Chapter 16

Father Dominic had gone straight across the room to a small cabinet in which there were a number of trophies and plaques – teaching awards, I found out later. Before he'd been reassigned by the diocese to an administrative position, Father Dominic had been a popular and much-loved teacher of biology. He reached behind one of the awards and drew out a packet of cigarettes.

"I'm not sure it isn't a bit sacrilegious, Susannah," he said, looking down at the red and white pack, "to refer to a monsignor in the Catholic church as a pus-head."

"Good thing I'm not Catholic, then," I said. "And you can smoke one of those if you want to." I nodded at the cigarettes in his hand. "I won't tell."

He looked down longingly at the pack for a minute more, then heaved this big sigh, and put them back where he'd found them. "No," he said. "Thank you, but I'd better not."

Jeez. Maybe it was a good thing I'd never really gotten the hang of the smoking thing.

I thought I'd better change the subject, so I stooped to examine some of the teaching awards. "1964," I said. "You've been around awhile."

"I have." Father Dom sat down behind his desk. "What, in heaven's name, happened out there, Susannah?"

"Oh," I shrugged. "That was just Heather. I guess we know now why she's sticking around. She wants to kill Bryce Martinson."

Father Dominic shook his head. "This is terrible. It really is. I've never seen such…such violence from a spirit. Never, not in all my years as a mediator."

"Really?" I looked out the window. The principal's office looked, not out to the sea, but toward the hills where I lived. "Hey," I said. "You can see my house from here!"

"And she was always such a sweet girl, too. We never had a disciplinary problem from Heather Chambers, not in all her years at the Mission Academy. What could be causing her to feel so much hatred for a young man she professed to love?"

I glanced at him over my shoulder. "Are you kidding me?"

"Yes, well, I know they broke up, but such extreme emotions – this killing rage she's in. Surely that's quite unusual – "

I shook my head. "Excuse me, I know you took a vow of celibacy and all, but haven't you ever been in love? Don't you know what it's like? That guy hosed her. She thought they were going to get married. I know, that was stupid, especially since she's only what, sixteen? Still, he just hosed her. If that's not enough to inspire a killing rage in a girl, I don't know what is."

He studied me thoughtfully. "You're speaking from experience."

"Who me? Not quite. I mean, I've had crushes on guys, and stuff, but I can't say any of them have ever returned the favor." Much to my chagrin. "Still, I can imagine how Heather must have felt when he broke up with her."

"Like killing herself, I suppose," Father Dominic said.

"Exactly. But killing herself didn't turn out to be enough. She won't be satisfied until she takes him down with her."

"This is dreadful," Father Dominic said. "Really, really dreadful. I've talked with her until I was blue in the face, and she won't listen. And now, the first day back, this happens. I'm going to have to advise that the young man stay home until we can get this resolved."

I laughed. "How are you going to do that? Tell him his dead girlfriend's trying to kill him? Oh, yeah, that'll go over well with the monsignor."

"Not at all." Father Dom opened a drawer, and started rifling through it. "With a little ingenuity, I can see that Mr. Martinson is out for a solid week or two."

"Oh, no way!" I felt myself go pale. "You're going to poison him? I thought you were a priest! Isn't there a rule against that sort of thing?"

"Poison? No, no, Susannah. I was thinking of giving him head lice. The nurse checks for them once a semester. I'll just see that young Mr. Martinson comes down with a bad case of them – "

"Oh my God!" I shrieked. "That's disgusting! You can't put lice in that guy's hair!"