Nun After the Other

by Alice Loweecey

  “Kathryn and Diane are gone. They teach.”

  “Can we try calling your Superior?”

  Sister Olive looked at the clock. “Kathryn’s first class starts at nine fifteen. She teaches music. Diane’s in classes straight through to two forty-five. Let me get Dorothy. She should be done feeding the invalids breakfast upstairs.”

  Giulia dialed Sister Kathryn’s school office number and put her on speaker in the center of the kitchen table. “There is an initial ground rule: Driscoll Investigations does not interfere with an active police case.”

  “In other words, Matilda’s murder,” Sister Olive said.

  Giulia didn’t acknowledge the interruption. “It is our understanding you wish us to investigate harassment and other illegal practices, possibly initiated by Eagle Developers, as they relate to the potential buyout of your convent with regard to your continued occupation here.”

  Kathryn’s voice took on a shade of amusement. “You make it sound so clinical.”

  “Someone’s got to be objective. We sure aren’t.”

  Giulia ignored this interruption too. “We have a reduced fee schedule because of your circumstances.” She listed the hourly rates.

  “That much?” The Superior’s voice cringed.

  “It’s not too bad,” Sister Olive said.

  “We don’t know how long the investigation will take.”

  Six-foot-tall Sister Dorothy leaned in from the end of the table to reach the speaker. “Maybe we can ask the Head of the Order.”

  Sister Olive pushed her face between Giulia and Dorothy. “Because they’ve been so responsive to our pleas for help up to now.”

  “Sisters.” After wrangling her niece and nephews, Giulia was not about to referee a convent of bickering nuns. “We can work out a payment plan if our fees are acceptable.”

  Sister Olive took the phone. “Ms. Driscoll isn’t going to send her jackbooted thugs to shake us down.”

  Sister Dorothy said in her calm voice, “Eagle Developers has that market cornered.”

  A school bell and the sounds of hundreds of feet and voices came from the speaker. Sister Kathryn spoke above it. “Ms. Driscoll, please draw up a contract. I’ll sign it this evening.”

  The call ended. The doorbell rang.

  Sister Olive said, “I hope it’s one of those teenage thugs.”

  Sister Dorothy said in the same even voice, “Why?”

  “Think about it.” Sister Olive’s voice exhibited extreme control. “We have a witness here who can intimidate those delinquents. The battle could finally turn in our favor.”

  She hurried to the door, Steve the Chihuahua trotting next to her. When the door opened he barked like he was channeling his inner German Shepherd.

  “Good morning,” Frank said. “May I speak to your Superior, please?”

  Thirteen

  Giulia scrambled from her chair into the hall to capture Steve’s performance on video.

  The whimper. The raised paw. The shivery acceptance of sympathetic pets. Sister Olive’s laughter. Steve’s unashamed retreat on four working legs.

  “Please come in, Detective. Sister Kathryn is at work, but Sister Dorothy and I will be happy to help you.”

  The house phone rang. Sister Olive lifted the receiver from its wall mount. “Convent of the Assumption…Yes, Sister…What perfect timing. A detective is here and wants to talk to you…I’ll tell him.”

  She hung up and said to Frank, “The school where Kathryn and Diane teach had a water main break. Everyone’s been dismissed. She should be here in half an hour. I’ll get Dorothy.”

  After she climbed the stairs Frank joined Giulia in the kitchen. “Are you officially here?”

  “I am. Contract execution tonight. What did the medical examiner say?”

  “We’re still waiting.”

  The two nuns entered the kitchen. “This is Sister Dorothy, who takes care of our infirm sisters. Ms. Driscoll, I’ll show you around so Detective Driscoll can have some space. Detective, you should have time to interview both of us before Sister Kathryn returns.”

  Giulia and Frank shared a glance which conveyed, “We’ve both dealt with this type of nun before. We’ll save time and grief if we let her orchestrate for now.”

  Olive led Giulia in to the front parlor. The three windows—two facing front, one on the side—lit the faded wallpaper too well. Several joins were starting to split. The couch and chairs needed their cushions re-stuffed, but the floor and bookcases gleamed.

  Giulia clogged her phone with pictures.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “When I meet with Eagle Developers, I may need evidence to back up my counter offer on the buyout.”

  Olive raised her gray eyebrows. “I knew you were a good decision.”

  Worn forest-green carpeting covered the stairs to the second floor, offset by brown wallpaper with beige fleurs-de-lis. The railing was not as polished as the parlor floor.

  “For better gripping,” Sister Olive said. “The second floor is for our invalids. It’s easier for Dorothy, too. Only one flight of stairs to carry trays up and down.”

  The wide hallway accommodated a desk at one end. Two of the three doors were open. A muffled moan or wail came at regular intervals from behind the closed door.

  “This is Sister Helena.”

  They entered a bright, airy room with a window fan moving the warm air. A hospital bed filled two-thirds of it, a nightstand with a tray of prescription bottles next to the bed. Pale yellow walls and flowered wallpaper offset the same green carpet.

  The woman in the bed grimaced at Giulia. Under a sheet her arms and legs bent in on themselves. Her head leaned on her left shoulder. Her clear hazel eyes and short brown hair made her appear no more than forty, but her shriveled body could have been twice that age.

  She tried to speak, but Giulia couldn’t understand her. A dribble of saliva trickled from the corner of her mouth. Sister Olive plucked a tissue from a box on the nightstand and cleaned the invalid’s chin with a gentleness that surprised Giulia.

  Her voice, however, retained all its snark. “Helena, remember the drug bust scandal at the Motherhouse three years ago?”

  The drooping eyelids opened.

  “Who could forget it, right? This is the detective who broke it wide open. Now she’s working for us.”

  Another grimace. Sister Olive was right there with the tissue.

  “You threw the pipe bomb?”

  Giulia and Sister Olive turned. A tiny, plump nun blocked the doorway with a wheelchair. From the waist up she resembled Mrs. Santa Claus. Thick orthopedic shoes and atrophied legs in surgical support hose explained the wheelchair.

  “I survived the pipe bomb.” Giulia held out her hand. “I’m Giulia Driscoll with Driscoll Investigations.”

  “I’m Eugenie. I remember now. This contraption gets me the best seats in the house, including church. Some little old nun threw the bomb. You came out of the chapel vestry looking like something out of the evening news.” She included the other two nuns in her concluding remark: “The students back in my teaching days would’ve called her badass.”

  A garbled noise came from Sister Helena’s mouth.

  “Helena, I charge you to say a Rosary for my vile soul.”

  “I always do.” The words weren’t clear, but this time Giulia caught their import.

  “Come on.” Mrs. Santa Claus spun her wheelchair and rolled down the hall. “I want to talk to you. Olive, you’re not needed.”

  Fourteen

  Sister Eugenie’s room revealed the truer state of the old house and the nuns’ finances. Where the walls and curtains in Sister Helena’s room were in excellent repair, in here the paint was chipped in the upper corners and a blotch of mold discolored a lower corner. The mismatched curtains and bedspread had been mended
so often the stitches resembled an M.C. Escher staircase.

  “Sit on the bed. I don’t need chairs and nobody visits me anyway.”

  Mrs. Santa Claus in a plain black skirt and green blouse wheeled herself to the bed and blocked Giulia in.

  “Olive will drag you into Agatha’s room in a minute, so I have to talk fast. Olive doesn’t trust me. It’s mutual. She’s got it in for Eagle Developers, but she’s wrong. Eagle isn’t the sole cause of our grief. The Superior General of the Order is in lockstep with Eagle to toss us into the street. It’s cheaper.”

  Giulia chose Polite Smile Number Four, the one which covered her racing thoughts as she tried to talk her way out of the room. Being trapped was one of her few phobias. “I’m not investigating the head of the Order this time. I don’t know the current Superior General, but can she be as bad as the last one?”

  “Sister Fabian the drug dealer and priest’s mistress?” Sister Eugenie cackled. “At least she kept things interesting. No, the current Superior takes her vows seriously. Especially the Vow of Poverty. When she dies, they’ll carve on her grave ‘I recycled. This headstone is pre-owned.’” A wink. “I have friends on the fringe of her inner circle. She wants the money Eagle’s offering for this termite trap, and she wants to shove us into the cheapest digs possible. She really can’t dump us into oncoming traffic. Bad press.”

  “Eugenie, you’re going to give Ms. Driscoll claustrophobia.” Sister Olive dragged the wheelchair away from Giulia.

  Giulia stepped away from the bed. “I should finish going over the rest of the house.”

  “Come see me before you leave.” Sister Eugenie made a face at Sister Olive’s back.

  Sister Olive paused with her hand on the knob of the only closed door. She raised her voice above the intermittent groans coming from behind it. “Eugenie likes to needle me. She’ll exaggerate to get a bigger reaction.”

  Giulia had not missed the dubious joy of convent politics.

  “Sister Agatha’s Alzheimer’s is extremely advanced. We don’t know why she moans some days and not others.”

  “Does she have lucid spells?” The sounds were heart-wrenching one moment and the wails of a dungeon-dwelling ghost the next.

  “Every so often. Her triggers change. She may not even realize we’re in the room.”

  She opened the door. The noise rolled over them. The woman in the twin bed could’ve been anywhere between fifty and eighty years old. Gray hairs straggled out from under the loose, old-fashioned wimple on her head. The crow’s feet in the corners of her closed eyes and the lines radiating from her open mouth gave no age indication. Giulia had met forty-year-old tanning addicts with more wrinkles.

  “Sister Agatha? We have a visitor.”

  The moans stopped but the eyes remained closed.

  “Sister Agatha? It’s Sister Olive.”

  “Would she respond to the dog?” Giulia said.

  Sister Olive shook her head. “On her worst days she screams when we put Steve on her bed. We don’t like to risk it.”

  The curtains, walls, and bedspread were in a state of repair halfway between Sister Helena’s room and Sister Eugenie’s room. Giulia knew without a doubt that the majority of repair funds were spent on the invalids’ rooms.

  Another low moan came from the bed. Sister Olive touched Giulia’s arm. “It’s one of her unresponsive days. Maybe she’ll be better the next time you’re here.”

  Sister Dorothy’s head appeared at the top of the stairwell. “Olive, Detective Driscoll would like to speak with you.”

  “Not more than I want to talk to him.” She pointed to Giulia as she passed Sister Dorothy on the stairs. “Helena and Eugenie are in good shape. Ms. Driscoll’s ready for the third floor. I hope you hid your bodice rippers. We don’t want to give a former Franciscan a poor opinion of our minimal leisure time.”

  The nurse’s smile resembled an extreme version of Giulia’s Polite Smile Number Two, the one where she briefly considers stabbing someone with a letter opener. The nun dropped it when the door warden reached the first floor.

  “Ms. Driscoll, please allow me a minute to check on our infirm Sisters for myself.”

  The minute expanded to five between the three rooms. The sounds from Sister Agatha’s room increased and decreased as the door opened and closed.

  Sister Dorothy returned to Giulia with a genuine smile. “Our rooms are expected to be quite plain, but you’re free to inspect anything you want.”

  Giulia followed her up more flattened-carpet stairs. “I remember certain rules too well. I won’t invade your privacy.”

  They entered the first room to the right of the stairs. “This is my space. Sister Kathryn is at the back of the house, Sister Diane is next to me, and Sister Olive has the front. There’s also a spare room squeezed in between mine and the outside wall. Sister Bartholomew sleeps there when she makes her monthly visit to home base.”

  Dingy room followed dingy room, in the sense of peeling wallpaper or paint, flaking ceilings, and carpets worn to the pads. Those spots were covered with a chair in one room, a nightstand in another. Every room was spotless. The curtains in Sister Kathryn’s room were free of mended spots. Those curtains were the only sign of the Superior’s elevated status.

  Footsteps with an echo came up the stairs. Sister Olive popped onto the third-floor hall, Steve the Chihuahua scrambling up behind her.

  “Dorothy, Helena needs her ten o’clock meds.”

  Sister Dorothy yanked up her sleeve and checked her watch. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I’m sorry, Ms. Driscoll. Olive, we finished this floor.”

  “I’ll take over. Come on, Ms. Driscoll. Now that you know the intimate details of our hedonistic lives, I’ll take you to where the madwoman hides in the attic.”

  Giulia stooped to rub the Chihuahua’s tummy. “Should I have looked for a stash of Gothic romances in your room?”

  Sister Olive’s laugh was the first response Giulia had heard from her which was neither sarcastic nor belligerent.

  “My guilty pleasure is Zane Grey westerns. I know you saw them.” She opened a narrow door at the end of the hall. “The nice thing about old houses is real stairs to the attic, not one of those pull-down ladders and a trap door.”

  The doorbell rang and Steve deserted them for fresh victims.

  “Attention hog.”

  Two bulbs lit the attic, but the sun shining through the windows at either end made artificial light unnecessary. Steamer trunks and sheet-covered furniture took up most of the floor space.

  “I expected more dust up here,” Giulia said.

  “Training never fades.” Sister Olive ran a thumb across the top of a broken bookshelf. “No one’s been up here for a couple of months. It’s due for another cleaning.”

  Giulia wandered the attic, getting a feel for what the Sisters considered too unsightly to be seen downstairs. Sister Olive provided running commentary.

  “The trunk with the flower découpage is Sister Helena’s. She loves frilly decorations. The single positive aspect to her disease is she’s spared the daily harassment from Eagle and his minions. And don’t you give me any pious claptrap about God afflicting her with ALS to bring her closer to His suffering or to give us all an example of holy resignation.” She slapped a dust cover. “This place is a dump, but it’s our dump. We’ve been helping the neighborhood for twenty years. Come to the cellar with me.”

  As Giulia passed the open doors on the second floor she caught the faintest whiff of cigarette smoke. Odd that nuns living at this level of poverty found money for cigarettes.

  The moans continued unabated behind the closed door. In Sister Helena’s room, Sister Dorothy massaged the woman’s atrophied muscles. At the end of the hall, Sister Eugenie slumped in her chair, staring out the window at the beautiful September day.

  Giulia scowled at herself. Who was she
to point a finger at these women? As secret vices go, an occasional cigarette didn’t rate a second glance.

  Fifteen

  Frank and Sister Kathryn sat at the kitchen table. Frank took notes on an old-fashioned flip pad. Steve the Chihuahua dropped a rawhide bone next to his water bowl and loped over to Sister Olive.

  “Come on, freeloader. Earn your keep.”

  The dog bounced down wooden slat steps illuminated by a single bulb set high on one wall. The stairs were newer than Giulia had expected, but the cellar itself lived down to her expectations. A furnace from the dark ages lurked in one corner. Three twelve-inch windows requiring a stepladder to reach were covered by petite midnight-blue curtains spangled with sequins. The curtains allowed in slivers of light around their edges, illuminating persistent cobwebs.

  Ancient whitewash peeled away from the walls in chunks. Rust speckled the bottom of the hot water heater. The dog abandoned them to nose behind the furnace. Square laundry baskets sat on two tables. Peeling Linoleum on the tabletops matched the squares of Linoleum on the floor. Their curling corners gave glimpses of a packed dirt sub-floor, reminding Giulia of cool summer afternoons at her favorite aunt’s house.

  The dryer buzzed the end of a cycle. Sister Olive pulled a chain above one table and lit another bulb. “Reason number five why we belong here.” She emptied the dryer and began folding a pair of jeans. Giulia turned the sleeves of a windbreaker right side in.

  “Thanks. We’re the unofficial laundromat for the street people. Sister Bartholomew brings the clothes and picks them up.”

  A second windbreaker in Giulia’s hands hovered above the table. “Sister Bartholomew who was a Canonical Novice four years ago? The one who comes from a long line of mechanics?”

  Sister Olive paused this time. “You know her?” She made an impatient sound. “Where’s my brain? Of course you know her. You helped her survive the Community’s Great Scandal.”

  Steve’s sharp little teeth began shredding a stack of newspapers in shades ranging from off-white to ivory to yellow pirate teeth.