff had set before her and removed her glasses. Earlier that day she’d arrived from Chicago and was a bit jet-lagged. The sixty-year-old nun, who was a senior council member of the Compassionate Heart of Mercy, gently clasped the bridge of her nose.
“I need a moment,” she said.
During the drive to the center, Sister Vivian had told Grace that she had known Anne Braxton since the younger nun had entered the order, some twenty-five years ago. That fact had stirred a whirlwind of emotions and memories of working alongside her in Ethiopia, Senegal, Haiti, the South Bronx, and Cabrini Green.
“You know what she told me, detective? She said that we face risks to deliver love, it’s what God has in the cards for us.”
While serving together, the two nuns had confronted more horror than most people would face in a thousand lifetimes.
Watching her now, Grace knew that nothing had prepared Sister Vivian for seeing her friend on that table, in that cold antiseptic room, with her throat slashed. Sister Vivian was struggling to reconcile her memories with the face she’d identified only moments ago.
Under the hum of florescent lights, Grace, Perelli, and Sister Ruth Hurley, a resident in the town house where Sister Ann was murdered, watched patiently as Sister Vivian composed herself before replacing her glasses and returning to the documents.
As she poised her fountain pen over the signature line, Grace noticed Sister Vivian’s hand quiver before the pen scratched across the paper, followed by the snap of a page, then another signature before the ME staffer gathered the papers into a white legal-sized folder.
“Thank you, Sister,” said the staffer wearing a lab coat. “Please accept our condolences. We’ll contact you about releasing her to you through the funeral home. It should be later today.”
“And her personal items?” Sister Ruth said. “Her clothes and her things?”