Devious - Lisa Jackson [145]
“Yeah?”
Montoya kicked the bathroom door closed and twisted on the faucet.
“My money’s still on O’Toole.”
“We can’t ignore our responsibilities, even though we’re all still in mourning,” the mother superior said during another meeting after breakfast, the third this week. Lucia, seated with the rest of the nuns and novices, sat in the stiff-backed chairs of a room down the hallway from the cathedral, a room used for seminars, meetings, or prayer groups. It smelled slightly stale, the windows closed, the whiteboard behind Sister Charity wiped clean.
Father Paul and Father Frank stood near the door as the reverend mother spoke, the older man forcing a smile that had all the warmth of a Siberian snowstorm. His hands were folded, soft, his pink fingers laced.
Father Frank seemed to have aged ten years in the past week. His dark hair, usually combed and clipped, was disheveled, showing a few strands of gray, his jaw colored by a dusting of beard shadow, his eyes hollow and sunken, as if the life, and perhaps even his faith, had been sucked from his soul. His fingers moved constantly. Nervously. Evidence of a man haunted by his own sins.
Sister Louise, her eyes sad, tried to meet his gaze, Lucia noticed, but he was a man caught in his own world. He was in the room physically, but his heart and soul were somewhere far, far away.
It wasn’t just the priests. Everyone at St. Marguerite’s was on edge, Lucia surmised, second-guessing their appointments to the parish. And not just those who wore the holy garb. The lay workers, too, were affected.
The janitor, Elwin Zaan, now leaning on his broom, was as somber as death.
Neron Lopez, the usually happy-go-lucky groundskeeper, hadn’t been able to scare up a smile this past week. Lucia had caught him continually crossing himself and glancing up at the church spires, as if expecting to be struck down as he raked the gardens and pulled weeds.
Regina, the sour-faced cook, had quit yelling, keeping to herself, the cross at her neck more visible in the past few days, glinting on its chain as she’d rolled out pie crusts and ladled soup. Her barking of orders in the kitchen had become less pronounced, and there was talk, scuttlebutt, that she was considering resigning. Eileen, the receptionist with frizzy blue hair and color-coordinated pantsuits, had spent most of the past week dabbing at her eyes. Only Clifton Sharkey, the maintenance man who went about his job repairing everything from shoes to machinery, seemed mostly unaffected, though he was sweating a lot. Lucia glanced his way and saw him mopping his brow yet again.
“It’s a time for us to unite and band together. Do not let fear into your soul . . . ,” the mother superior was intoning, all eyes on her as she walked past a desk near the windows.
All of the nuns at St. Marguerite’s had been nervous and on edge, the feeling of safety within the hallowed walls of the convent shattered.
They had talked when they’d been gardening or driving to St. Elsinore’s or while doing their chores. All the time between their scheduled prayers, meditation, and services to the needy, they had whispered their own fears. Just yesterday, in the garden, just before vespers, several of the women had met. Lucia had stood in the group, felt the nervousness of all the nuns, and carefully studied the glinting streaks of gold as the fish in the pond darted beneath the water’s surface.
“Why Asteria?” Sister Dorothy had asked, worrying the beads of her rosary with her pudgy fingers. “She was so . . . good, so pure.”
“Oh, please. Really?” Sister Maura had whispered, skewering the shorter nun with a dark stare. “Do you think that’s what it’s all about, that she was killed because she was impure?” She had shuddered, as if a cold breeze had swept through her, though the heat of the day had lain heavy on the gardens, where honeybees droned and a hummingbird hovered near the fragrant blooms of a magnolia tree. “No way.”
“But she was,” Sister Angela had agreed, peering through her narrow glasses and nodding.
“You think