Nun But The Brave (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 3)

by Alice Loweecey

  “Have you ever seen the Jimmy Stewart movie The Shop Around the Corner?”

  For a moment his body language said “fight or flight,” but only for a moment. He dragged off his chef hat. “How’d you find out?”

  Giulia said for the second time that morning, “I’m a detective. It’s a job requirement.”

  Eddie picked at an invisible piece of food on the hat brim. “I didn’t kill Joanie.”

  “I’m not accusing you. You don’t see the police here with me.”

  His head jerked up. “You’re serious.”

  “Yes. I’m still working from the premise that Joanne is alive. What happened between you two when you contacted her through the dating site?”

  The sight of the strong man cringing opposite her said more than he realized.

  “You’re right. I tried the Shop Around the Corner thing because Joanie was always too busy to notice me. I was her colleague, but that was it. We didn’t have anything in common outside of work. My cat thing was a deal-breaker, plus I don’t hunt.” He twisted the hat around one hand, then untwisted it. “I sort of altered a picture of me to look buff, because I knew Joanie was working out. She recognized me and sent me this God-awful message.”

  The joys of letting the witness think she knew nothing. “She was angry?”

  “No, she was…kind. It sucked. The next morning, she winked at me when she came in, like we were friends sharing a secret. Friends. Neither of us mentioned the messages again. It was like they never happened.”

  If anyone had ever looked like someone kicked their puppy, Eddie was that person.

  “Did Joanne ever talk to you about other men she met on dating sites?”

  His laugh was bitter. “Oh, yeah. A bunch of hunters and a couple of guys who were all about how the world was going to end any minute now. One of them came to pick her up here at work, and I recognized him from some group hunting weekend pictures she showed me.” His hands smoothed the hat out on his lap with little success. “You’re a woman. Maybe you know. Why was Joanie so insecure about herself when at least two of her friends were all ready to take it to the next level?”

  “Every woman is different. I can’t speak to Joanne’s reasons for lack of self-confidence, other than she thought she was too heavy.”

  The hat got another wring. “I hate Hollywood and supermodels and fashion designers.”

  Giulia stood. Maudlin was her signal to exit. Eddie raised his face to hers, which emphasized the kicked-puppiness. “You really think Joanie’s run off with some rifle-toting jerk with a big dick? Excuse me.”

  “I think it’s a strong possibility.”

  Hope erased some of the plaintiveness from his face. “That would be awesome. You don’t want to know all the nightmares I’ve been having of her body sliced up and dumped in the woods.”

  “I might advise watching fewer CSI reruns.”

  “Yeah.”

  She recorded the interview on her phone while still in the parking lot. Chef Eddie might be further down on her list of suspects, but he wasn’t off it. The lost little boy act meant nothing to her after ten years of teaching high school.

  Joanne’s landlord gave Giulia no trouble about letting her into the apartment on short notice, but since he was out of town he sent his minion to unlock the door. His hungover minion. Giulia thanked him in a low voice. He grunted, keeping his head still. When they got out of the elevator on the third floor, SportsCenter on maximum volume slammed into their ears. The minion whispered something unprintable.

  “I’ll be in the first floor office.” He winced and lowered his voice below a whisper. “Knock when you’re done.”

  She closed the door on ESPN and started with the kitchen. First the cabinets above the counter, then the drawers below it. Nothing hidden in the dishes and silverware. Nothing secreted in the complete set of high-end pots and pans.

  Oh, how Giulia coveted those pots and pans. But she moved on without Googling the manufacturer’s website and fainting at the prices. Nothing hidden in the oven or broiler or refrigerator or freezer.

  On to the bathroom. Sink, cabinet, towel shelves, toilet. Nothing in the tank or under the tank lid. You couldn’t trust movies to give you useful clues anymore.

  Bedroom. She ripped apart the bed and shoved the mattress off the box spring. Again, the movies lied to her. Nothing hidden between them or in the pillow cases. Nothing tucked in the boots in the closet or the pockets of the shirts or jeans or the few pieces of clothing in the dresser drawers.

  At this point, Giulia wasn’t sure whether she was grateful for only one more room to search or aggravated at coming up blank. She must be right. She must have missed something. She was going to find it.

  Into the living room. She opened every single DVD. A plastic sandwich bag containing three hundred dollars was taped inside the cover of Disaster Movie. She made a note in her phone to let Diane know about her sister’s emergency money.

  All the other DVDs came up blank. So did the picture frames when she took them apart. So did the first two bookshelves.

  But when she shook out a paperback titled A Devil in the Details, a folded invoice for cake decorating supplies fell to the floor. A flow chart covered the back.

  “Giulia Driscoll, you need to recognize the obvious when it’s beating you over the head.”

  She sat cross-legged on the carpet and unfolded the paper. A hand drawn grid covered the back of the invoice.

  The name “Joanne” with a red line through it headed two lists of words. The first: Bean, Muscles for brains, Challenge, House, Prepared. The second list: Cucumber (with a star after it), Charismatic, Land, Charm, Honest, Allure. “Joanne” without a line through it topped the third list: Zucchini?, Ego, Hard work, Talent, Future, Shift.

  Giulia’s first thought was how to break to Diane that the police were two-thirds right about Joanne wanting to start a new life. Her second was how even naïve Giulia a few years back would’ve figured out what “bean,” “cucumber,” and “zucchini” stood for.

  Her third was to thank Joanne in her heart for keeping all her secrets in one place. All three vegetables’ names and phone numbers were on the bottom of the sheet: Lou Larabee, Alex Sila, and Kurt Warfield.

  She un-pretzeled herself and grabbed her iPad from her messenger bag. The stiff kitchen chairs didn’t do much for her back, but she stayed at the table to get on to the internet. Not five minutes later, the money Driscoll Investigations spent on the complete Whitepages phone plus address lookup site proved its value again. “Lou Larabee” and the Louis Larabee Giulia had twice interviewed were indeed the same person. Hooray for day jobs requiring their employees to have a phone.

  “Alex-with-a-star Sila” might be Alex the wild-eyed gardener. Better than a fifty-fifty chance for that because of the Larabee match. She could research this Alex back home on a real computer, so his name went into the hold queue.

  “Kurt-with-a-question-mark Warfield” had a number that led to a cell phone with the carrier’s canned voice message. If Kurt thought not recording his own voice message kept him anonymous, he was about to lose faith in the concept of privacy.

  She stepped around the stack of books from the successful shelf and took a closer look at the photographs themselves, not at what might be hiding behind them. No clues there. All the pictures were of Joanne and Diane or Joanne hunting, but not with any men.

  Where else would a photograph hide? Giulia had stopped her search when she found the chart hidden in the paperback with the pointed title. Like the money hidden in the DVD with the pointed title. Therefore…

  She read the rest of the titles on the shelf with the chart in her hand. Ego and talent. Hard work. Not Jane Austen, she failed on ego. None of the erotica titles were suggestive enough. At the far end, a werewolf romance and a ghost mystery sandwiched a biography
of Oscar Wilde. The only biography on the entire bookshelf. Thank you, Mr. Wilde, for being talented and possessing a massive ego.

  The picture fell out from between the tipped-in set of glossy photos of Wilde in the middle of the book. Joanne standing next to a tall blond dressed in an extravagant military uniform. For half a second, Giulia thought, “Armed forces?” until she saw the stage makeup. The back of the picture read, “Carmen, closing night, March 6th.”

  And thank you, Joanne, for labeling your photographs. She returned to her iPad and searched for local opera companies performing Carmen this past March.

  Cottonwood didn’t have its own opera company, only the local theater where she and Frank still played flute and cello in the orchestra pit on occasion. However, Pittsburgh boasted two and, yes, one of them ran Carmen from February twentieth through March sixth. A few clicks brought up the cast. Don José: Kurt Warfield, Tenor.

  Never trust a tenor. Every musical theater director had said this during rehearsals, and all the tenors had high-fived each other.

  Noon. The tenor might be at lunch now and have his phone on. She called again.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Warfield, I’m with Driscoll Investigations. We’re looking into the disappearance of Joanne Philbey.”

  “The what?” His voice cracked. He coughed twice, and when he spoke again Giulia understood the continual warnings. Even half-awake and froggy, this voice was meant to seduce. “Who are you and what are you talking about?”

  At quarter to one, Giulia sat kitty-corner from the tenor at his kitchen breakfast bar. She sipped chilled orange blossom tea and nibbled a lemon cookie. The tenor dunked Oreos in milk.

  “I can only indulge my childhood on days I’m not performing.” He held the cookie in the milk to let it soften. “Dairy coats my throat and cuts half an octave off my range.”

  They talked musical theater, favorite pieces, closing night pranks they’d pulled, and ones they’d been the victim of. Kurt’s voice remained impressive even when sabotaged by dairy products. Framed posters of his shows hung on every wall Giulia could see. The apartment’s decorating scheme consisted of black, white, and crimson. Checkered tile. Three white walls and one black. Crimson area rugs. The stark contrast made Giulia restless, but the colors suited Kurt’s easy, modern clothes, poster frames, and hair.

  Kurt stopped at five cookies. “Oreos are the perfect indulgence, but my fans don’t want to see a spare tire on Otello.” He sealed the package of cookies. “You’re patient. I like you. You didn’t jump down my melodious throat as soon as you walked through the door.”

  Giulia sipped tea. Charmers, in her experience, didn’t do well with silence.

  He unfolded his napkin. “You remind me of the nuns in the boarding school my parents tossed me in when they got divorced. They were decent.”

  Giulia didn’t offer any of her own personal information. She recognized the double meanings in his words. She used the technique herself. He re-folded the napkin. The current moment of silence lasted less than five seconds.

  “You’re probably wondering why I was asleep at noon on a Monday. I teach high school chorus and give private voice lessons. In the summer it’s only private lessons. I get to sleep in.” He drank the rest of the milk, complete with saturated cookie crumbs on the bottom of the glass. “You may not believe I didn’t know Joanne disappeared, but that’s not my problem.” He paused. “Maybe it is my problem. Do the police think she’s still alive? Are they looking for kidnapping suspects?” The cookies appeared to stick in his throat. “Do they think I’m involved?”

  Without a smidge of guilt, Giulia played him like he was her flute. “I’m not in the confidence of the police. How long has it been since you spoke to Joanne?”

  His long, thin hands picked at the defenseless napkin. “Months. It’s been months. She stopped returning my calls after Le Nozze di Figaro. That was the end of March. I sent her flowers for her birthday and when she didn’t call to thank me I gave up.” He saw the napkin confetti and placed his hands flat on the narrow table. “Joanne bakes cakes. Have you seen them? We have a new stage manager who came from someplace in Ohio, and for our Christmas party she ordered this incredible cake decorated like the ball scene from Die Fledermaus. We were so impressed we offered the baker tickets to any opera of her choice. When she came, our stage manager brought her back to introduce her to the cast. She brought cupcakes for us and they were almost better than sex.”

  Giulia kept her face impassive. “I am aware of Joanne’s side business baking cakes.”

  He spoke faster. “I like women with meat on their bones, so I asked her out for a drink. She was shy; I’m your classic extrovert. She’s tone-deaf, can you believe it? She could only appreciate one of my talents.” He winked, but his hands refused to stay still.

  “How long did your relationship last?” Giulia stiffened her spine to convent posture and projected Teacher During Exam Time.

  Kurt looked around at his framed posters as though Rossini and Mozart could give him inspiration. “A few months. Only off and on, you know? She had two jobs with wacky hours. She’d come hear me sing when she could and we’d shack up for a couple of days. She cooked everything I challenged her to. I tried to educate her on opera. She tried to get me to watch those parody movies, the really dumb ones.”

  “Is that why she cut off contact? Because you tried to educate her?”

  “No, no, it wasn’t like that. You make it sound like I thought I was better than her or she was stupid. She’s smart and talented and so am I. I used to watch her cook. She could make magic with eggs and bacon and herbs and French bread.”

  Interesting. Giulia had been wondering how the three of them fit into bed: Kurt, Joanne, and Kurt’s ego. While the question still applied, Kurt seemed to be the one person in Joanne’s life who wasn’t in take-take-take mode.

  “The last time you saw Joanne, what was she like? Secretive? Worried? The same as usual?”

  He frowned. “No, not worried. She came to closing night of Carmen and we went to the cast party. The chorus complained when she didn’t bring cake, but I shut the idiots down. We went back to my place for the night, but she left right after breakfast.” He opened the Oreo package again and ate two in a single bite each. “I was going to talk to her about sticking together long-term. When she never called me back after about ten voicemails, I figured she wasn’t into me anymore. Funny, but I thought she wasn’t the type of person who dumps and runs.” He looked straight at Giulia. “When did she disappear?”

  “The first week of April.”

  He tapped a third cookie on the counter, each tap spraying chocolate crumbs. “Rip off the Band-Aid for me: Do you think Joanne’s dead?”

  Giulia gave him an honest answer. “I’m not sure. She may have chosen to disappear or she may have been abducted, or she may have been robbed and murdered.”

  He flinched. “I asked for that.”

  “Thank you for your assistance.” Giulia set down the tall tea glass.

  He started. Perhaps he expected further interrogation. Perhaps he wondered if her next stop was the local police station to report on him. Both ideas pleased her. She didn’t get a negative vibe from him, except for the Texas-sized ego, but he might think he was safe because he thought she couldn’t access his phone records.

  He ate the remains of the cookie. “When you find her, will you tell her to call me?”

  Thirty-Five

  Back home after checking in with Sidney and Zane, who reported a normal busy day, Giulia composed a reply to Alex’s order to appear at the Hedge of Separation.

  She’d better stop thinking in video game terminology or she’d laugh at the wrong time and things would get awkward.

  “It’s short notice, but I’m able to switch shifts with two different people for the next two days.”

&nbs
p; His reply icon dinged on the screen within two minutes. Alex wasn’t completely off grid either.

  “Very good. Here are the rules for a longer stay:

  1. Immersion is required. This means you are expected to help with any and all chores as needed.

  2. You must agree not to divulge any details regarding the community to outsiders.

  3. No technology of any kind, including cell phones.

  Do you agree to these rules?”

  Giulia chewed her bottom lip. The no cell phone rule could be part of Technology Bad, Simple Life Good, if one ignored the plain fact of Alex using an internet dating site to find new pelvises. Pelvii? Her Latin had gone downhill in a big way since she’d left the convent. Although she’d never been asked to conjugate “pelvis” for her students, not even in Sex Ed.

  No cell phones could also mean some members of the community didn’t want themselves outed. To their friends? On the internet? The mom of teenagers said her parents knew of their participation, but she could be the exception.

  If she tried to sneak her phone in, would they search her? She couldn’t afford to risk getting the boot. She had her answer, then. The cell phone was a deal-breaker. Time to play hard ball.

  “I can only switch shifts at such short notice if I stay on call. I’m really sorry, but I can’t afford to lose my job. Thank you anyway for the invitation.”

  She sat back and watched the screen. How valuable was her Pelvis of the Future to him and his leader?

  Thirty seconds later, she had her answer.

  “I’ll contact the others and get back to you.”

  Giulia grinned. Who would have guessed her skeletal dimensions possessed such value to total strangers? Not her, certainly. Where would it have belonged on her resume? Not under experience or education or professional awards. Such an asset deserved its own category.

  No instant reply this time. She went into the kitchen to prepare her own sourdough starter as a sacrifice to gain the goodwill of this almighty community leader. When she located her sixteen-ounce glass measuring cup behind the milk in the fridge, she covered it with plastic wrap—the horror! Machine-processed kitchen supplies! When she checked her screen again, a message icon waited for her.