Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

The Cardinal’s Cross by Mary Amlaw

It was the smooth way the long black car closed in on the little priest that scared Zebulon. Two muscular men in dark business suits stepped from the vehicle and neatly put the priest between them. Undaunted by the retreatants spilling onto the narrow sidewalk through the gates of the convent of the Daughters of Elias, the two men swept their startled prey into the rear of the car and drove off toward Washington Street. Before they turned the corner, something arced from the limo’s window and glittered briefly in the afternoon sun on its trip to the gutter.

A pickup in broad daylight, and the innocents who had just come from their prayers at the convent didn’t even realize it.

Zebulon realized only too well. Life in a high-crime area taught its survival skills even to nine-year-olds, and Zebulon was a fast study. He clung to his perch in the maple that overlooked the convent grounds and considered his options.

What had happened was none of his business. He didn’t know the priest who’d been taken. Maybe he’d been scooped up for something innocent — to hear a deathbed confession, for instance. Maybe he was friends with the men in the car, and they were just giving him a lift home.

Even Zebulon Williams, nine years old, couldn’t make that one wash. The little priest was in big trouble; the wrong people wanted to talk to him. The smartest thing Zeb could do was pretend he’d seen nothing. He should definitely keep his mouth shut. He should definitely not pick up whatever had been tossed into the gutter.

Zeb was many things, but coward wasn’t one of them. He dropped from the tree by his hands, wiped his nervous face with the end of his T-shirt, and ambled casually to the corner. He tried to look innocent as he reached down and swooped up the thing that had been tossed from the car.

It was a small brass cross, polished until it shone like gold. A legend was engraved on the back: Gift of Theresa Lynch.

The unfortunate priest had come from the Daughters of Elias, the province of Mother Mary Dominic and the unworldly community of nuns Zebulon considered his own special responsibility. Mary Dominic should be told what had happened.

Kindly Clare Francis, the convent cook, beamed when she saw Zeb at the door. “You might have to wait a while. Mother’s speaking with the cardinal,” Clare informed him.

Zeb considered the wisdom of reappearing on the street with his errand undone. If the men in the limo came back for the cross, Zeb didn’t want to be found with it.

“I’ll wait, sister.”

Provided with lemonade and chocolate chip cookies in abundance, Zebulon settled down in the high-backed pink wing chair in the visitors’ parlor and wished the cardinal a speedy departure.

Mother Mary Dominic, the only woman except his mother who addressed the august cardinal archbishop of Boston as “Jim,” also silently wished him on his way. They were second cousins twice removed, a tenuous relationship at best, but the cardinal had grown up without siblings and considered Mary Dominic something of a younger sister in need of guidance. Although the Daughters of Elias were not under his jurisdiction, their convent was situated in the cardinal’s see and he felt a certain responsibility both for them and for the lay people attracted to their doors.

Often the cardinal wished that the Daughters of Elias had followed the trend to the suburbs during the years of “white flight” and had left the declining inner city to face God without their intercession, but he could hardly say so.

A magnificent figure with his proud bearing, fleece of white hair, and crimson robes, he seemed to have settled permanently in the carved Italianate armchair in the convent’s inner parlor, a room reserved solely for visiting clergy.

“Mimi, be sensible. It’s neither just nor charitable to knowingly expose your retreatants to danger. Even you must admit this area is far from safe.”

“The area is unsafe, but we are in no danger,” Mary Dominic countered, stretching a point. There was no danger from the immediate residents, who admired the nuns, largely due to Mary Dominic’s efforts to help all who asked. Transients from other areas couldn’t be spoken for.

This was an old topic between Mary Dominic and the cardinal, requiring lengthy reassurances on her part before he would grudgingly give in. Mary Dominic usually enjoyed the go-round, but Clare Francis had just slipped in to inform her that Zebulon Williams and Sister Angela were both waiting to speak to her.

It was approaching time for evening prayer. The gates to the parking lot couldn’t be locked for the night until the cardinal’s limo, now plainly visible from the street, drove away. For all his talk about the dangers of the neighborhood, the cardinal apparently had perfect trust in the security of the parking lot, or perhaps he had an especially vigilant guardian angel, for he’d let his driver take a quick tea break in the kitchen to sample the fine pastries produced by Sister Clare Francis.

Mary Dominic hoped no stranger succumbed to the temptation to divest the unattended car of its hubcaps, hood ornaments, or more vital parts while the cardinal sat and lectured her about safety.

“Indeed, your eminence, the people of the neighborhood are extremely protective of us. We do take the precautions dictated by prudence, of course, but we feel strongly that Our Lord has us in His hand, and this is where He wants us to be.” She spoke as decisively as possible while remaining within the necessary bounds of respect.

The cardinal, a handsome Irishman with a charming smile, rubbed the crook of his crosier against his chin. He asked with deceptive mildness, “Then why is the gold cross missing from the guest chapel? I hardly think one of the retreatants has taken it. Therefore, it must have been stolen by one of your neighbors.”

The plight of the neighbors was one of Mary Dominic’s major concerns, and she addressed the cardinal by title, hoping to inspire him to help them.

“The people here have very little, your eminence. Everyone, including the Church, has abandoned them. If one of them in his desperation steals a trifle from us, then I say it is to our shame for not responding to their obvious need. Whoever has taken the cross is welcome to it, as far as I’m concerned.”

“You miss my point, mother.” The cardinal in turn became frostily formal. “I was speaking of the community’s safety. And while the cross may not have great value for you, it was a gift from my late aunt, if you recall, and therefore has a certain sentimental value for me.”

Mary Dominic, aware that the sun was going down and the grounds were still open, said shortly, “It’s only brass, your eminence, not gold. We did not think it fitting that we, who are vowed to poverty, should accept a gift of gold, surrounded as we are by people who are truly poor.” Her eyes wandered to the cardinal’s gem-encrusted gold crosier. The excessively rich trappings of church officials irritated Mary Dominic, and the cardinal had heard her thoughts on the matter ad nauseam.

The cardinal rose, gathering his episcopal robes about him as dramatically as an actor. “Please keep me informed. We will speak of this again.”

“Indeed, if your eminence pleases.”

She kissed his ring, accepted his blessing, and thought how wise the Mother Foundress had been to establish the Daughters of Elias in obedience solely to their own Mother General, thus protecting them from the authoritative itch of local clergy.

Every nun in the convent would want a private word with the cardinal, who gave individual blessings to all who came forward during the course of his leisurely departure. To assure Sister Angela of some time with him, Mary Dominic spoke with her before hearing what Zebulon had to say.

“I was stripping the retreatants’ beds and found this in the room assigned to Father Garcia.” Angela put a small gold cross about six inches long on Mary Dominic’s desk. “It was wedged between the bed and the wall. At first I thought it was the cross missing from the chapel, but it’s not the same one.”

It was not unheard of for a priest to carry a cross among his possessions, but Father Garcia, a small, nervous man who jumped at shadows, hadn’t seemed especially devout. When asked if he’d care to con-celebrate mass or hear the nuns’ confessions, he had claimed his health wouldn’t stand the strain. He followed his refusal with a tasteless joke about fainting in the confessional and scaring the nuns into thinking their sins had been too much for him.

Mary Dominic knew most of the priests in the archdiocese personally and all of them by reputation, but Father Garcia had been a stranger to her. He had said that he was newly ordained and assigned to Gate of Heaven parish, but Mary Dominic found no mention of him in the Archdiocesan Directory. She hadn’t thought much of it at the time. Published once a year, the directory missed the infrequent assignments made after it had gone to press. Father Garcia would be included in the next edition.

Now, as she examined the cross Angela presented to her, the omission of Garcia’s name seemed vaguely ominous.

At first glance she too would have mistaken the cross Angela placed on her desk for the one missing from the chapel, but closer examination showed its ends had been capped. She twisted one carefully.

A little hill of white powder drifted onto her desktop.

“Sugar!” Sister Angela said. “Who’d put sugar in a cross? Perhaps Father Garcia is diabetic?”

Mary Dominic suppressed a smile. “I don’t believe this is sugar, sister.” Carefully she unscrewed the other three caps. They too harbored a supply of powder.

“I would appreciate your not mentioning this just yet, Sister Angela.” Mary Dominic pushed the cross to the back of her desk drawer and locked it. This was a matter for Sergeant Mike McGuire, not for the community. “Would you ask Zebulon to come in now, please?”

Zebulon’s tale of the kidnapped priest, bolstered by his solemn presentation of the cross that had been thrown from the car, strengthened Mary Dominic’s conviction that the convent had been used in a matter better suited to police investigation than community speculation.

“Thank you, Zebulon. We were wondering what had happened to this cross. If you call tomorrow afternoon, I’m sure Sister Clare Francis will have a special treat for you.”

Zebulon beamed. He envisioned a fine reward of Sister Clare Francis’ baked goods for months to come. Not that he had acted for a reward. He had simply done what he thought right.

After Zebulon left the parlor, Mary Dominic took the cross Angela had found from her drawer and placed it next to the one that belonged in the guest chapel. One might easily be mistaken for the other.

Had the cocaine-filled cross belonged to Father Garcia? Mary Dominic hoped not. Although sad things were imputed to priests nowadays, none had yet been accused of drug trafficking. Yet Father Garcia must have taken the lookalike cross from the chapel. How had it gotten in the car that swept him away unless he himself had substituted it for its more sinister twin?

Why would Garcia exchange crosses? The most charitable explanation she could invent was that he had stumbled on a drug deal, and hoped to secrete the drug-filled cross safely in the convent while he threw its owners off the scent by carrying the nuns’ cross as a decoy.

She shivered. The convent might seem a safe hiding place to someone brought up to respect such things, but if the cross and its contents was the property of Father Garcia’s abductors, respect for church property wouldn’t hinder them from taking it back as ruthlessly as necessary.

She turned the cross in her hands. Something was out of kilter. Any diocesan priest who discovered drugs being delivered in crosses would go at once to his bishop with the evidence, and not try to hide it in a convent. It would seem that Father Garcia meant to hide the cross for himself. Frowning, Mary Dominic locked it safely away again.

The missing notice in the Archdiocesan Directory returned to mind. Father Garcia had said he was newly ordained, but in too poor health to hear confessions or to concelebrate mass. That didn’t add up.

Mary Dominic called the rectory of Gate of Heaven parish. When she asked for Father Garcia, a puzzled voice replied, “I’m afraid you have the wrong number. There’s no Father Garcia in this parish.”

Nor in any parish, Mary Dominic guessed. She dialed Mike McGuire at the police station and left an urgent message for him to meet with her at the convent as soon as possible. When she hung up the bell for evening prayer was ringing.

Mary Dominic went to chapel with much on her mind.

After Sister Vincent had seen the last of the retreatants off the grounds of the convent, she lingered until the cardinal’s driver had returned to his post, then planted herself on the path where the cardinal would emerge. She meant to let him know what a martyr on earth she was, ask his blessing, and finally investigate the outdoor Fatima shrine, which had distracted her during outdoor Benediction.

The moment the cardinal entered the parking lot, Vincent pounced, detaining him for fifteen minutes while the daylight turned to dusk. The bell for evening prayer sounded as the cardinal’s limo pulled out. Vincent’s duty was to lock the gates immediately and head straight for chapel, but she had to appease her curiosity before the light failed. The gates could wait a moment or two.

She approached the statue of Mary cautiously. There! she had been right after all! The same silvery glint she had noticed during Benediction shone on the statue’s white marble face.

As she drew closer, she saw that the glint was caused by a colorless liquid that reflected the sunset’s glow. Vincent squeezed her eyes shut. After several seconds she opened them slowly. The colorless liquid was still there. As she looked, it began to move down the statue’s face in distinct drops.

Tears.

Vincent’s heart hammered as if it would burst from her body. She had always been hard-headed, a practical creature incapable of the finer flights of fancy. Stories of various weeping statues occasionally reached the convent and caused lively discussion. The younger nuns, like Sister Angela, were only too ready to believe the tears were miraculous in spite of Mary Dominic’s repeated warnings that such phenomena could be misleading, and had nothing to do with holiness.

“It could be the result of certain atmospheric conditions,” Mary Dominic cautioned the more credulous sisters. “It could be imagination, or a kind of hysteria; perhaps deliberate trickery, or even diabolical manifestation.”

That was enough to convince Vincent such things were better left alone, but it wasn’t enough for Sister Angela.

“You did not mention, mother, that it could also be of God.”

Mary Dominic assented reluctantly with a brusque nod.

“Don’t you think, mother, that in the case of statues of Our Lady of Fatima, it is most likely God? When you consider Our Lady’s warning that war is the result of sin — surely, mother, she weeps to incite us to the penance and prayer she asked of us, that the world might know peace.”

It was one thing to talk about a weeping statue and quite another to experience it. Even as Vincent watched, the trickle of tears became a steady flow.

An effect of the sunset, Vincent told herself firmly, and boldly brushed the statue’s face to prove to herself nothing was there. When she drew her hand away, several teardrops clung to her fingertips, where they sparkled with the vibrancy of life.

That wasn’t what brought Vincent to her knees.

When she had touched the statue’s face, she felt the warm texture of living flesh. The eyes seemed to look straight at her.

Confounded, Vincent stared at the weeping figure. The eyes that looked back at her seemed profoundly sad.

Vincent, who had never experienced a single mystical moment in her life, seemed at one and the same time to be kneeling on the gravel before the weeping statue and, from a distance, to be viewing the earth, shimmering jewellike in the black immensity of space. She saw the sun-bathed planet as a whole simultaneously with its individual countries and peoples. Its beauty took her breath away.

As the planet rotated, a tide of darkness enveloped it, weighing it down, gradually overcoming the light. Countries and people were swept up in blackness. The blackness brought war to Serbia, famine to Somalia and the Sudan, oppression to many nations, greed, graft, the prostitution and abuse of children. The whole unchecked power of evil raged before her.

She saw her share in that dark tide and recoiled in horror. She owed nothing to the kingdom of darkness! She had vowed herself to the light; to good, and not to evil.

A great searchlight seemed to illuminate her being. At once she became aware of many things, first among them that she should not have been here in the garden alone but at evening prayer. She had sacrificed fidelity to duty to indulge her curiosity about the statue. Duty with her often came second-best to self-will.

The evil she did was small in comparison with drug dealing, ritual Satanic murder, unjust and corrupt wars; hers was the evil of impatience, of self-importance, of failing to reach out to others in love.

She had thought herself a drop of cleansing water scouring the filth of the world. In truth she was a bit of sludgy oil creating her own tarry wake. Her evil was small because she was small, not because she was the power for good.

She wanted with all her being to oppose the forces of darkness. With astounding clarity, she saw that her only weapon was to do the little good she was capable of. At the moment, that meant answering the bell for evening prayer.

No matter that the statue was weeping. That was its business. Evening prayer was hers.

She leaped up, no longer the woman she had been even a few minutes ago, and headed towards the chapel.

She had completely forgotten the unlocked gates behind her.

Zebulon, feeling relieved now that Mary Dominic had the scoop, skipped down the stone steps from the convent with a light heart. A cautious check of the street sent him scurrying up his favorite maple. The long black car was parked at the curb outside the convent once again, and two dark-suited men were advancing through the convent grounds on the tall skinny nun with the frowning face, the nun who always spoke to Zeb rudely. She was rising from her knees before a white statue that glowed faintly in the dusk. One of the men raised his arm. Zeb saw the glint of metal as he brought it down.

The nun never knew what hit her.

Zebulon, his whole body vibrating with terror, watched the two men drag the nun across the grounds and disappear with her into the crypt in the far corner of the garden. He didn’t dare leave the safety of the tree; better to perch in it all night and risk his mother’s wrath than to descend before the menacing black car had gone its way.

It was not unusual for Vincent to appear in chapel late, but she’d never before failed to arrive at all. Mary Dominic wondered fleetingly if Vincent, like others before her in this age of irresponsibility and broken commitments, had simply put on street clothes and walked off, leaving her vows and the discipline of convent life behind. To be humble, to become a grain of sand, to put the good of the community before self-interest were goals fast being wiped out by the me-first ethic, and the community that had attracted more new vocations than could be accepted, from its founding until the 1960’s, at present had only two postulants.

Vincent’s cavalier attitude towards the rules so necessary for order in the community was not helpful in the training of new entrants, and Mary Dominic had been praying for the wisdom to broach this to Vincent as effectively and lovingly as possible after evening prayers.

Even more worrisome than Vincent’s absence from chapel was her absence from supper and recreation. Mary Dominic inquired discreetly if anyone knew Vincent’s whereabouts, but no one had seen her since the retreatants had left that afternoon.

When a quick check showed that Vincent’s cell was empty, she summoned Clare Francis, a marvel of discretion, and they made a hasty but efficient search of the convent, without success.

“She might have fallen ill in one of the hermitages, mother,” Clare suggested. Together they made the rounds of the small outdoor shrines set within three-walled enclosures, all quite near the main house. No Sister Vincent.

Around them stood black night, pierced by the raucous sounds of the neighborhood come to life — shouts, scuffles, curses; blasters and stereos hurling rock and rap; men shouting obscene come-ons to girls looking for tricks, who answered with obscene suggestions of their own.

Mary Dominic found Vincent’s disappearance disturbing, especially in light of her conversation with the cardinal, who had roused all Mary Dominic’s unspoken but seldom acknowledged fears about the safety of her charges.

It was imprudent to continue searching the far reaches of the grounds by themselves in the dark. Although Mary Dominic had great faith in the providence of God, she knew He also expected people to use the common sense He’d given them.

“It’s time to ask for help,” Mary Dominic decided.

“I’ll pray to Saint Anthony,” Clare replied. “He never fails to find lost eyeglasses and keys. Surely he’ll find Vincent for us.”

No need to remind Clare Francis, so practical and circumspect, to keep Vincent’s disappearance quiet until Mary Dominic gave the word. While Clare went off to invoke St. Anthony, Mary Dominic dialed Mike McGuire again.

Zebulon’s story of the priest’s kidnapping had disturbed her more than she had been willing to admit. She had given all the information about the cocaine-filled cross and Garcia’s kidnapping to the policeman who had taken her message for Mike McGuire earlier; now she feared Sister Vincent’s disappearance and the kidnapping were related.

This time she reached Mike personally.

“I have some information on your Father Garcia,” Mike said. “He’s not a priest. Never was. Just a runner for the crime bosses who thought he could cut himself in on a little drug dealing of his own. He intended to hide the cross at the convent until it seemed safe to go back for it. Tough luck for him he was caught at it. We found him shot full of holes and left for dead.”

That news intensified Mary Dominic’s anxiety. “Our Sister Vincent is missing, Mike. She was last seen in the garden just as dusk was falling, and I’m afraid she’s come to harm. The owners of a certain cross may realize it’s now in my possession.”

“I’m on my way,” Mike promised.

Vincent awoke with a headache to find herself gagged and bound hand and foot on the floor of the crypt. Two scowling men in black, who seemed born of the noxious tide she had seen enveloping the world, were bending over her. The old Vincent would have panicked. The new one, much to her own astonishment, felt absolutely no fear and remained eerily serene.

“She’s coming to,” the tall one said.

The short one nodded. “Go tell the boss dame to hand us over our property and we’ll hand over hers. Any grief and one tall, skinny nun will be going to heaven real soon.”

The tall one left. The short one aimed the biggest gun Vincent had ever seen at her temple. She didn’t know why she hadn’t fainted at the sight of it. She was no more than a commodity to her captors, and she knew that as soon as she lost her value for them, they would kill her. Yet she remained calm. The spirits of the sisters whose bodies slept peacefully in the crypt seemed to be supporting her, speaking to her of heavenly rewards and the power of God.

As placidly as if she were in the safety of her own cell, Vincent fell into peaceful interior communion with her Savior.

Zebulon had never been more relieved than when Mike McGuire’s car turned into the convent’s parking lot. He bounced out of the tree before Mike shut off the engine, tapping his lips frantically for Mike to be quiet. Sliding into the front seat, Zeb whispered, “Two dudes from that black car out front dragged the tall, skinny sister into the crypt. One of them’s still in there with her. The other one’s in the convent.”

“Is it the same car that picked up the priest, Zeb?”

Zebulon nodded nervously. Some things were better not spoken aloud. Mike, who had an appreciation of Zeb’s powers of observation, called in a make on the license plate. When he heard it belonged to Salvatore DiPietro, he whistled and asked for backup. The DiPietro brothers were bad business.

“Time you were out of here, Zeb. I’ll cover you.”

Zebulon gratefully sprinted for home while Mike set a trap for Vincent’s abductors. Then Mike presented himself at the convent’s front door as if he had nothing on his mind but a friendly chat with Mary Dominic.

The nun who led him to Dominic’s office greeted him so cheerfully that Mike realized the community had no knowledge of what was happening. Mary Dominic, however, was a different story. She looked up from her desk brightly, but there were tension lines around her eyes and her smile was strained.

Mike recognized her visitor: Salvatore DiPietro, wanted for everything from breaking and entering to murder. DiPietro looked Mike over but didn’t recognize him as a threat.

“Why, Mike, how delightful to see you! Let me return this gentleman’s property to him and I’ll be right with you.” Mary Dominic sounded as if she’d had no idea Mike was going to drop in. The muscular, dark-browed DiPietro looming over her desk scowled as she took out the cross with the capped arms. As soon as DiPietro grabbed it, Mike read him his rights and arrested him.

Vincent told Mary Dominic every detail of her abduction as she was required to do in obedience. Mary Dominic listened in some amazement.

“Dear Sister Vincent, Our Lord must be most pleased with the confidence you showed in Him, remaining so serene in the face of danger.”

“He cannot be pleased with my disobedience, mother. Had I obeyed the bell, I would have been safely in the chapel. I deserve penance, not praise.”

Mary Dominic considered for a moment. “In that case, your penance is to refrain from mentioning the weeping statue to the community. I would like to wait and pray before speaking of it to anyone.”

When Vincent replied, “Of course, mother,” humbly as a child and quite unlike her usual argumentative self, Mary Dominic was half inclined to believe a miracle had indeed taken place.

Over the days and weeks that followed, Vincent continued to be responsible, soft-spoken, and obedient. Mary Dominic marveled at the change, even as she wondered how long it would last.

Some months later, a retreatant asked to see Sister Vincent for spiritual direction. A buzz went through the community. Vincent, being asked for? It was unheard of.

When Vincent arrived at the parlor to meet her retreatant, she found the shorter of the two thugs who had held her captive. This time instead of a gun he held a black hat in fingers that nervously worked their way around the brim.

“Rocco DiPietro,” he said, holding out one stubby hand. “Maybe you don’t want to shake, considering.”

“You asked to see me?”

He nodded and mangled his hat some more. “Was you scared in the crypt when you was tied up with a gun at your head?”

“Not in the least.” About to blurt she was more surprised than anyone at her unshakable calm, Vincent bit back the words. Least said, soonest mended.

“Yeah. You didn’t act scared. Got God in your corner, huh?”

She smiled. “Something like that.”

He looked at the floor. Vincent maintained a tranquil silence. When he finally glanced at her, she was struck by the beauty of his eyes, soft and brown, totally out of keeping with the rest of his battered features.

“My brother Sal’s been killed. My kid won’t talk to me. I have HIV.”

Vincent, realizing he wanted something from her but not knowing what it could be, said softly, “I will pray for you.”

“That ain’t enough.” He looked at her steadily. She found his attention unnerving, but didn’t know what more she could do for him.

“Everything’s changed,” he said. “I mean, like, I never been afraid to die. But knowing you’re gonna die some far-off day ain’t the same as knowing you’re dying right now. And Sal — Sal was my kid brother. He wasn’t supposed to die before me. It ain’t right. Nothin’s right. You get what I mean?”

Suddenly Vincent did. A beatific smile lighted her long, plain face. He wanted her to help him make sense of his world. She could do that, for the world made perfect sense to her.

She gestured towards a straight-backed chair. “Please be seated, Mr. DiPietro.”

She sat close by, feeling as tender towards him as if he were her own infant son. Gently, softly, speaking in the most loving tones, she began to tell him of God.