Devious - Lisa Jackson [15]
“After Sister Lucia yelled for help,” Bentz said, “the mother superior, Sister Charity—that’s the older woman—she responded.” Bentz hitched his chin toward the bigger nun, a mound of black fabric accented by white coif secured by a wimple. “Charity Varisco.” Again Bentz double-checked the notes on his small pad. “She heard Sister Lucia screaming and came running. When she got here, she tried to revive the victim and sent the younger one to call the police and get the parish priest.”
“Who put the altar cloth over the vic?”
“The reverend mother,” Bentz said, and when Montoya opened his mouth to protest any alteration of the crime scene, he held up a hand. “I know, I know. Already discussed. She claims she didn’t think about contaminating or altering the crime scene. She just wanted to be respectful of the vic.”
Montoya cast another glance at the woman in question. Tall and big-boned, mouth set, eyes glaring at the police. “What’s the reverend mother’s relationship to the victim?”
“Just what it seems. She met Sister Camille two years ago when Camille entered the convent.”
“What about the priest?”
“Priests, plural. The older one’s Father Paul Neland. He’s the senior priest and lives here on the grounds in an apartment next to the younger one—Father Francis O’Toole.”
Montoya’s head snapped up at the name. “Father O’Toole? Frank—where is he?”
“Already separated out for his statement. Doing the same with the rest of them.”
Two officers were, in fact, starting to force the tight little knot apart. Sister Lucia looked at him pleadingly, then hurried off while the mother superior was ushered in a different direction.
Montoya felt a headache starting to throb at the base of his skull. Too many familiar faces here. First Camille, then Lucia, and now Frank O’Toole? What were the chances of that? “What do you know about the priests?”
“The older guy, Father Paul Neland, has been here about ten years, second only to the mother superior, who’s been in charge for nearly twenty years. Before that, she and Neland worked in the same parish once before, up north—Boston, I think. O’Toole’s the short-timer. Less than five years.”
“I need to speak to him. Frank O’Toole,” Montoya said.
Bentz let out a long whistle and stared at his partner, as if reading Montoya’s mind. “Oh, Christ, Montoya. Don’t tell me you know him, too?”
“Oh, yeah,” Montoya admitted, not liking the turn of his thoughts. “I know him.”
Sitting cross-legged on her rumpled bed, Valerie tried to turn on her stubborn computer one last time. “Come on, come on,” she ordered the struggling laptop. It made grinding noises that caused her to wince as she waited for the screen to flicker to life.
It was nearly one-thirty in the morning. The rain had stopped, and moonlight filtering through high clouds cast an eerie glow on the damp bushes outside her window.
Her body was tired, but her mind was still spinning. Wired. She wanted to check her e-mail one last time before shutting off the lights and hoping sleep would come. Though it probably wouldn’t. Wretched insomnia. Ever since she was a teenager, sleep eluded her if she was troubled. She’d tried everything from sleeping pills to working out to the point of exhaustion, but nothing seemed to allow her sleep for more than a night or two.
It’s the divorce.
And your worries about Cammie.
As she waited for the screen to flicker on, she caught a glimpse of the single picture of Slade she’d kept, one of him riding his favorite horse, a rangy gray gelding named Stormy, their scruffy hound dog Bo trailing behind. Silhouetted against a sun that bled purple and orange along the ridge, Slade Houston looked every bit the part of a lonesome Texas cowboy. She’d taken the picture herself and had decided to keep it to remember her marriage. While she’d burned the rest—snapshots and professional photographs taken at their small wedding—she hadn’t been able to destroy this one. She’d told herself it was because it was the only picture she had of Bo.
But deep down, she knew better.
“Masochist,” she muttered, reaching out and slapping