The Pinch of Death – a mystery by Alysse Aallyn

Chapter 15. Loyalties

On Sunday, the nuns didn’t answer the phone in the extern office. Jacquetta could hardly control her frustration. But there was someone she ought to call who would answer the phone. Looking at the phone as if it was a rattlesnake she played with a few possible conversations in her head. “Mom, I’m holding off entering the convent for a few days because a friend died and – “

The phone rang. Jacquetta jumped back as if the imaginary rattler had struck. It was all she could do to lift the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Jacquie?” gasped a disbelieving voice. She matched him note for note.

“Nelson?”

“I was calling Honey,” the familiar voice said defensively. “What are you doing there? Does this mean you might not –” he hesitated as if before a feat of the etiquette imagination.

Why did everybody talk about the convent as if it was a brain tumor?

“Oh, I’m going in,” she snapped. “I’m delayed. People think a friend of mine committed suicide and I just want to prove that can’t be true.”

Better than mentioning the money, she thought smugly. Nelson didn’t believe in idealism, always saying everyone was controlled by self-interest, even if they didn’t recognize it themselves.

“I get it,” he said annoyingly superior way of his. “In your religion that sends her to hell. Right?”
God, he was the most loathsome man, talking about her “religion” like she was some stick-worshiping Trobriand Islander.

“That’s not it at all,” she snapped. “We’ve moved on past that. When people commit suicide the balance of their mind is disturbed and the balance of this lady’s mind couldn’t be disturbed.” Turn the tables. “What are you doing calling Honey?”

“Er – checking up on you. Did you get off all right and…” he let the sentence dangle. Honey was way too loyal to talk about her best friend with this guy. Wasn’t she? Honey was the one who always said, “dump him.” But because Honey was so man-savvy, she could usually fool any man into thinking she was on his side. It’s what make her such a lucrative barmaid. Jacquetta only hoped it would work on Avalon.

“I’ll be going in next week,” said Jacquetta confidently when of course she had no idea. But Nelson had always treated the convent as a game of “chicken” Jacquetta tested his devotion with. The creep. The world was so crazy she couldn’t wait for the quiet, joyful peace of the convent.

“Maybe we could get together,” he suggested tentatively. “Just for a drink.”

“Where are you calling from?” Jacquetta couldn’t resist asking. “Did your wife run out for cigarettes?”

“Don’t start that again,” he snapped. He was protective of the home he had never allowed her to see, so consequently, she couldn’t imagine him there. Me. The home-wrecker.

“Seems like we have nothing to talk about,” she said, hanging up on him. It was shorter than saying the Rosary and a lot more satisfying.

“I got it!” Honey came bursting in the front door. “She said this afternoon at two! I’ve got to get dressed.”

Jacquetta followed her into her bedroom as Honey took the turquoise suede suit out of its plastic sheathing.

“She wanted to raise me to ten thousand, and since its imaginary money anyway, I said fine.”

She stripped to her underwear and began rolling a clean pair of stockings onto her legs.

“Call the house at say…two-thirty. I’ll distract her with details until then.”

“Two thirty. I’ll make a note of it.”

Jacquetta sat on the bed and continued to look at her friend silently.

“So? What’s up?”

“Nelson just called.”

“That rat bastard,” said Honey. Automatically, yes, but satisfyingly. He was a rat bastard.

“I hung up on him.”

“Good girl.”

“He wanted to talk to you. About me.”

“I would have sent him away with a flea in his ear.” Honey stepped carefully into the skirt.

“You haven’t been talking to him about me?”

“Absolutely not! Scout’s honor!” Her roommate shuddered.

“Don’t you even think it.”

So, Jacquetta didn’t think it. It’s important to know who to trust in this life.