Sister Eve and the Blue Nun

by Lynne Hinton

  A man was coming out as Eve headed up to the door; he waited, holding it open, and greeted her with a “Good morning.” She smiled, returned the greeting, and walked in.

  The boxes, all with small keyholes, were to her right, and the front desk, the area with an employee standing behind the counter, was to her left. She could see the woman working there had watched her come in, so Eve decided to go immediately to her and just ask for the information.

  “Good morning,” she said as she made her way to the counter. She noticed the woman was wearing a name tag. She was Rosemary B. There was no last name, and Eve wondered if there was a maximum number of letters allowed for post office employees and Rosemary had used all of hers up with her first name.

  “Hello,” the clerk replied. “How can I help you?”

  Eve cleared her throat. “I have a friend.” She smiled.

  Rosemary made no response.

  Eve pulled out the folder with the stack of letters written by John Barr and addressed to Father Oliver at the monastery. “His name is John and he lives here.” She opened the folder so that Rosemary could see the accumulated mail, hoping that granted her some element of trustworthiness.

  The post office worker glanced first at the letters and then back to Eve. She gave away nothing with the look on her face.

  Eve closed the folder. “Anyway, I was driving around here and I thought I might drop in on John, you know, surprise him.”

  Still nothing from Rosemary. Someone was entering from the rear of the building. Eve assumed it was one of the carriers coming in for the mail to deliver.

  “I’m a nun,” Eve said, not at all sure why she thought that might help.

  Rosemary nodded. “You camping in your truck?” she asked, obviously having seen her in the parking lot near the office.

  She shook her head, glancing behind her at the cars in the lot. “No, just driving through.” She turned back to face her. “Anyway, I thought it would be nice to drop in on John.”

  “Right, you said that,” Rosemary replied. She was suddenly sounding bored.

  “Well, you see, all I have is his post office box number.” And she opened the folder once again and pointed to the return address.

  Rosemary didn’t look away from her, didn’t follow her pointing finger.

  Eve smiled again. “So, I was thinking maybe you might tell me how to find John, give me directions to where he lives, a street name or something.”

  There was a pause.

  “You try to call him?”

  Eve hadn’t anticipated the suggestion. She shook her head, the smile still plastered on her face. “I don’t actually have a phone,” she said, lying.

  “There’s one over at the café,” Rosemary noted.

  Eve turned around once more and looked toward the restaurant only a few feet away from where she stood. She turned back around. “Actually, I’d rather drop by his place,” she said. “So I just thought if you could give me directions to where he lives …”

  A man came around the corner. “Hey, Rosemary,” he called out. He had a large canvas bag thrown over his shoulder. “Oh, sorry,” he added when he noticed Eve was standing there. “Didn’t know you had a customer.”

  Eve nodded in his direction and glanced back at Rosemary. She was still waiting for the woman’s answer. She remained hopeful that the direct request might still work and that the post office worker would give over directions to Barr’s residence.

  “We’re not really allowed to give out home addresses of our customers.”

  There was a pause.

  “Oh, sure, I understand,” Eve replied, trying to sound easygoing and not at all bothered by the post office rules. “It’s just …” She suddenly noticed that the man behind Rosemary was now watching her. She stopped in midsentence and leaned in so that she was closer to the woman behind the counter. She lowered her voice. “It’s just that I wanted to pop over and surprise him, and I don’t know where he lives.”

  “I could call him and just verify that he knows you, that it’s okay if I give you the information.”

  Rosemary had her there, she thought. And this was a terrible idea. He would know someone was looking for him, and if Anthony was with him, he’d tell the young man that they had found him. And then there was no telling where they might run. Eve tried to think.

  “But that would ruin the surprise, wouldn’t it?” She made a face, tried to appear disappointed.

  Rosemary shrugged. “That’s the best I can do.”

  “Who’s she trying to find?” The man behind Rosemary asked the question, and Eve’s hopes were raised. Maybe he’d tell her the address.

  “John Barr,” Rosemary replied. “She has a stack of letters he wrote, says she’s his friend, wants to see him.” She turned to face her colleague. “She’s a nun.”

  The man laughed. “Then she ain’t no friend of his.” He put down the large canvas bag and opened it. He pulled out a stack of letters. It appeared as if his job was to sort them.

  Rosemary turned back to Eve and shrugged again. “It’s a policy. We can’t give out personal information.”

  Eve brought up a hand and pinched the bridge of her nose. This was clearly not working. “Okay, I’ll go over to the café, give John a call, and get the address from him.”

  Rosemary responded with a kind of humming noise, a sort of “uh-huh,” as if she didn’t believe Eve.

  “You all have a good day,” she said and turned to walk out of the office.

  THIRTY-THREE

  She peered ahead at the café and assumed breakfast was being served. A few trucks and cars were still in the lot. Since she’d told Rosemary that she was going over there and knew that she could see her from where she stood behind the counter at the post office, she might as well make good on her word. Besides, breakfast, she thought, wasn’t a bad idea. She left the truck where it was and walked across the paved lot for both establishments and in through the café’s front door.

  As soon as she entered, it was clear that she was the stranger and everyone else belonged. She met the eyes of the diners, most of them men, before the waitress walked out from the kitchen carrying a tray of plates, the food hot and steaming, in one hand and a pot of coffee in the other. There was a pay phone in the corner just inside the building, the one Rosemary had mentioned. Behind the counter, a television was on that was muted with closed captions and seemed to be giving the local morning news from Albuquerque.

  “Just take a seat wherever you like,” the woman said as she made her way to the first booth, where two men were sitting. They made some comment about being glad that their meals had finally arrived and that if it had been much longer, they would be eating lunch.

  Eve didn’t stop at the phone or the counter; she walked past the waitress to the third booth by the window. She slid in on the side where she would face the TV and watched as the garbage truck across the street finished collecting the Dumpster trash and pulled out onto the highway. She hoped the driver wasn’t planning to come over to the café, as she didn’t really want to be eyeball-to-eyeball with the man who had caught her sleeping in her vehicle.

  “You want coffee?” The server had delivered the plates and was now standing beside Eve with the pot still in her hand, the tray resting under her arm.

  “Yes, please,” Eve responded and watched as she filled up the cup in front of her.

  “You camping in your truck?”

  Eve began to wonder if everyone had seen what had just happened in the lot across the street, if everyone had noticed she had been parked at the wildlife area. She could feel the folks around her listening. “No, not really,” she answered. “I got here early, just before sunrise; thought I’d pull over and rest.”

  The waitress nodded with a smile, feigning only mild interest. She waited with no further question
.

  Eve didn’t seem to understand why the server was still standing beside her. She inspected her uniform and noticed the name tag. Her name was Jennifer, and she looked to be about forty years old.

  “You know what you want?” Jennifer asked. She was pretty, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, and she was dressed in a mustard-yellow uniform that was not very flattering.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, no.” Eve glanced around the table until she spotted the menu stuck behind the napkin holder and the salt and pepper shakers.

  “Take your time,” Jennifer said and walked away.

  “Order up,” came the announcement from the kitchen.

  Eve turned and noticed the cook. He appeared to be older, sported a short white beard, and was wearing a chef ’s hat, a T-shirt, and a white apron. He placed a couple of plates on the shelf and then moved away, likely going back to the grill, she assumed.

  Eve pulled out the menu. The dishes were the usual New Mexican fare. There was a breakfast burrito, ranch-style eggs with chorizo, sausage-and-egg tostados, and her favorite, huevos rancheros served with black beans and home fries. She closed the menu and placed it back behind the napkins.

  She poured some cream into her coffee while she glanced around the place. It looked like it had been serving meals for years, and yet somehow Eve had never noticed the café when she took her camping trips to Holy Ghost. She was always so excited about her destination, she had never really driven past the campground turnoff to see what else might be down the highway. She realized as she took in the place that she had never eaten at a restaurant when she headed north to camp; in fact, that was part of the draw for her. No services, no luxuries, no people. She always came to the area for solitude. Going out to a restaurant was never anything she’d intended to do.

  As she peered ahead, the man in the booth facing her direction seemed to be watching her. Eve smoothed back her hair and straightened her blouse, thinking she must look like she just woke up. She wondered if she appeared homeless or destitute, if that was part of the reason Rosemary wouldn’t give her any information. She glanced down at what she was wearing—her crumpled shirt, old gray hoodie, wrinkled jeans—and realized she certainly didn’t look like a nun and she certainly didn’t look like somebody a person should trust with private information. She smiled at the man watching, who then looked away.

  Eve turned her attention back to the highway and watched the few cars and trucks that passed by. It was not the busy season, she knew, because the campgrounds in the national forest in that area of the Santa Fe Mountains hadn’t opened yet for the season. It was still a few months before the road would be busy with tourists and hikers.

  “You decide?”

  Jennifer had returned.

  “Huevos rancheros,” Eve answered.

  Jennifer nodded. “Good choice,” she noted and then asked the question Eve was accustomed to hearing in New Mexican restaurants, “Red or green?” referring to the kind of chile Eve preferred. She topped off her coffee while she waited.

  “Red,” Eve replied.

  A couple walked past, apparently having just finished their meal. The woman handed the waitress fifteen dollars.

  “Keep the change,” she said as she walked behind the man and headed out the door.

  “Thanks, darlin’,” Jennifer said and turned to walk away. “Huevos with red,” she yelled to the cook.

  Eve sat back in the booth. She liked the feel of the Tererro Café. It was comfortable and nothing fancy, and she thought that maybe when the campgrounds opened she’d come back, maybe even bring the Captain, take a drive around instead of just parking and staying at Holy Ghost. She knew her father would appreciate a place like this.

  She glanced up at the television and was immediately captivated by the images on the screen. It was a report about the murder and showed a reporter standing near the front steps of the monastery giving a rundown of what had happened and who was involved. She noticed Detective Lujan standing near the young woman as the camera panned the area, and Eve felt her stomach do a flip. Since the sound was turned down, she was unable to hear the report, but captions told the story.

  “The name of the victim is not being released to the public at this time,” read the words scrolled across the screen. “But the Santa Fe police spokesperson will say it was a woman and that she is not from New Mexico. Monastery officials ask for privacy during this time and will be closing their guest quarters for an undisclosed period of time.”

  And then what Eve heard next was like an unexpected gift, coming from the booth in front of her.

  “Hey, Jen, isn’t that where your crazy boyfriend walks every year, carrying a cross on Good Friday?”

  Eve turned as the waitress came back into the main dining room.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “John Barr is not my boyfriend, and I don’t know where he walks with that cross on his shoulder.” She headed over to the men sitting in the first booth and began clearing their plates and refilling their cups with coffee.

  “Pecos,” the man with his back to Eve replied. “The monastery at Pecos,” he repeated. “That’s the only one around here.”

  “I thought he walked to Chimayo like all the other Catholics,” the other man added. “He just walks to Pecos?”

  “It’s more than twenty miles from his cabin,” the first man noted. “He’s way out there past Panchuela. I mean, unless he stays with Jen at her place the night before he walks.” He was clearly teasing the waitress. “That would save him a couple of miles, plus maybe he’d actually have a reason to carry the cross and repent of some sins.”

  Eve watched as Jennifer rolled her eyes. “You want another sopapilla or are you done?”

  She picked up an empty plate.

  “Nah, I’ve had plenty.” He reached for his coffee cup. “Tell Ralph I’ll have some trout to bring by later tomorrow if he wants to serve fish over the weekend.”

  Jennifer nodded.

  “And tell your boyfriend to call before he starts walking. They may not have a room for him at Easter.”

  The other man facing Eve laughed.

  Eve couldn’t believe her good luck. She just needed to find out for sure exactly where John Barr’s cabin was. She knew Panchuela; she had seen it on the map even though she had never camped that far north. Surely, she thought, there were only a few places where his house could be. There couldn’t be that many roads up around Jack’s Creek and the surrounding campgrounds.

  Jennifer quickly appeared again at her side, this time placing a plate on the table in front of Eve. “Huevos with red,” she announced and poured more coffee without asking.

  Eve smiled. She wasn’t going to ask anything right away. Besides, it appeared as if the other diners were leaving, and she’d rather ask Jennifer about directions without an audience. She took a bite of breakfast and looked back up at the television. The weather report was being given, and Eve watched as the meteorologist stood in front of a state map, giving his forecast while holding a small dog in his arms.

  Eve thought about the news report and wondered if Father Oliver was not only closing the gates to new guests at the monastery but also asking the others already staying in the lodge to leave. She wondered about Dr. Pierce and his wife, Dr. Taylor, and if they would soon be making an exit. She wondered if the detectives had interviewed them and whether they had become as suspicious of the two professors as she was.

  “Jen, we’ll see you in the morning,” one of the men at the front table said as they slid out of the booth.

  “Make sure you ask Ralph about the trout,” the other one added.

  “Ask him yourself,” Jennifer called back. “He’s finished cooking.”

  The man sighed and turned to his friend. “I’ll catch you later,” he said. “I’m going to go to the kitchen for a sec.”

  The o
ther man nodded as he threw some money on the table. He looked over at Eve before leaving, raising his chin in her direction.

  Eve nodded in return.

  She enjoyed her breakfast and finished a third cup of coffee before the waitress reappeared, this time carrying a basket with sopapillas.

  “You want more coffee?” she asked.

  Eve shook her head. “I think I’ve reached my limit,” she replied with a smile. “I could take a glass of water, though,” she added. She listened as the man going fishing started a conversation with the cook. He was explaining how long he planned to be out on the river and where he thought the trout were most plentiful. In a few minutes he was walking out the front door.

  Eve looked around and realized she was the only diner left in the café. She must have been the last of the breakfast crowd as Jennifer went from table to table, taking up creamers and adding a sheet of paper to the menus, probably highlighting the day’s lunch specials, Eve thought.

  She took a bite of sopapilla, added a bit of honey, and quickly took another bite. The soft doughy pastry was good at any meal, but she particularly enjoyed having them at breakfast. It always reminded her of her mother, a woman who always made her own tortillas and fried her own sopapillas. Eve and Dorisanne always claimed their mother was the best cook in the state, and because of her kitchen skills and expertise at the stove and the oven, neither of the daughters had bothered to learn how to bake and cook. When Mary Divine got sick, she tried to teach her daughters the family’s favorite recipes, but Dorisanne was clearly no longer interested in learning and Eve was so wrapped up in her life at Pecos in the religious community she didn’t have time to pay attention.