Susan Albert - Rueful Death

Sadie fixed her eyes on me as she lowered herself into

the rocking chair beside the stove. "Winnie-Mother Winifred-has been telling me about you. Lawyer, huh?"

"I used to practice law," I said. "I own an herb shop now."

Gabriella picked up the kettle. ' 'Coffee?'' she asked. Sadie and I nodded. I pulled up an old wooden dining chair with a broken spindle in the back and sat down.

"Once a lawyer, always a lawyer," Sadie said. "Still keep up your credentials?" Her West Texas twang had a biting edge. She wasn't making idle conversation.

"I keep current," I said. It's probably silly to pay the Bar Association dues and meeting the annual professional development requirement, especially with Thyme and Seasons doing so well. But I've wanted to have something to fall back on, just in case.

"What do you know about our situation here?"

Our situation? "Are you referring to the litigation over the will or to what's going on here at St. T's?"

She hooked one ankle over the other knee. ' 'Both. Tell me what you know."

I felt as if I were being interviewed for a job. "I know that the court case was settled last spring and that the foundation finally has control over the trust assets," I said cautiously. "I've been told about the merger of St. T's and St. Agatha's, and I'm guessing that it will have a bearing on the foundation's fiduciary activities and investment plans."

"That pretty well covers it, I reckon," Sadie said. She took the chipped mug Gabriella handed her and rocked back and forth for a minute. "I'm a charter member of the Laney board," she said. "Is there any thin' you want to know about the way it operates?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," I said. I thanked Gabriella for my coffee and cradled it in my hands. I prefer tea, but coffee will do. "Who else is on the board? How is it set up?"

"There are five members. Winnie, of course. As actin'

abbess, she took Hilaria's place. And Gabby here." At my half-surprised glance at Gabriella, Sadie added, "Hilaria appointed her last August to replace Perpetua, who wasn't too well. Tom Rowan Junior, who's taking over for his daddy at the bank, is number three. Number four is Cleva Mason, a woman from the local parish who's missed the last couple of meetings-she's about to be replaced. And I make five. I'm the only one who's actually on the board by name, and I'm on it until I die." She rubbed her palm along her blue-jeaned thigh.

"If another abbess were to be chosen, would she have the power to appoint new board members?" Mrs. Laney would probably have set it up that way, to give the abbess a strong hand.

"Yes," Gabriella said. She pushed her desk chair over to the stove and sat down. ' 'If Olivia were elected tomorrow, she would appoint two new members-one to replace Cleva, the other to replace me."

" So if it came down to a vote on some crucial issue-''

"It would be three to two," Sadie said. "Assumin' Tom Junior voted with me. That isn't an assumption I'd stake my life on. His father and I are old friends, but we've never seen eye to eye. No reason to believe Tom Junior will be any different. It could be four to one."

Basically, then, Olivia could count on the Laney Foundation providing the capital she needed to fund the retreat center. "Who's the fiduciary officer?"

"Tom Junior, as of a couple of weeks ago. Carr State Bank manages the investments." She eyed me over the rim of her coffee mug. "Anythin' else?"

There was something. It had occurred to me last night in bed, just before I drifted into a dream where I was riding through a garlic field with Tom Rowan while Olivia walked behind us with a tape measure, staking out a parking garage.

"When Mrs. Laney deeded the eight hundred acres to

St. Theresa's," I said, "did she impose any restrictive covenants on the property?''

Sadie sat very still, watching me. Her eyes were bright. "What makes you ask that question?"

"Just a hunch." Helen Laney and Mother Hilaria had been determined women, and neither of them had trusted the Church. They would have tried to guard against every possible eventuality.

"You got good hunches." Sadie grinned.

I grinned back.

Sister Gabriella put down her coffee cup and stood up. "You two ladies finished your business?" she asked mildly.

"Just about." Sadie looked at her watch. "What time's lunch?"

"Same time as always," Gabriella said.

"Probably same garbage, too," Sadie replied tartly. "Glad to hear Margaret Mary's decided to come back. Make it worthwhile to drive over here for Sunday dinner." She put both feet on the floor and glanced at me. "You want to have a look at that property deed sometime soon?''

"Do you have a copy?"

"Yep. How about this afternoon?"

I thought. I'd agreed to talk to John Roberta at one-thirty, I had to find Olivia, and I needed to put in a call to DWight's probation officer. "How about tomorrow morning? Around ten-thirty?"

"That'll do," Sadie said. She hoisted herself out of her chair.

I stood too. There was one other question on my mind. "The Reverend Mother General who heads up the order now-is she the same one who was there when the deed was executed?"

Sadie shook her head.

"Do you know whether she's looked at the deed?"

Sadie's eyes were very bright. "I doubt it. It's more than twenty years old. Who cares anymore?"

"That's a good question," I said.

Sister John Roberta wasn't in the refectory for lunch while I was there, which I took to be a bad sign. But I didn't see Olivia, either, or Maggie. It was probably just my timing. But I did see Mother Winifred, who ate with Gabriella, Sadie, and me. She seemed subdued, and even more drawn than she had this morning. Sadie seemed to think she was grieving over Perpetua.

"It's too bad about poor old Perpetua," Sadie said. "We'll all miss her." She patted Mother's hand in sympathy. "When is Father Steven saying Mass?"

' 'When we have a body to say it over,'' Mother Winifred said. "We haven't heard when the autopsy will be done."

"Autopsy?" Sadie scowled. "What's that damn fool Royce doin' that for?"

"He wants to know how she died," Gabriella said. "It's a perfectly natural request for a doctor to make."

"He wants to make trouble, that's what he wants," Sadie muttered. "Which is perfectly natural, if you're a Town-send." She gave Mother Winifred a darting look. "How did Perpetua die? Heart?"

Mother spoke almost reluctantly. "It does seem to have been her heart. She had been suffering from cardiac arrhythmia. But at the end, she was quite dizzy and nauseous and had a convulsive seizure of some sort. Perpetua was in her late seventies, you know. It's entirely possible that she was having a stroke."

Cardiac arrhythmia, nausea, dizziness, convulsions. A stroke? Maybe. But another explanation came to mind. I curbed the impulse to mention it. I would ask Mother Winifred about it privately. I had to talk to her anyway, about what I had found in D wight's room.

Lunch was over at twelve-thirty. I still had an hour before I was scheduled to talk with John Roberta, so after we said good-bye to Sadie, I walked with Mother Winifred back to her cottage. We were accompanied by two other sisters on their way to the herb garden, so we couldn't talk.

When we reached her cottage and she said, "Would you like to see the stillroom now?" I was glad of the opportunity.

The stillroom was once a screened porch, now closed in, that enlarged the small square cottage into a rectangle. It had a terra-cotta floor that was warmed by the sun streaming in through two large casement windows. Some of the floor-to-ceiling shelves held large amber-colored jars, crocks, and urns, all labeled. Other shelves held dark glass bottles full of prepared tinctures and jars of oils and other materials used to create salves and lotions. There were rows of vials and jars of empty gelatin capsules arranged beside baskets filled with scoops, glass droppers, atomizers-all the paraphernalia of an old-fashioned stillroom, the household apothecary shop. A workbench stood along another wall, near a small two-burner gas countertop stove for heating herbal preparations. Above the workbench was an extensive shelf of reference books, old and new, and above that framed botanical prints. Bunches of dried herbs hung from the ceiling.