Cat's Eyewitness (28 page)

Harry and Susan inspected the pump.

“Wish I had a flashlight.” Susan could see that a bright focused light would help.

“We can see well enough.” Harry squeezed behind the pump. She dropped down on her hands and knees, and Tucker came up, sticking her wet nose in her mother’s face. “Tucker, don’t.”

“You look silly on all fours,”
the dog rejoined.

“Susan, here it is.” Harry found the thin painted copper pipe. “This has to be it.”

“Could run to one of the fountains.”

“Yeah, it could, but look how new the copper is. See the scratch here? If it had been in service for a while, the copper would be green.” She noticed the smallish box, painted black, underneath the copper tube, feeding into it. She fished out her trapper knife, wedging it under a flat cap. “Damn.”

“Frozen?”

“It’s above freezing in here. If it weren’t it’d be Niagara.” She pointed to the kerosene heater in the corner. “Does the job.” She returned to the small box. “I guess someone has the job of lighting that. Damn, I can’t pop this.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I think this has liquid or powder in it. Red.”

Susan said nothing, then stiffened and whirled around. Harry was still on her hands and knees.

“Intruder!”
Tucker warned as Harry backed out.

Brother Handle opened the door and closed it behind him. “Just what are you doing?”

“Figuring out the miracle.” Harry’s voice was low, angry. “You knew, didn’t you?”

Before he could answer, Susan, her voice trembling slightly, said, “Did you kill Thomas?”

Harry jumped in. “Are you going to kill us?”

The door opened with great force, sending Brother Handle sprawling on the floor.

“He won’t kill you, but I will.” Brother Mark, knife in hand, leapt for Harry, pinning her so she couldn’t reach for her gun.

Tucker sank her fangs into his ankle.

“Climb up the robe,”
Mrs. Murphy ordered.

The two cats easily climbed up, ripping the heavy wool as they progressed. They reached his shoulders as he kept Harry pinned but tried to shake them off.

Susan leapt onto Brother Mark, as well, grabbing his neck on the right side. The thin, razor-sharp knife was in his left hand. He couldn’t reach Susan with it without releasing his hold on Harry.

Brother Handle, on his feet now, lurched toward the melee.

Tucker let go of Brother Mark’s ankle, whirling to meet this new threat. To her surprise, the Prior quickly pulled the rope tie from his robe, flipping it over Brother Mark’s neck while putting his knee in the young man’s back. Susan dropped away.

Choking, Brother Mark released his grasp of Harry, but with his left hand he swung back, stabbing the Prior in the side.

The older man grunted in pain, slightly loosening the rope.

Brother Mark, almost free, swung the knife toward Harry, but she pulled the .38 from her pocket.

“Stay still.”

“You wouldn’t,” he sneered as Brother Handle held his side but didn’t let go of the loosening rope.

“I will.”

Brother Mark slashed out at Harry. She ducked in the close quarters, firing into his abdomen. He screamed and dropped down on one knee as the cats leapt off his shoulders. “Oh, God,” he moaned.

“He’s not listening,” Susan spat. “You killed my uncle! Kill him, Harry. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

“No.” Harry steadily held the gun, elbows straight. “Call Rick.”

Susan yanked out her tiny cell phone, flipping it open.

“How’d you figure it out?” Brother Mark moaned.

Harry ignored him. “Brother Handle, how bad is it?”

His hand, covered with blood, stayed pressed to his side. “I’ll live.”

The pain increased for Brother Mark. On first getting hit with a bullet it’s a hard thud. As minutes go by the pain intensifies, turning into agony. A wound to the stomach is never good. He curled up in the fetal position.

Susan supported Brother Handle, who was rocking on his feet as she’d gotten off the phone. “Lean on me. Try to relax. I know it’s difficult, but the calmer you can be, the deeper your breathing, the better. Honest.”

He sagged against her. “God forgive me. I was wrong. I waited one day too long.”

Harry never took her eyes or the gun off Brother Mark. “You did what you thought was best, Brother Handle.”

“I put the order first.” His body was shaking and he was sweating.

“Let’s sit down. Can you sit down without a great deal of pain?” Susan gently moved him toward the thick stone wall, slowly doing a deep knee bend against it. His eyes fluttered. She looking imploringly at Harry.

“Is he going to croak?”
Pewter was ready to leave if he did. She wasn’t big on the moment of death. It was too messy for her fastidious tastes.

“No, he’s going into shock. Susan is trying to keep him warm,”
Mrs. Murphy replied.

“What about him?”
Pewter walked over to sniff the groaning Brother Mark.

“Don’t know.”
Mrs. Murphy listened, hearing a siren in the distance.
“Let’s hope he lives so we can find out what really happened and why.”

Tucker, firmly planted between Harry and Brother Mark, said,
“I’d be happy to rip his throat out.”

Harry now heard the siren. “I’ve never been so happy to hear that sound in my life.”

Brother Handle, floating in and out of consciousness, raised his head for a lucid moment. “Hail Mary, Mother of God, full of grace—” He dropped his head again.

40

I
t was a simple scam. Straightforward,” Coop said to Harry and Susan. “We were closing in, but you two jumped the gun. You know, Harry, sometimes you’re too clever by half.”

“You said a mouthful.” The Rev. Jones smiled.

The four gathered in the St. Luke’s rectory office, the fire crackling in the large fireplace.

“How’s Brother Handle?” Harry asked Herb, who had been to the hospital that morning.

“He’s got a hell of a gash but he was lucky. Just missed his kidney.”

Harry watched the four cats play with Tucker and Owen, lots of fake puffing up while the dogs snapped their jaws. It was all very ferocious.

“So the motive was money after all.” Susan sighed.

“Yes and no.” Coop rubbed her hands on the arms of the club chair. “Mark wanted money. Nordy wanted money and fame. It was his idea in the first place. He’d cover the story; it’d be big news before Christmas, you know, a hopeful, religious story. The story would run as long as he could come up with interesting angles, string it out, which he did. And he was right, the footage was used all over the country by network affiliates. He thought this was his ticket to the big time, a huge metropolitan market.”

Harry wondered, “Who would have thought those two would be partners?”

“College. They knew each other at Michigan State, which was no secret. They’d kept in touch. They’d run a little scam in college printing false I.D.s. Neither one was especially honest, obviously. When Nordy started broadcasting from Channel Twenty-nine, Mark, or I should say Brother Mark, the smarter of the two, hooked back up with him. He was disconnected in the monastery. He felt Brother Handle and the other monks disdained him, but he had nowhere to go. He’d burned his bridges behind him. He needed money and he knew from his life outside the brotherhood that he wanted a lot of money. His five years as a brother apparently taught him nothing about the Ten Commandments.” Coop wryly smiled.

“Maybe he thought they were the Ten Suggestions.” Harry noticed the animals leaving the room.

“Why did he kill G-Uncle?” Susan folded her hands together.

“He cried about that,” Coop said flatly.

“Crocodile tears,” Susan bitterly replied.

“No, I think he feels some remorse. As you know, he was your great-uncle’s apprentice, following him everywhere. Brother Prescott stuck Mark with Brother Thomas because Thomas had such patience. No one else could get along with Mark for very long. Brother Thomas taught him how to keep the plant going, taught him the guts of the place. He learned the wiring and the plumbing. Brother Thomas, pious as he was, suspected the bloody tears. He was going to discover how it was done and he knew the only person, apart from himself, who could rig that up would be Mark.”

“But how did Mark do it?” Harry could hear a door down the hall slowly opening.

“When the statue was taken off her base this summer, Brother Mark drilled into her a little each night. First, and this was the easiest part, he hollowed out her head. He painted the inside with a hard sealer to prevent the blood from eventually seeping through the soapstone. He covered the outside hole with epoxy made to look like stone. Special-effects people do this kind of stuff all the time.

“Nordy linked him up with special-effects people he’d met through covering film shoots in Virginia. Mark learned what he needed to know via e-mail.

“Then he drilled a line from the head down to the base. That wasn’t so difficult, either, just time-consuming. He ran a copper tube from the head to the base.

“Again he drilled out a big section in the base to hide all that coiled copper until he could dig a narrow ditch down to the pumphouse.

“He had to do that at night. He could work on the statue during the day while she was off her base, since Brother Thomas would come and go. Digging the ditch for the copper line was the hardest part, and he had to do it by hand.”

“Then there was blood in the black box behind the pump?” Harry asked.

“No. Water. He’d send a little water up the copper tube, warm water, to meet the blood, and gravity did the rest.” Coop admired the plan.

“Ah, that’s why he picked winter.” Susan got it. “In warm weather she’d cry all the time; he’d have to replace the blood.”

“Right. This way he could make the miracle last longer yet be a little unpredictable. He could refill the head. The plug unscrewed once he would scrape off the bonding glue. He only refilled her once, replaced the glue with his special-effects touches—makeup for statues! It was very clever. And remember, he stole one container full of blood types. He didn’t know when he could steal another. Sooner or later Brother Andrew or Brother John would have caught him.”

“Then why in God’s name did he remove Thomas’s body? That was so disrespectful!” Susan’s face reddened.

“He panicked.” Coop dropped two perfectly square sugar cubes in her coffee.

Herb’s secretary, Linda, had brought a large silver service, placing it on the coffee table. Her office was just off Herb’s, and the handy kitchen was next to that.

“Why? Why would he panic?” Harry thought the procedure grisly.

“You. You have a reputation for ferreting out secrets. He knew the morphine would stay in the body for a time, so he thought he’d get rid of the body in case there was an exhumation. He also figured that no one would find the body until springtime and he’d be long gone. He underestimated you in that.”

“Susan, too,” Harry said.

“Actually, we have to give credit to the cats and dogs.” Susan paused. “Coop, give them credit in your report.”

Reaching for a chocolate-dipped shortbread cookie, Herb asked, “Then why did Mark kill Nordy?”

“Greed. Nordy pushed him. Nordy pushed everybody. They argued about the fifty–fifty split. According to Mark, Nordy declared the money would be a trickle if he hadn’t gotten national coverage and then set up the Web site. There’s the ring of truth to it.”

“Was my uncle really praying in front of the statue?”

“According to Mark, he was. Perhaps he knelt down out of habit. Mark followed him. All he had to do was reach around and cover his mouth with chloroform. When he passed out, Mark pumped him full of morphine. Those allergy needles barely leave a mark. Thomas had a flashlight; he was intending to look around. He was suspicious. Mark took the flashlight and put it back in the supply room.”

“How much money did they make?” Herb, always struggling to balance the budget for St. Luke’s, had to ask.

Coop leaned forward. “So far they’d taken in over half a million dollars.”

“What!” Harry nearly spit out her tea.

“Religion is big business. Selling cures and hope is even bigger.” Coop shrugged. “The Bakkers built an empire on it, as have Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. These people or their organizations, if you will, make millions every year. Now, I’m not saying that Falwell and Robertson are crooks, only that we can’t even imagine all the lonely and frightened people sitting watching T.V. who pick up the phone, use their credit card, or write a check.”

Herb glanced up at the ceiling. “Don’t suppose there’s a miracle waiting to happen at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, do you?”

Harry stood up. “I don’t know about a miracle, but I believe there’s a sacrilege in progress.”

“Huh?” Herb’s eyes widened.

Harry tiptoed out, peeked down the hallway. The supply door was open, one box of communion wafers was shredded, and she could just make out Elocution, on her hind legs, pulling down another one, egged on by Pewter.

“What are you doing?” Harry shouted.

“Run for your life!”
Elocution shot out of the closet so fast she knocked over Pewter, who quickly scrambled to her feet.

The cats hurried up the stairwell, as the closet was underneath it. The dogs, larger, couldn’t slip through the stair rails, so they skidded around the end of the stairs, hurrying up to the landing.

Herb joined Harry. “Red-handed!”

Susan, Coop, and Linda, sticking her head out of her office, looked down the hallway.

They all walked down the carpet to the closet. Not a crumb of communion wafer remained from the shredded box.

“Well,” Herb shook his head, “we know they aren’t Muslims.”

“Lucy Fur needs to come home from your sister’s. She’ll keep them in line.” Susan mentioned Herb’s other cat, who had been visiting his sister.

Once the animals were collected and scolded, Harry and Susan drove back down Route 250, heading west. They’d called Fair and Ned, giving each man the details. Then they called BoomBoom and Alicia, who just couldn’t believe Nordy was that devious and smart. Big Mim already knew, since Sheriff Shaw kept both herself and her husband, as mayor of the town, in the pipeline.

As Susan flipped on her turn signal, Harry said, “No. Let’s go back up to Afton. I want to see the Blessed Virgin Mary again. I have a prayer.”

“Funny, I do, too.”

Harry turned to the animals in the back of Susan’s station wagon. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll have a prayer, as well. I am so ashamed of you. Can’t you eat Ritz crackers? Does it have to be communion wafers?”

“The cats made us do it,”
Tucker whined.

“Shut up, you weenie.”
Mrs. Murphy clocked him one on the snout, which made Owen crouch down lower in the sheepskin bed.

“Don’t be ugly, Murphy,” Harry reprimanded her.

“Why eat a Ritz cracker?”
Pewter replied.
“They’re too salty. Anyway, eating the communion wafers makes a statement.”

“It does?”
Owen popped his head up.

“Sure. You know the story about the fishes and the loaves? Well, give me fishes and I won’t eat the wafers.”
Pewter thought herself terribly clever.

The animals giggled. Harry crossed her arms over her chest. “Susan, do you ever get the feeling they’re laughing at us?”

“Every day.”

This time Susan pulled up to the parking lot at the monastery, which was close to full. The events did not necessarily discredit the powers of Our Lady of the Blue Ridge to the devout or to those deeply in need of spiritual succor.

Harry and Susan, trailed by the animals, walked up the hill, then stopped at a distance from the praying people.

The cardinal flew and sat on Mary’s hand.
“Bunch of nits.”

“Good thing no one knows what he’s saying but us.”
Mrs. Murphy fluffed out her fur.

“So much has happened since Thanksgiving, I feel as though I’ve lived a year,” Susan said, her breath escaping like a plume of white smoke.

“Me, too. Herb and I are going to do our best to buy the farm. And this whole thing up here—I couldn’t exactly put my finger on Mark, but at least I was in the game. It made me think, made me think about how a life can be snuffed out in a split second and others ruined because of selfishness, greed.” She shook her head. “Why? I just don’t understand why.”

“I don’t think we ever will and I don’t think it will ever stop, Harry. There will always be humans ready to rape, steal, lie, kill. And they’ll either act on impulse or think they have a good reason. I don’t think the human animal has advanced emotionally as a species since we’ve been walking upright.”

“Bleak.”

Susan’s lower lip jutted out for a moment. “Maybe we can’t do much for the species, but we can change ourselves. We’ve done what justice we could for my great-uncle. I’m satisfied.”

“Good.”

“And,” she stopped and reached for Harry’s hand, “I want to tell you something, something I have carried since I was nineteen years old, since I married Ned. This brush with fate or whatever you want to call it made me realize that it wasn’t Ned who was withdrawing, it was me.”

“Why?”

“Harry, I’ve lied to Ned, to you, to everyone since that wild summer.”

“What are you talking about?”

She faced Harry directly. “I fell in love with Charlie Ashcraft and I got pregnant. Ned was head over heels for me at the same time. Of course, I never told anyone what was what, and you know how Charlie was. He dumped me like a hot rock. So I told Ned I was pregnant by him and we married. Danny was born eight months later in case you didn’t count.”

“Susan, why didn’t you tell me? How you must have suffered.”

“At first,” the tears finally came, “I felt lucky. I mean, because I wasn’t caught. And Ned is such a good man. Eventually I did fall in love with him. Danny looks so much like Charlie, but—and here’s the odd thing—people see what they want to see. Ned has blue eyes, so people would say about Danny, ‘He has his father’s blue eyes.’ I would reply, ‘Yes, he’s the spitting image of Ned,’ all the while lying through my teeth. But what I didn’t know is that little by little, I was growing distant. You can’t lie to people and not pay for it inside. It’s like a drop of poison put in a deep well each day, until one day you can’t drink the water.”

“Susan, I am sorry. Truly.”

“You’re my best friend and I’ve lied to you. Forgive me.”

“Of course I do.” She thought a few moments. “I can understand why you did what you did. I wish you had trusted me, but I do understand and I love you. You’re my sister. I love you no matter what.”