The Mother's Day Murder (4 page)

A muffled response came from inside.

“Time to get up,” I said.

“Oh. Sorry. I guess I overslept. I’ll be down in a few minutes. Is your husband still here?”

“He’s gone.”

“Good.”

I knew what she meant. If only I were home, she could come down in her robe or nightgown. If Jack was still here, she would have to dress. I had fixed up the bathroom for her, covering the mirror as my aunt had covered it for me all the years that I visited here. I had set out towels and a wash cloth and made sure the sink and bathtub were good and clean. Eddie uses that bathroom and his etiquette still leaves something to be desired.

I went downstairs and set a place for her. A few minutes later, she came down and sat at the kitchen table.

“Thank you. This looks very nice.”

“Anything special you’d like? Eggs? An English muffin?”

“An English muffin sounds wonderful.” She sounded very enthusiastic, as though it were a special treat.

I had made extra coffee and when the muffin was ready, I poured for both of us. I enjoy a last cup of coffee after the morning whirlwind is over and I decided to take it with Tina.

Since she had overslept, I knew she had not said her morning prayers, but it wasn’t up to me to keep her in
line. Having left St. Stephen’s, she might well never go back. It was surely one of the things she was going to think about.

“I have plans for today, Tina,” I told her as she buttered her muffin.

“Sure.”

“Eddie and I will be gone for several hours. Can you stay alone or is there something you’d like to do?”

“I think I’d like to be alone. Is that all right with you?”

“It’s fine. I’ll be leaving within the hour. I can leave you a can of tuna for your lunch. There’s celery and mayonnaise in the refrigerator, milk, juice, coffee—whatever you’d like. Do you think you’ll be going out?”

“What do you mean? Like for a walk?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. Do I need a key?”

“Not if you stay close to home.” Actually, we lived in a pretty safe area but I’m married to a policeman and he has great concerns about security, especially where his family is involved.

“I might go out back, if that’s all right with you. I just want to think in quiet.”

“Out back is fine. There are chairs to sit on and no one will see you.”

“Good. I’ll do that.”

My plans for the day were to drop off Eddie at my babysitter, Elsie Rivers, who is a kind of surrogate grandmother for Eddie, having been my mother’s dearest friend when I was a child. I was then going into New York to see if I could talk to Sister Jane Anthony. Before I woke Tina, I had found a J. A. Cirillo in the phone book for Manhattan. The address was in the West Village. I had called the
number and a woman had answered on the second ring. I made up my mind, not with the most complete information, that she probably didn’t go off to work or she would have left by the time of my call. I might well be wrong but if she wasn’t there, I had time to kill and I could talk to the superintendent of her building or the doorman, as the case might be.

“Chris?”

I was slightly startled from my thinking. “Can I get you something?”

“Are you going to see Sister Joseph today?”

“No, I’m not. I told you I wouldn’t till you decided what you want to do.”

“Thank you.” She smiled a quick smile. “I guess you have other things in your life besides my problems.”

I smiled back without answering. She was right; I did. But not today, and I didn’t want to tell her that.

4

When I left the house, Tina was dressed, her bed was made, and the sun was shining. On the way to the car, I showed her where the outdoor chairs were and helped her set one up on the grass. She assured me she would be fine and I had the feeling she was relieved that I wasn’t going to be around. I got Eddie into his carseat, and we took off.

It was after eleven when I got to the address for J. A. Cirillo. The building was old and large. I rang her bell but there was no answer. A man came out of the lobby as I stood outside waiting and he held the door for me, but I refused to go in. If she wasn’t home, I would ring the super’s bell and see what I could find out from him. I pressed her bell once more and started looking for the super’s bell when the buzzer sounded. I dashed over, pushed the door open, and went inside.

Like many old buildings, it was dark inside. I found the elevator and took it upstairs. In contrast to the rest of the building, it was new and practically sailed up the shaft. I got off on five and found her apartment. She hadn’t asked who was ringing when I was downstairs so I didn’t know what to expect. A moment later she opened the door and I knew I had found the right person.

She frowned. “Who are you? I was expecting someone else.”

“I was Sister Edward Frances at St. Stephen’s. I’d like to talk to you.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s weird. Yes, I remember you, the little girl who came in from the cold. Come in. I don’t know how long I can talk to you. Who gave you my address?”

“I found it in the phone book.” I walked into her living room, which looked as though my son had used it and forgotten to put away his toys. But there was a chair to sit on and Jane Anthony sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette.

“I gather you’re not at St. Stephen’s anymore either.”

“I left a few years ago.”

“I remember you very well. You came to us on a dark and stormy night.”

I smiled. It was an accurate description. “And I stayed for fifteen years.”

“Didn’t you used to take trips back to your family on a regular basis?”

I was surprised she remembered. “Yes, I did. I have a retarded cousin that I was anxious to keep up with. I see him frequently now. We live in the same town.”

“Anyone ever talk about me after I was gone?”

“As a matter of fact, they didn’t talk about you at all, at least not to me.”

“Well, you were young and delicate. They wanted to keep you pure and unsullied.”

“Perhaps.”

“Now that we have that out of the way, tell me what you’re here for. You didn’t come here to chat me up on old times.”

“I have a couple of questions to ask you about things
that happened before I got to St. Stephen’s. I hope you’ll be able to help me.”

“Why not? I have a pretty good memory. What’s this all about?”

“It’s a little complicated,” I said, “and I don’t want to go into the whole story right now, especially if you’re about to have company. I wondered whether you remembered if Sister Joseph left the convent for any period of time.”

She got a perplexed look on her face, as though she might not have understood the question. Then she said, “You mean like a few months or so?”

“Yes.”

She stared at me as if trying to figure me out. “Strange question,” she said. “I’m getting bad vibes. But yes, I think she did. I couldn’t tell you the year or how long she went for, but I remember that she took a leave of absence or some such thing.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“What’s your name now?” she asked. “I don’t suppose you’re still Edward.”

“I’m Chris, Chris Bennett. And I’m married. My married name is Brooks.”

“So it was a man.” She looked amused.

“It wasn’t a man. I met him after I left. I got permission to leave.”

“I didn’t.”

That didn’t surprise me. “You just left.”

“I just up and walked out.” She ground her cigarette into an ashtray loaded with butts. “Never looked back. Never heard from any of them again. Till right now. You’re the first.”

And obviously I wasn’t inquiring about her health. “Are you still Jane?”

“That’s what I am, Jane Anthony Cirillo. I never changed. I think I got off on a tangent. What was it you were asking me?”

I glanced at my notes to make sure. “I wanted to know if you remembered where Sister Joseph went when she took time off.”

“Where she went, let’s see. Somewhere west, I think. I wasn’t a personal friend of hers, you know. Why don’t you ask her, or aren’t you on speaking terms?”

“We are, but I’d like to find out without asking directly.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“Do you remember if she was visiting family?”

“Family. She was one person up there that didn’t talk family. I had sisters and brothers and I talked about them because they were part of my life, but she didn’t. She was like—how can I put it?—like she had no one outside the convent.”

“But she took vacations,” I said. “She went to visit people.”

“But she didn’t come back with stories.”

It was true. You would see Joseph when she returned from a vacation and she always looked happy and well rested, but she never talked about where she had gone and whom she had seen, except for the times that she attended conferences. But that wasn’t family.

“You trying to find her family?” Jane asked.

“Not really. I don’t even know if she has one. I’m trying to find out where she went when she took that leave, whether she worked for someone, where she lived. I’ve run into someone who has an interest in knowing that.”

“An anonymous someone?” She raised her eyebrows.

“Yes.”

“You’re really piquing my curiosity. What’s Joseph supposed to have done? Screwed up somebody’s books?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“I’m pretty sure she was gone for more than a few months. She was teaching at the college and they got a replacement for her, so she must have been gone at least a semester.”

That made sense. If she had been gone a few weeks or even a month or so, they might have parceled out her teaching among other nuns and not bothered hiring someone new. “I wish I knew where she’d gone,” I said. “If you remember, I’d appreciate your calling me. I’ll give you my number.” I started writing it down.

“Don’t expect me to spend much time thinking about this. I was glad to get away from there and it doesn’t occupy my thoughts very much. Never did.”

“Can you tell me why you left?”

“Why I left is easy. It’s why I went there in the first place that I could never figure out. It was an idea that captured my imagination and hung on to me for a long time. I didn’t know I’d made a mistake till a long time after. I was sorry about leaving, even if the nuns wouldn’t believe it, but I was very relieved to be gone.”

“You left so precipitously,” I said. “Did something happen to trigger it?”

The doorbell rang at that moment and Jane jumped up and dashed to the kitchen to buzz in her friend. I knew I wouldn’t get an answer now, not that she owed me any.

“I guess time’s up,” she said, coming back to the living room. “I’ll be going out now. Any quick questions?”

“I’ve left my phone number on the coffee table. If you think of where Sister Joseph went, please give me a call. You can call collect, if you like.”

She laughed. “If I had to pick a place, I’d say Ohio. How’s that?”

“Not bad.” I picked up my bag and she opened the door for me. The elevator was just stopping and as I said good-bye, a woman got out. She was about Jane’s age, I guessed, quite nice looking, and dressed much more elegantly than Jane, who had been wearing a skirt and blouse with comfortable shoes. This woman was wearing heels with a suit and was carrying what looked to be a fine leather handbag on her shoulder. It was hard to believe they were going to the same place.

“Hi, sweetie,” she called as she breezed past me, her perfume wafting through the air. “You’re actually ready.”

I stepped into the elevator and pushed the L button. The door closed on their conversation and I went down to get my car.

5

It was the Ohio that got me, of course. What were the chances that she would pick the state that Tina had told me Sister Joseph had gone to? Not much better than one in fifty. I now believed that Joseph had taken a leave from St. Stephen’s before I arrived there and that she had stayed away for several months. Considering when I had arrived, the leave must have been twenty years ago or more.

It was chilling to think about. I didn’t have to believe that what Tina accused Joseph of was true, but I was now convinced that there was some foundation for her story. It was not unusual for nuns to take a leave from a convent. I myself have known several who did it. People are fond of talking about finding themselves. Well, nuns are no different. Nuns have crises of conscience and belief just as the general population does, and one way to come to terms is to change their environment. They may go home and tend a sick parent or sibling, or they may go somewhere to work at a secular job with all that that entails. When the leave is over, many, perhaps most, return to their convent. Some do not.

In my own case, I had a somewhat irregular arrangement that was made to suit my unusual circumstances.
My cousin Gene lived, and still lives, in Greenwillow, a home for retarded adults, and I wanted to make sure our relationship survived. There was no other family member who could care for Gene besides me when my aunt passed on. As it turned out, my leaving St. Stephen’s and my aunt’s death happened in the same year. Greenwillow is now in Oakwood and I see Gene frequently, much more often than the monthly visits I made when I was a nun.

To my surprise, I had liked Jane Cirillo. Her almost aggressive outgoing personality had daunted me as a young person, but now I found it rather captivating. Above all, she seemed honest. I had not been sure—and still wasn’t—about Tina’s honesty. But if there were points of agreement in their stories, there was a good chance those were true facts. The question in my mind was where they would lead.

I stopped in a restaurant near the garage where I had left the car and had lunch. As I ate, I thought about my next move. I was troubled that I had seen no taxi or car near the house when Tina arrived and I wanted to check up on that. And I decided, too, to call a friend at St. Stephen’s and try to get her to talk about Jane Anthony. I wasn’t especially interested in what I would learn about her, but perhaps I could maneuver the conversation to Joseph’s leave.

I drove back to Elsie’s house to pick up Eddie. I found them cooking in her kitchen, his face nearly coated with chocolate from the nose down. Elsie was enjoying it and Eddie was trying to make his tongue reach out toward his cheeks.