A Great Day for the Deadly(33)

“What happened at Iggy Loy?” Gregor asked. “Why did Father—Fitzsimmons, was it?—why did Father Fitzsimmons call you in?”

“Because Father Fitzsimmons thinks the Cardinal’s attitude to this is nuts.” Pete Donovan sighed. “The Cardinal’s got clout, though. Father Fitzsimmons didn’t let me do anything about it except check it out. It didn’t make the news, either. Now that’s something I think is a mistake. If the Cardinal wants to stop this stuff, he should make sure all the incidents get on the news. That turns people against the vandals.”

It would turn some people against the vandals, Gregor thought. The problem was, it would turn others into vandals. It would be a tough judgment call, but Gregor thought he could see the Cardinal’s point. The sort of bigot who resorted to vandalism was the sort who might eventually resort to violence. The sort of bigot who was attracted by vandalism was even more likely to end up bashing in somebody’s head. Gregor had seen it a million times in cases he’d handled for the Bureau, especially cases involving outbreaks of anti-Semitism. He didn’t know what it was about religion, but it inflamed the passions of a certain kind of malevolent idiot worse than anything else.

“Tell me why you think it’s all connected,” he said to Pete Donovan. “Tell me what you think is going on.”

But Pete Donovan was shaking his head. “It would take forever and I’d sound like I was babbling,” he said, “which doesn’t mean I won’t babble but does mean I won’t babble now. The Cardinal sent you down here to look into the death of Brigit Ann Reilly.”

“Right,” Gregor said.

“Well, Mr. Demarkian, I told him he could. In fact, I was ecstatic when I heard the news. I figured I’d finally found my savior. Would you like to know why?”

Actually, given the tone of Donovan’s voice, Gregor wasn’t sure he would. He said sure anyway and sat back to wait. Donovan stopped his pacing and retreated to the wall again, closer to the window this time, so he could look out. His blond hair was cut very short and very high on his neck. The style made his head look much too short for his body.

“There was the desecration at St. Mary Magdalen,” Donovan said, “and the business with the choir robes and the death of Brigit Ann Reilly—the murder of Brigit Ann Reilly, because it couldn’t have been anything else. Now there’s these letters that the Cardinal’s been receiving and not telling anybody about and maybe Reverend Mother General, too. All of this connected to something or somebody in Maryville, am I right?”

“Yes,” Gregor said, “you’re right.”

“Well,” Pete Donovan said, “I know everything and everyone connected to Maryville. Or I think I do, and that’s worse. I can’t investigate this thing. I’m too involved with the people involved with it.”

“You could have called in the state police.”

“I’m neither a masochist nor a damn fool.” Donovan pushed off from the wall decisively this time and headed for the door. “Come on. Let’s go find Reverend Mother General and have a talk about anonymous letters. Then maybe you and I can get together in private and have a talk about Brigit Ann Reilly. Then maybe we can start to get something done.”

Pete Donovan was out in the hall before he’d finished talking, trailing words behind him like a smoker’s mist. Gregor Demarkian hauled himself up and followed.

Donovan’s plan of action wasn’t necessarily the best possible plan of action, but it was the only one. Gregor was relieved that someone had finally handed him one.





[3]


Less than three minutes later, walking too quickly across the courtyard with his overcoat still lying on the chair in Reverend Mother General’s office, Gregor started to revise his opinion of Donovan’s plan of action. He started to revise his opinion of Donovan. He was cold and the convent felt deserted. Donovan kept saying something about the Divine Office and regular hours for community prayer. Gregor’s familiarity with the particulars of convent life was minimal—really nonexistent—but the impression he got was that Reverend Mother General and the rest of the nuns were off on nunly business that was going to take a while. Whatever he and Donovan were going to do, it wasn’t going to be talking to Reverend Mother General in the immediate future. In the light of all this, Gregor thought Donovan could have let him go back to get his coat. At least.

They were almost all the way across the courtyard to the far door when that door swung open and a small girl came barreling out, wearing the black dress and strange envelopelike black cap Gregor had learned to identify—even after so short a time with the photographs of Brigit Ann Reilly for company—as the uniform of the postulants in the Sisters of Divine Grace. The girl got two or three feet into the courtyard and stopped. Her eyes got wide. Her mouth dropped open. She looked Pete Donovan straight in the face and said,