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

by Alice Loweecey

  “Driscoll, your snarky assumption got in the way of your brain. That wasn’t a TV show. He’s got her in his cellar.”

  Giulia drew a tiny cellar below the arrow charts.

  “Where? It’s way too small.”

  The shelving units on all four walls of the storage cellars in the compound barely gave two adults room enough to stand. All of them had been excavated to the same pattern, it seemed. Perhaps the cellar dimensions of any Tiny House were also part of the blueprints. The cellars needed more than dirt. They needed stone-lined walls for food storage because no electricity meant no refrigerators or freezers. Like for the sourdough starter she’d brought as a cult-warming gift.

  Which Cheryl had stored in a hidden recess lined with river stones to keep it cool in the summer. Giulia had stood back as Cheryl pulled a shelf out on a hinge to access her cooling niche.

  She called Frank.

  Forty-Six

  At three o’clock, Giulia met Frank and Nash at the precinct and climbed into the back seat of Nash’s gray Subaru Forester.

  Within the first thirty seconds of the hour-long drive, Frank said, “What did the doctor say?”

  Giulia angled her head toward Frank’s partner.

  “Frank can’t keep his mouth shut, Giulia. You know that.” He appeared to consider the implications of his statement. “I mean, he doesn’t share bedroom secrets or anything, but he was worried about you and the baby so I got two earfuls all morning.”

  Giulia gave Frank a tight smile. “Darling, you make me feel so secure in the privacy of our relationship.”

  Nash slugged Frank’s shoulder. “Flowers tonight, dude.”

  “Carnations would be a good choice,” Giulia said. “The doctor read the printout and agreed with my lab contact’s assessment. She sent me for a blood draw as a precaution and put a rush on it. The results came back right before I left to meet you. All baby-related levels of important blood elements are where they should be and my blood shows no traces of anything out of the ordinary.”

  Frank bent himself over the front seat, grasped her face, and kissed her.

  “No fooling around on the job,” Nash said.

  Frank took a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket. “Behold a warrant. This guy’s arrest record plus the interview transcripts you sent with your statement of the woman’s muffled shout from the house were exactly what the judge needed.”

  “I should’ve connected the dots sooner.”

  “You’re not Jesus Christ the omniscient,” Nash said.

  Giulia chuckled. Nash’s filter between brain and mouth malfunctioned at the worst times. Frank said, “Moron,” and Nash turned five shades of red in rapid succession.

  An hour later they parked on the connecting road to Meadow Lane.

  “Cows, ugh,” Nash said. “I grew up on a farm. If I never smell manure again, I’ll die a happy man.”

  Giulia pointed out the windshield. “Getting stuck behind the accident on the expressway worked in our favor. Here comes Larabee’s green Jeep.”

  Larabee drove past them down the long rural road. It turned left at a corner so far away the Jeep shrunk to the dimensions of a Matchbox car. Nash started the Subaru and they drove to the pasture fence at the end of Larabee’s street.

  “That’s not a house,” Frank said. “It wants to be a house when it grows up.”

  “Tiny Houses are cutting edge,” Giulia said as they walked to the front door. “This one is about three hundred square feet. Note the weeds everywhere. They’re all edible. Also note the side of the house to our right borders on the cow pasture. Cows don’t pry into one’s private affairs. The human neighbors will most likely keep tabs on us through the curtains.”

  “We have a warrant. They’ll thank us for a week’s worth of gossip.” Frank checked the lock. “Deadbolt.”

  Giulia produced an extra-large paper clip from her pants pocket. “Step aside, officer of the law, and let the private investigator do her stuff.” She snapped it in half and inserted one L-shaped end at a time into the lock.

  “I taught her that trick,” Frank said.

  “Stop patting yourself on the back,” Nash said. “It’s on YouTube.”

  “Screw you.”

  “Not on your best day.”

  “Shush, boys, I’m concentrating.”

  Nash said in a quiet voice, “Old lady across the street staring at us from her porch just opened a cell phone.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Giulia heard with half an ear Frank’s footsteps cross the street and return a few minutes later. At the same moment, the pins slid into place and the deadbolt slid back. “We’re in.”

  “Our watchdog is back inside her door,” Nash said. “Now she’s looking at us through binoculars.”

  “Gossip fodder for a month,” Giulia said.

  They entered the house and locked themselves in. Giulia led the way to the trap door in the kitchen.

  “How’d you know where it was?” Nash said.

  “These houses are built from three or four standard blueprints, but they all have cellar access via the kitchen. It makes sense when you think about it.”

  Frank pulled up the trap and Giulia descended first. The cellar was definitely not designed to allow three adults to occupy the space all at once.

  “I’ll keep watch upstairs in case this guy comes back,” Nash said.

  Frank tested the shelf of canned goods on the left and Giulia started on the right one with bags of beans and packets of ramen. Neither shelf budged. They met at the middle shelf of paper supplies.

  “This shelf is the lightest,” Giulia said. “If he’s left-handed, I should find a latch under the top…here it is.” The switch clicked but nothing moved. “What did you do…wait a minute.” She felt a second switch under the third shelf and pressed both of them at the same time. “Aha.”

  The dual clicks sounded like a muffled bang but the shelf swung free on silent hinges. She and Frank stared into a six by six foam-lined cave with quarter-inch PVC pipes set at regular intervals in one wall. A battery-powered desk lamp sat on the floor next to a futon mattress. A short stack of paperback books near the mattress, a tall stack on the other side of the lamp, and a lidded chamber pot were the only other objects in the room. The air stank of urine and feces.

  A pale, thin woman balanced on the narrow section of clear floor in the yoga plank position. Her long brown braid fell over her left shoulder, its end pooling on the plywood. Wrinkled gray sweatpants and a matching t-shirt clung to her sweat-covered body. A faded brown tattoo of Texas Longhorn horns and wheat stalks decorated her left arm. The tableau lasted another few seconds until without a twitch from her biceps she jumped from plank straight into Giulia’s arms.

  “Please get me out of here, please, please.” Her hoarse voice fell dead inside the crowded walls.

  “Nash,” Frank called up the ladder. “Coast clear?”

  “Nothing but cows.”

  Giulia climbed out first, followed by Joanne, followed by Frank. Nash backed a step away from Joanne’s effluvium, but recovered himself with an “Afternoon.”

  “Is it safe to leave? Are you sure?” Joanne said, crowding Giulia. “Can we move faster?”

  “Talk later,” Frank said. “Out now.”

  Nash drove his car over the edible lawn to the back door. Joanne and Giulia climbed in the back. Frank rode shotgun. Nash’s Subaru ripped up more of the weeds in its trip to the street and freedom.

  “Old lady’s dialing her phone,” Frank said.

  “Wonder if she decided we’re not the police after all?” Nash said, driving at the speed limit.

  “Probably calling all the neighbors over to her house for an in-depth discussion of what she thinks we were up to.”

  “How did
you find me?” Joanne’s fingers clutched the seat. Her head kept swiveling to look out every window in the Subaru. “Did you hear me screaming? Who are you?”

  “I’m with Driscoll Investigations. Your sister hired me to find you.”

  Joanne started to sob. Her lips cracked and bled; tears seeped into the bloody slits. “She-she can yell at me every day f-for the next six months and I’ll t-take it and like it.”

  Giulia handed her a tissue which got soaked through in less than a minute. She passed across two more. Joanne sucked in several deep breaths and blotted her lips with the last one.

  “Thank you. Did I thank you yet? I can’t believe Di sent you after I lied to her like that. Did Nick make her do it?” She looked behind her and to each side. “Can’t we drive faster? What time is it? Lou might come back and see me in here.” She slid down in the seat.

  “He’s at work,” Giulia said. “We didn’t march in there without a plan.” She put a hand over Joanne’s.

  “When did you hear me?” Joanne clutched the seat. “I tore his foam batting away last month, I think, and yelled through those air pipes when I could. I kept replacing the foam when he unlocked the door so he wouldn’t notice. He keeps a TV hidden in the cellar and loves screaming monster movies. He kept them on all the time to force me to like them too. I timed my yells to match the movie screams.”

  “Last week, and I apologize for taking so long to figure it out,” Giulia said. “He wouldn’t let me inside. I thought it was because he was secretly watching TV and didn’t want me to find out.”

  “Stupid vegetable patch muffled my voice then.” She raised herself to see out the back window. “Can we please go faster?”

  “We don’t want to attract any attention,” Giulia said. She held her phone close to Joanne’s mouth, the voice memo function already recording. “Go.”

  Joanne blinked at it.

  “From which point?”

  “I have a mostly complete picture of what happened between the December breakup and when you and Alex connected. When did he invite you to join his community?”

  “The middle of March.”

  “That tallies with Marjorie’s information.”

  Joanne started punching herself in the temple. “God, Marjorie. I was so mean to her. What am I going to do?”

  Giulia caught her hand and kept hold of it, which started Joanne crying again. “I’m a terrible person. I b-bought into Alex’s sales pitch of being one of the p-privileged and chosen and I kicked everyone to the curb.”

  Giulia kept passing her tissues for one minute only by the car clock, then held out her hand for the last one. “Marjorie and her feline army are ready to welcome you back as long as you pay enough attention to the cats.”

  Joanne’s lip split further when she responded with a small smile. “The cats will make sure I know the extent of my sin.” She breathed in yoga style until the tears stopped. “I’m sorry. I’ve been schooling myself for weeks not to be a doormat anymore.” She scowled at her hands. “I won’t be able to hunt if these keep shaking.”

  “It’s the reaction. It’ll stop soon,” Giulia said. “You’re safe now.”

  Joanne stared out all the windows again. “I wish I was as sure as you are. Okay. Okay, On April third I left the apartment like I was going to work as usual, but Alex had me drive to this grade school in Pittsburgh. I ditched my car and started walking. He met me a couple of blocks later and drove me out to his—oh, wait, maybe I shouldn’t tell you about that.”

  Giulia’s facial expression was not as gentle as she would have liked it to be for a traumatized kidnapping victim. “He drove you out to his compound by Beaver Falls and began your indoctrination with hallucinogens and thought retraining.”

  “You’ve been there.”

  “Goat milk in the coffee,” Giulia said to defuse the moment.

  Joanne’s face said it all. “It’s disgusting, isn’t it?” She looked out the car window, her fingernails threatening to rip holes in the cloth seat. “I’m really outside. I’ve been dreaming of freedom every time I fell asleep for…what’s today?”

  “July sixteenth.”

  Joanne’s spine stiffened. “Two months. He’s had me locked down there for two months. I haven’t seen the sun or breathed fresh air or…” She pushed a fist against her mouth and inhaled. “Okay. I’ve got this.” A brief smile flashed out. “I don’t know what I want more: a shower, a toothbrush, or an extra-large pepperoni pizza.”

  “We’ll get you all three. Alex drove you out to his Prepper compound. And?”

  “Everyone was wonderful. They made me feel like I was an essential piece of their plan. We all worked together, ate together, played games together. It was everything I’d ever wanted.”

  “Why did you drop out of your old life without telling anyone?”

  Joanne tugged at her braid. “Diane would’ve hit the ceiling. She didn’t understand how everything and everyone were sucking the life out of me.” Her lips cracked again at her ironic smile. “Desperation makes you stupid.”

  Giulia dug a Burt’s Bees lip balm out of her messenger bag and gave it to Joanne.

  “Thank you. Ow. Peppermint stings. Alex was forceful and organized and had a mission. Everything my last three guys didn’t have.”

  “What about Kurt?”

  The smile became genuine again. “He was funny. His ego was bigger than a third-world country, but he was great in bed.”

  Nash kept driving one mile under the speed limit. Frank kept scanning the roads.

  “So anyway,” Joanne said into Giulia’s phone, “I bunked with one of the members while I got acclimated. You’ve been there, you said. Did you participate in a Horned God ritual?”

  “Yes.”

  “How freaky was your LSA trip?”

  “The twins were there,” Giulia said.

  “Oh, you got the family-friendly version. If the teenagers are there during the Horned God ritual, we smoke a mixture of herbs to relax us and make us open to the communal power of Alex and Cernunnos. When the teenagers aren’t there, everyone gets their own cup of morning glory tea. When he takes his chosen consort into his bower in the woods, they share a special brew with poppy seeds from a special drinking horn.” She flexed her fingers. “It hit me like a freight train. I flew on a porno dream of horns and fire and, and, other body parts and didn’t wake up until after sunset the next day.”

  “When did you find out about the homemade drugs?” Giulia kept her voice soothing.

  Joanne’s mouth twisted. “Right after I came out of it. Alex and Cheryl—the twins’ mother, you met her, right?—apologized to me for like 24 hours straight. They’re the amateur chemists in the group and I was the first one who didn’t wake up early the next morning. I guess Alex’s god didn’t know what a lightweight I am when it comes to any kind of drug.”

  Giulia phrased her next question with care. “Are you considering bringing sexual assault charges against Alex?”

  Joanne stared. “Why?”

  Giulia stared back. Right then her phone reached its recording limit. She tossed it in her bag and flipped open her tablet. Fingers poised to type, she looked up at Joanne, who shook her head.

  “I get it. No, I’m not. Our sex was totally consensual. I knew we were drinking hallucinogens and I figured the extra drink we shared was more of the same. I was fine with it all. I was thrilled to be chosen.”

  Giulia typed without comment. The traffic increased and Joanne slid farther down in the seat. Her fingers alternated between clutching themselves and the seat. Her fear sweat overpowered the air in the car. Frank cracked his window.

  Joanne said in a meek voice. “I’m sorry. I know I reek. Louis wouldn’t give me any soap and only brought me water enough to drink.” Her fingers gripped themselves tight enough to turn all the knu
ckles white.

  Frank and Van Horne said the right things. Giulia said, “Why did you leave Alex’s compound?”

  Joanne tried to slump but her knees were almost on the floor of the car already. Instead she sat halfway up and stared at her hands.

  “It was great the first month or so there. We worked hard, but I’m not afraid of hard work. I taught myself to cook and keep busy without technology. We smoked and drank Alex’s concoctions and everything was happy and mellow.” More hand staring. “One morning I couldn’t remember the steps of one of my go-to recipes. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I used to know three hundred recipes by heart. It’s what I do…what I did. It scared me. I never did drugs before I joined Alex’s community. I thought, how many brain cells have I killed in four weeks? So I stopped inhaling. Then I stopped drinking the tea. That took some sleight of hand. Within two weeks it was like I de-fogged my brain.”

  Giulia took it all down. “And?”

  “At the two-week mark a cat wandered into the compound and the dogs tore it to shreds.”

  Giulia shuddered. The memory of adorable Pepin the moose flopping at her feet included the size of Pepin’s teeth.

  “Right, you’ve met the dogs. They’re not pets. They’re guard dogs.” Joanne placed her hands flat on the lap. “Alex made me get rid of my cats as proof I was one of them. He told me to bring their meat for my first supper here, but I gave them to a farm that needed mousers and shot two small coyotes instead.”

  Frank muttered something. Giulia refrained from kicking the back of his seat.

  Joanne said, “I thought of my cats and the drugs and how we all were these artificially happy little Alex-robots and a voice in my head kept saying over and over, what the hell was I doing?” She shrugged. “I was sharing my tent with these two teenage runaways. They were heavy into Alex’s concoctions, but they wouldn’t listen to me when I talked about moderation. Guess Alex recruits for pig-headedness too. I sat up three nights in a row doing the whole soul-searching thing and when everyone was zonked after the next Horned God ritual, I sneaked out.”