Rueful Death

Chapter Three

Carr, Texas, is not a bustling metropolis. You might drive through it before you could say, "Where are the Golden Arches?" But it's a very pretty town, with pecans and live oaks arching over narrow, brick-paved streets, lined by frame cottages trimmed with turn-of-the-century gingerbread and set in neat gardens. It looked like Pecan Springs a couple of decades ago, before tourism brought the developers into town. I wondered fleetingly what it would be like to live here, maybe even move my shop here. Life would certainly be more peaceful. But it was too far for McQuaid to commute, except on weekends. Which might not be a bad idea, I thought. It would give us a little breathing space.

"We'll get to St T's too late for lunch," Maggie said. "Make a left turn at that light, Ruby. We'll stop at Bern-ice's and get something to eat."

We were on the square. The hardware store was on one corner, its window full of saws, coiled rope, water heaters, and a gleaming white commode. The Carr State Bank was on another, fronted by a concrete planter containing a leafless tree still draped with Christmas lights and a sign that said, Be Good, for Goodness' Sake. A Carnegie library was on the third comer, next to a five-and-dime. Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, with a letterboard announcing that Father Steven Shaw celebrated Mass at eleven on Sundays, stood on the fourth. A stone courthouse commanded the center. It might not have qualified as Most Picturesque Town Square in Texas, but the church was painted, the bank looked prosperous, and the hardware store had three or four pickups parked out front. Next to the bank was Bernice's Cafe.

"St. T's is mostly vegetarian and low-fat, so this is your last chance for chicken-fried steak," Maggie said as Ruby swung diagonally into the curb. "And you haven't had fried onion rings until you've eaten Bernice's."

I blinked. "Chicken-fried and onion rings? I thought you were into gourmet cooking."

Maggie grinned and slipped into a West Texas drawl. "Yes, ma'am, honey. Out here, Bernice's chicken-fried is gourmet cookin'. But don't believe everything she says," Maggie added in her usual voice. "She's the switchboard operator on the local grapevine. If you encourage her, you'll get an earful of gossip."

Inside the cafe, we were greeted by a weathered, gritty-voiced woman in jeans and a plaid Western shirt, standing behind a green Formica-covered counter. "Well, Margaret Mary," she said, grinning at Maggie. "I'll be durned. Been a couple years, ain't it? How are you?" The woman, whose apricot-colored hair turned up in an Andrews Sisters puff, wiped her hands on a white apron and lowered the volume on a pink plastic radio that was playing an old Johnny Cash ballad called "Ring of Fire." Over the radio hung a fly-specked cheesecake poster girl with a Budweiser in her hand. We had just stepped into a time warp.

"Hello, Bernice," Maggie said. "It's nice to see you." She pulled out a scarred wooden chair and sat down at a table covered with a red-and-white-checked oilcloth. Ruby and I joined her.

Bernice took in Ruby's hooded caftan and came to the obvious conclusion. "Don't tell me, let me guess. Y'all are headin' out to St T's." She didn't wait for confirmation. '* 'F that's the case, you'll need somethin' fillin'." She went behind the counter and pushed mugs under the old-fashioned coffee urn. "From what I hear, the cookin' out there has went straight to hell since you left, Margaret Mary. And that's not the only tiling that's went to hell, either," she added, carrying the mugs to our table. She glanced at Ruby. "Pardon my French, Sister."

Ruby looked taken aback, then inclined her head gently as she took the coffee.

Maggie ignored Bernice's invitation to gossip. "I'll have the chicken-fried," she said, "French fries and an order of onion rings."

"I will too," Ruby said. She looked up with a beneficent, nunlike smile. Bernice's mistake was giving her a new view of herself.

"Make that three," I said, but unlike Maggie, I'm not above tweaking the town grapevine. "Is something going on at St T's?"

Bernice wiped her hands on her apron. I could have sworn she was wearing Midnight in Paris. Maybe she was. The five-and-dime across the street might still have a few of those little blue forty-nine-cent bottles stashed under the counter.

"Some folks say it's just coinkidinks. Other folks think it's bad luck." She raised both plucked eyebrows. "Ya ask me, somebody's tryin' to fix their wagon."

Ruby was looking divinely unconcerned. Maggie was trying not to listen. "Whose wagon?" I asked.

"Why, them nuns, of course." Bernice bent over my shoulder and lowered her grainy voice. ' 'You go out there, you watch yourself, y'hear? Keep a bucket o' water by your bed."

There was a moment of silence. Then Maggie sighed the sigh of someone who's been trapped into a knock-knock joke. "Okay, Bernice, we give up. Why should we keep a bucket of water by the bed?"

Bernice feigned surprise. "What? Oh, sorry, Margaret Mary. I thought you wadn't interested."

"Has there been a fire?" I asked.

"Christmas Eve, in the chapel." Bernice's voice signified disaster. "Wadn't the first, neither. Thanksgivin', it was a grease fire in the kitchen. Couple weeks 'fore that, the barn."

"Grease?" Maggie was incredulous. "Why would there be grease in the kitchen? They don't cook fried foods."

"Did any of the fires do much damage?" I asked.

"Not a whole lot." Bernice waved her hand. "You remember Dwight Baldwin, Margaret Mary? The maintenance man? Well, Dwight was out in the yard when the kitchen got afire, an' he run in an' grabbed a pot lid. He got to the barn fire, too, 'fore it could spread, and he and Father Steven put out the chapel fire. None of 'em had much of a chance to git goin'. But it all adds up, don'cha see?"

"Adds up to what?" 1 asked.

She gave me a withering look. "To one coinkidink too many, that's what. You mark my words-somebody's got it in for them nuns." She turned to Ruby and modulated her tone. "You oughta try a piece of Betty Ann's peach pie, Sister. She brung it in this morning. Fredericksburg peaches, fresh outta her freezer."

Ruby couldn't resist. "Bless you, my daughter," she murmured. Beatrice smiled and walked briskly toward the kitchen.

"Bernice must be exaggerating," Maggie said. "If the fires were serious, Dominica would have written to me." She frowned. "But I haven't heard from her since before Christmas. I wonder…"

We stirred our coffee. A mechanical cuckoo popped out of a red-plastic cuckoo clock and whisded the first bars of "The Eyes of Texas." Johnny Cash had finished "Ring of

Fire" and Buddy Holly was starting on "Peggy Sue." After a moment, Ruby poured cream into her coffee and leaned toward Maggie.

"I've known you for over two years and I've never heard how you got to be a nun, Maggie.''

Maggie's mouth was wry. "Why did I do such a crazy thing, you mean?"

Still captured by the image of herself as a monastic, Ruby frowned. "Maybe it wasn't crazy," she said.

"My mother thought I'd lost my mind," Maggie said reflectively. "I'd just finished my degree in social work, and I was volunteering with the Sisters of the Holy Heart in Chicago. One morning I woke up, put on my clothes, walked into the Vocations Office at the convent, and said, 'I want to be a nun.' "

Ruby blinked. "That was it?"

"That was it," Maggie said matter-of-factly. "No finger of God, no choir of angels, no heavenly light. It was just something I had to do. It didn't even feel like I had a choice."

"How did you get from Chicago to Texas?" I asked.

"I ran into Mother Hilaria at a conference. She was looking for sisters to help get St. T's up and running. I told her I wasn't interested, but she wrote to me and sent me some pictures and…" She was tracing a wet design on the table with the tip of her spoon. "God wanted me here, I guess. So I came. If it hasn't happened to you, it's kind of hard to explain. We say we've been called. We've been given a vocation."

Ruby cleared her throat. ' 'If God wanted you here, why did you leave?'' The question might have been tactless, but it was on my mind, too.

Maggie picked up her coffee mug. I could sense a softening in her, a sadness. "I thought I'd be at St. T's for the rest of my life. I loved the quiet. I loved my work in the kitchen. I even loved the garlic field.'' She paused and took a sip of coffee. When she spoke again, her voice was low.

"It wasn't easy, believe me. Leaving was like tearing out a piece of my soul."

I was startled. I'd expected to hear that she felt stifled by the discipline or fell in love with a priest. This was something quite different.

Ruby stared at her. "Then why did you do it?"

For a minute, I thought she wasn't going to answer. " Vocations are fragile," she said finally, without inflection. "Sometimes they last a lifetime, sometimes they don't I was angry. I was fed up with the Church's attitude toward women. We're okay for cheap labor, but they'll never allow us to be full participants. They can't afford to. They know we'd change things."

Bernice came with our food, and the next few minutes were filled with moving plates around and making sure we had what we needed. While we got started eating, I was thinking. Anger against the hierarchy must drive a lot of women out of the Church these days. But something made me wonder if there hadn't been another reason for Maggie's leaving. When she'd spoken about living at St. T's, her voice had been soft and shaken, deeply truthful. When she'd told us why she left, she might have been reading from a newspaper. I could feel her longing for the life she had abandoned. But I couldn't feel her outrage.

Ruby was blunt. ' 'But if you really liked your life at St. T's, why didn't you fight for it?" She pushed her sleeves back and picked up her fork. "The Vatican is seven time zones away, for cryin' out loud. They wouldn't know if you got together with a few nuns and celebrated Communion. Or you could have joined a group and tried to change things."

"I'm sure you're right." Maggie looked down at her plate. ' 'But about that time my father died and left me some money. It was as if God had handed me an invitation to do something else with my life." A smile ghosted across her mouth.

I was about to observe that the money might have been a test of her desire to stay just as easily as it could have been an invitation to leave, but Ruby spoke first. "You've been happy doing your restaurant thing, haven't you? You always seem happy."

Well, maybe. I wasn't sure that it was happiness I'd sensed in Maggie as much as acceptance. She takes life as it comes, without trying to do much about it. It's a state of mind-of soul, maybe-that I have to admire. It's totally different from the aggressive I'm-going-to-get-what-I-want-come-hell-or-high-water attitude of the people I knew when I was practicing law. But acceptance can be a problem too. If I had chosen to live at St. T's, you can darn well bet I wouldn't have let myself be driven out by the backward ideas of a few old men.

Maggie nibbled on an onion ring, musing over Ruby's question. "Am I happy? Mostly, I guess. The restaurant has given me self-confidence-I needed that. And I've loved having friends, especially you two. But I still miss the community. Mother Hilaria, the other nuns. It's…" She swallowed. "It's as if I've been in exile for the last two years."

"Well, if you miss it so much," Ruby said practically, "why don't you-?"

The rest of her question was lost in a sudden whoosh of chill air from the open door. A fair-haired man in a dark Stetson, jeans, and boots strode in, shrugged out of his sheepskin jacket, and hung it on a peg by the door. He turned in our direction and stopped.

There was a long moment, freeze-frame, while our eyes met and held. My heart lunged to the top of my windpipe and stayed there while I struggled to breathe past it.

"China?" the man asked. "China Bayles?" He was lean and narrow-hipped, almost thin. His face was more tanned and weather-beaten than I remembered, but then it had been eight years since I'd seen him. He covered the distance in three strides, not taking his eyes off me.

"China? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm eating lunch," I said incoherently. Ruby gave a delicate cough. "With friends," I added, and waved my hand to cover my confusion. "Ruby, this is an old friend of mine, Tom Rowan. Tom, Ruby Wilcox."

' 'Hi, Tom,'' Ruby said, lifting a graceful hand. She caught my eye. "An old friend, huh?" she asked meaningfully, with a Why-haven't-you-mentioned-him-before? look.

I ignored her. "And this is Maggie Garrett."

Tom glanced at Maggie, and his brown eyes lightened. "Maggie Garrett," he exclaimed, taking her hand. "Haven't seen you since you left St. T's. What are you up to these days?"

"I run a restaurant in Pecan Springs." Maggie squeezed his hand and let it go. "So you and China know one another?"

"You bet." Tom took the fourth chair at the table, next to me. "Last time I saw China, she was defending some big-time crook." His eyes went to my left hand for a fraction of an instant, then came back to my face. "You got the bastard acquitted-Douglas, wasn't that his name?" He glanced at Ruby. "Excuse me, Sister."

Ruby colored. "Oh, I'm not… I mean-" She looked down at her robe, couldn't think of any logical explanation for her monkish garb, and blurted out the next thing that came into her mind. "Has anyone ever mentioned that you look exactly like Robert Redford?"

I didn't have to listen to his flip response-I'd heard it a dozen times before. I was thinking of the Douglas trial, the most demanding of my fifteen-year career. Interminable days in the courtroom, long nights and weekends at the office. Somewhere during that period, my relationship with Tom Rowan had come to an abrupt and catastrophic end.

At the time, I was so totally focused on the case that I put Tom's departure aside to deal with later-something unpleasant that had to be faced, like getting the brakes fixed on the car or replacing the crown I lost halfway through the trial. I didn't feel the pain until the jury came in with a not-guilty verdict and I woke up and realized that where Tom had been, there was now a large and gnawing emptiness. We'd been intimate for less than a year, but he was the first man I ever really loved, and 1 hadn't thought it could end. I hadn't known, you see, that love dies when you don't pay attention to it-especially when there isn't much beside physical attraction to build on. Later, still feeling the loss, I handed in my resignation, moved to Pecan Springs, opened the shop-and McQuaid came along to fill the emptiness.

I pulled my eyes away. "The Douglas trial," I murmured. "It was a long time ago."

Tom brushed his blond hair out of his eyes with the boyish gesture mat had always made me want to smile. "Eight years is a long time. Are you in Carr on a case?"

"I'm not in practice anymore."

He tilted his head curiously, but didn't say anything, just glanced around the table, taking in Maggie and Ruby in her brown monk's robe. "The three of you are on vacation, then?"

"Sort of," I said. "We're staying at St. T's for a couple of weeks."

"Not all of us," Ruby said. "I'm just here for one night. I'm leaving for Albuquerque tomorrow morning." She gave Tom a charming smile, anxious to redeem herself. "What a small world it is. And what a coincidence-you and China running into one another like this. You must be totally surprised." She hesitated, debating, then stepped into it. "How well did you know one another?"

Tom's tanned face crinkled in the familiar smile that had once made my heart turn over. "Not very well, actually. We only thought we did."

Ruby's eyes flew to me and her eyebrows became giant question marks.

"You'll enjoy St. T's," he added. "It's quiet and peaceful-well, mostly anyway. And the Yucca River country is as wild as it gets in this part of Texas." He looked up as Bernice came through the kitchen door. "Hey, Bernie, how ya doin'?"

Bernice's eyes lit up. "Well, hi there, handsome! Thought mebbe you'd given up eatin'."

Tom laughed. "Not on your life, beautiful. Took Dad to Dallas for chemo. Miss me?''

"Did I miss you?" She rolled her eyes expressively. "Nobody calls me 'beautiful' when you ain't around, Tommy."

"That's their problem. Say, you got any of that world-famous chili back there, darlin'? If you do, I'll take a bowl."

"Sure thing," Bernice said. She chuckled as she poured his coffee, then refilled our cups.

I looked at Tom. "Mostly peaceful?''

"Except for a little excitement from time to time," he replied casually. He turned his chair sideways and crossed his long legs. "A couple of small fires, but no damage." He glanced from me to Maggie. ' 'What would you two say to going riding one day next week? We can get horses from Sadie Marsh-she lives out that way."

"You know this area, then?" I asked.

Come to think of it, what was Tom Rowan doing in this little one-horse town? When I knew him, he was a fair-haired, pinstriped superstar at one of Houston's biggest banks. He was talented, confident, and not above using his substantial charm to get what he wanted. Why had he left? How had he ended up here?

"Does he know this area?" Bernice mimicked scathingly. She put her hand on Tom's shoulder. "Listen, lady, this guy went through all eight grades and high school right here in Carr. He may have had his big-city fling, but he's home now."

"Tom's president of the local bank, China," Maggie put in.

"And a member of every community group around,"

Bernice said proudly, as if she were giving him a recommendation. "Lions, K of C, Community Chest. The town couldn't do without him."

"He's also chairman of the Laney Foundation Board," Maggie added. At my blank look, she added, "The board that manages St. T's trust fund."

As Bernice went back to the kitchen to get the chili, Tom had the grace to look embarrassed. "The bank is one of those small, family-owned banks you hardly ever hear about anymore," he said. "My grandfather established it and turned it over to Dad when he retired. Now it's my turn-or will be, when the old man can't handle it anymore. Sick or not, though, he's still the bank's big cheese. I tell him I'm just filling in until he's able to get back to work."

I was skeptical. The Tom I remembered hated it when somebody else threatened to become a bigger cheese than he was.

Maggie's face was sober. "How is your father, Tom? Dominica told me he has cancer."

"Hanging in there. The doc says he's got six months, more or less. He'll be back at the bank for a few more weeks. After that…" He shrugged.

"I'm sorry," I said, and meant it. I'd met his father a time or two and had enjoyed him.

"That's the breaks." He smiled crookedly. "Tell you what. The foundation board is meeting at St. T's on Tuesday morning. Sadie is one of the board members, so she'll be there. After the meeting, we'll go to her place, pick up some horses, and take off into the backcountry for a few hours." His eyes were on mine, searching. "What do you say, China?"

I hesitated. Did I really want to go riding with Tom? Our relationship hadn't so much ended as been broken off, and I'd hungered for him a long time afterward. If I said yes, what would I be letting myself in for?

But Maggie couldn't know about my reservations. "Why don t you go, she said. "You 11 see some country you won't otherwise see."

"I think you should, too, China," Ruby put in unexpectedly. "You might not have another chance."

Tom grinned. "Good," he said. "Tuesday afternoon, then." He looked up with satisfaction as Bernice came in with a bowl of chili. She put it down and turned to Ruby.

"Well now, Sister," she said, "are you ready for some of that pie?"'

Outside, a brisk northern breeze was ripping the clouds apart, leaving ragged patches of blue. We had said goodbye to Tom and were about to get into Ruby's car when a man wearing a deputy's badge, a dark blue jacket, and a holstered.357 hurried down the courthouse steps and across the street. He greeted Maggie familiarly, then turned to me. He was a long-nosed man with sagging satchels of skin under bulging brown eyes.

"Stu Walters," he said, thrusting out his hand. "Miz Bayles?"

I nodded.

' 'Mother Winifred told me you was comin' today. I fig-gered it was you when I saw Sister Margaret Mary here." He looked down his nose at Maggie. "Haven't seen you around lately, Sister."

Maggie shook her head. ' 'I left the order two years ago. Stu."

The deputy frowned. "You kin do that? Jes' up an' leave, I mean?"

"Yes," Maggie said, smiling slightly. "We're not joined at the hip."

The deputy's puzzlement deepened, as if he were trying to cope with the idea that a nun might not be a nun forever. He gave it up and turned to me. "I was gonna call St. T's in the mornin' an' ask you to come in, Miz Bayles. Guess we kin talk now an' save us both the trouble."

I turned sideways against the wind. The sun was momentarily bright but there was no warmth in it. ' 'What do you want to talk to me about?"

"You don't know?"

"What am I supposed to know?" I said testily. "I've been in your county just long enough to put down an order of chicken-fried steak and onion rings and two cups of Bernice's coffee. If I've broken a law, you'll have to tell me what it is."

He shifted from one foot to the other. "I guess Mother Winifred ain't told you, then."

"Told me what?"

" 'Bout one o' her nuns bein' a firebug."

"You think one of the sisters is setting those fires?" Maggie exclaimed. "But that's crazy, Stu!"

" 'Xactly what I told Mother Winifred," the deputy said. ' 'Trouble is, that kind of crazy is well-nigh impossible to catch unless you jes' happen to be standin' next to her when she flicks her Bic."

Ruby pushed her hands into her sleeves. "Then how do you know it's one of the nuns?"

The deputy gave her a long, squinting look. "Excuse me for sayin' so, Sister, but you ain't in full possession of the facts."

Ruby sighed. "I'm not a sister either."

The deputy had had enough. "Then what's that thing yer wearin'? Yer bathrobe?"

"You're absolutely right," I said hastily. "We're not in possession of the facts, full or otherwise. All we've heard so far are rumors."

He swiveled to look at me. "You ain't talked to Mother Winifred?"

"Not about arson."

"She ain't asked you to look into the fires?"

I shook my head, but the situation was coming clearer. It became crystal clear when the deputy said firmly, "Well, she will."

Great. I had thought I was going on retreat. Instead,

Mother Winifred and God had decided to call me to do an arson investigation. I sighed. "You were the investigating officer at these fires?"

"Yep. Sheriff Donovan's been laid up since he got broadsided by a drunk a couple months ago." He pushed his mouth in and out. "Gotta tell you, though, Miz Bayles. It's real tough to get a fix on what's goin' on out there. Nobody sees nothin', nobody knows nothin', ever'body covers for ever'body else." He looked from Maggie to Ruby. "They don't call you 'sisters' for nothin'."

Ruby opened her mouth and Maggie was about to say something, but I spoke first. "In your mind, Deputy Walters, where exactly do I come into this?"

He scratched his jaw. ' 'Well, Mother Winifred-''

"No," I said, "what do you think?"

He puffed his cheeks, debating with himself. Finally he said, "Well, usin' an undercover civilian, 'speshly a woman, ain't somethin' the sheriff's office would norm'ly agree to. But seein's how all the suspects are sisters, an'-"

"Undercover!" Ruby exclaimed excitedly.

Maggie pulled at my sleeve. "I swear, China," she said in a low voice, "I didn't know Mother Winifred was going to ask you to do something like this. I thought she meant to ask you to look into the letters."

"What letters?" I asked.

The deputy raised his voice and plowed on. "Seein's how the suspects are all women, I says, yeah, sure, go ahead, find yerself an investigator. Just lemme know so's I can clue her in. Couple days later, she gives me yer name." He hitched up his pants. ' T figure what the hell, might as well be you wastin' yer time as me. Them fires was pretty dinky anyway."

I was beginning to get the drift. Baffled and frustrated, Walters had more or less given up on the investigation. And he was trivializing the fires, which was a bad mistake. They

might have been minor so far, but fire can be deadly. Dwight might not be around to put out the next one.

I gave Walters a measuring look. "Just what makes you think I can find the arsonist when you've already struck out?"

" 'Cause Mother Winifred says you're an experienced investigator." He looked uneasy. "That's right, ain't it? I wasn't expectin' no private license, but you do know what you're doin', don't you?"

"Of course she knows what she's doing," Ruby said. "China is very smart."

I turned to Maggie. ' 'What did you tell Mother Winifred about me?"

"I didn't have to tell her anything," Maggie said, half-defensively. "When I mentioned your name and said you wanted to come for a retreat, she knew who you were. She said she'd heard about Rosemary Robbin's murder, and the way you identified the killer." She bit her Up. "But I had no idea she was going to ask you to investigate arson."

"Well, if you've had investigative experience, this little job oughta be a cinch," the deputy said briskly, forgetting that ' 'this little job'' had already frustrated him all to hell. "I'll give you a copy of the report an' my notes. All you gotta do is ID the torch an' I'll make the arrest." He frowned. "This don't mean yer offish'ly on the team, though," he added, in case I thought he was inviting me to become one of the Carr County good old boys. ' 'Sheriff says no way kin I dep'tize you, untrained an' a woman an' a ex-lawyer an' all that. You get hurt, you might sue." He narrowed his eyes. "You ain't armed, are you?"

"Not unless you count my cuticle scissors," I said.

"That's good," he said. "Anyhow, you won't need no gun. Firebugs don't go in fer rough stuff. Especially a sister." He waved at a silver Trail ways bus pulling up to the corner, belching foul-smelling black smoke. "You won't have no trouble."

"I knew about the letters, Maggie muttered, "but I can't believe a nun would deliberately set a fire."

"What letters?" I asked again.

"Letters?" The deputy pulled his eyebrows together. "Somethin' I shoulda bin told about?"

The driver got out of the Trailways bus and began pulling things out of the baggage compartment. An old man draped in an ankle-length brown army overcoat and a short, plump blond woman in jeans and a green parka climbed out and stood, waiting for their luggage.

Ignoring the questions, Maggie turned to me, her mouth set. "The arsonist has to be an outsider. I don't want to accuse anybody, but the Townsends certainly have a grudge against-"

"Lemme give you the straight of it, Sister," the deputy broke in, speaking with authority. "The Christmas Eve fire was in the sacristy, behind the altar. There was mebbe twenty people in the chapel besides the nuns an' Father Steven. None of the congregation could git into that sacristy without bein' seen. Nope, the torch is a sister. You kin bet yer boots on it."

Maggie's voice held an edge. "Have you questioned the Townsends? You know how much they hate St. T's. For ten years, they've threatened to-"

"The Thanksgivin' fire was in the kitchen," the deputy said, raising his voice. "Nobody was on the scene but nuns, the good father, an' the maintenance man. Mr. and Miz Townsend was over at their boy's house all day." He smiled toothily at Maggie. "You 'member their boy, I reckon-Judge Townsend?"

"What about the maintenance man?" I interrupted. "Did you check him out?"

He shook his head. "Didn't need to. Hadn't of been for Dwight, the whole place mighta burned down. He's not an employee with a grudge, 'f that's what you're thinkin'."

Maggie was about to say something else, but she was

interrupted. The plump woman in the green parka suddenly ran up, flung her arms around Maggie's neck, and cried, "Oh, Margaret Mary, my prayers have been answered! You've come back!"

And Maggie, calm, serene Maggie, burst into tears.