by Lynne Hinton
Detective Lujan, still not having said anything but his name, peered at Eve and gave a slight smile. “It was nice to meet you, Evangeline.” And then he paused. “I don’t think he’s still in the dining room. He seemed to be in a hurry, to pray, maybe.”
Eve was stunned and was about to explain she didn’t know who he was talking about, but before she could say as much, he turned and followed the other officer, leaving her alone with her thoughts.
ELEVEN
“Anthony,” Eve whispered. After checking the young monk’s room and finding it empty, she made her way to the dining room without running into any of the other monks or any other police officers. She chose not to switch on the lights, keeping herself and the room in the dark.
“Anthony,” she whispered again as she headed from the dining area toward the kitchen. She quietly pushed open the swinging doors, calling out his name once more. There was no one around.
Eve stood in the familiar space where she had spent so many hours when she lived at the abbey. Of all the rooms at the monastery, the offices and the gathering spaces, the chapel and the gardens, the kitchen had always been a place where Eve felt completely at home. Even though there were far better cooks than she among the residents at the monastery, she had come to love the work that was done in this place. Baking bread, making soups and stews, roasting chiles, and even brewing beer—there was so much about cooking and preparing meals that Eve loved.
Here, even if silence was being observed, the men and the women, the nuns and the monks, worked together like musicians in an orchestra, stirring and measuring, peeling and tasting, and this gift of creating the community’s shared meals was a very high honor for the nun. If she was able to contribute even a small thing to the bounty spread on the table for her brothers and sisters at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, she felt whole inside, complete. And as she stood just inside the doors of the kitchen, she felt a twinge of sadness that the nuns would no longer be there, the women who were suddenly banned from it all. A long breath poured from her, and she shook away her thoughts of the changes going on around her and returned to the matters at hand, trying to imagine where Brother Anthony had gone.
If he had been in the kitchen or the dining room as the officers said he was earlier, it was clear he had left. If he had been working on the morning meal or getting himself something to eat, he was nowhere to be found. Eve walked back to the pantry where they kept nonperishable supplies and peeked in. Not there. Then she headed down a short hall, over to the large walk-in freezers, and, knowing it couldn’t be seen from anywhere else, turned on a light. She was alone. Realizing she was not going to find Anthony there, she walked back into the kitchen and then into the dining room, pulled open the blinds, and looked out a window in the direction of the guest quarters.
Several monks and guests had gathered around the main entrance, and she could still see the lights of the patrol cars and ambulance flashing in the distance. A news van from a local television station had also arrived and was heading past the window where she stood, over to where the action was taking place. As soon as it passed by, she turned and noticed a vehicle exiting the grounds.
It was a pickup truck, an old one, white, with a taillight out. She couldn’t make out the numbers on the license plate and she couldn’t see who was driving, but she did think it was odd that a vehicle was leaving the premises. She wondered why the police hadn’t stopped it, but when she turned back to see what was going on at the guest quarters, there was so much commotion she was sure no one was paying close attention to who was coming and who was going.
Someone was putting up yellow tape around the front room of the guest quarters, marking the area as a crime scene and no longer just a guest room. The death of Dr. Kelly Middlesworth, Eve realized, was no longer a secret between her, Father Oliver, and Brother Anthony. The news was about to be known by everyone.
She shook her head and closed the blinds, making her way to one of the tables in the room. She dragged out a chair and sat down, pulling the letter out of her back pocket that she had taken from the vice superior’s desk and unfolding it. She spread it out before her and, turning on the flashlight app on her cell phone, began to read:
Dear Father Oliver,
I realize now the horrible sin I have committed. I cannot take back the evil that has been done to my sister, and I am deeply sorry for all of these things that have happened and see now that I have to go. I meant no harm to the other monks at the abbey, to you, or to my dear Kelly. I know I can never be forgiven for my sins. I can only pray that God will have mercy on me.
Your devoted son,
Anthony
Eve switched off the light, folded the letter back up, and placed it on the table. She knew it should be turned over to the authorities; it would certainly be seen as relevant to the crime. It didn’t exactly bear a confession to murder, but Eve knew enough about the law to realize that if the police added this letter to the eyewitness report from Father Oliver that he had seen the young monk preparing the tray with tea near the time the victim was killed, along with the many reports from those who had seen the siblings argue at dinner, and the fact that he was now missing, things wouldn’t look good for Brother Anthony.
Eve rested her elbows on the table, clasped her hands together, and tried to sort through everything that had happened in the last few hours.
Dr. Kelly Middlesworth had been given writings, their existence apparently unknown by anyone but the two siblings and now the abbot and Eve and the murderer. These pages, of words that were being ascribed to Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda, had been written apparently for the Jumano Indians, the tribe that the revered nun was said to have appeared to while she was in residence in Agreda, Spain. If Eve’s math was right, these pages would have to be over four hundred years old and would surely elicit a tremendous response from theologians, archaeologists, historians, and religious scholars. These writings were so important, she had been told, they could possibly even push forward the beatification of the Spanish nun.
Brother Anthony had found the pages in Isleta while working at the pueblo parish, and he took them, without permission, with only the thought to delight and surprise his sister. Kelly, obviously clear about the value of such a treasure, had revealed to her brother earlier in the evening that she planned to tell everyone about the discovery at the conference scheduled for the following day. This revelation caused him to become angry and created a rift between the siblings. It also seemed to Eve that Kelly had not only changed her speech for the following day to include this new finding but also told someone else, someone who must have gotten to her room sometime after dinner, found and stolen the writings, and ultimately killed her.
Eve leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Kelly was dead. And even though there was more than enough circumstantial evidence against Anthony to make him look like the murderer, she could not accept that he would have killed his sister, no matter how angry he was. It didn’t really matter, however, what she thought because he was now gone, having disobeyed the abbot and fled the crime scene, adding even more evidence against him. She thought again about the letter and knew that if she’d read it correctly, Anthony had left the monastery. But where did he go? Did he run away? Was this a suicide letter? Is he in peril just as Kelly was?
Evangeline was clear that she was in over her head in this situation. She knew she had helped her father find the killer of the movie director in Madrid, and she knew she had been smart enough to help her friend and her father’s former partner, Daniel, find her sister, who had gone missing in Las Vegas, but trying to find a murderer who appeared to have left no clues as to his or her identity, or even trying to find Brother Anthony and convince him to return to the monastery and tell the authorities what had happened or persuade him not to harm himself, all of this was more than she knew how to handle. She considered her options, understanding she would have to make the call. A
t a time like this, only one person could really help her figure out what she should do.
TWELVE
“What time is it?” The question was more of a growl than recognizable words.
Eve cringed. She hated waking the Captain. “It’s after two,” she answered, counting the hours she had been up and the minutes since the police had arrived at the abbey. She was still in the dining room and still alone, although the sounds of voices were building around her and she could see lights coming on in various parts of the building. With all this action she knew she wouldn’t be by herself much longer.
“Then this better be good,” came the reply. “You in jail for speeding? You turn your bike over in a ditch?”
“What? No,” she responded, starting to think she shouldn’t have called him after all.
“You break into the animal shelter, vandalize the premises, and set all them dogs and cats free again? Have you been arrested again?”
Eve sighed. “Why do you always bring that up—and I wasn’t arrested, anyway. I just got put on probation. That place was horrible. Those animals were neglected. It needed public attention. And in fact, I never would have been caught in the first place if your partner, Daniel, hadn’t ratted me out to you.”
“You do the crime, you do the time.”
“Yeah, whatever. That was a long time ago.” She was now completely convinced that she was mistaken to have made the call.
He cleared his throat, making such a racket that Eve had to hold the phone away from her ear.
“If you aren’t in trouble, then why did you call?” He yelled the question after all of the coughing and hacking.
“There’s been a murder,” she explained, imagining her father trying to sit up in bed, reaching for his glasses and a tissue, holding on to the phone while turning on the lamp that sat on the table beside him.
“Did you do it?” he asked. “Because if you did it, you should be calling a lawyer and not your father.”
Eve didn’t answer at first, the question surprising her. “No.”
There was a pause.
“Why would you think I would commit a murder?” she asked.
“Because the last thing I remember you saying before you left this morning to go back to the convent was that these changes handed down from the diocese made you so mad you were thinking about protesting, making waves where you shouldn’t be swimming. Besides, we all are capable of murder, Evangeline. Just put any one of us in the right place at the right time with the right circumstances …” He cleared his throat again noisily. “We could all do it. Even you.”
Eve shook her head. Her father’s take on human behavior never ceased to amaze her. She knew lots of people wondered about her decision to become a nun, but if they spent much time with the Captain, she was sure most folks would think she chose the vocation just to try to rid herself of all the garbage he had stuffed into her head while she was growing up.
“I did not commit a murder,” she responded. “It happened at the abbey. One of the conference speakers, a sister to one of the monks, was killed in her room tonight. It was poison, found it in her tea, smelled like almonds—”
“Cyanide,” he interrupted.
“I know,” she replied. “She hadn’t had a lot of it, but she’s dead, regardless.”
“Suicide?” he asked.
“No, not suicide. She was preparing to give the most important speech of her life this morning.”
“At the monastery?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause.
“Is this victim a nun?”
Eve thought it sounded like he was laughing. She felt her face flush. “I don’t even know why I called you. What are you implying? That a nun can’t make an important speech, that a Benedictine sister doesn’t have something important to say to the world? You think that just because she’s a woman, she can’t speak to men?”
“Whoa there, Sister. Don’t get all high and mighty with me. I’m not the one who pushed the girls out of the monastery and all the way to the back pew in church. I’m not saying anything like that. I’m just asking you questions about the victim.” He blew out a heavy breath. “How many times have I told you that you will never solve a mystery if you let your emotions blind your clear thinking?”
She tried to settle herself. She knew he was right, and she also knew he loved to get a rise out of her.
“Kelly Middlesworth was not a nun,” she said, trying to sound as unemotional as she could. “She was a religion professor in Texas. She was speaking on the subject of Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda.”
“That one you’re so keen about,” he interjected. “The one you think has not been treated fairly by the church.”
“The nun I think should be made into a full saint, yes,” she answered a little too quickly, and she paused. “Dr. Middlesworth had been given something related to Sister Maria that I think was worth a lot of money, and I believe she told somebody who wanted this item bad enough to kill her for it.”
“How did you find out about the murder?”
Eve hesitated. This was the part she was less enthusiastic to share. “Her brother found me in the chapel tonight. He told me about this item the victim had. He told me he had given it to her secretly and then had gotten very upset because she was planning to tell others.”
There was no response, and she knew he was still waiting for her to answer his question.
“He found his sister dead in her room and he showed up at the chapel and told me.”
“And you called the police?”
“Not exactly.”
“You went to see her for yourself.”
“Yes.”
“And you compromised the crime scene by entering it before the police.”
“Yes, I did that too.”
“Have you called the police?” he wanted to know.
“No, but someone did,” she replied, thinking again that she had not yet discovered who had placed that call.
“Who’s out there?” he asked, referring to the officers from the Santa Fe Police Department.
“Detective Boots and his new partner, some county deputies, I don’t know who else,” she answered.
“Bootsey?” He laughed. “Good heavens, he hasn’t retired yet?”
“I guess not.” And she suddenly recalled the other officer with him and the way she felt when they were introduced.
“What else?” he asked.
She wondered how it was he could tell there was always something else, how he seemed to know when she was holding back information. “While I was looking around the room I broke the cup she drank from, the one with the cyanide.”
He sighed. “And …”
“And I found a letter her brother wrote, one he left for Father Oliver, one in which he explains that he’s leaving the monastery, that he’s sorry for what he’s done and he’s gone to make amends.”
“And do you still have this letter?”
The question, coming not from the Captain in Madrid but from inside the door to the dining hall, startled Eve so much that her right hand flew open, dropping her cell phone to the floor.
THIRTEEN
“Evangeline!”
She heard her father calling for her as she knelt down to retrieve the phone. “I … I’ll call you back,” she replied, hitting the red button on the little screen, ending the conversation, and trying to make out who had just entered the dining room.
One of the light switches was turned on and she could finally see who was standing at the door. He walked toward her. Eve grabbed the letter on the table and shoved it into her back pocket. “How long were you standing there?” she asked, wondering how much of the conversation with the Captain he had heard.
“Long enough to know you’ve called for he
lp.” He hesitated. “And that you found a letter.” He had gotten to the table where she sat and stood next to her.
Evangeline could see the man more clearly now, and he seemed taller than he had when they first met in the hallway by Father Oliver’s room. He was about six feet, she thought, thick black hair that appeared to be pulled back and tied in a ponytail that she couldn’t see but assumed must be hanging down his back. He was wearing what she knew to be the detective’s uniform, a dress shirt and black trousers, a nondescript dark tie. In only one way did his dress deviate from that of all the other city detectives Eve had seen, and that was the black leather jacket instead of the standard all-weather sport coat. He had dark eyes and broad shoulders, and he wasn’t standing so close that he was trying to use his position to intimidate her. Instead, he angled himself so there was room for her to get up from her chair and move away if she wanted. She wasn’t, therefore, threatened by him, but she still felt nervous with him standing so close. Her pulse rate quickened and her hands started to sweat.
“Officer Lujan,” she said, taking the space given and getting up from her seat. “I thought you were with your partner at the guest quarters.” She stood near him, trying not to appear anxious or guilty.
“I was,” he answered, glancing around the dining room and then turning his attention back to her. He stepped back a bit, giving her a little more room, and he smiled. “There were more than enough personnel down there.”
She nodded and smiled in return. “It does appear as if the word got out to everyone in the county and in Santa Fe.” She looked toward the window. “I just saw a news crew drive past.” She turned back, realizing the blinds were closed. “I was over there and watched,” she tried to explain, realizing as the words left her lips how ridiculous she sounded. “Before I came here and sat down.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. Could you just shut up? she asked herself.
There was a pause. She could feel him watching her. Probably trying to see what other dumb or incriminating thing I can say on my own.
