Death Will Get You Sober: A New York Mystery; Bruce Kohler #1 (Bruce Kohler Series) (27 page)

*

“Why didn’t you scream?” Jimmy asked. He had come to drive us home from the hospital. We had both spent the night there while they monitored our matching slight concussions.
“Too busy,” I said. “And I know from personal experience how hard it is to wake up anyone who’s had one of Charmaine’s sleeping pills.”

But he meant Barbara.

“I should have screamed,” she said. “
Someone
would have come running. But you know what? I was too embarrassed.”

“You were alone with a murderer, choking to death, and you went with
embarrassed
?”

“Crazy, isn’t it?” Barbara agreed. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. I felt a kind of flooding along my arms and a watery sensation in—well, never mind. I keep telling you codependency’s a killer, and you never believe me. I didn’t want to make a scene—I just couldn’t.”

“Then why didn’t you make a break for the elevator?” asked Jimmy.

“It wasn’t working,” I said.

“Or kicked her in the shins and slammed the door? Or pulled away from her and run?”

“I tried.” She waved a hand at me. “Bruce tried too. Tell him.”

“The woman had abnormal strength, dude. If Barbara hadn’t clobbered her, she would have killed me. As it was, she knocked me out cold.”

Jimmy was still dissatisfied.

“You could have thrown whatever was close at hand and tried to smash the wall of the nursing station. You said it’s glass. Surely someone would have come to see what was the matter.”

“Give it a rest, bro,” I advised. “Stop stewing because you weren’t there. Anyhow, what happened there is yesterday. It’s over. One day at a time.” I grinned. Usually that reminder went the other way.

As we learned later, Darryl was okay too. He got off with a concussion worse than ours and a broken leg. He was so glad not to be dead that, for probably the first time in his life, he cooperated with the police. Up to a point. He didn’t say a word about dealing drugs. But he told them he’d become suspicious of Sister Angel’s activities. To hear him tell it, he had also become concerned about Barbara’s safety. He claimed he was on his way to call 911 from the street when Sister Angel caught up with him. It might even have been true. If Barbara had ended up dead, the subsequent investigation would have opened up a can of worms that he had good reason to keep a lid on. His story did such a good job that whatever he wanted not scrutinized stayed hidden. He was lucky, too. Sister Angel had a lot of credibility in the bank.

We figured out a best guess as to what really happened. If we were right, he and Sister Angel, skulking around the ward at night, had each learned what the other was up to. Neither dared blow the whistle. They must have met between when Darryl left Barbara in the nursing station and when Sister Angel walked in on her. Whatever they said to each other, the nun got mad enough to give him a push down the stairs.

“I don’t get it,” Jimmy said. “Why didn’t she just turn him in?”

“No hard evidence,” Barbara said. “She couldn’t prove it, and Darryl belonged to the union, which made it unbelievably hard to get rid of him. It’s the bureaucracy. At my hospital, one counselor dealt drugs for months. Everybody knew it. And you know what they finally got to fire him for? Poor attendance.”

“Like the G-men getting Al Capone for tax evasion,” Jimmy said, his face lighting up. He always accuses Barbara of digressing. Well, we both do, because she does. But give Jimmy a whiff of a historical scent and he’s off in full cry.

“Anyhow,” I said with emphasis.

“Okay, okay,” said Jimmy. “It does make sense. If she blew the whistle, he would retaliate by telling the authorities about the detox deaths.”

“Do you think he had evidence or just suspicions?”

“No idea. But he could have used whatever he had to plea bargain.”

“She might have risked it,” Barbara said. “Under the Saint Petunia Pig exterior, she was as cold as ice. With hindsight, it feels like I always knew that. Anyhow, she decided to trade silence for silence, until I arrived to complicate matters for her.”

“That you did, p—uh—” Jimmy stopped short. He was running out of endearments beginning with P.

“Pork chop,” I supplied. They both scowled at me. I was only trying to help.

Once they knew where to look, the police figured out how Sister Angel killed Sam Weill and Marlene. Dr. Weill had called the detox to complain that the money he had given God to leave his family alone had not been returned with his effects. Sister Angel happened to answer the call. She admitted that much, and the police put enough pressure on her that she admitted she’d gone to his office to see him. That connected the deaths of Sam and Marlene with the detox murders. We could only speculate on what happened next. Barbara thought, having seen the doc in action, that he must have tried to bully her. Maybe he threatened to go to the board of directors when it became clear that she could not return the money. Or they’d quarreled about God and the abuse. Or both. Sam Weill had tried to protect his kids, however belatedly. He could have seen in Sister Angel the symbol of the professionals who’d failed to “do something.” She might equally have blamed him for not speaking up about the abuse.

“I can imagine Sam bellowing,” Barbara said, “and Sister Angel becoming more steely and inflexible by the minute until she finally snapped.”

Or it might not have happened like that.

Charmaine told Barbara, who told us, that Sister Angel’s community’s lawyers considered having her plead self-defense in Sam Weill’s death. She had evidently wiped the marble bookend she used on him, but they’d found Sam’s fingerprints on the other one. And Emmie told Barbara how fond Sam had been of those bookends.

“They were a gift from a former patient,” Barbara reported, “and he liked the heft of them. Emmie said he always picked them up.” She turned her hand palm up and made a jouncing gesture, demonstrating. “She didn’t tell the cops that when he got angry, he sometimes threw things.”

“We knew he had a terrible temper,” I said.

“Emmie said he was a good man who didn’t really mean it,” Barbara said. “But then she admitted that he could be terrifying when he got into a rage. She swore he wouldn’t have thrown an object that heavy. But he might have picked it up and threatened Sister Angel with it.”

Sister Angel’s trail led from Sam to Marlene, thank heaven. I was off the hook. So it was just as well that Marlene and her roommate liked to share all the details. The evening Sam got killed, Marlene had been the last one in the office. She finished up some paperwork and locked up when she left. But halfway between the doctor’s office and the subway, she realized that she had forgotten her scarf. Coming back for it, she passed Sister Angel coming in. Why would a nun consult a plastic surgeon? If Sister Angel had worn her flea market clothes, Marlene would never have noticed her.

Sister Angel killed Marlene because she could place the nun at the scene of Sam’s murder. She didn’t know Marlene had already mentioned her to the roommate. She didn’t even know who Marlene was when their paths crossed. But she must have taken a good look around the office before she left after bludgeoning Dr. Weill. She recognized Marlene from a family picture on her desk. Her name was on a bronze nameplate right next to it. And her address was in the phone book. She must have been totally panicked by that time. Thinking she had to kill Marlene was kind of paranoid. But she had gone around the bend when she decided she could justify mercy killing. From that point, things spiraled out of control.

Barbara swore Jimmy and me to silence before telling us that Darryl had more or less admitted to stealing the two thousand dollars.

“I promised, so I won’t say a word,” Jimmy said. “But why are you protecting him?”

“It is possible,” Barbara said, “that he intended to try to save my life the way he said. Besides, he’d make a dangerous enemy if we blew the whistle on him.”

I considered it a waste of good something-for-nothing money. But I wouldn’t tell. Shortly afterward, Darryl left the detox. To our chagrin, he got a much higher paid job with the city’s Human Resources Administration. For all I know, he’ll live happily ever after as a municipal bureaucrat.

In the end, they decided not to try Sister Angel. She ended up at Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Wards Island. The DA didn’t want to give the press the kind of field day they would have had with a nun on trial for murder, especially a saintly nun who had worked tirelessly with the homeless. They weren’t even sure they’d get a conviction. Thanks to all the half-assed forensics on TV these days, juries are a lot more unreliable than they used to be. Besides, she really was out of her gourd. After her fight with me and Barbara, her ability to function and cover it up collapsed completely.

They couldn’t prove, either, that the Sisters of the Blood of the Lamb had harbored a euthanasia ring. But a few nursing and counseling nuns, including Barbara’s Sister Persistence, were quietly ordered to retire. The little cabal had started out with patients who were never going to get better, sparing them increasing pain and a lonely death. They targeted the homeless and elderly at first, people with no family and no place to go. Alcoholics in particular were easy marks. We’d drink anything you gave us. No sipping either. Even if it tasted odd or bitter, we’d never hesitate. Bottoms up.

The whole thing sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Everybody but sociopaths knows murder is wrong. But it was Sister Angel’s idea, and she convinced the rest. She could be very persuasive. Why did they go along with her? They couldn’t all be sociopaths.

“I guess they got a little unbalanced,” Barbara said, “after years and years trying to live the religious life in an increasingly secular world.”

“That’s putting it nicely.” Jimmy snorted. Like a lot of lapsed Catholics, he could get quite caustic about the Church. “Unbalanced! It should come as no surprise.”

Sister Angel was on her own when she decided that child molesters should also be helped along the way. The others didn’t know. God may have been her first attempt. His bad luck. I thought about him a lot. I wondered if he would have stayed sober if he’d lived. If we would have stayed friends. How he and Jimmy would have liked each other.

Boris came out of hiding to tell the police that art thieves, not nuns, killed Lucinda. One group had stolen the icons in order to supply art-loving customers like her. And unfortunately, she caught another group in the act of stealing them again. Boris had brought the icons into Lucinda’s house in the first place. He disappeared because he feared he would be implicated in her murder. His AA sponsor convinced him to turn himself in. AA! There’s nothing like it. He got off with a suspended sentence and five hundred hours of community service. They allowed him to do his service hours at the detox. His first day back on the job, he got a round of applause from the staff and patients.

Emmie knew Jimmy and me as Barbara’s friends by now. I think she kind of had a special feeling for me because I’d known her brother sober. It meant a lot to her that I had liked him. Besides, I’d almost gotten myself killed, along with Barbara, catching her husband’s murderer. So I went along with Barbara when she went to Emmie’s to confess how come she’d gotten to know her in the first place, have a long, frank talk, and make amends. To tell the truth, I owed her amends myself, having taken advantage of several members of her family at least as badly as Barbara had deceived Emmie.

“It’ll give you a head start on the Ninth Step,” my sponsor told me when I tried to wriggle out of going. So we went.

Emmie was very nice about it, taking her share of responsibility. She hadn’t been in love with Sam for many years. She blamed herself for his death. She thought it wouldn’t have happened if they’d pooled their information. She wouldn’t have let him try to buy God off or threaten Sister Angel about the money, if that’s what he did.

“We never talked,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “About so many things. And we should have protected Brandy better.”

“Emmie, what about the younger kids?” Barbara asked. When Barbara said a frank talk, she meant it. I drank my tea and tried to look inconspicuous. “Especially Duncan, since boys seem to have been the problem. If he’s been damaged, you need to get him help. Have you ever
asked
him?”

Emmie was silent so long that even Barbara, she admitted afterward, prepared her foot for transport to her mouth. Then Emmie’s lips firmed up, and her jaw set.

“We’re going to ask him right now.” The kids were doing homework in their rooms down the hall. “Duncan!”

“What, Mother?”

“Come in here a moment, please. I’d like to ask you something.”

When he came, she held out her arms. He snuggled against her readily. He had just lost his father, after all. She stroked his hair.

“Sweetheart, you’ve met my friend Barbara before. And this is her friend Bruce.” We nodded at each other. “Barbara is a counselor, someone who works with people who have problems, like Uncle Guffy.”

“He was an alcoholic,” Duncan said.

Emmie and Barbara exchanged a look. I kept my face blank. I was just an observer who meant to keep it that way.

“That’s true,” she said. “But there was something else. Will you give Barbara your permission to ask you one or two questions?”

Duncan nodded, looking cooperative and tranquil.

“Duncan,” Barbara said gently, leaning forward so their eyes were on a level, “it’s okay if you’re uncomfortable or don’t feel like telling me anything. Please speak right up if you want to stop.”

“Okay.”

“Did your Uncle Guffy ever touch you on any part of your body that you felt uncomfortable about or ask you to touch him?”

“He tried, but I didn’t let him.”

“What happened?” She put the question broadly so as not to lead the witness.

“I ran away,” said Duncan simply.

“What are your thoughts or feelings about why he did that?”

“He was a pedophile.”

My eyebrows shot up, and I heard Emmie’s sharp intake of breath. Barbara managed not to look surprised. As a counselor, she got a lot of practice. Duncan’s face remained tranquil.