The Big Bad City

7.

So now there were three of them in the space of five days, which if you averaged them out to something like 219 homicides a year in this precinct alone, This was about right in that some 981 murders were committed in the city the year before, and if the low-crime precincts averaged 15 or 20 a year that was a lot. Which didn't make the boys of the old Eight-Seven any happier.

The first nun joke surfaced at the meeting that Wednesday morning in Lieutenant Byrnes's office. They all knew it would only be a matter of time before the nun jokes started, and they were somehow not surprised that Andy Parker told the first of them. They were all assembled in the loot's office, waiting from him to come back from the toilet down the hall. Perhaps it was the lieutenant's whereabouts that prompted the subject matter of the joke.

"This nun is driving along in her car, and she runs out of gas," Parker said, "have you heard this one?" Nobody had heard it.

"So she walks half a mile or so to the nearest gas station and buys a gallon of gas, but the gas-station guy hasn't got anything to put it in but a chamber pot.. The nun doesn't care, she just wants to get her car going again. So she carries the gas in the chamber pot back to the car, and she takes off the gas cap and is pouring the gas in when a guy passing by stops his car and says, "I sure wish I had your faith, Sister.”

"I don't get it," Kling said.

"The guy thinks she's pouring piss in the gas tank," Parker said.

"Why does he think that?" Willis asked.

He was the shortest detective on the squad, intense and wiry, here in the lieutenant's office morning because he and Parker had caught the bloody bedroom squeal the night before.

"Cause she's pouring the gas from a pisspot," Parker said.

"I thought you said a chamber pot," Meyer said. "That's what a chamber pot is, a pisspot," Parker said.

"Let me get this straight," Carella said. "Is this an English joke?”

"It's an American joke," Parker said. "Then why'd you call it a chamber pot?”

“Instead of a pisspot," Kling said, agreeing.

"If it's an English joke," Brown said, "you should have said petrol instead of gas.”

"Also," Meyer said, "why didn't she just pee in the tank instead of going all the way to the gas station to get a pisspot to pee in?”

"She doesn't pee in the pisspot," Parker said. "The gas station guy puts gas in it.”

"He farts in it?" Carella said, and Parker finally got it.

"You fuckin animals," he said. "Guy can't even tell an honest joke around here.”

"I still don't get it," Kling said.

"Yeah, fuck you," Parker said The door opened and Byrnes walked in. "Sorry I kept you waiting," he said.

"Were you down at the gas station?" Brown asked. "Pissing away a fortune?" Meyer said. "What's this about?" Byrnes said. "English humor," Carella said.

"Very funny," Byrnes said, and walked briskly to his desk. He was a burly man with iron-grey hair and an air of impatience, especially when two fresh bodies had shown up in his precinct the night before.

"What've we got?" he asked.

"Which case?" Parker asked.

There were three cases on the table this morning. The murders the night before, the nun murder, and the Cookie Boy burglaries.

"You're up, so speak," Byrnes said.

"We figure the lady of the house was making it with the delivery boy from the liquor store up the street," Parker said. "Might've been a three-way, we don't know. Either that, or an intruder. There was a trail of blood going down the hall and all over the bathroom. We've got samples, we ever catch anybody.”

"Where was the husband?" Byrnes asked.

If there'd been a third party at the scene, this was the only question to ask. "At work downtown.”

“Witnesses?”

“Hundreds.”

"Scratch the husband. What else have you got?”

“Lab should be getting back to us sometime today on the scene sweep. Woman on the third floor told us she heard what she thought were baclffres at around three-thirty, four o'clock. Otherwise nobody heard anything or saw anything.”

"Stay on the lab," Byrnes said.

"I've already got a call in to them," Willis said. "What's with Mr. Cookie Boy?" Byrnes asked: "Quiet yesterday. Maybe he's resting,”

Kling said.

"We'll be hitting the pawnshops again today,”

Meyer said. "Some of the stuff on the list is unique ...”

“Like what?”

"A carved lapis brooch. Lady gave us a good picture of it. Enameled Chinese beads. A wooden snuffbox. Stuff like that. If he's already hocked any of it, we may get lucky.”

"Important guy like him, he's probably got a fence," Parker said.

"He's important only because television's making him a hero," Byrnes said. "Otherwise, he's a small-time punk.”

"Tell me about it," Meyer said.

"What's with the nun?”

"Andy's got a good nun joke," Carella said. "Tell him your nun joke?”

"Yeah, fuck you," Parker said.

"It's an English nun joke," Kling said. "Petrol in a chamber pot,”

Willis said. Parker shook his head in disgust. "The nun," Byrnes prodded.

"She was worried about money," Carella said. "Who isn't ?”

“This is recent.”

“How recent?”

"First revealed it to another nun on the eleventh.”

“Also, she received some kind of letter," Brown said. "What kind of letter?”

"We don't know.”

"Something predicting a decision she'd already made," Carella said.

"Predicting?”

"Well ... it does sound mystical, I know.”

“What decision?”

“We don't know.”

“Where is this letter?”

“We don't know.”

"Someone broke into her apartment the day after the murder," Brown said. "Wiped the place out.”

“Looking for the letter?”

“Maybe.”

“The killer?”

“Maybe.”

"How'd you find out about this letter?”

"Priest named Father Clemente mentioned it,”

Carella said. "She told him about it.”

"Where does the priest fit in?”

"He's a friend. She had a lot of friends. We're working them now.”

"What's your thinking so far?”

“Blackmail," Brown said. "Blackmail? Why?”

"That's what we're trying to find out.”

"What could anyone hope to extort from a nun?”

Byrnes asked. "They're poor aren't they?”

"That's the catch," Brown agreed.

"Anyway, you blackmail people only if they've got something. to hide,”

Byres said.

"She did have something to hide," Carella said. "What?”

"Breast implants.”

"How do you hide big tits?" Parker asked, and laughed at his own rich humor.

"Is this a joke?" Byres said.

"I wish," Carella said.

"Breast implants," Byrnes said, and shook his head. "When did she have 'em done?”

"Blaney thinks within the past three to four years.”

“Was she a nun at the time?”

“Been a nun for the past six.”

"Working in "The Vatican Follies," Parker said, and laughed again.

"Hit your list of doctors," Byrnes said. "Reach back five, six years, find out who did the job. Find out why a nun wanted bigger tits to begin with. This is just what the archbishop needs, breast implants.

He's already screaming up a high mass.”

"How wide do you want to go?”

"Stick with the city for now. Where's she from originally?”

"Philadelphia.”

"Try there next, see if that's where she bought the tits.

Then reach out to wherever she entered the church.”

"San Diego.”

"But start here, we're not made of money. Andy, Hal, this blood bath is just what television's been looking for, let's clean it up fast.

Meyer, Bert, give them a hand on it. Put The Cookie Boy on the back burner. Small-time punk doesn't deserve our attention right now.”

But that was before the lab reported that the dirt and dust they'd vacuumed up from the Cooper bedroom and the hallway outste mtu m,u”

and several small specks of chocolate.

There were a hundred and fifty-nine board-certified plastic surgeons in Isola. Sixteen in Calm's Point. Eleven in Riverhead. Nine in Majesta. Six in Bethtown. They sent out flyers to all of them, requesting information on a woman named either Mary Vincent or Kate Cochran who may have had breast implant surgery performed within the past five years.

Then they sat back to wait.

Wednesday was Dr. Michael Paine's day off. No hospital, no office hours, just a day of leisure. Until the cops arrived. They found him in the locker room of the Tarleton Hills Country Club, where he'd just showered and changed into street clothes after four sets of tennis. He was now wearing beige linen slacks and a lime green T-shirt, tan Italian loafers, no socks. He seemed annoyed that the detectives had tracked him down here, but he asked nonetheless if they'd like a cup of coffee or something and then led them to the clubhouse overlooking the swimming pool. They sat at a green metal table shaded with a yellow umbrella.

Paine was a good-looking man in his mid-forties, unfortunately named for a doctor, but then again he'd chosen his own profession, and it was a good thing he wasn't a dentist. He asked if they'd rather have a drink instead, and when they declined, he ordered a gin and tonic for himself and two coffees for the gentlemen, please, Betsy. This was eleven o'clock in the morning.

The pool at this hour was full of mothers and their screaming little kiddies. Both detectives had children of their own. Indulgently, they raised their voices to shout over the shrieking and splashing from the pool. The. yellow umbrella cast a brilliant glow on the green metal tabletop.

"It's nice of you to make time for us on your day off," Carella said.

Paine merely nodded.

"We just have a few questions we want to ask about the evening you spent with Mary Vincent.”

"That would've been the fifteenth," Brown said. "A Saturday night.”

es, Paine said.

"Six days before she was killed," Carella said. Betsy arrived with the gin and the two coffees. Paine poured tonic water from the bottle.

Brown put two teaspoons of sugar in his coffee, spiked it with milk.

Carella drank his black. The kids in the pool were squealing up a symphony.

"Can you tell us what occasioned that meeting?" Carella asked.

"It wasn't a meeting. We had dinner together.”

"I meant ...”

"We met at a restaurant called Il Mediterraneo. We went there often.

Mary liked it a lot.”

"Who paid for the meal?" Brown asked.

"What?”

Nun worried about money, Brown thought, who paid for dinner that night was a pretty good question. "Did she pay? Did you pay? Did you split the ...”

"I paid," Paine said. "Whenever we had dinner together, I paid.”

"Was having dinner with her a usual thing? "We'd see each other ." Paine shrugged. "Once a month? Sometimes more often. We were good friends?”

“How long have you known her?”

Carella asked.

"I met her at St. Margaret's when she first began working there.”

"About six months ago, would that be?”

"Yes. More or less?”

"How'd you happen to ask her out?" Brown asked. "Ask her out?" Paine said. "She was a nun." Brown wondered why the good doctor was getting on his high horse. Man took someone to dinner once a month, sometimes more often, what the hell was it if not taking her out? "I'm sorry, sir," he said. "What would you call it?”

“It's the connotation that bothers me," Paine said, and nodded curtly, and sipped at his drink again, and then put the glass down rather too emphatically. "We were working colleagues and good friends. Taking her to dinner was not taking her out.”

"How'd you first happen to take her to dinner then?" Brown asked.

Paine looked at him.

"Sir?" Brown said.

"One of her patients, a woman with a stomach CA, was dying and in pain.

Mary was having a personal problem with it. We went across the street to the deli, to talk it over.”

"And this became a regular thing, is that right?" Carella said. "Having dinner together?”

"Yes. As I said, once or twice a month. Mary was good company. I enjoyed being with her.”

"Did you ever talk about other things'? Aside from your work?”

"Yes, of course "On the fifteenth, for example, did she happen to mention ... was that the last time you saw her, doctor?”

"Socially, yes. I saw her at the hospital, of course, whenever I was there.”

"Did you see her on the day she was killed?”

“Yes, I did.”

“When was this?”

"The twenty-first, wasn't it? When she was killed?”

"Yes. But I meant, did you see her at any specific time ?”

"Well, several times during the day. Doctors and nurses cross paths all the time.”

"When's the very last time you saw her?" Brown asked.

"Just before the shift ended. She said she was going out for a cup of coffee with Helen, asked if I'd like to join them.”

"Helen Daniels, would that be?”

"Yes. One of the nurses at St. Margaret's.”

"Did she mention where she might be heading after that?”

"No, she didn't.”

"Doctor, if we could, I'd like to get back to that night of the fifteenth. Did Mary say anything about ... ?”

"You know," Paine said, "I hate to ask this ... but am I a suspect in this thing?”

"No, sir, you're not," Carella said.

"Then why all these questions?”

"Well;' Care||a said, it her Mary went or a walk in the park and was a random victim of someone who stole her handbag, or else she deliberately went to that park to meet the person who killed her.

Several people we talked to said she seemed very concerned about...”

"What's any of this got to do with me?”

“Nothing, sir. We're only trying ...”

“I mean, why all these questions ?”

They didn't know why he was so suddenly agitated. They'd probably questioned ten thousand two hundred and eighty-eight people in their joint careers as police officers, and they were used to all sorts of guarded responses, but why had Dr. Paine become so defensive all at once? Both detectives were suddenly alert. Bells didn't go off, whistles didn't shrill over the noise of the shrieking kids in the pool. But though neither of them revealed any change in attitude if anything, they were more solicitous than they had been a moment ago they nonetheless looked at the man differently now.

"We thought you might be able to expand on what we'd heard from other friends of Mary," Carella said. "Well, there it is again," Paine said.

Yes, there it is again, Carella thought. "Sir?" he said.

"The emphasis on the word 'friends'. Is it impossible to believe that a man actually might be friends with a woman who's taken vows of chastity?”

“We think that's entirely possible, sir.”

"I mean, does it have to be turned into some kind of dirty joke ?”

"Sir, no one ...”

"is this still the i--830s?”

"We're only trying ...”

"Are nuns still the butt of bad pornography?”

"Sir, we ...”

"Mary was an attractive woman, there's no denying it. But to suggest ... I mean ... look, forget it.”

The noise from the pool seemed overwhelming in the sudden silence under the bright yellow umbrella.

"We've been told she was concerned about money," Carella said, changing his approach. He caught a small, almost imperceptible nod of approval from Brown. "Did she mention that to you?”

"No," Paine said.

He had drained the glass of gin, and now he was toying with the lime wedge in it, poking it with the plastic straw, his eyes averted.

"Where'd you go after dinner that night?" Brown asked.

"Back to her place.”

"Did she mention anything about money problems while you were there?”

Carella said.

"No.”

"Or anytime that night?" Brown said.

"No.”

"Mention a letter she may have received?”

"No.”

"What time did you leave her, Doctor?”

“Around ten.”

“Where'd you go?”

“Straight home.”

"Dr. Paine, could we go back to that first time you had dinner together? You said it was at the deli across the street. Could you tell us a little more about that, please?”

Paine sighed heavily.

"I was at the hospital late one night," he said, "and so was Mary. I ran into her coming out of the nurses' lounge, in tears. I asked her if something was wrong, and she said, "No, nothing," but she kept crying so hard I thought she might be hysterical. It was plain to me that whatever it was, she didn't want to discuss it there in the hospital, so I suggested we go across the street for a cup of coffee.

She readily accepted. Actually, she seemed relieved that she could talk it over with someone. What it was ... there was this elderly woman on the ward, Mrs. Rosenberg, Ruth Rosenberg, I believe it was. She was very seriously ill, a cancer patient, as I told you, who had perhaps two or three weeks to live, it was that bad. She wasn't a very nice person. I didn't know her before she got sick, of course, she may have been an angel, who knows? But she was definitely unpleasant now, moaning every minute of the day, snapping at doctors and nurses alike, a totally obnoxious human being.

You'd stop in her room just to be pleasant, ask how she was doing, for example, and she'd yell "How do you think I'm doing? Look at me! Does it look like I'm doing fine?" It was hard to have sympathy for a person like that, even though her situation was grave. Or a nurse would bring in her pain med, and she'd yell "It's about time! Where the hell have you been?" A most difficult woman.

I wasn't the physician who'd prescribed her medication, I'm not quite sure what it was now, probably some: sort of morphine derivative, most likely MS Confin every six hours. That would have been usual in such a case, one of the morphine sulfates. When Mary told me about the woman, she said she couldn't stand her shrieks of pain any longer, her moaning all day long, the woman was a human being and one of God's creatures, we should be able to do something to ease her suffering. Yes, I remember now.

She was on a Duragesic patch as well, absorbing Fentanyl all day long, probably fifty, sixty micrograms an hour, plus the morphine, of course.

Mary thought Mrs. Rosenberg should be getting the morphine dose every four hours instead of the prescribed six. She discussed this with the woman's doctor, told him she was in no danger of becoming an addict, she was going to die in a few weeks, anyway, couldn't they please, in the name of God, increase the regularity? The doctor told Mary he thought Mrs. Rosenberg was going for secondary gain. Wanted them to feel sorry for her. Wanted more attention from them. Mary said, "So why not? What's wrong with a little attention? Her family's abandoned her, nobody comes to see her, she just lies in bed all day, moaning in pain, begging for medication. What on earth is wrong with giving her what she so desperately needs?" Well, the doctor told Mary he might be willing to prescribe an additional milligram in the regular six-hour dose, which of course was minimal, a token gesture. But he flatly refused to medicate the woman every four hours.

Mary was furious.

She told all this to me over hamburgers and coffee in the deli. I promised I'd talk to the doctor in the morning, see what I could do.”

Paine sighed again.

"But by morning, Mrs. Rosenberg was dead.”

“Who was the doctor?" Brow asked.

"I've deliberately avoided using his name," Paine said.

"If Mary harbored any ill feelings ...”

"I'm sure she didn't, she wasn't that sort of person. In fact, I did finally talk to him about denying medication, which I consider stupid, by the way, and he saw the error of his ways.”

“In any case ...”

"Excuse me, sir.”

The waitress who'd brought their beverages was standing by the table again, a leather folder in her hand. "Whenever you're ready, sir," she said. "And sir?”

“Yes, Betsy?”

"Your wife just called. Said not to forget her racket that was restrung.”

"Thank you, Betsy," Paine said, and signed the check.

The detectives said nothing until he'd handed the leather folder back to her and she'd walked away. Then Brown said, "The doctor's name, sir?”

“Winston Hall," Paine said.

"So on the one hand," Brown said, "we got the man heading the ward rhapsodizing about Mary, sweetest woman in the world, oh dear, how I will miss her, spreading light and joy everywhere she walked, singing to all the patients, but he forgets to mention she's breaking his balls about medication! She probably hated his guts for letting Mrs. Rosenberg die in pain.”

He was behind the wheel. Whenever he got agitated, he drove somewhat recklessly. Carella hoped he wouldn't run over any old ladies.

"And on the other hand, we got another doctor who's seeing a woman not his wife sometimes twice a month," Brown said. "Makes no never mind to me she's a nun. Far as I'm concerned, he's married and seeing another woman. On a Saturday night, the last time I A married man!”

"Red light ahead," Carella said.

"I see it. Another thing, he knew he went too far," Brown said.

"That's why he clammed up all at once.”

"It wasn't the place to pursue it, anyway," Carella said.

"I know that. Otherwise I'd've jumped in. Do I look shy?”

"Oh, yes. Timid, in fact. We may have to put him in the box later.

Meanwhile, all we've got is a man who found a nun attractive and won't admit it to himself.”

“Or to his wife, either, I'll bet," Brown said.

"You're beginning to sound, like my mother," Carella said.

"And what's the matter with that Hall jackass, anyway? How's it any skin off his nose he gives the old lady an extra dose? She's gonna die, anyway, am I right?”

"Watch the road, Artie I”

"Letting an old lady die in pain that way.”

"Artie ...”

"I see it. Never once mentioned he and Mary had a little contretemps back then, did he? Way he tells it, everything was sweetness and light on the ward, Mary flitting around like Sally Field, never mind she could blow her stack when she wanted to, am I right?”

“Artie, that was a baby carriage.”

“That's okay, I didn't hit it, did I?”

“You came damn close.”

"We oughta talk to that man again. We also oughta run down to Philly, talk to Mary's brother too damn busy to bury her.”

"Philly's closed on Wednesdays," Carella said, making reference to one of the countless Philadelphia jokes in the repertoire, something the stand-up comic Vincent Cochran might have appreciated, provided he wasn't still asleep at twelve-fifteen in the afternoon. It was nine-fifteen A.M. in California.

Carella wondered what time Sister Carmelita Diaz had got home from Rome yesterday.

"Lady named Anna Hawley waiting upstairs for you," Sergeant Murchison said.

Carella didn't know anybody named Anna Hawley. "Me?" he said.

"You," Murchison said.

The muster room of the Eight-Seven was unusually quiet that Wednesday afternoon. Murchison sat behind the high mahogany muster desk like a priest behind an altar, reading the morning paper, bored to tears because the phone hadn't rung in ten minutes. Across the room, a man from Maintenance and Repair one of the two who'd been here last Friday, when the guy went ape shit in the cage upstairs was checking out the walkie-talkies on the wall rack because they weren't recharging properly. The air conditioner he and his partner had fixed was now functioning, but barely. Murchison was sweating profusely in his short-sleeved uniform shirt.

"She say about what?" Carella asked.

"The dead nun," Murchison said, and went back to his paper.

It was even hotter upstairs than it had been in the muster room, perhaps because the window units here were older than the ones below.

Anna Hawley was a woman in her early twenties, Carella guessed, sitting in a chair alongside his desk in a blue cotton skirt and white blouse, her handbag resting near the In-Out basket. Across the room, Meyer and Kling, in shirtsleeves, were working the phones, contacting pawnshops again now that their burglar might have been a double murderer. The squad room seemed quieter than usual, too. Carella wondered where the hell everybody was.

"Miss Hawley?" he said.

The woman turned. Short blonde hair, green eyes, apprehensive look.

Lipstick a light shade of red. Foot jiggling as if she had to pee.

"Detective Carella," he said. "My partner, Detective Brown.”

Carella sat in his own chair behind the desk. Brown pulled one up. They both kept their jackets on, in deference to their visitor. At the windows, the air conditioners clanked noisily.

"I understand you wanted to see us about Mary Vincent," Carella said.

"Well, Kate Cochran, yes," she said.

Soft voice, slight quaver to it. The detectives waited. Her nervousness was apparent, but police stations often did that to people.

And yet, she was here voluntarily. Carella gave it a moment longer, and then he said, "Was there something you wanted to tell us about her murder?”

"Well, no, not her murder.”

"Then what, Miss Hawley?”

"I wanted to make sure Vincent didn't leave you with the wrong impression.”

"Are you talking about Vincent Cochran?" Carella asked.

The stand-up comic in Philadelphia, the brother who no longer cared to see his sister, dead or alive, thanks. "Mary Vincent's brother?”

"Yes," Anna said. "Well, Kate's brother.”

"What about him?”

"Well, I know you spoke to him a few days ago ..." The twenty-second, according to Carella's notebook.

"... and I'm afraid you might have got the wrong idea about him. You see, everybody was against it.”

“Against what?" Brown asked.

"Her becoming a nun. It wasn't just Vincent. All of us told her it was a stupid idea. All the family, all her friends.”

"And what are you, Miss Hawley? Family or friend?”

"I'm a friend.”

"Kate's friend? Or her brother's?”

“Vincent's my boyfriend," she said. "But you knew Kate as well, is that it?”

"Yes. We grew up together.”

"In Philadelphia?”

"Yes. She went to San Diego only after she joined the order. That was another thing. Her having to go all the way out to California. No one liked that very much, I can tell you.”

"Why would we get the wrong idea about Mr. Cochran?" Brown asked.

"What he said to you.”

"What'd he say?”

"About letting the church bury her.”

"He reported that to you, did he?”

"Yes. Well, he was worded you might think ... well you might think he didn't love her or something.”

“Did he ask you to come here?”

"No. Absolutely not. I come into the city regularly, anyway. I'm a freelance copy editor. I deliver work whenever I'm finished with it.”

"So when did Mr. Cochran tell you about our conversation with him?”

"Last Saturday night. At the club. He said you'd called that afternoon. Woke him up, in fact. Which was why he sounded so irritated.”

"When you say the club ...”

"Comedy Riot," Anna said.

"Is that where Mr. Cochran does standup?”

"Yes. But it was my idea to come here. I didn't want you to think he was still holding a grudge or anything.”

“What kind of grudge, Miss Hawley?”

“Well ... everything. You know." 'Everything?”

"All of it. From the beginning. From when Kate first told the family she wanted to be a nun. Her parents were still alive then, this was right after she graduated from college. I was there the afternoon she told them. Vincent and I were high school sweet hearts, you see. This was in January. More than six years ago.

I remember it was a very cold day. There was a fire blazing in the living room fireplace. We were all drinking coffee after dinner, sitting around the fireplace, when Kate dropped her bombshell ...”

"What the hell are you talking about?" her father shouts.

It is interesting that he has used the word "hell" when his daughter has just told them she wishes to become a nun in the Roman Catholic Church. To Ronald Cochran, who has been a renegade Catholic since the age of thirteen and who considers entering a convent the equivalent of joining a cult like the Hare Krishnas, the words his daughter has just hurled into the glowing warmth of the living room are tantamount to patricide. Ronald Cochran teaches political science at Temple University. His wife is a psychiatrist with a thriving practice. And now ... this? His daughter wants to become a goddamn nun? "You don't mean this," Vincent says.

He is four years his sister's junior, seventeen years old and a high school senior in that cold January more than six years ago. His sister has just told the family and his girlfriend Anna that she wishes to enter the Order of the Sisters of Christ's Mercy as soon as certain formalities have been consummated, the exact word she uses. She expects to begin her novitiate this coming summer, she tells them now. At the mother house in San Luis Elizario, she tells them. Just outside San Diego, she tells them.

"Who's been brainwashing you?" her mother asks. Dr. Moira Cochran is a Freudian analyst who remembers all too well that the master himself considered religion a "group-obsessional neurosis." That her daughter has now decided she "has a vocation," that her daughter now wishes to become "a bride of Christ" who will swear vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience once she has completed her postulancy and her novitiate ... "Is that what you learned at that goddamn school?" she asks.

That "goddamn school" is one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States, and Kate has been graduated from it with honors and a 3.8 index as a political science major and a psychology minor so much for the token gesture to the old folks at home. In the meantime, because she has a splendid voice and a true love of music, she has joined a choral group in her sophomore year, and then the church choir in her junior year. It is there that she initially meets a visiting nun named Sister Beatrice Camden of the Order of the Sisters of Christ's Mercy, who comes to instruct the choir in a complicated four-part hymn composed by Jacopone da Todi in the thirteenth century.

Kate is hardly a religious person. With a father like Ronald and a mother like Moira, she could never be considered even faintly religious. She is singing in the church choir because she loves to sing, but she is also fascinated by Sister Beatrice, who is the first person who ever suggests to her that her voice is perhaps God given. Well, bullshit, she thinks, and she admits this to her stunned parents and to her brother and his girlfriend ... "I mean, my voice is a result of genetic downloading, am I right? So what's this nonsense about it being God-given?" and yet the notion is somehow exciting, her voice being a gift from God and therefore something more than a mere human voice, something rather more exalted instead. When Sister Beatrice asks Kate to join her and some of the other sisters for dinner one night, she recognizes that a sort of recruiting process is beginning, but she's flattered by all the attention. And besides, she begins to realize she likes these people. There's an air of dedication about these young women that seems singularly lacking in the college girls all around Kate. The girls she knows are always talking about getting laid or getting married whereas these women in the Order of the Sisters of Christ's Mercy are talking about lives devoted to serving God by helping other people. They are talking about a vocation, a ministry, a charism. They are talking about meaningful lives, they ...

"Meaningful, my ass!" Moira shouts in an outburst rare for a psychiatrist trained to listen patiently and never to comment. "You'll be locking yourself away from the rest of the world! You'll be ...”

"It isn't ...”

"... marching backward into the twelfth century I"' "It isn't like that anymore!”

Kate then goes on to explain, to four sets of ears growing increasingly more deaf, that she was given informational books about the order ... "Which the sisters call the OSCM, by the way ...”

as if it's IBM or TWA, a refreshingly modern way of thinking about themselves that forever dispels for Kate any notions of nuns wearing hair shirts. For the past year now ... "Is that how long this has been going on?" Vincent yells. she's spent time with the order's Vocation Director, and she's been visiting with the order's Spiritual Director, taking psychological tests, addressing her finances, meeting as well with the Formation Director.

"A goddamn cult!" her father shouts. to set up a system for herself, finally creating an individual program best suited to her talents and her needs.

"I'm going to be a nurse," she says. "It's how I can best help people.

It's how I can best serve God. I know I'll be sacrificing a home of my own, a family. I know I'll be sacrificing comfort and independence.

But as Christ's bride ...”

"I can't believe this I" Vincent says. in union with Christ, she will also be sacrificing herself for the redemption of souls. Like Christ, she will live her life in poverty, simplicity, purity, and chastity.

And she will forever offer, as only a spouse can, love and solace to His Sacred Heart.

She tells her parents, and her brother, and Anna Hawley that she'll be leaving for the mother house as soon as certain documents have been signed ... "You're signing away your life," her mother says. "This is totally stupid," Vincent says.

"But it's what I'm going to do," Kate says.

"No, you're not!" her father shouts.

"Yes, I am," she says calmly. "It's my life," she says. "Not yours.”

To which, of course, there is no answer.

Anna Hawley paused.

"There was nothing anyone could do to stop her," she said.

""So she left," Carella said.

"Yes. She left. At the end of May.”

Again, Anna hesitated.

"I suppose Vincent might have forgiven her sooner or later. But then, of course, her parents were killed.”

At his desk across the room, Meyer said into the telephone, "Just hang on to it, sir, we'll be right there. Thanks a lot.”

"Killed?" Carella said.

"How?" Brown said.

"Bert, let's go," Meyer said.

"A car crash," Anna said. "On the Fourth of July, last year. Kate's father was driving. They'd been drinking too much.”

"Steve, we're off. Piece of jewelry just surfaced.”

"Where's the shop?" Kling asked, and followed him out of the squad room "Vincent could never forgive her after that," Anna said.

"Why's that?”

"He blamed her for the accident. It was only after if. ate became a nun that they began drinking heavily, you see.”

"That's Vincent's reasoning, huh?" Brown said.

"Yes, and he's right," Anna said. "If she'd stayed home, they'd still be alive.”

"Uh-huh.”

"It was her fault.”

"Uh-huh.”

"Which is why he wouldn't come up here to claim the body, right?”

Carella said.

"That doesn't mean he killed her," Anna said.

Brown was thinking some people should learn when to keep their big mouths shut.

"Sent you instead, right?" he said. "To tell us all this?”

"No, I had to be in the city, anyway?”

“You come in every Wednesday?”

"I come in whenever I'm done.”

“Done?”

"With the galleys.”

"When's the last time you were in, Miss Hawley?”

“Last Friday," she said.

It was very hot here in this small shop cluttered with the flotsam and jetsam of countless lives foundering on bad times. Meyer and Kling were wearing lightweight sports jackets on this steamy Wednesday at one P.M." but not because they wished to appear elegantly dressed. The jackets were there to hide the shoulder holster each was wearing, lest the populace of this fair city panicked in the streets. The owner of the shop was wearing a white short-sleeved sports shirt open at the throat. A jeweler's loupe hung on a black silk cord around his neck.

He introduced himself as Manny Schwartz. The name on his license was Emanuel Schwartz. The license, in a black frame, was hanging on the wall behind him, together with an accordion, a saxophone, a trombone, several trumpets, a tambourine, and a ukulele. Meyer wondered if an entire orchestra had come in here to hock its instruments.

Schwartz took a ring from the case, and handed it across the counter.

"This is what she brought in," he said. "It's Islamic. Ninth to eleventh century A.D. Origin is probably Greater Syria.”

The square signet was engraved with the drawing of a goat or possibly some other animal with long ears, it was hard to tell. This was surrounded by engraved petals or leaves, again it was difficult to tell exactly which. The tapering shank was engraved on both sides with a pair of snakes, or perhaps crocodiles, flanking a long-tailed bird. A pair of engraved fish swam upward from the very bottom of the shank toward the signet. Meyer wished he knew what the talismanic markings meant. It was a sort of cheerful ring. It made him wonder why there was so much strife in the Middle East.

"What the caliphs did," Schwartz said, "they brought in artisans trained in the Greek and Roman traditions, had them adapt their work to the needs of Arab patrons. This ring was probably commissioned by an upper-class member of society. It was an expensive ring, even back then. Today, it's worth around twelve grand.”

"What'd you pay for it?”

"Three thousand. Little did I know it was stolen. Now I can shove it up my ass, right?”

He was referring to the odd legal distinction between a "bona fide purchaser for value" and "a person in knowing possession of stolen goods." Schwartz had read the list of stolen goods the Eight Seven had circulated, and he now knew that the Syrian ring was hot property. He could have ignored this, gone on to sell the ring at a profit, pretended he'd never seen the list. But if that ring ever got traced back to him, he was looking at a D-felony and a max of two-and-a-third to seven in the slammer. He'd called the police instead, who would now undoubtedly seize the ring as evidence. Some you win, some you lose.

"Did she give you a name?" Meyer asked. "Yes. But it probably wasn't her real name.”

“What name did she give you?”

""Nlarllyn lviono.

"What makes you think that wasn't her real name?" Meyer asked.

"Marilyn Monroe?”

"We once arrested a guy named Ernest Hemingway, he wasn't Ernest Hemingway.”

"Who was he?”

"He was Ernest Hemingway. What I mean is, he wasn't the Ernest Hemingway, he was just someone who happened to be named Ernest Hemingway.”

"Who's that?" Schwartz asked. "Ernest Hemingway.”

"I'll bet we look in the phone book right this minute," Meyer said, "we'll find a dozen Marilyn Monroes.”

"Which wasn't her real name, either," Schwartz said. "What was her real name?" Kling asked. "The girl who brought the ring in?”

“No. Marilyn Monroe.”

“I don't know.”

"So what'd this woman look like?" Meyer asked. It bothered him now that he couldn't remember what Marilyn Monroe's real name was. Kling had a habit of bringing up annoying little questions that could bug a man all day long..

"She was maybe thirty, thirty-five years old," Schwartz said.

"Five-four, weighed a hundred and ten, brown hair, brown eyes, nice trim figure. Wearing shorts and a T-shirt ... well, this rotten weather. Sandals. Blue sandals.”

"You noticed what she had on her feet?”

"Woman in shorts, a nice trim figure, you notice her legs and her feet.”

"Did she give you an address?”

"She did. Which is why I figured maybe Marilyn Monroe was her real name, after all. I mean, it a person's going to pick a phony name, why such a famous one?”

"That's right," Meyer said.

"Was what I figured.”

"Norma Something," Kling said. "I don't think so," Meyer said. "Also, she gave me a phone number.”

“Did she show you identification?”

"No. She said it was an heirloom she had to hock because she'd left her wallet in a taxi with a lot of money in it.”

"You believed her.”

"It could happen. This city, anything could happen. Besides, I was getting a twelve-thousand-dollar ring for three thousand.”

"Ever occur to you it might be stolen?”

"It occurred. It also occurred it might only be lost. People don't usually report lost items to the police. So if it wasn't reported, it wouldn't show up on any list, -am I right? And if it isn't on a list, then I don't know it's stolen goods and I'm still a bona fide purchaser for value. Was what I thought.”

"Can we have the address and phone number she gave you?”

"Sure. You going to take the ring, right?”

“We have to.”

“Sure.”

"We'll give you a receipt for it.”

"Sure," Schwartz said. "Sometimes I wish I wasn't so honest.”

"Jean Something?" Kling said.

river blunted the edge of the afternoon heat, promising eventual relief, perhaps even rain. Carella sat with his sister on a bench overlooking the distant water. Her twin daughters were on the playground equipment. Cynthia and Melinda, reduced to Cindy and Mindy, as Carella had dreaded would happen from the moment she named them. Her older daughter had fared better. Tess, modern and sleek, for Teresa, which conjured up cobblestoned streets in a mountaintop village in Potenza. Tess was supervising the twins now. Seven years old and looking after the little ones. Cindy and Mindy had been born on the twenty-eighth of July, eleven days after his father was killed. They reminded him of his own twins when they were small. It occurred to him that his sister was one of the few people in the world who knew him when he himself was small. Forty, he reminded himself. In October, you will be forty. "It was good of you to meet me," Angela said. "It's no trouble," he said.

It was four o'clock, and he was on his way home, but he'd have met his sister whenever, wherever, because he loved her to death. She had specified the park, it would be cooler than her apartment, she'd said.

We have to talk, she'd said. He waited now for her to begin. In his profession, he was skilled at waiting for people to begin talking.

"It finally looks as if it's going to be a clean break," she said.

She was talking about her divorce. Married for twelve years, and now a divorce. He would always remember the date of her wedding. He had rushed Teddy to the hospital directly from the reception, not Twelve years ago this past June. His twins had turned his sister, twelve on the twenty-second. And he would be forty face, he in October. Cut it out, he thought. It's not the end of come on, the world. Oh no? he thought, he knew "Tommy's moving to California. I think he met a going toi girl who lives out there, he's leaving at the end of the possibly month. It'll be better, Steve, I really think so. It's still "I painful, you know. I mean, whenever he comes by to drew pick up Tess and the twins, I remember what it used to have be like. It's painful, Steve. Divorce is painful?”

People who had twins never referred to them as “the kids" or "the children," they were always "the twins." He wondered what that must be like for twins a lot themselves, always to be referred to as half of a Steve whole, like a comedy team. The last time he'd seen his brother-in-law was when Tommy had told him he was entering a rehab program. That was after the marriage "His was shot, after he'd stolen and hocked virtually everything they'd owned, after he'd hit Angela with a '“

closed fist one night when she tried to stop him from taking the twins' silver teething rings that were a gift from Aunt Josie in Florida, Carella wanted to kill him.

So now he was moving to California, and Angela thought it would be for the best, which it. probably would but was that why she'd asked to meet him in the park at four o' clock in the afternoon? He waited.

He was very good at waiting.

"Steve," she said, and drew a deep breath. "Steve, honey, you're not going to like this.”

He knew at once what it was. And he knew he was not going to like It, ............... his sister, and when he saw the troubled look on her face, he wanted to take her in his arms and say, Hey, come on, Sis, this is me, how bad can it be, huh? But he knew how bad it could be, knew what she was going, to tell him, and wondered how he could possibly handle it.

"I know how you feel about Henry," she said, and drew another deep breath. "I know you think he could have sent Sonny Cole to prison, that somehow he screwed up ...”

"Angela ...”

"No, please, Steve, let me finish. I've talked to him a lot about the case, and he really did do his best, Steve, he really was surprised by some of the stuff the defense ...”

"He shouldn't have been surprised;' Carella said. "His job is not to be surprised. Sonny Cole killed Papa! And Lowell let him walk.”

"So did you, Steve," she said.

Which she shouldn't have thrown back at him because he'd been talking brother to sister when he'd told her about that night in a deserted hallway with only Sonny Cole and a black cop named Randall Wade who kept whispering "Do it" in his ear. He hadn't told that to anyone else in the world but his wife, and now Angela was throwing it back at him.

He had done what he'd thought was the right thing. If he had pulled the trigger on Sonny Cole that, night.." no, he couldn't have.

"I believe in the system," he said now.

"So do I.”

:--1 taougat me system ... "So did I. But Henry isn't the system. It was the system that let Cole walk after Henry did his best to put him away. You have to believe that, Steve.”

"Why should I?”

"Because we're moving in together.”

“Great," he said. "The man who ...”

“No.”

"Yes! He did screw up, Angela. That's why Sonny, Cole is still out there someplace ..." his arm going up now, his finger pointing out over the small hill above the park, his finger stabbing at the near distance ... "... maybe killing somebody else's father!”

From where Sonny lay on his belly on the grassy knoll overlooking the park below, he thought at first that Carella had spotted him and was pointing at him. He didn't know who the girl with him on the bench was, but all at once both of them were up on their feet and the girl was hugging him and Carella just stood there looking sort of helpless and foolish and then he ... There was something so familiar about the gesture. he brought his hand up and put it on top of the girl's head, just rested it on top of her head. Watching them, Sonny remembered a time long ago when he had a little sister who'd fallen down and skinned her knee and he'd put his big hand on top of her head just the way Carella was doing with the girl down there in the park, gentling her, soothing her, and he knew all at once that this girl was Carella's younger sister, same as Ginny had been his younger sister.

He didn't know why he was all at once trembling. He got to his feet, and looked once more down the grassy slope. Carella was taking his sister in his arms now, both of them standing there still as stone, crying maybe, Sonny couldn't tell. Crying maybe for the father he'd killed, maybe crying for him.

He ran off down the other side of the grassy slope, away from the scene below, looking for the green Honda where he'd parked it, thinking I got to do this soon, I got to do this fucking thing soon.

Carella asked the long distance operator for time and charges before he placed his call to California. This was police business and he was but a poor overworked, underpaid servant of the law who hoped to be reimbursed if he put in a chit. It was eight o' clock here in the East, and they had just finished eating dinner. Out there in San Luis Elizario, it was five eM.; he hoped convent nuns didn't start their evening meal early. He hoped they weren't still at vespers or something. He hoped Sister Carmelita Diaz, the major superior of the Order of Sisters of Christ's Mercy was well rested after her long journey from Rome the day before. He hoped God had whispered in her ear the name of the person who had killed Mary Vincent. Or Kate Cochran, as the case might be.

"Hello?" she said. "Detective Carella?”

"Yes, how are you, Sister?”

"Oh, fine," she said. "A bit of jet lag, but otherwise very good.”

There was only the faintest trace of Spanish accent in her voice. For some reason, he visualized a large woman. Tall, big-boned, wide of girth. Wearing the traditional black habit of the order, the way Sister Beryl had at the Riverhead convent. He thought he could hear birds chirping out there in California. He imagined a Spanish-style structure, all stucco and tiles, arches and parapets, a cream-colored edifice, a monument to God built on the edge of the sea.

"Am I hearing birds?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, all sorts of birds, you'd think St. Francis was here on a visit.”

He dared not ask how old she was. Her voice sounded quite young and robust. Again, he imagined a large woman, perhaps in her early forties.

"Are you by the sea?" he asked.

"The sea? Oh no. Oh dear no. We're in downtown San Luis Elizario, such as it is. The sea? Dear, no, the sea is forty miles away. Tell me what happened, please. We're positively numb out here, we all knew poor Katie so well.”

He told her she'd been killed, told her that her body had ... "How?" she asked at once.

"Strangled," he said. told her that Kate's body had been found in a big park here in the middle of the city ... "Grover," she said.

"Yes. You've been here?”

"Many times." here in the middle of the city not far from the police station, actually. This was last Friday night, the twenty-first. He told her he'd been talking to many of her friends and associates, sisters in the order, doctors and nurses she worked with, a priest named Father Clemente ... "Yes.”

"A wonderful man." but that so far they hadn't the faintest clue as to why she'd been killed. Unless there was something about her they yet didn't know. Something she may have revealed to Sister Diaz ... "Oh, call me Carmelita, please," she said. "I always feel if I have to call myself "Sister' to let people know I'm a nun, then I'm not getting Christ's message across. They should realize I'm a nun just by taking one look at me.”

"Trouble is, I can't see you," Carella said.

"I'm five-five and I weigh a hundred and sixteen pounds. I have short brown hair and brown eyes, and right now I'm smoking a cigarette and sitting in the sunshine in a small garden outside my office. Which is why you're hearing all the bird racket. What makes you think Kate was hiding something?”

"I didn't suggest that.”

"But something about her is troubling you. What is it, Detective?”

"Okay," he said. "We think someone may have been trying to blackmail her.”

Carmelita burst out laughing.

Her hearty laugh fortified the image of a large woman in a roomy habit.

Five-five, he reminded himself.

"That's absurd," she said. "What could anyone hope to extort from a nun'.,”

Echoes of Lieutenant Peter Byres, thank you.

"Then was she in debt? She seemed very concerned about money.”

--Ac you faring at out tier budget? I'm arala she was always complaining about the budget. Never had enough to spend. Always asked me to loosen up a little. Give me a break here, will you, Carmelita? Let me go buy a good pair of shoes every now and then. The problem may have come from being on the outside. Each sister in the order receives a standard diocesan stipend, you see, in our case ten thousand a year.

Half of that comes back here to San Luis, to support the mother house and any sisters who are retired or ill. Kate's salary came here, too.

As a licensed practical nurse, she earned almost fifty thousand a year.

The mother house budgeted her according to her needs, apportioning enough for her to live on. She did take vows of poverty, you know.

That doesn't mean she had to starve. But neither does it mean she could live extravagantly.”

"Then this wasn't a recent thing? Her complaining about money?”

"Hardly. For a while, though, she was used to handling her own finances. And a person develops a sort of independence on the outside.”

Carella had missed this the first time around, but this time it registered.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "It was my understanding that she'd been a nun for the past six years. Isn't that so?”

"Oh yes. Entered the convent six years ago, began her training back then. Started as a postulant ... well, do you know how this works, Detective?”

"I'm not sure I do.”

"The training in our order ... there are many orders of Catholic sisters in the world, you see, and they all do things differently. What we all share, of course, is our devotion to Christ.

As for the rest ... oh dear," she said, and he could imagine her rolling her eyes the way Annette Ryan had. "Kate's family objected to her entering the order, you know. I'm sure they'd have taken a fit if they'd seen her going through what I call God's boot camp ...”

It is as if Vatican II has never happened.

The mistress of postulants is a battle-ax nun who wears her habit like armor. It is she who leads the novitiate Katherine Cochran to the barracks-like building where she will live with eighteen other women in training for the next several years. The room she enters is severe by any standards. The floor is made of wide wooden planks, the walls are a painted white stucco. There is a small window high on one wall, overlooking a garden where now in this summer six years ago Kate can hear much the same birds Sister Carmelita is listening to as she relates all this to a detective three thousand miles away. There is a wooden cot in the room, a thin mattress on it, and a slip-covered pillow upon which rests a simple wooden crucifix. There is a chair.

There is a hanging curtain that shields a closet with a shelf and a hanging rod. There is a small dresser with a bowl and a pitcher.

Throughout the night, Kate wonders if she's done the right thing, is doing the right thing. She can hear the gentle snoring of a postulant in the cell next door. She is very far away from home. At last she dozes off. And at last it is morning somehow.

A Dell sounas, calling to prayer the postulants ano the novices and the seventy-four professed nuns who make their home in the mother house. It is not yet dawn. The sky beyond Kate's small window is pink with morn gloam Before bedtime tonight, she will wash in the communal shower down the hall, but for now she bathes her face, hands, and underarms with a plain white bar of soap, and water she pours from the pitcher into the large white bowl. The water is cold. Although Kate may in the future choose whatever modest clothing she wishes to wear, during this intense period of discernment she dresses in the traditional habit of the order. Her uniform is a three quarter-length black skirt and a black T-shirt from Gap, black socks, black rubber-soled shoes. On her head, she wears a black cap over which she drapes the white veil. In silence, she follows the others down the white-walled corridor to the chapel, her hands clasped.

The mistress of postulants, whose name is Sister Clare, stands behind the altar and looks out at the young women, their eyes lowered, their heads bent. "Dear Lord," she says, "open my lips." Matins is the first morning prayer.

Kate's daily schedule is structured around prayer. The seven canonical hours.

Prime comes at six A.M. Terce is at nine. Sext is said at noon. Nones is the three P.M. prayer. Vespers is the evening prayer. And comp line is said before bedtime. Structured. Ritualized.

There are strict rules here.

life has been dropping steadily. Kate entering class numbers only eighteen as compared to a hundred and four in 1965 . the intensity of OSCM training has not diminished in the slightest. Postulants may not speak to second-year novices or to any of the professed sisters, all of whom are in their fifties or sixties. They may not enter another novice's room. They may not break the code of silence. They may not be tardy for morning prayers. They may not meet privately with another sister. They may not ... "Well, it's very much like boot camp,”

Carmelita says, and laughs again. "But they're learning to relinquish the material world and concentrate upon their spiritual selves. They're learning to sacrifice joyously, for those who follow Christ receive in hundredfold.”

For Kate, the six-month postulancy seems an eternity.

When at last she is asked by Sister Carmelita if she indeed has a vocation, she answers, "I do, Sister.”

"And do you feel ready to enter a year of concentrated spiritual preparation for your first vows?”

“I am, Sister.”

"Are you ready to dedicate yourself completely to the work of the apostolate?”

"I am, Sister.”

"To give up all to serve our Lord Jesus Christ ...”

“I am.”

"... for He who clothes the lilies of the field and provides for the little sparrows cares infinitely more for the needs of His brides.”

Kate is asked to choose a new name.

She picks "Mary" after Christ's. mother and "Vincent," which is her brother's name, but also the name of one of God's saints. When she later becomes a professed nun, she may decide for herself whether she wishes to continue using the name she chose at the beginning of her novitiate. But as she starts her instruction in the Holy Rule, and the obligations of the vows, and the spiritual life, she is Sister Mary Vincent.

A year later, just as she is ready to take her first vows, she tells Sister Carmelita that she wishes to leave the order.