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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 singularly 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.

"Yes?" she snapped. "How may I help you?"

"Is Mr. Bergin at home?" She shook her head. "Paul 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. 'What I can tell you is that we think  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, 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 rabbit trail and be on our way."

"We never bought our knife block,"  Ruth said. 'It was made by 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 what  you do have?"

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 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 the block just  this  morning when  I  made  breakfast  for Paul  and  the children, but now everything is gone."

"Oh no, Ruth, that's just  what I  didn't want to  hear, Roddy" said "But 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. 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. No record collection and no Victrola to play them on. Roddy marvelled how religious folk were so keen on a life in the hereafter when their 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 if you can imagine."

"The girl who  was attacked  sang in  the Temple  school band," revealed Felt. "Do you know somebody who might have stabbed her because she sang race music?"

Ruth's eyes said yes but she shook her head no.

"It was very generous of you to allow us to come indoors, Ruth," he said. "I have no right to ask this of you, and don't believe 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  in the face of  her own husband framing her for the crime. And Roddy thought that wasn't far from the truth.

"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, as though southpaws were somehow 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. He dared not close the book until it was lacquered.

"This schoolgirl who was attacked,  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? But whoever  did it has 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." 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 in Porter's chambers again, 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 Headwater 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.

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 behalf of  the FBI. Knowing that, he  asked Agent Felt  why his name did not appear on the Affidavit.

"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 Walker could testify as  to how all the facts were obtained."

"And do you foresee a  time when the  Bureau will no  longer be acting  in  cooperation  with  local  law  enforcement  here  in Headwater?"

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

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

Mark Felt nodded at the  sheriff. Roddy opened a briefcase and removed 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  Paul Bergin, 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."

"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 of garbage day."

Judge 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, what's done is done, and it was  legally airtight. "What else do you have?"

The sheriff reached  into his  briefcase and  removed two  more photographs. 'Your Honor, Paul Bergin's vehicle is 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 Paul Bergin could only own four tires plus one spare. Karl realized  the sheriff did have enough  to justify an arrest warrant. He could hardly refuse after signing one for the out-of-towner, Robyn Zinter, on much less."

"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. The  Bureau accepts this  limitation on the search."

"Proceed with caution,  Agent Felt,"  he 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!"e

After the search under the altar fell through  SAiC Tolson left the temple and took Sullivan along with him. Special Agent Mark Felt was fine with their departure as  conflicting agendas were never productive. That left only the B  Wing of the  temple to search. He remembered Robyn's  note expressing  regret at  the current conditions there.

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  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 articles dating back  to the  Civil War. Agent Felt found the experience profoundly immersive.

After that Felt went to 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, your presence here is interference with a murder investigation."

Walker 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. "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,  "Remarkable,  sheriff. One  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 very 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." He continued to pour over the entries. "I see  there  has  been  some  shuffling  of  Church  officers recently.  Hansen resigned  on  the tenth  and  was replaced  by Doriel Shybear."

"That's disputed," Hansen said.

"Now let's see who  replaced Doriel as  the Apostle.  Why look, it's Klaus Hansen once again! And he signed it on the twentieth. 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,  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  what 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  all that. 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 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."

After he wrote his second report to the Director, Felt had hours to pour over the book that Robyn had brought  to his attention. It was a meticulously-detailed account  of the Red Wing  of the Church in Headwater, but there was also background material that he found hard to  accept as  true. Some of it was  parallel to stories he remembered from the book of Genesis in the Bible.

At the Last Rites the following day 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.

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. Hanson 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".

Hansen 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 children. 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  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. 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 by  way of  Doryphone 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 reading more Red Wing lore from Leliel's book.

Later that  evening, at  an  hour  selected by  Robyn,  Gabriel produced from his hidden space-time pocket the same Golden Gift that Prince Melchizedek once possessed. Che cut hez way out of the cell through an exterior wall of the sheriff's station. Once che was outside che cut Sofie out too. Dory and Robyn were just pulling up in the  woodie. Sofie looked back  and saw  how the holes were carved as silhouettes  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 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, Felt remembered the tales in Leliel's  book and knew Tolson  was not chasing a mere figment.