A Novena for Murder (14 page)

“What?”

“She hung up!” Mary Helen let that sink in before she played her trump card. “Do you know whom I did get?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Kevin Doherty! I hit the jackpot with him. He’s been worried about Joanna since she finished her thesis. Wants to talk about it. I have an appointment with him at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, here.”

Mary Helen checked her watch. “It’s almost dinner
time. Let’s split up and come to the dining room from different angles,” she said. “And don’t be late. People might wonder what we’ve been up to.”

“They’d never guess,” Anne said, without opening her eyes.

Mary Helen pushed all the sheets of paper toward Eileen. “You keep these someplace. Maybe locked in your office. Someplace where no one can get at them.”

Eileen nodded. “And if someone questions me, old dear, do you have a cyanide capsule you’d like me to slip under my tongue?”

Head down, Mary Helen rushed along the dim corridor toward the dining room. The loose tiles clicked to the steady rhythm of her footsteps. She didn’t even notice Kate Murphy coming toward her.

“Sister, may I talk to you a minute?” The voice startled her. Kate must have been with the investigating team in the chapel.

“Surely,” Mary Helen said, without looking up.

Taking the old nun by the elbow, Kate steered her into a small hopper room off the hall. “It will only take a minute,” she said.

Even before turning to face Kate, Mary Helen had begun to examine her own conscience. There were only a few things she could think of right off to feel guilty about. Had Kate discovered the broken seal on the professor’s office door, or was it the lists, or the phone calling? Had she realized the three nuns had begun their own investigation?

“This is a little embarrassing,” Kate started, “but I’d like to ask you a personal question, if I may.”

A cold wash of relief swept over Mary Helen.

“When I went to school here,” Kate said, “the older nuns, in fact, all the nuns, were a bit more . . .” Kate stumbled for a word.

“Traditional?” Mary Helen supplied.

“Right. And I always thought the older women might stick with that.”

“They might.”

“Well, if I may ask.” Embarrassed, Kate cleared her throat. “Why didn’t you?”

Mary Helen smiled. She remembered distinctly the shocked looks of her peers when, after forty years in the traditional habit of her Order, she had decided to change to modern dress.

At first, her hairdo had given her a little trouble. But a hairdresser friend had rescued her with a short feather cut and a permanent. The result startled her the first few times she passed a mirror. Now she found her hair neat and easy to manage.

Smiling, she gave Kate the same answer she had given to many of her contemporaries who resisted the updating of the Order. “Well, I figured life would go on with or without me,” she said, “so I might as well go with it. I must admit that I did resist one change.”

“What was that?”

“I refused to change my name! When I received the habit,” she said, “I was given the name Mary Helen. I have lived with it so long I think of myself as Mary Helen.”

Kate nodded. “That seems valid,” she said.

“When we had a choice to return to our baptismal names, I refused. Long ago, I had stopped thinking of myself as Sally O’Connor.” The old nun bent toward Kate. “Besides,” she whispered, “a seventy-five-year-old Sister Sally sounds ridiculous!” Kate’s laughter filled the small hopper room.

“Sister,” she asked, “would it ever be possible for you to come to my home for dinner?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Mary Helen answered.

“Good.” Kate took the nun’s hand and pressed it, giving an extra squeeze before she hurried down the corridor.

Puzzled, Mary Helen watched her go. Something was odd. Why in the world did Kate Murphy want her to come to dinner? Why did she seem so eager to get to know her better? Did Kate suspect that she, too, was investigating? Maybe she wanted to collaborate. Mary Helen allowed herself a moment to fantasize before logic took over. More likely, it had something to do with that tall, black-haired inspector, Jack Bassetti. Yes, she’d put her money on Jack Bassetti.

After dinner, most of the nuns crowded into the television room for the local news. All eyes were eagerly glued to the large console as Sister Anne tuned it in. They were not disappointed. The two murders at Mount St. Francis College for Women filled the lead segment.

A brash woman reporter shoved a microphone in
front of Sister Cecilia. “How did you feel, Sister, when a second body was discovered at your college?” she asked.

From the look on Cecilia’s face, Mary Helen thought, the answer was clear.

“And so far the killer has not been apprehended,” the anchorman pontificated. “Will homicide hit the Holy Hill, again?” he asked, leaving a pregnant pause. Fade-out.

“Mother of God!” Sister Therese’s ejaculation whipped across the hush. Quickly, she left her place to recheck the window latches. They could hear her patter down the corridor to set the dead bolt on the front door.

“I can’t stand this,” Mary Helen mouthed to Eileen. “If we don’t do something, we’ll spend the entire evening listening for someone approaching to murder us in our beds.”

Eileen grimaced. “Why don’t we play a fast game of pinochle?” she asked. “We could give a semblance of normalcy, anyway.”

“Good idea,” Mary Helen said, grabbing Anne and a fourth.

As hard as she tried, Mary Helen couldn’t keep her mind on the game. Even Eileen frowned once, when she led with the wrong trump. Finally, Mary Helen threw in the last trick. She yawned. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I know I’m distracted and playing poorly. Right now, I think my best move would be to go straight to bed.” She was a little annoyed when no one, not even pleasant Eileen, had the courtesy to contradict her.

Mary Helen drew a warm bath. She threw in a bit of bath oil in the hope it would help relax her. After soaking until her fingers were prunelike, she hopped into bed, wide awake. She tried reading for a few minutes, but she couldn’t concentrate on the plot.

Finally, in desperation, she switched off the bedroom light and stared at the ceiling. The floodlights floated eerie, green shadows across the flat white. Mary Helen’s mind whirled. Was Leonel the murderer, after all? she wondered. Or was it that mysterious presence she had sensed in the hallway the night the professor died? Was it someone she knew, or a total stranger? And Joanna. Who had killed Joanna? Had her murderer still been in the chapel when she’d discovered the body? She hadn’t thought of that before. He could have been crouched down in a pew just waiting to pounce. And was she sure it was a
he
? Could the murderer by any chance be a
she
? But who? Where was the murderer now? Home asleep? Do murderers sleep well at night? Or was he out roaming around? Maybe even stalking the darkened campus. Mary Helen flipped on the bedroom lamp. Grabbing her glasses from the night stand, she checked to make sure she had locked the door. The button was pushed in. She flicked off the lamp. What would Kevin Doherty have to say in the morning?

Get hold of yourself, old girl, she thought, deliberately forcing her mind to let go. Think of something else. For example, why did you lose so badly at pinochle tonight? She replayed her hand, but before
she took the final trick, she fell into a fitful sleep.

The Jack of Diamonds was chasing the Queen of Spades down the long, narrow corridors of the main building. Whenever he gained on her, she would lash at him with the yellow flower in her right hand. In a fit of rage, the Jack pursued her into the chapel. He cornered her in the front pew, just before the altar. She cowered before him. Raising his thick arm high above her head, he brandished not his usual wide sword, but a bloodied statue of Dom Sebastiao. Again and again, he pommeled her thin body until the Queen of Spades lay a broken heap at his feet.

S
ister Mary Helen unbolted the heavy front door of the convent. Again! It was the third time she had done it in less than twenty minutes. This time she stationed herself in the small front parlor to stake out the door. Who was the culprit, the phantom bolter who kept slipping in to relock it? She had her suspicions.

The sound of quick, nervous footsteps pattering down the long corridor confirmed them. Shoving her bifocals up the bridge of her nose, she confronted Sister Therese in the tiny entrance hall.

“Why do you keep rebolting the door?” she asked, trying not to sound too piqued.

“Because you never know who could walk right in here and murder one of us in our own convent.”

“In broad daylight?”

“The Alves girl was murdered in broad daylight.”

Therese had a point, one that could hardly be refuted. Mary Helen changed to a more positive subject. “How’s your novena coming?” she asked.

“Just fine. I’m on the sixth day. We should be getting some results very soon,” Therese said with such confidence that Mary Helen didn’t doubt for one moment that she was right.

“And if the point you are trying to make is that I should rely on prayer alone and not bolt the door, you are sadly mistaken.” Her small, sharp nose lifted. “God helps those who help themselves,” she said, quoting the old proverb as though it were Holy Writ.

Mary Helen watched the small, birdlike figure stomp down the hallway. Therese had misunderstood. Mary Helen’s point was a simple one. Kevin Doherty was scheduled to arrive any minute now, and she pulled back the bolt so that the convent wouldn’t sound like a fortress when she opened the door for him. She realized, however, that any explanation would be lost on Therese’s fleeing back. The soft chime of the doorbell broke into her thoughts.

“Good morning,” Sister Mary Helen said, opening the door wide. A tall, lanky young man stood in the doorway. He looked as if he should be suited up and dribbling a basketball.

“I’m Kevin Doherty,” he said. “I’ve an appointment with . . .” He hesitated, searching for the name.

“With me. Come in, please.” Mary Helen led the young man to a small side parlor. He dropped into a chair. Self-consciously, he tried to ease his long legs into a comfortable position. It took three tries before he settled on putting them straight out in front of him.

Sitting opposite him, watching him fidget, Mary Helen realized what a striking couple the two must have made. Kevin, with his full head of golden hair, pug-nosed, a real Celt; Joanna, blue-black haired, delicate featured, a Latin beauty. “Star-crossed lovers,” she and Shakespeare would have agreed.

“So nice of you to come over, Kevin,” Mary Helen began, attempting to put the young man at ease. It had always been her contention that sitting in state in a small, sterile convent parlor could make the most phlegmatic person tense.

“My pleasure, Sister.” She could see his Adam’s apple move up and down his thin neck. He was having trouble getting the words out. “I—I really . . .” he stammered, then swallowed hard. “I really care about Joanna. I’d like . . . to help.”

“Perhaps if you could tell me a little about her,” Mary Helen said gently. “How you met. Where she might have been the past few days. Whatever you think could be important.”

Doherty pulled his legs in and hunched forward. He looked to Sister Mary Helen, for all the world like a curly-haired, freckled-faced
Thinker
.

“Well, we met in class,” he said. “Went out a few times, and I think we would have had something going if it hadn’t been for this thesis business.”

“What thesis business?”

“She got really involved. Something she discovered in her research.”

“Do you know what it was?” Mary Helen’s heart began to beat faster. Maybe, at last, she was hitting
on something. Maybe Therese’s novena was beginning to pay off.

“No,” he said.

Her heart dropped. “Just
no
?”

“She wouldn’t tell me what it was all about. Said it was dangerous. Didn’t want me to know.” The young man shrugged his shoulders. “Can you imagine that, Sister? Too dangerous for a guy my size, but okay for a little thing like her.” It seemed incredible to the old nun, too.

“The whole business became almost an—an obsession,” he said. “Worried me a lot.” He cracked his knuckles and shook his head sadly. “I guess I was right to worry. Like she said, it was dangerous. I still can’t believe . . .” He stopped, tears glistening in his eyes. Mary Helen resisted the urge to put her arms around him.

“Do you think she suffered much?” he asked, after a long pause.

“I don’t think so.” Mary Helen shuddered, remembering the girl’s crushed skull. “I think death was quick.”

“I’d like to find the guy who did it and break him in two.” Doherty cracked his knuckles again.

“Even if you don’t break him in two, it’s important we find the fellow,” Mary Helen agreed, “so that he won’t harm anyone else.” She paused a moment to let that sink in. “Now tell me, Kevin, is there anything at all you can remember about the research?”

He leaned back in his chair and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. “Well, I know it was on
the Portuguese immigrants. Some kind of an abuse, I think. She went down to Santa Clara County a lot, talking to people.”