Devious - Lisa Jackson [114]
She was a relic in her habit and veil. Archaic. Clinging to the old order that was becoming a distant memory. And yet she knew deep in her heart that she was following her true destiny, that she had helped so many like herself, those abandoned, for reasons both good and evil, by their families.
“Sister?” A male voice brought her up short, and she nearly gasped, so deep was she in her reverie. On the other side of the fountain stood that incorrigible Detective Montoya. She didn’t trust him for a second. “May I have a word?”
At least he was being respectful.
“I’m sorry, Reverend Mother,” Sister Devota said, and looked truly rueful. “We”—she indicated her companion, Sister Irene—“were returning from the orphanage, and he was waiting at the gate.”
“It’s all right,” she said to the worried novice. Devota bit her lip, then hurried off, her gait slightly unsteady. She was a difficult woman, full of impassioned faith that concealed her own doubts about herself. Irene’s faith was just as solid, and she was the antithesis of Devota. Tall and lithe, with an almost regal possession of her body. Her fluid movements made Devota’s awkwardness more pronounced.
All so different; all the same.
“What can I do for you?” she asked the detective, surprised to find him alone. They usually talked to her in pairs, but then, the police department was probably stretched thin with these recent horrors. “I thought I answered all your questions last night.” Her voice was dry and sounded weak.
“It’s something that I found out today,” he said, jumping right in. “You told me that Sister Lea De Luca left New Orleans and joined a convent in San Francisco.”
“That’s right.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know, but I do know that she decided against taking her final vows.” Montoya seemed surprised as he rounded the fountain. “I don’t know the details, but I got a card from her last Christmas saying that she’d decided to become a teacher. A lay teacher. She didn’t say why. She’d left the order.”
“Do you have the name of the parish?”
“St. Dominique’s . . . No, no, that was someone else. Oh! Our Lady of Sorrows?” she said in a question, scouring her memory. “Yes, that was it.”
He shook his head. “The SFPD checked all the parishes. No one remembers Sister Lea.”
Charity felt her lips purse. “I said she gave it up.”
“They were specific. No one named Lea De Luca in the last decade.”
“But . . .” Charity felt the very foundations of her faith begin to quiver. What was the officer saying? “I don’t understand. As I said, I’ve gotten correspondence.”
“But she hasn’t called or visited?”
She pinned on her overtly patient smile, the one she knew to be intimidating, the one that silently called the person asking her a silly question an idiot. But she was certain Detective Reuben Montoya was no one’s fool, even though, as he squinted against the hard sun, the ridiculous diamond in his earlobe glinted in ostentatious flamboyance and that small beard of his—a vanity. Her lips pursed. “This is a convent,” she reminded him. “One with certain values and decorum, but you know that. We’ve had this conversation before.”
“The correspondence,” he said. “Do you still have it?”
“The latest was a card at Christmas, but I’m not certain,” she admitted. “Come with me into the office and I’ll look.” He walked with her along the path and through the cool, dark hallways to her office where he waited while she opened the drawer in which she kept her personal correspondence, a pitifully slim folder.
She sifted through the few envelopes and found it, a white envelope and inside a card, showing the blessed Virgin Mary holding a perfect little Christ child, halos glowing around them, a lamb at Mary’s feet. The message was a simple Bible verse and the card was signed “Peace be with you in this holiest of seasons. Sister Lea” in her perfect, Catholic school cursive scrawl.
“May I have this and the envelope?” the