The police had confiscated the training vehicle the school used for its Driver’s Ed course. Technicians from the lab had searched it for evidence that Newell — as instructor and supervisor — had, in effect, been ‘driving’ the car in violation of subdivision four of section 1192 of the Vehicle and Traffic Law, which stated: ‘No person shall operate a motor vehicle while the person’s ability to operate such a vehicle is impaired by the use of a drug as defined in this chapter.’ The drugs referred to were listed in the Public Health Law and constituted a virtual pharmacology of every opiate, opium derivative, hallucinogenic substance and stimulant known to man. And woman, too, Katie thought.
On Thursday morning, the day after the fatal accident, they drove over to Our Lady of Sorrows in one of the Pontiac sedans set aside for the Raleigh Station’s detectives. Carl was driving, Katie was riding shotgun beside him.
‘Guess what Annie cooked again last night?’ Carl asked.
‘Asparagus,’ Katie said.
‘Asparagus,’ Carl said. ‘We’re married six years, she knows I hate asparagus, but she keeps making asparagus. I told her why do you keep making asparagus when you know I hate it? First she says, “It’s good for you.” I tell her I don’t care if it’s good for me, I don’t like the taste of it. So she says, “You’ll get to like the taste of it.” So I tell her I’m thirty-seven years old, I’ve been hating asparagus for thirty-seven years, I am never going to like the taste of it. You know what she says next?’
‘What?’ Katie asked.
‘She says, “Anyway, you do like it.” Can you believe that? I’m telling her I hate it, she tells me I like it. So I tell her one more time I hate asparagus, please don’t make asparagus again, I hate it! So she says, “When you get to be President of the United States, you won’t have to eat asparagus. Meanwhile, it’s good for you.” ’
‘That was broccoli.’
‘Just what I told her.’
‘There’s the church,’ Katie said.
Bright morning sunlight was flooding the churchyard as they entered it through an arched wooden door leading from the church proper. Katie had expected to find Father McDowell on his knees in prayer. Saying matins, she imagined, wasn’t that the one they said in the morning? The good father was, in fact, on his knees — but he was merely gathering flowers. Katie guessed he was a man in his early seventies, with a ruddy face which led her to believe he enjoyed a touch of the sacrificial wine every now and again. He greeted them warmly and told them at once that he himself had planted the mums he was now cutting for the altar. Planned the garden so that it bloomed all through the spring, summer and autumn months. The mums he was carefully placing in a wicker basket were yellow and white and purple and brown. They reminded Katie of Stephen, damn him! Excuse me, father, she thought.
‘We’re here to ask about a woman named Mary Beth Newell,’ she said. ‘We have reason to believe she was here at Our Lady of Sorrows yesterday. Would you remember her?’
‘Yes, of course,’ McDowell said.
He snipped another stem, carefully placing stem and bloom alongside the others in the basket.
A football game. Stephen bringing Katie a bright orange mum to pin to her white cheerleader’s sweater. The big letter B on the front of the sweater. For Buckley High.
‘Is it true her husband has been arrested for killing her?’ McDowell asked.
‘He’s been charged with vehicular homicide, yes, Father.’
‘But why? I understand a young girl was driving.’
‘That’s true. But he was the licensed driver.’
‘It still seems...’
‘The girl didn’t know he was under the influence. State attorney believes the fault was his. Did Mrs Newell come here yesterday?’
‘She did.’
‘Can you tell us what time she got here?’
‘Around two fifteen, two twenty.’
‘And left when?’
‘An hour or so later.’
They were here to learn whether or not the priest had seen the accident. They were building a list of reliable witnesses, the more the merrier. But McDowell’s response stopped Katie cold. Her next question should have been, ‘Did you see her leaving the church?’ Instead, she said, ‘Mrs Newell spent a full hour with you?’
‘Well, almost, yes.’
Katie suddenly wondered why.
‘Father,’ she said, ‘we know Mrs Newell lived in St Matthew’s parish, some ten blocks from here.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is that where she worships?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Well, does she worship here?’
‘No, she doesn’t.’
‘Then what was she doing here, Father?’
‘She’d been coming to me for spiritual guidance.’
‘Are you saying that today wasn’t the only time she...?’
‘I can’t tell you anything more, I’m sorry.’
Katie knew all about privileged communication, thanks. But she was Irish. And she sniffed something in the wind.
‘Father,’ she said, ‘no one’s trying to pry from you whatever...’
McDowell was Irish, too.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and snipped another stem as though he were decapitating someone possessed by the devil. Katie figured he was signaling an end to the conversation. Gee, Father, tough, she thought.
‘Father,’ she said, ‘we don’t want to know what you talked about...’ Like hell we don’t, she thought. ‘...but if you can tell us when she first came to see you.’
‘Is that why you’re here?’ McDowell said. ‘To invade a dead woman’s privacy?’ Wagging his head scornfully, he rose from where he was kneeling, almost losing his balance for a moment, but regaining it at once, his prized basket of cut flowers looped over his arm. Standing, he seemed to be at least six-feet tall. ‘She got here at around two fifteen,’ he repeated, ‘and left about an hour later. Does that help you?’
‘Sure, but when’s the first time she came here?’ Carl asked.
He’d been silent until now, letting Katie carry the ball. But sometimes a little muscle helped. Unless you were dealing with a higher authority. Like God.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that,’ McDowell said.
So they double-ganged him.
‘Did she spend an hour each time she visited you?’ Katie asked.
‘How many times did she visit, anyway?’ Carl asked.
McDowell shook his head in disbelief. He was striding swiftly toward the entrance to the church now, the basket of flowers on his arm, the black skirts of his cassock swirling about his black trousers and highly polished black shoes. They kept pace with him, one on either side.
‘She wasn’t here to discuss her husband, was she?’ Carl asked.
‘Some problem her husband had?’ Katie asked.
‘Like a drug problem?’ Carl asked.
McDowell stopped dead in his tracks. Pulling himself up to his full height, he said with dignity, ‘The only problems Mary Beth discussed with me were her own. Good day, detectives.’
And went into his church.
So now they knew that Mary Beth Newell had problems.
Just before noon, Alyce Hart called the squadroom to say that Newell still hadn’t been arraigned and if there were any further questions they wanted to ask, they’d best do it now. ‘The irony of our judicial system,’ she said, ‘is that we can ask the accused anything we want before he’s arraigned, but after that we need his lawyer’s permission to talk to him.’