Sister O'Marie - A Novena for Murder

Anne examined the clearing. “Looks like someone has been digging here.” She pointed to the break where the smooth shale had been turned over.

“Tony,” Mary Helen answered flatly, still trying to steady her hands.

“That’s some hole!” Mary Helen followed Anne’s finger as she traced the perimeter of a large rectangle.

Mary Helen picked small pieces of rock from the heels of her hands. Here I am nearly dead, and she’s talking about digging holes. Digging holes! With a sudden crash all her thoughts fell into place. She knew what it was that had been bothering her. Tony and his digging! She had seen him digging a huge hole to root ice plant. Ice plant only takes a shallow ditch! The freshly dug rectangle must be five or six feet long and a couple of feet wide. The size of a grave.

A sickening sensation rose in Mary Helen’s throat. You would need a hole that large to bury someone. She put her hand over her mouth and fought down the urge to be sick. The color must have left her face, because Anne grabbed for her shoulders. And she had seen Tony digging several times! She retched.

“What is it?” Anne’s hazel eyes were frightened behind her purple-rimmed glasses.

Mary Helen smiled weakly. “Nothing,” she said, trying to sound calm. “Help me up, will you, and let’s get back to the college. I think I need a hot cup of coffee and a nice, long bath.”

“I have some herbal bath oil you can use,” Anne offered, gripping both her hands.

All I need now is to smell like oregano! Mary Helen let Anne pull her to her feet and silently lead her up the hillside toward the path.

“Dear Lord,” Mary Helen prayed silently, holding tight to Anne’s hand, “let it be my imagination-too many mystery novels, or something. It can’t mean more dead bodies. Don’t You know this is the eighth day of Therese’s novena?” She felt a bit presumptuous asking God if He knew what day it was, but they did say there was no such thing as time in eternity. “You are supposed to find the murderer, not more people who have been murdered!”

Panting, Mary Helen reached the path. Her whole body felt like a giant toothache. Small, dim slits of light floated through the dripping fog. Below them, the college was beginning to wake up.

Sister Mary Helen held her watch up to her ear. “Still ticking.” She smiled sheepishly at Eileen. “A watched pot never boils,” Eileen reminded her for the third time. For nearly an hour, the two had been huddled together sipping their early-morning coffee in the small nook off the kitchen. They were waiting for nine o’clock.

Right after the seven o’clock Sunday Mass, Mary Helen had run into Eileen. Although she had fully intended to keep her suspicions about the body-sized rectangle to herself, she was glad now she’d blurted them out. Misery loves company. One look at Eileen assured her that her friend was every bit as miserable as she was.

Eileen watched Mary Helen turn back her cuff and check her watch yet another time. “For the love of all that’s good and holy, why don’t we just call?” she asked.

“Because I may be wrong. There is no sense disturbing someone so early on a Sunday morning if I’m wrong. And if I’m right, whoever it is will still be there, and none the worse for the wait.”

Eileen’s soft-wrinkled face fell into a frown. “There is a certain kind of logic that defies argument,” she said.

At the first stroke of nine, the two nuns shot from the nook. Clopping down the hallway, they left only the steady clinking of the loose hall tiles behind them.

By the time the college bell tolled the last stroke of nine, the two were in Eileen’s office. Door closed, Mary Helen dialed Kate Murphy.

Inspector Gallagher stopped at the main gate just long enough for the two nuns to climb into the back seat. Slowly, the car labored up the steep grade.

“Here.” Mary Helen pointed to the narrow dirt path leading off from the paved driveway. Gallagher stopped the car.

“Isn’t this the same path we met you and Tony on yesterday?” Kate turned toward the back seat.

Yes, Mary Helen nodded. Did she catch a hint of disbelief in Kate’s voice? Did Kate think she was making all this up to prove a point?

“And what happened to your hands?” Kate noticed the scrapes. “And is that a scratch on your face?”

“I had a tumble.” Mary Helen was not going to tell her what had really happened. She’d certainly think it was all hysteria!

“Easy, Sisters.” Politely, Gallagher helped them from the car. Opening the trunk, he removed a shovel. “You know, Sisters”-his watery-blue eyes studied them patiently-“in these murder cases, sometimes our imaginations get the best of us. Run wild. We begin to see murders and murderers everywhere.”

So he didn’t believe her, either. Maybe your imagination is unreliable, but mine is tried and true, thank you, Mary Helen thought. Deliberately, she pointed to the rough trunk of the evergreen.

“This morning I also noticed that scrape. Metallic paint, I think. A car, probably. Although I have no idea why a car would be on this footpath.” Adjusting her bifocals, she stared at Gallagher. So much for overworked imagination!

Simultaneously, Kate and Gallagher bent forward to examine the green slash. “I removed a chip”-she handed the Kleenex to Kate-“and the rectangle I spoke to you about is right down there.”

“You two go sit on the bench,” Kate ordered as she and Gallagher clambered down the embankment. “We’ll let you know the minute we find anything.”

Obediently, the two nuns sat freezing on the cold stone bench. A gray blanket of fog still wrapped the city.

“This is a beautiful view, when you can see it.” Mary Helen tried to make small talk. Funny how people always tried to make small talk when faced with overwhelming situations. She was no exception.

“I think I see the top of City Hall.” Eileen pointed to her left.

“I hope none of the nuns walk out this way.”

“No one in her right mind would walk out here in this cold. If they are doing anything, they are probably having a second cup of good, hot coffee.” Eileen shivered.

“Where’s Anne?”

“She had an appointment with Marina. Apparently it was something quite important. She left right after Mass.”

“Marina! Is Anne alone?”

“Of course she’s alone. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t want to be an alarmist, but we really don’t have any idea who the murderer is.” Or even if there is more than one. She kept that thought to herself. “It could be Marina as well as anyone else,” she said.

Eileen frowned. “I don’t care what you say about Cain and Abel. I just cannot believe Marina would kill her own sister!”

“Maybe not, but until we know for sure, I think it is foolish and downright dangerous for Anne to be out there alone!”

Eileen stared at her friend in amazement. “Well, if this isn’t a typical case of the pot calling the kettle black, old dear,” she said, “then I’ve never seen one!”

Impatiently, Mary Helen walked to the edge of the clearing and looked down at the two inspectors. Gallagher had removed his jacket and was heaving great shovelfuls of dirt from one corner. Kate stood next to him, holding his jacket and peering into the freshly dug hole.

Abruptly, Inspector Gallagher stopped. On hands and knees, Kate inspected his hole. She mumbled something Mary Helen could not hear. Gallagher shook his head, then helped her to her feet.

“Looks like you were right,” Kate cupped her hands and hollered up.

It was the first time in a long while that Mary Helen could remember not wanting to be right.

Within minutes, the entire hillside had been cordoned off. “This looks like something right out of The Streets of San Francisco .” Mary Helen pointed to the black-and-white patrol cars lining the driveway. Their circling red-and-blue lights cut through the fog. Police radios squawked. Floodlights threw broad beams across the misty clearing. A police ambulance whooped up the hill, followed closely by the coroner and several men carrying metal cases. Crime Lab, Mary Helen thought. Finally, the inevitable van marked “Channel 4-On the Scene” turned in from Turk Street and pulled behind the last patrol car. A jeans-clad, bearded fellow jumped from one door. Hoisting a heavy television camera to his shoulder, he followed a trim, smartly dressed woman. Mary Helen recognized her as one of the reporters from the five o’clock news. Poor Cecilia!