Rueful Death Read online

  I was at Mother Winifred's door before the bell rang for breakfast.

  "Good morning, China," Mother said. She was wearing a rumpled green robe and she looked tired, as if she hadn't rested well. "I've just put the kettle on. Would you like a cup of tea?"

  "What I'd like," I said without preamble, "is your permission to search Dwight Baldwin's living quarters." I had already made a circuit of the parking lot behind Sophia and confirmed my suspicions.

  She stared at me. "You suspect Dwight of setting the fires?"

  "I don't know about the fires," I said. "But I think he was the person who took a shot at me yesterday afternoon."

  Her pale blue eyes widened. "Shot at you! But why?"

  "To warn me off," I said. "I know it's Sunday, Mother. But I'd like you to invent a task that will occupy him for an hour or so this morning, so I can search. And I'd like a key to his quarters, if you have one."

  She nodded sadly. ' 'You can conduct your search during Mass. Dwight is one of our little flock." She went to the cupboard and took down a large ring of keys. ' 'I'm sure there's a key here somewhere."

  In Texas, the law doesn't permit the landlord to enter rented or leased premises, even with a key. But Mother Winifred probably wasn't current on the law, and I certainly wasn't going to sweat it. Legal or not, opening a door with a key beats breaking and entering.

  Breakfast was a repeat of supper, with the refectory once again divided down the middle, neither side talking to the other. Both sides seemed more tense and fidgety than they had last night. I wondered whether they were upset by Sister Perpetua's death or by Mother Winifred's request, or whether they were counting heads. If they hadn't heard that Maggie was returning, they'd be expecting that an election would be held in the next day or two.

  When I had finished assembling my breakfast tray, I looked around for Maggie but didn't see her. Ruby wasn't there either, of course. She had already left for Albuquerque.

  After we'd climbed down the cliff the night before, we had all walked to my cottage, where we sat down to talk for a little while. "I'd love to stay and help you figure out what's going on here," Ruby had said regretfully. "But my friends have made all sorts of plans. I really can't disappoint them."

  "That's okay," I said. "You're still picking us up for the drive home, aren't you?"

  "In two weeks." She'd glanced at Maggie. "Are you going back with us, Maggie?" It was the first reference either of us had made, since supper, to Maggie's momentous decision.

  "I've got to go back," Maggie said. "I have to get ready to put the restaurant up for sale, make arrangements, that sort of thing. It'll be a while before I can come back to

  stay. In the meanwhile, though, I'm considered a member of the order."

  I regarded Maggie thoughtfully. "I suppose I'd understand it better if the restaurant were a flop. But feeling the way you do about the Church, I'm not sure why you want to come back-especially when things here are so unsettled."

  Maggie looked down at her hands resting quietly in her lap. "It's true-there's a lot of uncertainty here. And I'm not any more comfortable with the Church than I was when I left."

  I shook my head. "Then why-?"

  "Because it's where I'm meant to be," Maggie said simply. "Haven't you ever felt that your place in life is the right place?"

  I thought about that for a moment. No, I had never been sure that my place was the right place-not when I was practicing law, not after I'd bought the shop, not even after I'd moved in with McQuaid. Where I was now felt pretty good, sometimes more, sometimes less, but I wasn't absolutely sure it was right. I wondered fleetingly what it would be like to experience that kind of assurance.

  "Excuse me." Ruby stirred. "You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, Maggie. But what about Dominica? Does she have anything to do with this?"

  Maggie didn't seem offended. "Maybe. I've certainly missed her. But I don't expect anything to be different between us. I'm just sort of doing this a step at a time. Taking it on faith. And loving the questions."

  I was surprised into the recollection of a piece of poetry I had read once. "Love the questions like locked doors," I said softly. "Like books in a very foreign tongue." Rilke was the poet, I thought.

  "Love the questions?" Ruby shook her head. "Excuse me, but I prefer answers."

  "In the short run, maybe." Maggie smiled. "But questions take us farther and deeper. I was called here to St.

  T's to learn something. Whatever it is, I need to come back and get on with the job."

  "But don't you need to know what job it is that you're supposed to get on with?" Ruby asked doubtfully.

  Maggie's laugh was rich and joyful. "There is such a thing as faith, you know. Come on, you guys. Love the questions!"

  The logic of Maggie's decision continued to escape me, but 1 felt close to her in a new way. And when she and Ruby left, we all hugged one another for a long time, Ruby and I in our doubt, Maggie in her faith.

  I found a spot at a table in a corner of the refectory. If one of the sisters had information for me, I was hoping she'd come and sit down. But perhaps it had been too public an invitation, I decided as I finished my breakfast alone. The only person who spoke to me was Sister Gabriella, who had traded her jeans for a tailored skirt and sweater. She stopped as I was putting my plate on the stack of dirty dishes on the pass-through shelf to the kitchen.

  "How about dropping by Jacob after Mass?" she asked. "I'd like to give you a tour of our garlic operation." A nun in a habit paused to scan a nearby bulletin board and Gabriella bent toward me, lowering her voice so the other woman couldn't hear. "Sadie Marsh, one of the Laney Foundation Board members, will be here this morning. She wants to talk to you."

  "Oh, yes," I said, remembering. "Tom Rowan mentioned her. She raises horses, doesn't she?"

  "That's right." Gabriella raised one quizzical eyebrow. "You've met Tom?"

  I felt myself coloring. ' 'We knew one another years ago. He said that the board is meeting here this week."

  "Tuesday morning. But Sadie doesn't want to wait until then." She raised her voice again. "Does eleven sound all right? We can take a tour of the garlic field, if the weather is still cooperating."

  "Fine," I said, and turned to go. "See you then."

  I was halfway down the hall when I was stopped by a slight, anxious nun in a modified habit and veil that hid her hair. She wore plastic-rimmed fifties-style glasses, and she was so tense that I could almost feel her quivering. She looked over her shoulder in both directions before she pulled me into the laundry room.

  "I'm Sister John Roberta." The words escaped from her in whispery gasps. "If I tell you what I know, will you help me get away?"

  I was startled. "Get away? Why?" What did she know that would make her so fearful?

  She clutched at my arm. "I'm afraid I'll die here! Please, help me!"

  "I'll do my best," I said reassuringly. "What are you afraid of?"

  Her mouth trembled. "Sister Olivia says we have to stick together." She broke into a flurry of dry coughing. "And Sister Rowena says if I tell, I'm being disloyal. They might-"

  She pressed her fist to her mouth at the sound of muted voices and footsteps in the hall. The group passed, the outer door closed, and there was silence once again. John Roberta stood still, her eyes apprehensive. Her face was almost as white as the starched band of her veil.

  "I'm afraid someone will hear," she said. "Or see us together and guess that I'm-" She bit off her sentence.

  ' 'I could come to your room to talk,'' I said. ' 'We'd have more privacy there."

  She shook her head violently. "They'd see you. They'd know I was talking to you. They'd-" She broke off, coughing. "You're staying in Jeremiah, aren't you?" she asked, when she could speak again. "I'll come there. Later."

  "After lunch?" I asked. I wasn't sure I could trust her to come, but I didn't have any choice in the matter.

  "Not right after. One-thirty." Another cough, a fright-

 
ened glance, and she was gone, a shadow winging down the shadowy hall.

  The encounter was promising, but all I was left with were questions. I would have to wait until one-thirty to learn the answers. I looked at my watch. Mass would be starting soon. I'd better get busy.

  Earlier in the morning, in the gun rack of Dwight's GMC pickup in the parking lot, I had seen an Enfield 303 and, crumpled on the floor of the cab, an empty Camels pack. But before I accused the man of assault with a deadly weapon, I wanted to see if I could discover something that might explain his attack. Something that would connect him to the Townsends, for instance.

  The bell was ringing for Mass when I walked casually to the door of Amos, Dwight's vintage stucco cottage, and knocked. No answer. I knocked again, harder, and called Dwight's name. Still no answer. 1 put my hand in my pocket and took out the key. But I didn't need it, because the door wasn't locked.

  Amos had the same layout as Jeremiah, although it wasn't nearly as clean. Foul-smelling jeans and work shirts were heaped in one corner, there was a saddle and a dirty saddle blanket under the window, and copies of Playboy, open to the centerfold, littered the floor by the bed. The room reeked of stale cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey.

  I began by checking the dresser drawers, then moved to the single drawer in the wooden desk, the bathroom shelves, and the jackets and shirts hanging in the closet. But apart from a half-empty box of 303 cartridges and a completely empty bottle of Wild Turkey, I found little of interest. Until, that is, I reached in the pocket of a flannel shirt and found a business card with the name, address, and telephone numbers of J. R. Nutall, Carr County Probation Officer.

  Probation officer. So Dwight wasn't totally clean, as far

  as the law was concerned. What had he done to earn jail time?

  I confiscated one of the shells as a souvenir, jotted down the information on Nutall's business card, and went to the nightstand. Most of the canceled checks I discovered in the drawer were made out to Al's Liquor Store for amounts under thirty dollars. The December bank statement, which I discovered on top of the toilet, showed that Dwight had $74.41 in the bank, after depositing four weekly checks, each for the identical amount of $352.70-his salary, most likely. A chipped saucer on top of the dresser held a silver rosary, nail clippers, a beer bottle opener, and a black book that contained phone numbers and first names, most of them women's. I flipped the book open to the Ts. There was no listing for Townsend.

  And that was it-until I raised the mattress and found the black spiral notebook.

  The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and the temperature was already climbing out of the fifties when I took Mother Hilaria's diary back to Jeremiah. Today might top out at sixty-five, which almost made up for the ferocious heat of last July and August. Almost, but not quite.

  I glanced at my watch. It was only nine-thirty. I'd have time to read a few pages before I went over to Jacob to meet Sadie Marsh. And after I had talked to Sister John Roberta, I would let Mother Winifred know what I'd found under Dwight's mattress. He had some tall explaining to do.

  Back in Jeremiah, I brewed a cup of tea and sat cross-legged on the bed with Hilaria's journal in front of me. Opening it, I saw that she had been using it as a multiyear diary, a page for every day in the year, with the years arranged in sequence down the page. She had been keeping the diary for almost five years when she died, and although the entries were short, there were far more than I could read in an hour. Where to begin? Should I start with Sep-

  tember 3, the last entry, and read backward? Or start earlier?

  I thumbed through the pages for a few minutes, then began with the middle of July, when the St. Agatha sisters moved to St. T. It didn't take long to find a reference to the first poison-pen letter. But if I'd been hoping that Hi-laria had recognized the identity of the writer and confided it to her diary, I was disappointed. For July 17, all I found were three enigmatic words: Sr. Perpetua, letter.

  The other entries were just as cryptic. Hilaria was in the habit of jotting down the names of people she talked to and the topics of their conversations, or short phrases describing the day's activities-Board meeting, nothing accomplished, for instance, or Bank, check records. Tom Sr, questions re: interest. Tom Senior would be Tom Rowan's father. These entries had been made after the court had finally awarded the money to St. T, so he and Mother Hilaria were no doubt straightening out the complications that had arisen during the years the bank held the foundation's money.

  Financial queries seemed to have kept Mother Hilaria busy through July and into August. She devoted several days a week to Bank, questions re: accounts or Investment records, review. I could understand why. If the court had dumped a fourteen- or fifteen-million-dollar inheritance into my lap, I'd be studying deposit accounts and investment records too. I'd be so busy asking questions that I might not waste much time over a nasty letter that accused a forgetful sister of the petty theft of a library book.

  But a week after her meeting with Sister Perpetua, Mother Hilaria was indeed thinking about the letter. Questioned Sr. O about Sr. P's letter, I read, on July 24. I reached for the roster Mother Winifred had given me. Conveniently, Olivia was the only sister whose name began with O.

  I went back to the entry with a frown, wishing that Mother Hilaria had been less cryptic. I had first assumed that she had questioned Olivia because she hoped Olivia

  might be able to name the culprit. But perhaps that wasn't the right assumption. Perhaps she thought that Olivia herself had written the letter.

  I got up, took a bathroom break, and brewed a second cup of tea. I started reading again with July 26: Dwight, salary increase, approved. After that, his name appeared with increasing frequency. August 5: Dwight, no promotion. August 8: Dwight, said no again. And then, August 12, Dwight, threats. Spoke sternly. And on August 13, J. R. Nutall, questions re: Dwight.

  I sipped my tea and reread all five of these entries, trying to piece together the story that lay behind them. Dwight had been given a raise at the end of July. Less than two weeks later, he was back, asking for a promotion. From handyman to what? Farm manager? Whatever he wanted, he didn't get it. When he struck out again, he retaliated with a threat. Mother Hilaria had clearly been concerned, or she wouldn't have contacted his probation officer.

  Again, I wondered what crime had sent Dwight to jail. If he'd served time for a violent felony, Texas law prohibited his carrying a gun off the monastery grounds. Caught with that 303 anywhere else, he could be charged with a third-degree felony-which meant that his target practice at the top of the cliff might just earn him more lockup time. I had J. R. Nutall's home phone number. A call would turn up the information I needed. But first, I'd ask Mother Winifred for a look at Dwight's personnel record-assuming there was one, of course. As far as I knew, he was the monastery's only full-time employee. Mother Hilaria might have hired him without any formalities.

  I turned the page to August 16 and found something else. Sr. A, letter. Questioned Sr. R & Sr. O. Sister A must be Sister Anne, whom the letter-writer had chastised for lewdly baring her nakedness. Sister O-well, I knew who that was. Sister R? She was new to my cast of alphabet characters. I ran my finger down the roster and counted eight Rs: Ramona, Rachel, Rowena, Ruth, Rosabel, Rose,

  Rosaline, Regina. Nine, including Sister John Roberta. I sighed. It was too bad that R names were so popular in this order. It was really too bad that Mother Hilaria had been so cryptic. If she had only used names instead of initials, I'd know which of the nine Rs she had questioned. But that was information I could get from Sister O, who would surely remember the August sixteenth conversation.

  I turned the pages and found more brief notations. Phoned Rev Moth G, re: problems, but on retreat at Moth Hs. Which of her problems had Mother Hilaria wanted to discuss? The trust accounts? Dwight? The letters? But Rev Moth G (Reverend Mother General, I assumed) had apparently remained incommunicado at the Moth Hs (the Mother House?) for quite some time. The diary didn't indicate that Moth
er Hilaria had succeeded in talking to her.

  There was nothing more of interest until August 22, the day Sister Anne's swimsuit was found draped on the cross. Sr. A's suit!!, the outraged entry read. Questioned Sr. 0 & Sr. R again. The remaining entries in August were focused on financial affairs-Bank re: statements, Tom Sr re: funds, bank re: note. September 1 was blank. September 2's entry consisted of just one word, underlined.

  letter .

  I stared at the single word. Somebody else had gotten a letter, but who? Mother Hilaria? If so, what had happened to it? Had she destroyed it, or was it still among her possessions?

  That was the last entry. On September 3, Mother Hilaria had died. Sometime after that, Dwight had stolen her journal.

  Chapter Seven

  Several years ago, a newspaper reporter interviewed me for an herb article. After the interview, the reporter arranged to trade some herb plants with me. He wanted to show me some comfrey, which he had tried in salads and found extremely bitter tasting. The next day I went to his office and there, sitting on a file cabinet, was a box of first-year foxglove plants! To the novice, comfrey and foxglove have a similar appearance. Earlier that same year (1979), an elderly couple had eaten what they thought were comfrey leaves. It was foxglove, and both died within twenty-four hours.

  Steven Foster Herbal Renaissance

  Sister Gabriella's garlic operation wasn't exactly what you'd expect in a monastery. Neither was she, come to that. She was tall and strong, and she swung her arms energetically as she talked, her gestures punctuating her rich Southern speech.

  "When we first came out here, there were only ten of us, and we had just an acre of plants," she said as we walked through the big, airy barn. "When harvest time came, we dug the garlic with forks and shovels."

  "Wasn't that hard on everybody's back?" I asked, trying to imagine what it would be like to spade up an entire acre of garlic. And even after it was dug, the job wouldn't have