Bad Faith (16 page)

S
ister Agatha opened the parlor door. “What can we do S for you, Sheriff?”

“I’m taking Postulant Celia with me to the police station for questioning,” he said flatly.

For a moment she stared at him in muted shock. “But I explained what that would mean to her. You can’t.”

“I can as long as I’m wearing this badge,” he said tapping his chest. “Now bring the young woman here and call Reverend Mother and anyone else you want in on this.”

“Are you charging her?”

“Not yet. I just want her in for questioning.”

“But why?”

“I’ve followed every single lead I had, even those out in left field, such as students pulling a practical joke. But now, Celia, for several reasons, has jumped to the top of my list. I want her at the station where I can guarantee no one will interfere with her questioning. You can call an attorney and have him present during questioning if you want.”

“If you haul Celia down to the police station, you’re going to choke the life out of this monastery. Word will spread, and even if she’s eventually cleared of suspicion, no one—including our benefactors—will ever trust any of us again.”

“It can’t be helped.”

“Since I handled the alb that day, too, I assume you’ll want me to go to the station as well?”

“No. Celia’s the one I want. She fits the profile better. I’ve looked into her background. Her mother’s a fruitcake. There’s no telling what Celia’s really like inside.”

“Celia’s mother is a very nice woman,
not
a fruitcake.”

“She’s a religious zealot. We both went to high school with her, remember, when her last name was Chandler. She’s changed a lot since then. How long has it been since you visited Ruth Moore?”

Sister Agatha didn’t answer because she didn’t want to admit it had been more than a decade. Ruth had dropped out of high school her senior year to have the baby, and, after that, their lives had gone in different directions.

“That’s what I thought. I bet it has been years. Believe me, she’s changed. Really changed.”

“Please don’t take Celia out of the monastery. If you do, you’ll undermine everything she’s worked for these last few months. Let’s make a deal.”

“What do you mean, a deal?” The sheriff’s eyes narrowed.

Sister Agatha knew Celia had a chance now. She’d better not blow it for her. “Interview her here, now, but through the grille. Except for the setting, would it be any different from questioning her at the station? You weren’t going to lock her in a cell first, were you?”

“Not yet.”

“Then we can do it here. What other requirements do you have?”

“If I
agree to interview her here instead, I want a guarantee that I can talk to her one to one—with her attorney present, of course, should she decide she needs a lawyer.”

“That’s irregular, but I think it can be arranged. Have a seat, and let me talk to Reverend Mother. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She walked down the corridor and found Sister Bernarda in the scriptorium. She asked the extern to keep an eye outside in case anyone else came up to the parlor.

“Something’s happened, hasn’t it?” Sister Bernarda asked, quickly putting the manuscripts she was working on into the safe.

“It’s not good,” she answered quietly. Seeing Sister Mary Lazarus and Celia had also returned and were working at the far end of the room, she lowered her voice until it became a barely discernible whisper. “What are they working on?”

“A recipe archive for a magazine.”

“That’s not terribly valuable. Instead of locking up their work as well as yours if you have to go to the parlor, do you think we could let them continue working? I know we’ll be violating the insurance rules if neither of us is present while they work, but we’re so far behind.”

“All right. If I have to go, I’ll leave what they need out, and lock up the rest, particularly the valuable manuscripts, in the safe.”

Leaving Sister Bernarda to her work, Sister Agatha approached the novice and the postulant. “We’d like you to keep working if Sister Bernarda has to step out to the parlor. We’ll leave what you’ll need to continue on your desks. The rest will be locked up as usual.”

“If you leave the safe open, Mother Mistress, I can start on something else if Sister is delayed,” Sister Mary Lazarus suggested.

“We can’t do that. Should you finish your current project, start working on the readings you’ve been assigned as part of your instruction,” Sister Agatha said.

She saw frustration flash in Sister Mary Lazarus’s eyes but, without being reminded of her vow of obedience, the novice nodded. Sister Agatha went to the door, then stopped and looked back.

If they only knew what lay ahead nothing else, including their deadlines, would seem quite so important. The clarity of mind all nuns needed, especially those in formation, was about to be shattered.

Reverend Mother turned her back on Sister Agatha and faced the crucifix on the wall. “I don’t want any of our sisters taken out of the monastery. Not when we still have a legal leg to stand on. If they don’t have a court order authorizing them to remove her, Celia can be questioned right here.”

“We really need to call an attorney, Mother. It’ll be for Celia’s protection, and ours too.”

“I’ll make the necessary phone call myself. Tell Sheriff Green that if he’ll talk to Celia here in our monastery, we’ll do our best to meet his other conditions and not interfere.”

Sister Agatha could hear the fear in Reverend Mother’s voice. The abbess had given her life to this monastery. She hadn’t chosen the office of prioress, she’d been elected to it, and would continue to hold it as long as she was needed in that role. But the weight of shouldering all the worries of running the monastery, particularly lately, could be seen clearly in the lines of fatigue on Reverend Mother’s face. The dark circles under her eyes suggested she wasn’t sleeping well.

As Sister Agatha returned to the parlor, her thoughts turned to the other members of her order. If the monastery was forced to close down, she wasn’t sure the elderly nuns like Sister Clothilde or even Sister Gertie would survive the upheaval. The realization that the innocent would pay as much as the victim, or the guilty, made her heart ache.

Somehow, she had to find the truth and then, together, they’d find the strength to deal with the aftermath.

One hour later, John Bruno, an attorney provided by the archdiocese, sat with Sister Agatha and Celia in the inner parlor.

Bruno, preparing Celia, firmly advised her to answer the questions simply and to avoid volunteering any information. Celia had tried to reassure him that she was in no danger because she was innocent of any crimes, but he’d held firm and Celia had agreed.

Once he felt Celia was ready, John Bruno went out to the outer parlor and met with the sheriff. Celia remained on the other side of the grille and waited for the men to come to her.

Sister Agatha stood farther down the hall. She’d been ordered not to interfere, but she was afraid for the postulant. Yet, despite the circumstances, Celia seemed calm and remarkably self-possessed.

Minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness as Sister Agatha forced herself to retreat into the scriptorium and try to do some work while giving Tom the privacy he’d demanded. Everything about this seemed wrong. A postulant shouldn’t have been talking to outsiders, but the police business took precedence now.

Trying to think of something that would help point the sheriff’s investigation back toward an intruder—the direction she firmly believed would lead to the killer—she mentally went over everything she remembered about the days leading up to, and including, the day Father Anselm died.

She recalled that morning, before he arrived with the food donations, visualizing everything she’d seen or heard. Then she’d met with Sister Bernarda in the outer parlor.

As she went over her routine, she suddenly recalled the enigmatic note she’d found in the turn. At the time she’d assumed it was simply a teenager facing a breakup, but now, knowing what had happened afterward, she wondered if perhaps the author of the note had given them an important warning—one much more ominous than she’d ever dreamed. The first time she got the chance, she’d have to tell the sheriff about that possibility.

Finally, almost ninety minutes later, Celia came to get her and she put her thoughts about the note aside for the moment.

“How did it go?” Sister Agatha asked quickly. Celia looked tired, but was still composed.

“It was difficult Sheriff Green wanted to know things I couldn’t answer, like where monkshood grows, what my relationship to Father was … that kind of thing.” The postulant kept her head down while speaking.

“And what did you answer?”

“I don’t know where monkshood grows, but I can probably find out in any library. And Father was the parish priest in our community, so he heard my confession from time to time, but I don’t think you can call that a relationship,”

“Was that all? Surely those few questions didn’t take such a long time,” she pressed.

“The sheriff would focus on some aspect of my answer, then question me even harder. When I told him about confession, for example, he then asked me if I was afraid Father knew me too well.” She shook her head and sighed.

“What did you say to that?” Sister Agatha studied her expression carefolly, but Celia remained calm.

“I told him the truth. Some of the things I said to Father were very embarrassing, but everything was under the seal of the confessional, and I knew he’d never say anything.”

“So you insisted that Father never made you nervous at all?” Sister Agatha challenged.

“No, I couldn’t say that,” she answered. “The truth is that I
was
afraid that if he recognized me, he wouldn’t think I was worthy of being a member of this monastery. He wouldn’t have said anything, I know, but what worried me was that he might not be able to hide his feelings. The other nuns would eventually begin to wonder why he didn’t like me, and maybe start to question if I should be here at all. Since the entire monastery has to agree that my monastic vocation fits in with our order and with this community before I become a permanent member of this monastery, I was afraid that he would inadvertently make things difficult for me.” Celia met her gaze directly. “But I would
never
have harmed Father in any way.”

Sister Agatha watched the postulant. Instinct told her that Celia was still holding something back.

“Oh—I nearly forgot. Mr. Bruno asked that you join him in the parlor,” Celia said at last.

“Go to the chapel, Celia. You need peace and prayer to refocus your thoughts. Ask the Lord to help us all.”

As Celia left for the chapel, Sister hurried back to the parlor. John Bruno was waiting for her just inside the inner parlor. Although Mr. Bruno had been given permission to enter their enclosure, she knew it wasn’t something he did lightly. In this case, she suspected he wanted to say something to her before she saw the sheriff.

As she approached him, his somber expression warned her that there was more bad news to come. “The sheriff has nothing conclusive on the postulant, but had enough probable cause to get a warrant to search the monastery itself, and not just the grounds.” Hearing the sound of vehicles coming down the drive, he went to the window. “Apparently he’s now ready to execute it. Go tell your abbess.”

Sister Agatha hurried to get Reverend Mother. With every step, she tried to gather her courage. Failing, she stopped a few feet from Mother’s office and leaned against the wall, fighting the tears that threatened to fall. Despite her training, despite her efforts, she’d failed Reverend Mother and the sisters thus far.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder. Sister Agatha turned her head and saw Sister Ignatius smiling gently at her. Following the dictate that held that charity was to be valued above the rule of silence, the same dictum that allowed the infirmarian and her patients to speak freely, she leaned closer to Sister Agatha’s ear.

“Your Charity, remember the story of Elisha. He was hopelessly outnumbered, and to mortal eyes his situation looked grim. But he knew he was safe with God and confidently assured his frightened servant, ‘Fear not; for there are more with us than with them.’ At that moment, his servant’s eyes were opened and he saw that chariots of fire were all around Elisha. So remember, my dear, no matter how it seems, with God on our side, we can’t be defeated. As a teacher of mine used to say, ‘One with God is always a majority.’ “

Before Sister Agatha could draw in a steadying breath to reply, Sister Ignatius continued down the hall.

Sister Agatha stood up straight and took a deep breath. With Sister Ignatius’s words ringing in her mind, she knocked lightly on Reverend Mother’s door.

Sister Agatha told Reverend Mother what had happened.

“Let them come, child. The rest of us will go to our stalls in chapel. There, secure in our own seats in choir, we’ll pray while they search to their hearts’ content. We’ll take our troubles to Him. Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament always brings us many graces. Can you and Sister Bernarda look after our visitors while they’re here?”

“Mother, we’ll do everything in our power to stay with them each step of the way.”

The search team descended like a plague of locusts—or cockroaches, depending on how charitable one felt. As they scattered, each going in separate directions, Sister Bernarda and she hurried to talk to John Bruno.

“We’d like to go with them. Is that legal?”

“You can’t interfere, but you can go with them, watch, and even take notes if you want.”

Sister Agatha went with the teams that were searching the cells while Sister Bernarda accompanied the deputies looking in the scriptorium, the kitchen, and storage areas.

Each nun’s assigned cell was searched thoroughly, including hers and Sister Bernarda’s. The deputies found nothing, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Outrage filled Sister Agatha as Sheriff Green searched Mother’s cell. Forced not to interfere, she watched him look beneath the abbess’s mattress, then study her writing pad. Finally he upturned the Bible on her table, scattering holy cards all over the surface.