The visitor took Sister Margaret's hand and held it for a few moments. The monitor continued to beep as the nun's heart rate and breathing displays continued to scroll across the screen. After releasing Sister Margaret's hand, the visitor put on a pair of latex gloves and drew a plastic bag from a coat pocket. The bag contained a rosary, which fell into a gloved hand. The visitor wrapped the rosary around the nun's hand making sure the crucifix touched the bare skin. After watching Sister Margaret for a few more moments, the visitor placed a hand on the nun's hand and squeezed before drawing a pen from another pocket and placing the tip on the nun's arm. After pressing the plunger on the epi pen, the visitor turned and left the room. Several minutes later, the latex gloves and epi pen began melting after the visitor threw them into a burning barrel in an alley frequented by the homeless.
_.-~=]})*({[=~-._
The two women sat in the hard plastic seats and waited. Abby spent most of the morning finalizing her and Ziva's cover. First, she called the diocese of Washington, DC and explained her suspicions. She spoke with Bishop Murray and explained to him that as a criminal forensic scientist, and a devout Catholic, she was obligated to look into the situation and make sure everyone connected with St. Michael's Convent remained safe. After getting his approval and subsequent assistance, she called Sister Rosita and explained her suspicions. Sister Rosita was harder to convince, but she eventually agreed to inform the other nuns in their bowling league of Abby's plan. Anyone who knew Abby at St. Michael's would assist in keeping her and Ziva's cover.
Abby had just completed getting ready for the mission when her cell phone rang. Bishop Murray told her that his office finalized the arrangements. She and Ziva would pose as displaced nuns on their way from Rome to a school, which had just announced its closing. St. Michael's would take them in until the diocese could reassign them. One of the priests from St. Michael's would meet them at the bus station. It took twenty minutes more to get Ziva ready and for them to get to the bus station.
They sat in those uncomfortable hard plastic seats for more than fifteen minutes before Ziva saw a Latin priest from the corner of her eye, walk in and look around. She and Abby kept their eyes averted and waited for him to approach.
"Sister Zelda," he said when he came within range. "Sister Abigail, I am Father Miguel Perez."
"Hello Father," Abby said as they rose to meet him. "We are pleased that St. Michael's Convent can accommodate us."
Father Miguel smiled as he reached for their bags. "Yes, Bishop Murray called and informed us of your travel problems. News of St. Peter's closing came as quite a surprise."
"Yes," Abby said as Father Miguel led them to the exit. "We were looking forward to teaching there. We found out after we arrived here from Rome."
"You were serving in Rome?" Father Miguel asked.
"No," Ziva answered. "We were on vacation. We planned to spend a couple of days here in Washington before continuing to New York."
As Father Miguel stowed their bags in the trunk, Abby and Ziva got into the back seat and waited. Once the priest got behind the wheel, he turned and smiled. "It may take some time getting to the convent," he said. "There was an incident near the State department and all traffic within a three block radius is being rerouted. The gridlock is insane."
_.-~=]})*({[=~-._
The couple sat in Father Thomas's office and waited. John, the boy they were waiting to adopt wanted to see some of his friends while the couple waited. After a few minutes, Father Thomas entered the office and took his seat at his desk.
"Everything is finished," he said as he opened John's file. "All we need to do is file the documents and John is all yours."
"I'm glad this is finally over," the man said. "We've wanted to take him to South America for months now."
"Yes well, when you leave here today, you can take him anywhere you like."
"It's such a relief," the woman said. "It's going to be so good to finally be able to live our lives."
"Well," Father Thomas said, standing to shake their hands. "I hope John enjoys South America."
After the couple left his office, Father Thomas picked up his coat and headed out to file the adoption papers. As he closed the door to his office, he heard the front door open and Father Miguel speaking to someone.
"Oh here he is now," Miguel said as Thomas turned toward him. "Father Thomas, this is Sister Zelda from Palermo, and Sister Abigail from Louisiana."
"Oh yes," Father Thomas said, "our displaced teachers. Sisters, I am truly sorry to hear about St. Peter's closing. Please make yourselves at home here. Father Miguel, if you could direct them to Sister Rosita, she can get them settled. I need to drop these documents off with the lawyers and then I have some other tasks to attend."
"Of course Father," Miguel said. "Is there anything you need me to do in your absence?"
"No thank you," Thomas said. "I have cancelled most of our appointments for the week. Sisters, it was a pleasure to meet you. I hope we can get to know each other before your new assignment comes."
As he walked away, Father Miguel began walking the opposite direction. "The convent rests between the dormitories for the orphanage and the church rectory. Sister Rosita is acting as out Mother Superior in the wake of Sister Agnes's death."
"Your Mother Superior is dead?" Ziva asked.
"Yes," Miguel said. "She suffered a stroke last week."
Ziva noted the priests grip on the suitcases tighten as he said that and decided that Abby may be correct in assuming something was not right at this convent.
_.-~=]})*({[=~-._
"Abigail," Sister Rosita said with a sigh. "Do you realize how unnecessary this is? I cannot bring myself to believe that someone is intentionally hurting the sisters here."
"I know it's hard to believe Sister," Abby said as she unpacked her equipment. "But something isn't right. There have been too many coincidences surrounding convent. Not the good kind and Like Gibbs says 'there's no such thing as a coincidence'."
"I have been thinking since we spoke," Rosita said. "I cannot think of anyone who would even want to hurt the sisters of this convent. The community supports us completely, they even came together to protest when the diocese suggested closing us. There is very little crime in this neighborhood and none against the church, the orphanage, or the convent. Even the children who have aged out of the system remain amicable with us."
"There has to be something though," Abby said. "There are a lot of deaths for one location for such a short period. Not to mention the fact that Sister Margaret had fifteen times the proper amount of her medication in her system."
"Abigail, you heard Dr. White," Rosita said as she hung the spare habits in the closet. "Margaret could have simply misread her instructions."
"That reminds me," Abby said turning around and holding up both of her index fingers. "I need to see Sister Margaret's prescription bottle."
"It's probably in her cell," Sister Rosita said, her lips pursing.
_.-~=]})*({[=~-._
Ziva had unpacked quickly and decided to explore the convent on her own. She had visited the chapel, the common room and the kitchen and found nothing of interest for her and Abby's investigation. She was now in the library looking at the various bookshelves. She was just about to ascend the stairs to the second level when she heard the door open.
"Sister Zelda" Father Miguel said from the door. Ziva turned to see the priest holding a rosary. "I noticed your rosary was missing, so I got you a new one."
"Thank you," Ziva said, taking the offered item.
"Now, if you don't mind," Father Miguel said as the two headed towards the Library exit. "Could you work with the younger children for a while? Perhaps teach them the rosary?"
Ziva stopped dead in her tracks. She of course knew a great deal about most religions in the world, but some of the specific practices were lost to her. She needed out of this.
"Come along sister," Father Miguel said. "The children are waiting."
Ziva began frantically thinking of all she knew about Catholicism. She knew she had to cross herself for various reasons, although the particular reasons escaped her at this moment. She knew too that the rosary was important to the faith and the beads represented specific prayers, but again, she could not think of the prayers or the order one needed to recite them.
"I believe we have enough pamphlets so that the children that can read may do so," Father Miguel said as they entered the orphanage common room. "If you will get everything ready, I'll fetch the children." As he started out of the room, he looked over his shoulder and pointed to a cabinet behind her. "The teaching pamphlets are in that cabinet," he said before stepping out of the room.
Ziva practically ran to the cabinet. She quickly found a short stack of pamphlets that announced How to pray the Rosary (Mary's Psalter). Ziva scanned the pamphlet quickly and thought she had a grasp on the Rosary Prayer until she came to the part of the mysteries. This is an insanely long prayer, she thought. I hope we do not have to chant the entire thing. She grabbed the rest of the pamphlets from the cabinet and closed the doors.
I really should not be doing this, she thought. Through Mossad, she frequently utilized knowledge of different religions while on assignment. However, during those assignments, she merely needed to mimic the traditions of the religions in which she "participated". Here she would actually need to teach young children these traditions.
Her Jewish upbringing was balking at this idea. She felt that if she were going to teach these traditions, she should do so in an abstract manner. Unfortunately, her feelings did not matter in this situation. She was not here as a religious emissary. She was here to find evidence of a crime, or rather a series of crimes and possibly a criminal. After all, she surmised. These children were already Catholic. I am merely teaching them about their own tradition.
_.-~=]})*({[=~-._
Sister Rosita picked up the bottle and handed it to Abby. A quick examination revealed that it would have been nearly impossible for Sister Margaret to misread the label. "Sister," she said. "This label is very clear. It has the strength of the medicine and clearly says take one tablet twice daily. Even if she were having blurred vision, the label spells out the numbers next to them. She couldn't have made such a mistake."
Sister Rosita made a sign of the cross and clasped her hands together. "Abigail, are you certain?" she asked.
"Without question," Abby said. "I may not have been as good a friend as I should have, but I know Sister Margaret is very intelligent and does not need glasses. Sister, someone tried to murder her."
_.-~=]})*({[=~-._
The monitor emitted the loud tone that indicated the patient was in severe danger. A nurse came running into the room and noted the readings. She stepped back to the door and called a code blue down the hallway. She rushed back to the bed, and removed the pillow from beneath the patient's head and lowered the bed so it rested flat. She had already begun CPR when the crash team entered followed by Dr. White.
"Doctor," the nurse said. "Her tongue is swollen. We need to do something to get air into her lungs."
"Get me point three cc's of epi and an intubation kit." Dr. White said as the crash team worked quickly setting up for resuscitation. The nurse grabbed an epi pen from the cart and injected the medicine into Sister Margaret's thigh while another tech unpackaged the intubation equipment.
"Epi's not working," the nurse said while Dr. White continued to administer chest compressions.
"Give her another," Dr. White called while the crash tech tried to insert the guide tube into the patient's mouth. "Hand me a scalpel," he told another nurse. The second epinephrine injection also had no effect on the patient and the intubation was not going fast enough.
Doctor White sterilized the area on the patient's neck and handed the hemostats off before moving to make an incision. He quickly worked and got the tracheal tube inserted and the opening sealed with a bandage as the techs stepped in to use the defibrillator.
Fifteen minutes after the alarm sounded on the monitor, Doctor White resigned himself to the fact that he could not resuscitate Sister Margaret. He checked the time and called her death before walking out of her room and going to the nurse's station. He checked the patient chart for Sister Margaret and picked up the phone.
"This is Doctor Adam White from George Washington University Hospital," he said when the call was answered. "I need to speak to Father Thomas Farrah or Sister Rosita."
_.-~=]})*({[=~-._