Fourteen forty-eight. This is it.” Sister Mary Helen pointed toward the third small bungalow from the corner. Kate pulled up in front and parked. The wooden-framed house, set back on two small, manicured patches of lawn, was painted a bright, clean white with dark green shutters. Several large pots of cadmium-red geraniums decorated the deep porch. The house had a well-cared-for look, as if somebody loved it.
Senhora Rubiero opened the front door before they rang the bell. “Good morning, Sister.” She nodded deferentially toward Mary Helen. “Please to come in.”
“Good morning, Senhora Rubiero.” Sister Mary Helen followed the short, rotund woman into the house. “This is Officer Murphy from the San Francisco Police Department.” She motioned toward Kate, who flashed her badge. Mary Helen noticed a flash of fear in the woman’s sharp, black eyes.
“So nice of you to let us come.” Kate smiled reassuringly. Senhora Rubiero relaxed a bit.
“Please, sit,” she said, waving to a mohair couch against one wall of the small living room. The room matched the outside of the house. Though freshly polished and well-cared-for, it smelled unused. It was probably what another generation would have referred to as the parlor and used strictly for important visitors. In this house, Mary Helen figured, most of the living probably goes on in a warm, cozy kitchen.
“What lovely handiwork.” Mary Helen fingered one of the delicate doilies covering the arms and back of the couch. “Did you crochet these?” she asked.
“Yes, Sister.” The old woman blushed.
“Lovely.”
“Thank you.” Senhora Rubiero perched her squat body on the edge of an overstuffed chair across from Kate and Mary Helen.
There was an awkward moment of silence during which Mary Helen studied the woman. One glance told her that Senhora Rubiero was a no-nonsense person. Her black, laced shoes were definitely sensible and had been bought, no doubt, for comfort rather than style. A black jersey dress, properly pulled together in the front with a cameo pin, stretched across her shelflike bosom. The hem of the dress more than adequately covered the knees of her two sturdy legs. Besides the pin, her only touch of frivolity was a pair of earrings, if you could consider the small, gold balls frivolous.
Not a single gray hair escaped from the neatly rolled knot at the nape of her neck. They wouldn’t dare, Mary Helen thought, observing the wide, strong hands that had rolled them there. A broad gold wedding band assured the old nun that Senhora Rubiero was indeed a senhora.
This lady might blush, demur to nuns, and even be momentarily frightened of the police, but, underneath it all, she was one tough customer. Mary Helen liked her immediately. Eileen would have called it an instant feeling of kinship!
“Can I get you something to drink, to eat?” Senhora Rubiero spoke English haltingly, but very well. There would be no danger of misunderstanding. Whatever the woman had to say would be clearly understood. Mary Helen guessed she had probably come to this country as a young married woman.
“No, thank you, Senhora.” Kate answered for both of them. “We are here on official business. We would like to ask you some questions about your two nephews.”
At the mention of the two young men, Senhora Rubiero’s black eyes flashed anger. “Carlos and Jose-two young fools. Ah, my poor sister-their mother… I promise her I take care. But, the young stupidos…”
Mary Helen watched, fascinated, as the woman’s thick hands began to move as quickly and nimbly as her tongue. The subject of her nephews had completely taken away any inhibitions she might have had. She warmed to her subject.
“They come. They stay. They go. They say nothing. No hello. No good-bye. No Gracia, Tia. How you call? Ingrates? And, ah my poor sister. What should I tell her?”
She paused to breathe and wring her hands. Mary Helen found it difficult to tell whether she was more upset about the ingratitude of her two nephews or about reporting their absence to her sister.
“If only my Alberto was here,” she said, tapping her wedding ring. “He would take a care. They come home, eat, sleep, say nothing. But what is a poor woman to do? If only Alberto was here.” She blessed herself. Apparently, Alberto had gone to his eternal reward, one he had, no doubt, earned.
“I am only a woman,” she repeated, shaking her head sadly. Butler’s couplet rang through Mary Helen’s mind. “Women, you know, do seldom fail, to make the stoutest man turn tail.” This had, no doubt, been the case with Alberto and the nephews.
“I cannot go to these hang-outs.” She spat out the last two words.
Kate perked up. “Could you tell me about these hang-outs?” she asked, pulling a small notebook from her brown leather purse. “Where are they located? Who do the boys go there with?”
Senhora Rubiero’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know where they go. They never tell me, the tia. They go with other young fools… other solteiros.” Realizing that her two visitors did not understand her last word, Senhora Rubiero translated. “Solteiros. How you call? Bachelors-bachelors who never want to marry.”
Kate nodded. “Who were these others?” she asked, her pencil poised.
Senhora Rubiero ignored Kate’s question. She didn’t even seem to notice he poised pencil. Jockeying her ample hips into a more comfortable position, she continued. “When we come from the old country, we work hard, pay back our benefactors. Help our relatives back home.” Mary Helen recognized the familiar ring. A generation gap in any nationality sounds the same.
“Not like now. Now they think money comes with the sun. Fool around. Don’t care for family. Live together, boy and girl, without marry.”
Mary Helen could feel Kate stiffen at the “live together without marry” line. Direct hit, Mary Helen thought, remembering her dinner last night. The old woman paused dramatically. Obviously, she had given this lecture many times before. Most recently, probably, to her nephews.
“The Sister, she understand.” Senhora Rubiero wagged her head.
“Have you any idea who these friends are, Senhora?” Kate asked.
“Other young fools.” Senhora Rubiero’s eyes darted toward the phone. “I hear them talking. Luis, Tony, my friend Erma’s cousin Manuel, Leonel, Jose. He now calls himself Joe. Fernando, Salvador, Fatima’s boy, Angelo, some more I don’t know. They speak of Sebastiao. He will come, a savior. Save them, save Portugal. Madre de Deus.” She blessed herself. “Save them! Stupidos! Only work. Work to be saved. Hard work will save them. No savior.”
Sebastiao. There it was again. “Who did they think this Sebastiao would be?” Mary Helen asked.
The old woman shrugged “Crazy, si?”
“Luis, Tony, Manuel, Leonel, Jose, who calls himself Joe, Fernando, Salvador, and Angelo,” Kate read back from her note pad. “Do you have last names or phone numbers for any of these fellows?”
Senhora Rubiero pushed herself out of the overstuffed chair and waddled toward a back room.
“What do you make of it?” Mary Helen asked Kate as soon as the old woman had gone.
“If the last names jibe, these are the same people the professor helped, and at least four of them are at the college.” She shot a quick glance at Mary Helen. “Maybe we’ve hit upon the link. Maybe it’s this Sebastiao business.”
“For the men, perhaps-but Marina and Joanna? And why would someone murder Joanna?”
“Maybe both men and women belong to this-what should I call it?-cult. Or maybe Joanna was on to something. Maybe something rotten. Maybe that’s why Senhora Rubiero’s nephews have vanished, pronto. Afraid Joanna would have blown the whistle. And maybe one of them decided to make sure she wouldn’t.”
Mary Helen suppressed a grin. It amused her to hear this trim, well-dressed, cultured young lady talk like a cop.
“What I can’t figure is, if they were into something, something they all wanted, why kill the professor? Why destroy the goose that lays the golden egg?”
Mary Helen resisted the temptation to tell her that only a professora could lay eggs. “Perhaps the professor wasn’t all he was cracked up to be,” she said, remembering Leonel’s outburst. Calling your savior a devil, a filthy animal, a flesh-eater, and a bloodsucker could hardly be construed as complimentary.
She was just about to relate the incident to Kate when Senhora Rubiero reappeared in the doorway. She was carrying a small, flowered address book, well-worn at the edges, which she handed to Kate.
“By the way, Senhora,” Kate asked, “did you ever hear your nephew talking to any women? Marina or Joanna, perhaps?”
“If they talked with girls, I would not be so worried. Maybe marry, settle down.” The older woman shook her head sadly. “Now, some tea? Coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Kate rose from the couch. “We’re on duty, and I’d like to question some of these young men you have mentioned.” Senhora Rubiero looked disappointed to be losing her audience.
“May I keep this for a few days?” Kate held up the address book.
“Si, Officer.” The Senhora bowed graciously and escorted her guests to the front door. “What numbers I need, I know.” She smiled broadly, every one of her strong, white teeth as straight as a die. Mary Helen ran her tongue across her own slightly overlapping front teeth. And I bet every single tooth in her mouth is hers, she thought, smiling back.
“That’s some old lady!” Kate flipped on the ignition in the Plymouth. “I was beginning to wonder if those two nephews might have disappeared out of self-defense.”
“Could be.” Grinning, Sister Mary Helen fastened her seat belt. “But that would not account for what happened to the others. Or for the reason Leonel is so concerned about their leaving-how did he put it?-‘poof, without even a good-bye.’ ”
Kate faced her passenger. “Leonel worried about the others leaving? Poof? You never mentioned that before!”
“I must have,” Mary Helen said quickly. She wouldn’t want Kate to think for one moment that she was withholding evidence. Why, she was just beginning to feel that they had struck up a bit of a partnership, and she, for one, was enjoying every minute of it. Not the murder part, of course, but the detecting. She didn’t want to be dropped. The old nun could feel her face redden. For a moment she felt ridiculous. But hadn’t someone once said, “If we err in our liking of detective stories, we err with Plato”? Well, if they hadn’t, they surely should have!
“I’m sure I told you.” She added a little emphasis. “Just before you picked up Leonel, he told me he was worried about some in the group the professor had brought to this country.” She glanced over at Kate. The young woman’s jaw was firm.
“Go on,” Kate said.
“Well, that’s all he said. Four of them were missing. Poof! And he was worried about Joanna.”
“Which four?”
“A Carlos and Jose. Those must be Mrs. Rubiero’s nephews. And two Manuels.”
“Is that everything you know?”
“Everything I can think of,” Mary Helen answered meekly, trying to erase the slit in the coroner’s seal from her mind. There was really no use getting into that.
After a few moments of silence, Kate pointed to her notebook and to Senhora Rubiero’s worn address book on the seat between them. “There must be hundreds of Tonys and Luises and Manuels in the Portuguese community,” she said. “First thing we’d better do is find out if we are talking about the same people. Check the book against the list in my notebook, will you please, Sister?” Relieved, Mary Helen picked up the two books. They were still partners.
They had just merged onto 280 heading toward the city when Mary Helen finished her checking. “The last names and phone numbers are the same. We are talking about the same people.” She didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad. On the one hand, she was glad that everything seemed to be narrowing down to a few young people Professor Villanueva had sponsored. She imagined that would make discovering the killer easier. On the other hand, she was sad that all the evidence was beginning to point to the murderer as being one of them, someone the sisters all knew. It seemed now she had been right about that from the beginning. The murderer was not some poor, demented psychotic who had wandered onto the hill, but someone who had been, or still was, at the college.
The two rode for several miles in a comfortable silence, each lost in her own thoughts. There wasn’t much traffic on a Saturday morning. A soft autumn sun on the Peninsula hit against the low, rolling hills to their left. It made little sparks of light bounce across the deep, black-blue water of Crystal Springs Lake. A small, green boat cut gently through the water-probably a Water Department caretaker making sure the lake was safe to supply the City with drinking water. The scene was so peaceful, so pastoral, Mary Helen forgot for a moment the horrors of the past few days.
“Look ahead.” Kate’s voice jarred her back into reality. She was pointing toward the city. “Fog!”
Sure enough. Ahead of them, San Francisco was wrapped in a cocoon of gray fog.
“I guess we had better head straight into that mess and up to the college to question Tony and Luis again.” Kate changed to the fast lane on the freeway. “Do you think they’ll be at work today?”
“I don’t see why not,” Mary Helen answered, remembering that she, too, wanted to talk to Tony.
“This time I think I’ll ask them about their connection with Dom Sebastiao. Maybe that’s the angle.”
“Maybe.” Mary Helen was distracted. Something about that Sebastiao bothered her. What was it? Something she had wanted to tell Kate.
“I think I’d better question Leonel again, too.” Kate glanced over at Mary Helen.
Leonel! That was it! Poor, volatile Leonel and his outbursts against the professor. That is what she had wanted to tell Kate when Senhora Rubiero had reappeared in the living room. Maybe “wanted to” was a bit too strong. Perhaps “felt she should” would be a more honest evaluation.
Quickly, Mary Helen related the incidents, carefully omitting to tell where she had run into Leonel. “And so you see, Kate,” she concluded, trying her best not to use her schoolmarm voice, “although I’m not sure why, some one of those fellows could have been so disillusioned with the professor that he ended up hating him enough to bludgeon him to death with his own statue.” Mary Helen gave a triumphant smile. But as soon as her last word echoed in her ears, she realized what she’d said. She hoped Kate hadn’t. She had.
“Like Leonel?” Kate’s mouth formed a hard, straight line.
“Like any one of them,” Mary Helen shot back, feeling a little as she felt when she miscounted the trump. “Leonel was the only one I heard express it.” She tried to recover.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“It didn’t seem significant.”
“You were afraid it would implicate Leonel, weren’t you?”
No, the old nun thought, not implicate, vindicate.
Sister Mary Helen waited several minutes before she thought it might be safe to speak. Long enough, she calculated, for two Irish tempers to cool down. She hoped she reckoned the cooling-down period correctly, because she liked Kate Murphy. “What I can’t figure out is Joanna’s connection,” she offered mildly.
“That’s a tough one,” Kate answered, quietly. “I know there must be some connection between the two crimes. We’re looking for a direct connection, something that will link the murderer with both Joanna and the professor. Now also with the Sebastiao business. Maybe we’re missing the real connection. Some indirect link we haven’t even noticed yet.”
Carefully, Kate veered the Plymouth over into the slow lane. She turned off the freeway at the first Daly City exit. “I’ll stop and give Denny a call,” she said, pulling into a gas station on her right. “I’ll ask him to meet me at the college in twenty minutes.” Kate checked her watch. “He can help me question these fellows again.” She rummaged through her purse for some change.
Sitting in the car, Mary Helen watched Kate in the phone booth. She had removed one earring and was talking rapidly. Probably explaining the whole interview with Senhora Rubiero to Inspector Gallagher. Mary Helen could just see him sitting back, loosening his tie, saying nothing, rolling his stubby cigar around in his mouth. Poor fellow probably couldn’t have shoved a word in sideways, even if he wanted to.
Small wisps of fog escaping from San Francisco blew into Daly City and whipped around the phone booth and parked car. Mary Helen felt the chill. She pulled her jacket tightly around her.
She stared at the large oil stain by the gas pump. It was slick and black against the gray cement. Small, round bubbles of water from the wet fog stood out on the surface. Hostile properties, she mused, staring at the oil resisting the moisture. The substances just don’t mix. Like the two murders-Professor Villanueva’s and Joanna’s. Her instincts told her something was off kilter. But what? The connection wasn’t right. What had Kate said? “Maybe the connection is indirect.” Could there be two separate connections, two separate motives, like these two separate substances on the damp cement of the gas station-two that do not mix?
Or perhaps… A thought shot through her mind like an electric shock. It left her dazed and clammy cold. She hated to allow it in a second time, but she had to. Any detective worthy of her salt had to look at all the possibilities. Could it be possible that there were two different murderers? She swallowed hard.
“What’s the matter with you?” Kate jumped into the car and slammed the door. “You’re as white as a ghost. Are you okay?”
“I just had a horrible thought.” Mary Helen could hear the desolate ring in her own voice. How she hoped Kate would say she was wrong.
“What is it?” Kate asked.
“You said that maybe we were missing the connection between the two murders because it was an indirect one… one we never thought of… like two motives for murder. Well, one thing we have never really thought of at all is the possibility of two murderers!”
Kate said nothing. She started the car and zigzagged her way through the traffic toward Mount St. Francis College for Women.
Mary Helen stared out the car window. Immediately, she began to reason with God. Dear Lord, think of poor Therese. She’s on the seventh day of her novena, the one she began to catch one murderer of one victim. Now look what You are letting happen! Two murders, and now maybe two murderers! How, in heaven’s name, can You do that to poor, high-strung Therese!
Mary Helen was glad God seldom talked back, because she was pretty sure she knew what He would say. “Hold on! People murdering one another is not exactly the way I plan things! But relax, old dear, and stick with Me. We’ll work it out!” And she knew He was oh, so right.
Inspector Gallagher was waiting for them when they arrived at the college. Mary Helen spotted him immediately. His bald head stood out like a shiny buoy in the sea of slender, jeans-clad Saturday students gushing from the main entrance.
The Angelus bell began to toll twelve noon. Its low rhythmic notes rang out from the college bell tower and reverberated through the dripping fog.
Gallagher was all business after nodding to Mary Helen. “I’ve located two of the boys. Luis is supposed to be working on the second floor, main building. Leonel in the kitchen. They tell me Tony is somewhere on the grounds. We can look him up later. You want to requestion these guys-using the cult angle?”
“Right!” Slamming the car door behind her, Kate followed Gallagher up the stairs of the entrance to the main college building.
Probably going to talk to Luis first, Mary Helen concluded, feeling a bit left out. She was tempted to ask if she could go along when her stomach rumbled. She decided to follow its lead. Skirting the main building, she ducked into the sisters’ dining room where Eileen and Anne waited, as eager to hear about her visit to Senhora Rubiero as she was to tell.
The two inspectors found Luis guiding a heavy floor polisher back and forth across the already highly polished second-floor hall. The machine formed a glossy wave across the parquet as the young man maneuvered it from side to side. His movements were punctuated with a dull thud against either baseboard. Luis stopped abruptly when he saw them, his hand still clutching the vibrating polisher. The color drained from his sallow face.
“We’d like to ask you a few more questions,” Kate called over the hum of the polisher.
Turning off the machine, Luis limped toward them. He was a small, slight man with wide, frightened eyes.
“Okay.” He shoved his hands into his overall pockets. He looked to Kate like someone who was used to being bullied.
“Is there some place we can talk?” Gallagher asked.
Nodding, Luis led the way down the hall. After fumbling with a heavy set of keys, he let them into a narrow storage room.
“I know no more about murder. I told-a you everything I know,” he began as soon as they entered the room. The color had begun to return to his face.
“I’m sure you did.” Kate perched herself on the edge of a nicked table. “What we want to ask you about is something else. What do you know about Dom Sebastiao?”
The young man blanched. Kate could almost smell fear. “Nada,” he said, too quickly.
“Nothing? Are you sure?” Gallagher moved in closer.
“Only a little.” Luis shifted uncomfortably. Obviously, he was not used to lying.
“Tell us,” Kate urged. “It would help us find this murderer.”
“Only I know that the professor, he talks of it. Helps us to come to this country. To marry. To make the money. Some day, he say, we will return to Portugal rich men.”
He looked so hopeful that Kate was sure he had forgotten for the moment that the professor and his promises were dead.
“Where did you meet the professor?” she asked.
“I read about in the newspaper at home. He offers to bring young people over.”
“For free?”
Luis stared at her with disbelief. “Polica-lady,” he said, shaking his head sadly, “nothing is for free.”
“How much did you pay him?” Gallagher asked.
Luis calculated silently for a few moments. “Ten thousand dollars, your money.”
“And he brought over nine young people from your area?”
Luis nodded. Kate didn’t need to calculate ninety thousand dollars. Behind her, she heard Gallagher curse softly. She knew without even looking at him that he was enraged.
“Not bad for social work, if you can get it,” she heard him mutter.
“Were Carlos and Jose Gomes among the nine?” Kate asked.
Luis nodded.
“Their aunt is very worried about them. They both seem to have vanished. Do you have any idea where they may have gone?”
Luis shook his head. Kate thought she saw fear in his eyes.
“Senhora Rubiero told us that the Gomes boys talked to you often on the phone. Are you sure you don’t have any idea what happened to them?”
“No.” Small white saliva bubbles began to form at the corner of Luis’s mouth. Nervously, he checked the luminous dial on his watch. “The floor. I gotta finish. They no like if I take too long. Okay I go?”
“Okay.” Kate watched the slender young man dart from the storage room.
“He knows something he’s afraid to tell,” Gallagher said as he and Kate cut a crooked path through the small groups of students bunched on the staircase. “He’s not our murderer, though.”
“What makes you say that?” Kate followed him out of the building and down the side path toward the kitchen and Leonel.
“Too scared to kill. Did you see that guy, Kate? Everything about him looks like a frightened animal.”
“Yeah, but let’s not forget, Denny, what frightened animals do when they are backed into a corner.”
Gallagher shrugged, but said nothing. Kate knew he was right.
Leonel was easy to spot. His tightly curled head stuck out among the stainless steel pots. He stared belligerently at the two inspectors walking across the kitchen toward him.
Kate’s eyes met his. “Leonel, we’d like to ask you some questions.”
“What more you want with me?” He wiped his damp hands on his butcher apron and squared his shoulders. “I told you everything I know in your jail!”
“Everything you knew about the professor’s murder. But we’d like to ask you about something else. What do you know about this Dom Sebastiao business?”
Leonel’s hollow, mocking laugh rocked through the kitchen. Startled, several members of the kitchen crew turned to stare.
“Come.” Leonel motioned to the two officers and led them out the back door to the kitchen stoop.
“Tell us what you know about it, son.” Gallagher struck a match against the stone wall and relit his cigar. The small puff of smoke blended into the fog.
“I know that it is good-how you say? fitting?-that the professor was killed with the statue. An act of God!” His voice was venomous.
“Why do you say that?” Kate prodded him.
“Because he tricks us… makes fools of us… At home we are poor. He lends us money to come here. Now, we must pay back and pay back.”
He slammed a clenched fist against the door jamb. “We think at first he is like Dom Sebastiao. A savior… for the good of all. He will save Portugal… make it a powerful country once more. We will become rich here. Go home… marry. Become famous in our country. But no. He fools us, and we are the fools. He does not keep his promises. He controls our lives… keeps us poor. And then Carlos, Manuel, Jose… they disappear… Where are they? When I ask where, he shrugs.” His muscular body trembled with rage. “Bloodsucker! Whoever killed him was a santo!” Closing his eyes, he leaned back against the kitchen door. Small beads of perspiration stood out on his ashen face.
“Did you kill him?” Kate asked in a firm, quiet voice.
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
Leonel did not answer. Kate studied the young man. “I asked if you know who did?” For a moment, she thought she caught a shadow of terror in his dark eyes. Then slowly, deliberately, he shook his head.
Without hesitating, Kate switched her questions. “What about Joanna?” she pressed. “Why would anybody want to kill her?”
Leonel’s head snapped back as if he had been slapped. Involuntary tears welled up in his eyes. “I cannot know,” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his broad hand. “Jesus, I cannot know. Unless she finds out too much.”
Desolate was the only word Kate could think of as she watched Leonel shake his head in bewilderment. We’ve hit a dead end, she thought, looking toward Gallagher. The older man simply shrugged.
Kate touched Leonel’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said gently. “Be sure to get in touch with us if you think of anything that might help.”
As the two police officers walked away, the tall young man crumpled onto the stoop. Burying his face in his butcher apron, he wept.
Kate glanced sideways at her partner. Gallagher was straightening his tie and looking uncomfortable.
“Where are we, Denny?” she asked, more to distract him than anything else.
“We better be getting somewhere soon,” he said. The Chief called this morning while you were down the Peninsula. Must be feeling the heat from the Mayor’s office.”
“Think we’re getting close?” Kate hoped Gallagher hadn’t noticed the sudden eagerness in her voice. Not very professional, but what a plum for the “odd couple” to wind up the Holy Hill murders in less than two weeks! How she’d relish rubbing that into the guys at Detail.
Gallagher cleared his throat. “Let’s see. That Leonel is strong enough and mad enough to have killed the guy. But you know as well as I do, we haven’t got enough evidence to charge him.”
“We have his prints on that statue,” Kate said. “But he claims he was just putting it back for Marina. Could be.”
“And Joanna? Would he have killed Joanna?”
“I don’t think he did it.” Kate buttoned her wool plaid jacket against the biting wind.
“Well, then, where are we, Denny?” Kate repeated. “Think we’re at least making progress?”
“Well, we’ve pretty well eliminated Luis, right?”
“Right.”
“And Leonel?”
“Unless we can place him definitely at the scene.”
“That’s progress.”
“Progress?” Kate stared at her partner, disappointed. “All we’ve done is eliminate one suspect and raise a few unanswered questions about a second. Who have we left?”
“Mrs. Rubiero’s whole address book.”
Kate groaned. Even Superwoman couldn’t get through that whole address book by the end of the week.
“Cheer up, Katie girl.” Gallagher patted her on the back. “We’re ahead of where we were an hour ago. At least, we know of two who probably didn’t do it.”
Suddenly, Kate felt tired and hungry. “Want to walk to the coffee shop down the hill before we go looking for the gardener?” she asked.
Nodding his head, Gallagher shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers and followed.
By the time Mary Helen, Eileen, and Anne left the dining room, the persistent autumn sun had started to burn off the fog. A crisp wind whipped around the side of the main college building, chilling the three nuns who stood on the lawn, still talking.
“What do you think about there being two murderers?” Mary Helen asked, eager to pick her friends’ brains.
“Isn’t one enough?” Anne asked.
“One too many, if you ask me,” Eileen said. “But Mary Helen may well be correct… two murderers with two distinct motives. Double trouble!”
“What about one murderer? Joanna saw him, and then he had to murder her, too? That’s a good motive.” Obviously, Anne was reluctant to admit to two murderers.
“Yes, dear-except Joanna could not have seen the murderer. We all know that!” Eileen pointed out.
“How do we all know that?” Anne imitated Eileen’s slight brogue.
“Because Marina told you so, Anne dear. Joanna had gone out of town that night. She called her from San Jose.”
“But we really don’t know for sure, do we? How does Marina know she really was in San Jose when she called? She disappeared right after that. She may have lied to Marina and come back to the college. Really, no one knows exactly where she was. Except her murderer.”
Anne’s declaration was met with silence. “Besides, she added sheepishly, her real point becoming clear, “if you think there are two murderers, please keep it to yourselves. Therese is driving everyone absolutely bananas whining about being killed in our very own cloister. If she thinks she has to watch out for two fiends, instead of one, there’ll be no enduring her.”
Mary Helen couldn’t swallow her guffaw fast enough. Murder was no laughing matter, but human nature surely was. Her laugh burst across the silent campus. Several young women swung around at the unexpected noise.
“Oh, oh, both my appointments spotted me.” Anne checked her watch. “I’ve about two minutes to get to my office. Girl’s pregnant, I think. One says she wants to be a nun.”
“Different girls, I hope!” Mary Helen said lightly, secretly grateful once again that she was in history and not campus ministry.
Smiling, Anne tried to roll her eyes like Therese’s. Then, briskly, she walked toward her basement office.
Eileen stomped her feet to keep warm. “I’d better go, too.” She frowned toward the windows of the Hanna Memorial. “However, if luck is on my side, they may have given my job away. I’ll see you later, old dear.”
Mary Helen watched her friend go, her own mind spinning. Murderers and policemen, hidden motives, unknown connections whirled around. Altogether, it was very unsettling! What she needed was some-what did Anne call it?-“space.” That was it. She needed space. But where? “In green old gardens, hidden away. From sight of revel and sound of strife… Here may I live what life I please…” For the life of her, she couldn’t remember the rest of the verse, but the message was clear. Her “spot” would be ideal.
Swooping into her bedroom, she grabbed her brand new mystery novel. Deftly, she wrapped it in her plastic prayer book cover. She placed the ribbon marker on page one. A sweater. If she was going to enjoy an afternoon in her spot, she’d need a sweater. That cold stone bench seeped right through polyester. Her big, bulky Aran knit would be perfect.
Slamming the convent door behind her, Mary Helen shook it hard to make sure it was locked. With poor Therese so twittery, there was no sense leaving the door ajar.
Trudging up the hill from the Sisters’ Residence, she suddenly realized how tired she was. Her legs had no push. Her neck and shoulders ached. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn that someone had siphoned her pep. An old Model T without gas, she thought, taking the small, winding path leading to her stone bench. And no wonder she was dragging. These last seven days had been hectic. She was very wise to take the afternoon off to act retired. Just sit and relax and read a good, clean, objective murder mystery, one in which you didn’t know the victim personally and in which the killer was easy to guess.
She breathed deeply. The wild, woodsy smell of the hillside cleared her head. “To linger silent among the healthful woods, musing on such things as are worthy of a wise and good man.” In this case, woman. That Horace surely knew what he was talking about. She inhaled again. Dry pine needles crunched under her walking shoes. Carefully, she skirted a small, broken limb that had fallen from the silver dollar eucalyptus.
The sight of eucalyptus, Scotch pine, and untamed juniper flourishing right beside a busy campus in the middle of a busy city lifted her spirits. This lovely foliage grew-oblivious of any of the human beings around it, untouched by human frailty, unharmed by human hatred or greed or jealousy or even murder.
It was then she spotted Tony coming down the path toward her. He was wearing mud-spattered work clothes and dragging a rusty shovel. A small cloud of dust followed him. He was on her list. She should talk to him. Find out what he knew. But this afternoon she just didn’t feel like it. She wanted to be alone on her hillside, thinking her own thoughts. She didn’t want to talk about murder or motives or alibis. She didn’t even want to be polite. Fortunately, she didn’t have to be.
“What are you doing here, Sister?” Tony asked, rather gruffly, she thought.
None of your business! was the first retort that popped into her mind. “Going to the clearing,” she said mildly, pointing toward it with her plastic-covered book.
“Oh,” he said, apparently not knowing what to say next. Mary Helen thought she smelled alcohol on his breath. They stood, looking at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move.
His eyes were glazed. For a moment Mary Helen said nothing, just met his stare with a well-practiced, school-marm stare of her own.
Tony took a step toward her. Then she was sure she smelled it: the acrid and unmistakable odor of stale wine.
Gripping the handle of his shovel, he steadied himself. Mary Helen was annoyed. All she needed to complete her day was an obnoxious drunk!
“If you’ll excuse me now,” Mary Helen said, primly edging to Tony’s left. With one unsteady step he blocked her way, beginning to raise his shovel.
“Is there something you wish to discuss?” She struggled to keep the quaver out of her voice.
Suddenly, from several yards below, Kate Murphy’s voice called, “Tony! Is that you?”
Mary Helen listened to the slap of four footsteps coming toward them. There went her knees again. This time they felt like spaghetti. Kate and Inspector Gallagher rounded the corner. Thank goodness.
Tony dropped the shovel. “Yeah. Who wants to know?” He took two or three staggering steps toward them.
“Police,” Gallagher barked, jerking his badge from his back pocket.
“Look who’s here,” Kate smiled when she saw Mary Helen. “I hope you’re not doing our work for us.”
Sister Mary Helen’s hand shook as she grabbed Kate’s arm and pulled her to the side. “Thank God, you’re here,” she whispered, trying to keep her voice from quaking. “That young man is very intoxicated and very angry. You don’t suppose he could be our murderer, do you? There’s something in his eyes…”
Kate looked amused. “Negative,” she whispered back, cutting into the middle of Mary Helen’s sentence. “Remember-I told you he had an alibi for the night the professor was killed. I checked. He was in a bar in Santa Clara with dozens of other Portuguese who’ll swear to it, not to mention the bartender. In the trade, we call that airtight!”
“Airtight? Are you sure?”
Kate nodded. “Sorry, Sister.”
Mary Helen frowned over at Tony. Unless there were two murderers, she thought.
Gallagher fired questions which the young man answered in monosyllables.
Kate returned to her first question. “What are you up to?”
Mary Helen took a long deep breath. If I had any sense at all, I’d go straight to my room and lock the door and lie down, she thought. But I’ll be switched if I’ll let one ugly scene with one ugly man intimidate me!
“I’m going to that favorite spot of mine to sit for a while,” she said, indicating her book.
“Pray for us while you’re there.” Kate patted her arm. Mary Helen didn’t have the energy to explain about her plastic cover. Later.
“And, Sister, by the way. How about dinner tonight? Jack enjoyed you so much. Besides, I’d like to talk to you about the two-murderer theory. We’ll have something simple. Maybe pick up Chinese.” Kate seemed genuinely eager.
“I’d love that,” Mary Helen said.
“Good. We’ll question this guy. Go downtown to do the paper work and then I’ll pick you up. Around six.”
Mary Helen settled comfortably on the cold stone bench. It took several minutes for her breathing and heartbeat to return to normal and a little longer for her knees to lose that shaky feeling.
Closing her eyes, she bundled her Aran knit sweater around her and pulled the thick collar over her ears. The sun was warm on her legs. When she’d started up the path, she’d been tired; after her little encounter, she was exhausted. She needed a nap. Not here, not now. She should think. Put this whole thing together. Yet her entire body felt drugged; her energy sapped; her limbs weary. She fought to stay awake. Suddenly, she felt all of seventy, or was it seventy… Within minutes, the old nun had fallen into a sound sleep.
“Our friend Tony was really into his cups.” Inspector Gallagher followed Kate down the campus driveway into the parking lot.
“It didn’t seem to loosen his tongue nor improve his disposition.” Kate leaned against the fender of the Plymouth. “What do you make of this afternoon, Denny?”
“That little guy. Luis. He may be innocent, but he knows something. And he’s scared shitless to tell it. I’d wager it has something to do with the professor and this Sebastiao business. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Kate said. “And he may be our best bet. Not used to lying. Did you notice?”
“Yep.” Gallagher fumbled in his jacket pocket for a brand new cigar.
“Wish we could locate those two nephews of Senhora Rubiero’s. And the two missing Manuels-Noia and Sousa. They might be able to tell us something that would wind this case up.” Kate did not relish going through the entire Rubiero address book.
Watching a small group of chattering students cross the asphalt, Kate felt a momentary twinge of envy as they laughed, piled into a tiny Volkswagen, and squealed out of the parking lot. Saturday night, and they could have cared less about murders and murderers and solving cases.
“Do you think there may be something to this two-murderer theory?” she asked, watching the Volkswagen taillights disappear down the driveway.
“Now you want two murderers?”
“Just a feeling.”
“Don’t give me that women’s intuition crap.” Gallagher rummaged through his pants pockets for a match.
Kate chose not to take up the gauntlet. “We can’t seem to find one suspect who could have committed both crimes,” she said evenly.
Gallagher grunted. “Maybe we haven’t found the right suspect,” he said. “Or maybe you’re right, and this two-killer theory is the way to go. One guy could have killed the professor, and a second guy could have killed the girl.”
“Why guy?”
“I don’t know.” Gallagher shrugged. “I guess a strong gal could have hit that hard. But the only woman even near either scene was that cute little secretary, Marina, with the innocent eyes. She hardly seems the type.”
“Don’t give me that chauvinistic crap.” Tit for tat, Kate thought. “What is the type?” she asked, watching Gallagher get his cigar and match together. She was always relieved when he finally made contact.
“Now that clown, Tony. He’s the type. An obnoxious bastard. But we already know he has an airtight alibi for one of the nights in question. I can see why the bartender remembers him.”
“But maybe not for the day Joanna was killed.”
“Right. We’ll get on that Monday, too.”
“I think Sister Mary Helen was genuinely frightened of Tony. Said there was something in his eyes. Maybe she had a point.”
“For crissake, Kate, she said Leonel had nice eyes and, therefore, couldn’t be a killer. Now there’s something wrong with this guy’s eyes that says he can be. You’ve just run across a real eye nut! And eyes are not admissible evidence in a murder case.”
Kate couldn’t resist. “But they are the windows of the soul,” she said. Opening her car door, she threw her purse on the seat beside her. “See you downtown, Denny. Want to split the paper work?”
“Okay,” he said, moving toward his Ford.
The two car doors slammed simultaneously. Officers Murphy and Gallagher merged slowly onto Turk Street and headed downtown to the Hall of Justice.
After coffee, Kate drove Sister Mary Helen home. The poor old nun had looked exhausted during dinner, she seemed delighted when Kate suggested they all turn in early. The ride from 34th Avenue to the college was a quiet one, punctuated mostly by yawns. As soon as Kate saw Mary Helen safely inside the convent, she hurried back to Jack.
The moment she opened the front door, she knew he was angry. The loud thud of pots banging against the kitchen drainboard reverberated into the small entrance hall. A cupboard door crashed shut.
“Hi, hon. I’m back,” she called, hanging her coat in the hall closet. Cautiously, she peeked into the kitchen. All evening she’d had the uneasy feeling that Jack was building up to something, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what.
Jack, shirt sleeves rolled to his elbow, stood at the sink wiping silverware and slamming it into the drawer.
“I got Sister home okay.” She tiptoed across the room and planted a light kiss on his cheek. “Thanks so much for cleaning up, pal…” She was about to add, “I love you,” when Jack flung the towel on the kitchen table.
“That’s it!” Removing his chef’s apron, he threw it in a heap with the towel.
Kate had never seen Jack quite like this before. He was furious. She really didn’t know what to do. The wrath of the patient man… what was the proverb? Beware the wrath of the patient man. Up to this point, Jack Bassetti had been a very patient man. “What is it?” she asked meekly.
“I have had it with this living together business. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with us! It’s the woman who is supposed to feel used and violated. The man is supposed to be able to change his shirt and whistle on his way. Our whole relationship is back-assed!” He slammed an open palm on the kitchen table for emphasis.
“Damn it, Kate.” He was shouting now, his Italian in crescendo. “At the risk of sounding like the heroine in a B movie-either marry me, or I’m leaving!”
Suddenly, Kate felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. She knew by the determined set of his lips that even when his temper cooled, he meant it. So this was it-the showdown.
“Well, say something!”
She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t. An ache closed her throat. Jack stood before her, stiff with anger, waiting for her answer.
“Well?” he repeated.
Quick tears flooded her eyes. Kate never cried. She hated to cry, yet the tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. She fumbled for a Kleenex. She tried to speak again, but couldn’t “I love you,” she managed finally.
Jack thawed a little. “Here, sit down.” He pulled out one of the kitchen chairs. “I’ll pour a couple of glasses of brandy. Let’s talk.”
A little of the anger had left his voice. Kate was glad. Sniffling, she slipped her hand into his. He squeezed it. “I really do love you,” she said.
“I love you, too, Kate. But I mean it!”
Kate rolled the rich, brown liquor around in the snifter, trying to think. “Can we talk about it after this homicide at the college is solved? You know, Jack, it’s really on my mind. I can hardly think of anything else.” She sniffed.
“That’s an excuse, Kate. If it isn’t this case, it will be another. You’ve got to decide.” Jack was coldly logical.
Kate stared into her glass. She had always dreaded this moment. She had hoped it would never come. Yet she knew it was inevitable. She knew Jack wanted to settle down, raise a family. But could she? “I’ll never give an inch to any man,” she had told Ma years ago. Then, she had meant it, too. The police shrink would probably have a field day figuring out her childhood traumas, her built-in views of masculine and feminine roles, and all the rest. All she knew was that up to now she had needed to feel independent, to be successful in a man’s world, never to give an inch. But tonight she wasn’t quite sure.
“Marriage is such a big step,” she said finally.
“I know. But we’ve had more than enough time to test it out. I think what it gets down to, Kate, is this. Do you really love me?” Jack set his glass down.
“Of course I love you.”
“Enough to make a commitment?”
“I’ve made one, or I wouldn’t still be here.”
“I mean a permanent, legal, sacramental one. Do you remember what Sister Mary Helen said tonight about her fifty-year commitment?”
Kate remembered. She had hoped bringing Sister Mary Helen home would somehow put Jack’s mind at ease about their relationship. Instead, the whole damn thing had backfired. The old nun had just bitten into an egg roll when Jack brought it up. “Every commitment, mine or anybody else’s, is a risk,” she had answered, “because you must make choices, give up some things in order to have others. But, if you are sure of your feelings you are willing, in fact, eager, to take the risk, really love someone. And in my case,” she added matter-of-factly, “I’ve never stopped being glad I risked it! Please pass the almond chicken.”
“My question still stands.” Jack’s voice broke into Kate’s thoughts. “Do you love me enough to marry me, or do I move out tomorrow?”
“You don’t mean it?”
“I do.”
“Is that a threat?” Kate’s eyes leveled for the challenge. Even as she spoke the words, she realized it was a helluva time to save face.
Jack shook his head in exasperation. “You have got to be the most goddam, stubborn Irishman… Irishwoman that God ever created, and I must be nuts to want you.”
Jack grabbed her clenched fists. “Kate,” he said, “it is not a threat. It is more like a goddam plea. Will you please marry me?”
Everything in her heart wanted to shout, “Yes, I love you. I’ll marry you.” A sudden tingle of yearning rushed through her whole body. She loved him. She loved that kind, funny, wild Eye-talian just as much as he loved her. And love was a fling of the heart, not a matter for the head.
“Kate,” Jack repeated, “will you marry me?”
Standing, she slipped her hands into his and pulled him up. Without a word, she led him through the kitchen, turning off the lights. Bewildered, Jack followed. She stopped. In the darkened kitchen, she pressed her body against his, put her arms tightly around his waist, and rested her head against his chest.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jack asked, his arms enveloping her.
“Ask me to marry you again,” she whispered.
“In the dark? Why?”
“At the moment, it is the only way I can think of to give in and save face both.”
Jack hugged her. She could feel he was laughing. “Will you marry me?” he managed to ask solemnly.
Against his chest, Kathleen Murphy’s red head slowly, deliberately nodded her yes.