Gilman, Dorothy - A Nun in the Closet Read online

  Here Naomi returned carrying paper grocery bags and rubber bands and they went to work again binding up the bills and stowing them neatly away for the trip on Monday to the safe-deposit box. This done, they persuaded Sister John to move the bags to a safer place now that Sister Ursula had discovered the preserve closet to be a direct route to the wine cellar.

  "Where, then?" asked Sister John as they labored upstairs with the bags and deposited them on the kitchen floor. "We have bags of this and bags of that; if we're not careful we'll end up putting mustard in the safe-deposit box."

  "I say the second floor because that's where you sleep," said Brill. "In case of fire you just toss the bags out the window. Yourselves, too," he added generously.

  "Too close to Sister Ursula; that man has a definite nose for money," said Alfie.

  "What about the refrigerator?" asked Sister Hyacinthe. "It's empty nearly all the time."

  This appeared logical to them and they carried the paper bags of money to the refrigerator and stowed them away inside, which reminded Alfie that it was long past his dinner hour. When he ventured to speak of this Naomi gave him a quelling glance. "You've forgotten. Sister John promised to tell us when the money was counted what she hopes to do with this incredible four hundred thousand."

  "Four hundred twenty-one thousand and nine," corrected Sister Hyacinthe.

  "To be used for the glory of God," said Sister John, her eyes luminous. "I'd be delighted to tell you because if it weren't for you-I felt it all take shape in the early hours of the morning, after Sister Isabelle was bailed out of jail. I saw it." She walked to the door and looked out over the garden through the privet hedge to the line of woods beyond. "I saw it very clearly," she said, her voice dreaming. "A small community, perhaps thirty migrant families with their children . . . I saw thirty small houses with room for little gardens behind them, and one large communal garden-perhaps seventy-five acres-where a number of cash crops could be raised for the support of all the families. The remaining acres would be woods. I saw the men going off to pick beans and grapes and apples for neighboring farmers but it would be done by contract, as free men, and they'd come home at night to their own homes. I saw the shacks no longer used and collapsing, the children growing educated, the women growing a crop very new to them-hope." She turned and said almost defiantly. "They've done something like that in Florida, Sister Isabelle told me so. Thirty families wouldn't be many, but if you toss just one pebble into a pond the ripples reach the farthest shore."

  There was a long silence and then Naomi said skeptically. "In Gatesville?"

  Brill said nothing; his hands hung at his sides, his eyes remote while he thought about it. At last he said curtly, "Do you know-can you possibly realize-what you'd be up against? City zoning laws, sewage commissions, roads, taxes, bureaucratic snarls, indifferent contractors, inflated costs, not to mention prejudice, and everyone thinking it wonderful but wanting it built somewhere else?"

  Sister John said in a shocked voice, "Of course it wouldn't be easy."

  "You're going to recommend that to the abbess?" faltered Sister Hyacinthe. "But who would do all that work?"

  Alfie gave her an amused glance. "Sister John, of course."

  "But she's in cloister!"

  Bhanjan Singh chuckled. "If in cloister she has grown the inner strength of ten would you have her spend it on mending a printing press when she could mend a little of the world? As your Ecclesiastes says, to everything there is a season . . . or if I may quote the I Ching, 'Respectfully contemplate the ebb and flow, the unending succession of repletion and depletion that constitutes the way to heaven.' "

  "Well?" said Alfie, staring at Brill.

  A slow smile spread across Brill's bearded face. "It's great, it's really beautiful. Maybe I'm jealous, being a burned-out case at twenty-five, tired of hassles, cynical and ready for my own kind of cloister. But, I've got some glorious leftover ideas I can bequeath you, Sister John, I can give you hard-earned tips on cost sheets, stubborn mayors, the media and hostile zoning boards."

  "I know that," Sister John said simply. "Can we begin talking about it right now?"

  "There goes dinner," sighed Alfie, and then, brightening, "I'll tell you what. Yesterday was payday: You and Brill talk and I'll drive to that fried chicken place down the road and buy everybody a rousing good dinner. My treat."

  "I'll pay for ice cream," volunteered Naomi.

  "A feast," marveled Sister Hyacinthe. "Won't Sister Ursula be pleased? I'll just run up and tell him."

  "Ask him what flavor ice cream," Naomi called after her, and they moved slowly into the hall, Brill and Naomi counting money into Alfie's palm.

  Sister Hyacinthe hurried eagerly back down the stairs, and from the landing Sister Ursula called, "Make mine any exotic flavor they have, I'm very partial to things like pistachio nut and almond chip."

  Alfie grinned. "I would have guessed that even if you hadn't told me, Sister Ursula." He stood in the doorway shrugging into a sweater and then he leaned forward, peering intently through the screen door as he wrestled with its sleeves. "Who the heck's sitting in Mr. Armisbruck's van?"

  "No one, of course," said Sister John, coming to his side and glancing down the steps toward the car. "That's strange," she added, seeing the silhouette of a figure seated at the wheel.

  "What's strange?" asked Brill.

  Without replying Sister John opened the door and walked across to the porch and down the steps; Brill and Alfie followed. "Hey, wait for me," Naomi called. "I'm supposed to carry the ice cream, remember?"

  Sister John walked around the front of the van, glancing through the windshield as she approached the door beside the driver's seat. She said in a quiet voice, "It's Sheriff McGee," and her right hand moved to describe the sign of a cross.

  For a moment Alfie didn't understand. He said, "Hey, Sheriff!" and reaching in front of Sister John wrenched open the door of the van.

  The sheriff, sitting rigidly upright, fell across the wheel with his face turned toward them. It was obvious from his wide and vacant stare that he was dead: there was a wet red bullet hole between his eyes.

  "Oboy," said Alfie, swallowing with difficulty.

  "What is it?" asked Sister Hyacinthe, coming up behind him.

  "Sheriff McGee-he's dead."

  "That's ridiculous," said Sister Hyacinthe. "How can he be dead when only a few hours ago he stole our sugar?"

  "I don't know, Sister Hyacinthe, he's dead, that's all. Somebody shot him."

  "You're absolutely sure he's dead?" said Brill, looking dazed.

  "Absolutely," Alfie said, drawing back and looking a little sick. "There's an even bigger hole in the back of his head and no sign of any heartbeat." He stood staring at the sheriff, and when he looked up, his gaze moving to the driveway, the last vestige of color drained from his face. "Good God, somebody's coming," he said in an anguished voice. "A car with lots of men in it."

  "Oh dear," said Sister John, "I certainly didn't expect them so soon."

  14

  "Expect who?" demanded Sister Hyacinthe.

  "Never mind who-hide the sheriff," cried Alfie. "Good God, how could we ever explain him? Hide him in the back."

  "No time," said Brill. "Push him down"

  Sister John closed her eyes, folded her hands and murmured, "Graciously hear, O Lord, the prayers we address to Thee, by which we humbly entreat Thy mercy-"

  "He won't stay down, he keeps popping up. Brill, for heaven's sake help me!"

  "-to receive into the kingdom of peace and light the soul of Thy servant Sheriff McGee-"

  "He's down, thank God. Close the door on him, Naomi."

  "They're here," said Brill. "Sister John?"

  "Amen," she finished, and opened her eyes.

  A long blue limousine came to a stop at a discreet distance from the van, a car door flew open and two men jumped out, one racing to the east corner of the house and vanishing into the shrubbery, the other hurrying to the west side. Neither gave
so much as a glance to the small group clustered around the van. The driver of the car stepped out, opened the right-hand rear door and helped a man in a dark pin-stripe suit to descend. He was short and silverhaired, impeccably groomed with a face that bore slashing black lines like a Buffet print: a pair of sharp verticals from nose to mouth, a pair of thick horizontal brows, a deep vertical between the eyes. "All right," he said, looking them over coldly, "no need to be frightened, nobody's going to get hurt, this is only a social call. Just move away from that van now-"

  "Gladly," gasped Alfie.

  "-and go back in the house."

  "Sister John, who are these men?" Sister Hyacinthe asked plaintively.

  "I think," she said, "that we are being visited by the Mafia."

  "You're kidding," said Alfie.

  "You've got to be kidding," said Naomi.

  "Mafia?" repeated Brill, and then dawning comprehension, "Mafia?"

  "And I believe," added Sister John with a pleasant smile, "that this would be Mr. Scozzafava-Mr. Frank Scozzafava-am I right?"

  Instead of responding, the man looked appalled. "Get them inside," he ordered sharply. "Hide the car in the barn. Pronto."

  "It's the Mafia all right," said Naomi.

  "And if we don't want to go?" asked Alfie.

  "Don't be funny," snapped the man. "I told you this is a social call-see you keep it that way." He turned on his heel and stalked up the steps to the porch, waved Bhanjan Singh aside from the door and went into the house.

  "Social call?" protested Alfie. "One of those first two men carried a gun, I swear it."

  "Then he has very poor manners," said Sister John, and lifting her skirts led the way up the porch steps. Finding Bhanjan Singh just inside the door, she said in a low voice, "Sister Ursula?"

  He lifted his eyes heavenward, she nodded and walked into the living room where their newest guest stood scowling. "All right, how do you know who I am?" he demanded.

  "You really are Mr. Scozzafava then," said Sister John pleased. "Would you be Sister Emma's father, or perhaps a brother?"

  He stopped in the act of lighting a cigarette with a dazzling gold lighter. "So that's it, you're from St. Tabitha's Abbey. But my daughter's dead," he pointed out, "and what's more to the point she'd be alive now if she'd listened to her father's advice and married instead, so we'll change the subject because I didn't come here to talk about my daughter."

  "I didn't think you had," Sister John told him, "but you did say this is purely a social call?"

  "I never say what I don't mean." He observed her frankly, with irony in his gaze. "You're a tough cookie, Sister, you don't scare easy, you've given us a hard time not budging from this house." He glanced toward the hall and casually waved a hand. "You others stay out there, I'll deal directly with the sister here. Sit down, Sister."

  Sister John seated herself on the couch and told him reassuringly, "You needn't reproach yourself, Mr. Scozzafava, you certainly did all you could to encourage us to leave, in fact some of your efforts were very ingenious, but obviously God didn't want us to go."

  "Please, spare me a sermon," he told her, holding up a hand. "I'd rather keep the house, frankly; it's been useful, but if Joe left it to you legally I'll throw in the towel like a gentleman. However, there happen to be some things here that belong to us," he added, fixing her with a chilly eye, "and we've come to move them out. We can, I think, be reasonable about this?"

  "Probably," said Sister John, and asked with interest, "What would those things be?"

  "Nothing either you or your abbey could possibly be interested in. Boys-you know where to look, get moving. Where's Joe?"

  "Here, boss," said a fourth man, strolling in through the front door. "The car's in the barn, the place checked back and front and Roy's going to guard the front door."

  As the light in the hall illuminated the man's face Sister Hyacinthe gasped, "Why, Mr. Ianicelli!"

  He gave her a sheepish glance and tipped his hat. "Evening, Sister."

  "And Mr. Smith from the Cowbell Dairy!" exclaimed Sister John, her gaze moving to the man behind him. "Is Mr. Giovianni here, too?"

  Ianicelli looked blank. "Giovianni? Don't know any Giovianni."

  "Perhaps he really was a census taker then," she said, "I don't believe you've met my companions, Mr. Scozzafava. That's Sister Hyacinthe in the doorway, and behind her is Mr. Bhanjan Singh, and next to him is-"

  Mr. Scozzafava's hand moved again to cut her off. "Please, Sister, we'll be out of here in five minutes. Okay, Joe, Charlie, Pete, get moving, let's wrap this up."

  They moved in unison out of the hall and disappeared into the kitchen. In the ensuing void Alfie inched his way into the living room and perched on the edge of a chair, earning him a hard glance from Mr. Scozzafava but no comment. The others simply stood and looked at Mr. Scozzafava curiously, as if a rare bird of prey had landed by chance in their living room. The wait was brief; Charlie came back and said bluntly, "It's not there, boss."

  Scozzafava's black brows lifted. "Then search the house, Charlie, search it from attic to cellar. And hurry it up," he added with a glance at his watch.

  Sister John received news of a search without visible alarm but her thoughts went at once to the refrigerator, where $421,009 rested on the shelves in brown grocery bags; it suddenly seemed a most reckless hiding place. Her mind raced ahead, envisioning its discovery, searching for a solution, and fell at last upon an idea dazzling in its simplicity. She said politely to Mr. Scozzafava, "If your searching is going to take a while I do wonder if you'd mind our going on with the work we were doing? We're drying herbs in the kitchen."

  "Drying what?" His brows flew up again.

  "Mustard," she told him. "The yellow wild flowers Alfie scythed this morning, or didn't you," she asked, "realize that mustard is made from mustard plants?"

  "Is it?" Scozzafava said indifferently, and then with a shrug, "This room is boring. Show me."

  "Of course," she said, rising, and catching Alfie's eye remarked casually, "Do you remember, Alfie, where I was afraid the mustard might accidentally be placed on Monday morning? The paper bags ought to be hung up now."

  Alfie, suddenly alert, said, "Oh," and then "Oh!" and sprang to his feet.

  Mr. Scozzafava followed them into the kitchen and was shown the piles of mustard on the table-indeed it was difficult to ignore them-and Sister Hyacinthe was persuaded to demonstrate how the stalks were tied together and inserted into bags. Just to make certain that Mr. Scozzafava understood the entire process Sister John stood on a chair and removed one of the three bags hanging from the ceiling, opened it and showed him its contents.

  "Yes, yes, never mind," he said impatiently. "I get the idea."

  "Good," said Sister John, poured him a cup of lukewarm tea and placed him in a chair with his back to the refrigerator. Brill climbed on a chair. Alfie took a position next to the refrigerator, quietly opened the door and began handing out bags of money to Naomi, who knotted string around them, so that while Sister Hyacinthe continued tying her bouquets of fragrant mustard, dropping them innocently to the floor, Brill suspended bags of money from the ceiling. It was, thought Alfie, an inspired piece of sleight of hand. While they worked, Mr. Scozzafava's men completed their search upstairs, fanned out through the living room and kitchen and then moved down to the cellar, Charlie peering into the refrigerator just before he joined the others. By this time, however, the last bag was knotted to a hook and the kitchen had a festive air, with dozens of balloon-like bags swinging idly from their strings. All that was needed, said Naomi, was birthday hats and favors.

  "Found it!" a triumphant shout from the cellar, and Mr. Scozzafava shouted back, "Good! Bring it upstairs and let's get out of here."

  "Only thing is," said Charlie, walking into the kitchen, "three jars are missing. We're fifteen pounds short."

  They waited while Mr. Scozzafava digested this fact. "Tiresome," he said, frowning. "I don't like to hear that, don't like it at all." He sat broo
ding over his teacup, eyes thoughtful, fingers tapping idly on the table. "All right," he said, reaching a decision, and directed a stern glance at Sister John. "What we're looking for was left on the top shelf in the pantry. Large glass jars labeled sugar."

  "Oh, that," said Sister John.

  "We're missing some of it."

  She nodded. "Yes, you would be. Sheriff McGee took away some of it, of course, and then this afternoon-"

  Mr. Scozzafava's eyes narrowed. "Who?"

  "Sheriff McGee."

  Scozzafava stared at her. "Sheriff McGee removed fifteen pounds?"

  "Not at first," Sister John assured him. "He only took a little away on Thursday-spilling it very carelessly on the pantry floor, I might add. Then this afternoon three jars were taken while we were downtown."

  "Taken?"

  "It was a burglary," said Sister John, looking him straight in the eye. "Naturally it was a burglary since the pantry window had been boarded up and someone removed the boards and stole the sugar. We could only assume it was the sheriff because he left behind-Where is it, Brill?"

  "Here on the table," Brill said, and reached over and handed the cigar to Mr. Scozzafava.

  Scozzafava glanced at the label and his jaw tightened. "Charlie," he said in a dangerous voice, "find McGee. Anybody know where the hell McGee is at this hour?"

  "Actually," said Sister John helpfully, "he's outside the house in Mr. Armisbruck's van."

  "What the hell's he doing there?" asked Scozzafava.

  "Someone shot him."

  "Will somebody see what the hell she's talking about?" demanded Scozzafava. "For the love of God-no, no it's impossible."

  Charlie shot out of the room jet-propelled; they waited in silence until he shot back into the room. "Boss, he's dead as a mackerel," he gasped. "It's true, boss, I shine my light in the front seat and McGee's lying there with a shot between his eyes. Geez, boss, the sister's right."

  Scozzafava stared incredulously at Sister John. "All the time we've been sharing this friendly social call you knew there was a dead sheriff outside?"