I nodded my head, remembering some of the older nuns I had met. I wondered why Sister Ann had decided to answer my questions.

“Anyone else?” I asked.

“Not that I know of,” she replied. “But…I did get a strange phone call a few days ago.”

“Strange? How?”

“It wasn’t threatening, at least, I didn’t feel threatened. But it was someone who knew my name, because he used it. Then he asked, ‘Why did you become a nun?’ and hung up.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Why are you answering my questions?” I couldn’t imagine her wanting to be in the same room with me. Not after Aunt Greta’s spiel.

“I disapprove of poison-pen letters. I hope you can do something about them.” She turned to go.

“Thank you, Sister.”

She smiled at me, then walked out of the room. Probably pleasantly surprised that I knew how to say thank you, after hearing the Greta Robedeaux version of my life.

I went back downstairs. The daycare center was now full and squalling. People were spilling out of the clinic waiting room into the hallway. No way to see Cordelia now.

I went out the back door. There was a walkway that led only to a fringe of weeds and wild shrubs demarcating the property line. The lawn of the clinic, though not likely to win any garden awards, at least showed signs of having been mowed in recent memory. Unlike the lot behind it. Anything could be concealed in the dense greenery of that back lot.

Then I noticed windows at ground level. A basement? The first floor was high enough that the building might have been able to fit a basement between it and the barely belowground water table. I hadn’t seen any entrance on the first floor. I circled the building looking for a way in. No entrance appeared. It would have been very easy to break in through just about any of the windows. Several of them had broken panes and most had frames that looked warped and rotten. But I decided to try the legitimate approach first.

I re-entered the back door. And, since I was looking for it, found a door tucked under the back staircase. With a lock on it. Being bolder about breaking and entering while under an ill-lit staircase than out in a yard in daylight, I pulled on the lock to see how secure it was or if the hasp was as ready to fall out as it looked. Whoever was in charge of locking locks had settled for verisimilitude. The lock wasn’t really closed. I pocketed it to make sure no one would decide for a more realistic effect while I was in the basement.

It took a little fumbling to find the light switch. One bulb for the stairs, a few more scattered through the basement. As basements go, it bordered on the dismal—a dirt floor and that pervasive damp feeling being below ground always has when you’re this close to sea level. The ceiling was low, only a few inches above my head and covered with spiderwebs. Some of the beams and pipes were low enough to give me a headache if I wasn’t careful. Squat brick columns were placed about every fifteen feet. I wandered around for a bit, careful to stay near the sporadic light that came through the dirt-caked windows or from the few electric bulbs. If I were a rat, I’d want to live in just this sort of basement. It was too damp for storage. Perhaps a mushroom grower’s dream. That was about all.

I headed back upstairs, putting the lock back on and carefully not locking it. There wasn’t anything to steal down there.

“Micky Knight. What are you doing here?”

I turned to look at a white uniformed figure. Millie Donnalto. She lived with Hutch Mackenzie, Joanne’s partner.

“Millie. Would you believe that Hutch hired me to check up on you?”

“Absolutely not,” she replied as she gave me a big hug.

“How about that I’ve become hopelessly smitten with you and follow you everywhere?”

“Less likely,” she laughed and gave me an extra squeeze to prove she wasn’t worried about any lascivious behavior on my part.

I liked Millie. Because even though she’s totally straight, she was fearless about hugging a notorious lesbian like me in a public hallway. Even one which nuns and the like walked about in.

“Working,” I replied as she released me. “Gotten any nasty letters lately?”

“Oh, that,” she said. “My first, two days ago. Ugly things.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sorry, I threw it in the trash,” she answered.

“Too bad. Are you willing to tell me what it said?”

“Sure. But not here. Follow me.”

Millie led me down the hall into the storage room for the clinic. She shut the door behind us.

“Little ears from daycare,” she explained.

“Graphic, I take it.”

“Obscene, in that dirty sense. Anyway,” she continued, “it went on, at length, about my…uh…preference for men with large genitals.”

“So whoever sent it has laid eyes on Hutch,” I commented. Hutch was at least six foot six and linebacker-sized.

“I guess. It’s not a thought I like. I know Bernie, our administrative assistant, got one, because I saw her burn it.”

“Did she say anything about it? Was it poor dot-matrix?”

“Yes and yes. She lives with her mother. She’s nineteen and saving for school. Her comment was something like, ‘How could someone think my mother and I…’ Then it burned down and she had to drop it.”