“But those who noticed put it down to the standard Novice adjustment period.”
“You bet. They see what they expect, and we keep up appearances. Bridget was always quiet, even with Sister Arnulf, but after the drug got into her, she withdrew even further. Some days she didn’t talk at all except during prayers.”
Giulia gave the already washed clothes an extra wringing. “How did Sister Gretchen miss this?”
“She didn’t, not completely.” Bart set the soap in its niche. “The merger camouflaged it. Bridget came from far away and so did Vivian. It was easy to assume Vivian’s weepy fits and Bridget’s silence stemmed from that.”
“How convenient.” Giulia restrained yet another urge to shake Bart. “I understand Fabian’s threat to your vocation and how she used your fear to manipulate you. Sort of. But you’re not children. Why didn’t you band together and fight her? Canonical Year isn’t solitary confinement—you could’ve gotten out to talk to someone.”
Bart’s shoulders un-slumped. “Look how Mr. Driscoll reacted earlier to the story. Look how you’re reacting, and you’re one of us. People outside the convent don’t understand.”
“That’s not always true.”
“It’s true enough. How often could one of us get out to find a willing ear? No—not willing. An outsider who could understand how the vocation is the most important thing in all this. It overrides every other issue.”
Giulia started to argue, but the words soured on her tongue.
“See?” Bart crossed her arms. “You almost lost yours, didn’t you? How much of your year out did you spend begging God to return your vocation? How many nights did you spend on your knees pleading for Him to restore you?” She snatched the veils.
Giulia put a hand over hers. “You can’t try to see inside my head without opening yours. How many nights have you spent on your knees in the little chapel?”
Bart snatched away her hand. “Sorry. I’m forgetting my place again. I’ll start the washer. You can’t use too much of our soap in it. Sister Beatrice did one day and the suds burst open the door. It was a disaster.”
“But the floor never looked so clean?” Giulia carried the wet clothes across the room after her.
“Nah. We keep it extra-clean so if we drop something we don’t have to re-wash it.” She looked at Giulia with hooded eyes, but relaxed when Giulia smirked. “It left a stubborn coating, though. We finally had to do a vinegar rinse. Stunk up the place for days.” She poured in a scant eighth of a cup of soap powder and took the rest of the clothes from Giulia.
“The short cycle takes fifteen minutes.”
Giulia looked at the clock and cringed. “You missed the earlier refrigerator raid. Let’s make another.”
“At one a.m.?” Bart’s stomach growled.
Giulia smiled. “Yes, at one a.m. Come on.”
_____
They sat on the middle of the long table, waiting for the drying cycle to end. Giulia peeled an orange while Bart devoured a ham and cheese on wheat.
“I thought for sure you’d make instant coffee,” Bart said.
“Have you seen the instant they stock here? It’s an abomination. Besides, my body’s telling me it needs a vitamin C hit.” She popped the first slice into her mouth. “What I really wanted to do was cut into one of those sheet cakes.”
Bart giggled. “Sister Damien’d have a cow.”
“Which is why I chose to sacrifice the pleasure and offer it up instead.”
Bart chewed another bite of sandwich. “My grandparents used to say that. My folks never did, but in here we say it all the time. Is it a Catholic saying only the older generation uses?”
Giulia shook her head. “Bart, you have a knack for making me want to check for gray hair. Just like Sidney.”
“Who? Oh, you mentioned him at the coffee shop.”
Giulia kicked herself. “Sidney is a her. She’s Mr. Driscoll’s admin and incredibly young and perky.”
“But you’re not that old.” Bart finished the sandwich and picked up her glass of grape juice.
“I’m twenty-nine, thank you. You just wait. A few more years inside, and you’ll talk like your grandmother, too.”
“You make it sound like jail.” She stared into her glass. “That wasn’t supposed to be a straight line.”
Giulia sectioned more of the orange. “Frank—Mr. Driscoll—would have the right joke to follow that.”
Bart looked over the rim of her glass at Giulia. “How long did you work together before you came back? That is, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Why?”
Bart stared into the dregs of grape juice like she was reading tea leaves before she spoke. “Well, it just seemed, in the Shot, you know, that you and he were a little more, um, familiar than boss and employee.”
“Mr. Driscoll was training me to be a private investigator, and I was training Sidney to be my replacement—I started out there as the admin.”
“Weren’t you afraid you’d, well, cross the line between professional and personal?” She picked a shred of ham from her plate and ate it.
“Bart, casual friendship is a far cry from an office romance. Just because I held you earlier when you were upset doesn’t mean you and I are going to plunge into a Particular Friendship.”
Bart’s head jerked up, eyes wide. Giulia grinned.
“Saying that phrase gets the same reaction as someone in a Harry Potter movie saying ‘Voldemort.’ ” When Bart smiled, Giulia continued, “I know how it gets in here. You start over-analyzing every thought, word, and action. If you don’t mind a little advice from someone with more experience, don’t worry about everything so much.”
Bart’s hand moved toward her bandaged leg, then made a feint at her now-empty plate.
Giulia didn’t miss the aborted gesture. “Not tomorrow—it’ll be too crazy—but the day after, you and I are going to have a talk with Sister Gretchen.”
“No—no, I can’t. It’s too—”
“Stop the melodrama. You can and you will. I’ve worked with high school students who cut. It can be stopped, but you have to be ruthless.” She gestured with the last slice of orange. “I don’t care if you think I’m shoving my nose in where it doesn’t belong, and I don’t care if you never speak to me again. I’m ruthless enough for both of us.”
Bart stared at her like Bambi-Bart confronted with a five-lane highway full of headlights.
Giulia scooped up her orange peels and tossed them in the trash. “How much longer do you think these’ll take?” Giulia stared into the circular glass dryer opening.
“It’s been twelve minutes. They might be nearly done.” Bart slid off the table.
Giulia held out a square laundry basket while Bart squeezed the collar and hem of the first habit.
“A little damp, but the stains are gone, I think.” She held one dress up to the light, then the next two in order, while Giulia inspected the veils and slips. “You did a great job, Sister Regina. These are practically dry. We could hang these in our rooms to finish.”
Together they checked the wall clock.
“Tell me that doesn’t say one-thirty.” Bart covered a yawn with a sleeve of the third habit.
“I would, but lying is a venial sin.” Giulia covered her own mouth. “Don’t yawn. It’s catchy.” She waited for Bart to drape hers and Vivian’s clothes over her arm, then took her own. “I’ve got the dishes if you’ll get the lights.”
Up in the kitchen, Giulia stacked their few dishes with the ones left by Sister Arnulf’s friends. She and Bart moved like ghosts up the stairs. When they separated at the third floor, Bart’s candy-cane nightgown vanishing up the dark stairwell reinforced Giulia’s nightmares of wandering in a haunted Motherhouse.
Twenty-eight
Four hours
later, Giulia slapped her alarm like it was Sister Mary Stephen’s face. After taking one of the briefest showers in the history of mankind, she shoved her desk chair under the door handle and texted Frank.
Progress on drug dealers?
Her phone vibrated while she was hooking her bra.
2 long 2 txt. Can u talk?
Giulia frowned, stared at the walls, the window, the door … the bed. She crawled under the covers, making a tent of sheet, blanket, and bedspread, and dialed Frank.
“Giulia? Where are you?”
“I’m under the covers on my bed. Can you hear me?”
“Barely. Let me turn up the volume … say something now.”
“Good morning.” She tucked the sides of the blanket around her feet.
“Better. Okay. Jimmy and I’ve been up half the night with the Pittsburgh Task Force. Remember that employee I was checking out for Blake’s company? The one who was a small-time dealer? The Pittsburgh guys recognized his name and we gave them what I had. This network’s a lot bigger than either of us thought. It’s got tentacles from the northeast side of Pittsburgh over to Allentown and up to Scranton. Not to mention Cottonwood, but I think that’s only because our small-timer moved there when he got married.”
Giulia stepped on his last word. “Darn it. I forgot to tell you this at the Shot. Captain Teddy Bear may want to check out Sister Fabian and Father Raymond as possible links in his drug chain.”
“Already doing it. Made the connection from Sister Bartholomew’s story last night.”
“Good.” Giulia pinched her temples. This frustrating phone-and-text communication merely highlighted how much she missed working directly with Frank. “Will you find something out for me? Bart said she carried white pills, but Vivian dropped an orange one yesterday. I want to know if the orange ones are stronger than the white.”
“Why?” Frank made slurping noises. “Sorry. Coffee’s hot.”
“Because I think those two had increased Bridget’s dose, and the higher levels put the idea of suicide into her head.”
“Just a sec.” The sound of pen on paper came through the phone. “You sure?”
“No, but something caused her to jump from addicted and depressed to addicted and suicidal. I don’t know enough about this particular drug’s side effects to be sure.”
“If that’s true, these things are like the Skittles from Hell. If I wasn’t an honest, upright citizen, I could make a boatload dealing ’em.”
Giulia didn’t quite growl at him. “Bart and Vivian and Bridget are honest. It’s Sister Fabian making the money, forcing them to be couriers. Did the police catch the alley scum we told you about?”
“Working on that. The Pittsburgh guys’ve been chipping away at this network for two years. They get small-timers—like Blake’s man—but no luck finding the Moriarty.”
“Father Raymond could be the answer to their Moriarty problem. If so, arresting him would free the Novices. That’s the only thing I’m interested in.”
“You are way too focused. Don’t argue—it’s a compliment.” He yawned. “Excuse me. Crashed on a hard-as-rock couch at three. Not conducive to sleep.”
“Tell me about it. I was up till two getting puked on and threatening Sister Bart.”
His voice sharpened. “What?”
She sighed. “One of the Novices is dealing with it by drinking too much altar wine. Sister Bart is dealing with it …” She slapped her forehead with her free hand.
“Giulia? You still there?”
“That’s what they meant. Although how I could’ve made the leap from crying jags and obscure hints to drug dealing, I don’t know.” Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“What are you talking about? What does it have to do with the dead Novice—sorry, Sister Bridget?”
“Everything. The police absolutely have to connect Father Raymond and Sister Fabian to this.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the problem. Jimmy and I had a helluva time last night—this morning—trying to convince the task force that a priest is at the top of this pyramid. I mean, come on. Just because the papers still have pedophile priest scandal stories—”
“That should make it easier for them to believe you. They’re policemen. They’re used to seeing the worst in people.”
“That’s just it. They see so much of the worst that they need someone and something to look up to.” He paused. “We have another problem with that.”
“Yes?”
“I told them how Sister Bartholomew described the way they transported the pills in the front part of their veils. There’s two Cradle Catholics on the team, and you’d have thought I was telling them I raped their baby sisters.”
“Frank.”
“Sorry, but the room got cold enough for the furnace to kick in by the time I was done. You know how it is. There’s some scummy priests in the world, but nuns are still nuns.”
“Yes, but at least you’re not treating me like one now. I can’t see my watch under here. What time is it?”
He chuckled. “Are you having visions of yourself at age ten reading under the covers with a flashlight long after you were supposed to be in bed?”
“Time, please?”
“It’s six twenty-two. Lighten up. That was supposed to make you think fondly of your childhood.”
“I’ve had too many flashbacks this week to think fondly of the past, thank you. Are you telling me they don’t believe the Novices were forced to courier drugs?”
“Once they got over how I shattered their pedestals, they started to.” He slurped more coffee. “But that’s what I was trying to tell you: they had the same reaction I did in the coffee shop. None of us understand why three reasonable adults would knuckle under like that.”
Giulia started a slow burn. “I hope you’re not telling me that they’re blaming the victims.”
“Well …”
The burn ramped up. “This is not the 1950s. Are you going to tell me that when these particular policemen respond to a sexual assault report, the first thing they ask is if the victim was wearing a miniskirt?”
“Don’t go there, thanks.” Frank’s voice took on a slow-burn quality as well. “We’re talking about free will and illegal activity. If you want to discuss the history of patriarchal chauvinism in the justice system, I’ll take you out to dinner and an evening of kickboxing—you and me, that is.”
Giulia’s burn dissipated. “Deal. Frank, you said that you and your brother discuss the concept of the vocation. Plus, you went through Catholic school, so you also got the annual vocation speeches.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I know the drill: pray that you’ll be open to God’s call. God whispers to the hearts of the ones He chooses, and nothing is more precious than the vocation to the priesthood. Or Sisterhood.”
“Exactly, and please don’t brush it off like the latest infomercial. Every word of those speeches is true, and that is why Bart and Vivian and Bridget agreed to Fabian’s blackmail.”
“Right, she said Sister Fabian threatened to kick them out of the convent. Christ, the place sounds like something out of my mother’s favorite soap opera.” He huffed. “That’s not a compliment. Sorry I cursed.”
“Take my word for it. A threat to living out their vocations would make them agree to almost anything.”
“You’ve survived just fine without it.” The phone clicked. “Wait a minute, I’ve got another call.” Silence.
Giulia gripped her temper in both hands.
Click. “I’ve gotta go. Keep your phone on you. I’ll text you as soon as I know something more.”
When the connection severed, Giulia held the phone away from her and spoke at it. “Goodbye, Frank. Nice talking to you.”
She flipped the covers off and got a full-on view of her alarm clock.
“Good Lord, it’s six thirty-eight and I’m still in my underwear.”
She snatched pantyhose out of the dresser drawer and pulled them on, threw on her habit without bothering to find her slip, and shoved her hair any which way under the veil.
The clock, which obviously had it in for her, now read six forty.
“I hope a power surge shorts you out.” She slid into her flats—and got a perfect view of the twelve-inch run on the shin of her brand-new pantyhose. “Lord, is there a purpose to these annoying little trials?” She grabbed her phone from the unmade bed. “Don’t be stupid, Falcone. Of course there is. You just haven’t figured it out yet.”
She ran down the stairs the way she used to get in trouble for when she was a Postulant. The first floor was just as empty; the smell of bacon wafted through the hall from the refectory. The noise of nearly a hundred and fifty voices crashed into that mouth-watering aroma, and Giulia ran into the hall leading to the chapel, braking by the Saint Anthony window.
Except the back rows were packed. She hovered in the doorway, craning her neck left and right. There—three rows up on the left. She hugged the back wall as long as she could, then headed straight up the side. It worked perfectly until she squeezed into the end of the pew and bumped Sister Epiphania.
“That’s Edwen’s seat.”
Perhaps the elderly Sister thought she was whispering, but her voice was pitched high enough to cut through the sedate response to Psalm 119. Every head in the twenty pews in front and to the right turned toward Giulia. Farther away, the Psalm continued, but the sharp decrease in volume caused more heads to turn.
“Sorry,” Giulia whispered, and walked past four more rows plus the Confessional. A Sister she didn’t recognize slid aside to make room in the aisle across from the tall wooden booth, saw Giulia’s empty hands, and held her prayer book between them. Giulia smiled and both their voices blended into the current verse.
The rest of the Office passed without incident. Giulia allowed the well-known prayers to soothe away most of the morning’s chaos. When the last prayer finished and the rest of the Community filed out for breakfast, she leaned back against the pew, eyes closed, to organize the relevant information from this morning’s phone call. Something tickled her neck. She slapped at more loose hair and tucked it into the bottom edge of her veil.
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