Murder Had a Little Lamb (25 page)

It wasn’t until I reached the bottom of the pile that I saw the official-looking letter with the Worth School emblem on top and Elspeth Goodfellow’s signature at the bottom.

So Dr. Goodfellow
did
issue something this morning, I thought, glancing at the date printed on it. I began to read, expecting the sheet of paper to contain information about the destruction of the student art exhibit.

Instead, the first sentence made me freeze. “Effective today,” it read, “Vondra Garcia has withdrawn from the Worth School.”

•   •   •

I felt as if someone had just delivered a swift kick to my solar plexus.

Could Beanie possibly have been right about Vondra? I thought, my head spinning. And could I have been so
wrong?

Even though my brief interactions with Vondra had made it clear that she harbored some bitter feelings toward her classmates, she had struck me as someone who was basically levelheaded. I found it impossible to imagine her doing anything as outrageous as committing an act of vandalism.

I suddenly wanted to know more about her. And the religion that appeared to be a tremendous influence in her life struck me as a very good place to start.

The moment I got into my van, I pulled out my cellphone. After scrolling through the address book, I pressed the keys required to get Sunny on the line.

After all, she’d told me herself how interested she was in helping with the murder investigation, however she could.

“Hey, Jessie,” she greeted me. “I’ve been entering your billing for the entire year into that cool new program. I’m just finishing up March.”

“That’s great!” I told her. I marveled at her efficiency, especially when it came to completing tasks I dreaded so much I’d have preferred getting a Brazilian bikini wax to confronting them. “But I have something a little different that I’d like you to do. If you’re willing, that is.”

“Shoot.”

“Remember when you offered to help me with the murder investigation I got roped into?”

“Are you kidding?” she cried. “I’ll do anything! A
stakeout or going through somebody’s trash or anything at all that involves a car chase …”

“I’m afraid the task I have in mind doesn’t involve anything more reckless than sitting in front of a computer,” I admitted.

She was silent, but only for a moment. “I’m pretty good at that,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’d like you to learn whatever you can about a religion called Santeria. That’s S-A-N-T-E-”

“I know how to spell it,” she interrupted. “I also know enough about its reputation that you’ve made me really curious. Are you going to tell me what this is for?”

“Not right now,” I replied, glancing at my watch. “But it’s only because I’ve got to run if I’m going to get to my next appointment on time. But I have a feeling this assignment will be pretty easy.”

It turned out I was right. I found that out as soon I took a break for lunch and called Sunny again.

“Did you have a chance to find out anything about Santeria?” I asked.

“Did I!” she replied enthusiastically. “And boy, is it interesting!”

I didn’t doubt that for a moment. But I found myself hoping that “interesting” didn’t translate to “sinister”—or, to use Beanie’s word, “creepy.”

“Santeria originated in Cuba,” Sunny began. “But its roots lie in an African religion called Yoruba that was practiced by the slaves who were brought to the New World—the Caribbean, mostly—to work in the sugar plantations. It’s an earth religion, meaning it
centers around nature. Yoruba is the basis for religions like Candomblé, which is practiced in Brazil, and voodoo, which comes from Haiti.”

My mouth was suddenly strangely dry. I’d never even heard of Candomblé. As for voodoo, I hardly knew anything about it aside from what I’d seen in the movies or read in novels. The problem was that the way in which voodoo and similar religions were usually portrayed wasn’t generally in the most favorable light.

“Anyway,” Sunny went on, “when slaves were brought from Africa to the Caribbean, which started in the 1500s, they were baptized as soon as they arrived. That meant they were supposed to leave their old religion behind and become Christians. But they found a way to hold on to their old beliefs. They realized there were parallels between the gods they believed in and the saints the Catholics taught them about. So they cleverly combined them so they could appear to be practicing Christianity even though they were really holding on to their old beliefs. In fact, they believed that at midnight, the Catholic saints turned into the Santeria gods.”

“So they found a way to merge the two,” I observed.

“Pretty much,” Sunny said. “The word Santeria actually means ‘the way of the saints.’ Followers worship a principle god, called Olodumare or Olofin. The worship of ancestors comes next. Then come the orishas, the lesser gods that have been merged with the saints. They have names like Elegua, Yemaya, Oshun … Hey, there’s even one named Babalu, who’s Saint Lazarus’s
counterpart. Remember how on the TV show
I Love Lucy
Ricky Ricardo, who was Cuban, was always singing ‘Ba-ba-lu’? Now I know where that comes from.”

And now I know where Vondra’s cat’s name comes from, too, I thought. I had to admit that I found the information a bit unsettling.

“The orishas are actually pretty cool,” Sunny commented. “They all have specific colors and numbers associated with them. Different herbs and foods, too. And people often set up shrines for the different orishas in their homes.” She sounded as if she was reading—off a computer screen, no doubt. “For example, one of the orishas is Chango. He’s the god of war and thunder and fire—”

“The god of fire?” I interrupted. Beanie’s allegation about Vondra’s mother killing someone by setting his house on fire was suddenly ringing in my ears. “That sounds kind of ominous.”

“I guess it ties into Santeria being an earth religion,” Sunny said.

I could see the connection. But that didn’t do much to make the sudden gnawing in my stomach go away.

“Anyway,” she continued, “Chango is based on Santa Barbara. His day of the week is Friday and his number is six. He’s got some animals associated with him, too. Pigs, goats, and roosters … Also foods, like cornmeal and plantains and apples. Wait—there are plants and herbs, too. Pine, cinnamon, mugwort …

“Apparently each person who practices Santeria is guided by one particular orisha,” Sunny went on.
“Someone who wants to adopt the religion has a reading that’s done by elders who become that person’s godparents. To do the reading, they use cowrie shells, which are used as currency in Africa. The reading tells them which orisha guards them.”

“Sounds like a guardian angel,” I noted.

“I was thinking that, too,” Sunny agreed. “Once people know who their orisha is, they wear a special bracelet. The bracelet has a name … wait, here it is. An
eleke
or a
collares
. See, in addition to foods and animals, each orisha also has different colors associated with it. Different combinations of those colors, too, which are used in the bracelets.”

“Like green and black?” I asked, immediately thinking about Vondra’s choice of jewelry.

“Let’s see … Here we go. Green and black are the color of Ogun—I hope I’m pronouncing that right—who’s also St. Peter.

“But I found more about the way followers of Santeria dress,” Sunny continued. “They usually wear the color white, which is believed to ward off evil. And even though they wear the bracelet signifying their particular orisha on their wrist, they can also wear necklaces that symbolize other orishas.

“There are some interesting ceremonies, too,” she added. “A lot of them incorporate movement, especially dance, along with drumming. Cigar smoke might be blown into the air as an offering or to fight off evil spirits. Alcohol can be spat out for the same purpose. Sometimes, for extreme situations like a serious illness or death, animals—usually chickens—are sacrificed. But the priests are trained to perform the
sacrifice in a humane fashion, and afterward the chicken is cooked and eaten.”

Now that she mentioned it, I remembered reading about a case concerning that very subject that had been in the news in the early 1990s. The Supreme Court had ruled that laws that specifically targeted Santeria’s religious practices were unconstitutional.

Still, that didn’t make me any more comfortable with everything I was hearing.

“Let’s see what else …” I could hear Sunny’s fingers clicking against the keys of her laptop. “The priests are called
Santeros
and the priestesses are called
Santeras
. There are no books, so the people who follow Santeria have to learn everything they need to know orally. And apparently healing plays a large role.”

“Healing?” I repeated, not sure I understood.

“That’s right. Herbs and potions are used in healing rituals, along with other things like prayer beads and charms. All that stuff is sold in special stores called botanicas.”

Once again, I thought back to my conversation with Beanie. She had claimed that Vondra’s mother ran a shop out of her house that sounded an awful lot like one of those botanicas.

Is it possible that some of the crazy stuff Beanie said was actually correct? I wondered, still not wanting to believe it.

“There’s one more interesting thing I read about,” Sunny said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Apparently secrecy plays a big part in the religion,” she replied. “There’s certain information about the beliefs and rituals of Santeria that no one’s allowed to know about. At least, not unless they’ve been initiated into the religion.”

More secrecy, I thought with chagrin. Just what I need.

I only hoped the veil of secrecy that surrounded Santeria wouldn’t turn out to be so thick that it got in the way of me seeing the truth—and solving this mystery once and for all.

•   •   •

Finding Vondra’s address was a simple matter of checking the class list Ms. Greer had put together, which I’d gotten in the habit of carrying with me. Next I pored over my Hagstrom map, not only locating her house but also plotting out the best way of getting there.

The Garcias lived at 49 Jefferson Road in Wyandogue, a town on the south shore that was known as one of Long Island’s rougher communities. The residents were generally low-income families, a fact that was sadly reflected in the quality of the district’s schools.

No wonder Mrs. Garcia was so anxious for her daughter to go to the Worth School, I thought, even though getting there every morning was a commuting nightmare.

Which made the fact that Vondra was no longer a student there all the more disturbing.

Once I reached the exit I was looking for, I turned
off the Long Island Expressway—my second home, if it’s possible to think of a 70-mile road that’s almost perfectly straight and almost perfectly level as anything that warm and fuzzy. Thanks to all the miles I routinely logged as part of my job, I knew the south shore as well as any other part of the island.

In fact, I was familiar with most of the streets I drove along, at least until I got closer to Wyandogue. I couldn’t recall ever having had a client there. The streets I traveled on were lined with the usual Long Island tract houses, although most were on the modest side, small and boxy and nondescript, generally with only courtyard-size lawns. Still, they were maintained fairly well, aside from all the plastic tricycles, inflatable pools, and slides that seemed to have sprung up around them like garishly-colored flowers.

But when I turned onto Jefferson Road, the landscape changed dramatically. Instead of a nicely paved road, I was now driving on one that was splattered with potholes. There were no curbs, either. Instead, patchy, weed-covered grass meandered along the edge of the street, giving the landscape an unkempt appearance.

But it was the change in the houses that really struck me. Instead of each one being identical to the next, as if some enterprising developer had turned out one after another with the precision of a cookie cutter–wielding baker, here every house was different. Not that they were anywhere close to pleasing to the eye. Rather than creating an individualistic look,
these tiny houses looked as if they might have been constructed, at least in part, by the homeowners themselves. Walls seemed to be at odd angles, and windows and doors were slightly off-center. Some of the porches sagged so badly they looked as if a single decent-size gust of wind could reduce them to a pile of sticks. Practically all of them could have used a coat of paint, while some even had broken windows.

“Welcome to Wyandogue,” I muttered.

Number 49, Vondra’s house, was located at the very end of the street. Like the others in the neighborhood, it was basically nondescript, aside from its poor state of repair. The tiny, flat-roofed bungalow was covered in shabby white shingles, and the windows were bare except for a few that had white fabric that looked like bedsheets draped over them. Whether that was to keep whoever was inside from looking out or to prevent people on the outside from looking in, I couldn’t say.

Before getting out, I drove by the mailbox and checked to make sure I had the right place. Sure enough, the name Garcia had been handwritten on the pitted metal surface with what looked like a permanent marker.

I parked my van in front, then warily crossed the stubby crabgrass-covered lawn. As I knocked on the door, once again the word “creepy” popped into my head.

In fact, I found myself hoping that no one would answer the door, at least until I reminded myself why
I’d come. And that my interest in furthering my investigation of Nathaniel’s death was equaled by my concern about Vondra.

I inhaled sharply when a tall, heavyset woman with smooth, flawless skin the color of rich dark chocolate answered. She was dressed completely in white, with a row of red-and-black beaded bracelets encircling one arm. I immediately recognized her as the woman I’d spotted at the PTA meeting, even though this time her hair was concealed by the white turban wrapped tightly around her head. Gliding against her leg was a large black cat, his glowing green eyes fixed on me in a most disconcerting way.