"Because in monastic life, work is a kind of prayer," Maggie said. "You do it for love, not for money." Her voice thinned. "And because Bert Laney's nephew-Carl Townsend-challenged the will in court."
"Did Mrs. Laney leave him anything?" I asked. Relatives who aren't mentioned in a will often feel neglected. Sometimes they decide to take the matter to court. To forestall such a challenge, most lawyers suggest that you leave a dollar to any relative you're not fond of.
"She gave the Townsends twelve hundred acres when she split the property. And she left them a hundred thousand dollars in her will."
"Only a hundred thousand?" Ruby clucked her tongue against her teeth. "Some people are never satisfied."
Maggie shifted her position, as if talking about the Townsends made her itchy. "The trouble is that they didn't get access to the river. They apparently expected to get the bulk of the estate, too. They were Bert Laney's only relatives and the money came from his side of the family in the first place."
We were miles out of town by now, still heading west. Outside the window, a pale sun flirted with the dark clouds. The gray light gleamed on an arid landscape of scraggly cedar and bare mesquite, the rocky hillsides studded with patches of gray-green prickly pear. The annual rainfall in this area is only twenty inches a year, and surface water is at a premium. If I were a rancher in Carr County, I'd want access to that river. It didn't surprise me that the Town-sends had challenged Mrs. Laney's will.
"Has the dispute been settled yet?" I asked. Estate claims are often appealed from one court to another, dragging on for ten or twenty years. "Last April, finally. The money's coming in now." Maggie's face grew somber. "Unfortunately, Mother Hi-laria didn't five to see it. She died in September. She was… electrocuted."
Ruby gave a startled cry. I shuddered. "How did it happen?" "She was making coffee on the hot plate in her cottage. She spilled milk on the floor and apparently stepped in it when she switched off the hot plate. Even so, the jolt wouldn't have been enough to kill her if it hadn't been for her bad heart."
"Mother Winifred-the woman I spoke with on the phone-is the new abbess, then," I said.
"Yes. By the way, she's the one who's responsible for the monastery's herb garden. Not the garlic farm-that's somebody else. Mother Winifred grows all kinds of herbs. She's looking forward to showing you the garden."
"I'm surprised that an abbess has time for gardening," Ruby remarked. She pulled out to pass a tractor pulling a wagon loaded with baled hay. A dog was perched on top of the bales, surveying the road ahead.
"I'm surprised too," I said. "Especially an abbess with seven million dollars to manage-plus whatever the legacy has earned since it was invested. The principle must have doubled since then." Fourteen or fifteen million dollars, maybe more, depending on the savvy of the monastery's financial advisers.
"I don't think Mother Winifred has much to do with finances," Maggie said. "The bank manages the trust. Anyway, she's only acting. Last spring, you see, there was another complication. A surprise, actually, and not altogether pleasant." Her voice darkened. "The Sisters of the Holy Heart has eight or ten communities, scattered around the country. The day after the court decision was announced, the Reverend Mother General closed the community in Houston, St. Agatha's. Three months later, she sent a bus and some trucks and moved the St. Agatha sisters to St. T's."
"Closed the community?" I turned to look at Maggie. "Why?"
Maggie looked out of the window. "It's the way things are these days, I'm afraid. The Holy Heart Sisters have been losing vocations, like a lot of other orders. When I came to St. T's ten years ago, there were thirty-five sisters. Now they're down to twenty. But the situation at St. Agatha's was worse-down from sixty-something to twenty. The St. Agatha property was valuable because it was close to the airport. So Reverend Mother General sold it and packed the nuns off to St. T's."
The sun had given up and let the clouds take over, and the windows were beginning to steam up, a sure sign that the temperature outside was dropping. I pulled my denim jacket tighter around me and wondered whether I should have brought mittens and a scarf. "How do the St. Agatha nuns feel about garlic?"
Maggie's laugh was wry. "I haven't visited the monastery since they moved in, but Dominica-one of my friends at St. T's-tells me that they're definitely not happy campers. St. Agatha's was a conference center. The nuns were used to seeing important people and being on the fringes of important decisions."
"And St. T's is on the fringe of nowhere," I said. It must have been quite a comedown, from serving church bigshots in a conference center to digging in a garlic patch. The sisters must be terribly hurt and resentful about having been moved.
Maggie was going on, her tone reflective. "The groups have different spiritual practices, too. When I lived at St.
T's, Mother Hilaria encouraged us to design our own Rule, write our own liturgy, choose our own dress. St. Agatha's was the most conservative house in the order. The sisters still wear a modified habit and a veil, and they held Chapter of Faults until they moved to St. T's." She shook her head. "This was not a marriage made in heaven."
Ruby glanced curiously at Maggie in the rearview mirror. "What's a Chapter of Faults?"
"A meeting where the nuns accuse themselves and one another of their sins. Envy, covetousness, anger-stuff like that." Maggie looked uncomfortable. "Then they make a penance-a certain number of strokes with a leather whip."
"A whip?" Ruby's red eyebrows shot up under her curls.
"Self-flagellation was common practice for centuries," Maggie said. "But Mother Hilaria wouldn't have it at St. T's. She said it was barbaric."
"My kind of woman," I remarked.
"She was pretty special," Maggie said, lifting her chin. "She was fascinated by Buddhism, so she encouraged us to learn meditation and yoga and read the Eastern mystics."
"Yoga!" Ruby exclaimed. "In a Catholic monastery?"
"Sure," Maggie said. "A lot of Catholics are interested in Eastern spirituality. Not the St. Agatha nuns, unfortunately. They think it's pagan nonsense, or worse." She hesitated. "The two groups are exactly the same size, you see. Mother Winifred can't get a consensus on anything."
"She said something on the phone about a 'minor mystery,' " I said reflectively. "I thought she was talking about the garlic, but maybe not. Do you know?"
The rain had begun in earnest, and Ruby turned on both the wipers and the defroster. "A mystery?" She wriggled in her seat. "I love mysteries! When I was a little girl, I wanted to grow up and be Nancy Drew." After that, it was Kinsey Millhone, then V. I. Warshawski, and finally Kay Scarpetta. More recently, though, she's given up on hard-boiled women detectives. ' Raymond Chandler in drag,' she says sadly. "Lotta guts, no soul."
Maggie looked out the window, not answering, and I sensed an apprehension in her that both surprised and disturbed me. Of all my friends, Maggie is the most serene, the most balanced. She can always be counted on to keep her head during the crises that happen regularly in the restaurant business. But now, her outer calm was less opaque, and through it I glimpsed an inner worry, a fear, even. Something was wrong at St. T's, and Maggie knew what it was.
When she finally answered my question, though, her voice was controlled. "Yes, I think I know what Mother Winifred has in mind. But she should tell you first. Then I'll be glad to share what I know."
That was fair enough. "You said Mother Winifred is acting abbess," I said. "Who will take over when she steps down?"
"The nuns will elect an abbess," Maggie said. She paused. "If they can."
"What do you mean?"
"There are two candidates. Sister Gabriella is from St. T's. She's managed the garlic farm for five or six years. Sister Olivia was named abbess of St. Agatha's the week before it closed. She ran the conference center."