by Lynne Hinton
“Probably more when he came upon the wreck. He said that when he found you, you had been hit by another vehicle, and even though he knew he should take you to the hospital, he was worried that you knew he had Anthony and would bring the police to him.”
Eve nodded, understanding that if she had not been hit by Pierce, that’s exactly what she would have done.
“So Barr is actually the good guy.”
Lujan shrugged. “I suppose if you think someone harboring a fugitive is a good guy, then yes.”
“But Anthony wasn’t a fugitive.”
“But Barr didn’t know that.”
Eve considered all of this information. It was almost too much to take in. She was starting to feel tired from so much talk.
Lujan stood to leave. “I’ve overstayed. You need some rest.”
Eve was about to contradict him, ask him to stay a little longer so that she could ask more questions, when his cell phone started to ring. She sat up a bit, hoping it was a call from Texas.
FIFTY-SIX
“Well, look who’s up and finally in the land of the living!” The Captain walked in just as Lujan took the call.
The detective stepped out of the room and Eve strained to overhear the conversation. She wanted to know if the call was from Austin. She wanted to know if they had the evidence they needed to prove Pierce was the killer.
“What?” her father asked, turning to watch as Lujan moved out into the hallway and closed the door. “You still thinking about coming over to the dark side?”
She shook her head, not understanding.
“The dark side, disavowing yourself as a nun and settling down with a tall, dark, handsome police detective,” he explained.
She rolled her eyes. “No.”
“Okay then, why are you so interested in his conversation?” He took the seat next to her bed.
“He was waiting to hear from the police in Austin. He tracked a package that Peter Pierce sent from Pecos. We’re hoping that it might be the writings that were stolen from the murder victim.”
“Well, of course it is,” the Captain responded. “That’s a slam dunk, for sure.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because he’s guilty. Everybody could tell that when he was arrested for hitting my truck. I don’t guess you know, but Barr took us to it. There’s nothing to be done.” He shook his head. “Had it towed to the graveyard. Man, I loved that old truck, bought it with my first paycheck as a police officer.”
“And me,” she said. “He hit me.”
“Yeah, and you.” He reached for the cup of water she had been drinking and took a big gulp. “But the truck is totaled.”
This raised her eyebrows. “You’re more concerned about your truck than you are your daughter?”
He finished the water and placed the cup back on the bedside table. He scratched his head without an answer.
She again glanced at the door, hoping Lujan would come back in with some news. “You’re a terrible actor,” she noted as she turned back to her father. “You can pretend like you don’t care, that you haven’t been fussing at the nurses, screaming at the doctors, staying here every night, holding my hand. But I know the truth. You aren’t fooling anybody. You’ve been at my side since I got in here. You’ve been acting like a nervous hen watching over her little chick.”
He waved away her protest. “You got to stay on these people or they’ll overcharge you, make you pay a hundred dollars for an aspirin.”
Eve grinned. “Right,” she said, sounding as if she didn’t believe him.
There was a pause.
“You okay?” she asked.
He reached through the rails of the hospital bed and took her hand. “You actually had me worried there,” he said, squeezed, and then pulled away his hand. “I’m glad you’re back.”
“Back?” she asked, surprised. “Where did you think I had gone?”
“You were crazy those first couple of nights, talking about bluebonnets and angels and your mother.”
Jackson got up from the chair and went to the door. He opened it and she could see the detective still talking on his phone. He closed it again and took his seat. “Why were you going on about bluebonnet flowers?”
Eve remembered the visions, the dream of heaven, the ties that kept her from leaving the earth, her mother’s sweet embrace, the presence of the Lady in Blue. “The bluebonnets were blooming in the field from Barr’s little cabin near Mountainair all the way to the road where the wreck happened.”
When she looked over at the Captain, he was shaking his head. “There weren’t any bluebonnets in that field. It’s not even spring yet, and besides, those flowers don’t grow way out there. It’s too close to the salt lakes. Nothing grows out there.”
Eve was surprised. “How did you find the cabin then?”
“Barr took the detectives, remember?”
Eve closed her eyes, thinking about her father’s comment. She recalled Daniel telling the officers to go with Barr to find Anthony. “You didn’t see any blue flowers?”
“No blue flowers, no white flowers, no yellow flowers. Nothing but tumbleweeds.”
The news was startling to Eve, and she began to think that maybe she was overmedicated and making everything up. She thought about leaving the cabin and remembered the vibrant blue wildflowers that led her to the road. She knew they had been there and began to realize she had experienced an amazing miracle. She had been with the Blue Nun.
Suddenly she remembered her instructions, “Take care of him,” and for the first time considered that the “him” she was told to attend to wasn’t Anthony but the Captain, her father, the one she had been caring for since his amputation and rehabilitation.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Thank you,” she said softly.
As he sat back down next to her, he gave a quick nod, acknowledging her words of appreciation and the truth of what he had done for her. He cleared his throat, and Eve thought for a moment there were tears in his eyes.
“So, you’ve got about three months of rehab,” he informed her. “It ain’t for sissies,” he added.
“I remember,” she replied. “And I think I’m up for the challenge.”
“You can stay somewhere here in Albuquerque in a facility if you want.”
She nodded. She hadn’t actually considered what lay beyond her hospitalization. She hadn’t thought about being in a nursing home for a period of time.
“Or you can come home and I’ll watch you do your exercises. I’m pretty good at giving orders.”
She nodded. “Yes, that much I know. I’ll see what the doctor advises and figure out what’s best for both of us. It might be better for me and you if I’m fully healthy before returning to a normal routine.”
“That doctor isn’t even American,” the Captain responded. “Talks all high and mighty. There’s a reason we broke away from them and started our own country.”
“And what is that?” Eve asked, uncertain of why she was taking the bait for a certain rant.
“Well, sports, for one thing. Sports and better food.”
Eve waited. She knew he had more to say on the subject.
“Baseball and football,” he explained. “They got some ladies’ game they call cricket, and they play soccer, running up and down the field without even tackling.”
Eve shook her head. “I’ll ask him anyway,” she said, talking about the doctor. “I don’t really care what kind of sports he likes; I just want to know his recommendations for my getting better.”
“Probably doesn’t even know what the Super Bowl is.”
“Probably doesn’t,” Eve agreed. “But I don’t really care.”
“They eat a lot of potatoes,” he added.
“I think that’s actually Ir
eland, but again, I don’t really care.”
The Captain cleared his throat again, making a loud noise.
“Where’s Daniel today?”
“Still gathering evidence against the murderer,” he answered. “The professor claims he has an alibi, has some receipt he says proves that he was still on an airplane at the time of the murder.”
“It’s a receipt that shows he bought a ticket for a late flight, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t buy two tickets and then take an earlier one. That’s easy to check out.” She recalled seeing the receipt from the airlines that he showed her when they met at the monastery.
“And that’s exactly what Daniel’s doing,” the Captain explained. “He’s at the Albuquerque airport now.”
Eve nodded. “I suspect they’re going to find out he’s lying.” She was staring at the door to her room, hoping the detective would come back in and give the news about the phone call he had taken.
“I suspect the same thing,” Jackson agreed, watching her.
“What?” she asked when she noticed him peering at her.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Look, I do not have a crush on the detective,” she said, objecting to what she knew he was implying.
He held up a hand. “I didn’t say a word.”
Eve was about to explain once again why she was curious about the detective’s whereabouts when he opened the door and entered the room.
“Sorry,” he said, sensing the tension between the two and starting to back out, apparently thinking he had walked in on a private conversation.
“NO!” Eve shouted. Realizing the volume of her protest, she lowered her voice. “Was that Austin?”
He nodded as he placed his phone in his pocket and stood at the door, both hands on his hips. “It arrived about half an hour ago, and according to the officer who opened the package, there are about twenty pages of some writings that he couldn’t read but verified they look very old and very authentic.”
Eve held up her hand and received the high five from the Captain she was waiting for.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Eve held on to Anthony’s arm as the two walked back to the community from Monastery Lake. He carried the empty urn with his other hand. They were returning from having dispersed Kelly’s ashes on the trail the two siblings had hiked together on many occasions. He explained to Eve that she had told him once it was the most beautiful place she had ever visited, and the friends agreed that it seemed appropriate for her remains to be scattered there.
“I’ll be able to visit her every day,” he said, taking small steps so that Eve wouldn’t have to walk too fast.
“That’s nice for you,” she replied.
It had been a couple of months since the murder and a couple of months since both of them had been released from the hospital, Anthony back to the monastery, Eve to Madrid, her father’s home. Since the accident the archbishop had given her more time to decide which convent she wanted to join, more time to decide what she was going to do.
“I miss this place,” she said as they ambled along, both of them slowed by their sorrow.
“It’s wrong what they did to you and the other sisters, Evangeline. I never told you, but the brothers wrote a petition and sent it to Rome. Some of us even considered leaving too. We all thought it was wrong. All of us have been deeply bothered by this decision.”
Eve nodded. She had heard about their responses; she knew about the petition.
“We were a family,” he added.
“So we were,” she replied. “But sometimes families don’t stay together; sometimes they have to leave the nest and make new families.” She was thinking about the time she left her parents to take her vows. It had been an exciting time but a sad one too.
She leaned into him as they took the small steps.
“The bench is just up there. Do you want to stop and rest?” he asked, the concern evident in his voice.
Eve nodded, feeling like she could use a break. The recovery from the surgeries was harder and taking longer than she’d expected. She was still limping a bit, and her shoulder often ached.
They walked the short distance in silence and both sat down on the long wooden bench. It had been built and placed on the trail years before when several members of the community were aging and having a more difficult time walking the path from the lake to the monastery.
“Pierce has been sent to the prison in Santa Fe,” Anthony noted.
“I hadn’t heard his final sentencing,” Eve responded. “I guess I thought they’d put him in a Texas facility since that’s where he’s from.”
“He doesn’t have anybody to visit him in Texas, so I suppose he didn’t make any special requests.”
“Does he have anybody to visit him in New Mexico?” She turned to get a good look at the monk. She had a feeling she understood why he was telling her this news.
“I will never completely get over the grief of losing my sister.” He paused. “I believe that I can be released from some of the pain of Kelly’s death, but that release will come only through forgiveness,” he explained. “I am working on letting go of my anger, and I’m quite sure that visiting her killer is the only way I will be fully able to offer forgiveness to Dr. Pierce and to myself.”
Eve nodded. She hated the thought of her friend’s sorrow and pain, but she, too, agreed that bearing anger and resentment did not lead to healing. She and her father had discussed this topic already when he argued with her about her plans to one day make her own visit to see Pierce. She had tried to get him to understand that she had to offer the gift of forgiveness to the man who had hit her and then left her to die. She had tried to explain that a visit to see the prisoner was necessary for her to find healing.
“That’s good news for me too,” she said to Anthony.
He smiled, understanding that she would be visiting the man as well.
“Does that mean you aren’t moving to one of the other convents? Does that mean you’re staying here?”
Eve looked out over the recently plowed field beyond the walking path. The monastery leased the land to farmers. Hay had been planted and harvested in that field for as long as the monastery had been in existence. That was one of the other reasons she had loved and now missed the monastery. It was a working farm. It was how she had always envisioned her life in a religious community.
“I wish I knew the answer to that, my brother.” She shook her head. “I have prayed and sought guidance. I have lit candles and asked for intercessory prayers.” She reached over and took the monk by the hand, knowing that he had been praying for her as well. “I even asked Sister Maria to give me another sign, something clear for me to follow, blue flowers in a field or something similar, but there’s been nothing. I think it comes down to what I feel in my own heart, what is right for me, and I still don’t really know what that is.”
“Sister Cathy went to Roswell,” he said, uncertain if Eve knew the whereabouts of the other nuns who had left Pecos.
“The Poor Clares,” Eve responded. “I know.” She blew out a long breath. “She invited me to visit, spend some time with her, but I don’t think I could take that kind of cloistering,” she added. “I need to be out in the world a little more. And they like to get up to pray at one o’clock in the morning or something ridiculous like that.”
Anthony laughed. “I think she had to change her name and she’s actually considered a novice again.”
“Sister Paul, if you can believe that,” Eve replied, having heard the news of her sister. She shook her head. “I have to say this denial of the feminine as a part of our religious tradition has become very difficult for me. That’s part of the reason I’m having trouble making the decision to stay a nun.”
“It’s never been easy for women in the church, that’s for sure,” Antho
ny agreed. “Maria and the Inquisition, Joan of Arc burned at the stake, the refusal to allow them to become priests. I have to say I’m really surprised women stay in the religious life.”
“Kind of like the Native Americans,” Eve said. “I’ve always wondered why they remained Catholic after the Spaniards were so cruel to them.
“Did you know it was the Jumanos who were said to have ambushed a party of Spaniards near Gran Quivira and that the retaliation included the killing of nine hundred people and the taking of almost four hundred more as prisoners, more than likely sold into slavery?” While recovering from her injuries, she had been reading more of the history of the Pueblo Indians in the area.
“And yet, after Sister Maria visited them they wanted to be baptized as Catholics. And all of the Pueblos are still Catholic.” Eve leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “It’s amazing to me.”
A crow flew above their heads and perched on a limb of a tree close by. They both watched the bird in silence.
“Do you like solving mysteries, finding missing persons? Do you like working for your father?” Anthony wanted to know.
Eve thought about the question. “I do, actually.”
The monk nodded. “You’re good at it,” he said.
Eve smiled. “Thank you, Anthony.”
“You know that you don’t have to be a nun, wear the habit, live in community, take all the vows to be devoted to our Lord.”
“I know,” she agreed.
“And sometimes nuns and priests and monks choose a different path later in their lives. It doesn’t mean they broke their vows or left the order, as people usually describe it. It could mean that, I guess, but it could also mean that their paths moved them in different directions. It could mean they received guidance leading them into new areas of service.”
She nodded. “Yes, that’s true.”
Anthony bumped into Eve, a familial show of affection. “And you’ll always be my big sister, whether you’re wearing a long black robe, chanting and praying, or a leather jacket and cowboy boots, catching killers.”