Death Goes on Retreat

by Carol Anne O'Marie

  “It means that every cloud has a silver lining.” Her brogue was thick enough to let Mary Helen know she was still upset.

  “Which is what?”

  Despite their attempt to whisper, the priests were listening with interest.

  “Sister Cecilia thinks we are safely on retreat. With any luck at all, she may never know this happened.”

  Cecilia! With all this morning’s goings-on Mary Helen hadn’t given a single thought to anything else. As president of Mount St. Francis College, Sister Cecilia had weathered the publicity that accompanied Mary Helen’s previous brushes with murder and murderers. After the pilgrimage to Spain, Cecilia had mentioned—a bit testily, in Mary Helen’s opinion—that her forbearance was wearing thin.

  And, although Eileen said it was nonsense, Mary Helen sensed that Sister Therese, who liked her name pronounced “trays,” and several of the other nuns were beginning to avoid the two of them as one would a pair of Grim Reapers. Actually, only young Sister Anne found their adventures exciting. Eileen was right. It was best that this whole affair be kept as quiet as possible.

  “Surely it’s too remote a murder to make the Chronicle,” Eileen assured her. Several of the older Sisters at the college read the San Francisco paper with almost religious fervor, missing no item, however insignificant.

  Tom Harrington smiled. “They won’t need the Chronicle,” he said. “The clerical grapevine will have the news up Holy Hill faster than the speed of light.”

  Mary Helen groaned. Twenty priests were expected at the retreat house. How soon? She had lost all sense of time. Checking her watch, she was surprised to see that it was only a few minutes after eight o’clock in the morning. The significance hadn’t dawned on her.

  In less than two hours, twenty diocesan priests would be turned away from St. Colette’s by the police. Figuring in travel time down the mountain and telephone time, Mount St. Francis would undoubtedly have the news by lunch. Unless, heaven forbid, some priest had a car phone. Then the bad news might arrive as early as the morning coffee break.

  From the picture windows of St. Jude’s dining room, Mary Helen watched the sun clear the tips of the distant evergreens. Already the room was stuffy and warm. The usually delicious aromas of frying bacon and baking bread coming from the kitchen were cloying.

  With an unexpected bang of the kitchen door, Beverly reappeared. Her stainless-steel cart was laden with a platter of bacon and scrambled eggs, fruit juice, and baskets of fresh-baked muffins.

  “Your breakfast,” she said, as if nothing unusual had happened to disrupt her schedule.

  “Won’t you join us?” Con McHugh was cordial.

  Mary Helen watched Beverly’s reaction. Curiously, there wasn’t one. As if she hadn’t heard, Beverly reopened the door, then paused. “I’d be afraid to,” she said, leaving the group in an awkward silence.

  With a quick, clumsy sign of the cross, Con McHugh blessed the food and they all sat down to breakfast. No one took very much. Beverly’s parting shot had done away with any appetite they might have had.

  “What do you think will happen now?” Tom made heavy work of buttering his muffin.

  Instinctively all eyes went toward Andy Carr. “Damned if I know,” he said. “I’m just the Police Department chaplain. I’ve never been under suspicion before. What do you think, Ed? You’re really more familiar with the system than I am.”

  Ed Moreno took his time chewing and swallowing. “Beats me,” he said finally. “I don’t think he can keep us here much longer. With a guy like Loody, however, it’s hard to tell. I know what I intend to do.”

  Every eye was upon him. “What’s that, Ed?” Mike Denski played with the end of his long sideburn.

  “I’m going to eat up. From the sound of things, Bevy’s picked one of us as the murderer. Knowing her, whoever it is is already convicted and condemned. She’s just waiting for the execution.”

  “Which one?” Mike’s mouth quivered.

  “Who knows?” Smiling, Ed passed the platter. “But if it’s me, kid, I intend to have my last meal. Why don’t you guys do the same?”

  He was just finishing his second helping of breakfast when Beverly reappeared with an empty trolley to clear the table. “I suppose I’ll have to do these, too,” she said, slamming down a plate. A spoon clattered to the floor.

  Eileen bent over to retrieve it and, much to Mary Helen’s surprise, did not offer to help with the dishes. Following Beverly into the kitchen was too much like following a lioness into her lair for Mary Helen’s taste. Apparently Eileen wasn’t that brash either.

  Mike Denski’s eyes opened wide. For a moment Mary Helen thought he was about to volunteer. The poor guy—Beverly will eat him alive! Instead, he gathered up the remaining cups and saucers, stacked them on the bottom of the cart, and moved them out of the dining room into Beverly’s domain in double time.

  The rattling and banging of Beverly’s dishwashing echoed in the background. “I know she must have some redeeming qualities, but that’s the person I would have murdered,” Mike said to everyone’s surprise.

  Mary Helen knew he wasn’t the first person to feel that way. Last night an angry Laura Purcell had said the same thing. Laura! She wondered if anyone had told the girl about Greg’s death. Surely, Sister Felicita had been too busy. Deputy Loody wouldn’t have had the chance yet—if he even knew about Laura.

  Poor thing! Last night, her face flushed with rage, she had wept out her anger in Greg’s sympathetic embrace, never suspecting what would happen. Mary Helen wondered sadly how they had spent the evening. And if they’d ever made it to the movie Laura wanted to see. What a shock his death would be for her!

  “I can’t stand that banging much longer.” Tom Harrington’s handsome face strained into a shallow grin.

  “Nothing says that we can’t go out on the sundeck to wait for Loody’s return.” Ed Moreno opened a glass door and stepped out onto the wide wooden deck that ran the length of the building.

  Sister Mary Helen followed. Leaning against the wooden rail, she was once again enthralled with the magnificence of the view. Sycamores, redwoods, bays, cypresses, and Ponderosa pines formed a silent sea reaching to the sparkling blue sky.

  To her amazement, on the lawn below a brown rock moved. Pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, Mary Helen spotted a fluffy white tail and realized that what she thought was a rock was a large brush rabbit pausing to nibble the grass. Many things aren’t what they seem, she thought, watching it scurry into the underbrush.

  Down the length of the porch were redwood tubs of lacy dianthus, cherry-red patio dahlias, and tufts of Sweet William. Green and white director’s chairs, placed at intervals, suggested that the retreatants could enjoy both the view and their solitude.

  Father Carr made quick work of pulling several chairs together.

  “Like pioneers circling the wagons,” the monsignor remarked. “Do you mind?” He pulled out his pipe.

  “Circle is now complete with campfire,” Ed quipped, but no one seemed to mind.

  In fact, Mary Helen rather enjoyed the aroma of his tobacco. There was just a hint of vanilla in it. From somewhere a thrush gave his flute-like call. It seemed impossible that amid so much beauty and tranquillity she had stumbled upon such violent death.

  Her stomach roiled. Quickly, before her knees melted, she took the place next to Con McHugh.

  The crash of falling dishes reverberated out onto the silent air.

  Andy Carr swore under his breath. “You know,” he said, “maybe Mike had something.”

  “Me?” Mike sounded more surprised than anyone. “About what?”

  “About someone wanting to kill Beverly.” Andy fingered his scruffy beard. “You know, she is tall and blond, not unlike Greg. Maybe from the back in the dark, someone could have mistaken her.”

  “That’s possible.” The monsignor pulled on his pipe.

  “Come, Rin. Come, Tin-Tin. Come on, boys!” In the distance Beverly could be heard callin
g the dogs.

  “Anything’s possible, of course,” Mike said, “but people don’t just kill somebody because they are rude. What would be the real reason?”

  “We all know Beverly,” Ed said. “Need you ask for more of a reason?”

  A sudden, horrendous thud from the kitchen drove home his point.

  The familiar sounds of cars, radios, and men’s voices announced the arrival of yet more police. Undoubtedly the crime scene unit, the forensic team, and the coroner, Mary Helen speculated from previous experience. Nevertheless, she was surprised when two young men in plainclothes rounded the corner of St. Jude’s and introduced themselves as homicide detectives. For some reason she’d never imagined a sheriff’s department having its own homicide unit, although it made perfect sense.

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Bob Little,” one of the men announced.

  The first thing Mary Helen noticed about him was that he was not—little. If anything, he was big. Not as big as Loody; although he was almost as tall, his body had the lean, hard look of an athlete’s. Big and brown, Mary Helen thought, with brown hair and eyes, a thick brown mustache and a deeply tanned face. Even his slacks and sport coat were shades of brown.

  Not that the brown made him dull. On the contrary, it was a warm, amicable brown that showed in his humorous eyes and twitched around his lips.

  “This is my partner, Deputy Dave Kemp,” he said.

  Kemp was Mutt to Little’s Jeff. To acknowledge his introduction, the deputy gave a quick nod of his surf-bleached head. His sharp cobalt eyes bounced from one to the other. Nervously he fiddled with the knot in his bow tie. Mary Helen thought it unusual to find such a young man wearing a bow tie and wondered how long before it came off in this heat.

  “You’re taking over from Sergeant Loody, then?” Father Carr asked, too quickly.

  Although his face betrayed nothing, Little’s eyes twinkled. “Sergeant Loody will cordon off the areas and post guards, but Deputy Kemp and I will handle the investigation from here on in.”

  Suddenly the sundeck took on a different air. The green and white chairs were pushed back. The pioneers were rescued. The cavalry had arrived!

  Before they began to feel too liberated, Detective Sergeant Little reinforced Loody’s directive by asking them to remain at the retreat center. “Just until my partner and I have the opportunity to question each of you,” he said, almost apologetically. “I understand you’d be here on a retreat anyway, so no one is expecting you home for a week, right? I’m sure St. Colette’s is much more comfortable than being sequestered in a motel.”

  He gave a wide smile that reached not only his eyes but his entire face. Although the result was exactly the same, being held captive by Sergeant Little was already more bearable.

  “You’re free to walk around the place,” he said. “Just try not to get in the way of the forensic team and, please, don’t go back to the crime scene.”

  Wild horses couldn’t drag me, Mary Helen thought. Her stomach lurched at the very idea.

  Little and Kemp had nearly crossed the parking lot when they saw Sister Felicita descending the hill. “Swear to God, it’s Sister Mary Immaculata,” Bob Little muttered, watching her.

  “Who?” Kemp asked.

  Little shrugged. “My high school English teacher. I swear she looked just like that.” He studied the approaching figure. It was short with a black veil flowing gracefully over the shoulders and a loose scapular concealing everything but the solidness of the shape beneath.

  “From this distance, dressed like that, how can you tell who it looks like?” Kemp asked.

  Little nodded toward the nun. “It’s those wire-rimmed glasses and those eyes: clear, blue, and—what’s the word? Hell, I should remember the word! She was my English teacher. ‘Inscrutable,’ that’s it. Inscrutable eyes.”

  Kemp shaded his own eyes from the glaring sun. “How can you make out her eyes from here? If you ask me, she’s squinting.”

  “Trust me,” Little said with confidence. “I am a man of experience.”

  “I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

  “I’m not,” Little said. “I just went to the Catholic school. I never did convert, although I picked up a big dose of their guilt and the wisdom to realize that Sister knows best.”

  Actually, Little had been one of the few non-Catholics at Holy Cross High School. In desperation, his frustrated parents sent him there for the discipline. In fact, he suspected his talent for basketball, rather than his adherence to the school’s rules, is what saved his hide. That, plus his mother’s untiring devotion to the Mothers’ Guild, and Sister Mary Immaculata’s continued prodding.

  Much to his parents’ relief and amazement he had graduated from Holy Cross and gone on to the state university. There, again thanks to Sister Mary Immaculata’s previous drilling, he was spared from taking “Bonehead English.” Actually, he hadn’t thought of her much since, only once in a while when the correct word or a line of a poem came back.

  When he’d entered the police academy, his mother was finally able to relax.

  “She was afraid you’d end up on the other side of the bars,” his father had joked. As with all humor, Bob Little recognized the element of truth.

  “The Brain — is wider than the Sky —

  For — put them side by side —

  The one the other will contain

  With ease — and You — beside.”

  Little recited Emily Dickinson aloud. “Sister Mary Immaculata made me memorize that,” he said with a grin, “and I’ve never been able to forget it.”

  “Whatever the hell it means.” Kemp seemed to be tiring of the good nun.

  Little shrugged. “I told you she taught English,” he said, as if to explain away any aberrations.

  Head down, muttering to herself, Sister Felicita almost ran into them. “Excuse me,” she stammered, blinking.

  Her eyes were clear and blue, Little noted with satisfaction. He wondered if Kemp had caught that.

  “I am so distracted, I’m not looking where I’m going. I just can’t seem to think of anything but—” Felicita pointed toward the wooded hillside.

  Watching the color drain from her face, Little quickly changed the subject. All he needed was to have the little woman faint.

  “You must be Sister Felicita.” He gave her his friendliest smile. “You’re the directress of the retreat center and the one who called in the complaint?”

  She nodded, the tears welling up.

  “Why don’t you go join the others,” Little suggested. “We can talk later.”

  With a nervous bob of her head, Felicita hurried to do just that.

  Little and Kemp worked their way up the steep hillside. Loody in his tan and forest-green uniform stood like a giant tree guarding the entrance to Madonna Grove.

  Little scanned the clearing. It was small and flat with a carpet of dried pine needles, sheltered from view, and from the rising heat, by tall trees. To one side was a homemade log bench.

  Even with all the activity of the crime unit, the place had an uncanny quiet. A peaceful, secluded spot, Little thought, noticing the large Madonna in the burned-out tree stump. A perfect spot for praying. And for murdering.

  A camera flashed. “Want to get a look now, Bob?” a man called. “Or do you want to wait until I’m done? I’ve only got a couple more.”

  “Go ahead,” Little answered. “I can wait.” To tell the truth, he’d prefer to wait forever. The first view of the victim, any victim, was something he dreaded. No matter how often he did it, he never got used to it. The sight, the smell, the fear of death itself—he didn’t know what it was. All he knew was that every time, no matter how he tried to prevent it, he had to fight down the sickening sensation of bile rising in his throat and the weak, watery feeling in his knees. This time was no exception.

  “Overkill,” Kemp pronounced. Little stared down at the victim. Greg Johnson was covered with slashes. His arms where he had held them up to defend himse
lf were crisscrossed with knife strokes. After he had fallen, any one of the multiple gashes and stab wounds on his body could have killed him.

  “You got that right,” Little tried to keep his voice steady, waiting for the nausea to subside.

  “Clearly, a crime of passion. We just need to find out who’s passionate about the guy,” Kemp said, obviously buoyed up by Little’s encouragement.

  “In a murder case nothing is nearly as clear as it seems,” Little said. In time, Kemp would learn that by himself, but there was no sense letting him turn into an officious know-it-all too. One per department was enough and Loody already was their designated pain in the butt. Judging from the reaction of the dining room, he had just shown his colors to the priests and nuns.

  “He was a handsome dude,” Kemp said, somewhat subdued. “Has he a significant other?”

  Little wondered if that was still the politically correct term.

  “I got her name from the nun.” Loody, watching from the sidelines, could no longer contain himself.

  Little bristled. Although it was hard to put his finger on, there was something about Loody that rubbed him the wrong way. The man was a good officer, exact, hardworking, but he was so self-important, so righteous, so punctilious—now, there was a good Sister Mary Immaculata word—so punctilious. So damn annoying, actually.

  Even the way his nose sat on his face, as if he were looking down it at you. That, Little realized almost as he thought it, was hardly fair. No one can be held responsible for the placement of his nose!

  “Great!” Little said with as much largesse as he could manage. “Let me write it down.” He pulled a small notebook from his jacket pocket.

  “The girl’s name is Laura Purcell.” Loody spelled both names slowly, Little noticed with annoyance. “She goes to the university and worked here at St. Colette’s as a dishwasher. Until last night. She and the victim were almost engaged, and according to the nun”—Loody dragged out the word nun as if it were a minor offense— “the two went off together last night.”

  Again, with insulting exactitude, Sergeant Loody read Laura Purcell’s address and phone number.