Carella asked the long distance operator for time and charges before he placed his call to California. This was police business and he was but a poor overworked, underpaid servant of the law who hoped to be reimbursed if he put in a chit. It was eight o' clock here in the East, and they had just finished eating dinner. Out there in San Luis Elizario, it was five eM.; he hoped convent nuns didn't start their evening meal early. He hoped they weren't still at vespers or something. He hoped Sister Carmelita Diaz, the major superior of the Order of Sisters of Christ's Mercy was well rested after her long journey from Rome the day before. He hoped God had whispered in her ear the name of the person who had killed Mary Vincent. Or Kate Cochran, as the case might be.
"Hello?" she said. "Detective Carella?”
"Yes, how are you, Sister?”
"Oh, fine," she said. "A bit of jet lag, but otherwise very good.”
There was only the faintest trace of Spanish accent in her voice. For some reason, he visualized a large woman. Tall, big-boned, wide of girth. Wearing the traditional black habit of the order, the way Sister Beryl had at the Riverhead convent. He thought he could hear birds chirping out there in California. He imagined a Spanish-style structure, all stucco and tiles, arches and parapets, a cream-colored edifice, a monument to God built on the edge of the sea.
"Am I hearing birds?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, all sorts of birds, you'd think St. Francis was here on a visit.”
He dared not ask how old she was. Her voice sounded quite young and robust. Again, he imagined a large woman, perhaps in her early forties.
"Are you by the sea?" he asked.
"The sea? Oh no. Oh dear no. We're in downtown San Luis Elizario, such as it is. The sea? Dear, no, the sea is forty miles away. Tell me what happened, please. We're positively numb out here, we all knew poor Katie so well.”
He told her she'd been killed, told her that her body had ... "How?" she asked at once.
"Strangled," he said. told her that Kate's body had been found in a big park here in the middle of the city ... "Grover," she said.
"Yes. You've been here?”
"Many times." here in the middle of the city not far from the police station, actually. This was last Friday night, the twenty-first. He told her he'd been talking to many of her friends and associates, sisters in the order, doctors and nurses she worked with, a priest named Father Clemente ... "Yes.”
"A wonderful man." but that so far they hadn't the faintest clue as to why she'd been killed. Unless there was something about her they yet didn't know. Something she may have revealed to Sister Diaz ... "Oh, call me Carmelita, please," she said. "I always feel if I have to call myself "Sister' to let people know I'm a nun, then I'm not getting Christ's message across. They should realize I'm a nun just by taking one look at me.”
"Trouble is, I can't see you," Carella said.
"I'm five-five and I weigh a hundred and sixteen pounds. I have short brown hair and brown eyes, and right now I'm smoking a cigarette and sitting in the sunshine in a small garden outside my office. Which is why you're hearing all the bird racket. What makes you think Kate was hiding something?”
"I didn't suggest that.”
"But something about her is troubling you. What is it, Detective?”
"Okay," he said. "We think someone may have been trying to blackmail her.”
Carmelita burst out laughing.
Her hearty laugh fortified the image of a large woman in a roomy habit.
Five-five, he reminded himself.
"That's absurd," she said. "What could anyone hope to extort from a nun'.,”
Echoes of Lieutenant Peter Byres, thank you.
"Then was she in debt? She seemed very concerned about money.”
--Ac you faring at out tier budget? I'm arala she was always complaining about the budget. Never had enough to spend. Always asked me to loosen up a little. Give me a break here, will you, Carmelita? Let me go buy a good pair of shoes every now and then. The problem may have come from being on the outside. Each sister in the order receives a standard diocesan stipend, you see, in our case ten thousand a year.
Half of that comes back here to San Luis, to support the mother house and any sisters who are retired or ill. Kate's salary came here, too.
As a licensed practical nurse, she earned almost fifty thousand a year.
The mother house budgeted her according to her needs, apportioning enough for her to live on. She did take vows of poverty, you know.
That doesn't mean she had to starve. But neither does it mean she could live extravagantly.”
"Then this wasn't a recent thing? Her complaining about money?”
"Hardly. For a while, though, she was used to handling her own finances. And a person develops a sort of independence on the outside.”
Carella had missed this the first time around, but this time it registered.
"What do you mean?" he asked. "It was my understanding that she'd been a nun for the past six years. Isn't that so?”
"Oh yes. Entered the convent six years ago, began her training back then. Started as a postulant ... well, do you know how this works, Detective?”
"I'm not sure I do.”
"The training in our order ... there are many orders of Catholic sisters in the world, you see, and they all do things differently. What we all share, of course, is our devotion to Christ.
As for the rest ... oh dear," she said, and he could imagine her rolling her eyes the way Annette Ryan had. "Kate's family objected to her entering the order, you know. I'm sure they'd have taken a fit if they'd seen her going through what I call God's boot camp ...”
It is as if Vatican II has never happened.
The mistress of postulants is a battle-ax nun who wears her habit like armor. It is she who leads the novitiate Katherine Cochran to the barracks-like building where she will live with eighteen other women in training for the next several years. The room she enters is severe by any standards. The floor is made of wide wooden planks, the walls are a painted white stucco. There is a small window high on one wall, overlooking a garden where now in this summer six years ago Kate can hear much the same birds Sister Carmelita is listening to as she relates all this to a detective three thousand miles away. There is a wooden cot in the room, a thin mattress on it, and a slip-covered pillow upon which rests a simple wooden crucifix. There is a chair.
There is a hanging curtain that shields a closet with a shelf and a hanging rod. There is a small dresser with a bowl and a pitcher.
Throughout the night, Kate wonders if she's done the right thing, is doing the right thing. She can hear the gentle snoring of a postulant in the cell next door. She is very far away from home. At last she dozes off. And at last it is morning somehow.
A Dell sounas, calling to prayer the postulants ano the novices and the seventy-four professed nuns who make their home in the mother house. It is not yet dawn. The sky beyond Kate's small window is pink with morn gloam Before bedtime tonight, she will wash in the communal shower down the hall, but for now she bathes her face, hands, and underarms with a plain white bar of soap, and water she pours from the pitcher into the large white bowl. The water is cold. Although Kate may in the future choose whatever modest clothing she wishes to wear, during this intense period of discernment she dresses in the traditional habit of the order. Her uniform is a three quarter-length black skirt and a black T-shirt from Gap, black socks, black rubber-soled shoes. On her head, she wears a black cap over which she drapes the white veil. In silence, she follows the others down the white-walled corridor to the chapel, her hands clasped.
The mistress of postulants, whose name is Sister Clare, stands behind the altar and looks out at the young women, their eyes lowered, their heads bent. "Dear Lord," she says, "open my lips." Matins is the first morning prayer.