Saint's Gate

by Carla Neggers

  “Nobody ordered me to stay.” Colin moved from the door and peered at the still life on her kitchen wall. “Not bad. Have your pals checked this place for bombs?”

  She nodded. “While we were drinking whiskey with Father Bracken.”

  “Ah, yes. Father Finian. He’s an interesting character.”

  “So I gather.”

  “I’d almost forgotten he was a priest, even with the collar, until he started talking about incorruptibles.” His expression unreadable, Colin turned to the near-empty living room. “You could always take tomorrow off and make a trip to IKEA.”

  She was going to Ireland tomorrow night. “Colin…” She blew out a breath, irritated with herself for feeling so off-balance. “I mean it. You don’t need to be here. I’ll call Yank and tell him.”

  “I’m not here because of Yank.”

  His eyes were half-closed. He’d changed into a charcoal canvas shirt that seemed to emphasize the breadth of his shoulders. Emma watched him move to the open door to her bedroom and stop. And she saw it now. He’d figured out she’d been a nun, or Father Bracken had told him. Either way, he knew, and he was waiting for her to point it out, or confess to him, as if her years as a postulant and novice called for confession whereas his years as a marine patrol officer didn’t.

  He glanced back at her. “There’s just the one bedroom, I see.”

  Emma didn’t respond. She remained in the middle of her unfurnished living room. She could make a mat for herself and sleep on the floor, or she could sleep in his truck. He wasn’t here simply because he was an FBI agent concerned about a colleague. His presence had to do with her. It was personal.

  He went into the bedroom. She took his place in the doorway and watched as he pulled back the duvet. Then he arranged the decorative pillows one by one down the middle of the bed, creating a barrier.

  “Right or left side?” he asked.

  She tried not to let him see that he was getting to her. “I’ll take the floor.”

  “Suit yourself. I’m beat after my mishap on the rocks and defusing a bomb. All that adrenaline.” He straightened a pillow, as if he wanted to get the two sides of the bed exactly even. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I’m not sleeping with you.”

  “Bet you have flannel pajamas. You have a spiffy wardrobe but ten to one you wear L.L. Bean flannel at bedtime.”

  Emma forced herself to smile. “Plaid flannel. Unisex. You can borrow a pair.”

  “That’d do me in. Grounding my boat at a convent wasn’t bad enough? Now I borrow pajamas from an ex-nun? I’d have to surrender my kick-ass credentials.”

  She felt heat rush to her face. He was deliberately provoking her by slipping his knowledge that she’d been a nun into the conversation this way. She marched into the bedroom, ripped open a dresser drawer and pulled out two sets of flannel pajamas.

  One red, one blue. She had a couple of slinky nighties but she didn’t go near them.

  She thrust the red pair at Colin and changed the subject. Two could play this game. “The Russian arms trafficker. Vladimir Bulgov. Your investigation?”

  He took the pajamas and shook out the bottoms. He’d never get into them, and if he tried, they’d barely come to his mid-calves. “I’m not talking Russian arms traffickers with you, Sister… What were you called? Or do you want me to guess? I don’t see you sticking with Emma. Sister Emma. Doesn’t have the right ring to it.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “That’s not very nunlike of you. Sister Maria?”

  Emma spun into the bathroom and changed into her pajamas. She saw in the mirror above the sink that her cheeks were flushed, and she realized she was angry. Not cool, not centered. Colin had to see it, too. And he didn’t give a damn.

  The pajamas were baggy but they were warm and covered her from neck to toe.

  He was under the duvet on the left side of the bed when she went back into the bedroom. She didn’t know what he had on, but it wasn’t the red pajamas. “You don’t trust anyone,” she said. “That’s why you’re good undercover. You’re always on alert. You don’t mind being alone.”

  “Someone killed a nun yesterday. You were a nun.” His eyes were very dark now, as unyielding as she’d yet seen them—providing a hint, she thought, of the man he was, the work he did as a deep-cover agent. He continued, his tone even, professional, as if he weren’t lying in her bed, about to spend the night a foot from her. “You have your own agenda. That’s always dangerous.”

  Her bare feet were cold on the wood floor. “Yank knows I can take care of myself. He only put you on me because he’s worried I or someone in my family might have something to do with what’s going on in Maine.”

  “Yank’s thorough.”

  “So are you.”

  “Yes,” Colin said. “So am I. Emma, you and your family are involved in Sister Joan’s death and the missing paintings.”

  She swallowed, less combative, less concerned about what he thought of her past. “I had the two-hour drive to Boston to think about everything.”

  The hardness went out of his eyes. “Now it’s time to sleep on it. One thing I’ve learned in my years doing the work I do is not to miss an opportunity to sleep.” He patted the pillows next to him. “I made a good barrier. And, as I said, I’m beat.”

  He didn’t look that tired, but Emma could feel her fatigue now. It settled over her, the last of the fight and adrenaline draining out of her. She climbed into her side of the bed and pulled the duvet up to her chin.

  Colin switched out the bedside light. “Good night, Sister.”

  She noted the humor in his voice and sighed in the darkness. “You’re not going to let it go until you know, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Brigid,” she said. “I was called Sister Brigid. She was an early Irish saint.”

  He was still and silent across the barrier.

  Not that a barrier was needed, Emma thought. No way was Colin Donovan touching her now that he knew she’d been one of the Sisters of the Joyful Heart.

  19

  MOTHER SUPERIOR NATALIE AQUINAS WILLIAMS met Finian at the main gate and welcomed him onto the grounds of the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. She was bundled in a heavy sweater and had a pleasant, if subdued, manner. She made an effort to be professional, but she was obviously traumatized by the death of one of the sisters in her charge.

  A few bright-colored leaves had fallen from a nearby maple and were strewn on the stone walk on the crisp, sparkling morning. As Mother Natalie led him back to the tower where Sister Joan had been killed, she explained the order’s mission and pointed out several folk-art statues that the foundress, Mother Linden, a gifted artist, had created.

  “Mother Linden’s love of life and her faith shone through everything she did,” Mother Natalie said. “Her teachings and example are a great comfort to us during this difficult time.”

  “I imagine so,” Finian said quietly.

  The older woman’s step faltered as they came to a locked gate and a stone statue of Saint Francis of Assisi. “I’m worried about Sister Cecilia.”

  “The novice who was with Agent Sharpe?”

  “Yes,” Mother Natalie said. “Sister Cecilia is guilt-ridden and frightened. I suspect she’s having a post-traumatic reaction to Sister Joan’s death and her own brush with the apparent perpetrator. She could have been next but for Emma—Agent Sharpe.”

  “Would you like me to talk to her?” Finian asked.

  “I would, yes. Thank you.”

  “Of course.” He trusted himself to maintain an appropriate wall between his friendship with Colin and what he could do, as a priest, to assist Sister Cecilia.

  “She’ll be in the meditation garden. It’s private but of course you’re welcome.” The Mother Superior gestured at the shaded lawn. “Just follow the fence. It’ll take you there.”

  He knew from the various descriptions he’d heard of the events two days ago that it was the same route Sister Joan had taken w
hen she’d left Emma Sharpe—an armed federal agent—at the gate. There was no breeze as he walked onto the cool grass, past a border of colorful flowers along the tall fence. The sisters were doing their work. He’d noticed several picking apples near the main gate. When he’d decided to enter the priesthood six years ago, he’d considered and rejected a monastic life. He still wasn’t sure he understood why he’d been called to parish work.

  A question for another day, he thought as he approached a young novice shivering by a weathered brass sundial. He smiled. “You must be Sister Cecilia.”

  “Yes, Father. You’re the Irish priest in Rock Point—Father Bracken, right?”

  “That would be me.”

  She crossed her arms around herself in the cool morning air. “I’ve always wanted to visit Ireland.”

  “I hope you will have that opportunity one day.”

  “I hope so, too. Right now I can’t seem to think about anything but Sister Joan’s death.” Sister Cecilia hesitated, as if to continue would transport her back to the terror of that morning. “This garden’s beautiful, isn’t it? So few people get to see it. Mother Linden started it almost immediately after the order moved here.”

  Finian took in the labyrinth of mulched paths, flowers and trees arranged on a cliff overlooking a small cove. Two days ago, he knew, boats had taken refuge there in the fog.

  “Mother Linden believed in meditation,” Sister Cecilia continued. “We rarely even speak in this garden. Mother Natalie has encouraged me to spend time here. She knew Mother Linden, of course.”

  “Did Sister Joan know her?”

  “Yes. A number of the sisters were here when Mother Linden was alive.”

  “Was Sister Joan a difficult person, Sister?”

  “I learned so much from her,” Sister Cecilia said, then moved down a mulched path closer to the rock ledge. “She put me through my paces in adjusting to life in our community here. I think she respected my work as a teacher. I’ve always loved children, but they made Sister Joan uncomfortable. She seldom left the convent.”

  “Do you leave?”

  “Yes, I teach elementary art part-time at an academy not far from here, and I work at our shop and studio in Heron’s Cove. We’re an independent community. We survive based on our own efforts and a few donations. I’m working on a biography of Mother Linden—I’ve found so many interesting facts about her. Jack d’Auberville did a painting of her statue of Saint Francis. It’s hanging in the retreat hall. I assume he presented it to the convent as a gift but I don’t know.”

  “It’s a d’Auberville painting that’s missing,” Finian said.

  “The Garden Gallery.” Sister Cecilia took in a breath but managed to keep her composure. “I have a feeling Sister Joan saw something in the painting that troubled her.”

  “Do you think whatever she saw could have had to do with the convent?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Finian could hear waves rhythmically washing onto the rocks below the garden. “Living in a religious community requires a certain level of honesty and openness from all its members.”

  “A ‘joyful heart’ is also important to us.” Sister Cecilia smiled suddenly. “That’s one of the things that attracted me to the sisters here. We’re experiencing a great deal of tension and fear right now, because of what’s happened, but we’re not angry, frustrated women hiding from life.”

  Finian smiled at her. “You don’t have to convince me, Sister.”

  She smiled a little sheepishly back at him. “No, of course not.” She stopped at a simple copper folk-art angel that looked as if it had spent decades under a fir tree by the sea. “Mother Linden did at least a dozen different angeles, but each one is unique. They never fail to make me smile.”

  “Was she a painter as well as a sculptor?”

  “Yes, but she focused mostly on sculpture. She was strictly an amateur but we love her work here. We have a number of her paintings in the convent. She loved to paint the gardens and the ocean views.”

  “Are all of her paintings here?”

  “No, she gave many to friends.” Sister Cecilia picked a half-rotted apple from the middle of the path and flung it over the cliff, watching it disappear into the rocks and water below. “The missing painting isn’t Mother Linden’s work, and I doubt any of the paintings depicted in it are, either.”

  Speaking to him about the details of the past two days seemed to help the young novice, but Finian found himself interested in piecing together events, too. He thought of Ainsley d’Auberville proudly showing him her father’s former studio. “Are Jack d’Auberville’s paintings valuable?”

  “He’s more popular now than he was when he was alive. Some of us were talking last night—we’re not appraisers, of course, but we estimate a Jack d’Auberville painting in top-notch condition could fetch fifty to a hundred thousand dollars, depending on the subject. That can change, of course.”

  “His daughter is doing a combined show of their work,” Finian said.

  Sister Cecilia nodded. “That could add to the value, especially of undiscovered paintings.”

  Like the one stolen the other day, Finian thought.

  He followed Sister Cecilia down another path. She plucked a cheerful yellow flower from a stalk that had bent over the path and twirled the stem in her hand. She seemed more animated, more confident. “I’ve been so confused and frightened, Father. Faith and prayer help. It was never easy for me to talk to Sister Joan. She could be dismissive—at least, that’s how it felt. Maybe she was being protective, or testing me, as a novice. I didn’t know until last night, but Emma Sharpe was a novice here, too. Apparently Sister Joan had been rough on her, too.”

  “Were there ill feelings between them?”

  “The sisters who knew Emma—Agent Sharpe—then say it was loving tension. Sister Joan was an exacting spiritual adviser but she was as committed to our charism as any of us. It’s not her fault if Agent Sharpe’s novitiate period ended with her leaving. That’s not a failure.”

  “No, it’s not,” Finian said softly.

  “Wendell Sharpe and Mother Linden were friends. That was a problem for Sister Joan and I think ultimately for Sister Brigid—that was Agent Sharpe’s chosen name.”

  “Perhaps her personal connection to Mother Linden should have made the Sisters of the Joyful Heart off-limits.”

  “Perhaps so.”

  Sister Cecilia became quiet as they continued among dwarf fruit trees, Finian enjoying the silence, interrupted only by the sounds of far-off birds and the putter of a passing lobster boat at the mouth of the cove.

  Finally Sister Cecilia stopped by an outcropping of granite and turned to him. “I think Sister Joan was frightened, Father.” She spoke almost in a whisper. “I don’t think she feared for her own safety. I think she was worried—for us, for the convent. I wanted to talk to her but I was busy with my work, and I…I just didn’t.”

  “You’re young, and you’re relatively new to the community here,” Finian said. “It’s understandable if you were uncertain, even intimidated.”

  She rubbed a toe of her sturdy shoe against the gray rock. “I felt something was wrong but I didn’t know it for a fact.”

  “Do you think whatever was on her mind had to do with the missing painting?”

  “I do. Yes, definitely.” Sister Cecilia’s voice was stronger now, her face a bit less pale. “I was trying to decide what to do, whether to tell Mother Natalie, but I acted too late. If I’d acted sooner, maybe Sister Joan would be alive now.” She stared out at the choppy sea. “I wish I knew what I saw that morning. Who I saw. Any connection between our work here and violence won’t be good for us. For anyone.”

  “Focus on what you can do. Trust in your faith. Let it guide you to act with strength, courage and compassion.”

  “Easier said than done some days.”

  “I know,” Finian said.

  Sister Cecilia gave him a curious look, then said, “The medical examiner com
pleted the autopsy on Sister Joan. She died from a sharp blow to the back of her head. I pray constantly for the repose of her soul, Father. She’ll be buried here at the convent. The cemetery’s on the other side of the motherhouse. Mother Linden is buried there.” She paused. “I hope one day to be buried there.”

  “Not too soon, God willing,” Finian said.

  She laughed. “Thank you. It helps to talk to someone who didn’t know Sister Joan and isn’t involved in the investigation.” She let out a long breath. “Mother Natalie says never to fear the truth. We can’t shy away from the facts, whatever they are. I’ve told the police all I know.”

  “Have you told them what worries you? What keeps you awake?”

  Sister Cecilia tossed her flower over the ledge and didn’t answer.

  Finian decided not to press her. “As I said, Sister, you’re young. You’ll incorporate this experience into your life.”

  She glanced up at him. “You sound so sure.”

  He looked out at the Atlantic, picturing the miles of ocean between him and his homeland. He spoke quietly, his tone level, objective. “Before I became a priest, I had a wife and two daughters. My daughters would be young teenagers now.”

  Sister Cecilia gave a small gasp. “They died?”

  “Yes,” he said without flinching. “They’ve gone to God.”

  “I’m sorry. How long ago?”

  “It’s been seven years. I spent the first year after their deaths in a whiskey bottle. Then…”

  “God was there for you,” the young novice said quietly.

  “Always. I just didn’t see it for a time.”

  “Thank you for telling me, Father. I know you did it for me. Your Irish accent…” Sister Cecilia smiled, her obvious gentle and giving nature again shining in her eyes. “It makes everything seem a little better.”

  He laughed. “That makes my job easier. I can say anything in an Irish accent, and I’ll be brilliant.”

  Mother Natalie joined them. She seemed relieved to see the young woman in her charge smiling. Finian bid them good day and left them in the quiet garden. He found his way back through the maze of paths, satisfied that he’d come to the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. He felt no guilt whatsoever about his motives as he returned along a curving walk to the main gate and his BMW.