by Blake Pierce
As they walked toward the motel lobby, Riley asked him, “Has there been another murder?”
“I don’t know,” Crivaro said. “That’s what we’ve got to find out.”
At the motel’s breakfast buffet, they snatched up rolls and cups of coffee, then headed out to the vehicle the local police had lent them yesterday. Before he started the engine, Crivaro handed Riley a map.
“I need you to give directions,” he said to her. “We’re headed for Boneau, across the border in Kentucky.”
Riley found the location, just a short drive to the northwest. Soon they were on their way, munching their rolls and sipping their coffee as Crivaro drove past farmlands and woodlands on their way to the new town. The roads were completely clear of snow and there wasn’t much traffic along the way.
Crivaro finally explained what was going on.
“I got a call from Sheriff Quayle just now. A girl seems to have gone missing at Magdalene Catholic High School in Boneau. Her absence was noticed just this morning, so normally it would be too early for a missing person report. But as you know, Quayle put out an APB to all the towns in the area yesterday, and he told citizens to report any disappearances right away. So the school principal called about it this morning, and then Quayle called me.”
Riley asked, “Did Quayle tell you anything else?”
“Only what I just told you,” Crivaro said. “I don’t think he knows anything else himself.”
“Maybe it’s nothing,” Riley said. “I mean, kids are kids. Maybe this one just wanted to be on her own for a while.”
Crivaro growled under his breath.
“Maybe, but I don’t like the sound of it,” he said. “A missing student seems awfully close to what little we know about the killer’s MO. If there’s been another abduction, the good news might be that the victim probably isn’t dead yet. Both of the other victims seem to have been held for a while before they were killed. But if that’s what’s going on, we’ve got no time to lose.”
They drove on for a few minutes without saying anything. Riley sensed a lot of tension in Crivaro’s silence.
Is he still mad at me about yesterday? she wondered.
No, this seemed different to her somehow.
She said cautiously, “Um … is there anything we need to talk about?”
“No,” Crivaro said gruffly. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” Riley said.
“Well … nothing’s wrong, except the usual murder and mayhem in our lives.”
Something in Crivaro’s tone told Riley otherwise.
She sat gazing at him silently.
“What are you looking at?” Crivaro asked.
“Something seems wrong,” Riley said with a shrug.
Crivaro said sharply, “Look, Magdalene High is a Catholic school. I’ve kind of got a thing about Catholic schools. Okay?”
He said it with a note of finality, as if that explained everything. Of course it didn’t.
Riley kept right on looking at him and waited for him to continue.
Finally, Crivaro shook his head and sighed.
“I was raised in a strict Catholic family,” he said. “I went to our parish’s parochial school when I was a kid.”
“I guess you didn’t like it very much,” Riley said.
Crivaro scoffed. “Yeah, you might put it that way. I guess you’ve heard all the horror stories about Catholic schools. Super-strict discipline, loads of guilt and shame over every little thing. A lot of that stuff was true, at least in the school where I went. But the worst thing …”
Crivaro’s squinted and frowned.
Riley was beginning to feel concerned now, but she didn’t say so. She figured Crivaro would tell her if he really wanted to. She turned her attention back to the map and the road ahead.
Finally Crivaro said, “When I was little, I had a little dog named Scruffy. A fox terrier, cute little guy. He was … well, I guess you could say he was my best pal. He was always there for me, even when nobody else was. And believe me, there were times when I really needed a friend in those days.”
Riley heard Crivaro’s voice tighten with emotion. It occurred to her that he’d never talked to her about his childhood before. It was hard to imagine this tough and successful FBI agent as a vulnerable child. It didn’t sound as though that part of his life had been very happy.
Crivaro continued, “One day Scruffy got hit by a car and died.”
Riley gasped.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Yeah, it was tough, but I believed everything they told us in church and taught us in school. So when the nun who taught our class asked me how I felt about losing my dog, I told her I was sad, but not too sad. After all, I knew I’d see Scruffy again in heaven someday when I died too. And then we’d be together forever.”
Crivaro’s face tightened.
Then he said, “Well, the good sister told me that was never going to happen. Scruffy was just an animal, she said, and animals don’t have souls, and so they don’t go anywhere when they die—not hell, not purgatory, and certainly not heaven. I was never going to see him again, she said.”
Riley was shaken to hear the tremor in Crivaro’s voice.
“That was a terrible thing to tell a kid,” she said.
“Yeah, it was, wasn’t it?” Crivaro said. “And the worst thing was, how cold she sounded about it. Adults can be real assholes sometimes.”
Crivaro fell silent for a moment.
Then he said, “Well, when I finally left that school, I swore never to set foot in a Catholic school again for the rest of my life. I’ve kept that promise until now.”
Riley stammered, “I’m so sorry, Agent Crivaro. Maybe you shouldn’t—”
Crivaro interrupted in a surprisingly sharp tone.
“Shouldn’t what? Do my job?”
“Well, maybe I could talk to the principal alone, or Sheriff Quayle could go with me instead, or—”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not a kid anymore. I’ll be fine.”
He growled slightly as he stared at the road ahead.
“I might not be at my best, that’s all. I need for you to be especially sharp.”
“Don’t worry,” Riley said.
Crivaro drove on in silence for a minute or two.
Then he said, “I’ve never told anybody about that before. And I’d appreciate it if … well, we could just keep it between the two of us.”
“I will,” Riley said.
She was touched that Crivaro had confided in her like this. But she also sensed that he might feel defensive about letting his emotional guard down. She knew that he liked to keep his feelings to himself.
Riley turned her attention back to the map, hoping this conversation wouldn’t become an issue between them. It was only about a half-hour drive from Dalhart to the little town of Boneau, Kentucky. They traveled the rest of the way in silence except for her occasional directions.
As they drove into Boneau, it struck Riley as almost identical to Dalhart at first—a sleepy little town that felt cut off from the rest of the world. But Riley and Crivaro were in for a surprise when they approached the Magdalene High School campus.
The school looked majestic, venerable, and prosperous. It was dominated by a picturesque, venerable, castle-like building with conical towers. Other smaller structures were clustered around it amid spacious wooded grounds. Beyond the grounds was a clear view of the massive Mississippi River. Riley had never seen it before, and even at this distance its sheer vastness took her breath away.
The whole place struck Riley as perfectly beautiful, with a thin layer of snow adding sparkle to the scene. She could imagine how lush and colorful the campus must be in the spring or fall.
Crivaro parked, and they got out of the car. As they headed toward the main building, they saw a mix of male and female students walking along the broad paths among the buildings, all of them wearing warm jackets over their school uniforms.
Riley noticed a look of amazement on Crivaro’s face as they walked along. She could understand why. Most of the students were smiling, and all of them appeared relaxed, happy, and very much at ease here. She saw no hint of shame or anxiety anywhere she looked. This was surely nothing like the school where Crivaro had endured so much childhood unhappiness.
They went inside the main building and found the administrative office. The receptionist sent them into an office to meet the school’s principal, Sister Agnes O’Connor.
Sister Agnes was a smiling, hearty, handsome woman wearing a white habit and a wimple. Riley and Crivaro produced their badges and introduced themselves. She invited them to sit down with her at a broad, antique desk surrounded by bookshelves of burnished wood.
With a look of deep concern in her eyes, she said, “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I’m wasting your time and we’ve got nothing to worry about here at Magdalene.”
“We’re hoping so too,” Crivaro said. “But I’m sure you did the right thing by reaching out like you did.”
“Tell us about your missing student,” Riley added.
Sister Agnes’s forehead crinkled a little.
“Student?” she said. “Oh, she’s not a student. Sister Sandra Hobson is a member of our faculty. She’s twenty-six years old.”
Riley and Crivaro exchanged looks of surprise. Because the other two girls had been students, they’d both assumed that the person who had gone missing here was a student as well.
This changes things, Riley realized.
But she didn’t yet know exactly in what way, or how much.
“Let me explain,” Sister Agnes said. “Most of our faculty are laypeople, and not all of our students are Catholic—far from it, really. We’ve got just a handful of nuns and monks teaching classes. Sister Sandra’s status here is rather unique. Let me show you.”
Sister Agnes’s fingers rattled over her computer keyboard for a moment. Then she turned the screen toward Riley and Crivaro. She’d brought up a page about Sister Sandra that had been posted on the school’s website. It included a personal statement from the young woman herself, and of course her picture.
Riley was immediately struck by how different Sandra Hobson looked from the two victims so far. She, too, had an open and innocent expression. But there was no mistaking her for a child. There was an earnest maturity and a feeling of serious purpose in her very smile.
Sister Agnes explained, “Sister Sandra is a novitiate, still three years away from full sisterhood. She became a postulant several years ago at the Sisters of Saint Rose Convent over in Trueblood, a town not far from here.”
“A postulant?” Riley asked.
Riley had no real knowledge of Catholic life, and she hadn’t had any religious training to speak of.
Crivaro put in, “A postulant is sort of a beginner, a nun at the earliest stage of her training.”
“That’s right,” Sister Agnes said with a nod. “Sandra finished all that, and she came here as a mission novitiate two years ago. Teaching is the service she has chosen in preparation for her first vows, which are coming up next year.”
Crivaro asked, “When did you notice she was missing?”
“This morning, when she didn’t show up for the morning prayers we hold for the monks and nuns,” Sister Agnes said. “She’s never done that. Ever. And then we couldn’t locate her anywhere on campus. I would have worried in any case, but yesterday we’d heard over the radio about those two poor murdered girls, and the warning to stay indoors at night. The bulletin also said to immediately report anyone who might be missing. So that’s what I did.”
In a cautious voice, Crivaro said, “Sister Agnes, do you have any reason to think she might have …”
“Run off?” Sister Agnes said, finishing his thought.
Crivaro nodded and said, “Maybe she finally realized that she wasn’t cut out for a life as a nun.”
Sister Agnes chuckled slightly.
“I find that very hard to imagine, Agent Crivaro,” she said.
“But not impossible?” Crivaro asked.
Sister Agnes sat quietly without answering.
“Just how well do you know her, Sister Agnes?” Crivaro asked.
“About as well as anybody else, I think,” Sister Agnes said. “I’m her mentor. There’s not much she doesn’t tell me. We’re exceptionally close. I’m pretty sure she even tells me whatever she winds up telling the priest in confession.”
“Yeah, but there’s a difference between what she tells you and what she confesses to a priest,” Crivaro said. “There’s no real ‘Seal of Confession’ keeping you from telling us whatever she has told you.”
Sister Agnes sighed and said, “Oh, I beg to differ, Agent Crivaro. The church doesn’t have to put its seal on every little thing to give it sanctity. I take Sister Sandra’s confidence very much to heart.”
“Surely you can tell us a few things,” Crivaro said.
Sister Agnes looked at Crivaro intently.
“She’s restless, Agent Crivaro,” she said. “I think I can tell you that much, because it’s not really any secret around here. She’s as devoted to her calling as a novitiate can possibly be. But she’s getting impatient. Like I said before, she’s still three years away from her perpetual vows. She wishes it were tomorrow. Or better yet, today.”
She held Crivaro’s gaze for a moment, then added, “A lot of novitiates go through this phase. I felt the same way myself when I was at Sandra’s stage in my training. But I hardly believe it’s any indication of a desire to run away. If anything, I’d say it means that her devotion is intensifying with time.”
Crivaro squinted at her without replying. Riley sensed that her partner was drawing a rather different conclusion from what Sister Agnes was telling them.
Something else was bothering Riley. If Sister Sandra really had been abducted, just where and how had it happened?
Riley said, “Sister Agnes, were all of your students and staff aware of the public warning not to go out alone at night?”
The principal nodded.
“I made an announcement over the PA system,” she said. “I’m sure everybody knew about it.”
Riley said, “Do you think Sister Sandra might have ignored that warning?”
“I wish I could say no,” Sister Agnes said. “But she loves her nighttime walks on the school grounds. She sometimes suffers from insomnia, and she finds it helpful to walk. And she might have found it hard to take my warning very much to heart. Magdalene is always such a safe, nurturing place. There’s never a hint of danger here.”
Sister Agnes shook her head and said, “I do hope nothing awful has happened. But I can’t imagine her just disappearing like this.”
“What about your students?” Crivaro asked. “Do they know about Sister Sandra’s disappearance?”
“I don’t think so,” Sister Agnes said. “As soon as we noticed she was gone, I had another sister take over her classes, and I instructed her to say that Sister Sandra wasn’t feeling well today.”
Sister Agnes blushed and added, “A little white lie, you might say. I don’t remember the last time I was the least bit untruthful to anyone here at Magdalene. But I didn’t want to cause a panic.”
“You did the right thing,” Riley said. “Could you show us around the grounds a bit?”
“I’d be glad to,” Sister Agnes said.
As they left the principal’s office and followed the principal out of the building, Crivaro muttered something in Riley’s ear.
“Let’s keep this short. We’re wasting our time here.”
Riley was startled and dismayed. She didn’t think they were wasting their time here at all.
In fact, she had a very bad feeling about Sister Sandra’s disappearance.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Riley’s apprehension deepened as Sister Agnes took them on a tour of the campus. Magdalene Catholic High School struck her as lovelier by the moment. But Riley knew that that ha
rdly meant that this place was untouched by evil.
It might mean the opposite, Riley thought.
Some monster might take great satisfaction in wreaking terror on such a beautiful, peaceful setting.
The principal led them through the school’s various buildings, where they saw classes in session. They also got to see the gymnasium, the library, and the lunch facilities. Riley couldn’t remember ever seeing a school quite like this. Something Sister Agnes had told them back in her office echoed in her head.
“Magdalene is always such a safe, nurturing place.”
Riley sensed that Jake, too, was impressed by what he saw. But she also noticed that he kept looking at his wristwatch.
He’s anxious to leave, she thought.
That struck her as odd. She didn’t share his apparent certainty that they were wasting their time here.
Finally Riley asked the principal to take them where she thought that Sister Sandra might have been walking the night before. Sister Agnes led them outside through the school commons, then out into the grounds that surrounded the campus.
The grounds were well-groomed, and the wide walking path led out into spacious woods. Riley tried to imagine how things would look here at night. There were a fair number of lamps that would brighten the scene, adding to its quaintness and charm.
Sister Sandra might have been alone, but she wouldn’t have been walking in the dark. If she had been abducted, Riley figured that her attacker must have been very bold and aggressive.
Or maybe somebody she knew, Riley thought.
If so, might it have been somebody the other victims had known as well? And who might that have been in these separate locations? So far, they had no reason to think the victims had known each other. But that didn’t mean that the killer hadn’t known all of them. After all, the towns weren’t all that far apart.
Finally the path opened onto a field at the edge of the Mississippi River. Riley felt awestruck at the majestic sight and all the history it represented. She wondered—how had settlers felt centuries ago when they reached these banks and faced this staggering expanse of water, at once so peaceful and so powerful?
For a moment, Riley felt too staggered to contemplate the awful thing that might have happened here. It was only during their walk back toward the main building that the ugly possibility began to sink in again.