Murder Makes a Pilgrimage

by Carol Anne O'Marie

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12

  Feast of

  Our Lady of the Pillar

  Spanish National Holiday

  The ragged ring of the telephone woke Sister Mary Helen. She sat up quickly. Too quickly. The blunt edge of an ax split her head, or at least that was how it felt.

  The second ring woke Eileen. “Who in the world?” she said, fumbling toward the phone.

  Mary Helen fell back against her pillow and listened to the one-sided conversation. “Good morning to you, Comisario . . . Yes . . . Oh? . . . Yes . . . Fine.”

  “What was that all about?” With one eye open, she watched Eileen crawl back under her covers.

  “That was the comisario. He forgot to tell us that today is a national holiday in Spain.”

  Mary Helen tried to remember the date, but the effort only made her head ache more.

  “It’s the Feast of Nuestra Señora del Pilar ,” Eileen said. Her accent was improving. A few more weeks and she’ll be able to pass for a native, Mary Helen thought, then wished she hadn’t. The idea of being detained in Spain sent her stomach into a spasm.

  “Our Lady of the Pillar,” Eileen translated in a sleepy voice. “If I remember correctly, there’s a shrine in her honor in Saragossa with a miraculous statue of the Virgin. Tradition says that St. James himself built the original shrine at the request of the Blessed Virgin.” Eileen’s brow puckered. “So you see it’s all of a piece.”

  “What’s the ‘pillar’ part about?”

  The questions slowed Eileen down, but not for long. “The statue sits on a pillar, hence the name,” she said with so much confidence that Mary Helen believed her.

  “And the whole country takes the day off?” she asked.

  Eileen yawned. “Yes, and isn’t that grand? The comisario called to tell us that there is a special Mass in the cathedral at ten. They will use el botafumeiro to incense the church, and he thinks it is something we ought to see. What I think is that he’ll be there and wants to keep an eye on us. Anyway, he’ll meet us here after Mass, which should be about eleven-thirty.”

  “What time is it now?” Mary Helen asked, but Eileen had fallen back to sleep. With superhuman effort, Mary Helen raised her head and studied the clock. Thank God, she thought, sinking into her pillows. We have another hour.

  The nuns were the last of their group to arrive at the cathedral. When María José saw them, she waved to them to join the others at the foot of a gloriously carved pillar. Like a mother bird, she gathered them in a tight little nest around her.

  Mary Helen shivered. Cold and dampness emanated from the stone. When María José began to speak, her breath came out in little clouds.

  “Today, peregrinos, you will witness one of Santiago’s unique sights,” she said. Her dark eyes danced like a child’s as she began her narrative.

  By contrast the peregrinos themselves looked as pale and stony as the statues surrounding them. Actually the faces on the statues showed more animation.

  The cathedral filled quickly. An odd mixture of the faithful and the curious spilled through the Pórtico de la Gloria into the main body. Sister Mary Helen strained to hear María José’s voice, which was nearly drowned out by a Japanese tour guide, red flag aloft, giving her spiel.

  “Speak up, please.” Roger DeÁngelo’s eyes flicked around the group, then returned to the speck he was studying on the granite column.

  Although María José frowned with annoyance at the request, she did raise her voice. “El botafumeiro is a huge censer that dates back to the Middle Ages,” she shouted over the Japanese guide, who turned up her volume, too. “It began because hundreds of pilgrims slept in the cathedral, and they smelled. It perfumed the great naves and purified the air. Incense was thought to be a germ killer.

  “El botafumeiro weighs fifty-four kilos—one hundred and nineteen pounds,” she translated quickly. “And it stands this high.”

  Mary Helen peered around Cora’s shoulder to see where María José’s hand was. She held it about three feet from the ground.

  “That’s what you call a king-size incense burner,” Eileen whispered. “Just think what our Sister Anne could do with it.”

  Mary Helen grimaced at the thought.

  “Eight men called tiraboleiros swing the censer.” María José toned down her voice as if she were about to confide a secret that she didn’t want the Japanese to hear. “When Alfonso the Third was king, the bishop of Santiago was accused by three men of our village of nefarious crimes too ugly to be announced.”

  “Nefarious?” Heidi wrinkled her nose.

  “Vicious,” Eileen whispered, “very wicked.”

  Like any good gossip, María José paused to let her listeners’ imaginations run wild. “The king,” she said as confidentially as if it had happened last week, “ordered the bishop thrown to a wild bull. Of course, the bull knew our bishop was innocent, so instead of charging the good man, the bull placed his head in the bishop’s hands. The king was furious. ‘You and all your offspring,’ he thundered at the accusers, ‘are sentenced to perpetual servitude in the cathedral which you have shamed.’ It is the descendants of these three families who still swing el botafumeiro.”

  Head held high, María José inched her charges down a crowded side aisle toward the main altar. The organ thundered. A fugue soared into the arches, filling the gigantic nave and drowning out any attempt at conversation.

  As the group approached the sanctuary, someone touched Mary Helen’s forearm. “Good morning, Sister.” It was Ángel Serrano. He was sitting just behind what looked like a pewful of dignitaries. “How are you this morning?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she said, anxious not to lose the others in the packed crowd. Their leader had apparently hit a small bottleneck, so Mary Helen had time for a quick introduction to Serrano’s wife. Small, round Julietta was a woman with a friendly face. The kind of person you’d enjoy having a cup of coffee with, Mary Helen thought.

  “This is my sister, Pilar.” Ángel pointed to the woman on the other side of Julietta. Thin and wiry, Pilar was the antithesis of her brother. An astonishingly large white orchid was pinned to her angular shoulder.

  “It is my sister’s birthday and feast day,” Ángel said by way of explanation.

  The crowd loosened, and Mary Helen, afraid that she would lose sight of the back in front of her, waved a hasty good-bye.

  “Quickly, stand here.” María José ushered them into a space just behind the altar rail and beneath the ornate pulpit. The Japanese tourists bunched in beside them. Despite their objections, the two nuns were shuffled to the front of the group. “You are shorter than most of us,” Bootsie said. “We can see over you.”

  “And we can see what to do,” Bud Bowman said, which Mary Helen thought was probably closer to the truth.

  With a long, loud chord, the organ signaled the procession. Amid the scuffing of wooden benches and kneelers, the throng rose to greet it.

  First came the altar boys in lacy surplices, carrying tall candles in silver candlesticks. Behind them a steady stream of priests in shimmering brocade chasubles decorated with the cockleshell of St. James flowed down the center aisle. They were followed by the monsignors in white and gold and magenta and more delicately embroidered shells.

  Finally, the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela entered the cathedral with Canon Fernández at his side. Carrying his curved, golden crozier in one gloved hand, the archbishop blessed the crowd with the other as he moved down the main aisle. In his jeweled miter, pectoral cross, and cockleshelled cope ablaze with gems, he looked taller and mightier than he ever could hope to in his plain black suit. With his golden cope waving behind, the archbishop swept on to the baroque sanctuary, where he blended in perfect harmony with the gilded altar.

  Meanwhile, two short, balding men in bright crimson cassocks approached the sanctuary. On their shoulders they bore a long, thick pole, and from the pole hung an enormous silver-plated censer, the famed botafumeiro.

  The hu
shed crowd watched six more crimson-clad men rush around the sanctuary. One unfastened a thick hemp rope from its hook on a nearby pillar and brought it to the middle aisle. One end of the rope was attached to a complicated-looking series of pulleys on the ceiling. The other end was quickly lashed to the huge iron loop attached by chains on top of the censer.

  A haunting organ melody filled the church. Spellbound, Mary Helen watched the eight red-robed men grasp the rope and pull it taut. They tugged. The censer rose several feet off the ground. The archbishop, flanked on either side by priests holding back his cope, stepped forward. He lifted the lid and ladled incense onto the hot coals. With a metallic rattle, the lid fell back into place. Smoke circled and curled around the enormous thurible. Gingerly the archbishop gave it an initial shove down the transept.

  At some silent signal the eight men pulled the rope, and with a jerk el botafumeiro rose just above the upturned faces of the crowd. In a rhythm perfected by time, they strained at the thick hemp until the censer, like some giant smoke-throwing pendulum, began to swing across the breadth of the cathedral. At first its arc was shallow, but with each pull the height and momentum grew until it seemed to take on a life of its own.

  Higher and higher it rose. Faster and faster it swung, spitting out sparks and throwing clouds of incense. Before Mary Helen’s astonished eyes, the censer soared toward the ceiling, then fell like a missile of silver, cutting across the dim cathedral, perfuming the air as it flew. Each pull propelled it close to the roof. There it hesitated, trembled, then roared down again, whizzing past with sickening speed until it flew out level with the ceiling some ninety feet above.

  Mary Helen sucked in her breath. The next pull of the rope would surely send el botafumeiro crashing through the roof. Just as that seemed certain to happen, the impetus was imperceptibly checked, and inch by inch, the heavy, hot vessel began its descent toward the floor.

  All around her Mary Helen heard her fellow pilgrims releasing their breaths, like a collective sigh of relief. A little prematurely, she thought, as the censer skimmed past her at what seemed seventy miles an hour. The thing could still do a lot of damage if the coals went sailing or if, God forbid, it hit anyone. She’d feel a lot better when it was safely on the ground.

  “How do they stop it?” she whispered to Eileen.

  “They grab it, I think.”

  “It’s a frickin’ Disneyland,” Bud Bowman remarked irreverently.

  Mary Helen covered her nose against the cloying incense. Head raised, she watched the huge botafumeiro climb fifty feet into the air. Someone bumped against her, not a gentle, accidental nudge, but a deliberate, hard push.

  A hot streak of fear shot through Mary Helen. Her thigh hit the altar rail. She pushed back against the pressure, struggling to keep her balance, not to topple forward.

  High above them, el botafumeiro trembled in space, hesitated, then plummeted toward the sanctuary. Mary Helen felt a second nudge. Harder, more vicious than the first. She was being pushed over the rail into its path. She tried to twist, to glance behind her. Stop! she wanted to shriek, but fear closed her throat.

  The seconds seemed frozen; she was like an animal caught in headlights. She watched the huge censer, spewing sparks and smoke, speed toward her. Closer, closer. Eileen screamed and clutched at her, but Mary Helen felt herself teetering, off-balance, right into its course. Dear Lord, here I come in a blaze of glory, she thought crazily. Her whole body tensed for the collision.

  The world stopped for a moment until Ángel Serrano’s voice jerked it back into motion.

  “Get it!” he shouted in Spanish. And one small red-clad figure lunged forward in a kind of flying tackle to grab the chains. With the echoing clang of metal, he hurled himself around the censer, and using his own weight and momentum, he brought the smoking botafumeiro to a abrupt stop, inches from where Mary Helen stood.

  “Thank God, for the nefarious,” she said, giddy with relief. It was the only thing she did say before she fainted.

  “I never faint,” Mary Helen protested, removing a cold washcloth from her forehead. “I never even feel faint.”

  “Anyone would have under the circumstances,” Ángel Serrano assured her. “I almost fainted myself.”

  Pale-faced, Eileen stood beside Mary Helen’s bed with a glass of water. “Take these.” She handed Mary Helen two white tablets, which she obediently swallowed.

  “How did I get here?” Mary Helen wiped drops of water from her upper lip.

  “Those dear little red-coated men carried you on a stretcher.” Eileen peered down, her gray eyes swimming with concern.

  “Those poor devils are really paying for their ancestors’ sins.” Mary Helen tried to act glib, but an act was all it was. Her insides were as cold and shaky as tomato aspic, and she felt that at any moment she might explode into tears.

  “What did I just take?”

  “Something to relax you,” Eileen said, and, aware of Mary Helen’s abhorrence of pills of any sort, added, “Probably just the Spanish version of aspirin.”

  “Do you have any idea who pushed you?” Ángel’s face was drained of all color except for two bright red circles on his chubby cheeks.

  “None whatsoever.” Mary Helen took a deep breath. “Could it have been an accident?” But even as she asked, she began to shiver and to become conscious of the soreness in the small of her back.

  “Too many accidents, I’m afraid, Sister.” Ángel’s eyes were hard.

  “Who was behind us?” Eileen wondered aloud. “Everybody and nobody,” she answered herself.

  “I have questioned them all. Several times.” Ángel sounded frustrated. “Everyone says the same thing. ‘I did not do it, and I did not see who did. I was looking up.’ They all were looking up,” Ángel muttered. “The whole congregation was looking up.”

  “It’s a good thing you weren’t.” Mary Helen patted his chubby hand. “Thank you,” she said, feeling tears well up in her eyes.

  Embarrassed, Ángel cleared his throat. “Rest today, Sister. I have put Officer Zaldo at your door. No one is to come in without his permission. If, after a rest, you feel like going out for anything, even to dinner in the salon, I implore you to take him with you.”

  When the comisario left, Mary Helen and Eileen eyed each other. “That was close, old dear, too close.” Eileen’s brogue was thick. “We have to figure out what you know or have that is making someone want to . . . silence you.”

  Mary Helen could barely summon up the energy to agree.

  “Think, Mary Helen. Think of something, anything we can start on.”

  “I’ll try,” Mary Helen said, “but right now my mind is about two blocks beyond exhaustion.”

  “I’ll bet it is.” Eileen clucked. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? I’ll think for a while.”

  Mary Helen struggled to keep her eyelids up, but they were too heavy. “Maybe if you flip on the television for a while, we’ll get our minds off everything, and things will be clearer when we get back to them.” She knew the sentence was circuitous, but she was too groggy to straighten it out.

  With a click the television came on. Mary Helen lifted her eyelids for a second. Before her, cavorting on the screen, was Daffy Duck. Was he speaking Spanish?

  “Is that our Daffy Duck?” she asked, her eyelids slipping shut.

  “We’re all a little daffy, ducky!” Eileen’s voice sounded far away.

  Only when she actually laughed at Eileen’s horrible pun did Mary Helen realize what the white pills were: a sedative. She was whirling toward a deep darkness. They have given me a sedative.

  Head down, Ángel Serrano made his way through the choked streets of Santiago toward the police station. By a hair he beat a cloudburst into the front entrance.

  “I do not want to be disturbed,” he barked at anyone within shouting distance, then slammed the door for emphasis.

  Ignoring a stack of messages on his desk, he dropped into his swivel chair, pushed it back, propped his
feet on the desktop, closed his eyes, and tried to reconstruct the scene in the sanctuary. He wanted it clear in his own mind before he continued to question the Americans. When he spoke to them, none claimed to have known exactly what had happened.

  “Maybe the smell made her dizzy,” Cora said sensibly. “I was feeling a little dizzy myself.”

  Roger DeAngelo agreed, and Bootsie fluttered her thick false eyelashes to stress the point.

  “The poor thing.” Rita was sympathetic. “It scared me to see her slip forward like that. What if—” María José’s face had blanched, and Rita knew enough to stop.

  “Who was directly behind Sister?” Ángel had asked bluntly.

  “I’m not sure,” Roger said. “I was so busy looking up at that contraption I’m not sure who was directly in front of me. Besides, when that Japanese group squeezed in next to us, we all shifted.”

  “Could it have been one of them?” Cora asked hopefully.

  Ángel knew that the picture was there somewhere in his brain. He must concentrate, remember where each one was standing. Remember how they shifted. The two nuns were in front, he was sure of that. Their tan Irish knit sweaters stood out in contrast with the bright colors surrounding them.

  His niece, he remembered, ended up in front, too. Closest to the main altar. That made sense, since María José had led the group up the aisle and into the sanctuary.

  He placed her there in his mind’s eye, right next to Sister Eileen, but she did not look right. Something about the picture was off. Someone else, short, was between them. Heidi. That was who.

  He remembered now. Heidi, with hair the color of caramel candy, was a contrast with Ho-Ho’s magenta mop. Encouraged, he reconstructed the front line. María José, Heidi, Sister Eileen, Sister Mary Helen.

  A sharp rap at the door broke his concentration. “Pase!” he shouted.

  “Perdón, Comisario.” An officer cracked open the door. “It is the mayor on the line. He has been trying to get you all morning.”

  “Tell him I am busy.” Ángel waved the man away. “Busy thinking, if I ever get the chance,” he added to the closed door.