A Blind Eye (9 page)

More worldly types, Agnes among them, had seen the girl’s actions as the precursors of a troubled and ungodly life and had demanded that the young woman be exposed to mental health professionals. At the mere mention of one Dr. William Harkens, a psychologist from County Mental Health, both sisters blushed.

“He was a young man and rather good-looking.” While Veronica said the words as if in apology, Agnes was shaking her head. “What he was, sister”—she paused for effect—“what he
was
…was without his trousers.”

Once again, the facts of the story depended almost entirely upon the disposition of the teller. Some believed that the young psychologist had attempted to sexually compromise the young woman. This theory was borne out by the fact that he had insisted on being alone with Mary Anne during their therapy sessions, and it was permanently compounded when Sister Ellen, hearing odd noises emanating from Father Jonathan’s office, burst in to find both Mary Anne Moody and her therapist in a state of what she later described as “a palpable sexual tension and partial undress.”

Dr. Harkens claimed to have been the victim of a determined sexual assault by the young woman, whom he reckoned to be both wickedly wanton and wise to the particulars of passion in a manner most unseemly for a girl her age. Needless to say, the doctor was summarily removed from his position and the therapy sessions brought to an abrupt end.

“And that was the end of it?” Dougherty asked.

“Events intervened,” Veronica said.

“Miss Mary Anne Moody was what intervened,” her sister corrected.

The way Sister Agnes told it, the story seemed cutand-dried. Back in those days they used to hold Friday night Bingo over in the basement of the Parish House. Used to pack the place to the rafters and turn a substantial profit. The cash was entrusted to one Sister Alice Ignatius, who at that time was well into her eighties and prone to caching the cash in her room until the bank opened on Monday. On several occasions, owing to her advanced age, Sister Alice failed to recall exactly where it was she had stashed the cash. As her room was small and offered limited concealment possibilities, a quick shuffle by younger Sisters always produced both the wayward bundle and tears of thanks from Sister Alice.

“I’m telling you all this,” Agnes said, “because I want you to understand why some of our number were opposed to calling the authorities.”

“She means me,” Veronica added.

“We found her dead,” Agnes said, “one Saturday morning. At the bottom of the basement stairs.” She swallowed heavily. “She broke her neck.”

Corso stiffened. “And the Bingo money?”

“Never found,” said Agnes.

“How much money are we talking about?”

“Fifty-three hundred dollars.”

The sisters passed a look.

“What else?” Corso asked.

Sister Agnes drew in a breath and steeled herself. “Sister Alice Ignatius was found in a very compromising position,” she said finally.

“She could have just landed that way,” Veronica said.

“Never in a million years,” her sister said.

“What did the authorities think about how she was found?”

“Oh…we didn’t leave her like that,” Agnes said. “We couldn’t. We—”

“And the girl?”

“Gone.”

Corso couldn’t help himself. He looked at Veronica. She had removed her glasses and was wiping the lenses with a paper towel.

“Sister Alice was well along in years,” she said. “We thought perhaps Mary Anne had found the body or perhaps had been present when Sister Alice fell. We thought”—she waved a hand—“having lost her family and all…she may have been so traumatized by the event that she ran.”

“My sister looks at the world through rose-colored glasses,” Agnes said.

“Is a little compassion so wrong?” Veronica asked.

“When it’s misplaced, it is…yes.”

Corso interrupted. “So…because the Sister was so old. Because she had a history of misplacing the money.” He hesitated. “Some of your number didn’t believe there was necessarily a connection between Sister Alice’s death, the missing cash, and the sudden disappearance of Mary Anne Moody.”

“Believe it or not,” Agnes said.

Sister Veronica settled the glasses back onto her face. “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, sister,” she said in a singsong voice. “It may sound silly now, but…” She couldn’t find the words.

“Did she leave anything behind?”

“Sister Alice?” Veronica asked.

Agnes rolled her eyes. “He means the girl, sister.”

Veronica shook her head sadly. “No,” she said.

“Yes,” said Agnes. “As a matter of fact, she did.”

D
ougherty threw her bag onto the far bed. Looked around and sighed. “Am I crazy, or do all these damn hotel rooms look exactly alike?”

Corso shrugged. “I don’t even see them anymore,” he said. He unfolded the luggage stand and set his bag on top. “The Sisters sure were a trip,” he offered.

“No shit,” Dougherty said. “Kinda makes you wonder why people choose a life like that.”

Corso unzipped his bag. “I asked an old Shaker woman that once. Why she’d chosen a life of celibacy and religious devotion over a life in the regular world.”

“What’d she say?” Dougherty was stuffing clothes into the dresser drawers. Even if they were only staying for the night, she always unpacked and stowed her stuff. Corso, on the other hand, always lived out of his suitcase.

“She said she had the same desires as everybody else. Wanted kids and a family and all that happy horseshit.”

“Yeah?”

“Said she also had a desire to be closer to God. To live the life of the spirit rather than the life of the body. She told me she never really made up her mind. That all she was sure of was that she wouldn’t be able to do a good job of both. And that even when I was talking to her, sixty years later, she still wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision…only that she’d surely been forced to make the choice.”

“
Sophie’s Choice,
huh?”

Corso chuckled. “Something like that,” he said. From under his arm he retrieved a battered file folder. Legal sized, fastened by its own rubber tie. He tossed it on the bed before heading for the bathroom. “Don’t start without me,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Dougherty always got out of her outdoor clothes as soon as she arrived. Corso generally fell asleep wearing his boots. As she changed into a black sweatsuit, she heard the sound of water running in the bathroom and was reminded of how quickly Sister Veronica had begun to make busy work in the sink at the very mention of Mary Anne Moody’s drawings, and how, after Sister Agnes’s return from the basement, for the only time all evening the sisters had agreed on something, namely, that she and Corso should take the drawings with them, to better peruse at their leisure…
elsewhere
. Definitely elsewhere.

Corso emerged from the bathroom, wiping water from his face with a small white towel. He walked to Dougherty’s side. “Whatever’s in there, sure seemed like the good Sisters didn’t want to be around when we opened it,” he said.

“You want to do the honors?” Dougherty asked.

“Go ahead,” he said.

She moved slowly, sliding the rubber fastener off as if the folder might be wired to explode. Used only the tip of her finger to lift the lid. Corso peeked over her shoulder. Jammed inside were what appeared to be half a dozen sheets of rough paper, folded together in fourths. Dougherty slid them out, unfolded them, and smoothed the whole bundle out on the bedcover. Maybe two feet by two feet, the top drawing froze the breath in their throats. They stared open-mouthed until Dougherty broke the spell.

“This is too sick for words,” she said.

Some of it was very rudimentary, like the work of a much younger child. Stick figures. The lines dashed and violent. A house on fire. Engulfed in yellow and orange crayon. From one of the upstairs windows the letters read EEEEOOOOOW. In the foreground, a girl and a boy stick figure held hands, placidly watching the scene. Above them, a pair of angels rose into the sky.

The rest of the yard was taken up by graves and tombstones. Five of them. R.I.P. Their occupants lying atop the graves. Eyes x-ed out. Four men and a woman. It wasn’t hard to tell which was which because that’s where the drawings became much more realistically rendered, as even in death the male figures sported enormous red-tipped cocks, erect, rampant, and curving upward, their rendition so vibrant and alive they seemed nearly to tremble in their tumescence.

Dougherty peeled the top drawing from the pile. And then the next. And the next. Seven in all. Mostly the same as the first. Dead bodies, soaring angels, and huge cocks. Except for the last few. That’s where it really got ugly, as the male figures rose from the dead and used their enormous appendages on the female figure in a startling number of ways. Corso reached over and flipped the pages. At the top of the third drawing she had written in red crayon: “S’VILLE.” Along the right-hand margin of the final scene, a series of numbers were spaced out from top to bottom: 1 0 1 2 4.

Dougherty moved quickly now, refolding the pictures and fitting them back into the folder. Finished, she pulled her hands back as if the paper were hot to the touch.

“I don’t ever want to see those things again,” she said. She wrapped her hands around her middle. “That makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Hard to believe images like that didn’t give anybody a hint that there might be a problem brewing with this girl. Mighta saved that poor therapist his job.”

Dougherty’s tone sharpened. “That’s the Catholics for you,” she said. “Sweep it under the rug. Never admit to anything. Buy your way out of it if you have to. Just transfer pedophile priests from parish to parish where they can just keep on preying on kids year after year because everybody’s more worried about their damn image than they are about the kids.”

Corso checked the digital clock on the nightstand between the beds. Nine twenty-three. “You hungry?” he asked.

“No,” she snapped. Then changed her mind. “Yes,” she said.

Corso dialed twenty-two.

“Room service.”

Corso sat up with a start. For a long moment he had not the slightest inkling of where he was. Wasn’t until he heard the rustle of linens and saw the outline of Meg Dougherty tossing in her sleep that he remembered. The Hilton. Allentown, Pennsylvania. He checked the clock: 1:01
A
.
M
. He sat on the edge of the bed and whispered the time to himself as if reciting a litany. And then, out of the blue, he had it. A voice in his head asked: “What if it’s a zip code?” Confused for a moment, he lay back on the bed and closed his eyes. Next thing he knew, he was snapping on the light. Dougherty rolled over, scowling at the glare. He picked up the phone, dialed 0.

“Front desk.” Female voice. Under thirty. Slight accent.

“I need a favor.”

“What kind of favor, sir?”

“You guys have computers down there, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You on the Internet?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I have a zip code. I want to know what town it belongs to.”

He heard her sigh. “Sir…I’m not sure…at this time of night…”

“What’s your name?” Corso said.

He could feel her discomfort. “Denise,” she said finally.

“Tell you what, Denise. You find out where this zip code belongs, and I’ll give you a hundred bucks. How’s that sound?”

“What’s the number, sir?”

He told her. Took nine minutes before the knock on the door. Denise was a chubby little Hispanic woman in red hotel livery. She handed Corso a folded piece of paper; he handed her a crisp hundred-dollar bill. They managed a weak mutual smile before Corso moved his foot and the door swung shut.

Corso walked back into the room to find Dougherty awake, propped up on her elbow. “Had one of your brainstorms, huh?”

Corso nodded. “I was asleep. In my dream, I could hear the numbers being chanted by a bunch of kids. Like school. Like somebody was making them memorize the thing.” He shrugged. He knew better than to try to explain the Muse. People either thought he was losing his mind or expected him to be able to call her to task at will. Never occurred to them there was a reason why the Muse was always a woman.

“So…what’s the verdict?” Dougherty asked.

Corso unfolded the paper. Looked over at Dougherty. “Smithville, New Jersey.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Me neither,” Corso said. “Which is pretty weird, considering how much time I spent in the area. You asked me yesterday, I’d have said I’d heard of just about every place in Jersey. It’s not all that damn big.”

“You think she capped the nun, don’t you?” Dougherty said.

“Yeah,” Corso answered immediately. “I’d bet a finger on it.”

Dougherty wrinkled her face. “What kind of person kills a nun?” She scooted down in the bed and pulled the blanket over her shoulder. “How do you go to sleep at night after you pushed an eighty-year-old nun down a flight of stairs?”

“You gotta really not give a shit” was all Corso could think to say.

S
arah Fulbrook straddled her bicycle and looked down at her younger sister. Emily knelt awkwardly in the gravel as she fumbled with the clothespin-and-playing-card apparatus she was using to make her new bike sound like it had a motor.

“Will you come on,” Sarah said. “You’re such a spaz.”

“A minute,” the younger girl said, trying to adjust the wooden pin she’d taped to the frame of her bike. The tape had loosened during the three-mile ride from the house and no longer held the playing card in the spokes properly.

“We got to get to Mama May’s before it gets dark,” the older girl said. “Hurry up.”

“I got a light,” the little girl said proudly. She flattened her lips and pulled with all her might. The wad of tape did not move.

“Swear to god, I’ll leave you out here,” Sarah said.

“You leave me out here, Mama will kill you.”

“I’m not afraid of her.”

The little girl stopped what she was doing and looked around. “You better watch out,” she said, scanning the surrounding trees for movement. “She’ll hear.”

“What’s your problem?” Sarah demanded.

“Mama hears everything,” Emily said.

“Bullshit.”

“I’m gonna tell.”

“You tell…I’ll make you wish you didn’t.”

Again the little girl checked the area. This time looking for an ally rather than a spy. Her threat to tattle was hollow, and they both knew it. Tattling on Sarah was not a good idea. You only had to cross Sarah once to find out why.

“What’s with you?” Sarah demanded. “Mama’s back at the house. She’s not a witch or nothing. She don’t see all and know all. She just says that so’s we’ll do what she says. She does it to Papa too.”

Emily was unconvinced. “You’re just mad ’cause she cut off your hair,” she said.

Sarah dismounted her bike and threw it to the ground. Emily tried to scoot off on her butt. The older girl was too quick for her, landing on her knees first, driving the air from her body. Emily hiccuped for breath and watched helplessly as her older sister jerked the playing card from her hand and tore it to pieces, then held it above her quivering head and let it fall into her hair like paper rain.

“You get on that bike, you hear me?”

Sarah got to her feet, picked the little girl up by her pigtails, and set her on her feet.

“Get on the damn bike,” she said.