“What you need to understand, Detective, is that you don’t become a sister merely by knocking at the door of a monastery. There is a demanding system in place.”
“And you need to understand, Reverend Mother, that as far as I know the rules of the confessional don’t apply here. Anything this girl might have said isn’t privileged.”
“I imagine you are right about that.”
“Did you talk to this girl?”
A hardened criminal could have taken pointers from the reverend mother on how to avoid answering questions. “Did you know that last month I had my eighty-ninth birthday, Detective?”
“Congratulations.”
“I am getting worried about my memory. I have heard when you are as old as I am your memory plays tricks on you.”
“I think it’s playing tricks on me.”
With unruffled calm she asked, “Can I be of any other help?”
There was no threat that would make her talk. My rules and laws didn’t concern her. Besides, I was keeping her from praying, and that was something the world could ill afford.
“Apparently not in this matter,” I said.
“Is there another matter you wish to discuss?”
The day before, Dottie had told me the prioress experienced a miracle. Since that time I had been recollecting the media’s reporting on the story of the reverend mother’s miracle. At first her identity had been withheld; she had only been identified as a nun at the Monastery of Angels, but as the beatification process for Mother Serena ran its course, her name and position had been revealed by the press. According to the Vatican, the woman sitting across from me had experienced a miracle.
“My inquiry isn’t a professional one, but I wanted to hear about your miracle.”
With her great calm she asked, “What is it that you wish to know?”
“I seem to remember that you were diagnosed with brain cancer, and that after you and the nuns in the monastery prayed to Mother Serena, you were cured.”
“Your explanation is short on many details, but on the whole it is accurate.”
“How do you know your disease just didn’t have some spontaneous remission?”
“The disease had ravaged my body. I was blind and incontinent, and cranial nerve palsies and seizures had left me in a state where I could not leave my bed unassisted. I remember being frustrated by my inability to do the smallest tasks. I couldn’t even write a note. Muscle twitches and numbness made my handwriting completely illegible. As I understand it, most spontaneous remissions aren’t really spontaneous. They don’t happen all at once.”
“But that’s what happened to you?”
She nodded.
“How long had you been diagnosed with brain cancer?”
“For almost three years. The cancer had metastasized. All the specialists agreed on one thing: the cancer was terminal.”
“And in one fell swoop you were better?”
“I would call it the opposite of a fell swoop, wouldn’t you?”
“How did the other sisters happen to pray to Mother Serena?”
“She had passed away only days before.”
“And you think her spirit healed you?”
“As you see.”
“Were you and the sisters praying for a miracle?”
“No. We were asking for her blessing upon me.”
“Tell me about the moment when you were cured.”
“I felt the hand of God, and Mother Serena, wash over me.”
“And it happened right after the sisters prayed for you?”
She nodded.
“Might your cure have been psychological?”
The reverend mother smiled. “It seems that everyone wants to credit my mind and not my God. My medical records were scrutinized. Every blood test and every X-ray was studied. My disease was well documented.”
“I understand your miracle was approved by the Vatican.”
“The beatification process for Mother Serena is still going forward,” she said, “so it appears that is so.”
Medical miracles approved by the Vatican had to be deemed sudden, conclusive and permanent, and inexplicable to medical authorities.
“Have you ever wondered why God thought you were worthy of a miracle?”
“I cannot pretend to be worthy; I can only think he decided my work here wasn’t done.”
“But why would you be singled out?” I asked, not quite able to hide the frustration in my voice. “Is God running some kind of lottery and you just happened to hit the jackpot on a certain day and at a certain time?”
With a calm I would never have, the reverend mother said, “I can’t tell you why things happened as they did, but I don’t think that God is running a lottery.”
“I suppose He wouldn’t want to compete with Friday night bingo,” I said.
The reverend mother actually smiled. You take small miracles whenever you can get them.
“Thank you for your time,” I told her.
“Go with God,” she said.
I was grateful for her blessing but wished it came with directions.
CHAPTER 13:
It was dark outside when I left the world of the cloistered and set out for the parking lot. Although it wasn’t even six o’clock, the night had fallen with a hard finality. The gloom seemed to extend to the heavens; the stars were hidden in murk and there wasn’t even a sighting of the moon to mitigate the night.
Out of respect to the reverend mother I had set my cell phone to vibrate. I was at the far end of the meditation garden when my pocket started buzzing. As I accepted the call, I heard a whooshing sound. My hello was left hanging-much like I was. I was pulled backward by my neck, and my cell phone and bag of gift shop goodies went flying from my hand. I tried to cry “Shit!” but the tightening noose around my neck didn’t even leave me enough wind to curse.
Denied air, I panicked and clawed desperately at the noose. My attackers expected that; loops closed around my wrists and took over the control of my arms. I felt like the steer in a team roping event. I was wrapped up so tight all I was missing was a bow on my head. No air was making it to my lungs. I frantically tried to reach for my gun but was pulled from so many angles I couldn’t even get close to it. The more I struggled, the more the loops dug into me.
There were three of them. The working part of my mind realized I was being taken down with animal-control poles. The rudimentary part of my mind was screaming for flight or fight, but I couldn’t do either. I was in the grips of three animal-control poles, the kind of devices used on a Rottweiler or a pit bull. The poles had been designed to neutralize dogs with fierce teeth and big muscles. I was short those teeth and muscles; worse, I was snared in three places and becoming oxygen deprived. Animal-control poles are made from aircraft-grade aluminum; they resist bending or breaking even under extreme conditions, and the cables are designed to not twist. No hangman could have hoped for a better noose, or three better nooses. Still, I reacted as a panicked animal would, twisting and pulling and struggling.
My attackers were on all sides of me. I tried to strike out at them, swinging with my arms and kicking with my legs, but the poles were too long for me to get to them, and they worked as a team to control me. When I lunged in one direction, they yanked me in another. Time was on their side. Every moment brought me closer to unconsciousness.
The sleeper hold is prohibited by the LAPD, but every officer on the force still knows how to apply it if needed. Get a neck in the crook of your elbow and compress the carotid arteries and jugular vein, and the flow of blood to the brain abruptly ceases. Usually it’s only a few seconds until lights out. Law enforcement describes the result as the “funky chicken” because victims often flop and shake almost like they are doing dance moves.
I was getting close to the chicken dance. My ears felt like I was deep underwater with my ear drums at the point of bursting, and I wasn’t seeing so much as being an unwitting witness to a stream of black dots and silver lines swimming in front of my eyes. The only question was, which would come first: my blacking out from asphyxiation, or my brain becoming so blood starved that I’d start doing the funky chicken?