This had already taken place. Most importantly for Margaret Ann Pahl’s right to finally be laid to rest, the casket, with the lid closed, had already been placed in the front of the chapel for the second component, the funeral liturgy.
Suddenly, the chapel doors burst open. The wind blew in the dead leaves from the previous fall that someone had failed to pick up. Quickly, the doors were closed. The service continued. The Reverend Gerald Robinson took to the pulpit. If anyone in that chapel thought of Robinson as the prime suspect, and therefore thought Robinson was blaspheming before God in conducting a funeral service for his victim, he didn’t show it.
There followed a funeral Mass for Margaret Ann, in accordance with Church doctrine: “The Mass, the memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection, is the principal celebration of the Christian funeral.” The Mass included “the liturgy of the Word, the liturgy of the Eucharist, and the final commendation.” The final commendation is the prayer in which “the community calls upon God’s mercy, commends the deceased into God’s hands, and affirms its belief that those who have died in Christ will share in Christ’s victory over death.”
The rite of committal, “the final act of the community of faith in caring for the body of its deceased member,” concluded the service as Margaret Ann Pahl was, finally, buried. She would have wanted to be remembered for her good works as a Sister of Mercy and acolyte of Catherine McAuley. Instead, her murderer had cheated her out of that legacy. Her new legacy was to be remembered as a murder victim.
Sister Laura Marie Pahl was not too pleased with this occurrence. Laura Marie was Margaret Ann’s sister. She not only was at her sister’s funeral, she lived at the St. Bernadine Retirement home in Fremont. She, too, had become a Sister of Mercy, emulating her big “sis.” While the TPD figured Laura Marie Pahl probably had no information regarding her sister’s murder, there was always the chance she did. The vast majority of murders are committed by people who know, sometimes intimately, the person they are murdering. The questions had to be asked. And so Sister Laura Marie Pahl had come to Mercy Hospital after the funeral, where she met with TPD Detective Peter Brook in the convent community room at the hospital.
“Did Sister Margaret have any enemies?” Detective Brook asked. “Anyone who had a vendetta against her?”
“In January, there had been a family get-together in Edgerton,” the old nun answered. “Margaret Ann told me that she and the other sisters at the hospital had seen a black man hanging around the chapel area. The sisters were told [presumably by Sister Phyllis] not to go to the chapel alone. They didn’t want the sisters to confront this man alone.”
There also seemed to be a power struggle between Sister Kathleen Marie and Sister Phyllis for the top job at Mercy Hospital. Margaret Ann was getting tuckered out from all of it.
“Sister Margaret Ann, during the last six months, had talked about leaving and retiring from the hospital. She was a very quiet person. She seemed very contented with her job in the chapel.”
Brook asked the required question of every homicide detective from Maine to Florida and California to Buffalo. Was there anyone she knew of who wanted her sister dead?
“No,” she answered, “no one that I knew of had a vendetta against her.”
Brook produced an evidence envelope and opened it. Carefully, he took out Margaret Ann’s belongings and placed them on the institutional table for her sister. Sorting through the stuff, Laura Marie told Brook, “Something’s missing.”
“What?”
“My sister had two watches.”
That was consistent with Margaret Ann’s compulsive personality. Marx had already noted she had two different kinds of alarm clocks in her room. In this case, the missing watch was a Bulova that she had purchased at Neumann’s Jewelers, at 325
Suddenly, the chapel doors burst open. The wind blew in the dead leaves from the previous fall that someone had failed to pick up. Quickly, the doors were closed. The service continued. The Reverend Gerald Robinson took to the pulpit. If anyone in that chapel thought of Robinson as the prime suspect, and therefore thought Robinson was blaspheming before God in conducting a funeral service for his victim, he didn’t show it.
There followed a funeral Mass for Margaret Ann, in accordance with Church doctrine: “The Mass, the memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection, is the principal celebration of the Christian funeral.” The Mass included “the liturgy of the Word, the liturgy of the Eucharist, and the final commendation.” The final commendation is the prayer in which “the community calls upon God’s mercy, commends the deceased into God’s hands, and affirms its belief that those who have died in Christ will share in Christ’s victory over death.”
The rite of committal, “the final act of the community of faith in caring for the body of its deceased member,” concluded the service as Margaret Ann Pahl was, finally, buried. She would have wanted to be remembered for her good works as a Sister of Mercy and acolyte of Catherine McAuley. Instead, her murderer had cheated her out of that legacy. Her new legacy was to be remembered as a murder victim.
Sister Laura Marie Pahl was not too pleased with this occurrence. Laura Marie was Margaret Ann’s sister. She not only was at her sister’s funeral, she lived at the St. Bernadine Retirement home in Fremont. She, too, had become a Sister of Mercy, emulating her big “sis.” While the TPD figured Laura Marie Pahl probably had no information regarding her sister’s murder, there was always the chance she did. The vast majority of murders are committed by people who know, sometimes intimately, the person they are murdering. The questions had to be asked. And so Sister Laura Marie Pahl had come to Mercy Hospital after the funeral, where she met with TPD Detective Peter Brook in the convent community room at the hospital.
“Did Sister Margaret have any enemies?” Detective Brook asked. “Anyone who had a vendetta against her?”
“In January, there had been a family get-together in Edgerton,” the old nun answered. “Margaret Ann told me that she and the other sisters at the hospital had seen a black man hanging around the chapel area. The sisters were told [presumably by Sister Phyllis] not to go to the chapel alone. They didn’t want the sisters to confront this man alone.”
There also seemed to be a power struggle between Sister Kathleen Marie and Sister Phyllis for the top job at Mercy Hospital. Margaret Ann was getting tuckered out from all of it.
“Sister Margaret Ann, during the last six months, had talked about leaving and retiring from the hospital. She was a very quiet person. She seemed very contented with her job in the chapel.”
Brook asked the required question of every homicide detective from Maine to Florida and California to Buffalo. Was there anyone she knew of who wanted her sister dead?
“No,” she answered, “no one that I knew of had a vendetta against her.”
Brook produced an evidence envelope and opened it. Carefully, he took out Margaret Ann’s belongings and placed them on the institutional table for her sister. Sorting through the stuff, Laura Marie told Brook, “Something’s missing.”
“What?”
“My sister had two watches.”
That was consistent with Margaret Ann’s compulsive personality. Marx had already noted she had two different kinds of alarm clocks in her room. In this case, the missing watch was a Bulova that she had purchased at Neumann’s Jewelers, at 325
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