I shook my head. "I have to talk to Mother Winifred." I stood up too. "I'll see you at the board meeting tomorrow, then."

"Right," she said. Her look became fierce. "And you keep this under your hat, d'ya hear? I don't want you givin' away any secrets. There's a few people would give plenty to know what I've got planned for tomorrow so they could figure up a way to stop me."

"Who?" The Reverend Mother General, Sister Olivia? And Carl Townsend, of course. Who else?

"I'm not going to say." She looked straight at me. "It's like my daddy used to tell me. What you don't know can't hurt you none."

I've had plenty of clients tell me that, and when they did,

I tended to agree with them. But there was something else I wanted to know.

"I wonder," I said, "what you can tell me about Father Steven."

She sighed. "You know, sometimes you've just got to ask yourself why the Church tolerates these guys."

"What do you mean?"

Her tone was sour. "Go listen to him preach. Hellfire-and-damnation stuff. Confess your sins or burn."

"I didn't think Catholics were big on that sort of thing."

"This one is." She laughed raspily. "He glowers over that pulpit like the congregation is nothing but toads and vipers, and then he lets 'em have it with both barrels. Fire and brimstone."

"Has he been in the parish long?"

"Three or four years. He came here from Houston."

From Houston. "From the congregation at St. Agatha's?"

She nodded. "But he didn't come here directly. He was out of the priest business for a year or so, while they patched him up."

"Patched him up? Oh, you must mean the scar on his face. What happened?''

She cocked her head. "You didn't know? He was in a fire."

I stared at her, making the connection. ' 'What kind of a fire?"

"Don't think I ever heard," she said. "But whatever it was, it seems to've twisted his mind worse than his face. The sisters won't confess to him unless they just have to."

"I'm not sure I understand."

' 'He puts real teeth in his penances. Tell somebody a lie? Forget the Hail Marys-he makes you go back and tell them the truth. Borrow somethin' that doesn't belong to you? He has you put it back and ask the person you took it from for forgiveness. It's enough to keep most people away from confession indefinitely, particularly somebody

who cheats on his taxes." She chuckled mirthlessly. "Or diddles the company books."

As I said good-bye, I was thinking about Father Steven's fire-scarred face and his insistence on penance, and wondering just why he had appeared at the fire the night before.

By the time I got back to St. Theresa's, the noon meal was over and the refectory was empty, except for a sister sweeping the floor and another wiping off the tables.

"I know I'm late, but do you suppose I could get some lunch?" I asked the sister wielding the broom. She smiled in the direction of the kitchen and went on with her work.

The kitchen was clean and roomy, with a light green tile floor, open pantry shelves along one wall, two large gas cookstoves along another, and a couple of sinks along a third. The middle of the room was taken up by a long stainless-steel worktop with shelves under it, neatly filled with nested bowls and pots.

"Well, hi, China. I was hoping you'd get back before I finished."

I turned around. It was Maggie, straightening up from a large commercial dishwasher. She was clad in khaki pants, a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed up, and a large white apron that enveloped her from knees to shoulders. She looked happier than I'd ever seen her and less subdued, as if she had tapped into a new source of energy, as if she had started to come to life again.

"I thought you were on retreat," I said.

"I'm back." She pushed in the rack, shut the door, and turned a knob. The dishwasher began to make a gargling hum. She was smiling. "Laborare est orare. To work is to pray. To bake lasagna is to say, 'Hey, God, thanks for good things.' " She picked up a sponge and rinsed it out under the faucet. "Missed you at lunch."

I leaned a hip against the work counter. "I've been out making inquiries, as we say in the detective business."

"Mother told me." She gave me a wide grin. "So. I

understand that congratulations are in order, Sherlock. When are they going to arrest Dwight?''

"They're not," I said shortly. "I screwed up. Big time."

"You mean, you couldn't make them believe he really did it?"

"No. I mean he really didn't do it."

Her mouth fell open. "Then who did?"

I ran cold water into a glass and took a couple of gulps. "Royce Townsend says that he's the one who was doing the shooting. He wasn't shooting at me, though. He was sighting in a new rifle." That's what he said, and I couldn't think of a reason that he'd volunteer a lie.

Maggie's face was sober. "What about the fires? Dwight didn't do that, either?"

"Nope. He was sleeping off a drunk in the county hoose-gow when the rocking chair was torched last night."

She stared at me, sobered. "You mean, whoever did it is still-"

"-out there somewhere," I finished.

Her eyes glinted. "Well, if it wasn't Dwight, it could have been the Townsends. They-"

"I met Carl Townsend this morning," I said. "He didn't show a hint of recognition when he heard my name." It was true. Thinking back over the conversation with Town-send, there wasn't a single clue that he was involved with the fires. Anyway, he had no motive. He was hoping to make some sort of cooperative development deal with the Mother General. What's more, lighting little nuisance fires didn't strike me as Carl Townsend's style. If he was going to put a match to something, he was the type who'd burn it down and brag about it afterward.

"Who says it has to be Carl Townsend?" Maggie retorted. "He's got two boys. One of them could be responsible." She pushed up her sleeves. "It was Royce who shot at you?"

"That's right." I shook my head. "But I don't think he had anything to do with the fires." Royce was too much

like his father. He wouldn't condescend to something as trivial as a small fire.

Still, it made me think. Yesterday, Dominica had asked whether the person who wrote the letters had also set the chapel fire that burned her guitar. I'd said no, because I was so sure that Dwight was the arsonist. But I'd been wrong about Dwight. Maybe I was also wrong about the connection between the fires and the letters.

And then I suddenly thought of something else-Sister Miriam's portrait of Mother Hilaria, burned the night before.

"Of course!" I exclaimed.

"What is it?" Maggie asked.

"I've just revised one of my basic assumptions," I said. ' 'I think our arsonist is the same person who's writing the letters." I looked hungrily around the empty counters. There wasn't even any peanut butter and jelly in sight. "Are there any leftovers hiding in the fridge?" I asked. "I'll never make it until dinner without refueling." And dinner would be late that night, because I was eating with Tom.

"I saved you a little something," Maggie said. She opened the refrigerator and took out a plate. ' 'Lasagna, raw veggies, and applesauce. Will that do it?"

"Sounds great." While Maggie was heating a large serving of lasagna in the microwave, I added, "John Roberta checked out of the hospital this morning. I need to talk to her. Did she show up for lunch?"

"Nope." Maggie poured milk into a glass. "She's gone."

"Gone!" I was suddenly apprehensive. "Where did she go?"

"Home." Maggie handed me the glass. "Her mother died last night. Her sister picked her up at the hospital and the two of them are driving back together. She'll be back, but Mother isn't sure when."

Her sister. Maybe I could stop worrying. Maybe. "Where's home?"