Murder Superior(38)

“I didn’t want to ask if you’d been doing anything else.”

“What Mrs. Hare has been doing is feeling unwell,” Reverend Mother said in a voice that brooked no argument. Gregor was willing to bet that Reverend Mother’s voice almost never brooked an argument. “She needs to go home and lie down,” Reverend Mother went on, “and I think you should take her there. The Sisters will, of course, make up a basket so that neither of you will miss any of the lunch we so sincerely wish to provide you with.”

“Oh, good,” Nancy said, and giggled. “A doggy bag.”

“Shut up,” Henry told her.

“I’m not going to shut up,” Nancy said. “That woman is a bitch and you know it. Everybody knows it.”

“I have to do something about my habit,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said. “It’s ripped.”

Reverend Mother General turned. Mother Mary Bellarmine didn’t look like a woman who had recently been attacked. She wasn’t shaken, and she was paying no attention whatsoever to her attacker. In Gregor’s experience, a victim in the same room with her victimizer usually kept a good eye out for another attack, or any sign of irrational behavior.

Reverend Mother General nodded at Mother Mary Bellarmine and said, “You should go change. Is it just your scapular?”

“My veil’s wet.”

“A veil is no problem. There are scapulars and veils downstairs in the supply room, if I remember correctly. Down near the kitchen. Mary Joachim?”

“That’s right, Reverend Mother. There’s a subsidiary supply room downstairs right next to the kitchen. We used this building for a convent back in sixty-four when the original convent had a fire and we had to wait for the new one to be built. We’ve been using that storeroom down there for habits ever since. I don’t know why.”

“Why,” Reverend Mother said, “is the same reason every house in this Order has chicken fricassee every Thursday night. Because once you get started on a path it’s practically impossible to leave it. That’s what I used to tell my novices when I had Sister Mary Alice’s responsibilities. Mary Bellarmine. Do you know your way to the kitchen?”

“Of course I know my way to the kitchen,” Mary Bellarmine said. “Sister Agnes Bernadette has had every Sister in the Order running back and forth like laboratory rats helping with the food.”

“Gracious as always,” Reverend Mother General said. She turned to Nancy and Henry Hare. “What about the two of you? Do you know your way to your parking lot?”

“There’s no reason why both of us should miss this reception,” Henry Hare said stiffly. “I’m going to call my driver to pick Nancy up.”

“I don’t think so,” Reverend Mother General said.

“But—” Henry Hare said.

Reverend Mother General gave him a look that would have turned stone to dust, and he retreated.

The novices had disappeared with their mops and rags. Mother Mary Bellarmine was headed for a door at the back of the foyer that Gregor hadn’t noticed before. Sister Mary Alice had returned to the amorphous crowd and stopped looking as if she were chewing antibiotics undiluted with sugar. Even Nancy Hare seemed to have calmed down—although Gregor had to concede that she’d been calmer all along than almost anybody but Reverend Mother General. No, lack of calmness was not Nancy Hare’s problem.

Gregor had turned toward Sister Scholastica, meaning to ask her impressions of the way it had all worked out, when he became aware of the fact that the crowd was parting in front of him, and even Scholastica was stepping aside. He looked in the direction everyone else was looking in and found Reverend Mother General, bearing down on him as if he were a rabbit in the path of a train.

“Mr. Demarkian,” she said, in her deep emphatic voice that would have played well as the voice of God speaking from the burning bush, “I have to talk to you for a moment.”

From the other side of the doorway, Bennis Hannaford caught his eye and winked.





2


EARLY IN HIS ASSOCIATION with things Catholic, Gregor Demarkian had learned that there were times it was the better part of valor just to shut up. Following Reverend Mother General through a door and down a corridor off the left side of the foyer was one of those times. The door had been decorated with baby blue bunting and a picture of Mary holding out the rosary to the children of Fatima. The corridor was decorated with baby blue bunting and brightly painted posters that looked out of place, as if they had originally been intended for somewhere else. Several of them displayed the message Gregor had first seen in Philadelphia and had been seeing everywhere since, including on the habits of some of the nuns, who wore little plastic pins with the legend,