Wednesday morning was just plain gloomy. Mary Helen pulled the collar of her Aran sweater up around her ears, stuck her hands deep into its narrow pockets, and slammed the convent door behind her.
“Overcast, with a slight chance of rain,” the radio announcer had said on the early-morning news, but gloomy would have been a much more accurate description.
Head down, she started up the hill toward the college. Yesterday had been so beautiful, but this morning the asphalt driveway was shiny and slick. It must have sprinkled during the night.
At the top of the hill, she stopped to catch her breath. Students, late for the first class of the morning, hurried across the nearly deserted campus.
Dark, heavy clouds made the sky seem lower, and in the gloom the lilies of the Nile bordering the circular drive were almost purple.
“Sister Mary Helen, telephone!” The campus loudspeaker startled her. “Sister Mary Helen, telephone!” a nasal voice repeated, crackling the message out over the hill. What the switchboard operator lacked in enunciation, she more than made up for in volume.
Mary Helen checked her watch. It’s just after eight o’clock, she thought, hurrying toward the main office. Who in the world would be calling at this hour? She felt a little apprehensive. Early-morning and late-night phone calls always did that to her. It couldn’t be Caroline Coughlin already, or could it?
At eight-twenty sharp, Caroline’s root beer-colored Cadillac glided up in front of the convent. Mary Helen barely had time to change her sweater and leave a note for Eileen telling her where she would be.
“Hop in the front with us, Sister.” Lucy Lyons shoved the heavy door open and, scooting over toward Caroline, patted the broad white leather seat beside her.
“I couldn’t wait another minute,” Caroline said as soon as Mary Helen pulled the car door shut.
“To tell you the truth, I couldn’t even wait this long,” Mary Helen confessed, wondering how Caroline was going to take to being upstaged. “Sister Eileen and I dropped by her apartment building yesterday.”
“And did you two find out anything?” Caroline’s tone seemed a bit icy, but Lucy studied her with anxious eyes.
Mary Helen pretended not to notice the tone and squeezed Lucy’s hand. “Unfortunately, not a thing more than you told me on the phone Monday evening.”
Without a word, Caroline drove down the hill and onto Turk Street. “Since none of us heard from Erma yesterday and since no one yet knows her exact whereabouts,” she said finally, “I suggest we make every effort to locate her. It is just not like her to leave without saying a word.”
The root-beer Cadillac stopped for a light. “Perhaps we can best establish the whereabouts of our mutual friend if we all stick together.” Caroline leaned forward and gave Mary Helen her dowager-queen smile.
“That Mr. Finn did say she went to visit relatives.” Ignoring the jab, Mary Helen tried to be calm and reasonable. Bickering among themselves wouldn’t benefit anyone, especially not Erma Duran.
“And didn’t he tell Noelle that he thought they were in St. Louis? Although-I have to agree with you-it is just not like her not to have called someone, if only so we wouldn’t worry.”
Seemingly appeased, Caroline turned on Divisadero Street and made her way into the heart of the crowded Western Addition.
“Immediately after I called you, I picked Lucy up,” she said, as if Lucy weren’t present. “She said she never heard Erma speak of any St. Louis relatives.”
Mary Helen glanced at the woman sitting between them. Poor Lucy looked exactly as though she had been picked up-snatched might be more like it-from right in the middle of whatever she had been doing at eight o’clock in the morning. Her faded violet jogging suit was damp at the knees, and there was mud on the toes of her worn Nikes. Her makeup looked slapdash and her gray braid was badly in need of replaiting. The dark circles under her eyes showed she had spent a sleepless night.
“If anything should happen to Erma because we didn’t act, I for one would never forgive myself.” Caroline took her eyes off the traffic-clogged street long enough to peer around Lucy. “Isn’t that the way you feel, girls?”
“Of course,” Mary Helen answered. She wished Caroline would keep her eyes on the road and stop tailgating.
“Please stop saying ‘if anything should happen to Erma,’ ” Lucy snapped with uncharacteristic harshness. “I’m sorry, Caroline,” she apologized quickly, “but I really don’t even want to begin thinking that way.”
They drove for several blocks in an awkward silence. Mary Helen stared out the window. All their nerves must be on edge. She tried to concentrate on the mixture of stately homes and flats above small storefronts that lined the busy street and think of something to say. She wondered for a moment if she would ever get used to seeing a Victorian, complete with towers, turrets, and Turkish cupolas, atop a Chinese take-out restaurant.
Caroline sailed up the hill, skirting Buena Vista Park. They passed Ralph K. Davies Hospital and picked up Castro Street. Mary Helen couldn’t believe that they had crossed the City so quickly.
“So, Lucy, were you jogging already this morning?” she asked, more to break the tension than for any other reason.
“I probably should have been,” Lucy responded quickly. Apparently she, too, wanted to smooth things over. “You know what they say: ‘Use it or lose it!’ What I was actually doing was a little remedial weeding.”
Mary Helen was still groaning when they stopped across the street from Alphonso’s Bistro at the bottom of the steep Sanchez Street hill. Carefully, Caroline eased the large car into a perpendicular parking space.
What a sight the three of us must make! Mary Helen thought, struggling against gravity to push open the heavy door. Lucy in her jogging outfit, me in my navy-blue nun’s suit, and Caroline, crisp in jade linen, complete with gloves and a turbanlike hat that looks as if she had borrowed it from Queen Elizabeth.
Caroline led the trio across the street. If she hadn’t known better, Mary Helen would have thought Caroline was on her way to an exclusive garden party in Hillsborough rather than to Erma’s apartment over the bistro on 18th and Sanchez. She literally leaned on Al Finn’s doorbell.
Considering what the sound must have done to his nerves, Mary Helen thought the man was surprisingly courteous when he cracked open the door. Courteous, but not quite awake.
“I’m dreadfully sorry to have disturbed you, Mr. Finn,” Caroline began, ignoring the fact that he was standing bleary-eyed and barefoot in his undershirt and boxer shorts.
Feeling a little like one of the villagers in “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” Mary Helen looked directly at the man’s sleep-creased face. She wondered for a moment where Lucy was looking.
“But we are terribly worried about our friend Erma,” Caroline continued, with a flourish of her gloved hand. “May we trouble you for the key to her apartment?”
Finn grunted, shut the door, and left them standing on the stoop. Mary Helen wasn’t sure whether he didn’t recognize her or was just too sleepy to acknowledge that they had met.
“Did you notice that gentleman’s hair?” Caroline whispered.
Lucy couldn’t resist. “Did you say hair or bare?”
Finn reappeared, looking, in Mary Helen’s opinion, a lot like an unmade bed. Uneven suspenders held his crumpled pants up over a crumpled shirt. His toe protruded from a gaping hole in one of the socks he had managed to slip over his bare feet.
Without a word, he opened Erma’s door and led them up the narrow carpeted staircase. The top step opened into a high-ceilinged, sparsely furnished living room. The wooden banister and stairs formed one wall. French doors on the opposite wall separated it from the combination dining room-kitchen.
Stifling a yawn, Finn shoved his hands into his pockets and leaned against the banister. He shifted uneasily. “I don’t know about letting you ladies in here.” Apparently, the more awake he became, the more aware he was of what he was doing.
“Nonsense!” Caroline said, leading the other two women down the narrow hallway toward the back room where the apartment abruptly ended. The floor plan looked as if someone had taken a spacious Victorian flat and cut it in half. And Erma had gotten the worse half.
Mary Helen could hear Finn’s bare feet padding down the hall behind them. “I ain’t so sure this is right,” he muttered.
The bedroom door was closed. Caroline grasped the old-fashioned brass knob. Closing her eyes, Mary Helen tried to quell the feeling of dread that shot through her like a sharp pain. She knew it was foolish. Erma’s daughter had already been in the apartment. Logically she knew the feeling came from her experience of finding Suzanne.
Despite logic, Erma’s face flashed before her-those trusting brown eyes, that ready smile. She held her breath as Caroline turned the handle. Behind that door would they find that familiar round face permanently frozen in terror?
The bedroom door swung back easily. Reluctantly Mary Helen opened her eyes. Empty and undisturbed! She relaxed her shoulders, but it took several moments before her heart slowed down.
Years ago, she remembered, a retreat master had said that a person’s bedroom told a great deal about that person. In Erma’s case, the remark really rang true.
The room was bright and cheerful. The bedspread, the draperies, a slipper chair were all in flowered print. The sturdy mahogany bed, the matching chest of drawers and nightstand were sturdy and well cared for. Erma had undoubtedly brought them from her parents’ home and lovingly polished them for years.
Next to a door, which probably led to the bathroom, stood an old-fashioned dresser with a silver comb-and-brush set carefully arranged on its crocheted runner. Family photographs covered most of the dresser top. Recent snapshots of smiling family and friends were stuck everywhere in the carved mirror frame. Three children’s handprints in plaster hung on the wall beside the mirror.
From a corner shelf the shadowless icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help shed its radiance on those around. The Madonna smiled sadly and her compassionate eyes embraced the room. A baroque vigil light had been placed before the gilded painting. The votive candle inside was nearly burned out.
Looking around, Mary Helen could feel a lump form in her throat. Please, Lord, she prayed, don’t let anything have happened to good old Erma Duran.
“Look in here.” Caroline swung the closet door open. Mary Helen felt a little guilty about looking, as though she were invading Erma’s privacy.
“Just look,” Caroline repeated. A few dresses, a coat, two suits, a couple of blouses, and a worn wool jacket hung in the immaculate closet. Several shoe boxes and a couple of purses occupied the top shelf. Two cardboard boxes were stacked on the bare floor next to a suitcase.
Erma’s suitcase… That’s strange, Mary Helen thought, turning toward Mr. Finn.
Before she had a chance to say anything, Caroline bent over and picked up the paper tag still attached to the handle. “Look at this! She didn’t even remove the luggage tag. And none of her clothing seems to be missing. Although, Lucy, you’d know that better than I.”
Lucy! Mary Helen realized with a start that the woman had not uttered one word since they’d entered the room. Caroline and Mary Helen turned toward her.
Lucy’s small, peaked face was white. Behind her horn-rimmed glasses, her eyes brimmed with tears. “Oh, God,” she said, “I was hoping-”
“Hey, ladies!” By now, Finn was fully awake and frowning. “I ain’t so sure about you coming in here. People got rights, you know.” He stopped, nervously pulled at his loose suspenders. “What if Erma don’t want people knowing her business?”
Mary Helen tried to look hurt “We are not trying to pry into anyone’s business, Mr. Finn. We are just concerned about why she went away without notifying anyone.”
Finn began to blink nervously. With every blink, the yellow specks in his hazel eyes seemed to jump back and forth. “I probably shouldn’t have told you that much-”
“But the suitcase,” Caroline interrupted. “It seems inconceivable to me that one would-or could-travel without luggage.”
“I wish she’d left a forwarding address or a phone number,” Mary Helen said. “Then we could call Erma, find out what was wrong, and settle this matter-whatever it is-once and for all.”
“I told you yesterday-she said she’d call.” Finn looked at Mary Helen uncomfortably. So he had recognized her!
“I shouldn’t have said that much. And I never should have mentioned St. Louis to that other one who called. She don’t want her kids to know.”
“Know what?” Mary Helen asked, hoping it didn’t sound like prying.
“Where she went, Sister. She was trying to get away from them as fast as she could. They were bugging her. She said she’d call when she got settled.” Finn swallowed. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I guess the reason I let the cat out of the bag is because I’m getting kinda worried myself.”
Lucy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “It’s worse than I thought.” She tried to keep her voice from quivering. “Erma was very upset in New York,” she said. “I don’t know whether or not you noticed.”
Mary Helen nodded. She didn’t want Lucy to realize just how much she had noticed.
“Someone had been taking money from her apartment She was afraid that whoever it was might even have taken her social-security check from her mailbox.” Lucy sniffled, feeling her jogging pants for a pocket but found none. “The check was over a week late. She had asked her daughter to pick up the mail for her, bank the check, and give her a ring in New York. But the check never arrived. Or at least, Ree-that’s her daughter-never called.”
No wonder Erma had been so upset. Mary Helen dug in her pocket for a Kleenex and handed it to Lucy. “Did she suspect it was one of her children?”
Lucy shook her head. “She just couldn’t imagine that one of them would do such a thing.” Mary Helen looked over at the three tiny handprints on the wall. It did seem unnatural that any one of those sweet, tiny hands would grow up to steal from his or her own mother. “In fact, she couldn’t imagine who would. Do such a thing, I mean.
“I told her I’d help her out. It was only money. But it really upset her. You know Erma. She’s a stickler for paying her bills on time. I couldn’t convince her that the PG and E wouldn’t shut off her gas.” Lucy dabbed at her eyes. “I had this funny feeling that something else was bothering her too. I asked, but you know Erma. Never complains, never really lets you in. I just had the feeling that something more than money was wrong. It was almost as if she was afraid of something or somebody.” Lucy raised the Kleenex to her eyes and wept.
Putting her arm around the other woman, Caroline patted her shoulder with a gloved hand. “Do you suppose we should call her children? One of them might have an idea where we can begin to look.”
“I know Ree’s number.” Lucy hiccuped. “She’s already worried. She may be the best place to start.” Wiping her eyes, she wrote the number on a pad of paper Caroline had extracted from her purse.
“And I think I’ll give Noelle a buzz first,” Caroline said, picking up the pad. “I want to bring her up-to-date.”
Finn closed the closet door as if to preserve Erma’s privacy. In the background they could hear Caroline dial the phone. From her crisp, businesslike tone and the long pauses, Mary Helen guessed she was talking to Noelle and that the two of them were “organizing, not agonizing.”
Caroline reappeared at the bedroom door. “Noelle suggests we set up a meeting with Erma’s daughter as soon as possible. Is that all right?”
Lucy and Mary Helen nodded. Only Finn shook his head. “I don’t know what you’ll be able to get out of Ree. Or out of those two knuckle-headed brothers of hers, either. Nope”-he agreed with himself-“I don’t know what you’ll be able to get out of any of them. Sure as hell not an honest day’s work.”
“We’ll see, Mr. Finn. We’ll see.” Mary Helen smiled at the man. “At least it’s worth a try.” What she really wanted to add was, Never, never, Mr. Finn, not on your longest day, underestimate the “get-out-of-them” power of this group of OWLs! But she thought better of it. Mr. Finn, she was confident, would find that out soon enough.