When I had finished assembling my breakfast tray, I looked around for Maggie but didn't see her. Ruby wasn't there either, of course. She had already left for Albuquerque.

After we'd climbed down the cliff the night before, we had all walked to my cottage, where we sat down to talk for a little while. "I'd love to stay and help you figure out what's going on here," Ruby had said regretfully. "But my friends have made all sorts of plans. I really can't disappoint them."

"That's okay," I said. "You're still picking us up for the drive home, aren't you?"

"In two weeks." She'd glanced at Maggie. "Are you going back with us, Maggie?" It was the first reference either of us had made, since supper, to Maggie's momentous decision.

"I've got to go back," Maggie said. "I have to get ready to put the restaurant up for sale, make arrangements, that sort of thing. It'll be a while before I can come back to

stay. In the meanwhile, though, I'm considered a member of the order."

I regarded Maggie thoughtfully. "I suppose I'd understand it better if the restaurant were a flop. But feeling the way you do about the Church, I'm not sure why you want to come back-especially when things here are so unsettled."

Maggie looked down at her hands resting quietly in her lap. "It's true-there's a lot of uncertainty here. And I'm not any more comfortable with the Church than I was when I left."

I shook my head. "Then why-?"

"Because it's where I'm meant to be," Maggie said simply. "Haven't you ever felt that your place in life is the right place?"

I thought about that for a moment. No, I had never been sure that my place was the right place-not when I was practicing law, not after I'd bought the shop, not even after I'd moved in with McQuaid. Where I was now felt pretty good, sometimes more, sometimes less, but I wasn't absolutely sure it was right. I wondered fleetingly what it would be like to experience that kind of assurance.

"Excuse me." Ruby stirred. "You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, Maggie. But what about Dominica? Does she have anything to do with this?"

Maggie didn't seem offended. "Maybe. I've certainly missed her. But I don't expect anything to be different between us. I'm just sort of doing this a step at a time. Taking it on faith. And loving the questions."

I was surprised into the recollection of a piece of poetry I had read once. "Love the questions like locked doors," I said softly. "Like books in a very foreign tongue." Rilke was the poet, I thought.

"Love the questions?" Ruby shook her head. "Excuse me, but I prefer answers."

"In the short run, maybe." Maggie smiled. "But questions take us farther and deeper. I was called here to St.

T's to learn something. Whatever it is, I need to come back and get on with the job."

"But don't you need to know what job it is that you're supposed to get on with?" Ruby asked doubtfully.

Maggie's laugh was rich and joyful. "There is such a thing as faith, you know. Come on, you guys. Love the questions!"

The logic of Maggie's decision continued to escape me, but 1 felt close to her in a new way. And when she and Ruby left, we all hugged one another for a long time, Ruby and I in our doubt, Maggie in her faith.

I found a spot at a table in a corner of the refectory. If one of the sisters had information for me, I was hoping she'd come and sit down. But perhaps it had been too public an invitation, I decided as I finished my breakfast alone. The only person who spoke to me was Sister Gabriella, who had traded her jeans for a tailored skirt and sweater. She stopped as I was putting my plate on the stack of dirty dishes on the pass-through shelf to the kitchen.

"How about dropping by Jacob after Mass?" she asked. "I'd like to give you a tour of our garlic operation." A nun in a habit paused to scan a nearby bulletin board and Gabriella bent toward me, lowering her voice so the other woman couldn't hear. "Sadie Marsh, one of the Laney Foundation Board members, will be here this morning. She wants to talk to you."

"Oh, yes," I said, remembering. "Tom Rowan mentioned her. She raises horses, doesn't she?"

"That's right." Gabriella raised one quizzical eyebrow. "You've met Tom?"

I felt myself coloring. ' 'We knew one another years ago. He said that the board is meeting here this week."

"Tuesday morning. But Sadie doesn't want to wait until then." She raised her voice again. "Does eleven sound all right? We can take a tour of the garlic field, if the weather is still cooperating."

"Fine," I said, and turned to go. "See you then."

I was halfway down the hall when I was stopped by a slight, anxious nun in a modified habit and veil that hid her hair. She wore plastic-rimmed fifties-style glasses, and she was so tense that I could almost feel her quivering. She looked over her shoulder in both directions before she pulled me into the laundry room.

"I'm Sister John Roberta." The words escaped from her in whispery gasps. "If I tell you what I know, will you help me get away?"

I was startled. "Get away? Why?" What did she know that would make her so fearful?

She clutched at my arm. "I'm afraid I'll die here! Please, help me!"

"I'll do my best," I said reassuringly. "What are you afraid of?"

Her mouth trembled. "Sister Olivia says we have to stick together." She broke into a flurry of dry coughing. "And Sister Rowena says if I tell, I'm being disloyal. They might-"

She pressed her fist to her mouth at the sound of muted voices and footsteps in the hall. The group passed, the outer door closed, and there was silence once again. John Roberta stood still, her eyes apprehensive. Her face was almost as white as the starched band of her veil.

"I'm afraid someone will hear," she said. "Or see us together and guess that I'm-" She bit off her sentence.

' 'I could come to your room to talk,'' I said. ' 'We'd have more privacy there."

She shook her head violently. "They'd see you. They'd know I was talking to you. They'd-" She broke off, coughing. "You're staying in Jeremiah, aren't you?" she asked, when she could speak again. "I'll come there. Later."

"After lunch?" I asked. I wasn't sure I could trust her to come, but I didn't have any choice in the matter.

"Not right after. One-thirty." Another cough, a fright-

ened glance, and she was gone, a shadow winging down the shadowy hall.

The encounter was promising, but all I was left with were questions. I would have to wait until one-thirty to learn the answers. I looked at my watch. Mass would be starting soon. I'd better get busy.

Earlier in the morning, in the gun rack of Dwight's GMC pickup in the parking lot, I had seen an Enfield 303 and, crumpled on the floor of the cab, an empty Camels pack. But before I accused the man of assault with a deadly weapon, I wanted to see if I could discover something that might explain his attack. Something that would connect him to the Townsends, for instance.

The bell was ringing for Mass when I walked casually to the door of Amos, Dwight's vintage stucco cottage, and knocked. No answer. I knocked again, harder, and called Dwight's name. Still no answer. 1 put my hand in my pocket and took out the key. But I didn't need it, because the door wasn't locked.

Amos had the same layout as Jeremiah, although it wasn't nearly as clean. Foul-smelling jeans and work shirts were heaped in one corner, there was a saddle and a dirty saddle blanket under the window, and copies of Playboy, open to the centerfold, littered the floor by the bed. The room reeked of stale cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey.

I began by checking the dresser drawers, then moved to the single drawer in the wooden desk, the bathroom shelves, and the jackets and shirts hanging in the closet. But apart from a half-empty box of 303 cartridges and a completely empty bottle of Wild Turkey, I found little of interest. Until, that is, I reached in the pocket of a flannel shirt and found a business card with the name, address, and telephone numbers of J. R. Nutall, Carr County Probation Officer.