Rueful Death (16 page)

Mother Winifred gave me a small smile. ' 'Sadie is perfectly capable of preserving Helen Laney's dream. And to tell the truth, there's very little I can do."

I thought of what Tom had said. "But without your help, Sadie will be in the minority. She
needs
you."

Mother's voice firmed. "If God wants St. Theresa's to be a contemplative house, my dear, that's what it will be, no matter what Reverend Mother and Olivia have in mind. If He prefers us to operate a retreat center here, that's what we will have, regardless of what Sadie Marsh and Sister Gabriella want." Her eyes softened. "I feel He prefers me to look after the lemongrass."

I could hardly argue with God. There was a space of silence, then she said, "Before we go to supper, please tell me: Have you learned anything about the letters?''

"Two things," I said. "The letter-writer had nothing to do with the sacrifice of Anne's swimsuit."

Her brows went up. "No? Then who-?"

"I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it."

An answering smile glimmered on her mouth, as if I had confirmed something she'd already guessed. "Very well, then. The other thing?"

"Mother Hilaria's hot plate is missing from the storage room. Ruth says it disappeared sometime last month, right after Rowena inquired about it."

"Oh, dear." Mother looked deeply troubled. "Oh, dear. But if you're thinking that Rowena took it, I must say that I can't agree. She's an extraordinarily conscientious woman." She thought for a moment. "But for that matter,

so is Ruth. She treats every item, even the toilet paper, as if God had assigned it to her custody. Oh,
dear."

I sat down across the table. "If it won't make us late to supper," I said, "I'd like to hear about Mother Hilaria's death."

It wasn't hard to re-create the scene in my mind as Mother Winifred spoke. The day, a Saturday, had been quite cool for September, and the afternoon and evening were rainy. Mother Hilaria ate supper as usual, stepped into the office to do a half hour's worth of paperwork, then went back to her cottage on the other side of Rebecca, stopping in the garden to pick some tansy and a few stalks of late-blooming golden yarrow.

When she went into the cottage, she put the blossoms into a vase, placed it on her desk, and settled down to work. "She was always busy with one project or another," Mother Winifred added. "This time, it was Hildegard of Bingham. She was working on Hildegard's
Book of Healing Herbs.
I'm hoping to continue her work, when I get some free time."

Mother Hilaria had taken out a tablet of handwritten notes on Hildegard, the abbess of a Benedictine convent during the twelfth century, and began to work. At some point, she apparently decided to make a cup of chocolate. The hot plate was on a wide shelf in the back corner of the living-sitting area, next to the small sink.

"Her shelf looked very much like mine," Mother Winifred said, nodding toward it.

I turned to look. There was the shelf, with a hot plate on it, and beside that, a small sink. Under the shelf was an apartment-size refrigerator. Hie rest of the story was tragically simple. Mother Hilaria had filled her kettle from the water tap, put it on the hot plate, and got out a tin of cocoa mix. As she took a quart carton of milk from the refrigerator, she dropped it on the floor. It broke open and spilled where she was standing. Without thinking, she reached for the knob to turn off the hot plate. It gave her a severe shock,

which jolted her heart into arrhythmic spasms that quickly led to full cardiac arrest. John Roberta found her body an hour later, when she came for a late-evening talk they had scheduled.

"Did anyone examine the hot plate?" I asked. "Ruth said something about bare wires in the switch. That suggests the wires were somehow stripped."

Mother frowned. "I don't know anything about that. I thought the thing was just old, and somehow malfunctioned."

It was possible that the old insulation became brittle and simply disintegrated. But it was also possible that the process had been accelerated.

' 'I wonder-'' I said. Just at that moment, however, the supper bell began to ring, and we stood to go. But Mother had one more thing to tell me.

"This is on a much more pleasant subject," she said as we went to the door together. "I expect you'll be glad to know that one of our prayers was answered this afternoon, rather dramatically. Sister Gabriella was quite pleased. In fact, she jumped up and down a time or two. I don't think I've seen her that excited in years."

"Really?" I paused with my hand on the knob. What kind of prayer deserved that sort of response?

Her blue eyes twinkled. "Yes, really. The Cowboys beat the Packers, 21- 14, in the very last second. The announcer had quite a catchy name for the winning play."

"Oh?"

"Yes. He called it a Hail Mary pass." She was beaming. "Football is like life, my dear. God likes to keep people on their toes until the very last play."

I had hoped to talk to Rowena after Sunday night supper, but she didn't appear. Maybe she'd stayed at the hospital with John Roberta. Dwight didn't show up-probably still in town. And Maggie wasn't there, either. Mother had said she'd decided to extend her personal retreat and was taking her meals alone. I was glad for her. Coming back to the inner life from the outer world was a major move. It was good mat she could settle into it at her own pace.

But Maggie knew the monastery's history, and I knew I could trust her. I wanted to get her opinion on some of the questions I was turning over in my mind. I needed to talk to her as soon as she surfaced again.

I ate quickly-the meal was tomato soup with basil, grilled cheese sandwiches, cabbage slaw seasoned with caraway, and a beautifully ripe apple-and went back to Jeremiah. After the day I'd had, I was ready to pamper myself. I lit a vanilla-scented candle, added lavender oil to a tubful of warm water, and climbed in. I leaned back and closed my eyes, letting the thoughts go, letting my body soak in

the lavender-scented silence. After a long while I scrubbed with rosemary soap and a loofah, relishing the gentle ras-piness. When I toweled off, I pulled on a pair of silky pink pajamas-how long had it been since I'd worn anything but a ratty old tee shirt to sleep in?-and climbed into bed with the Agatha Christie mystery Dominica had given me. The sheets were smooth, the light fell on the pages exactly the way I like it, and the cottage was so quiet I could hear the rippling murmur of the river not far from my door.

But my mind kept returning to the real-life mysteries at St. Theresa's, the plots of which had gotten considerably more tangled in the last twenty-four hours. With luck, I had managed to solve the simplest puzzle, the business of the fires. By tomorrow, the affair would be in the hands of the Carr County authorities and Dwight's plot would be closed out.

The other plot, though, was as mazelike as one of Agatha Christie's mysteries. I found a piece of scrap paper and jotted down its basic elements-the ones I knew about so far, anyway. The poisonous letters to Perpetua, to Anne, to Dominica and Miriam, and the letter to Mother Hilaria, missing and presumed destroyed. Mother Hilaria's diary, with its cryptic references to talks with Sister Olivia and Sister R. The bloody swimsuit had proved to be a red herring, but Anne's mutilated tennis racket and Dominica's burned guitar had yet to be accounted for. And Mother Hilaria's hot plate, missing since Rowena had inquired about it. I frowned. That hot plate bothered me. I kept thinking about Ruth's remark about the bare wires.

I reached into die drawer of the bedside table for the roster and wrote down the nine R names. I had already met three of them: Rachel, the sister who had deplored Perpe-tua's autopsy; the housekeeper, Ruth; and the elusive John Roberta. There were six others I hadn't yet encountered: Rowena the infirmarian, Rosabel, Rose, Rosaline, Ramona, and Regina. I felt as if I were snared in a sticky cobweb of Rs.

Muttering a curse, I stared at the list. Wasn't there a way to narrow it, or at least focus my efforts? I found the room roster and checked to see which ones lived in Hannah. Of the nuns I hadn't yet talked with, four were St. Agatha sisters: Rowena, Ramona, Rose, and Regina. I'd speak with them tomorrow.

And of course, there was the ubiquitous Sister O. I wrote the name
Olivia
and drew curlicues around it. I'd be waiting for her the minute she got back from her visit to the motherhouse.

And then, as an afterthought, I added Father Steven's name to the list. In his role as confessor, he would have talked to all of these women. The relationship between priest and penitent is as sacred as that between attorney and client, but he might have picked up something he would be willing to share. Anyway, I knew nothing about the man. Maybe he was a more significant player than I had imagined. Maybe-

I woke up with a start when my book slid onto the floor. I looked at the clock. It was only nine, but suddenly I was too tired to read. I had a right to be tired, though, and satisfied to boot. I hadn't learned as much about the letters as I would have liked, but I'd figured out the identity of the arsonist. By this time tomorrow, Dwight would be in Stu Walters's hands, and the deputy and the county attorney could figure out what they wanted to do with him. I slid under the sheets, turned off the light, and stretched out, feeling quite pleased with myself.

I didn't get to sleep long. I was awakened just before 10 p.m. by the frantic clanging of St. Theresa's bell-four hard clangs, a missed beat, then another four clangs. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my jeans and a sweatshirt, and grabbed my flashlight.

Halfway up the path to Sophia, sprinting, I caught up with Maggie. Her jacket was on inside out over her flannel pajamas, and she was carrying a small fire extinguisher.

"What's happened?" I gasped, tugging at her jacket. "Why is the bell ringing?"

"It's die fire bell!" she cried. She flung up her arm, pointing. "It's Sophia! It's on fire! Oh, God," she wailed. "We can't lose
SophiaV

But when we got to the scene, along with a half-dozen other sisters, we could see that there wasn't much danger of that. The fire was small and confined to the porch. Someone had piled some rags-oily rags, probably-on an upholstered rocking chair. Lit, they had blazed up immediately. The upholstered seat had been harder to ignite, but when it did, it produced a pall of black smoke. It was the smell of something burning that had awakened Mother Winifred, sleeping with her window open-and it was Mother, still dressed in her long-sleeved, high-necked nightgown, a coat thrown over her shoulders, who had reached the bell first and sounded the alarm.

Gabriella ran into the refectory and grabbed a fire extinguisher. That, together with the one Maggie had brought, proved to be enough to smother the flames. By that time, all of the sisters had arrived on the scene and were milling around in nightwear, slippers, and coats. They were shivering with cold and apprehension, and their white faces were pinched and frightened. With them, surprisingly, was a man in his late sixties. He helped me drag the smoldering chair off the porch and into the yard while Gabriella emptied the extinguisher onto it. The man's skull was totally bald and the left side of his face was scarred so badly that his mouth had a permanently cynical twist. He was wearing a dark woolen sweater and a clerical collar.

"Father Steven!" Mother exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

He surveyed the ruined chair with distaste. ' T left a book in the sacristy this morning. It belongs to someone else, and I promised to return it. So I came back to get it-and saw this." His face twisted. "How can this be happening again? Someone must be… quite mad!"

There was a commotion among the sisters, and Sister Miriam pushed her way to the front of the group. "Look!" she cried in an anguished voice. "It's my portrait!"

Then I realized that among the charred debris were fragments of an artist's canvas. "Your portrait?" I asked.

"Of Mother Hilaria," Miriam said. Her voice was full of despair. "I worked on it for months. It was finished just yesterday. We intended to hang it first thing tomorrow in the chapel entry."

"Where was it?" I asked.

"In the hallway, inside Sophia," Miriam said. "That's where the rags came from, too-they're my paint rags. I put a box of them beside the door so they could be taken out tomorrow for disposal."

I'd been wondering why the arsonist had added Miriam's portrait to the kindling, but that answered my question. It made good fuel.

Mother put her arm around Miriam's shoulders. "I'm so sorry, my dear," she said softly. "But there's nothing you can do about it tonight." She raised her voice and spoke to the group. "We must all go back to bed, Sisters. The fire is completely out and there is no more danger."

"There is always danger where there is a disregard for the holy will." The thin, high voice belonged to Ruth. She was huddled under a heavy shawl, her glasses reflecting the last flickers of the dying flames. "No one among us is safe when-''

"That's enough. Sister." A large, heavyset woman with a determined face interrupted her. She put an arm around Ruth's plump shoulders. "We can't answer any questions tonight. We must all go back to bed-and pray for forgiveness for our sins."

But there was one question I had to answer. I looked around.

Where was Dwight?

The morning dawned bleak and chilly, with a strong wind blowing out of the north. I dressed in gray cords, a thick blue sweater, and a fleece-lined jacket, and headed for the parking lot to look for Dwight's truck. But the big GMC was still missing, as it had been the night before. My knock on Dwight's door went unanswered, again. When I pushed it open and went in, the cottage was empty.

"I have no idea where he is," Mother Winifred said when I caught up with her on the way to breakfast. Her forehead was deeply furrowed. "I know he left yesterday afternoon, because he waved as he drove past. Maybe he found out that you suspected him of setting the fires and ran away."

"If that's true," I asked grimly, "who set last night's fire?"

It was a crucial question. In each of the other three instances, Dwight had been first at the scene, eager to prove how handy he was by putting the fire out-but not last night. Last night, he was conspicuous by his absence. He hadn't been there.

Or had he? Had he discovered I was onto him, and changed his MO to confuse things? That was probably what had happened. He had merely gathered up an armload of the nearest fuel-Sister Miriam's painting and the box of rags that had fortuitously been left in the hall-dropped it into the chair, and touched a match to the pile. Then he stayed back in the shadows, watching us while we put out the blaze.

That was how I had settled it in my mind by the time breakfast was over and I found the truck Mother Hilaria had promised me, a rusty green Dodge four-on-the-floor that steered like a World War II tank and roared like a 727 under full throttle. I wasn't too happy with the explanation, but it fit the facts, more or less.

I drove into town and parked the truck in front of the sheriff's office, which was located in the basement of the Carr County courthouse. The office, painted institutional

gray and lit by flickering fluorescents, was manned by a frizzy-haired, bubble-gum-chewing dispatcher whose fuchsia lipstick was an off-key jangle against her fire-engine-red blouse.

"Depitty Walters?" She fished a pink Dubble Bubble out of her pocket and added it to the wad in her mouth. "He ain't bin in yit. Try Bernice's. That's where he us'ally hangs out this time o' mornin'."

Sure enough, I found Stu Walters at Bernice's, his boots propped on a chair. He was swapping cop stories with a couple of good old boys over coffee and the remains of a short stack, egg, and bacon. Grudgingly, he followed me to a table at the back, where the cigarette smoke wasn't quite so thick and we could talk privately. I grinned at Bernice, chic in a maroon
I'm an Aggie Mom!
tee shirt and tight white jeans, and accepted a cup of coffee. It was hot and black and bitter and I shuddered as it went down.

Stu Walters gave me a condescending look. ' 'Put hair on your chest," he said.

"Not on
my
chest," I said firmly. To the tune of Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue," I reviewed the situation, described Dwight" s run-in with Mother Hilaria, and offered my take on his motive for the torchings-four of them, now. When I was finished, I handed over the evidence in two neatly labeled plastic bags.

"I'll be glad to swear out a statement on the aggravated assault charge, if you decide to go for it."

"Dwight?" he asked disbelievingly. He poked the bag with his finger, staring at the contents. "You're sayin' it was
Dwight
who set those fires?"

I nodded. "The probation officer said for you to call her if you've got any questions about his prior. It appears that he fell out with an auto mechanic in Fredericksburg and fired his garage-and just happened to burn down the senior citizens center next door."

"Sure coulda fooled me," he muttered.

"The only trouble is that I didn't see him around during

last night's fire," I said. "I figure he was probably back in the cedar brake, watching."

"Did ya see him this morning?"

I shook my head. "Could you track him down? And would you let me know when you and the county attorney have decided what to do about that assault charge?"

I was about to push my chair back when we were joined by a gray-haired, deeply tanned man in a dark sport jacket and string tie. He might have been in his sixties, but he was tall and lean and handsomely distinguished.

"Mornin', Stu," the man said.

Walters gave the man an uneasy grin. "Mornin', Mr. Townsend."

Ah. Carl Townsend, I presumed. I held out my hand. "Good morning, Mr. Townsend," I said pleasantly. "My name is China Bayles. I'm visiting out your way and drove past your ranch yesterday. Beautiful-a real showplace."

I was watching for a flicker of recognition when he heard my name, but I didn't see it. If he'd paid Dwight to take a shot at me, you'd never guess it from his smile. He took my hand, holding it a second longer than necessary.

"You like the place, huh?" He took off his hat, pulled out a chair, and sat down. His smile showed a lot of teeth. "We've put plenty of work into it."

The deputy was about to interject something-probably a remark about who I was-when Bernice yelled that he had a phone call. With a narrow-eyed glance at me, Walters left the table. Another piece of luck, I thought. I'd better take advantage of his absence.

"Yes, a great spot out there," I said. I leaned toward Townsend. "Perfect country for tourists. In fact, I hear there's some interest in developing the area. A retreat center, conference center, something like that?"