Murder Makes a Pilgrimage

by Carol Anne O'Marie

  Julietta clucked sympathetically.

  “So be prepared for Pilar,” he said, setting his empty cup on the coffee table.

  “Too late.” Julietta shrugged. “She already called on the telephone.”

  Ángel groaned. “What did she say?”

  “Nothing much. She is very distressed about Ho-Ho’s being in danger. She wants you to forbid the girl to continue on the tour. She called Pepe Nunez a scoundrel and poor Señor Zaldo, who summoned María José, a fascist.”

  “What did you say?”

  Julietta shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? How did you manage to get away with saying nothing to Pilar?”

  “I simply pretended, God forgive me, that we had a very bad connection.”

  Ángel Serrano glanced up at the clock on the mantel. Three-thirty. That would make it seven-thirty in the morning, San Francisco time. A little early, but he’d take a chance.

  “Before I go back to work, I want to place one phone call,” he told Julietta, then riffled through his jacket pocket, searching for the scrap of paper Zaldo had given him with the number the nuns had called.

  “Why don’t you get yourself a notebook to jot down these things?” she asked him for the millionth time. Without waiting for his answer, Julietta gathered up the cups, blew him a kiss, and left him alone.

  Ángel placed the number with the long-distance operator. While he waited for his connection, he heard the faint rattle of china. Julietta was clearing the dining-room table.

  He wondered whom he would reach. Because nuns had made the call, Ángel expected that the number would be a convent. Possibly they called the mother superior to see what they should do. Perhaps nuns had rules to govern such things.

  Therefore, Ángel was taken aback when the groggy voice of a man barked, “Hello?”

  The harsh rasp of the telephone jolted Kate Murphy awake. Jack groped for it, then flipped on the bedside lamp. After a moment’s listening he held out the receiver. “For you, again,” he said, closing his eyes.

  “Who is it?” Kate struggled up on her elbows.

  Jack shrugged. “Comisario somebody or other.”

  Across the hall Baby John began to whimper. The phone had awakened them all. Yawning, Jack threw back the covers and reached for his robe. “I’ll change the baby and give him some juice,” he said. “Maybe he can go back to sleep for a while. Maybe we all can.” He frowned at the phone.

  “I know you received a midnight call, so I am most apologetic for calling you again so early and disturbing your rest,” a male voice began. Kate tried to place the accent. Hispanic, surely, yet there was a touch of British.

  “I am Comisario Ángel Serrano of the Santiago Brigada Judicial. As I explained to the gentleman who answered your telephone, I am calling about Sister Mary Helen. Somehow I imagined that I would reach a convent.”

  “With that one you never know what you’ll reach,” she said.

  “And why is that?” the comisario asked.

  Kate toyed with the idea of telling him that Sister Mary Helen was an internationally wanted criminal and that he should lock her up along with her equally wanted sidekick, Sister Eileen, but thought better of it. Although the comisario sounded pleasant enough, she knew from past experience that to deal with the two nuns, he’d need all the good humor he could muster. Better not waste any on her jokes.

  “Just kidding,” she said. The long-distance wires clicked rhythmically while she explained as succinctly as possible that she was a member of the San Francisco Police Department’s Homicide Detail on pregnancy leave and about her past dealings with Sisters Mary Helen and Eileen.

  “Ah, I see” was Ángel’s only comment when she finished.

  Kate sympathized with the poor man. It was a great deal to absorb.

  “When Sister called me, I advised her to cooperate with the local police, of course, but to stay out of it.” Whether he knew it or not, she figured the comisario would end up appreciating that bit of counsel.

  “We have quite a puzzle here,” he said quietly.

  Kate felt an unexpected rush of adrenaline. “After I talked with Sister, one thing did bother me.”

  “Oh?”

  “The motive. Why would anyone kill that young girl? These people, the tour group, I mean, were together only a few days. Surely no one develops a murderous urge that quickly. Do you suppose it was a random killing, Comisario? By a mugger or some such person?”

  The comisario’s “no” echoed across the wire.

  “Then there must be some previous connection between the young girl . . .”

  “Lisa Springer.” Ángel supplied the name.

  “Between Lisa Springer and someone who is on that tour.” Kate twisted a piece of her hair around her finger and pushed it into a curl. “What we need to do is to begin with a background check. Don’t you think?” she added, astonished at how easily she had fallen into the familiar role.

  Ángel readily agreed.

  Kate swung her feet out of bed and fumbled for the notepad on the bedstand. Carefully she copied down the names and addresses that Ángel dictated.

  “What about your leave of absence?” he asked when they finished. “Will this be too difficult to do?”

  “No problem at all,” Kate said with assurance. “Just as soon as it seems civilized, I’ll put a call in to my partner. I know that he’ll be happy to help, although, you understand, not officially.”

  With perverse pleasure she visualized Inspector Dennis Gallagher fuming, swearing, berating her, and invoking saints to preserve him from nuns in general and Mary Helen in particular. She knew that finally, after thanking the Almighty for his coming retirement, Gallagher would get down to business and help her.

  Contrary as it seemed, Kate missed the old bear and his ranting. Although Denny was the baby’s godfather and they saw him often, it was somehow not the same as when they worked together.

  “I’ll get back to you as soon as possible,” Kate said.

  After a grateful Comisario Ángel Serrano had given her both his office and home phone numbers, the line went dead.

  “You miss it, don’t you?” Kate had not heard Jack reenter their bedroom. Tousled and tired-looking, he nearly filled the doorway. The baby slept peacefully in the crook of his tanned arm.

  With a pang Kate watched her husband crawl back into his side of the bed and gently settle Baby John between them.

  “Let’s start this parenting business right, hon,” Jack whispered. “Rule number one: Everybody sleeps late on Daddy’s day off.”

  Kate felt warmth from the baby’s small body. With one finger, she touched his blond curls, moist and tangled with sleep, then studied his chubby, outstretched hand. His thin eyelids were almost blue.

  “I guess I do miss the detail,” she said softly across their sleeping child, “but not as much as I’m going to miss him.” She felt inexplicably teary. “I wish I could have both.”

  “I know, hon.” Jack punched his pillow until he made it into a comfortable ball.

  “What are we going to do?” Kate asked, annoyed that clearly he was going back to sleep.

  “Maybe I can invent a bulletproof knapsack and you can take him to work with you like a papoose.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Me, too, hon. We can call you Mama Sleuth and Not-a-Clue. SFPD’s wonder team.”

  “Very funny. But really, pal, I am dreading the day we have to leave him. And it’s coming soon, too soon. Who will we find? Your mother says that she’d love it”—she tried to keep her tone objective—“but that’s not fair to anyone, do you think, Jack?”

  His muffled snore told her that their conversation had just become a soliloquy. From the small crack between the edge of the shade and the window frame, faint streaks of sun stole into the dim bedroom. Kate closed her eyes, listening to the soft sounds of breathing, savoring its peace, wanting the night to last.

  Yet strangely she also wanted it to be midmorning. She yearn
ed to be up and moving and full of purpose. With the baby balanced on her hip, she’d put in a call to Inspector Dennis Gallagher, and the two of them would have the pleasure of hearing the godfather roar.

  “Let’s wait for Heidi outside,” Mary Helen suggested, eager to examine the Plaza del Obradoiro in broad daylight. The figure, or whatever she thought she’d seen last night on the cathedral steps, was preying on her mind. Surely it was only a shadow formed by a gargoyle or the stone edge of a building jagged in the moonlight. The plaza had been too silent, the form too motionless to be anything else.

  As the doorman pushed open the heavy glass doors of the hostal, a strong wind caught it and nearly tore it from his hand. Small eddies skimmed along the flagstone entrance, throwing up dust and tiny stones. Squinting, Mary Helen looked up at the cathedral towers, which rose like flames into the darkened sky, where black, ragged clouds were being hurled about.

  This is not the time to look for a single shadow, Mary Helen thought, watching shadows of all sizes and shapes roll across the huge plaza. To her amazement, it was nearly deserted.

  “Where is everybody?” she asked before thinking.

  “Siesta time, señora,” the doorman answered, still holding tightly to the glass door.

  “Do we need Therese’s umbrellas?” Eileen asked, pointing up at the sky.

  “In Galicia rain is an art,” the doorman said, not answering her question at all. “In Galicia the rain caresses you.” With a courteous nod he pulled the door shut.

  “Caresses you?” Eileen wondered aloud. “What in heaven’s name does that mean?”

  “It’s probably a polite way of telling you that you’re going to get soaked to the skin,” Mary Helen said, and left Eileen to fetch the umbrellas.

  Padding down the hallway, she passed Heidi’s bedroom. The door was ajar. “Are you nearly ready?” Mary Helen called in. No answer.

  “Heidi?” Feeling uneasy, she pushed open the door a crack more. “I’ve come back for our umbrellas. I think you’ll need something, too, for the rain. . . .” Mary Helen let her voice trail off.

  Red-eyed and immobile, Heidi stood in the middle of the bedroom. Belongings were strewn everywhere almost as if Heidi had attempted to collect and pack them yet had not had the heart for it.

  “What is it, dear?” Mary Helen put her arm around Heidi’s shoulder. The girl was trembling.

  “What am I going to do with all her stuff?” Heidi asked in a thick voice. “I can’t just leave it here. Somebody has to take it home.” She shut her eyes. “I can’t touch it. Every time I touch it, I think of her dead and everything, and I . . .” She bolted for the bathroom, leaving no doubt in Mary Helen’s mind about what the girl did whenever she touched Lisa’s things.

  Sister Mary Helen sympathized. She wouldn’t relish packing Lisa’s belongings herself, yet someone had to do it. Maybe she’d talk to the comisario about moving Heidi to another room and sending in a policewoman to pack.

  She heard the toilet flush, the tap running, and water splashing. Heidi must be pulling herself together. The wisest course was to get her out of here. Mary Helen snatched up a half-slip from the floor, rescued a pair of panty hose from the end of one bed, then grabbed a brush full of amber hair from the dressing table, and pulled open the drawer in the armoire.

  Shove everything in, she thought, sweeping a green headband from the chair. The more out of sight, the better. The drawer was empty save for a tattered snapshot.

  Odd, Mary Helen thought picking it up. There were two girls in the picture posing in front of an ice-cream store. One was obviously Heidi, a much younger Heidi, probably about fourteen or fifteen with her butterscotch hair in a ponytail and that same silly grin. The other girl in the picture was a chunky redhead of about the same age with a double chin, bright eyes, and a small potbelly. The youngsters had linked arms and were mugging for the camera. Something about the redhead’s crooked smile was familiar.

  “Sorry, Sister.” Heidi’s voice startled her.

  Mary Helen looked up. Heidi, pale and swollen-eyed, leaned against the bathroom doorjamb. “Are you feeling better?” Mary Helen asked.

  Heidi nodded. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting, but every time I touch—”

  “Then don’t touch anything,” Mary Helen said. “In fact, don’t even look. Just put on your walking shoes and get something for the rain. Let’s go!”

  Obediently Heidi moved around the bedroom like a robot.

  “I was about to call out the militia,” Eileen announced when they finally joined her in the lobby. Heidi’s color was coming back, but Eileen didn’t miss the red eyes. “Are you feeling all right, dear?” she asked.

  “She’s feeling much better,” Mary Helen answered, anxious to get Heidi into the fresh air.

  Wordlessly, the trio skirted the plaza and rounded the corner onto the Calle de San Francisco. The street was narrow with the College of Medicine on one side and, on the other, a hodgepodge of small shops and cafés still closed for the midday break.

  Oblivious of the wind and the impending rain, they walked toward the Convent of Saint Francis, where a carved monument commemorating the life and works of the famous saint of Assisi loomed large in the church plaza.

  Their silence was becoming strained, at least for Sister Mary Helen. There were so many questions she wanted to ask Heidi. Whom had Lisa left the bedroom with on Friday afternoon? What had they done last night? When had Lisa left the room and why? Last and probably least important, why had Heidi brought an old snapshot with her on the trip? Mary Helen searched for a question or a remark to break the unnatural quiet. Before she could think of one, Eileen came to the rescue.

  “Well, look at that!” Eileen exclaimed, pointing into a shopwindow crowded with souvenirs. A garish replica of the cathedral made into a barometer was dead center.

  A little inane but a start!

  Heidi stared at the trinket with little enthusiasm. The tiny barometer, set where the cathedral door should be, forecast rain. “And it works,” Eileen said brightly.

  Heidi gave a wan smile and studied an array of postcards on a wire stand just inside the shop’s closed door. “I promised my cousin Doreen I’d write,” she said, nodding toward the display. “Maybe I should buy one.”

  “The shop opens again at sixteen hundred.” Eileen indicated the hours posted on the door.

  Mary Helen watched Heidi count the time on her fingers. “Four o’clock,” she said triumphantly.

  “Is that Doreen’s picture I noticed in your room?” Mary Helen asked, not wanting to let slip a perfect opening.

  Heidi frowned. “What picture?”

  She was either genuinely puzzled or the best actress Mary Helen had seen in a long time.

  “In the drawer of the armoire. I just happened to notice a snapshot,” she hurried on, hoping not to sound as if she had been intentionally snooping. “I picked up some of Lisa’s things while you were in the bathroom.”

  “That picture!” Heidi’s hazel eyes lit up in a rush of understanding. “That’s not mine. That’s Lisa’s.”

  It was Mary Helen’s turn to be puzzled.

  “Lisa always carries that picture with her. It was taken years ago when we were still best friends,” Heidi explained. “When Lisa was at her ugliest, at least that’s what she says—said.” Heidi’s face blanched as she corrected herself. “Before she got thin and glamorous. The only thing she didn’t change was her crooked tooth. She would have, but her mom couldn’t afford it.

  “She said it reminded her of what she was like and what she never wanted to be again.” Heidi gave a hollow little laugh. “She kinda liked to rub it in, you know?”

  Mary Helen was afraid that she did know. At least she could well imagine Lisa’s being quite impervious to other people’s feelings. During their short acquaintance Lisa had appeared shallow and callous, flirting as she had with the men in the group and leaving Heidi alone on the first afternoon.

  “By the time we walk down to the Convent of
St. Francis, look around and walk back, all these shops will surely be open,” Mary Helen said. Her mind rattled around for a way to introduce the topic of Lisa’s whereabouts on the afternoon in question. She need not have bothered.

  “Speaking of Lisa, God rest her,” Eileen began in a no-nonsense tone of voice, “whom did you say she left the room with yesterday afternoon?”

  Heidi blinked repeatedly. Either she’s having difficulty remembering or she has something in her eye, Mary Helen thought impatiently.

  “When I was in the shower, you mean?”

  Eileen nodded.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  Great, Mary Helen thought, watching Heidi’s mouth form a pout. Fine time for her to turn into a prima donna.

  “We want to know”—Mary Helen was glad Eileen included her—“so that we can get a handle on Lisa’s movements prior to her death.”

  Astonished, Sister Mary Helen stared at Eileen. Good night, nurse! What is she reading? She sounds like something right out of a police procedural.

  Heidi’s eyes lit up again. “Like real detectives,” she said obviously thrilled with the concept.

  Eileen, avoiding Mary Helen’s eyes, gave a businesslike nod. “Just like them,” she said in the thickest brogue Mary Helen had heard in a long while.

  “It was Neil Fong,” Heidi blurted out.

  I should have bet money, Mary Helen thought. It made perfect sense. Dr. Fong came to the nuns’ bedroom door by mistake with his silly Polaroid snapshot, then went in search of Lisa. When he did find her, they went for a walk, perhaps, stopped for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, which was, of course, why Rita Fong was cold and distant toward him at dinner.

  As the trio neared the end of the street and the imposing monument of St. Francis, a group of Japanese tourists swarmed over the plaza in front of the convent. At some silent signal, they clustered around a small woman holding up a red flag.

  “About the year 1214 St. Francis of Assisi came to Compostela on a pilgrimage and was inspired to build a convent here for his friars.” The red flag lady began first in flawless English, then switched into Japanese.