Carol Sister O'Marie - The Missing Madonna

Seemingly appeased, Caroline turned on Divisadero Street and made her way into the heart of the crowded Western Addition.

“Immediately after I called you, I picked Lucy up,” she said, as if Lucy weren’t present. “She said she never heard Erma speak of any St. Louis relatives.”

Mary Helen glanced at the woman sitting between them. Poor Lucy looked exactly as though she had been picked up- snatched might be more like it-from right in the middle of whatever she had been doing at eight o’clock in the morning. Her faded violet jogging suit was damp at the knees, and there was mud on the toes of her worn Nikes. Her makeup looked slapdash and her gray braid was badly in need of replaiting. The dark circles under her eyes showed she had spent a sleepless night.

“If anything should happen to Erma because we didn’t act, I for one would never forgive myself.” Caroline took her eyes off the traffic-clogged street long enough to peer around Lucy. “Isn’t that the way you feel, girls?”

“Of course,” Mary Helen answered. She wished Caroline would keep her eyes on the road and stop tailgating.

“Please stop saying ‘if anything should happen to Erma,’ ” Lucy snapped with uncharacteristic harshness. “I’m sorry, Caroline,” she apologized quickly, “but I really don’t even want to begin thinking that way.”

They drove for several blocks in an awkward silence. Mary Helen stared out the window. All their nerves must be on edge. She tried to concentrate on the mixture of stately homes and flats above small storefronts that lined the busy street and think of something to say. She wondered for a moment if she would ever get used to seeing a Victorian, complete with towers, turrets, and Turkish cupolas, atop a Chinese take-out restaurant.

Caroline sailed up the hill, skirting Buena Vista Park. They passed Ralph K. Davies Hospital and picked up Castro Street. Mary Helen couldn’t believe that they had crossed the City so quickly.

“So, Lucy, were you jogging already this morning?” she asked, more to break the tension than for any other reason.

“I probably should have been,” Lucy responded quickly. Apparently she, too, wanted to smooth things over. “You know what they say: ‘Use it or lose it!’ What I was actually doing was a little remedial weeding.”

Mary Helen was still groaning when they stopped across the street from Alphonso’s Bistro at the bottom of the steep Sanchez Street hill. Carefully, Caroline eased the large car into a perpendicular parking space.

What a sight the three of us must make! Mary Helen thought, struggling against gravity to push open the heavy door. Lucy in her jogging outfit, me in my navy-blue nun’s suit, and Caroline, crisp in jade linen, complete with gloves and a turbanlike hat that looks as if she had borrowed it from Queen Elizabeth.

Caroline led the trio across the street. If she hadn’t known better, Mary Helen would have thought Caroline was on her way to an exclusive garden party in Hillsborough rather than to Erma’s apartment over the bistro on 18th and Sanchez. She literally leaned on Al Finn’s doorbell.

Considering what the sound must have done to his nerves, Mary Helen thought the man was surprisingly courteous when he cracked open the door. Courteous, but not quite awake.

“I’m dreadfully sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Finn,” Caroline began, ignoring the fact that he was standing bleary-eyed and barefoot in his undershirt and boxer shorts.

Feeling a little like one of the villagers in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Mary Helen looked directly at the man’s sleep-creased face. She wondered for a moment where Lucy was looking.

“But we are terribly worried about our friend Erma,” Caroline continued, with a flourish of her gloved hand. “May we trouble you for the key to her apartment?”

Finn grunted, shut the door, and left them standing on the stoop. Mary Helen wasn’t sure whether he didn’t recognize her or was just too sleepy to acknowledge that they had met.

“Did you notice that gentleman’s hair?” Caroline whispered.

Lucy couldn’t resist. “Did you say hair or bare?”

Finn reappeared, looking, in Mary Helen’s opinion, a lot like an unmade bed. Uneven suspenders held his crumpled pants up over a crumpled shirt. His toe protruded from a gaping hole in one of the socks he had managed to slip over his bare feet.

Without a word, he opened Erma’s door and led them up the narrow carpeted staircase. The top step opened into a high-ceilinged, sparsely furnished living room. The wooden banister and stairs formed one wall. French doors on the opposite wall separated it from the combination dining room-kitchen.

Stifling a yawn, Finn shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the banister. He shifted uneasily. “I don’t know about letting you ladies in here.” Apparently, the more awake he became, the more aware he was of what he was doing.

“Nonsense!” Caroline said, leading the other two women down the narrow hallway toward the back room where the apartment abruptly ended. The floor plan looked as if someone had taken a spacious Victorian flat and cut it in half. And Erma had gotten the worse half.

Mary Helen could hear Finn’s bare feet padding down the hall behind them. “I ain’t so sure this is right,” he muttered.

The bedroom door was closed. Caroline grasped the old-fashioned brass knob. Closing her eyes, Mary Helen tried to quell the feeling of dread that shot through her like a sharp pain. She knew it was foolish. Erma’s daughter had already been in the apartment. Logically she knew the feeling came from her experience of finding Suzanne.

Despite logic, Erma’s face flashed before her-those trusting brown eyes, that ready smile. She held her breath as Caroline turned the handle. Behind that door would they find that familiar round face permanently frozen in terror?

The bedroom door swung back easily. Reluctantly Mary Helen opened her eyes. Empty and undisturbed! She relaxed her shoulders, but it took several moments before her heart slowed down.

Years ago, she remembered, a retreat master had said that a person’s bedroom told a great deal about that person. In Erma’s case, the remark really rang true.

The room was bright and cheerful. The bedspread, the draperies, a slipper chair were all in flowered print. The sturdy mahogany bed, the matching chest of drawers and nightstand were sturdy and well cared for. Erma had undoubtedly brought them from her parents’ home and lovingly polished them for years.

Next to a door, which probably led to the bathroom, stood an old-fashioned dresser with a silver comb-and-brush set carefully arranged on its crocheted runner. Family photographs covered most of the dresser top. Recent snapshots of smiling family and friends were stuck everywhere in the carved mirror frame. Three children’s handprints in plaster hung on the wall beside the mirror.

From a corner shelf the shadowless icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help shed its radiance on those around. The Madonna smiled sadly and her compassionate eyes embraced the room. A baroque vigil light had been placed before the gilded painting. The votive candle inside was nearly burned out.

Looking around, Mary Helen could feel a lump form in her throat. Please, Lord, she prayed, don’t let anything have happened to good old Erma Duran.

“Look in here.” Caroline swung the closet door open. Mary Helen felt a little guilty about looking, as though she were invading Erma’s privacy.

“Just look,” Caroline repeated. A few dresses, a coat, two suits, a couple of blouses, and a worn wool jacket hung in the immaculate closet. Several shoe boxes and a couple of purses occupied the top shelf. Two cardboard boxes were stacked on the bare floor next to a suitcase.