Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

Had the cocaine-filled cross belonged to Father Garcia? Mary Dominic hoped not. Although sad things were imputed to priests nowadays, none had yet been accused of drug trafficking. Yet Father Garcia must have taken the lookalike cross from the chapel. How had it gotten in the car that swept him away unless he himself had substituted it for its more sinister twin?

Why would Garcia exchange crosses? The most charitable explanation she could invent was that he had stumbled on a drug deal, and hoped to secrete the drug-filled cross safely in the convent while he threw its owners off the scent by carrying the nuns’ cross as a decoy.

She shivered. The convent might seem a safe hiding place to someone brought up to respect such things, but if the cross and its contents was the property of Father Garcia’s abductors, respect for church property wouldn’t hinder them from taking it back as ruthlessly as necessary.

She turned the cross in her hands. Something was out of kilter. Any diocesan priest who discovered drugs being delivered in crosses would go at once to his bishop with the evidence, and not try to hide it in a convent. It would seem that Father Garcia meant to hide the cross for himself. Frowning, Mary Dominic locked it safely away again.

The missing notice in the Archdiocesan Directory returned to mind. Father Garcia had said he was newly ordained, but in too poor health to hear confessions or to concelebrate mass. That didn’t add up.

Mary Dominic called the rectory of Gate of Heaven parish. When she asked for Father Garcia, a puzzled voice replied, “I’m afraid you have the wrong number. There’s no Father Garcia in this parish.”

Nor in any parish, Mary Dominic guessed. She dialed Mike McGuire at the police station and left an urgent message for him to meet with her at the convent as soon as possible. When she hung up the bell for evening prayer was ringing.

Mary Dominic went to chapel with much on her mind.

After Sister Vincent had seen the last of the retreatants off the grounds of the convent, she lingered until the cardinal’s driver had returned to his post, then planted herself on the path where the cardinal would emerge. She meant to let him know what a martyr on earth she was, ask his blessing, and finally investigate the outdoor Fatima shrine, which had distracted her during outdoor Benediction.

The moment the cardinal entered the parking lot, Vincent pounced, detaining him for fifteen minutes while the daylight turned to dusk. The bell for evening prayer sounded as the cardinal’s limo pulled out. Vincent’s duty was to lock the gates immediately and head straight for chapel, but she had to appease her curiosity before the light failed. The gates could wait a moment or two.

She approached the statue of Mary cautiously. There! she had been right after all! The same silvery glint she had noticed during Benediction shone on the statue’s white marble face.

As she drew closer, she saw that the glint was caused by a colorless liquid that reflected the sunset’s glow. Vincent squeezed her eyes shut. After several seconds she opened them slowly. The colorless liquid was still there. As she looked, it began to move down the statue’s face in distinct drops.

Tears.

Vincent’s heart hammered as if it would burst from her body. She had always been hard-headed, a practical creature incapable of the finer flights of fancy. Stories of various weeping statues occasionally reached the convent and caused lively discussion. The younger nuns, like Sister Angela, were only too ready to believe the tears were miraculous in spite of Mary Dominic’s repeated warnings that such phenomena could be misleading, and had nothing to do with holiness.

“It could be the result of certain atmospheric conditions,” Mary Dominic cautioned the more credulous sisters. “It could be imagination, or a kind of hysteria; perhaps deliberate trickery, or even diabolical manifestation.”

That was enough to convince Vincent such things were better left alone, but it wasn’t enough for Sister Angela.

“You did not mention, mother, that it could also be of God.”

Mary Dominic assented reluctantly with a brusque nod.

“Don’t you think, mother, that in the case of statues of Our Lady of Fatima, it is most likely God? When you consider Our Lady’s warning that war is the result of sin — surely, mother, she weeps to incite us to the penance and prayer she asked of us, that the world might know peace.”

It was one thing to talk about a weeping statue and quite another to experience it. Even as Vincent watched, the trickle of tears became a steady flow.

An effect of the sunset, Vincent told herself firmly, and boldly brushed the statue’s face to prove to herself nothing was there. When she drew her hand away, several teardrops clung to her fingertips, where they sparkled with the vibrancy of life.

That wasn’t what brought Vincent to her knees.

When she had touched the statue’s face, she felt the warm texture of living flesh. The eyes seemed to look straight at her.