“Show me,” Sister Cecile said.
Saint removed the bag from her case and carefully set the rosary beads down on the desk.
“Yes,” Sister Cecile said.
“You can purchase them?” Saint said.
“Not on display…not enough shelf space. People go for the cheaper options now. But these are cedar wood. Black glass. Sister Agnes made them, and she had an eye for the beautiful. The medal. It’s Mary Magdalene.”
“The patron of penitent sinners,” Saint said.
“In my experience there isn’t another kind of sinner. Not come the end.”
Saint’s mind ran to Marty Tooms as she took out the file photographs of Eli Aaron and placed them down on the desk.
Sister Cecile replaced her glasses and stared. “Robert. He was an altar boy. I remember them all.”
“Robert?” Saint said.
“Robert Peter Frederick. I haven’t seen him in…”
“He went missing. Likely died.”
She took the news without shock. “And you found the rosary beads on him, of course.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Robert was…challenging. He took the word as gospel.”
“That’s what you’re taught, right?”
Sister Cecile smiled thinly, like she was dealing with a child. “We teach forgiveness. Ours is not a vengeful God. Robert would have been in the care of Sister Agnes before she passed.”
“She gave them to those she believed needed saving? So why did Robert need saving?” Saint said.
Sister Cecile cleared her throat. “A local woman fell pregnant. Unmarried. And she came to confession, and Robert overheard and followed her home.”
Saint stared at her.
The first hint of color in the older woman’s cheeks. “Nothing happened.”
“You told that to the police?” Saint said.
“The woman was unharmed. She didn’t wish to file a complaint.”
“And Robert?”
“Left shortly afterward.”
“We know him as Eli Aaron,” Saint said.
Sister Cecile sighed. “And he stands in judgment.”
“How did you—”
“Eli, son of Aaron. He officiated in the judgment seat. The Old Testament.”
“And what happened to him?”
“He was let down by his children. He did not punish them firmly enough when they sinned, and so God cursed him.”
“He was not harsh enough,” Saint repeated.
Eli Aaron had been raised in a children’s home. He traveled. There were likely more graves out there someplace. More missing that would never be found.
She followed her back into the bookstore, where the cash register stood unattended. Sister Cecile moved to a drawer where she retrieved the last set of rosary beads.
Saint took them and was heading out when she ran into Sister Isabelle. The two almost out into the cold air when she heard it.
“Second set of those we’ve sold this year.”
Saint stopped.
Cold.
And turned.
“Who bought them?” Saint said.
Sister Isabelle was maybe her age, her face weighty, her skin smooth and unblemished. “A man.”
Saint paled.
“It can’t be,” Sister Cecile said. “He…how did he die?”
“I set him on fire,” Saint said, reaching for the photograph.
There was a moment when she knew. Despite the time that had passed.
She read the look in Sister’s Isabelle’s eyes.
The look of a woman who had just seen a ghost.