Bad Faith Read Online Free Page A

engulfed her, but she’d been wrong. Seeing him up close for the first time in years sent a jolt of emotion through her. Tom Green’s dark brown hair had turned gray around the temples, and his face had acquired some hard lines, but the kid she’d known in school was still there—the ten-year-old boy who’d driven Sister Charitas crazy by making a list of the creatures Noah should have left off the Ark, such as flies, centipedes, and schoolteachers. Then the college senior who’d filled their apartment with balloons and roses on her birthday—only to find out he’d gotten the date wrong.
    He strode up to her, a scowl on his face. “Are you in charge here now?”
    She nearly choked. “No, not hardly.” Her gaze fell on the men from the office of the medical examiner as they crouched by Father Anselm’s body.
    “Who’s the head nun? Mother Superior?”
    “Reverend Mother Margaret Mary is our abbess,” she answered.
    “I need to interview her right now, and everyone else who was present at Mass.”
    “The parishioners who attended Mass have already gone home. Father Anselm’s abrupt death frightened them and they left as soon as possible. I didn’t try to stop them because they were witnesses to a tragedy, not a crime.”
    “Get Reverend Mother.”
    She took a deep breath and tried to get her temper in check. “This is a
monastery,
Sheriff, and we are a
cloistered
order. Most of the nuns here don’t have contact with the outside world. You can’t just barge in here, order Reverend Mother about, and disrupt everything—”
    “The priest’s death is responsible for the disruption, not me. I’m here to help put things back to normal. Now either bring the abbess here or take me to see her.”
    As a nun, Sister Agatha should have been used to following orders, but it had always been one of her shortcomings. Right now she was feeling protective. This monastery was her home, the nuns her family. Reverend Mother, in particular, carried the weight of all temporal and spiritual matters that concerned the monastery. She didn’t need any additional burdens. She would do everything in her power to protect their abbess.
    “You can’t enter the enclosure,” she said firmly. “You’ll have to go to the outer parlor, and she’ll come to the grille. You can speak to her there.”
    “Like a jail, huh?”
    She shot him a hard look, and he shrugged. As she started to leave the chapel, she saw Sister Mary Lazarus and Sister Bernarda come out of the hallway that led to the cloister, bucket and scrubbing brushes in hand. They were obviously intending to clean up the chapel—their usual task after Mass.
    “Stop right there, Sisters,” Sheriff Green’s voice cracked through the air like a whip. “No one touches anything until I say so. Is that clear?”
    “Tom,” Sister Agatha reached out and touched his arm lightly.
    He glanced back at her and moved his arm away. “You’re Sister Agatha now, and I’m Sheriff Green. Don’t try to use our former friendship to manipulate me. I’m here on official business, and I have a job to do. Now go tell your superior I’ll need to speak to her in ten minutes. Then come back here. I have to get your statement, too.”
    “All right. But get this through your thick head. If you intend to get any cooperation from this monastery, you’ll treat Reverend Mother with the respect she deserves.”
    After Sister Agatha and the other extern nun, Sister Bernarda, described the events and their observations and actions leading up to the arrival of the primary response team, Sheriff Green went to speak to Reverend Mother.
    The outer parlor was divided from the enclosure by a grid of vertical and horizontal metal rods that physically separated the two areas, though visibility was only slightly impaired. Sheriff Green stood before the grille and stared at the bars with distaste. “Mother Abbess, I’m here as a law enforcement official. I’d rather speak to you