Nun But The Brave (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 3) (20 page)

He should talk. “That’s just his way. He’s under a lot of pressure from the company owner to make the cleaning service turn a profit even after a bunch of us were let go for budget reasons.” She texted a reply as Alex watched.

I’m leaving now. I can be there in about an hour.

She put worry lines into her forehead. “I hate to cut my time here short, but I can’t afford to lose this job. It pays more than my other one. I’m really sorry, Alex.”

Her phone buzzed with Frank’s reply:
If that’s the best you can do, I’ll have to put up with it.

“He doesn’t appreciate you,” Alex said.

“Oh, no, he does, really. I got a merit raise of fifteen cents an hour at my annual evaluation. Nobody else got a raise this year.”

As they walked back to the central area, Alex said, “The community will discuss the possibility of you joining us. Your cooking and shooting skills are up to our standards. You are adaptable and seem to fit in with the others.”

“Oh, Alex. That would be wonderful.”

He kept talking as though she hadn’t replied. “I will commune with Cernunnos at the full moon.”

She didn’t ask what communing involved. Most likely he wouldn’t have elaborated anyway. High priests, in her experience, wrapped the cloak of super-secret specialness tight about their shoulders.

Cheryl was at her spinning wheel and the redhead had dragged the mending basket and a chair next to her. The scene looked much more natural than yesterday’s when the couples had occupied their porches like dolls posed in a doll house. Giulia scored one point to herself for this confirmation that yesterday’s multi-person Ren Faire busyness had been staged for her arrival.

Giulia walked over to Cheryl. “The day job strikes again.”

The women chorused, “Oh, no. You really have to leave so soon?”

Alex said, “Perhaps Maria can come out again on her next day off.”

Maria Martin’s bright smile hid Giulia Driscoll’s desire to bow to his skill in putting her on the spot in front of witnesses. “Oh, yes, I’d love to. But won’t Audrey be back? Where would I stay?”

“Do you have a tent?” Cheryl said. “Camping out here in the summer is fun.”

Giulia smacked her forehead. “The most obvious solution is right in front of my nose.”

“Occam’s razor,” Alex said.

Forty-Three

Giulia pulled into her own garage connected to her own not so tiny Cape Cod-style house a little after one. Frank’s Camry was in the garage as well, its engine ticking as it cooled down. She opened the house door and went straight for the mailing supplies. The baggie with the pipe residue went into a padded envelope. She wrote a note explaining why she needed the results ten minutes ago and called DI’s usual delivery service. Then she called her OB/GYN and demanded an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. Her lab contact would get the analysis to her by noon tomorrow; he’d performed miracles for her twice before.

Appointment made, she turned around to find her husband. Frank stood by the stairs pinching his nostrils together.

“What have you been smoking?”

“I don’t know yet. The delivery guy should be here any minute to courier it to the lab.” She sniffed her sleeve. “They also burned a mix of pine and patchouli and a few other things in the fire. Can you get me a trash bag? I want to save these clothes as evidence if needed.”

“Evidence of what? Where are you going?” He detoured into the kitchen and tossed a folded white plastic bag up to her as she reached the second floor landing.

She caught it. “To use up all the water in the hot water heater on a shower. I’ll tell you the rest in the bathroom if you have time now.”

“I wouldn’t miss this for anything short of catching you swearing on camera.”

“Pigs will fly first.”

“You’re crushing my dreams, wife.”

The doorbell rang.

“Please tell the courier it’s a rush,” she called from their bedroom. She stripped and stuffed her jeans, shirt, and socks into the bag. Her underwear went into the hamper. In the bathroom the water heated up as she undid her blonde braids.

Frank’s footsteps came into the room as she started the second full scrubbing of her smoky, greasy head.

“Frank, my hair is shedding pollen and
tiny dead insects.
Let’s not go camping for a while.” She opened a corner of the shower curtain. “Stop laughing.”

“Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m not. Tell me more.”

“Before the story of my Prepper sleepover, how can I request the use of a cadaver dog?”

“Tumblr would have a field day with some of our conversations. Mind if I open the window some more? My suit’s wilting.”

“Go ahead. Cadaver dog, please?”

Frank’s voice receded. “You know Jimmy will do anything for you.” The octagonal bathroom window squeaked and he spoke louder. “It would help if you could give him a reason which relates to an ongoing investigation.”

“Two teenagers dead from OD’ing on homemade drugs.”

“Oh, baby, you know how to make me sit up and beg.”

Giulia stuck her dripping head around the shower curtain. “What did you say?”

Frank’s cheeks could have been red from embarrassment, but the room was hot and steamy, so she let it go. “How much extra-strength anti-itch lotion do we have?”

As she used smooth, fragrant, mass-produced soap on the rest of her body, she could hear him banging around under the sink and in the hall closet.

“A quarter of a tube of something with a medicinal name.”

“I will use that up in a heartbeat.” She turned off the water. Frank’s hand appeared, holding her bath towel. “Thanks.” She dried herself with enough friction to make all the hair on her body stand on end and emptied the tube of lotion in less than a minute.

“It’s a start. All my willpower is concentrated on not itching. Now I will tell you tales of goats and bacon and men in leather loincloths.”

She began with the happy people staged in their cute houses performing their early Americana tasks. Frank laughed at her lack of prowess with a bow and arrow and did not share her panic over the herbs in the pipes. “You only got a mild case of the loops. Your thirst was probably a combination of whatever incense they burned plus the secondhand smoke.” He made a thoughtful face. “I wouldn’t rule out little Zlatan getting a taste of coffee with goat milk and sending your brain signals to drown the taste out of your system. Now give me the good stuff. What did you say about a guy in a loincloth?”

After setting the scene with pipes and incense and chanting, she described Alex when possessed by Cernunnos.

“Antlers? He wore actual deer antlers and a fringed piece of leather and nothing else?”

“Body oil. Something pungent with several scents I couldn’t separate out, like the incense.” Her fingernails reached for a series of bites on her neck, but she stopped herself. “By the way, you were right. The place turned out to be a cult like I’ve never seen before.”

“I have a much lower opinion of people than you, my dear.”

“It’s about to reach a new nadir.” She described Alex/Cernunnos’ method of choosing a bed partner.

“No, please. Don’t tell me the hippie chick’s name is Ariel.”

“Of course it is. Her husband’s name is Orion.” She sprayed anti-frizz goop into her hair. “This dye job needs to grow out right now.”

Frank reached out from his seat on the toilet lid and pulled her into his lap. “I don’t know. Maybe Zlatan likes blondes.”

“Maybe Zlatan will learn from the start to look past superficial characteristics for people who are good at heart.”

“Spoken like a true Franciscan. Or a true mom. Or both.”

She kissed him on the nose. “Come into the bedroom with me. I need non-camping clothes.”

Her hiking boots on the floor next to the bed faced her like the accusatory red shoes from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Her feet wouldn’t come any closer to them. Frank bumped into her.

“Too tired to move?”

She didn’t answer. He looked at her face, followed the trajectory of her gaze, and looked back at her. “I’m guessing it’s something more than a spider?” He touched her arm. “
Muirnín
? Sweetheart?”

His touch startled her out of her mesmerized state. She skirted the boots and sat on the bed. He sat next to her, one arm around her. “What is it?”

“When I found Ariel and Alex asleep in the woods, I spied out his house.”

“With just your phone flashlight? Not fun.”

She shook her head. “No, with the light from the moon. Someone else could’ve been awake and chugging water. The flashlight would’ve been like the Bat Signal in a compound without electricity. His bed frame was carved with that Greek Key design; you’ve seen it. My second time going over it, I found one place where the carvings were out of alignment.”

He squeezed her. “Nice.”

She didn’t respond to his affection. “The bed frame had a hidden drawer. In it were a couple dozen Polaroids.”

“Who uses them anymore?

“Perverts and blackmailers.”

“Beidh mé damned.”

Jarred out of her preoccupation, Giulia said, “Frank, please don’t blaspheme.”

He kissed her hair. “Sorry. Blame the surprise. Blackmail?”

“Possibly. All the photos were of drugged or sleeping naked women, flowers in their hair and with their legs spread to expose their most private parts. I figure Alex gave them an extra dose of something to make sure they didn’t wake up while he posed them.” She thought back to the herb garden in the front. “Morning glories and poppies. I saw lots of both flowers in a fenced-off garden.”

“Morning glory seeds can be extracted to make LSA. Remember the tox reports I read to you? Poppy seeds would be my choice here. Opium would send these women into a dreamy paradise.” He snapped his fingers. “If he’s home-brewing opium, who’s to say he’s getting the same dosage in every batch? And who knows what other plants his chosen few use to get high? No wonder those kids OD’d.”

“My client’s missing twin had her own photo.”

“Not good.”

“I know. She’s really why I want to borrow the cadaver dog.”

“She’s been missing for a few months, right? Plenty of time for the scent to rise.”

Giulia broke her stare to glance at his face. “What?”

“Steve, the human half of the K-9 team, says the odor from rotting bodies takes a couple of weeks to reach the surface. Like the bubbles that pop on the water when you fart in a bathtub, he says. The dog can smell it when humans wouldn’t have a clue.”

On a normal day, Giulia would’ve smiled at that image and made a joke about how all men are really ten years old at heart.

Frank patted her hand. “Why are you still staring at your hiking boots?”

It all came out like the lid blowing off a popcorn maker and kernels exploding all over the room. “I pulled the blanket over my head and the drawer so I could turn on my flashlight to see the pictures. I turned every single one of them over. That’s how I found Joanne’s. I had to use my flash to take pictures of the pictures so I’d have evidence when I went to Jimmy so he could get an arrest warrant.” She took a breath. “I stole one of the Polaroids.”

She wasn’t sure what reaction she expected from Frank. A lecture? His comforting arm releasing her? She wanted his arm around her more than anything right now. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

He said in a slow, even voice, “Who was in the picture?”

“Anne.”

“Anne your sister-in-law?
Cac naofa.
Your brother will…Right. I see.”

“I tampered with evidence. I stole. What’s wrong with me? I’m supposed to be on the side of justice. There’s no way I can sneak back inside his house and return the picture. I don’t know what to do.” She started to get up. “Yes, I do. I have to give the photograph to Jimmy.”

Frank sat her down again. He bent over and stuck one hand in each hiking boot. His right hand came up with the purloined photo. He turned it so the back was facing him and ripped the picture in half.

She snatched at the halves. “Frank, what are you doing?”

He turned away from her and held the two pieces at arms’ length before ripping them in half again. Giulia kept grabbing at his arms as he ripped those into eight or ten pieces each. Giulia lost count. When he walked back into the bathroom she tailed him, protesting and trying to snatch the ragged bits of Polaroid. He shouldered her away, dropped the pieces in the sink, and emptied the bottle of hydrogen peroxide over them. The emulsion bubbled and warped; the bleach solution hissing as it destroyed the image of Giulia’s sister-in-law drugged, naked, and post-coital from her liaison with Alex/Cernunnos.

“Why did you do that? Now I can’t make it right.” Without warning she burst into tears, exactly like a cliché. One moment she was trying to snatch the pieces of Anne’s photo from Death by Peroxide. The next moment salt water gushed from her eyes and she was sobbing.

Frank sat her down on the edge of the tub. The cold porcelain on her bare butt where the towel didn’t reach made her shiver. She kept sobbing, trying to get a coherent sentence past the tears dripping on her lips.

“Muirnín,
listen.” Frank stroked her hair. “You have multiple incriminating photos that will convict this guy. You have physical evidence of him supplying drugs to minors. We’re going to nail his fringed ass to the wall and it’ll be because of you.”

“But, but,” was all she managed.

“No ‘buts.’ And don’t you dare say you don’t recognize yourself or any other nonsense. You’re the woman who puts justice and mercy above everything, and that’s why you broke your own rules to try and save your brother’s marriage.” He handed her a tissue. “Although if you ask me, your sister-in-law doesn’t know how good she has it without him, even stuck in rehab.”

Giulia shredded the tissue. Frank set the box on her lap and she dragged several across her face. She ordered herself at least ten times to stop crying. The orders worked after a few minutes.

“I think your pregnancy hormones have kicked in with a vengeance.” He kissed her gently on the lips and nudged her off his lap. “Go get dressed and talk to Father Carlos. I’m headed back to work. I’ll let Jimmy know you’re coming over sometime this afternoon.”