SISTER MARY SALVATORE
NUNS WITH GUNS
The Last Confession
“Blessed me Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was two weeks ago…”
Sister Maria Salvatore at least told the truth on that score. The rest of it was pure fiction.
Father Mulcahey, on his part, dreaded “Nun Duty,” as he called it. Every two weeks his assignment was to hear the confessions of the parish nuns who lived in the convent adjoining the school. It was a dreary matter to forgive them their petty quarrels, their laundry lists of jealousies, disobediences, and peeves. But Sister Maria Salvatore - that was the highpoint of Nun Duty.
“Father, I broke out of the convent two nights ago after midnight. There was a huge rock of a diamond necklace in the front window of Searling’s downtown, and I just had to have it in time for my ten year anniversary…”
Father Mulcahey relaxed when he recognized her voice. “And which anniversary would this be, Sister?”
“Ten years since I broke out of the Pen.”
“Sing Sing, I recall…”
“No Father, Attica State. I busted out of Sing Sing on my twelfth birthday, that was years before.”
“Go on.”
She went on. About her failed attempt at cat burglary: about the submarine and the Russian spy, and about her latest crime novel making the bestseller list.
“Sister, be honest with me… don’t you think you are exaggerating just a wee bit?”
“If that is a sin, then yes Father Mulcahey, I am a sinner. “
“And a non-repentant one at that, my dear Sister.”
“Yes, so there is little need of going on with this. How about you Father? Do you have anything you’d like to get off your chest?”
“I do confess that if you knew how dreadful my job has been lately you would be glad you are a nun, very glad.”
“What now, Father?”
“Everything and nothing. It is the Primacy of the Pettiness of it all. I could tell you a story about bingo night, would you like that.”
“Well, we don’t have all day Father, so make it quick.”
“After bingo, this man comes up and tells me that I better make sure Donna Serafina wins big next week. Something about it being her birthday.”
“Well Father in my book it would not be unwise to allow a little miracle to happen. Donna Serafina is - well, how should I say this - well-connected.”
Father Mulcahey sighed. “Yes, Sister you are probably right.”
“For your penance, two scoops of chocolate ice cream Father.”
“Oh my Sister, I am hardly sorry….”
The Scene of the Crime
Sam Giulani, for all his years in the department, had never seen anything like this. He got the call after midnight. He rolled out of bed unshaven, unshowered, and smelling of whiskey. He rifled through the closet for a pair of trousers, choosing the least wrinkled of the pair he owned. He lost his balance when he tried to step into them, fell over and hit his face on the bedpost.
“Shit.”
The Lieutenant had been there for half an hour when Sam stumbled into the Rectory.
Sam looked at the blood spattered walls, and the bloody mess lying in the priest’s bed.
The Lieutenant unscrewed a thermos jug and poured his investigator a cup of hot coffee. He handed it to Sam, “What a fucking mess…”
Sam nodded. “Shit.”
“I was referring to you, Sam. Jesus, were you hit by a train?”
Sam caught a glimpse of himself in the priest’s blood splattered mirror, He had a horrendous black eye.
“Shit.”
The Convent
Mother Superior was awakened by the sounds of sirens and the flashing red lights. She hurried down the staircase of the convent and went out the door to the edge of the curb, peering at the chaotic scene. Fire trucks, ambulance, police cars were parked down the street in front of the Rectory. She crossed herself, and fled back up the stairs. She roused the sisters, knocking on their doors. They gathered in the small chapel and began praying the Rosary. She led them, starting each decade of the five Sorrowful Mysteries. In a state of shock, no one noticed that Sister Maria was absent.
Sister Maria had been dreaming of her old neighborhood. She was at a huge family gathering, with relatives surrounding a table, feasting on a sumptuous meal of pasta, sausages, cheeses, fruits, and wine. Her family was celebrating the Feast of San Gennaro. She looked around the table and noticed there were many people she did not immediately recognize sitting with her father. They looked familiar, yet she could not place them. The men were handsome, distinguished and dressed in well -cut suits. Their wives sat apart from their men, dressed elegantly with jewelry sparkling. Laughter and wine mingled together. In an instant Maria recognized the strangers They were her ancestors, spanning back generations, yet all seeming to be of the same age.
At the head of the table was a statue of San Gennaro, bedecked with strings of colorful flowers. But as she looked closely, she began to notice the statue was actually not a statue. San Gennaro, martyr and patron saint of Naples, was alive. At the exact instant Maria came to this realization a loud series of gunshots rang out and the saint crumpled to the ground, bleeding.
The gunshots awoke Sister Maria. She lie in bed, now wide awake. Her pulse was racing. In a short while she heard the sirens, and eventually the sound of Mother Superior knocking on her door, telling her to meet in the chapel for prayers. But she lie still in bed. As the adrenaline from her dream wore off, her pulse gradually resumed its normal rate. She was thinking. Thinking it through.
Now she could hear the ebb and flow of the sisters voices, a calming rise and fall as they chanted the rosary downstairs. Sister arose, put on her robe and left her room. But she did not jo downstairs to the chapel. She went upstairs to the attic, holding the key to the ancient trunk which had not been opened for years.
Mama’s Boy
“Gino, where did you put my purse? Bring me my purse Gino!”
“Which purse, Mama?”
“You know. The one I like.”
“Yes Mama.”
Gino Balderucci and his mother Serafina Tornatore Balderucci lived in a grand old mansion built in the last century. Like his mother, it was solidly built, and in its long ago youth was the talk of the town. The surrounding neighborhood was home to Chicago’s notables: patricians, politicians, tycoons. The big bosses. Most of the bosses were bosses of other bosses, as was Gino. But Gino’s mama was the big boss.
He switched on the light in the bedroom closet. Serafina had as many purses as she had pairs of shoes. He had no clue which one his mama could be referring to. So he grabbed an armful and brought the purses downstairs to his mother.
“Gino I told you I wanted my purse, not the whole closet!”
He looked down at his feet.
“Give them to me,” she snarled in the impatient tone he knew so well.
Donna Serafina rummaged through the half dozen bags, searching and muttering about what a disappointment her only son Gino had always been. Finally, exasperated, she pushed the button that rang the bell that brought the bodyguard to the room.
“Yes Donna Serafina?”
“A cigar: bring me a cigar!”
Paolo had been working for the family for many years. he knew better than to guess which cigar would please his boss. He glanced sideways to Gino, who met his gaze with a barely perceptible nod.
Paola quickly returned with a large teak cigar box. It had one of every brand of cigar made in Cuba during the preceding decade. He smoothly flipped the lid open, offering it to Donna Serafina. He looked past the woman to see behind her Gino giving him half a wink, which Paola took as an approval
After rummaging through the cigar selection for no less than ten minutes Donna Serafina chose a cigar. As Paola held the lighter to cigar. She took a couple of puffs. The cigar she chose was a Cortina of highest quality and higher price. But she abruptly hissed out a final stream of hot smoke between her clenched teeth, and ground the end of the cigar into the ashtray.
She turned to Gino, and slapped him across the face. “When I ask for a cigar, I want a cigar.” Gino looked downwards.
“I am sorry Mama..” Gino looked at his shoes.
“Yes you are sorry. A sorry son, that is what you are and have always been….”
Paolo inconspicuously turned to leave, as quietly as he was able.
Donna Serafina spun around and snarled “Make sure you dump that box in the garbage pail.”
“Yes Donna Serafina, as you wish.”
The Office of Inspector Sam Giuliani
Sam stumbled into his office at 8 am Monday morning. He was dog-tired and could barely keeps his eyes open. He had spent six hours at the crime scene and had a fat steno notebook filled with notes and drawings. He took a look at himself in the mirror and groaned.
He scrubbed his faced with a cold washcloth, taking care to avoid the purple, swollen rim of his half shut eye. His head throbbed.
His office was the simulacrum of his life - papers scattered, cheap thrift store furniture adrift on a threadbare coffee-stained rug, dishes precariously stacked in the sink below an open and bare cupboard which hung at an angle due to a broken hinge.
He pulled down the foldaway bed which dated from a decade before the Depression, and clambered onto the bare mattress. The rusty bedsprings groaned, complained, and creaked with the slightest movement. But in less than a minute he was fast asleep, a deep exhausted slumber. Neither the bedsprings nor the intermittent rumble and clatter of the elevated train which passed his window every five minutes would interrupt his catatonic dreamless state.
* * * * *
At that moment, across town the Lieutenant was sitting with his Captain back at headquarters. The Captain listened to the Lieutenant’s description of the previous night’s horror. During his long career he had seen it all, but nothing quite like the cold-blooded, senseless murder of a well-known and respected churchman. He shook his head.
“Lieutenant, I want you to throw everything we’ve got into solving this one. The Mayor sees this crime as a blight on this city’s reputation. - and his reputation as well. As you know he is up for re-election this year, and his “tough on crime” campaign pledge is looking a little thin if this doesn’t get cleared up, and fast.”
“Yes sir. I understand, Captain.”
His Lieutenant could have said more but chose to bite his tongue. This, the Lieutenant thought to himself, is the same Mayor who cut his detective budget to the bone over the past decade.
“We are working on this as we speak. I have personally assigned the case to Detective Sam Giuliani, Chicago’s finest…”
He allowed the sentence to drift off into the air. He sensed that fortunately the irony was more subtle than his Captain.
The Trunk in the Attic
Sister Maria Salvatore opened the door to the attic. She breathed the thick musty, stale still air. Attics all have a peculiar and unique smell. The moment she opened the door, the long forgotten smell immediately brought her back to a long-forgotten past. In the dense silence, amid the long stagnant air of the place, she felt a sudden storm of feelings within. Memories swirled in her heart that she had long kept under lock and key.
The day she received the news that her mother was gone, she was four years old. She could not understand who all these people were, and looked desperately to find her.
The day her father was buried she was seven years old. She remembered the black dress she wore, the women weeping. Her small hand grasped an aunt’s hands so hard that her fingers were numb.
The day she walked through the creaking, rusty gate of the boarding school she was greeted by an ancient woman, grey eyes glistening with kindness. Sister Genevieve was frail, and tiny. The many decades of her vocation had marked her. Her head leaned forward at an angle,, her back and shoulders permanently bent in the attitude of prayer.
All these memories washed over her like a huge wave. She sat down on the trunk, her face now in her hands, overwhelmed. Quietly sobbing, she prayed. But the memories kept coming.
The day Monsignor Callaghan said goodbye, sending her off to the convent for her novitiate , he blessed her, and prayed for her vocation . Afterwards he told her that he had something for her, a parting gift of sorts.
He handed her a metal box, about the size of a shoebox. It had a padlock. The Monsignor was very old, and Maria well-remembered the tremors of his warm hands as he wrapped his hands around hers, as he proffered her the key. Maria had no idea that his Parkinson’s disease would finish him in a few years and this would be the last time she would see him.
“I have thought and prayed a long time about this,” he began. “And I came to the conclusion that I should give this to you. I have know idea what is in the box, I will tell you that right now. How I came by it, is a long tale, But suffice it to say, this belongs to you.”
“Seeking the counsel of the Holy Spirit, I prayed fervently. It is my conviction, and my advice to you, that you do not open this. My sense is this is Pandora’s box. I considered burying it and saving you from any danger, but at the same time realized that it was not my property, it is yours.
“Is it a blessing or a curse? This is the eternal question, as you will find out. This question applies to all things, because both things are both things. It is your choice.”
He blessed her, and the box.
“I pray that the Holy Spirit guide you, and may God the Father provide for you;, and may Jesus and his blessed Mother always walk with you and keep you safe.”
Sister Maria pulled out a handkerchief out of the sleeve of her robe and dried her tears. She took out the key to her trunk and opened it. The remnants of her life before the convent were sparse., but dear to her. A stuffed animal, Tonino, with long floppy ears who comforted her since her earliest memories, had outlived both her parents. Maria hugged it to herself, feeling her heart swell with the sweetness of Tonino’s constancy and loyalty. It had been many years since they were together. Tonino was relegated to the trunk by a Superior who insisted that Maria rid herself of distractions and attachments.. Maria actually rescued him from the trash dumpster under a midnight moon, an operation which would not have ended well had her Superior found out. Poor Tonino had been locked away ever since.
Their reunion was sweet comfort. But very quickly the din of wailing sirens from the catastrophe on the street below intruded into her consciousness. In the far corner of the trunk lie the metal box Fr. Callaghan had given her. Never had it been opened. Maria gently lifted the box out, and took up the key which was under the box. She had already decided her course of action.
She lifted the box on to her lap. She shifted the box, testing it. It was quite heavy, and there were no sounds. She made the sign of the cross, andput the key into the lock. She turned it until with a click the lock sprung open.
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