Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

"I did." Matt seemed relieved to have the floor to himself.

"I came back here to confer with Sister Seraphina."

"What did you confer about?"

"Miss Tyler. Father Hernandez."

"You knew that Miss Tyler was coming home from the hospital, with her niece?"

"Yes."

Molina turned to Temple, who wondered why this double interrogation wasn't giving the tall lieutenant whiplash.

"You knew that?"

"Matt mentioned something about it later."

"When, and where?"

"Four P.M. Friday, in the pool area of the Circle Ritz."

"Taking a dip?"

"No . . . learning how to take out a drip. Matt was teaching me some self-defense moves."

Molina's head whipped toward Matt again. "What do you know about self-defense?" Her skepticism was not quite a sneer.

"I've practiced some martial arts."

"Well, Mutant Ninja ex-priest." Molina's head swung toward Temple again. "Did you learn anything?"

"How to combat persistent bullies who are bigger than I," Temple said quite deliberately. "The eye gouge, the groin kick, the biting-off:-body-parts technique."

Molina grinned. "Not much art to that."

"I wasn't teaching Temple tae kwon do," Matt put in. "Just the basics of sidewalk self-defense."

"Then what happened?"

"I went to get ready for work at seven," Matt said.

"I went to the vet's to retrieve Midnight Louie and check on poor Peter," Temple added when Molina looked her way again, before turning back to Matt.

"Anything odd happen on your shift at the hotline, any out-of--the-ordinary calls?"

Matt's smile was charmingly crooked. "All our calls are out of the ordinary, Lieutenant, but none last night were noticeably so. Are you thinking the nuisance caller might have wanted to leave a message last night?"

"Maybe," Molina stood up with an air of finality. "The crime-scene team is working over the house. When they're done, I'll want to hear what the three of you have to say about the cat incident, so stay around."

"Where?" Temple mouthed at Matt behind her back as the lieutenant drifted out the door like a navy-blue shadow.

Matt grinned with relief that the interrogation was temporarily over. "That's one question I can answer, the convent kitchen. A great place to stay out of the way. Come on, let's find it."

Temple couldn't help feeling like a trespasser as they wandered the convent's many halls. Maybe a former priest had the right to make himself at home here, but she didn't.

Perhaps she had been infected by years of Protestant superstition about Catholic clergy and Catholic Church structures. She kept expecting to run into something she shouldn't around a comer, something mysterious and semi-creepy --a shadowed statue with a bank of lit candles twinkling eerily before it, or one of those kitschy red-velvet upholstered kneelers you saw in the background of cheap European vampire movies.

This convent showcased only spanking-clean walls and floor and simple pieces of furniture. When they located the kitchen, down two steps at the back of the house, they found Pilar rattling around in the space big enough to hold an empty table for eight.

Pilar shook her head and began a litany of commiseration without waiting for a more formal conversational cue.

"Oh, terrible, so terrible, what happened to Miss Tyler! I was shocked. The sisters all stirred up before breakfast . . . police cars in the neighborhood, sirens."

Matt pulled out a chair near the table's corner for Temple, then another at the head for himself, so they sat at right angles.

"We had to leave the apartment building without breakfast ourselves," he put in.

"No breakfast?" Pilar repeated, scandalized. "The sisters all are over at the church praying for Miss Tyler's soul-- those who are not here waiting for Lieutenant Molina to question them. Questioning the good sisters, can you imagine? I do not know what that woman is thinking, and a member of the parish, too."

"Oh, she attends church here?" Temple pursued.

"Not often enough," Pilar responded with a frown, banging around in the cupboards. "Not morning Mass, but most Sundays. I suppose her work might call her away, but that's hardly an excuse for missing a Sunday obligation. This police stuff is no job for a woman and a mother." She snapped a pair of pale orange Melmac plates down before them with unnecessary emphasis.

"Women do everything nowadays," Temple said.

"Not good work for a woman with a child, who cannot even guarantee to be home at the same time every evening."

Pilar sniffed with contempt. "Poor little Mariah, and what kind of a saint's name is that? I pretend that it is Maria, but no--I am corrected. It must be pronounced 'Mah-rye-ah.' "

Her back to them like a disapproving black wall bowed by print apron strings, she rattled pans and mixing bowls by the stove.

"Mariah. It's better than Tiffany," Temple put in.

"What's wrong with Maria, as in 'Ave Maria'? Nothing stays. No family discipline, no respect for the church, for the saints' names. The neighborhood is a dumping ground, and now poor Miss Tyler is killed in her own home, while her niece is sleeping there."

"Were . . . the cats all right?" Temple asked.

Pilar's bulky body twisted from the stove. "And what was done to that cat!" She crossed herself hastily, her long middle finger tapping forehead, chest and each shoulder in turn. After a shudder of distaste, she turned back to her stove top. "A cruel but calculated thing, Blasphemy."

When she faced them again, a plate of thick, steaming pieces of French toast was in her hands. She bore it to the table, putting it clown beside Matt's place. "There you are," she said in a gentled tone. "You like raspberry preserves, syrup?"

"Yes," Temple and Matt answered again in irritating tandem.

Pilar knew just what to do. She fetched servings of each, later bringing them cups of fresh, midnight-dark coffee and a small, rose-colored pitcher of half-and-half.

Then she stood beside them, stubby hands crossed over her apron front, and, like some gruff guardian angel, watched them eat.

"This is wonderful," Temple said, realizing how hungry she was when her stomach growled at the mere sniff of food.

"Sisters won't eat it," Pilar said in disgust. "Too upset. Even cats won't eat it. Good that you do. Do you want sugar?

Mr. Devine?" she asked solicitously, hovering over Matt's coffee cup.

He took her anxious presence in perfect stride. "Everything is fine as is. Thank you, Pilar. I can see that the sisters are well taken care of here."

"And Father Hernandez, I also cook for him at the rectory, and must run back and forth, back and forth." She rolled her hands into the apron folds. "He is not much for breakfast lately. Do you suppose that Mrs. Molina will have the nerve to question Father Hernandez?"

Temple nearly choked on her coffee to hear the name of Molina preceeded by the honorific of "Mrs." Molina an ordinary Mrs.? Never!

"What does Mr. Molina think of his wife's occupation?" Temple inquired demurely.

Pilar's sniff was a snort this time. "No Mr. Molina. Maybe there never was one. Who is to say? All I know is that Mariah Molina is in the third grade at the school, and I have never seen a wedding band on her mother's hand."

"Many widows don't wear wedding rings," Matt pointed out charitably. '

"More divorcees," Pilar answered with scorn. "Some even have the nerve to come to church and up to the communion rail. You can't tell anymore who is who and what is what. Even the church is confused. Priests and nuns are priests and nuns no longer, and married people get dispensations--"

"I think you mean 'annulments," Matt suggested quickly, obviously stung by her dismissal of ex-anything.

Pilar didn't pause for corrections. "No wonder poor Miss Tyler is dead. Nobody respects anything about the church anymore. Next they will be slaughtering nuns and priests in their beds, like in the heathen countries. I only pray that