She pushed a theory at Perelli.
“So he’s in here looking for something and she comes upon him.”
“What’s the prick looking for?” Perelli pushed back. “She’s a nun. She’s got no money. There’s no apparent sexual assault. She’s got nothing. She’s taken a vow of poverty, or something, right? Hell, her furniture’s secondhand, donated stuff. So what’s he want?”
“A crackhead from the shelter, maybe? And he’s thinking, maybe there’s a collection, a donation? He follows her from the shelter? I don’t know, Dom. Maybe it’s something else? We need a break here.”
“There’s no forced entry. No sign of it, anyway. They’ve got a problem with the lock at the front door downstairs. And this apartment door’s got a simple warded lock. Hell, any child could use a toothbrush to beat it.”
Grace flipped through her notes.
“Is it random, Grace, or you think she knew him?”
“I’m thinking it’s time to talk to Sister Florence.”
A handful of nuns lived in Sister Anne’s building. The halls were adorned with pictures of saints. The main floor had a large common area with a kitchen and a dining room where the sisters ate meals together. Sister Florence was being comforted there by older women. All of them were wearing jogging pants, cotton nightgowns, or baggy pullover sweaters or T-shirts.
Their clothes were streaked brown with dried blood.
All were crying.
“I’m Detective Grace Garner and this is Detective Dominic Perelli,” Grace said. “We’re sorry for your loss. Please accept our sympathies.”
“Why would anyone do this?” Monique, one of the older sisters, asked.
“We’re going to do all we can to find out,” Perelli said. “But we’re going to need your help.”
Grace consulted her notes. “We’d like to talk to Sister Florence, privately?”
Pressing a crumpled tissue to her mouth, Sister Florence nodded, then led Garner and Perelli along the creaking hardwood floor to the far end of the building and a room that served as a chapel. It had an organ, hard-back chairs, and a large stained-glass window, a gift made by inmates the nuns had counseled in prison.
A few sisters had left the chapel moments earlier after a prayer session for Sister Anne. Votive candles flickered in red, blue, green, orange, purple, and yellow glass cups. One had gone out. As Sister Florence relit it, Grace reviewed the short statement she’d given to the first responding officer. Sister Florence had moved to Seattle last summer from Quebec, where she was serving with the order in Montreal. At age twenty-nine, she was the youngest sister who lived here.
Sister Florence had discovered Sister Anne.
Grace met her green, tear-filled eyes. Her young well-scrubbed face was a portrait of heartbreak and unshakeable faith as she recounted finding her friend.
“Tonight was our pizza and old movie night. We were watching Norma Rae and I decided to see if Sister Anne had returned and to invite her to join us.”
“Was the downstairs front door locked?”
“We’re not sure. It doesn’t lock if you don’t push it fully closed and we’re all guilty of that at times, especially when you’ve got your hands full, like with a pizza.”
“The pizza was delivered? Who received it?”
Sister Florence covered her face with her hands.
“I did.”
“Did you lock the front door completely?”
“I don’t know. I’m so sorry. I should’ve checked. Oh Lord, forgive me.”
Grace gave her a moment.
“Tell us about your apartment doors and who has keys.”
Sister Florence held out a key.
“We each have a key to our apartments and lock our doors when we’re out, or need privacy. We know these old locks don’t offer much security inside, but we’re a family.”
“Sister,” Perelli had something on his chest, “with all due respect, you’re living in the inner city, and with that front door practically open and your antique locks, don’t you think you’re taking a huge risk with your safety?”
“We never believed we had enemies.”
“Until tonight,” he said. “Get that front lock fixed and the others changed. Grace, we’d need to get some uniforms posted here and have Central patrol this area.”
“Okay, Dom.” Sensing Perelli’s growing anger over the nun’s death, Grace steered matters back to the investigation. “Sister, can you think of anyone at all who might have wanted to hurt Sister Anne?”
“No.”
“Someone from the shelter? An ex-criminal, or a husband or boyfriend looking for his abused wife, an addict, or someone violent or with psychological problems?”
“She was an angel of mercy. Everyone loved her.”
“We understand the order was involved in spiritual counseling at prisons and for those released to the community.”
“That’s right.”
“Did she ever mention a problem, or fear, concerning any of them?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“Maybe something in her background, or past?”
“She was so quiet about herself, entirely devoted to others. You might want to ask the sisters from Mother House.”
“Mother House?”
“Headquarters of our order. Sister Vivian is on her way from Chicago.”
“Sister, please think hard now. Did you notice, hear, or see anything different tonight?”
“No.”
“No one heard anything strange going on? A struggle? A cry for help?”
Florence shut her eyes tight and shook her head.
“No, we didn’t hear anything. Most of the nuns are older and their hearing isn’t so good, so we usually play the sound of the movie quite loud. We even tell the pizza guy to knock hard.”
“All right, so you went upstairs to see if Sister Anne had returned from the shelter and invite her for pizza and a movie. What happened?”
Sister Florence paused to swallow.
“Her door was open just a crack, usually our signal that you’ll accept a visitor. Oh good, she’s home, I thought and I knocked. But I didn’t get a response, so I called in. And waited. She didn’t answer. Again, I called her name and I entered-”
Sister Florence gasped and her voice broke with hushed anguish.
“I saw blood, then her foot, her leg, and she was so still. I saw her neck and didn’t-couldn’t-believe my eyes. But at the same time, I knew. It felt like slow motion. I knelt down and shouted her name. I took her into my arms. She was still warm. Then I heard this deafening roar as I tried yelling her name but she didn’t answer and the others told me the deafening roar was me.”
“You?” Perelli said.
“Screaming.”
Perelli’s lower jaw muscle was twitching as his anger seethed that someone would kill a nun.
“Then the others came,” Florence said. “Someone called 9-1-1. Most all of the sisters have some sort of medical training. They checked for signs of life but we all knew that Sister Anne was dead. We were kneeling in her blood. So much blood. We took her hands and prayed over her. We didn’t stop, even as we heard the sirens, even as the officers and paramedics thudded up the stairs with their radios going, we didn’t stop praying.” Sister Florence pressed her white-knuckled fists to her mouth. “We’ll never stop praying for her.”
As the tears flowed down her cheeks, her pain clawed at Grace and she was suddenly overwhelmed. Sister Anne had lived a holy life, had devoted herself to helping those who were often beyond it. How could Grace Garner, a pathetically lonely self-doubting cop, on a losing streak, actually believe that she was skilled enough to find her killer? Grace’s secret fear burned in her gut as she glanced to the votive candles, the flames quivering with the tiny light of hope.
“Sister, what prayers did you say when you found her?”
“The Twenty-third Psalm.”
The Lord is my shepherd.