Devious - Lisa Jackson [17]
“Yes,” she said, nodding slowly.
To get her story straight or because she was trying to remember?
Amos scratched his chin. “What happened then?”
“Oh!” Lucia dragged her gaze away from Montoya. “Then . . . we, um, waited. Father Paul checked Sister Camille’s pulse again. Then we all prayed for her.” Lucia’s voice grew husky, her nose reddened, and tears filled her eyes. “Then . . . then . . . a few minutes later, I heard sirens and you arrived.” She took in a long breath, pulled the cape even tighter around her, and clammed up.
“You found the body?” Montoya asked.
“I just told him all about it,” she said, looking toward Amos.
Montoya wasn’t going to be put off. “So bring me up to speed.”
She seemed to withdraw, as if her body were shrinking for a second. Then she gathered her breath and explained her version of the events of the night yet again. After the mother superior had answered her cries for help, she’d called the police, run into Father Frank in the cloister, awoke a sleeping Father Paul, and had returned to the chapel with the two priests.
“But you said something about seeing someone leaving the chapel when you arrived,” Amos interjected.
“I . . . I think so.”
Montoya asked, “You’re not sure?”
“No . . . sometimes I kind of sleepwalk, so . . . it can be kind of”—she lifted a small shoulder—“blurry, I guess.”
“Wait a second. Sleepwalking?” Montoya said. “You didn’t say that before.”
“No, I know. . . . It was different than that, but . . .” She looked close to tears and blinked. “Hard to explain.”
“But, in the chapel, you did hear a door close over the sound of the midnight bells tolling?” Amos persisted, not one to be put off by anything, even female tears.
Lucia seemed flustered. And scared as hell. “It seems that way.”
Not exactly firm testimony, Montoya thought. He’d never really known Lucia, though one of her older brothers, Pedro, had been in his class at school. What was it about her that Cruz had found so intriguing? Not just her looks, but a bit of ESP or something. But maybe Cruz made that up. Montoya’s younger and wilder brother had been known to tell more than his share of lies.
They asked a few more questions to piece together the chain of events and time frame; then Montoya and Bentz left Amos to wrap things up.
“Pretty,” Bentz mentioned. “What happened between her and your brother?”
“Car wreck. Cruz was at the wheel. Nearly killed them both.” But there was more to the story, Montoya thought; he just didn’t know it, had been off at college when the accident had occurred.
They met up with the mother superior in the hallway near the chapel, where she was being interviewed by one of the uniformed officers.
Sister Charity’s voice was hushed and well modulated despite the tragedy. In the dim candlelight, her face seemed far more youthful than the sixty years she claimed to be as she responded to Montoya. “I already told one of your officers, Ms. Erwin, here, everything I know.” Her words, though spoken softly, were underlaid with a thread of steel.
“We’re going to need to interview everyone in the building,” Officer Erwin said.
The older woman shook her head slowly. “Everyone was asleep. I can’t see what good waking them will do.”
“They might have heard something. Or maybe someone was up, passing through the hallway on the way to the restroom. There’s a chance someone saw something,” Randi Erwin insisted. “Or maybe one of the residents could shed some light on motive for killing Sister Camille.”
“Oh.” The mother superior crossed herself, as if suddenly realizing the magnitude of the tragedy. “I’ll talk to each of them,” the reverend mother offered. “Father Paul will offer them guidance—”
“It’s not about guidance,” Montoya said crisply as he wondered if the woman was being intentionally obtuse. “Before you speak to them, we need to interview them.”
“All of them?” She seemed surprised.
Montoya nodded. “We want to talk with anyone who lives here and anyone who may have been on the property tonight. They’ll need to give their