Death Goes on Retreat (4 page)

“Don’t tell her.” Felicita nodded toward a statue of the saint illumined by one of the overhead lights. Philomena, dressed in her native toga, held a palm frond in her stone hand as a symbol of her martyrdom. “She’s the one we prayed to for Beverly.”

“Be careful what you pray for.” Mary Helen smiled, paraphrasing the old Chinese proverb. “You just may get it!”

Over steaming cups of herbal tea, Felicita spilled out the whole story. “For years we had nothing but trouble finding a decent cook. We were desperate. Then Beverly came along. She had excellent recommendations. And lives not far away, over in the Bonny Doon area.” She shrugged. “And so we didn’t hesitate when she asked for a two-year signed contract. Actually, we were delighted.

“ ‘How long can a two-year contract be?’ I asked Mother Superior at the time.” Felicita scowled at her own foolishness. “Now I know!

“From her first day here, she began to alienate the other members of the staff. First, the women in the
kitchen. Then the housekeepers. The ladies in the office. We can’t keep a living soul! She even bothers Mr. King, the caretaker.” Felicita’s eyes blinked in disbelief. “And Mr. King is almost stone-deaf! The only ones who seem to like her are Rin and Tin-Tin. Maybe it’s because she feeds them.

“And now, Laura. She’s our fourth dishwasher since Beverly came. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a dishwasher?”

Eileen shook her head.

“Worse than a cook. Next to impossible,” Felicita sighed. “I had great hopes for Laura. She’s a graduate student in drama here at the university and, as she said, she needs the job. When she didn’t quit in the first few weeks, naively I thought she was happy. Actually, I thought Beverly rather liked Laura. She seemed to talk more to her than she talked to any of the others. In a friendly way, I mean.”

“Why don’t you simply fire the woman?” Eileen’s dander was up.

“Our lawyer says she could sue. And Mother Superior fears a suit more than sin itself.” Felicita caught herself. “Not that I blame her. We have so little and we’ve worked so hard for it, it seems silly to risk it all because we can’t reason with one woman. That is, unless you’ve tried yourself.”

“I take it you have.”

Sister Felicita’s pale blue eyes sparked. “Might as well spit in the wind. Pardon the expression. It just comes back at you. She knows she has us over a barrel.”

“What exactly does she do?” Mary Helen was curious.
The woman sounded like something right out of a gothic novel.

“It’s like putting your thumb on mercury. No one who quits ever says exactly why. Most of them try to be kind. Saying such things as ‘I need more hours,’ or ‘the commute is too hard,’ or some such thing. And if you ask Beverly what happened, she falls into a rage, slamming pots. You saw her act tonight.”

“Calling her on it does no good?” Eileen asked, obviously unable to believe it.

“It only makes matters worse.”

“Monsignor McHugh seemed to know her. Maybe he could reason with her.”

Felicita sighed. “Many of the priests know her. They come here with their parish groups. Believe it or not, she’s worse to priests than to anyone. It is almost as if she hates them.”

“How much of the contract is left?” Mary Helen asked, shuffling through her mind for the name of a Mount St. Francis alum who was a sharp contract attorney. She’d call Shirley, her secretary in the Alumnae Office, first thing in the morning.

“A year and two months,” Felicita said. She made it sound like a lifetime sentence to Devil’s Island.

Wearily, Felicita rose and rinsed out their teacups. “Nothing is up to par,” she said, straightening up the counter. “I am continually training new help. No one knows how to make square corners anymore and, I swear, they don’t see dirt. Even our staunchest supporters have mentioned it. Nicely, of course. But no one, however staunch, expects to come to retreat and begin by cleaning up the bathroom sink.

“That, plus the priests’ being insulted every time they bring parishioners—how long will anyone continue to come?” Felicita suddenly looked very old and very tired. “It’s taken us years, decades really, to build up our clientele. And once they are gone . . .”

Silently Mary Helen and Eileen followed Felicita across the deserted grounds. Their hostess insisted on showing them to their rooms in St. Agnes’ Hall, although Mary Helen felt reasonably certain that, given the room numbers, they could find their own way.

Suddenly, she felt almost as tired as Felicita looked. Maybe it was the time of night or the herbal tea or just the pressure of preparing for retreat, leaving Mt. St. Francis College, and driving to Santa Cruz. Whichever, she was one guest who did not intend to examine the square corners on the bed, or the bathroom sink, for that matter. She doubted that she’d even get through the first few pages of her new mystery before sleep took over.

The gentle night wind rustled the leathery leaves of the bay trees, almost like wind chimes. The soft hum of the insects rose in the stillness. Ancient redwoods formed a dark, protective rim around St. Colette’s, their thick, soft bark producing a profound quiet. Overhead the sky was awash with stars. Mary Helen found the bright North Star and marveled at its nearness.

No one would ever suspect, she thought, yawning as Sister Felicita fumbled with the door keys, that such turmoil could possibly exist in this citadel of peace.

The mournful and persistent coo, coo, coo of a pair of doves finally woke Sister Mary Helen. Eyes shut, she lay in the comfortable bed wondering how it was possible that someone who slept through foghorns, sirens, garbage trucks, and Muni buses, not to mention the stream of traffic on Turk Street, could possibly be awakened by a mourning dove. Impossible, yet true! Worst of all, she could not fall back to sleep.

The hungry squawk of a blue jay startled her. It sounded so close. Was the bird in the room? Reluctantly Mary Helen opened her eyes. What was it Eileen always said about birds in the house? A sign of death?

She felt a sudden dread, but shrugged it off as nonsense. She had not quite recovered from the shock of discovering a dead body on her trip to Spain last year. That’s all it was. If I’m not careful, I’ll be expecting dead bodies everywhere.

Furthermore, she thought, searching for her slippers on the cold floor, how would a bird get in?

Shivering in the early morning chill, Mary Helen pulled back the heavy drapes. Below the window, a narrow sitting porch ran alongside the building. A noisy jay with a long, dark crest was perched on the rail. He tilted his head. Bold stump! Mary Helen thought as she and the bird eyed each other.

Beyond the porch lay a pageant of trees—sycamore and redwoods, madrone and spruce—as far as the eye could see. Fog rose from them like incense from some gigantic thurifer hidden on the valley floor. As the mist blended into the overcast sky, Mary Helen felt as if she were about to catch a magical glimpse of Brigadoon. Then with a twinge of regret she remembered that she must wait another whole week to enjoy seven days of all this beauty.

Not that she didn’t enjoy her work in the Alumnae Office of Mount St. Francis College. She did. Very much, in fact. But the sudden change of plans—because they really couldn’t stay on the priests’ retreat—made her realize how much she had been looking forward to this retreat.

Tiptoeing into the bathroom between Eileen’s room and her own, she listened for any “awake” sounds. All she heard was a low sough. Eileen was fast asleep.

Sister Mary Helen dressed quickly and warmly, then checked her wristwatch. Six-thirty. She’d have plenty of time for a walk before waking Eileen and calling Sister Anne to pick them up. What a perfect way to make her morning’s meditation! Wasn’t it William Cullen Bryant
or some such poet who wrote, “The groves were God’s first temples”?

As an afterthought, Mary Helen grabbed up her book on plants of the region. A guide to the cathedral, she thought whimsically.

Even before she reached the vestibule of St. Agnes’ Hall, she smelled the aroma of coffee. Following her nose, she found a small glass electric pot and paper cups.

Felicita must be up, she thought, savoring the hot, rich taste. Most likely, poor Felicita hadn’t slept very well. Before they left, Mary Helen must call Shirley about an alum attorney. Her secretary would be in the office by nine. It might make Felicita feel better to know someone else was interested in her problem.

Mary Helen blew on the hot coffee and scanned the notices pinned to the large bulletin board. There was a brief life of the patroness of the retreat center, St. Colette. “The renowned Franciscan mystic,” it read, “lived two hundred years after Francis and Clare and reformed the Order of Poor Clares.”

She really did a job, Mary Helen thought, sipping her coffee, since the Poor Clares are still one of the most austere Orders in the Church. . . .

There were guidelines on how to make a retreat; a warning about smoking in bed; and a list of the room numbers along with the names of the intended occupants. There was also a rather detailed map of the hillside Way of the Cross. A short blurb explained that the devotion was “a kind of pilgrimage in which one mentally visits the important scenes of Christ’s Passion in Jerusalem. The Way of the Cross is made by stopping at fourteen stations indicating the path followed by Christ,
bearing His cross from the palace of Pilate to Calvary. Each station is marked by a wooden cross.”

Mary Helen studied the map. If it was to be believed, the distance between the crosses was short and the terrain not too hilly.

Zipping up her windbreaker, she left St. Agnes’ and headed, literally, for the hills. Ivy partially covered the cliffs and the long shoots of periwinkle ran over onto the path. Sorrel with delicate pink blossoms carpeted the sloping hillside. In the distance she heard a stream gurgling.

Holding tightly to a manzanita branch, Sister Mary Helen straddled a shallow ditch. She began to puff.

A small black and white chickadee balancing on a quivering tree branch eyed her nervously. “Sick, sick, sick,” he drawled.

“You might be right,” Mary Helen said aloud, starting to doubt the wisdom of scaling the hillside. At last she reached Station One. The stark wooden cross stretched ten feet into the air.

A sign warning
CAUTION: STEEP PATH AHEAD
made up her mind. One station was enough for her. The map on the bulletin board obviously had been drawn by an optimist. Or a physical-fitness freak. A sundial marked a fork. Mary Helen chose the flat trail leading to “Madonna Grove.”

The grove was a veritable cathedral of gigantic redwoods. Logs created a boundary of sorts and the thick carpet of yellowing pine needles gave it a deep hush. A large terra-cotta Madonna set in a burned-out tree trunk was obviously what gave the clearing its name.

Mary Helen was delighted to spot a handmade wooden bench. Still puffing, she lowered herself onto it. She breathed in the peace. A curious quail appeared from the bracken, gave a sharp whistle, and scurried away. Absently, Mary Helen wondered what had become of the two dogs this morning.

She unzipped her jacket. Already the air was beginning to warm up. Today was going to turn into a hot one. She must remember to pack her bathing suit for next week. Actually, she must remember to buy a bathing suit for next week; then lose twenty pounds so that she’d have the humility to wear it.

In the deep quiet, the buzzing of the insects took on extraordinary volume. They seemed to be swarming just beyond one of the logs. What could it be? A ground nest, perhaps?

Wishing she had brought along a book on bugs as well as one on trees, Mary Helen walked toward the sound. Thousands of insects covered something. But what?

With her finger, she pushed her bifocals up onto the bridge of her nose, and bent forward for a closer look. An angry hornet buzzed dangerously close to her face. An army of bottle flies glinted green in the dawn light. Mary Helen felt a heavy thud in her chest that made her momentarily light-headed. Were those tennis shoes? Were the insects swarming over a pair of tennis shoes and up stiff, unmoving pant legs?