Sister Eve and the Blue Nun

by Lynne Hinton

  The abbot appeared confused.

  “I read about it in a case my father was working on. Cyanide often has a certain smell; it’s a little like almonds.”

  “And that’s what you smelled in the tea?”

  She nodded. “I think it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “And they will find this out during an autopsy?” he asked without looking at the nun.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  There was a pause in the conversation, and Eve didn’t know what the monk was thinking. She didn’t know if he had come to the room for the same reason she had, to check out Anthony’s story, to see if there was anything that could be done for the young woman, or if he had believed the story and was here for the reason he said, to pray for Kelly’s soul before the police were called and removed the body. Eve wanted to believe the vice superior’s explanation but just couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else going on, some reason he was asking questions about poisoning and why he seemed almost reluctant to contact the authorities. Then the obvious crossed her mind.

  “She was the opening speaker for the conference,” he spoke calmly.

  Eve stayed where she was, still standing at the desk, shards of the teacup scattered around her feet, unsure of his direction. “Yes, and she apparently had some interesting news about Sister Maria she planned to share,” Eve responded, recalling how the professor had acted when Eve had run into her earlier in the day.

  “It was more than interesting,” Father Oliver replied. “It was groundbreaking.”

  Eve waited for more.

  Father Oliver dropped his elbows onto his knees and his chin into his hand. “The writings …” He paused.

  “Yes, what kind of writings?” Eve asked. She leaned closer to him.

  “They were writings that were believed to be something from Sister Maria.”

  “Something found here?” she asked.

  “Something transcribed by the people here in New Mexico,” he added. “Something she wrote to them.”

  “The Jumano people?” she asked.

  He nodded and then looked over at the nun.

  “During one of the periods of her bilocation?” She couldn’t believe her ears. A new piece of evidence that the Blue Nun had really been in New Mexico.

  “Anthony found them at the pueblo church in Isleta. He was helping with their renovations and he found them.” Father Oliver looked away. “I don’t know any more about them than that.”

  Eve turned to the items on the desk, wondering if the pages were anywhere in the stack of books or in the thin white binder, wondering if Brother Anthony had come to Kelly’s room to retrieve the pages.

  “He found them and hid them.” The vice superior shook his head. “It was wrong of him and he knows it. When he confessed the discovery …” He stopped. “When he confessed the theft had occurred,” he continued, emphasizing the word theft, “he said that he had only stolen them to show to Kelly, that he knew what they would mean to his sister, and he was going to let her take a look at them and then report the finding, first to me, and do whatever I instructed him to do with the papers.”

  It was finally all making sense to Eve, the argument in the dining room, Anthony’s rambling confession in the chapel. Anthony knew the trouble he was in even though his intentions had been pure, a brother simply wanting to give his sister a great thrill. I would likely have done the same thing, Eve realized as she thought about her sister, Dorisanne, how loyal the two were to each other, even if they were so different, how Eve had raced to Las Vegas to find her, how she’d do just about anything for her sister, how she, too, would love to find something to bring her happiness.

  “And if he had come to me first, I would have given the same instruction I gave to him tonight, to take them back to the pueblo church where he stole them.”

  “Not to the archbishop?” she asked, surprised by the abbot’s remark.

  “No, these papers belong to the people of the Isleta Pueblo. The Jumano tribe is gone, but the Isleta people are still here, and they are the closest kin to the Indians who were visited by Sister Maria. It was to their priest, their mission church where the Jumanos traveled to ask to be baptized, asked for a Catholic priest to visit them where they lived. The papers belong to them.”

  Eve knew the story. Most of the nuns and monks in Pecos knew the story. Sister Maria told the Jumano Indians where to go, and before they showed up at the church, the priest had been told about their coming. Later, when Spanish priests arrived at the pueblo, the Isleta priest sent them to the Jumano people. Once they found the tribe, over two thousand Indians were baptized and joined the faith. It was a great miracle and was the last time the revered nun was reported to have spoken to members of the tribe.

  “Why did you ask about the poison?” There was still something odd about the questions he had asked earlier.

  Father Oliver lowered his face once again. “Anthony was making tea,” he answered quietly. “I saw him in the kitchen earlier. He was making a pot of tea, and he placed it on a tray and left the dining area. I think he brought it here.”

  SEVEN

  Eve felt her legs weaken and she moved to the chair and sat down. “He didn’t kill his sister. He wouldn’t do this,” she said. “I know Anthony. He’s not capable of murder.”

  She glanced up to see Father Oliver’s response, but there was none. “He loved Kelly,” she added and then turned her attention once again to the dead woman at her feet. “And Anthony would never hurt her.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the vice superior responded. “It’s just the way he came to me tonight, the things he said.”

  Eve recalled how Anthony had confessed that he had killed Kelly when they were together earlier in the chapel. She shook her head. “But he didn’t do this,” she said. “He just thinks he was the reason this happened, that he brought this evil to her.” She paused. “He would not murder her.”

  “Right. I know this, of course. There has to be some other explanation. He was preparing tea for himself, taking it to his room.”

  Eve tried to slow her breathing. She held her hand to her chest. “Somebody else brought her this tea.”

  He took another look at the victim. “Or maybe she took her own life,” he suggested. “Could she have done this to herself?”

  “Suicide?” Eve responded. “No, it doesn’t make any sense. She was excited when I talked to her today. She was looking forward to breaking the news about this discovery.” Eve remembered the last time she had talked to Kelly. “I think she believed this could push the beatification process forward for Sister Maria, and she wanted that as much as anyone.”

  She shook her head. “And her clothes …” She nodded in the direction of the suit hanging on the closet door. “Having the clothes you are planning to wear the next day hanging on the closet door as if you are making preparations for the event …” She shook her head again. “No, she didn’t take her own life.”

  She glanced down at the items on the desk. “And we would know that for sure if we knew whether or not the pages from Sister Maria were still here.” She turned her gaze back to the vice superior, wondering if he would be willing to make a search.

  “We will need to call the police,” the abbot said, not taking Eve’s hint but rather stating what she knew to be the obvious. “We need to call them right away.”

  “The police.” Eve nodded, glanced at her watch, and then noticed once again the broken cup at her feet. “They’re going to want to know everything.” She was saying this as much to herself as to the abbot.

  Father Oliver nodded. “Yes, and we will tell them what we know.” He sounded sure of himself, confident of his decision. “We will tell them every detail of this night,” he continued.

  Eve didn’t look at the vice superior. She was trying to make sen
se of all that they knew, everything that had happened, the details.

  “We will tell them why we came to the room in the first place, how Anthony told us what he had found, what we saw when we arrived, and”—he paused—“what we know about the siblings, what we saw that transpired between them.” He seemed to be rehearsing what he intended to say to the police. “We will tell them everything we know. It’s the only way.”

  She didn’t respond. Eve knew that if they told everything they had experienced that night, if they both reported everything that Anthony told them before they came to the room, including a confession of murder, and if they reported having witnessed the argument that the siblings had in the dining room, and if the vice superior then also told the officers that later in the evening he saw Anthony fixing a tray with tea, then an arrest would likely be made, an arrest that no one at the monastery would believe, an arrest that she didn’t think should happen.

  “We don’t have to tell them everything,” she responded softly, clear on how things would appear to investigating officers.

  The two locked eyes.

  “We can tell them if they ask,” she said. “But we don’t need to tell them until they do.” She waited. “Not until we have a chance to figure things out, not until we know who could have stolen the writings, who else knew about them, who she might have told.”

  A thick silence fell between them.

  The vice superior shook his head. It was clear he understood what Eve was suggesting. “I made a vow to be truthful in all things.”

  “Yes, as have I,” Eve replied. “And I will be.”

  “But only if the right question is put forward to you?” He studied her. “Only if they ask a question that they will not even think to ask without hearing all of the information we have?” He closed his eyes. “Is that not still deceit? Is that not also being untruthful?”

  Suddenly Eve thought about the recent history of their community. She thought about the interviews held, how he had claimed support for the change even though he had told her he was not in favor of what was happening. She remembered the vice superior’s position, what he said in private to the residents of the monastery and what he stated on public record.

  “Do you believe what you told the reporters about the archbishop’s decision? Do you really believe it was right to make the sisters leave?” She spurted out the questions and then cleared her throat and watched him, waiting for his response.

  He made no reply, but it was clear he understood what she was doing, how she was bringing to light his own indiscretions.

  She studied the pieces of the broken cup scattered around her and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, making an apology. “It’s just that I know Anthony would not murder his sister.”

  “Then the police will discover that truth as well.”

  Eve didn’t respond right away; instead, she recalled a conversation she’d had with the Captain and how her father had discussed how quickly and sometimes carelessly a police officer would manage an investigation. Yes, he was proud of the work he did as a detective for the Santa Fe Police Department, he had explained, and he admired his colleagues still in the same line of duty, but he confessed that they, too, often chose the easiest path in making an arrest. This was one of the reasons he had retired from the force, one of the reasons he had chosen to be a private detective. In private work he felt he was better able to sift through all the details without feeling pressured to make a hasty judgement.

  “What about your friend?” the abbot asked, pulling Eve away from her thoughts.

  “What friend?”

  “The one on the police force. The one who always came to the monastery to see you, your father’s former partner.”

  “Daniel,” she replied.

  “Yes, what if you contact him first? What if you call him, tell him what we know, tell him that we are certain of Brother Anthony’s goodwill, his innocence, and let him manage the details?”

  It was a good idea, Eve thought. He was the right one to call. She wasn’t sure if he would actually be given the position of lead investigator, but the monastery was in his jurisdiction, and contacting him first would at least make things easier for everyone involved.

  She would do as he suggested. She would contact Daniel. And she was just about to say all of these things to the abbot, agree to his idea, when they both heard the sirens moving in their direction.

  EIGHT

  “Who would have called them?” Eve hurried over to the window and pulled open the curtains. There was no car approaching the monastery grounds, but she could make out the red lights coming in their direction.

  Father Oliver stood up from the bed. “Could someone else have come to the room? Do you think another guest may have seen her and then called for help?”

  Eve shook her head. “I think they would have come to find you first, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered.

  “If someone else had found her, they would have stayed. They would have made the call and stayed.”

  “Not if their phone was somewhere else. Maybe they ran back to their room or to their car and they called and just haven’t come back to the room yet.” He was searching for an explanation.

  “Do you think Anthony might have told someone else?” she asked.

  “No, I specifically instructed him to stay put. There is no one else who knows about this,” he noted. “Unless another guest came by or saw something or heard something and made the call.”

  Eve let the curtains fall back together and turned to the abbot. “Maybe it was the killer,” she suggested. “Maybe the killer has been watching us all along and made the call as part of a strategy because they know how things look for Anthony, maybe even set the clues in motion to cast the blame or suspicion in his direction. Maybe they saw him making the tea, knew his plans, and wanted to stage it like he did this, and maybe once they saw us here in the room, maybe they became afraid we would tell a different story, ruin their plans to pin this on Anthony.”

  Father Oliver didn’t respond. He bowed once again, closed his eyes. A few seconds passed.

  Eve ran her hand through her short hair, bit her bottom lip, and watched. She knew they didn’t have much time, that the police would be arriving at the main entrance very soon; or if they had been given directions to the guest room, they would be arriving there in a matter of minutes. She shifted her weight from side to side, blew out a breath, watching the man as he prayed.

  She hated to interrupt her superior’s private intercessory prayer, but she also needed him to help her figure out what to do about everything, about how to explain what she was doing there, about what she had touched, about the broken teacup. She wanted to know what he planned to tell the police once they got to the room. She turned away from Father Oliver and peered out the window once more, searching for the patrol car she could hear, knowing that it was getting closer. This is one of those times we don’t need to be praying, she said to herself, shaking her head, feeling her patience grow thinner and thinner.

  “I will go and meet them,” the abbot said, breaking his silence and grabbing Eve’s attention. “They will likely stop at the main entrance, go to the main door. I will meet them there, tell them what I know, and bring them here,” he added.

  Eve studied him. She thought he might be trying to tell her more than just what he planned to do, but she wasn’t sure.

  Should she pick up the pieces of the broken cup while he was meeting them? Should she leave things as they were? Could she take a peek through Kelly’s things to see if the Maria de Jesus de Agreda pages were there somewhere on the desk? She wasn’t sure what to ask.

  “Should I stay here?” was finally the question she posed. “Do you want me to stay here with the body and wait until you return?” She watched him very closely, searching for the instruction she th
ought might be hidden behind the words he spoke.

  He shook his head. “No,” he answered clearly. “I think it would be best if you go find Brother Anthony. I think you should find him and be with him. This is going to be a very difficult time, and I’m sure the police will want to talk to him at some point once they see what has happened.” He hesitated. “I will go and meet them at the front steps. I will introduce myself, give a brief explanation about what has happened, what I saw in this room, and then bring the officers here for the rest of their investigation.”

  “You’re going to tell them that you came in here?” Eve asked.

  “I will tell them Brother Anthony told me what he found in his sister’s room, and yes, I will explain that I had come to the room to see if I could help her, to see if she was really dead.”

  “Who do you think called?”

  He stood and turned to Eve. “It doesn’t matter who made the call. They’re here, and I was going to call anyway after I took a look around.” He seemed to be preparing himself. He took in a deep breath, closed his eyes. When he opened them, he appeared calmer, more decisive.

  “I will tell them that I came to the room, that I touched a few things in and around the victim’s body, that I may have compromised the scene, but that I was just trying to check on Miss Middlesworth to see if there was anything I could do.” He locked eyes with Eve, staring at her as if he were giving her more instructions.

  Eve, however, wasn’t sure what else he was asking her to do, what action he thought she should take in that moment. Then it clicked. “You want me to leave?”

  “I think it’s best,” he replied, appearing relieved since she had gotten his unspoken message. He walked past her and placed his hand on the doorknob to open it. “I will tell them I have been here, that I was in the room, that I touched her and prayed for her. I will tell them that I came after hearing from Brother Anthony.”

  The sirens were growing louder.