Speak of the Devil

35

RUTH KING’S LEGS LOOKED LIKE BOWLING PINS. THE SHORT WOMAN filled the doorway as if she were blocking the way of something inside that wanted to get out. For reasons probably buried in some fairy tale I was told in my diaper days, I imagined scores of highly animated mice fleeing the house, swirling past the woman’s boxy black shoes like little Pamplona bulls. The woman had a wide face and eyes set far apart, as if she had been stretched at the ears. Her hair was a fine nest of mousy brown going gray. Her dress was also brown and a little shiny. I fully expected a large hairy wart to sprout on the side of her nose.

“You’re Margaret King’s aunt?” I said.

Her lips were fat and cracked. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. King, but it’s very important that I talk with you. A friend of Margaret’s told me how to locate you. My name is Fritz Malone. I’m a private investigator working with the police on a case that… Well, it’s a matter of life or death.”

“What do you want with me?”

“There’s a man out there who I need to locate as fast as possible. I have reason to believe that your niece was acquainted with him in some fashion and-”

“My niece is dead.” She had a strong, clear voice, like a car horn.

“I know that,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“What did Margaret have to do with this man? Who is he? I can’t help you.”

“The man is a murderer, Mrs. King.”

And then a creature did appear next to her shoes, a hairless dog not much bigger than a rat. Its eyes were like jellied marbles, and its toenails clicked as it shifted nervously from foot to foot to foot, like maybe it had to pee.

“I can’t help you,” the woman repeated. The dog let out a yelp. My shoe would have fit over it perfectly.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “This will take just a few minutes, but I can’t accept no.”

“Did you say you’re with the police?”

“I’m working with the police.” I pulled out my wallet and showed her my card. It didn’t make her swoon. The dog yapped again and resumed his I’ve-got-to-pee dance. Another day and I might have shown my ID to the pooch, too. “Five minutes, Mrs. King. You can set your egg timer.”

A sharp sound erupted from her. I saw a flash of teeth. It must have been a laugh. She skidded the dog away from the doorway with her foot and stepped back. “Come in.”

The television set in the living room was on. Some TV movie. A pair of beautiful people having a lip-quivering competition while the camera closed in on their faces. Ruth King waddled to the set and was about to turn it off.

I blurted, “Wait. Could you keep it on?”

“What?”

“Could you just turn down the volume?”

She honked. “You watch this?”

If Angel was back in form, they’d be cutting away from the movie to report the carnage. Ruth King turned down the volume, then set her knuckles on her hips. I braced for the spell. “Do you want some water or something?” she asked.

“No, thanks.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the copy of Margaret’s suicide note that Sister Natividad had copied. And I froze. The woman noticed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Um. Nothing. I… I’ll take you up on that offer after all. The water.”

She stepped into the kitchen, trailed by her hairless rat. I could feel the blood rushing into my face. My breath even went short, as if I were suddenly back in a tunnel.

Angel Ramos was not our man. Rather, he was maybe one of our men, the way Roberto Diaz had been one of them. But he wasn’t the only man. He was not the thinking man. If he was involved at all, he was muscle. He was a man who could pull a trigger or leave off a bomb or swing a knife, but this thing that had kicked up last Thursday was not his scheme. I knew it. The nagging feeling that had been with me on some level since the moment I’d entertained a doubt at the Flea Club… it was the right feeling after all. Doubt everything. I’d known it the second I pulled Margaret’s suicide note out of my pocket.

Angel Ramos. In Fort Petersen. A punk, a hood, a lowlife since he was old enough to light his first cigarette.

Sister Margaret King. A nun way the hell up in Riverdale.

Trying to fit those two together had been like trying to force magnets at their similar poles. Why in the world would Angel Ramos jerk Leavitt and Carroll around for a million dollars only to hand it all over to an order of nuns that he had no apparent connection to? It had never made sense, and it was never going to make sense, because that’s not what had happened.

The person who left the note instructing the Sisters of Good Shepherd to go collect their “gift” at the Cloisters had made one thing clear to anyone who was paying close attention. And Sister Natividad had paid close attention. The fact that she hadn’t drawn the obvious conclusion was not her fault. That was my fault. I’m the one with the license to snoop. Such things are my business, not the business of some young Filipino nun with a ready blush.

The one thing made clear by the person who left the Cloisters note-and my bet was that it was evident in Nightmare’s earlier notes as well-was that the person who had written that note had also had access to Margaret King’s suicide note. That wasn’t Angel Ramos, unless he’d happened across Margaret’s body in the park before the jogger did and decided on a whim to copy down the contents. And I wasn’t buying that scenario.

The note had been found by the police in Margaret’s coat pocket. Doubtless it had circulated among a few of the blue, though probably not all that many. Once the M.E. had confirmed the obvious, that Margaret King’s injuries were self-inflicted and that this was in fact a case of suicide, the thin file was complete. No further investigation.

The dead nun’s note would have been passed on to her family. Her next of kin.

Ruth King returned with a glass of water, trailed by the dog. I put the note back in my pocket as casually as I could. It felt like I was stuffing in a thirty-pound goose. I accepted the glass of water and drained it. “I’m sorry to ask this, but is your husband still alive?”

“Albert? He died ten years ago.”

“I see. Do you have any other family? Any children?”

“You mean James?”

“James.”

“That’s my son.”

“Does James live in the area?”

“He lives in Manhattan.”

“What can you tell me about him? I mean, if you were to say what kind of person he is.”

“I don’t understand.”

I was grasping, I knew, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something in my fist. “Let me ask you this. James and Margaret, they were cousins, right? What kind of relationship would you say they had?”

She darkened. “He hated her. He blamed her for Albert’s death.”

“For your husband’s death?”

“That’s what he says.”

“How did your husband die, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“He grew weak. His heart gave out.” She gave another honk. Not with humor this time. “It’s a long story.”

“Could you sum it up quickly for me?”

“Sure I can. We took Margaret in after her parents were killed. Then she-”

“Wait. I’m sorry, Margaret’s parents were killed? When was that?”

“I told you, it’s a long story. I thought you said you were in a hurry.”

“I can hear this.”

She shifted on her feet. “Albert’s brother and his wife, June, were killed in their sleep by an intruder. Years ago. It was a dopehead trying to get some money. They caught him. He’s in jail and that’s where I hope he rots. Margaret was in her bedroom when it happened. She was sixteen. She heard it happening, the whole thing, and she hid under her bed. That’s the only reason she lived. When he was finished butchering Ronnie and June, the man went into her room, too. But he didn’t see her hiding. Girl peed herself lying there on the floor. Can you imagine? After this, she moved in with us. Then she had… You know about her attack?”

“I know about that. They never caught the man.”

“For three months the damn girl pretended it didn’t happen, or when she’d finally admit it, she made up all these different stories about what really happened. Then one day, out of the blue, she says it was Albert that did it.”

“Your husband?”

“That’s right. All those nutty stories of hers and that’s the one she decided to stick with.”

“Did… do you think-”

I’d never seen someone turn so red so fast. “He never touched that girl! Never! End of story. Albert was a kind person. He never even swatted bugs. That was my job.”

“Why did she say it?”

“Lord, don’t ask me. That girl had more problems than a math book. She said it and she refused to take it back and that was that. I begged her. I wanted to hit her, but I didn’t. Of course it devastated Albert. It devastated all of us. There was a trial, the newspapers, the whole thing. I think back on that time and I want to throw up. In the end, it didn’t stick, ’cause there was nothing to stick. He was innocent. Whoever it was who really did it to her got off scot-free. Margaret had already started her drinking problem. She had moved out of here already. We couldn’t keep her. The Catholic Charities were helping her out. I saw what she was doing with that drinking, and I thought… God forgive me for this, but I thought, Good. Drink. Go ahead. If it doesn’t kill you, maybe it’ll kill the baby.”

“What baby?”

“What baby? Margaret’s baby. What baby do you think?”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. King. You’re losing me.”

“The baby. Margaret’s baby. That girl was raped. It got her pregnant. All the nutty stuff she was doing and saying, she didn’t tell anyone until it was too late. She’d refuse to have an abortion, in any case. She’d gotten all holy at that point.”

“Did she have the child?”

“Oh yeah. She had it. Baby girl. She held her for all of ten seconds, then…” Ruth snapped her pudgy fingers. “Off to adoption. Never saw her again.”

She leaned down and scooped the dog off the floor, then straightened and held it to her chest. It kicked, but she ignored it. I took ten long seconds of silence. My brain was going muddy. I wasn’t even certain why it was I’d come out here in the first place.

“Mrs. King… there was a suicide note. Did the police return that note to you?”

“Yes, they did.”

“Could I see it?”

She was already shaking her head even before I’d completed the question.

“Afraid you can’t. James took it.”