I wanted to know because I was beginning to make some connections between what had happened at the novitiate twenty years before and what was happening here now. But I wasn't comfortable sharing my thoughts with Mother Winifred until I had talked with Olivia and sorted it out some more-especially after having been so wrong only yesterday.
I glanced at my watch. "If we're not going to be late to
that meeting, we'd better go. Shall we walk to Sophia together?"
The board meeting was held in a long, narrow room adjacent to the monastery office. It was high-ceilinged, wood-paneled, and bare of decoration, except for a painted statue of Mary in one corner, a heavy dictionary on a wooden stand in another, and a pendulum clock on the wall. Its hands showed nine fifty-five.
Three of the board members were already in the room when we got there. Tom got up from the head of the table, where he was sorting through a stack of papers, and came to greet us. He was wearing a suit and tie, and he looked tired, as if he hadn't slept very much. He shook Mother's hand and gave me a quick nod. His eyes slid away. I thought I understood. He was embarrassed about last night.
"Is your dad here?" I asked.
He shook his head. "Something came up at the last minute and he couldn't make it."
Mother Winifred tugged at his sleeve. "May I have a word with you, Tom?"
I went around the table and sat down beside Sister Ga-briella, who was talking to a plump, brown-haired woman in a too-tight lipstick-red suit with a fussy blouse and pearls. She turned out to be Cleva Mason, the one who had missed the last four board meetings. She slanted a glance around the table, licking her lips with a nervous tongue.
There was a stack of papers in the middle of the table, probably the board's agenda. Tom finished talking to Mother Winifred, looked at his watch, then at the clock. He seemed unusually jittery. He glanced around the table and cleared his throat.
"If everyone's ready…" he said.
"Sadie's not here," Sister Gabriella said.
"Oh, okay," Tom said, and I had the impression that he'd been hoping to start without her. He looked at his watch again. "I guess we'll have to wait, then."
"There's plenty of coffee," Mother Winifred said, gesturing to a table at the end of the room where coffee and cups had been set out. "She'll probably be here in a few minutes."
But at ten-fifteen, we were on our second cup of coffee, we'd almost run out of small talk, and Sadie still hadn't arrived. Tom was more tense and withdrawn than I had seen him, with a wary, nervous look. I wondered once again whether he knew what Sadie was going to bring up this morning. From the look of him, I'd have said yes. But how had he learned it? Sadie had kept her intentions to herself.
Gabriella touched my arm. "It's not like Sadie to be late," she said quietly. "She had a lot riding on this meeting."
"Maybe we'd better call her," I said. "She might have slept through the alarm."
Gabriella left the room. A few minutes later, she was back. To Tom's questioning glance, she said, "Nobody answers the phone."
"She's on her way over, then," Tom said. He shuffled the papers, obviously anxious to begin. ' 'There are several information items on the agenda. We could handle those first. She'll be here by the time we're ready to get to the substantive issues."
But the information items-mainly having to do with paying the legal bills in the aftermath of the lawsuit-were read and discussed by ten forty-five, and Sadie still hadn't arrived. Tom looked up at the clock again. He seemed to be debating what to do. "I think we should go ahead without her," he said finally.
I pushed back my chair. "Sadie has some vital information to present. She'd be here unless something happened. It is okay if I borrow the truck again, Mother Winifred? I'll drive over and see what's keeping her."
Tom licked his lips nervously. "It's not a good idea to drive that old truck over there," he said. "If it didn't start, you'd be stranded. We'll take a break, and I'll drive you."
I frowned. At best, being alone with Tom would be uncomfortable.
Gabriella leaned toward me. "Go, please," she urged in a low voice. "Sadie wouldn't be late if she could help it. I'm afraid something's wrong over there."
Tom's cream-colored Chevy Suburban made the trip in something under ten minutes. We didn't encounter Sadie along the way. We didn't say much to one another, either. Tom's face was set and his jaw was working, and I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't lead us back to the subject we had closed last night. Anyway, I shared Gabriella's apprehension about Sadie. She had planned carefully for the board meeting, and she'd been looking forward to it. She wouldn't have missed it unless-Unless what? What was wrong?
The M Bar M was deserted when we drove in. Sadie's blue Toyota was parked on the gravel apron in front of the house, so she was still around, somewhere. Without a word, Tom and I got out, went up to the front door, and knocked; then knocked again.
Nothing.
Tom tried the knob, but the door was locked. We went around to the back door, which stood partly ajar. I stepped inside and called, but there was no answer. A couple of minutes' searching was enough to convince us that Sadie wasn't inside. We started for the outbuildings, calling as we went. Tom strode ahead, moving fast. I had to run to keep up with him.
The metal-roofed barn was a long, narrow building, lined up on a north-south axis, with double doors at both ends. The floor was hard-packed earth. The west side of the barn was stacked to the roof with baled hay and feed sacks. The east side was lined with a row of wide stalls that opened at the back into the fenced paddock. Three of the stalls were occupied, two by decorous paint ponies that thrust out their noses inquisitively, looking for carrots. The third contained
a brown horse with a silky dark mane, wearing a leather bridle. The horse was skittish, prancing, his eyes rolling.
"Goliath," Tom said over his shoulder. "Sadie's horse."
We found her in Goliath's stall. Her jeans-clad, denim-jacketed body was sprawled facedown on bloody straw, head twisted unnaturally to one side, steel gray hair matted with blood. One arm was pinned under her, the other flung out. Goliath tossed his head with a shrill whinny and shied away from us against the fence.
"Jesus," Tom breathed out.
He shoved the gate open, rushed in, and grabbed the horse's bridle. As Goliath reared, he yanked. "Out of the way," he gritted. "I've got to get this killer out of here."
While Tom was locking the horse into the next stall, I ran in, knelt in the straw beside Sadie, and felt at her neck. A moment later, Tom joined me.
"Is… is she alive?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "There's a pulse. Not much of one, but a pulse."
He rocked back on his heels, his face blanched. "She's alive," he whispered, as if he were dazed. "What'll we do?"
"We've got to get help." I yanked off my jacket and spread it over Sadie. "Give me your coat. There's got to be a phone in the house. How quick can the EMS get out here?"
Tom didn't answer. He seemed dazed. He dropped his head into his hands. "She's alive," he whispered again. "Dear God, she's-"
"Tom!" I shook him. "Get the EMS! Tell them we've got a head injury here, possible brain trauma. Tell them she was kicked in the head by a horse."
His head came up swiftly, and his staring eyes connected with mine. "Yeah," he said. He swallowed. "Yeah, right." He scrambled to his feet, energized, peeling off his suit
coat. "There's a phone by the barn door. I saw it when we came in." He tossed me the coat.
I turned Sadie on her side, rolled Tom's coat into a pillow, and propped up her head, touching her wound. She had sustained two crushing blows to the head, one above her ear and slightly forward, the other lower, behind the ear. The blood was dark and crusty; the edges of the wound were dried. Her face was drained of color, the leathery skin slack and gray and very cold. She'd been lying there for some time-how long, it was hard to tell. I stared down at her, feeling a sharp, poignant sadness. All her schemes and dreams, all her passion, all come to nothing. All come to this.