Rueful Death

by Susan Wittig Albert

  "I'm afraid I'm not a very good source of information," she murmured apologetically. "I stay to myself, mostly. I work in the laundry for four hours every morning. Whenever I can, I come here." She glanced around. "This is much nicer than our little garden at St. Agatha's. Whatever changes Sister Olivia and Reverend Mother General are

  – .inning, I hope they'll keep the herb garden. Although, of;ourse," she added hastily, "it is up to them."

  "You know that Mother has asked me to see what I can earn about the fires that have occurred in the last few – onths. And the letters several people have received."

  "I don't know anything about the fires," she said _.ickly. "Like everyone else, I find them very frightening. Last night was awful. If Mother hadn't smelled the smoke, Sophia might have burned down."

  "And the letters?" I asked quietly. "Do you know any-±ing about them?"

  She bit her lip. "No, I really don't. I mean-"

  "Father Steven suggested that I talk to you about them. He seemed to think you might have a special concern."

  She glanced up quickly, then away. She seemed to have trouble meeting my eyes, but that might be a normal behavior for her. "Did he? Well, I suppose-I mean, I did speak to him."

  "Do you have a special reason for being concerned?"

  She looked down again, and pulled a dead leaf off the plant. "You're asking whether I've received one of the letters?"

  "Yes," I said, hoping for an answer. "Have you, Sister?"

  She shook her head fervently. Too fervently? Her pale hand seemed to be trembling.

  "Do you know someone who has?" Maggie asked.

  Another headshake.

  I frowned. "Then why did Father Steven think you might-"

  Her face was suddenly fierce. ' 'Because I told him what happened to me!" She sank down onto the stone bench beside the path, as if her knees wouldn't support her.

  "Can you tell us about it?" I asked gently.

  She was fighting back tears. After a moment, she swallowed and choked out, ' 'When I was a novice, someone in our class wrote… notes." Her voice grew stronger. "She

  slipped them into our books or left them for us to find under our pillows or in the bathroom. I guess it started out as a prank, because the first ones were rather silly. Amusing, even. But then they began to say accusing things, hurtful, virulent things. And then-" She pulled in her breath.

  "Go on," I said.

  She shook her head. "I know this is hard for you to understand. Little notes, pranks, jokes-you must be thinking it's all very trivial. A tempest in a teapot."

  To tell the truth, that's exactly what I was thinking. But trivial incidents can loom large and threatening in a community that's closed off from the outside. If you live in the teapot, the tempest fills your entire world.

  "Please," I said. "I want to hear."

  She firmed her mouth and went on, haltingly. "One of the other novices-my cousin Marie, and dearer to me than a sister-got several of the letters. She began to question her vocation, and a few months later, she asked to leave. Once she got out in the world, she…" She stopped, swallowed, tried again. ' 'She lost her bearings. She got involved with drugs. Three years later, she was dead."

  Maggie dropped down beside Rose and put an arm around her shaking shoulders. "I'm so sorry," she murmured sympathetically. She fished in her jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of tissues. "Did you know at the time who was writing the letters?"

  Rose took a tissue and blew her nose. "At the time, I preferred not to know, and I've been glad ever since. If I knew who she was, I don't think I could… I might have done something that…" Her eyes were swimming with tears. "Those poisonous letters killed Marie! If it hadn't been for them, she would have remained in the order. She'd be happy and content now, safe in the service of God. That's what I told Father Steven. Whoever is writing these letters is breathing out the same poisonous air. It can infect all of us!"

  I wanted to say that Marie's vocation must have been

  pretty shaky to start with, but it would have sounded heartless. And Rose was living with the truth as she believed it. There was no point in questioning her version of the story.

  "I suppose someone spoke to the novice mistress about the letters," Maggie said.

  "I believe so. I didn't feel it was my place, of course. All I could do was pray. I pray now, for Marie's soul and for the soul of this hateful person."

  I studied her: a shy, quiet woman who spent time by herself, who worked in the herb garden where she could pluck a rue leaf or two to tuck into her letters. But Sister Rose's guileless distress hid nothing darker than her own sorrow. There was nothing to connect her to either the fires or the letters. Maggie hugged her, I thanked her, and we left.

  Sister Ramona seemed a more promising informant, not only because Father Steven had mentioned her, but because she was one of the few people who had visited Perpetua before her death. After a short search, Maggie and I found her with several sisters in the craft room, working on the wreaths, swags, and braids that had helped to support St. T through the lean years. While they worked, they were listening to a Gregorian chant on a cassette player. I looked around at the quietly industrious group, surrounded by beautiful materials and intent on their crafting, and wondered how long they'd be doing this. At least some of them, I was certain, would prefer it to running a conference center or cleaning up after church bigwigs. I know I would.

  Sister Ramona was a tall, elegant sister with flawlessly beautiful skin and long graceful fingers, the nails carefully shaped and nicely manicured. She might have been in her forties. She wore a denim apron over her habit, and she was standing in front of a heavy wooden easel that held a large straw wreath base in the shape of a heart. She had covered the heart-pretty skimpily, I thought-with dried artemisia and clumps of small heads of garlic. Beside her were boxes of red strawflowers, pink and red globe ama-

  ranth, and bright red celosia, and a spool of red twist ribbon.

  Sister Ramona stepped away from her work, studying it unhappily. "I tell Sister Miriam that I'm not very good at making these things, but she says I have to keep trying." She spoke petulantly, in a carefully modulated voice that sounded as if she might have had dramatic training. "It's crooked, isn't it? Maybe I should stick some more of those red things on the left. Would that help?"

  I thought she should take it apart and start over again, but I didn't want to say so.

  Maggie lowered her voice so she wouldn't be heard by the others. ' "This is China Bayles, Sister. Mother has asked us to help her answer some questions."

  "Oh, yes, the investigator." She gave up on the wreath and began folding the twist ribbon into uneven loops. "Well, all I can tell you about the fires is that they frighten me to my very bones. The thought of somebody burning the place down around our ears is enough to keep me awake all night." She shook her head, sighing dramatically. "And how anybody could write those horrible letters-"

  "What can you tell me about them?" I asked.

  "Me?" Her eyes widened. "Well, I've never gotten one myself, if that's what you're asking. And of course I have absolutely no idea who's writing them. Not a clue, as Jessica Fletcher would say. But I have a theory about the bigger picture."

  "The bigger picture?"

  She looked down at the bow she had made and clucked crossly. "There, do you see? I've got it crooked again. I am so wretchedly clumsy at making these hateful things. I'd almost rather work in the kitchen than-"

  "What bigger picture?"

  She pulled the bow apart and began to loop the ribbon again. I wanted to take it out of her hands and show her how, but she probably wouldn't have thanked me. "Well, there's something awfully odd going on here, wouldn't you

  say? I mean, there was Sister Anne's swimsuit hanging on the cross, just dripping with blood. They tried to tell us afterward that it was ketchup, but I know better." She held up the bow, examining it critically. ' 'And of course nothing like that ever happened at St. Agatha's. Life was much dif
ferent there, much more varied. We had access to the theater and music and-Oh, blast]" She glared at the bow. "But it's the best I can do. Really, I'd rather work in the laundry than try to please Sister Miriam."

  I tried again. "What about the bigger picture, Sister?"

  She picked up the glue gun. "The blood was a sign, wouldn't you say? A portent, like all these terrible fires. And Mother Hilaria, dying in such a cruel way, and Sister Perpetua being taken. Who knows where it's going to end? I go to bed every night wondering if Hannah will burn to the ground before dawn." She dropped a large dollop of melted glue onto the bow.

  "I understand you visited Sister Perpetua before she died."

  "That's right." She thrust the bow onto a bare spot in the wreath and held it for a moment. "She was my novice mistress at the motherhouse in El Paso. I thought I should say something encouraging in her last illness."

  Maggie tilted her head. ' 'Excuse me for interrupting, Sister. Were you in the same novice class as Sister Rose?"

  Sister Ramona straightened the bow and stepped back, cocking her head. ' "There. I hope Sister Miriam is satisfied. Of course, she'll tell me there's not enough artemisia and that the loops aren't even, but-" She paused, frowning. "What did you ask?"

  "About the novice class," I prompted.

  "Oh, yes, Sister Rose. Yes, we were in the same class."

  "Then maybe you recall the letters," Maggie said. "Poison-pen letters, Sister Rose said they were."

  "Poison-pen letters?" Ramona began picking glue off her fingers with a distasteful look. "Yes, of course I remember. It was a sad affair. One of the novices left because

  of it, and others got their feelings hurt. But I never saw any of the letters myself, and it was a very long time ago. Years and years. You might ask Sister Regina. She's bound to remember. She was always in the diick of things."

  "Sister Regina was in your class?" I asked.

  "Oh, yes," Ramona said promptly. "She's older, of course, because she was a nurse before she took her vows. Sister Olivia was in the same class. She and Sister Regina were friends. We called them the Bobbsey Twins because they were always bobbing up here and there, wherever you least expected them. They seemed to know things the rest of us didn't." She stepped back and wiped her hands on her apron. "Well, it's done, for better or worse."

  "How about the other sisters here at St. T's-were any of them in your class?'' Maggie asked.

  "Oh yes, several. Sister Allegra and Sister Ruth and Sister Rachel. Oh, and Sister John Roberta, too." She pursed her lips. "Of course, we were all quite devoted to Sister Perpetua, God rest her soul."

  Olivia and Regina, the Bobbsey Twins. Questioned Sr. O about Sr. P's letter, Mother Hilaria had written. And later, she had questioned Sr. O and Sr. R about the letter to Sister Anne.

  "You said something about a bigger picture," I said. ' 'What did you mean by that?''

  Ramona shook her head. "It's just a theory. You probably don't want to hear it." She picked up a whisk broom and began brushing bits of dried flowers into a little pile.

  I frowned. "If you have information-"

  "Well, it's not exactly information. It's more like an explanation." She swept the flowers onto a piece of paper and dumped them into the trash can beside the table. "It's about the children of Israel, you see."

  "The children of Israel?"

  "God punished them by making them wander in the desert for forty years."

  "I'm afraid I still don't-"

  She gave me a pointed look. "This is the desert. And we're the children of Israel. We're being punished, although for what I don't know."

  "I gather you don't like it here," Maggie said dryly.

  "Like it here?" Sister Ramona gave a short laugh. "Like it here? Let me put it this way, Sister. I do not enjoy sweating in the sun in the fields in July. I detest the smell of garlic. I have no talent for making wreaths. I am not cut out for desert living."

  "Why not ask for a transfer?" I asked.

  "I already have," she said. "As soon as Reverend Mother General approves my request, I'm to go to our sister house in San Francisco." Her eyes took on a faraway look. "San Francisco. Can you imagine? It will be heavenly. Simply heavenly."

  I didn't need to ask when she expected her request to be approved. Mother General might not know a thing about garlic, but she obviously understood a great deal about carrots and sticks.

  ' 'Now,'' Maggie said as we left the barn. ' 'I want to hear everything."

  I told her what I had learned from the journal, including the fact that Mother Hilaria herself had received a letter.

  "So," Maggie said when I finished, "all roads lead to Sister O and Sister R."

  "The Bobbsey Twins." An odd nickname. I wondered how much animosity-and perhaps fear-might be behind it.

  Maggie paused, frowning. "You don't suppose this poison-pen thing goes all the way back to the novitiate, do you?"

  "I'm beginning to think it might." I looked at my watch. "I need to talk to Mother Winifred and let her know about Dwight. And I really have to talk to Olivia before I go any further-but I can't do that until tomorrow. That's when Mother expects her back from El Paso." I wondered what

  kind of mood Olivia would be in when she returned. Not good, I guessed.

  Maggie thrust her hands into her jacket pocket. "A few of us are getting together this evening to talk about the way things are going here. Would you like to come? We're meeting in Miriam's room. There'll be wine and munch-ies."

  "The way things are going here-the changes, you mean?"

  "Yes. There doesn't seem to be much we can do as long as the Reverend Mother General has her mind made up. But we're going to brainstorm anyway."

  "Sorry," I said. "I'm having dinner in Carr tonight"

  Maggie eyed me. "With Tom Rowan, I'll bet."

  "And his father," I said quickly. Too quickly, maybe.

  A smile quirked at the corner of Maggie's mouth. "Want me to say a prayer for you?"

  "Why? Do you think I need one?"

  "Why not?" she countered briskly. "A little prayer never hurt anybody."

  Chapter Thirteen

  The antidote which Mercury gave to Ulysses against the beverage of the Enchantress Circe has always been supposed to be rue.

  Eleanour Sinclair Rohde A Garden of Herbs

  The Weasell when she is to encounter the serpent arms herselfe with eating of Rue.

  W. Coles The Art of Simpling, 1656

  The Lone Star Dance Barn was a couple of miles south of town on the Fredericksburg Road, just past Marvell's Meat Locker (Deer Processed Here-Try Our Venison Sausage!) and the livestock auction barn. It was fully dark by the time I parked the Dodge in the gravel parking lot and headed toward the building, pulling my denim jacket tighter around me. I was wearing a plaid flannel shirt under the jacket, as well as Levi's and boots and a wool cap, but the wind was cutting right through me. When it gets cold in Texas, you feel it.

  The Lone Star Dance Barn was a giant metal building the size of an airplane hangar, splashed with red and blue neon. I opened a side door and found myself in an old-fashioned Texas dance hall, with a scuffed wooden floor bigger than a basketball court and a bare, uncurtained stage at one end. Scarred pine picnic tables were arranged a couple of rows deep around three sides, and beer signs and

  banners-the tawdry graffiti of the country dancing crowd-covered the walls. It was 7 p.m. on a Monday night and the place was cold and empty and down-at-the-heels, like an old tart at midweek. But I knew what it would be like come Saturday midnight: the air hazy blue with tobacco smoke and loud with the wail of amplified fiddle and six-string guitar, the wooden floor packed with blue-jeaned, Western-shirted guys and gals wearing polished boots and silver belt buckles big as pie plates, arms linked, hip-to-hip, stomping and yeeha-ing happily through the Cotton-Eyed Joe.

  There was no yeeha tonight, only the muted revelry of the barbecue joint at the front of the dance hall. This room was smaller and cozier, paneled with splintery barn s
iding and decorated with Texas memorabilia: rusty license plates that went back to the twenties, a Don't Mess with Texas sign over a Texas A &M trash barrel, Texas flags (all six of them), paintings of old barns and privies afloat on improbable oceans of bluebonnets, the stuffed head and shoulders of an enigmatic longhorn with red marbles for eyes. George Strait crooned a ballad on the jukebox, a cowgirl waitress in skintight jeans and Dolly Parton boobs shouldered a tray of beer pitchers through the crowded tables, and diners were hunched earnestly over plates of Tex-Mex, which is traditionally served in portions designed to satisfy the appetites of the entire Dallas defensive line. There was enough food on the tables to feed a third-world country for a week.

  I did a quick scan of the room. Tom wasn't there, so I took a table against the far wall, putting as much distance as possible between me and the jukebox. I accepted a menu from the top-heavy waitress and ordered a Dos Equis. While I was waiting, I sat back to think about my conversation with Mother Winifred,- which had taken place at the foot of the garden in a fenced-in corner that was the home of a black and white potbellied pig named Delilah.

  "Gabriella thought up her name," Mother had said as

  she opened the gate. "She built that clever little house over there, too." The house, which was about five feet tall at the peak of its pitched roof, looked like a Hansel and Gretel cottage, with casement windows, a chimney pot, and a window box full of colorful plastic flowers. There was a miniature wooden ramp Delilah could walk up, and a pig-size swinging door, with her name painted on it in Old English letters. Mother dumped a panful of apple peels into a small trough and Delilah began happily to sort them out, deciding which to eat now and which to hide in her mound of hay and save for a midnight snack.

  I knelt down and scratched Delilah's back while I made a full confession.

  "You mean, Dwight didn't do it?" Mother exclaimed when I'd finished. "But I thought you said-"

  "I jumped to the wrong conclusion," I said. There'd been plenty of justification, of course, but when it came down to it, that wasn't an excuse. I stood up. "I'm sorry, Mother."