Murder Superior(82)

“I called her out of the line,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said. “Her veil was unfastened. It looked like a handkerchief stuck to her head.”

“What was she supposed to do about it with a tray in her hands?” Scholastica demanded.

“Oh, dear,” Sister Agnes Bernadette said. “I see what happened. I see where Joanie ended up.”

“Where Sister Joan Esther ended up was the grave,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said crisply. “She ended up there early and badly, as might have been expected. I came down to watch you, Mr. Demarkian. I came down to see how a great detective works.”

At the moment, Gregor didn’t feel much like a great detective. He felt like a small boy being scolded by an adult he has no respect for. He looked Mother Mary Bellarmine up and down and considered his possible moves.

“It occurs to me,” he said, “that you might have been in a position to see something nobody else did. You did come down here in the middle of the reception, didn’t you?”

“Well, yes,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said. “I did. How did you know that?”

Gregor hadn’t known it. He’d known Mother Mary Bellarmine had had to go somewhere to change after her run-in with Nancy Hare, and he’d hoped it was down here, and God had smiled.

He said only, “I saw what happened, in the reception line, with Mrs. Hare. Do you know why she threw, a vase of roses on you?”

“I haven’t the least idea,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said.

“Neither does anybody else,” Gregor told her. “Well, we’ve got Mrs. Hare coming in to talk, maybe she’ll tell us. Let’s get back to you. It was a pretty violent attack.”

“Was it? I’ve known Nancy Hare for years. Since the days when she was Nancy Callahan and I was teaching at this college. She’s always been violent—emotionally.”

“She was being more than emotionally violent, yesterday.”

“I noticed.”

“She tore your habit.”

Mother Mary Bellarmine shrugged. “My habit got torn, yes. I don’t remember Nancy tearing it deliberately. I suppose she must have.”

“She had to have,” Gregor said. “It couldn’t have simply snagged on a stray nail. It was protected by your collar. Look.”

Gregor turned to Sister Scholastica—for some reason, she seemed a more likely candidate for this demonstration than Mother Mary Bellarmine or Reverend Mother General, and Gregor was terrified that Sister Agnes Bernadette would blush—and lifted up the long capelike collar until it exposed the top of the scapular. The scapular fit closely around the front of the neck and was fastened at the back with a small button. Gregor let Scholastica’s collar fall again.

“Your collar wasn’t torn,” he pointed out “Only your scapular was.”

“Yes,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said. “But what I really remember is being so wet.”

“So once you were wet what did you do?”

“I went downstairs and changed. We store habits in a room in this basement, I don’t remember why, it goes back to the days when St. Elizabeth’s was still building buildings or something of the sort. At any rate, there are supplies down here and I came to get them.”

“Did you go into the kitchen?” Gregor asked.

“I had no need to go into the kitchen.”

“Did you see Sister Joan Esther? Or Sister Agnes Bernadette?”

“No.”

“Did you see anybody else?”

Mother Mary Bellarmine considered this. “Sister Catherine Grace and that foul woman from the Registrar’s Office were in the plant room. The woman whose name I can never remember who’s still some kind of hippie—”

“Sarabess Coltrane,” Sister Agnes Bernadette said. “She’s really very nice, even if she is something of an anachronism.”

“She’s totally ridiculous,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said. “They were doing something with flowers, Ms. Coltrane and Sister Catherine Grace. That was on my way down. On my way up I saw that man. The one who makes all the racial jokes on the radio.”

“Norman Kevic?” Gregor was surprised.

“That’s it.” Mother Mary Bellarmine said. “I remember wondering what he thought he was doing, wandering around like that. Of course, he’s got a tremendous financial interest in the field house—”

“I wouldn’t call it a financial interest,” Reverend Mother General said.

“Then let’s just say he’s got a lot of money invested,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said, “and he’s got stock in Henry Hare’s companies and I’ve been looking over those books and I don’t like them. You know I don’t like them, Reverend Mother. I’ve been saying so for a week.”