"Trust me," Meredyth quickly said. "I have no ties to that agency any longer, and I don't know anyone named Talmadge."
"We're here strictly on a police matter," added Lucas, fearful the woman would invoke the name of her lawyer again.
"That Talmadge woman has sent spies here before, all of them anti-Catholic in their thinking."
"I'm sorry, Mother Superior, please," Meredyth said. "I really didn't mean to imply-"
"You asked what incentive we have to place our children. The incentive that has always been the very spirit of Our Lady of Miracles, to inspire the love of God and the trust in Him and hope in their young and innocent hearts. Certainly, we are not always successful, but I am extremely proud of our results, so your coming here like this in search of one of our children, who may have had a hand in this crime, either wittingly or unwittingly, well, it is unsettling to begin with, but I am not so old and brittle as to have no fight left in me, my dear doctor."
Lucas simply smiled and nodded to her, displaying his admiration for the elderly woman. She was a match for anyone. He couldn't help but like her.
"Please accept my apology if I've offen-"
Sister Elizabeth's phone rang, and she halted Meredyth with an upraised hand, and grabbed the phone with the other. She began to converse with someone at the other end. "Don't be taken in, dear. Listen to yourself. You know very well what to do. You're telling me, so tell the man! You will not accept pitted, wrinkled, ugly discards!"
Meredyth took this opportunity to lean into Lucas's ear and whisper, "Don't forget that the abductor had a woman working with him."
"And you think she could be a recent graduate from here?" asked Lucas.
"I don't know. Do you?"
"Ask her if she's had any recent vandalism or destruction of religious icons in the church."
Mother Elizabeth continued on the phone. "Be firm, Rachel, dear! You're in charge down there! It's your kitchen, and what happens if you bake with poor ingredients? Exactly." She hung up, a smile and a lilting shake of her head, and she explained, "Some neighborhood vendor trying to pawn off bad cherries and vegetables back of the kitchen. Rachel's twenty years old, and she's leaving us next year, but for now she's still in charge of our kitchen."
Lucas made a mental note, picturing the savvier girls as knowing a way off the grounds via the kitchen. If vendors came to that back door to barter, that door must swing both ways.
"So Rachel's one of your fifteen percent whom you could find no home for."
"Not I. She was sixteen when I arrived. You know the odds of placing a child of sixteen? Of course you do. Mother Orleans tried to place her, of course, but Rachel simply never worked out in any of the homes Orleans placed her in. I've read the poor child's history."
"She's spent her entire life here?" asked Lucas, standing now, staring out the window down on the rain-soaked courtyard.
"Not so bad really. Since age four when her parents were killed in a plane wreck, but she has learned skills and life lessons to carry her through. Still, she has a hard time saying no to people. We have little time left to work on it, but she'll get it if I have to brand it on her forehead."
Elizabeth's intercom buzzed into life. Sister Audrey's voice came over. "First of the girls is here, Mother Superior."
"Who is it, Sister?"
"Melanie Polk, Mother. Do you want me to send her in now?"
Sister Elizabeth held Sister Audrey in suspense for a moment, addressing Lucas and Meredyth instead. "I know this child is innocent, but I promised you all our trustworthies who go out into the community. Shall we go into my conference room?"
"Yes, let's," replied Meredyth, gathering up her coffee.
"Send the child round to the conference room hallway door, Sister Audrey. We'll speak to her there. And Sister, send for Rachel Wade too, when she can get free."
As they moved into the conference room, Lucas and Meredyth sitting beneath a painting of the Last Supper, Lucas asked, "Mother, has there been any vandalism or destruction of property done against the convent?"
"Nothing major… nothing we haven't been able to handle internally."
"Then there has been some?"
"The usual mischief one expects with children."
"Defaced paintings, statues?"
"Mustaches and spectacles from time to time. Nothing serious, although someone set a fire in the convent once, again before I came on here."
Lucas asked, "The convent…the residence rooms, sleeping quarters, all that?"
"Yes, it was a fire begun in a broom closet beside Mother Orleans's room-now my room. On damp days, I can still get a whiff of the charred walls.
"Again, I was not here during Orleans's stewardship of the convent, but they determined it was student smokers. The little darlings had found what they thought a good place to light up. Carelessness and youthful stupidity. I'm told a book of matches and some butts were found among soiled rags."
"Anyone charged or reprimanded?" asked Lucas.
"From what I understand, the mother superior handled their punishment, and it was severe."
"This girl Rachel…was she involved in the fire?" asked Meredyth.
"Yes, among others. Orleans got to the bottom of it, got hold of the ringleader."
"Rachel?"
"No, Rachel is a follower. It was her friend of the time, Lauralie."
"We'd like to talk to this Lauralie as well then," Meredyth said. "Whoever our girl is, she's got a bold streak in her."
"That would be Lauralie, but she's no longer here. Graduated in 2000…January, and has been out there on her own since. She dropped by from time to time at first, but she stopped coming by."
"And why did she stop coming by?" asked Meredyth.
"She would have to tell you that, but I'm afraid I have no current address or way to get hold of Lauralie. So…shall we begin the inquisition of my young ladies now?"
Meredyth caught a glint in the old girl's eye, and she realized now that Mother Elizabeth wanted to corner their quarry as well, if and when she could be identified.
Mother Elizabeth opened the door on the first young lady, the voices of others who'd begun to gather at the bench outside wafting into the conference room. "Do curb your tongues, ladies," she called out to those in the hallway. "This isn't an amusement. Claudia, let's begin with you."
A frightened young lady demurely entered, her big eyes curious about the visitors from the outside world. Her attention to Meredyth's clothes and jewelry seemed all- consuming, like a fire burning from within, dying to get out but held in check.
Lucas put himself in the girl's shoes, faced with a detective, a psychiatrist, and a mother superior asking questions of her. Either it would terrify some truths from her, or it would cause her to shut down and provide them with nothing. Lucas had interrogated hundreds of teens with criminal records or on the way to building one, but he'd never interrogated anyone with an austere nun perched in a corner, looking on vulture-fashion. He feared they would get nothing from the girls.
They had exhausted the afternoon in interviewing nine young women, ranging in age from a plump fifteen- year-old to a series of seventeen-soon-to-be-eighteen-year- olds, and three at nineteen and twenty, two of whom sounded less than eager to leave the convent, and one who appeared downright troubled at the prospect of leaving, and was weighing the wisdom of becoming a nun herself. "Possibly in order to stay cloistered here," Mother Elizabeth said of the girl after she'd gone. "Not a good enough reason to join the order."
All the young ladies exhibited good manners and respect for Elizabeth, even love, mixed in with fear of her. They all spoke highly of Mother Elizabeth and the programs she'd instituted at Our Lady of Miracles.
Their last interview was with Rachel from the kitchen. As with all the other girls, Rachel knew nothing about delivering a parcel to Lucas's house above Tebo's tavern. "I'd never go near no tavern, Mother Superior," she repeated.
"Please, Rachel, dear, say any tavern, not no tavern," adm
onished Mother Elizabeth. "We do not never speak in no double negatives… not around here," she explained to the adults, making Lucas frown.
Meredyth quickly asked the girl, "Rachel, do you know how we could get in touch with your friend Lauralie who's left the home? Lauralie?"
"I dunno where she is. I swear I lost touch. We stopped being friends like way before she left."
Meredyth sensed a fear in Rachel, but a fear of what, of whom? Mother Elizabeth or Lauralie or both? Mother Elizabeth suggested, "Why not speak to the sixteen girls who've recently graduated and opted to leave the convent, all now living on the outside? They're all on the list Sister Audrey's preparing you. Lauralie Blodgett is only one of them."
"Is there anyone in that group, Rachel, who had a boyfriend on the outside?" Meredyth pressed the girl, ignoring Elizabeth's interruption.
Rachel again looked to her mother superior before saying, "You should try to talk to all of them."
"Any among them who didn't like life here at the convent or was discontented in general? Anyone who liked destroying things around here, maybe setting a fire?" asked Lucas.
Rachel looked to her mother superior again before answering. Getting a nod from Mother Elizabeth, she replied, "That'd be Lauralie."
"We keep hearing that name come up. She was something of a bully, I understand, always getting into trouble and detention," said Meredyth.
"Everyone was glad to see her go."
"But you two were friends, weren't you?"
"I broke it off with her; she started wanting to do things…I–I-I didn't wanna do."
"What sort of things? Like smoking? Getting into trouble?" pressed Meredyth.
"Mother Superior, I don't like to talk about this."
"It's all right, Rachel. Be forthright. Tell the doctor everything, Rachel."
Rachel wrenched her hands and stuttered. Finally she spat it out. "Sexual things. She wanted to play with me, to put things into me. Wanted to fondle me, sleep with me."
Mother Elizabeth sat without the slightest twinge, a stone statue. "It's all right, child. It's all right."
"Lauralie had a way of making you do things. I had a hard time with her. Saying no to her. I finally told Mother Orleans, and she was going to punish Lauralie, but that's when Mother Orleans had that awful accident, and after that Lauralie left me alone when you came to the home, Mother Elizabeth."
"Lauralie was always looking for someone to love her," said Elizabeth. "She somehow had gotten the fixed idea in her head that she could only be loved in 3 sexual manner."
"Perhaps she was abused in one of the homes she was placed in at an early age?" asked Meredyth.
"I have no record of an incident of that type." Elizabeth sighed deeply "Sad really. Even Father William could not help Lauralie, try as he might. He called her a hopeless child once. I had to straighten him out on that, none of our charges is without redemption. Lauralie had her redeeming qualities. She was tenacious and persistent in her struggle to learn who her parents were, for instance, admirable in her determination, I'm told, even at an early age."
"She just always said…said we both of us needed the experience for when we got out into the real world," said Rachel, her voice having raised an octave, as if wanting to outdo her mother superior. "I had to fight her off every night for a time. She liked to kiss me and touch me all over."
"That's enough, Rachel!" Mother Elizabeth put an end to it, and Rachel curled back in on herself like a closing flower.
They said good-bye to Rachel, Mother Elizabeth walking her out to the hallway, conferring with her in a whisper. Meredyth and Lucas only caught snatches of each voice: Mother: "…don't care-" Rachel: "She's evil-" Mother: "What you think-" Rachel: "…name shoulda been Laura-LIE! with… capital let-" Mother: "Enough."
Rachel: "You tell me…stand up…strong, but…won't let me."
Mother: "Get back…kitchen, now!" Rachel: "And Father Wil… touched me again." Mother: "No more. Later… talk privately." Rachel, stomping off, shouting back: "She pushed her." Silence…more silence. Then a reverberation of Rachel's voice from the end of the corridor. "She's evil…was always evil. She hurt the mother."
Mother Elizabeth rejoined them in the conference room, quickly reassuring her guests that "Lauralie Blodgett was not so discontent or unhappy as the picture the other girls painted. True, there was a time she was in constant trouble, but her discontent came of a genuine longing to know her roots, to know about her birth mother and father. That's quite understandable, don't you agree, Doctor?”
“Yes, quite."
"Her school record is filled with cases of theft and lying as a child, and constant bouts and arguments with both the sisters here and her classmates."
"Any bouts with statuary, icons, paintings?" asked Lucas.
"She was often caught destroying property, yes. But she was just a troubled child, not so different from Rachel, unable to fit in with foster families. Very similar histories, those two, and for a time they were friends, and I thought it good for Lauralie…she was such a loner, you see. I encouraged their…closeness, but I had no idea until Rachel came to me with her lurid stories of nighttime rape that…that what Mother Orleans had put a stop to had again flourished. For a long time, I prayed Rachel was making it up to get attention, but I caught Lauralie at her one night and that was the end of it."
"This Mother Orleans was in charge here when Lauralie first arrived as an infant?"
"My able predecessor, Mother Sara Orleans."
"The one whose room still smells of smoke?" asked Lucas.
"The one who had an accident? Is she in retirement? Can I meet with her?" asked Meredyth.
"The unfortunate accident proved fatal. It's why I was called here to take over."
"How did she die?" asked Meredyth.
"A fall down a flight of steps in the night. She apparently got up in the middle of the night and slipped on the stairs. Her skull was fractured. She was in a coma for weeks until the decision to release her came from the family. Tragic really."
"Sounds like Mother Orleans lived a dangerous life for a convent nun," said Lucas, drawing a stern look from Elizabeth Portsmith.
"Let's get back to this Lauralie," said Meredyth. "Was she ever adopted?"
"No, never adopted, but once…no, twice actually, she went into a foster care situation; both before my time here. However, I've read about the placements in her records, the reasons behind her being returned to Our Lady. I always read the histories on all the children I am responsible for."
"What are the reasons she didn't do well with her foster parents?"
"In both cases, she never made it past the trial period. In both cases, wonderful situations that ought to've led to adoption simply failed, largely due to Lauralie's self- destructiveness."
"Can you be more specific, Mother?" pressed Meredyth.
"Unruliness, stubbornness, a kind of underlying fear of being out there and not in here where at least she knew the rules. She was eleven the first time, thirteen the second time. But by then-"
"Patterns of behavior were set," Meredyth finished for her.
"Did she bum down a house? What?" asked Lucas.
"No, nothing so dramatic, but just as destructive in its way. She wouldn't be guided, would not follow the simplest of rules, throwing temper tantrums, balling up into the fetal position for hour upon hour, refusing to eat, starving herself to skin and bone, lashing out, acting out. She simply refused to be a part of her new family. Hurt newfound siblings. Pitiful shame really. It was quite severe when she was young, but by the time I came on the scene, she was simply withdrawn and sullen."
"Is that when she started the fire in the closet in the convent?" asked Lucas.
"By that age the children who have not been adopted, often they become, I hate to say, toughened to the fact that they are not adorable little creatures that people want to adopt, and so they often play the role of the exact opposite, the un adorable, unruly delinquent. It can become worse still when
they leave our controlled environment. It's why I counseled Rachel and Lauralie to remain with us to at least twenty-one. Rachel chose to remain, Lauralie did not."
"In what ways did she hurt her adopted family siblings?" asked Meredyth.
"She scalded one with hot soup. Another time, she almost smothered one to death with a stuffed animal down her throat. I forget the other instances."
Rage, Meredyth thought. "And after leaving here, she cut off all communications?"
"Not at first. At first, she'd call from time to time. I lost touch after her call about her mother's death."
This got Lucas's renewed interest, and Meredyth said, "But she had just found her mother."
"That's what made it so tragic-this beautiful reunion cut tragically short, but then God works in mysterious ways."
Mother Elizabeth stood and glided back toward her office. Lucas and Meredyth followed, Lucas getting the door for them. Elizabeth continued speaking as they walked. "He certainly confuses me at times, to put so much heartache on that single forsaken child. I called her my fawn, my poor forlorn child, so lonely and abandoned."
"How exactly did her mother die?" asked Lucas.
The mother superior had returned to her desk, sitting stiffly behind it now, as if using it as a barrier between herself and the city officials before her. "Lauralie's sudden appearance after all the years obviously brought back a great deal of grief, and one night Lauralie's mother, an alcoholic, drank herself to death. I suppose in a fit of remorse and guilt over having abandoned Lauralie in her infancy.
"Imagine, she located her birth mother, living right here in Houston, and they were getting to know one another, doing famously according to Lauralie, when suddenly she left her again. After that, Lauralie's calls became infrequent, and soon nonexistent. She'd been living with her mother, but I tried contacting her there, only to learn she'd vanished, and I've worried about her, prayed for her since, and now you are here."
"What about her father?" asked Lucas.
"Deceased. She learned of it from her mother. Died some years before. She told me she laid flowers at his grave."
"When Lauralie was here at Our Lady, given her record of trouble and vandalism, however did she become a trustworthy?" asked Meredyth.
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