"That's not a Tyler cat; that's mine. He's been given some chloroform, but he's fine now. Sister, where is Father Hernandez
Sister Seraphina twisted to scan the crowd. "I ... I don't know. Perhaps he was sleeping and didn't hear--"
Sleeping like Peter in the Garden, Temple thought grimly. Or perhaps he was not sleeping at all.
"Sister Mary Monica saw the flames from her bedroom window," Sister Seraphina went on, "so we called the fire department. And then we did call Lieutenant Molina. And Matt."
Temple grimaced. Sister Seraphina had mentioned the two people she least wanted to see in her current state. Fire survivors, she guessed, couldn't be choosers.
In fact, one of the firemen was stomping over. He arrived to request the same information the news photographer had: name, address, a short statement. Temple complied and then asked a question of her own.
"What about--?" she began, still seriously seeking answers, when tires squealed and an unmarked Crown Victoria pulled up behind the Storm, followed by a squad car.
Like the Red Sea parting for Moses, the crowd parted for Molina, her partner and two uniformed officers. Temple cringed when Molina's crowd-scanning glance spotted her. Molina rolled her eyes and did not pause, disappearing into the house with an escort of police and firemen.
A uniformed officer remained outside to disperse the crowd, which was reluctant to return to late-night TV talk shows when something much more interesting to talk about was happening live on their very own street. Grumbling, people straggled off.
"We live next door," Sister Seraphina objected when her turn came.
"You the nuns?" the officer asked.
Temple, still clutching her blanket, bristled, but nobody noticed.
"The lieutenant wants to speak to you later at the convent." He frowned and looked up and down the street, obviously not seeing anything that resembled his idea of a convent.
"We'll go quietly, Officer." Sister Seraphina turned Temple toward the convent.
"I'll carry Louie." Temple bent down to scoop up the cat in her blanket and almost didn't unbend again.
What a mistake. Even freshly oxygenated, Louie weighed as much as a potbellied pig.
"Wait!" Temple cried, remembering. "My tote bag's in that house."
"Your purse?" The officer frowned again.
"In the bedroom where the fire was started."
He nodded. "I'll check. If we don't need to impound it for evidence, you can have it."
"Evidence? Impound? My daily organizer is in there, my apartment and car keys. I'll be helpless."
"I'm sure something can be worked out--" he glanced uneasily at Seraphina, than back to Temple "--Sister, Ma'am."
"Oooh!" Temple protested as he walked away. "Do I look like a nun?" she demanded of Sister Seraphina.
"You look like a slightly scorched madonna-and-cat right now," Sister Seraphina said with a chuckle. "Come on.
We'll get you some nice hot tea."
"I could use a nice hot toddy," Temple corrected.
Waiting in a convent visitors' room for Lieutenant Molina was not her idea of how to recover from severe physical and emotional stress. Carrying Midnight Louie wasn't an antidote, either.
She started to slog along the sidewalk with Sister Seraphina, her curiosity temporarily stanched and her stamina quashed. Another vehicle with a light on the top cruised to a stop by her car--a Whittlesea Blue cab.
Matt Devine took one look at her car and began running toward the Tyler house. The uniform stepped into his path; for an instant, it looked like a confrontation brewed.
"Matt, over here!" Sister Seraphina caroled. "We're all right."
He glanced at the Tyler house's ashen facade, which radiated red emergency lights, then started for them at a trot.
"Temple?" He anxiously searched her face, which was probably pale and smoke-smudged. "No one said you were here. And Midnight Louie! Are you okay? Really?"
"Well, I may have broken a nail or two--and Louie a claw, too."
"Let me take him."
Temple sighed relief when the nineteen-pound burden was lifted from her arms, which were shaking with strain for some reason possibly having to do with fighting off an arsonist--and maybe a murderer--only half an hour earlier.
Matt wasn't too enamored of Louie's bulk, either. He set the cat down as soon as the party was inside the convent door.
A yellow cat came to investigate--Peter or Paul--and the pair suspiciously sniffed noses, but no fireworks threatened.
"Come sit down, dear," Sister Rose urged in the kindly tones of a great-aunt, escorting Temple as if she were Belleek china.
Sister Seraphina was soon on their heels, but not Matt. At Temple's questioning look, she leaned near.
"I sent him to the rectory to see about Father Hernandez."
Temple let herself be shepherded into the overbearing visitor's chair. Sister Rose even scooted a needlepoint-covered stool under her feet, which naturally failed to reach the floor, then darted out of the room.
"Sister Seraphina," Temple beseeched, protesting as a needlepoint pillow--this one a tasteful scene of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane--was inserted behind her back. She shrugged off the smothering blanket. "I'm fine."
"No, you are not. You've had a dreadful shock. As much as Matt might be reassured by your offhand remark about only breaking a fingernail, I can see that you've been through a good deal more than that."
"Well, yes, actually," Temple admitted, intimidated by Sister Seraphina' s air of stern concern. "The awful man inside the house had Louie chloroformed and in a sack-- God knows what he intended to do with him--and he had set the bedroom dresser on fire and I tried to stop the fire, and stop him, and I really put some good moves on him. I'm new at this, but I think I had him cold before the firemen came."
"So that's what Mary Monica saw," Sister Seraphina said with a sigh of relief, sitting heavily on a nearby chair. "I was a bit afraid for her sanity. She said she saw the Devil dancing with an imp in Blandina Tyler's bedroom while the fires of Hell burned around them."
"I was the . . . the imp?" Temple demanded.
"Apparently. Her eyesight is not the best, and you do look a bit disheveled. When Rose and I looked out the window, we saw only the fire, but we called nine-eleven from Monica's room-phone right then. Poor Mary Monica. She has been sorely tried these last few weeks." The nun's softened glance sharpened again. "Did you see the intruder?"
"Yes, but not without a burlap mask. The firemen are sure it's a he, though. I wasn't, not even when we 'danced.' I thought of Peggy--"
"
"Peggy? Rummaging through her aunt's house in the dark, in disguise? Why?"
"Well . . . the will we found. She might have been looking for another version, a later one that left her everything, too."
Sister Seraphina shook her head. "Not Peggy."
"You don't know Peggy like I know Peggy."
"What do you mean?"
"I can't say, but I had good reason to suspect her."
"Apparently good reason to suspect Father Hernandez as well."
"If the intruder was a man, he wore black."
"Lots of men wear black, not just priests. And would a priest up to no good wear the clothes of his calling?"
"He would if he were a little . . . demented."
Before Sister Seraphina could answer--and her face was full of doubt, even outrage, at Temple's suggestion--Sister Rose tiptoed back into the room with a small silver tray upon which sat a tall glass of iced tea.
Temple's heart sank. What she definitely didn't need now was iced tea. Sister Rose's watery eyes were too solicitous to refuse, however, and she braced herself to take a swallow of the dreaded, cold beverage while bravely repressing the shivers of aftershock that were threatening her composure.
She took a ladylike sip, then her eyes widened. This iced tea packed quite a kick.
Sister Rose leaned near. "We keep a little something in the brandy line for the bishop in case he might call."
"How much of a little something?" Temple whispered back in a raw voice.