He stepped back, reluctantly, I thought. "I suppose you'd better come in, then."
I followed him to the kitchen, where he motioned me to a chair at the kitchen table while he hunted for a clean coffee cup. He found one in the dish drainer, then ransacked the cupboard for instant coffee, which he finally
discovered in the refrigerator freezer. After another search, he located the kettle on top of the refrigerator and the matches behind an open loaf of bread on the cluttered counter. I was glad I'd already had coffee. It might be a little while before this cup was ready.
"Things are rather a mess," he said, striking a match under the kettle. "My housekeeper had her seventh baby on Saturday, and I'm eating my meals at Bernice's." He glanced at the full sink, and I could read the distaste on his face.
I was tempted to suggest that there were several surefire ways to ensure that the housekeeper was always around to cook and wash up, but my recommendations would almost certainly reveal that I was on the devil's side of the birth control question. I made a noncommittal noise.
Father Steven began searching in the refrigerator and emerged with a pint of half-and-half. He sniffed it, made a face, and threw it in the garbage. "I doubt you'll discover anything about the fires. The arsonist is clever." He returned to the cupboard once more.
"I was surprised to see you there," I remarked. "Wasn't it a little late to look for a book?"
He shrugged. "Not really. I frequently suffer from insomnia, and when I do, I go for a drive. In fact, I was only a few miles from St. T's when I realized that I had left the book in the sacristy. I was just leaving when I heard the bell." He put a jar of powdered creamer on the table and sat in the opposite chair.
I was watching him closely. His eyes were hooded, and the twist of his scarred mouth seemed bitterly sardonic. But that aside, there was nothing in his face that revealed whether he was telling the truth or not.
I changed the subject abruptly. "Mother Winifred has also asked me to look into the five poison-pen letters."
He pulled his brows together. "Five? Perpetua, Anne, Dominica, Miriam-" He glanced at me. "You know something I don't."
Mother Hilaria received one as well."
•"Hilaria?" The priest's surprise seemed totally genuine. I he were the letter-writer and this was an act, it was a good one. "What was she accused of?"
"I can't tell you, because I haven't seen the letter. I can't:ell you what her penance was, either." 'Her… penance?"
" "The letter-writer demanded a public penance of each of ±e sisters. Perpetua complied. The other three refused. Soon after, each of them lost something important to them."
His eyes were watching me, unreadable. "You're suggesting that the letter-writer… that she is exacting a penance?"
I nodded. "The only way to stop her is to reveal her identity." I gave him a direct look. "Do you know who she is?"
"No, although I…" He shook his head. "What is said during confession is between the penitent and God."
Client-counselor privilege. I knew all about it. I took the roster out of my purse and unfolded it. "I'm not asking for privileged information, Father. This is a list of the forty sisters at St. Theresa's. Can you point to any who might be able to help me?"
He tightened his lips, and his mouth took on a grotesque twist. "I don't think so." The words came out almost in a squeak.
I leaned forward, pressing the point. "I don't need to tell you how serious this is, Father. Someone who takes it on herself to write accusing letters and exact involuntary penance-she's playing God."
The kettle began to whistle, and Father Steven got up and went to the stove. He came back with the kettle and splashed hot water over the coffee granules in my cup. He poured himself hot water, too, returned the kettle to the stove, and sat down again.
"I suppose there are several who might help," he said
with obvious reluctance. He took a pair of glasses out of his pajama pocket, put them on, and picked up the paper. "You should talk to Olivia. Rowena, Ruth, perhaps Rose. Yes, Rose-" He tapped the list. "Certainly John Roberta. And Perpetua."
"Perpetua is dead."
He blinked behind his glasses. "Yes, of course. Dead. That's too bad. She would have been willing to help you."
"Did she know who wrote the letters?"
He sighed. "She… made an accusation."
"And you can't tell me whom she accused?"
He took off his glasses and put them back into his pajama pocket. "What good would that do? She might have been mistaken. She was quite old. She was also a little crazy."
But she might not have been mistaken. And now she was dead.
"Who else has made an accusation?" I asked with greater urgency. Did John Roberta know what Perpetua knew? Was that what she had been so eager to tell me- and why she'd been so afraid?
"No one." He stirred his coffee so furiously that it slopped out onto the already soiled tablecloth.
And that was all I was going to get out of him. When I left a little later, he was standing in the kitchen, rubbing his wrinkled white toadstool of a head and scowling at the sinkful of dirty dishes.
Chapter Eleven
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay thithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law.
Matthew 23:23
Mother Winifred had given me a hand-drawn map that led me to the M Bar M, Sadie Marsh's ranch, a couple of miles north of St. Theresa's. I pushed the Dodge, but it was twenty to eleven when I pulled into the ranch yard and parked next to Sadie's blue Toyota.
If I'd been expecting something like the Townsend plantation house, or even the more modest Texas-style ranch house at St. Theresa's, Sadie's would have disappointed me. The small frame house was weathered a silver gray that almost matched the gray of the metal roof. It sat in the middle of a square of unkempt, winter-browned grass. The yard had once been graced by a large tree, but there was nothing left of it but a sawed-off stump that served as the pedestal for a five-foot red windmill that turned creakily. Obviously, Sadie didn't care much for making things pretty.
What did she care about? The answer lay to the right and behind the house: a large, new-looking barn with an attached paddock surrounded by a white-painted fence. The exercise and training area for the horses Sadie raised, I supposed. And beyond that, a much larger field, looped by more wooden fence. Expensive fence.
The wind was blowing cold out of gray clouds, bringing
with it needles of chilly rain. I pulled up the collar of my jacket and stuck my hands into the pockets. If it rained tomorrow, Tom might not want to go riding. At the thought, I felt a prickle of disappointment that caught me by surprjf e. Was I looking forward to it that much?
Sadie opened the door at my first knock. She was wearing jeans and a red sweater and boots, and her steel gray hair was snugged back from her strong face with a red bandanna. "Glad you could make it." She motioned with her head. "This place is a bitch to heat when the wind's in the north. Come on-it's warmer in the kitchen."
The kitchen floor was covered with scuffed gray vinyl, the wall over the sink was lined with open pine shelves stacked with crockery and canned goods, and the curtains at the windows were plain muslin. Pans and utensils hung on the wall over the gas stove. The only decorative touch was a red geranium blooming on the windowsill and a large Sierra Club calendar on the wall over the scarred pine table. It pictured two paint ponies running across a snowy meadow with mountains in the background. Through an open door I could see into a bedroom, the neatly made bed covered with a striped blanket, a dresser decorated with a lamp and a row of well-worn books between carved wooden bookends. Flannel pajamas and a purple bathrobe hung from wooden pegs on the wall. The house belonged to a ranch woman who didn't care whether her possessions were pretty as long as they did their job.