Killer in the Cloister: A Sister Francesca Mystery (Sister Francesca Mysteries)

by Camille Minichino

  By one thirty that afternoon, Timothy and I were alone again in the small parlor.

  “Aidan’s really nice,” he told me.

  “I’m glad you got along.”

  “He likes you, too.”

  “I thought we were going to talk about you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you thought any more about what you’d like to do in the next year or so?”

  “Yeah. I talked to Aidan, and he says I should go back to school when my suspension is up.” I gave Timothy my most attentive look as he explained his current thinking. “It’s not that hard, and I might as well get it over with. I’ll be glad later.” I nodded and uttered weak sounds of approval, afraid too much agreement from me might work against his good plans. “And about Melody. Aidan says if our love is so strong, it will last through a couple of years while we get our studies behind us.”

  Aidan this and Aidan that. Difficult as it was, I refrained from reminding Timothy that his father and all his sisters had already given him the same advice. Still, I knew I should be grateful if one crash with Aidan Connors did more for my brother than all my years of counseling. It might have been my imagination but I thought his clothes looked cleaner and I wondered if Aidan had also done Timothy’s laundry.

  “So you’re going to get a job for the next couple of months until you go back to school?” I tried to sound casual, lest enthusiasm from his nun-sister have an adverse effect.

  “Yeah. I could go back to the one I had in Potterstown. But there’s a little problem. The job is what got me suspended in the first place.”

  “You mean selling drugs?”

  He frowned and picked at his sweatshirt. “Yeah.”

  So much for the easy solution. I sat quietly, squinting against the bright sunlight coming through the parlor window, while Timothy told me about his alleged friend, Joey Riley—a much older man, thirty-one at least, he said.

  “See, I thought he was doing me this big favor. He owns a pizza parlor on the west side of town and he said I could probably make it to manager in no time, no college degree needed. All I had to do was these special errands for him. That’s how it started. I was just delivering.”

  “Not pizza, I take it.”

  “Not pizza.”

  Timothy looked at me and I sensed he was trying to decide how much to tell me. I’d seen that look often on visiting days while my father and siblings struggled to stay with happy talk. I didn’t enter a convent to be kept from their troubles, I’d tell them, but I often wondered how true that was.

  “Joey gave me a lot of money, compared to what I could make anywhere else. But then, I was good, so he gave me more responsibility, you might say.”

  “So you started selling the drugs yourself?”

  “Yeah. Not for long, though. Just long enough to get arrested. Jeez . . .”

  Timothy banged the coffee table in front of him, a substitute for a curse, I guessed.

  “Timothy, you’re very young. And if you’re determined to . . . “

  “Go straight.”

  “Right,” I said, aware of my limited crime vocabulary. “I know you’ll be able to do it.”

  Timothy cleared his throat in the way that usually meant there was more to come, and it might be touchy.

  “Aidan said I could stay with him for a couple of months,” he said. My suspicions about touchy confirmed, and then some. “He has a bigger place than he needs now and he could use a roommate. What do you think?”

  “Does he know . . . ?”

  He nodded. “I told him why I was arrested and all. I am clean, you know. I never used that much myself in the first place. I didn’t like feeling weird, believe it or not.”

  “I do believe you, Timothy. What about your parole conditions?”

  “I’d need permission from my PO, but if you said it was OK, I’m sure that would go a long way.”

  I took a deep breath while I ran the scenario through my mind. Timothy living down the street from me—I knew I’d feel more responsible for him, being right here, with my father and sisters upstate. So, what about the two-hours-a-month visiting rule, I asked myself. With all the time I’d spent with Timothy in the last couple of days, I’d already used up my family visit quota through Christmas.

  And while I was assessing the impacts of Timothy’s request, I threw in the notion of having Aidan Connors connected to my family in a way that bordered on intimacy. I wondered what Mother Julia would say, but I had a pretty good idea. I tried one more diversionary tactic.

  “You’ll have to deal with Potterstown eventually, Timothy. You can’t hide from it forever.”

  “But I’ll have a chance to get on my feet first. Earn some money legitimately.” In a sudden movement, Timothy stood up, a frown taking over his face. “Sis, you’re sounding like you don’t want me around here.”

  I leaned over and took Timothy’s hand, pulling him back to his seat. The sadness in his eyes displaced any thoughts of putting him off or calling my Motherhouse for approval.

  “That’s not true, Timothy. You know I’d do anything to help you.”

  “You think your order would have a problem, because you might see me a lot. Is that it?”

  I remembered Timothy’s remark the night before, about my being allowed to eat with the entire student population of St. Alban’s U., but not at my own father’s table. I realized that if a homeless stranger asked for my help, my superiors would encourage me to be selflessly charitable. Why should it be any different if the person needing help is my brother?

  “There’s no problem, Timothy. Welcome to the Bronx!”

  CHAPTER 10

  Timothy was on his way by three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. He’d laid out his plan for the immediate future—he’d take the evening bus to Potterstown to pick up “a few things,” and return to the Bronx in a couple of days with a form for me to fill out, vouching for his housing arrangements. Meanwhile I should keep my eyes open for a job for him.

  “Timothy, you know I have no experience finding employment even for myself,” I’d told him. “The only jobs I’ve ever had were for pin-money—baby-sitting, stuffing envelopes, camp counselor . . .”

  “I know. But that’s all I’m asking for right now. Not a career or anything.”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea where to look.”

  He grinned at me. “Just, you know, pray.”

  Ordinarily I’d have been annoyed at my brother’s flip manner, but I was so relieved that he’d come out of his depression, I let it pass.

  I stayed in the parlor for a long time after Timothy left, the closed door muffling the sounds of Sisters checking their mail slots, coming and going through the front foyer. My whole body was tense and my head ached. I sat on the edge of the soft chair, my back as stiff as the long pole of a candle snuffer. I rehashed every intense moment of the day, from my unorthodox liturgy professor to my radical decision about helping Timothy move to the Bronx.

  I wondered why Aidan hadn’t told me about his offer to take my brother in. The only reason I could think of was that he wanted Timothy to be free to make the decision on his own and to tell me himself when he was ready. Maybe I should take counseling lessons from Aidan Connors, I thought.

  Besides all of this, I reminded myself, I had homework to do and a possible murder to solve. I realized with an unexplainable feeling of guilt that I hadn’t thought about Mother Ignatius since early morning in Aquinas Hall’s chapel.

  I shook my head as if to reorder my priorities. I seemed to have forgotten my first obligation was to my religious duties as a Sister of Mary Immaculate. I’d already fallen behind in my spiritual reading. SMIs were required to do at least a half hour of reading daily, from a spiritual book other than our prayer and meditation texts. Mother Julia had given me a book o
f poetry written by an early SMI, for the new semester, but I hadn’t opened it since Sunday evening, when I’d sat in my room and looked out over the garden—now Jake Driscoll’s garden, I thought with a grimace.

  No matter what other work we did as SMIs, the total time we spent in religious devotion each day amounted to at least four hours, including mass, rosary, meditation, spiritual reading, and community recitation of parts of the Holy Office. Without a prescribed time for spiritual activity at St. Lucy’s, I was on my own to be faithful to each ritual. So far I hadn’t done well. That’s what get-togethers filled with punch and small talk will do for me. Three days away from my Motherhouse and I was acting like a person with no attachment to a religious community.

  I was still uncomfortable about my decision not to first ask Mother Julia about sponsoring Timothy’s move to the Bronx. But my only other choice was to send my brother back to the criminal element of Potterstown and the likes of Joey Riley. And Mother Julia would not want that, I reasoned.

  It turned out to be easier than I expected to skew Mother Julia’s wishes in my favor from a distance of a few hundred miles. I thought how easy it was to abandon discipline when the old structure was missing.

  <><><>

  I left the parlor and stepped into the small foyer just as the front door opened. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I bumped into Father Malbert.

  “Excuse me,” we said in unison, in a strange repetition of our encounter of the night before.

  “Sorry, Sister,” he said, smoothing back his disheveled light brown hair. “I’m running late.”

  After nervous laughs on both sides, Father Malbert headed for the chapel. As he walked away from me, he removed a narrow purple stole from the pocket of his Irish knit cardigan. He seemed to have a large wardrobe of sweaters, I noted.

  In spite of the unusual combination of purple silk and khakis, I recognized that Father Malbert was preparing to hear confessions. Just what I needed—a confessor—lay clothes or not. I turned and followed him into the chapel, taking my place in the front pew where several other Sisters already waited. I guessed I’d missed an announcement about the hours for confession at St. Lucy’s.

  I sat on the hard bench and stared straight ahead at the altar—two altars, I mused, with a sigh. Like many parish churches and convent chapels, St. Lucy’s had a makeshift, free-standing altar in front of the communion rail, to allow the celebrant to stand behind it and face his congregation. In the pre-Vatican Council days, the priest stood with his back to the people, offering the sacrifice of the mass to God in our name. It made sense to me.

  I looked past the new wooden table to the beautiful marble altar on the back wall of St. Lucy’s chapel. Carved into the marble was the Repository, the vault-like housing where Christ was kept at all times, in the form of the Holy Eucharist. I focused my thoughts in that direction and considered my recent behavior. Examination of conscience, the Church called it. Without a Chapter of Faults in my near future, I decided to lump my transgressions in with my sins—it was hard to distinguish between them this week anyway.

  I was happy to see Father Malbert followed custom and entered the confessional booth at the side of the chapel. I was aware some chaplains were now hearing confessions face to face in the light of day, and others were recommending group confessions, where an assembly of people recited a general admission of sinfulness out loud, and received absolution together.

  Would I ever feel comfortable with such a radical change of custom? I hoped I’d be prepared if the time came when I had no choice.

  When my turn for confession came, I was ready. I moved the curtain and stepped inside the small booth. Kneeling, with my hands on the tiny shelf in front of me and my eyes cast down, I recited the formula.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three days since my last confession and these are my sins.”

  “Go ahead, Sister Francesca.”

  I looked up with a start. Good-bye to another staple of Catholicism, I thought—the anonymity of the confessional. Father Malbert had turned in his chair and looked at me. Although there was a grille between us in the dark booth, enough light got past the curtain and I knew he could see me clearly.

  I considered leaving the booth and finding a confessor on campus who would follow the rules as I’d learned them. Instead, I calmed down and reminded myself that no matter how au courant our chaplain tried to be, he was still God’s representative on earth. As long as he pronounced the words of absolution at the end of my confession, my sins would be forgiven by God Himself.

  I cleared my throat and began my list.

  “I have been careless in carrying out my religious practices. I have . . .”

  “What do you mean, Sister? Can you be more specific?”

  “I’m behind in spiritual reading, Father, and also I’ve been distracted at mass and at meditation, not giving my full attention.”

  “This is a distracting time, Sister. A new living situation, new people. Don’t be hard on yourself. You may have to make adjustments to practices that were prescribed for nuns who did little else but pray all day.” As if that were a life to be scorned. Just the kind of worldly advice I expected. “Continue, Sister.”

  I went on. “I’ve made decisions without consulting my superior.”

  “Again, Sister Francesca, don’t expect to live the way you did at your Motherhouse. You have new responsibilities here. You’re a graduate student. As long as you act with thought and care, you’re being faithful to the spirit of your vows.”

  I almost asked how this would make me any different from a lay person, but I knew Father Malbert’s answer wasn’t the one I wanted to hear.

  “Yes, Father,” I said.

  “Anything else?”

  I’d saved the big one for last, having worked carefully on the phrasing. “I’ve been unnecessarily inquisitive about a matter that doesn’t concern me.”

  “Specifically?”

  Father Malbert required more specifics than any priest I’d known. I was used to confessors who were content with general categories. I struggled to come up with a truthful, but not incriminating, answer.

  “I’ve been . . . “ I still couldn’t bring myself to use the word investigating. “I’ve been trying to learn more about Mother Ignatius’ death.”

  Father Malbert shifted in his seat, and for once I wished there were more light so I could see his expression. Maybe there’s something to these new degrees of freedom, I thought.

  “We all miss her, Sister,” he told me, lowering his voice to the level of a mourner. “But what good can come of probing into her death? She died a faithful servant of God. Let her immortal soul rest in peace.”

  “Yes, Father. Thank you, Father.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Good. For your penance, say the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary for the repose of the soul of Mother Ignatius. Now let’s hear your act of contrition.” He raised his right hand said the words of absolution, while I recited my part.

  Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee . . .

  I finished my prayer and left the booth, feeling less cleansed than usual after confession, maybe because Father Malbert had absolved me in English instead of Latin. But I had the firm belief my soul was back in the state of grace.

  <><><>

  The door to Sister Ann William’s room, directly opposite the stairway, was open. She sat at her desk, which she’d wedged under her window so she faced the street. Though my room was on the garden side of the building, with a much better view than the brick fronts of 198th Street, it hadn’t occurred to me to rearrange my furniture.

  “What a good idea,” I said, hardly aware that I was speaking out loud.

  “Sister Francesca, I’ve been waitin
g for you.” Sister Ann William came to the door and waved her arm in the direction of her bed, which had books and papers spread out like an altar to the gods of graduate studies. “I gathered up some literature from the department office this morning. I didn’t want to talk about it in front of your brother on the way home. I thought he might get the wrong idea.”

  What’s the right idea? I wondered, as I picked up a colorful pamphlet. Its cover was dominated by a photograph of a lovely shrub with purplish flowers and bright red berries clustered about the stem.

  I read the caption. Daphne contains mezerein, an acrid resin, and daphnin, a bitter, poisonous glycoside. Consumption of even a few berries can put a person into a coma, and death can ensue.

  I gulped and picked up another booklet. Not much cheerier. This one lumped potatoes, jimsonweed, and angel’s trumpet into one family and warned about convulsions, coma and death from the alkaloid toxins they contained. Less than five grams of seeds or leaves could be fatal to a child.

  I wished I knew how big a gram was.

  I was astonished at the juxtaposition of photographs of magnificent flowers next to warning labels. Laurel, rhododendron, azalea, and foxglove on the same page as stomach upset, mental confusion, diarrhea, paralysis, and death. The array of literature on Sister Ann William’s bed was enough to make a person afraid to walk through a garden. I’d barely passed science classes in high school—now I realized my life might be in danger from lack of botanical knowledge.

  “This is amazing, Sister,” I said. “It looks like it’s even easier than I thought to poison someone. Just bring her flowers!”

  Sister Ann William laughed. “It’s not that bad.” She pointed out the small print in the pamphlets and technical memos—voluminous details about which part of a flower is poisonous, and under what conditions. I noted that in some cases it would take a very large, unlikely dose of leaves or berries to do serious harm. “Merely handling flowers is different from actually consuming them,” she said. “But, you’re right, there’s a lot of potential for disaster if you don’t know what you’re doing with plants.”