Death Goes on Retreat (17 page)

“On the way we picked up a bottle of champagne at the 7-Eleven. Maybe the guy there would remember.” Laura brightened. “Not too many people buy champagne in the middle of the night.”

Mary Helen nodded. Not at the 7-Eleven, she thought, but didn’t say so. This was not the time to turn into a wine snob. “And?” she urged.

“When we got home, we drank some to celebrate my quitting St. Colette’s and then we made love. Greg was feeling ‘bubbly’ and he wanted to try some of the stuff we saw in the movie, but I just got sleepy.”

“About what time do you figure you fell asleep?” Mary Helen asked, before Laura felt obliged to supply any further details.

“I don’t know. I was asleep when the phone rang.”

Ah! Now they were getting somewhere. “The phone rang? What time was that?”

“I never opened my eyes,” Laura said. “Greg answered it. It’s on his side of the bed.” She placed the washcloth across her face and lay back on the pillow. “He said it was about three-thirty.”

“Did he say who was calling?” Whoever called was undoubtedly Greg’s killer. Mary Helen tried not to get her hopes up.

“All he said was that it was a nurse from the hospital.”

Mary Helen waited.

“I only heard one side of the conversation.” Laura sounded defensive. “I could tell it was serious, so I didn’t want to ask too many questions.”

“Do you know what hospital?”

“Like I said, I didn’t ask. I just assumed it was St. Mary’s in San Francisco.”

“Why did you assume that?” This conversation is like cleaning spinach, Mary Helen thought testily. You have to turn over every leaf looking for dirt. None of it just floats out.

“Because the emergency was his mother and she lives in the city,” Laura said in a tone she’d use on a slow learner. “Besides, he didn’t write down anything, so I figured it was someplace he was familiar with. I wanted to go with him. When I asked him if he wanted me to go, he said no.” She smiled and the ends of her mouth nearly disappeared under the compress. “He said his mother would have another coronary if she saw me. So I just assumed it was a heart attack. Except, I do remember
thinking it was funny she had our number. Greg doesn’t give out our number to anybody. But I was a little fuzzy from the champagne. He told me he’d call.

“When I woke up in the morning, I had an aching head and when I felt his side of the bed, it was empty and he hadn’t called. I tried St. Mary’s, but no Marva Johnson was registered. Around noon, when I still hadn’t heard from him I was beginning to get panicky.” She swallowed, then cleared her throat.

“He’s not like that, you know. He’s super-responsible. He told me his mother was real strict when he was a kid and he had to be on time and polite and everything. Anyway, I tried a couple of hospitals in San Francisco, but she wasn’t there either. I even tried her house in case they released her. I was going to pretend I was selling something if she answered. But she didn’t.

“So, I picked up my own car at the gas station and came straight to St. Colette’s to talk to Sister Felicita. Mrs. Johnson was real religious. At least, that’s what Greg said. So I figured if she had to go to the hospital, she might insist on a Catholic one. I know Sister Felicita has a thick book in her office with the names of all the Catholic stuff.”

Kenedy’s
Official Catholic Directory,
Mary Helen thought.

“Maybe she’d help me look up some Catholic hospitals around San Francisco. And when I got here, the police . . .” Laura bent her head and began to weep quietly into the already soaked washcloth.

“Let me get us some coffee,” Eileen said, tiptoeing out of the bedroom in search of some.

Gently, Mary Helen put her hand on Laura’s shoulder.
Words are meaningless in such a tragedy, but sometimes the touch of another human being brings comfort. She waited, absorbed in her own tangled thoughts, while Laura sobbed out her grief.

Was the caller a woman? Mary Helen wondered. Laura had said “a nurse.” Mary Helen dismissed that. Gender was no longer a factor. Today male nurses were common.

Where could the killer safely meet Greg? The emergency room in a hospital was a good place. People are preoccupied and tend not to notice others coming in or out. From what Laura said, it was obviously a place he knew. Could it have been near Laura’s apartment? Whatever the details, if Laura Purcell was telling the truth, she could be removed from Mary Helen’s “who dun it” list. She wondered apprehensively if Sergeant Bob Little would feel the same way.

And Marva Johnson? Had Mary Helen dismissed her too readily? Was she really in the area? If so, why? This new development necessitated another quick call to Kate Murphy.

Inspector Kate Murphy’s head felt as foggy as the real stuff billowing past the fourth-floor windows of the Hall of Justice.

“What is it, Katie-girl?” Dennis Gallagher handed her a cup of coffee. “You look like you’ve been up all night.”

Kate sniffed the steaming liquid. “Axle grease,” she said, and set down the cup on the corner of her desk.
Actually the corner was the last place remaining to set anything. Untouched folders and forms covered the surface, silent reminders of how distracted she’d been for the last few weeks. “Is this left over from yesterday’s shift?” she asked, pointing to her cup.

“Careful,” Gallagher whispered, intending to be overheard. “O’Connor made that pot himself. If you don’t find the aroma irresistible, he’s liable to get his feelings hurt.”

The detectives scattered around the homicide detail guffawed and some added their own comments about O’Connor’s coffee as well as about his feelings.

At the moment, Kate wished that O’Connor’s feelings weren’t the only thing she could hurt. Face burning, she glared in his direction, but his back was to her. She fought down the urge to cross the room and throttle him. He and his damn propaganda about Cordero were responsible for her restless nights. Even her dreams were being invaded by cozy Hansel and Gretel cottages on sunny, tree-lined, traffic-free streets where clean, happy children played while supermommies with saccharine voices served healthy treats. Yuk!

“What’s wrong?” Gallagher asked. His question startled her. “Are you sick or something?”

Kate shook her head and rummaged through her desk drawers, hoping to find an abandoned tea bag.

“You’re not pregnant again, are you?” She noticed the alarm in her partner’s voice.

“Of course not!” Kate growled. How could she be pregnant? Jack and she had barely touched each other for weeks. Unexpected tears filled her eyes and she turned her head quickly, hoping that Gallagher hadn’t noticed.

“What is it, Kate?” he asked with genuine concern.

Kate was afraid to tell him. She felt sure that Gallagher would back up Jack. He always did. “A man is the head of the house. A wife’s place is at her husband’s side. Blah, blah blah!” She could just hear it. What she didn’t need this morning was another irritant!

“What is eating you, Katie-girl?” Obviously Gallagher was not giving up easily.

The sharp ring of her phone cut through the awkward silence. Relieved, Kate picked up the receiver. To her surprise, it was Sister Mary Helen.

“How are things going?” Kate asked warily.

“Nothing more has happened, if that’s what you mean.” Sister Mary Helen was all business. “I was wondering if you’d have time this morning to do me a favor?”

Kate surveyed the stacks of papers covering her desk. She couldn’t be much farther behind if she tried. “Sure,” she said without much enthusiasm.

“Is something wrong?” Mary Helen asked.

Even her phone voice was giving her away. “No, Sister,” Kate said quickly, then wished she hadn’t.

Gallagher glared over his horn-rimmed glasses. “Sister?” he hissed. His eyes burned like two small blue flames on the end of matchsticks. “If that’s the Sister I think it is, tell her to stay the hell out of police business.”

“You tell her yourself.” Kate held out the receiver.

For a split second, it seemed as if he might. Then, cursing under his breath, Gallagher loosened his tie and stomped to the coffeepot for a refill.

“Kate? Are you still there? Kate?” Mary Helen’s voice crackled over the long-distance wires.

“Yes, Sister. I thought Denny wanted to talk to you, but apparently he doesn’t.”

“Inspector Gallagher?” Mary Helen sounded delighted. “I’m so glad he’s interested in this case. Two of you on it will make it easier, I’m sure.”

Interested
is hardly the word, Kate thought, putting her hand over her other ear to block out the returning Gallagher’s snorts and muttered invectives. “What is it you wanted, exactly, Sister?” she asked.

Mary Helen told Kate about her plan to eliminate the least likely suspects first, about her talk with Laura, and about Greg’s late-night phone call. “Laura Purcell,” she concluded with a finality that amazed even Kate, “is innocent.”

Without so much as a breather, the old nun went on. “Marva Johnson seems the second least likely suspect,” she said, “and since we are unable to leave St. Colette’s yet, perhaps you can check up on Marva. Was she in the hospital the night Greg was killed?”

“She didn’t mention it when we went to see her,” Kate said. “And it seems to me she would have, unless, of course, she deliberately lured him out and killed him herself.”

Mary Helen acted as if she had not heard. “I’m convinced Marva had nothing to do with her son’s death.” Mary Helen paused. “Although stranger things have happened,” she conceded.

Promising that she would talk to Marva Johnson, Kate hung up. Stranger things have happened, she thought, surveying the stack of folders on her desk: a child “accidentally”
drowned in the bathtub while her mother supposedly went to answer the phone; a Japanese tourist shot in broad daylight in Golden Gate Park; a fatal stabbing at a prestigious Pacific Heights address, possible suspect the victim’s lawyer husband; an elderly lady in the Richmond bludgeoned to death in her own home by an intruder for ten dollars and some change.

A foghorn bleated and O’Connor, who had come to work in a short-sleeved shirt, complained loudly about the weather. Probably making another convert to sunny, crime-free Cordero, Kate thought morosely.

“Let’s get out of here, Denny,” she said, afraid that in her present frame of mind, even she might begin to see his point.

“Where to?” Gallagher asked, watching Kate dig through the piles on her desk. He rubbed his hand across his bald pate and unnecessarily smoothed down the few gray hairs that crowned it.

Finally Kate resurrected a folder. “Mrs. Gertrude Rosen, widow,” she said. The file contained all the information on the elderly woman murdered in her home. The interviews of her neighbors were incomplete. Today might be a good day to go door-to-door. Furthermore, the crime took place only a few blocks away from Marva Johnson’s home. Only a few blocks away from where I live, too. The thought jerked her to her feet.

“Another murder, right in our own neighborhood,” she imagined Jack saying. Maybe he was right. Maybe the city was no longer a safe place to bring up kids.

“What’s the address?” Gallagher asked, sliding automatically into the driver’s seat.

Kate read it to him. “We’ve had precious little luck getting her neighbors to answer their doors,” she said.

“Maybe they’re afraid.” Gallagher swung into traffic. “Can’t blame them. Jeez, killed for ten lousy bucks.”

“And Sister Mary Helen wanted us to stop by Marva Johnson’s again . . .”

Gallagher turned his head. “Watch out,” Kate shouted, grateful that a messenger on a bike nearly collided with them. All Gallagher’s anger poured out on the boy, who was too far away to hear or care.

The ride out to the Richmond district did nothing to raise Kate’s spirits. This morning she was more than usually aware of the graffiti scrawled across the Muni buses and along walls and sides of houses. Much of it was gang-related.

She noticed more homeless people asleep in doorways or panhandling on corners with homemade signs. Even their dogs looked more scabietic. Drivers seemed more aggressive, honking horns and flipping fingers at little old ladies doing their best to keep up with the flow.

Twin Peaks appeared like shadows in the fog, and she wondered if the sun would ever break through. The moist sea smell that always invigorated her felt damp and cold. The Victorians with their towers and turrets and Turkish cupolas looked drab. Even the fellow emptying the parking meters in his fishing hat failed to make her laugh. Was Jack right? Was it time to go?

They were nearly at Marva Johnson’s home before Gallagher broke into her spell. “You haven’t said a word for miles. Either you are sick or something is very wrong.”

“I told you, it’s nothing.” Kate tried to sound cheerful.

“I ran into your old man at the Hall this morning, on the elevator.” They had stopped for a traffic light and Gallagher tapped his thick fingers on the steering wheel. “He looks as bad as you do.”

Kate felt her face burning. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t get your dander up now, Kate, but I’ve known you since you were a kid. You wouldn’t have to be a detective to know that something’s upsetting you. And from the looks of Jack, it involves him, too. Now, it’s none of my business,” Gallagher said.