by Lynne Hinton
She stood up, breathing normally, and leaned in, placing her ear to the door, trying to hear if there was any noise coming from the small guest room at the end of the quarters that had been built with the intention of being the residence of the nuns—a place away from the monastery proper that Father Oliver had hoped would change the archbishop’s mind about making the nuns leave. In the end it didn’t sway the leaders of the diocese, and the residences became the guest quarters.
Eve felt her heart rate quicken, knowing that it had nothing to do with her run from the chapel but was because she didn’t know what she was about to find in the guest room occupied by the religion professor. There was nothing coming from inside, no sounds of any kind as, slowly, she reached for the doorknob, turned it, and opened the door.
The overhead light was burning inside, and when Eve looked in she immediately saw the young woman lying near the center of room, between the bed and the small wooden desk. She was on her right side, one arm raised above her head, the other resting on her chest; her legs were bent at the knees, one in front of the other. She was wearing a robe, probably her nightgown underneath, Eve assumed, with her pale white feet stuck beneath the chair that was pulled away from the desk as if she had been sitting there at one time.
Eve entered the room and then shut the door behind her, aware that she should not touch anything but also knowing that she needed to make sure Kelly was really dead. She had to feel for a pulse, had to make sure the young woman couldn’t be helped. Eve walked over and knelt down by the victim, placing her fore and middle fingers on the woman’s neck, and waited. She held her breath, trying to listen for a heartbeat, trying to will the young woman back to life. But there was no pulse. Anthony was right. His sister was dead. Quickly, Eve made the sign of the cross over the woman, bowed, closed her eyes, and said a quick prayer for the soul of Kelly Middlesworth.
Eve stood with plans to search for a phone, knowing that she must call the police, but she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t move, and instead of trying to find a phone, she glanced around, trying to take and keep a mental picture of everything in the room. She had been working with her dad as a private detective for only a few months, but there were some lessons she had learned well.
From wall to wall she studied everything. The narrow bed by the desk was covered with a thick brown comforter that appeared ruffled, not as if someone had slept under it recently, but rather as if someone had been sitting on top of it. There were two pillows, both pushed against the headboard and situated one in front of the other, giving the appearance that they had been placed that way to be leaned against and not slept upon. A blanket was folded and lying across the end of the bed. The room was warm, the heaters still on and working in all the buildings of the monastery for the late winter season. A small crucifix hung on the wall over the bed, and a thin pair of tan curtains were closed over the only window in the room.
On top of the desk next to the bed were five books, hardbacks, religious in nature, she thought, all somehow pertinent to Dr. Middlesworth’s studies. Eve recognized the spine of one, a copy of The Mystical City of God, the book written by Sister Maria in the 1600s, a book the nun claimed had been given to her word for word by the Virgin Mary. The others appeared to be books about the Spanish sister, even a novel written about the appearance of the nun to the Indians in New Mexico. Eve thought she had read that one, suggested to her by one of the monks after she had first become interested in the woman known as the Lady in Blue.
She noticed the tray, the small teapot, the cup and saucer, and a small pitcher with what looked like honey, all items that she recognized from the kitchen at the monastery. She saw a legal pad with scribbled notes; several manila folders; a computer bag; a thin binder, closed, white; and a small glass with several pens and pencils inside. That was all Eve could see on top of the desk. A long gray sweater hung on the back of the chair, and a trash can stood near the bathroom with several pieces of rumpled paper inside. A lady’s navy-blue skirt and jacket, along with a pink silk blouse, hung on the outside of the closet, the hooks of the hangers placed over the top of the door, which was partially open.
Eve looked around slowly as she took notes in her mind of everything she was seeing. Her father, Captain Jackson Divine, had taught her how to pay attention to details when he was in the police force and she was still a young girl. He said that entering a person’s house or private room was always an opportunity to learn about that person, that what a person owned and how they kept their personal items spoke volumes about who that person was, which was why he always made Eve and her sister, Dorisanne, keep clean rooms. He demanded neatness and tidiness from his children so that even if these were not traits they actually valued, they would always give the appearance of being that way.
Eve glanced into the bathroom without moving from where she stood at the desk. She could see a towel hanging on the shower curtain rod and toiletries lining the windowsill. A mat lay on the floor next to the tub; the light was on, and everything seemed to be in place, even though she was not able to see the area around the sink, the area just behind the door.
Clearly, Eve thought, there had been no struggle that caused young Kelly Middlesworth to die. The two rooms gave the appearance of an occupant who had showered without incident, sat at the desk, and then lay on the bed to think or more than likely read, and who was planning to dress up the following day in a newly pressed navy-blue business suit. Nowhere in the room that she could see was there evidence of foul play, nothing out of order except, of course, for the dead woman who still lay at her feet.
Eve looked down again at Anthony’s sister. She was pale, like the monk, and her curly hair spilled around her. Her eyes were closed and there was a slight lift to her lips, almost but not quite a smile, as if she had found a measure of contentment before she passed, as if she had died at peace. She took one last glance across the room that the woman had occupied for almost a week before her death, and the first thing that caught her eye this time was the tray and the pot and the cup, still half full.
She took in a breath and made the sign of the cross once again, knowing that she was about to do something she shouldn’t really do, then she yanked the sleeve of her hoodie over the fingers of her right hand to prevent leaving prints, leaned forward, and reached for the cup. Slowly, she wrapped her hand around it and brought it to her nose, getting a good whiff of its contents, smelling a slight almond aroma. She was just about to put the cup back where it had been when suddenly the door flew open, startling her, causing her to drop the cup, which immediately fell to the floor, breaking into pieces.
FIVE
“What are you doing?” Father Oliver asked as he moved into the room, closing the door behind him. “You shouldn’t be here, Sister.” He looked away from Eve and then down to the floor, discovering the dead woman near the bed. He immediately made the sign of the cross and dropped to his knees beside her. He felt her neck for a pulse and then bowed to pray.
Eve knelt down next to the desk to examine the mess she had made. “I ran into Anthony in the chapel. He told me that he had come by and found his”—she stopped, turning her gaze to the abbot beside the body, near where she was kneeling—“found her dead.”
Father Oliver was still praying as Eve considered what she should do with the broken shards and the tea that had spilled on the desk chair and the floor around it. She saw all of the pieces scattered around her, knowing that she had broken what likely had been the cup the young woman had been drinking from. She realized that she had mishandled a very important piece of evidence in the investigation of Kelly’s death, and now that the accident had happened, Eve wasn’t sure whether to leave everything as it was or clean it up.
Maybe I should call the Captain, she thought, knowing that he would surely be able to tell her what action she should take. But just as that thought registered, she knew he would not be pleased that she had walked into a crime scene
and compromised the investigation, and before he offered advice, she’d have to hear all about the bad decisions she had made.
She shook away the idea, deciding not to make that call.
“How long have you been here?” Father Oliver asked, startling Eve, who was still beside him, kneeling on the floor, trying to figure out what to do.
She stood up, making sure not to touch anything else. “I just got here,” she answered. She looked at the clock on the small table next to the bed. “About fifteen minutes ago,” she added.
He nodded but didn’t move from his position beside the victim.
“What did Anthony tell you?” the vice superior of the abbey asked.
“Just that he had come to her room and found her this way.” Eve turned once again to the body. “She’s not been dead long,” she said, still finding it difficult to believe that Anthony’s little sister was dead.
Father Oliver didn’t respond, but it was easy to see the question he had on his mind. How long has she been dead? That’s what Eve knew he wanted to ask.
“She’s still warm,” Eve explained. “Like the tea, actually.” And she turned her attention once again to the spill around her, knowing she was going to be lectured by the police for what she had done. She thought again about the strange smell she had sensed before the monk entered the room but decided not to share her findings.
“Do you have any idea what might have happened?” he asked. “Did she choke on something perhaps? Was it a heart attack?” He was staring at the body.
“I don’t know,” she responded, recalling Anthony’s rambling about it being a murder, about having given her something that would have led to a homicide.
“What else did Anthony tell you?” he wanted to know.
And Eve suddenly remembered the monk had said that Father Oliver knew what he had found and given to Kelly, pages of some kind, he had said, and that his superior knew about what had transpired between the two siblings.
“He told me why they argued at dinner,” she replied, hoping Father Oliver would share what he knew.
Father Oliver only nodded and turned away, the distress written on his face.
She continued, hoping to hear something from him that might lend an explanation to what had happened. “He said he told you what he had found and that he planned to tell his sister what you had instructed them to do. He believes someone murdered her before he could get to her and take back whatever it was he had given her.”
“He told you that he thought she was murdered?” Father Oliver asked, without offering up any information about what he knew. He stood and faced Eve.
She nodded. “He thinks someone she told about this discovery came to her room tonight and killed her.”
Father Oliver glanced over Eve’s shoulder to the desk. She watched as his eyes searched across Kelly’s possessions.
“Did you find anything here?” he asked, turning his attention back to the nun.
She shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary,” she answered. “But then I’m not sure I know what it is that I should be looking for.”
There was a pause.
“Anthony told you what he found, what Kelly had,” Eve remarked, watching him closely, hoping for a revelation.
“I have not seen these pages that he said he discovered. I only learned about them tonight after dinner. I’ve been to the services and then to my room. I don’t know where they were kept. So I wouldn’t know what to look for either, what she kept them in or where.”
Eve glanced over at the desk, feeling the urge to dig through the pile of books, open drawers, and look under the mattress. She considered asking the abbot to assist her, but she knew she would compromise the scene even more if she started moving things around. And she still didn’t know what she would be searching for.
“Is this discovery important enough to cause someone to commit murder?”
Father Oliver didn’t answer at first. He dropped his shoulders and lowered his gaze. “Like I said, I never saw what he claimed to have found.”
“Yes, but you have an opinion. You know what this discovery was. Is it really that significant?”
He hesitated and then looked back at Eve. “I can’t say for sure, but yes, if Anthony is right, if what he says is true and what he unearthed is really what he and Kelly thought it was, and I suppose if the wrong people were to find out about it …” He paused again, appeared to consider the question once more, and then rubbed his forehead.
He shook his head. “I don’t really know,” he confessed. “But it might not be murder, though, right?” he asked. “Surely something else could have happened.”
Eve didn’t respond.
He continued, “We don’t really know anything that occurred in this room.” It was clear he was trying to convince himself of something.
Eve shrugged. “Kelly was in excellent physical shape as far as I could tell. She was young, a marathon runner from what Anthony told me, gave up meat when she turned twenty. She hadn’t mentioned any symptoms of a heart problem or displayed any behaviors that could be linked to a disease or a sudden death.”
“But her death, it could be of natural causes?” he asked, sounding almost desperate, Eve thought.
“I guess so,” she replied. “The cause of death will be determined in an autopsy, which will have to be conducted because this is such an unlikely death.”
“Maybe she had a drug overdose or an allergic reaction to something.”
Eve studied the man. Something was bugging her about his questions, about how he’d been acting since arriving at the guest room.
“There’s no blood, so she wasn’t shot or stabbed, right?” He was sliding his hands through his thin white hair.
Eve shook her head. “No blood.”
“So maybe it’s not murder, maybe it’s something natural that happened. Maybe it was her time and God’s angels came to bring her to her eternal rest.”
Eve didn’t respond but only watched the abbot as he searched for some action other than homicide that had caused the young professor’s death.
“What is it?” he asked, feeling the nun’s stare.
“You didn’t knock,” she said.
He stood watching as Eve tried putting things together.
“When you arrived here, you opened the door without knocking, and you didn’t seem at all surprised that Kelly is dead.”
“If it was murder,” he said softly, not responding to the statements Eve had made, “then how do you think she was killed?”
Eve watched him as he waited for her reply. She looked again at the victim and then at the pot of tea that was still situated on the tray on the dead woman’s desk, then back to the abbot, standing by the door.
“Poison,” she finally replied, hoping to get answers of her own. “I think Kelly was poisoned.”
Father Oliver closed his eyes once more and bowed again to pray.
SIX
“Wait,” Eve said, interrupting the abbot’s prayer. “Tell me, why are you here?” she asked. “It’s Grand Silence. It’s after midnight and you’re visiting a guest, a female guest at that. You walked in without knocking. I don’t understand, Father; what made you come to this room?”
Father Oliver walked over and sat on the bed, dropping his head into his hands. He looked tired, weary, and Eve assumed that the new orders handed down and the consequential fallout covered by the local media, the departure of the nuns from the abbey, all friends of his, had all finally taken a toll on the vice superior. Now he would have to deal with this suspicious murder happening on the premises.
“Anthony came to my room to tell me,” he reported. “Just now, I assume just after speaking to you in the chapel, he came to my room, woke me, and told me what had happened.”
“Just now?” she asked, real
izing that Anthony had left the chapel where she had instructed him to stay, and hoping he hadn’t disappeared again. “Where is he?”
“He’s still there,” Father Oliver responded. “He promised he would stay in my room until I got back, and we would return together when the police arrived.”
“But you haven’t called them yet?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I just wanted to see for myself, see that she was really dead.” He paused. “Like you, I guess.”
She looked away, understanding the vice superior’s meaning. She realized that she should have contacted him first before coming to the guest room.
“Did you call the police?” he asked, pointing out the fact that she had also acted hastily and perhaps inappropriately.
“No, not yet. I wanted to make sure there wasn’t something I could do. I wanted to see if what he was saying was true before I called it in.”
They watched each other.
“And we came because we both know that once the police show up, we will not be allowed in this room and be able to say proper prayers for the young woman’s soul.” It sounded like the abbot was seeking justification for their actions.
“And maybe, since we’re here, we could search for those pages?” Eve spoke sooner than she wished she had; she wanted to take back the words, but it was too late.
The vice superior shook his head but made no verbal response. He grasped the cross hanging around his neck and asked another question: “How do you know there was poison?”
“What?” Eve responded, surprised by the change of direction in their conversation.
He waited for her answer.
Eve looked at the spilled contents from the cup that had broken. “The tea,” she answered. “It smells like cyanide.”