“Maria,” he cried, an instant before a loud POP resounded through the cold air.
John Taglieri fell backwards. I heard his head make a thudding sound on the snow-covered cement. I winced and looked at his wife, who stood still holding the gun. Her eyes were closed. There was motion behind her, a blur of white. And then another blur. And another. I squinted through the steadily growing snow. The sisters from the convent were coming out to see what the noise was. I felt relief as a rush of warmth through me. We were safe.
The white shapes were coming closer, taking on a form . . .
I said, shakily, “Mrs. Taglieri, we have company. The noise has awakened the sisters. You have the murder of two nuns on your soul, and perhaps the murder of your husband. Are you a religious woman? How much blood do you want on your hands?”
She faced me; I could barely see her features in the darkness. The gun seemed to shake in her hands. I stood my ground, pressed against my brother. Like me, Fritz seemed suspended; he made no sound. I was aware of no conscious feeling, not even fear. The eerie scene held me mesmerized. The snowflakes landed fatly on her gun and had begun to cover Tag as he lay like a log on the driveway. I thought I saw Maria smile. After a cold, white eternity she lowered her gun with an almost serene expression. “This is enough,” she said.
Fritz pushed me aside and rushed toward her to take the weapon.
He took it away somewhere, then returned to us. John lay unmoving on the ground; his wife stood unmoving above him.
“Let's go to the convent and call an ambulance,” I turned to say to one of the sisters. They were gone. “I guess they're one step ahead of me. You okay with her, Fritz?”
Fritz nodded, a curious expression on his face. I ran to the door, threw down the cocaine and the cross, and knocked with the huge knocker until Sister Moira stood on the threshold, looking half asleep.
“Did the others tell you? Are they calling the police?” I asked.
“What others?” she said.
“The other nuns. I saw them a moment ago. Mr. Taglieri has been shot, by his wife. She killed Sister Joanna. My brother is holding her. We need to call the police, an ambulance,” I babbled.
She stepped to the side and motioned me in. I ran to the phone and called 911, and found Sister Moira watching me. “Madeline,” she said quietly when I hung up, “I have something to tell you. I am the only sister here tonight. Father Fahey and I thought it best to relocate the others until this was cleared up. What with Sister Francis's death, and—”
“What do you mean? I saw—” When I thought back, I wasn't sure what I'd seen. Could it have been snowflakes, or perhaps my own need for a rescuer that caused me to see those white shapes? “Well, never mind; I'm just seeing things, but the police are on their way.”
“Madeline.” She looked at me with glowing eyes; even her skin seemed translucent. The light was playing tricks on me this evening. “You saw her. It was Joanna, I know it. I think I knew this all along, that she would come at the end.”
“Oh.” I didn't know what to say, how to tell her I didn't believe in ghosts. “Well, I need to get outside.” I felt suddenly sad, burdened by guilt and disappointment, perhaps, that Sister Moira wasn't right.
She followed me, smiling. Nothing I said was going to dissuade her. At the door was the bag of cocaine, and the cross with which I'd pounded my way through to the ice, and to the truth. I left the drugs there for the police, but I took up the cross. I walked to the pond, where I put it into its rightful place.
Chapter Fifteen
The police came and took our statements. Fritz was in his element. He'd been in on a bust; he'd seen a murderess, watched a crime committed, brought someone to justice. And, I had to admit, he showed a great deal of character. We held each other's hands while we talked to the police, and I escaped at one point to use my cell phone to call Jack, and to tell him that we'd be home soon. He sounded disappointed and wanted to know where I was. I knew it would be hard to explain, why I'd chosen the convent over him, after that beautiful song, that lovely tribute. And in all honesty, it probably could have waited until the next day. Fritz saw me struggling and took the phone from me; he said, “Jack, I'm with Madeline. She just did something really cool, man, you'll be very proud of her. Just like she's proud of you. Yeah, we'll talk to you later.” He hung up, and I gave him a grateful glance.
We heard the police Mirandizing Maria Taglieri. Her husband had been taken away, alive, but we weren't sure if he would stay that way. Maria, despite her legal warnings, couldn't seem to stop talking, now that she had all this attention. “I always loved him,” she said to the cop who was cuffing her hands. “I loved him more than life itself, but I warned him when we married never to betray me. And I thought he hadn't; I thought he'd been tempted by a seductress and resisted her.”
Fritz and I stared openly, and no one sent us away. “And that old nun, she just couldn't let things lie. After all this time. She looked right at me at the lunch table and I saw that she knew. I was there serving treats; no one spared me a glance, as usual, but she kept staring, like she was putting it all together. So I took one of the brownies I'd made, and then I bought a nut brownie in the cafeteria. I hollowed out the first and put a good deal of the nut one inside. Then I put the top back on. It was a nutless brownie, until you bit into it. I left it at the main desk when no one was around, with a little note that said, 'For Sister Francis.' She'd really enjoyed her brownie at lunch.” Maria smiled, as though she felt flattered about her baking abilities. “I guess they sent it to her.”
She wiped a snowflake off of her eyelashes and looked unconcerned. Since she'd shot her husband she'd acted almost happy, a woman let out of prison instead of one about to go there. A cop pushed her into the back seat, one of them jotting down notes about everything Maria said. She glanced around and noticed me. “And you—I knew you were trouble from that very first day, when I saw you talking with Moira in the convent. Then Francis told us you were going to investigate the nun's death. I tried to run you down. It was just a random chance; I'd been watching you. It didn't pay off. My husband told me you were very persistent. I started to think you were going to be trouble.” She looked around her and seemed to come to a realization. “And you were.”
They drove her away. I was starting to feel detached from myself, as though I were becoming a part of the frozen landscape.
Fritz was still holding my hand. “Madm—Maddy,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Were you scared?”
I turned toward him, surprised. “You know what? I wasn't. Not from the moment Tag appeared, not even when I saw the gun. Which is weird, because the last time someone held a gun on me I thought I'd wet my pants. But tonight—I just felt—”
“Protected?” he asked.
I thought about it, watching the snow fall quietly over the willows, watching Sister Moira as she spoke to a plainclothes detective in her dignified manner. “Yes,” I agreed. “That's how I felt. Fritz? Sister Moira thinks Sister Joanna was here with us.”
He squeezed my hand. “Normally I'd think that was a real load of bull. But I'm not so sure, Mad. I mean, you were talking like you saw nuns coming to help us. You were relieved.”
“Did you see anything?”
He shrugged. “No. But I thought—”
“What? Tell me.”
“I smelled pipe smoke. Just like Shoe used to smoke, you know? I smelled it, really strong.”
We watched the police car drive away. Fritz and I, in unspoken agreement, said a little prayer in front of the pond, in front of the crucifix and the Mary statue. We said it for departed souls, and in thanksgiving.
Jack peeled me off of him, laughing. “Okay, I know you liked the song,” he said, chuckling again as I planted kisses all over his face and neck.
“Do you forgive me?” I asked.
“Maddy, I guess heavenly forces take precedence over earthly love,” he said, half joking.
“I think you're heaven
ly,” I said, snuggling against him on our couch. “You were so good tonight. I was so proud of you, and so in love with you, and so hating those teenage girls who had crushes on you.”
He grinned and kissed me with a bit more interest. Then he stopped, saying, “First things first. I want to know what happened. Sally said you rocketed out of there so fast she knew you were up to something.”
“It was the rock, the hollow rock,” I told him. And I went on to relate the tale, telling everything, including my possible Joanna sighting.
Jack whistled. “Well, when you look for a mystery, you look deep,” he said.
I shook my head. “No more mysteries. Just my wedding.” I kissed him, and soon I began to forget everything but the man with his arms around me. “I love you,” I said.
“Maddy,” he whispered. “I love you, my golden girl.”
Chapter Sixteen
Final Entry in Sister Joanna Yardley's journal
April 30, 1997
I dreamed of Jeremy again last night. He's always so young in my dreams, sometimes just a chubby little boy. In last night's dream I was pulling him in a wagon, the way I once did, and I was suddenly fearful of a coming storm, and I knew I had to protect my brother. I ran and ran, checking to see that he was all right in his wagon. His little fat cheeks trembled with the bouncing and jolting of his vehicle, but he wasn't afraid.
Then I was suddenly cold, especially my hands, as though I'd plunged them into freezing water. I turned to find my baby brother, but I could see nothing. It seemed I was in a whirlwind, all sound and fury, as Faulkner or Shakespeare would say, nothing clear but my own motion, my weightlessness, my flight. I felt suddenly free, almost euphoric, yet bound; I sought some way of returning, returning, but I only heard a voice, I think it was Francis's voice, saying “You've lost your vital spark, my dear.”
I remembered those words this morning, the words "vital spark" which I know I've heard in some context. I looked first in my college notes, where I'd written quotations I admired, and found it almost right off. It was from Alexander Pope's The Dying Christian to His Soul:
Vital spark of heavenly flame!
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!
I don't even know how to analyze this one. I'll run it past Mom and Dad—they must be so tired of my crazy dreams! I must get ready for the May Altar and say my morning prayers.
Joanna's diary, containing many mundane daily items and many dreams for her parents to explore and interpret, was recovered from a drawer of Maria Taglieri's dresser. She hadn't known about the diary when she volunteered to clean out Joanna's room, but she encountered it and kept it to herself. Joanna's mother showed me the final entry, with a little smile and tearful eyes.
My brother Gerhard became engaged to Sandra on Valentine's Day. Apparently he had quite a time trying to get her to read the personals when they went out for breakfast together. First of all, Veronica spilled her juice (my soft-hearted brother had wanted her along) and the paper got wet. Sandra had tried to throw it away, but Gerhard said he still wanted to read parts of it. He took out the sports and handed Sandra the personals. She said, “Oh, I don't need to read these. I have my Valentine right here,” and smiled at him. Poor Gerhard. The best laid plans of mice and men, and all that.
He finally drew an arrow to the one with her name, and handed it to her in desperation just before they left. Sandra (as I could have predicted) began to cry, and people in the restaurant started watching, and Veronica kept loudly asking, “Why is my Mommy crying?” Gerhard, extremely red in the face, asked her if that was a yes or a no, and Sandra cried “Yes!” and threw her arms around him, at which point their audience began applauding. Veronica clung to his leg, assuming that he'd done something wonderful, and my brother was in heaven. I heard he left a very nice tip.
Sally told Tommy he could move back in with her, but she's still thinking about re-marriage. Sally likes her independence, but she obviously has a weakness for tall, dark-haired men who wink and buy her presents. She also demanded that I pay her ten dollars, because she'd bet me, back at the beginning of the investigation, that I'd find Sister Joanna had met with foul play. I had no choice but to hand over the cash.
Adelaide the phone sales girl has begun dating Juan O'Leary. Juan grins all the time now, and Adelaide floats down the hall of the Wire on little clouds of pure happiness, looking for people who are foolish enough to ask about her boyfriend.
Almost as happy is Bill, who has resolved his issues with his wife, and whom I caught fingering a tiny catcher's mitt in his office last week; at my entrance he looked up guiltily and quickly thrust it into a drawer, but he smiled at me, admitting to some parental dreaming. Either way, he said, boy or girl, the child would share his love of baseball.
Jeremy Yardley took some long-due leave time from his job, and he and his wife went on vacation to an island somewhere. His parents helped fund the trip. They agreed that Jeremy had been through a great deal of stress, and it was time to concentrate on his wife, and on those grandchildren they were hoping for.
Father Fahey said a Memorial Mass for Sister Joanna Yardley and Sister Francis McMahon, and almost the whole parish turned out. I was there, with my parents, and my mother was duly impressed by the choir.
My parents have decided that after my wedding they're going to take a cruise together, to Alaska. My father says he has never felt better. I choose to believe that he will not be sick again, because Joanna said so.
Until the cruise, though, my mother is following me around with her annoying clipboard, basically planning my wedding for me because I'm too much of a procrastinator to do it myself. In a way I guess I kind of like it, doing everything with my mom. Sometimes, while we're driving to the florist or the baker, she sings those old German songs, and I do the harmony that Shoe once did.
Thanks to Mr. Altschul, Fritz and his band will be playing a concert at a university in Indiana, where Mr. Altschul's son-in-law is the Dean of Men. Fritz has asked Judy, the girl he likes at Barnes and Noble, to come and hear him. But he also asked Arcelia Perez, his crush from several months ago. Fritz likes to cover his bases. I'm curious to know what he'll do if both women show up. He probably fantasizes about that very idea. I guess I'll find out soon enough. I'll be there for him, of course, wearing a wedding band and sporting an attractive husband on my arm.
Jack and I took our weekend long Pre-Cana class; Jack asked me at the end of it if I believed in God, and I said yes. “I'm not sure what's different,” I said, “but I do believe in God. Maybe I always did. It's kind of elusive. And I believe in love, and the human spirit, and—”
“Joanna's spirit?” he asked.
I thought of that surreal scene in the snow outside the convent; the fountain with its layers of ice and hidden secrets; the people with their suppressed passions and newly-released violence; the feeling of calm that surrounded me, the white shapes that came to my rescue and let me know, somehow, that I was safe. “Yes,” I said. “I do believe in her.”
I still don't have a buyer for my car. Jack, who perhaps suspected all along, suggested that I might not be ready to part with it, and that we should be a two-car couple for a bit longer. The Scorpio remains in the parking lot of The Old School, sans the For Sale sign.
I'm getting very excited about our wedding and our honeymoon in Montana. Jack took me shopping for some hiking boots. I offered to wear them under my gown, and then we could just take off after the I do's. The image still seems appealing.
John Taglieri lived; however, he now faces charges of selling drugs to minors and of statutory rape, because of his romantic involvement with a red-haired junior student member of Sasa. His wife made a statement from prison, where she is being held without bond until trial, that she would shoot him again if she had the chance. Her lawyer resigned that day, and she has been appointed a new one by the state. Sasa has been disbanded.
&nb
sp; In March I went back to Miss Angie's salon for a touch-up of my color. I retained the Blonde Minx shade; it had family approval, and it suited my personality. I winced as Istvan's large hands again battered my skull in the painful ceremony he called “shampooing.”
“I read about you in paper,” Istvan said in his thick accent.
“Oh?” I asked, trying not to cry.
“You clean up the town, get the bad guys, just like Magnum, P.I.” He squeezed a bit harder, apparently to express his admiration.
“Well, I wouldn't go so far as to–OW!” I yelled.
“That hurt?” Istvan asked, surprised.
“Yes. I guess you don't, uh, know your own strength.”
He looked horrified, as though he'd murdered me, and then barely touched my hair at all, which felt rather nice and almost hypnotic. “Thanks so much,” I told him.
Miss Angie added her approval of my article. “You're a great writer, hon, but you take too many risks. I know the paper must love you, though. One of those big newspapers is going to want to steal you away, you can bet on it.” She snipped at my straggling ends with expertly wielded scissors. “What's your next case, hon? Are you following anything up right now? Some ladies in the shop were talking about you, what with your two—uh—adventures in a row. They see you as sort of a hero for women. Someone who doesn't back down.”
Flattered, smiling, I met Angie's gaze in the mirror.
“I'm just concentrating on my wedding,” I said. “We're going to honeymoon in Montana; that's where Jack's from.” Angie oooohed approvingly at this idea. I heaved a sigh and relaxed under her ministrations. Montana. Yes, it sounded good, and far from the conflicts that could plague me in Webley. What was in Montana, after all? Mountains, and horses, and the Marlboro Man, and wide open country that made you breathe in deep and feel glad to be alive. There was no mystery about Montana. It was nice to know there were some places on earth where one could still escape it all. I sighed, leaned back, and indulged in my illusion.
Lovely, Dark and Deep (The Madeline Mann Mysteries) Page 17