(continued from previous file
"Who is it?" Rosie queried as she burst into the room. "Oh, it's you. Please leave."
"I came here to ask you to help me. Bebe said that you knew Sister Ann."
Rosie said, "She was my music teacher."
He sighed. "I remember my music lessons. That's when things made sense."
"My wife asked you to leave," Rick said.
"It's okay, Rick. Come on in. Are you hungry?"
Rosie showed K.K. into the kitchen where he sat on a bar stool. "You look different without makeup."
"Just an ordinary guy," he sang.
Rick busied himself with the linguine but kept his eyes on the cutlery as K.K. said, "I didn't want anyone to harm a nun."
"Why did you write that song?" Rosie asked.
He hesitated, his face twisting. "I don't really know. You know how it is. Something comes to you. And there it is."
"No thought about it? No conscience?"
"I hate censorship."
"So do I. I believe that art comes before politics. But you rappers are in a tricky place. The kids believe everything you tell them. The record companies will cut anything that will sell. They don't give a damn who gets hurt."
"What should I do?" K.K. asked seriously.
"”Penance•."
* * * *
The cool marbeled stained glass illuminated massive vault that was St. Patrick's Cathedral was mobbed. Parishioners were lined up at the side entrance while at the main entrance, media people barricaded the narrow halls, ignoring the New York City police's warning that they were not welcome inside. When Rick and Rosie appeared, Bebe rushed to them. "How's the investigation going?"
Rosie took her rosary from her bag and made the sign of the cross. "I'm here to mourn Sister Ann. Excuse me." She elbowed her way inside the cathedral. Rick watched her step on cameramen's toes, a sure way to get them to move. Rick followed and they filed into a rear row. "Oh, oh," she said.
Walking down the center aisle was K.K. wearing a somber suit which contrasted with his flowing hair. Behind him, Miz Melinda followed, holding a bullhorn. As K.K. reached the first pew, he dropped to his knees, took the bullhorn and rapped about how the Church should render Sister Ann sainthood. Several New York City police converged on the musician, telling him that this was not the place for a performance. K.K. nodded his head and obediently filed into the row, Miz Melinda beside him. As the clergy appeared at the altar, the coffin was carried into church.
Rosie cried and Rick consoled her. After the ceremony was over, K.K. jumped out of the pew and knelt before Sister Ann's coffin. "I swear," he announced on the bullhorn, "that I will never write music again!" Miz Melinda looked grave as he rose from his knees, bowed to the clergy and strode down the aisle. When he reached Rosie's pew, he grabbed her hand. "I thank you for my epiphany. You made me see the evil I was incurring. I will never forget you." Then he left the cathedral.
* * * * Miz Melinda looked at Rosie strangely as she tossed an envelope on the table. Rosie waited, then sipped iced capuccino. "What's that?"
"A rather large bunch of money," Miz Melinda said.
"People don't throw things at me."
"Hey, take it or leave it."
Rosie jumped up, took a fiver from her purse and signalled the waiter for the check. The waiter was a male cutie with hair drooping with henna curls. He did a couple of dancesteps and hummed a tune as he worked on the intricate mathematics of adding up the check. Rosie grew impatient, annoyed at the place. Earlier, when she phoned Rosie, Miz Melinda had insisted that they meet at the Stardust Cafe, a hangout for musicians of all sizes, shapes and genders. Since their date was to be three p.m., Rosie agreed. But she hadn't counted on the fact that daylight meant nothing to these maniacs. When she walked into the cafe, she saw that all the windows were painted black. A silver moon was painted on the ceiling with the words ”The Celestine Sky• printed under it. Everything was black except for the red tu-tus the waiters were wearing which matched their patent spike heels.
"Here you are, bambi," the waiter said to Rosie as he handed her the check.
Miz Melinda hit Rosie's shoulder. "We're not finished."
"Sure we are." Rosie handed the waiter a five. She said to the girl, "You can pick up the rest of the tab for your discarded dinner. Why did you order all that food and not eat a thing?"
Miz Melinda took a cigarette out of a pack in her satchel and looked as if she was about to slug Rosie. "Give me another chance to talk with you."
Rosie hesitated, then thought, `why not’? Again, She sat opposite the strange girl as Miz Melinda gobbled up her steak sandwich. Between bites, she spoke. Rosie noticed the pierced rings on her earlobes and wondered why she had so many. "There's a lot of money in that envelope," Miz Melinda muttered.
"For what?"
"I want you to remove the hex you put on K.K."
"What hex?"
"He's refused to write any songs, says he's only going to perform other people's tunes. It's all your fault." She gulped down a mouthful of beef then put the sandwich down on her plate. "He says it's his penance." "That's between him and his confessor. I have nothing to do with that."
"You sure do," Miz Melinda's voice was frantic. "He's got a crush on you."
"I thought you were his girl."
"Yes, I am. But you know how dudes are. They get crushes on other people who aren't particularly good for them. Like you, for example. You're poison for K.K. You'd ruin him...you have already." Her voice was grim. "That's how it is with some women. They turn their dudes into turds and those poor idiots never get it back."
"Get what back?"
"Whatever they had in the first place. Heart. Soul. Sex. Music. Whatever."
She lit the cigarette. Rosie noticed a strange movement with her lips. When the girl took the butt out, it looked like shredded wheat. Miz Melinda looked embarrassed as she spit tobacco into a black napkin. "Sorry to be a slob."
Rosie looked at Miz Melinda's plate and saw similar shredding to the ham sandwich at the murder scene. She tried to remain calm. "What happened to that steak?"
Miz Melinda opened her mouth and pointed at two pierced rings on her tongue. Rosie hadn't thought of that. "Got to be careful with grub. You sort of curl your tongue and it's okay. When I'm wrecked I forget about it." She pointed to her plate. "And out pops curlicue steak."
"If it's so cumbersome when you eat and smoke, why wear them?"
Miz Melinda's face broke into a smile. "Hell! It's great for sex."
* * * *
Carefully Rosie looked at Kushel. "Are you saying that Kurt Jimmy Doherty committed suicide?"
The police lieutenant shook his head. "When Sister Ann joined the convent, the guy went crazy. He began snorting, drinking, doing everything he could to kill himself. When they found him, he was alone in bed. He'd choked on his own saliva. It's a common death for people who pop pills, drink, and snort all at the same time. The larynx becomes lax, and in their sleep, they choke. It's listed as a drug death."
"Couldn't this be related to Sister Ann's murder?"
"How?"
"Suppose someone blamed her for Doherty's death. Someone who loved him. Did he have a wife?"
"I'll have to check on that."
"Have your experts given you any reason for the shredded ham?" He shook his head. She told him about Miz Melinda's steak and cigarette. "Ask them if pierced rings on the tongue can cause this kind of shredding."
The next day Rosie got a phone call from Kushel telling her that Doherty had a daughter named Melinda. "Bingo!"
"I'll bring her in for questioning."
After she hung up, Rosie thought if the girl was questioned by the police, there was no real evidence to link her to the murder of Sister Ann. No one could prove that her pierced tongue had shredded the ham, since anyone with that piercing could have done the same thing. Miz Melinda had to be trapped, and Rosie knew how to do it. But she didn't want Kushel or Rick to know. She'd have to move fast. She phoned K.K. and made a date to see him in an hour. When she arrived at the suite, Rosie got to the point. "K.K., I know that Miz Melinda is Doherty's daughter."
He looked at her askance. "You found out about the tune."
"What about the tune?"
"I've been dry for a very long time. I ran out of creative steam. I was really depressed and Melinda came along with this idea."
Rosie's mind began to race. "She wrote the tune?"
K.K. shook his head. "No. Her father."
"Doherty?"
"When Blue Annie - that was Sister Ann's rocker name - left him, he was furious at her and the church - so he wrote ”Kill A Nun•. At that time, Melinda's mom couldn't get the record companies to do it. When Melinda showed it to me, I was so dry I'd have done anything. She gave me the tune, said I could have it for my own. My record company loved it." His voice caught. "It's platinum."
"Does Melinda have more tunes?"
"Her father ran dry, like me." He ran his fingers through his long hair. "She's freaked. She keeps telling me about how her father used to give her music lessons when she was a kid, how that was the only time she had with him."
Rosie said, "Another music lesson."
Rosie waited at the Hudson Street Pier, hoping and praying that Rick wouldn't come looking for her. She'd told him she was going out for a run and promised not to leave their block. Now she stood at the river's edge watching a tug boat go by.
Behind her, Melinda's voice was harsh. "Do you know that the police want to talk to me?"
Rosie nodded, noticing a bulky object under the girl's vest. It was probably a gun. "Tell me what happened," she suggested.
"I didn't mean to kill her. I simply wanted to talk to her. My dad really loved her, and she used him. She tried to get him to reform and return to the Church. She said the life they were leading was sinful. That ruined him. His childhood beliefs haunted him - he was a baptized Catholic. And then his music stopped coming." Her voice broke. "Artists need love, they need to be nurtured. And she cut him off at the stem." Rosie said softly, "Go on."
"My father had given her lots of his music and she still had the sheets. I asked her, I said, 'Look, you ruined my father's life. After you left him, he was never the same again.'" She appealed to Rosie. "He couldn't write music. He began to hate it." Her voice shook. "He never gave me another music lesson."
"Sister Ann must have been very understanding. She was a good person."
Miz Melinda shook her head frantically. "No. She wouldn't give me his music. She knew my dad had written `Kill A Nun', and she felt responsible. That's why she fought so hard for the song to be trashed. But I told her, I said, 'Look, I love K.K. He's gone dry, and he needs the other tunes. Help me out.' But she said that she couldn't give them to me, that they were the devil's work. I had to kill her."
Suddenly, the gun was in her hands. Rosie watched her carefully. "You don't want to kill again, do you?"
"It's for K.K. You've put a hex on him - he's doing the same thing that my father did. I won't let that happen again."
"He's suffering writer's block. It'll pass."
"He blames himself for the nun's death. ”You did that to him."
"I'm not his conscience."
"No, but you got to him."
Rosie saw a shadow fall between them. Startled, Miz Melinda turned to see K.K. walk toward her. The girl said to him, "Baby, what are you doing here? I said I'd take care of you and I'm going to shoot this bimbo who put a curse on you."
Cripes, Rosie thought. Which way would K.K. go?
She wasn't sure. But K.K. went to the girl's side. "Give me the gun."
She waved the pistol around. "No! I have to save you!"
"I can do without that kind of help," K.K. said. His tone of voice caused the girl to stagger, her attention diverted. Rosie used the opportunity to practice one of the kick-boxing moves Rick taught her. The gun flew out of the girl's hand and onto the river's edge. Miz Melinda hurled herself after it, but K.K. grabbed her. She struggled with him as Rosie carefully put the murder weapon in the ziplock bag which she always had in her purse. Don't ask why.
"We'll give this to the police. I'm sure it'll match the bullets which killed Sister Ann."
Miz Melinda wept. "Can't we do something to help her?" K.K. implored.
Rosie said clearly. "She has to pay for her sins… We ”all do."
* * * *
Rick kept ranting while Rosie did pushups. When she got to thirty-nine, she gave up. "Okay. I did what you asked me not to do. But I knew once the cops got hold of Miz Melinda, we'd lose the initiative."
"I'm going to tell your dad."
Rosie freaked. "I'll do anything you say."
Rick brightened. "Will you wait on me hand and foot?" She nodded.
"Will you go to the movies I want to see?"
"Yes."
"Will you promise to love me forever?"
"You don't have to force me to do that." He smiled. "Am I forgiven?" she asked.
But he was still serious. "No. You keep doing things like this. She could have shot you."
"I knew that K.K. was going to show. We planned it that way."
"Why him and not me?"
"Because she loves him. I knew he'd melt her hard heart down." She giggled. "The way you melt mine." "Will you always love me?"
"Always."
He kissed her and they tangoed around the room.
When they fell onto the couch, he said seriously, "So the motive wasn't political, after all." "Murder is always personal," Rosie said.
Rick & Rosie are featured in New Mystery Magazine, and find Rosemarie Santini's novels: A SWELL STYLE OF MURDER and THE DISENCHANTED DIVA, published by St. Martin's Press. Miss Santini lives in SoHo, NYC.
This story first appeared in New Mystery Magazine, print edition Volume IV number 2.
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