Murder Superior(37)

“There were Sisters who wanted to go to really short dresses, knee-length, but they wouldn’t have looked right with a scapular,” Scholastica had told him, “and if there’s one thing the old women in this Order want to express, it’s how vital they think it is for Sisters to wear a scapular.”

The point now was that Mother Mary Bellarmine’s scapular was torn, ripped from the neck hole down the front in one long gash. Gregor couldn’t imagine how it had happened. Of course, he hadn’t been very close when the incident had happened. It wouldn’t have taken long to tear the scapular. It could have been done when his attention was momentarily elsewhere. It still didn’t make sense. Nancy Hare had called Mother Mary Bellarmine a bitch. Then she had emptied the vase of roses on Mother Mary Bellarmine’s head. Then she had stepped back. She had not taken time to rip Mother Mary Bellarmine’s scapular. Gregor was sure of it.

Very young Sisters in long white veils had come into the foyer to clean up. They had a mop and a bucket and a pile of rags. The white veils pegged them as novices. Reverend Mother General emerged from her place in the crowd to supervise their work, nodded a little and said, “Has anyone found Henry yet?”

“Sister Caroline went to get him,” a voice called out. “He’s in the back garden.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Nancy Hare said. “Don’t bring Henry in on this. He’ll act like a jerk.”

“She’s the one who’s acting like a jerk,” a voice said in his ear.

Gregor turned and found that the whisperer was not Bennis Hannaford, whom he’d expected, but Sister Scholastica. Her arms were folded in such a way that they were almost entirely hidden by her scapular and her long dress collar that was so reminiscent of a cape. Her face was wry.

“This isn’t my territory,” she told him, “so the lady is nobody I know, but I have it on good authority that she likes to make scenes.”

“Bennis and I saw her coming in with her husband when we were in the parking lot. Bennis said she thought she was the kind of woman who liked to have an audience.”

“I always did think Bennis Hannaford had an intelligent voice. Did you happen to see what started all this?”

“No,” Gregor said.

“I didn’t either. It must have been something Bellarmine said in the receiving line.”

“Nancy and her husband went through the receiving line before Bennis and I did,” Gregor pointed out. “That was a good while ago—twenty minutes at least. Do you think it would have taken that woman that long to react?”

“I don’t know,” Scholastica said.

“Do you really think there’s anything Mother Mary Bellarmine could have said in the few seconds she’d have had with the line going past that would have caused this kind of reaction?”

Scholastica smiled. “Mother Mary Bellarmine,” she said, “could cause World War Three in thirty seconds flat if she had a mind to. Does that answer your question?”

“Not a nice woman, I take it.”

“I absolutely refuse to cause the kind of scandal I would have to cause to accurately describe that person while in a habit.”

“Right,” Gregor said.

“Here comes Henry,” Scholastica said. “If anybody but Reverend Mother were running this show, I’d say there was about to be a lot of fun.”

Somehow, using the word fun to describe Henry Hare didn’t quite cut it. He was thin and fashionable and good looking and athletic, but those qualities didn’t add up to what they were supposed to. Gregor had thought in the parking lot that Henry Hare had an air of middle-aged stodginess about him. He now found his initial impression confirmed. Henry Hare was angry, and embarrassed, and all the other things a man would be when his wife had just pulled a stunt like this. He should have been generating sympathy by the truckload. He wasn’t. He could see the same thought racing through a dozen minds around him. She behaves like this because he’s just so insufferably smug.

Henry Hare strode into the middle of the foyer, looked at his wife standing against one wall with the tall athletic nun in attendance, looked at Mother Mary Bellarmine standing against the other with her torn scapular, looked at the novices picking up their cleaning things on their way out and said, “Oh, Christ.”

Sixty nuns made the sign of the cross and bowed their heads.

“Mr. Hare,” Reverend Mother General said firmly, “I believe your wife is feeling unwell.”

“Has she been drinking?” Henry Hare demanded.

“Of course I haven’t been drinking,” Nancy Hare said. “There’s nothing to drink. Except mineral water.”