Death Goes on Retreat (30 page)

Before long, chatty Candy had introduced herself, announced that her father owned the company, and given Mary Helen more information than she needed or wanted.

Candy was a junior at the university; hated her nickname, would rather be called Candice; did not know either Greg Johnson or Laura Purcell, although she had read about their deaths in the
Santa Cruz Sentinel,
and she only worked for Daddy during the summer, since she did not really approve of killing living things.

Candy’s true love was botany. She hoped someday to be a botanist. Her eyes gleamed when she noticed Mary Helen’s plant book. She paged through it, pointing to the trees around them. Deftly, she explained the differences between a Douglas fir and a grand fir, the live oak and the scrub oak, the madrone and the California Bay.

“You won’t find any of these trees around here,” Candy stated. She pointed to a picture of the Santa Cruz cypress with a close-up of its tightly shut cones clinging to the tip of a branch.

“Why not?” Mary Helen studied the thick green twisted tree.

“Because they are found only in a few locations in the
Santa Cruz Mountains. The place has to be dry.” Candy batted at a mosquito. “And the tree only grows inland on marine soil deposits.”

Candy sounded like a textbook. “In places like . . .” She let the sentence trail while she tried to remember. “Like Bonny Doon,” she said finally.

In Bonny Doon? Mary Helen stared at the colored photo of the tight green cone. She had never been to Bonny Doon, but she had seen that cone before, somewhere. Caught somewhere. Where? She shuddered. Caught in the sole of Greg Johnson’s tennis shoe!

All at once her own tight, caught thoughts exploded like a cypress cone in time-lapse photography, scattering tiny, brown-winged seeds into the air. Her thoughts floated freely, winging to the only conclusion possible.

Of course! She knew exactly who Greg’s murderer was. It was the only person who made any sense. Surely Sergeant Little had seen the cone too. Then why hadn’t he come to the same conclusion? She would call him and ask.

Inspector Kate Murphy arrived at the Hall of Justice ten minutes late, which was a miracle of sorts. After making up last night, both she and Jack had slept through the alarm. The rush when John’s hungry cry woke them was like something from an old Mack Sennett movie.

They barely spoke, knocking into one another in their haste to feed and dress the baby and themselves. Little John stared at them, fascinated at their antics, and
clapped his hands and giggled happily when they bumped heads reaching for the same baby shoe.

“You go, hon,” Jack said finally. “I’ll finish dressing him and drop him by Sheila’s. I worked late last night. No one expects me in on time.”

Hearing the wail of the foghorns blowing in from the Golden Gate, Kate grabbed for her heavy coat and opened the front door. The wall of dripping fog made her shiver.

“Shall we both call in sick and go back to bed?” she asked, and could tell by his hesitation that Jack was tempted.

“On second thought, let’s save it for a long weekend,” she suggested, realizing they’d need all the time off they could accumulate for their move to Cordero. Even the thought of cleaning out this old house full of three generations of treasures from basement to attic exhausted her, but anything was worth it to be a happy family again.

Pumping gas into the cold engine, Kate compared the idea of moving from San Francisco to removing adhesive tape from a wound. The first pull hurts like hell. You stop. Pull again. Stop. It still hurts, but not as much. Pull again. Finally the whole thing comes off, and you look at the wound and discover it’s healing.

Kate flipped on the windshield wipers and shivered in the icy car. She glanced up at the baby’s bedroom where the thick fog formed a halo around the lighted windows. Jack was right about one thing—the weather! Sunshine in summer would be good for them all.

“You’re late,” Dennis Gallagher growled when he saw her. “I thought you were maybe sick, but one look
at that Irish mug of yours and I know you’re not. In fact,” he said, studying her as if she were a bug in a bottle, “the bloom is back in your cheeks, Kathleen! Things better?”

She nodded, although the details were none of his business. Not that that ever stopped Denny! What actually did stop him was the loud entrance of Inspector O’Connor. For once, Kate was glad to see him.

“You’re late!” Gallagher turned on him. “Have trouble leaving paradise?”

“It’s that goddamn traffic on the way to the bridge. Bumper to bumper and already it’s sweltering, so cars are overheating! Then, the bridge!” He did a theatrical swoon into his desk chair. “Its name should be changed to the goddamn Golden Gate parking lot!”

“He exaggerates,” Huegle called over from his desk. “I heard Frank and Mike on the radio on my way to work and they said that the bridge was moving at twenty miles per hour. The whole thing isn’t even two miles long. You must have stopped off for breakfast.”

Kate laughed, but she felt a flurry of dread in the pit of her stomach. She knew what Jack and she were giving up. Had she any idea what they were taking on?

She had just accepted a mug of coffee from Gallagher when her husband slammed through the Detail door waving the
Chronicle.
During their morning rush neither of them had even glanced at the headlines, let alone read the front page.

Jack pointed to the bottom left-hand corner. “Maybe I was right after all,” he said.
CORDERO POLICE BREAK UP KID ROBBERY RING
, the headline shouted.

Scanning the article, Kate was shocked at the thieves’
ages—some as young as nine—and at the extent and sophistication of their operation.

Finally, Jack’s words sank in. “What do you mean, you were right?” She could feel her back get rigid. She squared her jaw. He was the one who’d initiated the idea of moving, who’d kept at it until their discussions became battles. It was he who had needled her about the crime in the city, about the weather, even about a place for little John to play, until she felt guilty.

He it was whose infuriating calm and patience finally convinced her that she was only being stubborn about leaving her home. It was he who had made her afraid that their baby was suffering from their difference of opinion. It was Jack who finally had made her give in and make up and agree to move. She turned on him cold with fury.

“Gotcha!” he said, his old playfulness returned.

The only thing that saved him from grave bodily harm was the insistent ringing of Kate’s phone. She was surprised to hear her mother-in-law’s voice, but not a bit surprised when Loretta Bassetti asked to speak to Jack. The woman had radar!

“Is everything all right?” Kate asked.

“Just fine,” her mother-in-law huffed, “unless you consider having a nincompoop for a son a problem. Can I talk to him?”

“With pleasure!” Kate covered the receiver with her hand. “There is a God,” she said, handing the phone to her husband. “It’s your mother. I think she just read the paper.”

“Hello, Ma,” Jack said reluctantly.

Eager to eavesdrop without actually looking like it,
Kate thumbed through the rest of the front section of the paper. On the next-to-last page, her eye caught a brief article about Greg Johnson’s murder. The Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Department was declaring Laura Purcell guilty and the case closed. She wondered what Sister Mary Helen thought of the outcome. She’d probably know soon enough.

“Yes, Ma, I read it. No, Ma, of course not . . .” Jack lowered his voice to a whisper in hopes of not being overheard. Kate moved closer.

“What do you mean irresponsible . . . You have to speak English, Ma. I don’t know what those words mean. . . . Not that I want to.”

Trying not to gloat, Kate glanced at her husband’s frowning face. She could imagine the other side of the conversation.

“No, Ma. We are not moving. . . . We did discuss it. . . . Yeah, I know what I told you. But Kate and I talked about it . . . I know, Ma . . . We did decide not to . . .” He winked at Kate, who glared back at him.

“Ma, stop! I’m a grown man. . . . I swear if you bring up that motor scooter—I’m not raising my voice. . . . Yes, I love you, too. And Kate and John . . . Speaking of which . . . Sorry, Ma, I meant whom . . . I know he’s a person. Listen, Ma, will you? Are you busy this weekend? I’d like to take Kate away for a romantic weekend.”

Kate felt her anger start to thaw and with it came a sense of relief. She’d never have to look at the wound again. There wouldn’t be one. Jack reached for her hand and she let him take it. The old familiar ease was back in their touch.

“You’re right, Ma. I owe her one. Thanks. We’ll drop the baby off late Friday afternoon. . . . Sure, if you want to, you can come to our house instead. If that’s easier.”

Kate’s stomach pitched forward. What was he thinking? He’d given them just two nights to straighten up the house.

Jack squeezed her hand. Kate scowled at him. “Okay, Ma, thanks,” he said. “I’ll tell her.”

“Tell me what?” she asked when he’d hung up.

“That I gotcha again! She hung up right after I said ‘Friday afternoon.’ ”

“One of these days, Jack, I swear I’m going to murder you and even a hostile jury won’t convict me.” She tried to sound angry, but she didn’t fool anyone, especially herself.

Sister Mary Helen was surprised at how quickly Sergeant Bob Little responded to her call. She’d scarcely had time to plan her strategy when she heard the squeal of tires in the parking lot.

The moment she laid eyes on him, she knew no strategy was necessary. His face had paled beneath the deep tan and his brown eyes were red-rimmed and haunted, as if he had spent all night escaping demons.

As he approached her his tall frame stooped a little and he ran his knuckles over his mustache as if it itched.

To the unpracticed eye, he might look ill, but Sister Mary Helen knew that what ailed him was beyond the scope of the most skilled physician. When an ancient
Greek, Polybius, said, “There is no witness so dreadful, no accuser so terrible as the conscience that dwells in the heart of every man,” he could have been looking at Little’s face. Clearly the sergeant was a man with something on his conscience and he wanted to get it off.

Without meeting her eyes, Bob Little led Mary Helen to the gift shop off the main lounge. The room was as cramped and airless as she remembered. For the first time, it struck her that there was a “confessional” feeling about it: small, dark, enclosed, secret.

Little motioned her to a chair, and quickly sat down beside her. With a hollow, mirthless laugh, he pointed to the large poster on the wall. “ ‘Truth will rise above falsehood, as oil above water,’ ” he read aloud. “I guess that’s what this is all about. Right, Sister?”

Mary Helen nodded, but said nothing.

Little gave a weary sigh. “Where do I begin?” He was having trouble getting his tongue around the words, as if his mouth were dry and parched. He rubbed at his mustache.

“Tell me about Laura,” Mary Helen prodded gently.

“Laura!” The large man stretched back in his chair searching the ceiling for his words. He cleared his throat. “That poor kid was innocent, but you know that. More than likely, she was murdered herself, although the coroner’s report will never be conclusive.” His voice cracked. “The girl was distraught, stole or found sleeping pills, and took too many. Who’s to prove otherwise?”

“And the cypress cone caught in the sole of Greg Johnson’s shoe. How will the forensic team explain that?”

Little’s anxious eyes searched her face. “Oh, you know about the cone, too. Then you must know that around here it grows in the Bonny Doon area. You’re something.” He shook his head in grudging amazement. “I suppose you figured out why a smart cop like me didn’t remember that Beverly lived in that area and that she had access to a kitchenful of knives besides? I supposed you’ve figured out why it is that I didn’t arrest Beverly Benton for murder?”

“No, Bob,” she said honestly. “I didn’t figure that out. To tell you the truth, that is what has me stumped.” Her palms were wet and the muscles in her neck and shoulders cramped with tension as she watched him wrestle with the truth.