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

by Camille Minichino

  I swallowed hard. I felt responsible for the time she’d already spent entertaining thoughts of murder and researching poisons. But I desperately wanted to hear about the wake. “She was that kind of religious. Close to her charges,” I said, calculating how many hours before I could get to confession again.

  She smiled, apparently satisfied with my double-talk. “I’ll join the group of Sisters from St. Lucy’s. They’re leaving after dinner, around six-thirty. Perpetual Help Chapel on the Grand Concourse.” She paused. “You say the rosary every day, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m sure there’ll be a priest leading the rosary,” she said, as if to urge me to bend the rules for the sake of public prayers to Our Lady.

  “I really can’t go.”

  She gave me another of her charming conspiratorial grins. “I’ll report back what I see.”

  Not for the first time in my week in the Bronx, I wished SMI rules were different—I’d have been the first one at Perpetual Help Chapel to inspect the mourners. I imagined a sign on the murderer’s forehead, clearly separating him or her from the ranks of the elect, like in the Book of Revelations.

  A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury.”

  I shivered and closed the door to my room.

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  With at least three hours before dinner, I began my homework for Father Barrett’s class—a critique of the section of the Summa Contra Gentiles dealing with man’s likeness to God.

  That which is found to perfection in God is found in other beings by some manner of imperfect participation . . .

  In my case, the emphasis was on imperfect, I thought.

  Since I’d studied the Summa in an undergraduate course, the assignment posed no challenge. I found my attention wandering, taking in other sounds and sights. A nearly empty bus lumbering down Marian Avenue, rain falling hard on the shrine of the Blessed Virgin in the garden, doors opening and closing in the hallway.

  And a conversation in the room next to mine. Sister Teresa, in Room 26, had a guest.

  The walls of St. Lucy’s dormitory rooms were thin, and I couldn’t help overhearing loud sobs mingled with the background noises.

  “I don’t want to leave school. I can’t stand going back to Michigan.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to, Teresa.” I recognized Sister Veronique’s voice, agitated, urgent. “He certainly won’t leave. He’ll never give up his career.”

  I considered running the water in my sink to drown out the sounds, or knocking on the wall to alert my neighbors of their lack of privacy. I even thought of leaving the room.

  Instead, I took off my bonnet and moved closer to the wall.

  Much to my embarrassment, I was disappointed when the Sisters lowered their voices. Could they tell my ear was pressed to the wall? I could hear only phrases. “. . . doesn’t love you as much as he loves . . . .” Muffled words. “How . . . Michigan . . . far away from . . . . “ Choked sobs. “. . . have to take care of . . . . He’ll be here long after . . . .”

  I wondered who “he” was. Father Malbert? I didn’t want to believe there was really a romance in progress between Sister Teresa and our chaplain. But I couldn’t ignore the teasing about their friendship, their late-night return to St. Lucy’s, their heads together in the garden. When Sister Teresa had brought my rosary back to me, she’d spoken of the handyman Father Malbert in terms bordering on intimate.

  “He’s so-o-o good with his hands,” she’d said. The faraway look in her eyes seemed focused on the pair of them in a fixer-upper bungalow built for two.

  Mother Julia’s slippery slope arguments came back to me. “There’s a reason for each rule, Sisters. Once you start taking liberties, all of religious life flies apart, like straw in the wind.”

  I remembered the foolish crushes most of us had on the priests in our parish. When I was in high school, a particularly handsome young prelate came to St. Leonard’s. One of my friends, Joan Marie, claimed she’d found a way to marry him. We’d giggled when she announced her plan. “Well, since Father O’Shea is like God—he can forgive sins and all—I’ll just marry God. I’m going to enter the convent and become a Bride of Christ. Then I’ll be Father O’Shea’s bride, too.”

  Whether from faulty logic or factors unknown to us, Joan Marie entered and left the convent within a year. Surely Sister Teresa’s obvious affection for Father Malbert was no more serious than Joan Marie’s for Father O’Shea? It was natural, if immature, to develop a crush on one’s spiritual advisor.

  The conversation in Room 26 had settled down to an almost inaudible level and I was left to my own imagination. If not Father Malbert, who? Did Sister Teresa love a man in a physical way? Then why wouldn’t she just leave her community?

  Liberals, I said under my breath. I paced my narrow floor, increasingly frustrated with nuns and priests who wanted change but couldn’t deal with the consequences. I constructed a scenario in which Sister Teresa wanted to carry on an affair with a man and still put on her habit every day. Didn’t they know they couldn’t live in two worlds?

  Or was it my own culpability that upset me? I’d been guilty of the same charge—keeping some rules and not others. Selective obedience, Mother Julia would call it. I’d encouraged friendship, not only with another sister, but even a lay man. I was convinced Aidan’s recent attention to me stemmed from my initial call to him when my brother needed a place to stay.

  I’d held fast to my rituals of prayer and Latin mass and thrown out the basic guidelines that made nuns different from women in the world.

  I heard the door to Room 26 open and close—Sister Veronique leaving, I guessed. I sat down at my desk, my bonnetless, hairless head in my hands and wondered when life had become so confusing.

  CHAPTER 20

  St. Lucy’s foyer was crowded with Sisters and guests on the way to dinner, and I found myself trapped in a round of introductions led by Sister Felix. More neighbors and benefactors, I assumed.

  “Sisters, this is Mrs. Driscoll, whom some of you already know.” She touched the shoulder of a woman with as much white hair as her husband, and a smile equally broad. “And Mrs. Pamela Edson, Father Malbert’s sister.” She laughed. “His blood sister, that is.” Sister Felix linked her arm in Mrs. Edson’s, and named us, one by one—Sister Ann William, Sister Miriam, Sister Emmanuel. When her eyes landed on me, she gave me a look that said behave yourself.

  Both women looked prosperous, in professionally coifed hair, tailored suits, nylons, and pumps. I imagined they were both Catholic college graduates though I had no evidence other than they had excellent posture and looked comfortable surrounded by nuns. Mrs. Edson seemed much younger than her priest brother, with the same attractive, thin features.

  I smiled and slipped around the group, heading downstairs to the refectory. As I passed the recreation room on the basement floor I heard harsh voices—two men arguing it seemed to me. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Sister Felix had welcomed in the neighborhood to use our ping pong table. I pictured two players arguing over a point, perhaps needing a referee.

  I couldn’t resist a glimpse as I passed the slightly open door.

  Father Malbert and Father O’Neill. And they weren’t holding ping pong paddles.

  I tried to tune out the hubbub above me to concentrate on the priests’ words. I slowed my step, lingering on the ball of each foot. The tip-toe method of eavesdropping. Not as indecorous as holding my ear to a wall?

  The men were clearly at odds with each other, their voices angry . “. . . get away with it.” “. . . dean’s office . . . not up for auction.”

  It was hard to hear more, with the noisy conversation on the land
ing. I knew the priests’ altercation would end once the group started down the stairs. Not wanting to be caught, I entered the phone booth and pretended to make a call until a few people reached the bottom floor. Then I joined the small crowd and entered the refectory.

  I took a deep breath. When and where had I learned all these techniques of subterfuge? At Saturday matinees with my sisters? Listening to mysteries on the radio, I decided. Mr. and Mrs. North, Inner Sanctum, Mr. Keene—Tracer of Lost Persons.

  I wondered if justice would prevail as it did in those days, at the end of every half hour.

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  With five guests—Mr. and Mrs. Driscoll, Father Malbert and his sister, and Father O’Neill, dinner went on longer than usual. On the one hand, I was happy to be sitting far away from Father O’Neill, lest he ask me for another date. On the other, I was curious about his quarrel with Father Malbert.

  In the end, I found it a relief to be seated with Sisters I’d never talked to before. No opportunity for information, but none for rudeness either.

  I wanted to go straight to my room after grace, but the arrangement of stairs at St. Lucy’s forced me to walk by a group of Sisters organizing the trip to Perpetual Help Chapel for Mother Ignatius’ wake. The rain had stopped, but there was talk of umbrellas and rain hoods and keys for coming in late. The mood seemed more suited to an evening on the town.

  “Are you coming with us, Sister Francesca?” asked Sister Jeanne d’Arc, a School Sister of Notre Dame from Michigan.

  “No, I . . . “ I paused.

  Sister Jeanne d’Arc gave me a questioning look.

  Sister Ann William, who’d come up behind me, filled in the blank. “She has too much reading this evening. Sister Francesca is determined to get all A’s,” she said with a light laugh.

  Grateful as I was for the rescue, I questioned my reluctance to admit my order didn’t allow attendance at social functions. Even wakes. Was I suddenly ashamed of SMI customs? A fine martyr I’d make. Apparently I hadn’t been helped much by years of reading about young women like Saint Agnes and Saint Maria Goretti, who’d upheld the standards of their faith, preferring death to dishonor.

  “Too bad,” Sister Veronique said, cleaning her thick glasses with the skirt of her habit. “We’re going to a film on campus afterward. They’re showing Fellini’s ‘Nights of Cabiria.’ It’s playing in the main auditorium at eight o’clock. If you finish your homework, maybe you could join us there.”

  “It’s an old one that’s been reissued.” Sister Miriam from Room 24 sounded as though she were reading from a movie magazine. “An Italian prostitute with a heart of gold experiences many tests of her faith in human nature.”

  “Tragicomic,” added another Sister.

  “My English professor says it’s spiritually enlightening,” said another, pulling on clear plastic rain boots.

  The last movie I’d seen was ‘The Song of Bernadette,’ in our Motherhouse assembly room. A film that deserved to be called spiritually enlightening. I wasn’t ready to put a Lady of the Night on the same level of edification as the Saint of Lourdes. “We don’t go to movies. SMIs, that is,” I said, finally willing to speak up for my commitment.

  Sister Miriam laughed. “Neither do we. Yet. But it’s not stopping me. I know it’ll change soon. Why miss an opportunity?” With a swift motion, Sister Miriam flipped off her veil, revealing short blond hair that lacked styling, as if she’d decided to let it grow recently.

  “How are we to serve the world if we don’t know what’s going on in it?” Sister Veronique asked no one in particular. She tucked her black veil under the collar of a rain cloak, her white habit hanging below.

  I felt my face flush. Now that I’d found my voice, I couldn’t hold back. “We serve God, not the world. We pray for the world,” I said. I sounded reproachful even to myself. Frustrated at my own inadequacy, I resolved to find a middle ground between pusillanimity and arrogance as soon as possible.

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  I made a visit to St. Lucy’s chapel, offering all my night prayers for my father and for the other patients at Fishkill General, especially those with no one to remember them.

  Back in my room, I couldn’t keep my mind off Sister Ann William’s impending adventure at Mother Ignatius’ wake. I pictured her slithering through the crowd of mourners, looking for a killer. Perhaps he or she would be considerate enough to give an outward sign—throwing himself across Mother Ignatius’ body, uttering a loud confession after the rosary, beating his breast in repentance. I doubted it.

  It was time to bring a measure of reality and order to the ramblings of my mind. I took out a tablet meant to hold notes on the omnipotence of God and His essential goodness, and began instead a case file on the alleged murder of St. Lucy’s deceased Mother Superior.

  What reasons did I have for postulating foul play? First, Mother Ignatius had been afraid of something or someone the night she died. Second, she’d had an impromptu meeting around eight-fifteen, a confrontation overheard by Sister Ann William, and denied by Sister Felix. Third, there were the contents of her desk—a cuff link and the letters from Mother Consiliatrix, about D, E, and F. Whatever they were.

  I hesitated to add my personal experience—the motor scooter accident on Southern Boulevard—preferring to think it was unrelated. The alternative was too frightening.

  My snooping hadn’t turned up much, and my suspects were evaporating. Jake Driscoll was being too kind to think of as a murderer. He was a family man I’d heard, a pillar of the Church. His wife looked like the model of the parish Sodality President. Sister Teresa seemed to have her own problems with an unnamed “he,” and I had little more to condemn Sister Felix than her simple lie to me about Mother Ignatius’ last meeting—which was none of my business in the first place. I wondered about her obvious attempt to discredit me in the eyes of my superiors, but I could hardly blame her, given my rude behavior.

  My case against Father Malbert seemed to rest purely on his unorthodox theology. His entry into Mother Ignatius office was nothing more than I had done myself.

  To further quench my wild imagination, I had an autopsy report and a professional opinion that made a lot of sense—a seventy-five-year-old woman had died in her sleep from natural causes. The many discussions Sister Ann William and I engaged in about lethal flower petals and a closet full of drugs on campus had been interesting, but nothing more.

  Looking over my list, I realized the only possibility for further investigation lay with a nun in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Reviewing the dates of the correspondence I had in my desk, I calculated Mother Ignatius was due to write to her on September 19. She was dead by the next morning. Assuming she’d written in the afternoon, which was the custom for most orders, Mother Ignatius would have put her last letter in the outgoing mail before her evening meeting. Would the murderer have confiscated it from the outbox in the foyer? Did Mother Consiliatrix even know Mother Ignatius had died, or was she waiting for that next installment?

  I had a powerful urge to contact Mother Consiliatrix and settle these questions. I was sure she could provide resolution for me—confirmation that Mother Ignatius’ concerns were minor, having to do with small matters of housekeeping at St. Lucy’s, or perhaps a worry about the budget and rising costs of food and altar wine. Then I’d be able to close the entire episode and return to the real reason I was in the Bronx, my graduate studies.

  I had her return address in New Mexico, but the mail was too slow for my purposes. I looked longingly at the convent telephone number, also on the letterhead. Dare I think about making a long distance call?

  It was one thing to make a ten-cent local call, as I did to Aidan, quite another to dial across the country. I’d been allotted one dollar a day for expenses—a drink from the cafeteria at lunchtime or bus fare if I needed it. So far, I’d walked to campus every day and bought one
glass of ice tea. I was four dollars ahead.

  Not that Mother Julia had said, “Use the money for whatever comes up, Sister.” But I was already past the point of scrupulousness in that regard.

  If four dollars wasn’t enough, I might have to walk to school through the winter months and stick to water at lunch on campus. Not a huge burden for the payoff of information from a person Mother Ignatius trusted.

  Like most East Coast natives, I had a deficient knowledge of geography. I could only picture New Mexico very far away, right next to California. Was it earlier there or later? Earlier, if I remembered correctly from my seventh grade class in time zones. It’s only mid-afternoon there. All the better. As if waking up a nun was the worst sin I’d be committing this week.

  The financing of the venture turned out to be the easy part. Once I dropped my coins in the slot, what would I say? “I’m a new friend of Mother Ignatius, and . . .” Or, “I was so sorry to hear about the death of your friend, and I was wondering . . .” Every sentence I came up with trailed off. I gave brief consideration to posing as a policewoman. “I’m Officer Wickes, investigating the murder of your colleague.”

  In the end I decided to go with the simple truth, that Mother Ignatius had confided in me shortly before her death, and I was suspicious. I knocked on three doors before I’d converted all my small bills into coins. I passed up the wall phone on my floor and went down to the basement to the closed-in booth. I pulled the door shut and dialed New Mexico.

  “Good afternoon. Sacred Heart.” A young woman’s voice, sounding too close to be in another time zone. I pictured a high school girl serving as all-purpose secretary/receptionist/server of tea and cookies/sweeper of the sacristy and sanctuary, like my job at St. Leonard’s rectory at that age.