Black Princess Mystery (22 page)

“I didn’t
know that.”

“Because
he was a young offender, this isn’t public knowledge. Keep it to yourself.”

“Do you
have any idea why Father Tim visited Matt that night?”

“No, but
Murphy told the police it was a private matter he could not disclose.”
Thorston’s mobile phone rang. He excused himself, listened for a short time,
then thanked the caller and disconnected.

“Any more
information?” Tasheka asked expectantly, keen on knowing everything.

“Do you
know what you remind me of?” he said, looking at her with a wry smile.

“What?”

“You
remind me of one of those bull riders in a rodeo. They smile with boyish grins
and wave at the fans, but underneath they’re as tough as nails.”

“There’s
one big difference between me and them,” Tasheka said, pulling her hair behind
her head and securing it in a ponytail with an elastic.

“What’s
that?”

She looked
him right in the eyes. “I ride a lot longer than eight seconds.”

Thorston
took a moment to process her claim.

“Who was
that on the phone?” Tasheka asked.

“Watkins,”
he said, again looking around. “They still haven’t picked up the brother but we
assume he’s driving Tim Murphy’s car and we’re making a push in the media to
track it down. It’s like he’s just disappeared. That seems suspicious.”

“To say
the least.” She applied some cherry lip balm to protect her mouth from the
cold. “So, tell me, what do you know about Father Tim’s brother?”

“What do
you know?”

“I don’t
know anything about the older brother, William, but the younger brother’s name,
Kevin, now that’s intriguing.”

“Why?”

“Our dog,
the little lab, was a gift from Father Tim. He got the pup when Kie was only
six weeks old, but with so many commitments and being on the road all the time,
he gave the dog to me as a present. My mother and I didn’t know what to name
him, but she decided to call him ‘Kiev’ because that’s her favorite city.”
Tasheka thought for a moment. “I couldn’t understand why, but Father Tim didn’t
like the name. You see, almost everyone who said our pup’s name called him
‘Kev’ instead of ‘Kiev.’ It was Father Tim who started calling him Kie and he
asked us to use that name instead. It was once his dog, after all, and both Mom
and I found the new name distinctive, so we changed it.”

“That’s
odd, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Apparently,”
said Thorston, “Tim Murphy loved his younger brother and became something of a
father figure who doted on Kevin. One day, when he wasn’t home, William Murphy
took Kevin for a drive, even though Tim insisted he stay away from him. William
was smoking dope and blasting heavy metal music. Unknown to them, the police
were in a high speed chase with a drunk driver and the guy sped through a red
light. The Murphy brothers got broadsided by the drunk’s pickup truck and the
boy was pronounced dead on the scene. He was only seventeen. There was talk of
charging William because of the dope, but apparently the judge felt William had
suffered enough. No charges were ever laid. Tim Murphy was crushed, and he was
furious. He developed a hateful aversion for all drugs and disowned his
brother. To my knowledge, they had never made amends and the older brother just
recently got out of jail on some unrelated matter. Why and how he ended up at
the church, especially considering their troubled past, I have no idea. But
we’re looking into it more closely now.” He shook his head. “I can’t imagine
anyone killing his own brother, though.”

“Cain
killed Abel,” Tasheka mused, “so there is a precedent.”

“What do
you think?”

“I’m not
sure,” she said. “I can’t imagine that he killed his own brother, but anything
is possible.”

Thorston
ran his hands through his hair and sighed loudly. “Mike Power, Henrietta Gable
and Matt Vendor all had excellent reasons to kill Tim Murphy, and three of them
had a reason to kill him right at Dead Man’s Oak. Three of them had at least a
conceivable connection to the amputation of the hand. Now we have the missing
brother and a history of enmity between them. Add to that recipe the wild card
of a jealous Jake Thompson and you’ve got a royal mess.” He took a deep breath.
“But if you are right and the dismembered hand is the key, then that may push
Jake Thompson to the sidelines. As far as I know, he had no reason to commit
such a heinous act.”

“As far as
you know,” Tasheka said with a strange look. “But I know differently.”

Chapter Fourteen

“Oh?”
Thorston said with an inquisitive look.

“Jakethello,”
Tasheka replied.

“Excuse
me?”

“Around
here Jake Thompson has the nickname of Jakethello because he’s so jealous of
his wife, just like Shakespeare’s Othello. If any other man so much as looks at
Linda, he turns three shades of green.”

“Has he
always been like that?”

“Always,”
Tasheka said. “When they were first married, they used to go to the local
tavern every Friday night, but Jake kept getting into fights. It could be the
smallest thing.” She shook her head. “I remember one night when Jake broke a
guy’s nose just because he talked to Linda.”

“Did you
see it?”

“I did.
They weren’t doing anything inappropriate at all, but Jake went crazy. He
pushed the man and told him to stop harassing his wife. He started screaming
that the guy was a ‘stalker.’ It was almost surreal. The other guy was a
good-looking college student, the ‘lover, not a fighter’ type. He hardly knew
what hit him.”

“That’s
nasty.”

“Jealousy
is a huge turnoff.”

“It is,”
Thorston said with emphasis.

“You would
not always like to live at Longbourne, I think.”

Thorston
looked at her and laughed. “What?”

“Have
you
been investigating me as a potential
suspect?” Tasheka suddenly and unexpectedly asked.

Thorston
made no reply.

“Of course
you have,” she said. “I’m sure the spider has crawled into every nook and
cranny to discover my secrets. Isn’t that so?”

Thorston
cleared his throat and was eager to change the subject. “Jake Thompson had
something going with the priest.”

Tasheka
gazed over the lake for close to a minute before responding. “The Thompsons are
a monumental mismatch. He’s super jealous and she’s a mink. Before she met
Jake, she had over fifty lovers, including more than one at a time.”

Thorston
raised an eyebrow.

“There is
also talk of incidents after they got married, but they’re still together.”

“Was she
cheating with the priest?” Thorston asked, keenly interested.

“Do you
think she was?”

“If she
did, that would definitely be a motive for murder, don’t you think?”

“Yes,”
Tasheka agreed. “If Jake thought his wife made the beast with two backs with
his wife, he could have killed them both. If it was anything less than the full
package, he still could have killed Father Tim. The morning I saw him drive by,
he had what Momma calls the ‘Vrubel eye.’”

“Vrubel
eye?”

“There was
a famous Russian painter named Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel and his two most
famous works are of Satan. One is called
Demon
Seated in a Garden
and it was painted to illustrate Mikhail Lermontov’s
poem,
Demon
. You have heard of
Lermontov, surely.”

Thorston
smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “Unfortunately, I’m not up on my Russian
art or literature, so all this is Greek to me.”

“Prove to
me that you are not a complete barbarian,” Tasheka said in a scolding tone. “I
hope that by the next time we meet, you will at least know a few lines from
Pushkin.”

“Yes, of
course,” Thorston said with a smile. “I’ll be sure to get right on it tonight.”

“Vrubel’s
other famous painting is called
Demon
Prostrate
and it really captures the look of evil, especially in the eyes.”

“You saw
evil in Jake Thompson’s eyes?”

“Pure
evil,” Tasheka said. “He had the look of undiluted hatred, but, ironically,
that’s why I know he didn’t do it.”

“What do
you mean?”

“If Jake
had already murdered Father Tim, he would not have acted the way he did the
morning I discovered the body. His expression was of absolute hatred, and it
was not staged because he didn’t know I was watching him. If he had already
killed Father Tim, Jake would have been shocked to see Father Tim’s brother. It
would have been like seeing a ghost raised from the dead. But his eyes
expressed hatred, not surprise. That’s how I know for sure it wasn’t him.”

“McNab is
very interested nonetheless.” He paused. “Maybe his wife did it.”

“Why would
she kill the priest?” Tasheka asked.

“Maybe he
rejected her advances. You know the old saying, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman
scorned.’”

Tasheka
said nothing.

“Othello
killed his wife,” Thorston said with a lively glint in his eyes, “and she was
the one thing he loved. He killed because of jealousy. I spoke to Mildred
yesterday, Tasheka, and she told me everything, including your conversation
with her. You know as well as I do that Linda Thompson exposed herself to the
priest in the church.”

“She did.
He had a good look, too.”

“It’s
funny, but the more I hear about Tim Murphy, the more I think he was in the
wrong business.”

“Father
Tim had his share of shortcomings, but for the most part he did his job well
enough. He just couldn’t be suppressed by the cloth.”

“What do
you mean?”

“Some
weekends Father Tim would dress incognito and go away to gamble at casinos. He
would get drunk and eat like a pig. He loved strip clubs.”

Thorston
raised his eyebrows. “You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m
not,” Tasheka said matter-of-factly. “He was a friend of mine and he confided
in me. I listened to his confessions.”

“Father
Tim Murphy lived quite the double life.”

Tasheka
nodded. “He was an atheist.”

“Father
Tim Murphy was an atheist?” Thorston responded in a high-pitched voice.

“Yes.”

“Are you
sure?” he asked skeptically.

“We shared
everything, even our innermost thoughts.”

Thorston
frowned. “I had no idea.”

“Before he
was transferred to Lakeside, he had caused trouble in a convent with a young
nun.”

“What kind
of trouble?”

“He got
her pregnant.”

“Oh, my
God,” Thorston exclaimed, his mouth drooping open.

“Before
she started to show, he was in the convent every chance he got. There were
apparently half a dozen young nuns there. He said he felt like a fox in a
henhouse.”

“What
happened to the pregnant nun?”

“Why, she
got sent to a nunnery, of course.” Tasheka grew very solemn. “He transferred on
the quiet but he didn’t improve. He also got another girl pregnant. She was
fascinated with him because of his collar, but she got more than she bargained
for when one of those home pregnancy tests came up positive. Father Tim ended
up paying for the abortion.”

“Abortion?”
Thorston said, rocked yet again. “A Catholic priest paid for a woman to abort
his child? I hope the papers never hear about this.”

“I’m not
telling them, and neither are you.”

“That’s
for sure.”

“He drove
her to the abortion clinic and left her there after shoving a fistful of money
into her hand. She waited a week to call him and he told her he was moving to a
new parish. By this time, she had come to rely on him and thought she was in
love with him, so when he spoke of moving away, she was understandably upset.
Apparently she threatened to kill him.”

“Do you
know her name?” Thorston asked, taking out his notebook.

“Maria. He
wouldn’t tell me her last name.”

Thorston
shook his head. “When I first learned a priest had been murdered, I couldn’t
imagine anyone having the motive to do such a thing. I thought it must have
been a robbery or the work of a madman, but the more I learn about this guy,
the more I realize that I’m not looking for suspects, I’m looking for people
who aren’t suspects. It seems everybody had a reason to kill Tim Murphy. He was
not your average Catholic priest, that’s for sure.”

“He was a
good actor and the job was just a gig to him. It provided him with a nice home,
hot meals, an allowance, and respect.” She shook her head. “During his sermons
you would swear he lived to serve Jesus Christ in every act and thought, but he
never believed in God even from his earliest childhood. He said he always saw
faith as a weakness and religion as the world’s most elaborate fairy tale.
That’s exactly how he described it, word for word.”