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I am sitting in my office, trying to process what Nina has just told me when my door flies open and Gladys rolls through.
“Hey, Mom,” she says. “How about lunch! I’m dying to hear all the juicy details from your honeymoon.”
I grin, and blush a little in spite of myself. Before I can open my mouth, she squeals, “Oh, I bet this is going to be good.”
“Now, Gladys,” I say, “if you think you’re going to get any ‘details’ from me about me and Tom, you’re sorely mistaken.”
“I know,” she sighs. “But, a girl can dream, can’t she? Oh, I didn’t think—do you have plans with Dad?”
“I don’t think we discussed that,” I say. “Let me text Tom.”
I grab my phone and type:
Did we have plans for lunch?
A moment later, Tom replies:
No, what did you have in mind?
A thought passes through my mind, one I quickly suppress. In spite of that, Gladys giggles.
Her keen perception really is irritating sometimes, you know?
I answer Tom:
Gladys wanted to know if I wanted to go to lunch. Do you mind?
Tom says:
Of course not! She probably wants to hear about our honeymoon.
I smile and type:
Bingo! I’d ask you to go with us but she’s been giggling all morning and I don’t think you want to come.
Tom’s reply comes a moment later:
Good guess. We’ll talk later. I have a lot to share with you.
Then, a moment later, he says:
I miss you.
I respond:
I miss you, too.
It's the truth, but not the whole truth.
The whole truth is that I feel like part of me is missing when he’s not with me. In the seven brief days during which we were always together, I became grafted to him. Before we were married, when we weren’t together, I’d have a longing in my heart to see him. But now, being apart is a nearly physical pain.
But saying that would do neither of us any good. We have our own lives to lead, our duties to perform. We will be blessed to be able to be together more than other couples, and that will have to be enough. But right now the thing that I will never admit to him is that I would dearly love to have him in my office, interfering with this or any other investigation. Hopefully, he will start doing that soon so that I can remember that I do actually need my space.
Rather than wallow in this, I stand up and say to Gladys, “Are you ready now?”
“Sure! Let me get my bag,” Gladys says. I walk with her to her office, then down the hall and out the back door. The sky’s bright and clear, and not as cold as I’d expect for early January. The snow that fell while we were gone is piled up around the parking lot of the station, and the water flowing into the storm drain is evidence that the sun’s doing its work to reduce those still-white piles to dirty lumps within days—unless, of course, we get more snow.
“You want to walk?” I ask.
“Sure,” Gladys says.
We stroll along in silence for a block, then I ask, “So, how’s Nate?”
She’s quiet for a moment, then says, “Fine. Just fine.”
I stop even as she rolls forward a few feet. “Is something wrong? Did he do something else?”
By ‘something else,’ Gladys knows I mean. Gladys turns around and says firmly, “No, Mom, it’s nothing like that. Nothing like that at all.”
She turns around to continue down the sidewalk, and I walk quickly to catch up with her. “So, what is it?”
“Nothing really, I guess,” Gladys sighs. “I hate to say this or to be negative when you and Dad have just gotten home, but I feel like we’ve reached some sort of weird stalemate. I’m ready to move forward with our life together and I think he is, too, but it's like we can’t get off dead center.”
We’re at The Bistro by now, and once we find a table, I ask, “What do you think is holding him back?”
“I don’t know,” Gladys admits. “I mean, even Dad said before you two left town that he thought we had worked through everything. I was kinda hoping for something to happen over New Year’s, but it didn’t. I don’t know what’s going on.”
The waitress comes to take our orders. After she leaves, I ask, “Have you talked to Nate about this?”
“No. I mean, I don’t want to come out and ask, ‘Hey, why haven’t you proposed?’”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t.” I sit with this for a minute as I try to think of how to advise her.
Then I have a truly inspired idea.
“Gladys,” I say pleasantly, “You should talk to Tom about this.”
We are both laughing at this when our food arrives.
***
Once I’m back in my office, I sit for a while thinking about what Nina said.
Now, according to her, Derek seemed disoriented—a natural result of the combination of blood-loss from being stabbed and laying on the icy ground in sub-freezing temperatures for who knows how long.
But when asked if he knew who attacked him, Nina swears the deacon said, ‘My wife.’
My wife.
Was Linda Roderick responsible for her husband’s death?
Is it conceivable that she stabbed her husband and left him to die on the sidewalk behind Saint Clare’s?
This is a woman who, while I’ve only met her a few times, always impressed me as someone who loved her husband and was devoted to him.
But the Linda I knew was not the same woman who sat in my office this morning. After the initial shock, she seemed unnaturally calm, even cold.
My head’s telling me it’s impossible she could be responsible.
But my gut is telling me something’s off.
As I reach for the phone on my desk, a twinge in my shoulder reminds me what happened the last time I ignored my gut.
“Gladys,” I say, picking up my phone, “Find out all you can about Linda Roderick. I’ll try to get you a maiden name and date of birth.”
Knowing of only one source of this knowledge, I call Father Wayne.
“Helen,” he answers kindly. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon. Is this about the investigation, or to report some way in which Father Tom has mistreated you? Because, either way, I’ll be happy to help see that justice is meted out.”
“It's about the case,” I rush to assure him. “I need some information on Linda Roderick, and I would like to obtain it as discreetly as possible.”
“I’m not surprised,” he admits. “There seems to be something fishy going on.”
“Oh?” I ask.
“Yes, I called to offer my condolences and to express the Archbishop’s offer to conduct the Requiem Mass himself at the Cathedral. She thanked me nicely enough, but then informed me that she had already spoken to Tom about holding a private Mass at Saint Clare’s, with only immediate family present.”
“That is odd,” I say. “I haven’t talked to Tom since this morning so I didn’t know anything about this. He might have some insight but if so, he won't necessarily share it with me since he learned about it in his capacity as her priest.”
“That’s a good policy on both your parts,” Father Wayne says, “but the facts of the situation are the same whether anyone analyzes them or not. Needless to say, His Eminence is perplexed by all this. I also think he’d like to see you two now that you're back home.”
“Let me talk to Tom and see what we can set up. In the meantime—”
“I’ll email the information you requested over to you as soon as I can.”
I thank him and hang up. Thinking about what Father Wayne just told me, I realize that our pillow talk tonight is going to be the most intriguing of our marriage so far.
My computer email dings. Expecting Father Wayne’s email, I’m a little disappointed to see it’s only photographs of the crime scene.
I take a deep breath and click on the first one. There in vivid color is the spot where Hallstead found Derek Roderick. There’s no photograph of the deacon, since he was transported still alive to the hospital.
I click through each photograph. They’re pretty much what you’d expect. A sidewalk wet with melting ice, small white pellets of rock salt showing someone had treated the treacherous path. Melted snow where Derek lay, blades of grass poking up through the white—
“Wait,” I mutter to myself. “Why is the snow white?”
Derek Roderick was found stabbed, laying in the snow. According to what Martin told me, he arrived at the hospital having lost quite a bit of blood—not enough in his opinion to be fatal, though in the end it obviously was.
But the snow under and around where he lay shows no blood, or at least not much.
There should be a lot more blood if—
“Damn,” I whisper. “I can’t believe—”
Just then “Hallelujah” comes from my phone. Tom’s ringtone.
“Darling,” I say quickly, “where are you?”
“In the sacristy,” he says. “You need to get over here now.”