And Then There Were Nuns

by Kylie Logan

  “Why write a book if you don’t want to be famous?” Chandra asked.

  I ripped butter lettuce into bite-size pieces and added it to the bowl where Kate had already mounded diced avocado. “All I ever wanted to do was teach English at a university,” I told them. “That’s why I decided to get a PhD.” Of course that wasn’t the whole explanation and I knew they’d never settle for it. I grabbed some red leaf lettuce, pulled apart each leaf, and put that in the bowl, too.

  “I was out with a bunch of other grad students one night and we were all moaning about how poor we were,” I told them. “I don’t know who suggested it, but someone said we should have a contest to see which of us could write a book and get it published and make some money that way.”

  “No wonder you know so much about literature.” Luella was in charge of dicing carrots, and she tossed a piece into her mouth. “You’ve got all that schooling.”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I never finished grad school.”

  “Because you sold your first book,” Kate said.

  I nodded. “My other friends, they wrote some really interesting stuff, but let’s face it, we were all engrossed with the academic side of things. Studies of manners in Jane Austen novels do not sell. But a spooky story about a vampire king and his minions . . .” Even though I’d had years to get used to the idea, it still struck me as crazy. I shrugged. “The idea just popped into my head one night and so that’s what I worked on. It took me almost a year to finish the book, but it found a publisher and it sold pretty quickly and I was offered another contract right away. I quit grad school and never looked back.”

  “So you’re like really somebody.” Chandra sighed. “A famous somebody. I wonder if people would pay to come over to my house so they could get a look at you.”

  I froze, mid-lettuce-tear. “Just because I told the three of you doesn’t mean the world has to know.” I had, of course, pointed this out to Chandra earlier in the day, but with Chandra it never hurts to reinforce a point. Especially when she’s talking about people paying to see me.

  “She’s here for privacy,” Luella reminded her.

  “And she told us her secret because she trusts us,” Kate said. “If we betray that trust, we betray a friend.”

  “Well . . .” Chandra glanced away. “I already told Jerry.”

  Jerry Garcia was her (bad, horrible, terrible) cat. “I’m pretty sure Jerry can keep a secret,” I told her.

  Chandra looked relieved. At least for a moment. Then her brows (bleached the same color as her hair), fell low over her eyes. “Do you think that’s what happened over at Water’s Edge? That someone betrayed a friend?”

  “You mean Sister Sheila.” I gave the salad a final toss and covered the bowl with plastic cling wrap. I shrugged. “It doesn’t look like Sheila and Helene were ever friends.”

  “Or they were.” Luella spooned roasted new potatoes into the bowl we’d carry them in. “If they started out as good friends—”

  “It would make things uglier when they had a falling-out,” Kate said. “Like for instance if Chandra was ever stupid enough to let people know who you are and let them pay to get into her house so they could see you.” Leave it to Kate not to mince any words. She added a withering look at Chandra to the statement, just to make sure Chandra got the message. “Just imagine how angry Bea would get, being betrayed like that. And no one could blame her. That’s the kind of thing that destroys a friendship. In this case, it would destroy three.”

  “All right! I get it!” I certainly hoped Chandra did. She put a few dozen of Meg’s amazing white chocolate cranberry cookies into a container. But not before she grabbed one and munched it down. “I was only kidding about making people pay to come see Bea. But not about the swimming pool or the streetlamp,” she added quickly just as she headed to the door. “The streetlamp and the swimming pool . . . I’m as serious about those as I am about People Against Fishing Lake Erie.”

  * * *

  I felt sorry for the nuns, and not just because one of their number had been murdered.

  That Monday evening, the weather was still awful and while I had no doubt they were being truthful (could nuns not be?) when they told us how much they’d gotten out of a day of prayer, contemplation, and discussion, I couldn’t help but think that the chance to get outside and get some fresh air would have done them all some good, too.

  The strain showed most on Sister Gabriel, who was pacing the front hallway when we arrived that evening, barely got down more than a couple bites at dinner, and asked—more than one time in my earshot—about that package of books she was expecting and why it hadn’t arrived yet.

  The waves that pounded the beach where I’d found Sister Sheila’s body should have pretty much told her that.

  After dinner, the Sisters insisted on helping with cleanup, but hey, if nothing else, the Ladies of the League could be just as determined as a group of supercharged nuns. We shooed them into the living room for their evening scripture reading and proceeded to pick up, wash up, and clean up. By the time we were done, so were they, and we heard some of them drift upstairs. Sister Helene sat down at the piano in the first-floor library, and the strains of Chopin and Brahms drifted into the kitchen.

  “You’re distracted.” Kate slipped between me and the kitchen island with an armful of rinsed containers that she dumped into a tote bag. “What’s wrong? Because I don’t think it has anything to do with you telling us your big secret. We’re all over it and you know, I think it’s really pretty cool, especially if you let me tag along on some trip to Hollywood and meet a few hunky leading men.”

  I gave Kate a smile and wondered if she knew how close she’d come to the truth with that leading man comment. I pictured Levi in the un-leading-man-like way in which I’d last seen him, his hair sopping and a look on his face that clearly said he’d been bushwhacked.

  Much like I’d been when he told me what he was really doing there on South Bass.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I assured Kate and didn’t quite convince myself. “It’s just been a long day.”

  Kate slid a look toward the kitchen door and the rest of the house beyond. “And we’ve still got suspects to interview.”

  I shook my head. “We’ve done all that. It’s not getting us anywhere. I feel so . . .” I pulled in a breath and let it out with a sigh that mingled with the sweet notes of the Chopin etude that floated through Water’s Edge. “I feel helpless. There’s something we don’t know. Something we’re missing.”

  “That’s why they call it a mystery,” Kate told me.

  “And that’s why there’s no use all of us hanging around. Not if there’s nothing to accomplish here tonight.” I glanced toward Chandra and Luella, who’d just come into the kitchen after putting out dessert. Luella had an early morning meeting down at the marina where she docked her fishing charter boat, so she’d driven to Water’s Edge because she thought she might want to leave early. “Why don’t you all go home with Luella,” I said as if they were following my train of thought and knew what I was talking about. They didn’t, so I explained. “It’s just dessert plates and coffee cups left to clean up. I can do that.”

  “You’re sure?” I could tell Luella was grateful because she headed right for the door. “Because if you think it’s too much trouble to handle by yourself—”

  “No trouble.” One hand on Kate’s shoulder and one hand on Chandra’s, I shooed them toward the door where Luella waited. “I’ll give it another hour, clean up, and get out of here. What could be simpler?”

  They called out their good-nights to the Sisters still on the main floor when they left, and I closed the front door behind my friends. I was just going to go into the kitchen to wait when Sister Catherine waved me into the living room.

  “Come sit by the fire!” When I did, she handed me a cup of coffee and a plate with two of the white chocolate cranber
ry cookies on it. “We came to this retreat to get closer to the Lord,” she said and grinned. “If somebody doesn’t start sharing this food with us, the only thing we’re going to get closer to is needing to attend Weight Watchers’ meetings!”

  “How are things going?” I asked her.

  She patted her stomach. “You mean aside from the extra poundage?” Her smile dimmed. “We’re doing all right. Sister Liliosa heard from Sister Sheila’s parents today.”

  I could imagine their grief and it ate at my heart. “Did they offer any help? Had they talked to Sister Sheila? Did they know anything about—”

  “Why anyone might want to push her into the lake?”

  When my jaw went slack, Sister Catherine laughed. “Nuns gossip. Just like everyone else. And around here . . .” We were alone in the vast living room, but Sister Catherine looked around, past the light thrown by the flickering fire and into the shadows beyond. “Everyone has a theory.”

  I didn’t want to look too eager so I took a bite of cookie and washed it down with a sip of coffee. “Want to share?”

  Sister Catherine drew her golden brows down low over her eyes. “Well, I’m not sure Sister Margaret even understands that Sheila’s dead,” she confided. “I mean, she does. Off and on. Sister Margaret is a real dear and she’s done more for the urban and community garden movement than anyone in this country, but she’s a little scattered.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “And Sister Mary Jean and Sister Paul and Sister Francelle . . . well, from what I’ve heard, they’re all convinced it was an accident. I guess they weren’t paying attention to all that stuff we said about Sister Sheila being afraid of the water, huh?”

  “You were paying attention.”

  Sister Catherine took the statement as the compliment it was meant to be. “I thought it was strange right from the start. But then, I saw her on the ferry. I knew how terrified she was.”

  “And that was the first you’d met her. I mean, except for that dinner in New York?”

  “The dinner was the first time most of us met each other.”

  I felt like I’d been through it a thousand times, but I had to make sure I was right. “Except for Sister Sheila and Sister Helene.”

  Sister Catherine nodded. “And Sister Gabriel, of course.”

  I must have looked like Levi did when I whacked him with that mop because Sister Catherine grinned. “You didn’t know? About Sister Gabriel?”

  I thought about the nun who was so eager for that shipment of books. “I know she’s young and that she has about zero patience when it comes to the weather.”

  “And you should also know that none of us ever met her before we arrived at the ferry to come to the island. She wasn’t at the dinner in New York. She was sick that weekend.”

  I wasn’t sure this bit of information was significant, but I tucked it away in my mental notebook.

  “Do you suppose that means anything?” Sister Catherine asked before I could decide if it did.

  I told her as much. “If anything, it seems to make her even more of an outsider.”

  “With even less of a motive.” Sister Catherine’s shoulders drooped. “I can’t believe we’re even sitting here talking about murder. It’s . . .” She shivered.

  “Wrong.”

  “And sad.”

  “And I’d love to get to the bottom of it.”

  Sister Catherine’s blue eyes shone in the light of the fire. “I thought you might be helping the police.”

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “Hey, I run a shelter for homeless women. A lot of the time, the women who come into Elizabeth’s House—named after St. Elizabeth of Hungary—the women who show up on our doorstep aren’t usually inclined to share the details of their lives. Over the years, I’ve learned that I can find out a whole lot by watching and listening. Just like watching the way Sister Sheila acted on the ferry told me she was afraid of the water. And when that policeman came here to talk to us, I saw the way he deferred to you. He let you talk. He let you ask questions. I can’t imagine he affords that privilege to many civilians.”

  “You can say that again!” I finished my coffee and went around the room, picking up the cups and dessert dishes the other nuns had left behind. “If you hear anything—”

  “Of course I’ll let you know.” Sister Catherine moved to the door. “Good night.”

  Sure that I had all the plates, cups, and saucers, I headed into the kitchen.

  And stopped dead in my tracks right inside the door that led in from the dining room.

  The back kitchen door flapped in the wind and streams of rain blew in from outside.

  “What on earth!” I deposited the dishes on the countertop and took the chance of getting wet (I did) so I could race over and put my shoulder to the door to shut it.

  I tossed my head to cast off the raindrops that had settled there, turned around, and—

  “Oh!” Sister Gabriel was right behind me.

  “Sorry.” She didn’t look especially contrite. Or at least not as contrite as a nun should look when she’s being contrite. She leaned a bit to her right to see the door behind me. “I just thought I’d—”

  “Go outside?” It sounded crazy until I saw the pack of cigarettes in her hand.

  She had the good sense to blush. “Even nuns have bad habits,” she said.

  “Bad habits.” I laughed. “That’s a good one.”

  It actually took a moment for Sister Gabriel to get it.

  Her smile was light and quick. “Were you leaving?” she asked me.

  “I will be in a minute. As soon as I get the last of the dishes cleaned up.”

  “But you were shutting the door.”

  “Oh, that.” I hurried to the sink and ran the water so I could rinse the dessert dishes. “I wasn’t going anywhere. I walked in here and the door had blown open.”

  “Blown open.” Sister Gabriel’s voice was hollow, and I looked away from the dishes and over my shoulder at her and saw that her face was so pale, her freckles looked as if they’d been drawn on, careful dot by careful dot.

  “I locked it,” I assured her, getting back to work and rinsing the dishes. “I guess that just shows you how really strong a spring storm can be. At least it’s not cold.” I let the water out of the sink, rinsed my hands, and grabbed a towel to dry them before I turned to Sister Gabriel. “Why, last year at this time—”

  The Sister was gone.

  “So much for discussing the weather,” I grumbled to myself and gathered up my jacket.

  It was the first time I noticed something curious. The door I’d found open was directly opposite the one that led into the dining room. That meant when I’d come into the room . . .

  Thinking about it, I walked through the scenario again, going to the dining room door and from there, over to where I’d slammed the back door against the storm.

  The threshold near the door was soaked, and that wasn’t a surprise. The wind was fierce and my damp hair proved it; the rain was blowing directly this way.

  But that didn’t account for . . .

  Just to be sure, I tipped my head and turned on the lights over the kitchen island.

  “Wet near the doorway,” I confirmed to myself. “And my shoes were certainly dry when I came into the kitchen.”

  No way that accounted for the wet footprints that glimmered in the light.

  There were two of them and I bent down for a closer look. The footprints weren’t small, like a woman’s definitely would be. Or large, like you’d expect from a man. But then, they weren’t well defined, either, just watery imprints that showed me that whoever had come and gone had probably done it quickly. Two steps away from the door and another footprint leading back to it and outside.

  “You left in a hurry when you heard me coming,” I mumble
d, glancing at the door and the darkness beyond, almost afraid of who I might find looking back at me. Rain pelted my reflection. “Who are you? And what . . .” A chill snaked up my back. “What were you doing here?”

  9

  When I opened my eyes on Tuesday morning and realized that the sun was shining, my mood soared.

  At least for a split second.

  Until I remembered Levi.

  And Sister Sheila.

  And those mysterious wet footprints inside the kitchen door at Water’s Edge.

  Never let it be said, though, that I am not a trouper. And a mighty stubborn one at that.

  Though thoughts of Levi and Sheila and those footprints took turns rolling through my head, I refused to let any of them upend me. I threw myself into the day, reveling in the sunlight and, now that the winds had calmed and the waves were behaving, the silence.

  Meg had offered to make quiche for my guests’ breakfast and while she was at it, she made a couple for the nuns, too, and delivered them, to boot, along with the sandwich platters that would be lunch at Water’s Edge. That meant I had the luxury of moving slowly that morning, catching up on paperwork, placing orders for some specialty foods from the mainland, goofing around on the Internet, and pretty much accomplishing nothing, since every time I tried to concentrate on an article or some silly quiz that promised to tell me what my old lady name should be or what color my aura was, I found my thoughts back on the misery treadmill: mysterious footprints, Sister Sheila, Levi.

  By the time I had breakfast ready to serve at nine, I needed a major distraction and I found it by joining my guests in the dining room. Joe Roscoe would be staying for only a couple more days, and the librarians were leaving the next morning, so I did my best to leave them with a good impression, both of Bea & Bees and its owner.

  The quiches (one bacon and cheese, one mushroom and spinach, and one traditional for the purists with nothing but onions, eggs, and Gruyere cheese) had just made their way around the dining room table for the first time when there was a knock on the front door and Marianne Littlejohn poked her head into the house.