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A Great Day for the Deadly(59)



“They were already on to it,” Scholastica said. “I mean, they were looking out for any more news about Brigit. They saw the name of the town, they saw the name of the convent, they saw it was a murder—”

“I see what you mean. Well, however it works, it certainly was fast. And I don’t know what to say to these people. I don’t feel right telling them their daughters are perfectly safe. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I don’t either,” Scholastica said quickly.

“I know you don’t. You know Gregor Demarkian, though. Maybe you could get him to tell you something.”

Scholastica didn’t think it was possible to get Gregor Demarkian to say anything he didn’t want to say, and she didn’t think she knew him all that well. She fiddled with the rosary at her belt and said, “He’s gone home. To the inn, I mean. At least, that’s what he told Reverend Mother. The police have locked up the stairwell and gone home, too.”

“And I’m left here fielding phone calls.”

“Do they want to take their daughters home?”

“Yes, to put it bluntly. Of course, their daughters are eighteen years old and legal adults in New York State, but you know how these things are. I’m not too worried about the novices. Once the girls get into habit, the parents tend to calm down a little. But the postulants—”

“Sheila Cormier and Martha Eggars,” Scholastica said. “They’re both on the brink of leaving anyway. I’m on the brink of throwing Martha out.”

“Martha,” Alice Marie said thoughtfully. “The sexual hysteric?”

“Classic case,” Scholastica agreed.

“I know how it is. You want to give everybody the benefit of the doubt and you end up putting up with much more than you have to. You can ask Martha Eggars to leave. Count yourself lucky to have such a large class of normal ones to go on.”

“I will.”

The phone on Alice Marie’s desk rang. She picked it up, said hello, and stretched her mouth into a placating smile. Then she looked up at Scholastica and shrugged.

“Yes, of course,” she said into the phone. “You’re Sister Beata’s mother and I met you at the memorial Mass for the Vietnam War dead. I remember you very well.”

It wasn’t, Scholastica thought, a pleasant memory. She mouthed “see you later” at the top of Alice Marie’s head and went back into the corridor, heading again for her own office. She tried to remember Sister Beata and couldn’t. A canonical novice, probably. The canonical novices spent a lot of time on their own, practicing silence and trying to get their religious lives into shape. After all, that was supposed to be the point. It wasn’t the teaching or the nursing or the missionary work that you did that mattered. It was your relationship with God.

Scholastica’s office was at the end of the corridor with the door in it. She made a slight bow to the crucifix and turned in at her own door. Her desk was clean of all papers. Her visitor’s chair was placed three-quarters of the way along the front of the desk from the door side of the room. The statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was at the very center of the top of her filing cabinet and hadn’t been moved at all. To Scholastica, it was painfully obvious that she had spent very little of this day in this room.

She went in, sat down at her desk, and opened up the center drawer. There were pens and pencils in there, good cheap sensible Bics and Eagles. There were paper clips in there, too, and a small squeeze bottle of glue. There was a little stack of holy cards bound together by a rubber band and a small box with three plastic rosaries in it. The plastic rosaries were the kind the parish used to give out to children making their first Holy Communion   when she was principal at St. Agnes’s. She closed the drawer again and sighed.

She was being an idiot. Old Sister Jerome had been right. If you’re worried about something you can’t do anything about, you’ve got to go out and find something to take your mind off it. Scholastica didn’t know what. Saturday was always a dead day at the Motherhouse, especially in Lent. There were things to be done for St. Patrick’s Day and the Cardinal’s visit, but she was too distracted to do them. She heard a knock on the frame of her door and looked up.

“Yes?” she said.

A head peeked through, Neila Connelly’s head, looking worried.

“Sister?” she said.

“Come in, Neila. I’m glad to see you. I looked into the sewing room a few minutes ago and you weren’t there. I was worried. I suppose I’m getting hypersensitive with all this business.”