“But Delgado threatened to kill Becca’s parents if she told anyone what he did to her.”
“Sure, he threatened to. He threatened to do a lot of things, but he never did any of them, except what he did to Lucia, which we can’t prove. Even the things he did to Becca are her word against his, and she’s a kid who, thanks to me, now thinks the ghost of her best friend’s been following her around for the past decade. If she opens up her mouth about that, no one’s going to believe anything else she says. I definitely screwed the pooch on that one.”
We’d gotten into the car, where I began pulling off my uncomfortable pumps, one by one, and hurling them to the floor. Jesse watched me with one eyebrow raised in amusement. “Screwed the pooch?”
“Yeah. It means messed up. It’s more polite than saying—well, you can figure it out.”
Now one corner of his mouth went up. “I think you’re being too hard on yourself.”
“Am I? If we’re to believe what that Dunleavy woman says, Delgado’s a respectable business owner. He’s got the money to hire a good defense attorney, one who’d rip Becca to shreds in five minutes on the stand, given her current state of mind. And what are the chances Becca’s parents are going to allow that to happen? Zip.”
Jesse’s half smile vanished. “But a photographer of children? You know what that means, Susannah.”
“Yeah. About that.” I pulled my phone from my bag and scrolled to the article about Lucia’s death. “Becca said he used to do lots of things for the school, not just work in the stables. Take another look at that photo of Lucia.”
Jesse took the phone from me and stared at the photo. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“The photo credit. The print’s really tiny, but as soon as I heard it, I knew the name sounded familiar.”
“ ‘Photo by James Delgado,’” he read aloud, then glanced at me. “Nombre de Dios.”
“Right? They probably thought they could save a few bucks by having their friendly amateur photographer-slash-handyman, Jimmy Delgado, do the school photos that year. All they’d have to pay was printing costs. It was right after Father Francisco started and the school was in all that financial trouble, as we know from our little tour.”
“No wonder Lucia looks so solemn,” Jesse said softly. “She knew Becca’s secret. And his.”
“Of course it doesn’t prove anything, either, but if he did murder her, wouldn’t the coroner have—?”
“You told me that Becca said Jimmy’s tall. A broken neck would look the same to a coroner who didn’t know to suspect foul play, whether she’d suffered a violent fall from a horse or been thrown to the ground by a tall man who wanted her dead.”
“That’s what Lucia says happened.”
A muscle leaped in Jesse’s jaw. “So exhuming the body would be useless. Any DNA evidence he might have left would be destroyed by now by the embalming process and by time. But what about the money?”
“What money?”
“Delgado got the money from somewhere to suddenly quit his job at the stables and open his own business. The timing is right. While I’m guessing there wasn’t enough money from the sale of that library flooring to open a photography studio, I think Father Francisco got the money from somewhere to bribe Delgado to leave Sacred Trinity and keep his mouth shut about what he did to Lucia.”
“Yes,” I said, after thinking about it. “You’re right. Father Francisco only pretended not to believe Becca’s confession. He must have gone straight from the chapel to Delgado and told him he’d have to leave. Sacred Trinity was already in bad financial straits. They couldn’t afford another scandal.”
“And Delgado demanded money in exchange for leaving without a fuss.” Jesse switched on the ignition and backed the car from the parking lot. “And once again, thanks to Father Francisco, Sacred Trinity was saved.”
“Amazing Father Francisco.” I stared grimly at the neat rows of Italian cypress trees as we headed down the school’s driveway back toward 17-Mile Drive. “Is there no miracle he can’t perform?”
“Yes. One. He can’t hide the money trail from him to Delgado. Somewhere there has got to be a record of it—the priest withdrawing it, and Delgado depositing it.”
“A lot of donations made to churches are in cash, as you well know. You’ve seen the collection plate as it goes around.” As Jesse’s bride-to-be, I occasionally tagged along when he went to church to give a good impression to the local bishop, since we needed his permission to marry in the mission basilica (I must have done a good job since we got it—though a fat lot of good it was going to do us now).
“And even if Father Francisco did write Delgado a check,” I went on, determined to keep my mind on the matter at hand, “it doesn’t connect either of them to Lucia’s death. It’s still Becca’s word against theirs. There’s no evidence, Jesse.”