Murder Superior(33)

He passed into the reception room, looked around, and saw nothing in the way of doors except the set that let to the foyer. He approached these cautiously, in case Nancy’s bizarre action might be having a ripple effect He found he had nothing to fear. There was a fuss going on—being made more by the nuns than by anyone else, which figured—but it was self-contained at the tail end of the receiving line and not going anywhere soon. Norm peered into the crowd and decided that the nun Nancy had attacked had not been murdered. That would be Mother Mary Bellarmine, who was a consultant for the Order on the field house project and whom Norm had met a number of times over the past week, at publicity meetings or at discussions of the project, to which Norm had contributed one hundred thousand dollars. Norman Kevic was no fool. When he insulted an institution as large and as well positioned as the Roman Catholic Church, he made a point of buttering it up as soon as he had an excuse. He was glad Nancy had handed it to Mother Mary Bellarmine anyway. From what Norm had seen of Mother Mary Bellarmine, she made his mother look like an angel of light.

Once into the foyer, Norm looked left and right and found two doors, set discreetly into corners and camouflaged with baby blue bunting. The doors had no signs on them and no signs near them. Norm had no way of knowing if they were gateways to passages or simply closets. He could have asked someone, but he didn’t want to do it. Norman Kevic had never really been an extrovert. In fact, he’d never really liked people much. They scared him, and—as his mother had told him repeatedly; the very worst thing about Norman Kevic’s mother was how often she was right—they weren’t interested in knowing him. He could get very convivial when he’d had a few snorts. He hadn’t had a few snorts in hours. If he could find the bathroom maybe he could take care of that kind of business there as well. Whatever. It was easier to explore on his own. If he blundered into a closet, he could always claim he was looking for his coat. Although who would wear a coat in this weather, he didn’t know. He had to get a grip on himself.

The door to his right had on it not only baby blue bunting, but a large oval picture of the Virgin standing on a puffy cloud with her hands held out and a halo around her head. Norm decided to choose that one, because it was his favorite picture of the Virgin from parochial school. Norm hated on principle all pictures of the Madonna and Child, but he was fond of young Marys with dreamy blue eyes in flowing dresses that rippled in the wind. They reminded him of the kind of music video produced by earnest women singers who were serious about Art.

Norm opened the door and peered down into a corridor, which was thankfully not a closet, but wasn’t much better, either. It was narrow and dank. Its ceiling was lined with thick, badly painted pipes. Its walls were dark green from the floor halfway up the wall and pale green the rest of the way to the ceiling. Norm felt around on the wall beside the door for a switch. He turned on the light and looked inside some more. Surely, if the men’s room was down here, there would be directions? Surely, the men’s room wasn’t down here, because even for a feminist institution this sort of mistreatment would be too much?

Norm went into the corridor and closed the door behind him. He had no idea if St. Elizabeth’s was a feminist institution or not. He had no clear idea of what a feminist was. Hell, he had no clear idea who Norman Kevic was. He walked down the claustrophobic corridor until he came to a place he had to turn, and hesitated. To his left there was more corridor. To his right there was a heavy fire door. He went to the fire door and opened it up.

“There,” a woman’s voice said, not so much drifting up to him as flying up, like a rocket. “That ought to be just fine. Now all we have to do is fill the cones with flowers, tie the cones with ribbons, and bring them upstairs.”

“I don’t know,” another woman’s voice said, soft and tentative. “I have to tell you, Sarabess. I think we should have started with the flowers and wrapped the paper around them. I don’t think we should have made paper cones first.”

“Well, we did make paper cones first,” the woman Norm took to be Sarabess said. “We’re just going to have to live with them. Get me a big pile of roses, Sister, and then we can get started.”

There was a breeze coming up from something open down there. Norm went on through the fire door and found himself at the top of a short, shallow flight of stairs. The stairs reached a landing six steps down and then proceeded into the dark. Norm went down to the landing and stopped. Now he could see another door, partially propped open, with light spilling out into the dark under his feet. Every once in a while, the light was obstructed by shadows, which Norm took to be the bodies of women, going back and forth doing whatever they were doing in the room they were in. He advanced a few more steps down, hesitated, and advanced again. It occurred to him that it was a good thing that his quest for the John had been basically on philosophical grounds.