Sister O'Marie - A Novena for Murder

“Well, that’s all he said. Four of them were missing. Poof! And he was worried about Joanna.”

“Which four?”

“A Carlos and Jose. Those must be Mrs. Rubiero’s nephews. And two Manuels.”

“Is that everything you know?”

“Everything I can think of,” Mary Helen answered meekly, trying to erase the slit in the coroner’s seal from her mind. There was really no use getting into that.

After a few moments of silence, Kate pointed to her notebook and to Senhora Rubiero’s worn address book on the seat between them. “There must be hundreds of Tonys and Luises and Manuels in the Portuguese community,” she said. “First thing we’d better do is find out if we are talking about the same people. Check the book against the list in my notebook, will you please, Sister?” Relieved, Mary Helen picked up the two books. They were still partners.

They had just merged onto 280 heading toward the city when Mary Helen finished her checking. “The last names and phone numbers are the same. We are talking about the same people.” She didn’t know whether to feel happy or sad. On the one hand, she was glad that everything seemed to be narrowing down to a few young people Professor Villanueva had sponsored. She imagined that would make discovering the killer easier. On the other hand, she was sad that all the evidence was beginning to point to the murderer as being one of them, someone the sisters all knew. It seemed now she had been right about that from the beginning. The murderer was not some poor, demented psychotic who had wandered onto the hill, but someone who had been, or still was, at the college.

The two rode for several miles in a comfortable silence, each lost in her own thoughts. There wasn’t much traffic on a Saturday morning. A soft autumn sun on the Peninsula hit against the low, rolling hills to their left. It made little sparks of light bounce across the deep, black-blue water of Crystal Springs Lake. A small, green boat cut gently through the water-probably a Water Department caretaker making sure the lake was safe to supply the City with drinking water. The scene was so peaceful, so pastoral, Mary Helen forgot for a moment the horrors of the past few days.

“Look ahead.” Kate’s voice jarred her back into reality. She was pointing toward the city. “Fog!”

Sure enough. Ahead of them, San Francisco was wrapped in a cocoon of gray fog.

“I guess we had better head straight into that mess and up to the college to question Tony and Luis again.” Kate changed to the fast lane on the freeway. “Do you think they’ll be at work today?”

“I don’t see why not,” Mary Helen answered, remembering that she, too, wanted to talk to Tony.

“This time I think I’ll ask them about their connection with Dom Sebastiao. Maybe that’s the angle.”

“Maybe.” Mary Helen was distracted. Something about that Sebastiao bothered her. What was it? Something she had wanted to tell Kate.

“I think I’d better question Leonel again, too.” Kate glanced over at Mary Helen.

Leonel! That was it! Poor, volatile Leonel and his outbursts against the professor. That is what she had wanted to tell Kate when Senhora Rubiero had reappeared in the living room. Maybe “wanted to” was a bit too strong. Perhaps “felt she should” would be a more honest evaluation.

Quickly, Mary Helen related the incidents, carefully omitting to tell where she had run into Leonel. “And so you see, Kate,” she concluded, trying her best not to use her schoolmarm voice, “although I’m not sure why, some one of those fellows could have been so disillusioned with the professor that he ended up hating him enough to bludgeon him to death with his own statue.” Mary Helen gave a triumphant smile. But as soon as her last word echoed in her ears, she realized what she’d said. She hoped Kate hadn’t. She had.

“Like Leonel?” Kate’s mouth formed a hard, straight line.

“Like any one of them,” Mary Helen shot back, feeling a little as she felt when she miscounted the trump. “Leonel was the only one I heard express it.” She tried to recover.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“It didn’t seem significant.”

“You were afraid it would implicate Leonel, weren’t you?”

No, the old nun thought, not implicate, vindicate.

Sister Mary Helen waited several minutes before she thought it might be safe to speak. Long enough, she calculated, for two Irish tempers to cool down. She hoped she reckoned the cooling-down period correctly, because she liked Kate Murphy. “What I can’t figure out is Joanna’s connection,” she offered mildly.

“That’s a tough one,” Kate answered, quietly. “I know there must be some connection between the two crimes. We’re looking for a direct connection, something that will link the murderer with both Joanna and the professor. Now also with the Sebastiao business. Maybe we’re missing the real connection. Some indirect link we haven’t even noticed yet.”

Carefully, Kate veered the Plymouth over into the slow lane. She turned off the freeway at the first Daly City exit. “I’ll stop and give Denny a call,” she said, pulling into a gas station on her right. “I’ll ask him to meet me at the college in twenty minutes.” Kate checked her watch. “He can help me question these fellows again.” She rummaged through her purse for some change.

Sitting in the car, Mary Helen watched Kate in the phone booth. She had removed one earring and was talking rapidly. Probably explaining the whole interview with Senhora Rubiero to Inspector Gallagher. Mary Helen could just see him sitting back, loosening his tie, saying nothing, rolling his stubby cigar around in his mouth. Poor fellow probably couldn’t have shoved a word in sideways, even if he wanted to.

Small wisps of fog escaping from San Francisco blew into Daly City and whipped around the phone booth and parked car. Mary Helen felt the chill. She pulled her jacket tightly around her.

She stared at the large oil stain by the gas pump. It was slick and black against the gray cement. Small, round bubbles of water from the wet fog stood out on the surface. Hostile properties, she mused, staring at the oil resisting the moisture. The substances just don’t mix. Like the two murders-Professor Villanueva’s and Joanna’s. Her instincts told her something was off kilter. But what? The connection wasn’t right. What had Kate said? “Maybe the connection is indirect.” Could there be two separate connections, two separate motives, like these two separate substances on the damp cement of the gas station-two that do not mix?

Or perhaps… A thought shot through her mind like an electric shock. It left her dazed and clammy cold. She hated to allow it in a second time, but she had to. Any detective worthy of her salt had to look at all the possibilities. Could it be possible that there were two different murderers? She swallowed hard.

“What’s the matter with you?” Kate jumped into the car and slammed the door. “You’re as white as a ghost. Are you okay?”

“I just had a horrible thought.” Mary Helen could hear the desolate ring in her own voice. How she hoped Kate would say she was wrong.

“What is it?” Kate asked.

“You said that maybe we were missing the connection between the two murders because it was an indirect one… one we never thought of… like two motives for murder. Well, one thing we have never really thought of at all is the possibility of two murderers!”

Kate said nothing. She started the car and zigzagged her way through the traffic toward Mount St. Francis College for Women.

Mary Helen stared out the car window. Immediately, she began to reason with God. Dear Lord, think of poor Therese. She’s on the seventh day of her novena, the one she began to catch one murderer of one victim. Now look what You are letting happen! Two murders, and now maybe two murderers! How, in heaven’s name, can You do that to poor, high-strung Therese!