Chameleon Read Free Page B

And , Moore added silently, to see how you handle the question. “Now, when your sister was found, she was wearing a religious habit … not unlike the one you’re wearing now.”
    “It was identical to this. It was one of my habits.”
    Moore raised an eyebrow.
    “She asked to borrowit—just forlast evening,” Joan explained.
    “This was unusual?”
    “It was the first time she’d ever asked for that.”
    “You didn’t object? Wasn’t it a rather odd request? Bizarre, even?”
    “As a matter of fact, I did object … at first. But …”
    “I should think you might object. But you did let her have it.”
    “Helen usually got what she wanted.”
    “Oh?”
    “She’d stay on a request like a bulldog. Persistence was her long suit.”
    “She say why she wanted the uniform?”
    “She said she was going to a masquerade party.”
    “You believed that?”
    “Hardly. But the more I pressed her the more vague she became. She just kept after me until my resistance was worn thin.”
    “She picked it up last night?”
    Joan nodded. “I left her the key. I was going to be out—I’m out frequently in the evenings. My job—”
    “Which is—?”
    “I’m the delegate for religious.”
    “And that means—?”
    “I’m … uh … sort of an ombudsperson for members of religious orders in the archdiocese of Detroit. Mostly, I represent the other nuns here. So I have frequent meetings with individuals and groups, particularly in the evenings when all the aggrieved parties can get together.”
    “And you were at such a meeting last night.”
    “That’s right.” Without waiting for the next logical question, Joan continued. “I met with another nun—Sister Mary Murray—and the parish council at Our Lady of Refuge, Orchard Lake. There is some question about Sister’s contract as religious education coordinator,” she explained. “We met until midnight. I remember because the council president noted the time as the reason he wanted to end the meeting and take the matter up at next month’s meeting.”
    She noted that the policewoman was taking notes employing some sort of shorthand. Joan was certain the sergeant would be checking every detail for corroboration.
    “So,” Moore continued, “you would have returned here at about …?”
    “It must have been near 1:00 A.M. ”
    “Tell me—and please include every detail you can remember—what did you do when you arrived? You parked your car …”
    “In the garage. There really isn’t anything significant to tell. It had been snowing. In fact it was still snowing. I remember wishing I had worn galoshes. Our janitor always keeps the walks shoveled, but it had snowed after his workday, so he wouldn’t have gotten to it until this morning. Anyway I walked from the garage around in front of the church and up the front walk. It was bitter cold and the snow was blowing, so I kept my head down and got inside as quickly as possible. And then I just went to my room and went to bed and fell asleep very quickly. I was awfully tired.”
    “You noticed nothing unusual coming into the house?”
    “No, nothing. As I said, I had my head down and my eyes nearly shut against the snow. I could travel from the garage to the house blindfolded,” she added.
    Moore concluded that either the nun had noticed nothing untoward—whether or not the crime had been committed after she had retired—or she was lying. “But,” Moore said, “you were the one who found the body.”
    “Yes. I was going over to the church this morning. There are only a few parishioners who regularly come to church on weekdays. And our pastor is out of the country almost as much as he’s here. He’s very active in the peace movement, you know. So, weekday mornings, I conduct a sort of a prayer service and distribute Communion. It’s a paraliturgical rite, you see—”
    “That’s all right, Sister, you don’t need to go into that. The body?”
    “Yes … the body.” As Joan recalled all