“You could call it that, I guess. The doctor finally had to give her a shot. I just came from checking on her. She’s still out.”
Anne didn’t look up, but continued to speak in a low, flat voice—as though she could hardly believe the reality of what had happened.
“What do I say when she wakes up?” Anne stopped and stared at the two older nuns. All the animation had left her face. Her lips formed a tight, straight line. Mary Helen had never seen that expression on Anne’s face before. It took her only a moment to realize it was deep, unabated anger.
“What do I say to someone whose own sister, just a few days ago, was full of life and hope, and today, for no apparent reason, is a cold, mutilated corpse?” she asked, kicking a small, flat stone in the driveway. It bounced over the hillside and disappeared into the low, soupy fog. “What do I say to someone who believes in God, trusts us, and whose sister has just been found murdered in our chapel?”
“Love, there’s nothing to say,” Eileen answered quietly. “There is just no way in the world to explain the mystery of evil.” The answer sounded so pat, so superficial, but unfortunately, so true.
“I know,” Anne said, “but the whole thing makes me so damn mad!”
Mary Helen shared the emotion, although she might not have expressed it in exactly the same words.
As the three neared the rear door of the chapel, Mary Helen noticed a rough rope barring it. A sterile, black-and-white coroner’s seal profaned the door. A small army of policemen in business suits had already invaded the peaceful campus. They swarmed everywhere—measuring, photographing, questioning. Mary Helen could feel her Irish blood begin to boil. Crazily, a favorite quote from The Moonstone jumped into her mind. “Do you feel an uncomfortable heat in the pit of your stomach, sir? And a nasty thumping at the top of your head? I call it detective fever.”
“Eileen. We have to do something about this!”
“About what, old dear—the mystery of evil, or about Anne’s being angry?”
Mary Helen glared. Eileen shrugged. “You needn’t look at me like that. Those were the last two things I can remember being said. Which one is the antecedent of ‘this’?”
“Neither. We must do something about putting a stop to the murders on this campus.”
“And how, in God’s name, would you suggest we do that?”
“By finding the murderer.” The dismal moan of a foghorn punctuated the last sentence.
“And just how do you propose we do that, when the entire San Francisco Police Department doesn’t seem able to?”
“By investigating on our own. What do you think, Eileen?”
“ ‘You may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb,’ ”. Eileen said.
Anne stopped to remove a small stone that had caught in the thong of her moccasin. “Which reminds me,” she said, “with all that happened yesterday afternoon, I never got a chance to tell you about the lists.”
“Lists?” The change of subject came too fast for Mary Helen.
“Yes. Remember, I asked Marina for a list of people Joanna interviewed? Well, I got it, plus the list the police asked for, the one of the people the professor had helped. I was going to give them to you, but then . . .” Anne left her sentence unfinished.
Slowly, she rose and faced Mary Helen. “I’ll go to my office and get them, and you two can start with your investigating.”
“Not ‘you two.’ We three,” Mary Helen said. A determined dimple pitted each of her cheeks.
“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you? Why not leave it to the police?” Anne asked.
Detective fever would be too hard to explain. Mary Helen decided to get to the heart of the matter. “Because I’m like you,” she said, “and this whole murder business makes me so damn . . .” The word just shot out. But when it did, it tasted so good she said it again. “This whole murder business makes me so damn mad!”
They were just finishing breakfast when Sister Therese whizzed by, brandishing the Chronicle. “Look at this,” she said, pointing to the banner headlines. “This paper is nothing but a scandal sheet.” She rolled her eyes toward Eileen, who, as librarian, always felt obliged to defend the printed word.
“No doubt about it, two murders at our college may be a scandal,” Eileen said, “but no one can deny they are also news. And you must admit that’s a nice picture of Cecilia.” Even she had to admit later, however, that HOMICIDE HITS HOLY HILL in 72-point did smack a little of the sensational.
After Therese left, Mary Helen took her last swallow of coffee. “Where are the lists?” she whispered.
“My office,” Anne whispered back.
“How about meeting there in twenty minutes?” Mary Helen looked at the other two. “We can go over the lists and decide what to do.”
Both nuns nodded.
Anne put on the kettle for hot water, and the three were just settling around her large desk when the public address system clicked on. “Sister Mary Helen, please report to the Sisters’ Residence parlor, at once,” a tunnel voice announced.
“What now?” Mary Helen pushed away from the desk.
“Sister Mary Helen, please report to the Sisters’ Residence parlor, at once,” the voice repeated, then added, “Inspector Gallagher will meet you there.”
“Oh, oh,” Anne said. “Do you think he knows about our getting these lists?” She shoved the papers toward the middle of the desk.
“Don’t be silly,” Mary Helen said. “How could he?”
“Shouldn’t we tell the police we want to help?”
“Why bother them with it?” Mary Helen asked, fooling not even herself. “We are doing nothing wrong. We are simply interested citizens helping our police force. It’s the decent thing to do. After all, it is our duty. Why, Inspector Gallagher will be grateful.”
“Good night, nurse, Mary Helen,” Eileen said. “You had better stop before you begin to believe it yourself.”
“Don’t you think I’m right?” Mary Helen turned toward Eileen.
“Old dear, you don’t want to know what I think,” Eileen said, then added, smiling, “what is it you want us to do while you’re gone?”
“Why don’t you go through the lists? Maybe pick out the names that appear on both papers. We can start to call those people.”
Mary Helen left the two huddled over the desk.
Mary Helen walked quickly down the driveway toward the Sisters’ Residence. She hugged the right edge of the road, leaving the student drivers enough room to speed up the hill. No sense being run down by a ten o’clock scholar, she thought, watching out for the few cars racing up the hill.
She stopped for a moment to admire the formal gardens. The primroses spread an elegant apron of color in front of the main building. They look so perky and well-mannered, she thought; in fact, the whole campus looked so stately and safe it was hard to believe what had happened here. An unmarked police car swished by. The grim faces of the two officers brought her back to reality.
Both Inspectors Gallagher and Murphy were waiting in the parlor when the old nun arrived. Kate smiled warmly when she saw Mary Helen. “Sit down, Sister,” she said, motioning toward an overstuffed chair.
Gallagher squirmed. He seemed too big for the tiny parlor. Finally, he perched on the edge of a straight-backed mahogany chair. “We’d like to ask you a few more questions, Sister,” he said.
“I think I told you everything I know last night,” Mary Helen said, remembering her hour-long session in the sacristy.
“There’s one thing we wondered about.” Kate took out her narrow note pad. “When you reported the body, why didn’t you tell us who it was?”
“I wasn’t really sure,” Mary Helen answered.
“You weren’t sure?” Kate interrupted. “You mean you had never seen the girl before?”
“Not exactly. I saw her once over the side of the hill. She looked like Marina, and so I asked Eileen who she was.”
“Over the side of what hill?”
<
br /> Reluctantly, Mary Helen explained her special spot to Kate. She thought she glimpsed a look of camaraderie cross the young woman’s face when she mentioned her addiction to “whodunits.”
Why not? Hadn’t she heard that it was a notorious fact that detective stories were the favorite reading of statesmen and college presidents? Why not police inspectors?
“I saw her with Tony, the gardener.”
“What were they doing?” Kate looked up from her notes.
“Kissing—but in my opinion, not too affectionately.”
Gallagher cleared his throat. “Could you explain what you mean, Sister?”
“Yes, Inspector. Tony grabbed her and gave her a very rough kiss. It didn’t look much like love to me. And by the time you are my age, you begin to recognize love when you see it.”
Kate changed the subject. “What did you tell me you were doing just before you found the body?” she asked.
Gallagher turned and frowned at Kate. Mary Helen couldn’t tell if he was surprised or frustrated. In either case, she didn’t blame him. Tony the gardener seemed like an excellent choice of suspect to her. For a moment, she wondered why Kate didn’t pursue the subject. Then it dawned on her. Of course! She had struck a chord. Kate suspected that she had picked up the chemistry between Jack and her. Well, she had.
“What were you doing just before you found the body?” Kate repeated. Her eyes avoided Mary Helen’s.
“I told you. I was looking up Dom Sebastiao in the library.”
“How did you happen to know that the statue was Dom Sebastiao?”
“Leonel told me.” As soon as she mentioned Leonel, Mary Helen knew she had made a mistake. Kate looked up from her notes.
Gallagher rose. Putting his foot on the chair, he bent forward, and his face came close to Mary Helen’s. “When did he tell you about the statue, Sister?”
Sister Mary Helen resisted the temptation to tell him to get his foot off the good mahogany chair. “The day after the professor’s . . .” She hesitated a moment, recalling the scene in the man’s office.
“Skull was bashed in?” Gallagher finished the sentence. “Just like that young girl you found last night?” He took his foot off the chair.
In her mind’s eye, Mary Helen saw the professor again, his cold face wreathed in an ever-widening halo of red. Then, Joanna, legs dangling, her delicate features splattered with dried blood. Both skulls crushed. Were they both killed with a statue? Could Leonel have done it? Was that what Gallagher was getting at? Mary Helen put her hand over her mouth, fighting nausea.
“Sister, are you okay?” Kate slid her arm around the nun’s shoulder. Mary Helen didn’t trust herself to speak. She simply nodded.
“We’re finished for now,” Kate assured her. “You may go. We’ll get in touch with you again, if we need you.”
Stiffly, Mary Helen rose from the chair. Forcing a smile, she bowed toward the two inspectors. Silently, she left the parlor.
“Poor gal,” Kate’s voice floated down the hall behind her. “You’ve got to admit, Denny, she’s feisty, but she’s got plenty of heart.”
“Not the best quality for police work.” Gallagher tried hard to sound tough.
“But top-notch for a nun,” Kate said.
By the time Sister Mary Helen returned to Anne’s office, the college bell was tolling noon. After a quick lunch, the three nuns met again, huddling in the small basement office with door closed, candles lit. Mary Helen’s spirits rose.
“We look for all the world like a scene from the French underground,” Eileen whispered. She snatched the thought right out of Mary Helen’s mind. Anne bit her lower lip.
“This is a wonderful list!” Mary Helen scanned the sheets of paper Eileen handed her.
“The professor didn’t have many on his,” Eileen said, running her finger down the first nine names.
“That’s all he helped?” Mary Helen asked. “Maybe he wasn’t such a philanthropist, after all.”
“The poor devil really wasn’t here very long.” Mary Helen could have counted on Eileen to defend him. Eileen didn’t believe in speaking ill of the dead.
“But he was the head of the department?”
“Actually, we had a terrible upset in the history department several years ago, and had to get in several new people. Villanueva came highly recommended, as I understand it.”
“Then, he wasn’t someone who had worked himself up through the ranks?”
“Not at all.”
“Interesting!” Mary Helen said.
“What do you mean by ‘interesting’?”
“I don’t know, but that’s what Kate Murphy said when I finished my statement last night, and as long as we are into investigating . . .”
Anne’s giggle filled the small office. Quickly, she made a cup of tea and two cups of instant coffee. “Let’s get back to the list,” she said, setting the mugs on the desk.
“Well, Professor Villanueva’s nine people were on Joanna’s list,” Eileen continued. “Then she had another maybe two hundred or so of her own.”
“Now you know as well as I we couldn’t possibly call all those people,” Eileen said, not stopping for breath. “Anne and I were just wondering what to do when I suddenly noticed a small dot by some of the names.” She shoved the papers toward Mary Helen.
Good old Eileen, Mary Helen thought, adjusting her bifocals. Who else would notice a speck that size? All that dusting had come in handy.
“How many with dots?” Mary Helen asked.
“About thirty.”
“Plus the professor’s nine makes thirty-nine. Divided by three equals thirteen phone calls each.”
“Good God, Mary Helen!” Eileen’s eyebrows shot up. “Don’t we have enough trouble without putting thirteen anything on a list? I divided the thirty-nine into three lists, all right. Two have twelve names; one has fifteen.”
“Who gets the fifteen?”
“You do. This investigating business was your idea.”
“We put Kevin Doherty on your list,” Anne said. “I got his phone number from Marina.” She slipped a small piece of scratch paper toward Mary Helen.
Mary Helen had almost forgotten about Kevin Doherty, the young man Joanna had met at the University of San Francisco. The plot was thickening. Had Joanna been with Kevin before she died?
Mary Helen shoved the scrap of paper into her pocket. “Now for the phones,” she said.
“Well, Anne has one here. I have one in my library office and, Mary Helen, you can use the one in the convent.” Eileen had obviously thought the whole thing through.
“Wait a minute, you two,” Anne said, as the older sisters stood to leave. “What am I supposed to say when I get these people?” Apparently, Anne was going along with the idea, but had not yet caught the spirit of the hunt.
“Just ask them about Joanna. When was the last time they saw her—if they knew the professor, et cetera. Play it by ear.”
“You’ll do fine, love. Don’t worry.” Eileen patted her hand.
“I have this awful feeling we shouldn’t be doing this,” Anne said.
“Nonsense,” Mary Helen said. “We owe it to our college.” At least that’s my press statement if we get caught, she thought, shifting her eyes from Anne’s. “When should we meet back here? Two hours?”
“If you say let’s synchronize our watches, I’ll turn up my toes!” Eileen’s face wrinkled into a grin.
As Sister Mary Helen headed back down the hill toward the convent, she suddenly realized the morning fog had burned off. Completely! Sun flooded the campus. “Shook foil.” The words from Hopkins’s poem flitted through her mind. What was the rest? “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
The campus and the city below it sparkled under the crisp autumn sun like “shining from shook foil.” How in the world did the poem end? She hadn’t thought of it in years. “The Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with
ah! bright wings.”
In the sun’s warmth she felt His wings brooding over her, His warm breast. Yes, this murder business would, indeed, have a bright ending. “And if You have half a chance, God,” she prayed earnestly, “please, end it quickly.”
Just before four o’clock, the three nuns reconvened in Anne’s office, their lists marked and dog-eared.
“Well, how did we do?” Mary Helen asked brightly.
Anne had sunk into an overstuffed pillow. Slowly, she was easing her legs into a lotus position. Her list lay curled on the floor in front of her. Eileen looked peaked. Too much smiling, Mary Helen thought. Eileen was the only person she knew who smiled when she talked on the phone. As a matter of fact, Eileen’s was the only face she remembered that ever looked tired from smiling.
Eileen’s list was spread out neatly on the desk. “I had both Luis and Leonel on my list,” she said. “No sense in calling either of them. I can talk to them both up here. Furthermore, I should let poor Leonel rest. I’m sure he’s had quite enough questions from the police. I couldn’t get any of the others from the professor’s list. For the rest, I got nowhere in a terrible hurry. Some of them knew our professor. Of course, everyone knew Joanna. But no one knew where she had been recently. Quite frankly,” she said, “my phoning was a dismal failure.”
“How about you?” Mary Helen looked toward Anne, who, eyes closed, was rolling her head counterclockwise. “Are you all right?” the old nun asked.
“Fine. Just relaxing my neck muscles.” Mary Helen thought she heard Anne’s neck crack.
“I also drew blanks,” Anne said, “except for one. A Mrs. Rubiero. Professor Villanueva helped her two nephews to emigrate. They lived with her after they arrived. Well, she hasn’t heard from them for a while, and she’s a bit concerned. I couldn’t tell why, however.”
“What do you mean, you couldn’t tell why?”
“I couldn’t tell if she thinks something happened to them, or if she thinks they’re ‘flaky,’ and that’s what’s upsetting her. I made an appointment for you to see her on Saturday.”
“Why me?”
“Because youth appeals to youth, and I figured the opposite might also hold.” Anne opened one eye to check Mary Helen’s reaction.
A Novena for Murder Page 10