Nun After the Other

by Alice Loweecey

  Eugenie said, “Jump the wall. Hee hee hee.”

  Kathryn threw the heaviest of wet blankets over the discussion. “We don’t have a choice. The Order’s legal counsel is pressuring us too.”

  Giulia opened her mouth to argue numbers but remembered in time the enormous load the Superior was carrying on her aging shoulders.

  The doorbell rang. Kathryn closed her eyes. “Now what?”

  Steve leaped off Eugenie’s lap at the sound of the bell. Olive headed for the stairs. “If it’s Eagle, I’ll slam the door right in—” She stopped.

  Eugenie wheeled herself to Helena’s doorway. “He can’t rise from Hell to bother us anymore.” She followed her quip with a full-bodied laugh and rubbing together of hands.

  “Sister, that’s un-Christian.” But Kathryn’s rebuke barely deserved the name.

  Giulia followed Olive downstairs. The delivery guy from the pizza place across the street from DI stood at the door with two large boxes.

  Olive and Steve blocked the door. “We didn’t order anything.”

  Giulia loomed over her. “I did.” She carried the boxes into the kitchen, calling upstairs, “Lunch!”

  Forty-Four

  Dorothy came back downstairs empty-handed. “Eugenie said she’d feed the other two while we talk. She said she trusts us to make the correct decision for our future.”

  Olive brought a huge bowl of salad to the table. “No one can pile on the guilt like a Catholic.”

  Kathryn opened a bottle of wine. “We took the afternoon off and won’t be driving.”

  “I’m not judging anyone.” Giulia found a spatula. “Who wants sausage and peppers?”

  “I do, please.” Diane opened the miniature cupboard doors over the refrigerator. “How many wine glasses?”

  “Five,” Olive said.

  “None for me, thank you.” Giulia opened the second box. “Pepperoni?”

  “I’ll take one of each, please, and why aren’t you drinking with us?” Olive’s shift from helpful to belligerent bespoke years of practice as well. “Don’t tell me it’s because you’re driving. You’re young. You metabolize everything faster.”

  “I prefer water.”

  Olive pointed with her salad fork. “You’re flouting the rules of hospitality. Diane, we still need five glasses.”

  Giulia set down the spatula with more force than required. “Another rule of hospitality is to make your guest feel welcome.”

  Silence. Two forks and one slice hovered between plates and mouths.

  Olive jerked as though all the other Sisters had kicked her under the table. “I beg your pardon.”

  Giulia helped herself to sausage and peppers. “You have now witnessed what happens when you mess with the raging hormones of a pregnant woman.”

  The forks moved. “You’re pregnant?” Dorothy said.

  “Yes. I’m teetotaling for the duration.”

  “Whatever you do, don’t name the baby Victor.” Olive laughed at her own joke. No one else did.

  Hormones were a good excuse for Giulia to shut down this conversation. She took a bite of pizza and said, “If you’re all agreeable, this is the strategy I’ve worked out. I’ll finalize a financial plan to show the Order. The plan will make it obvious keeping you together in a house is more cost-effective than splitting you up in multiple apartments. When I meet with Eagle Developers this afternoon, I’ll make a counter offer to start negotiations. As of today, I’ll take over this chore.”

  Relief emanated from Kathryn in palpable waves. “You will?”

  Dorothy, the quiet one, took a page from Olive and got assertive for a moment. “Good. If you’ll wait until I finish eating I’ll dig up the latest messages they papered our windows with. You can give them back to them to recycle. Eagle claims to be committed to saving the environment.”

  Forty-Five

  Giulia swung by the office before her appointment. “Guys, I have one for you.”

  Sidney held up one finger.

  Zane said, “The Scoop has dedicated itself to a life of charity and self-sacrifice?”

  If Giulia had been drinking anything, she would’ve done a spit take.

  “Zane, stop being funny when I’m composing a sensitive email.” Sidney pressed several keys, frowned at the screen, shook her head, and hit save. “I’ll have to finish it later. Our newest prenuptial is about to implode. Her daddy ran a failed Ponzi scheme and they’re a hundred grand in debt.”

  “If I had the energy, I’d insert a few apt biblical quotes.” Giulia pulled out one of the chairs by the window. “All right. Zane, a test: What happens when you combine brake fluid and pool shock?”

  Zane shut down. Because Giulia had seen it before, she neither panicked nor laughed. Sidney opened a drawer and took out a handmade GENIUS AT WORK sign taped to a disposable chopstick. Giulia shoved her arm over her mouth.

  Zane rebooted. “A violent chemical reaction. Heat or explosion or both.” His fingers were already on his keyboard. “YouTube can be useful.” His voice was distant. “Here’s one.” A long pause. “Dear gods.” Another pause. “I have to try this at home.”

  Sidney and Giulia laughed.

  “I fear for your offspring,” Giulia said.

  “You and your current girlfriend are serious, right?” Sidney said. “Please have her visit us sooner rather than later.”

  “What?” Zane looked up from his screen. “I wasn’t listening.”

  They laughed harder.

  “Let’s see these videos.” Giulia came around behind Zane’s desk.

  Sidney joined her. “Me, too. I need to prepare myself if Jessamine turns out like Olivier’s daredevil science experiment brothers.”

  Zane hit the replay button. Two excited young men poured brake fluid into an empty plastic water bottle, then poured granulated pool shock over the liquid, describing their measurements in eager voices. One screwed the cap onto the bottle, then both ran away fast enough to make the camera appear to be recording an earthquake. The camera settled a good fifty feet from the water bottle and breathless narration began.

  “Fifteen seconds in and nothing happening yet.”

  “Remember, folks, don’t try this at home. Go to an empty parking lot.”

  “Twenty-five seconds.”

  “Look—bubbles are forming.”

  “Thirty seconds.”

  “The whole bottle is filled with bubbles. Now it’s expanding. Whoa—it’s like a ball.”

  “Thirty-three—”

  The bottle exploded with a POP. Flames and white smoke shot up and out from the melted wreckage.

  Zane counted. “Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one. Eight seconds of serious fire after explosion.” He hit the back arrow. “We need more data.”

  For the next several minutes, they watched video after video of the same chemicals exploding different sizes and shapes of plastic bottles, making tin cans leap in the air and scorching starburst patterns on asphalt. Zane opened a blank spreadsheet.

  “Time to reaction varies from thirty-three seconds to one minute twelve seconds.” He entered numbers into the cells faster than Giulia had ever seen him type. “Containers…plastic bottles, twelve and twenty ounces. Metal cans…” He glanced up at Giulia. How much does a standard coffee can hold these days? I grind my own.”

  “Twelve,” Sidney said. “My parents use this coffee and chicory blend in the gift shop they buy in bulk from Amazon.”

  “Twelve.” Zane entered the number. “Short cans of nuts, eight ounces. Pint cans of paint, sixteen ounces. Chemicals. Three tablespoons of calcium hypochlorite plus one-quarter cup of polyglycol, standard. I wonder where the proportions originated.” He opened another window. “Brylcreem? Is that even sold anymore? I see it is. Ingredient list…Phenoxyethanol. Magnesium Sulfate. Methylisothiazolinone. Hmm. Brake fluid i
ngredient list…diethyleneglycol. Polyethyleneglycol. Triethyleneglycol. Butyls everywhere too. No wonder these daredevils switched to brake fluid. The reaction should be much more efficient than with hair goo. Duration of flames, eight to twenty-one seconds. Height of flames, approximately four to thirteen inches.” More typing. “Observe. Nothing up my sleeves. Nothing in my snazzy top hat. Abracadabra.” He clicked several choices at the top of the page. A multicolor bar graph appeared.

  Giulia and Sidney golf-clapped. Zane hung his head. “My genius is unappreciated. My only option is to sell my house, move into a secure facility, and create a working time travel device to rewrite the past.”

  “Because nothing could possibly go wrong with that,” Sidney said.

  “‘A Sound of Thunder,’ Ray Bradbury,” Giulia said. “The Butterfly Effect, 2004.”

  A theatrical sigh. “I knew you’d bring those up.”

  “I see you’re learning dramatic effects from Sidney.”

  Sidney said with pride, “I needed to show him non-super-smart people have skills too.”

  Zane said, “Ms. D., why this particular chemical reaction?”

  “A melted plastic bottle with residue from those chemicals was found in the convent cellar beneath Victor Eagle’s body.”

  He whistled. “The head of one of the biggest companies in Cottonwood was trying his hand at arson?”

  “The evidence is still inconclusive as of this morning.”

  “Someone busted into the convent?” Sidney whistled. “Don’t they teach criminals in, like, Crime Kindergarten not to rob nuns? Nuns never have money anyway.”

  “Only the classy Crime Kindergartens teach manners.”

  Giulia said, “We don’t know if there’s a second suspect. Sister Bart says no one could have sneaked past her but she thinks she heard a laugh. If she did, we need the time of death to coordinate with the time Bart heard the laugh.”

  “We’re in serious Zane territory.” Sidney returned to her desk. “You wanted to know what we’ve learned about Eagle’s company?”

  “Yes.” Giulia sat in the window chair again. “I’m negotiating the house sale in two and a half hours. Can you give me the upper hand?”

  Zane laughed his mad scientist laugh.

  Sidney said, “The ‘upper hand’ sounds so much more professional than ‘give me dirt.’”

  “Words have power.”

  “Allow me to share my power.” Zane opened a new window. “Barbara Beech is a textbook success story. MBA from Carnegie Mellon. In her first job she rose from Administrative Assistant to Department Manager in three years. A headhunter wooed her to a larger company where she started as an Assistant Vice President and within two years of the switch became the Executive Vice President. If that isn’t enough, she’s received multiple awards from the Women in Business Foundation. Why, you ask? Because she helps other women starting out in business.”

  Sidney took over. “Don’t polish her halo yet. She and Eagle were an item while Eagle was still married to Wife Number Two and she was married to Husband Number One.”

  “Eagle and Beech made indiscreet social media posts?”

  “Not on your life. Fortunately for us, Eagle’s teenage kids had no such filter.” She opened a document. “Their mother should’ve washed out their brains with soap. I won’t repeat their nicknames for Beech, but here’s the twist: They had a colorful list of names for Eagle too.” She tsk’d at the screen.

  “When I posed as a reporter to gain access to them, they all but told me the affair was long over and they were adult enough not to let it sabotage their business.”

  “Next you’ll be buying the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge.”

  Giulia smiled. “My grandfather used to say that.”

  “Mine too. He had to explain it to me.”

  Tires squealed on the street below, followed by a CRASH, a second CRASH, horns blaring and the high tinkle of glass. They all crowded the window. One taxi’s front end was embedded in the passenger side of a second taxi. The second taxi’s hood was wrapped around a telephone pole. Six people had their phones out. Four were rushing to the taxis. Cursing voices from one of the taxis carried with ease to DI’s second-floor window.

  “I just learned a new curse word,” Sidney said.

  “One of my gaming buddies uses it when his avatar gets blown up.” Zane craned his neck over Giulia’s head. “The one closest to us has a passenger.”

  “Both cars are leaking gas.” Giulia held up a hand. “I hear sirens.”

  “Here comes Jasper.” Sidney said.

  The tall, one-handed war hero dashed out of the Tarot Shoppe and leaped from doorway to curb in a single stride. He went straight to the rear passenger door Zane had pointed out and hooked his prosthetic hand around the handle. One tug. Nothing. He flexed his arms and pulled. The door opened with a metallic squeal. A pudgy body with a head in a baseball cap lolled out. Jasper cradled the head, supporting the neck. The ambulance and police arrived and Jasper relinquished the passenger to the EMTs.

  When he regained the sidewalk he waved up at Giulia. She waved back. He made a “call me” gesture with his hand. Giulia gave him the “okay” sign.

  “Because he’s clairvoyant, did he know the accident was going to happen?” Sidney said.

  “Come on,” Zane said. “That’s the same as saying all psychics should be able to predict the lottery numbers.”

  Forty-Six

  For her second visit to Eagle Developers, Giulia went as herself: Tired, Pregnant Professional Who Doesn’t Care If You Think All Women Should Wear Makeup. Before she left the office, she combed wet hands through her hair and let the early September humidity work its evil magic.

  This time she wore a plain white shirt with her black maternity pants. She’d lengthened the strap on her messenger bag so it hit below her hip, drawing attention away from her face every time she moved. No fake glasses hung on her nose and no cotton wadding distorted her cheeks. Plus she didn’t have to remember to flute up her voice.

  She’d spent the drive schooling herself into calmness. They won’t recognize her. She’d made herself up to look like a completely different person the first time. Her one superpower was the ability to fade into the wallpaper. They won’t connect her one bit with the bubble gum-and-glitter freelancer.

  “Good afternoon. I have a four fifteen appointment with Ms. Beech.”

  The receptionist didn’t blink. “Ms. Beech is expecting you. One moment, please.”

  Barbara Beech came out of the CEO’s office in unrelieved black. Gorgeous, expensive, designer black. Her impeccable makeup didn’t conceal the circles under her eyes or the tension lines at the corners of her mouth.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. Driscoll. Thank you for making time to meet today.” Beech didn’t give Giulia a “have I seen you before” look either. She said to the receptionist, “Hold my calls for the next half hour.”

  A splendid mahogany table dominated the long conference room Beech shut them into. The table’s dominance was challenged by the fifty-five-inch screen mounted on the short wall. The table won. The chairs bowed before its polished splendor; the carpet prostrated itself beneath it.

  Giulia wondered if she was more sleep-deprived than she realized. “Please accept my sympathy for the loss of Mr. Eagle.”

  Beech’s mouth tightened and released. “Thank you. It’s been a shock to all of us.” She kneaded her watch band. The silence lengthened. Giulia had consoled too many grieving parents and children in her convent years to miss the signs of a strong person keeping a firm check on grief.

  In a few more seconds Beech rolled the chair opposite the door away from the table and gestured to the chair in front of Giulia. “Please have a seat.”

  This put Giulia with her back to the door. Not a position she preferred, thanks to living with a police detective.

  “I
was interested to learn the Sisters have hired an advocate.” Beech folded her hands on the polished surface. “I was even more interested their advocate is a private investigator. What exactly is your relationship with the Order of Sisters?”

  Giulia’s professional smile didn’t reach her eyes. “As I indicated over the phone, I’m representing the Sisters in the negotiations for the sale of their convent.”

  Beech was no amateur at this game. She picked up a remote and an architect’s drawing of trendy lofts, cafés, and green spaces appeared on the gigantic screen.

  “Eagle Developers purchased the properties on the blocks including the nuns’ residence for two reasons. First because we have a vision—if you’ll pardon the cliché—to revive the area. In a statelier time it was a neighborhood of elegant homes. Those times will never return, but we can make it an attractive destination again.”

  With each click she changed the view of the proposed redevelopment. Children playing. A band in the middle of an outdoor café with happy people at bistro tables. Loft apartments with brick and distressed shutters on the outside. Cream walls and pastel furniture arranged tastefully on hardwood floors for the inside.

  “Eagle can create this from this.” With the second “this” the screen changed to the worst houses in the convent’s neighborhood. Photographed on a cloudy day, their broken windows became empty eye sockets and gaping mouths. Their dead front lawns with trash and scraps of newspaper could’ve doubled as the “after” photo from a fire or explosion.

  “Most of the houses were in foreclosure and as of this morning all the remaining owners have agreed to our fair market buyout offers. The convent is three months in arrears on the mortgage. The Massachusetts home office of the Order of Sisters has no objection to our offer.”

  Giulia anted up. “Few things are as simple as they appear on the surface. One issue you may not be aware of is the pressure the home office is putting on the Sisters here.” She conveyed ruefulness. “Nice people wouldn’t bad mouth a group of nuns, but this is business. They’re trying to force the ambulatory Sisters into low-rent apartments and are grudgingly allowing the bedridden Sisters into the central infirmary.”