Ravanna and was talking to a cop friend. He got a call on his cell phone. He stepped back but I overheard him say, ‘We’ve got a new lead in the nun murder?’”
The cop was probably referring to a new tip, rather than a solid lead. If it’s big, it rarely gets down to the uniforms on the street. Jason wasn’t sure what to make of it. He put in another call to Garner, shook his head, then tore into his burger, managing three bites and half a dozen fries before Kelly Swan appeared from the library, tapping a slip of paper in her hand.
“Don’t know if this is good or bad-can I have one?” Kelly stole a fry. “But so far no records-absolutely zip-for a Sherman and Etta Braxton in Cleveland, or anywhere in Ohio.”
Jason halted chewing.
“And,” Kelly continued, “there’s no record for St. Ursula Savary College in Switzerland, nothing that even comes close.”
Jason resumed chewing, but thoughtfully, noticing, at that moment, the arrival of an e-mail from the press attache at the Swiss Embassy. Preliminary queries with authorities indicate no citizens of the United States whose names you provided are listed in records as traffic fatalities. The St. Ursula Savary College is not among the country’s schools. Included below is a link to all Swiss private and international schools.
“Thanks, Kelly. Can you please keep checking?”
Quieted by the development, Jason resumed eating and thinking. Thinking of the image of Anne Braxton, a distraught young woman, alone in a church in Paris, begging nuns to allow her into their order.
But did she lie to them about her past?
Why would she do such a thing?
And where did that one million dollars come from? How does a twenty-three-year-old American woman come to have one million dollars in a Swiss bank account?
His line rang.
“Wade, Mirror. ”
“It’s Garner.”
“Grace,” he sat up, “Listen, I’ve been doing some digging and I’ve got something.”
“Will I be reading it in the paper, or are you going to tell me?”
“I think we need to meet.”
“Is that what you think? I think you want something.”
“Grace.”
“So you’re talking to me now. All done with your tantrums, is that it?”
“Grace, please.”
“You want to meet now?”
“Now would be good.”
“All right. That place beside the old warehouse. In twenty minutes.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
T he Rusted Anchor was an all-night sanctuary for cops and the like who worked 24/7 downtown.
Tucked down a side street near an abandoned warehouse and the waterfront, the narrow building was webbed with vines. Its battered metal door, punctured with several bullet holes, gave newcomers pause.
Even during sunny days, the Anchor remained dim inside. The darkness calmed frayed nerves and eased troubled minds, offering tranquillity and beer as cold as an embittered ex-wife. Low-watt lights hung low over the dark high-backed booths that were evocative of church pews. Jason spotted Grace Garner alone in a corner, poking the ice in her Coke with her straw.
The neon clock on the wall gave him a little over two hours until his deadline.
He sat down and ordered a ginger ale from a bored man in a dirty white apron who had three days’ worth of white whiskered growth on his face. They waited in awkward silence until Jason’s drink arrived.
“Okay, Wade, I made a mistake. Can we move on?”
Jason held up two fingers.
“Two mistakes: You dumped me. And you went out with Special Agent Asshole.”
“How did you know?”
“You’re not the only paid investigator at this table.”
She looked away.
“Grace, what happened? Just tell me what happened?”
“I got scared.”
“Of what?”
“It felt so right with you. We were moving fast, but it felt so right I caught myself thinking long-term, even though I realized it ain’t going to happen.”
“You don’t know that. You got to take things one step at a time.”
“Okay, I messed up. Can we move on?”
He looked into her eyes until all the hostility between them subsided. After a few moments, Grace drank from her glass and said, “You said you may have something.”
“The paper got a tip on Sister Anne that led to Canada. I went there to follow it up and just got back.”
“Canada? What sort of tip did you get?”
“We received some information about her life before she entered the Order.”
“And?”
“Sister Anne may have lied to the nuns about her past before joining their Order and it involves her family and a lot of money.”
“How much money?”
“Enough to put in a Swiss bank.”
“How much?”
“About a million dollars. She gave it to the nuns. I interviewed the nun who screened her into the order. Sister Marie. She lives alone in the Canadian Rockies. The old nun told me that the money came to the Order by way of a Swiss bank account. She said that Anne Braxton had told the nuns that it was part of her inheritance after her parents were killed in a car crash when she was a teen.”
“And?”
“None of the information checks out, so far. We’ve been digging into it. The names of her parents don’t exist. There’s no record of a car accident. The private school she claimed to have attended does not exist, according to Swiss authorities.”
“What do you think?”
“She also kept a diary in which she agonizes over sins she’s committed and begs for forgiveness.”
“What kind of sins?”
“She never says. She supposedly told another nun that she’d ‘destroyed lives.’ Her journal has no details. It’s all vague, with a lot of Scripture.”
“Who has this diary?”
“I’ll share it with you after our story runs in tomorrow’s paper.”
“Why do you think she lied? What did she do? What was she hiding?”
“That’s what I want to find out. Are you interested in this stuff?”
“I’d like to see your information.”
“We’ll work that out. Now, I’ve got a question for you.”
“Make it quick.”
“Is there a new lead in the case?”
“What are you hearing?”
“I’m hearing there’s a new lead, come on.”
“Maybe.”
“Come on, Grace. I just gave you my exclusive.”
