The Clock Strikes Nun

by Alice Loweecey

  How fascinating. A woman in power assumed the woman in front of her must be in a position of subservience. Giulia wrote in the margin of her current sheet: borrow Remington Steele DVDs from the library.

  While Sandra typed Giulia said, “You mentioned that Elaine’s noises from the closet sounded ghostlike. Did you have any reason to think the house might be haunted?”

  Sandra hit the Enter key with force. “Ridiculous. Ghosts are nothing more than a device used to frighten children into obedience.”

  “I see.”

  “We only thought of ghosts because we’d just discovered five dead bodies one floor below us.”

  “I see.”

  She stood. “I have three more appointments this morning. If you want to know who put ideas into Elaine’s head about how we kept Dahlia afloat, talk to her tutors. I’ll spell their names. Veronika Cameron and Clark Wagner. Veronika was the first nanny. When Elaine got old enough, her aunt and uncle replaced her with Clark.” The rose lips pressed together. “Never trust an MIT grad. Every one I’ve encountered thought only of how to take advantage of anyone not in their exclusive geek club.”

  Giulia tallied the collateral damage as Sechrest buzzed her out.

  •Sechrest suspects Elaine’s tutors control her mind after all these years and they’ve convinced her to make a clean sweep of Dahlia.

  •Hyde fingers Elaine’s aunt and uncle because they have a history of mistrust.

  •Pedersen defaults to his ex-wives.

  •Dona and Shandeen give even odds to the Board of Directors secretly initiating the investigation.

  •Everyone is willing to trample everyone else to be the last one standing when diabolical DI turns in its report.

  If life imitated the movies, the Dahlia building would ooze fear and mistrust like the grocery store in The Mist.

  Eighteen

  Giulia checked Dahlia’s parking lot for white panel vans. Giulia checked the streets for white panel vans. Giulia checked her rearview mirror every block for white panel vans.

  At least the radiology clinic’s parking lot was large enough to give her a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of all cars in all rows.

  An hour later, she called Frank. “Zlatan is one hundred percent fine. Growth rate normal, development on track, and his mother suffers only from bruises and the lack of her Nunmobile.”

  Twenty minutes later, Giulia entered DI’s building through the back door, paused to inhale Common Grounds’ Thursday special—Crème Brulée—and promised herself a large with half and half as her second allowed Real Coffee of the day.

  Her legs protested the steep stairs. Another reason to seek and destroy the creeper van. How many more after effects would surface? She didn’t have time for this.

  Zane held out muscular arms to her as soon as she walked in the door. Half a dozen pink phone message slips fluttered from one hand.

  “Thank the gods you’re here. Ken Kanning called at seven and left a message. At seven thirty and left another message. At eight he demanded to know where you were. At eight thirty, ditto. At nine he got huffy. At nine thirty he accused me of blocking his access to you. What got his panties in a bunch?”

  Giulia tried without success to keep a straight face. Zane’s answering look would’ve wrung pity even from Giulia’s former Superior General.

  “I was nearly run off the West End bridge and into the river yesterday by a white van. I called Kanning last night and made him prove he wasn’t responsible.”

  “What?” Both Sidney’s soprano and Zane’s Bogart baritone leapt into higher registers.

  Giulia held up both hands. “I’m fine. Just some sore muscles. The baby is fine too. The Nunmobile is in the shop, but is expected to make a complete recovery.”

  The normally unobtrusive Zane rivaled Sidney for babble after that. Giulia told them the entire story, emphasizing the Soccer Mom with her van full of players and her own delight at the officer’s complete ignorance of The Scoop.

  The phone rang. Zane picked it up, held it away from his ear, and put the caller on hold. “Talk of the devil.”

  “I’ll take it. Go downstairs and take a look at the abomination I’ll be driving for the next several days.”

  Giulia sat at her desk before she took her personal cross to bear off hold. “Giulia Driscoll speaking.”

  “Finally. You have to tell me the name of your client.”

  “Mr. Kanning, our clients are confidential.”

  “Only to the public and the press. Not between colleagues. Come on, Ms. Driscoll. You have to admit we’re allies now. The Scoop is mixed up in this adventure. Our necks are on the line with yours.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kanning, but no.”

  She got the impression he was gathering his forces. When he spoke again, Ken Kanning the silken-voiced replaced Kanning the ambulance chaser.

  “Ms. Driscoll—Giulia—you know when we work together we bring the culprit to justice faster. Remember what a great team we make. You did watch our two-part special on the Doomsday Cult exposé, didn’t you?”

  Only because Frank DVR’d it and brought his entire family over for a viewing party. Four Driscoll brothers plus wives, Father Pat, Giulia’s in-laws, and grand in-laws all clustered around the TV in their Cape Cod’s not nearly big enough living room. Frank and Pat MST3K’d the entire hour.

  “That’s not the issue, Mr. Kanning. You’ve established your alibi for yesterday’s accident. Any connection with our current case is ended. Goodbye.”

  Sidney poked her head around the doorframe. “You look like curdled milk.”

  “A standard effect of a conversation with Kanning. He may leave us alone for a day or two.”

  Zane’s head appeared on the opposite side of the doorway. “Ms. D., you’ve been cheated. That’s not a car in the parking lot. It wants to be a car when it grows up.”

  “I think it’s cute,” Sidney said. “How’s the gas mileage?”

  “Very good, but it’s no substitute for the Nunmobile. We have bonded like a rescue dog and its owner.” She winked at Zane. “Now if a gaggle of ghost clowns come piling out of the yellow nightmare at midnight, I’ll be able to use them as practice for our new client’s requirements.”

  Sidney huffed and returned to her desk. Giulia followed, beckoning to Zane.

  “Guys, the suspects in this one are multiplying like coat hangers in an empty closet. Can I hijack you?”

  Zane held up his thumb and index finger a millimeter apart. “I’m this close to getting into Dahlia’s financials.”

  “You’re excused. Sidney, what about you?”

  “I have to meet a suspicious future father-in-law at eleven.”

  Giulia glanced at the clock over the main door. “A little less than an hour. We can start.”

  Sidney sat in Giulia’s client chair with her preferred note-taking vehicle, a single subject college ruled notebook. “What were the major players like?”

  Giulia shook her head. “We’d use up all our time. A multi-platform presentation is required to do justice to the Holy Trinity of Dahlia.”

  Sidney, snorted, coughed, and scowled at Giulia. “You’d better confess that to Father Carlos or I’ll tell your brother-in-law on you.”

  Giulia pretended to pout. “You never used to be evil.”

  “Catholicism has irrevocably altered me.” But Sidney couldn’t hold her serious face and ruined the drama with giggles.

  “Pat will have a great deal to answer for one day.”

  Sidney opened the notebook. Giulia spelled out the names of the aunt and uncle, both tutors, and the two smoking admins and described their relationship to Elaine. Sidney tugged her left earlobe, a habit she’d admitted to acquiring from singing lullabies to Jessamine.

  “All these plus the original three? Money corrupts.”

  �
��It does. Speaking of such corruption, it’s a good thing Cissy Newton joined up with Muriel, because costs are increasing exponentially.”

  “Now that I’m a homeowner with a family, I love the sound of client invoices multiplying.” Sidney stood. “I’ll start at the top with the aunt and uncle.”

  “I’ll take the admins at the bottom.”

  Giulia finished with Dona in short order. She participated in every activity sponsored by the Polish Falcons and engaged in multiple pierogi and Krupnik discussion groups. Her worst fault appeared to be addiction to high-profile causes. Giulia’s favorite was a front-page newspaper photo of Dona and four other women chained to the porch of a Planned Parenthood office as six perplexed uniformed officers attempted to arrest them. Giulia wondered how she found time to sleep.

  Shandeen’s hobbies were equally innocuous: artistic hair dye, homegrown tobacco, intricate tattoos. And The Scoop.

  “Zane, Sidney, you have to see this.”

  They came running. Giulia pointed to Shandeen’s blog up on her screen.

  “She photobombed Ken Kanning?” Sidney, laughing.

  “Multiple times?” Zane, incredulous.

  “Watch.” Giulia double-clicked on one video clip after another. Through luck or persistence or both, Dahlia’s chief designer managed to be within Pit Bull’s viewfinder in Dahlia clothing a dozen times. Here, leaning against a wall somewhere in Pittsburgh. There, loading groceries into a car outside the Cottonwood Giant Eagle. In the park. Next to the police station, with the added entertainment of two officers politely asking Kanning to leave, now. Which he did, in a manner the unkind might describe as “scurrying.”

  “It’s wrong of me to enjoy Kanning beating an ignominious retreat.” Giulia replayed the last clip. “But I do.”

  “Everyone has a vice.” Zane retreated to his desk. “I’m a breath away from breaking through.”

  The phone rang. Sidney picked it up at Giulia’s desk. “Good morning, Driscoll Investigations…One moment, please.”

  She put the call on hold. “It’s Ms. Newton, and she sounds as desperate as Ken Kanning.”

  Giulia suppressed a sigh. “A calm morning in the office would be a welcome change.”

  “I’ll close the door.”

  “Thanks.” She pulled her legal pad toward her and pressed the hold button. “Giulia Driscoll speaking.”

  “Ms. Driscoll, this is Cissy Newton. The situation here has escalated. Our cook and the upstairs maid have threatened to quit.”

  “I sympathize with your employment difficulties, Cissy, but in what way is this situation related to your belief that Elaine’s business partners are working against her?”

  “Tch. There is more to this than greed. The maid insists she has evidence a demon has infested the library.”

  Giulia opened her mouth to soothe and refute.

  And closed it again.

  Since Elaine didn’t leave the house, someone from the outside might be working with—who?—to unsettle the fragile heiress and the rest of her household.

  Cissy interrupted her lightbulb moment. “We require an exorcism.”

  Giulia stared at the sunny garden watercolor on the wall facing her desk. Curse Rod Serling and his Night Gallery TV show for not giving step-by-step instructions on how to disappear into a painting.

  “I’ll call you back.”

  Nineteen

  Father Patrick Driscoll, O.F.M., M. Div., Th.D., stared at his sister-in-law and uttered the distinctly un-priestlike, “Are you kidding me?”

  Giulia passed a Sonic limeade and two of the restaurant’s Chicago dogs across his small kitchen table. “I am not.”

  Frank’s second oldest brother shared the looks and build of all the Driscoll men: ginger hair, green eyes, rugby player muscles, and that disarming grin. The grin was nowhere in sight as he took out one-third of his first hot dog in a single bite.

  Giulia added two orders of tater tots to the hot dogs. For herself she unpacked tots, a pretzel dog, and a cherry limeade.

  “My current clients think their employer’s and cousin’s business partners are trying to force her out. The alleged victim is an agoraphobic who thinks her house is haunted. There’s a possibility the business partners are working with someone in the house to get her declared incompetent.”

  Pat’s eyes never left her face as the rest of the hot dog disappeared unerringly into his mouth.

  “Hear me out. I’m now trained in Tarot reading and clairvoyance. My client called today because members of the staff claim to have seen signs of demonic activity. I need a crash course in exorcism.” She popped the plastic lid off the Styrofoam cup and drank much too fast. When the brain freeze passed, she said, “Will you help me?”

  Tater tots vanished into Pat’s mouth like he was a human assembly line. When the first sleeve emptied, he said, “What’s Carlos’ opinion?”

  Giulia breathed. “He says I’m pushing the envelope with Tarot and clairvoyance.”

  A short laugh. “A bit.”

  “He also says it falls within my SOP.” She explained the pre-confession system she and Carlos had worked out back when she first began working for Frank. “Carlos mentioned he wasn’t trained in exorcism and you were.”

  “Great. Can no one be trusted anymore?”

  Giulia nibbled her hot dog. Her phone call with Father Carlos, her parish priest, had been enough to give her heartburn. Carlos was the kindest priest she’d ever known, which was saying quite a lot, but he was still a member of the clergy operating within the strictures of the Roman Catholic Church.

  Patrick taught at Carnegie Mellon. He substituted at several churches as needed but didn’t have his own parish. Perhaps because of his daily interactions with college students, he skewed on the strict side of current church teachings. And as the temperature in Giulia’s office dropped ten degrees when she explained her exorcism needs to Carlos, she’d expected a minimum thirty-degree plunge here at Pat’s.

  The longer Pat stared at his second hot dog without eating it, the air became less frigid. It could be because she was Frank’s wife, or because he knew she treated religious matters seriously, or because she used to be a nun.

  At last he moved a hand toward his limeade. Giulia drank more of hers—slowly this time—while she debated on instituting the ten percent “grief” upcharge on Muriel and Cissy’s invoices. She, Sidney, and Zane had all nominated clients for the inaugural padded bill, but so far they’d talked themselves out of it.

  Pat punched in a number on his cell phone. “Wait until our weekly poker game, you tight-ass Jesuit.”

  Father Carlos’ deep laugh carried across the table to Giulia. “Franciscan slacker. Tell Giulia she should name the baby Carlos.”

  “Not on your life. It’ll be Owen or Finn.”

  “Remember, I’m her confessor.”

  “No pulling rank.”

  “Franciscans are a blot on humanity.”

  “And the Jesuits still have to atone for the Inquisition.”

  “Oh sure. Throw that in my face. Prepare to lose big at Texas Hold ’Em Monday night.”

  “In your dreams.” He hung up and said to Giulia’s concerned face, “What?”

  “Pat, you’re both barely squeaking by.”

  “Oh, the gambling? You’re too literal. Last week I lost and had to wash his rustbucket Ford Taurus. If he loses on Monday, I’m going to make him fix the leak in my toilet. My water bill’s creeping up each quarter.” He wolfed down the second hot dog. “How’s your Latin?”

  Twenty

  “No,” Pat said after an hour of Latin recitation. “Don’t chew the scenery. People expect priests—in this case, you—to diffuse authority and power. Be firm and maintain control. When you say ‘Et potestas Christi urget vos’ your clients will figure it out because everybody and their grandmother has seen The Exorcis
t or that TV show with the codependent brothers fighting demons and angels.”

  “Supernatural.”

  “That’s the title. Every female in my comparative religion classes is addicted to it.” He flagged another page in a well-read copy of Manuale Exorcismorum. “Emphasize the mystery of it, the otherworldliness, because I’m not convinced there’s a demon in the house or that one of the inmates is possessed.”

  Giulia took the small leather-bound book. “I’m bringing my admin to watch everyone’s reactions to the ritual. He looks like Paul Bettany’s character in The Da Vinci Code. He’ll take mental notes for me.”

  Pat nodded as he set a sheet of heavyweight writing paper on his desk. “The only tangible result of the two actual exorcisms I’ve performed has been to calm and comfort the ‘victim’ and their family, after which all supposed demonic activity ceased.” He wrote a few lines, dragged over a huge reference book, wrote a sentence, looked up something else, wrote another sentence, and signed with a flourish worthy of John Hancock. “Grab the matches over the refrigerator, would you?”

  Giulia returned with the box of safety matches. Pat lit a stick of crimson sealing wax and pressed the seal on his ring into a puddle of hot wax next to his signature. He blew on it a few times and passed it to her.

  She read the Latin out loud for practice. “As an ordained representative of the International Association of Exorcists, Father Patrick Driscoll, O.F.M., M. Div., Th.D. bestows upon Giulia Maria Falcone Driscoll the title of Extraordinary Handmaid of Exorcisms. May the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bless your endeavors on their behalf.” She looked up at the Driscoll grin on his face. “It sounds quite official in Latin.”