Chameleon

2

Sister Joan Donovan was holding herself fairly well under control.

It was she who had found the body, the body of her sister Helen. Sister Joan had screamed repeatedly, piercingly, and in genuine horror. But that had been slightly more than two hours ago. Now, she was merely numb. And in her state of shock, she wondered vaguely why they wouldn’t leave her alone.

The janitor, in the process of opening the church, had heard her screams, found her at the shrine, saw the body, and called the police. Since then, she had been subjected to a barrage of questioning, first from the church people, then from the police officers.

By now, she was convinced that it didn’t really matter to any of them that she had suffered the loss of someone very near and dear to her. The police needed information and they were single-mindedly going to pursue every lead they could uncover.

She was seated in the front parlor of the convent. It was so chilly. The heat was on but so many people were entering and leaving by both the front and rear doors, too often leaving a door ajar as they came or went. She shivered, partly from shock and partly from the draft.

“Are you cold, Sister? Perhaps you’d better put on your coat. It is chilly in here.”

“I’m all right.” Joan focused on the woman nearby, seated on a chair that had been positioned between Joan and the front window by an earlier inquisitor. “Who are you?”

“My name is Moore, Sister; Sergeant Angie Moore. There are some questions I’ve got to ask you.”

“But I’ve already told the other officers everything I know about this … this tragedy.”

Moore nodded. “I know. But I’m with the Homicide Division. We’re going to be investigating this case and we’ll need your cooperation.”

“Oh …” Joan was unable to frame an objection.

“The deceased was your sister?”

Joan nodded.

“Her age?”

“She was thirty-eight … seven years younger than I.”

“Her occupation?”

“She was … self-employed.”

Moore shook her head. “She was a prostitute, wasn’t she, Sister?”

“If you know, why do you ask?”

“A matter of getting it on the record.” And, Moore added silently, to see how you handle the question. “Now, when your sister was found, she was wearing a religious habit … not unlike the one you’re wearing now.”

“It was identical to this. It was one of my habits.”

Moore raised an eyebrow.

“She asked to borrowit-just forlast evening,” Joan explained.

“This was unusual?”

“It was the first time she’d ever asked for that.”

“You didn’t object? Wasn’t it a rather odd request? Bizarre, even?”

“As a matter of fact, I did object … at first. But …”

“I should think you might object. But you did let her have it.”

“Helen usually got what she wanted.”

“Oh?”

“She’d stay on a request like a bulldog. Persistence was her long suit.”

“She say why she wanted the uniform?”

“She said she was going to a masquerade party.”

“You believed that?”

“Hardly. But the more I pressed her the more vague she became. She just kept after me until my resistance was worn thin.”

“She picked it up last night?”

Joan nodded. “I left her the key. I was going to be out-I’m out frequently in the evenings. My job-”

“Which is-?”

“I’m the delegate for religious.”

“And that means-?”

“I’m … uh … sort of an ombudsperson for members of religious orders in the archdiocese of Detroit. Mostly, I represent the other nuns here. So I have frequent meetings with individuals and groups, particularly in the evenings when all the aggrieved parties can get together.”

“And you were at such a meeting last night.”

“That’s right.” Without waiting for the next logical question, Joan continued. “I met with another nun-Sister Mary Murray-and the parish council at Our Lady of Refuge, Orchard Lake. There is some question about Sister’s contract as religious education coordinator,” she explained. “We met until midnight. I remember because the council president noted the time as the reason he wanted to end the meeting and take the matter up at next month’s meeting.”

She noted that the policewoman was taking notes employing some sort of shorthand. Joan was certain the sergeant would be checking every detail for corroboration.

“So,” Moore continued, “you would have returned here at about …?”

“It must have been near 1:00 A.M. ”

“Tell me-and please include every detail you can remember-what did you do when you arrived? You parked your car …”

“In the garage. There really isn’t anything significant to tell. It had been snowing. In fact it was still snowing. I remember wishing I had worn galoshes. Our janitor always keeps the walks shoveled, but it had snowed after his workday, so he wouldn’t have gotten to it until this morning. Anyway I walked from the garage around in front of the church and up the front walk. It was bitter cold and the snow was blowing, so I kept my head down and got inside as quickly as possible. And then I just went to my room and went to bed and fell asleep very quickly. I was awfully tired.”

“You noticed nothing unusual coming into the house?”

“No, nothing. As I said, I had my head down and my eyes nearly shut against the snow. I could travel from the garage to the house blindfolded,” she added.

Moore concluded that either the nun had noticed nothing untoward-whether or not the crime had been committed after she had retired-or she was lying. “But,” Moore said, “you were the one who found the body.”

“Yes. I was going over to the church this morning. There are only a few parishioners who regularly come to church on weekdays. And our pastor is out of the country almost as much as he’s here. He’s very active in the peace movement, you know. So, weekday mornings, I conduct a sort of a prayer service and distribute Communion. It’s a paraliturgical rite, you see-”

“That’s all right, Sister, you don’t need to go into that. The body?”

“Yes … the body.” As Joan recalled all too clearly discovering her sister’s body, a feeling of overwhelming loss pierced her again. “It was much lighter at seven this morning than when I’d gotten home, of course. And it was no longer snowing. When I came down the steps, I noticed the indentation in the snow leading over toward the shrine. It was as if something had been dragged there. Perhaps a sledge of some sort. I went over to see what it was. And …” Her voice trailed off.

“Was your sister lying faceup?”

Joan seemed to pull herself together. “No. The … body … wasface down. But I knew-who else could it have been? I recognized her coat-it was very expensive-and part of the habit was exposed.”

“Then you turned the body over, faceup?”

“I had to be sure.”

“Then you screamed, and the janitor came and called the police.”

Joan nodded and lowered her gaze.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Sister.” As Moore rose to leave, spontaneously she patted the nun’s shoulder. “If we have more questions, we’ll get back to you.”

Outside the building, standing between the front steps and the shrine, in the middle of methodical beehive-like police activity, was Lieutenant Alonzo Tully. More familiarly known to friends and co-workers as “Zoo.”

Tully was intent on absorbing every detail, no matter how seemingly insignificant, of this, the scene of the crime. In determining what had happened here, the testimony of this silent scene was the sole witness that could not and would not deceive. He and the others investigating this case might misread or misinterpret the evidence. But the evidence represented fact. It need only to be correctly understood and evaluated.

The body of Helen Donovan had long been removed, but the traces were still evident. There were too many footprints now in the snow, but it was still possible to distinguish the essential indications.

Only the slightest tracks had been left by the perpetrator in the ensuing snowfall. Evidently he had hidden in the bushes to the right of the front steps. As the victim passed, the perp had stepped out behind her. There was no sign of any struggle. The perp had shot her once, the preliminary examination suggested at the base of her skull, then dragged her body behind what the people of St. Leo’s called their shrine.

Tully was not in any way a religious person, but he could not have mistaken the shrine. It was a slightly-less-than-life-size depiction of the crucifixion of Christ, with two additional figures standing beneath the cross. Tully’s familiarity with Christendom’s central mystery did not extend beyond the main character. The other figures were Mary, Christ’s mother, and his disciple John.

No struggle. That was an essential clue in this infant investigation. That plus the fact that her purse had not been taken-or even rifled; it contained more than five hundred dollars in cash.

For police purposes, it was providential that the victim’s sister had discovered the body and could not only identify the deceased but also confirm her line of work. Otherwise, they would have been bogged down trying to discover who this nun was and why she would be carrying so much cash.

But, a hooker! In all probability she had just turned a trick.

Several cops who knew of her testified that she was definitely in the higher financial bracket of whoredom. A Cass Corridor streetwalker would have had to turn tricks for weeks to clear what Helen Donovan made in one night.

No struggle. Did the perp sneak up behind her, unnoticed, as Tully initially concluded? Or, another distinct possibility, had she known her killer and, unsuspecting, put up no fight?

Sergeant Angie Moore approached, Together, she and Tully stepped out of the cold into the building’s foyer. Moore filled him in on her interrogation of Sister Joan, the actual nun.

A few details, such as what a delegate for religious did, Tully had to take on secular faith. A “religious” in the Catholic sense of the term had a specific meaning that was lost on Tully. But he listened carefully. All Moore’s information was absorbed into the practiced computer of his mind. There it would be stored and even much later he would be able to call it up.

No sooner had Moore completed her report than Sergeant Phil Mangiapane, also a member of Tully’s squad, arrived on the scene.

Mangiapane was enthused. It was an emotion that came easily to him. “Zoo,” he said, “we nailed her john of last night.” He pulled out his notepad and flipped it open. “One Henry Taylor, a very scared haberdasher from Toledo. In town on a buying trip. We’re detaining him temporarily at the Pontch. Right now, he’s wishing he’d left town last night. Or, better, never come.”

“How’d it go?” Tully asked.

“Pretty good. At first he flat-out denied he knew who we were talking about. Even after we showed him the picture we got from her sister. But when we showed him his hotel room number in Donovan’s date book and produced the bellboy who not only noticed Donovan in the hotel last night but remembered her taking the elevator with Taylor after he picked her up in the lobby, there wasn’t much he could deny.”

“So?”

“He said that after she left, he went to bed. But then we got lucky. The same bellboy who spotted the two of them enter the elevator said that he saw Donovan leave the hotel at about midnight. He was sure of the time because he was just about to end his shift. He saw her climb into a cab-a Checker cab. Then who should leave the hotel-hat and coat on-but Henry Taylor.

“When we confronted him with this, Taylor said that oh, yeah, he forgot that after she left, he took a short walk outside for a few minutes.”

“And the bellboy?”

“Didn’t know where Taylor might have gone. He just saw the guy leave the hotel and then he went off duty.”

“Did the guy drive here from Toledo?”

“Yeah.”

“So he had his car at the hotel. Could he have known where shewas going?”

Mangiapane shrugged, “If he did, only him and the Donovan girl know. And he ain’t gonna volunteer anything like that.”

“Okay,” Tully agreed, “Granted, the chance is slim, but say he knew she was returning here, Or say he was able to get in his car in time to follow the cab here,” He stopped, then shook his head. “No, if he did that, how could he have had time to get to the bushes and be lying in wait for her?” He looked at Mangiapane. “Did you get a make on the cab?”

“Not yet,” Mangiapane said. “Checker’s a big company. But it shouldn’t be hard. We know the approximate time Donovan left the Pontch and that she ended up here.”

“Wait a second,” Moore said. “If it’s this Taylor guy, how come he didn’t take his money back?” Pause. “And also destroy the date book that had any reference to his ‘appointment’ in it?”

Mangiapane shook his head. He had not considered these discrepancies.

“Maybe,” Tully said, “he didn’t think he had any time to fool around after the gunshot.” Then why did he take the time to drag her body all around? “Maybe he panicked and ran.” Same question. “Maybe he didn’t think of it. Maybe all he could think of was getting even with her.” For what? “Revenge.” For what? “And maybe”-he looked at both of them-”this isn’t our best lead. But it’s a warm body, it’s possible, and we’ve got him.

“Who’s on the cabbie?”

“Martin,” Mangiapane replied.

“Good. How about Donovan’s apartment?”

“The guys called just a while ago, Zoo,” Moore said. “They found her register. Lots of names and numbers.”

“Very good.” Tully was pleasantly surprised that so many leads were paying off. “Number one priority after you wring this Taylor out, start on the johns. Few people can get sorer the day after than a John.”

“We’ll get on it right away, Zoo,” Moore said. Then she added, “You know, in this city, it could have been just about anybody. A guy high on crack or ice, or anybody on the lookout for an easy mark-or just some kook with a gun sees a woman alone at night.”

Tully sighed. “I know, I know. But one thing argues against that: whoever did it didn’t touch her purse-and she had a bundle in it.”

“He didn’t see it?”

“Long straps. She wore it over her shoulder. He couldn’t have missed it. No,” Tully said, “I’m going for someone she knew. And a john is my first choice.”

“On that theory, Zoo,” Moore said, “it could have been somebody who knew her and disapproved of her being a hooker. There are a lot of squirrelly people in the so-called moral majority. Especially if someone like that saw her in nun’s garb and figured that she might have been a hooker. After all, waiting around in a hotel lobby and being picked up by a john! Could get a righteous man’s blood boiling. Or a woman’s,” she added.

“Good mought, Angie,” Tully said. “And we’ve got someone right now who could fit that profile. Angie, make sure the sister, the real nun, gets a paraffin test.”

“The nun!” Mangiapane could not conceive of a nun/murderer.

“The nun,” Tully affirmed. “She must have been plenty embarrassed by her sister’s line of work. A stain on the family’s reputation. A nun, known by friends and acquaintances as sister of a call girl. Let’s just see if she’s fired a gun recently.”

“It may be too late to test, Zoo,” Moore said.

“But possible. Do it right away, Angie.”

Moore left, though she was not eager to put the nun through this test. But it was a homicide and there was little if any room for sympathetic feelings.

Tully turned to Mangiapane. “One other possibility comes to mind. But it would make our job so miserable I don’t even want to think about it.”

“What’s that, Zoo?”

“A case of mistaken identity.”

“You mean somebody meant to kill the real nun?”

Tully nodded. “Helen Donovan was dressed exactly like her sister Joan. Wearing Joan’s habit even. They’re the same build, You saw Helen’s picture and you saw the real nun. They look enough alike to pass for sisters even if you didn’t know they were related. Say somebody wants to kill Joan. But the one who shows up dressed like Joan, looks like Joan, is headed for where Joan lives, is Helen.”

“Okay, but one thing, Zoo: If somebody’s lying in wait for Joan, how does he know she’ll be coming back so late at night? Or, as it turns out, so early in the morning? Most of the nuns I’ve known get to bed kind of early. Why would anybody figure a nun would be coming home at midnight?”

“The answer to that came out when Moore was interrogating Joan. The nun says her department business keeps her out late almost every night. If someone was stalking her, he’d know that.”

“Geez!”

“Yeah. It’s one thing to off a hooker. And quite another thing to intend the murder of a nun. If that’s the case, we’re in for some long days and nights.”

“Geez!”