Douglas Nelson - Cat On A Blue Monday

a man-about-town. He's always wandered, and he must have stumbled into this guy's path."

"Hmm." Molina was not impressed. "I don't buy it, but since the alternative is that your Louie put himself into Mr. Burns's path for some reason, I'll go along with it. Let's say that Midnight Louie happened to be visiting lady friends in Miss Tyler's house when Mr. Burns came looking for a big, juicy cat that no one could miss seeing stapled to Our Lady of Guadalupe's doors."

"Mr. Burns is Catholic," Sister Seraphina piped up.

"On the surface, yes. Why do you mention it?" the lieutenant wanted to know.

'Tacking a cat to the church doors--it's a sacrilegious version of Martin Luther nailing his 'Ninety-five Theses' to the Wittenberg Cathedral door and starting the whole Reformation."

"Perhaps, Mr. Burns's attitude toward Catholicism seems to be highly antagonistic, given the statement we have recorded."

"But why?" Father Hernandez demanded. "This young man has been a member of the parish for over ten years. He has volunteered his legal services, both to the church and Miss Tyler. Why would he pose as a loyal parish member for so long? Why?"

"Four hundred and fifty-seven thousand dollars," Lieutenant Molina announced briskly. "The will was fraudulent.

The monies he represented as comprising Miss Tyler's estate are grossly underestimated. The church would have gotten its pittance; the cats would have been homeless, and Peter

Burns would have been immeasurably richer. Our fraud unit is still tracing accounts. He handled her financial affairs for the past decade, you see. She was a typical, modest, closemouthed old lady. No one would suspect how much her money had appreciated with shrewd investments, not even Miss Tyler."

"Except--" Sister Seraphina stopped speaking suddenly.

All eyes turned to Peggy Wilhelm, who was shaking her moplike head.

"No, not me. Aunt Blandina was of a generation that believed that her age, her financial position and the state of her soul were equally sacred. She said nothing about any of them to me. I was still a child to her. Her forever-childish niece; useful, but untrustworthy, except with the cats. I was good enough to take care of her cats, but not her financial affairs, not anything else."

Temple winced at the self-disgust buried in Peggy Wilhelm's bitter words. Matt wondered again who had cast Temple in the role of confidante. Like Molina, he had his suspect.

"Mr. Devine."

The lieutenant's voice made Matt jump as if he had been fingered in a crime. He liked being the observer, the judge, the confessor. He didn't like being the subject, the focus.

"You were the wild card," she said. "Sister Seraphina drew you from the deck; you were a student of hers in Chicago--" he nodded "--and you came onto the scene with a kind of unholy innocence. What forced her to turn to you? The obscene phone calls?"

He nodded again.

"Why not Father Hernandez? The drinking?"

He nodded yet again, not looking at anyone.

Molina smiled grimly, satisfied. "So we have Sister Seraphina and Mr. Devine trying to protect Sister Mary Monica, and Father Hernandez by default."

Father Hernandez pressed his lips together, tempted to defend himself and his sudden alcoholic turn. No, Matt willed him. The rest of it may not have to be revealed. Let her suppose, and we will dispose . . . we priests, who serve the greater good, which sometimes is not served by full disclosure. Their glances clashed and slid away.

"And we have Miss Temple Barr," Molina said, "who is trying to protect cats."

Temple, too, controlled herself, remaining silent while

Lieutenant Molina went on.

"Mr. Peter Burns had not planned on these interlopers. He had planned on Miss Wilhelm being absent. The crucified cat was meant to distress Miss Tyler, and did. It was not meant to have other witnesses than she. Essentially, we believe, and Burns has indicated, he intended to weaken and harass Miss Tyler into a grave illness. He was tired of waiting; he wanted her dead. He wanted her money. He wanted the cats killed, one way or another--by his own hand, or by being cast out undefended in an unwelcoming world."

They listened to Molina and shook their heads. Peter Burns, whom they had hardly known, seemed mindlessly demented.

"But why?" Sister Seraphina's astute eyes were unsatisfied.

"Money doesn't motivate the acts of mischief and terror he performed."

"He had a motive beyond greed," Molina conceded. "Retribution. Mr. Devine?"

Matt looked up again. He was beginning to resent being called "Mr. Devine." Was Molina taunting him for the absence of the old honorific, "Father?" Father Devine. Father

Matt.

"You suggested that I investigate the background of everyone in the case," Molina went on. "You knew how thorough I could be, from your own experience."

He nodded.

"I did as you said. And I found ..." Molina sighed as if exhausted. "Miss Wilhelm, would you care to tell us about it?"

"About what?" Her voice was stiff, ungiving.

"About what happened at Our Lady of Guadalupe thirty six years ago."

Peggy Wilhelm's eyes stabbed toward Temple.

"No," Temple said. "I never did. Honestly."

Peggy Wilhelm's hands became helpless fists on her knees, her stubby, middle-aged knees covered by cotton culottes.

Finally, Peggy Wilhelm spoke.

"Thirty-six years ago. You think I'd forget? You'd think everyone else would forget--why can't they? I lived here for a while, in this parish. At my aunt's house. None of you were here then. None of you would know. Lieutenant . . .!"

"It's the key." Molina's tone was not uncompassionate.

"You must know, and they must know."

"Why? It's been such a secret all these years!"

"Because he knows."

"He?" Peggy Wilhelm seemed utterly confused. "But he never knew, the father. That was the whole point. We all . . . conspired to make sure that he never knew. It was our

business. Family business. My fault. My sin. Not his. He was irrelevant. But not me. My heart magnified the Lord, and so did my body. They kept telling us what the Virgin Mary was like, so young, so pure. I was fifteen and I hardly knew how it happened.

"They told us so little then, it was still the fifties! Do you know how long ago that was? I used to read the New Testament, after the angel told Mary she would bear the Christ child, when she visited her cousin Elizabeth, who knew already and said, 'Hail, Mary, full of grace. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.' I used to have to say the rosary over and over, those 'Hail, Mary' words, but the fruit of my womb was sin. They kept using those words in church on Sunday, they even gave them a name, the Magnificat, Mary's rejoicing in her miraculous motherhood--'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior."

"She said 'His mercy is from generation unto generation,' but I read the words and heard the words and felt only shame. There was no mercy for me and my child--not from the church or my family or any of you now who will be so quick to judge."

Peggy Wilhelm's troubled face searched their features and then lowered. She wiped her fingers across the corners of her eyes, which were dry. Her voice as she continued was even dryer, almost dead of expression.

"I was sent to stay with Aunt Blandina until it was over. Not even to a 'home.' Too public. A midwife was more discreet than a doctor, and whatever came, would be whisked away. I hardly remember. I wasn't supposed to. Nobody was unkind, they were just so shamed. We never spoke of it in the family afterward. Never. I was sent out of state to finish high school, and then to college. I grew up, I tried to forget, like I was ordered to.

"When my parents died, of broken hearts, I suppose, I moved to Las Vegas, I don't know why. To be near my only living relative. My aunt. She had started keeping cats by