Murder Superior(93)

“Somebody ought to call a doctor, just in case,” he said. “There seems to be a little tear. She may need stitches.”

At the mention of a doctor, Archbishop Kenneally seemed to come to life out of a long sleep. He snapped to attention and looked fierce, fiercest of all in the direction of Jack Androcetti, whom he apparently didn’t like. That was no surprise, as far as Gregor was concerned. Nobody liked Jack Androcetti. He was too big an idiot.

“Doctor,” Archbishop Kenneally said. “We’ve got a Catholic hospital right here in Radnor—”

“We’ve got a Catholic doctor right across the lawn in St. Catherine of Siena Hall,” Reverend Mother General said, stepping in. “Sister Mary Joseph took her medical degree at Yale and she practices in Harlem, so I’m sure she knows something about knife wounds.”

“This is hardly a knife wound of that sort,” Sister Scholastica said.

“Why doesn’t she get up?” one of the other nuns asked. “If she’s all right, why is she just lying there?”

“I’m not going to have any nun doctor in here looking at this victim,” Jack Androcetti said. “It’s a conflict of interest. She’ll try to cover something up. Maybe she’ll off the patient right when I’m looking—”

“Oh, Jesus H. Christ,” Rob Collins said.

“Shh,” the other uniformed man said. “Rob. You gotta stop that. These are nuns.”

Gregor thought it was about time to put a stop to all this nonsense, but he never got a chance. Reverend Mother General had reached the end of her rope. He had seen it happen before. Once you caught that glint in the Reverend Mother’s eye, you got out of the way, fast. She had been kneeling on the other side of Nancy Hare from Gregor. Now she stood up and advanced on Jack Androcetti. Androcetti was an Italian name. Most Italians are Catholic. Maybe there was something deep in the recesses of Jack’s memory that told him he was about to be in a lot of trouble. He stepped back as Reverend Mother General marched in his direction, and stepped back again, and stepped back again. In the end, the lieutenant had his back to the foyer wall and a semicircle of very censorious nuns around him. That was when Reverend Mother General reached up and grabbed his lapel.

“Young man,” she said, “I don’t know what mental defective in the Radnor Police Department approved your promotion to detective, but that person ought to be taken out and shot. You are rude, overbearing, irresponsible, immature. But most of all, you are stupid. You haven’t done a single bit of good for anybody since the moment you arrived at St. Elizabeth’s and you have done a great deal to make matters worse. I no longer care whether you are supposed to be here in some official capacity. I no longer care about the laws of Radnor, Pennsylvania. If I have to, I will ask His Eminence the Cardinal Archbishop here to demand your reassignment. I want you out of my life.”

“I’m the investigating officer in charge of this case!”

“Nobody calls me the Cardinal Archbishop,” David Kenneally said into Gregor’s ear. “Not even the Pope.”

Gregor was willing to bet Jack Androcetti would never again call David Kenneally anything else. Androcetti was looking around the room wildly, from one implacable nun face to another. His eyes came to light on Sister Agnes Bernadette and he flushed. Agnes Bernadette hadn’t moved from her place on the far wall.

“She’s got an accomplice,” Jack Androcetti said, sputtering a little. “She’s got some other nun in this place helping her out.”

“Why?” Sister Scholastica demanded.

“I thought your explanation for what had happened here was insanity,” Reverend Mother General said coldly. “I thought your entire rationale was that Sister Agnes Bernadette went off her head and tried to poison everybody at the reception.”

“And it isn’t true,” Sister Mary Alice said, “because there wasn’t any poison in any of the food except the scraps they took from the statue that went on Mother Mary Bellarmine’s table. I know because Sister Mary Sebastian has a cousin in the police lab and she called him up and asked.”

“I’ll get him fired,” Androcetti said.

“You won’t have a chance,” Reverend Mother General said.

“She was over here when it happened,” Jack Androcetti said. “I saw her. She was standing right next to this woman—”

“Nancy Hare,” Henry Hare said sharply. “Mrs. Henry Hare.”

“—and she moved back after she stuck the knife. I saw her.” Androcetti looked triumphant “I saw her,” he repeated.