Sacred Trust

by Meg O'Brien

“You have to ask?” Her hands form fists as she comes toward me again. “Fornicating like some animal with that…that man? Allowing herself to become pregnant, and then not taking responsibility at all? In my day we had rules, young lady! We had rules and we followed them. We didn’t just do whatever we felt like doing, then turn our backs on the consequences.”

  “Marti didn’t turn her back on Justin,” I argue. “She found a good family for him, someone who could take better care of him than she could.”

  I say the words out of a habit of loyalty, though there have been times over the years when I, too, have railed against Marti—if only in my heart—for giving Justin up. When I knew I’d never have a child of my own, the one I held in my arms fifteen years ago became my lost child, a child I could have been godmother to and even helped to rear, if Marti had let me.

  I did offer. But Marti turned me down. So I went to Sol, hoping that if he set up the adoption locally, I would always know where Justin was. I would be able to keep him, in some small way.

  “Why are you so angry with me?” I ask Sister Helen. “I never wanted anything but good for Justin. I helped Marti with the adoption because I wanted to make sure he would always be happy and safe.”

  The look that comes over her face chills me. “You don’t even begin to know what you did, do you? Off in your own little world, you don’t know what happens to people, don’t have a clue.”

  She turns away from me, her shoulders slumping. She is clearly exhausted, and my heart goes out to her. By not telling Ben about the photograph, I felt I was protecting her from an interrogation by the police. Now I’ve turned into the interrogator.

  “I need to use the phone,” I say, pointing to one on a desk against the wall.

  She shrugs. I go to the phone and call Sol, reaching him on his cell phone in the car.

  “Did you make that appointment for me?” I ask.

  “Yes. Earliest he can do it, though, is around five tomorrow afternoon, at the end of his shift.”

  “Well, I guess that’ll have to do. I won’t be home tonight, but I’ll call you in the morning to see if anything new has come up. Thanks, Sol.”

  Next, I call Frannie and ask her to pick up Murphy and keep him overnight, promising a bonus for going out in the storm this late.

  “Storms like this spook him,” I say. “I’d hate to leave him alone.”

  “I don’t want any bonus,” she says, “but I would like your recipe for that chicken dish.”

  Sister Helen looks at me curiously as I hang up. “You’re staying overnight?”

  “I thought I might. Sister Pauline advised that I not drive back in the storm.”

  My old teacher seems uneasy at the thought of having me under the same roof overnight. Well, that’s good. Up till now, I’ve felt I was playing a losing game with her.

  The guest room is one of the nun’s cells, a whitewashed room about eight-by-ten with a cot, a small dresser and a straight chair. There is a crucifix over the bed and a statue of Mary on the dresser. I feel I’m in a time warp, swept back to Joseph and Mary Motherhouse, even to the rain drumming against the one narrow window and the deep, deep “Grand” silence in the halls.

  “Meet me in the chapel,” I hear Marti saying back then. “I want to tell you something.”

  I see myself quietly opening the dormitory door, peeking into the hall, slipping silently along it to the stairs, then down to the chapel and into the choir loft. By the time I get there, my heart is beating wildly, out of fear of being caught. But Marti is beaming; she loves all this intrigue.

  “You ninny,” she would say if I voiced my concerns. “What can they do? Line us up at dawn and shoot us?”

  There were times when I wondered.

  People think nuns are all sweet, kind and loving. But I am here to tell you there are some who are deep-down mean. Nuns, after all, are people, and people are all different. Most enter the convent to serve God and live lives of service and joy. A few, however, are escaping something, and the things they escape have a way of following them behind the walls. One has only to note the expressions of pleasure on the faces of these women when engrossed in the ritual of flogging themselves. Light, symbolic “floggings” with a cloth whip were part of the life at Joseph and Mary. Self-inflicted, they were not meant to hurt but to keep us in a humble, sacrificial frame of mind.

  There were always certain sisters, however, who got a kind of high from the floggings, who couldn’t stop till they’d drawn their own blood.

  The flogging Marti suffered was similar to that, though it had been taken to an insane extreme.

  I think the new nuns, the young ones, may be more easygoing. They’ve had more freedom to think for themselves, and for the most part they come from stronger foundations of self-worth. The kind of order Marti and I were in was so old-world, so unbending, it sometimes took the fragile ones and shaped them into something they never would have been in the world.

  Did they do that to Sister Helen? I wonder. She, I recall from gossip in high school, was raised by a mother and father to be both a fragile flower and an unbending perfectionist. Her father was a doctor, her mother a poet. Between the two personalities—the one scientific and the other off in another world half the time—Helen hardly knew which way to turn as a child. Her father taught her to be logical; her mother to be soft and giving. So at eighteen she entered the convent, seeking a life she hoped would complement both sides.

  Religious life, she often told us in high school, gave a woman structure and rules; it kept her from being soft and silly. It also encouraged self-sacrifice, the ultimate form of giving.

  How much painful sacrifice must it have required, I wonder, of a woman whose mother raised her on Elizabeth Barrett Browning?

  My thoughts won’t quit, and after a couple of hours of tossing and turning, I decide to journey back into the past and make a visit to the chapel. Though I’m no longer religious, there’s nothing like a dark chapel in the middle of the night to clear the cobwebs from one’s mind.

  Besides a toothbrush, toothpaste and a bar of soap, Sister Pauline has loaned me one of her black robes. So it really is déjà vu as I tread softly down the corridor toward the middle of the building, where I hope to find stairs leading to the chapel. I am on the second floor, and traditional architecture would put stairs at the outside end of each wing, plus a similar set of stairs in the middle, leading directly into the main structure.

  The Prayer House is old, and despite its Spanish exterior, inside it is designed much like Joseph and Mary and other motherhouses that were built when nuns first began to come to this country from Europe. The stairs next to the chapel are just where I’ve expected them to be; they lead down to the first floor and up, presumably, to an attic.

  On this landing there is a door, and on a hunch I open it quietly, hoping it doesn’t creak and that it doesn’t lead to a dormitory or private room. It doesn’t, and even this is like Joseph and Mary. The door opens onto the chapel choir loft.

  It’s pitch-black in the loft, so I stand just inside it, letting my eyes adjust. After a moment or two I can see that there’s no one else here. Ten rows of long wooden pews stretch from this side to the one opposite, and I tiptoe down the few stairs to the pew in front. The wooden stairs creak, and as I reach the last one I glance over the railing to see if I’ve disturbed anyone in the main chapel below. It isn’t unusual for nuns to keep vigils at night in their chapel, especially during special feast days or seasons. Usually shifts will be taken, and one or more will kneel or sit in the dark and pray.

  There seems to be no one about on this night, however. Everyone but me is probably tucked comfortably away under their blankets, while the never-ending rain pounds the roof. Wind howls, and I can feel a draft from an open stairwell behind me, which must lead up to the steeple. Below and along the sides of the chapel are statues with vigil candles before them. The candles afford only a dim light, and I can barely make out the statues. Mary, I think, and Joseph with the Baby
Jesus. Perhaps Saint Francis, since The Prayer House is so into gardening.

  Settling in, I take a position of meditation I’ve adapted for myself from that of my Zen Buddhist friend, Davis—feet flat on the floor, palms upturned on each knee. If I were in a Zen chapel I would have removed my shoes before entering and sat cross-legged on the floor. The God I grew up following, however, is more traditional than that. And when in Rome….

  Marti…oh, Marti. Why aren’t you here?

  The red sanctuary lamp glows dimly at the altar, indicating the presence of the Host. Out of old habit I make the sign of the cross, then quickly revert to my meditation pose before God can spy me up here and ask me what the hell I think I’m doing.

  The truth is, I don’t know what I’m doing. I have a carload of information now that I didn’t have three days ago. What it all means is something else.

  Harry Blimm, Tommy, Mauro and Hillars…I let them think I knew as much as they did, if not more. Then I waited, thinking they, and even Jeffrey, might show up and reveal something I didn’t know.

  My little plan, however, turned out to be a dud. The only one who showed was Sister Helen.

  So, what does that tell me? Nothing happens by coincidence, I’ve always believed.

  And what about Sol? He seemed completely innocent when I talked to him. But that could have been an act. Lawyers are good at playing emotional poker.

  Sol did have one point, however. Jeffrey probably wouldn’t go to such great lengths as sending the Ryans away just to cover up the fact that the president had an illegitimate son. There has to be something else going on, some greater motivation. But what? Is it somehow connected with The Prayer House, perhaps even Jeffrey’s scam to take it over?

  I can’t shake the feeling that there was something odd about that whole setup down there in Sao Conrado. Though the Ryans’ explanation made some sort of sense, I still have a problem with them being there all this time while their son’s been gone. Then, too, there’s Paul Ryan’s having left his practice so long.

  As for Tommy Lawrence—I can’t for the life of me figure how he fits in. There are moments when I think he’s only curious, and others when he gives me the willies.

  And why all the lies? Where has he been staying, if not at the La Playa?

  I sigh. There’s only one more link to Marti I can think of: Lydia Greyson. I recall Sister Pauline saying, “Our contract with her is to maintain the premises and to support ourselves, which we do in a number of ways. Some of the women grow vegetables and bake bread, much like in the abbeys of yesteryear.”

  Abbeys of yesteryear… What about that phrase clings to me like a burr on a dog?

  Lydia Greyson seems completely aboveboard, determined not to let The Prayer House fall into the hands of developers. Marti had the same goal. So, can Lydia tell me more, something she’s left out? I’ll have to track her down in the morning.

  My “meditation” seems to be going nowhere; rather than emptying my mind, it’s bringing up more questions. That’s the thing about meditation when one is a beginner or doesn’t practice all the time. The mind will not stop, no matter what.

  On the other hand, there is a technique called observation meditation, in which one lets the mind flow and simply observes the thoughts. Theoretically, illumination comes from the observation. When I was a reporter, I found it to work a time or two.

  Abbeys of yesteryear… I am thinking of that when a sound reaches me, a creaking, as of footsteps on wood. I turn around to see who has entered the choir loft. My eyes have fully adjusted to the dim light, but there seems to be no one there. Below me, then, on the chapel floor?

  I lean over the rail, but can’t see a thing down there aside from the flickering candles at the feet of the statues along the side. Does it seem they are flickering more than before?

  Suddenly I realize that I’m freezing. The draft, which I’ve assumed to be coming from the direction of the steeple, has grown worse. I wrap my arms around myself, tucking my hands beneath them for warmth.

  A bad move. It leaves me defenseless when a dark figure, no more than a shadow at the corner of my vision, comes up behind me and bashes my head with something very hard.

  I try to fight back, instinctively striking out. But everything turns black, and suddenly I feel my body going over the choir-loft rail. The last thing I see is the chapel’s stone floor, a good fifteen feet below.

  18

  Lydia Greyson’s face appears somewhere above me. “Abby? Abby, can you hear me?”

  My mouth won’t work, so there’s nothing I can tell her. I slip back into the darkness, grateful for the oblivion.

  Next I hear Ben’s voice. “How could something like this happen?” he is saying. “You weren’t supposed to—”

  “Shh, she’ll hear you,” Lydia whispers. “I think she’s awake.”

  Ben disappears into silence. I drift off again, only to hear someone else say, “I demand to talk to that nun.”

  It’s Agent Mauro, and from the sound of him, I don’t envy whoever “that nun” is.

  On my cloud, I formulate a few things in my mind. One is that the cloud is salmon pink with streaks of gold. Secondly, angels are singing a Gregorian chant. I am in heaven, no doubt. Or on a bad drug trip.

  Do I do drugs?

  I can’t remember.

  I do have a vision of fighting off someone in the choir loft, with an elbow to the ribs. I tried to twist around enough to chop at the groin, but whoever had hold of me knew—I think—what I was trying to do. He blocked me, and I wasn’t in a good position to react with another defensive move. That’s when I saw the chapel floor below my face.

  I’d forgotten the first rule of self-defense—always be on your guard.

  But the chapel in a nunnery is hardly the place to remember that.

  One thing, this person wasn’t from The Prayer House. And it wasn’t a woman. At least, not one of the women from here. He was stronger than I, and I’m no weakling.

  Unless—

  My eyes fly open. Ben’s worried face is inches from mine. “You okay?” he is saying.

  “Abbey,” I tell him.

  “Yes, I know.” He smiles. “I know you’re Abby.”

  He turns to someone beside him. Lydia Greyson comes into view.

  “She knows who she is,” Ben says. “She’s okay.”

  “No,” I say, trying to shout, though my voice is no more than a hoarse whisper. “That’s what she meant. She just didn’t spell it right. Abbey. Abbeys of yesteryear. Not me.”

  Ben stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Then his face clears. “You mean the word Marti wrote in the dirt before she was killed? You think she meant an abbey? Like here at The Prayer House?”

  I try to nod, but the pain in my head prevents any movement. “That’s what it used to be. That’s what Sister Pauline called it—‘Like the abbeys of yesteryear.’ Marti must have meant…” I lick my lips. “Ben, I think she meant to send us here.”

  This is all I can manage. But before I slip into unconsciousness again, I see Lydia Greyson’s eyes turn hard.

  “She can’t be thinking straight,” Lydia says stiffly. “It’s the fall.”

  When I come off my cloud, I find I’m actually in a bed in what turns out to be the Infirmary of The Prayer House. There’s a nun in a white habit fussing over me, taking my pulse and inspecting the tender lump on my forehead.

  Ben sits in a chair next to the bed, watching. “Welcome back,” he says, taking my hand. “How do you feel?”

  “Sore as hell. All over.”

  “You must be incredibly flexible,” the nun says, smiling. “Only yogis, drunks and cats can take a fall like that and not be hurt any more than you were.”

  “Kenpo,” I say, remembering that as I went over I managed to twist myself into a diagonal position from right shoulder to left waist, bend my knees, land on my feet and roll.

  “Like jumping with a parachute,” I say. “What’s the damage?”

  “So far
, no sign of concussion,” the sister says. “This lump should go down in a few days, and, so far as I can tell, you haven’t any broken bones. It’s nothing short of a miracle.” She smiles. “But then, we do have a few of them here. I’m Sister Anne, by the way. I was a P.A. before I came here.”

  “Physician’s assistant?”

  She nods. “We tried to get an ambulance out here when we found you, but Carmel Valley Road is washed out near Mid-Valley.”

  I look at Ben. “How did you get here?”

  “You might say I was in the neighborhood.”

  “Is that right? Arnie, too?”

  He shakes his head. “Just me. I was on a case.”

  I fasten my slightly blurry vision on him. “Are you going to tell me what case, or will you be taking it to your grave?”

  “Not my grave,” he says, sighing. “Local Realtor’s—Rick Stone. Found dead behind his office a few hours ago.”

  “Dead?” I try to sit up, but my head hurts when I move. Sister Anne gently pushes me back down.

  “You know him?” Ben asks.

  “Met him. How did he die?” I’m thinking some local feminist whacked him.

  “Bullet to the back of the head,” Ben says. “Execution style.”

  It’s his turn to fasten me with a look.

  “Like Marti?” I say.

  “Could be.”

  “Any suspects?”

  “One. You’ll never guess who.”

  “Don’t bet on it. Jeffrey?”

  “One and only. Spotted by a neighbor, hanging around the office earlier in the day.”

  This time I do sit up, despite the pain. “Somebody saw him there?”

  “Mauro and Hillars, actually.”

  “No kidding. Why didn’t they pick him up?”

  “They decided to follow him, instead. See where he went and who he met up with.”

  “And?”

  He shrugs. “They lost him.”

  “No way! Jeffrey managed to elude the Secret Service?”

  “I guess he’s better at eluding the law, in general, than any of us thought.”

  Ben looks embarrassed, and I fall silent, thinking.