And Then There Were Nuns

by Kylie Logan

  “Still, it seems mighty strange, doesn’t it? There’s a reason someone wants all these women in one place at one time. There has to be. Otherwise, none of it makes any sense.” Thinking about it, I finished my coffee and made up my mind. “I’m going to go over there and hang out today, keep my eyes open, see what I can see. You don’t mind if we cancel book discussion group for today, do you?”

  I knew Luella wouldn’t, and the way she waved away my concern told me so.

  Kate frowned. “I’m not even halfway through yet. Next time, let’s pick a book that’s not as hefty. Something light and fluffy.”

  “And murder free!” Luella got up and hooked the straps of her Carhartt overalls over her shoulders. “Wish I could join you over at Water’s Edge, but duty calls. Thanks for breakfast and the update.”

  Kate got up, too. “I need to get to the winery or I’d go along.” She looked over to where Chandra was helping herself to another piece of bread. “Maybe Chandra—”

  “Can’t.” Chandra popped out of her chair and took her bread with her. “The workers are coming over. You know, to take measurements for the pool. And the lamppost.”

  Kate and I exchanged looks, but though I was tempted to get up and get in Chandra’s face, I kept my seat. And my temper. Barely.

  “You know, Chandra,” I said, “we haven’t had much time to discuss all this, but I think Kate agrees with me. What you’re thinking about doing to your property isn’t going to enhance the neighborhood.”

  “Neighborhood schneighborhood!” Chandra tossed her head and marched down the steps. “What are you going to do about it? Take me to court?”

  12

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to make up an excuse for hanging around Water’s Edge that day. By the time I cleaned up from breakfast and got over to the other side of the island, Hank was already at the retreat house. He’d just officially told the nuns that Sister Sheila had been murdered. Big points for the Sisters, they didn’t let on that they’d already heard the news from me.

  I was walking into Water’s Edge just as Hank was leaving, and once he was gone and another prayer session conducted for the repose of Sister Sheila’s soul was finished, I was greeted by a myriad of reactions, each tempered by strong faith and whispered prayers. The news was difficult to process, impossible to explain, and harder to understand—even the second time through. Sister Gabriel, the one I expected to see sobbing in a corner somewhere, raced out of the room while the last Amen still hung in the air. Tears stained Sister Paul’s, Francelle’s, and Mary Jean’s cheeks. Sister Liliosa was a rock. Like I expected anything different? She suggested the nuns spend a quiet hour in reflection and, big surprise, no one argued with her. Once they scattered, I stepped from the hallway where I’d been waiting and into the living room.

  “You were right,” Sister Liliosa said. “Of course you were. It’s not like I didn’t believe you when you told us Sheila was murdered, it’s just . . . well, this makes it all feel so much more real.”

  It seemed counterproductive to claim otherwise. “I sometimes help out Hank. Not with any of the really important details of a case, just with information. That’s how I knew.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Knowing how she died makes it harder to come to grips with her death.”

  “I can understand that.” It was a bright, warm morning, and someone had thrown open the windows that faced the lake. I couldn’t help but think that Sister Sheila would not have been amused. I, however, didn’t want to miss the opportunity to drink in the beauty of the day, especially since I hoped blue skies and lake breezes might counteract the ugliness of the subject we needed to discuss.

  I moved closer to the windows and breathed in a scent I wouldn’t have even recognized when I was living in that condo back in New York. Fresh water, fish, some very early blooming something. All of it kissed with spring sunshine.

  “We need to find out what happened,” I told Sister Liliosa.

  “Exactly what I told all of them.” She looked to the door where the nuns had just dispersed. “It’s all well and good to say our prayers and think good thoughts, but we are, after all, women of action. Don’t get the wrong idea, we’re not looking for revenge. Just for answers. And justice.”

  Justice instead of revenge.

  Exactly what I’d thought about when I read And Then There Were None the night before. “What we need to do is find answers,” I told her.

  “You mean about why someone would want to kill Sister Sheila. I know what Sister Grace thinks. And I have a feeling the police agree with her. Sister Helene’s bed wasn’t slept in last night, and Chief Florentine says there’s been no sign of her on the island though they did find the golf cart she left in. It was parked downtown near the ferry dock. Everyone knows Helene and Sheila have been feuding forever. Do you think Helene could really have killed Sheila? That she’s fled the island?”

  I didn’t mention the disguise in the attic because I still wasn’t sure what it meant. “It’s looking like a possibility. Do you remember where she was on Saturday?”

  “Helene?” Sister Liliosa’s brow furrowed with the effort of concentration. “We were all busy, of course, settling into our rooms. After a while, I remember that a few of the Sisters decided to take a walk and check out the property.”

  “Was Sister Sheila one of them?”

  “I don’t think so.” Her dark veil stroked her shoulders when she shook her head. “Once she was settled in her room . . . the room she exchanged with Sister Catherine . . . once she was settled in there, I don’t think I saw Sheila again at all that afternoon, though it’s obvious she went down to the beach eventually since that’s where you found her.”

  “And Helene?”

  Sister Liliosa had broad, strong hands. She massaged the bridge of her nose with her index fingers. “Helene was . . . that is, she is . . . an unusual person. More artistic than the rest of us.”

  “Even more so than Sheila? Sheila was a musician.”

  “And a gifted one,” Sister Liliosa said. “But I don’t mean artistic in that way. What I mean is that Helene reminds me a lot of your friend, Chandra.”

  This I understood and I smiled to let her know it. “You mean a little fey.”

  Sister Liliosa’s smile was surprisingly impish. “That’s putting it kindly.”

  “But succinctly.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Succinctly. And I don’t mean to judge . . . I suppose I’m just more traditional than Sister Helene is. My idea of prayer is getting down on my knees and having a conversation with God. Hers is dancing. I’m not saying it’s wrong—”

  “Just different.”

  “Different. Yes.” Sister Liliosa joined me at the windows. Outside the living room and dining room there was a wide flagstone patio that looked out over a vast vista of Lake Erie. The patio was bordered with beds where the first of the daffodils were peeking out of the soil and rose bushes waited to burst into bloom. There were benches scattered here and there around the patio along with the kind of café tables I’d seen at bistros in Paris. Sister Paul sat on one of the benches next to a fountain still swathed in heavy plastic and waiting to be set up for the summer. She was praying the rosary. Sister Catherine was on another bench against the back wall of the house where the patio was drenched in sunshine. She sat as straight as an arrow, her eyes closed, her hands on her knees, deep in meditation.

  “On Saturday before dinner,” Sister Liliosa said, “Sister Helene mentioned that she was going to go down to the beach to dance in the last of the sunlight.”

  “The beach. Where Sheila was killed. Have you told Hank?”

  Her nod was barely perceptible. “I didn’t think it was important. Not until this morning. I mentioned it to him after he told us . . .” If her voice had broken, I wouldn’t have thought any less of her, but I would have been surprised. Her jaw tensed. “Once we
knew what really happened to Sister Sheila, I thought it was important for him to have all the facts. It might not mean anything.” She slid me a look. “But it is a fact.”

  “And facts are all we have to go on. Facts and gut instinct.”

  “And faith.”

  I couldn’t dispute this with her.

  “If Sister Helene actually . . .” As strong a woman as she was, Sister Liliosa couldn’t make herself say the words. She cleared her throat. “If she’s the one the police are looking for, she’s gone now.”

  “It looks that way. Helene killed Sheila. Helene left the island. It’s one explanation.”

  “You think there’s another?”

  “If we knew for sure, we’d have all the answers we need. But I don’t know . . .” Too antsy to stand still, I paced to the far side of the living room and back again. If there’s one thing true about all writers, it’s that we share overactive imaginations. Mine was on overdrive, searching for answers that would explain not only Sister Sheila’s death, but what looked like a disguise in the attic, Sister Helene’s disappearance, the person I’d seen hanging around the garden the night before, and those wet footprints inside the kitchen door the other night.

  None of it added up.

  “Could there be someone else?” I asked Sister Liliosa. “Could someone else have killed Sister Sheila?”

  “You mean, another one of us?” Sister Liliosa sounded more bemused by the thought than she did surprised. “Isn’t it bad enough that one of us is being accused?”

  “It is. I realize it. I don’t mean to be rude. But all the pieces just don’t fall into place. Not for me, anyway. If we could look at things from a different point of view, maybe we’d find some answers.”

  She didn’t agree, but she didn’t shoot me down, either, so I gathered my thoughts and plunged on ahead. “It all makes me wonder,” I said, “if there’s more that connects the ten of you than those grants you received back in New York.”

  Sister Liliosa tucked her hands under the white wool panel that covered the front of her habit and when she did, the silver crucifix she wore glinted in the morning sunlight. “You’re talking motive. Well, of course, you have to. No doubt, that’s how the police are thinking, too. Sister Helene certainly had a beef with Sister Sheila. We all know that.”

  “We do. What we don’t know is if anyone else here might have had a reason to dislike Sister Sheila.”

  I wasn’t sure what I expected her to say. But instead of saying anything at all, what I got from her was stony silence.

  And sometimes, silence speaks way louder than words.

  “You know something.”

  Sister Liliosa raised her chin. “None of us lied when we told you we didn’t know each other. Because we don’t. Not well. But that doesn’t mean our paths haven’t crossed.”

  “In New York, at that dinner where you all received grant money for the work you do.”

  “Before that.” Sister Liliosa drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Many years ago when Sister Helene was very young and was just considering her vocation, she visited a convent in Buffalo. Apparently, she liked what she saw because a few months later, she applied for the novitiate there. Novitiate, that’s—”

  “Sort of a training period. A time for the person to try out life in a convent or a monastery to see what it would be like.”

  She was pleased I knew even that much. “But it works both ways,” Sister Liliosa pointed out. “It’s also a time for the convent to decide if the person will be a good fit. Sometimes, things just don’t work out.”

  I wasn’t sure where she was headed with the story, but I had a funny feeling. “Are you telling me Sister Helene was let go?”

  “I’m telling you she never got even that far. After the initial panel interview, it was determined that she wasn’t the kind of woman the convent was looking for. Like we said, she’s a little fey and she’s never done anything to hide that fact. Not that there’s anything wrong with musical talent. It’s a gift from God, after all. But the Sisters of the convent of St. Mary of the Falls were more likely to go out at night and distribute blankets to the homeless than they were to dance for the glory of the Lord. They knew Sister Helene would never be happy there because she’d never feel she was serving God the way she should. They had no choice but to reject her application for admission.”

  “So you’re telling me you met her back then? You were one of those nuns in Buffalo?”

  “No, not me.” Sister Liliosa lowered her head, and I could tell she was deciding if she should say any more. “It’s not my secret to tell.”

  “But it might be important.”

  “Yes.” She pressed her lips together. “It was Sister Grace,” she said. “She was the chair of the panel that rejected Sister Helene. If you talk to Grace, she’ll tell you the whole story,” she added quickly. “She didn’t really know Helene. Didn’t even remember her until we all met back in New York. We’ve all changed over the years and names get jumbled. That’s why you heard that none of us knew each other.”

  “But if Grace rejected Helene, it’s not really a motive, is it? Sister Sheila’s the one who’s dead, and Sister Grace is just fine.”

  “Thank goodness!” Sister Liliosa raised her gaze heavenward.

  It was an innocent enough look and a reverent enough comment, but something about it caused a shiver to prickle up my spine.

  “What do you mean, ‘thank goodness’?”

  “I didn’t mention it to Chief Florentine.” Sister Liliosa put both hands to her chin. “Maybe I should have, but it seemed like nothing at the time and we hadn’t been told about Sister Sheila’s murder yet. I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “And now?”

  Remembering, she twitched her shoulders. “Sister Grace has the first room at the top of the stairs. When she walked out of her room yesterday morning, she hooked her foot on the edge of a throw rug that she swears wasn’t in front of her door when she went to bed. She almost went down the steps headfirst.”

  My stomach froze.

  Murdered.

  One by one.

  “It’s not possible,” I said, more to myself than to Sister Liliosa. “It must have been an accident.”

  “Yes, of course it was.” She didn’t look any more convinced than I felt. “And even if we did think it might be Sister Helene trying to cause more harm . . . well, no one’s seen her, have they? The authorities are sure she’s left the island. She couldn’t have . . . She wouldn’t . . .”

  “She doesn’t have it out for anyone else, does she?”

  Sister Liliosa’s face turned the exact color of her wimple. “You don’t think Helene came to the retreat so she could do us all in, do you?”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course not. That’s preposterous.”

  “As preposterous as thinking that Sister Helene might have killed Sister Sheila?”

  Sister Liliosa drew back her shoulders and pulled herself up to her considerable height. “I’m not convinced of that, either. I don’t care what you or the police say. It’s one thing to play mind games and consider possibilities, but Helene is a religious woman. She doesn’t pay back old wrongs by killing people.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Of course I am.” She was so often, there was no doubt in Sister Liliosa’s mind that it was true in this case, too. “I’m not even going to bring this up with the rest of them,” she said in no uncertain terms. “I’m not going to have them looking over their shoulders, wondering if Helene is going to pop out of some shadow and come after them.”

  “Would she? Is there anyone besides Sheila and Grace she might come after?”

  I guarantee that had she not been outraged by my question, Sister Liliosa would not have answered it. The way she was, she was so offended, she sputtered. “Well, Sister Catherine br
ought calendars her shelter produces to raise money and miscounted and Helene didn’t get one. Maybe you think Sister Helene might murder her. And Sister Margaret misplaced the ketchup on Sunday at lunch. Swore she used it, then couldn’t find it. Sister Helene made no secret of the fact that she never eats sandwiches without ketchup. You think maybe she’s so mad at Margaret that she might—”

  “Sister Margaret.” I’m not sure why the thought struck out of nowhere, but in my mind, I saw a mental image of the nuns gathered in the room when I arrived. I turned away from the windows, firmly ignoring the sudden cha-cha beat in my chest. “Sister Margaret wasn’t here when I got here. She’s all right, isn’t she?”

  Sister Liliosa’s imagination firmly refused to go where mine did thanks to Marianne and her librarian friends. But then, I couldn’t blame her. She was a woman of faith and commitment and so were her fellow nuns, and it was hard for her to come to grips with the fact that anyone was challenging that. She clutched her hands at her waist. “She’s fine. Well, as fine as the dear old thing can be! She is a little flighty, in case you haven’t noticed.” Briefly, a smile relieved the somberness of Sister Liliosa’s expression. “After Chief Florentine told us the news . . .” Remembering the moment, her smile dissolved. “Sister Margaret said she’d rather be alone in the greenhouse to pray, and none of us even thought to stop her. She finds strength in the soil. As much strength as she finds in her faith.”

  “Have you checked on her?”

  “It was only a few minutes ago. You don’t think—”

  I didn’t. Or at least I didn’t want to.

  It was clear from the way Sister Liliosa’s mouth rounded with surprise that this was the first time her mind went to the place mine was trying so hard not to consider.

  Thinking it through, she clamped her lips together, then said, “I told you what you’re suggesting is impossible.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  But I couldn’t escape the little voice inside my head, the one that told me that in a case like this, gut instinct might prove our most valuable ally.