by Morgana Best
“Deal,” Adam said. “Lock up; I’m parked outside at the curb. I’ll drive.”
“Okay,” I said. I hurried upstairs to grab a jacket and dump my coffee into my travel mug. I slapped the lid on it and rushed back downstairs. Outside I put on the light jacket, just enough defense against the chill breeze blowing as the world around us turned into autumn. Trees were a little less green, a little more red and yellow and brown.
In autumn mornings, before the sun was fully up, when it was just something over the horizon which threw purple streaks heavenwards, you could see your breath before your face. But it was too late for that; the sun was well free of the horizon, fat and yellow, and the sky was blue, without a speck of purple.
Adam was standing next to his car, leaning against the passenger door. He opened the door for me as I approached, and I climbed up into the jeep. He shut the door behind me, and hurried around to slide in behind the wheel.
“Where is this bakery?” he asked.
“Mason’s? You don’t know about it?”
“I don’t live here, remember?” Adam said. “I’m here for the Shadow Gang story.”
“Still, how could you not know about Mason’s Bakery?”
“I just don’t. You can make me a convert today.”
“I will,” I said with a laugh. “We could’ve walked; it’s just down the other end of town, on the highway.”
Adam started the car and pulled away from the curb, sitting in behind a huge truck.
“Just down here,” I said. “Get the first parking spot you can find.”
Adam nodded and parked up against the building. We climbed out of the Jeep together, and went to the front door of the bakery.
“Wow,” Adam said as we stepped in, and I laughed.
“I recommend the chocolate éclair,” I said. “But everything here’s good.”
“Okay, I’ll have what you’re having,” Adam said, and I ordered for us, but he paid. We took our small, white, paper bags out to his vehicle, although there were a few tables inside the bakery. We sat in the car and ate.
“Wow,” Adam said again.
We didn’t talk much after that, until we had both devoured our chocolate éclairs, and drained the last of our coffee.
“All right, now let’s go do some sleuthing.”
“Tell me you don’t always call it sleuthing,” I said.
“Okay, I don’t.” Adam grinned.
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
I laughed, and we were off again, pulling out onto the highway. I directed Adam out of town in the direction of the convent, along a long, narrow country road. “You never see any traffic out on this road,” I said. “Sister Bertrand pretty much lives in the middle of nowhere.”
Adam nodded. “I googled her order, the Sisters of Temperance.”
I directed Adam to turn off onto the private lane that led down to the convent. The lane was flanked by over a hundred elm trees, a magnificent sight. At this time of year, their leaves were vivid gold, russet red, and every shade in between. They were breathtaking.
The convent was a group of old stone buildings, covered in ivy, which now in autumn adorned the front of the building in beautiful shades of red. A long, brick wall, about twelve feet tall, extended both sides from the heavy, wooden door at the front.
The scale and grandeur of the main convent building marked a stark contrast with the surrounding farmlands and rural setting. The grass in the adjoining farmland was already dying off, brown and crispy, thanks to the first frosts of the year.
“This place sure is private,” Adam said. “And medieval French ecclesiastic architectural style - impressive.”
“It certainly is impressive. By the way, I’ve never been inside the convent before,” I said.
Adam reached up to ring the large, brass bell that hung next to the door. “Remember, just listen, and keep your eyes open.”
I nodded, and then winced as the screeching of an alarm sounded from within the walls.
The front door opened, and I gasped. Instead of Sister Bertrand, there was a much younger nun; I guessed she was around thirty years of age. This nun was wearing a traditional habit, not the simple skirt and white blouse that Sister Bertrand always wore. This wasn’t my running nun, however, for this nun was quite slender. Strangely, the overpowering smell of mothballs wafted from her habit.
“I’m Rose and this is Adam,” I said. “I was looking for Sister Bertrand.”
“May I ask why you need to speak to Sister Bertrand?” she said. “I’m Sister Maria of St. Leonard. Is there anything I can help you with?”
Adam and I exchanged glances. “It’s just that I really wanted to see Sister Bertrand,” I said, at a loss as to what to do next.
The nun nodded. “Sister Bertrand of Genesius has gone to take the waters at Lourdes.”
I was puzzled. “What does that mean?”
It was Adam who answered. “That means that she’s gone to Lourdes to seek a cure.”
The nun nodded again. “Yes, for her rheumatism. She’s on a pilgrimage, to the Udine Cathedral as well. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea?” She stepped aside so we could enter.
I was excited to see inside a convent. My only prior experience with convents had been watching Nuns on the Run and Sister Act, and then of course, reruns of The Flying Nun.
It was just as I had expected. The huge, oak door opened onto a large entrance, and the Reverend Mother showed us through the first door on the left, which in turn opened onto a reception room.
After we had been seated in bulky, wooden chairs deeply upholstered in gray vinyl, she left the room. As she passed me, I once again had to hold my breath against the pervading scent of mothballs.
“Is that the nun you saw?” Adam whispered.
I shook my head. “No, the nun I saw had broad shoulders. Where did she go?” I whispered back.
Adam shrugged. “No idea. She normally would’ve called for a nun to bring us tea and cakes that the other nuns have made.”
“We’ll soon know if there are other nuns.” I looked around the room. While it was sparsely furnished, the architecture was impressive. The ceiling was high and the windows were beautiful. Still, the room itself was dull, with the only colors being gray, beige, and mission brown. Even the floor tiles were either beige-yellow or mission brown.
Sister Maria finally returned with a tray, which she set down on the round coffee table between us. She poured us each a cup of tea from a particularly fine looking, antique teapot, and then offered each of us an Oreo.
The plate was laden with Oreos, Tim Tams, and various pastries.
Adam shot me a look, but I had no idea why. “Sister Maria,” he said, turning to the nun, “are you the Reverend Mother here?”
She nodded. “We don’t always use that term these days.”
He pressed on. “I suppose you’ve heard that the local pawnbroker was found shot the other day. Rose saw a nun running from the scene.”
Sister Maria looked surprised. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” she said. She made the sign of the Cross, took up her rosary beads, and kissed the crucifix.
“Are there any other nuns here?” Adam asked.
Sister Maria nodded. “Oh yes, I’ve brought several novices with me on retreat, while Sister Bertrand is away.”
Adam frowned. “May we speak to them?”
“I’m sorry,” Sister Maria said, “but they’re doing their Forty Hours Prayer Devotion with Jesus Christ.”
I was disappointed. So far, our visit was proving to be fruitless. I gave Adam a penetrating do something look.
“I thought your order was discalced,” he said to Sister Maria. “Sister Bertrand always wore sandals.”
Sister Maria waved her hand dismissively. “Oh no, that was in the old days, before Vatican Two. Sister Bertrand liked to keep up the old tradition.”
“What does discalced mean?” I asked.
“It means going barefoot or wearing
sandals,” Sister Maria said. “It’s an old custom, introduced by St. Francis of Assisi for men, and St. Clare of Assisi for women. Our order used to be discalced.”
“Thank you,” I said. There was more to being Catholic than I had ever imagined. Just as well Adam knew the right questions to ask.
“Sister Maria,” Adam said, “may I ask why you wear a traditional habit?”
Sister Maria smiled, and offered him the tray of pastries, which he duly declined. “The Order of the Sisters of Temperance is a contemplative and cloistered order; we are not out serving the community. Many of our nuns have sought solace from the world, and many have found their religious calling later in life. The novices wear traditional habit so they can relate to the hardships of the early sisters of our order. I only wear traditional habit when I’m on retreat with novices.”
Adam and I nodded. We weren’t getting anywhere; I had to think of something fast.
“May I use your bathroom?” I asked.
“Of course,” Sister Maria said, standing up. “Follow me.” We walked into a long corridor and she pointed to the end of it. “It’s down that hall, at the very end,” she said in a loud voice.
I thanked her and walked down the corridor. I didn’t know what I was hoping to find, but I wasn’t going to find anything talking to Sister Maria. If she did know anything, she wasn’t going to let on.
The bathroom was dark and austere, and had not been renovated in modern times. The basin was small and green, and the only window was tiny and placed high on the wall.
So much for my great idea; there was nothing in here of any help. I opened the bathroom door to leave, and startled a nun who was coming out of a small room a little to my left.
The nun turned her head away when she saw me, and hurried in the other direction, but not before I caught a glimpse of overly hairy legs. Her habit was shorter than I had expected, too; I thought habits fell all the way to the ground, but this one fell to mid calf length.
Did nuns shave their legs? I had no idea. Maybe they didn’t.
I knocked and entered the reception room.
Adam at once stood up. “Thank you for having us, Sister Maria,” he said. “I’m sorry to have taken up your time.”
“Not at all,” she said. “I will pass on your wishes to Sister Bertrand when I next write to her.”
“That didn’t get us anywhere,” I said, as we walked to the car.
“I know,” Adam said. “If Sister Maria knew anything, she wasn’t going to tell us. Did you find anything in the bathroom?”
“Not a thing,” I said, “but I did see a nun coming out of a room, and she had very hairy legs.”
Adam laughed. “How did you see her legs?”
“Her – I’m not sure what you call it – habit, didn’t go all the way to the ground.”
We climbed into the car and Adam turned the key, but he didn’t pull away from the parking area. “Interesting,” he said.
“What is?”
“All of it. I mean, nuns usually do all their own baking, and the Sisters of Temperance especially are supposed to eat only simple food, yet Sister Maria offered us bought pastries, and expensive ones at that. Also, there was only one nun here at the convent, then you see one running from a murder scene, and now the one nun everyone knows has gone, and there are new ones, wearing sneakers and having hairy legs.”
“Only one had hairy legs,” I said.
Adam laughed, and then I laughed as well. It all did sound rather absurd. As we pulled away from the convent and drove back to town, I couldn’t stop thinking about the nuns. I felt as if I were missing something.
Chapter Six.
“Sorry about this, Bernard,” I said apologetically, as the cat gave me a dark look of doom from the washing machine, before looking disdainfully at his things that I’d moved into one corner. The calico had made quick work of taking over the house, and he did not like his exile into the little room one bit.
“Sorry,” I said again, as he lashed his tail unhappily from his perch. “I'd put you in my bedroom, Your Highness, but this place has only one bathroom, and the girls might need it.”
“And that is my problem?” Bernard seemed to say as he glared at me. Finally, he gave up trying to guilt me with his displeasure, and he hopped down to sniff around the machines.
“Be good,” I said, as I closed the door. Hopefully he wasn't a vengeful kitty. I didn't need to find shredded curtains, or worse still, surprises on the floor. He might even repay me by leaving a mouse in my bed. Ick.
I rushed to wash my hands and check on the oven. The pans were bubbling and browning to perfection. And the smell of toasted garlic bread was making my mouth water. I was proud of this meal, given the fact that it was so hard to make anything that both girls would eat. Janet was so adverse to normal food, it was a wonder she wasn't crunching an astronaut’s serving of vitamins for breakfast. Gemma was Janet’s polar opposite. Gemma would do anything to avoid a salad bar if she could help it. There was very little the two could eat that they could agree on.
Tonight, I was serving a nice, green spinach salad, lasagna, eggplant parmesan, and a lemon sherbet that was supposed to have all natural ingredients. Hopefully they would find nothing on the menu to argue about.
Tonight was to be a welcome party for Bunny. I would have done it eventually, even if there weren’t a strange murder to solve. A girl can multitask though, right?
After talking to the new Reverend Mother of the convent, I’d been left with zero leads. Well almost. There was Bunny, the mysterious ex-wife whom Dave had never once mentioned in all these years. It was strange how fast she had showed up to lay claim to his things. She seemed too spacey to plot to dress up as a nun in running shoes though, or maybe she was spacey enough to do exactly that. It really wasn't too hard to see her sprinting in a sister's habit. Either way, surely she knew something useful about Dave.
Hopefully, a dinner with Bunny would shed more light on the woman. It would maybe provide some other clues I could follow.
Plus, my friends could drive anyone to distraction. As bad as I felt about overwhelming the woman with both my friends at once, I had to do it for the greater good. Dave had been a friend of mine. The police did not seem keen to solve his murder, given that they had disregarded my telling them about the nun fleeing the scene. I could not just let Dave’s murder become another cold case in the corner of the police office.
As the first of my guests showed up, I took a deep breath and prepared for the big event. As I opened the door, a flash of gold flew at my face and caused me to yelp as I took a step back, raising my hands to shield myself from my attacker.
“Surprise,” Bunny's voice chimed.
I blinked, as my eyes adjusted and focused on a gaudy, gold and black glitter gift bag dangling in the doorway. Bunny peeked around it with a quizzical look. “Oh dear. Am I too early? Mom used to fuss about how important punctuation is.”
“Punctuality?” I prompted. It was hard enough to follow the woman at the best of times, without the remix version of the English language.
“It means to be on time,” Bunny explained in a matter of fact tone as she invited herself in to gawk at my living room. “Oh my, you have a nice place. Dave's place was such a bachelor pad. You'd think he'd never been married before.”
I didn't think three weeks was long enough to change anyone's life too drastically, but of course, I knew better than to point that out. “Thank you for the gift,” I said. “That was very thoughtful.”
“Oh don't worry about it. It's just a little something that Dave had lying around the shop. I hope you like it,” Bunny said as she looked around the room with a worried frown. “The cat is locked up?”
“I’ve put him in the laundry room for now.” I had to smile, for the woman looked like she had just dodged a firing squad. I wasn't sure how allergic she was to cats, but she seemed much more afraid of the cat himself than of an allergic reaction. I looked at the gold gift bag curiously. “Can I
open it?”
“Of course, silly. It's for you.” Bunny made a shooing motion to make me open it faster. Dave had seen all manner of things in his pawn shop, and the bag was about the right size for jewelry or a bottle of perfume. I guessed it was perfume by the weight. I had seen some high end perfumes behind the glass displays. How sweet of Bunny, I thought, reaching my hand into the bag.
This was not perfume.
I crushed the bag around the pistol that was lying in the bottom of the bag, nestled innocently in a mess of tinsel and lime green tissue paper.
“Bunny,” I croaked, as I gingerly held the bag away from me as far as I could. “Bunny, there's a gun in here.”
“Of course. Now you won't have to go out and buy one,” Bunny said helpfully. “It probably has paperwork, too, but I can't find it. It’s probably in his safe. I'll get it for you later, if I remember.”
“Why would I need a gun, Bunny?” I asked, as I set down the bag carefully.
“Sweetie, someone just died next door. You have to protect yourself in this big, bad world,” Bunny said in a gentle, patronizing tone. Her brow furrowed. “Though, come to think of it, those handguns in the safe didn't do Dave that much good, did they? Maybe I should have gone with a taser?”
“A taser?” I asked, looking at the tiny woman talking about handguns and tasers like they were the most normal gift in the world to give to a hostess.
“Oh yes. You just touch it to the bad guy and push a button. Abracadabra! They’re flopping on the ground.” She demonstrated with an eye roll and a stiff armed twitch. “It's really easy to use. And they make them look like anything nowadays. I have one that looks just like my cell phone. Look.”
The woman rummaged through her bag and then paused with a worried expression, before pulling out two nearly identical looking black phones. She looked from one to the other as she studied them. “A little too much like a real phone sometimes.”
Was this woman fit to be running a business by herself? I wondered. Come to think of it, was she even fit to live unsupervised? At least I could cross her off my suspect list, which was sad, as she and the nun were the only ones on it. I could not see her shooting her husband while dressed as a nun, and not getting caught. “I can't accept this, Bunny. I really do appreciate the thought, though.”
