Read Online The Christmas Night Murder by Lee Harris - Free Book Online Page B

Angela opened hers and dropped her napkin and ring into it. When she returned for her next meal, she would take them out again and perhaps find her mail waiting for her inside.
    “Anyplace special?”
    “In the switchboard room. I’m on bells as usual. It’s pretty quiet this week, but just in case.”
    I followed her into the room with the old-fashioned switchboard, ancient front cords and back cords, jacks connecting the board with Joseph’s office, the kitchen, the villa, and several other locations so that the nuns could receive and make calls. There was also a ringer allowing Angela to call any nun to the phone. If it was slow enough today, she would switch it so that all calls would go to one phone or another, which would make it difficult to reroute them.
    She sat on her little operator’s chair and I pulled an old rock-maple kitchen chair over so that we faced each other. “Do you know something I should know?”
    “First, let me apologize to Jack for ducking his questions.”
    “He understands.”
    “I was in a very uncomfortable position. We were all told to say nothing about Julia Farragut but to answer any other question you and he asked. You understand that our loyalty—”
    “I understand and you don’t have to explain or apologize. We’re friends, Angela. I’ve been there myself. But now that Joseph has released you, I need to know everything.”
    “I remember Julia very well. I was one of the younger nuns when she entered and she often came to me with questions, not serious religious questions but practical ones. She was studying the history of the community, as we all did our first year, and preparing for her vows. Her father had given her a large dowry and he also provided the nuns with a lot of personal necessities, so that we were spared a lot of expenses for a long time. Even after she was gone, we remembered him for that every time a tube of toothpaste ran out or we needed a new bar of soap. And you probably know, he gave the convent a large cash gift.”
    “Joseph said as much.”
    “But getting back to Julia. I knew about her mother, Chris. I don’t know who else knew, if anyone, but she told me one day and asked me not to repeat it. One thing I know how to do is keep a secret.”
    I smiled. She wasn’t the only one, but I would trust her with anything. “I know.”
    “She said her mother had been ill for many years, that it had started when she lost a baby maybe ten years before. It was a boy baby and Mr. Farragut had wanted a son very much. Julia said her father seemed unforgiving that her mother had lost his only son and could never have another one. Anyway, the mother was hospitalized for mental problems when Julia was a girl, not long after the loss of the baby, she thought.”
    “Were there other times?” I asked.
    “Yes. She didn’t know how many, but she knew there were others. It was part of the reason Julia decided she never wanted to marry, that she wanted to do something else with her life.”
    “Did you get the feeling that the ‘something else’ could as easily have been teaching school or practicing law?”
    Angela thought a moment. “It might have been, but I don’t think she was just casting about for a career and stopped when she thought about being a nun. She was deeply religious, as was her mother, and I think she would have come to us eventually even if she had looked elsewhere first, if she had already entered training for another career.”
    “Did she ever say anything to you about Hudson?”
    “Never. His name never came up. You can be sure if I had heard something like that, I would have gone to Sister Clare Angela. Or I might have gone to Hudson himself. When I heard Julia’s revelation, I was as shocked and stunned as anyone else. I still am. I absolutely don’t believe it.”
    “So you feel as I do, that he hasn’t disappeared of his own free will.”
    “Someone’s done something to him, Kix,” she said with emotion, using the nickname