"Poison-pen letters?" Ramona began picking glue off her fingers with a distasteful look. "Yes, of course I remember. It was a sad affair. One of the novices left because
of it, and others got their feelings hurt. But I never saw any of the letters myself, and it was a very long time ago. Years and years. You might ask Sister Regina. She's bound to remember. She was always in the diick of things."
"Sister Regina was in your class?" I asked.
"Oh, yes," Ramona said promptly. "She's older, of course, because she was a nurse before she took her vows. Sister Olivia was in the same class. She and Sister Regina were friends. We called them the Bobbsey Twins because they were always bobbing up here and there, wherever you least expected them. They seemed to know things the rest of us didn't." She stepped back and wiped her hands on her apron. "Well, it's done, for better or worse."
"How about the other sisters here at St. T's-were any of them in your class?'' Maggie asked.
"Oh yes, several. Sister Allegra and Sister Ruth and Sister Rachel. Oh, and Sister John Roberta, too." She pursed her lips. "Of course, we were all quite devoted to Sister Perpetua, God rest her soul."
Olivia and Regina, the Bobbsey Twins. Questioned Sr. O about Sr. P's letter, Mother Hilaria had written. And later, she had questioned Sr. O and Sr. R about the letter to Sister Anne.
"You said something about a bigger picture," I said. ' 'What did you mean by that?''
Ramona shook her head. "It's just a theory. You probably don't want to hear it." She picked up a whisk broom and began brushing bits of dried flowers into a little pile.
I frowned. "If you have information-"
"Well, it's not exactly information. It's more like an explanation." She swept the flowers onto a piece of paper and dumped them into the trash can beside the table. "It's about the children of Israel, you see."
"The children of Israel?"
"God punished them by making them wander in the desert for forty years."
"I'm afraid I still don't-"
She gave me a pointed look. "This is the desert. And we're the children of Israel. We're being punished, although for what I don't know."
"I gather you don't like it here," Maggie said dryly.
"Like it here?" Sister Ramona gave a short laugh. "Like it here? Let me put it this way, Sister. I do not enjoy sweating in the sun in the fields in July. I detest the smell of garlic. I have no talent for making wreaths. I am not cut out for desert living."
"Why not ask for a transfer?" I asked.
"I already have," she said. "As soon as Reverend Mother General approves my request, I'm to go to our sister house in San Francisco." Her eyes took on a faraway look. "San Francisco. Can you imagine? It will be heavenly. Simply heavenly."
I didn't need to ask when she expected her request to be approved. Mother General might not know a thing about garlic, but she obviously understood a great deal about carrots and sticks.
' 'Now,'' Maggie said as we left the barn. ' 'I want to hear everything."
I told her what I had learned from the journal, including the fact that Mother Hilaria herself had received a letter.
"So," Maggie said when I finished, "all roads lead to Sister O and Sister R."
"The Bobbsey Twins." An odd nickname. I wondered how much animosity-and perhaps fear-might be behind it.
Maggie paused, frowning. "You don't suppose this poison-pen thing goes all the way back to the novitiate, do you?"
"I'm beginning to think it might." I looked at my watch. "I need to talk to Mother Winifred and let her know about Dwight. And I really have to talk to Olivia before I go any further-but I can't do that until tomorrow. That's when Mother expects her back from El Paso." I wondered what
kind of mood Olivia would be in when she returned. Not good, I guessed.
Maggie thrust her hands into her jacket pocket. "A few of us are getting together this evening to talk about the way things are going here. Would you like to come? We're meeting in Miriam's room. There'll be wine and munch-ies."
"The way things are going here-the changes, you mean?"
"Yes. There doesn't seem to be much we can do as long as the Reverend Mother General has her mind made up. But we're going to brainstorm anyway."
"Sorry," I said. "I'm having dinner in Carr tonight"
Maggie eyed me. "With Tom Rowan, I'll bet."
"And his father," I said quickly. Too quickly, maybe.
A smile quirked at the corner of Maggie's mouth. "Want me to say a prayer for you?"
"Why? Do you think I need one?"
"Why not?" she countered briskly. "A little prayer never hurt anybody."
Chapter Thirteen
The antidote which Mercury gave to Ulysses against the beverage of the Enchantress Circe has always been supposed to be rue.
Eleanour Sinclair Rohde A Garden of Herbs
The Weasell when she is to encounter the serpent arms herselfe with eating of Rue.
W. Coles The Art of Simpling, 1656
The Lone Star Dance Barn was a couple of miles south of town on the Fredericksburg Road, just past Marvell's Meat Locker (Deer Processed Here-Try Our Venison Sausage!) and the livestock auction barn. It was fully dark by the time I parked the Dodge in the gravel parking lot and headed toward the building, pulling my denim jacket tighter around me. I was wearing a plaid flannel shirt under the jacket, as well as Levi's and boots and a wool cap, but the wind was cutting right through me. When it gets cold in Texas, you feel it.
The Lone Star Dance Barn was a giant metal building the size of an airplane hangar, splashed with red and blue neon. I opened a side door and found myself in an old-fashioned Texas dance hall, with a scuffed wooden floor bigger than a basketball court and a bare, uncurtained stage at one end. Scarred pine picnic tables were arranged a couple of rows deep around three sides, and beer signs and
banners-the tawdry graffiti of the country dancing crowd-covered the walls. It was 7 p.m. on a Monday night and the place was cold and empty and down-at-the-heels, like an old tart at midweek. But I knew what it would be like come Saturday midnight: the air hazy blue with tobacco smoke and loud with the wail of amplified fiddle and six-string guitar, the wooden floor packed with blue-jeaned, Western-shirted guys and gals wearing polished boots and silver belt buckles big as pie plates, arms linked, hip-to-hip, stomping and yeeha-ing happily through the Cotton-Eyed Joe.
There was no yeeha tonight, only the muted revelry of the barbecue joint at the front of the dance hall. This room was smaller and cozier, paneled with splintery barn siding and decorated with Texas memorabilia: rusty license plates that went back to the twenties, a Don't Mess with Texas sign over a Texas A &M trash barrel, Texas flags (all six of them), paintings of old barns and privies afloat on improbable oceans of bluebonnets, the stuffed head and shoulders of an enigmatic longhorn with red marbles for eyes. George Strait crooned a ballad on the jukebox, a cowgirl waitress in skintight jeans and Dolly Parton boobs shouldered a tray of beer pitchers through the crowded tables, and diners were hunched earnestly over plates of Tex-Mex, which is traditionally served in portions designed to satisfy the appetites of the entire Dallas defensive line. There was enough food on the tables to feed a third-world country for a week.
I did a quick scan of the room. Tom wasn't there, so I took a table against the far wall, putting as much distance as possible between me and the jukebox. I accepted a menu from the top-heavy waitress and ordered a Dos Equis. While I was waiting, I sat back to think about my conversation with Mother Winifred,- which had taken place at the foot of the garden in a fenced-in corner that was the home of a black and white potbellied pig named Delilah.