by Chris Bauer
“Fine. No picnic for either of us. I get it.”
This was supposed to be Judge’s rant not his, narcissist that Judge was. Owen’s eyes narrowed, measuring Judge with his stare. Owen broke it off to scan his new friend head-to-toe, and grunted his displeasure. “No offense, but look at you. You’ve got your seat pushed all the way back and your feet still reach the pedals. I see your childhood as a whole lot different than mine.”
“Careful. Grass isn’t always greener.”
“Really? Let’s see. You were huge for your age, broad shouldered, a real physical specimen. No one fucked with you. You always got picked first for games. Every team game, every sport, you were a star. Am I right?”
“Only for as long as I could keep my mouth shut.”
Owen sneered. “Fine, there’s that. But you at least started out on the plus side of the equation. Then there’s me. When I was ten, one kid told me they’d let me on the baseball field only if I could lie still enough in the dirt. They needed something they could use as second base.”
He took his hat off, dented the top with a soft karate chop, and paused to admire his work before returning it his head. “That one hurt near as bad as my mom’s abortion comment.”
Fort Worth – 8 miles. Traffic was building. Still a lot of pickups and semis. Owen wasn’t done.
“Craziest thing was, when I was really young, before I knew what it meant to be small, I had a normal childhood, up to age six, age seven maybe, with great kid friends. The best. The difference in size was barely noticeable. Only odd thing was I was black, and all my buddies where either white or Mexican.” Owen rolled up his left sleeve to his bicep. “That cost me too. Check this out.”
His arm was discolored, a splotchy tan and red that surrounded his elbow. A burn scar that on him looked like a reverse farmer’s tan, from his bicep to his wrist. “You’ll never guess who did this.”
“And I’m not gonna try.”
“My friends. I was eight years old. They wanted to surprise me. Blindfolded me then stuck my elbow in a bucket of bleach, figured if it turned cracker white they’d dip my whole body in it. Thought they were doing me a favor. One of them was Frannie, the police chief.”
Judge took another look at Owen’s disfigured arm. “Hell, Owen, that’s really…horrible.”
And it really was, but his story, the innocence of children, their misguided intentions, had ruined it for him, made the whole of the experience almost comical. Judge snickered, waved it off, finally stifled himself. “Sorry, that wasn’t very mature of me.”
“Damn right,” Owen said, but his mock indignation fell way short. “You suck. So give me your story.”
Two guys dropping bro stories on each other on a road trip, minus the beer. What the hell. Judge laid it out for him, an abridged version.
“…molested as a kid for years by my uncle. My father, a crooked U.S. senator who was never around, looked the other way…
“I flipped off Nixon, yes, that Nixon, while he was shaking my hand when I was a teenager. The Secret Service broke my arm when I couldn’t stop the gesture.”
“Dad got me enlisted in the Marines, Tourette’s and all, traded a senate vote to make it happen. To him, there would be only two acceptable outcomes of my enlistment. ‘They’ll either kill you or cure you,’ he told me. When it looked like neither would happen, he kind of sucked on the barrel of a loaded shotgun and ended it.”
Two words got Owen’s attention: “‘Kind of’ sucked on the barrel?”
“When my mother found out about the molestation, she lost it. She was in the room with him when the gun went off. It was ruled a suicide, operative word, ‘ruled.’”
Owen was reverent enough to clam up and let this sink in. The silence didn’t last long. “Flipped off Nixon, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Ha. That’s really cool.”
His father’s suicide might have been a murder, and Nixon was what he keyed on. “You’re a moron, Owen.”
“Don’t you know it, brother.” Outside Owen’s window, the rolling countryside gave way to a few houses. The road was filled less with pickups now, more with minivans and SUVs. The few houses they passed soon became small subdivisions with backyards that abutted the highway. Suburbia. Judge caught Owen watching families on their house lawns, parents pushing kids on swings, kids on gym sets and trampolines, with him looking curious, or maybe sad.
Fort Worth – 2 miles.
“Ever been married?” Owen asked.
Judge’s jaw muscles tightened. He gripped the rabbit’s foot. “Yes. Long time ago.”
“How’d that work out for you?”
A throat-clearing swallow. “My wife was a Philly K9 cop. It was great until she, her K9 partner, and my infant son, were all killed in a mob hit.”
“Wow. That’s some shit. Sorry, Judge. Anyone caught?”
“Not enough of them.”
Owen got quiet, the dead air necessary for them both. Then, “I was married once, too, to an average-heighted woman,” Owen said. “We had some good years. Then I lapsed into being what I used to be, a badass drunk midget with a chip on his shoulder. She left me. After that, I slowly started circling the drain.”
“Sounds like that should have told you something.”
“Yeah.” A slug from his flask, then he pointed at a road sign. “But I’m not much for listening. Here’s our exit.”
They exited the highway, entered a divided four-laner. On the left they passed pre-fab houses, a motel, then a self-storage facility. All the houses and other buildings were one story. On the right, a large, lush property behind tall iron fencing paralleled the road, the property and its fence extending too far ahead to see where it ended. Behind the fence and buffered by twenty yards of lawn was a cement viaduct that was bone dry. Farther back on the property a red brick wall paralleled them, meandering up and down the hills into the distance, like the Great Wall. They coasted by, looking for an entrance to the monastery.
Impressive, well maintained grounds. A property that lent itself to the whole meditation thing, but the expanse of it blew up the austerity aspect associated with monasteries. Still, they weren’t there to judge. They were there to get in, ask questions, get out, then hit the next Carmelite location until they found the one Ms. Larinda Jordan had lived in.
They turned into the entrance drive. The brick wall there was taller on both sides of the two brick columns, as tall as the bronze-colored iron front gate. None of the brick and wrought iron mattered as a barrier; the gate was already open. At the top of a long drive, a tan, adobe-like single story house with terracotta roof tiles sat squat in the middle of two wings that sprawled east and west.
Owen unfolded a flyer with Ms. Jordan’s mug shot on it; he studied it. “You got a brown or black marker in here somewhere?”
The dogs were leashed for their trek up the sidewalk. Owen was jabbering, closing out a convent joke he just had to tell.
“So the nun at the Irish convent door tells Paddy, ‘No, there’s no such things as leprechaun nuns.’ Paddy turns to his Irish buddy and says, ‘It’s like I been telling you, Seamus. You been fucking a penguin.’”
To him, the punch line was knee-slap funny, to Judge not so much. “Midget humor, Owen? Really? Show some pride, dude.”
“Bite me, Judge.”
Now under the overhang, the four of them stepped up to the monastery’s front door. Judge pressed the doorbell. The chime was a bell tower version of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” but it was off, sounded closer to “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.” Owen reached up, pressed the doorbell again just for grins. He reached for it a third time, but Judge’s look stopped him cold.
Seconds later a young woman’s face appeared on a small color video screen that protruded from the doorframe at eye-level, left of the door. Short espresso-colored hair, dark, owlish eyes, and glasses. Cute. If she was a nun, she wasn’t in a habit. Judge’s first impression was she was from south of the border, or was maybe Native
American. Her coloring, hair, eyes, the whole package, reminded him of Geenie, his main squeeze back in upstate Pennsylvania, with some Spanish ancestry somewhere in Geenie’s background. Common in Texas, but not so much in the Poconos, coal-cracker country USA.
The woman’s eyes shifted to view past Judge’s shoulder, down the incline. She was annoyed. “One moment please,” she said. She moved off screen. The iron entrance gate behind them clanged into motion, sliding shut and snapping locked. Her face reappeared. “Yes?”
Judge opened his mouth, but what he heard was Owen’s voice instead. “Hello, miss. We’re bounty hunters here on business.”
She was visibly confused. Someone had spoken but Judge’s lips hadn’t moved, and Owen wasn’t on camera. Judge gripped a dreadlock behind Owen’s back and yanked it. Owen grimaced and shut up.
Judge held up his wallet, opened to a photo ID. “Judge Drury, miss. United States Marine Corps, former enlisted, and a fugitive recovery agent. My deputies and I,” he did a head dip south, “are tracking a woman bail jumper. She might have lived here at one time as a Carmelite.”
The camera motored itself down, scanned quietly left to right. Owen showed a big friendly smile, with J.D. and Maeby sitting stiff as cardboard cutouts on their haunches next to him. The woman’s expression stayed guarded, but the door unlocked and swung inward, letting them enter.
Owen sauntered forward, a business card in his outstretched hand. Judge clamped a hand on his shoulder and stopped him in his tracks so the dogs and he could enter first; Owen trailed them in a huff. A runt of a woman greeted them inside a large vestibule, her resemblance to Judge’s girlfriend ending just below her chest, which sat above matchstick legs and was too big for a woman her height, yet still a head taller than Owen.
“The sisters are attending vespers,” she said. In a tan skirt with a white high-necked blouse, she smelled fresh and clean. She eyed the leashed dogs, adjusted her glasses, did not contest their presence. “Take Your Dog To Work Day?” she asked, a faint, pleasant smile to go with the question.
“Every day, miss. Trained as military working dogs. They’re my partners.”
“Ahhh. Follow me.”
They passed a footstool she most likely used to see into the camera. She guided them across the tile entry to a softly lit parlor the size and ambiance of a hospital bad-news room. They should sit on the sofa, her open palms suggested. Judge complied, and his dogs settled on the floor in front of him. Owen remained standing. He handed her his business card, introduced himself and stared at her boobs. In his defense, for him they were eye-level. Still, Judge wanted to choke him.
Owen’s hand felt inside his cowboy vest pocket. If he pulled out that fucking flask…
Judge stared him down until his hand retreated.
“I’m Mary Veronica,” she said, seating herself. “I’m not a nun, and not a resident, but I’m here every day to assist the Carmelites. They don’t typically receive visitors.” She smoothed out her skirt with both hands, a bit on the anxious side. “Actually they never receive visitors. You’re on the grounds only because I neglected to close the gate after a delivery this morning. You’re inside the monastery itself because…”
Her smile gone, her dark, skeptical eyes now showed a major interest in, or fear of, whatever else they might have planned to tell her about their bounty.
“…because of my concern that this day might come. Do you have any pictures of this woman?”
Judge liberated a flyer from a pouch on his dog’s vest. She studied the mug shot, examined the name on the bottom. “Her name’s not familiar. Is blonde her real hair color?”
“Probably not.”
“Maybe this will help.” Owen pulled a flyer from his own vest pocket, unfolded it and handed it to her. It was the same mug shot Judge had given her, but Owen had blackened everything around the bounty’s face with a marker. A poor attempt at showing her in a nun’s wimple.
She nodded, the nod sober, heavy with resignation. “That’s Sister Dolorosa,” she said. “She was a novice here. She left the monastery maybe eight months ago.” Mary Veronica kneaded a hem. “Sister was also our carpenter. What has happened?”
Owen spoke up. “We think she…”
Judge hadn’t missed her body language. He stepped on Owen’s cowboy-booted toes, which shut him up. Judge wanted to know what she knew before they told her anything. “She’s been charged with possession of illegally prescribed painkillers.”
“I see.” Their hostess sat up straighter, folded her hands. She eyed Judge, then Owen, then Judge again. “And?”
Judge didn’t want to volunteer any ‘ands.’ “And what?”
“Please. People don’t skip town because of forged prescription charges, Mister Drury. What else is there?”
Shit. “She’s also been linked to the death of a pastor.”
Mary Veronica’s eyes closed softly in meditation, like she needed a visit to her happy place, like, right now. They stayed closed, one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi. Her pursed lips added to a general impression that at the moment, air intake was unimportant to her.
“How many dead. In total?”
“Like I said, she’s been linked to a pastor’s…”
“Mister Drury,” she said, steely-eyed this time, her tone chiding. For this woman, tiny didn’t mean timid, and patience might not have been a virtue. “Spare me the soft-peddling. The order knew she was capable of larger scale aggressive behavior if she acted on her impulses. So. How…many…dead?”
“Three.”
“Thank you.” She locked into Judge’s stare, didn’t blink. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but…” Her chin lifted, her jaw muscles clenched. “…there could be more.”
Larinda Jordan’s monastic conduct, fresh from this church mouse’s lips, had become intolerable to the monastery’s Mother Superior. As a cloistered nun she’d had major trouble adhering to one evangelical counsel in particular, obedience. “The other counsels, poverty, chastity, they weren’t issues. But obedience, reverence, or submission, for her, it was reserved for her interaction with a higher power. It didn’t apply to the monastic order’s hierarchy. She took her orders from God the Almighty only.”
“A direct pipeline to a supreme being?”
“Yes. Or so she fashioned herself as having.”
Great, a misguided fucktrumpet, out there knocking off church pastors, Judge lamented. Religious fanaticism: very dangerous.
“And God’s Old-Testament, militant leanings,” she continued, “according to Sister, are about to make a comeback.”
Evidenced by the bounty’s interest in the Bibles.
“Smiting down the adulterers, the gays, the abortionists. Especially the abortionists. Sister was eager to do her part. When the Mother Superior gave her another attitude adjustment session for not doing her chores, she didn’t come back.”
“‘Attitude adjustment session’?” Judge asked, puzzled.
“She had to leave the monastery for a few days, which for her meant going to a motel.” She eyed Judge’s Marine camo-green tee shirt. “Like a weekend pass, Mister Drury. Mother Superior wanted her to pray for the strength to recant her militant beliefs. To meditate on adhering to all her vows, obedience included.”
“To chill,” Owen said.
“Yes, to chill. Exactly.”
Owen got all bright-student, look-at-my-bad-self smug hearing her kudo. Judge wanted him to just sit the hell down. Again he went for his flask inside his vest, a reflex, but he stopped himself before he connected.
“This wasn’t the first time she’d needed an attitude adjustment,” Mary Veronica said. “It was maybe number three or four. This time she didn’t come back. Mother Superior never heard from her again.”
There was something their hostess wasn’t saying, Judge thought. “Mother Superior never heard from her,” he repeated.
“That’s correct.”
He leaned forward and studied her closely. “But you did. You heard from her.”<
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More skirt kneading. “Yes. Nothing for eight months, then, after Easter this year, she texted me.”
“What about?”
“She thanked me for being kind to her. She said she found a new calling, with new spiritual guidance. She signed herself off,” she paused, sharpened her stare, “as ‘The Church Hammer.’”
Judge absorbed this; nicknames didn’t get much more nut-job militant than that. Owen, his hand over his mouth, stifled a snicker then couldn’t help himself. “That’s really good. ‘Church Hammer.’ Like a superhero, or a pro wrestler.”
Judge played through Owen’s giddiness, but something didn’t work for him. “A vow of poverty, right? So where’d she get the money for the motel? Nuns who leave their orders walk away with nothing. From her parents? Other relatives?”
“She has no family,” Mary Veronica said. “The money was my doing.”
“Why help her?”
“Because, frankly, while she was here, I thought she was amazing. Cloistered nuns tend to be submissive. They need a voice within the Church. I felt she could be that voice. I thought that if she took a deep breath, and looked more closely at her convictions, she would come back.”
And there they had it. Mary Veronica was an enabler, a buyer for whatever Larinda Jordan had been selling. “How much money did you give her?”
“Enough for the motel for a few days, for her to meditate on how best to fit in, how to work within the system. Plus to pay off her overdue storage locker rent.”
“Her what?”
“She confessed she kept some belongings in a storage unit. She said she hoped they were still there.”
“A storage unit where?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere near here.”
“All this happened eight months ago?”
“Her leaving, yes. But her text was recent.”
“What about the request for the money for the locker? How recent was that?”
“Nothing any more recent than eight months.”
“That storage locker shit’s gone by now, Judge,” Owen said. “Sorry, miss. My bad.” He removed his hat as part of the apology, held it in both hands in front of his crotch.