Murder Superior(83)

“Yes,” Reverend Mother General said. “You have been saying so for a week.”

“He was skulking around down there, looking into cupboards, doing I don’t know what. If I hadn’t been in a hurry, I would have demanded an explanation. As it is, you’re going to have to get an explanation directly from him.”

“I’ll go tell His Eminence,” Sister Scholastica said.

Gregor beat his finger against the scarred surface of one of the wooden tables. “Go get His Eminence,” he agreed, “but while we’re waiting for the delivery of Nancy Hare and Norman Kevic, I’d like to talk to—what are their names again? Sarah Elizabeth—”

“Sarabess Coltrane,” Reverend Mother General corrected. “And Sister Catherine Grace.”

“I’m on my way,” Sister Scholastica said.

“I don’t see that he’s doing anything we couldn’t have done ourselves,” Mother Mary Bellarmine said.

Gregor was glad to see that even Reverend Mother General herself ignored that.





Chapter 6


1


WHEN NORMAN KEVIC GOT off the phone with Sarabess Coltrane, he spent a minute listening to Roger Miller singing “My Uncle Used to Love Me But She Died,” another minute contemplating the buying of a pack of Benson & Hedges Menthols, and a third minute deciding there was nothing for it but to go out to St. Elizabeth’s College. By then, Roger Miller had stopped singing and Steve was pacing back and forth outside the booth, absolutely furious, which was what Steve always was when Norm did the least little thing out of the ordinary. In this case, “out of the ordinary” meant playing music instead of talking for the last two and a half minutes of his show. Norm had done that because he’d wanted to talk to Sarabess and because, for God’s sake, he’d been talking on the air now for over a decade and you’d think the great American public would be sick of it by now. Steve was not sick of it, but Steve was not one of his most faithful listeners, either. Steve only turned on the radio when somebody warned him that the worst was about to happen. In Steve’s mind, “the worst” was anything that caused an advertiser to pick up the phone and call the station. In Norm’s mind, “the worst” was anything that might cause the Philadelphia Inquirer to say he was losing his edge.

But he was losing his edge. That was why the night with Sarabess had worked out the way it had, instead of ending up in bed, which was where Norman thought nights with women should always end up. He hadn’t stayed up talking until six o’clock in the morning since he was in college. He had never stayed up talking until six o’clock in the morning with a girl. He still wasn’t sure what it meant. He was just glad that Sarabess had felt perfectly comfortable calling him up in the middle of the morning. He wasn’t entirely sure why.

“Listen,” she had said, when he’d put Roger Miller on and signed himself off and guaranteed Steve’s bad mood for the rest of the day. Or maybe the rest of the week. “He’s here, that Demarkian man, and he’s asking the oddest questions. It’s like he’s psychic.”

“Psychic how?” Norm had asked her. “Did you tell him anything?”

“I didn’t tell him anything,” Sarabess said, “but Catherine Grace did. I’d forgotten all about Catherine Grace. She’s such an innocent.”

“She’s a child.”

“Well, maybe. But here he is, and he’s odd. Do you know what he did just a minute ago?”

“No.”

“He went down to the potting room and asked me to show him how we put the flowers in the vases before we put the vases on the table—isn’t that odd? I mean, how many ways can you put flowers on the table?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then he put a little bunch of daisies in a vase just the way you’re supposed to, with a little water at the bottom and then he held the vase in the air, and then do you know what he did?”

“No.”

“He turned the vase over on the one tablecloth we have down there. I mean, it’s an awful tablecloth and really old and stained and everything, but of course now it’s completely ruined.”

“Why?”

“Because of the plant food they put in the water for it, or whatever it is. Don’t you know about that? At St. Elizabeth’s you never fill vases just with water. The flowers die too soon. You mix in a little plant food and put that in, and the only problem with that is that the plant food turns everything it touches green—”

“What?”

“Green,” Sarabess said impatiently. “Norm, are you all right? I heard Mr. Demarkian talking to the Archbishop—the Archbishop is here, as if things weren’t bad enough—and they were saying they were going to call you up and ask you to come here. To talk, you know. For questioning.”