And Then There Were Nuns Read online

  “What book are you reading now?” a pleasant, round-faced woman named Angela asked practically before I had her and her roommate, Bette, settled in the suite at the front of the house.

  I explained that it was my turn to pick a novel for this month and I’d chosen George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, but since we hadn’t had our first meeting to talk about it, I didn’t know how the others felt about my selection.

  “Stuffy.” Bette wrinkled her nose. “Can’t force readers to read any of the old classics. Too stuffy for most people. The stories move too slow. The situations aren’t anything like the real world today. Our patrons try to read books like that and they get bored. Then they stop reading altogether.”

  “Murder.” Angela pointed at me in a knowing sort of way. “That’s what people really want to read about. Murder and lust and—”

  “Greed and jealousy!” Bette chuckled. “All the things that make the world go round. Find a story with a good ol’ murder mystery and—”

  “No thanks.” I had already given them their room keys and I backed out of the room—and away from their suggestion—as quickly as possible. “Been there, done that. And when we did read a mystery—”

  “That’s right.” Bette’s dark eyes shone with excitement. “Marianne told us. You read Christie and then had a mystery here on the island. Just like in Murder on the Orient Express.”

  “Not taking that chance again,” I told them both, though I didn’t bother to mention that even when we steered clear of whodunits, murder still had a way of rearing its ugly head when the League of Literary Ladies was around. “In the last few months, we’ve read Pride and Prejudice and A Christmas Carol and To Kill a Mockingbird and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. We have been blessedly murder free since back in the fall when we read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow in honor of Halloween.”

  “Marianne told us about that, too,” Angela informed me. “Imagine, a headless ghost!”

  “Which is all he was. Imaginary,” I told them and reminded myself. Even if I was sure I’d seen the specter the night we solved a murder and unraveled an eighty-year-old death to boot. I shook away the thought and the chill that settled on my shoulders. “Classics. Only the classics. That’s all we’re reading from now on. No more murders.”

  “Well, there’s a drowning in The Mill on the Floss,” Angela informed me. “Maybe you haven’t read that far yet. There’s an awful lot of water around here and—”

  This was not something I wanted to think about.

  I reminded the ladies about tea and breakfast and left them to their literary pursuits and I got back downstairs and into the kitchen. I’d just put a plate of cheese and crackers out on the counter when Chandra came in through the back door.

  “All set to help!” Chandra whisked off her purple ruana and draped it over the back of one of the high stools set up next to the black granite breakfast counter. “Ten nuns to feed and plenty of cooking to get done. You ready to get started?” Chandra had eyes the color of the lake on a stormy day and she widened them and gave me a look meant to be as innocent as a lamb. “Or are you still too tired? After all, with the way Levi left here so early this morning . . .”

  I groaned. Bad enough I had to face Levi later that day. I didn’t need Chandra of all people (who couldn’t keep a secret and never wanted to, anyway) spreading stories of my love life all over the island. “He stopped by to pick something up this morning,” I said, lying with the same wide-eyed innocence.

  Chandra batted her eyelashes. “He was here last night.”

  They didn’t need it, but I straightened those ten small meatloaf tins. “For dinner.”

  “His Jeep was parked in your driveway all night.”

  I cursed myself for not realizing that the world’s nosiest neighbor was bound to notice. “He left and came back this morning,” I said.

  “He did not!” Chandra could only maintain her aplomb for so long. She jumped up and down and giggled like a teenager. “He was here. All night long. Details, Bea. I need details!”

  As soon as I realized I’d allowed it to escape, I wiped the smile off my face. Lucky for me, I didn’t have time to do anything else; Luella and Kate arrived.

  “I can’t believe we’re cooking for nuns.” Kate scurried through the kitchen and gave both Chandra and me quick hugs. She’d brought a shopping bag along from a pricey all-organic grocery store over on the mainland, and she swung it up on the countertop. “Whole wheat bread crumbs, brown eggs, and gluten-free ketchup made with cider vinegar.”

  Chandra made a face. “We’re trying to feed them, not bore them to death.”

  Since Kate knew Chandra was kidding, she merely smiled.

  “I still think you should let Meg handle all the meals.” Luella must have just come from her boat. She was wearing tan Carhartt overalls and she peeled out of them and down to her jeans and sweatshirt. “It’s an awful lot of work, cooking for ten. I ought to know. My Joe, he came from a family of ten and we used to have them all over at our place for Thanksgiving dinner.”

  “We’re not doing anything as complicated as Thanksgiving dinner,” I reminded her.

  Chandra tipped her head and tried for a lah-dee-dah Scarlett O’Hara accent. “We simply don’t have the energy.”

  I shot her a look.

  Like I expected that to work?

  Chandra tossed her sleek blond bob. St. Patrick’s Day was long gone, but she’d decided she liked the emerald green streaks she’d added to her hair for the occasion. She must have touched them up since last I saw her; the green stripe on her bangs winked at me in the sunlight. “Go on,” she said, obviously talking to Kate and Luella and just as obviously, ignoring the glare I shot her way. “Ask Bea what she was up to last night.”

  “What Bea was up to last night is Bea’s business.” I tried to sound logical and reasonable. Honest. But with the burden of my upcoming talk with Levi weighing heavy on my heart, I couldn’t help myself. I snapped. And snapped at Chandra while I was at it. “Maybe we’d all be better off if we worried a little more about cooking and a little less about sticking our noses where they don’t belong.”

  Chandra winced as if she’d been slapped. Kate and Luella looked at me in wonder.

  I stayed strong. Or at least I pretended to by going to the fridge and taking out ground beef and the onions I’d chopped the night before.

  “Meatloaf,” I said, slapping the ingredients on the counter. “We need to make meatloaf.”

  It was Chandra’s turn to straighten those meatloaf pans. Kate grabbed the onions. Luella took a big mixing bowl out of the cupboard and as soon as she had it on the counter, I plopped the ground beef into it.

  It probably was no more than a couple seconds, but the silence that filled the room felt like it lasted a lifetime.

  Finally, Chandra cleared her throat. “I have news,” she said, and I gritted my teeth. If she was going to try to bring up the subject of Levi again, I really would lose it.

  Instead, she reached in her pocket, pulled out a single sheet of folded paper, and smoothed it out on the counter.

  From where I was standing I could see it was a drawing of some kind.

  Chandra gave the paper a pat. “I’m putting in a pool,” she announced.

  The stiffness went out of my shoulders when I realized she’d actually surrendered on the subject of Levi. That is, until I realized something else.

  I closed in on the drawing that showed a long rectangle representing Chandra’s house, circles representing the trees on her property, and a square that stood for the patio just outside her back door.

  “You don’t have enough sun for a pool,” I said. “Unless—” The reality of the situation dawned on me and I froze, my finger poised over the drawing and the shape on it that represented the inground pool. “Unless you put the pool right on my property line.”

  “You’re ri
ght, it is the only place with enough sun,” Chandra said. She brushed a finger across the drawing. “Too shady on the other side of the house. And the garden is here and I’m not going to disrupt that, or the patio.” She tapped a finger in the center of the pool. “That leaves here. This spot. It’s the only one that will work.”

  I exchanged looks with Kate and Luella and saw that they were thinking exactly what I was thinking. Utterly surprised, I waited for Kate to speak up. She was, after all, Kate. I knew she would.

  “That’s going to be mighty inconvenient for Bea’s guests,” Kate pointed out. “It will be harder for them to park.”

  “They can pull up farther into the drive.” Chandra was completely unconcerned. “Or they can park along the road.”

  “When Bea’s guests sit on her front porch, all they’re going to see is you in your pool,” Luella added.

  Chandra’s smile was tight. “I hope they like my orange bikini. If not . . .” She shrugged. “Well, they can just look the other way.”

  “But—” I swallowed the rest of what I was going to say because, really, I had no idea what words might tumble out of my mouth and I didn’t want to take the chance of going off half-cocked. At least not until I had a chance to think about the bombshell Chandra had just dropped.

  “That’s not the only improvement I’m planning on making.”

  I snapped out of my thoughts and saw Chandra poke a finger at another portion of the drawing, at a spot almost directly in front of her door—directly across from Kate’s house. “A driveway light.” Chandra tap, tap, tapped the drawing. “Right here. Isn’t that a good idea? There aren’t many lights on the island and no streetlights outside of downtown. This will make my house easier to find for the people I do crystal and tarot readings for. And it will help you out, too, Bea,” she added with a look my way that clearly said I should be grateful she’d thought of this. “When you have guests coming after dark, you can tell them to look for the light and it will help them find your place next door.”

  “The light . . .” Kate whipped the drawing off the countertop so she could give it a more careful look. “Your landscape designer needs a little more practice,” she said. “The whole drawing is out of proportion. The way it is, that light looks—”

  “Really big. It is!” Chandra cooed. “He found me an old street corner gas lamp and he’s refitting it for electricity. So yeah, it’s bigger than a regular lamppost might be, but it’s going to look terrific. Don’t you think?”

  A muscle twitched at the base of Kate’s jaw. “It’s going to be bright.”

  “That’s the whole point,” Chandra reminded her.

  “But that light is directly opposite my bedroom window and—”

  Chandra plucked the drawing out of Kate’s hand and folded it in quarters. “You’ll get used to it,” she assured Kate, who did not look at all convinced. “Just think of the romance of the whole thing, that light glowing through the darkness, all night long.”

  “All night long.” Kate grumbled the words under her breath.

  Before she could say more, I put a hand on her arm and told her with a look that we’d put our heads together later and talk about these latest unneighborly developments.

  Big surprise, Kate actually followed my advice. Her lips pressed together, she sprinkled bread crumbs on the ground meat, and I went to find a big spoon to mix the meatloaf mixture.

  “Ten nuns, huh?” Big points for Luella, she tried her best to relieve the tension with a little small talk. “Are they nice women?”

  “Very nice,” I told her. “And really impressive. They do all kinds of interesting things. There’s one who runs a food pantry and another one who works at a shelter for homeless women.”

  Luella nodded. “Nice.”

  “Any that are interested in animal rights?” Chandra asked.

  Kate, Luella, and I stared at her in wonder.

  “What?” Chandra had taken the eggs out of the shopping bag and set them down on the counter but she took one look at them, and as if in solidarity with unborn chicks everywhere, she hooked her fingers together behind her back and raised her chin. “I’ve had a revelation,” she announced. “About the sanctity of all life. You’d think nuns would think that, too.”

  “Not about eggs, I don’t think.” I grabbed the eggs, cracked them into a bowl, and whisked them.

  Kate harrumphed under her breath. “Does that mean you’re becoming a vegan?” she asked Chandra.

  “I might.” Chandra thought this over while she crunched a cracker.

  “You probably can’t eat those, then,” I told her, pointing to the bit of cracker left in her hand. “I bet there’s some milk in them, and milk is an animal product.”

  “And you definitely can’t eat the cheese.” Kate scooped the platter off the counter and set it down out of Chandra’s reach.

  “I said I might.” Chandra finished off the last of her cracker and wiped crumbs from her lips. “Besides, I’m not so much worried about cows and chickens and animals like that. I’m thinking more about fish.”

  Luella had been stirring the meatloaf mixture and her hands froze, mid-mix. “You haven’t been talking to those crazy PAFLE people, have you? I saw them on the island last week, protesting down near the marina. People Against Fishing Lake Erie. Imagine a bunch of nonsense like that.”

  “Maybe it’s not nonsense,” Chandra suggested. “Maybe they’ve got a point. After all, they say that overfishing—”

  “Overfishing my eye!” With the big mixing spoon, Luella gave the meat mixture a slap. “Those of us who depend on fishing for a living know a thing or two about being responsible. More than a bunch of bleeding hearts who think fish should swim free and never get caught.”

  “Swim free and never get caught.” Chandra’s voice was dreamy. “I like the sound of that. I’ll suggest it as a slogan at our next meeting.”

  When she gritted her teeth, Luella’s jaw just about snapped. “Next meeting of—”

  “People Against Fishing Lake Erie, of course.” Chandra’s smile was bright. “They’ve started up a new chapter here on the island. I’m the secretary.”

  * * *

  In the great scheme of things, it is a good thing that itty-bitty meatloaves cook faster than full-size ones.

  It meant Kate, Luella, and I didn’t have to keep our tempers in check and our tongues under control for long while we finished cooking.

  Which didn’t mean I didn’t notice that Luella peeled the potatoes with a whole lot of gusto and chopped them with mighty whacks.

  Or that Kate didn’t scrub the carrots a little more fiercely than was absolutely necessary.

  At the risk of being accused of not being self-aware, I will admit that I mixed up a batch of brownies with all the fury of a woman possessed, plopping them into the pan to bake and trying not to think how when each scoop of batter hit, the sound reminded me of a body flumping into a swimming pool.

  And Chandra?

  Well, that’s the weird thing. Because Chandra—queen of the warm and touchy, empress of the empathetic, and princess of let’s-get-it-all-out-in-the-open-and-talk-about-our-feelings—hummed a little tune and scampered around the kitchen helping out and acting for all the world as if there was nothing wrong.

  Weird.

  And an hour into the melodrama, I told myself not to get my knickers in a twist.

  I kept the thought in mind while we packed ten individual dinners, sliced the brownies and put them on a serving platter, and grabbed a bag of extra dark roast Colombian coffee just in case one of the nuns was (like me) partial to a morning cup with a little extra jolt.

  Thus supplied, we loaded my SUV and headed for Water’s Edge.

  “You really didn’t have to come along,” I said, more to break the icy silence than because I thought it mattered. “I could have delivered the food myself.”
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  “We said we’d help. We’re helping.” Next to me in the front seat, Luella folded her hands in her lap.

  “And I’m dying to see the house.” From the backseat, Chandra leaned forward. “Think they’ll let us explore?”

  “Why, want to root through the attic and look for another streetlamp?” Kate’s question was acid.

  “Oh, no! One is plenty!” Chandra twittered.

  Luella and I exchanged looks just as we drove through the gates of Water’s Edge. After that, the three of them were too busy gawking to say a word.

  “All these years, and I’ve never been here.” Luella shook her head. “It’s impressive.”

  “It’s gorgeous,” Kate said when we pulled up in front of the house. “This is the place you should have bought as a bed-and-breakfast, Bea.”

  “Except it wasn’t for sale then,” I reminded her. “And it’s kind of spooky.”

  Then again, Water’s Edge was nice and secluded and if I lived here, I wouldn’t have to worry about a swimming pool practically in my front yard.

  As soon as we parked, the front door opened and Sister Catherine and Sister Francelle and Sister Paul spilled out of the house, eager to help us carry dinner inside.

  “We’ve got the table set,” Sister Catherine said. In the last of the late afternoon light, her gray habit made her look ghostly. “It’s so nice of you to spoil us this way.”

  “Not a problem,” I told her. “Have you gotten everything organized for the week?”

  “Almost,” she assured me, leading the way into the dining room where elderly Sister Margaret was already seated at the table, a glass of wine in front of her.

  “Time?” she asked, and when Sister Catherine nodded, Sister Margaret rang the little silver bell near her plate.

  A minute later, we heard the sound of footsteps on the wooden floor overhead and on the stairs and nuns filled the dining room.

  Sister Catherine, and Sister Margaret, and Sister Helene, and Sister Paul. Sister Liliosa and Sister Grace and Sister Mary Jean and shy Sister Gabriel and Sister Francelle and—