Everybody Called Her a Saint

by Cecil Murphey

  “We can’t prove it, of course,” he said, “but it makes sense to me.”

  “So Twila’s killer was probably being blackmailed.” I told him about hearing the voices and the scream.

  “That fits.” He began to ponder the time frame. “By then the first two Zodiacs had gone, and maybe ten minutes afterward, the third one left.”

  “Let’s not even think along that line,” I said. “Too many suspects again.”

  Burton stared into my eyes. “I haven’t napped. I’ve spent the whole time in prayer. I don’t know anything, but I sense, I truly sense, that God will help us find the killer before we dock at Ushuaia.”

  Please God, I prayed silently. Please hear his prayer. And mine, too, if You don’t mind.

  Thirty-Four

  Burton and I met shortly after dinner. He said he had finished his half of the book. I had also finished mine. He walked me to my cabin, and we exchanged halves.

  “Two of the accounts are extremely interesting. I don’t know if it means anything, but if we knew who they were, it might help. But without any identity—”

  “I’m sure we can get the key from Twila’s file once we get back to Atlanta.”

  “But we may also lose the impetus and any chance to find who killed both of them.”

  He didn’t have to say it. Both of us assumed the same person who killed Twila had also killed Heather.

  “I had a thought—” I was a little embarrassed. “Do you think God sometimes puts thoughts into our heads? Please don’t laugh. You know I’m still new at this Christianity—”

  Burton took my hand. “I’m not laughing. And yes, I believe the Lord speaks to us. If not, why do we ask for guidance?”

  “I mean, it’s not a solution or anything—”

  “It’s all right.” This time he gave me what I call the sideways embrace—like two friends who stand next to each other. His arm around my shoulder comforted me.

  “Well, it’s just that I keep thinking about the book—the lectures—”

  “And—”

  I laughed this time. “And—to repeat your word—maybe the killer isn’t in the book but doesn’t know he isn’t. So he still tried to steal it—”

  “Unless that person already has what he wanted.”

  “That’s a possibility,” I said. “Okay, I prayed, and here’s what came to me, whether it’s my subconscious working overtime or—”

  “It’s all right.”

  “But, darling—”

  “You called me darling,” he said.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did you—were you aware—”

  “I’m aware of my words, but, you know, sometimes words just slip out.”

  “Let them slip out as often as you like. Darling.”

  “Meanwhile, back in Antarctica, let’s assume that the person didn’t find what he wanted—that is, he wanted the manuscript—he may not have known what it looked like.”

  “He wouldn’t have known what it looked like,” Burton said. “That is, assuming the book is what he wanted.”

  “You’re probably right. If he had known it was a book, he would have riffled through the six books in Twila’s briefcase.”

  Burton thought for a few seconds before he said, “So he probably doesn’t know Twila had the case studies bound.”

  “I feel—oh, Burton, is it okay to say that? I feel God is going to help us figure this out.”

  “Yes, yes, it’s fine. I don’t have that feeling, but I hope you’re correct.”

  Burton and I talked for almost an hour, going over our notes and our impressions. We were more convinced than ever that the killer was one of the people on the fourth Zodiac.

  At breakfast the next morning, Captain Robert announced the death of Heather Wilson. Everyone seemed shocked.

  “Oh dear, is it something we should fear?” Shirley asked. “Is there a killer loose who—” She stopped and said quietly to me, “There I go in my Mary LaMuth mind-set.”

  “Doesn’t anyone know anything?” asked Mickey. “How many more people will die before we get back to Ushuaia?”

  “Do you suppose we ought to, you know, stay in twos?” Betty Freeman asked. “If one of you nice gentlemen wanted to guard us defenseless females, I, at least would appreciate it.”

  “After all, both people who died were women,” Sue Downs said.

  “I’ll be your escort,” Donny said.

  Several other men echoed his words.

  Burton stood up and waited until everyone stopped talking. “I don’t think anyone else needs to be afraid. I’m quite sure there will be no more deaths.”

  I stood next to him and said, “I think it’s time we told you what little we know.”

  Burton stared at me as if to ask, “Are you out of your mind?”

  I stared back and shrugged just the way he does. I love communicating with him when we don’t have to use words.

  “The captain gave Burton and me unofficial permission to work on finding the killer—”

  “And you’ve brought about a second murder,” Donny said.

  “That’s not fair!” Jeff yelled. “They didn’t kill Heather.”

  “You’re right, Jeff,” I said. “Heather would have been killed even if we hadn’t gotten involved.”

  Now I had their attention.

  “We know one thing we can tell you—Twila planned to do a series of lectures at Clayton University, and she had written twenty-one case studies. We think the killer wanted to get the material and destroy it.”

  “And did the person succeed?” Thomas asked.

  “No,” Burton said. He held up his pages. “This is half of the manuscript on which she worked.”

  “I have the other half,” I said.

  “We’re still reading it,” Burton said.

  “What kind of case studies?” someone asked. I don’t know who asked, because it came from behind me.

  “I can only say this much—and I’m sure it’s obvious to all of you. We have good reason to believe these pages will implicate someone on this cruise.” As I said the words, I could hear Jessica Fletcher on Murder, She Wrote say the same thing. In fact, I could probably go back to those old black-and-white Perry Mason cases where he often said something just as silly.

  “Is that all you’re going to tell us?” Jon Friesen asked.

  “For now.” I have no idea why I answered that way. I think I was trying to imply that we had information we weren’t ready to divulge.

  Despite all the questions people wanted us to answer, Burton and I left the room. “This is beginning to sound like some TV plot,” I said. “We announce the evidence and set a trap for the killer to come and try to steal the book, and we’ve got him.”

  Burton laughed.

  “Do people really think that way?” I asked.

  “Only in movies and books. Only in fiction.”

  Thirty-Five

  I decided to go to the lounge. A lecture was scheduled for ten o’clock in the theater. I couldn’t have concentrated on it anyway. I wasn’t sure where Burton went.

  After getting a glass of water, I sat in the corner and read through the chapters. In spite of my PhD in psychology, I have to admit I learned from Twila. She was insightful and obviously saw things that I probably wouldn’t have picked up.

  I felt my eyes starting to water again, and I resolutely fought the tears. I could grieve later. This was our last full day on board.

  Perhaps twenty minutes later, I heard whistling and looked up. Larry Dean Yoke came into the room. I knew him slightly, and he usually gave me a cheerful salute.

  “I finally feel good,” he said. “I had a good night. I took a seasick pill and slept fine.” Larry Dean, maybe fifty years old, looked like a big farm boy who had awakened inside the wrong house and been forced to clothe himself in Yves Saint Laurent gear. His brown hair was combed straight back, and he had long gray sideburns. Despite his expensive clothes—and they shouted money—his square face and plain fea
tures looked out of place.

  Larry Dean said he had decided to bypass the lecture and find something to read instead. He spotted a book called With Byrd at the Bottom of the World by Norman Vaughan. He picked it up and started telling me what a fan he had been of Byrd and his historic air flight over the South Pole in 1929. He admitted he had read the book years ago, but he liked it and since it was here, he decided he would read it again.

  He came over and started to sit down but saw I was busy. “Oh, guess you don’t want company.”

  I shook my head.

  He leaned over and read enough to see what I was reading. “I’m in that book. I suppose you know that.”

  “You’re one of the twenty-one?”

  “Absolutely. I’m the male with the multiple-personality disorder.” He beamed as if proud of his past condition. “I’m fine now. Occasionally, I get slightly, well, strange, but not often.”

  “Do you know anything about Twila’s death?”

  “Nope. Sorry. I liked her. I really did. It’s because of her that I first went to church and eventually became a serious Christian.” For another minute or two, he went into the details of his conversion story. He paused abruptly and said, “Sorry. You didn’t ask about all that, did you?”

  Rather than answer, I asked, “Do you know anything that would shed any light on this?”

  He shook his head. “I was on the first Zodiac. We left maybe ten minutes after the fourth one landed. I never went near the fourth one or talked to anyone.” He went to great length to tell me the people he had been talking to. And he took a lot of pictures of the Zodiacs as they came in. “I like those little things.”

  “So you read what Twila said about you?”

  “She didn’t have anything to hide from us. She talked to each of us and explained what she was going to do. She said that by telling our story and the way she had intervened, she could help professionals treat others.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s excellent,” I said.

  “I feel honored to have been in the book. In fact, I was one of the last ones to go into it.” He took my copy and turned to the last chapter. “See, that’s me.” He pointed to MEZ.

  “But she doesn’t identify the people—”

  “Well, not really, I mean, she does in her own coded way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I gave her a simple system—I mean, really simple. She called it a great memory retrieval system.”

  I must have looked totally puzzled, because I had no idea what he meant.

  “It’s easy and obvious. My name is Larry Dean Yoke. That makes my initials LDY. Right?”

  “Of course.”

  “So instead of using those initials, she took the next letter in the alphabet. Instead of L for Larry she used M. Simple, huh?”

  “Yes, it is. So MEZ moved back one letter makes it LDY.”

  “That’s it. You still can’t identify everyone, but those of us who were patients could identify each other. And that was part of the permission form.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Twila didn’t think it ought to be a secret among her patients—her clients. She had a party every couple of months for all of us—if we wanted to come. Nice party. Good food.”

  “You mean like an AA meeting or—”

  “Not that formal. But we talked a little about ourselves. So we pretty well knew each other. Most of us thought it was fun.” He abruptly stopped and pointed to the chapter I was reading. That’s Pat Borders. He’s Pat Robert Borders and that becomes RSC. We used to laugh about each other’s problems.”

  “And everyone was cool with that?” I asked.

  “Cool? We loved it. She also had a contract with one of the university presses—University of Iowa. Or maybe it was Illinois.”

  “By any chance, do you know if all twenty-one people in the book are on this cruise?”

  “Absolutely. That’s one of the reasons we came. It was her way to thank us. She said she learned so much from treating us.”

  “And the rest of us on the cruise are friends, right?”

  “Yeah, maybe seven or eight like you.”

  I stared at Larry Dean for quite a while. I had made a list of the three-letter codes of my half of the manuscript. I went down the list. Larry Dean was quick. He called out their names before I did.

  I had the names of all twenty-one.

  “Thanks, Larry Dean. Twila would have loved you for what you just told me.”

  “You mean I helped? I don’t see how, but I’m glad if I could do anything.” He started into a story in which he told me how Twila had saved his sanity and had made him a more solid believer in God.

  “Forgive me for interrupting you—”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “You have something more important to do than listen to me.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to hear,” I said as I gathered up my materials. “I have to see Burton.”

  He winked. “Naturally.”

  I hurried out of the lounge.

  Now I know.

  Thirty-Six

  At first I couldn’t find Burton. He wasn’t in his cabin, and I knew he wouldn’t have gone to the theater. I went back to the dining room and didn’t see him.

  “Julie.”

  I whirled around. He had been sitting in a corner with no light on.

  “I know, Burton! I know who did it.”

  He listened to my long explanation of the conversation with Larry Dean. I did that on purpose and strung out the explanation as long as I could. I love to make him eager and expected him to say wearily, “And what’s the point?” The rat! He never did. I looked at his face and I understood. He knew what I was doing, and he was willing to wait me out.

  “So do you want to know?” I asked.

  “Yes, and I will as soon as you decide to share your information.”

  Impulsively I pecked him on the cheek. Only after I had done that did I realize what I had done. I felt my face flush.

  “It’s okay, Julie,” he said. “I won’t take the kiss personally.” He said the words with no facial expression, but I knew he was laughing at me.

  “Okay, here it is.” I showed him my list of four columns. Their names were listed first; then their initials in Twila’s code; and third, their true initials, which matched the first column. My final column was a brief note of the problem the person faced.

  “So now at least we know the identities of all twenty-one people,” I said.

  He studied the list carefully. “And, of course, each one is on the cruise.”

  “That was part of Twila’s way of thanking them for their help.”

  “And you think you know who did it?”

  “Absolutely,” I said with a little hint of pride. I felt great. Burton is usually a step ahead of me, but not on this one. “Of course, I can’t prove it—”

  “So now you want my help to bring out the evidence to convict the guilty one.”

  He’s bright, and I never have to explain anything to him twice.

  “So tell me.”

  “First, the killer isn’t one of the people in the book of lectures.”

  “He’s not? Then why—” I loved the look of confusion on his face. It was worth stringing out the story just to see that.

  I didn’t answer, but I did smirk. I love doing that.

  “So you want the great dramatic ending to this, do you?” he said. “We get them all in the dining room. You make your grand explanation, point to the guilty one, and proclaim, ‘You did it.’ And that person cries out a confession—”

  “Not quite that simple,” I said.

  “Life rarely is.”

  “Let me try this,” I said. I still hadn’t told him who the guilty person was, and I wanted to wait until he begged me.

  “At last,” he said and smiled. He had figured out my game.

  “He was one of those who never made progress in therapy. Don’t you get it?”

  “He wasn�
�t in the book because—”

  “Because he was too sick—too mentally ill. He wasn’t a good case study.” I didn’t need to explain to Burton that she chose the twenty-one clients because she felt her students could learn from the cases. Not all of the subjects ended up normal or cured (a word we professionals don’t use). But she wouldn’t have made a case study of someone who remained stuck for years and hadn’t moved on.

  “I hate to admit it, but this time you’re way ahead of me.” He scratched the back of his head as he skimmed the list. “You’ll have to convince me that the killer isn’t on the list.”

  “The best argument,” I said, “is the most obvious. Every one of the people—all twenty-one of them—gave their consent.”

  “Have you asked all of them?”

  “No, and I don’t need to do that. I can if you like but you’re missing the obvious.”

  “No, you’re missing the obvious. Until you know—”

  “Try this, then. I’ve spoken to everyone on the fourth Zodiac. All of them have said they signed off—”

  “Right. Okay, for now. I agree with you that—”

  “That they had nothing to be afraid of. She gave each of them a copy of the chapter in which their case is discussed.”

  “Oh, I get it!”

  I smiled. All right, I smirked again. I could get good at that expression.

  “So the killer assumed she had written—”

  “You were a little slow on this one, Burton, but that’s exactly right.”

  “It makes perfect sense,” he said. “So the killer didn’t sign—”

  “And—” I paused for dramatic effect and just one more smirk. “He didn’t know he wasn’t in the book, so—”

  “So he searched the room to find it—”

  “Now that makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s worth exploring.” I knew he agreed with me completely, but he wasn’t going to let me score too many points. “Let’s be really sure,” he said. “Let’s compare the list to the eleven other people in the Zodiac with Twila.”

  I had already done that, but I wanted him convinced. All of those who came back on the Zodiac were on the list.

  “No, no, I’m sure who killed Twila, and he also killed Heather—”