Bad Faith (9 page)

After prayers, the sisters went to the refectory. Their meals were taken without conversation, listening to a reading that would nourish their souls as they fed their bodies. Still determined not to look at the skull and think of many practical jokes her brother, Kevin, would have pulled with it, she kept her eyes glued on the plate before her.

For a second, her mind wandered to Tom, and his wife, Gloria.
I
bet his ear is being bent as well,
she thought, uncharitably allowing a small grin to escape. Then she focused back on the reading from Thomas Merton’s works.

Afterward, Sister Bernarda hurried to the scriptorium and Sister Agatha left to go to her post in the parlor. As she opened the enclosure doors to step into the parlor, Reverend Mother came up behind her. “One moment, child.”

Sister Agatha turned and lowered her head out of respect. “Yes, Mother?”

“I was notified this morning by the archdiocese that Sheriff Green will be given permission to enter the cloister. But I have gained a concession, too. He must be accompanied by one of our externs at all times when he is among us. I would like that extern to be you.”

Sister Agatha stared at Mother in surprise. “I just saw the sheriff and he never said a word to me about this.”

“He doesn’t know yet, but he will soon.”

Sister Agatha sighed. “That man is determined to find answers—and I’m afraid he still thinks they’re here.” She told Reverend Mother about her discussion with Tom Green.

“I don’t know what’s more unsettling—that we’re suspects, or that we may have had an intruder.” Reverend Mother paused. “What worries me most is how the pressure of the investigation will affect the older sisters. Our monastery should be a place of peace and security to all of us.” She shook her head, her gaze on the rosary fastened to her cincture. “One thing you must do as soon as possible, child, is find out how that dog got in. It’s very dangerous to have an access point we don’t know about.”

“I’ll go over every inch of the grounds, inside and out. Maybe I can find something.”

“Have you heard anything more about when we can expect our new chaplain to arrive? I understood that he has been delayed.”

“They told Frances Williams it could be a few days, Mother,” she answered. “I asked her to remind the archdiocese that we desperately need a chaplain. I know that not using the chapel is very upsetting to everyone, and not having Mass is much worse, especially to Sister Clothilde and Sister Ignatius.”

Reverend Mother smiled. “Not anymore. It seems Sister Ignatius started one of her special novenas to St. Theresa of Lisieux. She has quite a devotion to the little saint. This time she asked for a sign that we would have a chaplain very soon.

And she got the sign she wanted this morning.”

“What was it? I remember when she asked for a fresh rose in the middle of winter, and then there was the time that the blue butterfly appeared in chapel.”

“Do you have to ask?” Reverend Mother gave her a patient, amused smile.

It took Sister a beat to figure it out. “A white dog!”

“There you have it. Praised be Jesus Christ, child.”

“Now and forever,” she answered.

Sister Agatha took a detour and stopped by the scriptorium. There she found Sister Bernarda hard at work. Sister Agatha told her about Sister Ignatius’s sign. “Can you believe it? Sister Iggy
always
gets answers! I wish my track record was half as good.”

“It’s no surprise that it isn’t. Sister Iggy believes with all her heart that she
will
get an answer. You only half expect results, so that’s what you get.”

Sister Agatha gave her an owlish blink, stunned. As usual, Sister Bernarda’s answer was right on target

Sister Agatha woke up the next morning to feel a familiar weight resting on her feet. Rex couldn’t have gotten out again—let alone into the monastery. Sister Bernarda and she had gone over every entrance and exit, making sure everything was secure. They’d only made one concession to the improved security—leaving the hall window with its broken screen open. The breeze that circulated down the hall and trickled into the rooms beyond offered the only respite from the unrelenting heat.

Sister Agatha tossed the covers back and turned on the light. The dog lay at the foot of her bed again, giving her a panting grin. He had a musty smell today, like he needed a bath.

“You’ve been sent to test me, haven’t you?” Sister Agatha said, then gave him a quick hug. He was a nuisance, but impossible not to like. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me how you got in?”

The dog laid his head back down on the bed and regarded her with big black eyes.

“Okay. I’ll figure it out for myself. Now we have to get going.”

She got ready for Matins and Lauds, put the dog outside, and saw Sister Clothilde come out to feed him some of the monastery’s oatmeal.

It was déjà vu all over again. After prayers outside, Sister Agatha studied her fellow nuns’ faces. By now everyone had seen the dog and they clearly welcomed his presence.

Enlisting Sister Bernarda’s help after breakfast, they started to inspect the grounds again. The broken screen at the end of the hall was sitting crosswise in the window, having come loose from one of the top hooks. Not remembering how securely it had been fastened in place, they couldn’t rule out a breeze as the culprit rather than a large dog. It was decided to put a screen-door hook at the bottom and fix the screen before the next evening.

Leaving Sister Bernarda for a few moments, Sister Agatha took Rex from Sister Clothilde, who had just given the dog a tortilla spread with peanut butter. Rex was furiously licking the roof of his mouth to get at the peanut butter that had leaked from the tortilla.

“I’m afraid I need to take Rex on a mission of discovery. Pray he shows us how he’s getting in,” Sister Agatha said.

She met with Sister Bernarda a few minutes later and they set out. They examined the gap between the hinges on the gate and the wooden posts that anchored it to the wall. It was only four inches wide, too narrow for a dog as large as Rex. There was just enough clearance under the closed gate for a fat snake, and the limestone gravel underneath was compacted by traffic and showed no sign of having been disturbed.

Next they walked outside the enclosed grounds, examining the ground there. The earth was hard packed, which meant little or no tracks, so they broadened their search. As Sister Agatha glanced around her, she noted the fenced-in electrical transformer that provided power to their area. Tall tumble-weeds lined the inside and outside of the fence, and a warning sign in English and Spanish cautioned against the shock hazard. The narrow gate was padlocked, and obviously hadn’t been used in a while, judging by the weeds growing against it on both sides.

They walked all the way around the area bordering the monastery grounds, leaving no stone unturned, even when crossing the abandoned, concrete-lined irrigation ditch that had been there since the 1920s. They looked for rocks or high spots on the outside of the wall that could have given Rex a jumping platform of sorts, and searched the ground for paw prints that might give them a clue as to the route he’d used, but there was nothing obvious.

Finally they walked over to the cottonwood tree closest to the wall. Sister Agatha looked up at the relatively low branch that extended above the wall.

“Nice try, but dogs don’t climb trees,” Sister Bernarda said, laughing.

“Let’s see if it
could
be done. When I was a child I saw movies where dogs did some amazing things,” Sister Agatha reached up and grabbed a limb, pulling herself up slowly until she was standing on a stout branch six feet up, holding herself steady by grabbing the branch above her head.

“I think you’re wasting your time—and likely to fall,” she said suddenly, concerned by the height Sister Agatha had reached.

“Let’s see what happens. Rex, come!” Sister Agatha called to the dog, who’d been watching her curiously.

To their amazement, the dog leaped up to a fork in the tree about five feet off the ground, then walked up the same limb Sister Agatha was standing on. As she moved forward, the branch started to droop toward the wall.

“Look, I could walk all the way over to the wall, and I bet he could too,” Sister Agatha said.

“Okay. Now get off there before that branch breaks, and the order has to spend a fortune on duct tape to put both of you back together.”

“One more minute.”

“Even if he can do it, the fact remains that we don’t know if the dog would have thought of doing that on his own. The only way we could consider it proof is if we’d seen him doing it
before
now.”

“But this method would explain why he couldn’t get back out once he was in,” Sister Agatha said slowly.

Sister Bernarda called Rex, who climbed back down easily. For Sister Agatha getting out of the tree was more difficult. Her long, heavy habit kept catching in the branches and tangling about her feet. Finally, she was back on the ground.

“If we rule out the tree, or someone using a ladder to come and go, then rubbing out their tracks, there’s only one other possibility,” Sister Agatha said. “One of the sisters is letting the dog in and keeping it a secret.”

“Ridiculous. None of the professed sisters ever walk close to the wall. This part of our grounds isn’t an area that’s open to them. And even if Sister Mary Lazarus decided to wander, she wouldn’t be able to do it—all her time is regimented between instruction, prayers, and chores.”

“I know all that,” Sister Agatha said, “but that’s the only possibility left, and that’s the conclusion the sheriff will surely reach. Unfortunately, the implications could bring an enormous scandal to us.”

It took Sister Bernarda a moment to follow Sister Agatha’s train of thought, but as soon as she understood, she was immediately horrified. “You mean he’ll think one of us is letting a man into the enclosure, and the dog followed in on his own?”

‘To us, the idea is absurd because we know everyone here and we understand the value of a vocation. But to Sheriff Green…”

“You’re right.” Sister Bernarda sighed. “Well,
we
know it’s an absolutely ridiculous proposition, so we’d better work twice as hard to find out how this dog is actually getting in!”

They went around the property once more, and this time they searched around the buildings as well as the walls looking for paw prints near every single window. Finally they were forced to give up.

“We have other duties waiting for us, Sister Agatha. This is getting us nowhere. Maybe we should rethink this and try again later.”

They’d just reached the front doors when they heard a car approaching.

“That’s Sheriff Green,” Sister Agatha said, and to her credit managed to suppress a groan. “I’ll go deal with him.”

Sister Bernarda nodded and passed through the parlor doors and back into the enclosure.

As Tom Green got out of his car, Sister Agatha stood by the entrance, and the dog came to stand by her side.

Green gave the dog a frustrated look, then walked toward the animal. “Rex, come!” he said, and attached a leash to the dog’s collar as soon as he responded. “Any idea how he got in this time?” He stopped by the steps, and Rex sat at heel.

“We just went around the entire wall, inside and out. The only possible way we could come up with is if he used that tree.” She pointed. “I climbed out onto the low branch there, near the wall, and you know what Rex did?” Sister Agatha said smugly.

“He followed you?” Tom rolled his eyes. “He was trained in agility. If you call him, he’ll come, but that doesn’t mean he’d have done such a stunt on his own.” He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s the answer, and I bet you don’t either.”

“Maybe not, but we can’t rule it out completely. He’s obviously a very smart animal.”

“That he is, and that’s what makes it so tough to handle him.” Tom looked back at his car, but then turned and stared at the dog thoughtfully. “I’m not sure I should take him back to the station.”

“Where else would you take him? His kennel at San Felipe?”

Tom took a deep breath, then let it out again. “Rex is close to seven and a half now. He’s served our department well, but it’s time to retire him so we can get a younger dog. We haven’t been able to find an approved home for him, so that means we’ll soon be putting him to sleep.”

Sister Agatha’s eyes widened. “You can’t do that. He’s perfectly healthy.”

“He has a touch of arthritis in his back legs from time to time.”

“I have a ‘touch of arthritis’ too, but Reverend Mother’s not considering putting me to sleep!” she said indignantly.

He laughed. “It’s not the same thing, though I’m glad to hear you feel this way. I have a proposition for all of you, but I expect Reverend Mother needs to be in on this before I say anything more. Can we go to the parlor?”

“Of course.”

Sister Agatha left Tom with Rex in the parlor as she went to find Reverend Mother. She found the abbess helping Sister Maria Victoria with the quilted wall hanging. Once again she had to force down a stab of envy wishing she could have been able to work on it too.

On the way back down the hall, Sister Agatha filled Reverend Mother in on what they’d learned in their search, and what they’d found out about Rex. “The sheriff didn’t say so,” she added as she finished, “but I think he wants to give us the dog.”

“It’s funny
that
should come up now. I had a long talk with Sister Ignatius. She feels that the presence of the dog is a sign of protection from God and that, should the opportunity arise, we should volunteer to take care of him.”

“Sister Ignatius’s signs are legendary, Mother. But, then again, there’s something to the law of averages. Half the time Sister Ignatius also thinks it’s a sign if we get rain, or if she sees a field mouse in the monastery.” She paused, then added, “To be perfectly honest, I’d like to think of Rex as the guardian angel in dog form that Father Don Bosco had. But the truth is, I know Rex is just a dog. Having said that, many monasteries
do
keep dogs.…”

“That dog came to us twice—whether by divine intercession or coincidence, I can’t say,” Reverend Mother replied. ‘To return him to people who are only going to euthanize him so they won’t have to pay for his support doesn’t seem right to me. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s see what Sheriff Green has to say.”