Murder Makes a Pilgrimage

Eyes closed, Sister Mary Helen whispered a prayer and touched St. James’ coffin lid. She didn’t expect it to feel wet and sticky . . .

Distracted, she opened her eyes. What in heaven’s name could be leaking down here?

Her heart gave a sickening jolt. A streak of red was smeared from the corner of the lid down one side—as though a bloody rag had been dragged over it. Then Mary Helen saw it . . . on the marble floor below, awkwardly stuffed behind the ornate casket. Rivulets of blood snaked down from the body’s gaping head wound onto its shimmering evening dress like scratches. Mary Helen peered at the face, half covered with strands of auburn hair. Vacant blue eyes stared back at her. Across the throat was a thick cruel welt.

Someone had strangled Lisa Springer . . .

Also by Sister Carol Anne O’Marie

The Corporal Works of Murder

Death Takes Up A Collection

Death of an Angel

Advent of Dying

Available from
St. Martin’s/Minotaur Paperbacks

Published by arrangement with Delacorte Press / Bantam
Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

MURDER MAKES A PILGRIMAGE

Copyright © 1993 by Sister Carol Anne O’Marie.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-9984

ISBN: 0-312-98528-2

Printed in the United States of America

Delacorte Press edition / November 1993
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / November 2003

St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

T
O MY FAMILY,
WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT NEVER WAIVERS;

ESPECIALLY MY SISTER
, K
ATHLEEN
O’M
ARIE
,
C
AROLINE
, J
OHN, AND
N
OELLE
B
ENSON
,
H
AL AND
D
OSIE
G
ARDEN
,
S
ALLY AND
D
AVE
V
AN
H
OUTEN
,
J
OE
C
RUME,
AND
J
ULIA AND
K
ATE
M
AREE

“I beg your pardon?” Sister Mary Helen said into the telephone.

The voice on the other end of the line repeated the message slowly and carefully, with the patience of one used to being misunderstood.

“It is my pronunciation, perhaps, Seester,” he said in a rich Spanish accent, “that is giving you difficulty?”

In truth his pronunciation was fine. It was his message that puzzled Mary Helen.

“I won a what?” she asked.

Her caller must have decided that she was deaf. He began to shout, “Seester, you have won our contest! You and a companion are to be our guests on a week-long pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in España!”

“But, Señor . . . uh . . . ” Surprise knocked his name right out of her mind.

“I am Señor Carlos Fraga de la Cueva.” He supplied his name again, this time so loudly that she held the receiver away from her ear.

“Señor Fraga, how could I possibly win a contest that I did not enter?”

“Seester, it is I who now must beg your pardon. But your name, it is on one of our winning tickets.” Loudly, distinctly,
he read her name, her address at Mount St. Francis College, even including San Francisco, California, and the zip code. He concluded with her telephone number at the Alumnae Office.

By now he must be figuring that as well as being a little deaf, I am more than a little dumb, Mary Helen thought, staring out of her small office window at the bright September sky.

“But, Señor,” she stalled, racking her brain. When could she possibly have entered a “Trip to Santiago de Compostela” contest? Surely she would remember a thing like that.

“I am the owner of the Patio Español Restaurant.” Señor Fraga pronounced each word deliberately. No doubt he was hoping that the old nun would have a flash of recognition. “On Alemany Boulevard, Seester. Do you remember?”

Of course, she remembered the Patio Español. How could she forget it? The place was a block long and looked like a hacienda right out of Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel
Ramona
. She and her friend Sister Eileen had gone there recently for a scrumptious dinner with Consuelo Aguilar, a college alumna. As a matter of fact, the dinner and the restaurant had been Connie’s idea. “A beginning-of-the-school-year treat” she called it.

With her free hand, Mary Helen flipped back the pages on her desk calendar. “Dinner with Connie A.” was scribbled across the bottom of Tuesday, September 7. Just two weeks ago. She remembered being especially pleased to go out to dinner that night—and she certainly remembered why.

Ben, the college chef, always roasted turkeys to celebrate the opening of school. Invariably he roasted too many and used up his leftovers on the nuns.

The morning of the seventh, Ramon, the pastry cook, had told Mary Helen that he was baking patty shells for dinner.
It hadn’t taken much ingenuity to figure out that they would be dining on turkey à la king that night.

“If I eat another turkey anything, I’m going to start gobbling,” she had confided to Eileen, who answered by making several deep, throaty sounds herself.

“You do recall our restaurant, Seester?” Señor Fraga persisted. “We were holding a contest for a trip?
Año santo
in Santiago de Compostela?

“Of course, I remember your restaurant,” Mary Helen snapped. The inside of the Patio Español was as impressive as its exterior. The high-ceilinged room was filled with arches and brightly colored ceramic tiles, hand-blown glass, fresh flowers, wrought-iron chandeliers, and a trickling water fountain.

She even remembered what the three of them had ordered: Pacific snapper sautéed in olive oil with garlic and white wine. It came with San Francisco sourdough bread. David, an unlikely name for a Spanish waiter, had asked several times if their spinach
sopa
was hot enough. It was.

“Your restaurant stands out very clearly in my mind, Señor Fraga,” Sister Mary Helen said. “What I don’t remember is entering your contest.”

“You are Seester Mary Helen, are you not?” Señor Fraga repeated, beginning to sound exasperated.

“Of course I am.”

“Then you are one of our contest winners,” he said with a tone of finality that settled the matter for him, anyway. “You will receive the details of your wonderful trip in Thursday’s post. We leave San Francisco for Santiago on October seventh and return on the fifteenth. It is imperative that we know by Wednesday of next week if you accept.
Adios
,” Señor Fraga called cheerily, “and congratulations!”

Mary Helen sat at her desk, staring at the dead receiver. How in the world?

“Are you about ready to break for lunch?” She heard Shirley, her secretary, call from the outer office. The two of them had spent the entire morning working on the preliminary plans for the alumnae fashion show.

“I’m starving.” Shirley peeked in from the doorjamb.

“Lunch? Is it lunchtime already?” Mary Helen, still dazed, glanced up at her secretary. Shirley’s eyes sparkled behind her oversize glasses.

“What is it, Sister? Not bad news, I hope.” Pointing at the telephone, Shirley stepped into the small office, where her white hair shone silver under the fluorescent lights.

“No, not bad news. Actually I suppose it’s good news. That call was from a Señor Fraga at the Patio Español. It seems that I have won a trip to Spain.”

Even the unshockable Shirley took a moment to assimilate the news. “Well, hooray for you!” she said with much more enthusiasm than Mary Helen could muster. “When do you leave?”

“I’m not so sure that I’m going,” Mary Helen said. “I’ll really have to think about it.”

“Everything becomes much clearer on a full stomach.” Shirley, gold bracelets jingling, leaned over and patted her hand. “Why don’t we eat? I hear the food service is serving tacos today. Maybe that’s an omen.”

Mary Helen couldn’t help laughing. “You go on ahead. I’ll catch up and meet you there,” she said, pretending to busy herself straightening up the paperwork strewn across her desk.

As soon as her secretary left the office, Mary Helen pushed back in her wide desk chair and closed her eyes. Had she actually forgotten entering a contest? Age could play funny tricks on one’s memory, she’d heard. In fact, nowadays old Sister Donata referred to her “forgettory” instead of her memory. But I’m not so very old yet, Mary Helen fussed. Why, I’m only seventy-seven. Or is it seventy-eight? No matter.
I am entirely too young to start forgetting something as unforgettable as writing my own name on an entry blank and dropping it into a box.

The word
box
triggered an image in her mind. Come to think of it, she had noticed a brightly colored box at the Patio Español. It was just inside the front door next to a sprawling bouquet of red, orange, and sunshine yellow gladioli. She remembered that much.

After dinner Connie had pushed the heavy wooden door open, holding it for the two nuns. In the warm glow of the restaurant Mary Helen had shivered at the sight of the low fog swirling down Alemany Boulevard. From the corner of her eye she’d spotted the box and a blurred movement. Sure enough!

She bolted up from her chair and switched off the overhead lights. Sister Mary Helen knew exactly who the contest culprit was, and she would confront her immediately.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” Mary Helen hissed the moment she spotted Sister Eileen in the lunch line.

Eileen’s eyebrows arched, and she blinked her large gray eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“That is exactly what I said when Señor Fraga called.”

Frowning, Eileen slid her lunch tray along the counter and picked out a glossy green pear from the fruit bowl. “Fraga? Fraga? That name does not seem to ring any bells,” she said.

“Well, it should! Church bells. No, cathedral bells. Does Santiago de Compostela mean anything to you?”

Eileen’s cheeks flushed. “For the love of all that’s good and holy, keep your voice down, Mary Helen,” she said with a touch of the brogue, a sure sign that she was flustered. “Do you want the new faculty members to think that we’re fighting?”

One look at her friend’s face, and Mary Helen knew that what the new faculty thought was the least of Eileen’s concerns. She was playing for time to think up a decent defense. Like any good scrapper, Eileen knew that the best defense is a good offense. Mary Helen knew it, too.