Murder Makes a Pilgrimage (20 page)

“I don’t want to be dying because I did,” Mary Helen said in a feeble attempt both to save and to adjust her face.

Without any further discussion, they split the group. Mary Helen was to interrogate the DeAngelos and the Fongs while Eileen concentrated on the Bowmans, Heidi, and Pepe. They flipped a peseta for María José, and the lot fell to Mary Helen.

The music of a string quartet filled the Grand Salon and provided a tranquil background for the hum of conversation. Mary Helen was surprised to find the room crowded. Apparently several tour groups had been invited to cocktails simultaneously. Good, she thought, tossing a thumbs-up at Eileen. Their maneuvers wouldn’t be so obvious.

Feeling as if she had painted a smile on her face, Mary Helen wove her way across the room toward the DeAngelos. The couple, wineglasses in hand, stood together like matched mannequins. Only the shifting of their eyes gave them away.

From a distance Bootsie was striking: tall, straight, and slim with a dress of cobalt blue silk that trapezed down from her broad shoulders into flattering folds. The color matched her eyes and exaggerated their size. Her fingers sparkled with rings, and a jeweled comb stood out against the shoe polish black of her hair.

It was only as Mary Helen drew nearer that the signs of age appeared. Tonight neither the dim light of the room nor the heavy layer of makeup hid the creases that time and temperament had drawn around Bootsie’s tight mouth and at the corners of her frosty eyes.

Next to her stood Roger, lean, hollow-cheeked, bearded. Except for his eyes, which were a little too close to his nose, he was the perfect television stereotype of a professor.

Mary Helen half expected to smell the soft leather smell
of elbow patches. Instead, as she drew closer to the couple, she smelled the unmistakable odor of stress.

The waiter passed with a full tray, and Mary Helen accepted a glass of wine. To set the stage for casual cocktail chitchat, it was best to be armed with a cocktail.

“Good evening, Bootsie,” Mary Helen called cheerfully. “Don’t you look lovely this evening!”

“Why, thank you, Sister,” Bootsie drawled, with a stiff little smile that went no farther north than her nose.

“And how are you, Roger?” Mary Helen smiled up at him. “Tired from our outing?”

Roger DeAngelo, momentarily distracted by his own thought, hesitated as if to ponder her question.

“A little,” he said finally.

Better than a grunt, Mary Helen thought, but not much. “You are a professor, I know,” she said, “but I don’t remember your mentioning what your subject is.”

“History.” Roger gazed down his nose at her.

“What a coincidence! That’s my field, too. Where did you study, Roger?”

“University of Southern California.”

“USC! I did my graduate work there, too,” Mary Helen said with genuine astonishment, then noticed the horrified expression on his face. “But long, long before your time,” she added hastily, in case he thought that she thought they were contemporaries.

A sticky silence followed. This conversation was going nowhere. One word at a time and I’ll be here all night! she thought, turning back toward Bootsie. Her mind did a quick search for a question that demanded at least a sentence-long answer.

Bootsie’s bright red mouth was pursed into what looked to Mary Helen like the adult version of “Lock your lips and throw away the key.”

The couple was visibly relieved to see a waiter appear with a white towel in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.

“Señor? Señoras?” He offered the bottle.

Quickly both DeAngelos extended their glasses for a refill. Smiling, Mary Helen declined. She needed to keep her wits about her.

Maybe the problem was that there was not yet enough
vino
to produce the desired
veritas
. Later she’d come back to the DeAngelos.

Excusing herself, Mary Helen searched the room for the Fongs. She spotted Rita first. The tiny woman was talking animatedly, almost nervously to a young fellow from another tour group.

Neil hung behind her, apparently enjoying the conversation, although he wasn’t actually participating. Instead he surveyed the room from over the rim of his half glasses. Like Argus with the hundred eyes, Mary Helen thought, moving toward the trio. Unlike Argus, the giant, however, Neil Fong was a short, slight man.

Just about my height, she thought, easing up beside him.

“Hello, Sister.” He gave her a genuinely friendly grin.

Mary Helen was encouraged. So far this interview was more promising than the last.

Rita stopped chattering long enough to introduce Mary Helen to the young man, who was quickly developing the haunted look of a captive. He extended his hand, and after a sinewy grasp that made Mary Helen’s palm sting, he slipped into the crowd.

Without warning all of Rita’s energy was unleashed on Mary Helen. Almond eyes darting, Rita began to babble about her family, about her education, about her job.

Within minutes Mary Helen knew that Rita Fong was a fifth-generation San Franciscan, that her great-great-great-
grandfather had been brought from China to labor on the Central Pacific Railroad, that she and Neil had known each other since childhood, that both had attended the University of California in Berkeley, and that they had married while Neil was still in school.

She knew that the couple had four children of high school and college age, that they actually lived not in San Francisco but down the peninsula in Burlingame, and that Rita worked because she liked to, not because she had to. She even knew that Neil was distantly related to Edsel Ford Fong, the stand-up comedian, who once had worked as a waiter at Sam Wo’s in Chinatown.

To Mary Helen’s way of thinking, none of these facts seemed remotely like a motive for Lisa Springer’s murder.

“Before you came on this tour, did you happen to know any other members of our group?” she asked when Rita stopped for breath.

Rita shook her head. The coarse black curls that were cleverly piled on the crown of her head wobbled precariously. “No one,” she said, her eyes suddenly wary. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason, really. It’s just that we are all from the same area, a rather small area, really, and it just seems likely that we might have some connection.” Her explanation sounded feeble, even to herself. It was obvious from the amusement in Neil’s eyes that he wasn’t buying it at all.

“Sister, doing your own police work can be dangerous,” he said softly.

Mary Helen felt her face flush. She was sorely tempted to flutter like a heroine in a Victorian novel and ask, “Whatever do you mean, Doctor?” Instead she opted for the honest approach. “Was it that obvious?”

“Direct questions out of context usually are, even to Rita.” He turned toward his wife.

Rita shot him a “don’t-push-your-luck-with-those-smart-remarks” look and latched on to an unsuspecting middle-aged woman who had unwittingly brushed shoulders with her.

Neil blinked several times. “Rita has a tendency to talk a lot when she’s nervous,” he said in a soft voice. Obviously he did not want his wife to overhear.

Not that Mary Helen blamed him. If Rita talked that incessantly when she was nervous, imagine her tirade when she was angry.

“She told you everything but our Social Security numbers and my weight.” He held out his glass to a passing waiter.

Again, Mary Helen declined. “Why is your wife so nervous?” she asked.

“For the same reason we all are.” Neil’s dark eyes, sharp as needles, stared over the rims of his glasses and fastened on her. “Because one of us is a murderer,” he said in a tone that turned Mary Helen’s spinal cord to ice. “And only one person knows which one.”

Excusing herself, Mary Helen headed for the door with the word
Damas
inscribed in the center of a large brass cockleshell. It was a two-room affair, part lounge, part lavatory.

Still reeling from Rita’s barrage and Neil’s single sentence, she sank down on a small, overstuffed couch that ran along one wall. The couch and two matching chairs, set across from an enormous mirror, formed an intimate “conversation group,” should any of the
damas
wish to gossip in the bathroom. Flushing toilets and running basins provided a watery background for all conversation.

Glad to be alone, Mary Helen dug through her pocket-book for Eileen’s cream and Anne’s travel diary. Her palms stung, and the cream soothed them. That done, she opened the diary to jot down some thoughts, not that she’d forget, but sometimes when things are fresh . . . “Evasive,” she
wrote next to the DeAngelos’ names. “Stonewalling—possibly a better word.”

With a swish of cold air, the lavatory door swung open and Mary Helen was aware of a person approaching her. The first thing in view was a pair of black shoes. She knew they must be fashionable, but to her they looked for all the world like something Minnie Mouse would wear. The feet were small and splayed.

Mary Helen’s eyes climbed up the black leotards to a swirling, voluminous black cashmere skirt and fitted top. An enormous fringed challis scarf, a riot of teal and red paisley print and black hound’s-tooth, was draped across one shoulder and knotted on one shapely hip.

When Mary Helen finally reached the face, she was not at all surprised to see María José.

“Hi, Sister,” the girl chirped happily, her breath smelling of wine. “You are just the one I am looking for.” She sank down on the couch beside Mary Helen, pausing for a long moment to examine herself in the mirror and tuck a few strands of magenta hair back into her tight French braid.

“Me? Why are you looking for me?” Mary Helen asked when María José’s attention shifted back to her.

“To see how you are feeling. My uncle—” She stopped abruptly. Her face colored. Obviously she had let the last two words slip. At last the
vino
theory was paying off.

“Your uncle? Who is your uncle?” Mary Helen asked.

María José’s eyes avoided Mary Helen’s steady gaze. Her lips moved as if she were practicing an explanation but having very little success making it sound plausible. Finally, with a resigned sigh, María José laid her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. “The
comisario
is my uncle,” she said in a voice so low that Mary Helen nearly missed it.

“Ángel Serrano is your uncle?” Mary Helen was surprised. For some reason she had not thought of the
comisario
as a family man. Once she did, her mind clicked, and several small pieces snapped together. It explained why his face had registered surprise on Saturday, when he found María José among the tourists in the hotel’s catchall room, and why she had never returned. Undoubtedly he’d sent her home. And it accounted for her actions today. He had asked her to go along on the trip, then stay behind in the bus and look for clues.

“Are you working with the police?” Mary Helen asked. Her direct question was jarring, she knew, but time was a-wasting. The cocktail hour would soon be over, and she wanted to get back to the DeAngelos.

The pleased expression on María José’s face answered her question. A wannabe, Mary Helen thought, recognizing a kindred spirit.

“I had a difficult time convincing my uncle to let me go along today on the tour bus,” María José began, a note of triumph in her voice, “because I am not a police person.”

Mary Helen did not miss the emphasis on the nonsexist title.

“But now he is happy that I did, or else he would never have known that you were accosted in the tower.” Her dark eyes sparkled with excitement.

“You told him that?”

“I overheard you say so when you reboarded the bus today. And that Pepe caught you.”

“What did your uncle say?”

“He huffed and puffed about my not doing as I was told, but I knew from the look on his face that he was glad for the information.” She glanced at her watch. “Soon they will miss me at home.” Leaning forward, she took Mary Helen’s hands. Turning them over, she frowned, and a little round column of concern formed between her eyebrows as she examined them. “We will find whoever did this,” she promised earnestly.

“How do you know Pepe?” Mary Helen asked.

Startled by the change of subject, María José let go of Mary Helen’s hands. “Actually, I never met him until we sat next to each other on the plane from Madrid to Santiago.”

“You mean you met him on the day we arrived?”

María José nodded. “I was flying home from a visit with my cousins in Madrid, and Pepe’s seat was next to mine. We started talking, and very soon into our conversation he told me about leading an American tour group to Santiago and knowing very little about the city. I told him I was a native, and before I knew it, he asked me to go along on the tour as a consultant. It sounded like an unexpected opportunity to try out the tourist business, and what, I thought, could possibly be the danger?”

Mary Helen was flabbergasted. “What did your uncle say to that?”

María José’s eyes clouded. “My uncle, my whole family really do not take me very seriously.”

No small wonder, Mary Helen thought, what with sudden business alliances with perfect strangers. Not to mention the magenta hair.

“They think that I am just headstrong, going through a phase.” María José’s nose rose in the air until her chin jutted out in a determined V. “But, Sister, I am a Galician woman. Galician women are strong and resolute. We possess white magic.”

We could use a little of that all right, Mary Helen thought.

“You do trust me to help you, don’t you?” The young woman searched Mary Helen’s face.

For some inexplicable reason Mary Helen did. She sensed that somewhere between the Minnie Mouse shoes and the magenta braid was a backbone of cold, solid steel. She knew from experience that that kind of determination and stick-to-it-iveness produced a magic power all their own.

When Mary Helen finally returned to the cocktail party, the noise level had risen in direct proportion to the alcohol intake. It was difficult to hear the stringed quartet. She searched the crowd for the DeAngelos, but they were nowhere in sight. It was just as well, Mary Helen thought. Her hip and knees were beginning to stiffen.