Rueful Death Read Online Free PDF

Bernice's mistake was giving her a new view of herself.
    "Make that three," I said, but unlike Maggie, I'm not above tweaking the town grapevine. "Is something going on at St T's?"
    Bernice wiped her hands on her apron. I could have sworn she was wearing Midnight in Paris. Maybe she was. The five-and-dime across the street might still have a few of those little blue forty-nine-cent bottles stashed under the counter.
    "Some folks say it's just coinkidinks. Other folks think it's bad luck." She raised both plucked eyebrows. "Ya ask me, somebody's tryin' to fix their wagon."
    Ruby was looking divinely unconcerned. Maggie was trying not to listen. "Whose wagon?" I asked.
    "Why, them nuns, of course." Bernice bent over my shoulder and lowered her grainy voice. ' 'You go out there, you watch yourself, y'hear? Keep a bucket o' water by your bed."
    There was a moment of silence. Then Maggie sighed the sigh of someone who's been trapped into a knock-knock joke. "Okay, Bernice, we give up. Why should we keep a bucket of water by the bed?"
    Bernice feigned surprise. "What? Oh, sorry, Margaret Mary. I thought you wadn't interested."
    "Has there been a fire?" I asked.
    "Christmas Eve, in the chapel." Bernice's voice signified disaster. "Wadn't the first, neither. Thanksgivin', it was a grease fire in the kitchen. Couple weeks 'fore that, the barn."
    "Grease?" Maggie was incredulous. "Why would there be grease in the kitchen? They don't cook fried foods."
    "Did any of the fires do much damage?" I asked.
    "Not a whole lot." Bernice waved her hand. "You remember Dwight Baldwin, Margaret Mary? The maintenance man? Well, Dwight was out in the yard when the kitchen got afire, an' he run in an' grabbed a pot lid. He got to the barn fire, too, 'fore it could spread, and he and Father Steven put out the chapel fire. None of 'em had much of a chance to git goin'. But it all adds up, don'cha see?"
    "Adds up to what?" 1 asked.
    She gave me a withering look. "To one coinkidink too many, that's what. You mark my words-somebody's got it in for them nuns." She turned to Ruby and modulated her tone. "You oughta try a piece of Betty Ann's peach pie, Sister. She brung it in this morning. Fredericksburg peaches, fresh outta her freezer."
    Ruby couldn't resist. "Bless you, my daughter," she murmured. Beatrice smiled and walked briskly toward the kitchen.
    "Bernice must be exaggerating," Maggie said. "If the fires were serious, Dominica would have written to me." She frowned. "But I haven't heard from her since before Christmas. I wonder…"
    We stirred our coffee. A mechanical cuckoo popped out of a red-plastic cuckoo clock and whisded the first bars of "The Eyes of Texas." Johnny Cash had finished "Ring of
    Fire" and Buddy Holly was starting on "Peggy Sue." After a moment, Ruby poured cream into her coffee and leaned toward Maggie.
    "I've known you for over two years and I've never heard how you got to be a nun, Maggie.''
    Maggie's mouth was wry. "Why did I do such a crazy thing, you mean?"
    Still captured by the image of herself as a monastic, Ruby frowned. "Maybe it wasn't crazy," she said.
    "My mother thought I'd lost my mind," Maggie said reflectively. "I'd just finished my degree in social work, and I was volunteering with the Sisters of the Holy Heart in Chicago. One morning I woke up, put on my clothes, walked into the Vocations Office at the convent, and said, 'I want to be a nun.' "
    Ruby blinked. "That was it?"
    "That was it," Maggie said matter-of-factly. "No finger of God, no choir of angels, no heavenly light. It was just something I had to do. It didn't even feel like I had a choice."
    "How did you get from Chicago to Texas?" I asked.
    "I ran into Mother Hilaria at a conference. She was looking for sisters to help get St. T's up and running. I told her I wasn't interested, but she wrote to me and sent me some pictures and…" She was tracing a wet design on the table with the tip of her spoon. "God wanted me here, I guess. So I came. If it