Blood Rubies

by McDowell, Michael

  He let go only long enough to turn her toward him and pin her against the counter. He pressed his mouth to Katherine’s, but she turned her head and he streaked her cheek with saliva. He brought one hand up and pressed it flat over her breasts. With his other, he grabbed Katherine’s hand and held it against his erection.

  “Oh, Kathy,” he moaned, “I love you so much, I—”

  Katherine stamped on his foot, but he seemed not to notice. He pushed her hand inside the open fly of his pants. As she struggled in vain to withdraw it, he rubbed his fleshy body against her and bit at her neck.

  Katherine’s free hand reached determinedly behind her and skittered across the counter until the fingers had closed round the handle of the carving knife. She dug her fingernails into her father’s genitals until he drew back in sudden pain, groaning. She brought the knife before her in a careful arc, grasped the handle with both hands, and plunged it into her father’s chest. She was surprised how difficult it was to press it in all the way to the hilt; but she stared into her father’s terrified eyes and pushed. Blood spilled thickly down the inside of his shirt. Then she pulled the knife out and plunged it in again, an inch to the left. This time a thick stream of shining blood spurted out through the tear in his shirt and splashed heavily on the floor. Katherine released the knife and backed along the counter, away from her father.

  Death rattled in James Dolan’s throat. He swayed for a couple of seconds, then fell sprawled on his back; his arms withdrew stiffly to his sides, and his hands clenched. A scarlet bubble formed at his mouth and popped. A little geyser of blood drenched the knife that was still in him. His chest sank and he was still.

  Katherine’s fingers were sticky with blood, and her blouse was stained. She took off the blouse, and with it wiped clean the handle of the knife still stuck in James Dolan’s body; the movement brought up more blood from his unbeating heart. She folded the blouse and let it rest on her father’s belly. She went to the sink, washed her hands, and sponged her stomach clean. She quickly but carefully cleaned the sink, then took the sponge and her blood-stained blouse and secreted them in a shoe box at the back of her closet.

  She put on a blouse that was the same color as the one she had worn that morning, went back into the kitchen, being careful not to step even near the blood that had spilled onto the floor, and returned to the Shea apartment by the back stairs. She changed John Shea’s diapers, then sat by the front window for half an hour, watching for her mother.

  When Anne Dolan came up the sidewalk of the house, Katherine retreated from the window so that she could not be seen. She turned on the television and resumed her place in the armchair. She listened for the sound of the front door opening and for her mother’s footsteps upon the stairs. She followed them upward, and then heard her mother open and close the apartment door behind her.

  Five minutes later Katherine heard Anne Dolan’s screams.

  They beat up from the kitchen: piercing long screams with only the slightest catch of breath to separate them. Katherine clawed the arms of the chair.

  John Shea cried out for Katherine. She rose, went to the child, soothed him with inarticulate words, and then shut him in the bedroom.

  Katherine hurried through the Shea apartment, clattered down the back stairs, and stopped for a moment before the television on the back porch. A shaving cream commercial played to her father’s empty chair. Katherine switched off the set.

  She turned and stared through the screen door of the kitchen. With the air so bright without, the room was but dimly illuminated; all within seemed dull and gray. James Dolan lay upon his back, half beneath the kitchen table. H is eyes were wide and milky. Blood was flecked upon his face and dribbled from the corner of his mouth. The front of his tan knit shirt was ripped, and dark blood was just beginning to coagulate along the deep, livid gashes in his chest. The crotch of his green work pants was stained with urine.

  Anne Dolan stood behind her husband’s corpse, staring at Katherine with eyes slack and dull. Her mouth was opened wide, but sound was caught in her throat. With one hand she held a kitchen chair balanced crazily upon a single leg, so that it twirled and dipped in an oddly graceful, if jerking fashion; and with the other she grasped the long, bloody, carving knife.

  7

  Two squad cars arriving at the house on Medford Street, summoned by a woman who had heard Anne Dolan’s screams through her kitchen window, brought the neighbors out onto their porches and raised windows all up and down the block. The ambulance came, and with it reporters from Channel 5, the Herald, and the Globe. Now, as neighbors came down from the porches and edged the property, pointing and whispering and guessing on which floor the crime, tragedy, or accident had occurred, the only noise that could be heard from within the house was the wailing of the Shea child, left alone on the third floor.

  Inside, one of the paramedic ambulance drivers slipped Katherine a couple of sedatives for her mother, who was weeping hysterically. There was no need for him to hurry with the man on the kitchen floor. James Dolan would wait for the police photographers.

  Anne Dolan sat on the edge of her bed; Katherine was beside her, holding her about the shoulders and whispering reassurance in her ear. Photographers stood in the doorway and photographed them there. An inept policeman asked irrelevant and distressing questions until Katherine begged him to leave off for her mother’s sake.

  When a detective had taken his place, Anne Dolan said that she had returned home from bingo shortly after six, gone to her bedroom to change shoes, and then walked into the kitchen, where she found her husband dead on the floor. In her panic, she told them, she had yanked the blade from his chest in hope that she might revive him.

  While her mother wept anew with the terrible remembrance, Katherine stated that she had been baby-sitting in the apartment upstairs, that she had heard nothing and suspected nothing until she heard her mother’s screams. Neither the front nor the back door of the Dolans’ apartment had been locked, but then on the weekends, it never was.

  The murder made the late-night television news and Sunday’s papers. The police said that there were no definite suspects, but strong leads would doubtless result in a quick arrest.

  When questioned by the police, neighbors reported the presence of strangers in the neighborhood that afternoon. It was found that James Dolan had had several heated arguments with two different men on the loading dock of the candy factory, and that he had once come to blows with a truck driver at the Paradise Cafe. Only Anne Dolan’s fingerprints were found on the knife that had killed him, but the police laboratory report suggested that her erratic handling of the knife might well have obliterated any others on the handle. The working hypothesis of the police was that a thief had entered the unsecured dwelling. Surprised by James Dolan’s presence and perhaps attacked by him, the thief had murdered him.

  Over the next few days the publicity dwindled and the neighbors sometimes forgot to stare when they walked by the house. The police could no longer assure Anne Dolan and her daughter that a suspect would soon be found and arrested.

  Fifteen years before, the union at the candy factory had supplied James Dolan with a burial policy, and his corpse was laid out in an ornate metallic coffin with purple satin lining. The brief, simple service was conducted at the Church of Saint Agnes. Because Anne Dolan had never come out of her sedated haze since the afternoon of the murder, the burden of the preparations fell upon Katherine, who was greatly assisted by Mrs. Shea and Reverend Mother Felicitas. At Katherine’s request, the coffin was sealed during the service, and many who had attended merely out of curiosity went away disappointed. During the service Anne Dolan, with a great black veil covering her face, sat heavily against Mrs. Shea in the front pew and wept loudly and without ceasing. Katherine sat a little apart and stared blankly past the coffin to the altar. She betrayed no emotion at all, and Medford Street neighbors who attended
whispered among themselves that this was something the girl never would get over, as long as she lived. Because the diocese grave diggers were on strike, there was no graveside service, and James Dolan’s coffin went into the cold storage with some hundred others similarly detained.

  And although her father’s co-workers grumbled, Katherine refused to entertain them at a wake. Anne Dolan had pleaded for this melancholy celebration with as much energy as her drugged state would allow, for she wanted the opportunity to display her grief; but, arguing economy, Katherine held firm, and the Medford Street apartment was kept locked. After the funeral Anne Dolan returned home and sat in front of a flickering television set, keeping the sound turned off in an irrational gesture of reverence for her dead husband’s memory.

  The next morning Katherine took from her bedroom closet the shoe box containing the stained blouse and bloody sponge and put it into her book bag. On her way to ImCon she tossed it into a large dumpster that stood behind a row of small stores. She had vaguely expected a sense of relief, but none came. It was mild exhilaration that Katherine felt, as though she had taken one step more on the road that would lead her to the convent door.

  A month before, it had been to Sister Mary Claire that Katherine first confided her desire to become a Slave of the Immaculate Conception. And although she began with trembling diffidence, Sister Mary Claire’s smile had encouraged her. When, in an excess of emotion, Katherine broke off a few sentences into her little prepared speech, Sister Mary Claire said, “Of course, dear. We’ve seen this coming for a long time. This won’t surprise anybody around here. We’re all anxious to have you become one of us. Of course it can’t be decided as easily as just saying ‘Welcome,’ you know. There’s no end to rules and regulations, and things to be signed, and things to be memorized, and ceremonies, and letters that have to be written, and you’ll have to be interviewed, and you’ll have to talk to three different priests, and you’ll have to undergo psychiatric examinations—in short, dear, this place is harder to get into than Radcliffe.”

  “You don’t think—”

  Sister Mary Claire took Katherine’s hands affectionately between her own: “I think it’s a matter of time. You’ll be the newest and brightest flower in God’s meadows this year, Katherine.”

  One week after her father’s burial, Katherine returned to Sister Mary Claire and repeated her fervent desire to join the sisters at the Convent of Saint Agnes. But Katherine noted with dismay the new tone of caution overlaying Sister Mary Claire’s encouragement. The nun explained that the final decision must be made by Mother Superior Felicitas, and that her word was law in the convent.

  “Have you told her about me?” asked Katherine uneasily.

  “Of course!” said Sister Mary Claire, surprised. “Your desire to join us is no secret here, Katherine! I think we probably knew it before you did yourself!”

  That very morning, Sister Mary Claire led Katherine to the office of Mother Superior Felicitas, the spiritual and administrative head of the Convent of Saint Agnes.

  “You know, Katherine,” said Mother Felicitas without preamble, “joining the church is a greater, more important step for a girl even than marriage. It is marriage with the ultimate Bridegroom. The Virgin is wedded to the Church itself. You must understand all that it entails.” She sat with one hand laid gently over the other on the polished oak desk before her.

  Katherine kept her eyes cast down and traced the floral pattern on the carpet. “I do understand, and I’m ready to accept.”

  There was a substantial silence. When Katherine raised her head, she found Mother Superior Felicitas staring out the window to the school playground and a soccer game there. The nun turned her head and held Katherine’s gaze, lengthening the already uncomfortable silence. “I’m not entirely sure you do understand, Katherine.” There was no reproach in her voice. She shifted in her chair, adjusting the fold of one black sleeve.

  “I have no doubt of the sincerity of your desire to become one of us. But in light of your recent tragedy . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she sighed. Then, she continued: “I don’t think it’s a good idea to rush into such an undertaking in the wake of the emotional upheaval of your father’s . . .” She clipped murder from her thought and finished, “. . . your father’s passing.”

  Katherine again lowered her eyes. “I made this decision before my father died,” she said. “And I’ve discussed it with my mother, and she wants me to do it.” Katherine spoke slowly. It was a lie in which she felt safe. Her mother’s lethargy was intensifying toward catatonia. Anne Dolan spent her waking hours in a drugged stupor before the television. She slept in the clothes she wore during the day, and it was only at her daughter’s insistence that she changed them each morning. Anne Dolan’s energetic interference in Katherine’s plans was, at present, an impossibility. “She said it would make her happy to see me in the robes.”

  “Your mother may also be reacting from emotion, Katherine. I imagine that there will be no time in your life when you could be of more use to your mother than right now. She may say to you that she would like to see you in the convent, but it is more likely that she is in great need of the consolation that only a child could provide—and you are her only child.”

  “Ma—” Katherine faltered. “Ma is upset, of course she’s upset, and so am I, of course, at what happened. But Daddy dying, and dying the way he did, hasn’t made any difference in my decision. I don’t think it’s fair to keep me out of the convent just because Daddy was killed, I—”

  “Katherine!” exclaimed Mother Superior Felicitas. “This is not a game! There’s no fair and unfair when you’re talking about dedicating yourself to God! Believe me, child,” she said softly, “it’s not that we don’t want you here at the convent—nothing would make me happier than to see you one of us, believe me!—but I must tell you that a girl cannot join a religious order because she sees it as an escape from a troubled home life. Things can’t be happy for you, or your mother now, but a mere escape could be accomplished by taking an apartment in another part of the city! The convent is full of trouble. Just like the rest of the world, the convent is full of temptation to sin. You will never be entirely free from the tribulations of the world, you will never escape from iniquity. Our sisters are prideful, envious, arrogant, unfaithful, sometimes even blasphemous. We wear these robes not as a sign that we are pure, but only in permanent and continual recognition of our weakness and sinfulness. Remember, Katherine, from the book of Job: Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. The convent is no rock for the weary. We must all be indefatigable warriors here.”

  “I understand that, Reverend Mother,” Katherine pleaded. “And I’m not trying to become a nun in order to get away from Ma or what happened—that’s not it at all. It’s just that nothing in the world is as important to me as joining the convent. That’s what’s right for me, I know it is, God’s told me so in my heart, that’s what he’s telling me every minute of the day!”

  “And I have no doubt His voice is strong within you, Katherine. None of us here has ever doubted that, but I have to insist that you and your mother take the time to think this matter through. Katherine, we’re talking about your whole life that’s to be dedicated to God.”

  Katherine sank back in her chair, her damp hands limp in her lap.

  “There are some things I want you to do, Katherine.”

  Katherine did not answer, but kept her eyes averted: her father, though dead, would still manage to keep her out of the convent.

  The nun rose from her chair and came to the other side of the desk. Her habit brushed Katherine’s knees. Her arms were folded across her starched scapular. “Katherine, if you start to sulk I intend to terminate this meeting right now. I am not rejecting you, surely you understand that. As I said, we must be warriors here, and I think that you might be one of the strongest and most valiant among us, but with
time. That’s all I’m asking of you. Time. If you cannot sacrifice now—if you cannot see your duty to your mother for these first difficult months of her bereavement, and your bereavement too—what will happen to you once you do get in the convent, when your entire life becomes one long, unceasing, sanctified sacrifice? If you are impatient now, what will your impatience be once you are behind these walls?”

  “I’ll do anything you think is right, Reverend Mother. You tell me what I should do, and I’ll do it.”

  “I want you to go to school. To college.”

  Katherine’s mouth dropped slightly open.

  “Your grades have never been outstanding, I know, but you have been a conscientious, steady student, and in the right school, that will count for much. There’s no reason why—”

  “What’s the right school?” blurted Katherine.

  “Why, Boston College, of course!” smiled Mother Felicitas. “So many of our girls go there, and they do quite well. I don’t think there would be any trouble in having you enrolled for the summer term, and the courses you take will be applied toward your freshman year credit.”

  “But it’s already May, and I never applied for admission,” said Katherine, who remembered that acceptances to college had been received by her classmates in March and April. “It’s too late for me to start, I—”

  “Katherine,” said Mother Felicitas in mild reproof, “you must not think that I am making idle suggestions. I have been thinking about you for some time. I have in fact already made inquiries. My sister works in the admissions office at BC, and I have already mentioned you to her. There will be no difficulty—no difficulty, that is, as long as you are prepared to do your part.”

  “I’ll do anything you want me to,” said Katherine meekly.

  “I’ll call my sister and have her send over the necessary forms. And you needn’t concern yourself about finances either—something can always be worked out for deserving students. I’m particularly anxious for you to begin right away, Katherine. You don’t need to be in that house all day. I want to see you out of it, and in the summer there simply wouldn’t be enough for you to do around the convent. Keep active, keep busy. Your improved spirits will doubtless be beneficial to your mother as well.”