Rueful Death (18 page)

Father Steven began searching in the refrigerator and emerged with a pint of half-and-half. He sniffed it, made a face, and threw it in the garbage. "I doubt you'll discover anything about the fires. The arsonist is clever." He returned to the cupboard once more.

"I was surprised to see you there," I remarked. "Wasn't it a little late to look for a book?"

He shrugged. "Not really. I frequently suffer from insomnia, and when I do, I go for a drive. In fact, I was only a few miles from St. T's when I realized that I had left the book in the sacristy. I was just leaving when I heard the bell." He put a jar of powdered creamer on the table and sat in the opposite chair.

I was watching him closely. His eyes were hooded, and the twist of his scarred mouth seemed bitterly sardonic. But that aside, there was nothing in his face that revealed whether he was telling the truth or not.

I changed the subject abruptly. "Mother Winifred has also asked me to look into the five poison-pen letters."

He pulled his brows together. "Five? Perpetua, Anne, Dominica, Miriam-" He glanced at me. "You know something I don't."

Mother Hilaria received one as well."

•"Hilaria?" The priest's surprise seemed totally genuine. I he were the letter-writer and this was an act, it was a good one. "What was
she
accused of?"

"I can't tell you, because I haven't seen the letter. I can't:ell you what her penance was, either." 'Her… penance?"

" "The letter-writer demanded a public penance of each of ±e sisters. Perpetua complied. The other three refused. Soon after, each of them lost something important to them."

His eyes were watching me, unreadable. "You're suggesting that the letter-writer… that she is exacting a penance?"

I nodded. "The only way to stop her is to reveal her identity." I gave him a direct look. "Do you know who she is?"

"No, although I…" He shook his head. "What is said during confession is between the penitent and God."

Client-counselor privilege. I knew all about it. I took the roster out of my purse and unfolded it. "I'm not asking for privileged information, Father. This is a list of the forty sisters at St. Theresa's. Can you point to any who might be able to help me?"

He tightened his lips, and his mouth took on a grotesque twist. "I don't think so." The words came out almost in a squeak.

I leaned forward, pressing the point. "I don't need to tell you how serious this is, Father. Someone who takes it on herself to write accusing letters and exact involuntary penance-she's playing God."

The kettle began to whistle, and Father Steven got up and went to the stove. He came back with the kettle and splashed hot water over the coffee granules in my cup. He poured himself hot water, too, returned the kettle to the stove, and sat down again.

"I suppose there are several who might help," he said

with obvious reluctance. He took a pair of glasses out of his pajama pocket, put them on, and picked up the paper. "You should talk to Olivia. Rowena, Ruth, perhaps Rose. Yes, Rose-" He tapped the list. "Certainly John Roberta. And Perpetua."

"Perpetua is dead."

He blinked behind his glasses. "Yes, of course. Dead. That's too bad. She would have been willing to help you."

"Did she know who wrote the letters?"

He sighed. "She… made an accusation."

"And you can't tell me whom she accused?"

He took off his glasses and put them back into his pajama pocket. "What good would that do? She might have been mistaken. She was quite old. She was also a little crazy."

But she might not have been mistaken. And now she was dead.

"Who else has made an accusation?" I asked with greater urgency. Did John Roberta know what Perpetua knew? Was that what she had been so eager to tell me- and why she'd been so afraid?

"No one." He stirred his coffee so furiously that it slopped out onto the already soiled tablecloth.

And that was all I was going to get out of him. When I left a little later, he was standing in the kitchen, rubbing his wrinkled white toadstool of a head and scowling at the sinkful of dirty dishes.

Mother Winifred had given me a hand-drawn map that led me to the M Bar M, Sadie Marsh's ranch, a couple of miles north of St. Theresa's. I pushed the Dodge, but it was twenty to eleven when I pulled into the ranch yard and parked next to Sadie's blue Toyota.

If I'd been expecting something like the Townsend plantation house, or even the more modest Texas-style ranch house at St. Theresa's, Sadie's would have disappointed me. The small frame house was weathered a silver gray that almost matched the gray of the metal roof. It sat in the middle of a square of unkempt, winter-browned grass. The yard had once been graced by a large tree, but there was nothing left of it but a sawed-off stump that served as the pedestal for a five-foot red windmill that turned creakily. Obviously, Sadie didn't care much for making things pretty.

What
did
she care about? The answer lay to the right and behind the house: a large, new-looking barn with an attached paddock surrounded by a white-painted fence. The exercise and training area for the horses Sadie raised, I supposed. And beyond that, a much larger field, looped by more wooden fence. Expensive fence.

The wind was blowing cold out of gray clouds, bringing

with it needles of chilly rain. I pulled up the collar of my jacket and stuck my hands into the pockets. If it rained tomorrow, Tom might not want to go riding. At the thought, I felt a prickle of disappointment that caught me by surprjf e. Was I looking forward to it that much?

Sadie opened the door at my first knock. She was wearing jeans and a red sweater and boots, and her steel gray hair was snugged back from her strong face with a red bandanna. "Glad you could make it." She motioned with her head. "This place is a bitch to heat when the wind's in the north. Come on-it's warmer in the kitchen."

The kitchen floor was covered with scuffed gray vinyl, the wall over the sink was lined with open pine shelves stacked with crockery and canned goods, and the curtains at the windows were plain muslin. Pans and utensils hung on the wall over the gas stove. The only decorative touch was a red geranium blooming on the windowsill and a large Sierra Club calendar on the wall over the scarred pine table. It pictured two paint ponies running across a snowy meadow with mountains in the background. Through an open door I could see into a bedroom, the neatly made bed covered with a striped blanket, a dresser decorated with a lamp and a row of well-worn books between carved wooden bookends. Flannel pajamas and a purple bathrobe hung from wooden pegs on the wall. The house belonged to a ranch woman who didn't care whether her possessions were pretty as long as they did their job.

Sadie had been working at the table. A sheaf of stapled pages was laid out there, next to a stack of posters advertising an organizational meeting for a local environmental group. "What would you like to drink? Coffee? Tea? There's peppermint, if you'd rather."

"Peppermint," I said gratefully. I'd had enough caffeine to wire me for the whole day.

She turned up the fire under the kettle. "I hear that you and Tom Rowan are old friends," she said.

I glanced at her. It was a strange opening. "We knew

one another in Houston," I said guardedly. "Eight or nine years ago." Who had told her? And why was it important?

"Maybe you'll strike up the friendship again," she remarked.

"I doubt it," I said. "I've got plenty else on my plate. And there's somebody else in my life."

Did I imagine it, or was she relieved? "I'll get that deed," she said, and left the room. A minute later, she was back with a legal-size manilla envelope.

The deed was dated twenty-five years ago, and began with the familiar know all men by these presents. It affirmed that, in consideration of the sum of one dollar, Helen J. Laney herewith granted, sold, and conveyed to the Sisters of the Holy Heart all that certain eight hundred acres of land more particularly described by metes and bounds as shown on the addendum attached, with the restrictions and upon the covenants, dedications, agreements, easements, stipulations, and conditions specified on the attached pages, et cetera, et cetera.

I turned the page, found the addendum with the surveyor's report, and turned that page too. And there they were, rigged to go off like dynamite in the faces of Sister Olivia and the Reverend Mother General. The first restriction placed a moratorium on all construction except that required by the monastery's agricultural enterprises for a thirty-year period beginning five years from the date of the deed. The second restriction required that after the moratorium had ended, two-thirds of the sisters in residence at St. Theresa's must approve any and all construction,
and
such construction must be consistent with the monastery's original mission. A final emphatic sentence drove the point home. "These restrictions are intended to ensure the property's continued dedication to the contemplative purposes for which it is herein conveyed."

Two-thirds of the sisters? That meant a simple majority couldn't control the monastery's destiny.

Sadie put a cup in front of me, dropped in a tea bag, and

poured boiling water over it. The fragrant peppermint scent wafted upward, restoring me. She sat down at the end of the table with her own cup.

"Well?" she demanded. "What do you think?"

"Where were the order's lawyers when this deed was executed?" I asked. "I can't imagine why they would accept these restrictions."

Sadie chuckled. ' 'What could they do? Helen and Hilaria weren't the kind of women who could be pushed around. Helen knew exactly what she wanted and she wasn't going to let a passel of lawyers get in her way. Anyway, they didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when the horse was known to bite. Helen made it clear that the order wouldn't get an acre if they didn't take it on her terms. At one point, she even threatened to give the land outright to Hilaria, screw the order."

"But Hilaria couldn't accept it," I objected. "She had taken a vow of poverty."

Sadie's smile was sly. "You didn't know Hilaria. Independent as a hog on ice. By the time this thing was signed"-she tapped the deed with her knuckle-"she'd had a bellyful of church politics. She was ready to pull out and establish her own community. Mother General either agreed to the deed restrictions or the order would lose the whole ball of wax. And all this was happenin' on the heels of Vatican Two, you know. Things were changing everywhere. Orders were breaking up. Communities were going their own way. Mother General decided to take what she could get, restrictions and all."

"And now," I said, dipping my tea bag up and down, "nobody remembers."

This situation happens more often than you might think. There are plenty of old deeds whose odd restrictions and covenants lie buried and forgotten in a courthouses and safety-deposit box willing. This kind of thing is the stuff of litigation, of course. It makes real estate lawyers skip all the way to the bank, rejoicing.

"Amen," Sadie said comfortably. "That particular Mother General has gone to her reward, and the order's changed law firms. And now that Hilaria is dead, and Per-petua, nobody remembers." She sipped her tea, her eyes bright over the rim of her cup. "Nobody but me. I've got a memory like an elephant."

I put my cup down and folded the sheets of stiff paper. "Your position is a bit precarious, wouldn't you say?"

"You're thinkin' that somebody in the hierarchy might offer to slip me a little payola to forget what I know?" Sadie snorted through her nose. "I didn't just fall off the watermelon truck." She slapped the stack of environmental posters. "I've had my share of battles. I know how bidness is done. I wouldn't take a nickel of their money."

That wasn't what I meant, of course. Hilaria and Per-petua had both known about the deed restrictions. Both were dead, and the local JP had questioned both deaths. Sadie's knowledge might make her vulnerable in a different way. But the Church wasn't the medieval Cosa Nostra it had once been, riddled with conspiracy and skullduggery. It had become more civilized since the days it had sponsored the witch burnings-hadn't it? Still, if I were Sadie, I'd watch my back.

"The current Mother General didn't get where she is by being anybody's fool," I said. "Before she commits St. Theresa's capital to a building program, she's going to take a look at that deed." I could imagine what she'd say when she actually read it. "One glance will tell her she can't turn the monastery into a vacation resort without risking a lawsuit."

Which made me stop and think. In this case, who would have standing to sue? Members of the Laney Foundation Board, collectively and individually, of course. Members of the St. Theresa community. Even the Townsends, who might claim that the order's violation of the deed restrictions constituted fraud and that they should get the land back, as Mrs. Laney's heirs. Not that they would do any-

thing of the sort, judging from Carl Townsend's boasts. It sounded as if he and the Mother General were anticipating a long and lucrative partnership. Still, I could picture dozens of lawyers gleefully contemplating the thousands of billable hours it would take to shepherd the potentially large flock of unruly litigants through the courts.

"You're right about the Big Mama in El Paso/' Sadie said. "That's what Hilaria always called her-Big Mama. But just 'cause a chicken has wings don't mean it c'n fly." Her hawk-nosed face wore a look of smug satisfaction. "That's what I told her on Saturday. Big Mama, I mean."

"You did?"

Sadie thumped the table with her cup. ' 'I sure as shootin'
did.
I called her up and told her I'm tired of all this skulkin' in the bushes, riggin' elections, playin' the numbers. St. T's won't settle down as long as she keeps siccin' one side against the other, and that's just what I told her."
Thump
went the cup again. "I don't have any say about what goes on inside the order. But Helen put me on the foundation board so I'd speak my piece about spendin' her money and managin' her land. She never intended it to be used for golf courses and tennis courts. She meant for the deer and the armadillos and the wild things to have it."
Thump thump.
"That's why I told Big Mama that I mean to bring the matter up at the board meeting tomorrow."
Thump thump thump.

I blinked. "How did Big-how did she respond?"

Sadie's mouth was wry. "Said she'd take it under advisement." She pushed her cup away. "Next thing I heard, Olivia was flyin' off to El Paso faster'n a prairie fire with a tail wind."

Of course. A roadblock of this size would require extended discussion, not just with legal counsel, but with the person who was expected to head St. Theresa's. I wondered whether Olivia had learned about the deed before she left, or whether it had been stuck under her nose when she got to El Paso.

Sadie pulled out another chair and propped her feet up on it. "You ask me, we're talkin' war. Trouble is, though, Winnie isn't keen on a fight. She says she's too old, but it's not age that's holdin' her back. She's a sweet old gal, and I love her, but she does toe that line." She sat back and clasped her hands behind her head. "I figger that's why the Mother General put her in Hilaria's job. Winnie will do what she's told and when it comes time, she'll step down and keep her mouth shut."

The description fit Mother Winifred pretty well. "Given that attitude," I said, "I'm surprised that she'd ask me to look into the fires."

"My idea," Sadie said. "She does sometimes listen to reason." Her grin got wider. "Tell the truth, it wasn't a half-bad idea. You turned out better'n I hoped."

"How do you think the board will react to the news about the deed?'' I asked.

She made a shrug with her mouth. "We'll see. But that's not the only bidness I mean to bring up." She pulled her strong brows together, her expression darkening. "That's why I want you there, Counselor."

"Me? At the board meeting?"

"That's what I said." She swung her boots off the chair and planted them on the floor. "All hell's gonna break loose, China. I want somebody there as an independent observer. Somebody who knows the law and can come up with an opinion, fast."

"There must be other lawyers in this county you could call," I said. "Anyway, you want somebody in civil law. I was a criminal lawyer."

"I don't care what kind of law you know or don't know. A quick, sharp mind is what I'm after, one that ain't muddied by local politics. I want somebody who can see the issues."

"What kind of business do you expect to bring up?" I asked warily.

Sadie hesitated, studying me, as if she were deciding how

far I could be trusted. Finally she stood, walked to one of the cabinets, and opened a drawer. She took out a fat white envelope, sealed, and dropped it on the table in front of me. "It's got to do with the trust assets," she said. "The information is in this envelope."

"You're talking about the foundation's seven million?" I corrected myself. ' 'No, that was only what went into the kitty. The total must be up to fourteen or fifteen million now."

Her lips thinned. "You know as well as I do, China. What goes in don't necessarily come out."

"You're suggesting that something's wrong with the investments?"

Her grin had a knowing edge. "Be there tomorrow, ten o'clock sharp. That's when I'm openin' this envelope. I guarantee you, it's goin' to cause one hell of a ruckus. That board's goin' to be dizzier'n a rat terrier pup at a prairie dog picnic."

"Are you going to let me look at it?"

"There's nothin' you could do about it today," she said. She put the envelope back in the drawer and closed it. "Now, how about another cup of that tea?"

I shook my head. "I have to talk to Mother Winifred." I stood up too. "I'll see you at the board meeting tomorrow,
then."

"Right," she said. Her look became fierce. "And you keep this under your hat, d'ya hear? I don't want you givin' away any secrets. There's a few people would give plenty to know what I've got planned for tomorrow so they could figure up a way to stop me."