Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

Katherine had clearly been as awed as Kim was now that a woman who had done such deeds, who had killed by accident rather than design, should continue to speak with such conviction that she was somehow not implicated in the universal guilt of the race to which she belonged.

“You are employing a corrupt logic,” Miss Butterfingers had replied.

Katherine had concluded that the only meaning “corrupt” seemed to have was “differing from Regina Fastnekker.”

“What a sweetheart,” Kim commented when she had finished.

“We must not forget that this was the Regina of some years ago. On the phone she seemed very nice.”

“Did you tell her the police would know if she visited us?”

“I saw no reason to say such a thing.”

Emtee Dempsey had invited Regina to come to Walton Street on the assumption that she was now a changed woman, radically different from the terrorist so graphically portrayed by Katherine Senski in her newspaper stories. If she was wrong, if Regina had been behind the blowing up of the Volkswagen and if her custom was to announce a serious deed by a lesser one, Emtee Dempsey could be inviting their assassin to visit. She did not have to wonder what Richard would say if asked about the advisability of admitting Regina to their home.

The woman who stood at the door when Kim went to answer the bell wore a denim skirt that reached her ankles and an oversize cableknit sweater; her hair was pulled back severely on her head and held with a rubber band. Pale blue eyes stared unblinkingly at Kim.

“I have come to see Sister Dempsey.”

There was no mistaking that this was Regina Fastnekker, despite the changes that had occurred in her since the photos that accompanied Katherine’s stories. Kim opened the door and took Regina down the hall to the study. Her back tingled as she walked, as if she awaited some unexpected blow to fall. But she made it to the study door without incident.

“Sister Mary Teresa, this is Regina Fastnekker.”

The old nun did not rise but watched closely as her guest came to the desk. Regina put out her hand and the old nun stood as she took it.

“Welcome to our home.”

“I must tell you that I consider the Catholic Church to be the corruption of Christianity and that it is only by a return to the gospels that we can be saved. One person at a time.”

“Ecclesia semper reformanda.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You express a sentiment as old as Christianity itself. Do you know the story of the order St. Francis founded?”

“St. Francis is someone I admire.”

“I was sure you would. Francis preached holy poverty, personifying it, calling it Lady Poverty, his beloved. After his death, his followers disputed what this meant. Could they, for example, own a house and live in it, or did poverty require them to own absolutely nothing and rely each day on the Lord to provide? Did they own the clothes they wore, since of course each one wore his own clothes?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“It is possible to make Christianity so pure that it ceases to be.”

“It is also possible to falsify it so much that it ceases to be.”

“Of course.”

“You sound as if you had won an argument.”

“I wasn’t sure we were having one. I am told that you have become a Christian.”

“That makes it sound like something I did. It was done to me. It is a grace of which I am entirely unworthy.”

“Do you know Michael Layton?”

The sudden switch seemed to surprise Regina. She rearranged her skirt and pushed up the sleeve of her sweater.

“I knew him.”

“Before your conversion?”

“Before I went to prison, yes.”

“Have you any idea who killed him?”

“I came here to-tell you that I have not.”

“Have you seen him since you were released?”

“That is the question the police put to me in a dozen different ways.”

“And how did you answer?”

“Yes and no.”

“How yes?”

“I saw his photograph in the paper.”

“Ah.”

“It is my intention always to tell the truth, even when it seems trivial.”

“An admirable ideal. It is one I share.”

There was not a trace of irony in Emtee Dempsey’s tone, doubtless because she felt none. Her ability so to speak that she did not technically tell a lie, however much others might mislead themselves when listening to her, was something Kim tried not to be shocked at. Whenever they discussed the matter, the old nun’s defense — if it could even be called a defense — was unanswerable, but Kim in her heart of hearts felt that Emtee Dempsey should be a good deal more candid than she was.

“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” she had reminded the old nun.

“A noble if empty phrase.”

“Empty?”

“What is the whole truth about the present moment? Only God knows. I use the phrase literally. Since we cannot know the whole truth we cannot speak it.”

“We can speak the whole truth that we know.”

“Alas, that too is beyond our powers. Even as we speak, what we know expands and increases and we shall never catch up with it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Only by what you say, my dear, and I am afraid that does not make much sense.”

“I didn’t invent the phrase.”

“You have at least that defense.”