Chapter Four
Mental Friction
There was still nosign of Peter Newman by the time Felipe and Barlow followed Sister Mary Margaret out to the graveyard. Felipe was more than a little irked that the dirty work had been foisted wholly onto him and Barlow, who wasn’t even an inspector, but at least he could trust Barlow’s eye for detail. The sun fought through the thick grey clouds that hung over the East Bronx, but little warmth made it to the ground. Wind whistled between the rows of headstones, sending a chill down Felipe’s neck despite his many layers of wool and linen. Hunkering deeper into his scarf, he eyed the naked trees lining the property. Once the assailant reached the edge of the grounds, they would have to clamber over the wall, but it was far enough away that the sisters would never see them in the dark. Perhaps that was why they had left Sister Mary Agnes to be found. Felipe imagined what it would be like to heft Louisa in human or animal form over the wall. She wasn’t a large woman, but even in his prime, it wouldn’t have been easy without help. Why bring the nun’s body outside at all, except to forestall discovery?
Sister Mary Margaret led them to the center of the cemetery where a life size statue of Mary with arms lovingly outstretched and face tender stood watch. The location felt pointed. Right before the icon’s stone base, a confusion of footprints tore up the remaining snow. Felipe kicked the slush with his boot. After sunrise, the snow had condensed and pitted as the temperatures rose. Between that and the sisters racing out to bring Sister Mary Agnes inside, any evidence of a struggle or the shoes of the person who carried her out were long since obscured. Felipe took a few pictures of the scene anyway before handing the bag to Barlow for safekeeping. Squatting down to where the body had lain, he ran his gloved fingers through the snow but found no trace of blood or hair.
“Barlow, can you come here?”
Looking between the nun and Galvan, he cautiously picked between the gravestones. In the cold, his already pale face had gone ghostly apart from a splash of pink across his nose. “Did you find anything?”
“Not yet.” Dropping his voice, Felipe added, “I want to see if you can smell any magic here.”
Barlow knelt beside him and leaned close to the ground. He acted as if he was inspecting the dirt as he sniffed closer to the base and back toward the path the nuns had cut during their rescue. Finally, he shook his head and dusted off his mittens.
“Nothing. I can’t be sure if the magic would transfer to where she was killed, but even if it was here, it may have dissipated with the wind.”
“Oh well. It was worth a shot. I don’t see anything else here of value. Let’s walk the property and see if we find any footprints.”
After sending Sister Mary Margaret inside, they began their search from the graveyard out. The one good thing about doing a case at a monastery was that it was easy to tell their footprints apart from the nuns’. Their prints were mostly concentrated like a line of ants from the backdoor straight to the graveyard, though the poor soul who had found Sister Mary Agnes had wandered the graveyard and gardens first. Besides that, there was very little to go on. There were no obvious signs of a struggle near the entrances, and as a whole, the property appeared serene. In the woods around the building, the sleet and the snow dropping off the trees had covered any useful prints, and by the time he and Barlow made it inside an hour later, their coats were soaked through with rain.
Standing in the kitchen, Felipe and Barlow hovered by the stove. Felipe hissed as the feeling returned to his fingers. Beside him, the medical examiner gave him a sympathetic look and winced as he cracked his knuckles. The woman who stood at the stove stirring a large pot of soup didn’t appear to be a nun as far as he could tell. She was far older than the women he had met, but the appraising look she was giving them spoke to a more typical life.
“You two must be frozen to the bone,” she said, the faint Welsh lilt in her voice poking through as she spoke. Pulling two cups from the cabinet, she ladled a portion of soup for each of them. “I’m sure one of them will complain, but I think you’ve earned it.”
Felipe eagerly took the cup, even though the heat of it burned his hands. He didn’t care if it scalded his throat; he just wanted to thaw. Drinking deeply, he sighed at the warmth flooding between his ribs. The skin on the roof of his mouth burned, but by the time he ran his tongue across it, the damage was gone. When he surfaced, Barlow was sipping the beef broth dubiously with a tight approximation of a polite smile.
“It’s a shame about Sister Mary Agnes. Did you gentleman find anything?”
Oliver’s eyes flashed toward Felipe, but he filled his mouth with soup to avoid speaking.
“Sadly, not much,” Felipe said with a shake of his head. “The snow destroyed most of the evidence, I’m afraid. Did you know Sister Mary Agnes well?”
“As well as any of them. She, at least, didn’t act like she was afraid of me.” At Oliver’s furrowed brows, she scoffed. “Some of them act like normal folk are diseased. The young ones seem to think I want to lure them to a life of wife-ing and mothering. As if anyone who raised five children with a louse of a husband would recommendthat. Mary Agnes at least said hello and had a proper conversation with me when she came by. She probably thought she had to since I posted her letters for her and some of the less stuck-up young ones.”
Oliver caught Felipe’s eye over his cup. “She had you mail her letters?”
Dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, the cook replied, “Apparently, the Mother Superior said they could only write if written to first. You can imagine howthatwent over.”
“It must have been hard on them to be so isolated. Do you think she had an admirer or an old flame on the outside?”
The cook scoffed. “Not at all. She seemed as devout as the rest of them, never mentioned anyone to me. Not that she would have.”
“Do you happen to remember who she wrote to?”
“Now, I’m not a snoop, but I was curious and I did look. Can’t say I remember any particular names, though. She always gave me a pile with everyone’s mixed together. I couldn’t say which was hers, especially when I don’t know their real names. I always assumed she wrote to her mother or family.”
Felipe opened his mouth to ask how often when the door to the kitchen swung in, and Inspector Newman strolled inside looking pleased with himself. Annoyance flared in Felipe’s breast at the other investigator’s dry jacket and neatly coiffed hair. Despite looking a mess upon their arrival, he looked far better than them now. How did Felipe always manage to get stuck doing the jobs no one else wanted?
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”
