The question caught her utterly off guard. Her eyes widened as she looked up at me. "The… hot plate?"

"Sister Ruth says that the hot plate from Mother Hi-laria's cottage has disappeared from the storage room. Did you take it?"

She squared her shoulders and managed a scoffing smile. "Did I take it? What in the world would I want with it? It's… it's dangerous."

"You haven't answered my question, Sister."

Her expression was half-defiant, half-apprehensive. 'Does Ruth say I took it?"

"She says it was in the storage room from the time Mother Hilaria died until you spoke to her about it. When she went to look for it, it was gone." I stood over her, keeping my eyes fixed on hers. ' 'Did you take the hot plate, Sister?"

Her lips thinned and pressed together. She seemed to be wrestling with something inside herself-the truth, perhaps. Her glance slid to Maggie, who was sitting very still. The silence stretched out. Finally, in a low, resigned voice, she said, "Very well, then. Yes, I took the hot plate."

"Why?"

She didn't look up. "Because… I was asked to take it."

"Asked? By whom?"

Her chin was trembling and her voice was scratchy. "Mother Winifred directed us to talk to you about the letters." She brought her chin under control with an effort. "She didn't say we had to talk to you about anything else. I don't want to answer any more-"

I leaned down. "Who asked you to take that hot plate, Sister?"

She pressed herself back in her chair. "What you're thinking is wrong, you know." She swallowed. "You really don't have any idea what you're-"

"I need to see that hot plate, Sister Rowena. This is a very serious matter, you know. If the sheriff's office gets involved…"

"The sheriff? But why should-" She blinked rapidly. "Well, you can't see it. Not just now, anyway. Not this minute. Maybe later."

"When?"

Her head drooped. There was a long silence. "When Olivia gets back," she said at last.

"Lord deliver us!" Maggie said as we left Hannah. "Amen," I said. "What do you think? Was she telling the truth?"

She hesitated. "I wasn't sure, in the beginning, anyway. That business about John Roberta being paranoid and Per-petua babbling and so on-it's all very convenient, isn't it? But she did tell, after all. About the hot plate, I mean."

Yes. It had taken an effort for Rowena to tell us who had the deadly hot plate, but she had told us. Which suggested that what she had said about John Roberta and Per-petua had also been the truth, at least in the narrow way she had framed her reply. People usually don't he about small things and then tell the incriminating truth about something much more significant.

Maggie turned to me. "Who's next? Who else are we going to interrogate and intimidate?"

"If that's what you think we did to Rowena," I replied tartly, "you're dead wrong. / was the one who was intimidated."

"Oh, yeah? Didn't sound like it to me," Maggie said in a wry voice.

I consulted my list. "Sister Rose is next, and after that, Ramona."

Maggie's head tilted. "Rowena, Rose, Ramona-do I see a pattern?" She frowned thoughtfully. "And John Roberta too. What's going on?"

"It's a long story. Let's find Rose and Ramona first. If there's time after we've talked to them, I'll tell you."

There was plenty of time, because our conversations with Rose and Ramona were fairly short. We found Rose in Mother Winifred's herb garden, bundled up in a red wool jacket, pruning back an unruly horehound. She was a shy, fragile, fortyish woman who spoke in a feathery voice and kept her eyes cast modestly downward.

"I'm afraid I'm not a very good source of information," she murmured apologetically. "I stay to myself, mostly. I work in the laundry for four hours every morning. Whenever I can, I come here." She glanced around. "This is much nicer than our little garden at St. Agatha's. Whatever changes Sister Olivia and Reverend Mother General are

– .inning, I hope they'll keep the herb garden. Although, of;ourse," she added hastily, "it is up to them."

"You know that Mother has asked me to see what I can earn about the fires that have occurred in the last few – onths. And the letters several people have received."

"I don't know anything about the fires," she said _.ickly. "Like everyone else, I find them very frightening. Last night was awful. If Mother hadn't smelled the smoke, Sophia might have burned down."

"And the letters?" I asked quietly. "Do you know any-±ing about them?"

She bit her lip. "No, I really don't. I mean-"

"Father Steven suggested that I talk to you about them. He seemed to think you might have a special concern."

She glanced up quickly, then away. She seemed to have trouble meeting my eyes, but that might be a normal behavior for her. "Did he? Well, I suppose-I mean, I did speak to him."

"Do you have a special reason for being concerned?"

She looked down again, and pulled a dead leaf off the plant. "You're asking whether I've received one of the letters?"

"Yes," I said, hoping for an answer. "Have you, Sister?"

She shook her head fervently. Too fervently? Her pale hand seemed to be trembling.

"Do you know someone who has?" Maggie asked.

Another headshake.

I frowned. "Then why did Father Steven think you might-"

Her face was suddenly fierce. ' 'Because I told him what happened to me!" She sank down onto the stone bench beside the path, as if her knees wouldn't support her.

"Can you tell us about it?" I asked gently.

She was fighting back tears. After a moment, she swallowed and choked out, ' 'When I was a novice, someone in our class wrote… notes." Her voice grew stronger. "She

slipped them into our books or left them for us to find under our pillows or in the bathroom. I guess it started out as a prank, because the first ones were rather silly. Amusing, even. But then they began to say accusing things, hurtful, virulent things. And then-" She pulled in her breath.

"Go on," I said.

She shook her head. "I know this is hard for you to understand. Little notes, pranks, jokes-you must be thinking it's all very trivial. A tempest in a teapot."

To tell the truth, that's exactly what I was thinking. But trivial incidents can loom large and threatening in a community that's closed off from the outside. If you live in the teapot, the tempest fills your entire world.

"Please," I said. "I want to hear."

She firmed her mouth and went on, haltingly. "One of the other novices-my cousin Marie, and dearer to me than a sister-got several of the letters. She began to question her vocation, and a few months later, she asked to leave. Once she got out in the world, she…" She stopped, swallowed, tried again. ' 'She lost her bearings. She got involved with drugs. Three years later, she was dead."

Maggie dropped down beside Rose and put an arm around her shaking shoulders. "I'm so sorry," she murmured sympathetically. She fished in her jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of tissues. "Did you know at the time who was writing the letters?"

Rose took a tissue and blew her nose. "At the time, I preferred not to know, and I've been glad ever since. If I knew who she was, I don't think I could… I might have done something that…" Her eyes were swimming with tears. "Those poisonous letters killed Marie! If it hadn't been for them, she would have remained in the order. She'd be happy and content now, safe in the service of God. That's what I told Father Steven. Whoever is writing these letters is breathing out the same poisonous air. It can infect all of us!"

I wanted to say that Marie's vocation must have been

pretty shaky to start with, but it would have sounded heartless. And Rose was living with the truth as she believed it. There was no point in questioning her version of the story.