The Christmas Night Murder Read online

  The counterman gave me a battered phone book and I looked up Gallagher. There were several listed, but I recognized Sunny’s street name. She answered on the second ring.

  “Mrs. Gallagher, this is Chris Bennett.”

  “Yes, hello.”

  “I understand you called me this evening at St. Stephen’s.”

  She said nothing. Then: “I—yes, I did. How did you know?”

  When you can’t answer a question, ask another, one of Arnold Gold’s golden rules. “Do you have something to tell me?”

  It was obviously very difficult for her, but I had expected that from Joseph’s description of the call. “There is something, yes.”

  “Please tell me.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it all day.” Her voice had none of the strength and energy of this morning. “There’s something I didn’t tell you.” Another pause and then it came. “There was a third letter.”

  28

  She ushered me into the house with a face that belied her name.

  “It came in December of that year. Serena Farragut died around Thanksgiving and Miranda went back to school that Sunday. The funeral was the day after, I think, and the Farraguts let it be known that it would be private. I sent a basket of flowers, but I didn’t visit the family. Julia came home when her mother died and she never went back to the convent. She wrote to Miranda after she came home and addressed the letter here. I can’t really explain why I opened it. It’s not the sort of thing I do, but I think I wanted to protect my daughter from the pain her friend was suffering.”

  We had walked into the family room where I had gone through the carton early this afternoon. A fire was burning in the fireplace and I sat near it. Sunny sat in a chair across from me so that we shared the warmth.

  “I have some conditions you will have to agree to,” she said.

  “What kind of conditions?”

  “I will read the letter to you. I will not give it to you. I do not want my daughter to know this letter ever arrived and I want you to promise you won’t tell her.”

  “I promise.”

  “This is a personal letter. It’s not evidence and I won’t turn it over to the police. I can’t explain why I’ve kept it all these years, but I have. Maybe there really is such a thing as destiny and this letter has been waiting all this time for someone to come along and look into what happened in that family. If so, then I’m glad I kept it. You seem the right person to be doing it. I think you genuinely care about what happened to Julia and you don’t seem to have an ax to grind. But my daughter must never know of the existence of this letter.”

  “She will never know it from me.”

  Sunny pulled the letter out of the envelope. “ ‘Dear Miranda,’ ” she read. “ ‘I’m sure you have heard that my mother is gone. Of all the people I have ever known, I have loved her the most. I don’t know how to live with her loss, but I know that I have to. I know she only wanted the best for me and I will accomplish that best in her memory.

  “ ‘I wanted so much to see you while you were home, but it was impossible. Daddy wanted as little display as possible, so we kept to ourselves and mourned together.

  “ ‘I will not be returning to St. Stephen’s. My life there was the best I have ever had but I’ve been confused—maybe even a little mad—and I’ve done some awful things. If I write them down, perhaps they will make sense to me. You’ve been such a good friend for so long, maybe you’ll know what I should do to right my wrongs.

  “ ‘I’m sure I wrote you about the priest I call Hudson River McCormick. He is a truly wonderful person and he’s helped me more than I can describe. But I had bad dreams and I made accusations—I don’t even remember what they were—that weren’t true. Well, maybe I do remember. Maybe it was confusion. The accusations were true, but they were made against the wrong person.’ ” Sunny looked up. “This is very painful,” she said.

  “I know it is.”

  She looked back at the page. “ ‘I have a brother who really isn’t my brother—well, maybe he is. He is a sad, confused person and we have all tried our best to make him happy. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough, but I know that I have been happiest when he was away. I think that’s true of my mother, too. He has hurt me on many occasions, Miranda. I have not wanted to complain. Sometimes I’ve thought it might have been my fault, that something I was doing was wrong, that I was encouraging him. My mother, who was the only person I could talk to, said that wasn’t true. She said I shouldn’t blame myself. Now that she’s gone, I feel I have no one to turn to, no one to take her place and keep me going. I want to live a happy and productive life, but how can I do it in this house? But I know I must. It’s what my mother wanted for me, what Hudson River wants for me, and what I want for myself.’ Her handwriting becomes hard to read here,” Sunny said. “As if she’s disintegrating as she writes.”

  “It happened in the second letter, too.”

  “ ‘I have decided to write a long letter to my mother, a diary letter, to tell her everything I have been unable to say out loud. Maybe that will help me. I know my mother will read what I write and forgive me. She always did.

  “ ‘And then, of course, there is my Sweet Doubter. In the end, it looks as though he was right. I could not finish my novitiate. I have not seen him for some time, but I still have deep feelings for him. He will come back, I’m sure of it. We will see each other at Christmas and that will be a happy time but also a sad one, without my mother. I’ll see you, too, then, Miranda. This is a terrible burden I have shared with you, but I know you won’t let me down.

  “ ‘I have somehow mislaid your college address, the box number and all that, so I’ll mail this to your house and have your mother forward it. Do well in your exams. I hope to go away to college myself when things get straightened out, maybe even the spring semester if we can arrange it.

  “ ‘See you at Christmas. Lots of love, Julia.’ ” Sunny folded the sheets and put them back in the envelope.

  “It doesn’t sound like a girl who’s giving up on life,” I said.

  “No.” She took her glasses off and laid them on the table next to her chair, but she held on to the letter as though I might grab it and run with it. “Once I read it, I couldn’t send it on to Miranda,” she explained, her guilt spilling over. “Miranda was only eighteen herself. She was much too young to involve herself in such a terrible situation. I felt for Julia, I really did. I called her after the letter came and asked her how things were going. She said she missed her mother, but she was looking ahead. She asked if the letter had arrived and I said it had and that I would give it to Miranda when she came home for Christmas. Maybe I thought I would at that point. Maybe I thought Miranda and I would try to do something together for Julia.”

  “You opened it when it came,” I said.

  “Almost immediately. I had that sense of foreboding when I saw it. I told myself I would just read it and then tell Miranda I had opened it by mistake. I was making excuses from the first moment, but after I read it, I knew I couldn’t let my daughter get involved in this. I couldn’t let her go to that house with that monster. I know I should have gone to the police or to Father Grimes or—”

  “I’m not judging you, Sunny. I’m very grateful that you read the letter to me.”

  “What do you think? Do you think Foster kidnapped the priest?”

  “It certainly looks that way. We found Father McCormick a couple of hours ago in a shed behind the Corcoran house.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “Yes, he is. I’m hoping—we’re all hoping—he’ll be able to identify the person that left him there to die.”

  “I hope so, too. I mean that.”

  I knew she did. I understood that in protecting her child she did not mean to harm Julia, but I could not help wondering how different things might be if the Gallaghers had invited Julia to go away for Christmas, to have a good time with her friend. But realistically, it might not have worked. Juli
a was a religious girl who might have chosen to be home for the holiday, to go to her own church, see her own priest, be with her father and grandmother.

  Sometimes you dream about things you can’t change, but tonight I had no time for dreams. I had to catch a killer.

  —

  This time I found an open pharmacy for my phone call. I’m not sure why I didn’t want to go back to the diner, but something about it made me feel creepy. The pharmacy had a pay phone in a less open place and I didn’t have the feeling that everyone around me was listening to my conversation. Angela must have closed the switchboard because Joseph answered on the first ring. When the switchboard is closed, all incoming calls go directly to her room.

  I told her about Sunny Gallagher’s letter.

  “I guess that answers our questions,” she said.

  “Only some of them. There are still a lot of things that aren’t clear to me, things that aren’t consistent.”

  “Maybe our numbers are wrong, Chris.”

  I waited for her to amplify, but she didn’t. “You’re being a sphinx again,” I said with a laugh.

  “You know those jokes about how many people it takes to change a lightbulb?”

  “Most of the answers are insensitive or politically incorrect.”

  “True, but I’ve been thinking, perhaps we should be asking how many people it takes to change two lightbulbs. That may simplify the problem for us.”

  “Joseph,” I said, feeling a sense of excitement building, “you may have it. A couple of things happened tonight—I don’t have time to tell you about them. I wish I could remember what page of the Bible Sister Mary Teresa left that scrap of paper in.”

  “It will come to you. And I’m right here. All night.”

  “I’ll talk to you again soon.”

  I tried Mrs. Farragut again, and this time she answered.

  “It’s Christine Bennett,” I said. “I thought you’d like to know that Father McCormick has been found alive.”

  “That’s certainly good news. You’ve been successful.”

  “Yes. We’re all very relieved, not just that he’s all right, but that he’ll be able to name his kidnapper.”

  “Then that should put an end to your little investigation.”

  “I think so. Everything seems to be falling into place. By the way, he was left in the shed behind 211 Hawthorne Street.”

  There was a pause. “How unfortunate for the new family.”

  “But fortunate for the investigation. It links his kidnapper to your granddaughter’s death.”

  “Whatever pleases you, Miss Bennett. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll say good night.”

  “Good night, Mrs. Farragut.”

  Had she been a little anxious to get off the phone?

  —

  As I drove back to Hawthorne Street all kinds of things started to make sense. Little bits of conversation with people I had interviewed came back to me, this time with new meaning. Things I had seen and ignored because they struck me as irrelevant now took on great import. Even the mistletoe I had stood under earlier in the evening had a message for me.

  The scent I had detected as I stood in the foyer had not come from Christmas greenery; it had been Mrs. Farragut’s own fragrance. That was why I had not been invited in; she had been there, discussing who knew what with the Belvederes, who had told me they hadn’t kept in touch with her. They had done more than keep in touch. They had been part of a conspiracy. I wasn’t sure exactly how it worked, but I sensed I was about to find out.

  I turned into Hawthorne Street and parked the car on the opposite side from number 211 and before I reached it so that the Belvedere house was farther down the block. A lone police car stood in front of the Corcorans’, which meant the crime-scene people had done their job and gone on their way. I got out of my car and crossed over, then walked up the driveway to the back of the house. As expected, one policeman was standing near the shed, just outside the yellow-and-black crime-scene tape, which was stiff from the cold. This was a routine procedure, guarding the crime scene to make certain nothing was disturbed in case the crime-scene people needed to come back for further evidence.

  I called, “Hello,” and he came to attention.

  “Who’s there?”

  “I’m Chris Bennett. I found Father McCormick in the shed.”

  “Right. I recognize your name.”

  He looked young enough that he might not have been on the Riverview police force seven years ago, might feel no obligation to the Farragut family.

  “How long have you been on the police force here?”

  “Three years. Three and a half. Spend most of my time riding around in my car. On patrol, you know?”

  “I was so shaken up when I talked to the police before, I forgot to mention something. Whoever kidnapped Father McCormick kept him in that third-floor apartment for a while.” I pointed to the stairs.

  “How’d you get in there?”

  “The door was open. The kidnapper probably forgot to lock it when he took Father McCormick down the stairs last night. There’s a mattress up there and some coffee cups. Your crime-scene people will want to look it over.”

  “Can I ask you how you came to try that door?”

  “I think someone who had access to this house, maybe when the Farraguts lived here, had a key.”

  “I’ll call it in,” he said. “Have a good night.”

  I wished him the same and went back to my car. Then I waited. I turned on the radio to help stay awake. Two men and a woman were talking about some topic that I never quite got straight. It had something to do with Christmas and something to do with women. I didn’t really listen; I thought about Hudson, Sister Mary Teresa, and Julia. I put together what I knew and what I thought was likely and I kept my eyes open. If I had laid a trap, someone might take the bait.

  It took half an hour. The woman on the radio was talking about the portrayal of women in the New Testament. “After all,” she said, “it was Mary Magdalene who carried the word to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord; and these things He said to me.’ ”

  The page in Sister Mary Teresa’s New Testament! I almost started the car to find a telephone when I saw headlights, a car coming toward me, slowing as it approached. As I watched, it turned into the driveway. The trap had sprung.

  29

  A second police car pulled up in front of 211, then turned into the driveway. That would be in response to the first officer’s call about the third floor. I crossed the street and joined both men behind the house.

  “Someone may try to get into that third-floor area,” I said. “To clean it up.”

  “We’ll look out for him.”

  “He may try the front door. I think he has a key.”

  “Why don’t you go around front, Bud?” the one who had just arrived said. “I’ll go look at the upstairs.”

  I walked back down the driveway with Bud.

  “Someone’s at the front door now,” he said in a low voice, reaching for his gun. “Stand back.”

  I watched him step carefully through the snow as the person at the door fumbled with a key. The crunch of the surface ice seemed very loud. As he went forward he moved into a crouch.

  “Police,” Bud called in a loud voice. “Don’t move.” The order was loud and direct. And ignored.

  I watched as the figure turned, as the frightened face was revealed by the porch light. It was Warren Belvedere.

  —

  There was a light on at Mike’s Auto Body Shop. I tapped the dirty glass in the door and went inside.

  “Help you?” he said. It was the man I had seen at the diner. He was sitting at a lighted table, papers spread out from end to end.

  “I need to make a phone call. I wondered if I could use yours.”

  “Sure thing. There’s a pay phone in the work area. Turn left.”

  I dialed the convent and Joseph answered on the first ring.

  “It’s Chris. The page in the Bible is where Mar
y Magdalene goes to the tomb after the resurrection.”

  “That story is in all the Gospels. Do you remember which one?”

  “John, I’m sure of it. It was near the middle of the book. John ends around the middle.”

  “Let me find it.” She was gone a short time and I looked around the body shop. A crushed and mangled car was about ten feet from me, minus a lot of necessary parts, not that it would ever ride the road again. I wondered if the occupants had survived the crash. “Here it is. Shall I read it to you?”

  “Tell me what follows. I don’t think the Mary Magdalene story is what matters.”

  “The next thing is that Jesus comes and speaks to the disciples.”

  “OK. And then what?”

  “And then there’s the discussion of the disciple Thomas.”

  “Thomas,” I repeated. “Doubting Thomas.”

  “The very same.”

  “I think we’ve got him, Joseph.”

  “Got whom?”

  “Sister Mary Teresa’s killer.”

  “Be careful, Chris.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up and went back to where Mike was sitting at a table working with papers. “You’re Tom Belvedere’s friend, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s right. We’ve been friends since kindergarten.”

  “He borrowed your car last week, didn’t he? When he had car trouble.”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “I saw you working on his car the other day,” I said, not exactly answering his question. “Thanks very much for the telephone. I’d better be going now.”

  “Good night.”

  I waved and left him at his table, looking a little puzzled.

  —

  I was pretty sure you couldn’t use a private tow truck on the thruway, but I’ve seen cars pulling a second car as if it were a trailer. It wouldn’t have taken much to prepare for that kind of tow if Tom Belvedere, Julia’s Sweet Doubter, had intended to follow Hudson and waylay him at a rest stop. It’s a pretty sure thing that on a trip of that length, about three hundred miles, you’ll make at least one stop. All Tom Belvedere had to do was ask his friend for the use of the car I had seen in the Belvederes’ driveway. It had MIKE’S AUTO BODY SHOP on the side, but it was a regular sedan, not a forbidden tow truck.