True Believers(18)

Mary had gone out to their trailer park once, to see if they might need anything, but they hadn’t been home—and then, last week, when she’d tried to call, the phone had been disconnected. She hadn’t known what to think about that. She couldn’t imagine Bernadette not paying the phone bill, but with their medical expenses—and no health insurance—she couldn’t imagine them being able to move to someplace better. It was one of those cases that brought her very clearly to the understanding that she was not a saint. A saint would have known just what to do in these circumstances: to seek out Marty and Bernadette; to check with the trailer park to see if they’d been evicted; to check with Father Healy and see what he wanted to do. Mary had to admit that she hadn’t checked with Father Healy because she hadn’t wanted to. Father Healy made her nervous and shy, the way Sister Superior had at St. Anne’s Catholic Girls High School.

Mary got her keys off her clip and let herself into the church’s back door. The small flight of steps led directly to the basement, which had been “finished” to provide meeting rooms and a cafeteria. She stopped at the statue of the Virgin and made the sign of the cross and a little bow. Sister Thomas Marie, who had taught her religion classes, had been very enthusiastic about the idea that they should all develop a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and Mary had chosen the Immaculate Conception to “focus her spiritual life.” That was why she wore a Miraculous Medal everywhere she went.

The basement was deserted, not only of people but of things, except for the things that were supposed to be here, like tables and chairs. Mary checked into both the conference rooms and the mudroom, where people were supposed to put their coats and shoes. If she hadn’t seen people going in and out the door upstairs, she would have thought the entire church was deserted. She tried the cafeteria and saw that the chairs had been put up on top of the tables so that somebody could mop. The floor did not look as if anybody had mopped. What was worse, the rat traps were still all over the place, and probably filled with poison, even though several people had complained and everybody was very nervous.

She went through the cafeteria and out the other side. She was just about to go through to the other stairwell and up to the church proper when she saw Father Healy starting to come down, dressed in black but without his trademark cassock, tucking things into the pocket of his shirt.

“Oh, Father,” Mary said. “Good morning. I was looking for the boxes.”

“Boxes?”

One of the problems, Mary thought, was that he was so young—not all that much older than she was herself. There were rumors that he had graduated from high school at fifteen and been out of the seminary before he was twenty-five. That might be true or not, but it was true that Father Healy was much younger than most priests were when they got to head an entire parish. It didn’t help that he looked even younger than he had to be, thin and dark, with a face still full of acne and scars.

Mary waited until he got to the bottom of the stairs. “Sister Scholastica and Sister Peter Rose,” she said. “They did a can collection at the school this week. I’m supposed to come pick up the boxes.”

“Wouldn’t they be at the school?”

“Sister Peter Rose said to pick them up at the church. Maybe she wasn’t thinking. I can check the school, next.”

“The sisters are in chapel,” Father Healy said. “It’s time for their—”

“Office,” Mary said. “Yes, Father. I know. Don’t you think the Sisters of Divine Grace are a very interesting order? They haven’t gone all modern, like IHM. Did you see Marty and Bernadette? Their truck is in the parking lot. I was thinking maybe Bernadette wanted to come in for Scott Boardman’s funeral.”

There was a small door in the other side of the stairwell that led to a storage closet. Mary opened that, but there was nothing inside but brooms and buckets. She closed it again.

“Maybe they’re in the Sunday school rooms,” Father Healy said. “Let’s go up and check. I’ve got the key to that if you haven’t. And I haven’t seen Marty or Bernadette today, but I’ve been back and forth a lot this morning. Maybe they’re in the church.”

“I’ve heard that Bernadette wasn’t well. Lately. With the diabetes, you know.”

“Last time I heard they were talking about amputating her left leg.”

To get to the Sunday school rooms, they had to go back across the cafeteria and out a door on the other side, but not the same door Mary had come in on. Whoever had designed this floor plan must have spent a previous life designing topiary mazes. Mary felt her stomach heave and her forehead break out into a sweat. Bernadette wasn’t any older than she was. They had to amputate her left leg?