Sister Marie thought that it would.
“We gave it time and saw that she truly had felt a divine call to devote her life to helping others.”
Jason ruminated over the information.
“She was accepted eventually as a postulant for something like a year, as I recall. Then she became a novice and dedicated herself to her studies and went on to take her temporary vows. I think, in her case, it was close to five years before she took her final vows. And then she went off to various missions around the world.”
So that was it, Jason thought, a mundane explanation. Nothing at all that would point to her killer. No deep, dark secret. The part about “destroying lives” must’ve been her anguish and guilt at the loss of her parents.
“Is that everything, Sister?”
The old nun raised her head from her notebooks as the storm’s intensity decreased with the whisper of soft rain.
“No.” She turned to her bookshelf. “How could I ever forget? Please forgive my brittle mind.” She went to another book but failed to find what she was looking for, as Sassy threaded his way through her legs. She checked another, then another. “Oh, I’m sure it’s in one of these blessed books. I’ve got letters and notes scattered all over. I can never find anything.” She tapped her cane to the floor in frustration, sending her cat to the corner.
“What is it, Sister?”
“In the process of becoming a nun you take your vows, which include the big ones, like chastity and poverty. In practical terms, candidates divest themselves of all their worldly goods and come to God, poor in material wealth. It’s common for candidates to donate whatever they have to the Church or Order.”
“And this was the case with Anne Braxton?”
“Oh, yes, indeed. In fact her donation was critical to the Order’s initial success. It seems her father had made several wise investments, the proceeds of which she inherited from her trust at the age of twenty-five. It was held for her in a bank in Zurich, and she arranged to turn it over to the Order.”
“She turned her inheritance over to the Order?”
“Yes.”
“How much was it?”
“As I recall it was over two million Swiss francs.”
“Was that a lot, at the time?”
“At the time, that worked out to over one million U.S. dollars.”
Jason stared at the old nun.
Chapter Forty-Five
L eon Dean Sperbeck.
Henry Wade’s nightmare.
Sperbeck scowled at him from his DOC photographs, which Henry had propped against the salt and pepper shakers on his kitchen table in his house near Boeing Field.
There was Sperbeck glaring at him, just as he did so long ago during the horrific standoff at the heist.
The terrified eyes of the hostage.
Later, Sperbeck eyed Henry in court as he shuffled off in chains to pay with twenty-five years of his life.
Was it enough for what he did?
Sperbeck’s image had tormented Henry the day Vern Pearce put his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It had invaded Henry’s sleep, enveloping him like a burial cloth for his years of descent into an alcoholic abyss. And it had mocked Henry the day Sally walked out because she couldn’t take it anymore.
Henry didn’t blame her.
He blamed Leon Sperbeck.
But was he truly dead?
Henry resumed looking over the files that Ethan Quinn had copied for him. DOC records, court records, old police reports.
Is this how it ends? With Sperbeck’s suicide robbing Henry of the chance to find the answer to the one question that had locked Henry in a prison of pain and continued to haunt him.
Was he really dead?
Like Quinn, Henry needed to be certain Sperbeck was dead.
It was critical to his own survival.
Sperbeck’s suicide note wasn’t much evidence, Henry agreed with Quinn. Until the Nisqually River gave up Sperbeck’s corpse, and an autopsy confirmed it was him, all bets were off.
Okay, so what’s it going to be?
One way or another, Henry had to come to terms with this thing. It was what his counselors had advised him for over twenty-five years. Twenty-five years. Damn. Henry admitted that a drink would feel good right now.
But it wouldn’t help.
All right.
The time for battle had come.
He went back to his files and outlined a plan to investigate. He’d treat Quinn like a client who required verification of Sperbeck’s death. Henry began by putting in several calls to sources, reminding himself that he was a detective, licensed by the state to conduct private investigations, and, if necessary, authorized to take a life.
He glanced at his new Glock 22.
He’d picked up the. 40-cal pistol late yesterday after he got his letter from the state and completed all the paperwork. Having it around made him uneasy.
He hated the thing.
Hope to God I never have to use it.
Get to work.
First, Henry checked with the NPS Rangers at Mount Rainier National Park on whether they’d found Sperbeck’s body.
“Naw. Nothing’s turned up,” Pike Thornton, a law enforcement officer, told him over the phone. “We sent out Search and Rescue, dragged the river near Cougar Rock, and got nothing.”
“Any witnesses see him go in the water?”
“None that were absolutely certain. We had a retired county judge say he saw Sperbeck fishing. We found his pole, tackle, and such.”
“What about his vehicle?”
“He told the registration desk that he got a ride from Seattle. No one saw him or spoke to him. Seemed to be a man alone with his thoughts.”
Awaiting return calls, Henry went back to Sperbeck’s DOC file, which was extensive. Sperbeck had entered the system at WCC, where he was processed and sent on to Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla. He spent a lot of time making license plates there. Then he was transferred to Coyote Ridge at Connell, where he received treatment for his addictions while working on the farm.
At Coyote Ridge, Sperbeck also took part in spiritual counseling programs run by groups who visited from across the state. Afterward, he went to Clallam Bay, where he picked up a trade, cabinetmaking, before moving on to McNeil Island, but unlike many offenders, he did not work outside on the barges, tugboats, and ferries.
Even though he qualified for work release and to seek parole, he waived it all, choosing to serve his full time and work toward discharge, reducing the number of strings the system would attach to him.
“Sperbeck had very few conditions of supervision,” Herb Kent, Sperbeck’s CCO, told Henry when he finally reached him. “He stayed out of trouble inside and paid his debt in full. There was no indication he was a risk to reoffend.”
“Did he talk about the crime?”
“You mean the money?”
“I mean the money.”
“Not a word. He expressed remorse over the damage he’d inflicted.”
