The Missing Madonna (22 page)

Reaching in his pocket for a stick of gum, he unwrapped it and pleated it into his mouth. “My last,” he said by way of apology for not offering them one.

Gallagher scowled. “What’s all this got to do with us?”

“I’m getting to that. I looked into Finn. Nothing. Honest, upright citizen. Even contributes regularly to the Police Athletic League. I went to see the guy. The only odd thing about him is how he pulls this piece of hair back and forth.” Honore demonstrated on his own bald head. “Anyway, he gives me an earful about the woman’s kids. The whole thing goes around in circles.”

“Did you find out anything about the woman herself?” Kate asked before she thought.

“Katie-girl, this here’s not our department. Stay out of it.” Pretending not to listen, Gallagher stared out the fourth-floor window, apparently totally absorbed in something on the James Lick Freeway.

“Sure did.” Honore acted as though he hadn’t heard Gallagher. “She, too, is an honest, upright citizen. Pays her bills, goes to church, belongs to a few organizations, including OWL. And that’s what’s really getting me into trouble—those OWLs.”

“I knew it!” Gallagher slammed down his fist. “I knew exactly where this was leading. It’s those damn nuns, isn’t it? They’re on your case, right?”

Looking sheepish, Honore snapped his gum. “Under ordinary circumstances, I’d let the case rest. As you guys know, we got dozens of missing-person reports coming in every week and we’re shorthanded. Besides, at the end of this week Kelly’s going on maternity leave, and we’re going to be even more strapped.”

Kate could feel a
but
coming.

“But to tell you the truth, Gallagher’s right. That nun’s gotten to me. She’s so sure something’s amiss that I can’t help but agree with her. And there are a couple of loose ends.”

“Like?”

“Like how did the lady get from Sanchez Street to the airport? No cabs picked up at that address on that afternoon. How come her name is not on the passenger list?
Why didn’t she go to see the only person she knows in St. Louis?”

Kate grinned. “Those are loose ends, all right. What I don’t understand is what you want us to do about it”

“I know it’s pushing it a little, but if anything has happened to the woman, it will be your case. So maybe if you guys have a couple of spare hours, you could nose around. See what you can come up with. I could use all the help I can get; and if it does fall in your laps, you’ll be ahead.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Gallagher shouted so loudly that all the noise in the Homicide Detail stopped instantly. There was an embarrassing silence.

“Hey, Gallagher, we’re supposed to solve murders, not perpetrate them,” O’Connor called across the room.

“Sorry,” Gallagher said and waved. The room went back to normal.

“In case you change your mind, I’ll leave this stuff for you.” Honore put copies of his reports on Kate’s desk. “Nothing formal. No big effort or anything. Just in case you have a couple of hours or stumble onto something.”

Gallagher turned to Kate. “Can you believe this guy?” He ran the palm of his hand across his bald crown. “He boggles the mind of the average human being.” He stepped close to Honore, scowling. “Get out of here, you bum, before you’re a missing person yourself!”

“Don’t forget who loves you, baby,” Honore called to Gallagher, then quickly left the Homicide Detail.

“The nerve of that guy!” Gallagher took a deep pull on his cigar. “As if we didn’t have enough of a load.”

Kate picked up the paper he had left. “I wonder . . .” She frowned.

“Don’t wonder. Don’t even think. As a matter of fact, don’t even touch those papers. We are not getting involved.”

“Denny, do you think you may be overreacting a little?”

“I don’t care what you call it, Kate. Overreacting, underreacting, whatever. I know one thing for sure—we are not getting involved. No, sir. Not. Period. The end. Do you hear me?”

Kate heard him, but she didn’t believe him, not even for one minute.

*  *  *

The haunting eyes of the Byzantine Madonna were what finally made Mary Helen go to see Marie Duran; the eyes, and the fact that tomorrow was the regularly scheduled meeting of the OWLs.

During Compline on Tuesday night, she had decided to leave the case to Inspector Honore. From what the Duran brothers had indicated, he was on the job, so to speak. Furthermore, Sister Cecilia, the college president, had hinted broadly.

“Well, if it isn’t our two absentee ballots,” Cecilia had said when she met Mary Helen and Eileen on the way to dinner Tuesday night. The pair had just returned home, still shaken from the scene between Junior and Finn. Mary Helen recognized the statement as one of Cecilia’s attempts to be funny, although she couldn’t help noticing the president’s humor often contained a needle of truth.

The moment they sat down at the dinner table, Eileen flipped through her pocket calendar. “What do you suppose we missed?” She gasped. “No wonder Cecilia was unhappy. Today was the faculty meeting.”

“At our age, we are entitled to a few lapses of memory.” Mary Helen felt a bit defensive.

“Lapses of memory are one thing, old dear”—Eileen frowned—“but to give the devil her due, we have positively been neglecting our jobs.”

“Missing one faculty meeting can hardly be construed as neglecting our jobs. Besides, age should have
some privilege. And the furnace wasn’t working,” she threw in. She wasn’t sure why. “Be reasonable.”

But Eileen did not intend to be reasonable. She was having a case of Irish “guilties,” and Mary Helen knew there was no stopping her.

“The furnace is working now and, actually, at our age we should be giving a better example. What does it say to the others, if we don’t do what we are supposed to do?”

“I’ll bet no one missed us, no one except Cecilia.”

From the look on her friend’s face, Mary Helen could tell that Eileen was about to argue the point. She was relieved when Sister Anne joined them.

“Where have you two been?” the young nun asked, her hazel eyes wide behind her purple-rimmed glasses. “I haven’t seen you in days.” Anne began to eat her salad. “We sure could have used your input about graduation at this afternoon’s meeting.”

Talk about saying the wrong thing at the right time! Although she would never admit it, Mary Helen knew Eileen was right And whatever “input” was, they probably should have been there to give it To tell the truth, Mary Helen had been so preoccupied with Erma, that finals week and graduation, with all the ceremonies surrounding it, had almost slipped her mind. And summer school? She hadn’t given the opening of summer school even a passing thought Yes, Eileen was right! Her first responsibility was to Mount St. Francis College.

Much as she hated to, she decided to put Erma in the hands of God and the SFPD. After the final blessing at Compline, she told Eileen so.

Yet those sad Madonna eyes had haunted her all night. She had even dreamed about them.

Right after the six-thirty Mass on Wednesday morning, Sister Mary Helen waited for Sister Eileen. “Let’s step outside for a minute,” she said, watching the nuns
file out of the chapel, then start down the hall toward the dining room. She didn’t want to be overheard.

Obediently, Eileen followed her. Outside, dawn was just beginning to show over the Oakland hills. “It’s going to be a beautiful day.” Mary Helen drew in a deep breath. “Look at that sky.” She pointed toward downtown, where an aura of peach was beginning to cut through the fog and frame the buildings.

“You didn’t pull me out here to discuss the weather,” Eileen said. “Furthermore, if you look the other way, old dear, you will see the fog has all but obliterated the Golden Gate as well as the entire Richmond District.” Clearly, Eileen’s tone of voice was wary. In fact, everything about her was wary.

“Tomorrow is the regular monthly meeting of the OWLs,” Mary Helen reminded her.

“And you didn’t pull me out here to discuss our appointment schedule either.” She narrowed her eyes.

As usual, the direct approach was going to work best with Eileen. “I can’t get Erma or the picture of the Madonna and those haunting eyes out of my mind. Just what did Erma mean when she told her daughter, ‘If anything happens to me, look there? The whole thing is such a mystery.”

“What kind of shenanigans are you contemplating, Mary Helen? I had the feeling you were being entirely too agreeable and too pious last night.”

Mary Helen tried to look a little hurt. She must have succeeded. Eileen’s face puckered and she patted Mary Helen’s hand.

“Erma and the picture have been on my mind, too, old friend,” she said, “and it’s high time we did something to take the mystery out of them.”

Without much further discussion, the two nuns agreed to meet at ten o’clock in the convent garage. The most logical person for them to see, they decided,
was Ree Duran, the most mysterious of Erma’s children.

*  *  *

After several attempts, Mary Helen parallel parked in the narrow alley off 17th Street where Ree lived.

“That’s the one.” Eileen pointed to a pink house, midblock, with the same Italianate front as its neighbors. “And, remember, that one is her apartment.” She indicated the door cut in the basement, with vivid blue hydrangeas on either side of it.

Mary Helen pressed the doorbell of the basement apartment. No one answered. No one seemed to move inside. She stepped back to study the main house. That, too, appeared empty. “Maybe nobody’s home.” She couldn’t help feeling disappointed. “I guess we should have called first”

“I’m sure I hear the television.”

Thank God for Eileen’s hearing. Mary Helen put her ear to the front door, then rapped. “Maybe the bell is broken.”

After several knocks, the door opened a crack. The eyes peering out had trouble focusing at first. A thick brass security chain stretched where a nose should be. Ree grunted and shut the door. Mary Helen could hear her fumbling with the night chain.

Finally, she opened the door just wide enough to let them in. All the blinds in the one-room apartment were drawn. A table lamp and the television set provided the only light. Ree motioned them to sit down on a lumpy couch against one wall. A game-show contestant laughed shrilly.

Turning down the volume on the set, Ree went back to a worn recliner and wrapped herself in an equally worn granny-square afghan. The floor around the chair looked as if Ree had been sitting there for some time.

“I’m not feeling well,” she said, sniffling.

It’s no wonder, Mary Helen thought She counted
two open boxes of Cheez-Its, a plastic bowl with the melted remnants of chocolate ice cream in the bottom, five wadded candy-bar wrappers, and a plastic liter bottle of diet cola. A cracked bowl with several kernels of unpopped corn was perched next to her on a hassock.

“What is it?” Eileen’s eyes were full of concern. “Not that new flu, I hope.”

“A cold, I think. Or maybe I’m just depressed.” She sniffled again.

“What are you doing for it?” Eileen asked at the same moment that Mary Helen said, “Do you get depressed often?” Their questions intermingled and Ree ignored them both.

Instead, she continued to talk. It was as if she were repeating a familiar story yet another time. Mary Helen had the uncanny feeling that Ree hardly knew they were there.

“I didn’t used to get depressed, you know, before it happened. But afterward, I did. It used to worry Mommy. Lots. She didn’t say so, but I could tell.” Suddenly, Ree reverted to a little girl’s voice. “Mommy got me medicine from the doctor. See my medicine?” She thrust the brown plastic pill container toward Mary Helen. “It keeps me happy,” she said, pulling the container back before Mary Helen could read exactly what kind of tranquilizers the doctor had prescribed. Ree tucked the brown cylinder beside her in the chair.

“Have you taken some today?” Mary Helen asked, knowing full well what a foolish, question it was. One look at the woman’s eyes told her she had taken more than one, and probably quite a few.

Ree nodded almost in slow motion. She focused her eyes first on one nun, then on the other, frowning as if she wondered who they were.

“What you really need is something nourishing to eat!” Eileen headed toward the small refrigerator in the portion of the room that served as a kitchen. While she
located a pan and set about scrambling eggs and making hot buttered toast, Mary Helen removed the popcorn bowl from the hassock and sat down close to Ree.

“Before what happened?” she asked the young woman.

Closing her eyes, Ree rubbed her forehead. Obviously, it was taking a great effort to think. Her dilated eyes opened and she stared. Suddenly, as though frightened, she clutched the afghan around her body and rocked back and forth.

“Mommy told me not to tell our business to strangers.”

“I am hardly a stranger,” Mary Helen said soothingly. “And if what you were going to say will help us contact your mother, I’m sure she would want you to tell me.”

Ree studied Mary Helen’s face, seemingly weighing the words. She continued in her little-girl voice. “Daddy took me and the boys with him to see the horses run. Mr. Finn went too.” She shuddered. “They had some beer, Daddy and Mr. Finn. We had soda pop. Daddy went somewhere. He left us with Mr. Finn.”

Mary Helen felt as though she were listening to a sleeper recounting a recurring dream. Maybe it was a dream.

“When did all this happen?” she asked.

Tears hung for a moment on the corners of Ree’s eyes, then ran down her chubby cheeks. Frowning, she focused on Mary Helen’s face. “I don’t remember, really. I was just a kid.” Although she sniffled, she sounded more like her adult self. “I get mixed up, you know. I remember Mr. Finn was there and my brothers too. I was scared. I remember that. And that it hurt me.”

“Who hurt you? Mr. Finn?”

“I can’t really remember. But he was there. I remember he was there and he saw. I’m sure he saw. Sometimes when I see his eyes, I think I remember him looking. Sometimes it still scares me. . . .”

“Did you ever talk to your mother about it?”

Fishing under the afghan for a Kleenex, Ree stopped to wipe her eyes. “Yes. Mommy said I was just upset That maybe it was just a bad dream or my imagination playing tricks.” The child’s voice began to slip in once more. “Mommy said Mr. Finn was a nice man and a friend of Daddy’s. She said she was sure he wouldn’t hurt me. And she said my brothers loved me and they wouldn’t hurt me either.”