Robert Walker - Final Edge

As they moved into the conference room, Lucas and Meredyth sitting beneath a painting of the Last Supper, Lucas asked, "Mother, has there been any vandalism or destruction of property done against the convent?"

"Nothing major… nothing we haven't been able to handle internally."

"Then there has been some?"

"The usual mischief one expects with children."

"Defaced paintings, statues?"

"Mustaches and spectacles from time to time. Nothing serious, although someone set a fire in the convent once, again before I came on here."

Lucas asked, "The convent…the residence rooms, sleeping quarters, all that?"

"Yes, it was a fire begun in a broom closet beside Mother Orleans's room-now my room. On damp days, I can still get a whiff of the charred walls.

"Again, I was not here during Orleans's stewardship of the convent, but they determined it was student smokers. The little darlings had found what they thought a good place to light up. Carelessness and youthful stupidity. I'm told a book of matches and some butts were found among soiled rags."

"Anyone charged or reprimanded?" asked Lucas.

"From what I understand, the mother superior handled their punishment, and it was severe."

"This girl Rachel…was she involved in the fire?" asked Meredyth.

"Yes, among others. Orleans got to the bottom of it, got hold of the ringleader."

"Rachel?"

"No, Rachel is a follower. It was her friend of the time, Lauralie."

"We'd like to talk to this Lauralie as well then," Meredyth said. "Whoever our girl is, she's got a bold streak in her."

"That would be Lauralie, but she's no longer here. Graduated in 2000…January, and has been out there on her own since. She dropped by from time to time at first, but she stopped coming by."

"And why did she stop coming by?" asked Meredyth.

"She would have to tell you that, but I'm afraid I have no current address or way to get hold of Lauralie. So…shall we begin the inquisition of my young ladies now?"

Meredyth caught a glint in the old girl's eye, and she realized now that Mother Elizabeth wanted to corner their quarry as well, if and when she could be identified.

Mother Elizabeth opened the door on the first young lady, the voices of others who'd begun to gather at the bench outside wafting into the conference room. "Do curb your tongues, ladies," she called out to those in the hallway. "This isn't an amusement. Claudia, let's begin with you."

A frightened young lady demurely entered, her big eyes curious about the visitors from the outside world. Her attention to Meredyth's clothes and jewelry seemed all- consuming, like a fire burning from within, dying to get out but held in check.

Lucas put himself in the girl's shoes, faced with a detective, a psychiatrist, and a mother superior asking questions of her. Either it would terrify some truths from her, or it would cause her to shut down and provide them with nothing. Lucas had interrogated hundreds of teens with criminal records or on the way to building one, but he'd never interrogated anyone with an austere nun perched in a corner, looking on vulture-fashion. He feared they would get nothing from the girls.

They had exhausted the afternoon in interviewing nine young women, ranging in age from a plump fifteen- year-old to a series of seventeen-soon-to-be-eighteen-year- olds, and three at nineteen and twenty, two of whom sounded less than eager to leave the convent, and one who appeared downright troubled at the prospect of leaving, and was weighing the wisdom of becoming a nun herself. "Possibly in order to stay cloistered here," Mother Elizabeth said of the girl after she'd gone. "Not a good enough reason to join the order."

All the young ladies exhibited good manners and respect for Elizabeth, even love, mixed in with fear of her. They all spoke highly of Mother Elizabeth and the programs she'd instituted at Our Lady of Miracles.

Their last interview was with Rachel from the kitchen. As with all the other girls, Rachel knew nothing about delivering a parcel to Lucas's house above Tebo's tavern. "I'd never go near no tavern, Mother Superior," she repeated.

"Please, Rachel, dear, say any tavern, not no tavern," admonished Mother Elizabeth. "We do not never speak in no double negatives… not around here," she explained to the adults, making Lucas frown.

Meredyth quickly asked the girl, "Rachel, do you know how we could get in touch with your friend Lauralie who's left the home? Lauralie?"

"I dunno where she is. I swear I lost touch. We stopped being friends like way before she left."

Meredyth sensed a fear in Rachel, but a fear of what, of whom? Mother Elizabeth or Lauralie or both? Mother Elizabeth suggested, "Why not speak to the sixteen girls who've recently graduated and opted to leave the convent, all now living on the outside? They're all on the list Sister Audrey's preparing you. Lauralie Blodgett is only one of them."

"Is there anyone in that group, Rachel, who had a boyfriend on the outside?" Meredyth pressed the girl, ignoring Elizabeth's interruption.

Rachel again looked to her mother superior before saying, "You should try to talk to all of them."

"Any among them who didn't like life here at the convent or was discontented in general? Anyone who liked destroying things around here, maybe setting a fire?" asked Lucas.

Rachel looked to her mother superior again before answering. Getting a nod from Mother Elizabeth, she replied, "That'd be Lauralie."

"We keep hearing that name come up. She was something of a bully, I understand, always getting into trouble and detention," said Meredyth.

"Everyone was glad to see her go."

"But you two were friends, weren't you?"

"I broke it off with her; she started wanting to do things…I–I-I didn't wanna do."

"What sort of things? Like smoking? Getting into trouble?" pressed Meredyth.

"Mother Superior, I don't like to talk about this."

"It's all right, Rachel. Be forthright. Tell the doctor everything, Rachel."

Rachel wrenched her hands and stuttered. Finally she spat it out. "Sexual things. She wanted to play with me, to put things into me. Wanted to fondle me, sleep with me."

Mother Elizabeth sat without the slightest twinge, a stone statue. "It's all right, child. It's all right."

"Lauralie had a way of making you do things. I had a hard time with her. Saying no to her. I finally told Mother Orleans, and she was going to punish Lauralie, but that's when Mother Orleans had that awful accident, and after that Lauralie left me alone when you came to the home, Mother Elizabeth."

"Lauralie was always looking for someone to love her," said Elizabeth. "She somehow had gotten the fixed idea in her head that she could only be loved in 3 sexual manner."

"Perhaps she was abused in one of the homes she was placed in at an early age?" asked Meredyth.

"I have no record of an incident of that type." Elizabeth sighed deeply "Sad really. Even Father William could not help Lauralie, try as he might. He called her a hopeless child once. I had to straighten him out on that, none of our charges is without redemption. Lauralie had her redeeming qualities. She was tenacious and persistent in her struggle to learn who her parents were, for instance, admirable in her determination, I'm told, even at an early age."

"She just always said…said we both of us needed the experience for when we got out into the real world," said Rachel, her voice having raised an octave, as if wanting to outdo her mother superior. "I had to fight her off every night for a time. She liked to kiss me and touch me all over."

"That's enough, Rachel!" Mother Elizabeth put an end to it, and Rachel curled back in on herself like a closing flower.

They said good-bye to Rachel, Mother Elizabeth walking her out to the hallway, conferring with her in a whisper. Meredyth and Lucas only caught snatches of each voice: Mother: "…don't care-" Rachel: "She's evil-" Mother: "What you think-" Rachel: "…name shoulda been Laura-LIE! with… capital let-" Mother: "Enough."