Long Time Gone Part 2

"And how exactly did this particular case get to be my job?" I asked.

"That's my fault," Sister Mary Katherine said at once. "Fred was the one who knew you worked in that new investigative unit in the attorney general's office."

I made a mental note not to call us the s.h.i.t squad in the good sister's presence.

"Before Father Mark retired from Christ the King, he had a young a.s.sistant priest named Father Andrew who moved up into the diocese office years ago. Father Andrew is now the new archbishop's right-hand man. He was a huge help to me personally when I was starting Saint Benedict's and needed to cut through mounds of red tape."

She stopped talking as if she had said enough, but I still didn't get it.

Obligingly, Freddy Mac clued me in. "Years ago, Father Andrew Carter and Ross Connors played football together at O'Dea High School."

Click. In that one sentence, my worst suspicions were confirmed. With those kinds of high-placed connections, this was indeed a case with almost unlimited potential for disaster. Bearing that in mind, I decided it was time to treat it that way. I hauled out my notebook and began asking questions and taking notes.

CHAPTER 3.

BY THE TIME I LEFT THE HYATT, it was early afternoon, but traffic was already a mess. Make that still a mess. Unit B has a conference room with a VCR, but when I called into the office to see if I could use it, Barbara told me the room was booked.

"All right then," I told her. "Tell Harry I need to spend the next several hours reviewing videotapes, and I'm going home to do it."

"Absolutely," Barbara said. "No sense sitting around the office waiting for rush hour."

Barbara Galvin is a good twenty-five years younger than I am, but that doesn't keep her from mother-henning anybody who gets near her, me included.

"And the DJ on KMPS just said it's going to get worse," she added. "They're expecting more black ice tonight and maybe even the s-word for tomorrow."

The s-word is wintertime Seattlespeak for snow. I'm sure the people who live in Buffalo, New York, and other places where it really snows would find it hilarious that two or three inches of white stuff can bring this whole region to a grinding halt, but that's the way it is. And if it's more than three inches? Then we can look forward to days of downed trees and power outages.

With that cheery prospect in mind, I headed back across Lake Washington. By three o'clock I was settled into my recliner with the first of Sister Mary Katherine's videos playing on the VCR. It was a lot like viewing tapes done in cop-shop interview rooms everywhere-only this was shot with higher-quality equipment, so it had better sound and better resolution.

When the first interview started, before Fred MacKinzie put Mary Katherine under, she sounded just as she had earlier that day at lunch. That first session was a fishing expedition as Fred carefully led her back through her years as a nun, through high school, her years with Adelaide Rodgers, and back to that fateful day at camp when she first learned of her parents' tragic deaths. I think Fred and Sister Mary Katherine both expected to find the answer to her mysterious recurring nightmare lurking in the details surrounding that accident, but her answers remained lucid and unforced, with no resistance to Fred's probing questions.

It was only then that Fred switched tacks. "Tell me," he said quietly, "about the first thing you remember."

"No!"

Her instantaneous and flat-out refusal brought Fred MacKinzie to full attention. It had the same galvanizing effect on me.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I don't want to."

I noticed a subtle sudden change in the mother superior's voice. It seemed younger somehow. Her words were now being delivered in the singsong staccato of a small child.

Fred remained smoothly rea.s.suring. "How old are you?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"What's your name?"

"Bonnie Jean Dunleavy."

"Have you started school yet, Bonnie Jean?"

"I don't think so."

If she's not in school then, that makes her four or five years old, I wrote. Either 1949 or '50.

"What are you wearing?" Fred asked.

Homicide detectives do the same thing with suspects. They ask indirect questions, thus creating a fabric of story. If the suspect tells lies, those spur-of-the-moment fibs will fall apart later under more detailed questioning. Here Fred's indirect questions-ones that weren't related to the troubling memory itself-allowed Mary Katherine to answer. But even this cautious, roundabout approach caused visible agitation. During earlier questioning Mary Katherine's hands had rested at ease in her lap. Now, as Fred MacKinzie moved closer to dangerous territory, her hands moved fitfully about. Sometimes she tugged anxiously at the hem of her skirt or the sleeve of her sweater. Sometimes she covered her eyes as if shielding herself from something too awful to face.

"A sundress," she answered at last. This time she closed her eyes rather than shielding them. I wondered if shutting out her view of Freddy Mac's office made it possible for her to see the dress she had worn so long ago. "A bright blue sundress with yellow sunflowers on it."

I scribbled into my notebook: Time of year is summer. Where?

"What are you doing?" Fred asked.

"I'm standing on a chair by the sink, looking out the window."

"What are you looking for?"

"My parents' car."

"So they're not there with you?"

"No."

"Is anyone else there, a babysitter? A friend, perhaps?"

"No. I'm alone."

"Alone and looking out the window?"

"Yes."

"What do you see?"

Her eyes remained shut. "The sun is shining," she said slowly. "I want to go outside and play, but I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because Mama and Daddy won't let me. I have to stay inside and wait until they come home."

"Where are they?"

Sister Mary Katherine shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "Just out."

"What can you see through that window?"

"Gra.s.s. And two driveways, ours and hers."

"Whose driveway?" Freddy asked.

"I don't know." As Sister Mary Katherine delivered her answer, her body shifted uneasily in her chair. She squirmed in her seat like a little kid who has waited far too long to head for a rest room.

"Can you tell me your neighbor's name?" Fred asked.

"No. I can't talk about her at all." Slumping in the chair, Sister Mary Katherine seemed close to tears. "Don't you understand?" she pleaded. "I'm not allowed to talk about her. Ever. If I do, something bad will happen. Someone will hurt me."

I jotted down: Who's going to hurt her?

Fred was following the same track. "Who will hurt you, Bonnie Jean? Your father?"

"No, not my father!" she said forcefully.

Clearly the current line of questioning was so upsetting that Fred backed away from it for a time. "Tell me about your house," he suggested.

"It's an apartment in a bas.e.m.e.nt. It's cold here even when the sun is shining."

"Who lives upstairs?"

"A lady who's old and sick. Mama looks after her, and she lets us stay here."

"Do you know the lady's name?"

"No, but I know she doesn't like kids. That's why I have to stay inside when Mama and Daddy are gone. So I don't bother her. She might make us move out."

"Tell me about her house," Fred said.

"It's old and big and it's made out of brick."

"So it's a nice house, then?"

"I guess."

"And are there other children living nearby?"

"I don't know."

So she's not in school yet. If she were, she'd know the other kids in the neighborhood.

"Your mama looks after the lady upstairs. What does your daddy do?"

"He works."

"What does he do?"

"I dunno."

"Does he dress up when he goes to work?"

"No. And he comes home all dirty. He has to shower before we can eat dinner."

"Let's go back to the window for a moment. What time of day is it?"

"Afternoon, I think."

"And if you could go outside, what would you do?"

"Watch ants or play jacks or hopscotch or hide in my secret hiding place."

"Where's that?"

"Around behind the shed."

"Who do you play jacks with?"

In answer, Mary Katherine twisted her hands and shook her head.

"The person you can't talk about?"

Mary Katherine nodded.

We're talking about a playmate then, I scribble into my notebook. But she just said she didn't know any other children.

"How old is this person you play jacks with?" Fred asked. "About the same age as you?"

Sister Mary Katherine shook her head.

"Older or younger?" Fred asked.

"Older."

"How much older?" Fred persisted.

I swear, the guy could have been a cop. Right down the line, he was asking the same questions I would have asked had I been there.

Mary Katherine shrugged. "I dunno."

There was a long silence after that, as though Fred himself wasn't quite sure where to turn next. Finally he said, "Bonnie Jean, do you ever play pretend?"

"Sometimes."