Sister O'Marie - A Novena for Murder

Whatever the cause, she had tossed and fidgeted all night long. When she did sleep, she had awakened abruptly from outlandish dreams. The only one she could remember now was being chased by a group of Portuguese men with slanted eyes. They all brandished statues.

The dim flicker of daylight filled her small bedroom. Quietly, she rose and dressed. The desolate moan of the foghorn from the Gate warned her to put on her trench coat, the one with the fake fur lining.

Noiselessly, she pulled the heavy convent door closed behind her. The horns hadn’t lied. A low, dense fog creeping up from the Bay had swallowed the hill, even dulling the gray-green of the floodlights surrounding the main building. Mary Helen shivered and put her hand up. She could see her hand in front of her face, but little else. Yet the wet mist against her face invigorated her.

This is probably a very foolish thing to do with all that’s gone on around here, she speculated, but it feels so good. She breathed deeply. The cold air made her eyes water. Her nose felt wet.

Walking briskly away from the Sisters’ Residence toward the side path leading to her favorite spot, she could almost hear Sister Therese hiss, “Not only foolish, Sister dear, but downright dangerous.” This morning she didn’t give a tinker’s dam about danger. She needed to clear her head. “Fear of danger is ten times more terrifying than danger itself!” As the shifting fog billowed around her, she hoped whoever said that was correct.

Low clumps of fog had completely swallowed the underbrush which bordered the side of the dirt path. Only an occasional spear of pampas grass pierced the denseness. It hung on the evergreen. The antiseptic smell of the tall, thin eucalyptus permeated the hillside.

Deliberately, Mary Helen trudged up the pathway, enjoying the steady, rhythmic crunch of her sturdy walking shoes digging into the dirt and gravel. Her mind picked up the beat. The kinks in her brain began to untwist. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Facts, motives, who? Facts, motives, who? Last evening she had told Kate, and that sweet Jack she lived with, about Tony’s accosting her on the path. What had Kate said? “Just a belligerent drunk.” Maybe so. Perhaps she had been wrong about him. An unlikely possibility-but one she had to admit to. Still, there was something cruel in the young man’s eyes. Something about him… She could feel that itch begin again in the back of her mind. Maybe it had something to do with the possibility of two murderers.

Halfway up the hill, she stopped to catch her breath. Easy does it, old girl. You’re not as young as you used to be, she reminded herself, leaning her hand against the stout trunk of an evergreen. Head bowed, she examined its rough bark.

Mary Helen bent forward and studied the bark more closely. A slash of dark, metallic green cut across the trunk as though something had scraped against it. What could it be? A car fender, perhaps. It was about the right height. But what in heaven’s name would a car be doing on this narrow road?

With her thumbnail, Mary Helen flicked at the green. A small, incandescent chip stuck under her fingernail. It was metallic, all right! Dark green and metallic. A dark green car-where had she seen one recently? Mary Helen closed her eyes and jogged her memory. Then with frightening certainty she remembered. The professor’s car, of course! She had heard the screeching tires on the service road and had seen it pull out behind a clump of trees and swerve onto the driveway. Professor Villanueva at the wheel, with another man beside him. Who was the other man? She wasn’t sure. She had been so startled to see the professor that his passenger had simply been a blur! Could it have been his murderer?

Mary Helen removed the chip from under her fingernail and carefully wrapped it in a Kleenex. She’d give it to Kate just as soon as she saw her. This might be an important clue, and she certainly did not want to be accused of withholding evidence.

Almost imperceptibly, Mary Helen became aware of a slow, steady, grinding sound from the footpath. She listened. Who would be out walking this early in the morning? The sound was flat and quiet, as if someone were stealing toward her. It was not the carefree crunch that walking shoes made. Yet, it was rhythmic and definitely moving up the hill. She strained her eyes, but the dense fog blotted out all but a few feet in front of her.

She wanted to call out, but fear constricted her throat. Her dry mouth just wouldn’t form the words. Yesterday’s encounter with Tony flashed through her mind. What if Kate hadn’t arrived just when she had? What might have happened? Would Tony have hurt her? Could this be Tony coming toward her? Or, if not Tony, maybe the murderer? The unidentified somebody they were all trying to find?

Legs trembling, Mary Helen clung to the gnarled tree trunk and stepped off the path into the underbrush. The prickly juniper scratched her trench coat and snagged her stockings. She crouched down. Her heart thumped in her ears. Breath came in quick, painful gasps.

The sound stopped right above her. Eyes closed, she hugged the side of the hill. All her muscles cramped. Without warning, the shale beneath her left foot gave way. She could feel herself slipping. Desperately, she grasped for the underbrush. Its shallow roots, wet with dripping fog, pulled away from the hillside.

Mary Helen lost her balance. Over and over she rolled. Small rocks and twigs scratched against her legs and hands. She could taste the fine-grained shower of loose rock cascading with her down the hillside.

A flat clearing stopped her fall. She lay there, dazed, as the last shower of dirt clattered in a cloud of dust around her.

“Who is that? Are you hurt?” She heard Anne’s voice call down the hill from the pathway. For a moment, Mary Helen didn’t know if she felt relieved or angry. Whichever, it was better than sickening fear. “Are you all right?” Anne shouted.

“Dear Lord,” Mary Helen bargained before she opened her eyes, “if I’m not dead, or at least maimed, I promise to start acting like a retired nun.” Even before she propped herself up on her elbows, she knew that neither the Lord nor she believed that.

Mary Helen opened her eyes and blinked. Miraculously, her glasses had not broken. Adjusting them, she watched Anne scurry down the side of the hill in her moccasins. Of course, that was the sound:-Paiute moccasins! Mary Helen lay back on the ground, closed her eyes, and moaned.

“Mary Helen! Are you all right?” A worried Anne squatted down beside her. “Spit,” she said, holding out the hankie she had taken from her car coat pocket. Adroitly, she dabbed at Mary Helen’s cuts and bruises.

“What are you doing up so early?” Mary Helen asked.

“Couldn’t sleep. And you?”

“Same.”

“Can you move everything?” Anne asked.

Slowly, painfully, Mary Helen tested her arms. They moved. Even though her stockings looked like spider webs, the legs underneath seemed to be intact.

Stiffly, she struggled to get up. “Sit still for a while and take deep breaths.” Anne pretzeled into her lotus position beside Mary Helen. “Even if you have no broken bones, you’ve had quite a shock.”

“You can say that again.” Mary Helen ran her tongue across her teeth for a final check.

“How did you happen to tumble?” Anne helped her empty the grit from her shoes.

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.” Mary Helen blinked back involuntary tears. “Thank goodness for this flat clearing, or I could have kept on rolling.” She pressed her hands against the ground. They had begun to shake. Why, she might have been killed! Her life should have flashed before her. It didn’t. In fact, she later admitted to Eileen, everything had happened so quickly that the only prayer she could think of was Grace before Meals .