An Unspeakable Mission (Olympia Brown Mysteries) Page 8

  Fourteen

  Olympia hadn't been to the Gardner Museum in years. Now, as she was driving along Massachusetts Avenue into Boston, she was remembering how much she loved being in the presence of works of art, some of them thousands of years old and made by human hands much like her own. She was also looking forward to spending time with Jim. Usually they managed a day together over the holidays; but this year, with Frederick in residence and all three of them caught up in a rather nasty business involving a religious cult, there simply hadn't been time.

  She crossed Columbus Avenue, continued on past Symphony Hall, turned left toward the Museum, and began to consider her English gentleman and his upcoming visit. Other than her two sons, Olympia did not prefer sharing her living quarters with persons of the opposite sex, and then only on the most impermanent of mutually agreed-upon conditions.

  Frederick was a nice man and a most agreeable bedfellow, but in their last conversation, when he'd hinted at a more permanent arrangement, Olympia wouldn't even let him finish the sentence. Nor did she intend to. She had one colossal strikeout in the marriage department, and she wasn't going that way ever again. Don't dwell on the past, Olympia. What was and what will be might be two different things. Never mind. The day before me is mine, and I intend to make the most of it.

  After parking her car she started across the street to the Museum. Long-dead leaves and stray bits of paper were skittering ahead of a fitful April breeze. Mother Nature's little joke, she thought. When I'm in the sunshine it's May, but when the breeze kicks up, I'm back in March.

  She could see Jim standing on the warm side of the massive glass door and pushed her way in, grateful to be out of the chill. Jim was wearing ironed jeans and a crew-neck sweater under his well-worn tweed jacket.

  Olympia pointed to her own neck and raised her eyebrows.

  “I don't always wear the uniform,” he said. “Even priests get a day off now and then. Besides, anything I say dressed like this will be of no interest to anyone.” He took her coat, handed it to the attendant, and pocketed the tag.

  “I never thought about that, but I suppose you're right.”

  He reached up to where the Roman collar would have been, “I'm still a priest, Olympia. I just don't want to advertise it right now. You want a coffee before we go around the galleries?”

  “I'd love one, I'm down a quart.”

  Later, fortified by the coffee, the two found a stone bench in a far corner of the courtyard where they would not be overheard. Jim was right about this place. The scent of the freshly turned soil and the bright yellow confetti of early forsythia soothed the spirit and calmed the soul.

  “So you had a conversation with Margaret, and it seems that I had a similar one with Bridget.”

  Jim inclined his head and arched an eyebrow.

  “It all came out the night before last. It's a lot more than the rape.”

  Jim nodded slowly, “I know.”

  Olympia struggled, not knowing what or how much she should say. “As well as battering the mother, the father has been abusing the daughter for years, Jim, sexually abusing her, even taking lewd pictures.”

  Jim shook his head in obvious frustration. “Margaret told me about that as well, but damn it, we're both completely powerless until one of them goes to the police and presses charges. Frankly, I don't see that happening.”

  “I told Margaret I would get some information on domestic violence and abuse,” said Olympia. “Maybe after she reads it, she might consider getting out. Maybe we can get her to one of those secret shelters that protect women like her.”

  “That still leaves Bridget. Sometimes, when the mother finally gets out, the dutiful daughter will rush in and take care of daddy no matter what he's done or how much she hates him. An abusive relationship is so totally convoluted, Olympia, you don't know the half of it.”

  “How do you know so much about this?”

  Olympia was intrigued by discovering yet another dimension of her exceedingly complex friend.

  Jim cleared his throat. “Before Paul died, I was a social worker. I did family counseling and crisis intervention in a Catholic neighborhood center in the South Bronx. Believe me, I've seen it all, and this is right up there with the worst of it.”

  Olympia shivered. She'd heard of the South Bronx. He had seen it all.

  “So how do we get Margaret out of there? Bridget is safe, at least for now.”

  “Has Bridget mentioned the photographs?”

  Olympia shook her head.

  “Now that Margaret has seen the photographs and told both of us, I think we might stand more of a chance of getting her out. But if Terry gets even the slightest hint of any of this, then it's a whole different scenario.”

  “W-what are you talking about?” Olympia's voice had risen to a shrill wail.

  “Shhh.”

  “Sorry, it's just …”

  Jim nodded. “I know, Olympia, the first time you come face to face with this kind of thing, you either want to throw up or commit murder, or both.”

  Now it was Olympia's turn to nod.

  “The point is, a battered woman will often put up with violence toward herself for years, but when she finds out a child is involved, she can go either way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that sometimes the mother will take the children and run, and sometimes she will simply deny what is happening and continue with business as usual. I've seen it time and time again.

  “You're kidding.”

  “I'm not. Abused women become so totally demoralized, they see no way out. They just keep looking the other way, wearing the dark glasses, and telling people they walked into another door.”

  “I think maybe Margaret might be ready to do something,” said Olympia.

  “She is, but only if I can convince her that leaving her husband is not a sin, and she will let me take her to where no one can find her.”

  The Roman Catholic priest and the Unitarian Universalist minister sat looking at each other. Both knew it was a very fine line they were treading.

  With a whole day by herself in Brookfield, Bridget intended to work out the details of her plan without anyone interrupting her. She needed to have all of the pieces in place before this Frederick person, whoever or whatever he was, came over from England. Then, when she did go through with it, he'd be here to help Olympia afterwards.

  She felt bad about doing this to Olympia after all she'd done and even more so for her mother and sister. It wasn't their fault this happened, but by now it had gone too far, and she saw no other choice. This way her father would be exposed for what he was, and her mother would be able to leave the marriage without shame, maybe even get an annulment.

  And what about me? What difference is one more sin on top of all the others? If God is merciful, maybe he'll understand. If not, at least I will have saved Mam and Eileen.

  The first thing she needed to do was to get the bottle of Percocet out of the medicine chest and hide it. Then she would get started on the windows. Everything needed to look normal when Professor Brown came home, nothing out of place, nothing to raise an eyebrow or cause a whisper of suspicion.

  When she finished the windows and she could find the ingredients, she would bake a green shamrock cake for Olympia. Her mother made one every year for St. Patrick's Day, and by now Bridget knew the recipe by heart. The actual date was long past, but she'd make it anyway. It was something she could do for her kindly professor.

  Olympia and Jim had been sitting and talking for the better part of an hour. Jim stood up and stretched his arms over his head and sighed softly.

  “Come on, Olympia, my back is stiff, and my bottom is freezing. My mother warned me about sitting on cold surfaces, and I think she was right. I'm ready for lunch. How about you?”

  Olympia nodded. She, too, was feeling the chill from sitting so long and was glad for the chance to move around and warm up.

  The two crossed the street and arrived at the Museum
of Fine Arts restaurant just before twelve-thirty. Olympia was pleased and not at all surprised to discover Jim had made reservations for exactly then. In minutes the two were seated in the hushed, burgundy-carpeted elegance next to a huge window overlooking the courtyard.

  “I wonder what they'll have for a vegetarian Unitarian,” said Olympia.

  Jim peered over the menu. “And what will they have for a carnivorous Catholic? Do you mind if I have something with animal in it?”

  “By now you know I don't care what you eat, but thanks for asking.”

  Their meal, when it came, was beautifully presented and delicious. Each had a glass of wine which Jim, the wine snob, selected and ordered from the oversized, leather-bound list. Later, over cups of strong aromatic coffee and two supremely decadent desserts, the two friends talked well into the afternoon. She told him more about her short, miserable, first-and-only marriage and updated him on the search for her daughter and its possible impact on her future life.

  When she seemed to have run out of personal history, Jim looked at her over his empty coffee cup. “I'm a lifelong Catholic, and from the time I was little, I wanted to be a priest. But just before I was about to enter the seminary, I fell in love, and I had no choice but to follow my heart.”

  Olympia knew parts of his story but knew that there were times he needed to tell it again.

  “What happened?”

  “You already know that Paul died of AIDS two years after we met. Today is, or rather would have been, his fiftieth birthday. He loved going to the Gardner Museum. It was a special place for us.”

  Wordlessly, Olympia reached across the table and put her hand over his.

  It was a few minutes before he could speak and then it was barely a husky whisper. “Thanks for coming with me today. It's the first time since he died that I've been able to go back there. I probably should have told you.”

  “Thank you for trusting me, Jim,”

  “I've come a long way since then, but every so often I can get blind-sided.”

  “Anyway, after that I returned to the seminary, completed my studies, and took my vows. That was twenty-two years ago, and for the last three I've been the chaplain at Allston College and part-time at St. Bartholomew's, where I have come to know the most miserable Terrence O’Mara and his cowering kith and kin.”

  Fifteen

  Margaret heard the crash just as she was getting up to check on supper. She opened the front door and looked down the stairs to where her husband lay sprawled with two of his drinking buddies on either side trying to haul him back up and maneuver him into the apartment.

  “Just put him in here,” she said, indicating the sofa in the living room. What she didn't say was that after they left, she would put some newspapers and a bucket beside the sofa so she wouldn't have so much to clean up.

  Terry was trying to stand, but his legs wouldn't cooperate. He looked like a puppet with its strings come loose.

  She shoved the coffee table out of the way and lifted his feet onto the sofa. “Thank you. I'll take care of him now. I'll call the doctor if he's not better in the morning.”

  The taller of the two men agreed. “Probably a good idea. I've never seen him so … sick”

  Margaret spoke in a low voice. “He thought he might be coming down with something when he came home from work yesterday. It must have caught up with him. But you two need to get home. It's long past your suppertime.”

  The message was clear, and Margaret O’Mara was glad they took it. She had played out this humiliating charade before, and everybody knew their parts.

  When the men left, Margaret locked the door behind them and slid the safety chain into place. She stood there and looked down at her husband, crumpled and already snoring. If he didn't come to and throw it all up, she might make it through the night.

  Margaret started toward the kitchen for some newspapers and the plastic wastebasket she always used when she heard Terry stumbling towards the kitchen.

  The next morning Margaret was shuffling back and forth across the kitchen holding a bag of frozen peas against her left eye. She stopped and listened at the door to make sure he was still asleep and then dialed the number for Olympia's office. She whispered a quick message, saying only that she wanted that information about shelters, and she would call again tomorrow. Then she dialed the number for the hospital and left a message in the volunteer office, telling the director that she had tripped over a loose bit of carpet and hit her head, and she would make up the hours next week.

  When Terry finally surfaced, slit-eyed and stinking of stale beer, neither of them spoke of what happened. It was part of the dance they'd been doing for years. Margaret would wear the extra makeup and the dark glasses and go about her business, and Terry would pour himself a “hair of the dog” with his morning cigarette.

  It was so much worse now that both the girls were gone. Last night, among the blows and the curses, Terry told her next time she upset him like that he would throw her down the front stairs and kill her, and he'd make damn sure it looked like an accident.

  On Sunday afternoons Olympia and Frederick took turns telephoning each other. The international rates were cheaper, and they could indulge themselves in conversations laden with delicious innuendoes and not use up the mortgage money to do it. She was hoping he could tell her when he would be arriving, as much for working around Bridget as her own impatience in wanting to see him again. Before she called England she always checked her office phone for any voice messages that might need attention before Monday. Business before pleasure, her mother always said, and sometimes I even listened to her.

  When Bridget came home from Sunday mass, she told Olympia she was going out for a walk, saying she wanted some fresh air and needed to move around. Later, when she returned, maybe they could have tea and some of that green shamrock cake.

  When she heard the door click shut, Olympia went into her bedroom and dialed her office number, followed by the combination of numbers that would bring up her messages. The first was a student asking for an extension. Olympia rolled her eyes and dutifully noted the name and number for a callback. The second was a garbled message from Margaret O’Mara, saying she wanted the information that … mumble mumble, and she'd call back on Monday. Olympia shook her head and played it again. The woman sounded like she was talking through a mouthful of marbles. The only clear part was that she would be calling the office the following day.

  As she began to dial Frederick, she couldn't help thinking about Margaret's message. What was she trying to tell her? “Never mind,” she said aloud, hearing the harsh English double ring. “I'll find out Monday.”

  “You'll what?” said Frederick.

  “Oops, I guess I was talking to myself again.”

  “Would you like me to ring you back later when you two have finished?”

  Olympia smiled. She liked hearing his throaty chuckle, especially in the morning when he was lying next to her.

  “No, thank you, my friend. I'm fully present and accounted for. Any news on the international front?”

  “Yes and no. The good news is I'll be there within the month, no fixed date yet. The bad news is that it cost me an extra three hundred pounds to expedite matters. But, my darling Reverend Doctor, you are more than worth it.”

  Now it was Olympia's turn to chuckle and blush. “That'll be after Easter. Have you gotten your ticket yet? I can't wait to see you.” Olympia felt a blistering hot flash coming on. What is it with this man?

  “I can only get my ticket when I'm cleared to travel. So you, my dear American lady, will just have to hang on for a bit, as we say over here.”

  “Frederick, I need to talk to you about something that I seem to have gotten myself involved in.”

  Frederick groaned. “I thought you'd …”

  “It's Bridget, the student who's living with me.”

  “What's happened to her?”

  Olympia quickly told Frederick as much of the story as she felt she could, enough
to let him know that Bridget and now the mother were both at risk and that she and her friend Jim, who also happened to be the family priest, were trying to intervene and get help for them both.

  “I seem to remember what happened the last time you tried to help a student at risk.” There was a distinct warning tone in the man's voice.

  “Oh, Frederick, it's not like that. In fact, it's very different. All we're trying to do is to get them connected to one of those agencies that deal with domestic abuse. This is way out of my league.”

  “I hope that's it all turns out to be.” He sounded doubtful.

  “I'm just an information-giver, Frederick. What danger is there in that? You worry too much. The girl is safe here with me, and the priest is trying to help the mother.”

  “I don't know you nearly half as well as I plan to Olympia, but I do know you well enough to know you're already stuck way into this, aren't you? I recognize the signs.”

  “Let me put it this way, Frederick. I've done what I can. The rest is going to be up to the family and the priest.”

  “What aren't you telling me?”

  “I'm all right, Frederick, really I am, and she's just come back from her walk, so I can't say any more. Anyway, I'm sure it will all be resolved by the time you get here. I just wanted to let you know what was going on.”

  “I do hope so, Professor-lady, because I have some rather focused plans for our time together. I hope you'll be up for it.”

  “Frederick, don't you think you're the one who should be concerned about that? Being up for it?”

  The two rang off, laughing, and Olympia went out to the kitchen to join Bridget for a cup of Irish tea and a thick slab of that green shamrock cake, or maybe two.

  Sixteen

  Margaret O’Mara wiped around the edges of the sink, scrubbed the fingerprints off the cabinets, and then, looking around the cheerless kitchen for anything else she might do, she pulled the knobs off the stove. She hurt all over, and she had trouble seeing out of only one eye, but she couldn't sit still. She had been stalling for over an hour since her husband left for work. He never came home in the middle of the day, but she wasn't taking any chances of him coming and interrupting her when she called Professor Brown.