Sister O'Marie - A Novena for Murder

“Did your mother call again?”

“No,” he said, “but even if she had, it’s me who wants to marry you, not my mother.”

“I’m too tired to get into this tonight,” she said.

“That’s an excuse.”

“Maybe. But I can’t explain it Maybe I’m not so sure myself. I know I love you. When and if I marry, there would be no one else I’d even consider.” She smiled at him.

Damn that melting smile, Jack thought, pulling her a little closer.

“I love my job,” she said. “I worked to get where I am, and I do it as well as any man!”

“Some things you do much better,” he said, hoping to lighten her mood.

“I’m not kidding!”

“Maybe we could work something out.” The suggestion sounded feeble even to him.

“Maybe you could stay home and have the babies?” she said. Swinging her legs off the couch, Kate shoved her bare feet into her fuzzy blue bedroom slippers and pushed herself up off the couch.

No, this wasn’t the way Jack had planned the evening at all. He’d give it one more try. Reaching up, he caught her hips and pulled her onto his lap. He ran his hand down her thigh. “That is a possibility we haven’t considered.”

Turning toward him, Kate nestled comfortably into all his hollows. He could feel her body begin to relax. She fits perfectly, Jack thought, his arms enveloping her. I just can’t let her go. He nuzzled his face into her fragrant hair. The blunt edges tickled his nose and chin.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too,” she whispered back, “and I can smell the rice burning.” Kate ran the tips of her fingers gently up the back of his neck.

Jack tingled all over. “What the hell,” he said. “Who likes rice, anyhow?”

Sister Mary Helen woke up feeling furious. Morning Office in the Community Room did not help.

“I don’t see why we can’t pray in our own chapel.” Sister Therese’s high-pitched whine before coffee made even placid Eileen flinch.

“Because the police have it cordoned off,” said Sister Anne, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Head bowed, she studied the tips of her toes wiggling in her doe-colored Paiutes.

“Well, I don’t see why we couldn’t stay in the back. This is the fifth day of my novena, and I’d like to say my prayers in the chapel. This place is certainly not conducive to my recollection,” Sister Therese said, taking in Sister Anne’s lotus position.

“We can’t go to the chapel because they are trying to find clues to the murderer,” Anne said. White-faced, she leaned back against the arm of the upholstered chair. She rested her hands on her knees and closed her eyes.

“Well, they certainly don’t think one of us did it, do they?” Therese looked as though she had suddenly sniffed something sour. “Really, it was a shame that it had to be one of us who found the body.” She rolled her eyes toward Mary Helen.

Mary Helen could feel both her eyebrows and her blood pressure rise. Fortunately, Eileen began intoning the Morning Office for the Dead.

After prayers, Eileen approached Mary Helen. “You look like a thundercloud,” she said, as the two began the climb from the Sisters’ Residence to the college dining room for breakfast. “Were you able to sleep at all last night?”

“Not much. I just couldn’t get yesterday off my mind. What’s that line from Romeo and Juliet? ‘Death lies on her like an untimely frost. Upon the sweetest flower of all the field’?”

Eileen put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. Halfway up the hill, Mary Helen stopped to catch her breath. Ahead, slits of yellow light from the narrow windows pierced the dense morning fog. That same wet fog swallowed up the underbrush on the hillside and clung to the tips of the evergreens. The low moan of a foghorn floated in from the Gate.

“And what about you?” Mary Helen asked. “Did you sleep?”

Eileen shook her head. “I am still unable to believe it. And I can’t seem to stop blubbering. It’s like a horrid nightmare. The professor. Then Joanna. Poor, dear Marina!” She dug into her jacket pocket for a Kleenex.

Sister Anne, hands thrust deep into the pockets of her green corduroy car coat, caught up with the pair. She padded along beside Eileen. “Hi, you two,” she said with forced cheerfulness. “How are you doing?”

“Terrible,” Mary Helen snapped, suddenly annoyed. No one should be cheerful on a day like today. But one look at the young nun’s face made Mary Helen regret her impatience. “How about you?” she asked, softly.

“Terrible,” Anne answered, all pretense gone.

“I’ll bet you are.” Vividly, Mary Helen recalled Anne and Inspector Gallagher leading Marina into the sacristy yesterday. The three of them had come through the back door. Marina’s eyes were glazed, her slim body rigid. But she had insisted on seeing her sister’s body. Softly, Marina had begun to whimper like a frightened, wounded animal. Then with one blood-curdling wail, she had shattered the silence. The shrill echo had filled the chapel and reverberated against the stained glass windows-like a moment frozen out of an Alfred Hitchcock film. Mary Helen had closed her eyes and covered her ears. “Dear God, make all this go away,” she had prayed. But of course, nothing had gone away.

“I suppose you eventually got Marina to sleep?” Eileen said.

“You could call it that, I guess. The doctor finally had to give her a shot. I just came from checking on her. She’s still out.”

Anne didn’t look up, but continued to speak in a low, flat voice-as though she could hardly believe the reality of what had happened.

“What do I say when she wakes up?” Anne stopped and stared at the two older nuns. All the animation had left her face. Her lips formed a tight, straight line. Mary Helen had never seen that expression on Anne’s face before. It took her only a moment to realize it was deep, unabated anger.

“What do I say to someone whose own sister, just a few days ago, was full of life and hope, and today, for no apparent reason, is a cold, mutilated corpse?” she asked, kicking a small, flat stone in the driveway. It bounced over the hillside and disappeared into the low, soupy fog. “What do I say to someone who believes in God, trusts us, and whose sister has just been found murdered in our chapel?”

“Love, there’s nothing to say,” Eileen answered quietly. “There is just no way in the world to explain the mystery of evil.” The answer sounded so pat, so superficial, but unfortunately, so true.

“I know,” Anne said, “but the whole thing makes me so damn mad!”

Mary Helen shared the emotion, although she might not have expressed it in exactly the same words.

As the three neared the rear door of the chapel, Mary Helen noticed a rough rope barring it. A sterile, black-and-white coroner’s seal profaned the door. A small army of policemen in business suits had already invaded the peaceful campus. They swarmed everywhere-measuring, photographing, questioning. Mary Helen could feel her Irish blood begin to boil. Crazily, a favorite quote from The Moonstone jumped into her mind. “Do you feel an uncomfortable heat in the pit of your stomach, sir? And a nasty thumping at the top of your head? I call it detective fever.”

“Eileen. We have to do something about this!”

“About what, old dear-the mystery of evil, or about Anne’s being angry?”

Mary Helen glared. Eileen shrugged. “You needn’t look at me like that. Those were the last two things I can remember being said. Which one is the antecedent of ‘this’?”

“Neither. We must do something about putting a stop to the murders on this campus.”

“And how, in God’s name, would you suggest we do that?”