Nun But The Brave (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 3) (6 page)

Twelve

Head morning chef Edward “just Eddie, please” Marstan looked like a young Colin Firth but without the charisma. Or the voice. An irregular pattern of bacon grease dots marred his uniform, but beneath it lurked the body of a weightlifter. He slumped in the wicker chair opposite Giulia as they sat in the gazebo on the lawn in front of the condos.

“I don’t get out here often enough. Joanie liked to come here on break to breathe air that didn’t smell like fry grease.”

Giulia knew a disappointed lover when she saw one. They always wanted to talk. She wrote a header on a new document in her iPad and counted to herself: Five…four…three…two…

“Joanie and I were equals here. Before she disappeared, I mean. Last month the head chef won two hundred grand in Powerball and quit. If Joanie had been here, the promotion would have been hers, no question. Angie would’ve tried to stab her in the back, but Angie is a hack. Joanie could make this food service glop taste like real food. I’m not up to her level, but I’m working on it.”

Two women using walkers moved past the gazebo, talking in high-pitched voices about the women in the latest episode of
The Bachelor
. Eddie waited for them to cross the parking lot to the other row of condos.

“I’m glad Joanie’s sister hired you. She got all in Chapers’ face when she came here. Did you know he didn’t call her for a whole week after Joanie stopped showing up? The cops guilted him into telling her. We could hear her in his office even through two closed doors. His hairline receded half an inch out of fear. We compared impressions of it after she left.”

A skeletal woman opened the back door of the main building. She lit a cigarette and indulged in a long, slow inhale and exhale. Then she dragged two bulging trash bags over to a dumpster concealed behind a privacy fence. After a plastic lid slammed, she walked closer to the gazebo and said, “Marstan, the boss says he needs the canned good reorder list ASAP.”

“Will do, Angie.” In a low voice to Giulia, he said, “If she’d eat something besides kale smoothies and boiled quinoa, she might learn the difference between savory and over-spiced. She’ll never be more than an assistant until she stops being afraid of food.”

Giulia picked up the tangent and ran with it. “Judging from her specialty cakes, Joanne appreciated food.”

Eddie frowned at Giulia as though she harbored an ulterior motive. “Just because Joanie didn’t starve herself—”

Giulia stopped him. “No. That’s not what I meant at all.”

Eddie relaxed. “Good. I’m sick to death of everyone assuming Joanie was fat and unloved because she didn’t wear a size zero. Joanie was—is—a great person. She listened—listens—when you talk. She even helps out this crazy cat lady from her church. She can hunt with a rifle and a bow and arrow and gut a deer. But she can get all girly-girled up when she wants. For Sunset’s Christmas party she put on sparkle nails and everything. She’s got it all.”

Giulia typed: Joanne either had no idea Eddie worshiped her or he had made an overture and she turned him down.

He took an antique pocket watch out of the shirt pocket beneath his uniform. “I can give you another twelve minutes before the ten o’clock group meeting.”

Giulia leaned forward. “What do all her coworkers think happened?”

“It was like this: About three months before she disappeared, Joanie started to change. She dropped a bunch of weight and got all ‘I know something you don’t know.’ It got under some people’s skin. When the cops showed, the tall, hot one got some of us to talk, but the Alzheimer’s patients freaked out her minion. He couldn’t even look them in the eye.” He sat straighter. “Sorry. Derail. After the cops left, Chapers couldn’t stop the gossip.” He took out his cell phone and showed Giulia a screenshot. “They started an office pool, like when someone’s pregnant and everybody puts in a buck to guess the time and date of birth.”

Giulia took a picture of the screenshot and read:

“Pregnant.”

“Won the lottery.” Someone had written next to that, “Lightning never strikes twice.”

“Secret reality TV show contestant.”

“Spy called out to a covert rescue mission.”

“Eloped.” Three different names followed; Eddie’s wasn’t one.

She handed back his phone. “It that all?”

He shook his head. “We make decent money here, but Joanie started to hit the casinos. She never did before. Chapers went with her a couple of times. They never let on whether they won or lost. Sometimes Joanie would play poker with some of the more with-it residents. I got the feeling she let them win.” He stood. “One more thing. Joanie changed the way she dressed too. She used to wear plain pants and tan or black shirts. I used to tell her she’d look good in red or yellow, but she only altered her pattern for the summer picnic and the Christmas party. When all her other changes happened, she started to wear camouflage and Army-Navy surplus stuff. I asked her about it, but she switched on her new attitude and wouldn’t answer me.”

Giulia walked back to the parking lot with him. “The police are convinced Joanne vanished voluntarily.”

“No!” Eddie glanced up at the windows and lowered his voice. “Chapers said that too, and so did the police who came here. The rest of the staff gave up on Joanie. Never mind all the times she listened to them and helped them out with some trouble or other. I don’t know why everyone’s pretending she doesn’t matter. She got in an accident and is in a coma in a hospital in the sticks somewhere. Has to be.” He put a hand on the doorknob and said in an even lower voice, “When you find Joanie, tell her she matters to me.”

Thirteen

After Giulia spoke with the other breakfast staff, she learned the big pool money was on Joanne either having an unknown boyfriend’s secret love child or eloping with a billionaire who’d met her while visiting one of the residents. Third in line was a James Bond scenario from the nursing students, who were thrilled to talk to a real-life private eye.

“Ms. Philbey was really quiet,” a pale blonde with polka dot fingernails said.

A redhead with classic green eyes and freckles said, “You know what they say about quiet ones.”

“It had to be a cover,” from a brunette several inches taller than everyone in the group, including Giulia.

“Right, because she was a good cook.” A second blonde, this one with a voice squeaky enough to dub Alvin the Chipmunk. “She had the perfect cover story.”

The pale blonde: “We heard she liked to go hunting, so she knew how to shoot.”

The tall brunette: “So she wasn’t kidnapped because she could defend herself.”

The squeaky blonde: “See? The perfect secret agent.”

The redhead: “It’s so cool.”

All four crowded closer to Giulia.

“We liked her a lot, but please don’t tell anybody,” the brunette said.

“We’re only supposed to interact with the nursing staff and the patients,” the redhead said, “but Ms. Philbey used to sneak fresh doughnuts to us.”

“She was such a great cook,” the chipmunk blonde said.

“We miss her.” The pale blonde pouted. “The new morning chef is a real workaholic. He never does anything for us. The assistant cook is a real—”

The redhead elbowed her.

“Shut it, moron.”

When the Nunmobile passed the “Welcome to Cottonwood” sign two hours later, Giulia’s first stop was her favorite food truck for a barbecue hoagie. Her second was home. She opened the windows, poured a humongous lemonade, and set up her laptop at the kitchen table to transfer all her notes. King-sized beds were lovely to sleep in, but real work was best performed on a not-so-comfortable work surface.

Conclusion #1: Marjorie the Cat Lady is a source of information, not a suspect.

Conclusion #2: Ex-boyfriend Louis Larabee was too helpful.

Conclusion #3: Would Larabee say anything to keep from going back to jail?

Conclusion #4: Any woman who dates Larabee should have up-to-date self-defense skills. His façade cracked much too fast.

Conclusion #5: Milo Chapers has issues. No. Has multiple issues. Possibly debts or a gambling problem.

Question #1: Had Chapers slept with Joanne? Had Joanne turned him down?

Question #2: Had Joanne been pregnant when she disappeared? With whose baby?

Giulia reread the last sentence. She hit Enter and typed a subhead.

If Joanne was pregnant by:

1. Larabee: Did he try to convince her to have an abortion? Did she run away to keep the baby? Did she regret not using protection in a risky relationship?

2. Chapers: What were Sunset’s rules about employee fraternization, especially with a higher-up? Did he envision losing his job? Ditto all the above Larabee questions re: Abortion, running, lack of protection.

3. Marstan: What if his puppy-eyed unrequited love act was cover for an unexpected pregnancy, an escalating argument, and a rash action in a moment of anger?

She finished the lemonade. What a sordid mind she’d acquired as a PI. Back in the convent, she’d been much too trusting.

The pregnancy angle might be a leap. Still, it wasn’t a question she should ask Diane. Not knowing everything about her twin sister already had her on edge.

She turned on the TV to let the ideas percolate.

“…story will chill the souls of every Scooper parent.”

Giulia groaned at Ken Kanning’s eager face on her screen. She pressed the on-screen channel guide as Kanning’s sincere voice chewed the scenery.

“Two beautiful young girls found dead! One in the park and the other by a dumpster! Sensitive Scoopers beware: What follows is a graphic description of young lives cut short much too soon.”

Giulia gave the screen back to
The Scoop
. It filled with side by side shots. On the left, the town park on a summer day: children played, people jogged and walked their dogs, the sun shone. On the right, an asphalt parking lot: cigarette butts in potholes, crumpled fast food wrappers, a stained dumpster; no sun shone when this film had been taken.

“We can’t show you the abused bodies of these poor girls,” Kanning’s voice said. “Their filthy clothes barely cover their blotched, puffy skin. Their faces are swollen almost past recognition. A rash on the skin of the younger girl looks like someone smeared her with maroon paint.”

As he spoke, the camera closed in on the dumpster. A rat gnawed something next to it. On the left side, the active townspeople moved past the screen to the sounds of conversation and children laughing.

Kanning’s face leaped out at Giulia. “These young women had their whole lives before them and squandered it all on drugs. Their ravaged bodies were found three days apart. Were they connected? Did they stop to take one more hit of the filth they were addicted to? Were they trying to reach their homes?”

The screen cut away from Kanning’s expensive dental work to a stock photo of families mourning at a grave. His voice ranted against government bureaucracy, against the sluggishness of the police investigation, against the evils of pushers who cut their drugs with unknown substances.

“The bodies of both young women showed signs of a long and arduous walk. Both appear to have been sexually violated a short time before their tragic deaths. Did they escape from a pimp? Were they being held against their will by a man? By many men?” His rant escalated, this time against drugs and the lengths addicts will go to for the next hit.

Giulia plucked three juicy bits out of today’s
Scoop
hash. The girls took drugs, the drugs weren’t the usual suspects, and they hadn’t only run away from home; they’d returned from someplace much too far to walk.

She hit the mute button and called Vandermark Memorial Hospital. Seven minutes later, she hung up without learning anything. Sisters-in-law weren’t on the allowed list for access to patient information. She might have to call her brother again, and she couldn’t even fortify herself with wine beforehand.

She put a hand on her stomach. “Little Zlatan, you’re not helping.”

Next Giulia called Jimmy to thank him for his help with the Penn Hills police department. After that she called Diane to ask about any other relatives who might have information about Joanne. This second call could also be titled, “How to find out if the twin sister might have been pregnant without aggravating the client.”

Diane’s voice switched from hopeful to huffy. “I’m her identical twin. You don’t need to talk to anyone else. We know everything about each other.”

Giulia decided to nickname this case the “Wait for it” case. Here she sat, doing exactly that rather than say the obvious into the phone.

Three…two…one…

“Okay, I get it,” Diane said. “I guess I don’t know everything about Jo since her dickweed manager had to tell me she was missing. Sorry I bit your head off. You could call our older brother, Nick. He lives in Philadelphia.”

Giulia wrote the phone number on a napkin, reassured Diane on the progress of the preliminary investigation, and called the twins’ brother.

“Diane hired a private eye? She’s been fighting with me over that for two months. Said as the twin it was her decision and went ballistic when I talked to one here, so I let it slide. I want peace in my family. What can I do to help?”

Nick’s voice resembled Diane’s, but an octave lower. It had the same sharp edges, the same briskness with a hint of humor lurking beneath.

“I would like anything you can tell me about conversations you and Joanne might have had in the months before she disappeared. I’m completing my preliminary research.”

A pause. “That’s too much for four in the afternoon. I work overnights at Children’s. I’m a pharmacist.”

Giulia mentally reorganized her evening. “What time is good tomorrow? I’ll work around your schedule.”

“That’s real nice of you. You mind Skype? I like to see people when I’m talking to them. I’m on the phone constantly at work.”

“Not at all.” Giulia’s butt did a happy dance in her chair. She agreed with Nick: Nothing beat face-to-face contact.

“Great. I get home around quarter to eight in the morning. Is that too early for you?”

“Quarter to eight works for me. I’ll call you at ten of.”

Giulia entered the call and his Skype information into her phone and added an alarm, just in case. Then she saved all her work and went up to the bedroom to wake Frank in time for dinner—and other things—before his stakeout.