Mel, impatient with the delay, waited until we were in the car before she called me on my sin of omission. “Shouldn’t you have told Sister Mary Katherine about what’s going on with Bill Winkler and Captain Kramer?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t think so. This all started when Sister Mary Katherine went to see Elvira. She’s already carrying around enough guilt. Why add more right now? She’ll find out soon enough.”
Mel and I weren’t the first to arrive at Elvira Marchbank’s postfuneral reception, nor were we the last. Sister Mary Katherine parked her minivan directly behind Mel’s BMW. The four of us ambled up the walkway together. Tom Landreth, a potent drink in hand, stood at the doorway, personally and expansively welcoming arriving guests. I would have expected to find the Marchbank Foundation’s executive director at the door as well, but Raelene Landreth was nowhere in evidence.
Uniformed servers greeted guests as well, taking coats or orders for drinks. Mel and I gratefully accepted cups of coffee. As I took the first sip, I caught sight of Sister Mary Katherine walking the perimeter of the room with her head bowed and hands clasped as though she were treading hallowed ground and finally having a chance to honor Mimi Marchbank, the murdered woman who had once been kind to an isolated child named Bonnie Jean Dunleavy.
The room was crowded. People were talking and laughing while a string quartet played in the background. It seemed more like a high-class cocktail party than it did a postfuneral reception. Having had nothing to eat since breakfast, I started in on a plate stacked high with hors d’oeuvres when, much to my surprise, Detectives Jackson and Ramsdahl came looking for me.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked.
“Looking for Raelene Landreth,” Jackson said grimly. “Somebody finally got a look at the phone records Kramer dug up. If calling each other twenty times a day is any indication, I’d say she and Bill Winkler are going at it hot and heavy. We’re thinking she may have some idea of where he’s disappeared to. She may even have picked him up when we were looking for him and brought him here. Now which one is she?”
“She was at the funeral,” I told them, “but I haven’t seen her since.”
Mel had joined us in time to hear the news. “Whoa,” she said. “That puts things in a whole new light. Hold on while I go ask Tom Landreth if he’s seen his wife.”
I watched while Mel wove her way through the crowd. When she spoke to Landreth, I could see he was somewhat befuddled. He looked around the room and shook his head in a dazed way. In other words, he didn’t know where his wife was either.
Mel was coming back toward me when Sister Elizabeth appeared at my elbow. “Excuse me, Mr. Beaumont, but have you seen Sister Mary Katherine? We were about to leave when she said she wanted to go outside. Now I can’t find her.”
There are times in my life when I simply know things. The sudden sinking sensation I felt in the pit of my stomach told me this was one of these times. I had seen Sister Mary Katherine walking meditatively through the house. If she had stepped outside, I had a pretty good idea of where she might have gone-back to pay a final visit to her old hiding place, the secret hidey-hole that had once saved her life. The problem was, there was a good chance Bill Winkler might be hiding there right now.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Jackson demanded. “What’s going on?”
There wasn’t time to explain. I turned to Mel. “Are you wearing a vest?”
“After this morning, are you kidding? I wouldn’t leave home without it.”
And neither would I.
By the time I made my way through the crowd to the front door, I was having second thoughts. I already knew Bill Winkler was armed. There were far too many people here for the kind of confrontation that might well ensue. I stopped on the porch outside. The sun had come out, bringing with it a brilliantly blue sky. I think I would have been happier if it had been raining.
“We need more people,” I said. Nodding, Detective Jackson reached for his phone. I turned to Sister Elizabeth, who had followed us out onto the porch. “I think whatever’s going down will happen behind the house next door,” I said. “Back there in the greenhouse. Until we know for sure, we have to keep everyone else inside. No one comes in or goes out. Can you do that?” Nodding, Sister Elizabeth stepped back inside.
“You think Bill Winkler’s back there, too?” Mel asked.
“I’d bet money on it.”
Detective Jackson was on his phone. As I spoke, he relayed everything I said to Dispatch. “You want all the neighboring streets cordoned off?” he asked at last.
“ASAP,” I said. “These two houses share a common backyard. I’ll go up between the houses and see what I can see. Kendall, you take the far end of this house. Hank, you go to the far end of the one next door.”
“What about me?” Mel asked.
For half a second I was torn. On the one hand, I didn’t want to do anything that would put Melissa Soames in any more danger than she already was. On the other hand, there wasn’t anyone else I wanted watching my back. I had lobbied hard against having another partner, but it seemed God had given me one anyway.
“You’re with me,” I said.
Sticking close to the wall of the house where the Dunleavys had once lived-the house where Elvira Marchbank had died-Mel and I made our way up the shared driveway. When I could peek around the corner, I half expected to see the run-down building and the weedy backyard Sister Mary Katherine had described. Instead I saw a state-of-the-art greenhouse and a well-tended expanse of yard.
From the greenhouse came the sound of voices. I motioned for Mel to be still in hopes we could hear what was being said.
“I’m leaving now,” Bill Winkler announced. “The only question is whether or not you’re coming with me.”
“I’m afraid,” Raelene returned. “There are too many cops.”
“And they all know that I shot a cop, too,” Winkler replied. “Even if they haven’t already, they’ll figure out the rest of it soon enough. We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”
As Winkler spoke, he and Raelene stepped out of the greenhouse.
There they are, I thought. But where the hell is Sister Mary Katherine?
The words had barely crossed my mind when Sister Mary Katherine appeared, stepping like an apparition out from a sheltered spot between the greenhouse and a towering laurel hedge.
“You won’t get away,” she said. “I know who you are.” She turned on Bill Winkler and added, “When I first saw you, I thought I was seeing a ghost. But you’re his son, aren’t you-Detective Winkler’s son. You look just like him.”
“Who the hell are you?” Bill Winkler asked.
But Raelene knew the answer. “She’s the nun I told you about,” Raelene said. “She’s the one who started all the trouble.” I heard the note of rising hysteria in Raelene’s voice. By then she must have realized that things were going terribly wrong.
I knew for sure that Bill Winkler had a weapon. But the automatic wasn’t in his hand right then, and he and Raelene were so mesmerized by the unexpected appearance of Sister Mary Katherine that I knew this was our only chance.
“Come on,” I whispered over my shoulder to Mel. “You go for Raelene; I’ll take Winkler.”
Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. I was never much good at distance, but I can sprint like hell when I have to. So can Mel, I came to discover. We burst out from behind the house, screaming like banshees. I hit Bill Winkler with a full-body tackle before his hand got anywhere near his pocket. We both fell backward, and the weight of our two bodies together was enough to shatter the glass in the greenhouse wall.
I heard the sound of falling glass tinkling around us. It seemed to be falling in slow motion, reflecting back the sun as though someone had thrown out an armload of diamonds. Somehow Winkler had managed to extract the automatic from his pocket as we fell, but when he hit the ground the impact of the fall popped the weapon out of his hand. It flew up in the air and landed a good ten feet away. Winkler hit the ground hard and was immediately out cold. Looking back, I could see Raelene and Mel still struggling on the wet ground.