Ed McBain: The Big Bad City

Sonny was a good driver. Stayed nailed to the blue Chevy sedan up ahead, but at the same time kept a respectable distance behind. Next few days he'd learn the whereabouts and wherewithals of every move Carella made. Find a place he could lay in wait and cold-cock him. Had to catch him alone. Bang him from behind. Goodbye nemesis, which in the dictionary said, "A person who inflicts relentless vengeance or destruction" he'd looked it up the minute his lawyer paid the bail and popped him.

Meanwhile, careful was the thing. Slow and easy. These were cops he was following, so presumably they knew all about tails. Oreo pair again, he noticed. Did the police department deliberately team up brothers and honkies to keep the peace? He had nothing but contempt for brothers who joined the enemy camp.

Where the hell were they going, anyway? The convent of the Order of the Sisters of Christ's Mercy was located on a tree-lined street in a section of Riverhead that could easily have passed for a small New England village. On this hot summer afternoon late in August, butterflies floated above the flowers lining the path that led to the arched wooden door of the modest stone building where Sister Annette Ryan and eleven other nuns made their home. There was a cemetery on one side of the convent, and on the other a smaller stone building. A nun in habit was a rare sight these days, but the sister who answered their ring was at least seventy years old, and she was wearing the simple black-and-white habit of the order, a wooden crucifix hanging around her neck, a slender gold band on the third finger of her left hand. She led them down a hushed unadorned corridor and knocked discreetly on the arched door at its end.

"Yes, come in, please," a woman's voice said. Sister Annette Ryan ...

"Please call me Annette," she said at once. was a tall, slender worn an in her late fifties, Carella guessed, wearing tailored slacks, a pale blue cotton sweater, and low-heeled walking shoes. She had high cheekbones and a generous mouth, graying red hair cut close, eyes that matched the patch of lawn sparkling in the cloister beyond the arched and leaded windows of her study. She introduced the nun who'd answered the door as Sister Beryl, possibly in deference to her age, and then offered the detectives tea.

"Yes, please," Brown said.

"Please," Carella said.

"How do you take it?" Sister Beryl asked. "Milk? Lemon? Sugar?”

"Just milk in mine," Brown said.

"Lemon, please," Carella said.

Sister Beryl smiled graciously and scurried off. To Carella, nuns in habit always seemed to be moving fast like windup toys. Perhaps because their means of locomotion was hidden by the long voluminous skirt. The door whispered shut behind her. The book-lined study went still again. Outside, Carella could hear the sound of a sprinkler tirelessly watering the lawn.

"Not good news," Annette said, and shook her head in disbelief.

"Not good," he agreed.

"Do you have anything yet?”

"Nothing.”

"How can I help?”

"Well, we know where she worked...," Carella said. "That's recent, you know.”

Brown was already consulting his notebook.

"Six months, we have. From a nurse named Helen Darnels.

"Yes, that's correct. St. Margaret's is one of the three hospitals conducted by the sisters. Our order was founded expressly for the care of the sick, you see, especially the impoverished sick. That was a long time ago, of course. 1837, in fact, in Paris. The charism has changed somewhat over the years ...”

Charism, Carella wondered, but did not ask.

"... to include teaching of the handicapped. We run a school for the deaf next door, for example, and another for the blind, in Calm's Point.”

Carella wondered if he should mention that his wife was deaf and that he. did not consider her handicapped. He let the moment pass.

"Mary was working with terminally ill patients. She was marvelous with the sick.”

"So we understand," Carella said.

"A prayerful nun," Annette said. "And a unique individual. She was only twenty-seven, you know, but so mature, so compassionate.”

She turned her head aside for an instant, perhaps to mask a tear, her gaze falling blindly on the open leaded window beyond which the sprinkler persisted. There was a knock at the door. Sister Beryl came in bearing a tray, which she set on a low table.

"There we go," she said, sounding remarkably sprightly for a woman her age. "Enjoy.”

"Thank you, Sister Beryl.”

The old nun nodded, surveyed the table as if she had not only made the tea but the tray upon which it sat. Pleased with what she saw, she nodded again, and hurried out of the room, the skirt of her black habit whispering along the stone floor.

"Where had Mary worked before?" Carella asked. "You said the job was recent ...”

"Yes, she'd just come here from San Diego. That's where our mother house is. Actually, just outside San Diego. A town named San Luis Elizario.”

"So then you've only known her since she came east," Brown said.

"Yes. We met in March. Our major superior called me from San Diego and asked that I help get Mary settled here.”

"Your major ... ?”

"What we used to call mother superior. Times have changed, you know, oh how they've changed. Well, Vatican Two," she said, and rolled her eyes as if mere mention of the words would conjure up for them the sweeping reform that had swept the church in the sixties. "Even major superior is a bit outdated. Some communities have gone back to calling her the prioress. But she's also called the president and the provincial and the superior general and the provincial superior and the delegate superior or even simply the administrator. It can get confusing.”

"Was Mary Vincent living here?”

"You mean here at the convent? No, no. There are only twelve of us here.”

"Then where did she live?" Brown asked.

"She was renting a small apartment near the hospital.”

"Are nuns allowed to do that?”

Annette suppressed a smile.

"It's different nowadays," she said. "The focus today is less on the group than it is on the individual.”

“Can you let us have that address?" he asked. "Of course," she said.

"And the name and phone number of the major superior in San Diego.”

"Yes, certainly," Annette said.

"When you say you were Mary's spiritual director," Brown said, "what do you mean?”

"Her advisor, her guide, her friend. Everyone needs someone to talk to occasionally. Women religious have problems, too, you know. We're human, you know.”

Women religious, Carella wondered, but again did not ask.

"When's the last time you talked?" he said.

"The day before yesterday.”

"This past Thursday?" Brown said, surprised. "Yes.”

Both detectives were thinking she'd come to see her spiritual director on the day before she was killed. Both detectives were wondering why.

Brown picked up the ball.

"Was she having a problem?" he asked.

"No, no. She just felt like talking. We saw each other every few weeks. Either she'd come here to the convent for dinner or I'd meet her in the city.”

“So this wasn't an unusual visit.”

“Not at all.”

"Nothing specific on her mind.”

"Nothing.”

"No spiritual problems.”

"None that she mentioned.”

"Did anything at all seem to be troubling her?”

“She seemed her usual self.”

"Mention any threatening phone calls ... ?”

"No.”

"Or letters?”

"No.”

"Anyone lurking about the building where, she lived?”

"No.”

"Anyone unhappy with the nursing care she was giving?”

"No.”

"Perhaps a relative or friend of someone she was treating.”

"Nothing like that.”

"Anyone with a minor grievance ...”