The Case of the Sin City Sister (2 page)

The young man had been prepared for this trip for a long time, but now that the day had arrived, he felt weighted down, hesitant. He walked at a slow but purposeful pace. Claire had known about his plans before she realized she was pregnant. It had been discussed by the newlyweds for months, Caleb having been completely forthcoming even before they married. He’d learned of the mines in the West from his uncle Jonathan. His mother’s younger brother had been a soldier in the Confederate Army who traveled as far as the territory known as New Mexico, fighting the Union soldiers in a region fed by the Pecos River known as Glorieta Pass.

The Confederates had planned to break the Union possession of the West along the base of the Rocky Mountains. After they pushed the Union force back through the pass, they had to retreat when their supply train was destroyed and most of their horses and mules were killed or driven off. Eventually, the soldiers had to withdraw entirely from the territory back into Confederate Arizona and then Texas. Uncle Jonathan had returned to North Carolina, wounded and defeated. The light in his eyes was all but snuffed out, except for the fantastic stories he’d tell of the intricate Indian jewelry he had seen in the hills near the battle site.

“Turquesa” and “chalchihuite,” his uncle called the Turkish stone that was deemed better than gold, a stone more profitable
than silver because the Persian mines where the ore was usually found were being emptied. Out in the desert hills of New Mexico, however, just east of Santa Fe, where the Union soldiers had pushed out the Confederates, there the ore was plentiful. And unlike the gold mines of California and the silver mines in Colorado, there weren’t that many who knew about the turquoise or of its increasing value in Europe and the Americas.

Caleb was not quite a teenager when he heard his uncle’s tales, but he knew even then that he would head west. All he needed to do was earn enough money to cover the wagon fare and, once the railroad line was completed, the train ticket as well as the mining fees that he expected to be charged when he arrived in the territory known as New Mexico.

Caleb had planned for his new bride to travel with him, and once they arrived she would find a job in the mining town of Cerrillos, waiting tables at the local diner or taking care of the townspeople’s children. Claire, like Caleb, was resourceful. And she shared his dream, making it her own, feeding their love for each other and their desire to marry. But then, even though they had been very careful since their first time together, she had gotten pregnant.

He stopped and looked behind him, wondering if he should have awakened her before he left. The sun was beginning to light the sky, which meant Claire was awake. He could see her in his mind’s eye, standing at the bedroom window, her hair long and unbraided, her eyes and nose still red from the night’s tears. She was already showing by the time he was ready to leave—her dresses now pulled tight across her belly. She had less than three months
to go before the due date, and when he had seen what was really happening, what it all really meant, he almost stayed.

Claire hadn’t asked him, but he’d come close to using the money they had saved for his mining trip to pay for the crib and stroller in the Sears catalog, almost took the job at the tobacco warehouse, and almost started clearing the land behind the barn, down near the creek, a nice spot for a little house. But when it came time to stake off the building site and drop by the warehouse and ask Mr. Moore when he would start; when he was standing at the counter at the general store, flipping through the catalog, pointing out the desired baby furniture, the store owner’s wife adding up the deposit, he just couldn’t pull the money from his pocket. He just couldn’t settle when he had gotten so close.

Claire had urged him to go on. He should go ahead with his plan, find a nice place for the family to live, make some money, and send for her. She would be fine, she had told him, her words hardly convincing. She would stay with his parents and have the baby, give the boy or the girl a good start, a strong name, and then she would join him. His uncle, now recovered and restless after the scars of war, had even volunteered to travel with her and the child. It was a good plan B. It was a solid and good plan B.

Now was the best time for mining. That’s what Judah Gardner, the old man who was a friend of his uncle, the one passing through, the one who had just returned from panning turquoise, had said. The only reason he had come back was because his mother had taken ill, and he was the only one left to take care of her. “I’d head back out there in a skinny second,” he had said. “A skinny second,” he had repeated, smiling at the young man paying for the map he
had drawn, grinning with every detail he added. “Rich and ready for the taking.”

It had been all that Caleb needed to hear.

“Caleb Alford,” the driver of the stagecoach parked at the edge of town called out when he spotted the man walking in his direction, looking back over his shoulder. “Are you Caleb Alford?”

The young man turned his sights away from home and toward the voice calling out his name. “Yes, sir, I’m Caleb.” And he walked over to the coach, making his way to the side of the driver.

“Then I guess you’re going with us,” the wagon master responded, jumping down to take his pack.

“Yes, sir, I guess I am.” And he handed him his things and walked around to the door of the coach.

“You can sit back there if you want, or you can ride up front with me. Just the two of us until we get up to the state line, then there will be a family of three joining us all the way to the train station in Richmond. You’ll likely want to claim a seat inside then. Looks like rain.”

Caleb headed past the door of the coach, grabbed the hand extended in his direction, and pulled himself onto the front seat. The driver waited a minute, letting his passenger settle, then made a clucking noise and shook the reins. The horses moved forward, and the coach shifted and was quickly pulled along.

The sky was full of light. Caleb reached into his pocket, rubbed the small smooth stone between his fingers, nodded once more, and didn’t look back again.

ONE

Sister Evangeline remained in the chapel even as the altar candles were extinguished and all the other nuns and monks had gone to their chambers for the night. She knelt in the dark on the hard oak bench before her and remained quiet, her head in her hands, her eyes closed, for more than an hour, waiting for something she wasn’t sure would come. She wanted an answer from God—a sign to show her the way—and every night and every morning for the last three weeks, she had stayed in the chapel for hours at a time, waiting for God to tell her what to do.

She listened, but there was nothing. All she could hear were the birds, the flapping of the wings of the pigeons that came and went from their nests along the eaves of the chapel. She also heard the telltale sounds from the habits of her sisters in the hallway, the kind of swishing noises that the long skirts made, and she knew they had gone first to the kitchen to make sure the breakfast supplies were out and now were on their way to bed. She waited another
twenty minutes without an answer and was about to leave when she heard a voice from behind her.

“This has gone on long enough, Sister.”

She swallowed hard. She had not heard him come in.

“It’s been almost a month.”

It was Father Oliver, the monk in charge of the monastery where she lived, and hearing him speak made her wonder how long he had been in the chapel and sitting behind her.

“You need not pray any longer for wisdom. You have prayed for that long enough. It is time for you to obey what is being given to you. Your path is clear to everyone here, except perhaps to you.”

She rose from the bench and sat back against the pew but did not turn around to face her superior. She dropped her hands into her lap, the rosary draped across her fingers, her face down. “But I don’t know,” she replied. “How can I be sure?”

“Your heart knows,” he answered.

There was a pause. She did not respond.

“How do you feel when you think about the work you have done with your father, Captain Divine? How was it to solve that murder?”

Eve closed her eyes and thought about the case she’d helped to figure out working alongside the Captain. She took in a deep and full breath, her heart opening, as she considered what it was like when she made the educated guess as to who had killed the Hollywood director. The satisfaction of it—the completeness of closing the case—it was true; her spirit soared in those days unlike it ever had before.

“I am right, yes?” he asked. “This work as a detective, it fulfills you.”

She did not answer at first. She considered what he said,
understanding exactly what he meant, knowing in earnest it was true. She felt something so different when she had worked at the detective agency. She felt connected to the world in a way she hadn’t experienced before. She felt useful and engaged. Alive. The monk was right, and as much as she didn’t want to admit to her passions, she knew it.

“But how do I know to trust those feelings? How do I know that the feelings aren’t just my temptation, something I should surrender and let go of, not trust? How do I know this urge should be honored and not resisted? How can you be sure I’m not just being willful and disobedient?”

Father Oliver poured out a long breath. Eve felt him then, just at her back, close but not threatening, not hovering. She was glad to have him near her this way, behind her, not in front of her, not looking into her eyes. It was a bit like the sacrament of confession, with a thick veil, a wall, separating the confessor from the one offering redemption.

“We are told by the psalmist that God meets the desires of our hearts. Even Saint Paul wrote to the church in Galatia that ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.’ ”

Eve was confused. She was not following his explanation, but she didn’t interrupt. In more than twenty years as a nun she had learned some skills about listening and about silence; and as she bit her lip, holding back another question, holding back her impatience, she realized this was one of the skills that had benefited her in solving the mystery of the dead Hollywood director. She had known how to listen to what was being said as well as to discern what was being shown. She had solved the mystery because she
understood what it meant to listen carefully, to pay close attention to the details.

Oliver waited a bit and continued. “If you are a true disciple, Sister, and I believe you are, then Christ lives in you. If this is so, then the desire that is in your heart can be trusted. It is the truth for you to live by.”

Eve relaxed. It was the news she had wanted but had not expected to hear from her superior. She knew that what he was saying was certainly true, that working at the detective agency energized her in a way she hadn’t felt for a long time. She knew being in the role of detective fed her spirit, engaged her mind and heart, and fulfilled her. It was everything she had been searching for at the monastery for years, even years she had not realized she was looking for something.

“Who will watch the animals?” she asked, suddenly remembering the stray cats and dogs she had been housing and feeding at the monastery. She was the only resident who took care of them. She worried that to leave would mean the animals would more than likely be neglected. Not knowing who would step up and take over was one of the reasons she had been using for her decision to stay.

“I have spoken to Sister Mary Edith and Brother Stephen. They are both dedicated to caring for all the residents here, the four-legged creatures as well as those of us with two. We will continue the good work you began.”

Eve smiled. It warmed her heart to know that he had understood this would be important in her discernment process to leave the monastery. He knew what caring for the animals meant to her, and with his reply, it was clear that he had already managed this matter of concern.

She nodded and thought about the man sitting behind her and understood how she had come to love and respect Father Oliver over the years. He was not one who spoke frivolously or one who used his authority as a means of power over the others at the monastery. Even in times of disagreement, and there had certainly been a few of those, Eve had always found her superior to be kind and fair in his leadership. She trusted him.

“I just want it to be a leave of absence,” she said. “I am not ready to leave for good. I just need a couple of months to sort through things, help my dad again, and be back in Madrid and just have time to think about things.”

She felt his hand on her shoulder. It was warm and strong.

“It is just a leave of absence,” he agreed. And then he removed his hand. “But Sister Evangeline, you must use these six weeks as the opportunity that they are. You must still your mind and listen to your heart. If you do that, if you seek in truthfulness to know what it is you are to do with your life, you will know the truth.”

“And the truth will set me free,” she added. She reached her right hand across her opposite shoulder and held it there, waiting. She didn’t wait long before his hand clasped hers and squeezed. She dropped her head, said a prayer of thanks, and felt the release of his hand on hers. When she stood up to leave, she turned around to thank Father Oliver, to tell him what relief he had given her, to let him know what his counsel had meant to her, how she had been praying for what he had given to her, but the chapel was empty. There was no one else there. The one who’d provided her the answer had already gone.