Bad Faith

by Aimée; David Thurlo

  “This must be so hard on you, Frances. Is there anything I can do to help?” Sister Agatha asked her softly.

  “Just keep me in your prayers along with Father Anselm, Sister.”

  “Of course.”

  Tying back a strand of brown hair that had worked itself loose from the bun at the nape of her neck, the housekeeper led Sister to the kitchen and offered her a glass of iced tea.

  Frances sat down wearily, her massive bulk filling the chair completely. “I think you should know that the diocese called a little while ago to tell me that Father Mahoney is being sent to us from a parish in Santa Fe until a permanent assignment is made.”

  “When is Father Mahoney supposed to arrive?”

  “Sometime tonight. I thought I’d wait until he got here so he’ll feel welcomed. I just hope he decides to keep me as a housekeeper. Father Anselm liked the way I did things, but everyone’s different. Maybe Father Mahoney won’t like my cooking or the way I keep house.”

  “Hey, if he doesn’t like the way you cook, send him over to the monastery. Once he tastes our meals, he’s bound to think that you’re a gift from heaven. And as for your housekeeping, you’re the best housekeeper I’ve ever met. A person could eat off the floor here.” She sipped her tea, glad for an excuse to linger.

  “If you get lonely and want to see me, call and I’ll come by,” Sister Agatha offered.

  “I will. Right now, it’s good to have someone here, if only for a while.”

  “The rectory sure seems empty without Father Anselm, doesn’t it?”

  Frances nodded. “It was chaotic earlier, with the sheriff’s people looking around. I overheard some of the deputies talking, and it seems the police believe he was murdered. But who would have done such a thing?” she said.

  “Do they have a suspect yet?” Sister Agatha asked.

  “No, not according to what I heard. Anyone who saw him that morning, including the monastery sisters, is probably a suspect. And apparently the mayor is bearing down on the sheriff, insisting that he solve this before the Sheriff’s Posse Rodeo, a big charity event three weeks from now.” She paused and shook her head. “Talk about strange priorities!”

  “I suppose …”

  “I heard other gossip, too, that worries me. Some of the Protestant clerics are worried that the killer might be someone with a grudge against religious leaders.”

  “I hope not,” Sister Agatha said, exhaling softly, “but we’ll have to wait and see what the police uncover. The sheriff spoke to us at the monastery right after Father Anselm died, but I don’t think we were of much help to him. Now that it seems Father’s death was not accidental, I’m sure he’ll be back with more questions. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm Father?”

  “No, and I’ve been giving that some serious thought. Father made people angry sometimes, because he’d forget his appointments, but that’s surely not motive enough for murder.”

  “It’s hard to say what motivates a killer.” Sister Agatha stood and rinsed her glass in the sink. “Just don’t worry about Father Mahoney. I’m sure he’ll love your work.”

  As she drove back to the monastery, questions circled her mind like hungry wolves. Nothing made sense. Poor Father Anselm had undoubtedly annoyed some people from time to time, but then again, so did she—and on a regular basis. If the ability to be irritating was sufficient motive for murder, a lot of people would have been as dead as doornails.

  As she reached the empty, open stretch of road between Bernalillo and the turnoff to the monastery, Sister turned the grip on the right handlebar toward her, increasing the speed. Her arthritic wrist protested, but driving the bike was such a treat she decided it was a small price to pay. Engine roaring, she raced down the road, the bottom of her veil flying in the wind and memories of her brother’s laughter ringing in her mind. The alfalfa fields absorbed some of the sound of the bike’s passage, and she could tell without looking whenever she passed a telephone pole because the pitch of the engine sound changed for an instant each time.

  It was heaven. Nothing could have been more perfect. She could almost feel Kevin beside her. Suddenly the wail of a police siren rose in the air behind her. Sister’s blood ran cold. If she ended up getting a speeding ticket, Reverend Mother would pin her hide to the wall.

  She slowed down and pulled over, then removed her helmet as the white sheriff’s department vehicle parked behind her.

  Sheriff Tom Green got out of his unit and walked toward her. She couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t holding anything in his hands, so maybe he didn’t plan on writing her a ticket. But as he drew near and she saw the look on his face, she felt her mouth go dry.

  “Sheriff,” she said, and wasn’t surprised to hear the unsteadiness in her voice.

  “I’m glad I saw you, Sister. Rather than having me call the monastery and leave a message for Reverend Mother with the portress, it would save time if you would convey a message to her,” he said somberly. “Preliminary toxicology tests have confirmed the medical investigator’s theory that Father Anselm was poisoned. His death is now being considered a homicide.”

  “What kind of poison was used? And how much time would it have needed to work?” She hoped with all her heart to hear news that would make it impossible for any of the nuns to be considered suspects.

  “It was a powerful extract of monkshood, which is a relatively common plant. It has a blue or white, cap-shaped flower and the root is ofteń mistaken for a radish. Death can occur anywhere between ten minutes to a few hours after exposure, and symptoms show up right away.”

  “Could it have been an accident? Something in a salad he might have eaten earlier? Sometimes he had an early lunch. Anyone know what he ate?”

  “He had a grilled cheese sandwich and an orange. No salad or greens.”

  “Oh.” She thought of how carefully Sister Clothilde tended their garden and shook her head. “The medical investigator looked at all of our plants. There wasn’t anything like that there or he would have spotted it.” She paused thoughtfully.She didn’t want to ask the next question, but there was no way around it. “Did you analyze the tea he drank?”

  “Yes, but it contained only the herbs you’d mentioned.”

  The relief that swept through her was so intense her legs nearly buckled.

  “I brought the list of the parishioners who attended Mass that morning. Were any omitted?” He held out a page of his pocket notebook so she could read the carefully recorded names.

  She read the list twice. “It looks accurate to me. There are usually only a few on weekdays, as you can see. I remember seeing elderly Mrs. Gutierrez, Joan Sanchez, whose husband died a few months ago, and Anne Gellar, for certain. Also Frank Walters, who helps us with our computers. He doesn’t come every day, but he was there that morning.”

  He nodded slowly. “All right. I’ll interview each of them now that I know what killed the father. Maybe somebody saw or heard something useful.”

  “I better get going,” Sister Agatha said, reaching for the helmet she’d hooked on the handlebars as they talked.

  “I can’t believe you’re riding that thing wearing a habit.”

  “We need transportation and this was all that was available. I can’t exactly wear jeans and a leather jacket anymore. I’m just thankful that the helmet fits.”

  Tom stared at his feet for a moment, then cleared his throat. “What you’ve become seems so strange now after knowing you all these years. Don’t you miss your freedom?” Tom asked.

  “I’m as free as I want to be. Can you say the same? Freedom is the ability to make the choices you know are right for you. I know I’m doing precisely what I was put here on Earth to do. The sense of purpose my vocation gives me is incredible.”

  Tom shook his head. “I’ll never understand what drove you to become a nun.”

  “A religious vocation is an invitation from God, not a punishment or an escape route. We’re free to turn it down, but when we answ
er it we’re rewarded with an incredible sense of peace.” She paused, seeing the skepticism on his face. “It’s hard to explain, but let me put it this way. You’re a sheriff. That’s what you do, and even on bad days you know you’re exactly where you should be. You wouldn’t be as happy, say, as a real estate broker, would you?” Seeing him shake his head, she continued. “That’s the way I feel about being a nun.”

  “If you say so.” He nodded, turned, and walked back to his car without another word.

  Tom’s expression had told her clearly that his mind had remained closed. It saddened her. She would have welcomed his friendship, but some things were not meant to be.

  The bell for Vespers, the evening prayer, was ringing as she arrived at the monastery’s outer parlor ten minutes later. “Go to chapel, Your Charity,” Sister Agatha said to Sister Bernarda, choosing the monastic term their order used in lieu of a name at times, or instead of simply saying “you.” It was a sign of love for another who had also chosen to be a Bride of Christ.

  “Mother’s asked us all to meet outside by the statue of the Blessed Virgin for Divine Office, though she wouldn’t say why.”

  “Then go join them. You deserve it. You’ve put in long hours as portress today. I can lock up here after Vespers.”

  “You’ve been working as long as I have, and Reverend Mother wants to see you as soon as possible,” Sister Bernarda responded.

  Since Reverend Mother had already moved the Liturgy of the Hours outside, it was clear that she already suspected what Sister Agatha would have to say. “I’ll catch up to her after Divine Office.”

  As Sister Bernarda left, Sister Agatha said her prayers in Pater Nosters. The musical sounds of the nuns’ chanting flowed through the monastery windows like an old violin in the hands of a master. Afterward, Sister Agatha closed and locked the front doors. The monastery wouldn’t be open to visitors again until the following morning.

  As she walked to the refectory for collation, the term for a simple dinner, she wondered if she’d be able to protect any of them from what lay ahead. If, as the sheriff had told her earlier, Father Anselm had been deliberately poisoned, then the killer’s trail might lead directly to them. He’d said that symptoms from poisoning with that particular herb began almost immediately, which suggested he could have ingested the monkshood extract just before or during Mass. One possible explanation was that an intruder had gained access to the monastery, and while there, slipped Father Anselm the poison somehow. Knowing what she did about the sisters at Our Lady, that was the only theory that made sense.

  She didn’t meet with Reverend Mother until after collation. As she left the refectory, she saw Reverend Mother waiting for her by the side door leading to the garden. “Join me for my walk, child.” Once they were away from the building, she added, ‘Tell me what you’ve learned today.”

  After she filled Reverend Mother in, silence stretched between them. Following the prioress’s lead, Sister Agatha sat down on one of the benches near the statue of the Blessed Virgin and watched a pin jay dart among the trees, screeching loudly. The vivid blue birds were the prettiest—and the loudest—of all the creatures that visited their garden.

  “I need you to do something for our monastery, child,” Reverend Mother said at long last. “Help Sheriff Green find the answers he needs as quickly as possible—whether or not he wants your help. Sister Bernarda can take over your duties as portress and, if necessary, she can also get our novice and postulant to help with whatever scriptorium duties you think they can handle. We need you now to use those skills you developed as a reporter to find the truth and restore our peace.”

  “Whatever I can do, I will, Reverend Mother.”

  “I knew I could count on you. Begin your work with the blessing of God.” Reverend Mother stood up slowly as if she were shouldering the weight of the world, and continued her walk alone.

  Sister Agatha watched her go, lost in thought.

  “I’m very worried about Reverend Mother,” Sister Eugenia said, joining Sister Agatha at the bench. The loyalty and love that every single nun in the monastery felt for Mother made it hard for them to see her so worried now. “As infirmarian, it’s my job to make sure everyone stays healthy, but Reverend Mother barely touched her food today. I offered to bring her something to eat later, but she refused.”

  “She’s worried about our future here. Father Anselm’s death and its ramifications have hit her very hard.”

  “While you were gone this afternoon, she warned us that we might have the police underfoot again. The archbishop’s office called to say that they may be forced to grant us permission to allow the sheriff to enter our enclosure.”

  “Then you know why she’s worried.”

  “I’m certain that Sheriff Green is a reasonable man. He’ll see we’re not responsible for what happened, and will soon be looking elsewhere.”

  Sister Agatha didn’t answer. She really wished she could share Sister Eugenia’s optimism, but in truth, she was afraid of what lay ahead for all of them.

  Before Compline, Reverend Mother gathered them together in the parlor to break the news that they wouldn’t be able to offer prayers in their chapel for the time being. The chapel would have to remain closed until it could be rededi-cated and reconsecrated by either the bishop or someone he delegated. No prayer could be said to God in a place that had been tainted by a murder. And although there was no proof the priest had been given the poison in the chapel, he’d certainly died there, and there were enough unanswered questions surrounding his death to cause the rule to go into effect.

  The older sisters, like Sister Clothilde and Sister Ignatius, took it as hard as Sister Agatha had expected. A change in their lives had come about suddenly, and in a place where things always remained constant—where the years never left a mark except on the faces of those who dwelled in the enclosure—it marked the beginning of the many trials that were yet to come.

  The Great Silence that had begun after Compline now held the monastery in perfect stillness except for the random creaking of the building itself and the song of the crickets outside the walls. The nuns had gone to their cells, the name given to their simple sleeping quarters. As extern sisters, Sister Bernarda and Sister Agatha had cells toward the front of the monastery, near the parlor doors. In case of a crisis, they were immediately available to reach the telephone in the parlor to summon help and to open the doors to a doctor or emergency personnel.

  In some monasteries externs had sleeping quarters outside the cloister, but she was glad that wasn’t the rule here. Many were the tasks that separated the extern sisters from the choir nuns—a term synonymous with cloistered nuns and used as far back as anyone could remember. It, more than likely, had been taken from the name given to the cloistered and grated sections of a monastery chapel, called choir. Yet despite the differences in duties, unity of purpose defined and bonded all the sisters. They spent their whole lives living together, and what bound their souls together was a common purpose and love as unbreakable as steel.

  Sister Agatha looked up at the simple wooden cross above her bed, said a quick prayer, then crawled into bed. She soon drifted into a peaceful sleep.

  Sometime in the middle of the night, Sister Agatha suddenly awakened, certain that she had heard the muted creak of a door opening or closing.

  Nuns were required to sleep in their habits. Only their belts were taken off and their veils replaced by shorter ones. It was monastic rule, but it was also eminently practical in emergencies.

  Without reaching for either her belt or other veil, she stepped out into the hall. A figure wearing the short white veil of a novice was going around the corner.

  She sighed. Sister Mary Lazarus was sleepwalking again. As novice mistress, she understood that it was a tense time for Mary Lazarus, even without the strains of being entangled in a murder investigation. In a few months she’d be taking her first vows, should she choose to remain at the monastery. Her two years as a novice were nearly up.


  Yet Sister Agatha had a feeling based on the ones who had come and gone from the monastery in the past, that Mary Lazarus wouldn’t remain. She’d come to them a few years after the death of her husband, at age thirty-six. Now, after three years with them, the idealistic views about religious life that most postulants and novices clung to were far behind her. In the last six months, Sister Agatha had sensed that Mary Lazarus had begun to question her vocation, and was finding the demands of their life here increasingly burdensome.

  Her uneasiness and restlessness were evidenced by her recent and frequent sleepwalking episodes. The doctor had assured them that there was nothing inherently dangerous about them, especially since Mary Lazarus always seemed to follow the same path—one with few hazards. She’d go directly to the kitchen—no matter how much she’d eaten at collation the evening before.

  Sometimes the novice had walked in her sleep and neither Sister Agatha nor Sister Bernarda had woken up. Those mornings Sister Clothilde would find tortillas missing, and then Mary Lazarus would confess to having “found” them in her cell. They’d all smiled about it, and had tried not to embarrass Mary Lazarus.

  Of course when one of the externs did wake up in time, they’d try to gently direct Mary Lazarus back to her room. Tonight that duty fell to Sister Agatha.

  She caught up with Mary Lazarus in the pantry. The novice simply stood there, holding a tortilla in her hand. Without breaking silence, or trying to take the tortilla away from her, Sister Agatha led the wandering novice back to her cell and put her back into bed.

  The sisters’ cell doors had no locks, so there was no practical way to keep Mary Lazarus in her room. Putting obstacles in front of a door that opened by swinging to the inside was practically a guarantee that a tumble would follow.

  Sister Agatha waited in the hall, watching the novice for a minute. Mary Lazarus seemed to be sleeping peacefully.