Deadly Blessings (24 page)

Though the elements made for a cold, harsh
discussion venue, neither of us moved. Father Trip puffed out his
cheeks, then blew out a pursed-lip breath that curled out white
before him. “No. Not me.”

Despite the many layers I wore, I swore I
could hear my own frantic heart beats. “Where would she go?” I
asked, knowing even as I did that Father Trip would have less of
idea about that than I would.

“
Maybe she just went home
to pick up a few things?” he said.

He sounded about as convinced as I did when
I replied, “Maybe.”

He walked with me back toward the convent
where we asked Sister Mary Mildred what time Sophie had left. Both
Father Trip and I were surprised to find out she’d been gone for
over two hours.

“
Damn,” I said as we left
the convent.

We stood for a moment at the front stoop. I
watched some of the remaining leaves try to hang on tight against
the wind’s plucking fingers. They twisted and turned, like wind
socks, some holding firm, some losing the battle—catching a ride on
the wicked breeze.

I wanted to talk to Sophie. To get some
insights as to how William should approach Lisa Knowles. If there
was some sort of code, or bit of knowledge that would keep him from
raising the woman’s suspicions. The undercover operation had been
the only thing on my mind since our impromptu meeting. I was
worried about the story. Worried about making it work. But mostly
worried about William. Not just about safety issues either; he
seemed to want to tell me something as the meeting wound up. He’d
left me with a meaningful look I didn’t understand, and the cryptic
line, “We need to talk.”

“
Alex,” Father Trip said,
breaking into my thoughts. His words, gently spoken, cut through
the soft autumn sounds in a lonely way. “I’m sorry.”

“
It isn’t your fault,” I
said.

He put his hand on my arm and I felt the
priestly paternal squeeze. “Sophie’s a grown woman. She decided to
leave, for some reason. And just because she did, doesn’t mean that
anything’s happened to her. She may be on her way back, right
now.”

I nodded, “Thanks, Father.”

Father Trip smiled. “Whatever I can do to
help, let me know.”

I drove back to Sophie’s apartment, without
a lot of hope of finding her there. Mabel and Casimir were
surprised at my knock, but they hadn’t seen Sophie this morning
either. It might have been the look in my own eyes that alarmed
them, but Casimir asked me to please let them know when I found
her, and Mabel pressed a note with their phone number into my
hand.

The fifteen-minute ride had given me ample
opportunity to think, however. The nun who told me Sophie left,
said that she was going to see Father. When I questioned her
further, Sister Mary Mildred remembered Sophie digging out change
for the bus before she left. Which meant that she hadn’t been going
to see Father Trip after all. Which is why I was now on my way to
visit Father Bruno.

Emil answered the door. Rumpled as ever, he
wore a different flannel shirt than he’d been wearing the first
time I met him, but I swore it looked as though he’d slept in it.
His face, pinkened on one side and his constant blinking, gave me
the impression that my surprise visit woke him up.

He scratched at the side of his face, near
his temple, as though trying to massage a headache away. “Don’t I
know you?”

His breath backed me up a step, but I
smiled. I wanted information after all. “I was here the other day.
With Sophie?”

Dropping the hand from his temple, he used
it to point at me. “Oh yeah,” he said with what sounded like
pleasured approval. “I remember.” His eyes raked over me from head
to toe and back again, and he gave a small frown when he looked in
the direction of my chest. “I hate winter.”

Puzzled by the non-sequitur, I was just
about to ask about Sophie, when he added, “Makes people wear too
many clothes.” And then he winked at me.

Thank God for down jackets, I thought. What
an idiot.

“
Have you seen her?” I
asked, changing the subject.

It seemed to take him a second to make the
leap, to understand what I was asking. “Sophie?”

Exasperated, and wishing I could get away, I
bit the insides of my mouth, “Yeah, has she been around?”

“
Oh, she’s been around,
that girl. Let me tell you …” His eyes lit up, and I interrupted
before he could go any further. The gleam in his eyes made me want
to retch, right there. And aim for his face.

“
I mean, did she stop by
here this morning? To see Father Bruno?”

“
I dunno, she might have.
Bruno headed over to the church early this morning and said he
needed to meet with one of the girls. Coulda been
Sophie.”

“
One of the girls?” I
decided to press, just a bit. Dealing with Emil made my skin crawl,
but he might have useful information. “You mean one of the girls he
helped come over from the old country? The one’s he’s gotten … jobs
for?”

Wariness jumped into Emil’s expression. I
hadn’t thought him capable of it.

“
What do you mean?” he
asked.

I forced a smile. “You know what I
mean.”

His eyes raked over me again. “You a working
girl?”

I ignored the question. “What would Father
Bruno think of it if I was?” I asked.

He shook his head as a small smile played at
his lips. Which he licked, twice, before beginning to answer.

“
Emil!” A voice from the
sidewalk interrupted our conversation.

I turned to see Father Bruno make his way up
the concrete steps. He shot me a chilly smile.

He wore old-fashioned black robes.
Skirt-like, they hung out below the bottom of his beige winter
jacket, swishing around his legs as he climbed the stairs. Atop his
head he wore a fur hat, Russian style. I couldn’t be sure, but it
looked like real fur to me, and I wondered how many of God’s
creatures had given up their lives in sacrifice to his
head-warmth.

He puffed as he crested the top stair, years
of smoking taking their toll. “Alexandrine,” he said with what
seemed more like surprise than pleasure. The pale brown eyes,
watery from the cold wind, didn’t communicate the welcome his smile
seemed to strive for. “We were just talking about you.”

I tried to tamp down the jolt of optimism.
“With Sophie? She was here?”

“
Yes, of course,” he said,
pushing past Emil through the rectory’s open door. I followed,
catching a whiff of the secretary’s body odor as he swept his arm
to guide me in, in what looked like an attempt at a gallant
gesture. I wondered if the man ever bathed.

“
Where is she now?” I
asked, holding my hand up near my nose in a reflexive action,
though it did no good whatsoever. “At church?”

Bruno pulled the fur hat from his head.
Silver hairs stood out in all directions, and he wiped a beefy hand
at them, coaxing them down. He headed into the same room where we’d
met the first time. I thought it had been dark before. Now the
dreariness was overwhelming. If parishioners came here for
guidance, I wouldn’t wonder that they left more depressed than they
were when they came in.

Making his way around his desk, Bruno
stripped the jacket off and tossed it on a chair with the hat in a
smooth motion.

Grabbing a Kleenex, he blew his nose,
several times. Robust blows, one nostril at a time, keeping an eye
on me as he did so.

“
I don’t know. She left
after our meeting,” he said with a small frown. Impatience, it
seemed. He hadn’t taken a seat. I took that to indicate that he
wanted this interview over quickly.

Relief that Sophie was apparently all right
gave me the freedom to stay a few moments longer to find out more.
“What did she say?”

Bruno leaned on his desk, his fingertips
bearing his weight. “What did she say?” The incredulity in his
voice was palpable.

“
Did she tell you what
happened to her? Did she tell you about her …” I didn’t know how to
phrase it. Emil stood in the open doorway behind me, listening to
every word. “… problems?“ I kept it vague. Very vague.

“
Alexandrine,” Bruno said,
in a condescending tone. “Aren’t you a good Catholic
girl?”

I nodded.

“
Then I shouldn’t have to
remind you that what is divulged under the sacrament of
reconciliation is protected. What Sophie shared with me is
sacrosanct and I will thank you never to ask such a question
again.”

Anger shot through me like a white hot
knife. “I wasn’t aware she’d come to confess, Father,” I said, in
as calm a voice as I could muster.

He nodded, benignly. As if granting
absolution. But I hadn’t asked. And I wasn’t sorry. He smiled. “Do
you need anything further?”

“
No.”

“
Well then, if you don’t
mind, I have a busy morning planned,” he said, easing himself to
sit.

My cue. On my way out, as I neared Emil,
still standing sentry in the doorway, Bruno called to me.
“Alexandrine.”

“
Yes?”

“
How’s the new
job?”

I flashed him a lips-only smile. “Bad break.
Ms. Knowles couldn’t use me after all.”

He returned my smile in kind. “I’m sorry to
hear that. But I’m certain something else will turn up.”

* * * * *

“
Sophie, you had me
worried.”

She’d made her way back to the convent,
unaware of the angst she caused by disappearing the way she had.
Her face had cleaned up well; the cuts on her lip appeared to be
healing already. Residual swelling still marred the left side of
her face, giving her an elephant-man look. Purplish bruises on her
chin and cheeks exacerbated the image.

She favored her left arm, resting it in her
lap as we spoke. The four nuns who occupied the convent made
themselves scarce, bustling about at their business, letting us
know that we had complete privacy here in the dining room, to
talk.

Sophie and I sat at the far end of a long
table, me at the head, she at the first side chair. The blond wood
table, made in the fifties, but looking brand-spanking new, lent a
certain surreal feeling to our discussion. We kept our voices low.
Even though no one was nearby, the large room, and the silence that
pervaded it, caused us to whisper.

“
I had to go see Father
Bruno,” she told me in Polish. Her right arm rested on the corner
of the table and she didn’t meet my gaze. I watched as she rubbed
her thumb against the side of her index finger, eyeing
it.

“
But why?”

Her hand trembled. She continued to rub. “He
has been like a father to me. He has taken care, good care of me,
since Matthew and I arrived from Poland. And I have done the worst
thing I could do. I gave in to temptation. The temptation of
money.”

As though there were answers coming down to
her from above, she focused on the ceiling. Her right hand lost the
battle she’d been waging and she raised it to her mouth, biting her
thumbnail while she gathered her thoughts further.

“
If I’m careful, Lisa and
Rodero won’t hurt me anymore. But I’m in trouble. I know I am. And
if something happens …”

“
Like what,
Sophie?”

“
If … if I should die … I
can’t go to heaven with my Matthew if my soul is stained with such
mortal sin.”

Pulling her fingers from her mouth, she put
her head down on the table as though drained of energy. Her hair
spilled onto the tabletop like a blond waterfall, obscuring her
face. I got up, reaching to put my arm around her, and I could feel
tiny tremors in her back as she cried.

She calmed after a bit, and when she sat up,
I told her about Lisa’s call reneging on the shampoo girl’s job.
Her eyes widened and she buried her face in her hands, as though in
prayer. “Thank the Good Lord. Jesus, Mary, Joseph, thank you, thank
you,” she whispered. Looking back up at me. “You will be safe now.
And I will be, too.”

“
Father Bruno’s going to
help you get away from Lisa, then?”

Sophie bit her lip.

“
Sophie? What did you tell
him?”

“
You want to know my
confession?” Her horrified look that I would ask about her
confessed sins could have been humorous had the situation not been
so grave.

Her thumb had gone back up to her mouth.

“
No, of course not,” I
said. “What I want to know is how much Father Bruno now knows about
Lisa’s organization, now.”

“
He knows my
sins.”

“
Did you tell him about
your job?”

Blue eyes held mine as she nodded her
head.

“
Everything?”

“
No. Not everything. I made
it sound like I work for someone else that he doesn’t know—doing
the … things I do. I didn’t tell him where I was staying, either. I
just told him enough to get his forgiveness.”

I felt energy drain out of
me with startling immediacy. “Let me call him,” I said, standing.
“I think he needs to know that Lisa’s behind this.” My mind was
going two-forty, recalling that he asked me about my job this
morning.
After
Sophie had talked with him. I wished I would have paid closer
attention to his reaction to my disclosure that I lost the
position. He’d seemed angry and quick to dismiss me. But his
demeanor could have a lot to do with the magnitude of Sophie’s
news, too

I reached the phone in the adjacent kitchen,
just as I became aware of Sophie behind me. She reached, dragging
at my arm. “No.”