Black as Night: A Fairy Tale Retold (26 page)

The driver, Mr. Kane, was a Knight of Columbus who owned a discount store in the Bronx, and he was an occasional volunteer at the friary on the weekends. A white-haired, red-faced Irishman, he had already donated a used van, a furnace, and hundreds of cans of soup and beans to the friary, as well as any surplus merchandise from his stores. Today he had several boxes of groceries, which the novices unloaded gratefully, and something else.

“Utility garbage cans on wheels, from a janitorial supply liquidation,” he said, pointing to stacks of gray plastic cylinders in the back of the truck. “I got them for a song but I don’t think I’ll sell too many at my store. So why don’t you take ‘em?”

“Thanks very much,” Father Francis said. “Yes, I’m sure we can use them.”

“Can you use twenty? If not, just take what you can use. I’ll see if the Missionaries of Charity want the others.”

“Ladies first,” Brother Herman said.

Mr. Kane laughed. “Okay. But save me time driving. Why don’t you take six of them, and I’ll get the sisters more if they want?”

“Certainly,” Brother Herman said, and looked at the novices. “Let’s get them inside. Can you each take two?”

The novices wrestled the heavy-duty oversized trashcans out of the truck. But once they were turned right side up, the four revolving wheels on the bottom of the cans slid easily over the pavement to the basement steps. They thanked the Knight, who saluted and drove off to his next stop.

“These will be a real help to sort the donated groceries,” Brother Herman said as they hauled them down the steps. “You know, cans in here, boxes in there… that will make it easier to put together the food bags.”

“Plus they move easily,” Leon said appreciatively. He pushed the can across the wide expanse of the basement floor. It clicked effortlessly along the linoleum, gaining momentum. Inspired, he quickened his pace, grabbed the sides, and leapt inside the trashcan. It hurtled across the floor and crashed into the opposite wall. “Durable too,” he reported, checking the sides.

The other friars laughed. Grinning, Leon shoved himself off the wall and plunged towards them. Stepping forward, Charley grabbed the edges of Leon’s can and hurled him across the floor again.

“Woo hoo!” Leon yelled. “Do it again, Charley!”

Not one to miss the fun, Brother Herman clambered into another can. He pushed himself off the table, and, finding that he wasn’t going fast enough, grabbed the ends of Matt’s rope belt. “Come on, Matt, run!” he urged. “Give me some momentum!” Matt obliged.

Seeing this, Leon grabbed Brother Charley’s cord and took the reins in hand. “Race you, Claus!” The two teams of friars careened across the basement floor, the wheels of the cans spinning smoothly, a tremendously satisfying thunder.

“Will you look at these maniacs?” Father Francis stood in the doorway with Nora. “You’d think we were running an amusement park down here.”

“Just test-driving the new garbage cans!” Leon called. “Hey, cut it out!” he exclaimed as Brother Charley started spinning him around.

“Come on and try them out, Francis!” Herman bellowed.

The novices immediately started up a chant. “Fa-ther Fran-cis, Fa-ther Fran-cis…”

“Good Lord,” the older friar muttered, but his eyes glinted. Brother George came down the steps to see what was going on. The novices picked up their chant, slamming the walls and stomping.

Father Francis crossed to one of the trashcans and the novices cheered wildly. “How do you work these things?” he said. “George, give me a hand.” George obliged, and pulled Father Francis across the floor in his can. With whoops, the other two trashcans took off after him. Nora sat on the steps of the basement and laughed and laughed.

Finding the rest of the friary deserted and wanting to investigate the din in the basement, Father Bernard came downstairs and paused, smiling at the sight.

“Am I going to get my novice class back or are you all becoming urban charioteers?” he asked.

Recollecting himself, Leon leapt out of the trashcan, hi-fived Charley and assisted Father Francis in getting out of his can.

“I say we keep a few of these for recreational use,” the superior mused. “They’re not bad. Good mileage, quick response time…”

“At the next chapter, maybe we’ll write that into the norms,” Father Bernard said. Together they all walked up the steps to the vestibule, and entered the church again.

“How did things go with Tonio?” Brother Herman asked after they had all genuflected in front of the tabernacle and were walking back into the friary.

“Odd. I went with him into the entranceway, and started to hear his confession. Then he started coughing and asked me for a drink of water. I went to get him one, but when I came back, he was gone.” The friars reached the entranceway, and suddenly Father Bernard halted and pointed. They all looked. The spot above the doorway, where a large hand-carved crucifix had hung, was empty.

“So that was it,” Father Bernard said quietly. “He didn’t want the sacraments—he wanted to supplement his income.” He sighed heavily. “Well, I didn’t obey our own rule about not leaving visitors alone. Serves me right.”

The rest of the friars were silent. “I’m sorry we were all fooling around downstairs,” Leon said, deflated. “If we had been up here—”

“No, it was my own fault,” Father Bernard rubbed his head, smiling wryly. “I was starting to think that my golden counsels were winning his soul. It’s good for my humility, that’s all.”

Leon turned towards the door as he heard the sound of ominously familiar barking. There was a knock, and Father Francis pulled the door open to reveal a tight-lipped Marisol, straining against two yelping Rottweilers. As soon as the door was open, she released the leashes, and the dogs sped into the friary.

“You keep dem
,” she said. “
Un present
.”

She turned on her heel and marched down the steps, ignoring Father Francis’s protests, while Charley and George hurried to catch the dogs that were speeding through the church, still howling.

“I suppose this is another donation?” Father Francis said, shutting the door. “What on earth possessed her to give us these two devils?”

Brother Leon groaned. He knew too well why she had given the dogs to them, and he suspected he knew the Lord’s reason too. “Purgatory,” was all he said.

III

Bear sorted through the shiny pile of photographs and stopped at one picture of Blanche, standing in front of a backdrop of large chess pieces looming over her.

“That’s from my play this summer,” Rose said. “That was opening night.”

Blanche wore a pale blue dress and a white sweater. Her long black hair, caught up in a white bow, fell down to her elbows. Bear searched her expression. To him, her smile seemed a bit forced. He wished it had been a close-up. He wanted a better idea of what had been going on behind her eyes.

He put the picture aside and looked at the next one. Rose stood next to her sister, dressed in a red little girl’s dress with a black headband.

“That’s me in my costume.”

“You were Alice in Wonderland, weren’t you?”

“Technically, no. I was Alice, but the play didn’t take place in Wonderland. It took place on the other side of the Looking Glass,” Rose explained, moving to a more comfortable position on the couch beside him. Fish was busy on the phone. Jean was out. Mrs. Foster was making lunch. It hadn’t been a particularly productive day for searching thus far.

Rose pushed back her hair. “See, Lewis Carroll wrote two books—
Alice in Wonderland
, and
Through the Looking Glass
. Movies usually try to combine both of them into one story, but they’re actually significantly different tales. Our director wanted to give the later book its due.”

“And the differences are—? I never read them,” Bear said. He looked through other pictures of Rose with various cast members dressed in odd costumes.

“
Alice in Wonderland
is about the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, and the Queen of Hearts. Alice spends the whole time trying to get into this beautiful garden and growing bigger and smaller all the time,” Rose explained. “
Through the Looking Glass
is less well known, but I almost like it better. For one thing, you can tell Alice is more grown up and independent. She makes her own decisions, even though they’re not always the right ones. Looking-Glass Land is supposed to be the land on the other side of the mirror—everything is backwards. Alice discovers the world has become a giant chessboard and she chooses to take part in the game. Just like in the first book, she meets all sorts of strange characters. There’s a snobbish Red Queen, and an old White Knight, who becomes an important figure for her. He and Alice are not exactly in love with each other, but they care for each other. The director said the White Knight is almost a substitute father for Alice—maybe an image of Lewis Carroll himself.”

“You seem to have enjoyed it.”

“Oh, I did,” Rose said with a sigh. “I was so surprised that I got the part. It was for the Bronx Children’s Theater. I wanted Blanche to try out too, so we could be in it together, but she said she wasn’t an actress. I tried out for the part of the silly White Queen, but then the director had me read for Alice, and he picked me for the part. It sort of devoured our summer after that—my being the lead. Between the play practices and work, I barely saw Blanche after a while. But I kept telling myself I’d make it up to her when we went on vacation in California together. And then she decided not to go on vacation with us after all.”

“Why was that?”

Rose paused. “Well, I think she was feeling—I don’t know. Mom and I were worried about her, because she seemed so reclusive. But Blanche kept saying she just wanted to work more hours to make her tuition payment for college. I guess this summer she really grew up.”

“Meaning?”

“We’ve always been a close family. Until now, Blanche’s life sort of revolved around us. But this summer, she was off doing her own work, following her own activities. Like visiting Mr. Fairston and those folks in the nursing home. I didn’t do that with her. And then I guess that things were going on inside her mind that she felt she couldn’t talk about with us. It was hard to feel separated from her like that. I guess she was—well, becoming more of an adult. And less like a kid.” She looked at Bear, smiling, but he could see a tear in her eye. “Sort of like Alice, I guess.”

Bear thought about that. “She’s been challenging me, too,” he said quietly, thinking of her last letter and their last conversation.

“I wish we had made her come with us, but Mom said we needed to respect her decision,” Rose said. She turned over the photos dismally. “She wanted to be alone, and Mom said we should let her be alone. I guess Blanche didn’t want the struggle of having to explain to a lot of relatives we don’t see too often about everything she was going through. They’d have understood even less than we have.”

Bear was silent, picking at the edges of the photos. “Rose, I’m sorry,” he said with difficulty.

“For what?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner. If I had, maybe I could have helped her sort through some of this. Maybe I should have been the one she was talking to.”

“Well, maybe it was something she needed to face alone. If you had been here, you might have—I don’t know, distracted each other. Who knows?” Rose said. “Maybe this is all happening for a good purpose.”

“I hope so,” Bear stood up. “I can’t see that now, but I really hope you’re right.” Restlessly, he walked to the window to see who had just pulled up. There was no sign of the big man who had been following him, and Bear wondered where he fit into the puzzle
.

To his surprise, Jean got out of the car and walked up the house steps. Tension was on her face, and Bear hurried to open the inside door for her. “Anything wrong?”

“I got my car back from the shop, at last, with a big bill,” Jean said. “And on my way home, I stopped at the nursing home where Blanche visited to talk to the director. We once worked together, many years ago. I had a feeling yesterday when I spoke with her that she wasn’t telling me everything. So, today I went back.”

“Did she tell you anything more?”

Jean nodded.

Fish had hung up his cell phone, sensing that something was up, as Jean sat down on the couch next to Rose, who leaned against her mother protectively.

“The director was called by the DEA last week,” Jean said quietly. “They told her that they had been given information about drug pickups that were occurring at the nursing home. She was told that the courier—the person transferring the drugs from one dealer to another—was reportedly leaving drugs somewhere in the nursing home. She had her staff do a search, and they found several packages of different drugs concealed in residents’ rooms. The residents were all ones that Blanche had been visiting regularly.”

“Where were the drugs? Did she say?” Fish asked.

“Behind dressers and under chairs. Sometimes the packages were inside women’s purses that didn’t belong to any of the residents. Apparently this is a regular trick used by girl couriers, who pretend to have lost a purse and come to ‘find’ it when they need to make a transfer. That’s what the DEA told the director when she turned over the drugs to them.” Jean’s face was set. “What I want to know is—who hates my daughter so much that they’ve gone to such lengths to do this to her?”