I leaned forward, pressing the point. "I don't need to tell you how serious this is, Father. Someone who takes it on herself to write accusing letters and exact involuntary penance-she's playing God."

The kettle began to whistle, and Father Steven got up and went to the stove. He came back with the kettle and splashed hot water over the coffee granules in my cup. He poured himself hot water, too, returned the kettle to the stove, and sat down again.

"I suppose there are several who might help," he said

with obvious reluctance. He took a pair of glasses out of his pajama pocket, put them on, and picked up the paper. "You should talk to Olivia. Rowena, Ruth, perhaps Rose. Yes, Rose-" He tapped the list. "Certainly John Roberta. And Perpetua."

"Perpetua is dead."

He blinked behind his glasses. "Yes, of course. Dead. That's too bad. She would have been willing to help you."

"Did she know who wrote the letters?"

He sighed. "She… made an accusation."

"And you can't tell me whom she accused?"

He took off his glasses and put them back into his pajama pocket. "What good would that do? She might have been mistaken. She was quite old. She was also a little crazy."

But she might not have been mistaken. And now she was dead.

"Who else has made an accusation?" I asked with greater urgency. Did John Roberta know what Perpetua knew? Was that what she had been so eager to tell me- and why she'd been so afraid?

"No one." He stirred his coffee so furiously that it slopped out onto the already soiled tablecloth.

And that was all I was going to get out of him. When I left a little later, he was standing in the kitchen, rubbing his wrinkled white toadstool of a head and scowling at the sinkful of dirty dishes.

Chapter Eleven

Mother Winifred had given me a hand-drawn map that led me to the M Bar M, Sadie Marsh's ranch, a couple of miles north of St. Theresa's. I pushed the Dodge, but it was twenty to eleven when I pulled into the ranch yard and parked next to Sadie's blue Toyota.

If I'd been expecting something like the Townsend plantation house, or even the more modest Texas-style ranch house at St. Theresa's, Sadie's would have disappointed me. The small frame house was weathered a silver gray that almost matched the gray of the metal roof. It sat in the middle of a square of unkempt, winter-browned grass. The yard had once been graced by a large tree, but there was nothing left of it but a sawed-off stump that served as the pedestal for a five-foot red windmill that turned creakily. Obviously, Sadie didn't care much for making things pretty.

What did she care about? The answer lay to the right and behind the house: a large, new-looking barn with an attached paddock surrounded by a white-painted fence. The exercise and training area for the horses Sadie raised, I supposed. And beyond that, a much larger field, looped by more wooden fence. Expensive fence.

The wind was blowing cold out of gray clouds, bringing

with it needles of chilly rain. I pulled up the collar of my jacket and stuck my hands into the pockets. If it rained tomorrow, Tom might not want to go riding. At the thought, I felt a prickle of disappointment that caught me by surprjf e. Was I looking forward to it that much?

Sadie opened the door at my first knock. She was wearing jeans and a red sweater and boots, and her steel gray hair was snugged back from her strong face with a red bandanna. "Glad you could make it." She motioned with her head. "This place is a bitch to heat when the wind's in the north. Come on-it's warmer in the kitchen."

The kitchen floor was covered with scuffed gray vinyl, the wall over the sink was lined with open pine shelves stacked with crockery and canned goods, and the curtains at the windows were plain muslin. Pans and utensils hung on the wall over the gas stove. The only decorative touch was a red geranium blooming on the windowsill and a large Sierra Club calendar on the wall over the scarred pine table. It pictured two paint ponies running across a snowy meadow with mountains in the background. Through an open door I could see into a bedroom, the neatly made bed covered with a striped blanket, a dresser decorated with a lamp and a row of well-worn books between carved wooden bookends. Flannel pajamas and a purple bathrobe hung from wooden pegs on the wall. The house belonged to a ranch woman who didn't care whether her possessions were pretty as long as they did their job.

Sadie had been working at the table. A sheaf of stapled pages was laid out there, next to a stack of posters advertising an organizational meeting for a local environmental group. "What would you like to drink? Coffee? Tea? There's peppermint, if you'd rather."

"Peppermint," I said gratefully. I'd had enough caffeine to wire me for the whole day.

She turned up the fire under the kettle. "I hear that you and Tom Rowan are old friends," she said.

I glanced at her. It was a strange opening. "We knew

one another in Houston," I said guardedly. "Eight or nine years ago." Who had told her? And why was it important?

"Maybe you'll strike up the friendship again," she remarked.

"I doubt it," I said. "I've got plenty else on my plate. And there's somebody else in my life."

Did I imagine it, or was she relieved? "I'll get that deed," she said, and left the room. A minute later, she was back with a legal-size manilla envelope.

The deed was dated twenty-five years ago, and began with the familiar know all men by these presents. It affirmed that, in consideration of the sum of one dollar, Helen J. Laney herewith granted, sold, and conveyed to the Sisters of the Holy Heart all that certain eight hundred acres of land more particularly described by metes and bounds as shown on the addendum attached, with the restrictions and upon the covenants, dedications, agreements, easements, stipulations, and conditions specified on the attached pages, et cetera, et cetera.

I turned the page, found the addendum with the surveyor's report, and turned that page too. And there they were, rigged to go off like dynamite in the faces of Sister Olivia and the Reverend Mother General. The first restriction placed a moratorium on all construction except that required by the monastery's agricultural enterprises for a thirty-year period beginning five years from the date of the deed. The second restriction required that after the moratorium had ended, two-thirds of the sisters in residence at St. Theresa's must approve any and all construction, and such construction must be consistent with the monastery's original mission. A final emphatic sentence drove the point home. "These restrictions are intended to ensure the property's continued dedication to the contemplative purposes for which it is herein conveyed."

Two-thirds of the sisters? That meant a simple majority couldn't control the monastery's destiny.

Sadie put a cup in front of me, dropped in a tea bag, and

poured boiling water over it. The fragrant peppermint scent wafted upward, restoring me. She sat down at the end of the table with her own cup.

"Well?" she demanded. "What do you think?"

"Where were the order's lawyers when this deed was executed?" I asked. "I can't imagine why they would accept these restrictions."

Sadie chuckled. ' 'What could they do? Helen and Hilaria weren't the kind of women who could be pushed around. Helen knew exactly what she wanted and she wasn't going to let a passel of lawyers get in her way. Anyway, they didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when the horse was known to bite. Helen made it clear that the order wouldn't get an acre if they didn't take it on her terms. At one point, she even threatened to give the land outright to Hilaria, screw the order."