TCN

If Ruth Shoenherr hadn't worn a dress Special Agent  Mark  Felt might have  thought Deacon Alfred himself was standing  at  his front door. Felt cleared his throat and identified himself and Sheriff Sternbach.

RUTH: [Yes? How may I help you?]

FELT: [Is Mr. Shoenherr at home?]

RUTH: [Alfred works at the Temple. I'm his wife Ruth]

FELT: [Perhaps you can help after all, Mrs. Shoenherr. It seems a young woman was attacked with a knife recently]

RUTH: [Good God, is she well?]

FELT: [It's hard to say at this point. What I can tell you  is that  we think we found the weapon that was used in the  attack. It's a knife with a hand-crafted wooden handle, so we think only a very few sets were sold and we also think you might have  one of them]

RUTH: [You can't think that I, that Alfred attacked this woman]

FELT: [Not at all ma'am. A criminal investigation is like trac- ing 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 rabbit trail and be on our way]

RUTH: [We never bought our knife block. It was made by Owen Ber- gin when Headwater was first settled and has passed down through daughters and granddaughters ever since]

Felt made a note of that on his pad, then broke into a smile.

FELT: [You see, Sheriff? I knew we must be wasting our time]

ROY: [I'm  sorry, Ma'am, but we had to be sure. Still, do  you mind if we take one little peek at what you do have?]

Mark Felt admired how Roy caught his little game and slid right into his role without clashing gears.

RUTH: [See, that's the darndest thing. My knife block has gone missing. Alfred and the children tell me they don't know what happened to it]

ROY: [Oh no, Ruth, that's just what I didn't want to hear.

FELT: [I'm sure there's 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.

Roy thought  Ruth's home was very similar to Robyn's  place  in size and design but it was 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.

And there was another difference: when he visited Robyn she was playing music, but here it was silent. Ruth had no record col- lection and no Victrola to play them on. Roy marvelled how reli- gious folk were so keen on a life in the hereafter  when  their life here on Earth was so miserable, by their own choice.

ROY: [I see you don't have a radio, Mrs. Shoenherr]

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

FELT: [The  girl who was attacked was a singer  in  the  Temple school band. Do you know somebody who might have stabbed  her because she sang race music?]

Ruth's eyes darted around but she shook her head no.

FELT: [It was very generous of you to allow us to come indoors, Ruth. I have no right to ask this of you, and please don't be- lieve for an instant that we really 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, it was so beautifully  done. Ruth would be thinking of self-preservation. She would be thinking her own husband was framing her for the crime.

RUTH: [Will you have to take me down to the station for a thumb- print?]

FELT: [No. Not at all]

He used his pencil to make a thick dark spot on a page  in  his notebook.

FELT: [Are you right or left handed?]

RUTH: [Right, of course]

Roy guessed the woman thought southpaws were cursed by God.

With Ruth Shoenherr 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. He dared not close the  book until it was lacquered.

RUTH: [This schoolgirl who was attacked, she was one  of  Clara Zinter's kids, wasn't she?]

Felt stood up from the couch still holding his notebook careful- ly open.

FELT: [I've been careful not to say too much and upset you, Mrs. Shoenherr]

RUTH: [I suppose it couldn't be helped]

Sheriff Sternbach scrambled to his feet at that remark and  po- litely asked Ruth what she meant by making it.

RUTH: [I think only a believer would fully understand  me,  but those two girls were the worst of the lot, bringing  that  race music here. Our God is a sovereign God]

Roy made eye contact with Agent Felt, who raised his notebook a bit and shrugged. He already had what he came for.

ROY: [Race  music. So God wasn't content to take their  father away? He had to take one of the girl's life as well?]

RUTH: [She's dead?]

ROY: [Yes,  Ruth, she's dead. What a terrible thing for  Clara Zinter. What a terrible thing for our whole town. But whoever did it must have a death wish. 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]

FELT: [But the Bureau always, always gets its man]

Judge Karl Porter was directly descended from Alfred and  Caro- line 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 out 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 little island in the Squaw River that formed the heart of the  town. Now the sheriff was in Porter's chambers  again, making another run at Alfred Shoenherr, and this  time,  Porter suspected, he just might get him.

The judge glanced once more at the Affidavit in Support of  Ar- rest Warrant submitted by Sheriff Sternbach. On a personal level he didn't  like where this investigation was going. Until the schism Alfred  had been the deacon of the Church and  his  wife Ruth, just like the Porters, was Headwater Old Guard.

The Church  of Green Dome had many secrets, as 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 crawling back.

Special Agent  Mark Felt was seated at the table  next  to  the sheriff. The judge had already learned, the last time these two men appeared before him, that Felt was guiding the case on  be- half of the FBI. Knowing that, he asked Agent Felt why his name did not appear on the Affidavit.

FELT: [Your Honor, when I assumed overall direction of the case for the Bureau the Sheriff had already acquired a  quantity  of evidence. The Affidavit before you summarizes the entire case to this point and only Sheriff Sternbach could testify as  to  how all the facts were obtained]

PORTER: [Do you foresee a time when the Bureau will no longer be acting in cooperation with local law enforcement here in  Head- water?]

FELT: [Certainly, Your Honor. After they are identified and ap- prehended the  individual or individuals  responsible  for  the crime will likely be transported for arraignment in Kansas City]

PORTER: [Then with the view of hastening that blessed day please lay out your evidence]

Mark Felt nodded at the sheriff. Roy opened a briefcase and re- moved a knife in a cellophane bag, a page from Felt's notebook, and two closeup photographs of these.

ROY: [Your Honor, Mrs. Ruth Shoenherr, the wife of Alfred Shoen- herr, was  kind enough to allow Special Agent Felt to  take  an impression  of her right thumb and as you can see, it  perfectly matches the single thumbprint we dusted on the knife  found  at the crime scene]

PORTER: [What in the name of God would make Mrs. Shoenherr give you her thumbprint, Sheriff, and why isn't she named as a  sus- pect?]

ROY: [I think, Your Honor, the answer to both questions is  the same. She knew her set of kitchen knives had gone  missing  on Sunday morning last and she had no answer as to why]

Judge Porter growled while he chewed on that item for a moment. Yes, the sheriff, or Agent Felt, or both, would have  led  Mrs. Shoenherr  to think her own husband was framing her for  murder. Still, what was done was done, and it was legally airtight.

PORTER: [What else do you have?]

The sheriff  reached into his briefcase and  removed  two  more photographs.

ROY: [Your Honor, Alfred Shoenherr's vehicle is, at this moment, 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 remembered  that  under wartime rationing  Alfred Shoenherr could only own  four  tires plus one spare. Karl realized the sheriff did indeed have enough to justify an arrest warrant. He could hardly refuse after sign- ing one  for the out-of-towner the previous night,  this  young woman named Robyn, on much less.

PORTER: [The court finds probable cause to believe a felony of- fense, to wit, the unlawful killing of Kimberly Zinter with mal- ice aforethought, has been committed. The arrest of Mr. Alfred Shoenherr at any hour of day or night is so ordered]

Karl Porter's law clerk began typing it up.

PORTER: [Special Agent Felt, will it be sufficient  to  confine your search for more evidence of the crime to the home of Alfred Shoenherr?]

FELT: [No, Your Honor. If Mr. Shoenherr was a layman his  home would have been enough. But as a member of the Church leadership he likely has physical access to the whole Temple]

PORTER: [Very well, these are the rules of the People for  your search: Let's assume Shoenherr 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]

FELT: [Thank you, Your Honor. The Bureau accepts this limitation on the search]

PORTER: [Proceed with caution, Agent Felt. The Church of Green Dome is the very lifeblood of Headwater, and the Church was al- ready going through its most difficult passage in nearly eighty years before this happened]

FELT: [The words of Dr. Wahkan and Sheriff Sternbach  have  al- ready sensitized me to the plight of the Church, Your Honor, 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 chamber.

FELT: [It's not carte blanche, but it's the best we could do]

When Tolson finished reading the documents he didn't seem to be too upset by the limitations imposed by Judge Porter.

TOLSON: [Well done, Felt! 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  the whole thing was just an excuse to search the Temple. It sounded like Tolson didn't give two floating turds for the dead girl.

ALFRED: [Ruth told me she let this FBI fellow take her  finger- prints, and that makes me wish the knife was done away with like the clothes and other stuff]

EARL: [That was the murder weapon and I didn't know how soon you could get rid of it. Bloody clothes I could explain. A bloody knife I could not]

ALFRED: [What if the sheriff and this federal agent  come  here next?]

That made Warner ponder a bit.

EARL: [Now maybe is a good time for both of us to be tending to the flock]

Just 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 Sternbach and Special Agent Mark Felt were already waiting for them on either side  of  the front door.

ROY: [Alfred Shoenherr, you are under arrest for the murder  of Kimberly Zinter]

Alfred was frozen in shock and didn't move, so Roy grabbed  his jacket sleeve  and cuffed his bare wrist. Then he made  Alfred face one of the doors. After both arms were cuffed behind  Al- fred's back  Roy patted him down, removed his wallet,  and  un- latched the carabiner key chain looped to his belt. He handed both of these to Felt, then turned Alfred over to his  deputies who were coming up the flight of stairs leading to the temple.

ROY: [Fingerprints, new home, not a word to anybody boys]

The deputies took Shoenherr away just as Special Agent-in-Charge Tolson arrived  with Agent Sullivan in tow. Sheriff Sternbach introduced Warner to Felt as the Elder of the Church, but Warner was indignant.

EARL: [Seer of the Church, if you please]

FELT: [We have a court order to search the Temple for  evidence pertaining to the murder of Kimberly Zinter.

Earl demanded to see the order and Tolson let him read it.

EARL: [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]

Ruman Shybear was waiting for them just inside.

ROY: [Ruman! What are you doing here today of all days?]

RUMAN: [I'm here every day now, Sheriff. There's been a reshuf- fling. I hold a very important office in the Church: Deacon. Mr. Warner is the Seer now, and Alfred Shoenherr is the Elder]

Sheriff Roy Sternbach caught up on all the  required  introduc- tions.

ROY: [Mr. Earl Warner, Mr. Ruman 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 Sulli- van]

FELT: [Ruman,  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 a single room along the  wide  carpeted foyer of  A Wing were locked. That room was the office of  the deacon. While Ruman and the Sheriff ranged through the rest of the temple, the Bureau agents went through Alfred's office  like a tornado but it yielded nothing of interest.

The door to Ruman's office was wide open, so the  agents  could not enter there.

The agents moved to the passageway that ran around the  circum- ference of the Sanctuary and veered clockwise, checking some of the doors in Roy's notes, before entering C Wing. The rooms that Ruman and Dory had cleaned were not locked.

SULLIVAN: [What's behind that door?]

Earl and Ruman exchanged a quick glance, but the meaning of this was lost on the sheriff and the FBI agents.

RUMAN: [That's a dry hole, Agent Sullivan. It's just my  broom closet]

Nevertheless, Special Agent Felt found the appropriate key. Like Ruman said, there was nothing inside but cleaning supplies  and one empty cookie tin.

Earl muttered "lucky" to Ruman and left the party for  his  own office. After that the sheriff and the three Bureau agents head- ed 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.

TOLSON: [Is this the room from your report?]

SULLIVAN: [Mecca]

Mecca turned out to have the same broken piano, hymnals,  mason jars, and  stacks of Green Dome coloring books that  Ruman  had seen before when he took Robyn and Hunky and Dory into the sup- ply room.

Bill Sullivan  pointed at the plywood board at the  back  wall.

SULLIVAN: [Flashlights,  gentlemen]

The board was moved aside, they did the short hike down the tun- nel  under  the road and presently three  G-men  were  standing around the overflowing pond that formed the very source of  the Squaw River. The only thing visible was the rack of towels pre- pared in case someone wanted to take a swim, or perhaps be bap- tized.

Felt heard Tolson utter an oath that was most unbecoming of  an FBI agent.

TOLSON: [There's nothing here!]

After the  search under the mountain fell through  SAiC  Tolson left the temple and took Sullivan along with him. Special Agent Mark Felt  was fine with their departure. Conflicting agendas were never productive. That left only the B Wing of the temple to search.

B Wing was set up as a historical museum, although under the new management of  Prophet Warner the Kuwapi  contribution  to  the Church of Green Dome had been stripped out with little  thought of preservation. 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 ar- ticles dating back to the Civil War. Agent Felt found the expe- rience profoundly immersive.

After that Felt went to Earl Warner's office, which was also in B Wing, and he walked right in.

This prompted an angry objection from Warner.

EARL: [You're in violation of the judge's orders, Felt. You know you can only search those rooms which are locked]

Sheriff Sternbach held up his notebook.

ROY: [Ah yes, but this room was locked at the time we served the warrant. In fact, your presence here constitutes  interference with a murder investigation]

Sternbach and Felt then searched every corner of the office and found nothing. Finally, Felt upended the waste basket on  the floor. A large book with a green cover fell out.

FELT: [What have we here?]

Sternbach 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 spoke from the memory of his time in the Church

ROY: [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: [Remarkable, sheriff. One would think something irreplace- able like  this would be considered priceless. Yet somehow  it ended up in the trash. I wonder why]

It was Felt's turn to pour through the pages of the manuscript, but he got no farther than the pages in the very front  of  the document.

FELT: [Now this is very cute. It's a kind of baby book for the Church. All the important decisions and  events  are  recorded here, like this entry from 1931 marking when Earl Warner became the Elder. Mr. Warner, would you please write your signature in the sheriff's notebook so I can see if they're the same?]

EARL :  [Special Agent Felt, I assert my  Constitutional  right against self-incrimination]

FELT: [I see. Oh, look Ruman, it says someone named Doriel Shy- bear resigned as Elder last Friday. Who is Doriel?]

RUMAN: [That's my twin sister, Special Agent Felt]

FELT: [Were you present when this entry was made?]

RUMAN: [Yes sir]

FELT: [Do you remember about what time of day it was?]

RUMAN: [It was about eight o'clock in the AM, sir]

Sheriff Sternbach wrote that in his notebook.

FELT: [Ruman, at some future date I may need you to testify  in court under oath to the same effect. I also see there has been some shuffling of Church officers recently. Warner resigned on the tenth and was replaced by Doriel]

WARNER: [That's disputed]

FELT: [Now let's see who replaced Doriel as the Elder. Why look, it's Earl Warner once again! And he signed it on the fifteenth. That was Friday. Ruman, did you also witness Earl Warner making this signature?]

RUMAN: [Yes sir]

FELT: [So let's back up a bit to an entry made in 1866. It says if the Seer dies or resigns, the Elder automatically becomes the new Seer. Please Ruman, tell me, what happened immediately after Earl Warner became, once again, the Elder of the Church]

RUMAN: [He had his own breakaway church with only white folk al- lowed there. He said we should go meet with them and  announce the division  in the mother Church was healed. So Alfred  left with Kim, and Earl took me in his own truck. But on the way down there we got into a heated argument over race, or racism, 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: [The reason I'm asking, Ruman, is there's three final en- tries here, one declaring Kim to be dead, one making Earl Warner the Seer, and one making Alfred Shoenherr the Elder. Did you, as the Deacon, witness any of those entries being made?]

RUMAN: [No sir]

FELT: [I'm trying to ascertain the time]

RUMAN: [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]

FELT: [I  will need Dory to sign an affidavit to  that  effect, just so we're not working with hearsay, you understand]

RUMAN: [I am sure my sister would be happy to cooperate in full, Special Agent Felt]

FELT: [What did Warner and Shoenherr do when they  returned  to the temple at ten?]

RUMAN: [They told my sister to leave. They said there was a new rule that members of the Red Wing laity could only be present in the Temple on Wednesdays]

And Mark Felt saw that the text of the Sixth Decree,  dated  on Friday  the fifteenth, corroborated what Ruman said, but it  was not countersigned by Kimberly. Warner might as well have  con- fessed to the murder in the pages of the Printer's Manuscript.

FELT: [Sheriff, what time did old Tashunka arrive at your  sta- tion and report the murder?]

ROY: [It was just about noon, Special Agent Felt]

FELT: [I'm going to need the testimony of Dory Shybear, but what we have now is Earl Warner affirming, in writing, that Kimberly Shybear was dead approximately two hours before Tashunka discov- ered her corpse. Mr. Warner, do you have anything to say before you are placed under arrest for murder?]

EARL: [You can't tie the murder weapon to me. You can't tie the footprints to anyone. All you have is a sketchy timeline based on the word of an aggrieved husband]

FELT: [You had a motive for the murder. You led the White Wing out of the Church over the marriage of Ruman and Kim, and  only returned when such a marriage was made forbidden as an  article of canon law.

EARL: [All that means is Kim had more common sense than  Jashen did]

FELT: [Ah, yes, but that ruling left the original  marriage  in place,  'til death do they part. But on top of all that you is- sued a decree of the Church with the authority of the Seer while her dead body lay undiscovered, hanging across three states]

EARL: [The entry in the Printer's Manuscript does not  indicate the time it was made]

FELT: [Can  you account for your whereabouts between  the  time when you  left Ruman on the side of the road and the  time  you returned to the Temple?]

EARL: [I had just heard an earful of blasphemy from this boy, so I took a drive in the country to blow off steam]

FELT: [Alone?]

EARL: [Of course]

FELT: [Your lonely drive happens to bracket the time of the mur- der. So while you're being booked one of the deputies will get photographs of your tires and I'm almost certain they will match the tracks of the second vehicle at the scene]

EARL: [The girl was already dead when I got down there]

FELT: [Ah,  now we are getting somewhere. You admit  you  were there. I just have a hard time believing she lay on the marker calmly while she was butchered. Did you help move the body?]

Warner refused to answer.

FELT: [No reply? Somebody deliberately made the case federal to get the  FBI's attention. Well, now you indeed have the  FBI's attention, Seer Warner. The floor is yours]

EARL: [I will speak only to your superior officer]

Earl Warner hobbled into the interrogation room with his ankles cuffed. Tolson consulted a brief Felt had put together for him before he spoke.

TOLSON: [Mr. Warner, we have placed your vehicle at the  crime scene]

EARL: [With tire treads? What a joke. How many different kinds of tires does a town as small as this have?]

TOLSON: [Ruman 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 when he discovered the dead girl while you did not]

EARL: [Listen. Clyde. I am the Seer of the Church  of  Green Dome. If you keep me in custody Ruman Shybear will  hold  Last Rites for his wife in a private ceremony on Wednesday. Red Wing only. You will never see the Killing Relic. But if you swear to drop  the charges against me, I'll order him do the  Last  Rites tomorrow for both Wings and I'll invite you to attend. At the end of the ceremony you and your agents can descend on Ruman and scoop up the Killing Relic at your leisure]

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

Sheriff Sternbach responded the way Felt initially wanted to do.

ROY: [Special Agent in Charge Tolson, you can't be thinking  of letting this man go. We've got him cold for accessory to murder at the very least, and probably conspiracy to commit murder too]

FELT: [Sheriff, I'm dying to discuss this with you, but this is not the time nor the place]

Tolson found that remark interesting.

TOLSON: [Where are your thoughts trending right now, Felt?]

FELT: [Sir,  when the Director sent me up 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  into each other. The Director's orders to me in that event were to, quote, 'mesh with Tolson where practical' so I will look to the senior agent on site for guidance]

TOLSON: [Excellent, Felt. Let us go forward and see what shakes out. Seer Warner, 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 Kill- ing Relic in my hand at the conclusion of all this, you will be right back in a cell and all bets are off]

At the Last Rites the following day Earl had absolutely nothing to say about Kim at all. He never mentioned her parents. He nev- er mentioned how she had gone missing for the last eight months. Warner did not know the girl, he did not know her  family,  nor her friends,  nor their families. He had no feelings  for  her whatsoever, other than the fact that he hated her with an abid- ing hatred for marrying Ruman Shybear. This act, in his  view, ripped apart the One True Church. So instead of giving anything like a decent eulogy, Earl embarked upon a  particularly  mali- cious Bible study.

He spoke of Solomon's strange wives, "which burnt  incense  and sacrificed unto their gods."

He quoted from the book of Nehemiah: "Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying  strange wives?"

But most of his time was spent in the tenth chapter of the book of Ezra. Warner cited the place where it says, "And Shechaniah said  unto  Ezra, We have trespassed against our God,  and  have taken strange wives of the people of the land".

Warner went  on to recite, "And among the sons of  the  priests there  were found that had taken strange wives: namely,  of  the sons  of Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and his brethren;  Maaseiah, and  Eliezer,  and  Jarib, and Gedaliah.  All  these  had  taken strange wives: and some of them had wives by whom they had chil- dren. And Ezra said, 'Now therefore separate yourselves from the people  of the land, and from the strange wives.' And they  made an  end  with all the men that had taken strange  wives  by  the first day of the first month..."

After an hour of this even 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  un- derstood 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 Sternbach told him the girl  playing was Kim's sister Robyn, whom he  once  inter- viewed on the afternoon of the murder but he had not been  able to contact her since.

ROY: [Shall I hold her? We still have a signed warrant]

FELT: [No. I think, Sheriff, that any need to question her fur- ther has been entirely overtaken by events]

Wearing white  robes in his role as the Minister of  the  Final Rite, Deacon  Ruman Shybear stood behind the embalmed  body  of Kim, which lay face up on the altar, also clothed in white. So- phia Zinter 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.

SULLIVAN: [Sir, that's the girl I've been looking  for! Sophia Zinter!]

Someone behind him snickered. The way he put it sounded hilar- ious.

Tolson restrained him with a hand on his arm.

TOLSON: [Don't move unless she tries to walk out of the temple. Oh yes, we have her, but my top priority is the artifact]

SOPHIA: [Most of you know me. I'm Sophia Zinter. Kim here was my sister. Most of you know that she and I and momma have  had  a pretty  lousy time of it lately. Father died in the mines about nine months back. At the Academy 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 Kim had a way of explaining things to me better than the teachers did, and that kept me in D terri- tory. Maybe if she lived she would have been a teacher herself one day. All of 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 my other sister Robyn can play pretty good too, as you have just heard. We're triplets! Thanks for coming out here from Pennsylvania and doing that for us  today, Robyn. Me and my friends Dory and Ruman, we had dreams of press- ing a swing record with Kim. But now they're dashed flat and if you ask me that's a terrible waste!]

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

Ruman did  not follow up with a eulogy of his  own,  though  he longed to express the love he had for his wife.. He longed just to mention that she had been his wife. But things had  already gone overlong with Warner's sermon, and Ruman did not want  an- tagonize the congregation even more than Earl  Warner's  sermon already did.

RUMAN: [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 friends  or  sisters 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. Here we gather together in sorrow to  recognize and celebrate the love that underlies our grief. So now let us bow our heads in prayer.]

RUMAN: [Bless us, O Lord, as today we have come together to com- mit the  body  of our beloved sister in  faith,  Kimberly  Anne Lange, 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. We eagerly look for the life to come when she will receive again the years that were taken away from her on Earth. In the name of your only son Yeshua our Lord we pray]

The crowd mumbled 'Amen'.

RUMAN: [Do you believe, as I believe, that when Prince Melchize- dek first came to Father Abraham, he unveiled our most holy rel- ic 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."

Ruman produced the sacrfed relic then, and held it high for all to see. Clyde Tolson leaned forward in his pew.

RUMAN: [Do you believe, as I believe, that when Laylah was come to 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.

RUMAN: [Do you believe, as I believe, that when the Kuwapi peo- ple were  united with the pilgrims led by our first  Seer,  the bodies of four fallen warriors of the People were committed into the hands of our God by the Sacred Relic as a sign of their ev- erlasting union?]

A very hearty "I do!" erupted from the rest of the church.

Then, before the eyes of everyone in the sanctuary, Ruman ignit- ed the Killing Relic and used the weapon to make every scrap of Kim's  body disappear. He even took shallow swaths of the  con- crete altar along with it, although Ruman was usually much more careful not to do so. Periodically a new altar surface had to be poured and cured. Hy 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 Roy Sternbach, however, did not recover. He sat trans- fixed, realizing his years of unbelief had been  entirely  mis- guided. But that was, after all, the most important purpose of the Last Rite.

The sanctuary of the Green Dome Church was constructed as a hex- agon, with aisles forming six spokes. Clyde Tolson, Bill Sulli- van, Mark Felt, Dr. Trochmann, Deputy Lurz and Deputy Holsinger descended toward the altar, each man descending his own  aisle, making straight  for Ruman, who saw them and quickly  made  the Staff of Melchizedek disappear into his little ready pocket  of space-time.

Clyde Tolson was the first to reach Ruman, and he tackled  him, flipping the young man face down.

TOLSON: [Where is it, you son of a bitch?]

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

Some members of the congregation began to stream out of the tem- ple. 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 Earl Warner for permitting outsiders to witness and hence defile the Sacred Relic. This was the Abomination That Makes Desolate predicted in scripture. The Temple was now defiled beyond  re- demption and the Church existed no more.

As far as Dory cared, the Church had not existed for a number of days already.

After the Sheriff recovered and rejoined his deputies they  ar- rested Ruman and Sophia 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 Ruman might have tossed it,  fi- nally even tearing up the chancel carpet.

Mark Felt suddenly didn't seem eager to help them. He looked at Robyn still sitting at the organ. She winked at him. Felt sensed the search would be futile and Tolson would not get what he was looking for.

Felt also  saw Earl Warner standing there with his  mouth  wide open in  shock at how things were turning out. His hands  were cuffed behind his back before he had time to offer any  resist- ance. Warner's shock was doubled.

WARNER (to Tolson): [Hey, jerk! We had a deal!]

Tolson ceased from his labors to look at Warner and saw how Felt had already cuffed him. Good. Saves him the trouble of doing it himself. He glanced at Sullivan, then dropped the corner of car- pet he was holding. Sullivan followed suit.

TOLSON: [We did have a deal, Earl. And I don't have the Killing Relic. That means all bets are off, just like I told you]

Ruman and Sophia were thrown into separate but adjoining cells. Tolson and Sullivan showed up to interrogate them but they spoke no words to their captors. Instead they put on implacably stony faces and silently conversed with Robyn and Dory using the  in- ternal telephone from the B'nei Elohim tool kit until the Bureau men gave up and went back to their trailer.

Mark Felt shared lunch with the sheriff, then spent the rest of the afternoon in the town's library writing his final report  to Hoover  and browsing a book by Laylah Shybear on the history  of the Kuwapi people in Headwater.

Later that evening, at an hour selected by Dory, Ruman produced the Staff of Melchizedek from his hidden space-time pocket. He cut his  way out of the cell through an exterior  wall  of  the sheriff's station. Once he was outside he cut Sophia out  too. Dory and Robyn were just pulling up in the woodie.

Sophia looked back and saw how the holes were carved as silhou- ettes of people, as though she and Ruman 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. SOPHIA: [Very funny, Rue]

It did, in fact amuse Mark Felt to no end when he saw it in the morning. But seeing the cuts, which must have been  made  with very little noise lest the deputy on watch was alerted, he  re- membered Laylah's book and knew Tolson was not chasing  a  mere figment.