A Perfect Grave (4 page)

Chapter Seven

S
teel glinted in the beam of the police officer’s flashlight.

The officer was in the alley behind the town house with Kay Cataldo, a crime-scene investigator. They were crouched over a blackberry shrub next to a length of worn picket fence and the rusting frame of a bicycle. A second officer was taping off the area as Grace Garner approached.

“Where’s the safe way in?” She didn’t want to contaminate the scene.

“Close to the fence,” Cataldo said.

“What do we have?”

“Officer Ryan Danko here’s got the eyes of a hawk.”

With great care, Cataldo spread the shrub’s leaves, revealing a kitchen steak knife. It had a wooden handle and a six-inch serrated blade. Close inspection showed tiny reddish-brown flecks in some areas.

“This our weapon?”

“It’s a candidate.” Cataldo, aided by Danko, concentrated on taking photographs, measurements, and notes. “We’ll type it against the victim. We’ll process this knife, see if it matches anything the nuns use or if anything’s missing from any drawers in there.”

“What about foot impressions?”

“Got a partial inside and we’ll use it when we cast around here.”

“All right, and we better put the word out to watch for every tossed cigarette butt in the area.”

“Our guy’s a smoker?” Danko said.

“Just a hunch. Good work, Danko. Thanks, Kay.”

Encouraged by the promise of evidence, Grace stepped aside and called Perelli.

“We may have a weapon. A blade. Serrated, about six inches. Wooden handle.”

“Could be our break.”

“Could be. You talk to the sisters about a volunteer list for the shelter and everyone she had contact with tonight. I’ll follow up next door on the canvass.”

“Sure. And Grace, this thing’s already drawing heat. Reporters are calling in here trying to interview the nuns over the phone.”

“Tell the sisters not to speak to the press, then get downtown to send someone up here to handle that. This is just the beginning.”

Grace saw a news truck creeping down the alley toward the tape as she took stock of the surrounding buildings and windows, assessing lines of sight into the dimly lit area. She shone a penlight on her notes as she updated them and reviewed her sketches and the precanvass done by the responding officers, mining it for witnesses. There wasn’t much to work with from the alley side.

But the front, now, the front was a different story.

In the front she had Bernice Burnett, age seventythree, a widow and retired telephone operator. Lives in the adjacent building, alone with her cats. Bernice Burnett’s big window looks into Sister Anne’s second-floor apartment. Would she be reliable? Most witnesses weren’t and Grace could feel time ticking away. She could not let this one get cold. She had to build on the positives. She had possible evidence, maybe a witness. Bit by bit, piece by piece, that’s how you get it done, she told herself as she knocked on Bernice Burnett’s door.

Locks clicked and it opened to a woman in a full-length sweater and fluffy slippers.

“Bernice Burnett?

“Yes.”

Grace held out her identification.

“Detective Grace Garner. I’d like to talk to you about this evening, follow up on what you told the officer earlier. May I come in?”

“Oh. Yes, Detective, of course, but I’ve got—” Bernice glanced back to her visitor, Jason Wade.

“That’s okay,” Jason stood. “Thank you, Mrs. Burnett, you’ve been very helpful, I was just leaving.”

Grace snapped her ID closed. She was annoyed. Annoyed as hell that a reporter was talking to her witness before her, the primary. And why, damn it, why did it have to be Jason Wade?

He didn’t even glance at her until they were inches apart at the doorway, then he leveled a cold look at her. Or was it only a reflection of what he’d discovered in her eyes? Did he even know about her disaster with Agent Asshole? Well, to hell with it all, Grace. Do your job. Just do your damn job.

“Excuse me for a moment, Bernice, I’ll be right back,” Grace said.

She couldn’t risk damage to her case by letting testimonial evidence become a headline. She followed Jason down the hall but he refused to stop.

“Will you hold on, please?”

He halted. But he refused to turn and face her, forcing her to walk around him until she stood before him.

“How did you get in this building?”

“Give me a break.”

“All right, what did she tell you? What’re you going to print? Are you going to hurt my investigation?”

“Ever heard of freedom of the press? I don’t work for you, so back off.”

Both of them were breathing hard; neither wanted to acknowledge what was raging beneath the surface, until finally Grace took the first step.

“Jason, look, maybe I made a mistake. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“
If you hurt me?
” He shook his head. “I thought we had something good. That it was going somewhere. You just tossed me like yesterday’s news without so much as a ‘hey, we have to talk.’”

“So I suck at these things. I’ve always been alone. I—”

“You got a name on the victim, the nun?”

“What?”

Pages of his notebook snapped to a fresh one. His pen was poised.

“You’re on the record. Can you confirm that it’s Sister Anne Braxton?”

“No. We’re not prepared to release—”

“Any indication on cause of death?”

“That will be confirmed by the Medical Ex—”

“I didn’t ask you for confirmation, I asked for an indication?”

“Jason, come on.”

“Was she shot, stabbed, beaten? Was it an act of God, Grace, tell me?”

“You’re being rude.”

“I’m doing my job. People around here are going to be outraged that someone would murder this nun. They call her an angel of the community. So you got a suspect yet?”

“This is how you want to play it?”

The jingle of keys interrupted them as a uniformed officer trotted up the stairs.

“Detective, we’ve got a bunch of media out front who’re demanding to talk to you right now.”

Without releasing Jason from her glare, she said, “Tell them to wait. We’ve got a press person coming to us from downtown.”

The officer sized up Jason. “You got some trouble here, detective?”

“Mr. Wade here has breached the boundary of my scene. Escort him to the street and keep all press out of this building.”

“No need for that,” Jason said. “I’m finished here.” He shot Grace a parting glare. “Believe me.”

Bernice Burnett showed Grace a cherished photograph of her husband, the late Ambrose Burnett. He was a cabinetmaker who once did some of the custom work on the president’s plane, Bernice recalled, while Lulu, her tabby, rubbed up against Grace Garner.

“You must be proud.”

“Oh, I am. We have personal letters from the presidents who admired his work. Would you like to see them?”

“Another time, perhaps. Bernice, I’d like to come back to what you saw tonight. Your big window is beautiful.”

“I like it.”

“It rises from the floor to your ceiling. You’ve got a clear view of the building next door.”

“Yes. I usually can see who comes and goes while I’m watching my usual TV shows. I like the old reruns of shows my husband enjoyed.”

“Can you mark in your television guide at each point in a show when you noticed something happening next door? It’ll help me with a time line.”

Bernice knitted her brow.

“Let’s see, the pizza man came halfway through
Green Acres.
After him, the second man came.”

“The second man? When was that?”

“When
Love Boat
started. I love that old show.”

“Did you notice if the second man rang the bell?”

“No, it seemed like he just walked in like the door was open.”

“Had you ever seen him before?”

“I couldn’t be sure. He’s hard to describe. Just a man, tall, I think.”

“White, black, Asian?”

“Hard to say for certain. I think white.”

“Any distinguishing clothing? Or in the way he walked?”

Bernice shook her head.

“I don’t remember. It was dark; he was more like a silhouette. It was like he had business there. I thought maybe he was a priest. I thought nothing at all of it because the sisters get a lot of visitors.”

“What came next?”

“Well, it was right near the end of
Love Boat
when I noticed strange lights in Sister Anne’s apartment?”

“Strange, how?”

“Like someone was going around with a lamp, or flashlight. At first I thought Sister Anne may have lit a candle, for prayers, or maybe she’d lost power.”

“Did you see Sister Anne arrive home?”

“No, I never did. I got up to get my cats some milk and I made myself a little snack, some cheese and crackers just before
Fantasy Island
started. Then I noticed it was all dark again.”

“And after that?”

“Some time at the start of the show, the lights in her apartment came on and through her curtains, which were closed but are sheers, I saw shadows. The usual kind when Sister Anne is there, but then, I think I saw two figures inside.”

Grace had been taking careful notes.

“And that’s all you noticed tonight? A man at the door and unusual lights and movements in Sister Anne’s apartment?”

“Well, that’s what I told the officer, and that nice reporter, but come to think of it, I remember a bit more.”

Grace looked up from her notebook.

“I saw a man leave the building. I think it was the same man who’d entered after the pizza man.”

Has to be our guy, Grace thought as Bernice continued.

“He walked between the buildings to the back alley. No one ever goes that way. He was walking fast, not running, but walking fast. I thought, gosh, what’s wrong? So I stood and watched him go that way.”

“North?”

“If that way’s north, that’s right. I saw his arm move like he was tossing something small, then he stopped for a few seconds and I saw a red glow, like a flame at his head.”

“Like he was lighting a cigarette?”

“Yes. And then he was gone.”

“Anything after that?”

“I think I fell asleep. It was the sirens and all the commotion that woke me. Then a police officer came to my door.”

Bernice took one of her cats, Lulu, into her arms and stood at her window watching the increased activity at the police tape below. More news crews and more police vehicles had arrived. Emergency lights strobed across her face.

Grace saw it reflected in the glass, saw Bernice’s concern turn to fear, dawning with the realization that just out there, a few feet beyond her windowpane, an unseen horror had visited her neighbor. Lulu jumped from her arms.

“Is Sister Anne hurt?”

Grace went to her and gently touched her shoulder.

“It’s something more serious than a burglary, isn’t it?” Bernice asked.

“Much more serious.”

Bernice could not breathe, her knees weakened. Grace steadied her, helping her into her chair, comforting her and gazing into the night, the same night that was hiding a killer.

Chapter Eight

T
he
Mirror
’s newsroom was empty when Jason Wade returned.

There was no way he would get the nun’s murder into any late edition, as the last staffers on the night shift had left for home. The presses had long since completed their last run. The delivery trucks were gone and all over the metro area today’s
Mirror
was already plopping on doorsteps.

The newsroom’s silence was punctuated by the solitary clicking of his keyboard as he wrote about the murder for the
Mirror
’s online edition, to assure readers—
and his editor
—that he was on it. The
Seattle Times
and the
Post-Intelligencer
would be doing the same. TV and radio would be hammering on it all day today. And the Associated Press would surely move something soon.

He could not fall behind.

Jason made calls to Grace and the precinct to confirm the murdered nun’s name. And ask her what was going on out back.

No luck at the precinct. And no luck with Grace. She probably wouldn’t talk to him anyway. Well, he’d play it safe. He’d leave Sister Anne’s name out of print until he was certain it’s her, he advised himself while pounding out a tight item with bare-bones facts. And he held off using the exclusive stuff he’d gotten from Bernice Burnett. He didn’t want to help his competition. He’d offer it all up later today when the
Mirror
put together a fuller story for tomorrow’s paper. As he read it over, his cell phone rang.

The number was blocked.

“Wade.”

“You the reporter who was asking about the murder by Yesler tonight?”

Jason didn’t recognize the voice.

“Yes, who’s calling?”

At the scene he’d floated his card to a group of young men gathered near the tape. Most were teens in hooded sweatshirts, watching and talking quietly. He’d figured they’d be good for knowing something and suspected that one of them was on the line now.

“You hearing if police got a suspect?” the caller asked.

“Nope, nothing. I didn’t catch your name?”

“I got some information for you but first I want a deal, all right?”

“First, I want a name. Who are you?”

“Tango.”

“Tango? That a real name?”

“As real as you need. You going to take this to the next level, or do I end it?”

“What do you want?”

“We trade. I tell you what I know, you tell me what you know, and we don’t tell nobody where it’s comin’ from. Deal?”

Jason was interested, but guarded against giving up anything. “All right, but I’ve got nothing at this point.”

“Come on, man, police always give you guys the inside track.”

“All I know is what everyone knows: a woman was murdered.”

“Yeah, but you got that she was a nun, right?”

“Really? What was her name?”

“Sister Anne.”

“Sister Anne who?”

“Don’t know, but word is she was stabbed and they found the knife out back. They were taking pictures and doing their CSI thing.”

A knife. That was new.
Jason made notes. “Anything else? What kind of knife? What kind of questions are the detectives asking neighbors?”

He was answered with silence.

“Got anything more for me, Tango? Anybody see anything? This connected to any other cases?”

“It might be something to do with a thing the Sister did a long time ago.”

“Like what?”

“A gang thing. I can’t say right now for sure, but this might be some kind of revenge thing.”

“Revenge thing?”

“Payback.”

“Payback against a nun?” Jason’s grip tightened. “Payback for what? Tell me?”

“No. Can’t do that yet. What’ve you got to trade with me?”

“Like I said, I’ve got squat. But you’ve got to give me your word you won’t talk to other reporters.”

“I’ll try you out, that’s the deal.”

“Can I get a number?”

“No number, I’ll call you, that’s how it’s got to work.”

“What’s your concern? Does this have something to do with you?”

“The sisters do all the good in the hood. Anyone thinks they can invade and hurt one, like what happened tonight, is going to pay. Vengeance is mine, understand?”

Jason understood.

On the crime beat you get strange calls. Whackedout people claiming to have information. Or people claiming to be psychic. Disturbed people who confessed. Pathetic types who needed to feel important. And sometimes, people with the truth.

They all called.

Jason wasn’t sure about this one. Tango offered possibilities on why Sister Anne was murdered. A gang thing? Maybe. Or maybe he was trying to play him for information.

Or maybe Tango was the killer?

There was no way for Jason to know.

It’s why he had a habit of taping his calls. After the line went dead, he checked his microrecorder and replayed a bit. Good. He had it. He would follow up later. It might be useless. It might be gold. He returned to polishing his story. Once he finished, he e-mailed it to the
Mirror
’s web staff, who worked 24/7 in Redmond, a few miles east of Seattle.

It would be posted online within minutes.

Then he sent the morning assignment editor an e-mail with contacts and suggestions for the day side staff to follow when they got in, a few hours from now.

Leaning back in his chair, he finished the last of his potato chips, downed his Coke, and considered Tango’s tip.
The nun’s murder was payback for something she did.
What could that be? He ran a quick check of the
Mirror
’s databases but it didn’t yield much.

His body ached for sleep and he contemplated things as he started his Falcon and headed home. Ever since the Brian Pillar fiasco, he’d embarked on a selfassigned special project. He’d been randomly mining old stories as candidates for anniversary features. Missing persons, unidentified corpses, unsolved murders and robberies.

Some went back for decades.

He’d learned the value of revisiting old files—most cops welcomed attention to their coldest cases. It often resulted in a fresh lead, a good read, and a new source. He’d also learned that it was critical to check all details of a fast-breaking crime story for links to previous cases.

But as for tonight—nothing had come up when he searched the scant details he had on the nun’s murder. Other than a few urban-life features on the Sisters of the Compassionate Heart of Mercy and their work, there was nothing that would point to anything gang related. The shelter helped down-and-out types, people from the street, some with criminal records. Maybe the link was there, he thought, heading northbound on the Aurora Avenue Bridge.

He wasn’t sure.

He found a soft-jazz station and glanced at the lights of Gas Works Park as he drove over Lake Union. He liked to come to the bridge to watch the sailboats, or the ships navigating the Ballard Locks and the Lake Washington Ship Canal on their way to the Pacific.

He looked in his rearview mirror at the twinkling lights and the skyline and his thoughts went beyond the city’s beauty to a cold, hard truth he’d learned as a crime reporter. Death was his beat and for him metro Seattle was a burial ground. Cases like the Green River killer, Bundy, the mall shooter, the firefighter’s arson, the unsolved hooker killings, the deadly heists, and the baby abduction marked its history like headstones.

And now we have a nun, slain near Yesler Terrace.

It would never stop.

It was Jason’s job to understand it, write about it, to try to make sense of it while finding the nerve to ask a grieving mother, father, husband, wife, sister, brother, daughter, son, or friend for a picture of the victim.

“
All of Seattle shares your loss.
”

Contrary to what most people thought of reporters, he hated that part of the job. It took a toll on him, too. Keeping his emotional distance from a story never,
ever
got easier, no matter how many tragedies he’d covered. It was always a struggle to keep from numbing himself with a few beers, because a few beers would lead to a few more.

Which would lead to…

Forget it.

He was exhausted and hungry as he came to the edge of Fremont and Wallingford, where he lived in a huge nineteenth-century house that had been carved into apartments. His one-bedroom unit was on the third floor.

He’d moved here when he was still in college and wanted to be on his own—for a lot of reasons. The big one being that he’d needed to put some distance between himself, his old man, the brewery, and the crap that had permeated their lives.

Since moving in, he hadn’t changed the place at all. He had the same two secondhand leather sofas discarded by a dentist who was closing his office. They faced each other over the same low-standing coffee table, which was covered with newspapers. At the far end of his living room, a giant poster of Jimi Hendrix, his beloved god of rock, overlooked a thirty-gallon aquarium.

Jason was hungry and grabbed his last can of baked beans.

He loathed this, the loneliest time of his day. He put a spoonful of cold beans in his mouth to kill his self-pity and sat before his tank. It cast the room in a soft blue light. His tiny tropical fish gliding among the coral, the sunken ship, the diver, and bubbles soothed him as he chewed on his thoughts.

Had he been too hard on Grace? What was up with her, anyway? She seemed to want to call a truce. He wanted her to know that he was still pissed off at her. Still wounded.

And how long was he going to sulk?

She still drove him wild. He’d never met anyone like her and he couldn’t believe she’d ended it with him. He couldn’t get her out of his system. Maybe he should try to talk to her? God knows, he was going to need all the help he could get on this homicide.

After finishing his beans, he tossed the can, brushed his teeth, went to his bedroom, undressed, then fell into bed.

Tango.

And his line on payback for something Sister Anne did. What the hell was that? Could be something to it? He had to follow up on it, maybe even take it to Grace. Proceed with caution. Maybe that was the way to approach things with this story.

And with Grace.

He couldn’t sleep. He was thirsty from the beans and went to his fridge. It was empty but for a halfeaten can of ravioli and an unopened beer. The bottle stood there as a personal test to prove that he was stronger than the temptation.

He settled for a glass of water from the tap.

See, he was not like his old man.

His father.

Cripes, he’d forgotten about his old man, getting the bar to call him when all he was doing was sitting there. Alone, staring into his glass. And that nasty cut on his hand. “
Jay, you have to help me, son, I don’t know what to do here.
” Something had been eating his father, something that was going to push him off the wagon, something that compelled him to call for help.

Guilt pricked at Jason’s conscience and he glanced at the time. Why had he been called away just when his father needed him? He’d have to try him later. Man, he prayed it wasn’t too late, that his old man had been able to hang on.

Jason rubbed his hands over his face, took in a long breath, then slowly let it out before picking up the printouts of the old stories he’d retrieved on the nuns with the Compassionate Heart of Mercy. He found Sister Anne’s face in a group shot that accompanied one of the stories.

He stared at it.

She was smiling, but her eyes seemed to hold a measure of sadness.