Perfect Grave

Chapter Seven

S teel glinted in the beam of the police officer’s flashlight.

The officer was in the alley behind the town house with Kay Cataldo, a crime-scene investigator. They were crouched over a blackberry shrub next to a length of worn picket fence and the rusting frame of a bicycle. A second officer was taping off the area as Grace Garner approached.

“Where’s the safe way in?” She didn’t want to contaminate the scene.

“Close to the fence,” Cataldo said.

“What do we have?”

“Officer Ryan Danko here’s got the eyes of a hawk.”

With great care, Cataldo spread the shrub’s leaves, revealing a kitchen steak knife. It had a wooden handle and a six-inch serrated blade. Close inspection showed tiny reddish-brown flecks in some areas.

“This our weapon?”

“It’s a candidate.” Cataldo, aided by Danko, concentrated on taking photographs, measurements, and notes. “We’ll type it against the victim. We’ll process this knife, see if it matches anything the nuns use or if anything’s missing from any drawers in there.”

“What about foot impressions?”

“Got a partial inside and we’ll use it when we cast around here.”

“All right, and we better put the word out to watch for every tossed cigarette butt in the area.”

“Our guy’s a smoker?” Danko said.

“Just a hunch. Good work, Danko. Thanks, Kay.”

Encouraged by the promise of evidence, Grace stepped aside and called Perelli.

“We may have a weapon. A blade. Serrated, about six inches. Wooden handle.”

“Could be our break.”

“Could be. You talk to the sisters about a volunteer list for the shelter and everyone she had contact with tonight. I’ll follow up next door on the canvass.”

“Sure. And Grace, this thing’s already drawing heat. Reporters are calling in here trying to interview the nuns over the phone.”

“Tell the sisters not to speak to the press, then get downtown to send someone up here to handle that. This is just the beginning.”

Grace saw a news truck creeping down the alley toward the tape as she took stock of the surrounding buildings and windows, assessing lines of sight into the dimly lit area. She shone a penlight on her notes as she updated them and reviewed her sketches and the precanvass done by the responding officers, mining it for witnesses. There wasn’t much to work with from the alley side.

But the front, now, the front was a different story.

In the front she had Bernice Burnett, age seventythree, a widow and retired telephone operator. Lives in the adjacent building, alone with her cats. Bernice Burnett’s big window looks into Sister Anne’s second-floor apartment. Would she be reliable? Most witnesses weren’t and Grace could feel time ticking away. She could not let this one get cold. She had to build on the positives. She had possible evidence, maybe a witness. Bit by bit, piece by piece, that’s how you get it done, she told herself as she knocked on Bernice Burnett’s door.

Locks clicked and it opened to a woman in a full-length sweater and fluffy slippers.

“Bernice Burnett?

“Yes.”

Grace held out her identification.

“Detective Grace Garner. I’d like to talk to you about this evening, follow up on what you told the officer earlier. May I come in?”

“Oh. Yes, Detective, of course, but I’ve got-” Bernice glanced back to her visitor, Jason Wade.

“That’s okay,” Jason stood. “Thank you, Mrs. Burnett, you’ve been very helpful, I was just leaving.”

Grace snapped her ID closed. She was annoyed. Annoyed as hell that a reporter was talking to her witness before her, the primary. And why, damn it, why did it have to be Jason Wade?

He didn’t even glance at her until they were inches apart at the doorway, then he leveled a cold look at her. Or was it only a reflection of what he’d discovered in her eyes? Did he even know about her disaster with Agent Asshole? Well, to hell with it all, Grace. Do your job. Just do your damn job.

“Excuse me for a moment, Bernice, I’ll be right back,” Grace said.

She couldn’t risk damage to her case by letting testimonial evidence become a headline. She followed Jason down the hall but he refused to stop.

“Will you hold on, please?”

He halted. But he refused to turn and face her, forcing her to walk around him until she stood before him.

“How did you get in this building?”

“Give me a break.”

“All right, what did she tell you? What’re you going to print? Are you going to hurt my investigation?”

“Ever heard of freedom of the press? I don’t work for you, so back off.”

Both of them were breathing hard; neither wanted to acknowledge what was raging beneath the surface, until finally Grace took the first step.

“Jason, look, maybe I made a mistake. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“ If you hurt me? ” He shook his head. “I thought we had something good. That it was going somewhere. You just tossed me like yesterday’s news without so much as a ‘hey, we have to talk.’”

“So I suck at these things. I’ve always been alone. I-”

“You got a name on the victim, the nun?”

“What?”

Pages of his notebook snapped to a fresh one. His pen was poised.

“You’re on the record. Can you confirm that it’s Sister Anne Braxton?”

“No. We’re not prepared to release-”

“Any indication on cause of death?”

“That will be confirmed by the Medical Ex-”

“I didn’t ask you for confirmation, I asked for an indication?”

“Jason, come on.”

“Was she shot, stabbed, beaten? Was it an act of God, Grace, tell me?”

“You’re being rude.”

“I’m doing my job. People around here are going to be outraged that someone would murder this nun. They call her an angel of the community. So you got a suspect yet?”

“This is how you want to play it?”

The jingle of keys interrupted them as a uniformed officer trotted up the stairs.

“Detective, we’ve got a bunch of media out front who’re demanding to talk to you right now.”

Without releasing Jason from her glare, she said, “Tell them to wait. We’ve got a press person coming to us from downtown.”

The officer sized up Jason. “You got some trouble here, detective?”

“Mr. Wade here has breached the boundary of my scene. Escort him to the street and keep all press out of this building.”

“No need for that,” Jason said. “I’m finished here.” He shot Grace a parting glare. “Believe me.”

Bernice Burnett showed Grace a cherished photograph of her husband, the late Ambrose Burnett. He was a cabinetmaker who once did some of the custom work on the president’s plane, Bernice recalled, while Lulu, her tabby, rubbed up against Grace Garner.

“You must be proud.”

“Oh, I am. We have personal letters from the presidents who admired his work. Would you like to see them?”

“Another time, perhaps. Bernice, I’d like to come back to what you saw tonight. Your big window is beautiful.”

“I like it.”

“It rises from the floor to your ceiling. You’ve got a clear view of the building next door.”

“Yes. I usually can see who comes and goes while I’m watching my usual TV shows. I like the old reruns of shows my husband enjoyed.”

“Can you mark in your television guide at each point in a show when you noticed something happening next door? It’ll help me with a time line.”

Bernice knitted her brow.

“Let’s see, the pizza man came halfway through Green Acres. After him, the second man came.”

“The second man? When was that?”

“When Love Boat started. I love that old show.”

“Did you notice if the second man rang the bell?”

“No, it seemed like he just walked in like the door was open.”

“Had you ever seen him before?”

“I couldn’t be sure. He’s hard to describe. Just a man, tall, I think.”

“White, black, Asian?”

“Hard to say for certain. I think white.”

“Any distinguishing clothing? Or in the way he walked?”

Bernice shook her head.

“I don’t remember. It was dark; he was more like a silhouette. It was like he had business there. I thought maybe he was a priest. I thought nothing at all of it because the sisters get a lot of visitors.”

“What came next?”

“Well, it was right near the end of Love Boat when I noticed strange lights in Sister Anne’s apartment?”

“Strange, how?”

“Like someone was going around with a lamp, or flashlight. At first I thought Sister Anne may have lit a candle, for prayers, or maybe she’d lost power.”

“Did you see Sister Anne arrive home?”

“No, I never did. I got up to get my cats some milk and I made myself a little snack, some cheese and crackers just before Fantasy Island started. Then I noticed it was all dark again.”

“And after that?”

“Some time at the start of the show, the lights in her apartment came on and through her curtains, which were closed but are sheers, I saw shadows. The usual kind when Sister Anne is there, but then, I think I saw two figures inside.”

Grace had been taking careful notes.

“And that’s all you noticed tonight? A man at the door and unusual lights and movements in Sister Anne’s apartment?”

“Well, that’s what I told the officer, and that nice reporter, but come to think of it, I remember a bit more.”

Grace looked up from her notebook.

“I saw a man leave the building. I think it was the same man who’d entered after the pizza man.”

Has to be our guy, Grace thought as Bernice continued.

“He walked between the buildings to the back alley. No one ever goes that way. He was walking fast, not running, but walking fast. I thought, gosh, what’s wrong? So I stood and watched him go that way.”

“North?”

“If that way’s north, that’s right. I saw his arm move like he was tossing something small, then he stopped for a few seconds and I saw a red glow, like a flame at his head.”

“Like he was lighting a cigarette?”

“Yes. And then he was gone.”

“Anything after that?”

“I think I fell asleep. It was the sirens and all the commotion that woke me. Then a police officer came to my door.”

Bernice took one of her cats, Lulu, into her arms and stood at her window watching the increased activity at the police tape below. More news crews and more police vehicles had arrived. Emergency lights strobed across her face.

Grace saw it reflected in the glass, saw Bernice’s concern turn to fear, dawning with the realization that just out there, a few feet beyond her windowpane, an unseen horror had visited her neighbor. Lulu jumped from her arms.

“Is Sister Anne hurt?”

Grace went to her and gently touched her shoulder.

“It’s something more serious than a burglary, isn’t it?” Bernice asked.

“Much more serious.”

Bernice could not breathe, her knees weakened. Grace steadied her, helping her into her chair, comforting her and gazing into the night, the same night that was hiding a killer.