Cat on a Blue Monday

by Douglas, Carole Nelson

  Temple nodded.

  "And the last?"

  She eyed Matt, "Not . . . no."

  "We came over here early the following morning," he said, stressing the "we."

  Molina was too busy frowning down at her notebook to see Temple's relieved smile.

  "Sister Seraphina indicated that she called on you two for help. Why, I can't imagine."

  Temple was sure that Molina had never spoken truer words.

  "Sister Seraphina seemed reticent to discuss that predawn expedition," Lieutenant Molina went on. "Nothing makes a cop more suspicious than reticent nuns, especially this cop. Nuns are used to cooperating with authority, and when they go wish washy on me, I get very nervous."

  "'We' didn't come over here," Matt volunteered into the ominous silence. "I did. Temple drove me."

  "Now why was that, Mr. Devine?" Molina asked, folding her arms.

  He smiled at her with serene understanding. "I think you know why, After all, you Yourself told Temple why I couldn't drive. No license."

  "You woke up your neighbor at--what was it?"

  "Four o'clock."

  "At four o'clock in the morning, because you're such a law-abiding Soul that when Sister Seraphina called, you knew you needed a driver."

  Now Matt squirmed on his slick, plastic chair seat, "No, I knew I needed a car. Temple reminded me of my illegal status."

  "So Miss Barr is the rigorous upholder of the law. How interesting."

  The lieutenant's bright baby-blue eyes consulted Temple with exaggerated wonder. Was Molina attempting to be sarcastic?

  "It was an emergency," Temple said flatly. "We both did what we had to do: get there as fast as the law would allow."

  "Not a little faster?"

  Temple swallowed. She had been driving, "Maybe a little."

  "Did you know the nature of the emergency?"

  "Only that it involved Miss Tyler and there was no time to be lost."

  "Why? According to the ambulance report, she was agitated but generally well. The hospital didn't keep her."

  "Sister Seraphina said--" Temple began.

  "Sister Seraphina said a lot to a lot of people in the past couple of days," Molina observed. "Too bad she won't say much to me. In fact, she wouldn't say anything until you arrived." Here the sapphire gaze as sharp as broken glass landed--and stayed--on Matt.

  "Maybe I should leave," Temple offered. She had already seen Matt forced to explain his background once in the past forty-eight hours. She didn't need a repeat performance, and he probably didn't relish witnesses to his recital.

  "Stay." Molina pointed to Temple's chair like someone disciplining a dog. "You witnessed the first night's disruption. If I'd needed to question you separately, I'd have done it. Now, Mr. Devine, the floor is yours, just tell me what happened, in sequence."

  Matt thrust his hands in his pants pockets and stared at the tabletop alongside Molina. "Sister Seraphina called."

  "How did you know her?"

  He didn't shift position at Molina's interruption, probably realizing that there would be many such intrusions. "She was a teacher at my grade school in Chicago."

  "Chicago?" Molina purred like a puma at this crumb from Matt's mysterious past, "Catholic school?"

  "Saint Stanislaus."

  "Polish?" Molina asked, her narrowed eyes flashing to Matt's blond hair.

  He nodded, oblivious, concentrating on his story, on the sequence of events.

  "She was vague about the trouble, but I never doubted her. Nuns from teaching orders never kid around."

  Molina nodded, and then started as Matt suddenly stared up at her and continued. "She said to come fast. I thought of Temple's car. I wanted to borrow it. I never remembered, or cared, about the license. Temple insisted on driving. That's when she told me you had looked into my 'background' and found out that I didn't have a driver's license."

  "Does that bother you that I checked?"

  "Yes. You had no cause."

  "I'm a cop. Cops are curious. That's cause enough."

  "No official cause."

  Molina farmed out a hand----strong, no-nonsense nails, heavy class ring, "Enough for official instincts."

  Matt glanced back to the table. "Temple drove, not too fast."

  "Not too fast and not too slow, just right, like Baby Bear," Molina mocked. "Miss Barr always treads the line of legality on those high heels of hers. One day she might fall off."

  Matt flushed but didn't look up again. "We met Sister Seraphina at the convent door. She explained that Miss Tyler was deeply distressed, possibly physically, certainly emotionally and spiritually. She wanted me to administer the anointing for the sick, to calm Miss Tyler in case her condition was . . . serious."

  "You?" Molina stood up, arms still folded over her chest.

  "Where was the pastor of the parish?"

  Temple could see truth and loyalty battling in Matt. "Miss Tyler was miffed with Father Hernandez over the issue of whether cats go to heaven or not. She would have been disturbed rather than soothed if he had come to her bedside."

  "Still, parish spats come and go. Surely she wouldn't object to his attendance in a grave illness?"

  "Seraphina didn't think her condition was that serious, and she didn't think that Father Hernandez was suitable."

  "He was the parish priest. He should have been called.

  Wasn't he furious to have been ignored?"

  "I don't know."

  "This is odd! Everybody is walking around Father Hernandez like cats on a hot tin roof. He has always struck me as the autocratic type who wouldn't take kindly to that.

  Why was he not called and you were? Why?"

  "That was the problem, and what Sister Seraphina felt too loyal to tell you." Matt sighed. "He was incapacitated."

  Molina drew that in, mangled her lower lip for a few seconds, and digested the information, "Confessions indeed.

  You are saying that Father Hernandez was--what? Spit it out."

  Temple could see Matt's hands knot into fists in his pockets. Her own hands tensed. Molina could be a chain saw at times, and Matt was ready to explode at the touch of a scalpel.

  Molina missed nothing, and would pass up no advantage. "Tell me; otherwise, I'll have to force it out of Sister Seraphina, Or Father Hernandez himself. What was he?"

  "Drunk on tequila, I suppose," Matt said in a dead, disowning voice.

  It wasn't Father Hernandez he disowned, Temple thought, but his own feelings about this shameful news.

  "I see." Molina sank back against the desk, as if borne down by the tawdriness of the revelation. Temple saw that she hadn't liked forcing this particular secret into the open.

  "Now I can understand Sister Seraphina's reticence. Nun or not, she's acting as an enabler by hiding the problem, you know," she added almost gruffly. "Religious loyalty aside, she needs to get him into treatment."

  "Maybe now," Matt said.

  "All right, Scandal in the parish, but couldn't she have administered the sacrament in an emergency? She doesn't strike me as someone who would crack under pressure."

  "She could have, but she knew that Miss Tyler was of an age and an era that would be scandalized by a nun taking on such sacramental duties, even in an emergency."

  "So she called you. Because . . ."

  "Because I was a priest."

  Molina stood again, sincerely shocked. No, not shocked, startled.

  "You're a priest? I suppose the hotline is pastoral work, but--"

  "The hotline is a job," he interrupted, looking up with chilly control. The cat, so to speak, was about to emerge utterly from the bag and the worst was almost over. "My job, now, I said I was a priest. Past tense."

  Molina's dark head nodded slowly. "Of course you would be obligated to act as necessary in an emergency. What are you doing in Las Vegas?"

  He didn't miss a beat. "My job, just my job, There aren't many available for men with my educational background."

  Molina suddenly spun to Tem
ple. "Are you Catholic?"

  "No, Unitarian. Sort of, Well, I was a Unitarian."

  They both looked at her.

  "I'm sorry." Temple shrugged. "I know it's supposed to be an undemanding faith, but I just sort of . . . fell away. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?"

  "What is that comment, an ethnic slur?" Molina retorted.

  Temple gulped, and then she got it. "You're Hispanic--and Catholic?" Minnesota had a small Hispanic population, and Temple had always assumed the name "Molina" was Italian.

  "Hispanic, yes, Catholic, sort of," Molina mocked Temple, She scowled, annoyed at having to explain herself. "My daughter attends Our Lady of Guadalupe School."

  Daughter? Temple couldn't imagine Molina as a mother. Well, maybe as a mother, but not as a wife. And Hispanic, with those Celtic-blue eyes?

  "Now that everybody knows where everybody is coming from," Molina resumed with a wry tone, "maybe we can get back to the facts. You--" she nodded at Matt "--anointed Miss Tyler. You--" she quirked an eyebrow at Temple"--watched in stupefaction, Then what?"

  Temple answered, figuring Matt needed a break. "Then Sister Seraphina decided that Miss Tyler wasn't improving and called nine-eleven. Rose--Sister Saint Rose of Lima accompanied Miss Tyler in the ambulance. After the medical crew left, we all got to talking and realized that maybe Miss Tyler's ravings about Saint Peter and being betrayed in the Garden weren't just religious confusion and death fears.

  I had noticed that the tip of her cane had fresh dirt on it, so--"

  "Wait," Molina's hands elevated like a traffic cop's.

  "You--you noticed that the cane tip had fresh dirt on it. I can see that you are riveted by religious ritual, Barr, but what made you even think of the cane at a time like that? "

  "It's a riveting cane. No, really! It's hand-painted and carved. I noticed it leaning against the trunk I was sitting on in Miss Tyler's bedroom and . . . I saw the dirt crumbling onto the floor. So we all hurried out to the garden, and that's where Matt discovered the crucified cat on the back door."

  Lieutenant Molina didn't move, she just glanced wearily at Matt, who resumed the tale. So the atrocity done to Peter surfaced, down to how Matt had freed the animal. Temple cringed to think of bracing a claw hammer on the wood and delicately pulling long carpenter nails through a cat's paw, not once, but twice. Even Molina looked impressed.

  That's when Temple decided that Molina would also be relieved to hear that Peter was doing well, thanks to Midnight Louie's blood donation. She did remember Midnight Louie--?

  "Miss Barr. I remember every scintillating detail about your exceedingly bizarre circle of acquaintances including the feline," the lieutenant assured her in exaggeratedly lucid tones. "In fact, I am developing quite a fascinating file on the whole kit and caboodle."

  "Happy to oblige you with entertainment," Temple answered.

  Molina resumed the interrogation. "And neither of you saw Miss Tyler since then?"

  "No," they answered in unison, like well-trained school children. Then they glanced guiltily at each other and looked away. They had sounded rehearsed. "Neither of you returned to the Tyler house, or to the convent or to the church?"

  "I did." Matt seemed relieved to have the floor to himself.

  "I came back here to confer with Sister Seraphina."

  "What did you confer about?"

  "Miss Tyler. Father Hernandez."

  "You knew that Miss Tyler was coming home from the hospital, with her niece?"

  "Yes."

  Molina turned to Temple, who wondered why this double interrogation wasn't giving the tall lieutenant whiplash.

  "You knew that?"

  "Matt mentioned something about it later."

  "When, and where?"

  "Four P.M. Friday, in the pool area of the Circle Ritz."

  "Taking a dip?"

  "No . . . learning how to take out a drip. Matt was teaching me some self-defense moves."

  Molina's head whipped toward Matt again. "What do you know about self-defense?" Her skepticism was not quite a sneer.

  "I've practiced some martial arts."

  "Well, Mutant Ninja ex-priest." Molina's head swung toward Temple again. "Did you learn anything?"

  "How to combat persistent bullies who are bigger than I," Temple said quite deliberately. "The eye gouge, the groin kick, the biting-off:-body-parts technique."

  Molina grinned. "Not much art to that."

  "I wasn't teaching Temple tae kwon do," Matt put in. "Just the basics of sidewalk self-defense."

  "Then what happened?"

  "I went to get ready for work at seven," Matt said.

  "I went to the vet's to retrieve Midnight Louie and check on poor Peter," Temple added when Molina looked her way again, before turning back to Matt.

  "Anything odd happen on your shift at the hotline, any out-of--the-ordinary calls?"

  Matt's smile was charmingly crooked. "All our calls are out of the ordinary, Lieutenant, but none last night were noticeably so. Are you thinking the nuisance caller might have wanted to leave a message last night?"

  "Maybe," Molina stood up with an air of finality. "The crime-scene team is working over the house. When they're done, I'll want to hear what the three of you have to say about the cat incident, so stay around."

  "Where?" Temple mouthed at Matt behind her back as the lieutenant drifted out the door like a navy-blue shadow.

  Matt grinned with relief that the interrogation was temporarily over. "That's one question I can answer, the convent kitchen. A great place to stay out of the way. Come on, let's find it."

  Temple couldn't help feeling like a trespasser as they wandered the convent's many halls. Maybe a former priest had the right to make himself at home here, but she didn't.

  Perhaps she had been infected by years of Protestant superstition about Catholic clergy and Catholic Church structures. She kept expecting to run into something she shouldn't around a comer, something mysterious and semi-creepy --a shadowed statue with a bank of lit candles twinkling eerily before it, or one of those kitschy red-velvet upholstered kneelers you saw in the background of cheap European vampire movies.

  This convent showcased only spanking-clean walls and floor and simple pieces of furniture. When they located the kitchen, down two steps at the back of the house, they found Pilar rattling around in the space big enough to hold an empty table for eight.

  Pilar shook her head and began a litany of commiseration without waiting for a more formal conversational cue.

  "Oh, terrible, so terrible, what happened to Miss Tyler! I was shocked. The sisters all stirred up before breakfast . . . police cars in the neighborhood, sirens."

  Matt pulled out a chair near the table's corner for Temple, then another at the head for himself, so they sat at right angles.

  "We had to leave the apartment building without breakfast ourselves," he put in.

  "No breakfast?" Pilar repeated, scandalized. "The sisters all are over at the church praying for Miss Tyler's soul-- those who are not here waiting for Lieutenant Molina to question them. Questioning the good sisters, can you imagine? I do not know what that woman is thinking, and a member of the parish, too."

  "Oh, she attends church here?" Temple pursued.

  "Not often enough," Pilar responded with a frown, banging around in the cupboards. "Not morning Mass, but most Sundays. I suppose her work might call her away, but that's hardly an excuse for missing a Sunday obligation. This police stuff is no job for a woman and a mother." She snapped a pair of pale orange Melmac plates down before them with unnecessary emphasis.

  "Women do everything nowadays," Temple said.

  "Not good work for a woman with a child, who cannot even guarantee to be home at the same time every evening."

  Pilar sniffed with contempt. "Poor little Mariah, and what kind of a saint's name is that? I pretend that it is Maria, but no--I am corrected. It must be pronounced 'Mah-rye-ah.' "

  Her back to them like a disapproving black wall bowed
by print apron strings, she rattled pans and mixing bowls by the stove.

  "Mariah. It's better than Tiffany," Temple put in.

  "What's wrong with Maria, as in 'Ave Maria'? Nothing stays. No family discipline, no respect for the church, for the saints' names. The neighborhood is a dumping ground, and now poor Miss Tyler is killed in her own home, while her niece is sleeping there."

  "Were . . . the cats all right?" Temple asked.

  Pilar's bulky body twisted from the stove. "And what was done to that cat!" She crossed herself hastily, her long middle finger tapping forehead, chest and each shoulder in turn. After a shudder of distaste, she turned back to her stove top. "A cruel but calculated thing, Blasphemy."

  When she faced them again, a plate of thick, steaming pieces of French toast was in her hands. She bore it to the table, putting it clown beside Matt's place. "There you are," she said in a gentled tone. "You like raspberry preserves, syrup?"

  "Yes," Temple and Matt answered again in irritating tandem.

  Pilar knew just what to do. She fetched servings of each, later bringing them cups of fresh, midnight-dark coffee and a small, rose-colored pitcher of half-and-half.

  Then she stood beside them, stubby hands crossed over her apron front, and, like some gruff guardian angel, watched them eat.

  "This is wonderful," Temple said, realizing how hungry she was when her stomach growled at the mere sniff of food.

  "Sisters won't eat it," Pilar said in disgust. "Too upset. Even cats won't eat it. Good that you do. Do you want sugar?

  Mr. Devine?" she asked solicitously, hovering over Matt's coffee cup.

  He took her anxious presence in perfect stride. "Everything is fine as is. Thank you, Pilar. I can see that the sisters are well taken care of here."

  "And Father Hernandez, I also cook for him at the rectory, and must run back and forth, back and forth." She rolled her hands into the apron folds. "He is not much for breakfast lately. Do you suppose that Mrs. Molina will have the nerve to question Father Hernandez?"

  Temple nearly choked on her coffee to hear the name of Molina preceeded by the honorific of "Mrs." Molina an ordinary Mrs.? Never!