Crunch Time

monsignor were out in the parking lot. The priest, short, slender, and already half-bald, was shivering in his clericals. Ferdinanda, stout, square faced, and frizzy haired, sat tall in her wheelchair. She wore only a shapeless brown dress that looked as if it had been prison-issue from the former Soviet Union.

I wondered why they were outside. But that was clear soon enough, as Ferdinanda was smoking a cigar. She waved it jauntily when she saw the van, but when she realized it was accompanied by a police car, her chin dropped. She stared through the cracked windshield, as if she were trying to make out Yolanda.

I threw the vehicle into Park and jumped out to reassure her, but that only made matters worse.

“Where’s Yolanda?” she demanded of me, pointing the cigar in a menacing manner. “Why is she not here?”

I said, “She’s over in that other—” And then I waved at the police car.

Ferdinanda began to wail. “What’s he done to her now?” she cried.

“Who’s that?” asked Tom as he eased his way out of the prowler. “What has who done to her?”

“Where is Yolanda?” she demanded.

“Estoy aqui,” called Yolanda as she rushed to her aunt. I’m here. Yolanda fell to her knees in front of the wheelchair and hugged Ferdinanda’s knees. I could make out enough of their Spanish to understand that Yolanda was telling her great-aunt that Ernest was dead, that he had been murdered, and that the police were here to question her.

Ferdinanda’s mouth turned downward. She dropped the smoking cigar on the asphalt and leaned forward to embrace Yolanda. The priest worriedly crushed the cigar with his toe, then asked Tom and John if there was anything he could do to help.

“Yeah, go back inside, Father, if you would,” said Tom. “We’re just going to talk to Ferdinanda for a few minutes.”

“Oh no you’re not,” said Ferdinanda. “Put me into the van, Yolanda. I want to go home, take care of the dogs.” Ferdinanda began to roll herself toward the van.

John Bertram abruptly stepped in front of the wheelchair, as if to stop her. “Tom, do you want me to—”

John Bertram did not see Ferdinanda reach beside her hip and pull out a telescoping baton. As Yolanda and Tom both cried, “No!” Ferdinanda pressed a button to extend the baton and whacked a startled John Bertram across the knees.

John hollered, “Christ!” and fell to the pavement.

“You just assaulted a police officer!” Tom yelled at Ferdinanda. The monsignor knelt quickly beside John and spoke softly to him. John, for his part, cussed and held his knees. Was the monsignor used to police officers being hit by the disabled in the church parking lot? Probably not. But the priest seemed okay. John Bertram did not.

“Ferdinanda!” shouted Tom as he hustled to John’s side. “What were you thinking?”

“That man tried to block the way of a handicapped person!” Ferdinanda hollered right back. “I’ll call my lawyer! I’ll sue the sheriff’s department!”

Yolanda stood protectively next to Ferdinanda. At the same time, she tilted her head and gave Tom a raised-eyebrow I-told-you-so look.

Tom ignored them both, knelt next to John, and asked the priest to step aside. Then my husband expertly felt around John’s knees, told him nothing was broken, that he was probably just bruised.

John said something unintelligible.

Tom talked in low tones to John, who must have agreed to something. Tom asked the monsignor for help. Eventually, John put one arm around Tom’s shoulders, one around the priest’s, and the three of them moved haltingly to the squad car. They eased John into the front seat. Tom thanked the priest, who waved to Ferdinanda and Yolanda and hustled back to the rectory. He was probably saying a prayer of gratitude that he was getting away from this particular mess.

With John still inside, Tom got out, slammed the driver-side door, and walked over to us. But instead of losing his temper, he kept his tone even.

“John says he’s okay, just in pain,” Tom said to Yolanda. “I couldn’t feel anything broken, but I want him to be checked out, just in case. Let’s get your aunt into the van. We can talk for a few minutes, before I take John to the hospital.”

The old van had chilled quickly. Once Ferdinanda had gone up the motorized lifting device and was strapped in the back, Tom sat in the passenger seat. I saw him take in how decrepit the vehicle was, with its split seats, torn dashboard, cracked and pitted windshield, and worn carpet. Yolanda got behind the wheel and turned on the engine so it could warm us up. I took the lone seat in back, beside Ferdinanda.

Tom turned to face us. “I need to ask you a couple of questions about Ernest, Ferdinanda. Please.”

“I’m not saying anything without a lawyer here,” Ferdinanda said defiantly.

“You’re not a suspect,” Tom replied. “Will you talk to me?”

Ferdinanda patted her frizz of hair. After a moment, she said, “I suppose.”

“What time did Ernest leave the house on Saturday?”

“What?” she replied, and then I remembered that Yolanda had said she was hard of hearing.

Tom raised his voice a notch. “When did Ernest leave his house Saturday morning?”

“About half past eight,” said Ferdinanda. “He said he was going to walk, try to get some exercise. He’d told us it helped alcoholics if they get high from walking or running, instead of from booze.”

“Is that what he said that morning?”

Ferdinanda turned the sides of her mouth down, considering. “No. That was what he usually said. He didn’t say it that morning.”

“What did he say that morning?”

“I was out on his patio, smoking a cigar. Yolanda was doing the dishes. Ernest? He said, ‘That thing will kill you, Ferdinanda, you ought to stop.’ ” She paused for a moment. “I don’t hear so good anymore. I think that was what he said.”

“Did he say anything else?” asked Tom. “Anything about being worried? Anything about someone wanting to hurt him?”

Ferdinanda rubbed the sides of her mouth with her tobacco-stained thumb and forefinger. “A woodpecker was at his feeder. I think Ernest said, ‘I’m going now. If anything happens to me, ask the bird.’ ”

“ ‘Ask the bird’?” said Tom. “That’s what he said?”

“I think so. I told you, I don’t hear so good anymore. I laughed. He laughed. Then he walked away. He didn’t come home last night. Didn’t Yolanda tell you? She called all over. We were worried sick. We drove over to the dentist’s office, but the dentist wasn’t there. Ernest wasn’t either. Yolanda, she called the clinic, the hospital —”

“When he was saying something about asking the birds, did he say he was going anywhere else besides the dentist?”

Ferdinanda lifted her chin. “No. Ernest promised us he was coming home right after his appointment. He wanted Yolanda’s seafood enchiladas.”

“Was Ernest carrying anything?” Tom asked. “When he left? His cell phone, something like that?”

Ferdinanda’s wizened face looked blank. “He just had on his backpack, the way he always did.”

“One last thing,” said Tom. “When you asked, ‘What’s he done to her now?’ what did you mean? Who were you talking about?”

“That Kris Nielsen,” Ferdinanda replied. Here she took out a handkerchief from an unseen pocket of the brown dress and spit into it. She wadded up the kerchief and stowed it in another invisible pocket. “Yolanda got sick. Sexually transmitted disease.”

Yolanda protested, saying, “Oh, Tia, no—”

Ferdinanda held up her hand to shush her niece. “Yolanda’s doctor asked who was she having sex with. She said only Kris. The doctor said Kris made her sick. So Yolanda asked Kris if he was sleeping with other women, someone with a disease. Do you think he cared about her, about how she was sick? No. He picked up a broom. I knew what he was going to do, so I rolled myself in front of him. That bastard pulled off my eleke and then pushed me aside.”

“Eleke?” Tom asked, bewildered.

“A beaded necklace,” Ferdinanda explained. “It is sacred. But listen. That bastard Kris took that broomstick and hit my dear Yolanda two times. Crack, on one arm. Then