TCL

One summer head up the Big Muddy to St. Louis  and hang a left. Now you're on the Missouri, the longest river in North America. Go upriver past Sioux City, Iowa  and hang a left  again on the Niobrara River. Head west until you're walking in a  dry river bed. You missed it. Back up. The Squaw River  is a  shorter tributary of the Niobrara, yet it has a year-round flow despite winding across the  most arid  grasslands of  the high  plains. Bison used to reliably congregate at the edge of the Squaw River to drink, and the hunters of The People knew it.

On a ridge above Headwater is a pillar of rock carved by wind to look like an Indian  woman carrying a  papoose in  her papoose, hence the name Squaw River. Just west of town the  river bends around the south and west flanks of Green Dome and pours from an underground cistern.

Headwater is where the  river begins, but  it's also  where the railroad and pavement ends. Other than a few dirt roads and old wagon tracks,  the  land  north,  west and  south  of  town  is literally  the biggest  void  in the  lower forty-eight  states. Headwater has nothing for tourists, even when it wasn't wartime and there were tourists  to be  had. The view from the  top of Green Dome  was out  over thirty-five miles  of nothing. If you were from out of town  you were only  there to get  hitched and your extended family put you up.

Special Agent Mark Felt drove to the strip of land where Hoover told him the FBI had dropped a trailer. It was unoccupied. Felt let himself in  using  a spare  key he  had  obtained from  the Wichita field office.

The kitchen was  still a  kitchen, but  the living  room was  a workspace. He checked the trailer's  two bedrooms and  saw they contained two cots apiece. After he cleaned himself up  a bit Felt helped himself to the files  stacked on the desks. One of them, with  brittle  yellowed  paper  that  Felt  instinctively handled with great care, was a report on the final days of Fort Price, a former Army outpost a number of miles to the east.

The report contained pages from the commanding officer's journal and testimony of the six surviving soldiers,  including one who had been captured  and maimed. Felt stopped reading the  Fort Price file  when  he  heard  the sound  of  a  vehicle's  tires crunching up to the FBI trailer.

Felt had already met Clyde  Tolson at the  handshaking ceremony the previous year when Hoover inspected his graduating class but this fellow wasn't he.

When the agent came in Felt  thought the man looked  more movie gangster than g-man, investigatee  more than  investigator, and somewhat later he learned he was one of the very few members of the Democratic  Party to be  accepted into the Bureau. "Are you William Mark Felt?" the newcomer asked.

Felt, who had been  sitting ramrod straight  in his  chair, now stood ramrod straight on his feet and extended  his hand. "Just Mark Felt, please." And the newcomer remarked on  their mutual good fortune, as he was  Bill Sullivan, and two  Williams would have been confusing.

Sullivan approached the desk to see what Felt had been reading, amused by Mark's body language which seemed to dare  him to say something derogatory about the presumption. "Ah yes, Cowboys and Indians," he said when he saw  the material a bit  closer. "How far did you get?"

"The Indians dropped  a couple  cows," Felt  replied, "and  the Cowboys dropped a couple Indians.  If you hadn't shown up, Bill, I'm sure  I would have plowed  my way through to  the part where the US  Army lost  their fort.  A lifetime ago.  Is this  one of Tolson's special projects?"

"DECON,"  Sullivan   said. "Domestic  Enemies   Containment, Observation, and Neutralization. I'm  sure the Director told you this was Special Projects but my  advice to you is to play along with Special Agent in Charge Tolson  on this. At least until you break the murder case."

Felt silently absorbed this and nodded  once, clearly accepting the advice. He donned his overcoat and said,  "Where is Tolson, by the way? I've only just arrived from the Texas office and the Director gave me almost nothing in the way of a briefing."

"Tolson is waiting for you at what qualifies for  a hospital in this tiny  hamlet," Sullivan said. "It's practically a one-room log cabin. He's with Dr. Ian Trochmann. I'll take you there, but I won't be staying. I've got tasking of my own."

As Sullivan drove Mark Felt  to the  hospital to take  over the investigation Felt said, "You got me wondering why Tolson gives a damn about the Army losing a fort way back when."

Sullivan shrugged. "It was the little brother  to Custer's Last Stand. One  thing that really  strikes me about the  Indian wars was how the Indians gave as well  as they got. We only beat them with numbers."

"Numbers, time,  and  the  fact that  they  weren't  really  as blood-thirsty as people  make them out to be. Did  you ever hear of something  they did  called 'counting coup'?  No? It  was the wartime equivalent of  touch football. They went to  war like we go to ball games."

At Headwater's  only hospital  a  plump  nurse in  her  fifties wheeled out a shivering boy with bandaged stumps where his feet should have been. She was followed by  Deputies Bill  and Bob wheeling out one boy apiece, each with identical injuries.

Sullivan led   Felt  up   the  walkway   and  made   the  first introductions. "Felt, this is  nurse Ella  Fader,  and in  the wheelchair is  young Scott  Hilling. Ella,  this is  FBI Special Agent Mark Felt."

Felt couldn't help grinning at her name. She saw that and shook her head to warn him off.

After that Sullivan introduced Deputy Bob  Lurz, pushing Johnny Sunkel, and Deputy  Bill Holsinger  pushing Larry  Porter. Felt wondered aloud why they were being rolled out to see the snow.

Deputy Bob said, "Special Agent  in Charge Clyde Tolson  was of the mind they needed fresh air for about an hour."

Agent Sullivan told Felt, "The Indians here used  to believe if they  could make  a  captive  scream his  shade  would be  their servant  in  the  afterlife.  Some  still  remember.  Not  quite the  touch football  you mentioned  earlier. There  was a  young Indian  fellow in  this little  clinic a  few days  ago who  was horsewhipped. Goes by the name of Gabriel Shybear. I think these three boys  did it,  and I think  Gabriel's friends  worked them over with knives as payback. But nobody is talking, not Gabriel, and not these kids. Nobody wants to name names."

"Oh, there you  are Felt,"  SAIC  Clyde Tolson  said when  they arrived indoors. Felt remembered his  oblong face  and searing gaze from last year at Quantico when he inspected the graduating class 15 with Director Hoover.

The sheriff was also there and Sullivan  made the introduction, "Special Agent Mark Felt, this is Sheriff Roddy Walker."

Mark decided to hit the ground running. Even as he shook Roddy's hand he looked at his watch and said, "Sheriff, it's quarter of four and  I am  assuming responsibility for  this investigation. The Bureau expects your full cooperation."

"Special Agent Felt, this department will pull out every stop to cooperate with your investigation. But  I am curious  about one thing: why  start now?  Ten years ago  there was  another murder victim found just a few yards over the state line. My father was the sheriff  at the time.  He reported it  up to the  Bureau and expected a  federal response but he  was just told to  handle it locally."

Felt said, "I don't know the particulars of your father's case. In  this  one  the  deceased  is already  involved  in  a  DECON investigation  by Special  Agent in  Charge Tolson,  and whoever perpetrated the  crime arranged  her corpse in  such a  way that deliberately goaded the Director."

As Hoover had cautioned him, he refered to the Special Projects section by the acronym coined by Tolson. Hoover had told him to mesh with Tolson's investigation  where practical but  that his reports were  to  go  directly  to  DC. This particular  case irritated Hoover so much he even issued a Bureau sedan so Felt's wife could proceed to  DC as  they originally  planned, knowing this would  smooth over  any  resentment  Felt had  over  being diverted on this side  trip. That was uncharacteristic  of the Director. More typically, Hoover deliberately imposed hardships on his agents in the field to "toughen them  up" without regard to what it might do to their marriages.

For his part Tolson appeared pleased by  Felt's can-do attitude and that he didn't need to be reminded of his preferred term for the Special Projects  section. Unaware of Felt's  conversation with the Director he suspected Sullivan was instrumental there.

Sheriff Roddy introduced  Dr. Wahkan to the  federals. A man donning scrubs was introduced in turn as as  Dr. Ian Trochmann, part of Tolson's  DECON project. He said he was  preparing to perform the autopsy  all over again for the federal  side of the house.

"There's not going to be much of the girl left after that," said Dr. Wahkan, in a vain attempt to call the whole thing off.

Sheriff Walker found a sudden  need to be outside  and Sullivan followed him. On the way out they heard Dr. Wahkan said, "Agent Tolson,  my prayer  is that  you find  whatever you  are looking for  quickly, and  never  again return  to  Headwater. Not  even uncivilized men treat their dead in this manner."

The sheriff heard Special Agent  Mark Felt's stomach  growl and guessed the man might not have eaten since breakfast. He invited Felt to dine out. Felt heartily agreed, so long as the sheriff remembered not to talk about the case in  the restaurant. Roddy decided on Bea's  Chicken  Inn  only five  blocks  east of  the hospital. Headwater wasn't a  very large  town. Roddy took him over in the half-ton truck and along the way Felt invited him to spill what he had uncovered up to that point.

Roddy said, "We have what is very likely the murder weapon, and it has fingerprints. We have  many photographs of the scene with tire and boot marks in snow. That house coming up is the home of the deceased.  I made  contact with her  twin sister  there, one Robyn Zinter, who recently moved  to Headwater. She already knew Kim was dead and described circumstances of that death. I didn't bring her  in because I knew  this was going to  be the Bureau's case from  the gitgo, and  also because  some of the  things she said were pretty crazy."

Bea's Chicken Inn was kitty-corner to Robyn's house. When Roddy pulled into the parking lot he gave Felt one more item from the case. "The murder weapon came  from a  set of knives,  and this morning we recovered the set, based on a lead. The source of the lead was the aforementioned Miss  Robyn Zinter. But the lead was too good to risk passing up."

"Do you think she's indulging in misdirection, sheriff?"

"I can't figure her out at  all. She expresses zero  sorrow for her sister. None. She intelligent  and sweet but half the things that come out of her mouth make no sense at all."

When they went inside and  were seated Roddy remarked  that the place was much less busy that it used to be on weeknights. "Coal was the mainstay of the town and that's drying up."

Felt said, "I heard wartime meat rationing will start in a month or two."

Roddy nodded. "Places like this won't close up, but they'll have to collect ration cards from customers and put them all together to get resupplied. I suppose it'll be even less crowded then."

"I have a law  degree,' Felt  said, 'and  I was  leaning toward the  intersection  of  business  and  government,  but  the  war intervened.  In  wartime  our country  becomes,  temporarily,  a military dictatorship  with all hands  on deck. So as  with your coal miners here my own work dried up too."

"Your education was not criminal law?"

"Well, make no  mistake,  I  was immersed  in  criminal law  at Quantico. But the crimes that  draw my attention don't happen in towns like Headwater. I want to go after spies."

The waitress came to take their  order. She took the menus but left the two silver half-dollar coins that had been on the table when the men were seated.

"The people who ate at this  table before us were  from the Red Wing of the Church," Roddy said confidently.

"How do you know?"

He gestured at the  two coins. "Those half-dollars. 1942. The mint mark  should be  D for  Denver, but they'll  both be  O be- cause the die was worn and nobody caught it in time.

Mark Felt looked at both coins and saw Roddy's  guess was true. "How strange. But what's the connection to the Red Wing?"

"There's a fellow I know here who runs a  pawn shop, he brought these to  my attention.  Normally a  mint mark  of O  would make these collectible.  This fellow  found out  the Denver  Mint had struck about a hundred of  these flawed fifty-cent pieces before their quality  control spotted the  problem and halted  the run. But there are many more than  a hundred of them circulating here in Headwater.  Everywhere you go  in Headwater you'll  see them, always  from the  Red Wing,  usually retirees  living on  social security,  this old  fellow gets  a tube  for his  radio at  the hardware store and leaves a  half-dollar, that old lady gets her hair done and leaves some more."

"Do you think somebody in Headwater is counterfeiting coins?"

"If they are, Agent  Felt, I  really don't  see how  they would profit by it. If you melt  a silver half-dollar down all you get is a half-dollar's worth of raw silver bullion.

"But Pawn Shop Guy says  the little O  under 'In God  We Trust' makes it collectible."

"Sure, if there was only a hundred of them.  There's probably a hundred thousand  of them now  and they're breeding. I  chalk it down to one of the many unexplained things about this town."

"Just before we met I  was reading how  Chief Wanica and  a boy named Tashunka somehow fought off a half-dozen armed men."

Roddy was tempted to tell Felt this Tashunka found the deceased, but that would break Felt's rule: it was germaine to the case.

The waitress arrived with their food. The sheriff withheld his reply until after they were served. Then he said, "My guess is Special Agent  in Charge Tolson  is running that old  mystery to ground.  But I  don't want  to break  your rule  and talk  about active cases while we're eating."

They stopped conversing and ate  while Mark Felt  expressed his appreciation for the  food  with grunts  and eyebrow  gestures. Roddy asked, "How many spies have you caught, Agent Felt?"

"None so far," Mark admitted. "I've only been with the Bureau for one year.  Half of '42 was  spent at the Academy  and in DC, and for the rest of the year I was in Texas in hot field offices doing little more than interviewing references people had listed when they applied for government  jobs. Hardly the exciting life of a g-man that I envisioned."

"How's the pay?"

"About sixty a week."

"Not shabby at all, Special Agent Felt."

"What is shabby is having to pick up and move every few months. My wife Audrey and I were in the middle of another move to DC so I could catch spies like I wanted, but I got diverted here."

"How long have you been married?"

"Four years, twice as many relocations, and somehow my beautiful girl still puts up with me."

At the station  after supper  Felt had  his first  look at  the evidence in the case, the photographs and  the fingerprints and the knife found  near  the scene. And there was  the set  the knife came from, retrieved from  Bergin's trash. Felt began to interrogate the sheriff and the  deputies as though he were some pricy city lawyer Paul Bergin might retain.

Felt asked the  sheriff, "What  made you  think to  dig in  Mr. Bergin's trash?"

"Bergin and Hansen," Walker corrected him. "They're wrapped up in some nasty politics presently going on in the Church of Green Dome, which is sort of a big deal here in Headwater. I was given that tip by Tashunka, the same fellow you mentioned over dinner. The boy who was  with Chief  Wanica., He was  also the  one who found the body. We didn't find any evidence in Hansen's trash."

Felt turned to Deputy  Bob. "Are you sure  this came  from Mr. Bergin's house, Deputy?"

"I counted four stops after I  got in the garbage  truck. There are three  houses between the  Bergin place and where  I crawled inside."

"But did you actually see that you were in front of his house?"

"No, Agent Felt. I was inside the truck. I  didn't have a clear view to the side."

Deputy Bill shook his head when Felt glanced at him. He had also been well out of sight. "But the driver of the garbage truck and the pick-up man both said they saw Paul Bergin throw this bag in his trash can just before they picked it up," he said.

When Agent  Felt absorbed  all  this  he looked  simultaneously pleased and troubled. "Sheriff Walker, I'm pleasantly surprised by what you've managed to get so far, but I wonder if you do see the glaring hole in our case?"

Walker nodded. "I do, Special Agent Felt."

"I can give you their names if you wish, Agent Felt," said Bill. "The trash men were deputized for this operation  just like the Sheriff told us to do. That gives them legal standing. "

"It also gives them elevated responsibility, Bill," said Roddy, "and I hope you explained that to them when you swore them in."

Felt said, "Then I think we're  ready to see a  judge. We might have just enough now to fingerprint both Mr. and Mrs. Bergin."

Sheriff Walker  approached  a  large  cork  board  to  look  at photographs pinned thereupon. "And if his boots and tires match what we  posted here, Special  Agent Felt,  then we will  have a little bit more than just enough.'

Felt  nodded   with   obvious  pleasure. But  the   homicide investigation experienced the first  headwinds from  Judge Karl Porter when he was visted by Felt and the  sheriff at his house and declined to  allow  them to  to bring  the  Bergins to  the station for fingerprints. He also declined  to let  them bring Robyn in for more for questioning. The judge mused, aloud, "Your case is starting to become a fishing expedition."

If Felt  was  disappointed  it didn't  show. "Let's go  visit the  Bergin  place anyway,"  he  told  the Sheriff  outside  the courthouse. "I want to see if I can shake something loose."

"Do you want Bob and Bill to tag along?"

"No, I need them to make a phone call. Tell your men to get the number of  Bergin's plates, then have  them go up to  the temple and take photographs of his tire treads."

"Oh, we already have Bergin's plate number on file," Roddy said. "He doesn't think the wartime speed limit  of thirty-five miles per hour applies to church deacons."

Agent Felt smiled in admiration. "Sheriff, this is one of the smallest  towns  I've  ever  seen,  but the  way  you  run  your department is a G-man's dream."

When they arrived at Bergin's home Mark Felt took copious notes beginning with the fact that  no vehicle was present. And Felt thought the most striking thing about the woman who answered the door was how unattractive she was. If she hadn't worn a dress Mark might have thought Deacon Paul himself was standing there. He cleared his throat and identified himself and Sheriff Walker.

"How may I help you?"

"Is Mr. Paul Bergin at home?"

She shook her head. "He works at the temple. I'm his wife Ruth."

Perhaps you can help after all,  Mrs. Bergin. It seems a young woman was attacked with a knife recently."

"Good God! Is she well?"

"It's hard to say at this point," said Felt. 'But we found the knife that was  used  in the  attack. It has  a unique  wooden handle. It's hand-crafted, you see. Only a very few sets were sold, Ruth, and we think you might have one of them."

Ruth gasped. "You can't think that I or that Paul did this."

"Not at all ma'am! A criminal investigation is much like tracing out every rabbit trail even when they just come  to a dead end. If you show us your own kitchen knife set then the sheriff and I will back out of this here rabbit trail and be on our way."

"We never bought our knife block,"  Ruth said. 'It was made by old Owen Bergin when Headwater  was first settled and has passed down from father to son ever since."

Felt made a note of that on his pad, then broke into a smile. He said, "You see, Sheriff? I knew we must be wasting our time."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," said Sheriff Walker, "but we had to be sure. Still, do you mind if we take one little peek at the one you do have?"

Without showing it  on his  face, Mark  Felt admired  how Roddy caught his little  game and  slid right  into his  role without clashing gears. And Ruth went inside to fetch it.

The fact that Ruth didn't know she was missing her knife set was recorded in  Felt's  notebook. As he expected,  she  returned empty-handed and Felt recorded  that too, not  so much  that he didn't already know it, but for  the affidavit he would have the sheriff type up for Judge Porter.

"I don't understand," Ruth said. "I used a knife from that set just  this  morning when  I  made  breakfast  for Paul  and  the children, but now everything is gone."

"Oh no, Mrs. Bergin," Roddy  said, "that's just what  we didn't want to hear. But I'm sure there must be a good explanation."

"Ruth, do you mind if the sheriff and I come in so all the heat in your house doesn't escape through the front door?"

She thought about that for longer than Felt liked but in the end Ruth nodded and opened her screen door to let them in. She asked them to sit  on a  couch. Roddy thought Ruth's  home was  very similar to Kim Zinter's place in size and  design but different in almost every other way. There were no decorations at all, no paintings,  no rugs,  not even  a single  knick-knack. Only two books were in sight, a Bible and the Green Book.

There was another  difference: when  he visited  Robyn she  was playing music, but here it was silent.

There was no radio,  no record collection,  and no  Victrola to play them on. Roddy marvelled how religious folk were so keen on a hereafter when life here on Earth was so miserable, by choice.

"I see you don't have a radio, Mrs. Bergin."

"There's only one station in town, Sheriff, and more often than not they  play race  records. Paul says  that's the  devil's own music.  Why, even  the children  in the  Temple high  school are playing that garbage these days, if you can imagine."

"The girl who  was attacked  sang in  the Temple  school band," revealed the sheriff. "It'd be a terrible  thing to  find out somebody stabbed her simply because she sang race music."

Ruth's face was impassive but her eyes darted at those words.

"It was very generous of you to allow us  to come indoors, Mrs. Bergin," Felt  said. "I have no right to  ask this of  you, and don't  believe for  an instant  that we  think you  attacked the girl, but if  I could just get  one print of your  thumb I could compare  it  to  what  we  found on  the  knife  and  completely eliminate you as a suspect in this case."

The sheriff had to restrain himself from whistling in admiration at Agent Felt's performance right there. It was so beautifully done. Ruth would be thinking of self-preservation in the face of her own husband framing her for the crime.

"Will you have to take me down to the station for a thumbprint?"

"Not at all," said Felt, and he used his pencil to make a thick dark spot on a  page in  his notebook. "Are you right  or left handed?"

"Right, of course," Ruth said. "Southpaws are cursed by God."

And so with Ruth Bergin fully and freely willing, Special Agent Mark Felt rubbed her right thumb in the spot  of graphite, then flipped to a fresh page  in his  notebook and rolled  her thumb across it to get a perfect print. Then he carefully closed the book to preserve the print until it could be photographed.

"This schoolgirl, she was Erik Zinter's kid, wasn't she?"

Felt stood  up  from  the  couch  still  holding  his  notebook carefully open. He said, "I've been careful not to say too much and upset you, Mrs. Bergin."

"I suppose it couldn't be helped," she sniffed.

Sheriff Walker scrambled to his feet at that remark and politely asked Ruth what she meant by making it.

She said, "I think only  a believer would fully  understand me, but Erik  was putting  our most holy  relic to  common purposes. Digging coal! Our God is a sovereign God."

Roddy made eye contact with Agent Felt, who raised his notebook a bit and shrugged. He already had what he came for. Roddy said, "So God wasn't content to take Erik's life for  what he did? He had to take the life of his daughter as well?"

Ruth was shocked. "She's dead?"

"Yes, Ruth, she's dead. What a terrible thing for Clara Zinter, don't you  think, losing her  entire family for Erik's  sin? But whoever did  it must have a  death wish, or maybe  he thinks God will protect  him. He left  the body draped across  three states and elevated it to a federal  case. It was already the Chair for the killer if I caught him." Walker repeated that last part. "If I caught him."

"But the Bureau always, always gets its man," Felt finished.

Judge Karl  Porter  was  directly  descended  from  Alfred  and Caroline Porter, who were part of the first wagon  train to set down roots in Headwater. In any other town of the  West, where family trees actually  fork, this  would be  as prestigious  as tracing one's family back to the Mayflower.

From his corner office  on the second  floor of  the courthouse Judge Porter could look down upon his ancestral  family home on the north bank  of the river. Most of the land of the homestead had long been  sold off  for the  homes and  apartments of  the northwest quadrant of town.

The courthouse was five blocks away from the sheriff's office on the same island in the Squaw River that formed the heart of the town. The sheriff was  making another run  at Paul  Bergin, and this time, Porter suspected, he just might get him.

The judge glanced  once more  at  the Affidavit  in Support  of Arrest Warrant submitted by Sheriff  Walker. On a personal level he didn't like where  this investigation  was going. Until the schism Paul had been the deacon of the Church  and the Bergins, just like the Porters, were part of the town's Old Guard.

The Church of  Green Dome  had  secrets, the  judge well  knew. Something happened last  summer to  bring three  agents of  the Bureau sniffing around. After a few  weeks they  had abandoned their trailer outside of town but the death of this girl brought them back.

With that in  mind Porter  addressed  Felt and  asked, "Do  you foresee  a time  when the  Bureau will  no longer  be acting  in cooperation with local law enforcement here in Headwater?"

"Certainly, yes  Your  Honor.  After they  are  identified  and apprehended the  individual or  individuals responsible  for the crime will be transported for arraignment in Kansas City."

Judge Porter said, "Then with the view of hastening that blessed day, Special Agent Felt, please lay out your evidence."

Mark Felt nodded at the sheriff. Roddy displayed a knife in a cellophane bag,  a page  from Felt's  notebook, and  two closeup photographs of these. The sheriff said, "Your Honor, Mrs. Ruth Bergin, the  wife of Mr. Paul  Bergin, was kind enough  to allow Special Agent Felt to take an  impression of her right thumb and as you  can see, it matches  the single thumbprint we  dusted on the knife found at the crime scene."

"What in the name of  God would make  Mrs. Bergin give  you her thumbprint, Sheriff? And why isn't she named as a suspect?"

"I think, Your Honor, the answer to both questions is the same. She  was shocked  to find  her set  of kitchen  knives had  gone missing on the morning when the trash was to be picked up."

Porter growled while he chewed on that item for  a moment. Yes, the sheriff, or Agent Felt, or both, would have led Mrs. Bergin to think her  own husband  was framing  her for  murder. Still, there was no legal way to reject this new  evidence. "What else do you have?"

The sheriff reached  into his  briefcase and  removed two  more photographs. 'Your Honor, Paul Bergin's  vehicle is  presently parked at the Temple and is under surveillance  by my deputies. You can see here that his tire tread matches the tracks we found at the scene of the homicide."

"The judge  looked  at  the  photographs  and  without  further prompting he remembered that under wartime rationing Paul Bergin could only  own four tires  plus one spare. Porter  realized the sheriff now had enough evidence to justify an arrest warrant.

"The court finds probable cause to believe a felony offense, to wit,  the  unlawful  killing  of  Kimberly  Zinter  with  malice aforethought, has been committed. The  arrest of Mr. Paul Bergin at any hour of day or night is so ordered."

Karl Porter's law clerk began typing it up.

"Special Agent Felt,  will  it be  sufficient  to confine  your search  for more  evidence  of the  crime to  the  home of  Paul Bergin?"

Felt replied, 'No, Your Honor. If Mr. Bergin was a  layman his house would have been  enough. But as a  member of  the Church leadership he has physical access to the whole Temple.'

"Very well, these are the rules of the People  for your search: Let's assume Bergin  is hiding evidence in the  Temple. When you make  the arrest  you will  obtain his  keys. Any  door that  is locked, but his keys can open, you may enter and search."

"Thank you, Your Honor,"  said Felt. "The Bureau accepts this limitation on the search."

"Proceed with caution,  Agent  Felt," Judge  Porter said. "The Church of Green Dome is the very lifeblood of Headwater, and the Church was already going through its most  difficult passage in nearly eighty years before this happened."

"The words  of  Dr.  Wahkan and  Sheriff  Walker  have  already sensitized me  to the  plight of the  Church, Your  Honor," said Felt, "and  I  will  indeed  take  great  care.  But  if  those troubles somehow led to the  killing of Kimberly Zinter, and the perpetrator turns  out to  be a  member of  the local  clergy, I don't know how even more trauma can be avoided."

Special Agent  in  Charge  Clyde  Tolson  was  waiting  in  the second-floor courtroom with  Special  Agent  Sullivan when  the sheriff and Felt emerged from  the judge's chambers. "It's not carte blanche," said Felt when he handed  Tolson the documents, "but it's the best we could do."

When Tolson finished reading he didn't seem to be  too upset by the limitations  imposed by Judge  Porter. He said, "Edgar knew what he was doing when he put you on the case. For six months we couldn't get one foot in the Temple door."

Mark Felt hoped he only heard that wrong. It sounded like Tolson didn't give two floating turds for the dead girl.

"Ruth asked me  why  the  knife block  was  gone," Paul  Bergin told Klaus Hansen  at the  temple. "I told her  I didn't  know anything about  it. She said  she let  this FBI fellow  take her fingerprints, and  that makes  me wish the  knife was  done away with like the clothes and other stuff."

"What's done is done," Klaus said. "That was the murder weapon and I didn't know how soon I could get rid of it. Bloody clothes I could explain. A bloody knife I could not."

"What if the sheriff and this Agent Felt come here next?"

That made Hansen ponder a  bit. He said, "Now maybe is  a good time for both of us to be tending to the flock."

Outside of the temple they looked  down at the parking  lot and saw three marked law  enforcement vehicles  and a  rental. They tried to go back  inside but Sheriff  Walker and  Special Agent Mark Felt were already waiting for  them on either side  of the front door.

Roddy said, "Paul Bergin, you are under arrest for the murder of Kimberly Zinter."

Paul was frozen in shock, so Roddy grabbed his jacket sleeve and cuffed his bare wrist. Then he made Paul face one of the doors. After both arms were cuffed behind Paul's back Roddy patted him down, removed his wallet, and unlatched the carabiner key chain looped to his belt. He handed both of these to Felt, then turned Paul over to  his deputies  who were  coming up  the flight  of stairs leading  to the  temple. "Fingerprints, new home,  not a word to anybody, boys."

The deputies took Bergin  away just as  Special Agent-in-Charge Tolson arrived on the with Agent Sullivan in tow. Sheriff Walker introduced Hansen to Felt as the Apostle of  the Church. Hansen was indignant. "Prophet of the Church, if you please."

"I need to talk to you," said Felt, "but first, we have a court order to search the Temple for evidence pertaining to the murder of Kimberly Zinter."

Klaus demanded to see the order and Tolson let him read it. Then he said, "I will hold you to the absolute letter of this search warrant, as though it were sacred scripture. You may search only in the rooms which are locked with those keys."

Gabriel Shybear was waiting for them just inside.

"What are you doing here today of all days?" Roddy asked.

"I'm here every day now, Sheriff. There's been a reshuffling. I hold a very  important office in the Church:  Deacon. Mr. Hansen is the Prophet now, and Paul Bergin is the Apostle."

Sheriff  Roddy   Walker  caught   up   on   all  the   required introductions. "Mr. Klaus Hansen, Mr. Gabriel  Shybear, this is Special Agent  in Charge Clyde  Tolson of the Federal  Bureau of Investigation, and with  him today are Special  Agents Mark Felt and Bill Sullivan."

Mark Felt said, "Gabriel, would you  be so kind as  to take the Sheriff through  your temple so  he can make  a note of  all the doors that are locked before we get started."

All of the doors except one along the wide  carpeted foyer of A Wing were locked. While Gabriel and the Sheriff ranged through the rest of the temple,  the Bureau agents went  through Paul's office  like a  tornado  but  it yielded  nothing. The door to Gabriel's  office  was  wide  open,  so  the  agents  could  not enter there. They moved to  the  hallway that  ran around  the circumference of the Sanctuary and did a third of a turn to the right, checking some  of  the doors  in  Roddy's notes,  before entering C Wing. The rooms that Gabriel  and Dory  had cleaned were not locked.

"What's behind that door?"

Klaus and Gabriel exchanged a  glance, but the meaning  of this was lost on the sheriff and the FBI agents.

"That's a dry hole, Agent Sullivan," said Gabriel. "It's just my broom closet." Nevertheless, Special  Agent  Felt  found  the appropriate key. Like Gabriel said, there was nothing inside but cleaning supplies.

Klaus said "lucky" to Gabriel  and left  the party for  his own office. After that the  sheriff and  the  three Bureau  agents headed down the wide carpeted stairs to the basement cafeteria. There wasn't much of interest to the FBI  downstairs, which was open and airy, even in the kitchen, but the  supply room on the north wall was locked and everyone gravitated to there.

"Is this the room from your report?" Tolson asked Special Agent Bill.

"Mecca," Sullivan said.

Mecca turned out to have the same broken  piano, hymnals, mason jars, and stacks of Green Dome coloring books  that Gabriel had seen before when  he took  Robyn and  Hunky and  Dory into  the supply room. Bill Sullivan pointed at the plywood  board at the back wall. "Flashlights, gentlemen." The board was moved aside, and presently the  three G-men  were standing  around the  rock cairn that formed the uttermost summit of Green Dome.

Felt didn't  like how  the  murder  investigation had  suddenly veered. Tolson's  agenda  was   intruding  now. Stones were haphazardly torn away from  the cairn  and Tolson  went inside. Then Felt heard Tolson utter an oath that was most unbecoming of an FBI agent, followed by, "There's nothing here!"

After the search under the altar fell through  SAiC Tolson left the temple and took Sullivan with him. Special Agent Mark Felt was fine with that. Conflicting agendas were never productive. That left only the B Wing of the temple to search. It was set up as a historical museum,  although under  the new  management of Prophet Hansen  the Kuwapi contribution  to the Church  of Green Dome had been stripped  out. Some of the more  valuable pieces were missing entirely. But something about B Wing  stayed with Mark Felt  for  the  rest  of his  life. Perhaps it  was  the variety of  genuine articles  dating  back  to the  Civil  War. Perhaps something in the way  Sheriff Walker explained  what he was  looking  at. Agent Felt  found  the experience  profoundly immersive.

After that Felt found Klaus Hansen's office, which was also in B Wing, and he walked right in.

This prompted  an  angry  objection  from  Hansen. "You're in violation of  the judge's  orders, Felt. You  know you  can only search those rooms which are locked."

Sheriff Walker held up his notebook and said, "Ah yes, but this room was locked at the time  we served the warrant. In fact, you presence here is interference with a murder investigation."

Walker and Felt searched every  corner of the office  and found nothing. Then Felt upended the  waste basket  on the  floor. A large book with a green cover fell out. "What have we here?"

Walker thumbed through the pages and saw that it was the text of the Green Book, holy writ  for the Church, entirely  written by hand. He said,  "Agent  Felt, this  is  called  the  Printer's Manuscript. It  is said to have  been copied in the  other world from what they call the White Scroll."

Felt  said,  "Gosh,   sheriff,   you   would  think   something irreplaceable  like  this  would be  considered  priceless.  Yet somehow it  ended up in  the trash. I  wonder why." Then it was Felt's turn to pour through the pages of the manuscript. When he saw the pages in the very  front of the document  he said, "Now that's cute.  This is like a  kind of baby book  for the Church. All the important  decisions and events are  recorded here, like this  entry  from 1931  marking  when  Klaus Hansen  became  the Apostle. Mr.  Hansen, would you  please write your  signature in the sheriff's notebook so I can see if they're the same?"

"Special Agent Felt, I  assert my Constitutional  right against self-incrimination."

"I see. Oh,  look  Gabriel,  it says  here  Doriel resigned  as Apostle, yesterday, on the very day your wife was murdered. Were you present when this entry was made?"

"Yes sir, Special Agent Felt."

"Do you remember about what time of day it was?"

"It was about eight o'clock in the AM, sir."

Sheriff Walker wrote that in his notebook.

Felt said, "Gabriel, I may need  you to testify in  court under oath to  the same effect. Now  let's see who replaced  Doriel as the  Apostle. Why  look, it's  Klaus Hansen!  And he  signed it. Gabriel, did you witness Klaus Hansen making this signature?"

"Yes sir."

"So let's back up a bit to an entry made in 1866. It says if the Prophet dies or resigns, the Apostle becomes the new Prophet. So here's Klaus Hansen as the new Apostle, with the Prophet having only an hour or two left  to live. Please Gabriel, tell me, what happened immediately after Klaus  Hansen became, once again, the Apostle of the Church."

"He had his own breakaway Church down at the bottom of the hill, with only white folk there. He said we should go meet with them and announce  the division in  the mother Church was  healed. So Paul left  with Kim,  and Klaus  took me  separately in  his own truck. But  on the way down  we got into a  heated argument over race or something like that, and he just pulled over and made me get out  before driving off. So  I walked back up  to the temple where Dory was waiting."

Felt said, "The reason  I'm asking,  Gabriel, is  there's three final entries  here, one  declaring Kim to  be dead,  one making Klaus  Hansen  the  Prophet,  and one  making  Paul  Bergin  the Apostle. Did  you, as the  Deacon, witness any of  those entries being made?"

"No sir."

"I'm trying to ascertain the time."

"Dory said no one returned to the Temple before I did, and that was about nine thirty in the morning. It was about ten when they returned, and they told me Kim was dead."

"Sheriff, what time did old Tashunka arrive at your station and report the murder?"

"It was just about noon."

"I'm going to need to corroborate  this with Dory, but  we have now is Klaus Hansen affirming, in writing, that Kimberly Zinter, or  Kimberly Shybear  if you  will, was  dead approximately  two hours before Tashunka discovered her  corpse. Mr. Hansen, do you have  anything to  say before  you are  placed under  arrest for murder?"

"You can't tie  the  murder weapon  to me.  You  can't tie  the footprints to anyone.  All you have is the word  of an aggrieved husband."

"You had motive. You led the White Wing out  of the Church over the marriage of  Gabriel and Kim, and only returned  when such a marriage was made forbidden as an article of canon law."

"All that means is the new  Prophet had more common  sense than the old one did."

"Ah, yes, but that ruling left the original  marriage in place, til  death  do  they  part.  And you  cannot  account  for  your whereabouts between the  time when you left Gabriel  on the side of the road and the time  you returned to the Temple, which also happens to bracket the time of the murder."

"The girl was already dead when I got down there," Hansen said.

"So you admit you were both there, and you deliberately made the case federal to get the  FBI's attention. Well, now  you indeed have the FBI's attention, Prophet Hansen. The floor is yours."

“I will say this exactly once, Special Agent  Felt. From here on out I will speak only to your superior officer, Special Agent in Charge Clyde Tolson.”

Klaus Hansen hobbled into the interrogation room with his ankles cuffed. He said he  would  only speak  with  Tolson, so  Clyde consulted a brief Felt had put together for him before he spoke.

“Mr. Hansen, we placed your vehicle at the crime scene.”

“With tire treads, Clyde? How many different kinds  of tires does town as small as this have?”

“Gabriel Shybear is willing to testify that  you declared the girl dead before her body was found by the  old Indian, who, by the way, immediately notified the sheriff while you did not.”

"I am the Prophet, Clyde, as you  just said. If you  keep me in custody Gabriel Shybear  will hold Last Rites for his  wife in a private ceremony and you will never  see the Golden Gift. But if you swear to  drop the charges, I'll make her  Last Rites public services. At the end you and  your agents can descend on Gabriel and scoop up the Golden Gift at your leisure."

Mark Felt gave a start,  but he  knew the Director  would never tolerate letting Hansen go free. No judge would instruct a jury to ignore the other  set of  footprints, but  even if  one did, Bergin's defense team would argue for a mistrial or at the least get his conviction overturned on appeal.

Sheriff Walker responded the way  Felt initially wanted  to do, "You can't be thinking of letting him go. We've got him cold for conspiracy to commit murder at the very least."

Felt said, "Sheriff, I'm  dying to discuss  this with  you, but this is not the time nor the place."

Tolson found that remark interesting. "Where are your thoughts trending, Felt?"

"Sir, when the Director sent me here he told  me the case would be independent  of your  DECON work  but unfortunately  here's a situation where the two investigations  have run right into each other. The  Director's orders to  me were to, quote,  'mesh with Tolson where  practical' so I will  look to the senior  agent on site for guidance."

"Excellent, Felt. Then let  us go forward  and see  what shakes out. Prophet  Hansen, you have  my word  as a federal  agent the Bureau will not charge you with  the murder of this girl. But if this is  just a big  bait-and-switch operation, if I  don't have the Golden  Gift in my hand  at the conclusion of  all this, you will be right back in here and all bets are off."

At the Last Rites Klaus had absolutely nothing to say about Kim at all. He never mentioned her parents. He never mentioned how she had gone missing for the  last two months, and  how she had been in quarantine for  six months  before that. Hansen didn't know the girl, he didn't know her family, nor  her friends, nor their families. He had no feelings for her  what- soever, other than the fact  that he  hated her  with an  abiding hatred  for marrying Gabriel Shybear and thus, in his view, she ripped apart the One True Church. So instead of giving anything like a decent eulogy, Klaus embarked upon a particularly malicious Bible study about Solomon's heart being  turned away from  the LORD  by his foreign wives, and the  "sin" of inter-marriage  between races, until the Bunners  were frantic,  desperately wishing  he would stop. Eventually he ran out of scripture.

The temple organist took her  place at  the edge of  the raised chancel and began to play a Bach chorale prelude,  "I Call You, Lord  Jesus  Christ". The congregation  sang  the hymn  in  the original German from the  words printed  in the  hymnal, though very few members still  understood German anymore. The singing was therefore  pretty  lousy,  but  the  underlying  music  was gorgeous. Mark Felt, sitting in  the  pews, took  note of  the musician, who  looked  remarkably like  the  deceased. Sheriff Walker told him the girl  playing was Kim's twin  sister Robyn, whom he once interviewed on the afternoon of the  murder but he had not been able to contact her since. "Shall I hold her?"

Special Agent Felt replied, "No. I think, Sheriff, that any need to question her further has been entirely overtaken by events."

Wearing white robes in hez  role as  the Minister of  the Final Rite, Deacon Gabriel Shybear stood behind the  embalmed body of Kim, which  lay face  up on  the altar,  also clothed  in white. Sofie Krause came out of the audience to stand next to him. She was wearing her green school uniform, like she  always did when she went to Temple, since it was the most  feminine garment she owned. Perhaps it was the only feminine one.

Special Agent Bill Sullivan gave a start. "Sir, that's the girl I've been  looking  for!  Sofie  Krause!" Someone behind  him snickered. The way he put it sounded hilarious.

Tolson restrained him with a hand on his arm. "Don't move unless she tries to walk out of the temple. Oh yes, we have her, but my top priority is the artifact."

"Most of you know me," Sofie told the  congregation. "I'm Sofie Krause. Kim was my age. Most of you know that she and her momma have had a pretty lousy time  of it lately. Kim's father died in the mines about nine months back. In school Kim always called me a scrub, but  she never, ever turned  me away when I  told her I needed  help with  my  class  work. Somehow  she  had  a way  of explaining things to  me better than the teachers  did, and that kept me in D territory. Maybe, if she lived, she would have been a teacher herself one day. You already know she had a voice like an angel, and she could play the piano and the organ. I mean she could really play!  It turns out her twin sister  Robyn can play pretty good too, as you have  just heard. Thanks for coming here and doing that for us today, Robyn. Me and my friends had dreams of pressing a swing record with her, but now they're dashed flat and that's a terrible waste!"

Then Sofie fell silent and stepped back from the lectern but she remained standing next to Gabriel on the chancel. She wasn't a good enough actor to summon up any teares.

Gabriel did not follow up with  a eulogy of hez  own, though he longed to  express the  love che  had for his  wife, or  even to mention  that she  had been  his wife. Things had already gone overlong with Hansen's sermon, and che did  not want antagonize the congregation  even more  than  Klaus  Hansen's sermon  did. Instead che said, "On the surface this would seem  to be a time of sorrow. But upon reflection, we see how that sorrow is really a sign of a  deeper love. If Kimberly were a  stranger to us, if she had no one among us who cared about her, we might feel, only a  kind of  indifference. Certainly  not bereavement.  And that, brothers and  sisters, is  the second most-important  purpose of the Last  Rite. We  gather together in  sorrow to  recognize and celebrate the love  that underlies our grief. So now  let us bow our heads in prayer.

"Bless us, O Lord, as today we have come together to commit the body  of our  beloved  sister in  faith,  Kimberly Anne  Zinter, directly into  your hands. Sown  in corruption, let her  body be raised in incorruption. Sown in dishonor, let her body be raised in your glory. Sown in weakness, let it be raised in power. Sown a natural body, let her be raised a spiritual body as we eagerly look for the life to come when she receives again the many years that were taken away from her on Earth. In the name of your only son Yeshua we pray."

"Do you believe,  as I  believe, that  when Prince  Melchizedek first came to Father Abraham, he unveiled our most holy relic as a sure sign of our Lord's divinity?"

Some members of the crowd, who  knew the correct way  to answer the Call and Response of the  Last Rite, said, "I  do." Gabriel produced the self-same relic then, and held it high  for all to see. Clyde Tolson leaned forward in his pew.

"Do you believe, as I believe,  that when the Lord  our God was made manifest  on this very spot,  the Island in the  Sky, Chief Wanica took possession of our most holy relic, which we name the Golden Gift?" A more robust response came from the congregation. They were catching on.

"Do you believe, as I believe, that when the Kuwapi people were united with the  pilgrims led by our first  prophet, Mark Lange, the bodies of four fallen  warriors of the People were committed into the hands of our God by  the Golden Gift as a sign of their everlasting union?" A very hearty "I do!" erupted from the rest of the church.

Then, before the  eyes of  everyone in  the sanctuary,  Gabriel ignited the Golden Gift and used the hissing black shaft to make every scrap of Kim's body disappear. He even took shallow swaths of the  concrete altar  along  with  it, although  Gabriel  was usually much more careful not to do so. Periodically a new altar surface had to  be poured  and  cured. Che knew such  measures wouldn't matter anymore after this last Last Rite.

Clyde Tolson was frozen briefly as he took  in this astonishing sight, but  he  quickly  recovered   and  gave  the  signal  to go. Sheriff Roddy Walker,  however, did  not  recover. He sat transfixed, realizing his lifetime of unbelief had been entirely misguided. But that, after all, was the  most important purpose of the Last Rite.

The sanctuary of  the Green  Dome Church  was constructed  as a hexagon,  with aisles  forming  six spokes. Clyde Tolson, Bill Sullivan, Mark  Felt, Dr.  Trochmann,  Deputy  Lurz and  Deputy Holsinger descended toward the  altar, each man  descending his own aisle, making straight for Gabriel, who saw them and quickly made the Golden Gift disappear into his little  ready pocket of space-time. Clyde Tolson was the first to reach Gabriel, and he tackled him, flipping the young  nephil face down. "Where is it, you son of a bitch?"

Gabriel was cuffed, poked, and prodded by four different men.

Some members  of  the  congregation  began  to  stream  out  of the  temple. Others remained in  their pews  like the  sheriff, bewailing that they had come to  full belief only after  it was too late. Some who had seen the Last Rites before shouted angry oaths at Klaus Hansen for  permitting outsiders to  witness and hence defile the Sacred  Relic. This was the  Abomination That Makes Desolate predicted in  scripture. The Temple was defiled beyond redemptipon and the Church existed no more.

After the  Sheriff recovered  and  rejoined  his deputies  they arrested Gabriel  and Sofie  and  took  them away. Tolson and Sullivan knocked over the massive altar in their search for the Golden Gift. They looked for any trap doors in the floor of the chancel where Gabriel might have tossed it, finally even tearing up the chancel carpet.

Mark Felt didn't seem eager  to help  them. He looked at Robyn sitting at the organ, who winked at him. Felt sensed the search would be futile and Tolson  would not  get what he  was looking for. He also saw Klaus Hansen standing there with his mouth wide open in shock  at how  things were  turning out. Felt came up behind him  and cuffed his hands  behind his back before  he had time to offer any resistance. Hansen's shock was doubled.

"Hey, jerk!" Hansen screamed at Tolson. "We had a deal!"

Tolson ceased from his labors to look at Hanson and saw how Felt had already cuffed him. Good. Save him the trouble of doing it himself. He glanced at Sullivan,  then dropped  the corner  of carpet he was holding. Sullivan followed suit. Tolson said, "We did have a deal, Klaus. And I don't have  the Golden Gift. That means all bets are off, just like I told you."

Gabriel and Sofie were thrown into separate but adjoining cells. They spoke no  words  to  their captors. Instead they put  on implacably  stony  faces and  conversed  with  Robyn by  way  of Doryphone. At an hour selected  by Robyn, Gabriel  produced the Golden Gift and cut hez way out of his cell through an exterior wall of the  sheriff's station. Once che was outside  che cut Sofie out too. Dory and Robyn were  pulling up in  the woodie. Sofie looked  back  and  saw  how  the  holes  were  carved  as silhouettes of of people, as  though she and Gabriel had escaped by running right through the wall like  Merrie Melodies cartoon characters frequently did. Her own escape hole was in the shape of a girl in pigtails and a dress. "Very funny, Gabe."

It would, in fact, amuse Mark Felt to no end when  he saw it in the morning.