Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 105, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 640 & 641, March 1995

Sister Mary Teresa Dempsey was conceived by her creator Ralph McInerny (writing under the pseudonym Monica Quill) along the lines of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe — “what Nero Wolfe might have been like if he had taken the veil.” She has been entertaining readers since 1981, when Not a Blessed Thing! the first novel to feature her, was published...

1

Sylvia Corrigan had been an actress in college, on stage, in the classroom, everywhere, until acting became indistinguishable from living. In interviews, she would go on about it, suggesting that the journalist posing the questions was also playing a role.

“I watch you,” she would say, her famous green eyes narrowing, making a gesture that seemed fraught with significance, “and already I covet your role. I want to play it. How long have you been with Newsweek?”

And, as the abashed reporter later wrote, that quickly they exchanged roles, Sylvia questioning, the reporter answering. Two days later, the profile Sylvia had written arrived in the journalist’s mail.

Such precocity — Sylvia called it genius, but considered genius a fate rather than an accomplishment — while at first eliciting amazement and praise, had a way of cloying quickly. One role Sylvia had never mastered was that of friend. A friend after all must be constant.

Nearly twenty years ago, an alumna who was in films, informed of the young Sylvia’s talent, had come to the college production of The Lady’s Not for Burning and told Sister Mary Teresa Dempsey that the student actress’s future was assured. Emtee Dempsey had wondered even then if this were good luck or bad. She had wondered the same thing about the closing of the college. The property had been sold off, and only a remnant of the Order of Martha and Mary (the M&M’s) remained, lodged in a wonderful house on Walton Street designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, gift of yet another grateful alumna. Former students kept in touch, bringing their troubles and triumphs to Emtee Dempsey, and she came to relish the role of wise old friend. She was surprised, therefore, to be told by Joyce of Sylvia’s appearance on Oprah.

“Sylvia is in Chicago?”

“She’s going to play Antigone. Only a short engagement because she’s scheduled to make a film. An adaptation from a French writer. George Bananas?”

“Bernanos,” Emtee Dempsey said. No error of fact ever went uncorrected in her presence.

“About some Carmelite martyrs.”

“A tremendous play!” Emtee Dempsey said. “Do you know it, Sister Kimberly? The Dialogues of the Carmelites.”

Kim, the third of the trio of M&M’s in residence on Walton Street, was a graduate student in history at Northwestern but, more importantly — at least, it consumed more of her time — research assistant to Sister Mary Teresa, who was writing a massive history of the twelfth century.

“No, I haven’t.”

“You’ll find it on that shelf there.” She rose a little behind the desk in her study. Unlike the younger women, Emtee Dempsey always wore the traditional habit of the order as decreed by the foundress, Blessed Abigail Keineswegs. The headdress gave the impression of a gull landing, the wimple was a large starched affair, the robe black, the cincture white. She had yet to hear a convincing argument why nuns should dress like other women. To remove barriers? Perhaps there should be barriers. In any case, Emtee Dempsey had never felt under any handicap wearing her eighteenth-century garb. She was an internationally recognized medieval historian and the one teacher no student was ever likely to forget.

“You can read it aloud to me.”

“In French?”

“It will be good practice.” She added, in belated and not wholly sincere self-deprecation, “For my ear.”

The old nun had little doubt that Sylvia Corrigan would visit Walton Street. She visited whenever she came to Chicago. In that at least she was like other alumnae.

“Do we have that thing she drinks? White wine and...”

“Crème de cassis,” Joyce said. “It’s called Kir.”

“Not an ungrateful one, I hope. She may want to stay for dinner.”

It turned out that Sylvia wanted a good deal more than that. She wanted to live with them.

Her telephone call came while Emtee Dempsey was still thinking of things Sylvia would want when she visited. Now she was able to ask their expected guest what they could do to make her visit more enjoyable. Emtee Dempsey would have indignantly denied that the prominence of her former student played any part in the fuss she made over her, but she seemed to follow Sylvia’s career with unusual interest.

“Just a cell like any of yours,” Sylvia said in rare tones. Her voice, like her manner, had the ability to assume different pitches, accents, pronunciations. It was hard to know what persona Sylvia had adopted. “I will live according to your schedule, go to chapel with you, everything. Is there a copy of the rule?”

“Why don’t you simply take the veil, Sylvia?”

“That is precisely what I shall be doing.”

A nun for the nonce, that is. Sylvia could assume, as an actress, an indefinite number of lifetime commitments. But in real life the only role she could no longer play was that of Sylvia Corrigan.

“I am a blank piece of paper. A role has to be written on me.”

She had never married. There were equivocal references to her liaison with Carlos Bonifacio, an Argentine whose career flourished in both North and Latin America. He would be appearing with her in the film adaptation of Bernanos’s play.

“I want to be a nun,” Sylvia said.

Being a nun was not as definite a thing as it once had been. Bernanos’s Carmelites would recognize the Carmelites of today, but such minor orders as that founded by Abigail Keineswegs had undergone profound upheavals and faced total extinction. Sylvia’s impression of the M&M’s would have been formed at college, however, and even so short a time ago as that they had been numerous, disciplined, distinctive. Sylvia’s motive in inviting herself, given these changes, led to predictable difficulties when Sylvia arrived.

On previous occasions she had been brought to the door in a limousine and so quickly did her entourage produce a crowd that her passage from car to door was a royal one, as she threw kisses to the fans, touched an outstretched hand here and there, refused autographs. On this visit, when Kim went to the door she found a waif. Hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing jeans and sweatshirt, tennis shoes, a pea jacket, Sylvia carried one airline bag. The famous green eyes were the giveaway.

“Sylvia?”

Two abrupt nods and then, chin on her chest, looking at the floor, she said, “Sister Mary Teresa is expecting me.”

If the actress had been trouble before in all the glory of stardom, she was in this incarnation an infinitely more demanding guest. She wanted to dress like Sister Mary Teresa.

“I don’t think any of my habits would fit you, child.”

Sylvia turned to Kim. She clearly disapproved of Kim’s Oxford gray suit and polka-dot blouse. Joyce came in to see the celebrity and was surprised to find her sartorial twin.

“One of you can lend me a habit, can’t you?”

“Not me,” Joyce said. “We voted not to wear it and that was good enough for me.”

“You don’t even own one?”

Kim and Joyce confessed that they did not.

“But Sister Mary Teresa...”

“One could retain the traditional habit if one desired, Sylvia. I, of course, chose not to change.”

“I must wear a habit. It’s no good if I just dress like anyone else. Nuns should look like nuns.”

Emtee Dempsey beamed at such sound doctrine. “Indeed. But the important thing is to be what one seems.”

“I’ll have one made.”

“Better order a Carmelite habit, Sylvia. It’s what you’ll be wearing in the film.”

Sylvia agreed and looked to the window. Was she thinking she should have chosen a Carmelite convent in which to accustom herself to her role?

“Show me where I’ll be staying, let me take a copy of your rule, and I’ll go get a habit. Theatrical costume suppliers should have what I want.”

It was Kim’s idea that Sylvia take the apartment in the basement which would give her privacy and where there was a television.

Sylvia shuddered. “No television. My Carmelites did not have television.”

Kim showed Sylvia to a room on the second floor whose lack of austerity disappointed her.

“Let me see Sister Mary Teresa’s room.” Sylvia was whispering.

In Emtee Dempsey’s room was a single bed, a chair, a prie-dieu.

“This is what I want!” Sylvia cried. Kim promised to reduce the guest room to the same uncluttered condition and Sylvia called a cab and was off to find a habit.

Emtee Dempsey was at work in her study, so Kim went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.

“Did you ever dress up as a nun when you were a kid?” Joyce asked.

“When I was a kid, becoming a nun was the furthest thing from my mind.” Encountering Emtee Dempsey had planted the seed of her vocation.

“Just asking. Neither did I. All the girls I knew who dressed up as nuns got over it by the time they were teenagers.”

“Are you suggesting the reverse is true?”

“If the habit fits...”

Sylvia had come to the house at two-thirty; she had left again shortly after three. The idea was that she would be back in no time. But an hour went by, two hours, and then it was six o’clock, and no Sylvia Corrigan.

“Where has she been staying, I wonder?” Emtee Dempsey said.

Joyce said, “I could call Oprah.”

But the talk show had no idea what hotel Sylvia had gone to on arriving in Chicago. So all they could do was wait.

They delayed supper until seven and then went ahead, but it was a joyless meal with three sets of ears cocked to hear the doorbell or at least the phone. They had still not heard from Sylvia when the time for night prayers came and the three went silently to chapel for compline.

That night Kim did not sleep, certain that this strange development must be keeping Sister Mary Teresa awake, but in the morning, on the way to Mass at the cathedral, the old nun said she had slept like a top. She did not mention Sylvia.

Sylvia was not mentioned at breakfast either, and afterward, in the study, Emtee Dempsey looked at a note on her desk.

“I was going to ask you to bring me Molnar’s book on Bernanos, but I suppose we can let that wait.”

“What do you suppose happened?”

“I have no idea.” And then her eyes looked at Kim through round gold-rimmed glasses. “But I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

Before Kim set out for the university, the phone rang. It was her brother Richard, a detective on the Chicago police department, full of early morning cheer. “You’re not missing a nun, are you, Kim?”

“Don’t be funny.”

“Just checking. There’s one in the morgue, all dressed up in the old habit, and we can’t find where she belongs.”

“In the morgue?”

“That’s where we put dead nuns when we find them sitting around in public places.”

“Richard, listen. Sister Mary Teresa and I will leave for the morgue immediately. Meet us there.”

“Do you know who it is?”

Kim hesitated. “I can’t say. Will you be there?”

“Look Kim, I don’t have time...”

“Richard Moriarity!”

“You sound like Mom. Okay. I’ll be there.”

“Where is the morgue, Richard?”

Emtee Dempsey listened in silence as Kim told her of Richard’s call. She rose in silence from her chair, took her cane, and thumped down the hall toward the front door. Wedged into the passenger seat of the battered VW bug, she rode in silence as Kim headed for the address Richard had given her.

Kim knew the old nun approved what she had done and the swiftness with which she had decided. But neither of them wanted to speculate. It was too dreadful, too bizarre a possibility. Yet it would have been impossible not to make the connection after what Richard had said. How many nuns in traditional costume are there anymore?

Richard was standing impatiently on the steps, squinting in the autumn sunlight, anxious to get this over with. He hustled them right into the viewing room, asked Emtee Dempsey if she could see the monitor all right, then called through to the attendant.

The body was shown as it had been found, clothed in a religious habit. The face looked fuller because of the headdress. The profile was unmistakable, but Emtee Dempsey asked, “What color are the eyes?”

“Green,” came the answer.

Kim had turned away when the televised hand moved to open the dead woman’s eyes.

“There’s no doubt, Richard. That is the body of Sylvia Corrigan.” He looked at her, he looked at Kim, he began to smile, and then grew stern.

“Sylvia Corrigan, the actress?”

“That’s right. She’s an alumna of the college. She visited us yesterday in midafternoon. She intended to spend some time with us on Walton Street.”

“But she’s dressed as a nun.”

“She’s an actress,” Emtee Dempsey said.

He decided that was enigmatic enough to serve as an explanation. He took another look at the two of them, as if hoping to surprise some clue that they were kidding him, then went into action on the phone.

Sister Mary Teresa stood for a moment, looking at the face that still appeared on the screen, and her mouth moved in prayer. When she was through, she said, “Let’s go back to the house.”

The return drive was silent but for one remark of the old nun. “She was going to play a nun who was killed. As usual, she entered into the role completely.”

2

Sylvia Corrigan’s death was a journalistic sensation and not even Emtee Dempsey had it in her to blame the media for their treatment of it. What else could one expect in a post-Christian age? As nuns became less numerous, they acquired box-office appeal. Movies, plays, novels of a sort, appeared in incredible numbers, playing the changes on the Maria Monk legends of yore. The old nun’s considered judgment was that as a group they had been treated with excessive respect in the past and this was God’s way of righting the balance. Our Lord, too, she reminded Kim and Joyce, had come to a bad end in a worldly sense. That an actress of Sylvia Corrigan’s renown should be found dead in a nun’s habit in a Chicago hotel stimulated the jaded pens of journalists from coast to coast. A persistent theory was that she had really been a nun all along.

“You will not read such nonsense in the Tribune,” Katherine Senski fumed, her sherry dipping from rim to rim in her glass, though she did not spill a drop. “Can you imagine! They actually believe a nun could be an actress.”

Emtee Dempsey did not share Katherine’s indignation. It was not often that these old warriors were at odds, but this was one of those times. Katherine, in the same decade of her life as Emtee Dempsey, was the doyenne of Chicago journalism, and still active. She had been a trustee of the college and fought its closing at Emtee Dempsey’s side. Defeat had brought them even closer together and Katherine was a frequent visitor on Walton Street.

“I shall never understand you,” she said impatiently, after Emtee Dempsey’s account of the singer who joined a convent in the Bois de Boulogne with the result that half of Paris filled the chapel during Holy Week when the former diva sang.

“Let us forget generalities about the degree of disrespect now shown the religious life and speak of the case before us,” Emtee Dempsey said. Sylvia had been strangled. This had not been immediately apparent because the ugly results had been covered by her wimple.

“A fastidious murderer,” Katherine said.

“How do you mean?”

“Concealing what he did.”

“Indeed.” Emtee Dempsey looked at Kim. She might have been asking her not to reveal how she’d had to work every item out of Richard by wiles, by food and drink, and the promise that she would not, for once in her life, interfere in police business. “From what Richard tells us, she could not have been wearing the habit when she was strangled.”

“Good heavens!”

“I am not sure Richard and the police realize that.”

“Are you suggesting she was dressed up in the habit only after she was killed?”

“I am. And then left sitting in a chair in the hotel mezzanine.”

Katherine finished her sherry and held out the empty glass to Kim. “Sister, please. Every death is terrible, but to think that we are talking of Sylvia Corrigan.”

The premiere alumna of the college, that is, and a person of whom they had been so proud for so long. Before Kim left the room, Katherine asked Emtee Dempsey if she had met Raoul St.-Loup, the theatrical agent and publicist.

“My dear, that is why you were invited. I am expecting him tonight.”

Raoul St.-Loup did not pretend that he took worthless clay and molded it into a celebrity. All of his clients had already attained some claim on public attention before he represented them. He would not have taken them on otherwise. But it was his boast that every client of his received the full benefit of his own considerable abilities and that each had achieved as much celebrity as he or she was capable of, or, in some cases, wanted. Sylvia Corrigan had been a promising actress when he took her on; within a few years she was a star in the theatrical firmament. Let his enemies make of that what they would.

“I am devastated by what has happened,” he sighed, when they were settled in the living room, Emtee Dempsey in her high-back brocade chair, Katherine and St.-Loup on one of the couches flanking the fireplace, Kim across from them. St.-Loup brought the long fingers of one hand to his forehead as he spoke, revealing a thick gold chain on his right wrist. There was another at his neck, visible because of his open collar — actually, his shirt was unbuttoned to such an extent that the luxuriant hair on his chest was all too visible. What he wore could not be called a suit. The cut of the coat was odd, extremely full, the material had the look of corduroy but was black velvet. His trousers hugged his legs and his elegant feet were enclosed in a kind of boot. He moved his hand from his forehead through his tousled hair.

“I realize that no one here will admit to a belief in astrology, but I warned Sylvia not to come to Chicago. For a Libra at this time — well, you see what has happened.”

“Nonsense,” Emtee Dempsey said. “She was not strangled by a star.”

Raoul smiled sweetly at her, as if approving such loyalty to her benighted beliefs.

Katherine said, “I had the impression she was fleeing trouble on the coast.”

They had all learned a lot about Sylvia in the past twenty-four hours, and the colorful life she led was something of a surprise. They had known, of course, that she never married, but Kim was startled to learn that the actress had never been without a lover. Half a dozen shared the spotlight her death had created. Two of them were dead, one in a plane crash, another from an overdose of drugs. Of the four remaining, three gave unctuous accounts to the press of what a splendid person Sylvia had been. References to what it was like to live with her, while indiscreet, seemed meant in praise.

“Nick Faustino must be eating his heart out,” Raoul said, leaning toward Katherine and putting a hand on her arm. Perhaps it was the tenor of the conversation, but Katherine, in her seventies, reacted as if the publicist, not yet forty, were making an indecent approach. He patted her arm and withdrew his hand. “I warned him not to bring that suit.”

“That suit” had been another indication that Sylvia’s life did not incorporate the ideal that had been put before her at the M&M’s college. Faustino had brought a palimony suit against her, seeking a settlement for the nearly two years they had lived together.

“It may have stretched over two years,” Raoul said, in a Pickwickian defense of Sylvia’s honor, “but it was just a weekend now and then. I don’t think he ever moved in.”

Such allegations against an honored alumna were bad; also bad was Faustino’s inclusion of Jimmy Horan in his suit, as the one who had alienated Sylvia’s affections. Joyce had been able to provide them with a circumstanced portrait of Horan.

Jimmy Horan was the son of a member of the Irish mafia in Hollywood and had been brought up to consider Cagney and Tracy and O’Brien as uncles. His father, too, had been married to but one woman with whom he had had five children. Any general statement about the laxness of morals among film actors was sure to be met with the counterexample of Jimmy Horan, Sr. For nearly twenty years, at Easter, he and his family had appeared in a television special, a show that Emtee Dempsey had called, the one time she watched it, “the apotheosis of wholesomeness.” For Faustino to suggest that Jimmy Horan was involved in some illicit way with Sylvia Corrigan was a little like maligning the family and spitting on the flag.

“Of course it backfired on Faustino,” Raoul St.-Loup said. “I knew it would hurt him. That’s why I didn’t warn him.”

“Is Faustino a client of yours?” Emtee Dempsey asked.

“Not anymore.”

Despite these preliminaries, the evening with Raoul St.-Loup proved more than informative. Joyce’s roast beef with artichoke and the Italian wine, a Barolla, the gift of their lawyer, Mr. Rush, had much to do with this.

Early the next morning Katherine sent the summary she had made of the conversation to Walton Street by special messenger. Emtee Dempsey read it aloud.

Added to this information, which Richard either already knew or would know, was the fact that Sylvia had rented a suite at the Elysian Hotel for a month, and had instructed Maud Howe, her secretary, maid, confidante, and girl Friday, to pack her things and return to the Coast. Nonetheless, although Sylvia hoped to live on Walton Street, she would continue to retain her suite at the Elysian. There seemed little doubt that the strangling had taken place in her hotel suite.

“Was there a struggle?”

Richard shook his head. “The room wasn’t torn up. But she did not die easily, by the look of the bed.”

Emtee Dempsey had an appetite for details on such matters that Kim did not share, so she adjourned to the kitchen to be with Joyce. Fat chance.

“Bring Richard a beer,” Emtee Dempsey said as Kim was leaving the room.

“He’s already had a beer,” Kim said, but she was looking at her brother. Richard knew that it was unwise for Moriaritys to drink. He should also know that the old nun was plying him with Heinekens in order to get more information out of him.

When Kim returned, Emtee Dempsey was summing up.

“Her publicist was here in Chicago, her secretary was here, others who knew her were here. Yet no one reported her missing? No one was surprised that she did not return?”

“No one reported her missing,” Richard said. “It wasn’t that long a time.”

“All night?” But the old nun dropped her eyes. “Perhaps in her circle that would not have been considered long.”

When Richard left, she looked at Kim. “You know what you must do now.”

Kim looked at Emtee Dempsey, who was already preparing to begin her day’s stint on her medieval history, a fresh sheet of paper before her, a giant fountain pen in her chubby hand.

“What do I know I must do?”

Blue eyes appeared over the gold-rimmed spectacles. “Go have a talk with Maud Howe, of course.”

3

Maud Howe was in her mid-twenties, a strawberry blonde with a face that seemed freshly scrubbed, pale blue eyes that looked right at Kim, and cheeks that dimpled when she smiled. Which she did when Kim told Maud that she was a nun.

“Funny.”

“I’m quite serious. Sylvia Corrigan attended our college. She visited us the day this terrible thing happened. She asked if she could stay...”

Maud held up her hand. “I know all that. You’re really a nun?” She shook her head. “So why did Sylvia have to buy that elaborate get-up? You dress like anyone else.”

Meaning Maud wasn’t much of a dresser herself. She was wearing light-blue corduroy slacks, loafers, a heavy knit blouse. How an outdoor girl like her had ended up with the job she had was not obvious.

“Sylvia played a tennis pro in Love Match and I coached her. She kept me on. It has been a very lively few years.”

“How many?”

“Four.”

“I’m supposed to ask you why you didn’t report Sylvia missing.”

“Supposed to ask?”

Kim explained about Emtee Dempsey. Maud nodded. “Oh sure, she’s the one Sylvia told me about. I assumed there was a house full of you dressed like her.”

“The story in which Sylvia was supposed to play a nun is set at the time of the French Revolution. She would have had to wear a traditional habit.”

“Well, she got it.”

“Where?”

“Hanson’s. They specialize in supplying wardrobes for theatrical productions. Sylvia figured they’d have religious habits, and she was right.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You mean, the time, all that? You too?”

Maud sighed and then gave Kim what by now was a practiced account of events.

“I was scheduled to fly back to the Coast today. If Sylvia hadn’t been discovered, I’d be gone. I suppose they would have insisted I return.”

“They?”

“The police.” She made a face.

“I suppose you’ve had to tell them this again and again.”

“And everybody else.”

“Like who?”

“All her friends who are in Chicago wanted to know.” And she ticked off names they had already heard from Raoul St.-Loup. Of course Maud’s list included St.-Loup as well. “To answer your first question, the reason I didn’t report her missing was because I knew she meant to spend the night with you on Walton Street after her performance as Antigone. That’s why she was sending me back to California. ‘Nuns don’t have secretaries.’ ” Maud gave a passable imitation of Sylvia.

“So what did you do?”

“You’d think I’d take a bath and go to bed with a good book, wouldn’t you? I don’t have that many chances just to relax. First I packed most of my things. Then I went down to hear Brian sing.”

“Was Sylvia in her suite then?”

“Yes. I offered to accompany her to Walton Street, but she was determined to be on her own. I left first.”

“Maud, who do you think did it?”

“I know who did it!”

“You do!”

“Nick Faustino.” She gulped for air. “Don’t ask me how he got in here. I can’t imagine that Sylvia would let him in, but he has the guts of a burglar anyway. He hung around her until she finally got rid of him, almost physically, and then he brought that absurd lawsuit.”

“It isn’t true?”

“That they were lovers? I won’t deny that. But he claims he lived with her. That he devoted himself to her career at the expense of his own. His career! And then that stupid story about Jimmy Horan. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want to be believed.”

“If he hoped to get money from her, why would he kill her?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Why do people write on phone-booth walls and do other dumb things? Perhaps he just convinced himself he had lived with Sylvia and someone replaced him.”

“Isn’t that true?”

For the first time her eyes slid away. “You can’t replace someone who never held a place.”

“Did you tell the police about Faustino?”

“Did I ever.”

“Is there any evidence at all that he did it?”

“Well, they certainly looked the place over.”

“Maud, she wasn’t wearing the habit when she was killed.” Maud studied Kim for half a minute. “They know that?”

Kim nodded. “Who is the new man?”

The eyes began to slide again, but she stopped them. “I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s the first big secret she kept from me since I started working for her.”

“But you have a guess?”

She laughed. “Several.”

“Then why aren’t there several possibilities of people who might have killed her?”

“I guess there are. I could have done it.”

“What motive?”

“Tons of reasons. She was a bitch in many ways. Working for her had its moments but by and large, well, why did I stay on? I don’t know. I felt like killing her at least once a day.” Her grin was contagious.

“You have to come visit us on Walton Street.”

“Would I have to wear a habit?”

“I don’t recommend it.”

But thoughts of Sylvia drove away the smiles. On the way back to Walton Street, Kim wondered if Maud Howe was really sad that her employer was dead. So far there seemed no genuine mourners for Sylvia Corrigan. People said things, things that sounded half rehearsed. But no one acted as if the death of Sylvia was cause for weeping.

The face of the man sitting in the chair opposite Sister Mary Teresa’s desk was both familiar and legendary, the face of someone Kim felt she had long known. It was Brian Casey, the singer, one of the men in Sylvia Corrigan’s life. He rose when Emtee Dempsey told him who Kim was, but his face was a tragic mask, mouth downturned, eyes sad.

“Mr. Casey informs me that the mystery is solved, Sister Kimberly.”

“Maud Howe thinks Nick Faustino did it.”

Casey plunged his face into his hands. “Oh, if only he had.”

“Mr. Casey has just confessed to me that he murdered Sylvia Corrigan.”

The famous face lifted from his hands and he looked woefully at Kim. Emtee Dempsey continued, “The question is, Sister, should he confess to the police?”

“But you were singing that night. Maud Howe went to see you.”

“Yes, I know. And she did. But I slipped away between sets. The club is only a block from the Elysian.”

“He walked,” Emtee Dempsey said, and it was clear to Kim that she did not believe the singer’s story.

“I came to Sister Mary Teresa because Sylvia and I were speaking of her just before the argument broke out. I had to tell someone.”

“Were you surprised to find Sylvia in a religious habit?” Kim asked.

“Part of the sordidness of this is that I found her more attractive as a nun. I don’t mean to shock you. And then we argued, I became furious, and...” He stopped for air. “It makes it so much worse, killing someone I love, killing someone in a religious habit.”

“Strangling her?”

He nodded, then again covered his face with his hands. Emtee Dempsey and Kim exchanged a look. “I think you should wait before going to the police,” the old nun said.

“What’s the difference, sooner or later?”

“Have you ever been°in jail?”

He looked up. “No.”

“Later is better. Anyone will tell you that.”

Kim assumed the old nun was trying to come up with a way of finding out why Brian Casey was telling this so easily disprovable story. It was clear that he knew only what had appeared in the newspapers. As the time for his evening performance neared, he grew more willing to postpone calling the police. Emtee Dempsey assured him he should go to the club and entertain, but the way she said it made it clear she could not fathom why adults would sit around in an ill-lit smoke-filled room listening to even so good a singer as Brian Casey croon outdated songs. Kim went with him to the door. On the porch he turned his sad face to her once more. “I feel like Pagliacci,” he said.

“ ‘Laughing on the outside’?”

“ ‘Crying on the inside’! I sing that.” And he went off into the night, crooning the golden oldie.

The next morning, on the way back from Mass, Emtee Dempsey told Kim to stop for a newspaper. Once more in the car, she was reluctant to give it to the old nun until she herself had read the story. Emtee Dempsey said, “If you read it aloud, we could all know what has happened.”

From the backseat, Joyce said, “You can’t stand people who read the newspaper at you.”

“I can when they won’t give it to me.”

Kim gave the paper over. Let Emtee Dempsey read aloud of the death of Brian Casey. Numbed, she started the car and continued to the house.

4

The death of Brian Casey after he had visited her about Sylvia Corrigan’s murder, which had also occurred after a visit to Walton Street, lit a fire in Emtee Dempsey. This had become doubly a personal matter now and she was over whatever inaction the news of Sylvia’s private life had induced. No matter how the actress had lived, she had been ignobly murdered. And now Brian Casey, a perfectly harmless man, was also dead.

“But why did he come here saying he had killed her?” Kim asked.

“Why does anyone falsely confess to a murder?”

“Is there only one reason?”

“It is overwhelmingly likely to be because the one confessing is shielding another he thinks guilty. It may very well be that the element of truth in the man’s story is that he did go to the Elysian Hotel between his entertainment sessions and that while there he saw the murderer or saw something which made him conclude who the murderer is. In either case, it was someone he wished to shield from harm.”

Kim tried unsuccessfully to stop the image of Maud Howe’s face from forming in her mind. But if Maud came easily to mind as someone Brian might wish to protect, it was impossible to believe she needed it. And, on the hypothesis Emtee Dempsey was exploring, Maud would have to be the murderer not only of one person but of two. Whoever Brian Casey had been trying to protect had in the end killed him because his knowledge posed a threat.

“He confessed because he thought the other person would easily be suspected?”

“But he didn’t quite confess, did he? He told me things and he repeated them to you. But the only risk he really ran was that you or I would feel compelled to tell the police what he had said. And what would he have done then?”

“Do you think he was that devious?”

The old nun smiled. “Sister Kimberly, we are all born devious. Our task is to overcome it by acquiring honesty and other virtues. I myself might be tempted to deviousness in certain circumstances, and who is to say I should not fall?”

“His telling us was insurance?”

“Don’t dismiss the possibility. We’ll never get to the bottom of this if you pretend to be surprised at the human capacity for iniquity.” Emtee Dempsey might have been chiding herself for her reaction to the revelations of Sylvia’s irregular life.

The life Sylvia had led raised questions about her funeral, but in the end it was decided to err on the side of mercy and Sylvia was buried from the cathedral. An auxiliary bishop of Chicago was in the sanctuary, but the Mass was said by a Los Angeles priest with golden hair, a tanned complexion, and a dental-ad smile who flew in from the Coast for the occasion. Father Estrella, identified in the papers as Sylvia’s pastor.

“Spiritual director would be more accurate,” Father Estrella told Kim when she engaged him in conversation. Emtee Dempsey had sent her to arrange a meeting; she wanted to speak to the “media priest.”

“A friend of Sylvia’s? Of course. Let’s see.” And out came an appointment book he opened and frowned over. “My being in Chicago is not much of a secret,” he said in explanation.

“Sylvia had intended to stay with us as she readied herself for the Bernanos role.”

His mouth opened and he pointed a finger at her! “Why didn’t you say so? I want to meet Sister Mary Teresa.”

She drove him there in the VW. At first he thought it was a joke, but he got in. The motor took awhile to start and he suggested a cab, but then it caught and she wheeled away from the curb and they were on their way.

“I didn’t think any of these were still around.”

“This one belonged to Hermann Goering, according to Joyce.”

“Joyce is one of the sisters?”

“That’s right.”

“Hermann couldn’t have gotten half a ham into this seat, I guarantee you. Tell me a bit about the old nun.”

“What have you heard?”

“She was one of Sylvia’s favorite people, that’s for sure. Her conscience. Whenever she thought of taking her religion seriously again. She was practicing again of late, thank God.”

“Did you hear how she died?”

“The strangling?”

“She wasn’t dressed in the habit when she was killed.”

“I see. Well, well. You’re suggesting that the killer, having strangled her, dressed her up in a religious habit?”

“And put her in a chair at the end of the hotel corridor.”

“Why on earth would he do that?”

“That is one of the questions Emtee Dempsey wants to put to you.”

“The only bell that rings is that Sylvia’s first appearance on film was a bit part in Hotel.”

Emtee Dempsey found that uninteresting. Kim was a little annoyed that the old nun seemed more interested in quizzing Estrella about his ministry in California than about Sylvia Corrigan.

If the priest hadn’t brought up the murder, she wondered if Emtee Dempsey would have. But once Sylvia was mentioned, the questions began.

“Father, who killed her?”

He smiled, creating deep dimples in his tanned cheeks. “You want me to make a guess?”

“Is it safe to rule out Jimmy Horan?”

“Good Lord, yes.”

“And now Brian is gone. That leaves a narrowed field.”

“You can eliminate Samuelson, Hoague, and Jensen too, Sister.”

“The previous lovers? On what basis?”

“Well, it is not generally known, but Samuelson is a homosexual. Sylvia permitted the rumors of an affair to circulate in order to help him keep his secret. It’s not entirely a secret anymore, of course.”

“And Hoague?”

“How often do former lovers remain friends?”

“I have no idea.”

He smiled. “I suppose not. I can tell you it is infrequent. But then both Sylvia and Larry Hoague are actors. He was one of the few people who encouraged her to do Antigone here, and I’m told her performance was a triumph.”

As for Jensen, he was not in Chicago and could not have been the night of the strangling because he was taking religious instruction from Father Estrella.

“It was an effect of knowing Sylvia. Feelings of guilt would bring her religious faith to the surface and she and Jensen talked about it. He became interested. He came to me. It’s the reason the affair ended. Sylvia thought that should earn her credit in the great box office in the sky.”

“She may be right,” Emtee Dempsey said thoughtfully. “Now that leaves Faustino and St.-Loup.”

“Sylvia was St.-Loup’s meal ticket. From the time he landed her a part in Hotel he concentrated on her as his main client. And he was right. If he represented no one else, he would be a rich man. Sylvia recognized his value to her and rewarded him. I think he was written in for ten percent, just like her agent. But then, increasingly, that is how he functioned for her.”

“She had another agent?”

“Not anymore. Larry Hoague must have been happy to turn the task over to Raoul. Acting is a more fulfilling activity.

“Father, you were reluctant to make a guess as to who did it, but what you say suggests that Faustino killed Sylvia and Brian.”

If the conclusion surprised him, he did not show it. Then he said softly, “If I were to guess, I would say Faustino.”

5

The police had come to the same conclusion. Faustino was arrested on the steps of the cathedral after attending the funeral and taken away despite his pleas that he be allowed to go to the cemetery.

“I wonder what evidence they have,” Kim said when they were back at Walton Street.

Emtee Dempsey squeezed her eyes shut. “So do I.”

“Should I call Richard?”

Her eyes opened. “You are volunteering? I was trying to think of a way to persuade you to invite him here that would not give you an opportunity to repeat your usual objections.”

“I want to know.”

“Of course. ‘All men by nature desire to know.’ Aristotle. Call him.”

“Aristotle?”

The old nun pushed the phone toward Kim, giving her a look. “Being with theatrical folk has a bad effect on you, Sister Kimberly.”

Richard was not offended by her suggestion that he stop by Walton Street. He was clearly happy to have swiftly settled on a prime suspect in the double murder.

Once Richard agreed to come, Emtee Dempsey decided it would be nice to have Katherine Senski there as well. “Oh, and ask Maud Howe as well.”

“Richard might not like that.”

“Why not? A slightly larger audience for him when he relates his triumph.”

Was she being sarcastic? Richard arrived and she congratulated him warmly, and when Katherine came, and later Maud, she presented Richard as if he were the quintessence of effective police investigation.

“We’re all just dying to hear how you learned it was Faustino.”

“No more dying, now. Not in my jurisdiction.” He smiled at Maud. Maud, it was evident, was the one Richard most wished to impress. Shame on him. Kim would get in a mention of his wife and children if he kept it up.

“How did you know it was Faustino?” Maud could play the ingenue role pretty effectively.

“I’d like to tell you it took a lot of thinking, a lot of lab work, a lot of patient routine. I am a great champion of routine. Most police work is fairly humdrum stuff, no mystery at all, except in trying to figure out what the judge and jury might do.”

Emtee Dempsey cleared her throat. She knew when a lecture threatened. Not that she was often on the listening end.

“The truth is, he couldn’t have made it more obvious that he had done it.”

“How so?” Maud asked.

“Three things. First, the director of the play he was in described him as in a strange frame of mind. He arrived at the theater late, delaying the raising of the curtain, and until he was on seemed in a trance. Second, his fingerprints were found in the suite.”

Maud said, “He came by the day before it happened. They might have been made then.”

Richard smiled, unperturbed. “That’s why it is so convenient that the bell captain saw him leave the Elysian near or slightly after the time the coroner places the murder.”

“Carrying a box?” Emtee Dempsey asked.

Richard had expected applause, not questions, but he managed a tight smile. “I wouldn’t want you too easily convinced, Sister Mary Teresa. But when you add these things up, you’ve got a prima facie case. I think Faustino is ready to tell us all about it.”

“Brian Casey was ready to do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“He told me and Sister Kimberly most solemnly that he had killed Sylvia.”

“Why would he say a thing like that?”

But it was Maud who answered. “The dope probably thought I killed Sylvia and wanted to make the ultimate sacrifice.” Her voice broke. “And now he really has.”

Emtee Dempsey was usually intolerant of tears, but on this occasion she got up and went to Maud and put her arm around her shoulder.

“So it was you he was protecting?”

She bobbed her head and got herself under control. “I haven’t told you everything,” she said to Richard, and glanced at Kim as well. “I found Sylvia that night. I came in and called for her and she didn’t answer and then when I went into the room...” She broke down again.

“There, there. Just take your time and tell us,” the old nun said soothingly.

“Faustino was in bed with her. Nick Faustino!” Maud looked around. “Sylvia was furious to be discovered with him. Nick sprang from the bed and a minute later was out of the apartment, but Sylvia and I had a real showdown. It ended in a pillow fight! God knows what weapons we would have used if she hadn’t grabbed a pillow and begun hitting me with it. I took another pillow. It was like summer camp. Only we were deadly serious. At some point, she fled to the bathroom and locked herself in and I got out of there.”

“To see Brian Casey?”

“Yes.”

“What time was this?” Richard asked.

“I got to the club for Brian’s first show.”

That began at eight, so Richard calculated that Maud had left the hotel five or ten minutes before the hour.

“Giving Faustino his chance,” Richard said.

“Let the child continue, Richard,” Emtee Dempsey said.

“Brian went to the hotel after his first show. To get my things. I couldn’t face Sylvia again.”

When he got to the Elysian, Brian let himself into the suite with the key Maud had given him. The door of Sylvia’s bedroom was open and he looked in, to tell her why he had come.

“The bed was all torn apart and she was sprawled across it. Dead. Brian tried her pulse and there was no point in calling an ambulance. He got her down the hall to the elevator. He descended to the mezzanine, took the body off, and propped it in a chair.”

“Why in the world did he do that?”

“To protect me. I realized he didn’t believe Sylvia was still alive when I left the hotel.”

“Did he dress the body?”

Maud looked up at Richard. “That was the strange part. He said he found her lying on the bed dressed in a nun’s habit.”

Sister Mary Teresa said to Richard, “Well, you have a thing or two to ask Mr. Faustino, don’t you?”

Richard made a thin line with his lips. Being instructed by Emtee Dempsey on how to do his job was almost more than he could bear. “I want you to come along with me, Miss Howe. Let’s get all this down for the record.”

“She should have a lawyer,” Katherine said and met Richard’s glare defiantly. “I am not suggesting that you regularly use torture, Lieutenant Moriarity. It is simply better all around that she have counsel before making statements.”

“I will call Mr. Rush,” Emtee Dempsey said.

She did, and their lawyer arranged to meet Richard and Maud downtown.

“I’ll come along,” Kim said. Maud still looked shaken.

“That isn’t necessary,” the young woman said.

“Nonsense,” Emtee Dempsey said, always willing to volunteer Kim’s services. “Of course Sister will accompany you.”

6

Katherine was still at the house when Kim returned, talking with Emtee Dempsey. Joyce had retired. The reporter looked a little under the influence of the sherry she had been drinking.

“Oh good, Kim, you’re back. I’ve been refusing to leave until I have a witness to what this impossible old woman has told me.”

“Katherine,” said Emtee Dempsey, sipping her tea, “I have no idea why you make such a fuss about it.”

“Oh, don’t you? Kim, Sister Mary Teresa has told me that she knows who killed Sylvia Corrigan and Brian Casey.”

“You heard Richard, Katherine. They’ve arrested Nick Faustino.” How much sherry had Katherine had?

“But she says it isn’t Faustino!”

Emtee Dempsey smiled sweetly toward where the horizon would be if the wall hadn’t been in the way. “Of course it isn’t.”

“Then who is it?” Kim asked.

The old nun took her watch from the pocket concealed by her wimple and pressed its stem to open it. “It is nearly eleven o’clock. Much too late for revelations. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

“Oh, posh,” Katherine said. “You’re showboating.”

“I wonder what the origin of that expression is?” Emtee Dempsey said, apparently genuinely curious.

“You’re changing the subject.”

“I will do what I said I would do before noon tomorrow. Would you like to join us for night prayers, Katherine?”

“No,” the reporter said, rising and then steadying herself. “This old sinner is going home to bed.”

“Sister Kimberly will get you a cab.”

It was difficult in chapel, during compline, to fight distraction. Emtee Dempsey recited the psalms with obvious relish. She loved reciting the office. Did she really know who had killed those two people? How could she? Kim knew as much as, maybe more than, the old nun did. And, like Maud Howe, who certainly knew more than both of them, Kim was satisfied that the police had the killer in custody. If not Faustino, who?

She shook her head, trying not to feel annoyance at Emtee Dempsey. The old nun was showboating, as Katherine had said.

But later, in bed, staring wide awake at the ceiling, Kim went over everything she knew about the two murders.

Sylvia Corrigan had left the house on Walton Street, gone to Hanson’s and purchased two religious habits, gone to the hotel, presumably to prepare for her evening performance as Antigone, and been surprised in bed with Nick Faustino by Maud. Faustino fled, the two women had a fight, and Maud had gone to the club where Brian Casey was performing. The singer had gone to the Elysian Hotel between shows to pick up Maud’s things, found Sylvia dead in a Carmelite habit. Obviously not believing Maud’s story, he had removed the body from the room and placed it where attention would turn on Nick Faustino. In the event, the body had been discovered by hotel personnel and removed to the morgue where Sister Mary Teresa had identified the body as that of her former student.

“Why was the body sent to the morgue? Why did you have to identify it? The hotel must have known whose body it was.” It was the following morning, and Kim had managed to hold back such questions until they had returned from Mass and were having breakfast.

“Indeed they did.”

“You sound very sure.”

“Tell her, Sister Joyce.”

“When you went downtown with Maud, Sister sent me on an errand.”

“Two errands,” the old nun corrected.

But the one had depended on the other. Joyce had talked with Mouhman Charles, the bell captain who had noticed the exit of Nick Faustino at a quarter after eight. The old nun had been certain that such an observant man would have more to tell.

“He remembered Maud leaving before eight, he recognized Brian Casey when he showed up about nine. And he said he told the manager the dead woman was Sylvia Corrigan. He was ignored.”

Emtee Dempsey smiled. Her smile dimmed when Kim congratulated her on corroborating Richard’s theory. “Ah. You remember what I told Katherine?”

“Even worse, Katherine will remember.”

“Mr. Charles answered what for me was the great unasked question.”

“And what is that?”

“What happened to the second habit?”

Kim made a face. The second habit? But of course, they had been told that Sylvia bought two at Hanson’s. She had been wearing one when she was found dead on the mezzanine of the Elysian Hotel. “It is probably in Sylvia’s room at the hotel.”

The old nun shook her head. “No. Sister Joyce and Mr. Charles ascertained that it wasn’t.”

“You’d better ask Richard. They probably took it away.”

Emtee Dempsey ignored this. “It explained the most curious observation Mouhman Charles made that evening. A nun in full habit left the hotel after Maud and later Faustino left but before Brian was seen leaving.”

“After Maud?”

The old nun smiled. “Of course one would think that. Maud’s quarrel with Sylvia might have ended in violence and she left the hotel disguised as a Carmelite. One might then expect to find the unaccounted-for second habit in Brian Casey’s dressing room.”

Kim looked at Joyce. “You checked?”

“No. When I phoned and told Sister what I had learned at the hotel, she sent me on the second errand.”

“Where.”

“To the Blackstone Theater.”

“Why?”

“I found a Carmelite habit stuffed in a bag in the bottom drawer of Larry Hoague’s dressing table.”

“Larry Hoague!”

Joyce said, “Mouhman recognized him when he came to the hotel that night, but he never saw him leave.”

Kim remembered Father Estrella’s mention of Hoague, the former lover and former actor too, who had at one time served as Sylvia’s agent, the one who had urged Sylvia to give several performances in the production of Antigone he was directing. The doorbell rang and Kim’s head was spinning with these new revelations when she went to answer it. She did not recognize the man to whom she opened the door. No taller than herself, fine-boned, diminutive, dramatic, his look of anticipation faded as he looked at Kim.

“I’m dreadfully sorry. I thought this was a...” He stopped. “I am looking for Mary Teresa Dempsey.”

“Come in.”

“Then I have come to the right place? I was sure I had.”

“Whom should I say is calling?”

“Hoague. Lawrence Hoague.”

7

“Ah, Mr. Hoague, I’m so delighted to see you,” Emtee Dempsey said, thumping into the hall. She shook the actor’s hand and led him into the living room.

“Sylvia spoke of you often, of course,” Hoague said, as he settled into a chair. But he shook away the memory. “I acted immediately on your suggestion, Sister, and would have phoned you last night if it hadn’t gotten to be such an ungodly hour. As I said then, I share your fears for Maud. I looked everywhere for her, discreetly, of course. She did not return to the hotel. If she checked in elsewhere I was unable to discover it. Of course I asked first where Brian Casey had been staying.”

“Without luck?”

“None! My only comfort is that, if something dreadful had happened, we would have heard.”

“These have been confusing days for us,” Emtee Dempsey said, with uncharacteristic puzzlement.

“Not only for you. Do not think that we in the world are inured to such events as these. I still can’t believe it. Sylvia.” Her name was musical on his lips. His eyes closed. His eyes opened. “We must inform the police that Maud is missing.”

“Mr. Hoague, they have already made an arrest.”

“Faustino!”

“Even if he had learned that Maud knew far more than she told the police, he could do nothing about it while in custody. Faustino played Creon in your production of Antigone, did he not?”

“Yes.”

“Do you play a role?”

“Teresias.”

“The blind prophet.”

Hoague seemed to become a shriveled old man. “ ‘For the blind man goes where his leader tells him to.’ ”

“Teresias, as I remember, does not appear until very late in the play.”

He nodded in admiration. “That is correct.”

“The actor playing that part could be elsewhere for most of the performance, I suppose.”

“Not when that actor is also the director.”

“Then you were at the Blackstone throughout the performance?”

“What an odd question.”

“Of course you needn’t answer it.”

“My dear Sister, I was at the Blackstone before, during, and after the performance that night.”

“But you were seen at the Elysian Hotel, Mr. Hoague.”

“That’s impossible.”

“The man who saw you is the same man who saw Nick Faustino there that night. The police found him reliable. He saw you arrive but he did not see you leave.”

“Since I was not there, he could not have seen me leave.”

“You mean he would not have recognized you as a nun?”

In the silence that followed, the door from the kitchen opened and Joyce entered, followed by Maud Howe.

“Richard is on his way, Sister. They found the habit where I told them they would.”

Lawrence Hoague was on his feet and on his way out of the room in a single movement, but Maud barred his way.

“You wouldn’t kill another woman, would you, Larry?”

He lunged at her, trying for her throat, but Maud brought her arms up, turned her body, and caught her assailant in the chest with her pivoting elbow, upsetting his balance. In a moment, he was on the floor, face down, his arm behind his back, upward pressure on it being exerted by the straddling Maud. This was the condition of Larry Hoague a minute later when Richard arrived and took him into custody.

8

The following night Katherine, Maud Howe, and Father Estrella came to the house on Walton Street for dinner. The priest had been providing spiritual comfort to Larry Hoague, who had been arrested and charged with the murders of Sylvia Corrigan and Brian Casey. Nick Faustino had been released and left town calling down curses on all the friends who had abandoned him in his troubles. Raoul St.-Loup had told Maud that he intended to make her into a star of the first magnitude.

“In what?” the media priest asked.

“A musical version of Tom Sawyer.”

“Another?”

“There goes my career,” Maud said.

“I would feel more sympathy if you had been candid with me, young lady,” Sister Mary Teresa said.

“Will you play Becky Thatcher?” Father Estrella asked.

“Can Larry Hoague direct me from prison?”

“There are those who would call prison the natural home of directors.” The priest’s brows rose as he spoke.

“There was a falling out between Sylvia and Hoague wasn’t there?” Emtee Dempsey said.

Father Estrella was delighted to fill them in, clearly relishing his role as the purveyor of inside show-biz gossip to these innocent ears. Some of what he knew he had learned as Sylvia’s spiritual advisor.

“I no longer feel bound to secrecy,” he said. “Not in these circumstances. She phoned me on the coast just hours before the dreadful event.”

Few, he intoned, would have suspected Larry’s professional dependence on his former lover and protegee. The world had considered their talents equal, but Larry knew better. Sylvia’s agreement to act in Hoague’s production of Antigone had been wrung reluctantly from her. Hoague was convinced that with Sylvia his production would be a success. But after one performance, the actress had told Father Estrella, Sylvia called Larry and told him she would not be at the theater for the second. Her excuse was the mental preparation necessary to play a Carmelite nun.

“I can imagine the rest,” the priest murmured.

Hoague arrived at the Elysian Hotel to learn that Faustino had preceded him to the actress’s suite.

“He took their assignation to be the reason for Sylvia’s canceling her second performance. He sat in the lobby watching Maud leave and then Faustino, in a hurry to get to the Blackstone. The play could start without Hoague. He had decided to settle old scores with Sylvia.” The priest moved the spread fingers of his right hand through the blond thicket of his hair. “The poor man was riddled with resentment, years of reversal, near-misses, failures swam before his mind. He saw Sylvia as the great betrayer.”

She left him for other men, she had replaced him as her agent, she had permitted him to count on her performances as warrant for staging a production of Antigone.

“Had you any idea of how he felt toward Sylvia?” Father Estrella asked Maud.

“No, but I understand it. He had helped make her a star, getting her her first roles, but he was part of the past. She had not wanted to play Antigone, to do it once was an enormous favor. But it was a favor to Nick Faustino, not to Larry Hoague. In her own mind, she had already become a nun.”

There was a moment of silence when they all seemed to be thinking of that oddly costumed corpse sitting in a chair on the mezzanine of the Elysian Hotel.

“May she rest in peace,” Emtee Dempsey said with emotion. “I for one shall always remember her as a college student doing The Lady’s Not For Burning.”

“Suggest to Raoul that he get that as a vehicle for you,” Father Estrella suggested to Maud.

“Uh uh. I don’t like the precedent.”

“I’m ready when you are,” Joyce announced and they all went into the dining room to eat.