Perfect Grave jw-3

by Rick Mofina

  “Perhaps later, but not at this time. And you will tell no one, absolutely no one, about this book. Is that understood?”

  “But why?”

  “This is a very private journal and I’ll need time to study it more carefully before we decide on how to proceed. Is that understood?”

  Denise said nothing, watching Vivian slide Anne’s journal into her valise among the files she was taking with her to the shelter.

  “Is that clear, Sister Denise?”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “HE’S THE ONE.”

  On the Trail of Sister Anne’s Killer: M IRROR Exclusive

  T he headline above Jason Wade’s byline stretched six columns across the Mirror ’s front page above the fold. After reading his article for the third time, Grace Garner jabbed Jason’s number on her cell.

  “Grace,” Perelli cautioned her as he drove their unmarked Malibu toward the shelter for Sister Anne’s funeral. “Let it go.”

  She waved him off as Jason’s line was answered.

  “Jason Wade, Seattle Mirror. ”

  “Nice story.”

  “Grace?”

  “Is it bull, or is Cooper’s information solid?”

  “Judge for yourself. It’s all there in the paper.”

  “We want to find him so we can chat.”

  “Why? Have you got something on the guy he’s talking about? Why call me?”

  “Seems Cooper wanders a bit. Thought you might point me in the right direction. Save me time.”

  “Will you give me a jump if something breaks?”

  “Like you did for me on your story today?”

  “Hey, I don’t work for you. Everything I know about Cooper’s brush with the mystery man is in my story.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “I don’t believe this.” She searched the traffic for the right words. “It would’ve been nice if you’d told me this was coming out today, Jason.”

  “And it would’ve been nice if you’d returned my calls,” he said. “But, as usual, Grace, you didn’t.”

  “So this is how it’s going to be?”

  “This is how it is.”

  She hung up, shaking her head. He was still hurt. That’s what this was all about. Maybe she was wrong to have ever started up with him. Well, that’s his problem, not hers, she ruminated until Perelli interrupted her.

  “I don’t know why you called him. He’s always in our face for help but it’s never quid pro quo with him. It’s a one-way street.”

  She stared at the buildings rolling by.

  Maybe she was wrong to end it with him.

  “Focus, Grace,” Perelli said. “You don’t need Wade. We’ve got people looking for Cooper in the International District. We’ve got word out on the street. It’s just a matter of time before we find him. Focus on what you’ve got because it’s good.”

  Perelli was right. Piece by piece she was building her case. As he wheeled into Pioneer Square, Grace reviewed the pictures on her camera phone. First, the knife. The murder weapon. It came from the shelter. Then a foot impression that was consistent with the type of sneaker issued only by the Washington Department of Corrections.

  The Seattle PD was set up at the memorial service. The undercover surveillance unit was in the white panel van parked near the shelter entrance, secretly videotaping every person filing into the shelter for Sister Anne’s funeral. Maybe, just maybe, they would find someone wearing state-issued shoes.

  And maybe they would find the killer attached to them.

  Inside the shelter, Sister Anne’s garlanded pine casket rested at one end of the dining room. An enlarged photograph of her laughing among the day care’s children was raised on a tripod next to it. Nearby, one of the plastic-covered bingo tables had been draped with a white sheet to serve as a makeshift altar. It stood before several hundred mourners in hard-back chairs that had been neatly arranged into pewlike rows.

  Dignitaries representing the state, the county, the city, the Vatican, and the Archdiocese were not afforded any special seating. Conscious of the news cameras and reporters at the back, they did their best to look at ease among the homeless, the poor, and their children-the people Sister Anne helped and loved. The children were hushed during the service.

  Father Jeb Mercer, a retired priest and old friend of Sister Vivian’s, had flown in from the east that morning, arriving just in time to celebrate the funeral mass. Between hymns and psalms, a stream of officials delivered eulogies from the podium near her casket.

  In a prepared tribute read by a local senator, the governor called Sister Anne, “An angel of mercy who eased pain.” Then the mayor said she was, “the Saint of Seattle,” and promised that the council would name a park in her honor.

  The cardinal compared her compassion and devotion to that of Jesus Christ, then read condolences from the Vatican. “She inspired us because her love was blind to race, blind to social standing, blind to human failings. She restored dignity and worth to their rightful owners. She was Heaven’s grace.”

  Then Krissie, a nine-year-old girl from the shelter’s day care, went to the podium alone. She looked at her young, single mom, who nodded tearfully as Krissie unfolded a crisp sheet of paper and read, “You made us feel important, like we counted. My mom said you saved us. We love you and we will miss you. God bless you.”

  Finally, Sister Vivian spoke on behalf of the other nuns.

  “She is the light in the darkness and we will carry on with her mission but with broken hearts, for Anne was our sister, our friend, and we loved her.”

  But she was not perfect.

  Not a mention of her own failings, her shortcomings, and the self-doubt she battled with on the pages of her journal, Sister Denise thought as she listened to Vivian. Why not mention that Anne Braxton was also very human like the people she helped every day?

  Denise didn’t understand.

  She didn’t understand why Vivian was so determined to protect Anne’s cryptic past. Why not let everyone hear Anne’s own words at her funeral? Denise didn’t understand anything anymore and pressed a tissue to her eyes.

  Some sixteen rows back from Sister Anne’s casket, Rhonda Boland squeezed Brady’s hand. She prayed for him, and for Sister Anne, a woman she never knew but would have liked to have known. Sister Anne would’ve been a good person to turn to-a person she could have gone to for comfort, now, in her most desperate time.

  She was the “light in the darkness.”

  Rhonda glanced at Brady, reading his prayer book. She was puzzled by whatever mysterious cosmic forces gave rise to his desire to be here. She took some comfort in the fact they’d come. She needed help, even if it was spiritual assurance, because Brady was just a little boy who’d known death too well. His father and now Sister Anne. Maybe God was preparing Brady for the worst.

  Maybe God was preparing her?

  Between speakers, Rhonda looked around at the mourners jammed into the room. Nearly all were street people. She met the eyes of one man who seemed to be fixated on her and Brady. Rhonda shrugged it off and looked away.

  Several moments later, all heads turned to a commotion. It was coming from the entrance, which was jammed with a line of mourners that spilled out into the street.

  Grace Garner stood at the back of the crowded room estimating the number of news people among the cameras along the side. She spotted Jason Wade but didn’t make eye contact. Focus, she told herself, while through her earpiece she received updates from the surveillance unit and the plainclothes detectives who were posted everywhere.

  “Absolutely no sign of anyone wearing the DOC sneakers, Grace.”

  “Thanks.”

  For most of the service, John Cooper sat quietly on a hard-back chair in a far corner of the room with his face buried in his hands. Leona Kraver, a retired music teacher and shelter volunteer, who’d read the Seattle Mirror that morning, had recognized Cooper.
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  Leona indicated where he was sitting to the two detectives who’d asked for her help prior to the service. The two big men locked on to Cooper and began making their way to him.

  “Grace, this is Foley. We’ve got an ID on our subject. At the back near the door.”

  In a short time, the two detectives and two uniformed officers managed to get John Cooper outside, where they shoved him against the wall, patted him down, handcuffed him, and placed him in the back of an unmarked car.

  It roared off with news crews rushing from the shelter to the street straining to get footage, or a frame, comparing success with each other.

  Some grinned, some cursed.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Did you get that?”

  Jason Wade made it outside in time to see Grace Garner and Perelli get into their car. He rushed to Grace’s door and tapped her window.

  “What’s going on?”

  Grace shook her head. She gave Jason nothing as their Malibu squealed away, leaving in its wake a stained page of the Mirror to swirl at Jason’s feet.

  Cassie Appleton emerged, walking toward Jason as she scrawled in her notebook.

  “I think they just arrested somebody, Jason. Did you see who it was?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  S ister Anne’s final journey took her an hour north of Seattle, then east into the breathtaking countryside of Snohomish County.

  The hearse and two other vehicles of her small funeral procession moved beyond the farmland and fruit orchards to a cemetery at the base of a steep hillside. It was sheltered by forests of fir and cedar, bordered by thick vines and berry bushes.

  She would love it here, Sister Denise thought, as the procession slowed and turned from the old highway onto the soft earthen pathway cutting into the graveyard that was first used by missionaries in the late 1800s.

  Father Mercer and Sister Vivian rode in the lead car, followed by the hearse and the Order’s big van. Sister Ruth drove the van.

  None of the sisters in the van talked much. During the drive, most retreated into their thoughts. Sister Florence and Sister Paula whispered hymns while Denise confronted her problem: Sister Anne’s secret journal.

  Part of her yearned to tell the others about it so they could remember Anne as a totally human and flawed woman.

  Denise also wanted their support to press Vivian to share her discovery with the detectives. The police might find useful information in Anne’s poetic self-deprecation. Admittedly, there weren’t many details, but maybe the detectives would find value in the dates, or some other aspect that would lead them to her killer. Anything can be the break that solves a case, her father the police officer used to tell her.

  Anything.

  Should she disobey Vivian and tell Detective Garner?

  Tell someone?

  Lord, what should I do?

  The procession eased to a gentle stop near the open grave, next to the mound of rich, dark Washington earth. A lonely lark flitted by and sparrows sang from the trees. The funeral director and his assistants guided and helped the nuns carry and position Anne’s casket.

  In all, about a dozen people were gathered for the burial. It was private. No news cameras were permitted. Afterward, the nuns would oversee a reception at the shelter.

  Sister Vivian took Father Mercer’s arm and helped him from the car. He was well over six feet, but bent by age, with wispy white hair and a phlegmatic face creased by time. The nuns did not know him. He was an old friend of Sister Vivian’s, a retired Jesuit who’d flown in from New England to take care of the funeral mass.

  Vivian walked him to the casket, where he produced a worn leather-bound Bible, containing cards with rituals written in his hand.

  He began by inviting the mourners to reconcile their souls by reflecting in silence. Then he spoke of God’s love, the sacrifice of His only son, the mystery of death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

  For Scripture, he read from Isaiah 61:1-3.

  “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord; and a day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.”

  Denise didn’t really understand that choice. She wondered about it after Mercer ended with the Lord’s Prayer. Then each of the nuns kissed the casket and placed a rose on it.

  Like the others, Denise also faced the fact that Anne had no husband to mourn her, no children or grandchildren to carry on. This was the reality of a religious life. It was a meaningful life. A good life. But at times it could be overwhelming. All of the sisters accepted it. Self-sacrifice was the burden of a life devoted to God and others.

  Still, each sister had a relative, some piece of a family to miss them. But beyond the Order, Anne had no one. And none of them really knew her life before she entered the Order.

  Would God ever give Denise the strength to accept Anne’s death?

  Dear Lord, will the journal help us find her killer?

  As Anne’s casket was lowered into the ground, Denise wept.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A t the moment Sister Anne Braxton’s coffin was being lowered into the earth of Snohomish County, Henry Wade was miles away in Seattle.

  Driving toward his demons.

  A mournful Johnny Cash ballad kept him company, soothing his unease as his pickup truck headed west on 50th.

  He had to do this.

  He turned off the street and entered one of the city’s largest cemeteries. It was peaceful but the serenity did not allay his fear. Henry dreaded returning to this place. He hadn’t set foot in it since the day they buried his partner.

  Vernon Pearce

  After Vern’s death he’d slipped deeper into the abyss. In the time after it happened, the shrinks told Henry he had to confront the issue.

  You must look your worst fear square in the eye.

  Henry ignored their advice.

  And he’d paid a price

  The day Sally walked out, he gave up, let go, and wrapped himself in the lie of being alive. On the worst nights, he knew the truth. He wasn’t working at the brewery. He was entombed there. That was the word for it, Henry thought, easing his pickup by a mausoleum and traveling deeper into the cemetery.

  Hell, it got so bad and so lonely back then that he nearly pulled Jason into the darkness with him. But Jason was strong enough to pull Henry back into the light. Jason had never given up on him. Jason stood by him. Forced him to get sober. Forced him to reconnect with the living, which led to his PI job with Don Krofton’s agency.

  Henry owed his life to his son.

  But Krofton’s new gun policy had ripped open old wounds and Henry knew he had to do something about it, or this time it would be the end.

  He was getting close now.

  He knew the way. Even after all these years. Even though the taller trees cast larger shadows, Henry never forgot. He wheeled by the plum trees, the mountain white pines, and a pair of buttonwoods that now reached some seventy-five feet, his tires rolling on the earthen path that was cushioned like casket lining.

  He came to a stop.

  When Johnny Cash’s ballad ended, Henry switched off his engine and looked out at the headstones.

  Why don’t you admit it? Go on, admit it.

  He craved a drink right now. Craved it as a whirlwind of emotions and images swirled around him. The gun, Vern, the blood of wasted lives.

  No.

  No, he shouldn’t be here.

  Henry was startled by the sudden ringing of his cell phone. It was Michelle from the agency. He didn’t answer, letting her call go to his voice mail, like the others. Relieved by the distraction, he let a minute pass, then decided to check his messages.

  The first was from Michelle at the agency. It had come earlier this morning.

  “Hello, Henry
, are you coming in today? Will Murphy called asking on the status of his workers’ comp case. He’s got new data. Give me a ring.”

  The next message was from Don.

  “Krofton. Good work on qualifying. Just heard from Webb at the range. Listen, Henry, got an insurance agent who was looking for you. Wants your help with a claim. Employee theft or something. Kid’s name is Ethan, or some shit like that. I never heard of him. I gave him your number. Expect a call.”

  The next one was from Jason.

  “Hey, Dad, I need your help on this nun murder. Give me a call.”

  And finally, Michelle again.

  “Henry, Susan Gorman called from over at Seagriff’s, wants to chat about that infidelity case. Where are you, by the way?”

  That was it. All right. Stop this right now.

  He was procrastinating. Ignoring the issue. He switched off his phone, put both hands on the wheel, and squeezed until his knuckles turned as white as the sheet covering a victim in the morgue.

  As white as the fear on the face of…

  Get out and do this. It’s time for battle. Henry glanced at the ocean of grave markers, swallowed hard, then stepped from his truck and started walking.

  With each step he remembered Vern’s face. The sound of the record scratching, the smell of his house, the look in his eyes, the blur of the gun, the explosion.

  The blood.

  Oh, God, the blood.

  Henry kept walking until he came to the headstone of Seattle Police Officer Vernon Pearce. He stood over it for a long time, feeling numb as he searched the graveyard for inspiration.

  “Vern, I’m sorry, it’s taken me this long. It’s been hard, buddy. So damn hard. We both died that day, but my son brought me back to life. You know that I always wanted to make detective. I just never expected that it would be like this. That it would cost so much. And now here I am, licensed to carry a gun. Again.”

  Henry’s attention went from Vern Pearce’s headstone to a distant corner of the burial ground. This battle was far from over.

  In fact, it was just beginning.