Murder Superior(86)

“I thought that was the point of Mother Mary Bellarmine,” Gregor said. “I thought she was supposed to be impossible to con.”

“That’s certainly what I’ve heard,” Father Stephen said. “Oh, yes. She is supposed to know everything there is to know about building campus buildings. There is that.”

Gregor Demarkian folded his arms across his chest and seemed to go off into his own little world. This was not criminal detection the way Father Stephen wanted criminal detection. This was not Nero Wolfe in his chair or Sherlock Holmes with his magnifying glass. It was Sister Joan Esther who was dead and it was Sister Joan Esther that Father Stephen thought they should be concentrating on. He watched as Demarkian started pacing, stopped, and started again. By the time Demarkian stopped the second time, Father Stephen was so tense, he jumped.

“Let me ask you two something,” Demarkian said. “There’s been a suggestion made, in more than one quarter, that the wrong woman was murdered here yesterday afternoon. Does either of you think that’s possible?”

“Anything’s possible,” Father Stephen said, “with God.”

“Fine. The projected victim—in case Sister Joan Esther was not meant to be the victim—would be a nun named Mother Mary Bellarmine—”

Frank Moretti started to choke.

“—and the reason for her choice as a victim would be what she knows or may know about the financing of the new field house and Henry Hare’s possible involvement with unjustifiable aspects of that financing. Does that scenario sound plausible to you?”

Father Stephen thought immediately of the confessions he had heard, the stream of frustration and hate that flowed in Mother Mary Bellarmine’s direction the way the needle of a compass flowed north, and blushed.

“Well,” he said. “If it had been Mother Mary Bellarmine who had died, I do believe I would have found it less—less outrageous.”

“I don’t know Mother Mary Bellarmine,” Frank Moretti said.

“But there hasn’t been any suggestion that there is anything wrong with the financing of the field house,” Father Stephen pointed out “Really, Mr. Demarkian, I’ve only heard good things about that project.”

“Mmm,” Gregor Demarkian said.

“And Henry Hare isn’t a crook,” Frank Moretti pointed out “I didn’t say he was. I just said he cut the usual corners and lied to himself about it.”

“Mmm,” Gregor Demarkian said again.

Father Stephen looked at Frank Moretti and found Frank looking back. This was really too much. It really was. Sister Agnes Bernadette was distraught, and that awful young policeman was likely to come back at any moment. Father Stephen had heard wonderful things about Gregor Demarkian, but now he wasn’t sure he believed any of them.

“I don’t understand what you’re doing,” he said querulously. “You can’t believe Sister Agnes Bernadette committed a murder. You can’t believe—well, I don’t know how to go into what you can’t believe.”

“I don’t believe Sister Agnes Bernadette committed a murder,” Gregor said pleasantly.

“Well, then,” Father Stephen said. “Why don’t you find out who did?”

“But I already know who did.”

“What?” Father Stephen said.

“I already know who did,” Gregor repeated patiently. “I knew who did yesterday. There was only one possible explanation. But that doesn’t get us anywhere, does it?”

“Why not?”

“Well,” Gregor said, “I have a knife to find, for one thing. And then I’ve got to talk to Nancy Hare. And then I’ve got to find some way around lieutenant Androcetti, and then—well, you see what I mean.”

“No,” Father Stephen said, and it was true. He didn’t see anything. He didn’t understand the first thing about what was going on. Had somebody really tried to kill Mother Mary Bellarmine and killed Sister Joan Esther by mistake? And what did it mean if somebody had?

Father Stephen could certainly see someone murdering Mother Mary Bellarmine more easily than he could see someone murdering Sister Joan Esther, but then he hadn’t really known Joan Esther except to wave hello to and she might have been a harridan when she was out of public view. He did think that before Vatican II, she wouldn’t have been murdered at all. It was all very confusing.

On the other side of the foyer, Mother Mary Bellarmine was standing alone, contemplating the proceedings with a malevolent eye, and Father Stephen shuddered.





3


“…ALREADY KNOWS WHO DID it,” Martha Mary was saying, looking out the window of St. Thomas’s Hall to the front steps of St. Teresa’s House. “I heard him say so myself. And he’s looking for a knife. Oh, Domenica, really, we’ve got to tell him—”