"You know. You guys really know how to pray. Maybe it's because everybody out there is so holy."
"I'm not so sure about that," I said. Arson, poison-pen letters, questionable deaths, a political takeover… "Excuse me, Brian, but I think I missed something. What are we talking about?"
He giggled, elated. "You mean, you didn't hear yet? The Cowboys beat the Packers yesterday. Coach said on TV it was the answer to a prayer. I figure it had to be yours."
"Credit where credit is due," I said. "Listen, tell your dad I called, okay? Tell him I'm having a great time and I wish he was here." And at that moment, it was true, definitely true. I wished McQuaid were here, wrapping me in his arms, holding me tight, nuzzling me.
"Yeah," Brian said, "you wish he was there. Anything else?"
I hesitated. "Tell him I love him. Lots and lots. Tons."
"Mush," he said with eleven-year-old disgust.
"'And I love you too," I said, feeling generous. "And Howard Cosell and Khat and-" I stopped. Not Einstein. I had to draw the line somewhere.
"Thanks," he said, grudgingly grateful. "Me too. Say, China, will you ask those nuns to keep praying? Next week it's the 'Niners."
Chapter Fourteen
Conscience, anticipating time, Already rues the enacted crime.
Sir Walter Scott Rokeby
It was my alarm clock, not the fire bell, that jarred me out of a sound sleep at first light the next morning. I got up, pulled on my sweats, and took a brisk walk along the river. I surprised a white-tailed doe drinking at the water's edge and startled a great blue heron, statuesque in a quiet pool, waiting for a silver minnow to dart out from under a rock. He lifted heavily into flight, flapped across the river, and dropped into another pool, where he fixed a suspicious eye on me. The wind had swung back around to the southwest again, and it was warming up. It was going to be a cool, crisp day, one of Texas's January jewels.
Back at Jeremiah, I grabbed a quick shower, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair, feeling virtuous for having fended off temptation the night before. I pulled on cords and a sweater and set off for breakfast, ready for whatever fireworks Sadie Marsh might launch at the board meeting.
As I passed the green Dodge truck in the parking lot on the way to the refectory, I patted it affectionately. Given its performance in the Lone Star parking lot last night, I'd been a little worried about the twelve-mile drive from Carr to the monastery. I hadn't relished the idea of getting stranded and having to hitch a ride to St. T's from some
colorful local character on his way home after a hard night's drinking.
But the truck behaved and the only person 1 met was hardly colorful. At the turnoff to the monastery, I encountered a Honda. It came from the opposite direction, made a sharp left in front of me, and stopped at the gate. Somebody-it was too dark to see who-got out hurriedly, retrieved the key and opened the gate, then drove through, leaving it open. I drove through, closed it, then drove fast to catch up, curious to know which of the nuns was out at this late hour. I pulled into the lot behind Sophia just as the driver, dressed in dark slacks and a dark jacket, got out.
"Sister Olivia!" I said, surprised. "I thought you weren't coming back until tomorrow."
She recognized me and stiffened. "My plans changed," she said, taking a small suitcase from the backseat
I thought of my list of questions-Mother Hilaria's hot plate, Father Steven's scar, the letters. "Now that you're back, I'd like to make a time to talk. It really is important that I ask you about-"
She slammed the car door and locked it. "No," she said. She came around the car and the light fell on her. Her face was a white mask, her eyes two dark smudges.
"I don't mean that we have to talk right now," I persisted. "How about after breakfast tomorrow?"
"No," she said again. Her voice was rising, frantic, half-hysterical. "I have nothing to say to you. Nothing at all, do you hear?" She pushed past me into the dark. I could hear the staccato tattoo of her heels on the cement sidewalk.
"Good morning," Maggie said cheerfully, interrupting my thoughts as I came around the truck. "It's a pretty day, isn't it?" She gave me a quick glance. "How'd it go last night?"
"How'd it go?" I repeated, still wondering why Sister Olivia had been so anxious to escape from me. She had been almost running.
The corners of her mouth twitched. ' 'You know. Your date. With Tom."
"Oh, that." I grinned. "It was okay."
She held the door open as we went inside Sophia. "What? No champagne and roses?" Her mouth twitched. "No propositions?"
"There was a proposition," I said offhandedly. "I just said no."
The twitch became a smile. ' 'You see? Never underestimate the power of prayer."
"Oh, so that was it," I said. We went into the refectory, and I sniffed appreciatively. Fresh cinnamon rolls this morning. Ah, yes.
There was ample time between breakfast and the board meeting to talk to Olivia and get straight on what she knew about the letters and the fires. But even though I waited until the last sister had come through the refectory door, Olivia didn't show up. She wasn't in the office in Sophia, either, or in the chapel, in her room, or with Regina in the infirmary. And Mother Winifred, who was doing some paperwork at the desk in her cottage, couldn't suggest where else I might look.
"I didn't even know she'd returned from the mother-house," she said, sounding slightly miffed. "In the old days, nobody went anywhere or came back from anywhere without asking Mother's permission." She straightened a sheaf of papers and stuck them into a file folder. "But Olivia is a law unto herself, and I'm a very lame duck. Reverend Mother General will probably call today and tell me when to schedule the election." She put the papers into a drawer and looked at the clock on the wall. "It's almost time for me to be off to the board meeting."
"I'll be there too," I said. "I saw Sadie yesterday and she asked me to come. She wants legal counsel, I gather."
From the look on her face, Mother was not pleased. "I love Sadie dearly," she said with irritation, "but she has the capacity to do the order a great harm. We've got enough
difficulty on our hands without her stirring up trouble."
There wasn't anything I could say to that, but I did have a question. "Before we go to the meeting, there's something else I want to ask you about," I said. "I gather that a number of the sisters here did their novitiate together under Perpetua. Ramona mentioned that Olivia and Regina knew one another even then."
"And Ruth, as well," Mother said. She took a navy sweater off a peg on the wall and pulled it on. "I was at the motherhouse when that class came through, and I remember the three of them. Regina and Ruth were good friends, always getting into some sort of mischief. Olivia felt she had to stand up for them. She showed quite a bit of leadership capability, even in the novitiate."
"She stood up for them?"
"Oh, yes. You wouldn't know it to look at either of them now, because they've both settled down and become quite serious. But Ruth and Regina were once quite fun-loving. Mischievous, really. They enjoyed little pranks." She smiled. "One or two of their practical jokes got them into trouble with Perpetua, as I recall."
"I see," I said, thinking that I was beginning to see a great deal. "Do you think Olivia would talk to me about some of those pranks?"
"I don't see why not," Mother said. She stepped in front of a mirror on the wall and ran a comb through her white hair. "Or you could ask Ruth or Regina directly. But why do you want to know about all that old business?"