The Chelsea Girl Murders (17 page)

“Which is where?”

“Plotzonia.”

“Give me the real name of the place, Rocky.”

“Chechnya,” he said after some hesitation.

“Chechnya? Are you a Muslim?”

“No.”

“Member of the Christian minority? Animist? What?”

“Christian,” he said. “The terrorists belong to a different Christian group.”

“What do they want?” I asked.

“The terrorists want to destroy my family and Nadia's and many others,” he said. “They bomb things, they kidnap people, they steal, they beat priests who disagree with them.”

“Very Christian of them. What's the deal with the baby?” I asked.

“I don't know,” he said.

“This baby keeps popping up. It must mean something.”

“I don't know,” he said again.

Looking sullen, scared, confused, and angry with me, all at the same time, Rocky slumped down in his seat.

“Okay, I will stay here,” he said finally. “But when you find out where Nadia is, you must come get me so I can go see her with you. You must call me, even before you call her. Promise me.”

“Rocky, when I find Nadia, you'll be the first to know, I promise. I'm developing some leads. You can call me on my cell phone, use a code name if you like. I'll come by whenever I can to see you,” I said.

“Do they have TV here?” he wondered.

“Yes,” Phil said.

The Mother Superior who met us at the door was younger than I would have expected, but maybe that was deceptive. Maybe it was due to that serene, godly look on her face. You rarely see that look in real life. No disrespect intended, but it is much easier to remain serene and godly when one is hidden away from the meanness and craziness of the world behind high walls and razor wire.

“Welcome,” she said warmly, adding, with a little less serenity, “You weren't followed, were you?”

“No,” Phil said.

“Good. Come into my study,” she said, leading the way down a hallway lined with black-and-white pictures of long-dead nuns and popes.

“Is Dulcinia asleep?” Phil asked.

“Possibly, or she may be in the chapel praying,” the Mother Superior said, and sighed. “I'm afraid she and some of the Sisters are getting even more competitive about praying and penance. Perhaps you could have a word with Dulcinia, Phil. At supper, she made a point of praying louder than Sisters Teresa and Marie, which provoked them to pray louder, and her a little louder still, and so on. A vicious cycle. At vespers this evening, I quoted Our Savior's exhortation not to pray loudly in public like the hypocrites but I don't think it sank in. Afterward, Dulcinia pointed out that I'd made a small grammatical error in the quotation, and when I looked in an hour ago, she was still in the chapel on her knees, looking up at the crucifix and praying madly.”

We went into a large, sumptuous parlor with a huge fireplace and a lot of overstuffed chairs and sofas and rich tapestries. There was just a small fire going, to take the chill off the spring night, and by one of the chairs was an antique end table on which a half-read murder mystery lay, facedown. As the abbess and Phil made chitchat, re: “What do you do with a problem like Dulcinia?” I checked out the bookshelf, delighted to see that among the theological tomes and classics like Plato and St. Augustine were a healthy sprinkling of murder mysteries, some Iris Murdoch, and some P. G. Wodehouse.

One of the Sisters interrupted to bring us tea, cocoa, and delicious little cream cakes. (This was not an ascetic convent.) At her heels was Sister Señor, in his little habit.

“Thank you, Sister Marie,” Mother Superior said. When Sister Marie was gone, Señor right behind her, Mother Superior said, “That's another problem shaping up. Señor has taken a liking to Sister Marie, and Mrs. Ramirez is very unhappy about it. I fear it is feeding her competitive instincts.”

“I'll see if I can't get through to her,” Phil said. “But she tends to hear what she wants to hear. I'll go look for her in the chapel. I won't be long.”

The Mother Superior turned to me and Rocky and said, “Phil tells me this is a romantic mission? Your beloved ran out on an arranged marriage?”

“Yes,” Rocky said.

“And her family and the groom's family are trying to find her and take her back, and you may be in some danger from them?”

“Yes,” he said.

“You love her very much,” she said.

“Yes,” Rocky said, and his voice softened slightly, and caught in his throat, the same way Nadia's had when she was talking of love the night she arrived. Calling it a “romantic” mission had felt like a gross overstatement, as it seemed to me to be more of a mission to reunite two immature lovers so they could embark on one of the greatest mistakes of their lives. But at this moment, I was inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. They so obviously had the same powerful, sweet feeling for each other, and maybe that would be enough to get them through the crap. Also, I hadn't seen them together. That they were quite different with each other than they were with me was within the realm of possibility.

“You must promise not to do anything to put us at risk,” she said to Rocky. “We have a tradition here of helping refugees. This very convent was used to shelter runaway slaves in the last century, and our mother convent in France harbored Jewish children during the Holocaust.”

Rocky nodded, and I poked him in the ribs. “Thank the nice lady for taking you in,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You'll have to respect our rules and traditions and defer to the Sisters and the lay workers,” she said. “You don't have to come to chapel, but it would be nice. You must not leave the grounds or bring any unwanted attention our way. The back building is the Sisters' private area. You will of course respect that and not go in there.”

“Yes, all right,” he said.

“Sister Marie will take you to your room now and explain some of the ins and outs of the convent.” She rang for Sister Marie and her Chihuahua escort, Señor.

After Rocky had left, I suggested, helpfully, “Maybe you can put Rocky to work. He's not very good in the kitchen, but I bet he can scrub floors. There's a lot he needs to learn before he gets married.”

If anyone could make a husband out of this guy, it was a bunch of nuns.

“Where is he from?”

“Chechnya.”

“Is he Muslim? Does he have dietary laws the kitchen needs to know about?”

“No, Christian. Let me give you my cell phone number, in case you have any problems,” I said. “Just don't tell Mrs. Ramirez my cell number, or too much of Rocky's story, or—”

“Don't tell what to Mrs. Ramirez?” Mrs. Ramirez asked, shuffling into the room on Phil's arm while turning up her hearing aid with her free hand.

“Why, don't tell Mrs. Ramirez that Pius the Twelfth was the best of the Pius popes,” I said. “It's Pius the Ninth, right, Mrs. R.?”

In a nutshell, Pius the Ninth stubbornly fought the Italian government's secularization in the nineteenth century, as he figured the church should run society, and he also put forward the dogma of Immaculate Conception. Mrs. Ramirez had had a portrait of him in her kitchen, until the fire.

“Pope Pius the NINTH,” she corrected, sitting down in a big armchair on the right side of the Mother Superior, who shot me a less than serene look for opening this Marian Dogma can of worms.

“That's what I meant,” the Mother Superior finessed. “Pius the Ninth was the best of the Pius popes.”

“Perhaps Mrs. Ramirez can offer some spiritual counseling to the new guest,” I said.

“What an excellent idea,” the abbess said. “I'm sure our young man would benefit greatly from your wisdom, Dulcinia.”

“He needs a lot of guidance,” I said. “He doesn't retain information well. Best to repeat things five or six times, to make sure it sinks in.”

The Mother Superior smiled at me. I was redeemed, thanks to a classic piece of nonlethal revenge, using one person who drives you nuts against another person who drives you nuts. Mrs. R. would keep an eye on Rocky, and he'd keep her out of the nuns' hair. Two birds, one stone. I love it when things work out so economically.

“T
HAT WAS SMOOTH
, pairing Mrs. Ramirez with the boy,” Phil said to me later, on the drive back to the city.

“Yeah. But I probably went too far in telling her to quote a lot of scripture and pay special attention to the subject of sexual continence. Phil, I'm turning into one of those cranky grown-ups who kicked my ass when I was young,” I said. “How did that happen? I thought not being able to have kids would save me from that and I'd be cool forever.”

“You will be. Like me, like Helen. Just not young cool,” he said. “There's a difference. More grace, less passion.”

“Grace and passion are so often incompatible, aren't they?” I said. “Oh, man, I am stumped. The girl's gone, the boy's an idiot, strange foreigners are menacing me and my equally strange neighbors, and people keep talking about a baby.”

“Don't forget the dead art dealer who died right in front of you,” he added.

“That's another mystery—who killed him, and why?”

“First things first,” he said. “The police are investigating the murder. You concentrate on finding the girl, getting her together with the boy. Anything I can do to help, just ask.”

“Thanks, Phil.”

“You're going to be fine there, at the Chelsea?”

“I'm armed, the apartment is alarmed, I have a cell phone.”

“I'll stay with you if you like.”

“Nah, I'll be okay.”

The sun was rising when Phil dropped me at the Chelsea. My hand was on that pearl-handled pistol when I got out of the car and went upstairs, my eyes darting around at every noise. As I was punching in the security code, I heard a door open behind me, and I wheeled around, gun in hand, eyes wild with instinctive fear, only to find myself staring at the panicked face of the Mary Sue convention lady.

“Sorry sorry sorry,” I shouted as she withdrew to her room and slammed the door.

“I thought you were a murderer!” I shouted. “It's okay.”

There was no sign or sound of other neighbors. Even the Zen-master's door was closed.

Louise Bryant was waiting right inside for me, and she was furious. In the craziness of the night before, I'd forgotten to feed her, so before I did anything else, she got a big breakfast. Maggie had called and left a message, wanting me to call her “after ten
A.M
. please.” Sleep appealed but I ignored it, logging on to my laptop and going online. Tamayo had not yet E-mailed, but Pierre had, with just a brief note: “Very busy here. Hope all is well with you. Pierre.” It wasn't much, but at the moment it seemed like a goddamned ray of sunshine, one bright note in the darkness, so much so that I read those simple sentences over a few times before turning to more urgent matters.

An Internet search for the guy on the cross, St. Michael the Martyr, turned up several different St. Michael's who were martyred, and each had to be checked for a match to the strange face on the cross. Some of the web pages had no pictures, just lists of feast days and patron saints in various Catholic and Orthodox churches.

Finally, I found a martyred St. Michael, particular to southwestern Russia, whose portrait on the web page fit the face on the cross. It was St. Michael the Martyr of Mashnik, a fifteenth-century saint. Unfortunately, I found nothing specific to Chechnya, so this led nowhere, except, perhaps, to a valuable object lesson.

If St. Michael were a watch, his slogan would be “Takes a licking, keeps on ticking.” According to the legend, he was expelled as a young man from his monastery due to his objections to “the cruelty and heresy” of the men who ran the joint. On his way out the door, he “liberated” some of the holy relics and icons within, later selling all but one, an icon of Jesus, to finance a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Before he got to the Holy Land, he met up with a band of “true-thinking” but hapless Christian soldiers who were being clobbered by a stronger band of Christians in the power vacuum left by retreating pagan barbarian forces.

The ragtag rebels had several years of small victories that they attributed to Michael of Mashnik and the holy icon of Jesus carried into battle. Alas, during one battle, Michael was captured by the enemy Christians and given a choice between conversion to their “heretical” faith or death. He chose death, but when the executioner came to take him away, he fought back and escaped on foot, despite having been stabbed several times. The enemy forces caught him, and attempted to burn him at the stake, but he barely got his knees singed when a great thunderstorm erupted and put out the fire. He escaped a second time, only to fall into the hands of bandits who, after finding he had nothing to steal, staked him to the ground and left him for dead. Birds plucked his eyes out, but still, Michael of Mashnik could not be stopped. After a little rest, he pulled up the stakes and hobbled back on his burned feet, blind but following the “voice of God,” until he met up with the rebel Christians. There he died, urging them in his final breath to fight on to the death and to never surrender.

Finally, I thought, a patron saint for people like me. A patron saint of damned fools. Even better, he was a patron saint of proven fools (as in Celtic mythology, in which a proven fool was killed three ways, by strangling, drowning, and stabbing with a spear).

Somewhere along the line, the icon disappeared. A legend had grown up around it, that whoever had the icon would ultimately conquer his enemies. There had been many reports of the icon surfacing and disappearing again, which could not be corroborated. The last report had it being taken during World War Two by the Nazis, who were unaware of its inherent potency and just shipped it off with a bunch of other artworks and loot to Germany.