Holy Terrors

by Mary Daheim

  Joe chuckled and gave her a little squeeze. “Not me. I didn’t think at all. That was the problem.”

  Judith angled about in his embrace so that she could see his face. The soft light from the lantern on the low table in front of them caught the gold flecks in his eyes and added contours to his round face. Judith refrained from tracing his jawline with her finger.

  “What happened?” she asked in a breathless voice. “You never told me the whole story.”

  Joe let out a deep sigh. “It’s a short story, really. I’d met Herself at MacArthur’s Bar by headquarters one night after work. She was singing and playing the piano. I got to hanging out there with the other guys once in a while, especially when you were working evenings at the downtown library. Then, after a really ugly narcotics O.D., I got looped to help me forget what it’s like to see fourteen-year-old kids being put in bodybags. Herself had just gotten her latest divorce. She was celebrating. The next thing I knew, we’d celebrated all the way to Vegas. I woke up at Caesar’s Palace a married man.” He made a wry face at Judith. “What could I do, claim I’d been abducted and raped? I was a big boy. I figured you were better off without somebody that dumb.”

  “Callous,” said Judith. “That’s what I called it.” Her black eyes narrowed, then softened. “All these years, I never knew you’d called from Vegas until it came out last Thanksgiving. I didn’t know who to strangle—you, for flying off in the first place, or my mother, for not telling me you phoned. It occurred to me that maybe I’d been a bit unfair. I spent the better part of two decades picturing you with horns and a pitchfork.” She gave Joe a vaguely contrite look.

  He was looking equally penitent. “I did have a Weed-eater,” he acknowledged, “but no pitchfork. I wondered why you never tried to reach me. After a while, it dawned on me that Gertrude hadn’t delivered the message.” He gave a rueful shake of his head. “Then it was too late. You’d signed on with Dan.”

  Silence, surprisingly comfortable and reassuringly empathetic, fell between them. Judith was the first to break it, with her head tipped to one side and her black eyes fixed on Joe’s round face. “Okay, so why did you stay with Herself for so long?”

  “Well, we were married,” said Joe with a touch of sarcasm. “I could ask you the same question about Dan.”

  Judith had to acknowledge the truth of his statement. But she still wasn’t ready to excuse Joe’s irresponsible behavior. Phone call or not, his desertion had cost her eighteen years of misery. On the other hand, it must have cost him, too.

  “So why did it go sour?” she asked, hesitantly putting her hand on his.

  “Herself never stopped celebrating. Oh, she’d quit drinking for a time, like when she had our daughter, or her other two kids were graduating from something, but she’d always go back. A couple of years ago, she got a DWI, and damned near ran down a whole day care center on their way to the zoo. Thank God she hit a telephone booth instead. I tried to get her to go to AA—I’d been attending Al Anon for a while—but she could never admit she had a problem. I gave her an ultimatum—me or Jack Daniels. She backed Jack and told Joe to go.” He shrugged again. “That was it. Let’s face it, she’s ten years older than I am, and she’s going to drink herself into the grave. I see enough stiffs on the job without having to watch one at home. It was no marriage, it was a living hell. She can’t even put a coherent sentence together anymore.”

  To her horror, Judith found herself feeling sorry for Herself. Vivian Flynn had gotten exactly what Judith had wanted: Joe Flynn. And he hadn’t made her happy. She’d had to fill up the holes in her life with alcohol. Renie was right—you had to be half nuts to survive in this crazy world.

  “Where is Herself?” Judith asked as Garth brought a dish of nachos.

  “In a Florida condo, on the Gulf. It was part of the settlement from her second husband.” He fed Judith a nacho and took one for himself. “She’s spent a lot of time there over the years. I hated it. Too hot, too many crawly things. But it gives her an excuse to drink because there’s nothing else to do.”

  A group of people at a table in the far corner erupted into laughter. A pair of young lovers on the next couch looked as if they were having trouble staying in a vertical position. Two middle-aged men, one black, one white, were going over a set of blueprints, nibbling on Tempura prawns, and drinking vodka martinis. Judith wondered if any of them was facing a decision as critical as her own.

  Joe signaled to Garth to bring another round, then silenced Judith’s feeble protest with a finger on her lips. “It’s only nine o’clock. Relax. If your guests have a problem, let your mother handle it. It’d be good for her.”

  The idea of Gertrude coping with any sort of crisis that didn’t involve her digestion or a deck of cards proved beyond Judith’s grasp. But she didn’t argue with Joe. She was too happy to be with him, too awash in the past, too removed from her usual routine to allow the world to intrude.

  “I’m glad you wouldn’t let me wait until May to see you,” Judith confessed, lifting her face to his.

  “Me, too,” said Joe. He hesitated, then brushed her lips with his. “Hell, Jude-girl,” he murmured, pressing her knee, “we’ve waited most of a lifetime. We’re both nuts, you know.”

  “Right.” Judith slid her arm around his neck. “Did any two people ever have such a weird romance?”

  “Two Sprues coming up,” announced Garth cheerfully, then stopped in his tracks. “Excuse me, Lieutenant, I didn’t know you were busy.”

  Joe turned slightly. “Yeah, well, we’re engaged.”

  Garth broke into a grin. “Congratulations! When did that happen?”

  Joe looked at Judith, a wry smile on his face. “Oh, about twenty-five years ago. We’re sort of slow movers.”

  “Doesn’t look like it to me,” said Garth, with a faint leer. “How about some champagne?”

  Joe’s beeper went off. He swore softly and broke away from Judith. “I’d better call in. Be right back.” With less spring than he would have exhibited twenty-five years earlier, Joe got up from the couch. Judith took a sip from her second drink and ate another nacho. She felt slightly giddy, and not just from the drinks. The idea of being engaged overwhelmed her. And yet, in some strange, illogical way, she had never really not been engaged to Joe Flynn. Their marriages to other people had technically put aside their plans to marry each other. But deep down, Judith had never belonged to anyone but Joe. And now, she realized with a sense of awe, it seemed he felt the same way. All the emotions she had experienced during those years apart washed over her like May rain: the terrible hurt, the sense of rejection, the anger, the jealousy of Herself, the need to strike back by marrying Dan…Yet Judith had never really let go of Joe. Maybe he’d never let go of her, either. She took a bigger swallow from her glass and ate three nachos.

  “Murderers are a pain in the butt,” declared Joe, returning to the couch but not sitting down again. “They’ve caught a suspect in that harpoon killing. Hell,” he grumbled, picking up his glass and drinking deeply, “the son of a bitch did it, no doubt about it, we’ve got two eyewitnesses. But I still have to go back downtown.”

  With some alarm, Judith noted that Joe had almost drained his drink. “You shouldn’t drive when you’ve had two of those. Do you want to get arrested?”

  Joe was already taking Judith’s arm to lead her out of the bar. “I’ll arrest myself after I get there.” He gave her his devilish grin. “‘Actually, I’m as sober as a judge. Just don’t ask which one, some of them being inclined to tipple in chambers before they administer justice. It has the same effect as being blindfolded.”

  Resignedly, Judith let Joe escort her out to the parking lot and into his car. She had to admit that his driving was unaffected, which, in Joe’s case, meant that he broke the speed limit by at least ten miles, darted in and out of traffic, and took most corners on two wheels. She supposed he knew what he was doing, and tried to relax.

  As he drove her home, she also tried to tell him
what information she’d gleaned during the last twenty-four hours. Joe listened attentively, like a sponge absorbing water. When she had finished, he seemed most intrigued by Judith’s assumption that Kate Duffy was actually Kitty Cabrini.

  “That’s good,” he said, careening into the cul-de-sac that sheltered Hillside Manor. “We can check it out, I imagine. I’ll call Les Lowenstein. I wonder if it’s enough of a motive for Kate—or Mark—to kill Sandy?”

  “I wonder, too,” admitted Judith. “By the way, that photograph of Kate in her nun’s outfit was taken at Tioga, North Dakota.” She gave Joe a sidelong look to see if the location registered.

  It did, but not precisely in the way Judith had expected: “Are you implying a connection between Kate Duffy and Father Tim’s adopted family?”

  “It’s a thought,” said Judith as Joe pulled into the driveway behind a small, sporty car with California plates.

  “Right idea, wrong state,” said Joe, glancing up at the house to see if Gertrude was peering out from behind the curtains. He turned the key to Park and swung around in the seat, one arm draped over the steering wheel. “I’ll go you one better. Some twenty-four years ago, a young mother who had been deserted by her husband died at Holy Innocents Convent in Deer Hoof, Montana. She left a year-old boy behind. His name was Timothy Joseph Sanderson.”

  SIXTEEN

  “SO,” SAID RENIE over the phone, “Joe has been doing his homework. Now why couldn’t Tim’s real mother’s name have been Stella instead of Linda Lou?”

  “That would have been convenient,” admitted Judith, lying on the bed in her bathrobe and still tasting nachos. “Except, of course, that she’s dead. Linda Lou Sanderson, I mean. I’m going to talk to Tim tomorrow, first thing. It’s all coming together now.”

  “It is?” Renie sounded skeptical. “What I don’t get, is how Sandy—George Sanderson, I mean—and his wife ended up in Montana.”

  “One of the nuns who was there at the time told Woody Price that they were driving through, en route from L.A. to Canada,” explained Judith. “She couldn’t remember why, thought possibly Sandy was taking Linda over the border to get cheaper medical care, or something, but along the way, the Sandersons had a big blow-up. Maybe Sandy decided to come out of the closet. Anyway, he ended up dumping Linda Lou and the baby at the convent. He took off, and Linda Lou died in the infirmary there about a month later of some blood disease. The Millses heard about the orphaned baby and offered to adopt. With the father still living, but his whereabouts unknown, the situation got complicated, legally. Linda Lou had a sister here, and the Millses contacted her. She put them in touch with Wilbur Paine’s father’s law firm, and eventually, they worked out the adoption. The Millses took little Timmy back to Montana, and they all lived happily ever after. Until now.”

  “Hmmm.” Renie had turned meditative. “Any connection between that convent and the one where Kate Duffy was a novice?”

  “Nope. They’re run by different orders. The one in Montana is Dominican.”

  “Bill has this theory,” said Renie, suddenly sounding eager. “He thinks that when Kate couldn’t hack it as a nun, she took off for L.A. and went into porno movies to purify herself. She used the name of Cabrini because St. Frances founded the order Kate had flunked out of, so it was some sort of mockery. Except Bill isn’t sure if Kate intended to mock Mother Cabrini or herself. He figures she was probably a virgin sacrifice, eaten by vampire bats.”

  “You wish,” replied Judith, but for once, Bill’s idea didn’t sound so weird. Somehow it suited the mentality of a woman who would drink nail polish remover to commit suicide. “What else does Bill think?”

  “Huh?” said Renie, sounding surprised at her cousin’s unexpected show of interest. “Oh, he just wishes Quinn McCaffrey had co-starred.” She paused as Bill made some derogatory comment about the school principal in the background. “So what the hell does all this mean?” asked Renie.

  “Joe and I didn’t have time to draw a lot of conclusions—we just exchanged data, and he took off.” Judith rolled over onto her stomach, wishing the nachos would come to terms with the Sprues. “There are at least two major things going on here—Sandy—or George Philip Sanderson—is Father Tim’s dad. Whether Tim knows that or not, I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing that if Tim ever saw a picture of his real father, he may have recognized Sandy in the church hall the other day. If he did, it must have been a horrible shock. He certainly acted as if something had gone awry when he was talking to him—or her, depending on your point of view. I’d had a feeling that Tim recognized Sandy, but I couldn’t be sure in what guise. For all I really knew, Sandy could be an ex-priest who had taught Tim philosophy in the seminary. But I think now that Tim realized he was standing there, making plans about Emily’s money, with his very own father. That was why he got sick. It was shock.”

  “But did Sandy recognize Tim?” asked Renie.

  “I don’t see how he could have,” said Judith. “He hadn’t seen Tim since he was a baby. Kids change, but adults don’t, even in disguise. Oh, sure, Sandy fooled Mark, but I suspect there’s a big difference between recognizing one’s own father and a casual acquaintance. On some deep, visceral level, a child must know its own parent. The real question is, did Sandy recognize Kate or Mark from their L.A. days?”

  “Kate had her clothes on,” put in Renie, impishly. “Okay, okay,” she said quickly before Judith could upbraid her, “I’ll be fair. Just once. Kate’s changed quite a bit since she was first married—improved, actually. Her hair’s lighter and a different style, she dresses better. But she’s still Kate, and Mark has merely gotten to be an older version of himself. But even if Sandy did recognize them, he couldn’t say so without giving away his own disguise.”

  “Exactly. It’s no wonder Sandy and John wouldn’t have dinner with the Duffys. I suspect they were both very anxious to get out of town before it dawned on Kate or Mark who Sandy really was,” said Judith, stifling a yawn. “I take it you didn’t press Mark about Kitty Cabrini while he was at your house for dinner.”

  “Nope, he and Bill got off onto fishing and sports and movies. I decided to give Mark a break. Anyway, he left about seven-thirty to go back to the hospital and hold Kate’s fragile hand. I’d have taken along one of those buzzer things. That would have given her a jolt.”

  Judith decided it was hopeless trying to reform Renie’s attitude toward Kate Duffy. Besides, Judith was tired. It had been a long, eventful day. “I’m going to sleep now,” she said.

  “Oh.” Renie sounded disappointed. “Well, I’m going to work,” she declared, her voice brightening. “Thanks to Kate Duffy, I just got an amazing idea for the City Arts Council’s Oktoberfest symbol. It’s an angel riding a broom. Get it?”

  “No,” said Judith, and let Renie roll along on her burst of boundless late-night energy.

  But if Judith’s own energies were depleted, her mind wouldn’t allow her to rest easy. Setting the phone down and switching off the night light, she succumbed to the images that were gnawing at the edges of her brain: Sandy being Tim’s father, Kate hiding not only a failed religious vocation but possibly a stint in skin flicks, Mark ashamed of his excursion into pornography, Eve concealing her father’s identity. It was no wonder, Judith realized, that Eve had given John a job. He was, after all, her half-brother. The bitterness Eve had shown over his abrupt resignation was easier to understand. So, perhaps, was her outrage over the will, if for no other reason than he had come into so much money through deception. If only, Judith thought, Eve’s real name was Stella, everything would make more sense. But Eve wasn’t Stella, and nobody else involved in the case was, either.

  Judith’s mind drifted from the school hall to the Duffys’ house to Bayshore’s and back again. Who was Stella Maris? Where was Eddie La Plante? Why wouldn’t the final pieces of the puzzle come together? Judith felt as if she’d set out a jigsaw picture of an autumn landscape and had come up with segments of splashing ocean surf. She tossed and turned
, then lay very still. Her left thumb rubbed at her ring finger. It was an old habit, born out of the years of her marriage, when she’d check to make sure she hadn’t lost her wedding ring. The finger was bare, and for a brief instant, Judith panicked. She should be wearing a ring, not the plain gold band that Dan had given her, but Joe’s baguette diamond set in platinum. Judith let out a deep sigh. In the first year of their marriage, Dan had pawned Joe’s ring for a primitive home computer that blew up six weeks later. Judith turned over one more time and finally went to sleep.

  Judith was late to morning Mass. The Nelsons had headed north and the Alaskans south, but the Californians had lingered over coffee. Judith didn’t get up to church until just before Holy Communion. She rarely attended Mass during the week, and felt vaguely guilty that her motives were temporal, rather than spiritual. In consequence, she prayed all the more earnestly, and even avoided taking stock of her fellow worshippers until Father Tim gave the last blessing.

  As usual on weekdays, attendance was sparse: a dozen senior citizens, all women except for one man; a couple of young mothers with babies and toddlers attached; Mrs. Dooley, wearing a new raincoat she’d probably bought for Easter; Mr. and Mrs. Ringo, Gertrude’s favorite pair of old saps; the bank president, rendering unto God before he did likewise unto Caesar; the head butcher from Falstaff’s, apparently aware that man did not live by bread and beef alone; and a young refugee couple from Cambodia, no doubt not yet converted to the notion that from Monday through Friday American Catholics succumbed as earnestly to the Protestant work ethic as did their separated brethren. Kurt Kramer and Norma Paine rounded out the small congregation, with Wilbur serving as the acolyte. He looked like an aging choirboy in his black cassock and white surplice as he trooped off the altar behind Tim Mills.

  “Judith!” cried Norma, catching up with her prey in the south vestibule. “I’ve heard the most horrid rumors! Kate Duffy tried to hang herself from their upstairs deck, Mr. La Plante has been kidnapped by the Japanese owners of Tresvant Timber, and John Frizzell is going to use all of his inheritance to open a hospice for AIDS victims in Greenwich Village! Isn’t it awful?”