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-
tember 3, the last entry, and read backward? Or start earlier?
I thumbed through the pages for a few minutes, then began with the middle of July, when the St. Agatha sisters moved to St. T. It didn't take long to find a reference to the first poison-pen letter. But if I'd been hoping that Hi-laria had recognized the identity of the writer and confided it to her diary, I was disappointed. For July 17, all I found were three enigmatic words: Sr. Perpetua, letter.
The other entries were just as cryptic. Hilaria was in the habit of jotting down the names of people she talked to and the topics of their conversations, or short phrases describing the day's activities-Board meeting, nothing accomplished, for instance, or Bank, check records. Tom Sr, questions re: interest. Tom Senior would be Tom Rowan's father. These entries had been made after the court had finally awarded the money to St. T, so he and Mother Hilaria were no doubt straightening out the complications that had arisen during the years the bank held the foundation's money.
Financial queries seemed to have kept Mother Hilaria busy through July and into August. She devoted several days a week to Bank, questions re: accounts or Investment records, review. I could understand why. If the court had dumped a fourteen- or fifteen-million-dollar inheritance into my lap, I'd be studying deposit accounts and investment records too. I'd be so busy asking questions that I might not waste much time over a nasty letter that accused a forgetful sister of the petty theft of a library book.
But a week after her meeting with Sister Perpetua, Mother Hilaria was indeed thinking about the letter. Questioned Sr. O about Sr. P's letter, I read, on July 24. I reached for the roster Mother Winifred had given me. Conveniently, Olivia was the only sister whose name began with O.
I went back to the entry with a frown, wishing that Mother Hilaria had been less cryptic. I had first assumed that she had questioned Olivia because she hoped Olivia
might be able to name the culprit. But perhaps that wasn't the right assumption. Perhaps she thought that Olivia herself had written the letter.
I got up, took a bathroom break, and brewed a second cup of tea. I started reading again with July 26: Dwight, salary increase, approved. After that, his name appeared with increasing frequency. August 5: Dwight, no promotion. August 8: Dwight, said no again. And then, August 12, Dwight, threats. Spoke sternly. And on August 13, J. R. Nutall, questions re: Dwight.
I sipped my tea and reread all five of these entries, trying to piece together the story that lay behind them. Dwight had been given a raise at the end of July. Less than two weeks later, he was back, asking for a promotion. From handyman to what? Farm manager? Whatever he wanted, he didn't get it. When he struck out again, he retaliated with a threat. Mother Hilaria had clearly been concerned, or she wouldn't have contacted his probation officer.
Again, I wondered what crime had sent Dwight to jail. If he'd served time for a violent felony, Texas law prohibited his carrying a gun off the monastery grounds. Caught with that 303 anywhere else, he could be charged with a third-degree felony-which meant that his target practice at the top of the cliff might just earn him more lockup time. I had J. R. Nutall's home phone number. A call would turn up the information I needed. But first, I'd ask Mother Winifred for a look at Dwight's personnel record-assuming there was one, of course. As far as I knew, he was the monastery's only full-time employee. Mother Hilaria might have hired him without any formalities.