Sister O'Marie - A Novena for Murder

Without hesitating, Kate switched her questions. “What about Joanna?” she pressed. “Why would anybody want to kill her?”

Leonel’s head snapped back as if he had been slapped. Involuntary tears welled up in his eyes. “I cannot know,” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his broad hand. “Jesus, I cannot know. Unless she finds out too much.”

Desolate was the only word Kate could think of as she watched Leonel shake his head in bewilderment. We’ve hit a dead end, she thought, looking toward Gallagher. The older man simply shrugged.

Kate touched Leonel’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she said gently. “Be sure to get in touch with us if you think of anything that might help.”

As the two police officers walked away, the tall young man crumpled onto the stoop. Burying his face in his butcher apron, he wept.

Kate glanced sideways at her partner. Gallagher was straightening his tie and looking uncomfortable.

“Where are we, Denny?” she asked, more to distract him than anything else.

“We better be getting somewhere soon,” he said. The Chief called this morning while you were down the Peninsula. Must be feeling the heat from the Mayor’s office.”

“Think we’re getting close?” Kate hoped Gallagher hadn’t noticed the sudden eagerness in her voice. Not very professional, but what a plum for the “odd couple” to wind up the Holy Hill murders in less than two weeks! How she’d relish rubbing that into the guys at Detail.

Gallagher cleared his throat. “Let’s see. That Leonel is strong enough and mad enough to have killed the guy. But you know as well as I do, we haven’t got enough evidence to charge him.”

“We have his prints on that statue,” Kate said. “But he claims he was just putting it back for Marina. Could be.”

“And Joanna? Would he have killed Joanna?”

“I don’t think he did it.” Kate buttoned her wool plaid jacket against the biting wind.

“Well, then, where are we, Denny?” Kate repeated. “Think we’re at least making progress?”

“Well, we’ve pretty well eliminated Luis, right?”

“Right.”

“And Leonel?”

“Unless we can place him definitely at the scene.”

“That’s progress.”

“Progress?” Kate stared at her partner, disappointed. “All we’ve done is eliminate one suspect and raise a few unanswered questions about a second. Who have we left?”

“Mrs. Rubiero’s whole address book.”

Kate groaned. Even Superwoman couldn’t get through that whole address book by the end of the week.

“Cheer up, Katie girl.” Gallagher patted her on the back. “We’re ahead of where we were an hour ago. At least, we know of two who probably didn’t do it.”

Suddenly, Kate felt tired and hungry. “Want to walk to the coffee shop down the hill before we go looking for the gardener?” she asked.

Nodding his head, Gallagher shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers and followed.

By the time Mary Helen, Eileen, and Anne left the dining room, the persistent autumn sun had started to burn off the fog. A crisp wind whipped around the side of the main college building, chilling the three nuns who stood on the lawn, still talking.

“What do you think about there being two murderers?” Mary Helen asked, eager to pick her friends’ brains.

“Isn’t one enough?” Anne asked.

“One too many, if you ask me,” Eileen said. “But Mary Helen may well be correct… two murderers with two distinct motives. Double trouble!”

“What about one murderer? Joanna saw him, and then he had to murder her, too? That’s a good motive.” Obviously, Anne was reluctant to admit to two murderers.

“Yes, dear-except Joanna could not have seen the murderer. We all know that!” Eileen pointed out.

“How do we all know that?” Anne imitated Eileen’s slight brogue.

“Because Marina told you so, Anne dear. Joanna had gone out of town that night. She called her from San Jose.”

“But we really don’t know for sure, do we? How does Marina know she really was in San Jose when she called? She disappeared right after that. She may have lied to Marina and come back to the college. Really, no one knows exactly where she was. Except her murderer.”

Anne’s declaration was met with silence. “Besides, she added sheepishly, her real point becoming clear, “if you think there are two murderers, please keep it to yourselves. Therese is driving everyone absolutely bananas whining about being killed in our very own cloister. If she thinks she has to watch out for two fiends, instead of one, there’ll be no enduring her.”

Mary Helen couldn’t swallow her guffaw fast enough. Murder was no laughing matter, but human nature surely was. Her laugh burst across the silent campus. Several young women swung around at the unexpected noise.

“Oh, oh, both my appointments spotted me.” Anne checked her watch. “I’ve about two minutes to get to my office. Girl’s pregnant, I think. One says she wants to be a nun.”

“Different girls, I hope!” Mary Helen said lightly, secretly grateful once again that she was in history and not campus ministry.

Smiling, Anne tried to roll her eyes like Therese’s. Then, briskly, she walked toward her basement office.

Eileen stomped her feet to keep warm. “I’d better go, too.” She frowned toward the windows of the Hanna Memorial. “However, if luck is on my side, they may have given my job away. I’ll see you later, old dear.”

Mary Helen watched her friend go, her own mind spinning. Murderers and policemen, hidden motives, unknown connections whirled around. Altogether, it was very unsettling! What she needed was some-what did Anne call it?-“space.” That was it. She needed space. But where? “In green old gardens, hidden away. From sight of revel and sound of strife… Here may I live what life I please…” For the life of her, she couldn’t remember the rest of the verse, but the message was clear. Her “spot” would be ideal.

Swooping into her bedroom, she grabbed her brand new mystery novel. Deftly, she wrapped it in her plastic prayer book cover. She placed the ribbon marker on page one. A sweater. If she was going to enjoy an afternoon in her spot, she’d need a sweater. That cold stone bench seeped right through polyester. Her big, bulky Aran knit would be perfect.

Slamming the convent door behind her, Mary Helen shook it hard to make sure it was locked. With poor Therese so twittery, there was no sense leaving the door ajar.

Trudging up the hill from the Sisters’ Residence, she suddenly realized how tired she was. Her legs had no push. Her neck and shoulders ached. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn that someone had siphoned her pep. An old Model T without gas, she thought, taking the small, winding path leading to her stone bench. And no wonder she was dragging. These last seven days had been hectic. She was very wise to take the afternoon off to act retired. Just sit and relax and read a good, clean, objective murder mystery, one in which you didn’t know the victim personally and in which the killer was easy to guess.

She breathed deeply. The wild, woodsy smell of the hillside cleared her head. “To linger silent among the healthful woods, musing on such things as are worthy of a wise and good man.” In this case, woman. That Horace surely knew what he was talking about. She inhaled again. Dry pine needles crunched under her walking shoes. Carefully, she skirted a small, broken limb that had fallen from the silver dollar eucalyptus.

The sight of eucalyptus, Scotch pine, and untamed juniper flourishing right beside a busy campus in the middle of a busy city lifted her spirits. This lovely foliage grew-oblivious of any of the human beings around it, untouched by human frailty, unharmed by human hatred or greed or jealousy or even murder.