Saint's Gate (14 page)

19

MOTHER SUPERIOR NATALIE AQUINAS WILLIAMS met Finian at the main gate and welcomed him onto the grounds of the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. She was bundled in a heavy sweater and had a pleasant, if subdued, manner. She made an effort to be professional, but she was obviously traumatized by the death of one of the sisters in her charge.

A few bright-colored leaves had fallen from a nearby maple and were strewn on the stone walk on the crisp, sparkling morning. As Mother Natalie led him back to the tower where Sister Joan had been killed, she explained the order’s mission and pointed out several folk-art statues that the foundress, Mother Linden, a gifted artist, had created.

“Mother Linden’s love of life and her faith shone through everything she did,” Mother Natalie said. “Her teachings and example are a great comfort to us during this difficult time.”

“I imagine so,” Finian said quietly.

The older woman’s step faltered as they came to a locked gate and a stone statue of Saint Francis of Assisi. “I’m worried about Sister Cecilia.”

“The novice who was with Agent Sharpe?”

“Yes,” Mother Natalie said. “Sister Cecilia is guilt-ridden and frightened. I suspect she’s having a post-traumatic reaction to Sister Joan’s death and her own brush with the apparent perpetrator. She could have been next but for Emma—Agent Sharpe.”

“Would you like me to talk to her?” Finian asked.

“I would, yes. Thank you.”

“Of course.” He trusted himself to maintain an appropriate wall between his friendship with Colin and what he could do, as a priest, to assist Sister Cecilia.

“She’ll be in the meditation garden. It’s private but of course you’re welcome.” The Mother Superior gestured at the shaded lawn. “Just follow the fence. It’ll take you there.”

He knew from the various descriptions he’d heard of the events two days ago that it was the same route Sister Joan had taken when she’d left Emma Sharpe—an armed federal agent—at the gate. There was no breeze as he walked onto the cool grass, past a border of colorful flowers along the tall fence. The sisters were doing their work. He’d noticed several picking apples near the main gate. When he’d decided to enter the priesthood six years ago, he’d considered and rejected a monastic life. He still wasn’t sure he understood why he’d been called to parish work.

A question for another day, he thought as he approached a young novice shivering by a weathered brass sundial. He smiled. “You must be Sister Cecilia.”

“Yes, Father. You’re the Irish priest in Rock Point—Father Bracken, right?”

“That would be me.”

She crossed her arms around herself in the cool morning air. “I’ve always wanted to visit Ireland.”

“I hope you will have that opportunity one day.”

“I hope so, too. Right now I can’t seem to think about anything but Sister Joan’s death.” Sister Cecilia hesitated, as if to continue would transport her back to the terror of that morning. “This garden’s beautiful, isn’t it? So few people get to see it. Mother Linden started it almost immediately after the order moved here.”

Finian took in the labyrinth of mulched paths, flowers and trees arranged on a cliff overlooking a small cove. Two days ago, he knew, boats had taken refuge there in the fog.

“Mother Linden believed in meditation,” Sister Cecilia continued. “We rarely even speak in this garden. Mother Natalie has encouraged me to spend time here. She knew Mother Linden, of course.”

“Did Sister Joan know her?”

“Yes. A number of the sisters were here when Mother Linden was alive.”

“Was Sister Joan a difficult person, Sister?”

“I learned so much from her,” Sister Cecilia said, then moved down a mulched path closer to the rock ledge. “She put me through my paces in adjusting to life in our community here. I think she respected my work as a teacher. I’ve always loved children, but they made Sister Joan uncomfortable. She seldom left the convent.”

“Do you leave?”

“Yes, I teach elementary art part-time at an academy not far from here, and I work at our shop and studio in Heron’s Cove. We’re an independent community. We survive based on our own efforts and a few donations. I’m working on a biography of Mother Linden—I’ve found so many interesting facts about her. Jack d’Auberville did a painting of her statue of Saint Francis. It’s hanging in the retreat hall. I assume he presented it to the convent as a gift but I don’t know.”

“It’s a d’Auberville painting that’s missing,” Finian said.

“The Garden Gallery.”
Sister Cecilia took in a breath but managed to keep her composure. “I have a feeling Sister Joan saw something in the painting that troubled her.”

“Do you think whatever she saw could have had to do with the convent?”

“I don’t know.”

Finian could hear waves rhythmically washing onto the rocks below the garden. “Living in a religious community requires a certain level of honesty and openness from all its members.”

“A ‘joyful heart’ is also important to us.” Sister Cecilia smiled suddenly. “That’s one of the things that attracted me to the sisters here. We’re experiencing a great deal of tension and fear right now, because of what’s happened, but we’re not angry, frustrated women hiding from life.”

Finian smiled at her. “You don’t have to convince me, Sister.”

She smiled a little sheepishly back at him. “No, of course not.” She stopped at a simple copper folk-art angel that looked as if it had spent decades under a fir tree by the sea. “Mother Linden did at least a dozen different angeles, but each one is unique. They never fail to make me smile.”

“Was she a painter as well as a sculptor?”

“Yes, but she focused mostly on sculpture. She was strictly an amateur but we love her work here. We have a number of her paintings in the convent. She loved to paint the gardens and the ocean views.”

“Are all of her paintings here?”

“No, she gave many to friends.” Sister Cecilia picked a half-rotted apple from the middle of the path and flung it over the cliff, watching it disappear into the rocks and water below. “The missing painting isn’t Mother Linden’s work, and I doubt any of the paintings depicted in it are, either.”

Speaking to him about the details of the past two days seemed to help the young novice, but Finian found himself interested in piecing together events, too. He thought of Ainsley d’Auberville proudly showing him her father’s former studio. “Are Jack d’Auberville’s paintings valuable?”

“He’s more popular now than he was when he was alive. Some of us were talking last night—we’re not appraisers, of course, but we estimate a Jack d’Auberville painting in top-notch condition could fetch fifty to a hundred thousand dollars, depending on the subject. That can change, of course.”

“His daughter is doing a combined show of their work,” Finian said.

Sister Cecilia nodded. “That could add to the value, especially of undiscovered paintings.”

Like the one stolen the other day, Finian thought.

He followed Sister Cecilia down another path. She plucked a cheerful yellow flower from a stalk that had bent over the path and twirled the stem in her hand. She seemed more animated, more confident. “I’ve been so confused and frightened, Father. Faith and prayer help. It was never easy for me to talk to Sister Joan. She could be dismissive—at least, that’s how it felt. Maybe she was being protective, or testing me, as a novice. I didn’t know until last night, but Emma Sharpe was a novice here, too. Apparently Sister Joan had been rough on her, too.”

“Were there ill feelings between them?”

“The sisters who knew Emma—Agent Sharpe—then say it was loving tension. Sister Joan was an exacting spiritual adviser but she was as committed to our charism as any of us. It’s not her fault if Agent Sharpe’s novitiate period ended with her leaving. That’s not a failure.”

“No, it’s not,” Finian said softly.

“Wendell Sharpe and Mother Linden were friends. That was a problem for Sister Joan and I think ultimately for Sister Brigid—that was Agent Sharpe’s chosen name.”

“Perhaps her personal connection to Mother Linden should have made the Sisters of the Joyful Heart off-limits.”

“Perhaps so.”

Sister Cecilia became quiet as they continued among dwarf fruit trees, Finian enjoying the silence, interrupted only by the sounds of far-off birds and the putter of a passing lobster boat at the mouth of the cove.

Finally Sister Cecilia stopped by an outcropping of granite and turned to him. “I think Sister Joan was frightened, Father.” She spoke almost in a whisper. “I don’t think she feared for her own safety. I think she was worried—for us, for the convent. I wanted to talk to her but I was busy with my work, and I…I just didn’t.”

“You’re young, and you’re relatively new to the community here,” Finian said. “It’s understandable if you were uncertain, even intimidated.”

She rubbed a toe of her sturdy shoe against the gray rock. “I felt something was wrong but I didn’t know it for a fact.”

“Do you think whatever was on her mind had to do with the missing painting?”

“I do. Yes, definitely.” Sister Cecilia’s voice was stronger now, her face a bit less pale. “I was trying to decide what to do, whether to tell Mother Natalie, but I acted too late. If I’d acted sooner, maybe Sister Joan would be alive now.” She stared out at the choppy sea. “I wish I knew what I saw that morning.
Who
I saw. Any connection between our work here and violence won’t be good for us. For anyone.”

“Focus on what you can do. Trust in your faith. Let it guide you to act with strength, courage and compassion.”

“Easier said than done some days.”

“I know,” Finian said.

Sister Cecilia gave him a curious look, then said, “The medical examiner completed the autopsy on Sister Joan. She died from a sharp blow to the back of her head. I pray constantly for the repose of her soul, Father. She’ll be buried here at the convent. The cemetery’s on the other side of the motherhouse. Mother Linden is buried there.” She paused. “I hope one day to be buried there.”

“Not too soon, God willing,” Finian said.

She laughed. “Thank you. It helps to talk to someone who didn’t know Sister Joan and isn’t involved in the investigation.” She let out a long breath. “Mother Natalie says never to fear the truth. We can’t shy away from the facts, whatever they are. I’ve told the police all I know.”

“Have you told them what worries you? What keeps you awake?”

Sister Cecilia tossed her flower over the ledge and didn’t answer.

Finian decided not to press her. “As I said, Sister, you’re young. You’ll incorporate this experience into your life.”

She glanced up at him. “You sound so sure.”

He looked out at the Atlantic, picturing the miles of ocean between him and his homeland. He spoke quietly, his tone level, objective. “Before I became a priest, I had a wife and two daughters. My daughters would be young teenagers now.”

Sister Cecilia gave a small gasp. “They died?”

“Yes,” he said without flinching. “They’ve gone to God.”

“I’m sorry. How long ago?”

“It’s been seven years. I spent the first year after their deaths in a whiskey bottle. Then…”

“God was there for you,” the young novice said quietly.

“Always. I just didn’t see it for a time.”

“Thank you for telling me, Father. I know you did it for me. Your Irish accent…” Sister Cecilia smiled, her obvious gentle and giving nature again shining in her eyes. “It makes everything seem a little better.”

He laughed. “That makes my job easier. I can say anything in an Irish accent, and I’ll be brilliant.”

Mother Natalie joined them. She seemed relieved to see the young woman in her charge smiling. Finian bid them good day and left them in the quiet garden. He found his way back through the maze of paths, satisfied that he’d come to the Sisters of the Joyful Heart. He felt no guilt whatsoever about his motives as he returned along a curving walk to the main gate and his BMW.

He put on his sunglasses and looked back through the gate at the convent, quiet in the shade, the women there committed to their order’s unique spirit and mission. As he got into his car, he heard a bird singing in a nearby tree, and then, as if in echo, a woman singing, unseen, among the stone buildings.

It would be a while, Finian thought, before the sisters came to terms with the violence that had occurred in their midst, but they would.

And there was no doubt in his mind that he could help find out what really had happened here, or at least try to help. He had resources, insights and knowledge. He had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, and he’d had brushes with interesting and even dangerous people in his Bracken Distillers days.

He’d also spoken to his brother, Declan, already and had a plane waiting to take him to Dublin.

20

EMMA SLIPPED BACK TO HER APARTMENT TO PACK for Ireland. She didn’t bother trying to ditch Colin. He’d walked with her to the HIT offices and had stayed there all morning. He’d met with the ATF and FBI agents investigating the bomb in her grandfather’s attic, still insisting that defusing it hadn’t been a big deal—that anyone who grew up in Rock Point, Maine, could defuse a simple black powder and gunpowder explosive device.

Otherwise, he’d remained on the love seat behind her desk, pretending to be catching up on paperwork on a borrowed laptop.

“Having you in my office is like having the proverbial caged tiger pacing behind me,” Emma told him as she let him back into her apartment. “It’s distracting.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“You didn’t have to. You’re restless, bored and frustrated.”

“And you would be what—just frustrated?”

She ignored his innuendo and dug her suitcase out of her bedroom closet. She’d been so anxious to get out of there that morning, she hadn’t made the bed. Since he was glued to her side, Colin hadn’t, either. She set her suitcase on the mattress, noticing that the barrier pillows were scattered and the duvet was twisted, dragging on the floor. If agents had to come in there now to search for a bomb, they’d be convinced she’d had quite a night for herself.

As it was, she’d awakened with Colin’s arm slung over her. He was on his stomach, mercifully not facing her. She’d stared at his tousled hair while she’d debated what to do. Waking him had struck her as simultaneously tempting and dangerous. She’d finally eased out from under his arm, then decided he was faking being asleep and giving her a chance to get free of him.

She’d changed in the bathroom and hadn’t said a word when she came out and found him awake, dressed and making coffee.

She unzipped her suitcase. “You don’t want to watch me pack.”

“Sure I do.” He picked up a lace-edged throw pillow that looked impossibly feminine against his dark canvas shirt as he held it football-style. “It’s more fun than watching you type.”

“You can imagine the reports I had to write.”

“Did you mention incorruptibles?”

She pulled open a drawer and grabbed whatever was clean to take with her to Ireland. She’d spoken to her grandfather in Dublin and her parents in London, and they were all relieved she was still coming to Ireland and would be leaving Boston that evening. They understood that she wouldn’t be able to stay as long as she’d planned, and that she hadn’t canceled in part because of the situation in Heron’s Cove. She wanted to talk to her grandfather in person.

Colin Donovan, she was quite sure, didn’t have a ticket to Dublin.

He flopped onto her bed, stretching out his long legs and crossing his ankles. “Yank said you wore one of those baggy tunics and skirts when you were a nun.”

“That’s right, I did.”

“Tights?”

She laid jeans, slim black pants and two tops in the suitcase. “Sometimes I wore tights, yes.”

“Did your inner Barbie want you to climb the convent fence and sneak down to Saks?”

“I never gave fashion a second thought until I moved to Dublin to work with my grandfather.”

“You also didn’t have any money,” he said, pointing the pillow at her. “The whole vow of poverty thing. Me, I vowed never to live in poverty.”

Emma put her hands on her hips and sighed at him. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I’m trying to make you smile.”

“A vow of poverty doesn’t mean living a life of deprivation. I wasn’t poor. I had food, shelter, money for personal expenses.”

“You’re still not smiling,” he said.

She scooped up a pillow off the floor and threw it at him. He caught it handily, laughing. She found herself laughing, too. “And your mother had four Donovan sons. I can’t imagine.”

“She and my father run an inn in Rock Point now. She’s as happy as she can be. He was a police officer for thirty years. Now he’s off the street, and she’s got him whipping up muffins with her every morning.”

Emma discreetly retrieved underwear from her dresser and tucked it in her suitcase, trying not to look to see if Colin noticed that she did, indeed, own a thong. “Does your mother worry about you and your brother Kevin?”

“She worries about Andy and Mike, too. Mike especially, because he’s alone up in moose country.”

“I meant worry about your safety.”

“Kevin’s job with the marine patrol is pretty safe.”

“And she thinks you work at a desk at FBI headquarters and have a normal life, with dinner dates, movie nights and trips to the mall.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes I do have that kind of life. No trips to the mall, though. What would I do at a mall?”

“Your father must guess you’re an undercover agent. What about your mother?”

“We don’t discuss my status.”

Emma added shoes, socks and a little bag of toiletries and zipped up her suitcase. “You trust your gut. Has it ever let you down?”

“You tell me.” He rolled off the bed, his eyes a dusky gray as he looked at her. “Right now my gut is telling me you wish I’d kicked down our little barrier last night and made love to you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You were sleeping the sleep of the dead. You needed it. You’ve had a rough couple of days.” He walked around the end of the bed, closing the distance between them. “I figured we’d have another chance.”

“It wasn’t thinking of me as Sister Brigid—”

“Oh, yeah. It was that, too. The tights,” he said. “I just can’t get over the black tights and sensible shoes.”

“Colin.”

“I guess you don’t have to be a nun to live a life of poverty, chastity and obedience.”

“I left that life behind me.”

“It’s not the same as when I look back on my three years in the marine patrol. Not even close, Emma.”

“I know. That’s why I don’t tell people. I don’t hide my past, but I don’t advertise it, either.”

“I must have sailed past the convent dozens of times while you were up there—doing what? Picking apples, teaching art?”

“I didn’t do much teaching. I worked in restoration and conservation with Sister Joan, and I finished my degree in art history. I did pick apples, though.”

He touched a fingertip to her lips. “I’m not afraid of you, Emma. I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do about you, but I’m not afraid of you.”

“That’s easy. You’re not afraid of anything.”

“Yank,” he said.

“Especially not Yank.”

He grinned and offered to carry her suitcase back to the HIT offices. She turned him down. She was accustomed to being on her own, and she didn’t want him to get the idea she couldn’t manage without him on her elbow.

“Was Yank your contact agent?” Emma asked as she lifted her suitcase, slinging the strap over one shoulder. “I heard he worked with someone in deep. Putting two and two together, I figured you’re the reason we got involved with the Russian arms trafficker. He was yours.”

“Vlad the Purveyor of Nasty Weapons.” Colin ambled next to her as they passed the marina, crowded with boats and people on the beautiful early autumn Boston afternoon. “Vladimir Bulgov belongs under lock and key. I’ll say that much.”

“He wasn’t just after a profit. He enjoyed violence. He was also an erudite art collector.” Emma could feel the weight of her suitcase but didn’t mind. “People are complicated.”

“Not all of us. Some of us are simple.”

“Is there any chance Vlad had something to do with Sister Joan’s death?”

“Emma—”

“I discovered his interest in Picasso. That led you to him.”

“Bulgov’s arrest was a team effort, and he doesn’t know you were involved.”

Once they went through security at the HIT offices, she handed over her suitcase and let Colin carry it up the stairs.

“I cornered Yank this morning,” she said. “While you were telling that pretty, awestruck agent how you defused a bomb, I asked him if you were the deep-cover agent who brought down Vladimir Bulgov.”

“You’re fearless, Agent Sharpe.”

“Yank just gave me one of his looks and told me to get back to work.”

Colin set her suitcase by her desk. “I suppose when you’ve contemplated heaven, hell, saints and a life of poverty, obedience and chastity, a little thing like national security doesn’t intimidate you.”

“What do you think we do here? Knit sweaters and bake pies?”

He turned to her, and she saw the flintiness of his eyes and realized that the dangers he faced weren’t just theoretical—weren’t just classified admonitions and hints about preserving the cover stories of agents and safeguarding their true identities. He’d lived them. He had a family in Rock Point who didn’t deserve to be put at risk because of a slipup by one of his colleagues.

She hadn’t slipped up, and she wouldn’t. That wasn’t the point.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m careful. I promise you I am.”

“I know.” He winked at her. “Maybe too careful.”

Emma sat back at her desk, wondering how long Colin would stay idle. He was an action-oriented man who reacted to intelligence gathered in offices like hers.

After thirty minutes, he disappeared without a word.

Yank materialized next to her. “He’s restless on a good day. I’ve got him in my office. I’ll send him out in time to drive you to the airport.”

“I can take a cab,” Emma said.

“Bring me back a fifth of Bracken’s finest from Dublin.”

She pushed back her chair. “Yank, is the Bracken of Bracken Distillers the same Bracken as the priest in Rock Point?”

He withdrew to his office without comment and shut the door behind him. The past few days in Heron’s Cove had complicated his life.

Emma looked up Bracken Distillers on the internet.

Yep. The same Bracken.