J7

J7

"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.