Rick Mofina - Perfect Grave

“I understand, honey.”

“I don’t hate him or anything. Sometimes I miss him.”

“Me, too.”

“So how did I get it?”

“No one knows for sure how people get them.”

Brady looked at everything in his room, his secondhand computer, his old clothes, aware of how his mother struggled with money.

“This operation will probably cost us a lot, huh?”

Rhonda stared at the crumpled tissue in her hands.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m going to get a second job. Nights likely, just to help us through a tight patch. So I’ll talk to Alice about having someone watch you.”

“Mom, I’m old enough to watch myself.”

“I’m not old enough to let you watch yourself.”

Suddenly Rhonda felt the breath squeeze out of her as Brady locked his arms around her, holding her tighter than ever.

“I don’t want to die, Mom. I don’t want to go away from you.”

Rhonda fought to find her voice.

“I’m not going to let that happen. I’m going to be right here with you. You’re going to be brave and have the operation and be as good as new and I’ll be beside you every step of the way, okay?”

Brady didn’t answer. He buried his face under her chin.

“Okay, sweetheart?”

She felt him nod.

“We’re in this together,” she said.

She heard him sniffle before he pulled away, wiped his tears, then took her hand and held it tight. They sat that way for a long time, saying nothing, just sitting there, like the time they sat near the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Eventually Brady pulled away from her.

“Mom, there’s something I want to do and I want you to say it’s okay.”

“What is it?”

“I have to show you something. Wait here.”

He ran down the hall to his bag and rummaged through it before returning with a hastily folded page ripped from the newspaper. He unfolded it and passed it to her. Slain Nun’s Memorial Will Be at Shelter

After she’d finished reading the story under the headline in the Mirror, she looked at Brady.

“I want to go to Sister Anne’s funeral at the shelter.”

“Why?”

“She came to our school once with these other nuns.”

“I know, and they helped with the big auction for charity.”

“Sister Anne had asked me to help her move some boxes and she started talking to me. I didn’t even know her, but she was asking me about Dad, and how we were doing. I guess a teacher told her that he had died and stuff. She seemed almost worried, like she knew me or something.”

“Nuns can be nice like that.”

“She was really nice and I liked her. She said she was going to pray for us.”

“That was kind.”

“I never told anybody this, but because she was so nice, and taking a picture, smiling, talking like she knew me and stuff, it kinda felt like she was my guardian angel.”

“Oh, honey.”

“So can we go? It’s going to be downtown at the shelter.”

Rhonda reviewed the time and location of the memorial service for Sister Anne Braxton.

“You really want to do this?”

Brady nodded.

“All right.”

Brady took the newspaper from her and reread it.

“Mom, why would anyone want to kill her?”

“That’s a question only God can answer, sweetie.”

“And one other person.”

“Who?”

“The person who killed her.”

She pulled him close and looked out the window. Outside, a gentle wind lifted the branches of the elm trees, carrying a few dead leaves down the street, where they skipped over the sedan parked at the end of the block in the shade of a big-leaf maple tree.

N othing was working.

Jason was on his phone in the newsroom holding for a cop source. The tenth one he’d tried today. And here it was early in the evening, the clock ticking closer to the first-edition deadline and nothing.

Absolutely zip for a fresh angle to advance the story of Sister Anne’s murder. Tapping his pen, he noticed that his hands were sweaty.

Wait. He had an idea. A long shot but worth a try. He could-

“You there, Wade?”

“Yeah,” he squeezed the phone, “you hearing anything? Anything new?”

“Just what I see in today’s Times and the P-I. ”

“Thanks.”

He tossed his pen and cursed.

He did not need to be reminded that his competition had killed him with reports about investigators building a suspect pool of violent ex-cons who’d had run-ins with the nun. Both papers played their stories big today on their front pages. And all day they mocked Jason like a victorious middle finger.

What goes around, comes around.

Yeah, well he’d beaten them earlier with his story about the knife from the shelter being used as the murder weapon.

Jason’s boss didn’t care. Yesterday’s news was today’s fish wrap and Reep had been in his face to break another exclusive.

“The Mirror has to own this story, Wade. Anything less is unacceptable.”

Jason had tried everything. Right from the get-go. This morning his old man had gone to his own sources to try to coax the names of any new potential suspects from them. So far, every effort had dead-ended. And Jason’s calls to Grace Garner had not been returned.

For a moment, Jason let his thoughts go to his dad’s revelation about his past.

What really happened to him?

“Wade!”

Reep stood at his office doorway beckoning him with a crooked finger, then rolled up his sleeves, as if preparing for a fight.

“You’re still not on the sked. What have you got for me?”

“An idea.”

“And how do I get that into the paper?”

“Listen, it’s going to take time-”

“No, you listen. You’ve got jack. And sitting in here on your ass just doesn’t cut it. I want something for tomorrow’s paper. Something that will put us back out front. You’ve only got a couple of hours.”

“I’ve got to try to find a guy who-”

“You’re taking Cassie with you.”

“Eldon, it’d be better if I go alone, it could be dangerous.”

“Stop the horseshit. You’re forgetting that I assigned Cassie to this story with you. Do as you’re told.”

Cassie was wearing a V-neck sweater, jacket, and form-fitting jeans that complemented her figure as they headed across the Mirror parking lot to his Falcon.

She never smiled as she sipped from her Styro cup of cafeteria coffee.

Before Jason started the car, she opened her notebook. The sound of her flipping pages filled the awkward silence. Jason stared at her for a moment.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” he said. “I had no part of your screwup with Brian Pillar.”

She looked away from him and out the window.

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“Then your credibility with me is dead.”

“Why don’t you let me handle my credibility?”

Jason looked at her.

“I’m searching for a man who may have talked to the nun’s killer. This is my story, you’re just along for the ride.”

“You’d better start the car.”

Jason shook his head then slid “Radar Love” into his player and laid six feet of rubber pulling out of the lot. Like most reporters, he functioned with a nearpsychic connection to his deadline. He never wasted time. The clock was ticking on him.

It always was.

The sun had set as they came upon the edge of the Pioneer Square District. Jason parked the Falcon in an alley near a loading zone. As sirens wailed, he got out and started for the Compassionate Heart of Mercy Shelter.

Cassie didn’t move.

“Coming?”

She hesitated. “It’s creepy downtown at night.”

“Figures,” Jason said.

He headed for the shelter to the sound of Cassie changing her mind: car door opening and closing, shoes clicking as she hurried after him. He refused to slow down. The shelter’s serving of the evening meal had already ended and Jason clung to the hope that he could catch some of the men before they vanished into the night.