“Sister Margaret has been stashed at some kind of cloistered convent in Westchester County. You feel up to chasing her down?”
“Try to stop me,” Sharon said.
Devlin handed her the list Boom Boom had e-mailed. It carried the name of every Opus Christi member in greater New York and included his or her place of residence and current work assignment—except for the supernumerarier, whose identities were concealed even from the members. Boom Boom had already made the list, along with his cover job as a computer technician for the City of New York. His name, along with half a dozen others, was marked with an asterisk to indicate his probationary status.
Sharon smiled as she flipped through the names. “Nice that they have all this. I wonder how they’ll explain not giving it to us a week ago when all they had to do was click the mouse on their damned computer? It’s obvious—with Boom Boom on the list—that they keep it pretty current.”
“You never heard of a computer going down?” Devlin said sarcastically. He took the list back, laid it on his desk, and gave it a gentle pat. “I think we’ll find out they update this little baby every day.” He grinned across the desk. “Ironic, isn’t it? How their need to know where everyone is every minute of the day put this in our hands.”
“Could piss them off when they realize it,” Sharon said.
Devlin nodded. “A sense of humor, it’s a terrible thing to waste. Who knows? Maybe this will help them catch on to an idea like that.” He turned serious and gave Sharon a long look. “You sure you’re really up to this? The effects of a bullet wound can stay with you quite a while. I know from personal experience.”
They were seated across from each other in Devlin’s office, and throughout their conversation Sharon had struggled to conceal the dull, throbbing pain in her shoulder. “I’m fine,” she said. “Your bullet wound was a lot worse than the little nick I got.” She gave him an all-knowing smile. “And if I’m not mistaken, sir, you climbed out of a hospital bed and went after the person who set you up.”
Devlin nodded. “Yeah, I seem to remember that. I also seem to remember how useless I was, and how a certain lady sergeant had to come along and save my sorry ass.”
Sharon gave him a small shrug. “That’s what lady sergeants are for.”
Devlin leveled a finger at her. “You’re sure you’re up to this?”
“I’m sure.”
“You may hit the same stone wall again. This is a cloistered convent, and it’s run by the same people.”
Sharon’s eyes hardened. “I’ll get in,” she said, “and I’ll see that nun.”
A small smile played at the corners of Devlin’s mouth. He had no doubt she would. “I’m sending someone with you,” he said.
Sharon’s eyes narrowed. “Not Ollie, for chrissake.”
Devlin laughed, then shook his head. “He’s busy playing watchdog for Father Janis. I’ll send Red. He looks like an overweight Boy Scout. Maybe it’ll help get you inside the convent.”
Our Lady of Perpetual Light convent sat on fifty acres of meticulously groomed woodland and lawn located just north of Bedford in Westchester County. Originally owned by another Catholic order, the convent had occupied the site since 1925 and had provided a steady stream of teaching nuns for Catholic schools along much of the East Coast. Then modernity had struck, bringing with it the rise of feminism and a steady decline in the number of young women seeking the veil. The convent struggled on for three decades but ultimately became obsolete; as the end of the century approached, the property was reluctantly put up for sale.
It was prime real estate, enough to make any developer drool, and offers poured in proposing everything from an office complex to a shopping mall to an upscale residential community. None of those offers, however, matched the one made by Opus Christi, which was rumored to have been twice the appraised value.
Now, five years later, the convent shared the property with a conference center and religious retreat, all situated behind a high stone wall that kept the site hidden from intruding eyes. Sharon and Red drove up to an imposing iron gate that closed off the main entrance. A call box was fixed to the stone wall, and Sharon got out and pressed the button.
A high, faint, timid voice answered, asking if she could help.
“Sergeant Levy and Detective Cunningham,” Sharon snapped. “We were sent up by New York Headquarters. Please open the gate.”
There was a short pause, and then the timid voice returned. “Please drive up to the main house.”
With that the gate slowly began to open.
The main house turned out to be a large three-story stone building with the air of a once-great home. Long small-paned windows looked out over a wide lawn that was dotted with stone benches set under arbors and surrounded by massive old trees. To the right, some distance from the house, stood a shrine to Our Lady of Fatima, depicting three small children kneeling before a beneficent and serene Virgin.
Sharon and Red parked their car in the circular drive and climbed wide stone steps to a massive oak door. Sharon rang the bell, and the door was opened immediately by a young nun who had obviously been awaiting their arrival.
The young woman smiled warmly, her slightly chubby face framed by the veil of her black-and-white habit. She was no more than eighteen or nineteen, and her unlined face radiated an inner peace that seemed almost unnatural.
“Are you the two police officers who called from the gate?” she asked. There was eagerness in her voice, as though their arrival was something exciting.
“Yes,” Sharon said. “We were sent up to see Sister Margaret. We were told we’d find her here.”
The young woman blinked several times, as if confused by the information. “I wonder why they didn’t call us,” she said. “They always call us when someone’s coming. They even call us when someone’s coming who’s a member of the order.”
Sharon was about to make an impromptu excuse but the young nun prattled on.
“There must be someone new working in the main office. They sent up another custodian this morning, and they didn’t call about him either. It’s very confusing when they do that.” She smiled at them warmly. “I mean, they have such very strict rules and then they don’t follow them.”
“It’s the same everywhere,” Sharon said. She wanted to end the young woman’s senseless prattle and get to Sister Margaret before someone a little brighter came along. “Is Sister Margaret here?”
“Oh, yes,” the young nun said. She laughed. “I mean she’s not here here. But she’s on the grounds. She’s over at the conference center. She’s taking part in a pro-life clinic. Just about everyone is there.” A small pout formed on her lips. “Except me. I had to stay behind to answer the phones and the door.” She brightened again, suddenly, unexpectedly. “But work—whatever we’re given—is an expression of our love of God, a path of knowledge toward Him.” She smiled, all happiness now. “They teach us here that all work is worthy and lifts us up toward a higher love of God.”
Sharon winced inwardly. “I’m sure that’s true,” she said. “How do we get to the conference center? We really need to see Sister Margaret.”
“Oh, it’s simple,” the young nun said. She stepped across the threshold and pointed toward a path laid with paving stones. “Follow the path, the one that goes past Our Lady of Fatima, and go on through the trees. The center’s just on the other side. Oh, and if you see a man wandering around like he’s lost, it’s probably the new custodian. Please tell him to follow you. He was going to the center too, but I don’t think he understood my directions. He didn’t seem to understand English too well.” She blinked. “That surprised me, because he spoke it well enough.”
“If we see him, we’ll tell him,” Sharon said.
They went along the path and passed the shrine. Up close the plaster figures of the Virgin and the three children were much larger than they had seemed from a distance. They were life-sized, Sharon realized, the children kneeling, eyes raised to the Virgin, who rose above them. The statue had been placed so it appeared to be standing on a live flowering bush that Sharon could not identify. The main figure’s eyes gazed down at the children, its face filled with maternal warmth. Beneath the grouping were numerous offerings of cut flowers, intermingled with pieces of paper held down with small stones, each seeming to hold a written prayer or entreaty. Sharon wondered if one of those written pleas had come from the young nun they had just left, some search for support in joyfully accepting the mundane tasks she was given.
“Jesus,” she said, more to herself than to Red.
“What?” Red asked.
“That young kid back there,” Sharon said. “Babbling away by rote all that stuff they’ve been feeding her.”
“Spooky,” Red agreed.
“Worse than spooky,” Sharon said. “I bet they could tell that kid to do anything, and she’d do it.”
“You thinking about the nun who smuggled the heroin?” Red asked.
“You bet your ass I am,” Sharon said.
They followed the path through a dense patch of trees and came out onto another sprawling lawn. Ahead, a long singlestory building stood at the end of the path. It was on a raised circular pedestal, the upper portion built in a misshapen U with unsupported wings extending out and tilted at sweeping angles so the entire building looked like a bird in flight. Here again, the exterior grounds held numerous stone benches, each one situated so it faced a central point: a large wooden cross, bearing a plaster representation of the crucified body of Christ. Places to sit and meditate, Sharon guessed. And to have your thoughts directed only where intended.
They entered the main door and found another young nun seated at a long table that was filled with pro-life literature. A poster hung on the wall behind her, depicting the mutilated remains of an aborted fetus. Beneath the photo were the words THE WORST KIND OF CHILD ABUSE. Sharon ground her teeth. She wished she could drag the person who had dreamed up that poster to some of the crime scenes she’d been forced to visit. Make that sucker look at the real bodies of some unwanted and unloved children, she told herself. Then send him back to the drawing board.
The young nun at the table fixed them with a broad smile, not unlike the one they’d been favored with at the convent.
“Are you here for the training session?” she asked. Then, not waiting for an answer added, “You’re late, you know. The session started at eight.”
“We’re here to see Sister Margaret,” Sharon said.
“Oh!” the young nun said, obviously surprised. “Well, she’s in the training session, and I can’t disturb her.”
“If you could just point her out,” Sharon said. “Then we’ll just wait until she’s finished.”
“Oh, yes, I can do that,” the young nun said.
They followed her to a set of double doors. She opened one barely a foot, and pointed to a long table set before an audience of about two hundred.
“There, at the end of the table on the left,” she said. “That’s Sister Margaret.”
“Thanks,” Sharon said. “We’ll just sit inside and wait until she’s finished.”
They took seats at the rear. The audience was made up of young men and women, all early to mid-twenties, each sex seated separately, divided by the aisle.
Red leaned in close and whispered. “You think we’re sinning by sitting next to each other?”
“Only in our hearts, sweetie,” Sharon whispered back, “so don’t get any false hopes up.”
A middle-aged man stood before the group in a sharply pressed summer-weight suit. He was tall and slender, with neatly bartered hair, and he spoke with the easy intensity of the professional instructor.
“Now,” he intoned, pausing for effect, “the important thing to remember is that we are doing God’s work. We are saving the lives of the unborn. We are there to help these young women—to help them decide against the murder of their unborn infants. God’s children. Children our Lord has placed in their wombs because he has decided to give them life.” The instructor raised a solitary finger as if pointing toward the heavens. “And that, my friends, is an act no one has the right to alter. Under no circumstances, at any time. To do so is to go against the will of the Almighty.”
The instructor smiled easily as he took a few steps, nodding to himself about the truth of what he had just said. Then he stopped and wheeled abruptly, to point at various individuals as he continued.
“And you, each and every one of you, will be doing the work of our Lord when you force these young women to abandon the heinous plan they have been coerced into. One day, when their children are grown, they will thank you for your actions. They will see what you did as the work of God, as the will of God, and they will bless you every day of their lives.”
He paused, walked again, and then stopped, his hands out at his sides. “So how shall we do the work of the Lord?” Again, he raised a solitary finger. “We shall do it by any means at our disposal.” He offered them a face filled with regret. “Unfortunately, one of the most effective means is through intimidation. Now this may sound cruel. We know that many of these young women are under enormous pressure. Some of them are unwed. Some are living in disadvantageous economic circumstances. A few may even have been the victims of unwanted sexual advances. But we are talking about murder here. We are talking about a greater crime—the taking of life that God has willed into the world.
“Some of you will be given cameras. We have found this a very effective means of driving these women away from these abhorrent clinics. As they approach, you step in front of them in teams of two or three people. One of you will take their photograph.” He raised a cautionary finger. “And always use the flash, even if it’s bright and sunny. The flash enhances the intimidation factor.
“You take their photograph, and you tell them it will be published in advertisements we plan to run. Tell them it will be published in our monthly newsletter and sent to thousands of people.
“Tell them they don’t want to be publicly identified as a killer of the unborn. Tell them there are other choices—charities that will help them raise their child, adoption agencies that will place that child in a loving home. Show them photographs of the mutilated bodies of the unborn and ask them if that is what they want for the life they carry inside their bodies. Ask them if that is their idea of motherhood.”
The instructor stopped and shook his head. “It may sound hard-hearted. But I tell you that every woman you drive away from these places of death will further brighten the crown you will one day wear in heaven, and when you stand before our Lord on judgment day, He will look upon you and say, “You have done well, my child. In you I am well pleased.”
The instructor stopped, arms outstretched, and called for questions. A hand went up. Sharon could not see who it was, but the would-be questioner was on the women’s side of the audience.
At that same moment Sharon noticed a bearded man in a custodian’s uniform standing at a partially opened door behind the speaker. Something struck her as odd, but she couldn’t quite place what it was. Her attention was drawn away by a question directed at the instructor.
“What about women whose health makes it dangerous to have children, or the ones who have been the victims of rape or incest? Should we make exceptions for them?”
The instructor looked at the questioner with what seemed to be great sadness. He shook his head. “This is the type of propaganda hurled at us by the abortionists.” He raised his voice to a near shout. “But don’t be fooled by it. Don’t be fooled by talk about children raised in abject poverty. Don’t be fooled by talk about children forced to live their lives with hideous physical and mental defects. Don’t be fooled by concern for a mother’s health. God makes the choice of who will live and who will die, only God. Never man.” He lowered his voice again. It was almost a whisper now, sadness creeping into his words. “And do not be fooled by talk of rape or incest. God has chosen how these children—his children—will come into this world. God has chosen the moment and the means of their conception. All of it is God’s will. There are no victims here except the unborn who are about to have life stolen from them.”
Sharon was still seething when the instructor called a twenty-minute break. She fantasized about grabbing him by his pencil neck and strangling him until he realized that some women did have control over their bodies and their ability to use them. Instead, she and Red moved out into the hall and waited for Sister Margaret. She just wanted to finish the interview and get out of there. The next item on the printed agenda dealt with birth control and the steps that could be taken to keep women from accepting contraceptive devices offered by parenthood clinics. If she were forced to listen to that she would strangle every simpering sonofabitch in the room.
The crowd pushed out of the auditorium en masse, creating a barrier that cut Sharon and Red off from Sister Margaret. They followed her outside and caught up with her just before she reached a stone bench near a small copse of trees.
Sharon introduced herself and Red and explained why they were there.
Sister Margaret seemed surprised at first; then a look of relief came to her face. She was about twenty-five, small-boned and slender, with a long nose and doelike brown eyes. Her voice was soft, almost like that of a supplicant.
“I was warned that someone might come, and I was told not to speak to anyone unless one of the numerarier was with me,” she said. She looked around, as if searching to see if one was nearby. “I told my superiors that I wanted to talk to the police, but they said that might not be wise. They said to wait until everyone was certain the time was right.”
“When will that be?” Sharon asked. She struggled to keep sarcasm out of her voice.
Sister Margaret shook her head. “I don’t know. But I still want to talk to you. I just … I just …”
“Let’s sit down,” Sharon suggested. “We can talk off the record if you want. Then later, if a formal statement is needed, we can do it when one of your numerarier can be there.”
That seemed to satisfy the nun, and she smiled with obvious relief. They sat on the stone bench; Sister Margaret perched delicately on its edge, Sharon and Red on either side. To their right, the custodian Sharon had noticed inside was now kneeling beside a garden about twenty yards from the bench.
“Tell us about the last time you saw Sister Manuela,” Sharon began, still watching the bearded custodian as he worked in the garden. Again, something that she couldn’t quite identify seemed wrong about the man.
Tears suddenly filled the nun’s eyes and she sniffed them back, the sound of her distress drawing Sharon’s attention. “It was at the airport,” she said. “We had just returned from Colombia. Sister had become ill on the plane, and she seemed to get worse after we passed through customs. We sat down to rest. Then a man came up to her and spoke to her in Spanish.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand the language very well, only a word or two, but he seemed to be asking what was wrong. I wasn’t concerned, because I had seen him before we left, at the airport in Bogota. Sister had introduced him as a relative who was also traveling to the United States. So it made sense that he would come up to us, especially if he thought Sister wasn’t well.”
“And Sister Manuela left with him?” Red asked.
The nun nodded. “That was strange, and it did concern me. Sister said he was going to take her to a doctor, and that I should take our things back to our headquarters in Manhattan, and she would meet me there later.” She shook her head. “But that isn’t how things are supposed to be with us. We’re not supposed to go places alone. We’re always supposed to go in pairs. I tried to tell Sister that, but the man just took her and started off, and I had all our bags there, so I couldn’t just leave them and follow.” Tears filled her eyes again. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“What did this man look like?” Sharon asked.
Sister Margaret began to describe the man.
“Hey, that sounds like the guy at your apartment,” Red said.
Sharon’s head snapped back to the garden. That was it. That was what was wrong. The beard on the custodian was fake; without it—
Sharon rose quickly, her hand going to the automatic at her hip. “Get the nun under cover,” she snapped at Red, as she pulled the pistol from her holster.
Emilio had already taken his own automatic from inside his shirt, and Sharon could see the bulbous suppressor attached to the barrel.
Behind her Red had seen it too, and he pushed Sister Margaret roughly off the bench and dropped in front of her, shielding her body with his own.
Emilio fired first, three rapid rounds. Sharon assumed a shooter’s two-handed stance and returned fire. She was short of her target, the bullets kicking up turf and dirt a foot in front of the Colombian.
The surrounding lawn was crowded with people from the pro-life training session, and the sound of gunfire set them screaming and racing for cover.
Emilio fired again and Sharon felt a gust of air by her cheek as the bullet passed within inches of her head. Then the Colombian was up and running. He headed directly into the scattering crowd of people, forcing Sharon to withhold fire.
“I’m going after him.” She glanced back over her shoulder and saw Red clutching his thigh. Blood seeped through his fingers.
“You’re hit,” she said, finding the words unbelievable even as she spoke them.
“I’m okay,” he snapped. “So’s the sister. Get the sonofabitch. I’ll call for help on my cell phone.”
Sharon took off at a fast trot, ready to dive for cover if the shooter turned to fire again. He was thirty or more yards ahead now, but his progress was slowed by his decision to weave in and out of the scattering crowd to use people for cover. Sharon chose a straight course and began to close on him quickly as he cut away from the others and plunged into a wooded grove.
They left the trees with Sharon only fifteen yards behind. Emilio turned suddenly and fired three wild shots in her direction and then spun around and was off again.
Sharon dropped to one knee and raised her Berretta, steadied it in both hands, and emptied the remainder of the sixteen-shot clip. Emilio screamed in pain and crumpled to the ground.
Sharon replaced the empty clip and got to her feet, her weapon still leveled at her target. Emilio’s automatic had fallen to his side, and he reached out for it. Sharon fired two shots into the ground in front of him and continued to advance as his hand froze.
“Reach for it again, you slimy little prick, and I’ll blow your fucking head off.”
Emilio stared up at her as she approached. The false beard hung loosely to one side, and his lips curled with unadulterated hatred. “Puta,” he muttered.
Sharon stepped forward and kicked him in the groin and then stepped back and watched him hunch into a ball of pain. “I prefer to be called a ballbreaker, not a whore,” she said. “And by the way, you owe me for a new fucking suit.”