"Excuse me." Ruby stirred. "You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, Maggie. But what about Dominica? Does she have anything to do with this?"
Maggie didn't seem offended. "Maybe. I've certainly missed her. But I don't expect anything to be different between us. I'm just sort of doing this a step at a time. Taking it on faith. And loving the questions."
I was surprised into the recollection of a piece of poetry I had read once. "Love the questions like locked doors," I said softly. "Like books in a very foreign tongue." Rilke was the poet, I thought.
"Love the questions?" Ruby shook her head. "Excuse me, but I prefer answers."
"In the short run, maybe." Maggie smiled. "But questions take us farther and deeper. I was called here to St.
T's to learn something. Whatever it is, I need to come back and get on with the job."
"But don't you need to know what job it is that you're supposed to get on with?" Ruby asked doubtfully.
Maggie's laugh was rich and joyful. "There is such a thing as faith, you know. Come on, you guys. Love the questions!"
The logic of Maggie's decision continued to escape me, but 1 felt close to her in a new way. And when she and Ruby left, we all hugged one another for a long time, Ruby and I in our doubt, Maggie in her faith.
I found a spot at a table in a corner of the refectory. If one of the sisters had information for me, I was hoping she'd come and sit down. But perhaps it had been too public an invitation, I decided as I finished my breakfast alone. The only person who spoke to me was Sister Gabriella, who had traded her jeans for a tailored skirt and sweater. She stopped as I was putting my plate on the stack of dirty dishes on the pass-through shelf to the kitchen.
"How about dropping by Jacob after Mass?" she asked. "I'd like to give you a tour of our garlic operation." A nun in a habit paused to scan a nearby bulletin board and Gabriella bent toward me, lowering her voice so the other woman couldn't hear. "Sadie Marsh, one of the Laney Foundation Board members, will be here this morning. She wants to talk to you."
"Oh, yes," I said, remembering. "Tom Rowan mentioned her. She raises horses, doesn't she?"
"That's right." Gabriella raised one quizzical eyebrow. "You've met Tom?"
I felt myself coloring. ' 'We knew one another years ago. He said that the board is meeting here this week."
"Tuesday morning. But Sadie doesn't want to wait until then." She raised her voice again. "Does eleven sound all right? We can take a tour of the garlic field, if the weather is still cooperating."
"Fine," I said, and turned to go. "See you then."
I was halfway down the hall when I was stopped by a slight, anxious nun in a modified habit and veil that hid her hair. She wore plastic-rimmed fifties-style glasses, and she was so tense that I could almost feel her quivering. She looked over her shoulder in both directions before she pulled me into the laundry room.
"I'm Sister John Roberta." The words escaped from her in whispery gasps. "If I tell you what I know, will you help me get away?"
I was startled. "Get away? Why?" What did she know that would make her so fearful?
She clutched at my arm. "I'm afraid I'll die here! Please, help me!"
"I'll do my best," I said reassuringly. "What are you afraid of?"
Her mouth trembled. "Sister Olivia says we have to stick together." She broke into a flurry of dry coughing. "And Sister Rowena says if I tell, I'm being disloyal. They might-"
She pressed her fist to her mouth at the sound of muted voices and footsteps in the hall. The group passed, the outer door closed, and there was silence once again. John Roberta stood still, her eyes apprehensive. Her face was almost as white as the starched band of her veil.
"I'm afraid someone will hear," she said. "Or see us together and guess that I'm-" She bit off her sentence.
' 'I could come to your room to talk,'' I said. ' 'We'd have more privacy there."
She shook her head violently. "They'd see you. They'd know I was talking to you. They'd-" She broke off, coughing. "You're staying in Jeremiah, aren't you?" she asked, when she could speak again. "I'll come there. Later."
"After lunch?" I asked. I wasn't sure I could trust her to come, but I didn't have any choice in the matter.
"Not right after. One-thirty." Another cough, a fright-
ened glance, and she was gone, a shadow winging down the shadowy hall.
The encounter was promising, but all I was left with were questions. I would have to wait until one-thirty to learn the answers. I looked at my watch. Mass would be starting soon. I'd better get busy.
Earlier in the morning, in the gun rack of Dwight's GMC pickup in the parking lot, I had seen an Enfield 303 and, crumpled on the floor of the cab, an empty Camels pack. But before I accused the man of assault with a deadly weapon, I wanted to see if I could discover something that might explain his attack. Something that would connect him to the Townsends, for instance.
The bell was ringing for Mass when I walked casually to the door of Amos, Dwight's vintage stucco cottage, and knocked. No answer. I knocked again, harder, and called Dwight's name. Still no answer. 1 put my hand in my pocket and took out the key. But I didn't need it, because the door wasn't locked.
Amos had the same layout as Jeremiah, although it wasn't nearly as clean. Foul-smelling jeans and work shirts were heaped in one corner, there was a saddle and a dirty saddle blanket under the window, and copies of Playboy, open to the centerfold, littered the floor by the bed. The room reeked of stale cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey.
I began by checking the dresser drawers, then moved to the single drawer in the wooden desk, the bathroom shelves, and the jackets and shirts hanging in the closet. But apart from a half-empty box of 303 cartridges and a completely empty bottle of Wild Turkey, I found little of interest. Until, that is, I reached in the pocket of a flannel shirt and found a business card with the name, address, and telephone numbers of J. R. Nutall, Carr County Probation Officer.
Probation officer. So Dwight wasn't totally clean, as far
as the law was concerned. What had he done to earn jail time?
I confiscated one of the shells as a souvenir, jotted down the information on Nutall's business card, and went to the nightstand. Most of the canceled checks I discovered in the drawer were made out to Al's Liquor Store for amounts under thirty dollars. The December bank statement, which I discovered on top of the toilet, showed that Dwight had $74.41 in the bank, after depositing four weekly checks, each for the identical amount of $352.70-his salary, most likely. A chipped saucer on top of the dresser held a silver rosary, nail clippers, a beer bottle opener, and a black book that contained phone numbers and first names, most of them women's. I flipped the book open to the Ts. There was no listing for Townsend.
And that was it-until I raised the mattress and found the black spiral notebook.
The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and the temperature was already climbing out of the fifties when I took Mother Hilaria's diary back to Jeremiah. Today might top out at sixty-five, which almost made up for the ferocious heat of last July and August. Almost, but not quite.
I glanced at my watch. It was only nine-thirty. I'd have time to read a few pages before I went over to Jacob to meet Sadie Marsh. And after I had talked to Sister John Roberta, I would let Mother Winifred know what I'd found under Dwight's mattress. He had some tall explaining to do.
Back in Jeremiah, I brewed a cup of tea and sat cross-legged on the bed with Hilaria's journal in front of me. Opening it, I saw that she had been using it as a multiyear diary, a page for every day in the year, with the years arranged in sequence down the page. She had been keeping the diary for almost five years when she died, and although the entries were short, there were far more than I could read in an hour. Where to begin? Should I start with Sep-