“No,” Peter Rose said. “She was in there as late as one o’clock without ever coming out to the extent of using the fire door or passing my office.”
“You were in a position to know that throughout that whole time?”
“Yes. There’s a rosary at twelve, but I didn’t go. I had a lot of work to do.”
Gregor thought about it. “So,” he said. “She was in that office at least until one. What happened at one?”
“I ran over to the convent to have some lunch.”
“And then?”
“Then I taught my class until three. Then I made sure everybody had their coats and their backpacks. Then I made sure everybody got on the bus.”
“You didn’t go back to your office?” Gregor asked.
“No,” Peter Rose said.
“Fine. What about Sister Harriet Garrity? Did anybody else see her at any time during the rest of the afternoon?”
“No,” Lou Emiliani put in. “We’ve asked everybody in the place. Nobody saw her after Sister Thomasetta and Sister Peter Rose saw her at ten-thirty. Somebody even went looking for her and couldn’t find her. Ah—”
“Sister Bridget,” Garry Mansfield put in. “She had phone duty. Somebody was looking for Sister Harriet from something called GALA.”
“Gay and Lesbian Support Advisory,” Scholastica put in. “It’s an advocacy organization that deals with gay community issues. It was practically the only thing Harriet belonged to that the Chancery didn’t scream about, although they probably would have liked to. GALA did a lot of work on behalf of the plaintiffs in the pedophilia suit.”
“Did anybody look for Harriet in Scholastica’s office?” Gregor asked.
“I doubt it,” Scholastica said. “I mean, why would they? Although we could always ask.”
“Ask,” Gregor said. “Just in case. What about time of death? Do we have that yet?”
“Later on this afternoon,” Lou Emiliani said. “But you know what that’s like. We won’t get anywhere near a narrow enough band to pin down something like this—”
“I know, I know.” Gregor sighed. “But we can always hope. You’re sure that nobody could have come past you and into Scholastica’s office between ten-forty-five and one?”
“I’m positive,” Peter Rose said.
“And you didn’t hear any sounds coming out of the room? You didn’t hear thrashing, or a scream?”
“I’d hope I’d do something about a scream,” Peter Rose said. “I didn’t hear anything unusual. What could I have heard?”
“There might have been nothing to hear,” Garry Mansfield put in. “It would all depend on just how much—”
“I know,” Gregor said. He walked over to the coat tree and took his coat down. “I think,” he said, “we’d better go have a talk with Father Healy.”
2
Gregor Demarkian had spent enough time around the Catholic Church, and around priests of other denominations, to understand that he was unlikely to find Father Healy standing at the altar of his church at any odd hour of the day, but as soon as he came out of the office building he veered in that direction anyway. Garry and Lou still weren’t used to him. They veered when he veered, but they were clearly very surprised. He let himself in the church’s side door and walked out to the center aisle. It was a high-ceilinged, mock-Gothic building, and, like most of the churches in the era in which it was built, very ornate. The backs and ends of the pews were carved into rolls and swirls. The marble of the Communion rail was sculpted into a smooth raised curve. The altar was marble, too, and it looked nothing at all like the ersatz tables so many Catholic churches went in for these days. For one thing, there were cracks and discolorations, the kind of small thing that went wrong with expensive buildings when their owners didn’t have quite enough money to keep them up. Gregor walked down the aisle to the back of the church and looked back the way he had come. He walked back up to the altar and paced back and forth in front of the rail. The church was nearly empty of people. The few who were there did not look up.
“What are you doing?” Lou demanded. “Father Healy is in the rectory.”
“I just wanted to check something,” Gregor said. “Bernadette Kelly was found here, at the front, near the altar?”
“Right in the middle of the center aisle,” Garry said.
“What about her husband? Where was he when he shot himself?”
“Same place.” Garry looked around. “You can’t tell, can you? They really cleaned it up.”