Julia Spencer-Fleming - I Shall Not Want

Clare stopped. "How can I not?" She waved her arms in the air, wanting to snatch her hair out in frustration. "Christ on a bicycle," she said.

Janet stared at her. Then laughed.

"What?" Clare said. "What?"

Janet sobered. "You can't tell," she said. "You promised me."

"Promised you what?" Kevin straightened as he came out of the narrow passageway from the byre. Mike McGeoch followed him, looking as calm and contented as one of his cows, as if he lived in a world where murder and illegal aliens and tax fraud never intruded. Maybe for him they never did.

"It's personal," Janet said. She glanced at Clare, then at Kevin. "About my brother."

Clare saw the lights go on in Kevin's upstairs. His face pinked. "Oh. Sure. Personal." He was shaking hands with Mike when he looked toward the barn's entrance. "Who's that?"

Clare turned. Amado and the McGeoch's foreman were silhouetted in the wide doorway; an identical height, one gangly and broken-armed, one broad and muscular. The foreman hugged the younger man, held the back of his head, murmured something too low for them to make out. He handed the kid a backpack, adding to the small duffel and bulging shopping bag he was already toting.

"My interim sexton," Clare said. "Amado." The kid and the foreman both looked up. The foreman spotted Kevin's uniform, slapped the younger man on the back, and strolled out of sight, not fast, not slow.

"No, the other guy. I thought you didn't have any Latino workers here."

"Oh, that's one of our neighbor's men." Janet's voice was thin and high. "Works for us on his off days." She laughed, a brittle, unconvincing sound. "We're lucky to get him."

Kevin frowned. "He seemed pretty tight with Amado for someone who's just dropping in once in a while."

Janet looked at Clare, who kept her mouth shut. She wasn't telling any more lies for Russ's sister.

"I think a lot of the guest workers around here come from the same area in Mexico." Janet shrugged. "They may even be related." She raised her voice. "Do you know Octavio from home, Amado?" The young man stared at her. "Octavio? ¿Un amigo? " He tightened his grip on the backpack and continued to stare at them like a spooked horse.

"It's okay, Amado. Go ahead, get in the car." Clare turned. "I need to get him back to the church. Janet, please consider what we talked about." She gripped the other woman's arm, trusting it would look like a friendly squeeze to Kevin. "Officer Flynn. Good luck on the-um, investigation. It's a big responsibility."

"It is, isn't it?" His face brightened. "See you later, Reverend. Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend."

Friday night she'd been attacked in her church. Sunday, they had found two bodies at the annual picnic. She opened her mouth to point these facts out, then shut it at the sight of the young officer's cheerful expression. "Thanks, Kevin. I'll try."

She went into the church to pray that evening. She hadn't anticipated how dislocated she would feel with a houseguest, a disturbance made worse by Amado's shy formality and their lack of a common language. Her unsettled feeling wasn't helped by the fact that every time she passed her sofa or sat at the kitchen table, she experienced erotic flashbacks hot enough to make her wonder if she were going into premature menopause. When had she last had sex? She couldn't pin down the exact year, but it was at least two presidential elections ago. She had been celibate a long time. A looong time.

So she fled to St. Alban's. She loved coming here alone at night, lighting only the candles and reading Compline at the old high altar. She would trace the carving along the edge of the marble-PRAY FOR THE SOUL OF THE REVEREND DR. MATHIAS ARCHIBALD DUNN, RECTOR OF THIS CHURCH-and pray she would, though she suspected the late Dr. Dunn rolled over in his grave every time an ordained woman broke bread at his altar. Tonight, she spent a long time in the quiet and the candlelight, praying to be opened, to discern God's way, to know what to do.

Go see Lucia Pirone .

The thought was there, fully formed in her mind. Her hands fell open and her head came up. Of course. She should visit Sister Lucia. In person.

You should have paid a call weeks ago .

That was the voice of Grandmother Fergusson, not the Almighty. Tomorrow, she'd head over to the rehab center and spill her guts to the missioner nun. If she baked a homemade treat, she thought, absently rubbing Dr. Dunn's name, she'd satisfy both God and her grandmother.

"Clare. How wonderful to see you." Sister Lucia's eyes were as keen as ever, but her hand shook as she took Clare's. "And what's this? For me?" She leaned forward, coughing, to accept the box Clare held.

"Let me help," Clare said. She untied the string and pulled the top off.

"Good heavens. These look delicious. Are these pecan tassies? And"-Sister Lucia took out a round cookie and put it in her mouth-"bourbon balls?" She chewed and swallowed, closing her eyes. "I haven't had one of these since the last time I was in Texas. Wherever did you find them up here?"

"I made them this morning." She grinned. "Since they don't let you bring in a bottle of bourbon itself."

"There's enough there to feed the entire floor! You didn't have to do that."

"It's by way of penance. I should have come to visit long before this. How are you doing?"

"Well, the pneumonia has cleared up, and they tell me that's good. But it put me behind on my therapy for this darned hip." She made a face. "A broken hip. If that doesn't tell me I'm an old woman, I don't know what does. Ah, well." She looked at Clare sharply. "I'm guessing you didn't come all the way over here from Millers Kill to learn about my exercises."

Clare shook her head. "I'm afraid not." She told the nun about Janet and Mike McGeoch, the bodies, the investigation, her own part in concealing the truth of the situation from the police. By the time she finished, Sister Lucia had put away several more bourbon balls and was nodding.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave," she said, when Clare ran out of steam.

"What should I do?"

"Who'd you say was the lead detective on this?"

"Our police chief, Russ Van Alstyne. He was there the night of the crash-I don't know if you saw him."

"Surely not the redhead. He didn't look old enough."

"No, no. That's Officer Flynn. He's a sweetheart. No, the chief was the older man with the"-she couldn't help it, she gestured with her hands, shaping Russ's broad shoulders-"tall. Very tall. Blue eyes."

"The really attractive one?"

"Oh. Yes."

The nun's lips twitched upward. "I didn't see him."

Clare felt her cheeks go red.

"Evidently, you know him." Sister Lucia's glint of amusement mellowed. "Do you trust him? To do the right thing, if you tell him about the men working at the McGeochs?"

"Our definition of 'the right thing' is sometimes very different. She thought for a moment. "If he feels it's his duty to turn them in, he'll do it. He may not like it, but he'll do it."

"Even if it hurts his own sister?" The nun sniffed. "Sounds inflexible to me."

"Not inflexible. Honor-bound." She couldn't help smile. "Admittedly, it does make him a pain in the ass at times."

Sister Lucia laughed, which set off another bout of coughing. One of the nurses came in just at the moment Clare began to be concerned.

"Sister?" She helped the nun lean forward until the coughing fit stopped.

"Sorry," Sister Lucia gasped.

Clare stood. "No, no, I'm sorry. I've overtaxed you."

The nurse nodded. "It may be time for another treatment."

Sister Lucia grasped Clare's arm. "Tell him," she said, her voice a rattle in her throat, "justice is important. Rights and jobs and working conditions are important. But the bottom line is, without life, none of those matter." She looked up at Clare, her face fierce in its weakness, like a martyr's. "If there's some connection, anything…" She left the implication unsaid. "Tell him."