The Clock Strikes Nun

by Alice Loweecey

  “He’s not a horse, Thomas.”

  “No, but he sure is a stud.” Thomas laughed heartily enough for all three of them. “Think about it. Elaine is a china doll, and Pip with his asinine name is a Golden Boy who loves competition in everything: work, women, sports. Once he captured his prize of a rich wife, he set himself a new goal.”

  Giulia made her voice sweet and neutral. “Are you saying Elaine’s husband is planning to file for divorce?”

  Caroline swooped. “Thomas, stop planting baseless rumors.”

  “Carrie, if he didn’t marry her for her money, I’m Donald Trump.” To Giulia: “Of course he’s not going to divorce her. The family lawyer is too smart not to have had them both sign an ironclad prenup. Elaine plays princess in her castle. Pip caters to her fantasy inside it and does what he wants outside it. Everyone’s happy.”

  “But Elaine isn’t a child in an adult’s body.” Giulia didn’t feel obliged to mention her personal opinion on this. “She runs the family business remotely from her house. Many people telecommute these days.”

  “They have to accommodate her,” Thomas said. “She owns the business and is majority stockholder.”

  “Be fair,” Caroline said. “She has the business acumen to keep it profitable or the Chief Financial Officer and Belinda and Arthur’s personal assistants would’ve found a way to oust her. The stockholders—”

  Thomas’ groan cut her off. “If Elaine had only given us stock.”

  Caroline said with a large smile at Giulia, “But she didn’t. There’s no point in pining over what we don’t have. Ms. Driscoll, if there’s nothing else we can help you with…”

  Thirty

  Halfway to the second appointment, a white van glued itself to the Clown Car for a quarter mile before passing her on the right. Its vanity plate—THESCOOP—replaced her momentary panic with anger. Were they following her hoping to capture her next brush with death in real time?

  She pulled into the nearest parking lot and called Frank. “I need everything you know about dashboard cameras.”

  Next she left a message on the phone of Elaine’s first governess/tutor to say she’d be a few minutes late.

  Then she drove to the nearest non-chain electronics store. The owner’s assistant installed the camera for her for an additional thirty dollars and she made it to her appointment only fifteen minutes late.

  Veronika Graser wore the boho look well. Her lilac blouse and hemp sandals appeared to be handmade. If Giulia hadn’t learned about Graser’s childhood train accident from her research she wouldn’t have noticed her slight limp under her flowing multi-tier cotton skirt.

  Her smile of greeting was the most genuine of all the Dahlia and ex-Dahlia connections.

  “Welcome to the Spin Cycle. Your phone call came at the perfect time. My latest dye creation hit critical mass way sooner than I calculated. If I hadn’t put it through the rinse baths when I did, I’d be trying to figure out how to weave Pepto-Bismol pink wool into Christmas crafts.”

  The country bouquet of sheep dung competed with the heavy aroma of honeysuckle flowers from two massive bushes at the corners of a huge renovated farmhouse. Giulia chatted about sheep fiber versus alpaca fiber (thank you Sidney’s family alpaca farm) as they walked up a cobblestone path.

  No ghosts. No demons. No disembodied laughter, unless a smart-aleck entity had latched onto Giulia and wanted to mess with her by possessing the sheep during this interview.

  Giulia made the corno as soon as the thought formed. Generations of superstitions weren’t sloughed off after a mere ten years of teaching.

  Her enjoyment of a routine interview must have communicated itself. Graser’s expansive gestures increased as they entered the house.

  “We bought this old place six months before we got married. Nothing like gutting and restoring a house to prove whether you can live with someone. All the wood is reclaimed. We’re replacing the area rugs with ones made from our own wool. Do you weave?”

  “I’ve tried spinning, but it was less than successful.” Giulia did not have grateful memories of the drug-addled Doomsday Prepper camp case, despite being able to honestly say she’d spun wool. Once.

  “You need to try again. Once you get the hang of it you’ll never buy a mass-produced sweater or scarf again. Let me show you our looms.”

  She led Giulia to the back of her house. A wide sun porch held three looms of varying sizes. Two older women sat at the larger looms. Twin toddlers played with a toy farm set in a shady corner. They held out their arms in sync when Graser appeared, and she interrupted her tour guide speech to run over and hug them.

  “Mama has to talk to this lady now. You play nice and then we’ll all feed the sheep.”

  The twin girls toddled over by the older of the weaving women, who plucked several bright dangling threads out of their reach.

  “This is my mom and my aunt. They’re wizards at weaving. They taught me, and they’re going to teach Siobhan and Annie as soon as they remember threads are for weaving, not eating.” She made an indulgent face at the girls as she said it. “The grand tour is now complete. I’m all yours. Come see the sheep while we talk.”

  Giulia complimented the fat, fluffy woolbearers and opened with the same unspecific statement about Dahlia, Elaine, and the Board of Directors. Graser leapt to the same conclusion as everyone else.

  “Elaine’s been running Dahlia for three years and now they’re trying to seize power? They ought to have more sense.”

  A wail from the sun porch interrupted her. Graser ran inside and came out with a tearful twin clinging to her with one hand and clutching a homemade Pippi Longstocking doll in the other. Subdued wails followed them.

  “Siobhan wanted Annie’s doll. Annie didn’t want to relinquish it. Siobhan is developing a mean right hook.”

  Giulia made a sympathetic pout at Annie. “Siobhan is now regretting the use of violence as an initial means of achieving her goals?”

  Graser laughed. “Got it in one. We were talking about Elaine running Dahlia, right? I was Elaine’s tutor starting a few months after her parents’ deaths up to her fifteenth birthday, more or less. Sure, it took her a while to adjust. Do you know anything about trauma recovery?”

  “A little.” Giulia attached mental blinders to focus on Graser’s face and not be distracted by the adorable baby.

  Graser kissed Annie, who imitated a lamprey around her mother’s neck. “Elaine’s aunt and uncle hired me, but Cissy the housekeeper was the brains behind the place. Is she still there?”

  “She is, and I agree with your assessment.”

  An airplane flew high overhead, the only sign of civilization Giulia had seen since arriving.

  “Elaine had a lot of rough nights. A lot a lot. The only way she’d go to sleep was if I read to her. She had to see a child psychiatrist once a month for a year, and those nights were the worst. No, Annie, you can’t play with the sheep. You’ll get poop all over you.”

  Annie pouted some more but settled back against her mother’s neck.

  “I’m telling you this to highlight what an accomplished business leader Elaine’s become. Some people seem to think she’s still that traumatized little girl. You know she’s a classic agoraphobic, right?”

  “I’m not familiar with the medical definition, but she came to our offices earlier this week.”

  “Did she ask if you had any Constant Comment tea?” Graser sat on the grass to let Annie pick wild daisies.

  Giulia smiled. “I keep a stash of tea and she noticed the Constant Comment right away.”

  “Back then she thought tea made her look grown up. She’ll force herself to go out of the house in unavoidable circumstances, but here’s the important thing: she doesn’t need to be in Dahlia’s offices to run her company.”

  Annie handed Giulia a bouquet of tiny daisies with squashed stems. Giuli
a accepted them with gravity. “Thank you, Annie. They’re beautiful.”

  Annie rewarded Giulia with a miniature copy of her mother’s smile and dived back into Graser’s arms.

  “Elaine has a first-rate business head,” Graser continued. “By the time she was fifteen she’d progressed beyond my capabilities. My field is Early Childhood Education. I’m still a private tutor, but I stick with K through five.”

  Annie balanced on her mother’s legs and gathered buttercups and more daisies.

  “I was the one who recommended Elaine’s aunt and uncle find her a new tutor. I didn’t expect to be packed up and tossed out the next day.” She managed to convey cynicism and ruefulness in a single gesture. “I don’t know if you’ve met her aunt and uncle, but if you ever do, don’t turn your back on them.”

  Giulia picked up on the cynicism. “The next day? What did you do for money? Did you move into a hotel?”

  A hand wave. “Practically the next day. They gave me a week’s notice, but I’d been saving. Even with room and board at the house decreasing my salary, I made darn good money all those years. I wasn’t going to end my days a mad governess in someone’s attic. No gothic novels for me.”

  Giulia tipped her head in approval. “I taught high school for ten years, but my severance package bought me lunch at McDonald’s.”

  Graser opened like a flower to the sun. Giulia had long since stopped wasting useless guilt on deliberate information sharing to draw out a client. Or a witness. Or to suss out a red herring.

  “That’s criminal. Where did you teach?”

  “The Catholic school system.”

  A groan. “You poor thing. A friend of mine got a position right out of college in Philadelphia’s parochial system. Too much student loan debt made any teaching job better than ‘Do you want fries with that?’ She escaped after three years.” With her hands over Annie’s ears she whispered, “They treated her like a second-class citizen because she wasn’t a nun. If this one wasn’t in my lap, I’d tell you exactly what I think of the parochial system and Catholics in general.” She tickled her daughter until the toddler collapsed giggling on the grass. “After my Elaine years I started working for Kaplan, the tutoring company. One day this hot guy dragged in his little brother and I reeled him in like a large mouth bass. The hot guy, I mean.”

  She stood, swooping Annie onto her hip in the same motion. “I need to go inside and show Siobhan I still love her.”

  Giulia kept pace with the taller woman. “Have you met Elaine’s husband?”

  “Oh, Pip.” Graser’s free hand fluttered over her heart. “What a lady killer. Don’t get me wrong, he and Elaine are perfect for each other. I met him at their fairy-tale wedding.” They entered the sunroom. “Siobhan, come tell Annie you’re sorry.”

  Giulia began her exit strategy before her pregnancy hormones derailed her day of interviews. In a perfect world, she’d ditch her to-do list and spend all day playing with the twins.

  “I’ll walk you to your car.” Graser balanced a twin on each of her hourglass hips. “My husband works for Pip’s marketing firm. We had no idea until their wedding. We don’t breathe the rarefied air of upper management, natch. He crunches data and is my personal marketing wizard in his spare time.”

  Giulia made certain Annie saw her bouquet of daisies in a prominent place on the car’s dashboard. The little hands clapped.

  Graser beamed. “You made her day. About Dahlia. You can trust me on this: Elaine would have no problem whatsoever running the company as long as she stays in her mansion. She has Pip to run her errands and Cissy Newton as her personal privacy fence.” She nuzzled Annie’s chubby neck. “You and your sister are going to grow up strong, talented, independent women. You won’t need a cross between Mary Poppins and the good Terminator from T2 to function.”

  Her daughters kissed her cheeks.

  “It’s all about the proper parental involvement, don’t you agree? If Elaine had had a normal mother instead of a surrogate bodyguard, she might have turned out differently. Still, she has everything any woman could want. I wish I had her life.”

  Siobhan flung her arms around Graser’s neck. A moment later Annie did the same.

  Graser squeezed her daughters. “No I don’t, after all.”

  Thirty-One

  Giulia sat in the rental car eating the hot dog Zlatan demanded for lunch and reading the dashboard camera manual.

  Her phone’s memo cache was ninety-five percent full. She’d have to bring the tablet to the second tutor’s interview.

  She finished the hot dog and programmed the camera to take a picture when the car shuddered. “Shuddered” should’ve been in the three-language manual, none of whose languages resembled grammatical English, including the “English” section.

  If the anonymous van came at her from front or side, all she had to do was spin the camera’s swivel mount in the proper direction. A good use of a few extra dollars, assuming she wouldn’t be occupied with not plunging over a bridge.

  “It’s pronounced ‘Vagh-ner’ like the composer, not ‘Wagner’ like the power tools.”

  Elaine’s college tutor, a pre-Captain America Steve Rogers, let her into his loft apartment.

  First a young Paul Newman, now him. This case was as close as Giulia would ever get to movie stars. If only the tutor’s first name had been Steve.

  “Thank you for taking time to see me, Mr. Wagner.” She pronounced it correctly this time.

  “Anything for Elaine. She’s the only woman who understood me outside of my advanced differential equations professor at MIT.”

  She followed his Ralph Lauren acorn-brown suit into an open room decorated in blues and ivories with accents of rust red. The red should’ve looked like dried blood, but instead the overall effect was of fall mums against a blue sky.

  Giulia resolved not to like Clark Wagner too much.

  “You picked the right day to set this up. My usual schedule is four ten-hour workdays, which makes every weekend a long weekend. Nice, isn’t it? Have a seat. Would you like a glass of water or a Coke?”

  “Thank you, no.” Giulia sat at a trestle table with stained glass inserts and brought out her iPad. “We’ve been hired to look into Dahlia’s business practices under Elaine Patrick’s management.”

  Wagner sat facing Giulia. “Someone still thinks Elaine can’t possibly be a success from the confines of her home? Please. Are you familiar with my credentials?”

  Giulia played straight man. “I know you received a master’s degree from MIT.”

  “Beavers rule.” Even his grin was worthy of Captain America. “False modesty is a waste of time. I’m pretty damn smart, Ms. Driscoll. I also have a knack for spotting entrepreneurs who have what it takes to be successful.”

  He jumped out of the chair and rifled through the newspapers in a magazine rack. In a minute, he brought over a yellowed business section with a banner headline: The Next Hot Start-Ups. “Third one down. We’re going to give Google a run for its mountains of money. I guarantee it.” He plucked the paper from her hands and returned it to the rack. “When I first came to the castle I was twenty-five and she was fifteen. Elaine was in major withdrawal from the loss of her first tutor and wouldn’t come out of her suite of rooms for two days.” The grin reappeared. “Nice to be rich and able to do whatever you want, isn’t it?” He watched Giulia type. “Want me to slow down?”

  “You’re fine. Thank you.”

  “Cool. I get into a rhythm when I lecture and altering it interferes with my synaptic connections.”

  Giulia tried harder not to like him.

  “Veronika, the former tutor, ended up saving my job. She left me an ‘Elaine 101’ manual. While her parasites—sorry, her aunt and uncle—were trying to convince the house manager to force Elaine’s door, I gave myself a crash course in all things Elaine.”

  Giulia t
yped, “Do NOT smile. Do NOT smile.”

  “No, go ahead. Enjoy the image.” Wagner leaned forward. “The house was a cross between a chaotic sitcom and an amateur rugby match. When I finished the manual, I slid a paper under Elaine’s door with a college freshman level statistical analysis problem. An hour later she came out of her room with the problem solved and asked Cissy to make her a cup of that orange tea she drinks by the gallon.” He preened in the way a champion hoists a trophy.

  “In your opinion, therefore, Elaine is capable of running Dahlia.”

  “No question. Why else would I have called in favors and pulled strings to get her enrolled in Harvard’s MBA program at sixteen? Besides, money talks.” He winked.

  “Elaine was also a notch in their inclusivity lists.”

  “You bet she was. Admitting her was a slam-dunk for Harvard. Neither of us cared about that aspect, though. Once we removed the stress of leaving the house, she aced most of her classes. The only ‘B’ she got was because her keepers nagged her all semester to go to this ridiculous Christmas costume dance.”

  Again with the Christmas ball. “Which involved the usual anxiety factor of going out into a crowd.”

  The door opened, and a statue from ancient Rome come to life walked into the apartment. His curly black hair brushed the lintel. His nose ought to have caused sculptors to stalk him on Facebook. His pecs under an Orangetheory Fitness polo announced “personal trainer inside.”

  “Darling, I have the most succulent tomatoes to grill—oh.”

  Wagner stood. The top of his head reached no higher than the newcomer’s collarbone. They shared a “we’re in front of a stranger” kiss.

  “This is Ms. Driscoll of Driscoll Investigations. She’s here about Elaine.”

  The Nose looked from Giulia to Wagner and back again. “The Driscoll Investigations? Stone’s Throw Lighthouse B&B Driscoll Investigations?”

  Polite Smile Number Two appeared (the one which masked her desire to beat her head against the nearest wall). “Yes, we were able to assist Stone’s Throw earlier this summer.”