Sister O'Marie - A Novena for Murder

“For the love of heaven! Look who’s here!” Sister Eileen jumped to her feet.

Mary Helen looked up. A smartly dressed young woman in her late twenties came through the office door. An older, pudgy man followed her in. Without looking left or right, he slid past into the inner room.

“Kate Murphy!” Eileen hugged the young woman affectionately. “How nice it is to see you!”

“Sister Eileen. I’m surprised you remember me.”

“Now, who could forget you?” Eileen turned toward Mary Helen. “Sister Mary Helen, I’d like you to meet Kate Murphy, who was one of my favorite students. Kate, my friend, Sister Mary Helen. She’s newly arrived at the college.”

“How do.” The nun extended her hand.

Kate Murphy’s quick smile lit up her open, freckled face. Short, auburn hair set off her eyes, the color of fine Wedgwood. Nice face, Mary Helen thought, as Kate turned to meet Sister Anne.

“You work with the police?” Mary Helen asked.

“Kate is an illustrious alumna. Her father was with the San Francisco police for years. After graduation, she followed in his footsteps.” Eileen squeezed Kate’s hand. “She’s the college’s one and only police inspector. And in Homicide, at that!”

“Homicide?” The color drained from Sister Anne’s face. “But we thought the death was an accident. Just a freak accident.”

The blond, freckle-faced patrolman, who had arrived on the scene earlier and who was now leaning against the door jamb, snorted. “Not unless the statue walked at least two feet from the shelf before it hit the guy, Sister. Inspector Gallagher wants you inside,” he said to Kate.

“Did you get statements from these nuns?” she asked.

“Right away.”

“And a list of everyone else who could have been around?”

“Yep. Plus a statement from the girl who discovered the body. Except she’s pretty hysterical. Lying down now in the convent. You may be able to do better with her tomorrow.”

Kate checked her watch and then looked at the nuns sitting bleary-eyed on the bench. “It’s late, and you look exhausted. You can go now. If we have more questions, we’ll get back to you in the morning.”

Slowly, the three nuns walked in silence toward the Sisters’ Residence. The city lights danced below them. In the bright moonlight, the tree-lined driveway shone white. They were too emotionally exhausted to talk.

Sister Therese opened the front door for them. “What happened?”

“Professor Villanueva. He’s dead. Skull fractured with a statue,” Sister Anne said.

Therese gasped, blessed herself, and double-locked the front door.

Might as well give her the full shot, Mary Helen thought. “The police think it was murder.” That would put quite a kink in Sister Cecilia’s smooth-running operation.

“Murder!” Therese’s brown eyes opened wide. “Murder! I’d better tell the others.”

“Murder!” She pattered down the corridor muttering to herself. Before rounding the corner into the Community Room, she turned back to them. “This very night I’m starting a novena to… to…” She hesitated, obviously fumbling for the proper saint. “To St. Dismas! And you mark my words, before the nine days are over we’ll have the”-the words stuck in her throat-“the murderer!”

“Who did she say she was starting a novena to?” Anne frowned at Mary Helen.

Another generation gap. “St. Dismas. You remember, the Good Thief. He’s the patron saint of thieves and murderers.”

Anne’s mouth sagged open.

“Never underestimate her clout.” Mary Helen put her arm around the young nun’s thin waist. “Look at it this way, Annie. Put yourself in Dismas’s place. What would you do if, out of the blue, right in the middle of enjoying a peaceful eternity, Sister Therese got on your case?”

Early next morning, the college swarmed with official-looking men in conservative business suits asking questions, dusting for fingerprints, making phone calls, taking notes, and all talking, it seemed to Sister Mary Helen, out of the sides of their mouths.

She bumped into them in the kitchen, in the convent, on the campus. A clean-shaven fellow with a full head of curly hair questioned her again about how she happened to come upon the professor’s body. He was one step up on the hierarchy from the patrolman, she guessed. Carefully, she told him everything she had told the patrolmen the night before. Therefore, she was surprised when at about ten o’clock she was summoned again to room 203 in the main college building.

Oh, oh, Mary Helen thought, spotting Sister Therese coming from the other end of the hall. She watched, fascinated, as Therese, like the proverbial bird with rumpled tail feathers, picked and pecked her way through the bevy of police officers.

“I’m on my way to chapel for my novena prayers,” she muttered to Sister Mary Helen as they passed each other. “And this!” Therese made a large dramatic gesture toward room 203. “The poor girls! Exposed to this! What must they think?” Not waiting for an answer, she continued her short staccato steps down the hall.

“They probably think it is the most exciting thing that’s happened around here in years,” Mary Helen mumbled, making sure Therese was safely out of earshot.

“Come in, Sister,” a heavy-set fellow called from the professor’s inner office. Mary Helen recognized him as the same man who had slid in behind Kate Murphy last night. He must be the top of the line, she thought.

“I’m Inspector Gallagher.” He motioned to the chair facing the desk. The Inspector balanced his ample bottom on the desk’s highly polished top. His gray tweed suit, which had a slept-in look, strained when he reached for his note pad.

Mary Helen wriggled into the chair. She pushed her bifocals up the bridge of her nose and covertly studied the man.

She’d try not to let him catch her staring. He looked like something right out of a “whodunit.” Already his tie was loose. It jig-jagged down the front of his white shirt, exposing tiny buttons straining over a paunch which hung slightly below his belt. Mary Helen could barely see the double G’s on the belt buckle. Gucci! She was surprised, not to mention what Gucci might have been to see his gold G’s holding up pants she felt sure must have a shiny seat. The belt was probably a gift from a long-suffering wife, or a daughter who hoped to spruce up Pop!

Perched on the desk, facing the elderly nun, Gallagher was doing some covert studying of his own. He ran his hand across his bald crown. She was certainly not what he had expected. No siree! This one wasn’t like the good sisters who’d taught him at old Saint Anne’s. They had been veiled, and black from head to toe, with a white linen coif hiding everything but a smooth, ageless face. Here, this old gal sat in a smart, navy blue suit, her gray hair styled in an attractive feather cut. If you looked carefully, you could still see the faint skin discoloration where her coif had once covered the sides of her face.

One thing she still had for sure, Gallagher noted, was nun’s eyes. Those peaceful, piercing eyes he remembered from grammar school, eyes that seemed to be able to read minds. They came in all colors-blue, brown. This gal’s came in a speckled hazel. Gallagher cleared his throat.

“Tell me, Sister… ah…”

“Mary Helen.”

“Yes, Mary Helen. Tell me exactly what happened last night. How you found the professor, who was around, everything you can remember.”

“Inspector, I have already told everything I know to two police officers. Both have taken copious notes. Perhaps you could simply read their notes. Those must be they, right in your hands.” She folded her hands and waited for his explanation.