Closely Akin to Murder (15 page)

I left my notebook on the bed and took a paperback down to the pool. Caron was cuddled up with Mr. Dickens on a chaise longue, her grimace indicating she was not especially enamored of him.

“We need to pack to night,” I said as I sat down next to her. “You'll have quite a story to tell when we get back home, won't you? I wish I did.”

She peered at me over the top of the book. “You sound awfully discouraged, Mother. I told you before we left that the whole thing was stupid. Why would
anybody even remember a bunch of stuff that happened so long ago? By middle age, there is a measurable reduction in neural activity and a corresponding decline in the ability to retrieve information.”

“The information I need to retrieve is in the Los Angeles County Court house,” I said, “and I'd probably have as much luck there as I would in Chilpancingo. I guess I should call Ronnie before it gets too late in Brussels.” Instead of doing so, I beckoned to a waiter and ordered a margarita, then leaned back and examined each dead end for a tiny fissure. Miss Marple had waited in her cozy cottage for fresh information to be served alongside tea and scones. Maud Silver and Hildegarde Withers snooped more vigorously, and heaven knows Cordelia Gray went after her prey. Alas, they knew what they were doing; I felt as if I were all dressed up with nowhere to go . . . except home, shrouded in failure.

Caron closed the book. “I can't concentrate if you're going to sit there and wheeze. I'm surprised the sky hasn't clouded over out of deference to your mood. This is My Last Day to work on a tan, you know.”

“You'll be relieved to learn I have very little impact on the weather,” I said.

“I wasn't holding my breath.” She discarded the book, dabbed lotion on her nose, and lay back to capture whatever ultraviolet rays remained in the late afternoon sunlight.

I sipped the drink and watched the brightly colored parasails drift across the sky. It was easy to ignore the cables linking them to boats far below and imagine them to be fanciful tropical birds gliding in the breeze. Two bikini-clad girls walked by, pointing at the parasails and chattering excitedly in Spanish. A man on a
nearby chaise longue pulled off his sunglasses to ogle them; the acceleration in the rhythm of their hips suggested they were aware of him.

Fran Pickett would have garnered such looks, I thought idly, but not stooped, gawky Ronnie. Fran had been compared to a fashion model, petite and perfectly sculpted. Wearing a bikini must have been quite a contrast after a semester of plaid skirts and blazers—or whatever convent school girls wore. According to Ronnie, Fran had loathed the school and the stringent supervision of what she'd called “the sisters of the holy swine.”

The convent would be a good place to start trying to locate Fran and her mother, but I doubted I could go to the public library in Farberville and track down the order in
Know Your Nuns.
I couldn't see myself on the doorstep of the local Catholic school, asking if anyone there knew of “the sisters of the holy swine.” As a child, I'd always worried what the voluminous black habits might conceal; the anxiety lingered despite the modernization of their attire.

“Holy swine,” I muttered.

“What's the matter?” Caron said without raising her head (and possibly deflecting a ray). “Have pigs taken to playing volleyball on the beach?”

“ ‘Holy swine' is a crude nickname.”

“I told you some of these people are disgusting. They ought to wear black plastic garbage bags instead of bathing suits. They certainly have no business playing volleyball; they'd be better off praying at a shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Liposuction.”

“Shrine,” I said, my lips barely moving.

“Will you order me a lemonade? It is so incredibly hot here that I can feel my flesh melting.”

I distractedly waved at the waiter as I envisioned myself on the doorstep of the Catholic school, this time inquiring about a convent in the Southwest that was staffed by the Sisters of the Holy Shrine, most likely of something or other. Eyebrows might be raised, but offense would not be taken. And I might get an answer.

“She'll have a lemonade,” I said to the waiter, my face aglow with the rosy rapture of a novitiate. “What the hey—make it a double.”

 

The following afternoon, Caron and I arrived home without incident. Caron dropped her luggage in the living room and dashed into her bedroom to call Inez to find out what unprecedented and deeply momentous events had taken place during the last four days. She was probably hoping to hear that Rhonda Maguire was impregnated or imprisoned. Either would be acceptable.

I put on clothes more suitable to the blustery November weather, made a pot of tea, and sorted through the mail. Praying that Peter's schedule had not changed, I craftily called his house and left a message on his answering machine. I could have tried the police department, of course, and I knew I couldn't avoid him indefinitely. Comandante Quiroz had not been told about the kidnapping, and there was no reason to think he'd been in further communication on whatever computer system had culminated with the printout on Peter's desk. Unless Caron insisted on appearing on the nightly news or holding a press conference to breathlessly describe her ordeal, Peter might never find out about it. I would be spared a lecture accentuated with dejected sighs and avowals of frustration
at his inability to convince me of the folly of my ways. Despite his intelligence, the man was a slow learner in certain matters.

I looked up the telephone number of St. Martin's Academy, then decided that calling was cowardly. It would also require me to convince Caron to surrender the phone—not an easy process. I went down the back staircase to the garage, brushed a spider off the windshield, and drove toward Thurber Street.

The Book Depot was open, but as usual there were no customers with a lust for literature streaming through the doorway. The bewildered retiree was sweeping the brick expanse beneath the portico; he looked so despondent that I was tempted to stop and assure him that his temporary tenure was drawing to an end. However, I continued toward the school, where I dearly hoped I would encounter Sally Field instead of Rosalind Russell.

Classes had ended for the day, and only a dozen or so students were in the paved playground adjoining the three story red brick building. The girls wore knee socks and dark skirts, but their winter coats hid the rest of the ensemble. The boys wore slacks rather than blue jeans, and their hair was uniformly short. This did not guarantee that these neatly dressed youth would not grow up to be professional wrestlers and trailer park queens, but it was an improvement over the slovenly attire at other schools in town.

I parked, rehearsed my story until my teeth started to chatter, and walked up the sidewalk to the main entrance. Through the glass I could see two women conversing in the hallway and a hunched figure pushing a mop. I went inside and hesitated, unsure how to address women who might be undercover nuns.

One of them smiled at me and said, “Are you looking for the office? It's at the end of the hall just beyond the trophy case.”

“Thanks,” I said, then scooted past them without being forced to resolve my quandary. The awards in the trophy case were based on academic achievements instead of more physical endeavors; St. Martin's had won the parochial equivalent of the College Bowl four years in a row. A framed photograph of moppets commemorated the planting of rosebushes at a nursing home. Red and blue ribbons from science fairs added a festive touch.

The office was large and equipped with all the technology of the day, including a droning photocopy machine, multibuttoned telephones, and computers. I was struggling to envision Rosalind Russell bent over a keyboard when a middle-aged woman in slacks and a sweater came out of a back room. Surely nuns did not wear makeup, I told myself as I went to the counter.

“Are you here about our second semester enrollment?” she asked. “We still don't have the application forms, but I can take your name and address and mail it to you.”

It was tempting to give out a false name and flee, but I stiffened my spineless back and said, “I'm trying to get information about a convent school in another state. This seemed like the logical place to start. I was hoping there might be some sort of catalog with listings.”

“If there's a catalog like that, I've never heard of it. Let me see if Sister Mary Clarissa is still in her classroom.” The woman went back into the inner sanctum, leaving me to perspire ever so discreetly and wish I were at the bar at the Acapulco Plaza. I doubted St.
Martin's Academy would offer me a margarita and a bowl of pretzels.

The woman returned and gave me directions to the biology lab. The corridors were similar to those at Farberville High School, but the lockers were unblemished and the graffiti was absent. A poster announced an upcoming choir concert, and taped on the wall outside what I presumed was a kindergarten classroom were drawings of coneheaded Pilgrims.

The lab was on the second floor; the astringent odor of formaldehyde was unmistakable. As I came inside, Sister Mary Clarissa stepped out from behind a lab table. She was gray-haired and dauntingly stern in an odd combination of gray skirt, white blouse, gray cardigan sweater, and high-topped athletic shoes. The only manifestation of her vocation was a small gold cross on a chain around her neck.

“You wanted to speak to me?” she began in a tone that must have squelched many an impertinent question about the racier aspects of the procreation of the species
Homo sapiens.

A candid response would have been that I most assuredly did not want to speak to her, but it would not have been constructive. I swallowed and said, “I'm trying to find out about a convent school run by an order called the Sisters of the Holy Shrine.”

“Holy Shrine of what?”

“I don't know. A daughter of an acquaintance attended classes there thirty years ago, and I'm hoping I can locate them through school records. All I know is that it was in the Southwest and was very strict.”

Sister Mary Clarissa gave me a pitying look. “All convent schools were very strict thirty years ago. We here at St. Martin's have come to tolerate some
progressive theories, but we fill our classrooms because we offer a well-structured program in a disciplined environment.”

“I apologize for taking up your time,” I said, edging toward the door.

“I didn't say I couldn't help you. I seem to think Sister Thomasina attended a retreat at a convent with a similar name. When she returned, she bored us to tears with descriptions of cacti. Wait here while I try to catch her before she leaves for her tennis lesson.”

Sister Mary Clarissa charged out of the room like a gray-and-white tornado. I could not have moved my feet if a fire alarm had gone off. I'm sorry to say this paralysis was caused more by Sister Mary Clarissa's command than the possibility I might actually have a new lead. It occurred to me that if I ended up in possession of the address of the convent school, there were apt to be a goodly number of nuns in my future.

I was examining a poster concerning the life cycle of sponges when Sister Mary Clarissa returned.

“Although Sister Thomasina's mind is as mushy as a bowl of oatmeal, she remembered the retreat. It was run by the Sisters of the Holy Shrine of San Jacinto at their convent outside of Phoenix. I'd be surprised if the school were still in operation. It used to be popular to pack off one's daughters to the vigilant guidance of the sisters, but these days girls are allowed to do as they wish.” She leaned forward, staring at me. “Are you the mother of a teenaged girl?”

I cravenly shook my head, thanked her for the information, and hurried to my car before my knees dissolved. Only then did I realize that my quest had been successful, that I knew the name and location of Fran's
school. It was challenging to drive and pat myself on the back at the same time, but I managed.

Caron had left a note stating that she was walking to Inez's house since someone had driven away in the only vehicle without so much as advising other parties who might be in need of transportation. These other parties, the note continued, had not acclimatized themselves to the brutal local weather conditions and might come down with frostbite, hypothermia—or worse.

I dropped the note on the kitchen table, made a drink, and called Ronnie.

She sounded more chipper than she had at four in the morning. “Hello?”

I explained that I was in Farberville, but had not yet conceded defeat. Before she could blurt out any questions, I added, “I have to ask you more about the night Oliver Pickett attacked you. It may be painful for you to try to remember the details, but you need to do it if you want me to get to the bottom of all this.”

“I'll do my best,” she said dully.

“You were unconscious in the master bedroom when Oliver broke up the party. You awoke to find him on top of you, and fought him off into the living room, where you grabbed a knife off the bar and stabbed him.”

“That's the part I wish I could forget, but it's all too vivid in my mind. There was a surreal quality to the scene, as if it were a macabre dance choreographed by some fiend. Neither of us spoke; the only sounds were his grunts and my whimpers. When the blade plunged into his neck, we were both so startled that all we could do was gape at each other as blood splattered my shirt. He crumpled onto the floor of the balcony, and I staggered into the bedroom and collapsed.”

“Is it possible,” I said, “that someone else could have been there at that time?”

“Was someone else there?” she demanded.

“I have no idea. I met a man in Acapulco who claimed he saw a figure come out of the bungalow well after the guests had dispersed. He lied to me more than once, however.”

“What was his name?”

I sighed. “He used a pseudonym, and there's no real evidence he was at the Hotel Las Floritas that night. In any case, he's disappeared. Let me ask you something else, Ronnie. After the stabbing, you went back into the bedroom and passed out. When Fran's scream awakened you, you saw the blood on your clothes and the knife near your hand.” I paused, aware I was about to say something that might have a profoundly upsetting effect on her. “Did Fran tell you what you'd done, painting such vivid images that your mind could have seized on them and incorporated them into your memory?”