J. Jance - Long Time Gone

I wondered about whether or not I should print a copy of the photo to take with me when I went to see Sister Mary Katherine. I had gone off to the Westin in such a hurry the night before that I hadn’t taken my copy of the Post-Intelligencer photo along with me. Finally, when it was late enough to be halfway civilized, I called Freddy Mac at home.

“What’s up?” he asked. “Did you find a record of the car?”

I said, “Albert Marchbank owned a 1949 Caribbean coral Frazer-a vehicle with no hood ornament, just like Bonnie Jean said. I’ve also located photos of Mimi Marchbank’s brother and sister-in-law. One is contemporary, taken the day of Mimi’s funeral. The other is from the early seventies, almost twenty years later.”

“And?” Fred asked.

“I’m wondering if it’s a good idea to show them to her.”

Fred took his time before answering. “Well,” he said finally, “it’ll go one of two ways-either she’ll remember or she won’t.”

“Do you want to be there when I show them to her?”

“Can’t,” he said. “I’m backed up with appointments all morning long, and I know Sister Mary Katherine is hoping to head back to Whidbey sometime this afternoon.”

“But you don’t think seeing the pictures will hurt her?” I pressed.

“In my personal opinion, not remembering is what’s hurting her,” Fred countered. “If seeing the photos happens to jar her to conscious memory of what went on back then, that should be all to the good.”

With Fred MacKinzie’s Good Housekeeping seal of approval, I printed a copy of Albert and Elvira’s official Web-site photograph as well as a photo of the Marchbank Foundation corporate headquarters, an imposing-looking two-story Georgian with an address that put the place just north of the University of Washington on Twelfth Avenue NE.

At 10:00 A.M., I stuffed everything I’d gleaned through my research efforts into my briefcase and headed for the Westin for my meeting with Sister Mary Katherine. It was raining hard when I drove the 928 out onto the street from the Belltown Terrace. Rain, especially a warm rain like this one, was good news. It meant the snow would melt that much faster and life in Seattle would soon return to normal. As I waited for the light at Second and Wall, I realized that I hadn’t heard a word from Ron or Amy Peters.

Oh, well, I told myself. Maybe no news is good news.

That was wrong, of course, but I wouldn’t find that out until much, much later.

Sister Mary Katherine was waiting for me as I walked into the hotel cafe. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” I said. “People will talk.”

She smiled and shook her head. “People aren’t interested in nuns,” she said. “They’re a lot more interested in what some priests have been up to-and with good reason. Compared with misbehaving priests, nuns are a pretty boring lot.”

Considering what I’d learned about Sister Mary Katherine herself in the course of the last several days, I could have argued the point, but I didn’t.

“Would you like some breakfast?”

“Sure,” I said, “but only if it’s my treat.”

Sister Mary Katherine waited while I negotiated with the waitress for eggs and bacon. Once the server departed, I reached for my briefcase. “I brought along few things for show-and-tell,” I told her.

“Tell me this first,” she said. “I need to know. Were Mimi’s killers ever caught?”

“No,” I said. “They never were.”

Disappointment shrouded her face. “They probably would have been had I told the authorities what I had seen at the time.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But you need to know that it’s possible the perpetrators were very influential people in Seattle at the time of the murder.”

Her eyes widened. “You’ve actually identified suspects?”

I nodded. “Have you ever heard of the Marchbank Foundation?” I asked.

Sister Mary Katherine nodded. “I believe it was started by Madeline’s brother and his wife.”

Now it was my turn to be surprised. “You know about Albert and Elvira Marchbank then?”

Sister Mary Katherine laughed and shrugged. “I live on Whidbey Island, not on the moon,” she said. Then she grew serious. “After you and Fred left last night, I called home. Sister Therese got on the computer and tracked down some information for me on Madeline Marchbank. In the process I learned something about her brother and sister-in-law as well.”

“Have you seen pictures of them?” I asked. “There are photos posted on the Web site.”

Sister Mary Katherine shook her head. “I won’t have a chance to do that until later on this evening, when I get home.”

“You don’t have to wait that long,” I said, pulling out my file of photos. “I brought them with me. Take a look at these.”

Sister Mary Katherine’s hand shook slightly as she opened the file. The topmost photo was of the Marchbank Foundation headquarters. Frowning, she studied it for some time. “This one looks familiar somehow, but I don’t know why,” she said. “I’ve had dealings with many of the local charitable foundations, but not this one. I never remember going there.”

She put that paper down and picked up my copy of the newspaper photo taken after Madeline Marchbank’s funeral. Sister Mary Katherine stared at it in utter silence for the better part of a minute. As she did so, all color drained from her face. At last she opened her fingers and the photo drifted away like a leaf caught in a breeze. I reached out and caught it in midair.

“You recognize them?”

Sister Mary Katherine nodded. “The man and woman in the picture are the ones I saw that day,” she said in a voice that was barely audible. “The woman in the wheelchair was Mimi’s mother. I remember all of them now. I remember everything. The looks, the smells, the colors.” She shuddered.

Freddy Mac had suggested that seeing the photos might finally unleash the memories Sister Mary Katherine had kept buried for more than fifty years, but I guess I hadn’t really expected it to happen. Alternating waves of shock and horror registered on Mary Katherine’s face. Watching her, I realized she was once again reliving that terrible Saturday afternoon. This time, though, she was doing so without the emotional buffer that had vividly preserved the awful memories, all the while keeping them safely out of conscious reach.

I’m a cop, not a counselor, so while Sister Mary Katherine grappled with this new reality, I sat there feeling like a dolt and fervently wishing Fred MacKinzie were on hand to do and say the right things. For several long minutes she sat with her head bowed and with one hand covering her eyes. I wondered if she was crying or praying. At last she seemed to get a grip.

“It was so awful,” she said at last. “No wonder I suppressed it.”

“Are you going to be all right?” I asked.

“I think so,” she said.

For the next hour or so, over the comforting everyday background noises of clinking glassware and cutlery, we went over everything Sister Mary Katherine was now able to recall from that terrible afternoon-the gory details her conscious mind had concealed for so many years. I took careful notes, but it turned out there was little an adult Sister Mary Katherine could add to the hypnotically induced revelations Bonnie Jean Dunleavy had already made. A lesser woman might have fallen apart during that stressful interview, but once Sister Mary Katherine had regained her composure, she kept it.

At last, exhausted, she leaned back in her chair. “Why?” she asked. “What made them decide to kill her? What could possibly have been so bad or so important that murder was their only option?”