White-faced, Sister Anne reappeared in the doorway. “Sorry,” she said. Her large, hazel eyes avoided the floor. The old nun just nodded. In the silence, Mary Helen could hear the younger woman swallow. “What happened?” Anne asked, hardly managing to get her tongue around the words.
“It looks as if that statue may have fallen on him.” Mary Helen pointed to a large, bronze figurine of a medieval nobleman. It lay on the blood-drenched carpet several feet behind the professor’s head.
“Where did it come from?” Anne asked, without looking down.
“Up there. I noticed it the other morning when I was here.” Mary Helen swiveled her chair toward the bookcase. A small space at the end of the third shelf was vacant. “The quake must have knocked it off the shelf.”
“What a freak accident! Nothing else seems disturbed!”
“We’d better not touch anything until the police arrive,” Mary Helen warned her, unnecessarily. They always said that in all the mysteries she’d read.
Anne looked at her. “That’s for murder. This was just an accident. A freak accident.”
The whine of a siren filled the small office. A black-and-white patrol car rolled up in front of the college. Its rotating light threw long shadows in the semidark room. A police radio could be heard in the distance, and two doors slammed shut.
Heavy footsteps clambered up the marble staircase. The outer office lights flipped on. Two of the burliest policemen Mary Helen had ever seen filled the doorway.
“Evening, Sisters.” Both officers removed their hats.
Good Catholic boys, Mary Helen observed, watching Sister Eileen sandwich her way between the men. Sister Eileen was leading a small ascetic-looking Jesuit carrying the holy oils. Somberly, the priest knelt beside the professor’s body and began the sacred words of anointing.
The three nuns sat quietly on a bench in Professor Villanueva’s outer office. “Just in case we have any more questions,” one of the patrolmen had said. Mary Helen could hardly believe that it was only three days ago that she had first set foot in this room.