The Clock Strikes Nun

by Alice Loweecey

  The farmers’ market bag hit the table with too much force for the integrity of the tomatoes. “Oh my God, I am such a fan. Clark and I stayed there last Christmas.” He pumped Giulia’s hand. Giulia got the strongest sense he wanted to ask for her autograph.

  Wagner’s heartthrob attractiveness increased exponentially when excited. “I didn’t think to make the connection. We’re on the Stone’s Throw mailing list, and she sent flyers for Halloween. Brad, did we save it?”

  Brad searched a basket on the kitchen counter. “Yes, we did.” He passed it to Wagner and retrieved the bag of tomatoes on his way to the balcony.

  Wagner spread open the booklet-sized mailing. The cover matched the B&B’s home page with screaming capital letters and translucent ghosts. “We must go back for a haunted weekend now. We’ll be minor celebrities because we know Driscoll Investigations.”

  Giulia’s polite smile became strained.

  Brad called from the balcony, “Halloween is probably booked, but maybe for our anniversary in February.”

  Wagner grimaced. “Please don’t think we were married on Valentine’s Day. It’s too cliché for real life. We chose Imbolc because my parents still call it Candlemas and think witches practice human sacrifice on that night and on Halloween.”

  Brad poked his head inside. “By way of explanation, his parents send money to The 700 Club. Ms. Driscoll, would you like to share our lunch? We have plenty.”

  “Thank you, I already ate. Mr. Wagner, about Elaine’s education and her assumption of Dahlia’s leadership—”

  “Oh my God, I just figured it out.” He stabbed the Stone’s Throw flyer with a long index finger. “Elaine thinks her castle is haunted. No, wait. Cissy thinks the castle is haunted. Tell me I’m right.”

  “We don’t divulge our client’s information.”

  Brad said from the balcony doorway, “Don’t pout.”

  Wagner wiggled his fingers at him. “Aren’t you supposed to be on lunch duty today?”

  “Unlike some brainiacs, I can multitask.” He carried in a plate of roasted plum tomatoes covered with chopped scallions and melted cheese. “I’ll slice the bread.”

  Giulia’s stomach rumbled—silently, thank goodness—as little Zlatan decided he liked the aroma of cheese-slathered tomatoes.

  Wagner poured drinks for himself and Brad. “Ms. Driscoll, it wouldn’t surprise me if the castle harbored a resident ghost. It’s one of the oldest houses in Pittsburgh. Elaine’s mother and father spent a small fortune renovating it, but what if the original builders had been freakazoids?”

  Brad brought Italian bread and ramekins of herbed oil to the table. “What if your Elaine has a modern-day instance of the ancient custom of walling people alive in house and bridge foundations?”

  Wagner dunked bread. “You have a seriously twisted mind.”

  Brad’s smile was almost as charming as Clark’s. “And you love me for it.” He emphasized his point with his fork. “I’m not addicted to the SyFy channel only for the Sharknado movies. Wouldn’t you haunt the house where you’d been forced to reenact the loser’s role in ‘The Cask of Amontillado’?”

  Wagner popped a tomato in his mouth and spoke around it. “I can envision several centuries of anger as a result, yes.”

  Brad speared a tomato. “Ms. Driscoll, are you familiar with the admittedly barbaric practice?”

  In her cloistered Canonical Novice year, a restless Giulia unearthed an ancient volume of church history describing something similar in the life of Saint…Saint…The name refused to come.

  “This isn’t the first I’ve heard of it, but it’s been a while.”

  Brad swallowed the tomato whole. “I’m researching legends and their cross-culture assimilation for my master’s degree. This practice is ancient enough to cause a cage match among multiple cultures over who began it.”

  Giulia gave the derail its head as she watched Brad and Clark interact. The former unpacked immurement rituals of a dozen religions and cultures. The latter interjected variations on “creepy,” “disgusting,” and “sick puppies.”

  She never sensed they were putting on an elaborate show for her benefit. Their banter was not accompanied by shifting eye movements or twitching fingers.

  “What about residual energy?” Wagner finished off his fourth tomato.

  “Remember the curse on King Tut’s tomb.” Brad took the subject further afield.

  Wagner narrowed his spectacular eyelashes at Brad. “You’re doing it again.”

  “…the cow’s head and painted vase discovered less than a decade ago—What?”

  “Leading your dinner companions down a rabbit trail of fascinating trivia. We’re supposed to be discussing ghosts in Elaine’s mansion.”

  “Mmph.” The bread in Brad’s mouth precluded intelligible speech. He handed his phone to Wagner. “Ak-kk.”

  Wagner translated. “He wants to show you his apps.”

  Brad forced down the mouthful. “Make it test the ghost voices.”

  “I’m not sure if Elaine would jump all over this or build a fort with her collection of nursery rhyme books if she heard it.” Wagner held the phone to Giulia’s face. “Say something.”

  Giulia spoke with precision. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I already downloaded a similar app.”

  A familiar robotic voice spoke from the phone: “Load Hiss Apple.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Ghosts write bad haiku?” Wagner said.

  “As long as I’m not destroying your belief in another plane of existence,” Giulia said, “EVP recorders are notoriously unreliable.”

  Brad raised his eyes to the ceiling. “You’re going to cite Joe Nickell.”

  “Well, yes. His years of research have indicated EVP is most likely caused by picking up random words from TV or radio.”

  Brad countered: “What about spirit box sessions? Have you listened to some of those on YouTube?”

  Wagner gathered the dishes. “I don’t care if they’re real or elaborate party tricks. I’d bet a week of Brad’s cooking Cissy Newton has five of those apps on her phone and checks them every time she goes to a different floor. She’s such a mama bear when it comes to Elaine, she’ll work herself up to thinking the castle is the Amityville Horror and Winchester Mystery Houses combined.”

  Brad shook his head at Giulia and said to Wagner’s back, “Clark, you’re being naïve.”

  Wagner turned toward him from the sink, a dishtowel in one hand and the long-handled grilling fork in the other.

  In a sweet voice, Brad said, “This detective wouldn’t be here if someone hadn’t thrown you under the bus.”

  Thirty-Two

  “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit.”

  Giulia attempted to hide behind her iPad screen.

  Wagner slammed the grilling fork on the counter and flung the towel next to it. He took three steps to the table, snatched his phone, and pounded the keypad. “Here is a snapshot of my current financial status.” He shoved the phone under Giulia’s nose. “Please take note of our current rent payment, my car loan status, and my monthly student loan payment. My savings balance is at the bottom of the screen. If you click on my checking account, you’ll see my take-home pay. Is that enough to satisfy your masters or would you like me to add the bonus structure at my place of employment?”

  Giulia noted the figures.

  “Brad is no hourly grunt either. Tell the detective.”

  At Wagner’s peremptory gesture, Brad ran through a similar list. “I’m a personal trainer to several Carnegie Mellon Tartans and a long list of alumni as well as the Pittsburgh Hornets.”

  “He charges seventy-five bucks per hour because he’s worth it.” Wagner took back his phone. “Let me assure you we can more than afford our upscale residence. Our most expensive habit is gourmet cooking. It stan
ds to reason I’m dying to oust Elaine from her own company. I must be working with Pedersen because I have a gambling habit. No, I cut a deal with Elaine’s aunt and uncle because they offered to bankroll my secret startup.” He sat next to Giulia. “Have any of the Dahlia people said snide things about Pip? Don’t bother. I know they did. Don’t believe them. Pip is a walking vanity plate, but he’s good to Elaine. Sandra Sechrest hates him. Speaking of Sechrest, I bet she neglected to mention she lost her sugar daddy when Elaine’s father was murdered.”

  Giulia loved it when the correct answer was also the honest answer. “I didn’t know. Please tell me more.”

  Brad said from the sink, “Those words are the equivalent of a starter’s pistol.”

  Giulia imitated a sparrow eyeing a particularly tempting worm. Wagner did in fact lean forward in the position of a runner waiting for the signal to start.

  “The cook at the castle is Elaine’s cousin. We shared a common hatred of the Steelers and a common love of brewing IPAs in small batches in the cellar. During our many late nights crafting seasonal ale, I taught him poker strategies and he dished on the Davenports. There’s a family legend of Elaine’s mother sacking a maid who compared her in a certain flowered dress to that particular style of sofa.” He snickered. “The stories he told me about Mama D. No male alive would blame Daddy D for getting some on the side, but Sechrest? You’d think the man would find a plump, easygoing type whose skills began in the kitchen and ended in the bedroom.” He waited until Giulia finished typing. “You’ve met Sechrest already, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then. You know whereof I speak. Daddy Dahlia and his efficient personal assistant romped at will for six years. She thought he’d divorce his wife and make her Queen of the Dahlia empire.” A snort.

  Brad leaned his chin on top of Wagner’s head. “Have you ever watched The Scoop?”

  Giulia hoped her smile wasn’t too much like a grimace. “Once or twice.”

  Wagner said, “They could milk Dahlia for a month’s worth of episodes.”

  “For sweeps week,” Brad said.

  “They’d smoke the competition. Take Elaine’s aunt and uncle and their four waste of space spawn. If the reason you’re here isn’t Sechrest scheming to seize power, it’s Elaine’s aunt. Ruthlessness is in the Davenport female DNA.”

  Giulia, typing: “I wouldn’t have said Elaine knew the definition of ruthless.”

  Tandem laughter stopped her fingers.

  Brad took the chair on Giulia’s other side. “I never get tired of this story.”

  Giulia interlaced her fingers and bent them backward until the knuckles cracked. “Hit me.”

  Thirty-Three

  After his one-eighty from charming intellectual to wolverine at bay, Wagner now became a kid around a campfire.

  “Remember how I said the only time Elaine didn’t ace a class was the Christmas after she turned eighteen? Auntie and Uncle nagged her for a solid month, from October first to November first. She had to attend, they said. Elaine couldn’t shirk certain obligations, they said. They hinted if she couldn’t manage a simple party they’d force her to go back to a shrink for her agoraphobia.”

  “Ouch, right?” Brad said.

  “They finally played the marriage card. It’d do Elaine good to meet other young people. What they meant was ‘young men of similar social standing and bank balances.’”

  Giulia shammed ingenuous. “Elaine’s aunt may have known what Elaine needed in this particular case.”

  Wagner made a rude noise. “Not by the hair on her chinny chin chin. Not that Aunty Caroline would’ve allowed a single hair out of place on her expensively coiffed head. She knew they’d be suspected of keeping Elaine from a fulfilling life if they let her stay tucked into her turtle shell.”

  “A classic Catch-22.”

  “I do love encountering adults who read. Exactly. They nagged and wheedled and did everything they could to wear her down. Finally they thought to mention the fancy affair was also a Dickensian costume ball. Elaine is a terrific seamstress. She designed the tuxedos for our wedding.” He gathered himself. “Guess what costumes she created for auntie and uncle?”

  Giulia cudgeled her brain. She hadn’t read Dickens in years. “Bob Cratchit and…I don’t recall his wife’s name.”

  “Please. How pedestrian. Elaine locked herself in her sewing room for two weeks. The morning of the ball she presented them with their identities for the night: The Golden Dustman and wife.” He opened his hands and raised his eyebrows.

  Giulia reveled in another opportunity for honesty. “I must not have read that book.”

  Wagner collapsed like a Serie A soccer player. Giulia typed, “Do not be taken in by his charm.”

  The typing appeared to unnerve him. He traced the stained glass designs in the table.

  “Please explain the significance of the Golden Dustman,” Giulia said.

  “Right. Two of the characters in Our Mutual Friend are the downtrodden employees of the hero’s reprehensible father. When the father kicks it, he leaves his fortune to said honest employees. They have no clue how to fit into society, including how to dress. Just a minute.”

  He ran to the living room end of the open floor plan and returned with a MacBook Air. “I took a picture without them seeing.” He scrolled and clicked. “Enjoy.” He slid the laptop over. A full-length photo of Caroline and Thomas Emerson assaulted her eyes.

  Caroline wore an off-shoulder fuchsia dress trimmed with canary-yellow ruffles at the bodice and short sleeves cut at the right length to showcase her Bingo Lady arms. An ostrich feather fascinator bobbed over her head. An emerald cut citrine glittered on her spare bosom. Matching oversize urine-yellow crystals dangled from her earlobes. Fuchsia was not her color.

  Thomas was a vision in black. Black frock coat and black trousers tucked into knee-high black boots. A pea-soup green shirt peeped out from behind a black vest and a black bow tie. A gleaming black top hat and black gloves completed the outfit. False mutton chop whiskers clung to his cheeks. His nose, not yet as neon red as when Giulia met him, wrinkled as though he was trying to stifle a sneeze. Pea-soup green was not his color.

  The fuchsia and pea soup clashed in the worst way. The green made Thomas look jaundiced, the fuchsia made Caroline look bilious.

  “Oh dear,” Giulia said.

  “Told you. I helped Elaine carry the outfits and snagged a first-row seat for the entertainment. Elaine told them all about the characters when she presented the costumes. It wasn’t only the electric pink and puke green making aunty and uncle look sick. Despite Elaine’s obvious intelligence, they still thought of her as the nine-year-old hiding under the bed because she didn’t want the child psychiatrist rummaging around in her brain.”

  Giulia returned the laptop. “The costumes forced them to see the adult Elaine.”

  “Not only Elaine as a functioning adult—sort of—but an Elaine who wasn’t afraid to remind them of their subservient position in her house.” His face was the epitome of schadenfreude. “They walked on eggs for the next three years. I overheard some colorful complaints when they thought no one was around.”

  Brad said, “His favorite was ‘pampered little spiteful bitch.’”

  “True. Now you see what I mean when I say all Davenport women are born ruthless.” He snapped shut the laptop. “When Elaine was prepping to take charge at Dahlia, the Board of Directors summoned me. I had to show them Elaine’s transcripts, her thesis, and her professors’ assessments. Finally, those three demanded my personal guarantee Elaine had earned her degree and not bought it.”

  “Your guarantee?”

  His animated face grew dark. “Their lawyer said he could get me blackballed from the teaching profession. Not in those exact words, but I understood him.”

  Giulia was unsurprised. “Since Dahlia has continued to be pro
fitable, you’ve been justified.”

  “I’m seldom wrong. Cherchez la femme, detective, look for the woman. In this case, you want la belle dame sans merci, and I do mean that literally. Between Sechrest and his wife, I wonder if Daddy Dahlia wasn’t the walking dead years before his official death.”

  Giulia typed like a diligent secretary. “A moment ago you tried to convince me Elaine’s aunt and uncle were the ones to suspect.”

  A coy smile. “I’m not a licensed private investigator. I wouldn’t dream of telling you how to do your job.”

  Thirty-Four

  “I don’t trust the way Clark Wagner kept pushing Caroline and Thomas Emerson at me as the prime suspects.”

  Giulia dictated into her phone as she drove on the Turnpike. Traffic was heavy but flowed well.

  “Zane may have discovered a Daddy-Sechrest connection in his research, but if the affair lasted several years, Elaine’s father must have concealed it well. Sechrest struck me as wanting power, but not necessarily as a saboteur. Thomas and Caroline’s obvious hunger for the lifestyle they can no longer afford is more—”

  The Clown Car jerked forward. Giulia snapped to attention. A two-tone VW Bus rode her bumper.

  Camera. Did it turn on at the contact?

  The VW knocked against her again. She glanced in her side mirror. One car too close on her left. A several-story drop into the Allegheny River on her right. Her wannabe assassin knew how to time his attempts.

  The VW smacked her harder this time. The steering wheel jerked in her hands. A Honda passed her on the left but an Audi took its place, going way over the speed limit.

  This time the VW stayed on her bumper, pushing her toward the guard rail.

  The Clown Car was smaller than the Nunmobile. Giulia hit the gas and swung into the left lane without signaling.

  Multiple horns. A hand emerged from the Audi’s window and flipped her off. The VW sped up and weaved in and out of traffic too fast for her to catch the license plate.