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Chapter 27. A Late-Stage Baptism

Jacquetta’s home looked like someone else’s apartment. Things were in the wrong places. The lights didn’t work. Jacquetta stood in the doorway for a moment, stupidly staring. It was dark – the drapes were drawn and there was no light but after a moment Jacquetta could discern shapes. The velvet rocker lay on its side; a broomstick was thrown against the couch, an ironing board had been dumped on the upturned coffee table. It reminded Jacquetta of the extensive fort-building of childhood. Except that under the coffee table, under the ironing board, sprawled a litter of white clothes.

No. Nonononono….Oh God deliver us. She pulled the coffee table off the body.

It was Honey, curled impossibly small as if to escape her attacker through the floor. It hadn’t worked. Hair covered her face. Jacquetta reached for her hand, clenched as small as an opossum’s, roadkill to be shoveled aside by an uncaring universe.

She pulled Honey’s hair away and wished she hadn’t: her roommate’s face was unrecognizably purple, tongue extruding like a plague victim’s. Jacquetta scrabbled her fingers in the ashes of a fallen ashtray and drew a cross on the dead girl’s forehead. “I baptize thee in the name of…who?”

That slowed her down. Unbaptized Honey had already belonged to all that was good in the universe. “In the name of those who thirst after righteousness,” Jacquetta whispered. “In the names of the peacekeepers, and in the names the meek who are heirs of the earth.”

The particular peacekeeper who responded to Jacquetta’s 911 call was a man named Lt. Marie. He wanted to talk about boyfriends.

“Barney Douglas”, said Jacquetta, who honestly answered most questions she was asked. “He works at Douglas Cadillac. But he didn’t do this.”

“Oh really?” Darkly alert ferret eyes fixed hers. “Who did?”

That was the question. What could she tell this man? George Cleese? Avalon Powell? She had nothing.

“He wasn’t the type,” she said shortly.

The quizzical eyes hardened. “Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that.” He looked past her and through her; if she was going to spout the standard forlorn clichés of the bereaved, suddenly he was not interested. “She put up a good fight,” he acceded.

She put up a good fight. Jacquetta blanched. Somehow that was even more horrible. She lost, thought Jacquetta. Because she was fighting a monster, and she was fighting a monster because of me…

“Did you touch anything?”

“The phone,” said Jacquetta vaguely. “The bag of groceries somewhere is mine.” She honestly couldn’t have said what happened to it. “I painted a cross on her forehead.”

The eyes swiveled once again. “You..?”

“I didn’t know what to do.” She shook her head. “I tried giving her to God. I didn’t know WHAT to do.”

She could see he had a fear of female hysteria. He backed up a little.

“And you were where? Coming from where?”

“Oh.” She tried to focus. “My alibi.”

Lt. Marie smirked unpleasantly. “Yeah. Your alibi.”

“I was at the Monastery of Holy Calvary in Southport at four-thirty. Then I had dinner with my mother in Pinewood. I ended up at the all-night grocery on Route 1 –“

“Anyone see you?”

Would Penny remember? Still, there were the groceries, expensive, frozen bags of them. Realer, somehow than Penny Dettler ever was. Ever could be.

“Mrs. Neil Dettler. I…helped her shop and I escorted her home.”

She could tell by his eyes that he knew there was more to this story. But he’d already heard too many stories – enough stories for a lifetime. How much should he care about this one? Officiously, he made a note.

“May I use the phone?” she asked.

“You may not. Officer Fuente will drive you where you went to go.”

Fuente means fountain, she thought. Hidden springs.

She was dismissed, but they wouldn’t let her take anything. Her purse was searched, her car keys impounded and she was directed not to “leave town.” Now she was just another character in Dragnet, or worse. Unsolved Mysteries. Where did she want to go?

“The Coaching House on Rt 33?” she suggested. She knew it well, unfortunately. Through her ex, Nelson. It was next to a grocery store which she knew from experience contained many of what she and her lover used to consider the “necessities of life.”

She was learning different necessities now. Life itself was the first necessity. Knowledge is the second.

Chapter 26. A Midnight Grocery Run

Sanka and brownies stirred up a passion in Jacquetta for sprouts and bran that was simply irresistible. Luckily there was that all night grocery store out on Route 1.

Usually after Dinner with Mom Jacquetta spent the night on the sofa bed but after an hour’s dressing down she discovered herself to be insufficiently masochistic; yet another disqualifier for sainthood in her mother’s eyes.

But she was out and free. Free, free, free. Even the Datsun cooperated, starting up immediately when she really should have sprung for a new battery. Freedom was so seductive. No job, no boyfriend, no obligations really except those he gave herself. Thanks to Miss Rainbeaux, she didn’t even have the immediate specter of the money running out.

At the moment the long-term plan might be catching a murderer, but the short-term plan was helping Honey by contributing some groceries.

Jacquetta loved supermarkets at this hour. She adored the futuristic lighting making the few daring or sleepless shoppers look like visitors from another planet.

That must have been why she stared so long at the woman with the straggly pony tail without recognizing her. The woman filled her cart with Cornish game hens as bony and breastless as herself, a cart already packed to the brim with frozen food. Alerted by that magnetic sense shared by humanoids she lifted wild, unfocused eyes. It was Penny Dettler.

“Are you following me?” she challenged. This was a very different Penny from the open house attendee, this was a woman who’s rope-end was in full view. Husband said no to the divorce, Jacquetta wondered?

“No,” said Jacquetta and it sounded like a lie even to her own ears. Because in a way she was following Penny Dettler; wasn’t she following all of them, straining to see their private habits, to monitor them especially when they thought themselves alone? With the new table-turning aggression she struggled to master, Jacquetta demanded, “Have you been sending anonymous letters, Mrs. Dettler?”

It was the first thing that jumped into her head – she didn’t really suspect Penny of being D.L. LeRoi, but the response was galvanic. Penny’s eyes filled with tears and her mouth quivered.
“Those cruel, cruel letters!” she gabbled. “They said I couldn’t feed my baby but it wasn’t true – I had so much milk my breasts hurt.”

She rubbed her chest as if to make her point. “It was the doctors’ fault,” she wept, “They didn’t want the baby to get the drugs. Why’s that, if the drugs are harmless? They’re poison, that’s why! They were giving me poison!”

Openly weeping, she staggered toward the exit, abandoning her cart. Jacquetta was forced to trail after her, pushing both carts, and then to use her store card to charge all those groceries.
Some detective I am! She thought angrily. Who else believes the line, “You broke it, you bought it?”

“Mrs. Dettler!” she accosted the weeping woman struggling with a set of car keys, “You forgot your groceries!”

Penny allowed Jacquetta to load the back of her station wagon, while Jacquetta thought grimly about the humor of a minor legatee providing the estate executor with weeks of free food. In what universe did that happen? Oh well, she thought, you know who would understand? Beatrix Rainbeaux!

“Are you going to be all right?” she had to ask, helping Penny disentangle her raincoat from the Volvo door. Wasn’t it lawyers who warned, Never ask a question when you’re afraid of the answer?
But all Penny said was, “I think so.”

And so the accusation Penny made came true, and Jacquetta followed her to her door, thinking, “Some detective I am! Who’s in charge here?”

But once Penny stepped out of her car door Jacquetta drove away. She was NOT going to carry Neil Dettler’s groceries to his door!

But she had a lot to think about as she drove home. She was beginning to get a sense of the “personality” of this case. How likely was it that the anonymous letter writer and the murderer were different people? Not likely at ALL, she considered. It would be understandable to murder an anonymous letter writer who’d stumbled on a dangerous fact but look at who was dead. Only people investigating the letters! So the nasty, hidden personality of the killer was starting to emerge, all too clearly. She was looking for a monster.

Chapter 25. Dinner with Mom

Jacquetta slipped Mother Xavier’s rosary in her pocket, threw the printed tract in her back seat and waited until she was halfway down the drive before she began to shriek and curse out loud. She was out of breath and out of words by the time the Datsun climbed the highway ramp but she was not out of anger.

Just who was she so mad at? Jesus? St. John of the Cross? Mother Xavier and Sister Thekla? The latter two, definitely. Bad cop and good cop! Of course she was angriest at herself for unconsciously revealing the ugly truth; that she just didn’t want to toil the rest of her life at some exhausting job! But she ALSO didn’t want to spend her days wearing ugly clothes! These humiliating truths had never really occurred to her, but now that they had, she saw herself as no different, really, than a star-struck eleven year old who dreams of becoming a Bride of God in a haze of chiffon and orange blossoms.

Damn, damn, damn. The one person she was not angry at was the one person she should absolutely loathe: the murderer. But she didn’t feel that way at all. She was scared, but she was intrigued. It felt more like awe, really. Awe-inspiringly concrete was the force of her own determination: you are not getting away with this. Jacquetta Strike will see to that. It was a challenge and a dare and she was excited by those.

Damn Sister Thekla and that pathetic lump of “Dunkin Donuts” sugar! Could it have been deliberate on their part, rubbing her nose in a future of bad food and awful art?

I don’t have to decide, Jacquetta promised herself. Not yet. But I do have to catch that murderer. It’s more important than ever now.

Once she had driven all the way to the monastery there was no hope of getting out of dinner with Mom. Jacquetta’s heart sank when she saw the fare her mother had provided: candied ham and sweet potatoes. Hypoglycemic, her mother got a big thrill out of watching others eat the foods she was forbidden. Jacquetta would have far preferred the salad her mother was toying with, but she hadn’t been consulted. Oh well. At least it meant there would be gooey, homemade brownies for dessert.

“So how did it go?” her mother asked anxiously.

Jacquetta always assumed a false heartiness around her Mom, a confidence she couldn’t actually feel. She loathed the Kabuki-style roles they somehow were forced into but there never seemed to be any escape.

“They’re giving me a little more time,” she said. “This is delicious!”

Her mother’s anxiety wasn’t in the least quieted.

“What I don’t understand is why you care about these people,” she wailed. “A suicidal woman? A murderer? These are godless humans!”

“I feel like the old lady put some trust in me,” her daughter asserted as calmly as she could manage. “She gave me a duty to discharge.” She didn’t dare mention the problem of the dead detective Benson. Her mother would have a panic attack right here.

“But you’re supposed to be under guidance,” the older woman protested. “You’re just like your father, always telling the experts he knew best!”

“It’s just a week or so,” Jacquetta argued, fiercely peppering a sweet potato to give it some kick.

“This is exactly what happened with your father,” Marguerite prophesied, “He became a spoiled priest!”

“Mom, if he’d stayed at the seminary, you wouldn’t have had a husband and I wouldn’t have been born!” Jacquetta responded without thinking. Because possibly her mother would have preferred that state of affairs.

Chapter 24. A Spiritual Exercise

The road to the convent was steeper than she remembered. And the monastery itself looked stranger – though that could be accounted for by the time of year; a Mediterranean villa plunked down on leafless New Jersey farmland.

The visiting parlor was attached to the office. The nuns reached it by way of a covered walk so as not to break “enclosure” although once in the parlor they could be clearly seen. The famous separating “grille” was a low iron rail Jacquetta could have stepped over had she been in a rule-breaking mind. Perhaps she was in a rule-breaking mind. Perhaps that was what this was about.

The room was rigidly, even obsessively clean, but not warm. The iron stove inserted into the fieldstone fireplace was not lit. Jacquetta sat down uncomfortably on a wooden bench, eye level from a realistically suffering Christ hanging from a cross. She was a few minutes early. She rose when Sister Thekla burst through the curtained doorway and leaned across for a hug, her old face wreathed in smiles.

“Jacquetta! So good to see you! Mother Xavier will be here in a flash. She asked me to give this to you.”

It was a booklet entitled TESTING YOUR VOCATION. Jacquetta opened it with a sinking heart. Everything had been thought of. There was nothing new on the planet. According to this book there would always be “work-related” and “family- related” reasons not to enter and as long as they made sense to the applicant, she should refrain from entering; understanding, however, that no place could be kept open forever.

Not like they have to fight away the applicants, thought Jacquetta, watching Sister Thekla make the fire. Harvard Law School this place is not.

And here was Mother Xavier, steel-spectacled, with sharp lines like cat’s whiskers radiating from her mouth.

“Tea, I think, Sister Thekla,” she said, and the older woman lit the fire and bustled gratefully away. Like I’m contagious, thought Jacquetta.

“Why don’t you tell me what this is about,” said Mother Xavier, seating herself in an ancient chair ornamented with creaking wooden lace, “And don’t try to spare me. You wouldn’t believe the stories I’ve heard. Is it a man?”

It took Jacquetta a moment to comprehend. She thought for a moment Mother Xavier was asking for the gender of the murderer.

“It’s not that,” she said finally. “It’s an old lady I met on the train. She invited me to lunch, to consult me about an evil person close to her. But that very night she killed herself, so they say. But I don’t think she did.”

If she had hoped this whisper of suicide and murder would rock Mother Xavier she was mistaken. The old woman was immovable.

“God know what really happened,” she said calmly. “Why don’t you leave it in His hands?”

“What if the murderer kills someone else?” Jacquetta argued, “As in fact they have. They seem to have also shot a private detective and burned down his office.”

Once again, no reaction from Mother Xavier, whose hands remained folded in her lap loosely clutching her rosary.

Tea arrived. Lukewarm, with blue milk. Sister Thekla unwrapped an ancient looking sugar cube with such excitement Jacquetta tried to seem pleased.

“Saint John of the Cross’ advice to contemplatives – perhaps you recall it? ‘She should not become involved in other works and exterior exercises that might be of the slightest hindrance to the attentiveness of the love toward God, even if he work itself be of great service to God.’ “

Sister Thekla’s fire went out. She poked it ineffectively.

“The true contemplative,” Mother Xavier went on, quoting from The Cloud of Unknowing, “does not desire to mix in active life. He does not care what is spoken about him and does not defend himself before his critics.”

This is not about ME, thought Jacquetta, stealing time by sipping her terrible tea, doubtless made with re-used tea leaves. If she thinks I’m going to say I’m not a natural contemplative she’s got another think coming.

Mother Xavier continued serenely, “Have you explored active vocations? I recommend it.”
Jacquetta thought of the sisters she had seen on city buses, rushing about in their ugly shoes, polyester skirts and short veils, probably working three or four jobs in every ghetto they could find. And shuddered.

“It’s the contemplative life I want, I’m certain of that,” said Jacquetta.

“It’s not what you want, it’s what God wants for you,” said Mother Xavier. “I will pray for you. Decide soon, my dear Jacquetta.”

She pressed her own rosary into Jacquetta’s hand and disappeared silently through the curtain.
There was no hug goodbye. Sister Thekla’s fire still refused to light, and Jacquetta thought she saw tears in the older nun’s eyes.

Chapter 23. Benson

Honey was dressing for a date.

“Look at this!” Jacquetta cried excitedly. “Look what I got at the Open House!”

“Ooo,” Honey gasped excitedly, “The mysterious Benson!”

“And wait what you see that’s inside!”

It was an anonymous letter carefully scrawled on blue paper ornamented with yellow daisies.

U R ROTING INSIDE. FEEL THE CANCER EATING UR GUTS. MAGGOTS CAN’T WAIT THEY ARE STARTING NOW. U HAVE EEN POISONED BY UR LOVING FAMILY. THEY CAN’T WAIT TO SEE U GO. I WOULD NOT EAT IF I WERE U.

“God, that’s awful,” said Honey, sitting down under the force of it. “But why send it to Benson? Wasn’t there a note?”

“No.” Jacquetta fetched the yellow pages and riffled through to “D”. “I think he was a detective she hired to look into the letters and he asked her to send on any more she received.”

“And he refused the letter because she was dead? I don’t get it.”

“I don’t get it either. But we’re way ahead of Benson because we know who wrote the anonymous letters. Yup, here he is. 115 Glasstown Pike. She went local.”

“I don’t get it. Who wrote the anonymous letters?”

“LeRoi! I forgot to tell you she had a box of this stationery in the trash at her apartment. Distinctive, wouldn’t you say?”

“But we don’t know who LeRoi is.”

“True. And I don’t think it’s Penny Dettler. She was at the open house and I’m telling you it would take quite a job to turn her into a cynosure that would impress a real estate agent.” She was dialing.

“What’s a cynosure?” demanded Honey. “Speak English.”

“A sex magnet.” She hung up. “His phone’s been disconnected.”

“I guess he IS dead.” Honey looked bleak. “It doesn’t feel like a coincidence.” She shivered. “I think you may have tripped over someone who enjoys killing.”

“Sure looks that way,” Jacquetta agreed. “And what about this “you” stuff. Weren’t you detecting right along side me?”

“Maybe not,” sighed Honey. “Depends on how dangerous this sociopath really is.

“Yes it does, doesn’t it?” Time to hide out in a convent?

115 Glasstown Pike was a burned-out shell. Jacquetta went into the news agency next door.
“What happened across the way? Looks like you had fire.”

The beaky-nosed man was happy to share his knowledge.

“Guy burned up. It was terrible. Rumor has it he torched the place and then shot himself.” He produced a tabloid-sized Glasstown Extra ARSON SUSPECTED IN LOCAL BLAZE. “Some say he worked for the Mob and it was a hit.”

Jacquetta tried to pay him for the paper but he waved her money away.
“That’s last week’s news – set for the pulper.”

She bought chocolate instead and consumed it nervously while she sat in her car reading. The story backed up the news agent’s first rumor: Benson had been shot with his own gun and the place had been torched by someone who didn’t care to conceal the signs of accelerant splashed every which way, burning up his files, correspondence, anonymous letters, everything. The police had no idea what case he was working on. But which happened first murder or arson? The investigators described the events as “simultaneous”. Jacquetta sat thinking.

Which of her suspects was capable of taking away a gun from an armed detective? George Cleese? Someone the private eye wouldn’t suspect. Certainly not Penny Dettler! Maybe the murderers worked as a team. Avalon and her husband? She didn’t seem to get along well enough with her brothers to keep even the most basic secret, much less one this potent.

I’m out of my depth big time, thought Jacquetta. And I’m making the same mistake Miss Rainbeaux made of underestimating a ruthless opponent.

Chapter 21. Connections

At The Royal Mess, Honey was agog to hear that possibly D.L. LeRoi had some connection to an exotic dancer named Roxelle Shields.

“I’ve seen her!” she gasped. “Maybe you have too. That cheesy shriek-fest movie Dark Turning a few years back. Traveling theatre company gets stranded in the back of beyond?”

“Never saw it,” said Jacquetta, who hated movies like that. “D.L. LeRoi is really some woman impersonating three other women – Roxelle Shields, Roxelle Shield’s secretary, and Avalon Powell. So she probably isn’t any of them.”

“But we won’t know till we ask,” insisted Honey. “This detecting is so much fun! I mean, there must be a connection, we just don’t know what it is. Give me that number.”

“Don’t you want me to call?”

“Heck no. Suppose it’s someone you’ve already met? It’s NOT going to REALLY be Avalon Powell who’s the only one who knows me. I can do voices. You can’t do voices. You don’t realize how distinctive your voice is.”

“My voice?” Jacquetta felt oddly pleased.

Honey slammed the bar phone down on the Plexiglas so noisily the single patron stirred, then disappeared back into his alcoholic coma.

“Hello? I was told I could reach Roxelle Shields at this number. No? How about Avalon Powell?

No? To whom –“

She looked at the phone with considerable surprise. “She hung up on me.”

“Well, where the heck were you calling? Maybe you should have asked that first!”

“Some lawyer’s office. Ummm “ Honey cast her eyes upward, remembering.

“Neil Dettler?”

“That was it!” Honey barked so triumphantly the old soak moved several seats down where his sleep would remain uninterrupted.

“It can’t have been his office, they wouldn’t have hung up on you. It must have been his wife. Rose-Alice said he and Avalon were having an affair.”

“Rumor confirmed,” said Honey, dialing a new number.

“Somewhere in New Jersey, a business called The Brass Ass.” She covered the speaker to hiss, “It’s in Wildwood.”

“Sure you can dial that for me. Thanks.” A momentary wait. “Hello? I’m looking for Roxelle Shields’ secretary. Oh, she doesn’t? How about Avalon Powell? Does that ring a bell? Well, may I speak to Miss Shields? May I leave a message then? All righty then!” She hung up briskly.

“Roxelle Shields doesn’t have a secretary. That guy seems to think the mere idea is hilarious. He doesn’t recognize the name Avalon and Roxelle doesn’t come in Mondays. But he didn’t rule out me speaking to her. I mean, we could call back tomorrow maybe. But he won’t take messages, that’s for sure. He’s probably illiterate!”

“Wow,” said Jacquetta. “You’ve been really helpful. We’ve got SOME kind of connection to Neil Dettler, but what is it exactly?”

“You mean someone could be trying to get him into trouble,” said Honey. “Him and Avalon. What does his wife look like?”

“God,” returned Jacquetta, “I did meet her but she looked so depressed I was scared to meet her eyes.”

“Could she get herself up all young and pretty?”

Jacquetta wasn’t used to looking at people in this way.

“I guess she must have been able to at one point. Her husband says she’s agoraphobic.”
Honey snorted. “Husbands don’t know anything!”

“But why would she use her own number?” Jacquetta was thinking, Mrs. Dettler could probably get her hands on a piece of Avalon’s broken jewelry, too.

“I guess to contain any inquiries – you know, if somebody comes looking for her she’d be forewarned. Don’t ask me.”

“And now she’s forewarned,” Jacquetta said sadly.

“Let me know if you’ve got any more detecting for me to do,” Honey begged her departing roommate. “I just love it! We should open our own detective agency!”

“Honey and Sister?” Jacquetta teased.

“Don’t scoff,” said Honey. “This is the most fun I’ve had all week.”

Chapter 20. A Dancer

Ingebrand Realty was a one man shop, Jacquetta was overjoyed to see. A bilious little man imprisoned by ringing telephones and piles of documents, cast a glance over Jacquetta that can only be described as “concupiscent.” Jacquetta cast her own eyes heavenwards, thanking St. Barbara, who had been the patron saint of realtors ever since she was thrown from a tower.

“Sit, sit!” cried the little man, leaping to his feet. “Coffee? Water? Soda?”

The coffee was soldered to the bottom of the pot and the water came from a highly suspect drinking fountain. But the soda, though syrupy grape, was at least cold.

“What can I do for you?” he perched dangerously on the edge of his desk and when the phone rang, he jerked out the cord. She had his full attention.

“A friend of mine has disappeared,” she said, hoping the frantic calculation behind her eyes was invisible to this man. Apparently, it was.

“Oh?” he encouraged, looking ready to discuss her friend for hours.

“D. L. LeRoi,” she confided. “Of course, that’s a pseudonym. Monmouth Place in Brooklyn.” She was hoping he would give her a clue to the gender of the renter and she wasn’t disappointed.

“D. L. LeRoi!” he winked. “No forgetting her. She admitted it was a pseudonym, but as long as it’s not done for the purposes of fraud – I mean she paid the three months in advance.” He leaned perilously close, “You know Roxelle Shields?”

Jacquetta could not conceal her surprise. “It was rented by Roxelle Shields?” Roxelle Shields was a famous – or infamous – burlesque dancer.

“Well, she sent her secretary. She didn’t come in herself. Pretty blonde girl.”

Jacquetta sipped nervously, getting ready to douse him if he fell into her lap.

“I did wonder if the apartment wasn’t for the secretary, really,” he said. “You’d think a famous name would require something a little more upscale.”

“My friend’s the secretary,” Jacquetta said faintly. “You guessed right. She was staying there and now she’s gone. I don’t know how to get in touch with her.”

“Let’s see.” He reflected for a moment but made no move to look anything up. “She gave Miss Shield’s club name as a reference.”

“Do you have that address?” Jacquetta produced a pad and pen.

“Oh, you can look it up,” he shrugged. “Brass Ass! It’s in New Jersey somewhere.”

“I’m afraid something happened to my friend,” Jacquetta lied. “She was hiding out from her husband and he was so angry. You know how it goes.”

The real estate manager looked alarmed. “Oh, my God,” he said, “Did you go over there? Is it –“
“No one there,” Jacquetta reassured. “The door was open so I looked inside.”

“Well, she had to give a reference,” he admitted. Unwillingly he dragged his brass ass off the desk and searching for files, found one. “Glasstown Bank cashier’s check,” he said, “That won’t help.

Oh, here’s her previous address. “Iridium House, 300 Main St, Glasstown.”

Beatrix’s house! Was that how she found out?

“Maybe she used her maiden name,” said Jacquetta hopefully. “I just can’t remember what that was.”

“Powell?” said the man, reading. He clearly wasn’t going to show her the file. “Avalon Powell?”

“That’s her all right,” said Jacquetta. “Any phone numbers?”

“The club listed under “work”. Oh, here’s one under “personal.”

He peered at her over the file. “It’s a Jersey number.”

“Her Mom’s house!” said Jacquetta. “Maybe she went back there.” She wrote down the number the man gave; it meant nothing. She was dying to phone, but not with Mr. Nosey around. She almost knocked him over as she stood up.

“Thanks so much,” she said, putting her unfinished soda into his outstretched hand. “You’ve been so helpful. I’ve got to hurry so I won’t miss my train.”

It was the only true thing she’d said so far.

“Do you want to leave your name and number?” he called after her hopefully. “Just in case.”

“No, thank you,” said Jacquetta. “I’m scared of that husband!”

“Poor girl.” The manager seemed honestly anxious about LeRoi’s mythical dilemma. “She was so young, too.”

Jacquetta was in no mood to visit the Brass Ass alone. It was her only new clue, but how real could it possibly be? Maybe it was some kind of a joke, prank or pun. No one would describe Avalon as “so young”; she was way too carefully made up; a midlife woman if ever there was one. But the Glasstown names connected LeRoi indelibly to the case.

“I’ll call the minute I get home,” thought Jacquetta. “Maybe from The Royal Mess.”

Chapter 19. LeRoi’s Secret

D.L. LeRoi’s phone number was disconnected, so a personal visit seemed called for. The address turned out to be a spiffed-up brownstone on a changing Brooklyn street. A Chinese hotel, a nail salon, a condemned lot posted with warning signs and a Laundromat made up the amenities. For the rest: anonymous apartments.

No one paid Jacquetta the slightest attention as she stood awkwardly studying a tenants’ list. A nice Hispanic man made it easier for her by unlocking the outer door; deftly she inserted a toe to keep from losing the opportunity.

And then she was climbing, climbing. D.L. LeRoi was on 4 and this wasn’t an elevator building.

The fourth-floor landing was tiny and cramped with three doors set at odd angles. The apartments behind them must be very small.

Feeling self-conscious, Jacquetta knocked. The wrong door opened and a woman with butchered hair in a man’s cut looked out.

“She’s gone away.”

“Oh really? Do you know where?”

But the door closed.

Nothing for it but to try to break in. She imagined herself standing before the judge in her postulant’s garb. But the knob gave, immediately and in seconds, she stood inside.

The high Victorian windows were swathed in curtains but there was enough light to see the bird had flown. Hastily assembled trash bags stood in the room’s center; a disrupted cleanup. Had that occurred before or after Miss Rainbeaux’s visit?

A mattress, a box spring, some plates and glasses in the kitchen. That was the extent of it. Nothing personal. Even the refrigerator was disconnected. In the bathroom, the medicine cabinet gaped open, empty. In a particularly bad omen, the mirror was broken. LeRoi had even taken the toilet paper.

There was nothing for it but to paw through the trash. Jacquetta had no gloves but mittens would be good enough. Pink satin sheets, a crumpled poster for Emmanuelle, the soft-porn film, some bottles of shampoo, shower gel and lotion were filling Jacquetta’s mind with certain ideas. “Midnight Kiss”, eh? Empty liquor bottles and party cups. Partially filled take-out containers. Ugh! The mittens trembled. This was what the tabloids call a love nest!

There was one odd and unexpected find. A box of stationery; blue sheets ornamented with yellow daisies. Strange to say the least. Who could LeRoi be writing to?

Caught in the floor boards a hint of gold. Jacquetta carefully levered it out. Bonanza! A thin gold chain – not a bracelet, more like an anklet – bearing the initial A. Could it be Avalon’s? With only twenty-six letters available it could be a lot of people’s. But it looked like real gold, and that said something. Shamelessly, Jacquetta pocketed it.

Downstairs on the street, business as usual. If people met for a private party, then separated for quotidian pursuits, who would care? If old ladies died, wasn’t that supposed to be what old ladies do?

I care, thought Jacquetta. She made a note of the apartment manager’s name, posted right above the mailboxes. Ingebrand Realty.

Chapter 18. Monastics

The engagement book continued three clues and three clues only – the name “Benson” every Thursday for the past two months and the address of a “LeRoi” in Brooklyn on the day Jacquetta and Miss Rainbeaux met. That’s what she was coming back from on the train, Jacquetta thought, whatever it was, that’s what sparked her mood. It must be significant – she died immediately afterwards.

But the other clue was the moniker “Kleinemann-Lundt” scribbled – in a different pen – the same day as LeRoi. There were no further identifications to help her find “Benson” or “Kleinemann-Lundt” and the phone book couldn’t help her. Miss Rainbeaux seemed to use this book as more of a spiritual journal. She visited a different church weekly and wrote extensively about them in a crabbed hand.

It must have been after two in the morning when Jacquetta drifted off, so that when she placed her call to the convent at nine a.m. precisely, she was just embarking on that first eye-opening cup of coffee.

“Holy Calvary,” barked a busy voice.

“This is Jacquetta Strike.” Jacquetta was not able to keep the nervousness out of her throat. “Am I speaking to Sister Theela?”

“No, this is Sister Elgarde. Are you that wandering postulant that’s got Mother in a swivet?”

Oh, this sounded bad. Jacquetta felt like a catechism-failing ten-year-old.

“I guess I am,” said Jacquetta. “It’s that a friend of mine died – “

“You wait right here,” said Sister Elgarde. “Mother said if you were to call I should get her immediately.”

There was a sound of plastic hitting rock – just like a phone being dropped on a marble floor. Oh God, prayed Jacquetta. Mother Xavier was such an intimidating woman!

After several long moments of dread, the familiar voice barked, “What’s the hold-up?”

Jacquetta, who never cried, felt tears starting at the back of her throat. “A friend of mine has been murdered,” she averred. “Everyone else thinks it was suicide but that’s impossible. She mentioned me in her will. I don’t exactly know what to do but I know I have to do something.”

“What you have to do,” insisted Mother Xavier, “is pass the cares of the world to the persons whose purview those are, I would say, in this case, the police. Can you do that?”

“I’ll try,” said Jacquetta.

“If you can’t do that, then you don’t belong here. Let’s make an appointment, shall we? Wednesday at three o’clock tea? Or would Friday better suit?”

“Friday,” said Jacquetta faintly. A week! A long, glorious week! One could accomplish anything in a week!

“Did you get that, Sister Elgarde?” asked Mother. “If so I’m ringing off.”

Jacquetta was a bit startled to find herself in a three-way conversation.

“Then I’ll be seeing you,” she said formally. “You too, Sister Elgarde.”

“I suppose there’s no help for it,” snapped the sister.