Dominica's eyes went dark. "From what Mother said at supper last night, I gather she's told you about the one I received. And Miriam too."
' 'Yes,'' I said. We had come to the second matter I had to take up with her. "You still don't have any idea who wrote it?"
She glanced at me, her cheeks reddening, and I thought how vulnerable she looked. "That's what makes it so awful," she said bleakly. "I keep wondering who has such a horrible, poisonous malice in her heart. What could I have done to make someone hate me enough to write that kind of lie?"
"Could the writer have seen something that led her to the wrong conclusion?"
"I suppose." She lowered her voice, as if someone might be listening outside the window. "Since Margaret Mary left, Miriam is my best friend. We go for walks together. We touch. Sometimes we hug-the normal kind of contact between friends. But we're not lovers." The blush rose higher. "I've been tempted, but not with Miriam."
' 'What did you make of the rue leaf in the letter?''
"I didn't know what to think. Was I supposed to feel
rueful? Repentant? But I didn't do anything wrong!"
"No one knows about the letters but Miriam and Mother Winifred?"
"And Margaret Mary. I wrote and told her." She looked down at the toes of her shoes-gold plastic slippers-peeping under her robe. "It might not seem like much to you, being accused of having a woman lover. But I was very hurt. I felt… violated, as if the letter-writer had stolen something from me."
I felt her pain. It was her reputation that had been damaged, perhaps, but more than that. Her estimation of herself. Her peace of mind.
"I was glad I could tell Margaret Mary," Dominica said simply. "She knows my deepest heart."
"Has one of the sisters given you a clue-a word; a look, even-that she knows about the letter?''
She gave her head a sad shake.
"Has anyone referred to you and Sister Miriam as particular friends?"
Another headshake, sadder.
"Have you been threatened, or has anything happened to your belongings?"
"You mean, like Sister Anne's swimsuit? No, thank God." Then she paused, pulling her brows together. "Except for…" Her eyes went to the guitar in the corner.
"Except for what?"
''I really don't think it can have anything to do with-''
"Tell me, Dominica," I said firmly.
"That guitar belongs to my cousin. I borrowed it because mine got burned up in the fire."
"The Thanksgiving fire?" No, that was a grease fire in the kitchen. "It must have been the Christmas Eve fire."
She nodded. "I'd left it inside the sacristy, you see. Miriam and I-she plays the flute-were going to play Christmas carols for the congregation at the end of the service. We'd been practicing for a month, and we sounded pretty
good. But then the fire happened, and my guitar burned, and we never got to perform."
"How about Miriam's flute?" I asked. "Was it destroyed as well?"
"No, she'd kept it with her. It was just my guitar. I didn't really think much about it at the time. We were all so frightened by the fire, you see. But afterward I began to wonder about it. How my guitar got burned."
"What do you mean?"
There was a crease between her eyes and her voice was troubled. "I'm almost a hundred percent positive that I left it just inside the door of the sacristy, where it would be handy when I needed it. But when the fire was out, there it was at the back of the room-what was left of it. It had been leaning against the curtains. The only thing I could think of was that somebody had moved it."
"Did you ask?"
"No. I mean, I wasn't absolutely sure where I left it, and it didn't seem all that important-in comparison to the fire itself, I mean." Her voice faltered. "Do you think that the person who wrote the letter also set the fire?"
"No," I said. Dwight was many things, but he wasn't literate enough to be the poison pen. Dominica might have forgotten where she put the guitar. Or someone else might have thought it was in the way and moved it to the back of the room. Or the letter-writer, chancing on the fire, had seized an opportunity to exact a penance-a fitting penance, she might have reasoned, since Dominica was about to perform with Miriam.
"How about Miriam?" I asked. "Has she experienced anything of the sort since the two of you received the letters?"
"You mean, like what happened to my guitar? I don't think so, but you could ask." Dominica frowned. "You're thinking that my guitar was burned because I wouldn't do what the letter-writer told me to do?''
"Maybe," I said. The whole thing was setting much
more complicated. "Back to the fire-where were you when it occurred?"
"In the choir with the other sisters. Father Steven had started saying Mass. I smelled smoke, and then John Roberta-she was sitting at the end of the choir next to the sacristy-got up and slipped into the sacristy to see what was happening. Then she ran out and whispered something to Father Steven. He told us all to leave."
John Roberta had been in the sacristy, alone, with the fire and the guitar? "Did the sisters leave the choir area immediately?"
"We couldn't. Father Steven got fuddled-he really doesn't think very clearly sometimes-and told everybody to go out the main doors at the back of the church. Which meant mat the congregation had to leave first. There was a lot of confusion. Dwight ran up with the big fire extinguisher from the front of the church, and he and Father went into the sacristy. And Gabriella and Rosaline went to get the hose. And of course the men of the congregation were milling around, trying to be helpful. Carl Townsend was telling them to carry the statues out and a couple were trying to lift the stone font, and John Roberta was having one of her asthma attacks, which she does whenever she gets anxious."
John Roberta again. "Do you know her well?"
"Not really." Dominica hesitated. "She's an odd sort of person, very shy and anxious about everything-afraid of her shadow, really. I feel sorry for her. She wants to go to a sister house out in Arizona, where the climate would be better for her. But she can't."
"Why not?"
"Oh, the usual." She made a disgusted noise. "Mother Winifred told her she could go, but Reverend Mother General hasn't approved her request because Olivia thinks she should stay here."
"Why?"
"Because without her, the score would be nineteen to
twenty in St. T's favor, that's why. Poor John Roberta is so paranoid that she sees a devil behind every tree, but this time she's got it right. She's a prisoner here until Olivia is safely installed as abbess." Dominica made a face. "I'm sure John Roberta wasn't glad to hear that Perpetua had died, but if she was, I for one wouldn't blame her. Maybe now she can get to Arizona."
"I see," I said. As I said good-bye, I couldn't help wondering just how badly John Roberta wanted to leave St. T's. And how much she knew about foxglove.
Sister Anne's bedroom was at the other end of Rebecca. Unlike Dominica's cluttered room, it was immaculate and tidy, although it had none of the starkness of Ruth's. The bed was covered by a blue plaid spread and a heap of blue-flowered pillows. Under the window stood a low, cloth-covered table on which were arranged a statue of Mary, another of Kwan-yin, the Japanese goddess of mercy, and an enigmatic jade buddha. Sister Anne did a lot of reading, I noticed. Neatly stacked on her desk was a book on running, one or two on yoga, and several about women and spirituality, including one I had read, Rosemary Reuther's book, Womanchurch. My eyebrows went up. When it came out, Reuther's feminist book had raised plenty of controversy, because it suggested that women should establish their own alternative worship, rather than accommodating themselves to the traditional male-dominated worship service.