Lovely, Dark and Deep (The Madeline Mann Mysteries)

by Buckley, Julia

  “What's there to be afraid of? You love him, he loves you. That means you can confide in—” I saw the trap I'd walked into even before I heard Jack snort behind me. We had talked no more about the Sister Joanna interview, but I intended fully to give him all of the details after my family left. Jack might not believe this, but it was true.

  I felt the warmth of a blush in my face and said, “Let's get out of here. It's too hot in this kitchen.” In the dining room I called everyone to dinner. Sandra set her bread on the table, and I winked at her. I really must be my mother's daughter, because I was all ready to pin Gerhard in a corner somewhere and solve his love problems for him. I guess that makes me kind of controlling. I generally see it as a cross I have to bear, an accident of DNA. Jack sees it as something I choose.

  Still, I was loving Jack this evening, for being musician to the little dancer, for making the meal and not really taking credit.

  “I made everything,” Jack said, walking in with a steaming pot of sauce. So much for his humility.

  My mother had torn her glance away from Veronica, who was being seated on some phone books by my father, to give me a concerned look. She seemed to think something was amiss between Jack and me. Her radar must have been a sort of hereditary precursor to my vibes. My father, arranging Veronica, wore a doting expression. His hands lingered on her chubby little arms. “I'm remembering another little girl in a tutu,” he said, looking at me.

  “I never wore a tutu,” I protested, as Jack slaved around us.

  “You were a sweet little dancing angel. You took lessons from Mrs. Angelini, remember her?”

  “No,” I said. I was about to change the subject to Gerhard and Sandra, who sat shyly next to one another, when Veronica looked at me.

  “Should I say the prayer?” she asked loudly. For a girl of a couple feet in height, she had a voice that really carried.

  I looked at her, rather taken aback. I had grown up in a home where prayers were said before every meal, and in bed at night. This was a ritual my parents still continued today, but I'd gotten away from it, and occasionally forgot, when prayer-saying company was over.

  “That would be lovely,” I told Veronica.

  “God watches over us,” she said, wide eyed and serious. “And Lord listens to our prayers.”

  Sandra smiled. “Veronica is in Sunday school. They hear a lot of stories and parables and things. She's still kind of learning—you know—about the Trinity.”

  “Aren't we all,” said Fritz with feeling, staring at the food. Fritz had never exactly been a whiz in religion class.

  Veronica folded her little hands and insisted that we all do it, as well. She looked sternly around at us as she said, “Thank you for Mom, thank you for Gerhard, thank you for my dress, thank you for Grandpa and Grandma Astor, thank you for dis food—”

  I suppressed the urge to look at my watch as Veronica thanked God for a litany of things. Finally she finished by thanking the Lord for every one of us. I looked at her little face, so serene as she trusted that some giant man in the sky would take care of everything for her and smile benevolently when she paid homage. I thought of Sister Moira and her simple faith.

  Jack finally sat down next to me, and we began passing dishes around, one big happy family. Gerhard told us that Sandra was a teacher; that her mother watched Veronica during the day while Sandra taught second grade. “Mommy writes on the board,” Veronica said. She'd been served first, with noodles cut up small by her mother, and tiny chunks of a meatball, which she ate with a cake fork. Spaghetti sauce wreathed her lips and made her look like a miniscule clown.

  Fritz spoke to her, I think for the first time. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked. His face, when he talked to her, seemed suddenly older, manlike. Fritz was my little brother, and I'd been guilty of always seeing him as a boy. Now, though, seeing him next to a human much smaller, I was more aware of his facial hair, his deep voice, the muscles in his forearms. I felt a little pang of sadness.

  “I'd like to be a—hmm.” Veronica thought, playing with her noodles. “I guess I'll be a cook.”

  Sandra laughed. “That's a new one,” she said.

  “Not a ballerina?” asked my mother.

  “That, too,” said the little girl.

  We all laughed, and then, pursuing something that had been in my mind since the prayer, I said, “So your last name is Astor, Sandra?” She nodded at me, and drank some wine. “You're not related to someone named Rick Astor, are you?” I asked.

  Sandra's eyes widened with surprise. “My dad is Rick Astor.”

  I really hate coincidences, because they seem somehow sinister to me, as though everything has been planned in advance by people who are watching your reaction when you find out. They also seem, once you experience them, somehow inevitable.

  Everyone stared at me. I cleared my throat. “Is he a reporter? Or was he once?”

  Sandra cocked her head like a confused puppy. “He used to write for the paper here in Webley. The paper you write for—the Wire. Now he writes for Success Magazine.”

  Wow. Success was a glossy monthly geared toward the affluent, the sophisticated. I imagined it was a pretty cushy job, working there. “I ran across one of his old stories today, and then I noticed the name, when Veronica was saying the prayer.”

  “How neat,” said Sandra, cutting a bit of sausage in half.

  “I actually need to get in touch with him, so maybe you can help me out with that.”

  This surprised everyone at the table, despite the fact that I am a reporter, and need to interview people all of the time. My family sometimes seemed to see my profession as some kind of hobby that they didn't need to take seriously. They all peered at me now, some chewing, some not.

  “Why do you need to contact Mr. Astor?” my mother asked.

  “He covered a story many years ago, a story we're looking into again.” I tried not to look at Jack, but some sort of magnetic force made my eyes lock onto his. He was trying hard to wear no expression at all, but I knew better. Just a touch of a tremor at the corner of his lip suggested he was feeling an emotion, and possibly biting back some words.

  “Anyway, I need to ask him questions. He's a crucial link in a case that's been dead a long time.”

  Gerhard raised his eyebrows. “What's the case, Madeline? Why be so mysterious?”

  I wasn't sure why, but I knew I didn't want to mention it to those assembled at the table. Bad vibes, back for another visit. Then again, sometimes I just feel the need to, as we said in kindergarten, “act big.” “Uh—actually, it's the investigation into the death of Sister Joanna,” I said, looking at my bread.

  There was silence, so I looked up. Most faces just looked surprised. My father looked quite interested; Sandra's response, however, was the least expected. She adjusted Veronica's bib, and looked at me with something like anger.

  “Why that case?” she asked. “My father covered all kinds of news for that paper. Why the Sister Joanna story?”

  “I can't really go into that right now,” I said hesitantly. “It's just something that I find I have to look into. I found your dad's name in the byline, that's all.”

  Sandra continued to look stormy, and Gerhard leaned toward her, sending me a glance that was half baleful, half confused. He was protecting her, but he didn't know what from.

  “My father got fired over that story,” she said softly.

  The vibe I got from that information was so strong it made me push my plate away. Why would Rick Astor be fired for his reporting on the story of Sister Joanna? How could this case have been dropped when everything I encountered pointed to something mysterious? I knew that I had to see Rick Astor soon.

  “No way!” yelled Fritz, obviously enjoying the growing tension. “What for? Did he use obscenities or something?”

  “Fritz,” my mother hissed. “Little ears.”

  Fritz looked at her, wearing a fake confused face. “What? Obscenities isn't a bad word, it's abou
t bad words.”

  Veronica, finally done feeding her little face, shared some news: “I know a bad word.”

  Sandra blushed and hurried to say, “No you don't.” She tried to distract Veronica with a picture of a pine cone on the paper napkin. (They were left over from Christmas).

  “Yes, I do,” said the little imp, ignoring her mother. “Butt.”

  This sent Fritz and Gerhard into gales of laughter. Even my mother looked as though she'd like to indulge, but had to maintain her dignity as the noble matriarch at the table. Jack smiled, stood up, and started to clear plates. “Dessert and coffee in the living room in about half an hour,” he said, as people started to make leaving motions.

  Veronica treated us to an after-dinner prayer that was shorter but less understandable than the previous one, and then we went into the next room in search of comfortable chairs. I grabbed Sandra in the kitchen doorway. “Listen, I didn't mean to upset you. But I really do need to talk to your dad, so you could save me some leg work if you wrote down his number.”

  Sandra seemed to have recovered from the coincidence much better than I had, and went to retrieve one of her father's cards from her purse. Gerhard suddenly loomed over me, probably ready to make a sermon in the "what do you mean by upsetting my girl" vein, so I took the easy way out.

  “Gerhard,” I said, “that girl is in love with you, and the sooner you both acknowledge it, the better for us all.” His mouth was still open, but he didn't speak. His face displayed the following emotions, in order: surprise, joy, determination. Without saying a word to me, he marched toward my bedroom, wherein waited Sandra and her purse.

  Jack appeared behind me. “Can I have a little KP help?” he asked.

  I turned toward him. “Maybe. Can I have a little kiss?”

  Jack obliged me with one, sliding his arms around my waist.

  “I'd like to tell you some more stuff, about Sister Joanna. I'm sorry I didn't before,” I said quietly. “That was lame, as Fritz would say.”

  “It was. If you don't trust me—”

  “You know I do,” I said crossly. “I just have these instinctive responses that betray my real feelings.” I saw that my mother, across the room, was looking approvingly at our little hugging session. I sensed, though, that Jack needed something more.

  “Excuse me, everyone,” I called out. Fritz, my parents, and Veronica looked up at me. “I'd like to publicly apologize to Jack Shea for earlier transgressions, and to say that I'd trust him with my life.”

  Everyone beamed at this goofy pronouncement, and my father yelled, “You are trusting him with your life. You're marrying him, aren't you?”

  The merry sounds continued then, and Jack smiled and led the way back into the kitchen. I found myself wishing, though, that my father hadn't presented marriage in quite that way.

  After Gerhard and Sandra took a very sleepy Veronica out the door, Fritz and my parents decided that they, too, should leave. Jack and I walked them down to our tiny parking lot, and chatted with them for a while in the cold. My undying attraction to my fiance can best be demonstrated by the fact that, while we stood talking in the thirty degree weather, I focused on the condensed breath Jack left on the air, and found it sexy.

  My mother finally told us we would all catch our deaths, and that we should go upstairs, and got into her car. My father gallantly shut the door for her and kissed me quickly before he ran around to his. Fritz slid into the back; he had bummed a ride from my parents. I waved at my family as they drove away.

  “Look at the stars,” said Jack. I gazed upward. There were many, and they were intensely bright in the cold darkness. “Aren't they beautiful?” he asked, putting his arm around me.

  I nodded. “But it's not fair about stars. They look like a million glamorous diamonds, but they're just gaseous, flaming rocks. There's nothing romantic about them, in reality.”

  Jack laughed. “My little cynic. They're beautiful no matter what they are. And the beauty isn't an illusion, Madeline. You have to leave room in your life for little miracles.”

  I was getting tired of people saying this to me. “I'm sleepy,” I said, though I wasn't. I just didn't want to look at those miraculous stars any more.

  We went inside. Jack's hand, though gloveless, was warm. Jack was always warm.

  Inside, while Jack got on pajamas, I called Cindy. Cindy is my best friend. She lives in Colorado, where she works at a battered women's shelter. Cindy went to grade school with me (Saint Mary of the Angels) and to high school at Saint Roselle, and even one year of college at Saint Fred's before she transferred to Colorado State. We knew everything about each other, going way back. We shared a history. A very Catholic history.

  I called her and told her about Sister Moira, about her suspicions, about Sister Francis, and Rick Astor.

  “Wow,” she said. “Gosh, that brings up old pain, talking about Sister Joanna.”

  Cindy had been in the choir, had known Joanna well, unlike me. Still, I knew I should remember some of Cindy's grief at the time, and yet I didn't. I told her this.

  “Well, you had a lot going on back then, Madeline. And you never really talked about it to anyone—”

  “But what do you think about this Joanna thing? I mean, does it seem crazy?”

  Cindy sighed. “I don't know. I see violence a lot, Madeline, and worse yet it's violence in the name of love. So it's not hard for me to believe that anyone would murder anyone else. And yet, having known Sister Joanna, it seems surreal.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Cindy's voice took on its old, comfortable, joking tone. “Listen, after the wedding, when are you going to come see me? We'll hike in the Rockies and sing The Happy Wanderer. Your mom always loved that song. Remember? Fal de ree, Fal de rah! Fal de REE, Fal de ra ha ha ha ha ha fal de REE!”

  I laughed with her, the juvenile laughter that made us eternal schoolgirls. Then she surprised me. “Hey, next time we talk we'll go back to that other subject, okay?”

  I shrugged, even though she couldn't see me. “It's not a deep psychological thing. I just had some issues, I suppose.”

  “It's on the agenda. I've got to go; I'm on the help line tonight.”

  I thought of all the women out there who might need to call Cindy and tell her they weren't safe. I felt a sudden wave of sadness. “You go, girl. Fal de ree.”

  “Fal de rah.”

  Friendship has a language all its own, and so does love. I went to Jack, and told him what I'd told Cindy: the story of Sister Moira's haunted dream.

  Chapter Four

  Tuesday morning we had no time to rehash our ghostly nun conversation from the night before. I saw Jack grab his guitar along with his briefcase. “Why the axe?” I asked as he bolted down a glass of orange juice. Jack was perpetually in a hurry before school.

  “I'm going to practice a little after work, with Juan O'Leary.” Juan was one of Jack's senior students. As might be guessed, he had an Irish father and a Latino mother, and they'd compromised on his name. I'd met Juan a couple of times when I went to Webley High to visit Jack. He was a typical wise-guy teenager, but he was an undeniably talented musician. A natural, Jack said. Sometimes he and Jack liked to play together. “We're going to try and put something together for the coffee house.”

  Jack had been talked into playing some coffee house sessions at a new restaurant in town called The Sneaky Moon. His friend Martin was the manager of the place. Jack hid it well, but I could tell he was really excited. I was excited for him, and I knew that he and Juan would make quite an impression.

  “Well, that's fun,” I said. “Can you spare time for a make-out session?” I joked, pursing my lips.

  “No. But one smooch, I always have time for,” Jack responded. He leaned in to kiss me, his guitar case smacking against my legs. Then he jogged to the door. “Gotta run,” he said, and he was gone. I heard him thumping down the steps and then stowing all of his equipment in his car.

  I looked out the kitchen window i
n time to see Jack driving off. I sighed with the morning regret of the truly lazy, until I remembered that I needed to call Rick Astor. I jogged to my purse and retrieved the business card Sandra had given me, then dialed the number of the cell phone. Sandra had told me the night before that her dad's office was in Chicago, but he only had to go there sporadically, and did a lot of his writing at home.

  “Hello?” said a man's voice after three rings.

  “Hello, is this Rick Astor?” I asked.

  “This is Rick.” He sounded busy. I could hear keys tapping in the background.

  “My name is Madeline Mann. I write for the Webley Wire. Your daughter Sandra is dating my brother Gerhard—”

  Rick's voice warmed considerably. “You're Gerhard's sister? Well, well. I've read your stuff, Madeline. It's good. The stuff on the mayor was priceless. I'm glad to see you back in the game after your little incident at the festival.” I think for the rest of my life most people would perceive me as “that girl who got shot at the festival.” It's inaccurate, anyway; I got shot down the street and merely bled and fainted at the festival.

  Astor was still talking in my ear. “I guess I hadn't realized Gerhard was your brother, even though the name's the same. Gerhard hasn't told me much family stuff. I think I intimidate him.” There was a bit of laughter in his voice. “He's a great kid. He's good for my daughter.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. For some reason I had a sudden image of Gerhard, about nine years old, the soul of patience, helping me learn to tell time: Don't cry, Maddy, lots of people have trouble figuring it out. Look, see how I move the hands? This is five, this is ten . . . I smiled into the phone. “He'll be good for your granddaughter, too. I wondered if you had time for me to ask you a few questions about an old investigation of yours.” I took a breath. “The Sister Joanna story.”

  To my surprise, Rick began to laugh. “Sister Joanna, eh? I knew it would come back to bite us in the ass.”