Nun But The Brave (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 3) (25 page)

Fifty-One

Pit Bull widened the spotlight beam.

Joanne stood over the pile of hypnotized bodies, the Glock aimed at the last place Larabee had been visible.

“All of you, get off him.”

No one moved.

Joanne fired one shot into the hedge. Twig and leaf shrapnel exploded onto the community members. They fell away, blood dripping from their faces and scalps. Frank had wormed under the amateurs and twisted Larabee’s arms behind his back. Nash snapped handcuffs on Larabee’s wrists.

“Back away, detectives,” Joanne said. “I’m an excellent shot, but I don’t want these bullets to go through him into you.”

“Josie, what are you talking about?” Larabee struggled against his captors.

“You drugged me, you locked me up, you beat me, you starved me, and my promised reward was a life with you. And I was supposed to be grateful.”

“Joanne.” Giulia hadn’t talked down a violent student in five years, but the memory was sharp as glass. “He isn’t worth the jail time.”

“The hell he isn’t.” Joanne never looked away from Larabee.

“You just got your freedom back. Don’t throw it away on this piece of trash.” She walked toward Joanne with measured steps.

“I’m going to shoot his dick off and then I’m going to shoot his left hand off.” Joanne’s spotlight-enhanced shadow on the hedge loomed over the three men on the ground. “You want to know why? Because he beat me with his left hand. Every time I fought back. Every time I refused to eat. When I begged him for a new chamber pot and he wanted me to feel his power he beat me and then he left the overflowing one in there for days and days.” Her voice rose. “Move, gentlemen.”

Giulia swept Joanne’s legs out from under her. The gun arced into the shadows and landed with a hideous jangle of notes onto the accordion. Joanne wrestled Giulia for a few moments, but Giulia wrenched Joanne’s right wrist back far enough for Joanne to cry out in pain. Giulia twisted the other wrist and Joanne collapsed with a curse and a sob.

All the community members started talking again. Giulia handed Joanne to Nash and grabbed the sleeves of Kanning and Pit Bull.

“Find Alex. The guy who was drumming on the table.”

Pit Bull ran the spotlight around the clearing.

“He’s going into his house.”

“Frank, follow us,” she shouted over the clamor.

She ran ahead, Kanning and Pit Bull a few steps behind. She trusted Frank to keep with them. The front door of Alex’s house clapped against the frame and bounced open. Giulia pounded up the two steps and into the living room. “Up there. Up in the loft.” The spotlight caught Alex crouched next to his bed at the exact spot of the hidden drawer. His head turned and the light glinted off his wild eyes. Frank climbed the ladder two rungs at a time and tackled him. Alex landed a punch to Frank’s cheekbone. Frank countered with a blow to Alex’s jaw. Alex tried to twist out from under Frank and they rolled off the narrow loft. They performed one more twist in the air and Alex landed on his back with Frank on top of him.

Frank spoke over Kanning’s head to Giulia. “Would you please find out what he didn’t want the police to see?”

As Kanning jabbered into his microphone Giulia climbed the ladder and gathered the scattered Polaroids into the shallow drawer. She balanced the drawer in her left hand and gripped the ladder with her right as she descended. While the spotlight stayed on Alex and Frank, she walked out to the porch and called to one of the uniformed officers, “May I borrow you and your flashlight?”

Back inside, she shone the light on the contents of the drawer while blocking it from Pit Bull’s camera. “They appear to be photographs of naked women under the influence of drugs.” She said to the officer, “May I ask you to hold Alex?”

When she had Frank to herself, in a manner of speaking, she shone her phone’s light on a certain photograph. “See that picture in the corner?” She raised her voice over Kanning’s. “Doesn’t it look like one of those poor teenage girls found dead in Cottonwood?”

All those weekends in the orchestra pit at the community theater had imbued Frank with acting skills. “Why yes, it does look like one of them. The one with the vampire fangs tattoo. She was only sixteen.”

Alex cursed and roared as he struggled with the uniformed officer. Frank left Giulia and helped drag Alex outside. Giulia kept the drawer against her hip and away from
The Scoop’s
camera. Kanning chewed more scenery than five community theater actors. Pit Bull tried to get a shot of the drawer but Giulia blocked him from every angle.

When Giulia reached the porch, the central area was lit through the tattered hedge with headlights from four police cars and an ambulance. Tim was giving a statement as an EMT treated the muzzle burns on his neck. Cheryl admitted to a police officer how she allowed the twins to drink mead and smoke drugs with the adults. The cheesemaker and her husband, subdued and pale, showed a different officer the stores of poppy and morning glory seeds. Ariel and her husband were being loaded into one of the police cars. The accordion player sat on the ground next to his damaged instrument. “Gee, dad, it was a Wurlitzer,” he muttered. His wife put her arms around him.

Kanning dashed from one cluster to another as the community members talked in changed voices of a vision of Cernunnos telling them to attack and how Cernunnos had been a god of peace and pleasure until this night. When an EMT saw the blood on Kanning’s sleeve, Kanning became the star of his own show as he described his brush with death for the sake of giving his Scoopers the Story As It Happened.

Giulia handed Frank the drawer of photos and he disappeared in the chaos. Nash had already made off with Larabee.

Joanne sat at the table with her head in her hands. Giulia sat next to her.

“Thanks for stopping me.” Joanne said without looking up.

“You’re going have to appear in court for threatening him with the gun.”

“I know.” A hand detached from her face and waved in the general direction of the beehives. “VanHorne told me. He said you should drive me to the police station.”

“Would you rather have gone to jail for shooting his junk off?”

A long pause. “No. He’s stolen enough of my life.”

The remaining police officers led the rest of the community to various cars. Now that the noise had lessened, Giulia heard the dogs losing their minds inside the locked houses. She told one of the uniformed officers about them and he called animal control. More cars arrived with evidence and forensic experts.

Giulia jogged Joanne’s elbow.

“Let’s go. I’ll call Diane. She’s probably haunting the precinct by now.”

Joanne stood. “I’ve ruined my life.”

“Not at all. You forgot about Kurt Warfield.”

“Are you serious?”

“He is. He told me to ask you to call him when I found you.”

Joanne looked around at the wreck of Alex’s community. “Kurt’s ego doesn’t seem so awful now. Besides, he likes cats.”

They walked through the breach in the hedge to the Nunmobile.

“I’ll tell you stories of my convent years on the drive back.”

“Whoa. Really?”

“If you lie about being a nun, you go right to Hell on the express escalator.” Giulia started the car.

“Like in those old
Tom and Jerry
cartoons. I remember them. I think some binge TV is in my future.”

“And a cat?”

“And two cats.”

Fifty-Two

Two days later, a spectacular bouquet of lilies and roses adorned Giulia’s desk. The card from
The Scoop
had read “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” She used the card to test the office’s new document shredder.

Giulia finished a phone call with Father Carlos, who’d offered to be intermediary between Giulia’s brother and sister-in-law.

“My friends who run the shelter where Anne is staying have let me know she’s back to normal and ready to talk to you.”

“Good. Has she talked to you yet?”

“At great length. She inflated my ego by confirming my suspicion about the drugs.”

A doorbell rang at the other end of the call. “She stole a supply.”

“Her and those poor teenagers who died in Cottonwood. Apparently LSA is as addictive as LSD.”

Father Carlos said, “I promise not to be a thundering voice of recrimination.”

Giulia laughed. “As if you would.”

“I’m bringing her parish priest with me to meet with your brother today.”

“Salvatore agreed to talk to you? You’re a magician.”

With a tinge of humor, he said, “I prefer The Wizard in Black.”

“You’re also a saint, O Wizard, for entering the equivalent of an American football game while dressed for soccer.”

She hung up and stared with distaste at the box of assorted herbal tea. When Zane knocked, she opened her door with relief.

“Delivery.”

A box from Diane Philbey sat on the table under the window.

Sidney said, “That looks like a bakery box.”

“I haven’t eaten lunch,” Zane said. “This will not be good for my abs.”

When Giulia lifted the lid, they first saw a standard number ten envelope. The letter attached to the check inside said, “Already left a glowing Yelp review. Joanne says she hopes she’s not out of practice.”

Giulia folded back a layer of parchment paper and both her employees said “Ooh,” like they were watching fireworks. The circular cake had a miniature Nunmobile on top crowned with a tin foil hat.

Zane went into the file cabinet in Giulia’s office and came out with paper plates, plastic forks, and a wicked serrated cake knife. “Ms. D., it’s eleven o’clock. Time for tea.”

Giulia grimaced. “I’ll pass on the tea, but we are definitely cutting into this cake.”

The first slice revealed lemon cake with raspberries and cream filling.

“Nobody faint,” Sidney said. “I would like a piece too.”

They stared at her.

“A really thin piece.”

“Only if I can take a picture,” Giulia said.

“Wait a minute. What’s the matter with me?” Before Sidney broke her own rule of eating nothing except all-natural, organic food, she unbuckled her combination messenger and diaper bag.

“I bought this three days ago and keep forgetting it because you were hanging with the weirdos.” She handed Giulia a flat box wrapped in pink and blue baby shower paper. “I’m early, but I wanted to make sure the store didn’t run out.”

Giulia tore off the wrapping. “My own placenta art kit. Sidney, you are the best.” A multicolored print of a treelike image with a squiggly trunk adorned the shiny silver box. “I can’t wait to show Frank. Zane, see? We told you they were real.” She held it out to him.

Zane backed away, his plate of cake trembling in his hand. When the backs of his knees hit his desk, he crawled under it.

“Ms. D., you know how I said I love my job?”

Giulia and Sidney said, “But not today.”

About the Author

Baker of brownies and tormenter of characters, Alice Loweecey recently celebrated her thirtieth year outside the convent. She grew up watching Hammer horror films and Scooby-Doo mysteries, which explains a whole lot. When she’s not creating trouble for Giulia Driscoll, she can be found growing her own vegetables (in summer) and cooking with them (the rest of the year).

The Giulia Driscoll Mystery Series

By Alice Loweecey

Read all about it and/or grab the book from Amazon

NUN TOO SOON (#1)

CLICK FOR NUN TOO SOON

SECOND TO NUN (#2)

CLICK FOR SECOND TO NUN

NUN BUT THE BRAVE (#3)

THE CLOCK STRIKES NUN (#4)

(May 2017)

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