True Believers(90)

“Our Sister Scholastica?” Tibor asked.

Gregor nodded. “Our Sister Scholastica. She’s been assigned as principal to St. Anselm’s Parochial School. Yesterday evening, she had dinner with friends, and when she got back to St. Anselm’s she decided to stop in to her office and see if she had any messages. The door to her office was locked. She unlocked it and found Sister Harriet, blue and just beginning to stiffen with rigor. She had a fit. She found Father Healy. Father Healy called the police. So far so good?”

“Perfectly sensible,” Tibor said. “Sister Scholastica is a very sensible woman.”

“Things get less sensible very fast,” Gregor said. “When Father Healy called the police, the call went out on the police band, which Roy Phipps’s people were monitoring.”

“Why?” old George Tekemanian said.

“I don’t have any idea,” Gregor said. “But they were, and they heard it. They sent somebody up the street to see if they could find out anything more, and they managed to get hold of the information that it looked very much like Sister Harriet had been poisoned—”

“Had she been poisoned?” Tibor asked.

“I would guess so, considering what she looked like,” Gregor said, “but we’ll have to wait for the autopsy. Back to the point here. They found out that Sister Harriet was assumed to have been murdered by poison. They then put two and two together and got forty-six. They decided that since both Scott Boardman and Bernadette Kelly had been poisoned, and Scott Boardman had been poisoned at St. Stephen’s, then all the poisonings were being caused by the people at St. Stephen’s—”

“Why?” Old George Tekemanian looked confused.

“—and,” Gregor said, “that there was therefore some kind of police plot to protect the gay members of St. Stephen’s parish from the adverse publicity that would result if the public knew that one of them was the prime suspect in a series of murders. So—”

“Pfaw,” Tibor said, slapping his hand against the booth table. “This is ridiculous. It is not even coherent.”

“I agree,” Gregor said. “But that’s the story Phipps gave to the police.’

“Listen,” Tibor said. “I have met this man. He is a fanatic. He is a demagogue. He is not stupid. He is especially not this kind of stupid. This is the cover story of a mentally retarded sociopath.”

“I agree,” Gregor said again. “But again, it’s the story he gave to the police, and he’s sticking to it. What I can’t figure out is why. Why the demonstration and why the story.”

“Is there someone at St. Stephen’s who is suspected of the killings?” old George Tekemanian asked. “I thought it was only the girl at the Catholic church, and then they thought her husband had done it, because she was so very ill and he hurt to see her suffer.”

“No, no,” Tibor said. “There was another one. At St. Stephen’s. You had to listen carefully, but it was there.”

“Right,” Gregor said. “There was Bernadette Kelly. Her husband brought her body to St. Anselm’s Catholic Church, then shot himself. There was Scott Boardman, who died in a parish office at St. Stephen’s.”

“But is one of the people of the parish of St. Stephen’s suspected of killing them?” old George asked.

“Nobody is suspected of killing them,” Gregor said. “We don’t even know where Bernadette Kelly died, yet. She didn’t die at St. Anselm’s Church. We don’t know anything about the death of Scott Boardman at all.”

“But this Sister Harriet Garrity,” Tibor said. “She died in Sister Scholastica’s office?”

“Oh, yes,” Gregor told him. “The vomit was still on the floor next to the desk. Autopsies can always bring surprises, but I don’t think this one will. I’d say it’s better than ninety-nine percent certain that she died where she was found.”

“I’d say it’s better than ninety-nine percent certain that you’re not going to get to eat this in peace,” Linda Melajian said, arriving at the table with a large oval plate full of food. Behind her was Bennis, in jeans and clogs, her wild black hair pinned up into a knot on top of her head. “I didn’t suggest it to him,” Linda said to Bennis. “You know what he’s like.”

Bennis picked up the plate and moved it to the other side of the table. “I’ll eat this,” she said. “Bring him the fruit platter.”

“I don’t want the fruit platter,” Gregor said. “And I won’t eat it.”