Denise opened the envelope to the original journal. Affixed to it was a short note, handwritten with a fountain pen, from Father Mercer.
“Sister Marie Clermont was the nun who oversaw Sister Anne Braxton’s screening when she first approached the Order as a candidate in Europe. Although Sister Marie was thought to have passed away in Brazil, we have now confirmed that she is alive. The information is attached.”
The second page was a fax from St. Helen of Mercies Catholic Church in Cardston, Alberta, Canada.
Denise read the information, which was in response to Father Mercer’s request, which had been channeled through various levels of church bureaucracy.
“…We can confirm Sister Marie Clermont is living in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies near Pincher Creek in Southern Alberta. Only last month she reached her 92nd birthday. She is very alert and lucid. A parishioner in the oil industry donated a small cabin where she lives alone, passing her days gardening, painting, and communing with God. Directions are provided below.”
A hermit nun.
Denise had read of retired sisters who retreated into a spiritual life of solitude. But would Sister Marie recall anything of Sister Anne as a young candidate and postulant? Would she know what moved her to join the Order as a young woman traveling through Europe? Would she know about her past life?
Age 92. Alert and lucid.
Maybe.
Denise looked at the journal and the documents. Then she looked at the photocopier next to the desk. Reflecting on how everything had unfolded, she was convinced that she’d received the guidance she had sought. She pressed a button and the photocopier began humming. Once it was ready she began making a copy of everything.
Next to the machine, she’d noticed several copies of earlier editions of the Seattle Times and the Seattle Mirror. Her attention went to the reporter’s name, the one she saw most frequently. Jason Wade. The same reporter who’d come here, looking for information. He’d left his card.
At that moment, Denise heard the sounds of movement from the room directly above the office. It was Sister Anne’s room. Sister Vivian was coming.
Hurry, please hurry, Denise told the photocopier.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
J ason positioned his Falcon in the early morning line at a twenty-four-hour donut shop drive-thru in Fremont. As he eased up to the order board, his cell phone rang.
It was Eldon Reep.
“This is what we’re doing today, we’re going big on how the Mirror first tracked him after breaking the story on the murder weapon, etcetera. You give me a first-person on ‘the killer’s lair under the Interstate,’ and use every ounce of color that didn’t go into your news story.”
“Eldon, they’ve got to charge him first,” Jason said. “Two grape jelly donuts and a jumbo coffee, please. Thanks.”
“Wade? Where the hell are you?”
“Getting my breakfast.”
“Where are you headed? I’ll send Cassie to hook up with you.”
Jason fished a five-dollar bill from his jeans at the window and exchanged it for his order.
“No need to send her. That’s good, keep the change,” Jason said, checking traffic as he exited the shop. “I’m good by myself. I’ll call you.”
“We have to stay out front on this story, you got that, Wade?”
“You bet. Bye.”
Jason slid a Norman Greenbaum CD into his sound system. He put this morning’s Mirror, with his two page- one bylines, on his lap to use as a napkin. He tore into his donuts, dripping jelly on the faces of Cooper and Sister Anne as “Spirit in the Sky” flowed through his speakers.
After the song and his breakfast were done, he pulled over and called Cooper’s lawyer, Barbara North, on her cell phone and at home, leaving messages at both places. By the time he hit the Aurora Avenue Bridge spanning Lake Union, she’d got back to him.
“Jason, it’s Barbara.”
“Sorry for calling so early. Did you see today’s paper?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I don’t like the headline.”
“I don’t write the headline.”
“Otherwise, fair coverage.”
“Do you know if Cooper’s going to be charged?”
“I’m on my way to meet with Detective Garner and company as we speak.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I have no indication one way or the other at this point.”
“You’ll let me know, once you know?”
“You have my numbers.”
“And you have mine.”
In the seventh-floor meeting room of the Homicide Unit, Grace Garner flipped through her files on John Randolph Cooper. Next to her, Lynn Mann of the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office checked her BlackBerry as they waited for the others.
Perelli entered and slapped the Mirror on the table.
“What’s this convenient suspect crap? Did you know this was coming, Grace?”
Grace shook her head.
“Barbara’s just protecting her client, Dom,” Lynn Mann said. “Countering the image of his arrest. Even the Pope would look bad, taken down in public at a funeral.”
Stan Boulder joined the meeting accompanied by Kay Cataldo and Detective Yamashita, the polygraphist.
“What time do we expect Barbara North, Grace?” Boulder asked.
“About twenty minutes or so.”
“Okay, everybody was up most of the night, especially Kay, and Yami. Kay, you go first.”
“Hold up for a moment,” Grace said. “Before we proceed, I want everyone to know that records came up with something last night that we missed.”
“Must be old stuff.”
“It is. Seems Cooper was twenty years old when officers in a district car observed him acting suspiciously in a car parked down the street from an Ocean First Prudential Bank in Ravenna. He had a disguise, a starter’s pistol, and the beginnings of a holdup note. Cooper later pleaded guilty, blamed his action on substance abuse owing to his mother’s death in a house fire. Judge gave him four months probation for conspiracy. He never did time inside.”
“He’s had a terrible time losing people in fires,” Boulder said. “Go ahead, Kay.”
Cataldo opened her file folder.
“Chuck and I put out full-court press analyzing those casts we took of his feet, looking at weight-pressure patterns, comparing them with the wear of the insole with his shoes and the sneakers from the murder scene.”
“What did you find?”
Kay started shaking her head.
“Those sneakers, inside and out, are not consistent with his feet.”
“What if he wore them the one time to commit the crime?” Perelli said.
