Rueful Death (22 page)

A free woman. Freedom. That was what I'd wanted, wasn't it? That was why I'd taken time off, come out here. I wanted to make new choices, open my life to new directions. The passion was pulling me to Tom. All I had to do was say yes.

"No," I said. I pulled away.

He frowned. "Don't tell me you don't want me. I just kissed you, remember? Your body said yes. So don't he. Don't make it hard on yourself. Okay?"

I wasn't lying, to myself or to him. I
did
want him. Standing in the parking lot under the flashing neon sign, Elvis's voice like liquid passion, it was easy to want this man, easy to say yes. It was a great deal harder to want what I already had. McQuaid and Brian, the house, the shop. Yes, even the shop, damn it.

"Let's call it a night, shall we?" I opened the door and climbed into the truck.

He stood up straight. "Just say no, huh?" His laugh was light, but it had a bitter undertone. "Too risky? Big moral dilemma?"

"Morality doesn't have anything to do with it," I said.

"I'm just figuring out what I want." I stuck the key in the ignition.

"What you want is me," he said firmly. "Listen, China, there's no reason we can't. We're not strangers. We're both free." He spaced the words for emphasis. "You're your own woman, totally independent. You don't owe anybody anything."

He was right. I didn't owe anything to anybody. Except myself.

I had my hand on the key. "That's why it's no."

His sigh was raw, heavy. He put a hand on the open door handle. "Don't run away, China. I've never really stopped loving you. Who's to know if we please ourselves tonight?"

Are all protestations of love and lust, however heartfelt, doomed to sound like dialogue from an old movie? "I really have to go now," I said. I pulled the door shut and turned the key.

The engine turned over, coughed regretfully, and died. I pumped the gas pedal a couple of times and cranked it again.

Another cough, almost a hiccup.

The third time, it didn't even burp.

"I am
not
believing this," I muttered. Tom had stepped back and was watching me, hands in his coat pockets, an unreadable expression on his face. After a long, embarrassing moment, I rolled down the window. "You don't happen to have a pair of jumper cables, do you?" I asked in a small voice.

He eyed me for a moment, calculating, not in any hurry to answer. "What's it worth to you?" he asked finally.

I stared at him. Damn it, he was
seriousl
I picked up my purse. "I'll call the garage."

He looked at me a moment longer. And then said, explosively, "Oh, shit."

It took ten minutes to dig the cables out of his car, hook them up, and start the truck-neither of us saying more

than the necessary
put this here
and
turn it over when I tell you.
When we were finished and die truck was running again, he came around to the door.

"Listen, China, I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to bargain. I was just-"

"Thanks for the jump," I said. "I've got to go now."

His mouth quirked. "Yeah, well, at least we had Paris." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "That's something."

I raised my hand, fighting the almost irresistible temptation to say, "Here's lookin' at you, kid." I shifted into first gear and drove off.

I stopped at the first phone booth, left the truck running and hopped out, and called McQuaid. I was eager to hear his voice, feel connected again. But it was Brian who answered the phone.

"Dad's playing poker with Sheriff Blackwell," he said. "Hey, China, you done good." He sounded excited. "Real good."

I frowned. "I did good?" I asked cautiously. "What did I do?"

"You know. You guys really know how to pray. Maybe it's because everybody out there is so holy."

"I'm not so sure about that," I said. Arson, poison-pen letters, questionable deaths, a political takeover… "Excuse me, Brian, but I think I missed something. What are we talking about?"

He giggled, elated. "You mean, you didn't hear yet? The Cowboys beat the Packers yesterday. Coach said on TV it was the answer to a prayer. I figure it had to be yours."

"Credit where credit is due," I said. "Listen, tell your dad I called, okay? Tell him I'm having a great time and I wish he was here." And at that moment, it was true, definitely true. I wished McQuaid were here, wrapping me in his arms, holding me tight, nuzzling me.

"Yeah," Brian said, "you wish he was there. Anything else?"

I hesitated. "Tell him I love him. Lots and lots. Tons."

"Mush," he said with eleven-year-old disgust.

"'And I love you too," I said, feeling generous. "And Howard Cosell and Khat and-" I stopped. Not Einstein. I had to draw the line somewhere.

"Thanks," he said, grudgingly grateful. "Me too. Say, China, will you ask those nuns to keep praying? Next week it's the 'Niners."

It was my alarm clock, not the fire bell, that jarred me out of a sound sleep at first light the next morning. I got up, pulled on my sweats, and took a brisk walk along the river. I surprised a white-tailed doe drinking at the water's edge and startled a great blue heron, statuesque in a quiet pool, waiting for a silver minnow to dart out from under a rock. He lifted heavily into flight, flapped across the river, and dropped into another pool, where he fixed a suspicious eye on me. The wind had swung back around to the southwest again, and it was warming up. It was going to be a cool, crisp day, one of Texas's January jewels.

Back at Jeremiah, I grabbed a quick shower, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair, feeling virtuous for having fended off temptation the night before. I pulled on cords and a sweater and set off for breakfast, ready for whatever fireworks Sadie Marsh might launch at the board meeting.

As I passed the green Dodge truck in the parking lot on the way to the refectory, I patted it affectionately. Given its performance in the Lone Star parking lot last night, I'd been a little worried about the twelve-mile drive from Carr to the monastery. I hadn't relished the idea of getting stranded and having to hitch a ride to St. T's from some

colorful local character on his way home after a hard night's drinking.

But the truck behaved and the only person 1 met
was hardly colorful. At the turnoff to the monastery, I encountered a Honda. It came from the opposite direction, made a sharp left in front of me, and stopped at the gate. Somebody-it was too dark to see who-got out hurriedly, retrieved the key and opened the gate, then drove through, leaving it open. I drove through, closed it, then drove fast to catch up, curious to know which of the nuns was out at this late hour. I pulled into the lot behind Sophia just as the driver, dressed in dark slacks and a dark jacket, got out.

"Sister Olivia!" I said, surprised. "I thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow."

She recognized me and stiffened. "My plans changed," she said, taking a small suitcase from the backseat

I thought of my list of questions-Mother Hilaria's hot plate, Father Steven's scar, the letters. "Now that you're back, I'd like to make a time to talk. It really is important that I ask you about-"

She slammed the car door and locked it. "No," she said. She came around the car and the light fell on her. Her face was a white mask, her eyes two dark smudges.

"I don't mean that we have to talk right now," I persisted. "How about after breakfast tomorrow?"

"No," she said again. Her voice was rising, frantic, half-hysterical. "I have nothing to say to you. Nothing at all, do you hear?" She pushed past me into the dark. I could hear the staccato tattoo of her heels on the cement sidewalk.

"Good morning," Maggie said cheerfully, interrupting my thoughts as I came around the truck. "It's a pretty day, isn't it?" She gave me a quick glance. "How'd it go last night?"

"How'd it go?" I repeated, still wondering why Sister Olivia had been so anxious to escape from me. She had been almost running.

The corners of her mouth twitched. ' 'You know. Your date. With Tom."

"Oh, that." I grinned. "It was okay."

She
held
the door open as we went inside Sophia. "What? No champagne and roses?" Her mouth twitched. "No propositions?"

"There was a proposition," I said offhandedly. "I just said no."

The twitch became a smile. ' 'You see? Never underestimate the power of prayer."

"Oh, so that was it," I said. We went into the refectory, and I sniffed appreciatively. Fresh cinnamon rolls this morning. Ah, yes.

There was ample time between breakfast and the board meeting to talk to Olivia and get straight on what she knew about the letters and the fires. But even though I waited until the last sister had come through the refectory door, Olivia didn't show up. She wasn't in the office in Sophia, either, or in the chapel, in her room, or with Regina in the infirmary. And Mother Winifred, who was doing some paperwork at the desk in her cottage, couldn't suggest where else I might look.

"I didn't even know she'd returned from the mother-house," she said, sounding slightly miffed. "In the old days, nobody went anywhere or came back from anywhere without asking Mother's permission." She straightened a sheaf of papers and stuck them into a file folder. "But Olivia is a law unto herself, and I'm a very lame duck. Reverend Mother General will probably call today and tell me when to schedule the election." She put the papers into a drawer and looked at the clock on the wall. "It's almost time for me to be off to the board meeting."

"I'll be there too," I said. "I saw Sadie yesterday and she asked me to come. She wants legal counsel, I gather."

From the look on her face, Mother was not pleased. "I love Sadie dearly," she said with irritation, "but she has the capacity to do the order a great harm. We've got enough

difficulty on our hands without her stirring up trouble."

There wasn't anything I could say to that, but I did have a question. "Before we go to the meeting, there's something else I want to ask you about," I said. "I gather that a number of the sisters here did their novitiate together under Perpetua. Ramona mentioned that Olivia and Regina knew one another even then."

"And Ruth, as well," Mother said. She took a navy sweater off a peg on the wall and pulled it on. "I was at the motherhouse when that class came through, and I remember the three of them. Regina and Ruth were good friends, always getting into some sort of mischief. Olivia felt she had to stand up for them. She showed quite a bit of leadership capability, even in the novitiate."

"She stood up for them?"

"Oh, yes. You wouldn't know it to look at either of them now, because they've both settled down and become quite serious. But Ruth and Regina were once quite fun-loving. Mischievous, really. They enjoyed little pranks." She smiled. "One or two of their practical jokes got them into trouble with Perpetua, as I recall."

"I see," I said, thinking that I was beginning to see a great deal. "Do you think Olivia would talk to me about some of those pranks?"

"I don't see why not," Mother said. She stepped in front of a mirror on the wall and ran a comb through her white hair. "Or you could ask Ruth or Regina directly. But why do you want to know about all that old business?"

I wanted to know because I was beginning to make some connections between what had happened at
the
novitiate twenty years before and what was happening here now. But I wasn't comfortable sharing my thoughts with Mother Winifred until I had talked with Olivia and sorted it out some more-especially after having been so wrong only yesterday.

I glanced at my watch. "If we're not going to be late to

that meeting, we'd better go. Shall we walk to Sophia together?"

The board meeting was held in a long, narrow room adjacent to the monastery office. It was high-ceilinged, wood-paneled, and bare of decoration, except for a painted statue of Mary in one corner, a heavy dictionary on a wooden stand in another, and a pendulum clock on the wall. Its hands showed nine fifty-five.

Three of the board members were already in the room when we got there. Tom got up from the head of the table, where he was sorting through a stack of papers, and came to greet us. He was wearing a suit and tie, and he looked tired, as if he hadn't slept very much. He shook Mother's hand and gave me a quick nod. His eyes slid away. I thought I understood. He was embarrassed about last night.

"Is your dad here?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Something came up at the last minute and he couldn't make it."

Mother Winifred tugged at his sleeve. "May I have a word with you, Tom?"

I went around the table and sat down beside Sister Ga-briella, who was talking to a plump, brown-haired woman in a too-tight lipstick-red suit with a fussy blouse and pearls. She turned out to be Cleva Mason, the one who had missed the last four board meetings. She slanted a glance around the table, licking her lips with a nervous tongue.

There was a stack of papers in the middle of the table, probably the board's agenda. Tom finished talking to Mother Winifred, looked at his watch, then at the clock. He seemed unusually jittery. He glanced around the table and cleared his throat.

"If everyone's ready…" he said.

"Sadie's not here," Sister Gabriella said.

"Oh, okay," Tom said, and I had the impression that he'd been hoping to start without her. He looked at his watch again. "I guess we'll have to wait, then."

"There's plenty of coffee," Mother Winifred said, gesturing to a table at the end of the room where coffee and cups had been set out. "She'll probably be here in a few minutes."

But at ten-fifteen, we were on our second cup of coffee, we'd almost run out of small talk, and Sadie still hadn't arrived. Tom was more tense and withdrawn than I had seen him, with a wary, nervous look. I wondered once again whether he knew what Sadie was going to bring up this morning. From the look of him, I'd have said yes. But how had he learned it? Sadie had kept her intentions to herself.

Gabriella touched my arm. "It's not like Sadie to be late," she said quietly. "She had a lot riding on this meeting."

"Maybe we'd better call her," I said. "She might have slept through the alarm."

Gabriella left the room. A few minutes later, she was back. To Tom's questioning glance, she said, "Nobody answers the phone."

"She's on her way over, then," Tom said. He shuffled the papers, obviously anxious to begin. ' 'There are several information items on the agenda. We could handle those first. She'll be here by the time we're ready to get to the substantive issues."

But the information items-mainly having to do with paying the legal bills in the aftermath of the lawsuit-were read and discussed by ten forty-five, and Sadie still hadn't arrived. Tom looked up at the clock again. He seemed to be debating what to do. "I think we should go ahead without her," he said finally.

I pushed back my chair. "Sadie has some vital information to present. She'd be here unless something happened. It is okay if I borrow the truck again, Mother Winifred? I'll drive over and see what's keeping her."

Tom licked his lips nervously. "It's not a good idea to drive that old truck over there," he said. "If it didn't start, you'd be stranded. We'll take a break, and I'll drive you."

I frowned. At best, being alone with Tom would be uncomfortable.

Gabriella leaned toward me. "Go, please," she urged in a low voice. "Sadie wouldn't be late if she could help it. I'm afraid something's wrong over there."

Tom's cream-colored Chevy Suburban made the trip in something under ten minutes. We didn't encounter Sadie along the way. We didn't say much to one another, either. Tom's face was set and his jaw was working, and I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't lead us back to the subject we had closed last night. Anyway, I shared Gabriella's apprehension about Sadie. She had planned carefully for the board meeting, and she'd been looking forward to it. She wouldn't have missed it unless-Unless what? What was wrong?

The M Bar M was deserted when we drove in. Sadie's blue Toyota was parked on the gravel apron in front of the house, so she was still around, somewhere. Without a word, Tom and I got out, went up to the front door, and knocked; then knocked again.

Nothing.

Tom tried the knob, but the door was locked. We went around to the back door, which stood partly ajar. I stepped inside and called, but there was no answer. A couple of minutes' searching was enough to convince us that Sadie wasn't inside. We started for the outbuildings, calling as we went. Tom strode ahead, moving fast. I had to run to keep up with him.

The metal-roofed barn was a long, narrow building, lined up on a north-south axis, with double doors at both ends. The floor was hard-packed earth. The west side of the barn was stacked to the roof with baled hay and feed sacks. The east side was lined with a row of wide stalls that opened at the back into the fenced paddock. Three of the stalls were occupied, two by decorous paint ponies that thrust out their noses inquisitively, looking for carrots. The third contained

a brown horse with a silky dark mane, wearing a leather bridle. The horse was skittish, prancing, his eyes rolling.

"Goliath," Tom said over his shoulder. "Sadie's horse."

We found her in Goliath's stall. Her jeans-clad, denim-jacketed body was sprawled facedown on bloody straw, head twisted unnaturally to one side, steel gray hair matted with blood. One arm was pinned under her, the other flung out. Goliath tossed his head with a shrill whinny and shied away from us against the fence.

"Jesus," Tom breathed out.

He shoved the gate open, rushed in, and grabbed the horse's bridle. As Goliath reared, he yanked. "Out of the way," he gritted. "I've got to get this killer out of here."

While Tom was locking the horse into the next stall, I ran in, knelt in the straw beside Sadie, and felt at her neck. A moment later, Tom joined me.

"Is… is she alive?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "There's a pulse. Not much of one, but a pulse."

He rocked back on his heels, his face blanched. "She's alive," he whispered, as if he were dazed. "What'll we do?"

"We've got to get help." I yanked off my jacket and spread it over Sadie. "Give me your coat. There's got to be a phone in the house. How quick can the EMS get out here?"

Tom didn't answer. He seemed dazed. He dropped his head into his hands. "She's alive," he whispered again. "Dear God, she's-"

"Tom!" I shook him. "Get the EMS! Tell them we've got a head injury here, possible brain trauma. Tell them she was kicked in the head by a horse."

His head came up swiftly, and his staring eyes connected with mine. "Yeah," he said. He swallowed. "Yeah, right." He scrambled to his feet, energized, peeling off his suit

coat. "There's a phone by the barn door. I saw it when we came in." He tossed me the coat.