Mrs. M. Grieve A Modern Herbal
The woman in the green parka was Dominica, the friend Maggie had mentioned. We were introduced when I came back from Deputy Walters's office with a copy of the arson report, and I learned that she'd been in Austin at a two-day computer school. She had arrived in Carr expecting to call Dwight to pick her up. But that wasn't necessary now. We shoved her duffel bag into the trunk of Ruby's Honda and squeezed her into the backseat, beside Maggie.
"Computer school?" Maggie asked when we'd shut the doors. She had regained her equilibrium, but her eyes were still teary.
Dominica 's round, pleasant face was flushed and she was holding on to Maggie's hand. She might have been thirty-five, but it was hard to tell-she had the kind of youthful face that doesn't betray age. "It was Reverend Mother General's idea. She put Sister Olivia in charge of the bookkeeping, and Olivia put me in charge of the computer." She pulled off her green wool cap and shook out her hair. It was long and a gray ash-blond that added years to her age-and startled me. I thought nuns had to wear their hair short. Obviously, I wasn't up to date on monastic hairstyles.
' 'A computerT' Maggie asked wonderingly, as Ruby put the Honda in reverse and backed away from the curb. "Poor Mother Hilaria must be turning over in her grave. She hated the things."
"Oh, the computer's no problem," Dominica said. She ran her fingers through her hair. "It's what we're supposed to do with it that's the problem. Olivia wants us to keep track of everything, down to the number of biscuits we eat every morning." Dominica talked fast, without taking a breath. "She ordered Sister Ruth-she's the new housekeeper-to count all the sheets and towels and bottles of Lysol and scrub brushes and things like that, and I'm supposed to enter everything and figure out what it's worth so we'll know how much we've got in assets." She cast her eyes heavenward. "Assets, would you believe? Olivia even told Gabriella to put the garlic into the computer. So we'll know the bottom line, she says."
Ruby pulled onto the highway and headed west. "The bottom line?" I asked. I didn't know that monasteries cared about bottom lines.
Dominica made a face. "Olivia says we can't tell how much money we're losing on the garlic because we've never kept track of what we spend. Which of course makes Sister Gabriella look like she doesn't have a brain in her head."
"Sister Gabriella?" If I was going to keep track of all the sisters, I might need a scorecard.
"Gabriella runs the garlic farm," Maggie reminded me, and I remembered that she was one of the two candidates. Sister Olivia was the other one. Maggie half-frowned. "She knows everything about garlic, and she's always seen to it that the farm pays for itself. I'm sure Olivia doesn't really think-"
"Are you kidding?" Dominica asked sarcastically. "Olivia hates our garlic. And she'd do anything to make Gabriella look bad in front of Reverend Mother General." Maggie started to say something else but Dominica shook
her head firmly. "Don't you lecture me about Christian charity, Margaret Mary. Charity is a virtue that eludes Olivia." She leaned toward Maggie and her voice softened. "I just couldn't believe my eyes when I looked up and saw you standing there, Margaret Mary. It's been two years! Why didn't you tell me you were coming?"
Maggie hesitated. "Because I wasn't sure I would actually do it," she said in a low voice.
I glanced at Maggie. Her eyes flickered away from mine and I sensed, once again, that she had a private purpose for coming. What was it?
"I can't wait to tell you everything.''' Dominica squeezed Maggie's hand and let it go. "I know I should have written," she added repentantly, "but since Olivia assigned me to that wretched computer, I've had precious little time to myself. Would you like to stay in Sister Perpetua's room, next door to me? How long will you be here? At least a month, I hope. It'll take that long for us to catch up." The questions rumbled out in a breathless rush. If Dominica kept on talking so fast, it wouldn't take them a month to catch up-more like a couple of days.
"I don't know where I'm staying. We haven't checked in yet." Maggie tilted her head. "Where's Perpetua?"
"In the infirmary." A shadow crossed Dominica's face. "It's her heart. Doctor Townsend wants to take her to San Antonio for tests."
Ruby executed a right turn onto a two-lane paved road. "Doctor Townsend?" I asked. "Is he any relation to the Townsends who challenged Mrs. Laney's will?"
"Doctor Townsend is Carl and Rena's son," Maggie said. "Their other son-the one Stu Walters mentioned- is a judge. We'll be driving past the Townsends' place. I'll point it out." She looked at Dominica. "When is Perpetua going to San Antonio?"
"She's not. She's seventy-nine, you know. Mother's afraid the trip will do her in." Her mouth twisted down. "If she dies, of course, we're in trouble."
Ruby glanced in the rearview mirror. "In trouble? Why?"
Dominica was grim. "Because Sister Olivia is absolutely, positively determined to be St. T's next abbess. And she will, too, if Sister Perpetua dies."
"I already explained the situation to them," Maggie said.
"It sounds very complicated," Ruby said. "Terribly political."
"It's political, all right," Dominica said. "But there's nothing complicated about it." She sat forward. "As long as there are twenty of us and twenty of them, there's no point in bothering with an election. The St T sisters will vote for Gabriella, and the St. Agatha sisters will vote for Olivia. If Sister Perpetua dies, though, we'll be down to nineteen. Sister Olivia will be on the phone and Reverend Mother General will have us voting before matins."
"So the Reverend Mother What's-k has a favorite, then?" Ruby asked, shifting down into third for a long uphill climb.
Dominica made a grim face. "You bet she's got a favorite. As far as she's concerned, God has ordained St. T's as the next vacation paradise for Church higher-ups. It's the bottom line again. There's more money in conferences than in garlic, and Sister Olivia is the world's champion conference manager." Her voice became bitter. "Everybody knows that Reverend Mother General brought the St. Agatha sisters here so Olivia could turn St. T's into a money making operation."
"It doesn't sound like St. T's is the peaceful place I imagined," I said. "Back in town, Deputy Walters was telling us about his investigation of the fires."
"Investigation?" Dominica snorted. "That's a joke! Stu Walters wasn't on the scene five minutes before he decided that half of us were suffering from PMS and the rest from postmenopausal nuttiness-and that one of us is a firebug." She shrugged. "What else can I say? We've got a problem. We're all praying about it." She turned back to Maggie.
"I'm more interested in talking about you, Margaret Mary. Have you been dating anybody interesting? How's the restaurant?"
I was a little surprised at Dominica 's dismissal of the fires. If I lived at St. T's, I'd do more than pray. At the least, I'd be looking over my shoulder, wondering where the arsonist might strike next and making plans to be somewhere else when it happened.
While Maggie and Dominica talked, I sat back and looked at the rugged countryside, its limestone rock carved by dry streams into rocky cliffs and flat meadows, its vegetation sparse. This part of Texas is wild and almost completely undomesticated-not surprising, since it was settled only a century ago. Before the white man arrived with his cattle and plows, the Comanches were in charge of it. But they were nomads, following the migrating buffalo, and their seasonal comings and goings did little to tame the raw land. We haven't made much of an impression on it, either.