The Clock Strikes Nun Read online

  “Sidney, have you ever shopped at Dahlia?” Giulia said.

  “Me? How long have we worked together?”

  “I thought perhaps for a special occasion.”

  “No way. I’m into comfort. My older sisters bought from them when they could find an excuse to get a night away from the alpacas.” She held up her combination diaper/messenger bag. “Jessamine is a teething machine now. My life is all about the drool. If drool ever touched a Dahlia dress, I bet a team of their personal ninjas would drop from the ceiling to slice the offender into artistic shreds.”

  “On that appetizing note, I’m running out for lunch before my one o’clock. I’ll take orders if anyone’s craving something specific.”

  “Pizza,” they said in unison.

  Zane inclined his head toward the open window. “We’ve been assaulted by barbecue sauce all morning.”

  Giulia returned with two slices of Hawaiian barbecue for Zane, one veggie for Sidney, and one plain cheese for herself. “The baby issued a firm warning against pepperoni or sausage. If he’s messing with my taste buds at twelve weeks, what havoc is he going to wreak in the third trimester?”

  Sidney said, “I’ll tell you if you’ll tell me the nickname you have for him.”

  Giulia drew herself up to her entire five feet five inches and said in her most dignified Sister Mary Regina Coelis voice, “I do not negotiate with blackmailers.”

  Sidney applauded. “That was brilliant. You channeled your nun self, right? Do it again.”

  Giulia’s dignity collapsed. “You should be cowering. I’ve lost my touch.”

  She took her pizza into her office and spent forty minutes double-checking Dahlia’s dirty laundry. Her one o’clock appointment resulted in another retainer and prenuptial research project, Sidney’s specialty. For someone all about nature and alpacas and babies, she’d developed an incisive skill for personal and financial indiscretions guaranteed to ruin a marriage.

  Speaking of incisive skills, Giulia hovered at Zane’s desk until he finished the retainer paperwork.

  “Yes, boss?”

  “I require your dark magic.”

  Zane pushed all paperwork aside and cracked his knuckles in a bizarre toneless arpeggio. “Rub my magic lamp, and I’ll grant your wish.”

  Sidney spewed water on her monitor. “Zane!” She wadded her napkins and caught the drips before they fell into her keyboard.

  Giulia didn’t watch realization turn Zane’s face pale pink—the darkest his skin ever got—because she was bent double against the wall, clutching her stomach and trying to breathe through her semi-horrified laughter. When she dragged herself vertical, Zane had disappeared. Sidney pointed to the floor. Giulia spotted the toes of her admin’s Converse hi-tops in the knee hole of his desk.

  “Zane, come out.”

  “I can’t, Ms. D.”

  Concern replaced amusement. “Did you hurt your back diving under there?”

  “No. I’m too humiliated.” His muffled voice sounded ten years younger.

  “Zane, it’s another learning experience. Come out and hack for me, please.”

  His muscular shoulders appeared first, then his ash-blond head, then the rest of him. Dust grayed the seat of his khakis. He stifled a sneeze.

  “The cleaning service seems to be concentrating on only what our eyes can inspect.” Giulia wrote a note on the fluorescent pink phone message pad and tore it off. “Zane, please find everything you can about the financial workings of Dahlia.”

  “Yes, Ms. D.,” he said in the same too-young voice.

  “At least it’s not more ghosts,” Sidney said.

  Giulia capped the pen. “Sidney, what do you have against ghosts?”

  Sidney turned big brown eyes to Giulia. “Olivier’s little brothers have their own YouTube channel where fans send them challenges. Last fall someone dared them to create a haunting.”

  “That was a good episode,” Zane said.

  The eyes moved to Zane.

  Without a shred of embarrassment, he said, “I subscribe to them.”

  “If I tell them, they’ll try to pick your brain for their creations.”

  “Stop,” Giulia said. “What does their YouTube channel have to do with your antipathy toward ghosts?”

  “They film their show on our farm. Without telling me, they set up the haunting in our cottage. They had me convinced something terrible was in our house. When they made Jessamine cry, Olivier made them come clean.” She bared her teeth. “They dismantled everything and as an apology showed me their gag reel of scaring students in their dorm’s basement with phony hauntings.” She crossed her arms. “They’re all phony: the Amityville house, the house from that Conjuring movie, the house in California with a hundred rooms. Every single one.”

  Giulia’s email roared again. “I haven’t decided one way or the other.” She held up a hand. “Yes, I’m including Stone’s Throw. I was caught up in the physical danger then and never came to a conclusion about the ghost.”

  “You have an open mind,” Zane said.

  “Meaning I don’t?”

  Zane quailed before the Wrath of Sidney. “It, uh, appears you’ve reached a definite conclusion.”

  “Giulia?”

  Giulia stood firm. “My mind is open.”

  The sound from Sidney’s nose would’ve been labeled a snort if it hadn’t finished with an ostentatious sigh. The real Sidney returned. “Is it okay to agree to disagree?”

  Five

  That night after supper, Frank Driscoll’s ginger head bobbed up and down in their vegetable garden as he picked green beans. Giulia weeded the tomatoes at the opposite end. The garden threatened to take over the entire yard after weeks of hot July and August days. At least she had no trouble weeding in the first trimester.

  “Sidney tried to blackmail me today into revealing the baby’s nickname,” Giulia said over the shouts and puck whacks of the block’s never-ending street hockey game.

  Frank’s handful of beans fell into the metal colander with dull plinks. “Sidney the sweet? Sidney the Christmas Elf? That Sidney?”

  “Yes. I fear the job is corrupting her.”

  “Next she’ll bring processed cold cuts on white bread for lunch.”

  Giulia laughed. “Hell would freeze over first. I am not exaggerating.”

  “Agreed.” More beans landed in the colander. “I could sneak into the office and leave clues. A soccer ball and a Manchester United jersey, maybe.”

  “You could set up a life-size cutout of the real Zlatan in the middle of the room and she would wonder which case it related to.” With a final check of the weed-free tomatoes, Giulia attacked the encroaching invaders beneath the cucumber leaves.

  “True. Also, jerseys are ruinously expensive.” He slapped the back of his neck. “Stupid mosquitoes.”

  “They’re better than wasps.”

  “I vote for neither.” He squinted up at the gutters on the back of the house. “No new nests yet.”

  Giulia sat on her heels. “Did you hear that?”

  “No.”

  “The doorbell.” She got to her knees. “There it is again.”

  “If it’s my grandmother with a cheesecake, she may enter. Everyone else gets threatened with a speeding ticket during tomorrow’s rush hour.”

  She stood and stretched her back. “You haven’t driven a patrol car in years.”

  “A few of the guys owe me a favor.” He resumed the bean harvest.

  Giulia walked through the house rather than around. If the person at their door wasn’t a relative holding a cheesecake, she didn’t want them following her into the backyard.

  The doorbell rang a third time. Giulia used the archway between the kitchen and living room as cover. From this angle, the narrow vertical glass insets in the door doubled as peepholes to scr
een for unwanted guests.

  A plump woman in khaki slacks and an orange blouse stood at the door. Her short, straight hair was an even mix of gray and blonde. A widow’s hump made her appear older than she perhaps was. Giulia flipped a mental coin and chose “recruiting members for a new church.” Maybe she hailed from the Church of Scientology. A Scientologist versus a former nun would make for a fun encounter. Giulia opened the door.

  “Good evening, Ms. Driscoll. I apologize for interrupting you at home, but it’s necessary.” Her high, businesslike voice didn’t convey “church lady.”

  “Good evening.” Giulia kept the door ready to close and lock.

  “I’m Cecilia Newton, Elaine Patrick’s housekeeper. May I come in?”

  Friends and relatives were certainly circling the wagons around Elaine. Giulia opened the door. “I can give you a few minutes.”

  She deposited the guest at the kitchen table and conveyed the nature of the visitor to her husband. Frank muttered comments Giulia knew she’d disapprove of if she could hear them clearly. She took the full colander and he nodded at the client before closing himself in the game room.

  “I was shocked when I learned Elaine actually went to your office,” Ms. Newton said when Giulia set iced tea before her.

  “As opposed to asking me to go to her house?”

  The older woman nodded. “Muriel told me she’d clued you in—her words—on Elaine’s history. You’re wondering how I survived the home invasion.”

  Giulia hadn’t been, but now that she mentioned it…

  “I was up in Montreal at my sister’s wedding that weekend.” She looked out the kitchen door at Giulia’s vegetables. “The Japanese beetles are bad this year. A chameleon would do wonders for pest control in your garden.” Without missing a beat, she returned to the main conversation. “I’d been managing the castle since Elaine was seven, and we got along well, but she was too young to come through such a trauma unscathed. I’m not a psychologist. I couldn’t help her enough. I’ve always wondered if I’d had proper experience and training whether Elaine would’ve grown up differently.” Her unpolished blunt-cut fingernails scraped at the moisture beading the glass.

  Giulia’s mental information list on this potential client—or suspect—filled as she talked: guilt, regret, nostalgia, greed (had the woman been mentioned in the dead parents’ will?), possible acting skills. Because anyone could play the devoted companion with enough practice looking in a mirror and reading a pile of old-fashioned books.

  Frank was going to rag on her for her shiny new cynical assessment of people. So much for the naïve optimism of Sister Mary Regina Coelis.

  Newton continued, “Muriel is too hard-headed to believe us about the haunting, but I live in the castle and I’m hearing things too.”

  The neighbor’s Jack Russell terriers began their nightly siege of the squirrel population. All conversation ceased for a few moments. When the chaos ramped down to huffs and whines, Giulia said, “Is it an old house?”

  The polite woman indulged in a decidedly impolite look. “Certainly, but give me credit for knowing the difference between the attic floor settling and a pattern of knocks from one of the empty bedrooms.”

  Giulia inclined her head and the woman appeared to replay her last statement. She reached her hand across the table.

  “I beg your pardon. Please blame the stress.”

  They shook hands. “Think nothing of it, Ms. Newton.”

  “Ms. Newton is too formal. I’m Cissy to everyone except the maids and the cook. Elaine’s called me that since the day her mother hired me. It was practically her only act of defiance. Her mother always called me Ms. Newton and wanted Elaine to do the same.” A smile brought out a forest of wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. “She and I used to play ghosts with the sheets covering the furniture in the attic when her parents needed the entire house to entertain.” The smile died and the wrinkles smoothed away. “There were no actual ghosts in the castle then. At least we never encountered any. It would take a strong-willed person, dead or alive, to risk annoying Elaine’s mother.” She brought out a pen and a checkbook with a lizard-print cover.

  “Ms. New—Cissy—Ms. Lockwood has already retained our services.”

  “I spoke to Muriel about this and she agreed.” She handed Giulia a folded piece of paper from inside the checkbook.

  Giulia opened the half sheet of gardenia scented paper and read a single sentence in bold handwriting written in purple ink with flourishes on all the serifs.

  “Cissy is my partner in this enterprise now.” It was signed with even more flourishes: “Muriel Lockwood.”

  Cissy said, “I’m easier to get in touch with than Muriel if you have questions. There is something other than trickery behind what’s happening at the castle. There’s no reason to scare Elaine into becoming even more of a recluse than she already is.” She raised her glass to her lips.

  “Therefore, someone is after control of Dahlia?”

  Cissy set down the glass without drinking. “Muriel is trying to convince me Elaine’s business partners are behind the noises and the things we’ve been seeing out of the corners of our eyes. She’s won me halfway to her side, but the more it goes on, the more I’m becoming convinced it’s all, well, not of this world.” The dimples in her chin receded as she thrust it forward.

  Giulia interlaced her fingers. “I’m neither going to tell you it’s all in your head nor that ghosts do not exist.”

  The dimples reappeared. “You’re justifying Muriel’s report of you. ‘Oozing common sense’ is how she phrased it. What else do you need me to tell you about the workings of the castle?”

  Giulia took the notepad from the refrigerator and started a bullet point list of the inhabitants of Elaine’s house, the house itself, and more pieces of Elaine’s Oprah-worthy life story.

  Cissy finished, “Pip took Elaine to a Tarot reader yesterday after seeing you. Elaine is anxious to follow up on that aspect of the possible haunting, but it will be quite a while before she is strong enough to leave the castle again. I researched you and your success at Stone’s Throw. Please consider my partnership in this as a request for Driscoll Investigations to provide Tarot readings, Ouija board sessions, and ghost detecting. Muriel and I need to either prove or disprove the haunting to Elaine and the rest of the household. Those services are in addition to your standard investigation of the company’s chief officers.”

  She wrote a check equal to the cash Muriel had paid.

  “I keep long hours. Feel free to call me anytime, but I promise I won’t invade your privacy again. My worry about Elaine overrode my common sense.”

  When Cissy left, Giulia opened the game room door and waited for Frank to finish his session of Halo 3 and the required trash-talk with his brothers.

  Her husband removed his headphones. “Well?”

  “I may need you to run interference with your brother the priest.”

  “Dear God, don’t tell me you’re going undercover as a nun again?”

  “A pregnant nun? It sounds like the plot of a bad horror movie.” She fluttered the check in front of him. “Tomorrow I’ll ask Rowan what it takes to create golems. We’re going to need a lot of help.”

  Frank stared.

  Six

  “I always make the sitter cut the cards twice,” Lady Rowan said. “The Rule of Three balances everything for me, plus they expect it, especially the ones who’ve watched a few movies and think they understand everything about Pagans.”

  Rowan Froelig teaching Giulia “the biz” at eight o’clock in the morning was a completely different person than Lady Rowan, Reader of Tarot and Certified Psychic Medium. Mentor Rowan, a dish towel tucked into her collar to protect her flowing scarves from powdered sugar, mainlined peppermint tea and had already demolished one of the raspberry-filled croissants Giulia had brought.

  Over st
rawberry shortcake with Frank last night, Giulia had worked out a plan for Driscoll Investigations’ new spinoff business. As the first step, she set up a lesson with the nearest expert.

  Jasper Fortin, Rowan’s war-hero clairvoyant nephew, poured more tea for his aunt and handed the cup to her with his prosthetic hand. An éclair occupied his other hand. “Vanilla cream belongs in my stomach, not on my metal joints.”

  Jasper waited until Giulia set down her French roast with cherries jubilee syrup before adding, “Your little guy says he’s sorry you have to limit your coffee, but he likes grapefruit juice better.”

  Giulia swallowed. “Jasper, I’m not a customer.”

  “Correct,” Rowan said. “You’re our student. See how matter-of-fact he is? Certain customers prefer the blunt statement. Now pretend you’re a divorced woman who is sure she’ll never find the right man and in her heart wants to believe all this psychic stuff but has a hard shell because she’s been an office grunt for ten years. She’s looking for flaws in our presentation, but she also has a Kindle overflowing with paranormal romance novels.”

  Jasper set the unfinished éclair on a napkin and caressed the air around Giulia. He closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ceiling. At the end of the air manipulation, his hands hovered over Giulia’s head. His face took on a look of deep concentration.

  “I see blue surrounding you. The deep blue of ocean waves as they rise to new heights. The waves enclose a soul whose depths mirror the ocean. It is filled with life yet constant as the tides. This soul…it is the soul of a man…he seeks a partner willing to plunge into his depths yet maintain her autonomy. One whose colors complement his. I see your auras touching, merging, dancing amidst the waves of life.” He opened his eyes. “That’s how the phonies do it. My readings never sound like bad romance novels. I prefer big-brother style camaraderie. People open up to a big brother.” The rest of the éclair vanished into his mouth. “I love these things.”

  Giulia returned his smile. “I chose them without knowing your preferences.”