Sister Mary Margaret was Sister Ernestine’s opposite in every way. Young where Sister Ernestine was old, lean where Sister Ernestine was plump, Sister Mary Margaret fed us a well-rehearsed but sweetly enthusiastic speech about the benefits of educating our adorable daughter Penelope—Jesse frowned every time her name was mentioned—at Sacred Trinity.

The percentage of Sacred Trinity girls who went on to college, we were told—was the highest in the tri-county area—100 percent!—and the percentage who went on to Ivy League colleges—well, Sister Mary Margaret didn’t want to brag, but it was high.

If they weren’t murdered, of course, before they finished first grade, I thought, but didn’t say out loud.

Jesse looked annoyed during much of Sister Mary Margaret’s spiel, for which I didn’t blame him. He was playing the role of the brilliantly wealthy plastic surgeon—the medical specialty that pulls in the most money these days—incredibly well, but I could tell that having to hear the words thanks to Father Francisco so often was wearing on his last nerve. It was wearing on mine, too.

“Thanks to Father Francisco,” Sacred Trinity was no longer on the brink of financial disaster due to mismanagement by the previous headmaster. Father Francisco had swooped in a decade ago and saved the day with his fiscal know-how.

“Thanks to Father Francisco,” the Sacred Trinity girls’ choir had gone from being nearly disbanded to being number one in the state. They had even recorded an album. Did we want a copy of their CD for Penelope? Of course we did. Penelope would love it.

“Thanks to Father Francisco,” the Sacred Trinity school library’s floors had been stripped of the exotic wood the father’s predecessor had laid there. Father Francisco had replaced the floor with a more sensible wood, donating the difference in cost to a literacy charity. Wasn’t he the most wonderful man?

“Did Father Francisco do the labor himself?” Jesse asked Sister Mary Margaret.

She looked momentarily confused. “Er . . . no. He hired a contractor.”

Jesse was unimpressed. “Then he probably didn’t save that much money.”

I had to stifle a laugh. Sister Mary Margaret didn’t know what she was up against. Every time he was on call, Jesse saw children suffering from maladies caused by improper diet. Their parents simply couldn’t afford to feed them properly.

Yet here, in the same community, was a school that had paid $150 per square foot for flooring, and charged for tuition for its kindergarten what Jesse had paid per semester for medical school . . . though of course it did offer, even though in Carmel the temperature rarely fell below fifty degrees, heated stalls for the horses their students wished to board there. We found this out as we were given a tour of the grounds.

By then Sister Mary Margaret had neatly passed us off to a “student tour guide,” a slender, dark-eyed junior, Sidney.

I was well acquainted with the psychology behind student tour guides, since we had them at the Mission Academy, as well. It was more effective for school administrations to have socially garrulous, nonthreateningly attractive students give tours to parents of prospective students than for them to be given by people like Sister Mary Margaret. In the students, parents saw what their own children could grow to be if they attended such a fine institution.

And student tour guides were better at fielding the pricklier questions, like Jesse’s tense: “When can we meet this famous Father Francisco we’ve heard so much about?”

“Oh, sorry,” Sidney said, batting her long, dark eyelashes (she wore extensions and a good deal of dark eyeliner, but I’m sure it fooled a lot of the parents). “He’s in San Luis Obispo today at a conference.”

I knew the conference Father Francisco was allegedly attending—the same one Father Dominic had gone to—had ended Wednesday night. He’d either extended his trip so it could include a few nights of gambling in Vegas, or he didn’t want to waste his valuable time chitchatting with a couple of prospective parents.

I’d put my money on the former. Most private schools no longer considered themselves educational institutions, but small profit-making corporations, and couldn’t afford to blow off potential investors.

Sidney had charmingly explained to us that giving tours was one of her favorite things to do because “it gets me out of calculus” and “will look good on my college applications.” Her dream was to go to Yale and become the “greatest actress since Meryl Streep.”

Sidney had nothing to worry about. She was well on her way.

“How long have you attended Sacred Trinity?” I asked Sidney as we made our way toward the heated stables. I’d asked to see them as “Penelope” had a pony.

“Since kindergarten,” Sidney said. “I love it here so much. My parents live in San Francisco. I see them on weekends. But I’d much rather be here than in the city. Too crowded.”

Sell it, Sidney.

“So you would have been here when that girl died,” I said casually as the barn and stables, plus riding ring, came into view, the stables large but tidy, painted white with green trim, the barn done in traditional cliché—but attractive—red barn paint. “What was her name, darling?” I squeezed Jesse’s arm. I was leaning on it because it was difficult to walk on the school’s gravel paths in my high-heeled pumps. “That poor girl who died? Lucy something?”

“Lucia,” Jesse said, right on cue. He appeared immune to Sidney’s charms.

“Oh, God.” Sidney’s red plaid uniform skirt swayed sassily ahead of us on the path. “Yes. Lucia Martinez. I’ll never forget it. What a nightmare. I was a year ahead of her. But they still made us all take, like, bereavement classes to make sure we weren’t going to go mental or whatever.”

Then she seemed to remember to whom she was speaking and flashed a quick embarrassed smile over her shoulder. “Not, you know, that it wasn’t completely terrible, what happened to her. Horseback-riding accident. But nothing like that would ever happen to your daughter. It was a completely freak accident. It could never happen again.”

“Yes,” I said, remembering what Becca had said she was tired of hearing everyone say: “ ‘Accidents happen.’ I’m sure.”

By that time we were at the stables. As fortune had it, a lesson was going on. A strong-looking older woman in jodhpurs was standing in the middle of a grassy ring, directing six or seven girls on extremely healthy-looking mounts.