Rueful Death Read online

  "If someone else hadn't hung the bloody swimsuit on the cross," I said at last, "would you have done it?"

  She turned toward the window again. Half of her face was in shadow. "Perhaps."

  "Perhaps you did," I said.

  There was a long silence as she stood, not looking at me. "You're right," she said after a minute. "I hung it there. I wanted it to be part of our liturgy." She paused. "I don't know. Maybe the symbolism was too subtle. People didn't react the way I hoped."

  "I take it, though, that the letter was genuine-that you didn't write it yourself?"

  She was offended. "Of course the letter was genuine! Other people have gotten letters, too, haven't they?"

  They had, and Anne might have written them, as easily as writing one to herself. But somehow I didn't think so. I answered with another question. "Since you received the letter, have any of your possessions been tampered with? I'm not talking about the swimsuit, of course."

  She answered immediately. "Yes, actually. Somebody cut the strings on my tennis racket."

  "When was this?"

  "A few days after I got the letter-three or four, maybe.''

  "Where do you keep your racket?"

  "There." She pointed to a racket hanging on the bac' of her door. "I thought at the time there might be a con nection."

  Dominica's guitar, Anne's racket. I wondered whether any of Perpetua's belongings had suffered a similar fate. Probably not. She had done her penance.

  Anne went back to the bed and sat down. ' 'I suppose you know that my letter wasn't the first. But maybe you don't know that Mother had found out who wrote them. She was planning to put a stop to it"

  "She knew?" I stared at her. "Did she tell you who it was?"

  She shook her head. "She didn't say how she was plan ning to stop it, either. But it had to be something pretty drastic. Removal to another house, maybe, or even expulsion. Whatever it was, she said she had to talk it over with Reverend Mother General. She wouldn't do that unless it was really serious."

  "And then she died," I said quietly.

  She looked at me for a moment, started to speak and stopped, started again. "I wonder…"

  "Wonder what?"

  The words came slowly, almost reluctantly. "Do you suppose that the letter-writer… had something to do with Mother Hilaria's death?"

  I watched her face. ' 'What makes you ask?''

  She moved her hand over the plaid spread, smoothing it. "When it happened, I believed what Mother Winifred told us. About the hot plate and the puddle of milk and Mother Hilaria's bad heart. But now…" She paused and looked up at me. "The thing is, Mother Hilaria did know who was writing those letters, and she intended to do something about it. Then she died. Was it a coincidence, do you think, or something else?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I'd like to find out." I pushed myself out of the chair. ' 'Thanks for your help,'' I added, and hesitated, thinking of another question. "Feeling the

  way you do about the Church, Anne, how can you go on being a part of it?''

  Anne raised her chin. "I don't intend to."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "A friend of mine has established an order in Chicago- a group of women who live together and work in a hospice. They have no connection with the Catholic Church. It's a big move for me, but I'm ready to make it. In fact, I'm anxious to leave. There's a limited amount of room in the Chicago house, and if I don't go soon, they'll give my space to someone else."

  "Why are you staying?"

  "Because I don't want to tip the balance. Actually, I "hink change would be good for St. T's. We're too insular, and there's a tendency to be fixed in our ideas. In my opinion, Reverend Mother General has the right idea, and I personally don't think she's the Wicked Witch of the West, die way some people do. But she's chosen the wrong person to make changes. Olivia is a despot."

  I smiled a little. "No redeeming qualities?"

  Anne considered. "She's determined, you've got to give her that. But she's made too many enemies. If you ask me, she'd better watch out. Somebody might slip something into her salad."

  Chapter Nine

  Rue in Thyme should be a Maiden's Posie.

  Scottish proverb

  Rue has a reputation as an anaphrodisiac (reducing sexual excitement) and an abortifacient… Unfortunately, the active dose of various extracts of the plant… is at the same level as a toxic dose.

  Steven Foster Herbal Renaissance

  I was still thinking about what I had learned from both Anne and Dominica as I walked up the path to Jeremiah. The thoughts were driven out of my head by a deep voice.

  "Hello, China."

  Tom Rowan was lounging on the front step, blue-jeaned legs and boots stretched out in front of him, a brown Stetson tipped forward over his eyes. There was a blue nylon bp bag on the porch beside him. He sat up and thumbed his hat back.

  "You look surprised. Didn't Mother Winifred tell you "d be stopping by?"

  "Yes, she did. I guess I lost track of time."

  "Nothing new about that. Remember?" He gave me a slow grin. "We'd have a lunch date and you'd work right iirough it. Dinner, too." He scooted over so I could sit iown next to him. The narrow wooden step made for a:3zy fit.

  "I wasn't the only one," I said. "Remember the Satur- j day afternoon we were supposed to go out on Alex's boat? Yob got involved at the bank and forgot all about it. And the evening my mother was taking us to the Opera Guild dinner and you stood us both up?"

  He held up his hands, laughing. "I confess, Counselor. I'm guilty, you're guilty, we're both guilty." He dropped his hands. ' 'I guess we both could have done a lot of things differently."

  We sat quietly for a moment. I don't know what Tom was thinking, but I was wishing I could go back and do at least some of it differently-not for him, but for me. If I'd been willing to give a little more, maybe I could have learned something. Of course, there might not have been much to learn: Tom had been as arrogant as I, and we'd I pushed one another around rather badly. But I might have learned something that could have smoothed those rough | early days with McQuaid.

  Tom looked up at the cliff on the other side of the Yucca "You've got a lovely spot for a retreat," he said. The sky I was blue now, no clouds. The sun, dropping toward the western horizon, spilled a golden light over the cliff. "Nothing ever happens here."

  I grunted. Nothing much ever happens? How about a ' little arson, a few poison-pen letters, two questionable deaths, a power struggle between monastic factions, and a feminist revolt against the masculine authority of the. Church? But unless Tom spent a lot of time here or cultivated an inside informant, those were things he probably wouldn't hear about. "Do you come out here often?" 11 asked.

  "Not often enough." He rested his crossed arms on bent knees. "Maybe I'll ask Mother Winifred if I can stay for a couple of weeks this spring. I'm glad I've had this time with my father, but I need to get away. Sometimes the old man…" He let the sentence slide away.

  ' 'Rough, huh?'' I asked. I remembered Tom Senior as a

  man who liked to pull the strings, call the shots. When somebody like that is confronted by the Big C, the fallout can be tough on everybody.

  The corner of Tom's mouth turned down. "He's got a list as long as your arm of things that have to be finished in the next few months-some of which strike me as pretty damn ridiculous. The trouble is, I get roped into his agenda whether I want to or not."

  "How long has he been ill?"

  "The cancer was diagnosed a year ago." He snook his head. "You'd think he'd take a vacation, travel, do things he's been putting off. But it's only made him work harder. He always was strong as an ox, you know, and he's still in pretty good physical shape. Oh, before I forget, he sends his regards-and he wants you to have dinner with us. How about tomorrow night?"

  "Okay," I said, shoving down a little gremlin of eagerness.

  "There's not much to choose from in Carr, but the Tex-Mex at the Lone Star dance hall is more Mex th
an Tex. Not half-bad."

  I nodded. "But as I recall, you were into up-scale food. A different cuisine every night." Back in Houston, we had a regular restaurant routine: Malaysian on Monday, Thai on Tuesday, Indian on Wednesday, and so on. We could eat out every night and not hit the same restaurant more than once a month. "Did you get tired of gourmet glitz?"

  "More or less. But that's another story. Anyway, Dad was chompin' at the bit, wanting me to come back and take over for him." He laughed shortly. "But by the time I cleaned things up in Houston and got ready to leave, he'd decided he wasn't quite ready to cash in. So we've tailored one job to fit two people. It hasn't been easy."

  The bank's situation couldn't be all that secure, either. "I read that the FDIC's taken control of nearly a thousand Texas banks in the last ten years," I said. The small banks were the most vulnerable, of course. If the oil crash hadn't

  brought them down, the real estate nosedive had.

  Tom picked a grass stem and stuck it between his teeth. "True enough. But Dad's always been conservative, and the bank is in good shape. Assets are up, loans, Fed funds sold, et cetera, et cetera." He slanted an amused glance at me. "If you want to see a balance sheet, China, I can get you one."

  "I'm not here to look at your balance sheet," I said. I was suddenly, uneasily aware of the warm solidity of his hip next to mine on the narrow step. I wanted to move away but I couldn't, unless I stood up and broke contact altogether. And I found myself not quite wanting to do that. The familiar electric charge was still mere between us. It felt good.

  He sat there for a minute, arms crossed on his bent knees. I had forgotten how hefty his wrists were, how strong and capable his hands. "Cowboy hands," I used to call them, hardly the hands of a banker. I pulled my eyes away from the curl of blond hair at his shirt cuff. I wanted to say something to break the silence, but I couldn't think of anything.

  "So tell me about your life," he said. "What are you doing now that you're not practicing law?"

  That was safe enough. I told him about moving to Pecan Springs, and about the shop.

  "I guess I'm not surprised," he said. "You always liked plants. Is that why you're here? To check out the garlic?"

  I shifted my position, pushing one leg out in front of me, putting an inch of daylight between us. "I'm on retreat. I came to get away for a while."

  "Stu Walters doesn't tell it that way."

  "Stu Walters sucks eggs," I remarked mildly.

  He chuckled. "You'll get no argument from me on that-or from half the town, either. Thing is, though, Stu usually knows which eggs to suck and which to leave in the nest. That's how he and the sheriff keep their jobs. This county is muy political." He was looking away, across the

  river, his mouth amused. "So how's the big investigation coming, Detective Bayles? Caught your little firebug yet? Which nun is it?"

  I hate to be patronized, even by Tom Rowan. "Matter of fact, I have," I said deliberately. "I wouldn't call him a 'little' firebug, though. He's already done four years at Huntsville on two counts of arson."

  Tom's head swiveled around.

  "Unfortunately," I went on, "the evidence is circumstantial and the county attorney probably won't prosecute. But we may still nail his tail. He took a shot at me yesterday afternoon. Three shots, as a matter of fact."

  Tom was staring, his gray eyes open wide, the grass stem hanging from his lower Up. "Somebody shot at you?"

  I pointed to the top of the cliff. ' 'From up there. Town-send territory."

  ' 'He missed you?''

  "Do I look dead? He wasn't trying to hit me. He was trying to scare me."

  He tossed the grass stem away. "You've been saying 'he,' so I assume it wasn't one of the sisters. It wouldn't be Father Steven, either. Which leaves the maintenance man. Dwight somebody-or-other."

  I eyed him. It was interesting that he hadn't mentioned the Townsends as a possibility. "If you ask me," I said idly, "the only mystery is why Stu Walters didn't finger Dwight in the first place."

  "He told me he thought it was one of the sisters."

  "That's what he told me, too. But he might at least have run a background check, or talked to Dwight's parole officer. She could have clued him in on the prior which is the clincher." I paused. "Only thing I can figure is that Walters assumed mat the real arsonist was on the Townsend payroll. Doing a little dirty work for the neighbors, so to speak. So he didn't look all that close."

  Tom's eyes narrowed. "My, my, you are a suspicious

  lady. Quick, too. Takes some folks months to ferret out the politics in this county."

  "I've had a little experience with crooked cops and smooth politicians. In my former life, that is."

  "Yeah." He grinned. "Makes you kind of dangerous, doesn't it?"

  I met his eyes and read the intention in them as clearly as if he had spoken. It was like a jolt of electricity, stopping my breath, tightening my stomach muscles. Me, dangerous? Tom was the one who was dangerous. Between my shop and my relationship with McQuaid, I had more than enough to occupy me. I didn't need any complications-especially one with so many powerful memories hooked to it.

  Tom looked away too, and the corners of his mouth quirked. "Dangerous from… well, Dwight's point of view. How'd you get onto him?"

  "Superior detective work. A cartridge casing and an empty cigarette pack."

  He shook his head. "You never cease to amaze me." He sat for a moment, then added, more seriously: "That was one of my problems when we were together, you know."

  "What was a problem? That I amazed you?"

  "That you were so blasted resourceful. You didn't need anybody but yourself." There was a bitterness in his tone that surprised me, but it was gone when he added, "So what's going to happen to Dwight?"

  "The least that can happen is that he's out of a job; the most, that he goes back to Huntsville. It all depends on whether he left prints, and whether the county attorney and Pardons and Paroles decide to take any action." Where the county attorney is concerned, it depends on what kind of caseload he's carrying and whether he wants to put the effort into the case. Where Pardons and Paroles is concerned, you never can tell. It sometimes depends on who's lurking in the background.

  Tom took off his hat and put it on the porch beside him.

  "So what do you think? Was Dwight acting on his own hook, or was he in it with somebody else?"

  The question sounded casual enough, but I'd have bet there was something beneath it. I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if the bank was muy political too. In a small town like Carr, the county commissioners did plenty of deals with the local lending institution. For instance, somebody- Tom's bank, no doubt-held a pretty healthy mortgage on that Southern plantation ranch house I'd seen yesterday.

  Was Dwight working for somebody else? I spoke warily. "Anything's possible, I guess. The guy's checking account was pretty anemic, but he could have stashed the cash somewhere else-in another bank account, maybe, or in a tin can behind a loose board."

  "What do you think?" Tom insisted.

  I pushed myself to my feet. ' 'I think that once Dwight is out of here, the sisters can put away their firefighting gear." If the Townsends were behind the arson, they'd lost their inside man. And if Tom had anything more than a passing acquaintance with the Townsends, he could pass that message along.

  Tom leaned back on his elbows, squinting up at me. "You haven't changed a bit, you know. You still play your cards close."

  "Do I?" I countered.

  "Hey, come on, China. Give a guy a break." He got to his feet and picked up his hat. "I didn't drive all the way out here to arm-wrestle with you."

  "I thought you came to talk business with Mother Winifred."

  His sudden, teasing grin lightened his whole face. "Oh, yeah? Then how come I brought this?'' He reached for the blue nylon bag.

  "What's that?"

  "You'll see." He slung the bag over his shoulder. "Come on. Let's go for a hike."

  I eyed him. "Where?"
>
  "I don't know. Anywhere." He gestured toward the cliff. "How about up there? The view is pretty spectacular."

  "Up there?' I groaned. "Do you know what that trail's like?"

  "Yeah. A nice stroll for mountain goats." He grinned. "I'll bring the goodies. All you have to do is get your butt up there. Now stop fussin' and come on."

  The climb was easier in the daylight, and the landscape- which had been serene and lovely in the moonlight-was even more impressive under the late afternoon sun. The exercise of climbing seemed to ease the tension between us, too. I was grateful.

  When we reached the top, we found a flat limestone ledge and sat on it, watching the sun glinting off the Yucca's silver ripples, feeling its warmth on our backs. I heard the raspy chit-chit-chit of a titmouse in a thicket of juniper and the chiding murmur of the river, chattering to itself at the foot of the cliff. A great blue heron, gliding from a tree to the river's edge, was a moving shadow across the rock. The falling sun cast a red glow over die serenity of St. Theresa's.

  "So," Tom said. "Now that you've caught your crook, you can get some peace and quiet."

  "I wish," I said regretfully.

  He picked up a stone and tossed it over the cliff. It fell free all the way to the bottom, where it splashed into a dark pool. "Oh, yeah? What's up?"

  There wasn't any reason not to tell him. It took only a couple of minutes to sketch the situation: the accusing letters, Mother Hilaria's cryptic diary, John Roberta's whispered hint that she knew something. And the two deaths.

  By the time I finished, Tom was frowning at me. "Diary? Mother Hilaria kept a diary?''

  I was a little surprised that Tom had focused on the diary, out of all the things I'd told him, but I only nodded.

  "That's where I got the information that puts the finger on Dwight as the arsonist."

  "Anything else?" he asked casually.

  "Not enough," I said. "You've got to read between the lines." I looked at him. His question was almost too casual. "Why are you asking?"

  He looked away. "Just that… it's hard to believe that all this has been going on in this calm, peaceful place. You think somebody actually murdered those two nuns?"