A Novena for Murder (6 page)

“But Marina’s contact lens. Shouldn’t I stay and help her look?”

“No, Sister,” he said, “she will look. I will come back later to help her.”

“You’re sure?”

“Sure.”

Reluctantly, Mary Helen slid her arm through his. As they moved toward the threshold of room 203, she had the unmistakable feeling that she had stumbled into the middle of something, but hadn’t the foggiest idea what it could be. At a time like this, however, both she and Shakespeare had to agree that discretion was definitely the better part of valor. Silently, she left Leonel lead her from the professor’s office.

As he closed the door behind them, Mary Helen caught one last glimpse of Marina. The young woman moved slowly out of the corner. Wearily, she slumped into the high-backed chair behind the paper-spattered desk. Hunching forward, she covered her drawn face with her hands. Mary Helen could not remember the last time she had seen such a look of agony on anyone’s face.

Chatting amiably, as if the whole scene in the
professor’s office had been part of a dream, Leonel escorted the old nun down the stairs and through the dim foyer.

The two stopped momentarily at the bottom of the front steps. Several students, heads down, coats clutched tightly, hurried past into the shelter of the warm building. Leonel took a long, deep breath of fog. Tiny droplets of moisture formed on the ends of his tight curls.

“Fog, like home,” he said.

“You lived by the ocean?” Mary Helen stuffed her freezing hands into her jacket sleeves.

“Yeah, my home was near Azurara, a small fishing village in the north.” Smiling down at her, Leonel put his hand under her elbow. Gently, he steered her along the edge of the main college building onto the access road leading to the kitchen service entrance.

“Many came to this country from around my village.”

“Oh?” She studied the rugged face.

“Yeah, Sister. Many. Marina, Joanna. Tony and Luis. Carlo and his brother Jose. The two Manuels.” He counted them off on his broad blunt fingers.

“Did you know Marina at home? Or have you just become . . . er”—Mary Helen stumbled for the right word—“friendly since you arrived here?” She hoped she didn’t sound too snoopy.

“It is a small village I come from. I know them all since we are children. I know Marina. She and Joanna. Not here, but in our village they are rich. I
am not. They are educated. I am not. I could not marry her there. Here, I can. This is the land of—how you say?—opportunity.” Leonel beamed.

Mary Helen beamed back. She knew she was a hopeless romantic, but she loved the Cinderella story, even backwards.

A sudden gust of wind pushed against Mary Helen and twisted her skirt. At times like this I miss my long habit, she thought, goose bumps running up her legs. She was glad when they finally reached the door of the warm kitchen. Leonel held it open for her. Inside, the kitchen crew banged heavy pots against the stainless steel tables. Sister Therese’s high-pitched monologue dominated the din.

“I heard that Professor Villanueva helped them all to come to America,” Mary Helen said, hoping that Leonel would fill her in on some more of the background.

“Yeah, he help us!” Leonel’s eyes narrowed, and he spat viciously into the hard ground beside the kitchen stoop. “For a price, Sister. For a price.”

“A price? Money?”

“Money, yeah. And maybe more.”

“What do you mean ‘maybe more’?”

“I’m not sure. But now four are gone.”

“Gone? I don’t understand.”

“Poof!” He snapped his fingers, then turned the palm of his hand up, empty. “Gone. Without even
‘Adeus’
! When I ask the professor, he says they went to L.A. to look for work. But why don’t we hear from them? And now, Joanna. Poor Joanna.”

“Perhaps she’s just visiting someone,” Mary Helen offered.

“We tried every place. No, she is gone, too.” He shook his head, a grim note in his voice. “Poor, nosy Joanna.”

Mary Helen was just about to ask “Why nosy?” when a Plymouth rounded the corner of the service road and screeched to a stop.

Headlights cut through the dense fog. The harsh squawk of the police radio drowned out the kitchen noises. Mary Helen and Leonel watched, dumbfounded, as both car doors swung open.

Inspector Gallagher grunted from behind the wheel. Kate Murphy jumped from the passenger side and walked toward them.

Protectively, Mary Helen stepped in front of Leonel. “What is it?” she asked, hardly recognizing Kate as the same smiling young woman from the night before. Everything about her now said “business.”

“Well, Sister,” Kate began in her official police voice, “I’m afraid we are going to have to ask Mr. da Silva to come downtown with us to answer a few questions.”

Kate looked over the nun’s head at Leonel. Fear had drained all the color from his face. He was as gray as the blistery fog.

“I’m afraid, sir, you’ll have to come with us,” Kate repeated. With the precision of a fine acrobatic team, the two inspectors whipped into action.

Quickly, Gallagher spread-eagled Leonel against the college building, patted down his sides, and slipped on the handcuffs. With a steady rhythm, Kate read him his legal rights, then grumbled something into the car radio. Gallagher wedged Leonel into the back seat.

Sister Mary Helen stood speechless, a phenomenon that many later remarked was most unusual. Kate Murphy walked toward her. “Are you all right, Sister?” she asked.

Mary Helen nodded. “But why Leonel?”

“We dusted that statue for prints, Sister, and his turned up.”

“Only his?”

“No, but his were the only ones that didn’t belong there. We understand he threatened to kill the professor. ‘Crush the life from him,’ was the direct quote.”

“But Kate.” Mary Helen reached over and touched the young woman’s forearm. “Leonel may have touched that statue, but he could not have killed anyone with it. Just look at his eyes—such gentle eyes.”

Kate compressed her lips. “Sister,” she said politely, “right now we are not looking at eyes; we are looking at motive and opportunity.”

Sister Mary Helen chose to ignore motive. “Did you check on where he was that night?”

“Yes,” Kate answered. “With Marina, he says. And she says so, too. They are each other’s alibi. Yet she was alone when you saw her. Claims Leonel
stayed in his room while she went to the office to pick up some work. You thought someone was in the upper hall, right? Could have been he. Anyway, we’re taking him downtown for a few questions.”

“Ready, Kate?” Gallagher called from the car.

“Talk to you later, Sister.” Kate slid in beside him.

Even before she turned around, Mary Helen felt the silent stares of the kitchen help crowding the doorway. Their stained aprons covered the opening like a patchwork curtain. Only the small, black figure of Sister Therese, eyes wide, mouth shut, broke the pattern.

Even poor Therese is stunned into silence, Mary Helen thought as she turned back to watch the taillights of the Plymouth round the building.

Almost instantly, the kitchen burst into a babble, with Therese’s voice rising above the pack.

Forgoing her coffee break, Mary Helen walked down the driveway toward the Sisters’ Residence. Poor, poor Leonel! She knew he hadn’t killed the professor. When lined up beside motive and opportunity, nice eyes and instinct were hardly a logical argument. Mary Helen realized that. Yet she knew, as surely as she knew the sun would rise in the east, that Leonel was innocent. Well, old girl, she thought, squaring her shoulders, with the police making that mistake, the burden of proving it seems to be falling directly on you!

Opening the front door of the convent, she suddenly remembered why she had gone to the professor’s office. Joanna. She had forgotten to tell Kate Murphy that Joanna Alves was missing.

“Thanks, Sister.” Kate Murphy replaced the phone and walked across the Detail to the small interrogation room. She called Gallagher out. Reluctantly, he left Leonel.

“That was Sister Mary Helen,” she said, replacing her right earring.

“What did she want?”

“Seems she forgot to tell us that Joanna Alves is missing.”

“Who the hell is Joanna Alves?”

“The secretary’s sister. You know . . . Marina Alves—Joanna Alves.”

“How long?”

“Only overnight, but the sister is very worried. Called relatives, friends, everyone she can think of, and Joanna’s not with any of them. You don’t suppose something has happened to her?”

“Naw! She probably just has a boyfriend.”

“Wouldn’t her sister know?”

Gallagher yawned, then checked his watch. Most of the Detail had gone home for the night, and Kate was starting to perk. He yawned again. “I think we’ve got enough to hold this guy overnight. Let’s give him to the lads upstairs and get the hell out of here. We can question him again first thing in the morning, after we’ve all had a good night’s sleep.” He emphasized the “all.”

Kate didn’t answer.

Gallagher sighed. “What’s on your mind, Katie girl?”

“I was just trying to piece the day together.”

“Yeah?”

She flipped open her note pad. “Marina found the body. Swears she was with Leonel in his room until then. If she’s telling the truth, maybe we have the wrong guy in there.” Kate was thinking aloud. “Or, maybe
she
did it. But then, it doesn’t seem logical to hit him, then run out and raise such a commotion.”

“Who says women are logical?”

“No sexist jokes.” Kate’s blue eyes leveled on him.

Gallagher cocked his head toward the interrogation room.

“Far as I can see, the guy in there is our best bet so far. His prints are on the statue. His and Marina’s. She’s the secretary. Secretaries sometimes move things. Dust. But him? What are his prints doing on it? Which, if you remember, is why we picked him up for questioning in the first place.”

Kate chose to ignore the sarcasm in Gallagher’s voice. “He claims that Sunday night he was with Marina. And he might just be telling the truth about the prints. He could have helped Marina replace the statue. The shelf is high.”

“If not, he is a quick thinker.”

“Or maybe the two of them could have been in it together. He bashes the professor, then disappears.”

“Wouldn’t it seem more chivalrous for him to stay with the body and let her slink away?” Gallagher yawned again.

“Chivalry is clearly dead, Gallagher,” Kate said.
“Besides, he would have no valid reason to be in the office.”

“True. The girl says they were together in his room up to just before she found the body. And she’s sticking to the story, which is one of the reasons we don’t have an open-and-shut case, Katie girl.”

Again, Kate chose to ignore the sarcasm.

She ran down her notes. “Let’s see, there was the janitor, Luis Neves—says he was sweeping at the time. Officers found a pile of dirt that looks like he is either very clever or very innocent. Tony Costa is the only other person who lives on the property, besides the nuns, and he claimed he was with about one hundred other Portuguese at a hang-out in Santa Clara. I checked it out. Bartender remembers him.”

“How come the bartender remembered one guy in a crowd that big?”

“Seems Costa is a regular. Plus he gets as belligerent as hell when he has had more than his share. So the bartender keeps an eye on him.”

Gallagher shrugged. “Figures. What about the nuns?”

Kate stared at him in disbelief. “They were all together in the Community Room. Several verified that. All, that is, except Cecilia, the president, who was at an important Board of Directors’ Meeting. Mayor’s sister-in-law was with her. It’s this shadow on the stairs, the one the old nun thinks she saw, that interests me. Now, I’ll bet that’s our murderer. Maybe one of the Portuguese the professor helped,
but didn’t help enough. Maybe a disgruntled student he flunked.”

“Good thinking, Kate!”

“Anyway, in case our Leonel doesn’t work out, I’m getting a list of failing students from the Registrar’s Office. And Marina told me she’d put together a list of people Villanueva is known to have helped.”

“We can pick that up tomorrow.” Gallagher checked his watch again. The Homicide Detail was growing dim. “Let’s take the guy upstairs and get the hell outa here,” he said.

The two inspectors rode down in the elevator. “Do me a favor, will you, Kate?” Gallagher asked as they walked across the Hall of Justice parking lot.

“What is it, Denny?” Kate fumbled for her car keys, unlocked the door, and slid in.

“Will you handle that old nun?”

“Why?” Kate frowned.

“Because I’ve had one session with her already, Kate, and frankly, you two deserve each other.” He slammed her door shut.

Waving, Gallagher walked toward his car.

Kate giggled. Poor Denny. But then, he was not the only man who had trouble dealing with strong women. There had been her father. Poor Pa. Turning on her lights and windshield wipers, Kate merged into the downtown traffic. Fog had blunted the city. In a few minutes, she’d be home. Signaling left, she turned toward 34th Avenue—and Jack. He should be
home already. She could hardly wait to tell him about her day.

On the way toward the avenues she passed the college. It had been nice going up there today, she thought. Seeing Sister Eileen and all the nuns again. She felt a little nostalgic. College had been such a safe, stable time in her life. Everything had been so certain. Pa reading the paper, ruling the household. Ma cooking, cleaning, loving every minute of waiting on them.