The Christmas Night Murder

by Lee Harris

  Still, I always considered Joseph to be my best friend, my dearest and closest friend. As I had said to her this evening, there was so much I didn’t know about her, the facts of her birth and youth and family, her exact age, the names and addresses of her next of kin, but what did it matter? Our friendship flowed in both directions, although she knew so much more about me than I did about her.

  And Jack, my husband of four months. Was he now my new best friend? I sat on the narrow bed, my knees drawn up, a flannel nightgown of a kind I no longer wore at home keeping me warm. I missed him so much I could feel it in my skin and my chest and in that place I had kept quiescent for so many years and that now formed such an essential part of my life, my relationship with my husband.

  But were we friends? I wasn’t sure. I had heard several women say their husbands were their best friends and I had wondered.

  There had to have been someone for Julia. She had been young, a student in the town high school, a child growing into a woman. But she had lived with something unspeakable, and had drawn Hudson into it.

  Hudson—was he still alive? The odds were long, the chances slim. I wanted my husband to wrap his arms around me, to make love to me. I wanted Hudson to walk into the Mother House with a smile and a good story.

  But I was the only one who could make it happen.

  20

  My night was far from restful. It was full of images that I sensed were directing me but that dissolved as I reached for them. One that kept coming back was the page in Sister Mary Teresa’s Bible where I had found the slip of paper with the string of numbers. What was the significance of the numbers and was there any significance to where I had found them? And most important, did they tie in to the disappearance of Hudson McCormick or the suicide of Julia Farragut?

  I woke when I heard the nuns stirring, readying themselves for morning prayers. It was Monday the thirtieth of December. Jack and I had been invited out for New Year’s Eve, but the chances of my partying tomorrow night looked rather dim at this moment. I joined the nuns for prayers and then went to mass with them. Afterward Father Kramer stopped me.

  “I gather there’s no news,” he said.

  “Nothing to lead us to Father McCormick. Or to Sister Mary Teresa’s killer.”

  “I talked to Detective Lake yesterday. They seem certain she was the victim of an intruder. They said there are several homeless men in the area and that one of them may be deranged.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think they’re grasping at straws.” He pulled open the door of the Mother House and followed me inside. “We feed four homeless young men at the church almost every day, and they’re about as deranged as you or me.”

  “I assume the police have questioned them by now. If there’d been an arrest, Sister Joseph would know.”

  “Well, you’ll keep me posted, Chris?” It was a question.

  “Of course.”

  I called Mrs. Belvedere at nine, the earliest I felt was decent. She was out, leaving me without a means to find Julia’s friend Miranda.

  There had to be some other way. Riverside was a small town and many people would know each other. But I couldn’t just walk up to someone on the street and ask what Miranda Gallagher’s married name was.

  It came to me as I finished my breakfast. The woman in the real-estate office. She had given me Mrs. Farragut’s address with relative ease. People in real estate knew everyone in town, as I had learned from someone in Oakwood who remembered with great clarity people long gone, people newly arrived, and the color and design of all their houses.

  —

  “Eileen usually takes Monday off.” The woman in the real-estate office was tall, with dark hair combed into a chignon. “Weekends are usually busy and Tuesday is our open-house day when we get to view the new listings.”

  “I’m trying to locate a Riverview woman named Gallagher,” I said.

  “Gallagher. There are a few Gallaghers in town. I don’t really know them.”

  “She has a daughter named Miranda who’s married and has just given birth.”

  “I haven’t lived in town as long as Eileen. I’m afraid the names don’t mean anything to me.”

  “May I have Eileen’s home number?” The woman in Oakwood handed out her card with home and office numbers to anyone she met.

  “I’ll call her for you.”

  She thinks I’m nuts, I thought. When a police officer shows his badge and asks questions, people generally cooperate unless they have something to hide. When a civilian does the same thing, people think she’s nuts.

  “I’m afraid she’s out. I left a message on her machine. Would you like to give me your name and number?”

  I wrote it down, impatient and disgusted. If I’d lied and said I was looking for a house, I would now be in possession of Eileen’s last name, her home phone number, and probably a cup of coffee and a Danish. “May I leave a note for her?” I said, sitting down at the empty desk as though I had already been given permission.

  “Of course. She’ll be in first thing in the morning.”

  I opened a desk drawer. “She should have paper in here,” I said, rummaging.

  “I can get you—”

  “I’ve got it, thanks.” I took out a memo pad with all of Eileen’s personal information printed right on it. I wrote a note, tore off two sheets, and left one on top of the desk. Folded in my hand was all the information I needed.

  —

  But Eileen wasn’t home. I started back to the convent and made a small detour to Mrs. Farragut’s community. When I stopped the car at a curb, I didn’t know why I was there. What I wanted from Mrs. Farragut—Julia’s diary—I wasn’t going to get, not today and not ever. It was even possible that it didn’t exist anymore, that she had burned it or shredded it or just tossed it out with the garbage to make sure no one would ever read it, but I had my doubts about that. Julia had been very precious to her grandmother. Diaries and letters probably had great value for the older woman. What, after all, does a person leave behind besides memories? There are photos and snapshots, videos nowadays in some cases, personal belongings like clothes and books. But for many of us, the most cherished items are the writings and drawings and handmade articles, and I could imagine that even if Julia’s writings were incriminating of her father, her grandmother might have saved them just because they had been created by Julia.

  But there was no way to get access to them. Judges don’t issue warrants on the basis of faint possibility, and I am not a second-story man. If the diaries were in the Farragut apartment, they would remain there, unknown to the police and untouchable.

  So what was I doing here? Hudson wasn’t being hidden here in Mrs. Farragut’s apartment and she had said about all she ever would to me. A sudden knock on my window startled me.

  A man was standing next to the car. “You can’t park here,” he called.

  I wound the window down. “Sorry. I’m just trying to decide where I’m going.”

  “Well, you’d better decide somewheres else. This is our main drive and we get deliveries along here.”

  “OK.” I moved forward, toward the visitors’ parking area, but I stopped before I got there. Mrs. Farragut was just leaving the front door of her section of the building. It probably didn’t matter, but it would be nice to know if she owned and drove a car. I backed up so she wouldn’t notice me and bent over. Wherever she was going, I could pick her up in a few seconds. I counted to five with slow determination, then raised my head. She had turned away from my car and was walking toward one of the resident parking lots that were discreetly placed behind the buildings.

  And she wasn’t alone. A man was walking beside her, not an elderly fellow resident and not her son, someone younger. All I could see were their backs as they turned the corner of the building, but I was willing to bet on his identity. Grandson Foster, newly released from prison, had come home to live with Grandma.

  —

  There was only one directi
on they could turn from the parking lot as this curved section of the drive was one-way. I stayed where I was, waiting tensely. A huge Cadillac pulled into the drive but too soon for it to be Mrs. Farragut’s. I took a good look at the driver anyway as he went around the small grassy circle across from where I was sitting. He was gray and full-faced, no one I had ever seen before. It was a minute or two before another car appeared and I knew at first glance that it was the right one. The car was white and medium-sized, the driver a man about my age with a distinct resemblance to Walter Farragut. And sitting beside him was his grandmother.

  I waited till they had completed the circle before taking off after them. As I followed at a distance a woman stepped off the curb and I braked to a stop for her just as the Farragut car reached the stop sign at the end of the drive. A right flashing light let me know where they were heading, but the woman crossing in front of me took a long time and I began to fear I would lose them. Prominent signs pegged the speed at ten miles an hour, but I did twice that the second I was able.

  At the stop sign I barely slowed, then turned right onto the forty-mile-an-hour black-topped road that led away from the senior community and toward the heart of town. There was a car that might be the Farraguts’ down the road and I speeded up to overtake it, hoping to see the license plate so I could identify it accurately. I got close enough to read it and reassure myself that the Farraguts were indeed in the front seat. Then I took my foot off the accelerator and let some space accumulate between us.

  There were attractive houses, placed well back from the road, on both sides and a sign pointing to a school. Just as the area began to look more commercial than residential, Foster put his right turn signal on. I slowed down, waited a few seconds, and followed his turn. To my surprise I ended up in a small suburban shopping mall.

  At the near end there was a giant supermarket. The Farragut car turned toward it while I hung back. There were a number of other stores there, but on this Monday morning it wasn’t particularly busy. I watched the white car circle around a row of parked cars and then disappear. They had found an empty space. I drove to where I could see the entrance and sat watching it until grandmother and grandson went inside. Mrs. Farragut was dressed, as usual, as though she were attending a ladies’ tea, in a black coat with a black fur collar around her neck, but her grandson looked appropriately casual. When they were inside, I found their car and parked far enough away that they would not see me. Then I sat and waited.

  It seemed like a long time before they came out, Foster pushing a market basket with many bags of groceries, his grandmother walking beside him. They opened the trunk and stashed the bags in there, then got into the car. When they started driving, I managed to put a car between us. The exit they took was on a side road at the far end of the shopping center and Foster took a right toward the rear of the stores. At the road that ran along the back of the mall, he turned right again. He was now heading back toward the apartment on a road parallel to the one he had come on. The trouble was the car in front of me, which was driven by an elderly man who was afraid to turn into the road at the back of the shopping center, or else he was undecided. Several cars passed in both directions as he sat at the corner without moving, and I felt myself becoming increasingly agitated. Please move, I urged him.

  Finally he crept forward, looking left and right, trying to get up his nerve to make the plunge. When he did, I was right behind him, slipping into the road ahead of several cars coming from my left. But stretching before me was a long line of cars, and with only one lane in each direction I was unable to pass the slowpoke in front of me. He braked for no reason at the intersection where the supermarket was, then continued on at beginner’s speed. He was in no hurry and I was desperate to keep the Farraguts in sight. For all I knew, they were taking provisions to some place where they had Hudson tied up, where they were holding him until he told them the “truth” they wanted to hear. It might seem preposterous to an outsider, but she was a tough old woman whose family came first, and with her grandson to help her, maybe what she was doing was resolving the great tragedy of her life, finding a meaning in the death of her granddaughter.

  But at this moment my situation was hopeless. The car ahead of me eventually turned off the road, leaving a half-mile gap of empty blacktop. I tried to make up the distance, but I knew it was futile. The white car was either so far away I would never catch up or it had made a turn somewhere and I couldn’t guess at which intersection.

  I made my way back to the retirement community and scouted the parking lot behind Mrs. Farragut’s building, but the car wasn’t there. Had they gone to see Hudson? Or were they filling a refrigerator in Foster’s new apartment, somewhere near his grandmother?

  Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to find out this morning.

  —

  I drove back to the shopping mall. The supermarket had a couple of pay phones and I tried Mrs. Belvedere again without reaching her, then dialed the real-estate woman, Eileen Wharton. This time I got a response.

  “Of course I remember you. You’re looking for that missing priest. Is there any word?”

  “Unfortunately not. But I met Mrs. Farragut.”

  “Isn’t she wonderful? If you have to age, that’s the way to do it. She’s a great lady.”

  “Eileen, I’m trying to track down a friend of Julia Farragut, a girl she went to school with. I think her maiden name was Miranda Gallagher.”

  “Oh, the Gallaghers, yes. They live farther up the hill than the Farraguts in a newer house. They’re a nice family. I think they have a daughter who got married not too long ago.”

  “That’s the one. Do you know her married name?”

  “Oh gosh. Let me think. I should know; they bought a house in town when they got married, or the Gallaghers bought it for them. Who did Miranda marry?” She was asking herself and I hoped her memory was good. “Tony Santiago,” she said. “A good-looking boy—I really shouldn’t say boy, should I? He’s a father now. I just heard that Sunny Gallagher became a grandmother.”

  “Sunny, that’s the name.” I could hear the voice on the answering machine delivering her happy news. “Are they listed? The Santiagos?”

  “Hold on, I’ll get the number.” She came back and read off the address and phone number while I struggled to jot it down one-handed. “What does the Gallagher family have to do with your missing priest?”

  “I need to know more about Julia. I think Julia may have said things about Father McCormick that she didn’t mean because she was protecting someone. If I can talk to a friend of hers, she might know.”

  “I wish you luck.”

  “I thank you for your help.”

  I called the Santiagos’ number and a young female voice answered. Although I hate when it’s done to me, I hung up without saying anything. Miranda was home and I didn’t want to be discouraged from visiting. It couldn’t be an easy time for her, a day or two out of the hospital, but I had to do it. It was for Hudson.

  21

  Miranda and Tony Santiago’s home looked like a gingerbread house with a steep roof and a symmetrical facade that reminded me of every house I had drawn up to the age of eight. When I rang, Miranda herself answered, a pretty, young woman wearing a quilted white robe.

  “I’m Christine Bennett, Mrs. Santiago,” I said. “I know this is a busy time for you, but I’d like to ask you about Julia Farragut if you could give me a few minutes.”

  “Julia,” she said with surprise. “Can you tell me why?”

  I was still standing outside the door. “I think the disappearance of Father Hudson McCormick may be related to her death.”

  “Come in.”

  I followed her into a small, pretty living room with a Christmas tree in a corner and a white bassinet as its centerpiece. I could just make out a little head of dark hair under a beautiful comforter.

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “She’s only four days old. Her name’s Lisa. I know I should be dressed by now b
ut I didn’t get much sleep last night. My mother’s coming for lunch, so I’ll get a rest later. Can I give you anything? Coffee?”

  “No thanks. I’d just like to talk to you about Julia. I know you were friends.”

  “We were. I couldn’t believe it when she—”

  “I know.”

  She had sat down carefully, as though it pained her. Although her dark hair was not well arranged, she was a beautiful young woman. If her tiny daughter looked like her, she would be a beauty.

  “You mentioned the priest. That’s the one Julia…the one—”

  “He’s the one she claimed abused her. I think she may have been wrong.”

  “She was kind of mixed up at the end.”

  “Tell me what you think.”

  A tiny cry escaped from the bassinet and we both looked toward it, but there was no movement. Little Lisa Santiago was still asleep.

  “She was having problems. Then her mother died. Do you know about that?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was terrible. She was so devoted to her mother and her mother was just falling apart. Finally, after Julia went into the convent, she was hospitalized, and one day she hanged herself. I think that’s when Julia came home.”

  “I was a nun at St. Stephen’s until last year. I knew Father McCormick very well, but the semester that Julia was there, I was studying somewhere else. I didn’t know her, but I met her grandmother recently and saw a picture of you and Julia.”

  “We were together a lot until the end of high school.” She had a soft, slow way of speaking, as though there were no hurry, there would never be any hurry.