Sister Eve and the Blue Nun

by Lynne Hinton

  “Never mind,” groused his supervisor.

  “Do you want a Zyrtec?” the assistant asked the older man and started patting his pockets, apparently trying to find an allergy pill.

  “Well, of course I want a Zyrtec if there’s a cat on the premises.” The man blew his nose again noisily. He turned to Eve.

  “Yes, yes, how could I forget? Evangeline Divine,” he said again, correctly this time. “Sister.” He bowed his head slightly.

  She bowed in response.

  “I’ll get you a glass of water,” the young seminarian declared, suddenly exiting the group. “The dining room is this way, right?” And he hurried down the hall as Daniel pointed in the right direction.

  “Poor boy, he does try.” The archbishop rolled his eyes when he noticed the pitcher of water sitting on a table beside the desk. He turned back to Eve and there was a pause. “Are you working here?” he asked, glancing around and not hiding the surprise in his voice.

  She shook her head. “No, sir, I was just—”

  “Hello,” he said, cutting her off and turning his attention to the man he had only just noticed standing beside him. He held out his hand to Daniel, and the detective took it, giving a firm grasp and then releasing it.

  “I’m Archbishop Donnelly,” he added as an introduction, his Irish accent on show. He smiled. “Are you one of the professors here for the conference?” he asked and then continued without waiting for an answer. “I had hoped to be able to attend one of the lectures this weekend. I, too, am a fan of Sister Maria de Jesus de Agreda. I consider Mystical City of God a fine literary and theological document.” He leaned in a bit. “However, I must admit that I agree with those who say her Mariology is incompatible with Vatican II.”

  Daniel didn’t reply.

  The archbishop turned over his handkerchief and wiped his brow. “Yet I still value lectures and conferences that allow theologians and religion scholars to bend the minds of priests and monks, keeping us up to date with the latest in our fields. Where do you teach, and do you read the sacred texts in Hebrew and Greek?”

  Daniel looked first at Eve and then back to the archbishop. “I’m not a professor,” he said.

  “Oh, a participant then? Here as a devotee of Sister Maria just to aid in your private prayers and devotions?”

  Daniel shook his head.

  “On private retreat with the monks here at the abbey?”

  “I’m Detective Daniel Hively,” he responded.

  The archbishop pulled back and waited for more.

  “Here on police business,” Daniel obliged.

  “Oh yes.” The archbishop drew out the words and placed his arms on top of each other in front of his chest. “The police business,” he repeated and then crossed himself and bowed. He shook his head. “It is too dreadful even to say.” He turned back to Eve. “I’m here to talk to Oliver about this.” He blew his nose again. “However, it appears that someone else has his attention at present.”

  Eve nodded.

  The archbishop seemed to be waiting for a response other than a nod.

  Eve was confused.

  “Who is that in his office?”

  Eve thought. “Oh, it’s Father Jonas and some of the men from Isleta, I believe,” she answered.

  The man shook his head at the mention of the priest. “It’s likely to be a long meeting, then, if Father Jonas has shown up. What is he doing here?”

  Eve didn’t answer. She was not about to tell the archbishop of the discovery at the pueblo church.

  He waved off the question. “Never mind. Just go and tell Oliver I have arrived.”

  “Yes, sir.” She started around the desk.

  “Are the other nuns still in residence here?” He peeked behind the desk as if he thought a woman might be hiding.

  Eve stopped and shook her head.

  He glanced around once more and then sneezed again.

  “Bless you,” Daniel said and then smiled.

  “Thank you,” the archbishop responded.

  Eve had started in the direction of Father Oliver’s office when she suddenly stopped and turned back. “No, the others are all gone. They left after you …”

  The archbishop quickly glanced in her direction.

  Suddenly the young assistant hurried back into the room, interrupting. “Here’s the water,” he announced, sounding out of breath. “And a Zyrtec.” He handed them both to his supervisor, who smiled and watched as Eve turned and headed down the hall.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Eve crept down the hall past Father Oliver’s office, heading in the direction of the dining room. The abbot’s door was closed and she could hear the two men talking, but even by leaning in as she slowly made her way past the office, she couldn’t make out any of what was being said. All she could hear with any real clarity was the archbishop’s sneezes. Apparently, even after a couple of hours, the Zyrtec hadn’t done the job.

  Daniel had left soon after the men from Isleta exited and the diocesan visitor made his way to Father Oliver’s office. He claimed that he was going back to Santa Fe to get the results from the autopsy and tox screen. However, even with Daniel’s promise that he wouldn’t label the monk a suspect, Eve surmised that her friend was also going back to the police station to start a search for Anthony.

  She knew that she needed to figure out some things quickly if she was going to take the heat off of the victim’s brother. She needed something substantial to place suspicion on the professors from Texas, but she was having difficulty finding any clear evidence that they were behind the murder. When she mentioned her idea to Daniel, his rebuttal had been a good one: “If one or both of them were behind the murder, why did they stay and make themselves known? Why didn’t they leave right after they did the deed?” It was a very good question, and one for which she didn’t have an answer.

  She wanted to talk to Dr. Pierce and Dr. Taylor again, but at the moment she was hungry and decided to fix herself a sandwich before going back down to the guest rooms to try to snoop a bit more. She looked at her watch. The archbishop had been with the abbot a long time.

  No doubt he’s trying to find a way to get the writings for the diocese or for himself, throwing the Isleta church and Brother Anthony under the bus, she thought to herself and then immediately blew out a breath, crossed herself, and asked for forgiveness. Why do I let him get to me like this?

  Knowing it was no good to keep her thoughts on the archbishop, she decided to change her line of thinking and focus on some other things that needed her attention. She wanted to ask Brother Xavier about the name she had seen on the guest room list, the one assigned to the room next to the victim, the name that was familiar, John Barr, the man she had seen at the press conference. She also wanted to find out from Father Oliver what the priest and the men from Isleta wanted. However, she couldn’t seem to locate Brother Xavier, and she would have to wait for the archbishop to leave before she could speak to the abbot.

  She found bread and peanut butter in the kitchen, some crackers, and a couple of small cartons of milk in the refrigerator. In spite of the archbishop’s rant and his assistant’s detective work of trying to locate the cat, she was not kicking Daisy out. She just needed to make sure no one else knew the pet was in her room. A little milk, she thought, would keep the cat happy and settled, not making noise and not outing her accomplice. Eve gathered the food items and started to head back to her room. The kitchen was empty, and when she noticed the time on the large clock over the door, she realized that the monks had likely finished midday prayers and lunch and were probably doing afternoon chores. The morning had already come and gone.

  With both hands full, she walked back to the pantry and was searching for a plastic bag, something to hold her supplies, when she heard someone talking. It appeared to be a conversation that was going
on in a small alcove just outside the rear door to the dining area. The door stood partly open, and she could see the shadow of someone standing on the other side. The person was apparently on the phone. She put her things down on a counter and walked closer so that she could hear the conversation.

  “At this point, everybody’s searching for him.” The caller was male, and she instantly recognized the voice.

  “If the police get to him first, you know what kind of light he’ll throw on all of us. He’s a thief and a liar, not to mention a suspect in the murder case.” It was the young assistant, the seminarian, the man traveling with the archbishop.

  “We know he’s not at Isleta. They were already here, and it appears they’re sending a search party as well. I talked to the priest, and he’s convinced that they can find him before the detectives do.”

  Eve knew he was talking about Anthony, and from what she’d just heard, it was clear that Father Jonas and the men from the pueblo had created their own search party.

  “If they find him, they’ll make it bad for us too. They’ll let everybody know that a Catholic monk stole the writings. It will be the missionaries versus the Pueblo Indians all over again. It could cause another revolt.”

  Eve noticed a car pulling out of the monastery, heading down the driveway that went past the partially opened door. It was Detective Bootskievely leaving, but he was alone, apparently without his partner. Detective Lujan must still be on the premises. The caller hesitated as if he was watching the vehicle as well.

  “No, don’t use his name anywhere. We have to keep him as far away from this as we can. No scandal,” he emphasized.

  There was a pause.

  “Well, of course he knows; he’s not an idiot. He didn’t get the title of archbishop because of his great service to the poor. He understands what’s at stake if the word gets out that a monk stole from the pueblo, but he also understands what it could mean for him if he gets to the papers first. You know he’s wanted out of the Southwest since he first got here. He thinks this could be his ticket to Rome.”

  There was another pause while the assistant apparently listened to the caller on the other end.

  “Look, the guy is more than likely still dressed like a monk. He can’t be too hard to find. Ask around. See if anybody gave him a ride out of here. If he’s been at Isleta, he’s probably somewhere south of Albuquerque, maybe heading to Mexico. If what that dealer said is true, the papers are worth a lot of dough. He’s likely trying to get out of the country and make the sale. Start by looking up the records to see if he has one of the property’s cell phones, and try to see if he’s used a credit card. Help me out here. You’re the professional. He’s a monk, not a hardened criminal, for heaven’s sake.”

  Eve was trying to piece it all together. The archbishop had obviously told his assistant to find Anthony, but who was the guy talking to?

  “We’ll worry about that when we find him.”

  A detective? The idea seemed ludicrous to Eve, but that was certainly how the conversation sounded.

  “My guess is that he’ll be sent somewhere very far away from here. We don’t really want another priest in jail! We’ve had enough of that publicity to last us a lifetime. No, I figure they’ll stick him away in some remote monastery, never to be heard from again.”

  Eve drew in a breath. The office of the archbishop was now also searching for Anthony, and it seemed he would not fare any better if they found him first. She backed away from the door as the assistant finished his call. She watched as he walked around to the front entrance, and then she looked over at the meager lunch she was planning for herself.

  I’m going to need more than just a peanut butter sandwich to fortify me on this journey, she thought. And she headed back to the kitchen to gather more food.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Tell me that you aren’t going to try and find him.” The Captain guessed his daughter’s plan without her giving a clue.

  She didn’t respond. She had made the call only so that her father wouldn’t worry about her when he heard from Daniel or one of the other detectives that she had left the monastery.

  “Evangeline, you don’t know what or who you’ll find out there. Let me go with you.”

  “No, I need to do this by myself,” she answered. “If he thinks someone else is with me, he won’t talk to me.”

  “I don’t like this,” her father replied. “Your monk friend Anthony may not be the killer, but with all I’ve heard of how he behaved after he found out about his sister, he doesn’t appear to be mentally stable. I don’t like the thought of you out there by yourself with him.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  She heard a long breath pour across the phone line.

  “How do you even know where he is? The Santa Fe police have been searching all day. The Isleta police have even been helping. What makes you think you can find him?”

  “I found something.”

  “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “I wanted to get a list of all the guests for the conference, go through them, see if anybody had a connection to Dr. Middlesworth.”

  “Makes sense.” There was a pause. “And?”

  “And I got it, the list of the guests,” she replied.

  “Anybody of interest?”

  “Maybe a person of interest.”

  Another pause.

  “Who is it and what makes them of interest?”

  She held her breath.

  “Evangeline.”

  She exhaled and gave in with a response. “There was a stack of letters in a folder.”

  “What kind of letters?”

  “They’re from a guy who used to come here. Well, I mean, I guess he still does come here.” She didn’t mention the name John Barr, and she didn’t mention to the Captain that she had, in fact, seen him earlier that day. She also wasn’t going to reveal the nature of this man’s letters.

  There were maybe six or ten of them, all mailed to Father Oliver at the monastery within the last year. As soon as she pulled out the first one, she knew the sender and remembered having seen him at the press conference. After checking, she saw that he was also on the list of those attending the conference. The old white pickup she had seen in the parking lot earlier was also likely his, and he easily could have been the one to have given Anthony a ride out on the night of the murder.

  “What about this guy? What makes you think he’s involved?”

  Eve didn’t want to say because she knew that once the Captain heard about John Barr, heard how she knew him, the kind of man he was, his unpredictable behavior, he would never let her go near him alone.

  “I just think he might know something.” She chose her words carefully. “He and Brother Anthony had a relationship; they were friends.”

  Eve recalled that Barr lived not far from the monastery, in a cabin somewhere north of Pecos near the little town of Tererro. He came down to the abbey just a few times every year, usually near Christmas and Easter, even making a kind of pilgrimage, walking several hours to the chapel during Holy Week. When he visited he would never speak to the nuns, only to the monks, and then only to a few of them, Father Oliver, and for some reason that the others didn’t understand, Brother Anthony.

  While Eve lived in community at Pecos, John Barr’s visits and his letters to Father Oliver were legendary. He wrote long missives in which he ranted and raved about the decline of the Catholic Church, about its fall from grace after Vatican II, establishing himself as a sedevacantist, one who holds that the post–Vatican II popes have forfeited their position through acceptance of heretical teachings connected with the Second Vatican Council.

  Like the others with these opinions, John Barr always let it be known that for him, a man old enough to remember church history before that council, since the 1960s there had been no
true pope in the church. He often wrote that the sedevacantists rejected the revised Mass rite and strongly believed certain aspects of the postconciliar church teachings to be false and that all the popes involved were false also.

  He came to chapel for one of the services of the day and stayed, arguing for hours with Father Oliver about everything he saw as heretical going on at the abbey. He argued at him for speaking English during Mass and not the traditional Latin, for not facing east “toward the Lord” while presiding over Eucharist, and he argued most vehemently about the inclusion of women in roles that he believed were established only for the priests, the men, in services of worship and in equal standing in the community. And for whatever reason, while the other monks and nuns simply put up with the strange man from Tererro, Brother Anthony seemed to have undue compassion for him, always packing him a bag of food before he left and always walking or riding in his truck with him to the gate as he left, reminding him that he was prayed and cared for by those who lived at the community. She and the other nuns often chastised the young monk for being so nice to the man, claiming that in his kindness he demonstrated an acceptance of the man’s harsh views and in essence caused him to turn his back on his sisters at the abbey.

  “Was he there yesterday? Do you think he’s the one who did this?”

  “I don’t know if he was here yesterday,” she replied truthfully. “And no, I don’t think he’s the one who killed Kelly.” She didn’t want him to worry. “I just think he might know where Anthony is. He’s a good person to talk to.”

  “You want to tell me where this person lives?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” she responded. And that answer was true. She really didn’t know where he lived, only that he stayed in a cabin just north of the monastery. She knew he made a living hunting and selling animal skins, and she did have a post office box number for him. She hoped this would be enough information to find him.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll give me that name, will you?”

  Eve thought about it. “I can’t. I don’t want to put you in the middle of this. It’s best if you don’t know any details.”