Nun But The Brave (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 3) (17 page)

Thirty-Seven

The next morning, Giulia arrived at the office late and dressed for yard work. “I’m out of here before noon, guys.”

Sidney was frowning. Zane looked from Giulia to Sidney and back as his face morphed from concerned to unsure to concerned again.

“What’s the problem?” Giulia said.

“Don’t go,” Sidney said.

“I agree with Sidney,” Zane said.

Giulia leaned against the door, arms crossed. “Say it.”

Someone knocked on the glass at her shoulder. Giulia opened the door for Jasper Fortin, closed all four of them in, and cast suspicious looks at her hardworking staff.

“Jasper, it’s always a pleasure to see you, but you must admit your timing is a touch too convenient.”

“I couldn’t get away before now, Ms. Driscoll. Aunt Rowan double-booked herself and I came to her rescue. Sidney and Zane said you’d be in this morning.”

The smile Giulia favored her employees with was not her most pleasant one.

“Don’t get mad at them,” Jasper said. “Aunt Rowan did another Tarot reading for you and she saw coercion and bondage, both mental and physical. I won’t tell you the exact cards and interpretations, but she says you have enough sense, and I quote, to keep your head out of your backside where the Tarot is involved.”

Giulia didn’t find Rowan’s opinion amusing. “Please tell her I appreciate her concern.”

Jasper glanced at Zane and Sidney. “I understand. I’ll give her your message.”

When the downstairs door squeaked closed behind him, Giulia waited until both her employees met her gaze. “I appreciate your concern also, but Lady Rowan is not in the private investigation business. I am, and I am capable of fulfilling my business objectives without advice from the Other Side. Specific to this case, I will point out that I survived ten years in a cult. I can survive another twenty-four hours.”

Zane’s expression changed from trepidation to confusion.

“The convent,” Giulia said. “As for the Preppers, I have an extraction plan plus a backup escape plan if they try to graft a tin foil hat onto my scalp. Either way, I’ll be out of there tomorrow, hopefully with our client’s no longer missing twin sister.”

Sidney said with unusual meekness, “What if she doesn’t want to come out?”

“I’ll give her the current total of what her sister is paying us to find her. From my research into her personality, the guilt would make her at least agree to a photograph and a voice message for her sister on my phone.”

“A phone in an anti-technology Prepper compound?” Zane’s natural Humphrey Bogart voice would never sound meek, but it did project “subdued.”

“The dictator of this community has granted me special dispensation because my Maria Martin persona may get called in to work.” She walked to her own office and paused with her hand on the doorknob. “I’m interruptable this morning.”

Zane interrupted her exactly seven minutes later. “Ms. D., my girlfriend is hooked on
The
Scoop
. She makes me watch their podcasts every time I go to her house.”

Giulia saved her document. “Yes?”

She got the strongest impression he gathered himself to stand firm against her wrath. She must look angrier than she felt. Or else Jasper’s clairvoyance was rubbing off on her. What would her brother Salvatore say to that?

“She’s been bouncing around their archive, picking episodes based on how much the titles make her laugh. Yesterday she found one from the middle of May. I think you should see it.”

She opened
The Scoop’s
website and found their archive. Zane pointed. “There. Fifth from the bottom.”

Giulia clicked on an episode titled “Twinkies Will Survive the Apocalypse. Stock Up Now.”

“Scroll to minute eight or so. The beginning is a recap of the episode where they stuck the camera into the bushes and the bouncers broke the lens.”

“That was an enjoyable episode.” She dragged her mouse to the eighth minute and clicked Play.

“…find an entrance, Scoopers, so we’re in the woods around back. Have you ever seen anything that screams ‘we’ve got a big, fat secret’ louder than a ten-foot privacy hedge?” Kanning’s idea of a whisper would reach to the last row of the balcony in the Cottonwood Community Theater. The trees around him glowed the unnatural green of things lit by a night vision camera. Kanning’s face filled the screen, eyes dark and hair looking like phosphorescent seaweed. “We’ve returned to this camp of bullies to learn The Truth. It’s almost dawn, but we can’t hear any sounds from the eager pilgrims behind the hedge. Apparently Preppers don’t get up early to work the fields. If they keep this work ethic, they won’t survive their first winter in a technology-free world.”

Giulia whacked her forehead. “I knew I forgot a connection. The hedge.”

Phosphorescent Kanning sneaked along the hawthorn and ivy barrier, attempting to stick his hand in the dense cluster of branches, leaves, and berries. Giulia remembered a line from Mark Twain’s famous review of James Fenimore Cooper’s books: “Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig.”

Clomp, clomp, snap, swish, snap, clomp, snap-snap-snap.

A dog barked. Another.

“He’s toast,” Giulia said. “Preppers keep big dogs.”

Kanning and his cameraman detoured into the woods away from the hedge. The back of Kanning’s seaweed hair bobbed and weaved as they ran, but his hairsprayed helmet never budged. The number of twigs snapping under their shoes sounded like Fourth of July firecrackers.

“Holy [
bleep
].” The cameraman’s voice. The camera swooped away from The Hair. The night vision colors switched off and the regular spotlight illuminated a naked woman on a brown blanket of some kind. Her naughty bits were pixelated for television, as were her facial features. A crown of daisies lay askew on her short blonde hair. A henna-shaded tattoo of a grapevine trailed up her left leg and twined around a scaly horn, like some kind of lizard’s. In the clashing sunrise and artificial light, both looked painted on rather than inked. Going by her smooth skin and general tautness, Giulia guessed her to be eighteen at the most.

Kanning photobombed the picture. “Miss? Miss, wake up.”

“She’s dead, Ken.”

Kanning’s Adam’s apple bobbed, but he reached a steady hand down to the woman’s—girl’s—neck and felt her jugular vein. The camera gave the audience a close-up of Kanning’s spine sagging. “No, she’s not. I’ve got a pulse here.” His head blocked her face and he sniffed. “I don’t recognize the odor, but she’s been drugged.”

The camera zoomed in on the tattoo. Kanning’s loud voice-over said, “We had to edit this out for television, Scoopers, but there are dried fluids on this young woman’s legs. We didn’t take a sample because it wouldn’t stand up in court, but this recording is available to the Cottonwood police if they ever decide to stop stuffing doughnuts into their cake holes and investigate this underage sex slave ring.”

“Leap to conclusions much?” Zane said. “I swear he believes his own hype.”

“According to his website, he’s the only hard-hitting investigative reporter in the Greater Pittsburgh area.”

Kanning’s face reappeared in his studio. “We got out of there fast, Scoopers, before the thugs found us again. There may have been a smile on that poor young woman’s face, but we all know the drugs caused it. Not even our beautiful Cottonwood is safe from disgusting criminals, but never fear, loyal Scoopers. We will get to the bottom of this.”

Giulia closed the playback window. “That man gives me a stabby pain right here.” She massaged the back of her neck.

Zane shuffled his feet. “This podcast is why I called Jasper, Ms. D. Kanning might be sub-human, but you can’t argue with the implications of him finding a naked girl in the woods. You’re not staying at a geek retreat or a frat party hideaway. They’ve got weird drugs and women aren’t safe with them.”

Giulia smiled at him, all her annoyance gone. “I appreciate your concern. No, really, I do. This podcast gives me two more reasons to infiltrate their community: the dead teenagers and my sister-in-law. The pieces are starting to come together.”

Zane opened his mouth but closed it without speaking.

“Thank you. I don’t need you or Sidney to mother me. I’m capable of taking care of myself, and now that you’ve warned me about a whole ’nother aspect to their community, I’ll be on my guard while I eat, drink, and breathe.” She raised her voice. “Did you hear that, mom?”

“Yes. Fine. Sorry. Good.”

Giulia had no trouble following Sidney’s reasoning through those five syllables. She went over to the file cabinet and opened the bottom drawer.

“I can’t sneak in fingerprinting supplies, but a few small Ziploc baggies won’t show in my pockets. If I can find their drug stash, I’ll sneak out a sample for the police.”

“What if they search you?” Zane’s foot tapped the floor.

“You’re borrowing trouble. I learned a long time ago what a black hole that is.” She opened the box underneath the fingerprint kit. “Here they are. These will go in my hiking boots, I think.” She unlaced her left boot and slid two small bags under the insoles. “No matter whose house I sleep in, evidence can and will be hidden from prying Preppers. What time is it?”

“It’s 10:57.”

“I’ve got to get on the road.” She shut down her computer and tucked her phone in her back pocket. “I might be back in here tomorrow afternoon. It depends on what I find and how exhausted I am after milking goats and shoveling natural fertilizer.”

“I bet you’ll appreciate our alpaca fertilizer a lot more,” Sidney said. “If you’d told us you’d have to milk goats, we could’ve given you a lesson on the alpacas.”

“Milking goats?” Zane said.

“They have sheep, goats, and pigs. No cows.” Giulia picked up her purse. “I thought of it after I left your place, Sidney, but they don’t expect me to know anything about animals except how to cook them, so I want to come in cold.”

Zane patted his computer monitor. “You can have my technology—”

“When you pry it from my cold, dead hands,” Giulia and Sidney finished.

Thirty-Eight

At ten after one, Giulia backed the Nunmobile into a spot close to the compound’s hidden hedge entrance. The smart PI makes sure to plan for a possible emergency exit. Her Glock in the glove compartment was positioned for quick access. Her blonde Maria Martin hair was braided and wound around her head. The hazel contacts worried her. She’d stashed a miniature bottle of eye drops in with her toothbrush.

Her only unpreparedness: mosquito repellent. She hadn’t found an all-natural recipe whose ingredients were already in her pantry or laundry room. Asking for some might be perceived as weakness. Maybe she could convince the most paranoid member of a theory she heard on the internet about how the government was conducting secret experiments in spy drone miniaturization. How she’d seen blurry photos like Bigfoot photos of a captured drone and they looked like oversize mechanical mosquitoes.

After dropping that rock in the pond, she would sit back and watch the paranoia explosion. Tonight’s post-supper entertainment: Target practice on evil government spy-cam insects.

But for now she’d have to tough it out and look forward to baking soda plasters at home in the modern world. She took out her sleeping bag and well-worn canvas backpack (three dollars at Rowan’s fourth husband’s Army-Navy surplus store) from the trunk and locked it. Her keys went into her toiletry bag because she was still not naïve enough to think these Stepford people were too polite to snoop in the newbie’s car. Finally, the car alarm could serve a purpose other than annoying everyone within a city block’s radius.

Before she pushed aside the ivy curtain over the hidden opening, she smelled all-natural fertilizer. Tuesday must be shovel the poop day. Lucky her. She took a deep breath. Bad idea; find another way to get into character. She closed her eyes, counted to five in Latin, and opened her eyes into Maria Martin’s Precious Moments figurine expression.

“Maria’s here,” the spinning woman called as Giulia pressed herself against the inside of the hedge, feigning uncertainty. Cheryl. The woman’s name was Cheryl.

“Hey, Maria.” One of the teenagers tossed his football at her. She trapped the ball between her hip and her sleeping bag.

“Not bad for a girl,” his brother said.

Giulia dropped the sleeping bag and tossed a competent spiral pass back to him. The other one gave her a thumbs-up before snatching it from his brother’s hands and taking off in a wide loop around the beehives. They were identical. One set of twins down; how many to go?

A short balding man sat on the porch step of the octagon house playing 1950s do-wop songs on an accordion. In a rocking chair on the porch, a redhead with retro cat-eye glasses mended a shirt. A basket piled high with ripped items of clothing waited next to her.

A skinny blonde—the blonde from
The Scoop
’s earlier show about this place?—carried a wicker basket with more clothes toward the woods. A hunk of yellowish handmade soap balanced on top of the clothes. An equally skinny redhead carried a similar basket.

The sound of an axe chopping wood came from behind the beehives. A teenage girl and a younger boy walked from one front garden to the next, spreading pungent manure. The expressions on their faces begged to become a meme.

Cheryl picked up Giulia’s sleeping bag. “You’re in Audrey’s house for tonight. She’s on a business trip. She says welcome and enjoy and don’t forget her Rottie thinks he’s a one-hundred-fifty-pound lap dog.”

Giulia ducked her head. “Thank you. I’m looking forward to a longer stay.”

They walked up the single step into one of the trailer-style houses. The door opened without a key.

“I’ve never lived in a place without at least two locks on the doors.”

Cheryl’s smile got bigger. “I used to live in neighborhoods like that. It’s so refreshing to find a place where everyone trusts each other.”

Giulia made a thoughtful face. “You’d have to, if you all plan to create a safe haven for the future.”

“Exactly. I told Alex you were the right kind of person to bring in. I do hope you’ll like it here. Now,” she pointed, “the bedroom is through the living area, and the galley kitchen is over to your left. All our houses are the easiest in the world to get used to.”

Giulia set her sleeping bag and knapsack on the floor of the bedroom.

“Come out back and I’ll call Pepin.”

Giulia smiled. “For Pepin the Short. I remember from my first visit.”

Cheryl clapped. “Yes. I’m so glad to meet another history buff. Alex is, but my husband and kids are all about gadgets and the insides of machines.” They walked through a kitchen exactly long enough to squeeze in a half-size iron stove with two cupboards above it, plus a sink with an old-fashioned water pump. The screen door and storm door were closed. Cheryl opened both and whistled, then called “Pepin!”

The memorable black and brown moose galloped toward the house. A miniature moose, that is, with a flopping tongue whose steps rattled the dishes in the cupboard. Pepin stopped at the back step and
woofed.

“Pepin, do you remember Maria? She’s our friend. Say hello.”

Giulia held out her left fist, fingers down. The moose sniffed it all over, considered for about three seconds, and bumped her fist so it landed on top of its head. Giulia scratched the top of Pepin’s head. His muzzle stretched in a goofy smile and she walked down the step, brought up her other hand, and rubbed his ears.

“Get ready,” Cheryl said.

The warning came only a moment before Pepin collapsed at Giulia’s feet with a house-shaking
WHUMP
. All four legs pointed skyward and the barrel-like rib cage and stomach demanded pets. Giulia complied.

“If he lands on me in the middle of the night, you’ll be able to use me as Soylent Green.”

Cheryl laughed again but shook her head. “Don’t mention that movie when Alex is around. He’ll launch into a twenty-minute lecture on how our current world situation exactly mirrors the conditions that led to creating Soylent Green, and then he’ll make us all take marksmanship refreshers.”

Pepin slurped Giulia’s face.

“Pepin, that’s enough. Go chase squirrels. Go on, boy.”

The moose rolled over and galloped into the woods.

“He’s adorable.” Giulia pretended she didn’t care about dog drool drying on her cheek.

“To us he is,” Cheryl closed the doors. “So are Rana and Boris and Lassie. But if a stranger finds the entrance, they won’t get such a welcome. All our dogs are trained guard dogs.”

A high-def image of Pepin’s teeth clamped on Ken Kanning’s butt sprang into Giulia’s mind. To erase it, she said, “Have you seen Alex today?” A sensible question since Maria Martin was supposed to be Alex’s date.

“Oh, yes, that’s right. He said he’d be at the archery range because you need practice. Do you remember where it is?”

Giulia followed the repeated
thwip-thunk
sounds out to the targets. She anticipated more face-sucking action from Alex, but his body language conveyed otherwise.

“Maria. Welcome. I’m pleased you came here early enough to experience more than recreation and supper.” He handed her a bow and arrow. “Remember the skill set for archery differs in certain ways than the skill set for guns. There is no wind today. Set yourself, aim, and shoot.”

Ten years in the convent, no matter how far in her past, made Giulia an expert in unquestioning obedience—on the surface. She was also an expert in the art of the poker face, because as much as she’d been a good nun, her thoughts didn’t always merit scrutiny. Like now.

Her face smiled. She nocked the arrow, pictured Alex’s narrow butt covering the bull’s-eye, and released. Lower right cheek. Not bad.

“Not bad,” he said. “Adjust your aim up and to the right.”

For the next hour, as near as she could guess, she practiced enough to improve her average to one bull’s-eye every four shots. Alex harangued her, criticized her technique, issued grudging praise, and in general showed himself to be the type of teacher Giulia hated the most. “Maria Martin” giggled at the praise, put on a serious face at the criticism, and ignored the harangues.

Reason number four why Giulia would never make it as a Prepper: She needed a clock to tell the time. Darn technology, making humans dependent on it.

Her fingers and shoulders ached and she wanted a tall glass of water, but she knew this was yet another test so she sucked it up.

At last he said, “Enough.”

She lowered the bow and walked to the target to retrieve the arrows.

“Your technique has improved. But you are still a novice and if you are serious about becoming one of us you must bring your skills up to par.”

Giulia pulled out three arrows from the imaginary Alex butt, in her mind hearing his didactic voice jump an octave with each yank. The satisfaction mitigated the shoulder ache.

Then again, she would much rather he lecture her than kiss her.

They stored the archery supplies in a shed behind the targets. The woods surrounded them on three sides. Rows of barley, then wheat and oats led back to the compound proper.

“Is this enough grain to support everyone over the winter?” she said.

Alex began another lecture about planning and equal distribution and how the only way for the community to lead the way in the upcoming new world was to use privation to grow stronger.

Blah, blah, blah. Giulia paid only enough attention to make the expected responses. She always, always wanted to duct-tape the mouths of people who preached unity and endurance through sacrifice. Her experience of these types usually ended with the discovery of their personal stash of whatever commodity was expected to be in short supply. Her first order of business therefore: Make the rest of the dogs remember her so they’d let her spy in the middle of the night.

When they reached the backyard gardens, she channeled her inner Sidney: “Oh, I almost forgot. I brought the community a gift. Let me run in for it. I’ll only be a minute.”

She ran to the correct back door before he could reply. The starter was expanding in the heat but it hadn’t overflowed. Eager “Maria” ran outside with it.

“It’s sourdough starter,” she said, holding up the concoction like an offering. Easy to achieve since Alex towered over her. “When I was here the other day the flat bread tasted really good, but then I wondered if nobody remembered how to make this. I mean, it’s possible because yeast is so easy to get in the grocery store. But the natural way is best, don’t you agree? This will keep forever, honestly forever if you feed it right.” She met his eyes with a shy but hopeful glance. “I know you said to bring only essential supplies but, well, is this okay?”

Channeling her inner Sidney was exhausting.

Alex smiled at her for the first time that day. “Very good. Our Cheryl brought the same natural bread starter when she joined us. I had worried you might be too concerned about making yourself fit in with everyone here, but I’m pleased to be wrong in this one thing.”

He took the container and walked to the gingerbread house’s back screen door. “Cheryl? Donald? Tim? Jim?”

“Coming.” Cheryl opened the door, fluffs of wool dotting her apron.

“Look what Maria brought us.” He held out the starter.

Cheryl clapped. “I told you, Alex.”

Another smile, this time with a tinge of beneficence. “You did. I’m pleased you were correct. Would you put this in your cold room with the rest?”

“Would I? You bet. Maria, he means the special niche in our cellar lined with two layers of stone. My husband engineered it because he said the new world needs my bread.” She glanced at Alex. “Is there room in the schedule for Maria to take a quick peek?”

More beneficence. It practically radiated from him, like a stylized icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

“Certainly there is. Besides, it’s time to begin supper prep, isn’t it?”

Cheryl leaned into the living room area. “Right as always. We’ll take it from here.”

She led Giulia into a kitchen exactly like the kitchen in Audrey’s house. “We have an old-fashioned pull chain clock in our living area. I haven’t yet mastered telling time by the sun like Alex.”

Cheryl’s house was fluffy. The gingerbread scrollwork on the eaves and porch outside repeated on every possible surface inside. Her house was also bigger than Audrey’s. It had to be to accommodate four people.

“My boys made the clock. They both created the mechanism. Jim carved the wood and Tim painted it.”

“They’re very talented.” Maria Martin’s blandness was making Giulia itch.

“They are, aren’t they?” Cheryl beamed. “I won’t apologize, because parents always brag on their children. It’s in the rule book. You wait until you have kids of your own. You’ll see.”

She opened a trap door in the pantry off the kitchen and climbed down. “Come on. There’s plenty of room for two in here.”

Giulia descended the ladder and stood in a miniature version of fruit cellars she’d seen in regular houses. Supplies filled openwork metal shelving on all four walls. Canned goods and nut butters. Boxes of granola, bouillon cubes, and macaroni. Bags of beans and jerky. Cheeses hung from the ceiling in one corner, reminding Giulia of the provolone in her grandmother’s fruit cellar.

Cheryl pulled one of the shelves away from the wall and opened a square door.

“It looks like a wall safe,” Giulia said, thinking it also looked like a Tabernacle door.

“We got the door and the frame with hinges from an old wall safe. We don’t lock it or anything in case someone needs to start bread and we’re busy. See the beautiful flat river rocks my husband found for me?”

Giulia was able to make sincere compliments about the compact structure. Perhaps a cubic foot in total width, it held several glass jars of bread starter exactly like Giulia’s.

Cheryl placed the new glass container in the front row. “Now a little part of you belongs to the community.”

And with that Giulia was officially creeped out.