Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

"Saint Stanislaus."

"Polish?" Molina asked, her narrowed eyes flashing to Matt's blond hair.

He nodded, oblivious, concentrating on his story, on the sequence of events.

"She was vague about the trouble, but I never doubted her. Nuns from teaching orders never kid around."

Molina nodded, and then started as Matt suddenly stared up at her and continued. "She said to come fast. I thought of Temple's car. I wanted to borrow it. I never remembered, or cared, about the license. Temple insisted on driving. That's when she told me you had looked into my 'background' and found out that I didn't have a driver's license."

"Does that bother you that I checked?"

"Yes. You had no cause."

"I'm a cop. Cops are curious. That's cause enough."

"No official cause."

Molina farmed out a hand----strong, no-nonsense nails, heavy class ring, "Enough for official instincts."

Matt glanced back to the table. "Temple drove, not too fast."

"Not too fast and not too slow, just right, like Baby Bear," Molina mocked. "Miss Barr always treads the line of legality on those high heels of hers. One day she might fall off."

Matt flushed but didn't look up again. "We met Sister Seraphina at the convent door. She explained that Miss Tyler was deeply distressed, possibly physically, certainly emotionally and spiritually. She wanted me to administer the anointing for the sick, to calm Miss Tyler in case her condition was . . . serious."

"You?" Molina stood up, arms still folded over her chest.

"Where was the pastor of the parish?"

Temple could see truth and loyalty battling in Matt. "Miss Tyler was miffed with Father Hernandez over the issue of whether cats go to heaven or not. She would have been disturbed rather than soothed if he had come to her bedside."

"Still, parish spats come and go. Surely she wouldn't object to his attendance in a grave illness?"

"Seraphina didn't think her condition was that serious, and she didn't think that Father Hernandez was suitable."

"He was the parish priest. He should have been called.

Wasn't he furious to have been ignored?"

"I don't know."

"This is odd! Everybody is walking around Father Hernandez like cats on a hot tin roof. He has always struck me as the autocratic type who wouldn't take kindly to that.

Why was he not called and you were? Why?"

"That was the problem, and what Sister Seraphina felt too loyal to tell you." Matt sighed. "He was incapacitated."

Molina drew that in, mangled her lower lip for a few seconds, and digested the information, "Confessions indeed.

You are saying that Father Hernandez was--what? Spit it out."

Temple could see Matt's hands knot into fists in his pockets. Her own hands tensed. Molina could be a chain saw at times, and Matt was ready to explode at the touch of a scalpel.

Molina missed nothing, and would pass up no advantage. "Tell me; otherwise, I'll have to force it out of Sister Seraphina, Or Father Hernandez himself. What was he?"

"Drunk on tequila, I suppose," Matt said in a dead, disowning voice.

It wasn't Father Hernandez he disowned, Temple thought, but his own feelings about this shameful news.

"I see." Molina sank back against the desk, as if borne down by the tawdriness of the revelation. Temple saw that she hadn't liked forcing this particular secret into the open.

"Now I can understand Sister Seraphina's reticence. Nun or not, she's acting as an enabler by hiding the problem, you know," she added almost gruffly. "Religious loyalty aside, she needs to get him into treatment."

"Maybe now," Matt said.

"All right, Scandal in the parish, but couldn't she have administered the sacrament in an emergency? She doesn't strike me as someone who would crack under pressure."

"She could have, but she knew that Miss Tyler was of an age and an era that would be scandalized by a nun taking on such sacramental duties, even in an emergency."

"So she called you. Because . . ."

"Because I was a priest."

Molina stood again, sincerely shocked. No, not shocked, startled.

"You're a priest? I suppose the hotline is pastoral work, but--"

"The hotline is a job," he interrupted, looking up with chilly control. The cat, so to speak, was about to emerge utterly from the bag and the worst was almost over. "My job, now, I said I was a priest. Past tense."

Molina's dark head nodded slowly. "Of course you would be obligated to act as necessary in an emergency. What are you doing in Las Vegas?"

He didn't miss a beat. "My job, just my job, There aren't many available for men with my educational background."

Molina suddenly spun to Temple. "Are you Catholic?"

"No, Unitarian. Sort of, Well, I was a Unitarian."

They both looked at her.

"I'm sorry." Temple shrugged. "I know it's supposed to be an undemanding faith, but I just sort of . . . fell away. What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?"

"What is that comment, an ethnic slur?" Molina retorted.

Temple gulped, and then she got it. "You're Hispanic--and Catholic?" Minnesota had a small Hispanic population, and Temple had always assumed the name "Molina" was Italian.

"Hispanic, yes, Catholic, sort of," Molina mocked Temple, She scowled, annoyed at having to explain herself. "My daughter attends Our Lady of Guadalupe School."

Daughter? Temple couldn't imagine Molina as a mother. Well, maybe as a mother, but not as a wife. And Hispanic, with those Celtic-blue eyes?

"Now that everybody knows where everybody is coming from," Molina resumed with a wry tone, "maybe we can get back to the facts. You--" she nodded at Matt "--anointed Miss Tyler. You--" she quirked an eyebrow at Temple"--watched in stupefaction, Then what?"

Temple answered, figuring Matt needed a break. "Then Sister Seraphina decided that Miss Tyler wasn't improving and called nine-eleven. Rose--Sister Saint Rose of Lima accompanied Miss Tyler in the ambulance. After the medical crew left, we all got to talking and realized that maybe Miss Tyler's ravings about Saint Peter and being betrayed in the Garden weren't just religious confusion and death fears.

I had noticed that the tip of her cane had fresh dirt on it, so--"

"Wait," Molina's hands elevated like a traffic cop's.

"You--you noticed that the cane tip had fresh dirt on it. I can see that you are riveted by religious ritual, Barr, but what made you even think of the cane at a time like that? "

"It's a riveting cane. No, really! It's hand-painted and carved. I noticed it leaning against the trunk I was sitting on in Miss Tyler's bedroom and . . . I saw the dirt crumbling onto the floor. So we all hurried out to the garden, and that's where Matt discovered the crucified cat on the back door."

Lieutenant Molina didn't move, she just glanced wearily at Matt, who resumed the tale. So the atrocity done to Peter surfaced, down to how Matt had freed the animal. Temple cringed to think of bracing a claw hammer on the wood and delicately pulling long carpenter nails through a cat's paw, not once, but twice. Even Molina looked impressed.

That's when Temple decided that Molina would also be relieved to hear that Peter was doing well, thanks to Midnight Louie's blood donation. She did remember Midnight Louie--?

"Miss Barr. I remember every scintillating detail about your exceedingly bizarre circle of acquaintances including the feline," the lieutenant assured her in exaggeratedly lucid tones. "In fact, I am developing quite a fascinating file on the whole kit and caboodle."

"Happy to oblige you with entertainment," Temple answered.

Molina resumed the interrogation. "And neither of you saw Miss Tyler since then?"

"No," they answered in unison, like well-trained school children. Then they glanced guiltily at each other and looked away. They had sounded rehearsed. "Neither of you returned to the Tyler house, or to the convent or to the church?"