“Really? Where?”
“Walking across the baseball field. I must have been mistaken. Whoops…hello.”
A “ding” came through the computer’s external speakers. An urgent instant message was being sent to all the terminals by the administration.
“What’s going on?”
“Damn! Gordon Weiss is being picked up by his parents. If I’m reading this right…”
“Reading this correctly…”
“(middle finger) …if I’m reading this correctly, Gordy got the shit kicked out of him, but he won’t say who did it. I guess we’re supposed to ask around.”
“Ouch. Who would have it in for Gordy?”
“No idea.”
3. St. Helena’s
It was Lynch’s first time in a convent. The little of it he noticed as he powerwalked through the entryway was a stone’s throw from medieval. There was a single phone for common use that may as well have had a crank. He got a brief accidental look inside the only first floor bathroom and saw a pull-chain on the toilet.
And no one ever complains, I’ll bet.
The doctor from Mercy Fitzgerald was waiting for him in the parlor.
“Did Father Pascucci fill you in, detective?”
“Briefly.”
“She’s sitting quietly in the Convent Chapel now. Physically, she’s fine. She has some bruises and scrapes, but she wasn’t violated…sexually anyway.”
Lynch was becoming accustomed to the mix of relief and frustration that accompanied his dealings with Father Leo.
“That would have been nice to know up front. All he told me was she’d been kidnapped and assaulted.”
“I think he called you before I was done.”
“He could have called back.”
All three St. Aloysius priests and the Mother Superior were outside the chapel. Pastor Karney took a step forward, but Lynch put up a hand to stop him. He didn’t want to hear anyone’s version of anything before he talked to the victim herself.
Leo spoke.
“She’s expecting you.”
The chapel door creaked open, revealing an elegant tabernacle and ten rows of pews. Sitting in the front pew was Sister Edwina. She was just as Father O’Rourke had described.
Her chance encounter with Bubbs outside the Iron Wall, and Lynch’s open-door mistake at the police station, made her a target. Arthur exploited what Bubbs told him about “the hot nun” and what Gordy overheard at the PPD in order to indulge a sick fantasy, a fantasy that went mercifully unfulfilled.
Gregorian Chant on vinyl droned quietly in the background as Lynch made his way down the aisle and slid onto the pew.
He’d prepared only one sentence.
“Take your time, Sister. We’ve got as long as you need.”
She spoke with precision, leaving space at every cadence.
“He called the convent a little after 9:00. He asked for me specifically. He spoke in a whisper; he said he had a cold…stupid. Then he said someone had donated some mums, and he needed help getting them out of his car…ludicrous. We never keep the flowers here. It’s easy to see that now, but at the time, I was taken by the idea that a respected member of the Catholic community wanted my help…so stupid. I didn’t even notice it wasn’t his car.”
She ridiculed herself with a laugh.
“So, I walked through the unsecured parking lot alone, and I saw who I assumed to be Father O’Rourke digging something out of his back seat. He was bent over, so I only saw his backside. He had on the vestments, although, in hindsight I suppose it could have been a long black coat.”
Lynch felt a guttural wail halt in his chest.
“When I got close, two gorilla arms wrapped around my neck and choked me out.”
She pulled the neck of her habit aside. Lynch winced at the bruising.
You may get your wish Samuel.
“When I came around, I was in the back seat of the car, and it was moving. I had a cloth around my eyes, tape over my mouth, and I think some sound-cancelling head gear.
“I was between two of them getting groped. My hands were tied in front of me, so I fought back as much as I could…pointless. I’d like to tell you how long we rode around, but I don’t know. When we finally stopped, I was pulled out of the car and led through some grass…then some gravel…then two flights of stairs. Then they dragged me across a floor and threw me onto a couch. There was someone sitting next to me. I think it was a woman. Her touch was soft, and she had on some wretched perfume. I got the feeling that whatever was going to happen…she was going to get the first crack.”
“How did you get away?”
She crossed herself.
“An angel rescued me.”
Lynch wasn’t sure how to react.
“Forgive me, Sister. You understand I can’t put that in a report.”
“I do...”
She touched his leg as if to pity him for not believing that God took part in her escape.
“…a strong pair of hands suddenly pulled me from the couch and led me back down the stairs. He took the gear off my head and prompted me into the back seat of his car. Again, I don’t know how long we rode.”
Her eyes started to tear.
“The next thing I knew, I was being put on solid ground. He took off the blindfold and whispered, ‘keep your eyes closed and walk forward,’ so I did. When I heard the car peel away, I looked up and saw I was home. That’s it.”
Lynch fought back his own tears and put his hand on top of hers.
“You kicked ass, Edwina.”
She sniffled. Then her face changed.
“He spoke to me.”
“Yes, you said, when he dropped you off at the convent.”
“No, he whispered to me at the convent. He spoke to me in the car. The motor was loud. I couldn’t distinguish anything in his voice, but I could tell what he said. I was confused by it. He said ‘You missed me bitch.’”
The phrase echoed in Lynch’s distant memory somewhere.
“Was that all?”
“That’s all he said, but when he took off my blindfold, I felt something heavy, like a bracelet, fall here.”
She pointed to her left shoulder.
And he was behind her. Left wrist. Got it.
“Detective, promise me one thing. If this goes to trial…I mean,
