St. Patrick's Day Murder (27 page)

“Anything there?” I asked.

“A couple of guns. One of them looks like a .44.”

Sharon gasped. “I know he has an off-duty gun. But it’s small.”

“We’ll have to check the serial numbers. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to take the whole bag with me.”

“Go ahead.”

“And I’d like you and the children to come to the station house with us. I don’t think you should be home when Joe gets here.”

She stared at him hard. Then she said, “Anything you say.”

Jack pulled a ballpoint pen out of his jacket pocket. Leaving it unopened, he poked around in the bag as Sharon and I watched. “Take a look at this,” he said, and I took a step over to the bed and looked inside. There were three guns in there, but that wasn’t what he was pointing to. The pen was holding something in place, faceup. It was a police ID photo of Ray Hansen.

Jack took us to the nearest precinct, which is what the
Patrol Guide
says he should do. It wasn’t Farina’s precinct and it wasn’t Jack’s, but the detectives we spoke to took our story as seriously as if the crime had occurred in their backyard. Jack made sure that Sharon Moore signed a statement that she had given permission for us to make a search and to take the gym bag from her home. While we were in the station house, they ran a check on the guns in the bag. One of them was legally owned by Joseph Farina. One was a .38 that did not belong to him. It was the kind of gun that had killed Harry Donner, but tests would have to be run to determine whether it had, in fact, been the murder weapon. The third gun, the .44 caliber, also did not belong to Joe Farina. Nor was it likely to be the murder weapon in the McVeigh homicide. It was registered to Sang Joo of the Happy Times Grocery.

It was later than I had anticipated when I got back to Oakwood. Joe Farina had already been taken into custody, along with the members of Gavin Moore’s team. There was still a lot of work to do, a lot of evidence to gather, but now they knew what they were looking for, and I was confident it would all fall into place.

Sister Benedicta had already had dinner with the Grosses when I got back, so I took everyone out for ice-cream treats at a favorite spot in the Oakwood shopping center. Then I took her to my house, fixed up the room Sister Joseph had slept in, and we went to bed. On Sunday morning we went to early mass, and later in the day I drove her back to the convent. She was a changed person. She had lived to learn
the truth about her nephew’s death, and she had helped to uncover that truth. We had a long conversation as we drove back, her recollections of the convent forty, fifty, and sixty years ago absolutely mesmerizing me. When I left her, I felt as though I had known her for years and I promised to visit.

At home, the first of my seeds were just sprouting and my window was filling with that brilliant new green that is never duplicated after spring. From morning till night I could see changes in the little seedlings, a leaf opening, a little plant bending toward the sun. I was absolutely enthralled.

Jack called in the evening with an update. Johnny Waldo had picked Joe Farina’s picture out of a layout and identified him as the man in the park the night Gavin Moore was killed. It looked like my theory was right, that Joe Farina was following Moore that night, perhaps to kill him, when the group in the park did the job for him. Probably he had then alerted the team, and Tom Macklin had taken the news of Moore’s death to Sharon Moore.

“I saw my folks this afternoon,” Jack said when he finished the story. “We have to talk. And I really didn’t see much of you over the weekend.”

“If I come in tomorrow, I’ll have to leave very early Tuesday morning. I’m teaching, remember.”

“My sister gave me some goodies. We can have a late dinner together. I don’t mind getting up early.”

The story was in all the papers Monday morning, full of errors, but essentially correct. Jack was mentioned, and, happily, I wasn’t. I had asked specifically if they would keep my name out of the news. While I was getting my house back together and laundry done, the phone rang. It was Ray Hansen with a thank-you and what I took to be an apology. The charges had been formally withdrawn and he had had his badge and weapon returned. He was feeling like a cop again.

A little while later the doorbell rang, and a florist handed me a box, which turned out to have a dozen roses in it from Ray. It was a strange feeling for me. Having spent all those years in the convent, these were the first flowers of my life. Like the nun I used to be, I started thinking whom I could give a few, to share the pleasure. Then I decided this was one
gift I didn’t want to share. I put them in a vase on the coffee table in the living room, and every time I walked through the room, I smiled when I saw them.

Jean was the next call. “Something crazy just happened, Chris,” she said. “You know that Armenian jeweler on Scotty’s beat?”

“I remember seeing it, yes.”

“The owner just drove over. He gave me a gold chain Scotty ordered for my birthday. It’s just beautiful.”

“The things in their window were lovely. Is today your birthday?”

“Yes. Scotty was probably going to pick it up. It makes me feel weird.”

“It should make you feel good, Jean.”

“That must have been part of the three thousand. I wish he’d gotten something for himself.”

“He got the car.”

“Oh. I forgot the car. We’ll get together soon, Chris. I’ll make lunch and I’ll wear the chain. I want you to see it.”

I promised we’d do it. Then I went out and did some food shopping.

In the evening I drove down to Brooklyn. A radio news report announced that one of the guns in Farina’s gym bag had been confirmed by ballistics experts at the police lab as the gun that killed Harry Donner almost three years ago. Farina wasn’t talking; his lawyer said everything was circumstantial and the guns had been planted in the Moore house. So, I guessed, had the prints on them.

I found our dinner in a familiar foil container and warmed it up while I waited for Jack. It smelled of curry. Jack’s sister was getting daring. I put some rice on and set the table.

When he came in, I could see something was up. “Stay here,” he said, and went into the bedroom. When he came out, he said, “Close your eyes.”

I did. He took my hand and folded it around something. “Look.”

I looked. It was a diamond ring. “Jack.” I swallowed, hardly able to speak. “It’s beautiful.” It was a square stone
that sparkled as I turned it, releasing flashes of color. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Just say you’ll wear it.”

“I will.”

“It’s my mother’s. She scrubbed it up and gave it to me yesterday. She said she wanted to keep it in the family.”

I could feel my eyes tearing. “I will. What a wonderful surprise.”

Late the next afternoon I called Arnold Gold. The comfortable sound of Mozart was in the background, and he was glad to hear from me.

“So you put another notch in your belt,” he said. “How come I don’t see you getting any credit in the papers?”

“I don’t need it and I don’t want it. There’s lots of stuff I can tell you that won’t be printed. Next time I come to work, let’s get together for lunch.”

“You can come tomorrow; we’ve got the work for you.”

“Arnold, I have to ask you something.” I waited so long to continue that he prompted me. “I’d like you to give me away. Jack and I are getting married.”

Now it was his turn to pause. “You don’t want me, Chrissie. I’m a Jew, remember? How can I fit in in a Catholic ceremony?”

“You’re part of my life, Arnold. We’ll make you fit in.”

“Well. I’d be honored. I’d be absolutely honored.”

I was brushing tears away at that point. “Thank you,” I said.

“Oh, no. I’m the one to give the thanks.”

A couple of weeks later Jean called and said she’d like to meet Scotty’s grandfather. I called St. Andrews and made an appointment for us to visit. I met the McVeighs near the home, and we walked over. The children were all dressed up and Jean was wearing the exquisite chain Scotty had sent her for her birthday. Charlie Hanrahan was waiting in the large foyer, as dressed up as his great-grandchildren. We sat in the same corner where he and I had talked. Jean told him about her husband and the children, and he laughed as he watched them. When they had settled in, I got up and walked away, finally finding an old woman sitting alone in the community room who was anxious to talk and didn’t care very much who she talked to. Half an hour later, when I went back, they were still there, still talking.

“You know what,” old Charlie said, bouncing Andrea on his knee, “I got a surprise from Scotty not so long ago. I didn’t tell you, miss,” he said, looking at me, “because it was a family matter. Got a check from him for my birthday. A thousand bucks. Can you believe it? Came in the mail with a little note the day after he died. He musta mailed it that morning.”

“On his way to the parade,” Jean said.

“A thousand bucks.” He beamed. “That’s how come I have on such a nice new suit today. It’s a present from your daddy, kids. What a nice boy he was.”

They never found the gun that killed Scotty, but Farina and the members of the team will go to prison for a long time. They found at least some of the buyers Farina sold drugs to, and they’re still working on that.

The way we figured it all out, Macklin stole the car the morning of St. Patrick’s Day and followed Ray and his redheaded companion in the BMW back to Brooklyn. He must have sat a long time waiting for them to leave, and when he finally got to Gillen’s, he phoned Farina to take over. Macklin was working from an ID photo and didn’t know either Ray or Petra, or Scotty for that matter. When Farina took over the watch, he was looking for Ray, a redheaded woman, and a BMW. He saw what looked like Ray going to the BMW and decided that was his man. After the killing, he probably ditched the gun he used.

Ray split up with Petra and after a while went back to Betsy, but I’m not sure it’ll last. One thing that happened, he’s a lot easier to talk to now.

Of all the deaths, it was Jerry McMahon’s that left me with the most painful feelings. George Barker, who had posed as the homeless man, eventually turned state’s evidence against the others. He and Ricardo Ramirez had followed McMahon when he left the station house that Friday night. Members of Gavin Moore’s old team had been suspicious of McMahon for some time and had kept close watch on Mm after Ray was charged. They were pretty sure something was going down that Friday night when McMahon left the station house early and headed for Manhattan. By the time Barker was sitting on the sidewalk on Amsterdam Avenue, McMahon was probably already dead or dying. We couldn’t have known it, of course, but it hurts me to think that we were only blocks away from him while he was still alive.

And then there’s the three thousand dollars. A thousand for Jean’s gold chain, a thousand for Charlie Hanrahan, and what else? Did the used-car dealer pocket it in spite of all his protestations? I suppose so. But maybe not. Maybe Scotty has a surprise put away, something for the children, perhaps, that will pop up just at the right time to give them some happiness.

I wouldn’t put it past him.

THE GOOD FRIDAY MURDER

Christine Bennett has just left the cloistered world of the nuns when she is enlisted to solve a forty-year-old murder. Pursuing this mission with her old religious zeal, she’ll move heaven and earth to exonerate a pair of retarded savant twins, now senior citizens, of their mother’s murder on Good Friday in 1950.

THE YOM KIPPUR MURDER

When ex-nun Chris Bennett can’t get into Mr. Herskovitz’s apartment to accompany him to Yom Kippur services, she discovers that her friend has been murdered. The police arrest someone almost immediately, but Chris is not convinced, and she is determined to uncover the sacrilegious truth.

THE CHRISTENING DAY MURDER

Studsburg was evacuated by the government anil flooded to create a reservoir thirty years ago. Now drought has uncovered the town’s forgotten church, and Christine Bennett stumbles upon a skeleton in the church’s basement. Christine must put together a sordid puzzle from the past to find a killer.