PART II

I woke up in a daze, feeling the effects of a hangover. But I hadn’t been drinking. I was on the ground in an alley and the sun moved so quickly, everything was fast and fuzzy. Regaining my equilibrium, I placed a hand on the bricks, pulling myself up. There was something sticky in my eye. I cleaned off as best I could with a handkerchief and as soon as my brain could process color, I was staring at my own blood.

Someone shot me in the head.

Only, they were really poor shots and nicked the skull. It wasn’t the first time I was shot, but I didn’t like the feeling. The evidence was gone. They thought they killed the PI and made off with the evidence. I felt at the ground for a casing. When I found it, I was pleased to see it was a low caliber. A derringer pistol with one shot got the better of me.

I found my hat accessorized with a bullet hole.

I stumbled to a cab since I was in no shape to drive, threw some amount of money at the driver and miraculously recalled the address to the bookstore. I dozed in the back of the car, and awoke with a mitt shaking my thigh.

The cabbie smiled toothlessly, “Sleepy. We’re here.”

There was a lot of commotion at the bookstore. People were standing outside. The boys in blue were walking about, anxious for a fight. Dean spotted me through the crowd and pulled me to him. Having him lead me by the arm, at that moment was like being bounced off a wall. We walked into the bookstore, his face was stern and silent.

“What the heck happened to you?” He said when he finally had me alone.

“Nothing. Just a bullet off the skull.”

“When? Where?”

“What happened here?” I passed on the interrogation and asked him.

Dean’s eyes were red. He hunched his shoulders and stepped aside. “See for yourself.”

The store employees say that a man fitting Azrael’s description forced them out of the store. He had with him an unconscious man, the young Marco Marquez. Before police could respond, Azrael strapped officer Marquez down on the table and plunged a pair of office shears through his heart.

Before he died, Azrael gave him a homemade castration.

All that I know cannot prepare me for the horror of moments such as these. Under my orders, the young man was killed.

“This is evil,” was all I could mutter, for at that moment, what I was seeing was the closest thing to true evil I had witnessed.

Sandra was standing outside as I knew she would be. The blood on my face and the swelling around my head caused in her a breakdown of her professional manners. She rushed to me and sat me down as I would have certainly fallen over. I fell asleep on her shoulder moments later.

I opened my eyes at my house filled with love. All but one of my four wives was in the room with me. Sara was taking care of the children somewhere else. They all wore the same concerned looks on their faces. Lydia lay just beside me, rubbing her delicate fingers on my face.

“I shaved you while you were sleeping.” She cooed.

“And I’m surprised she didn’t finish you off.” Jamie said, gripping my hand.

Sandra was much more reserved in times like these. But she remembers what I was like in 1943, when she spent every waking moment of my six month recovery fighting it with me. The others think I’m indestructible, for they have never seen me in weakness. Sandra knows that sad truth about me.

Lydia cuddled, “Are you just trying to get out of this weekend?”

“No. I’ll be there. Just a scratch.” I said, feeling the disorientation of some mild sedative.

“Some scratch. It had you out for about twenty-three hours.” Jamie sat beside me and proceeded to un-wrap my head bandage. “It’s healing all right.”

“That’s me. Great genes. Good healer.” I sat up with some assistance. “I have to finish this case.”

“Dean pulled you off of it.” Sandra said.

“Why?” I asked, and felt the answer had to do with Marquez. The image of his death flashed for a moment in my throbbing head. I put on my pants and shirt despite their protests. “Sandra. Can you take me to the Church?”

“Yes.” She smiled warmly.

“They shot at you.” Lydia said angrily. “You’re not working on that anymore.”

“It’s not done. I have to—”

“You don’t have to do anything!” Lydia yelled.

“Stop it.” Sara was standing in the hall, her eyes stern. She held a basket of laundry to her breast. “You don’t want the kind of man that can’t finish what he starts. Do you?”

Lydia looked away with tears in her eyes. “I guess not.”

“I’m glad to see you’re up.” Sara kissed me on the cheek. “Get back in one piece this time.”

“I’m with him today.” Sandra pulled me by the hand. “I’d like to see them try it.”

The revolver was heavy to the touch. It was in its hiding place, a safe in the attic where we kept much of our valuables. I had not carried a gun since my days at the police department. I holstered the weapon under my coat. Although I still carried a license to use a firearm, I was reluctant to take it with me.

I try to follow the Commandments.

I called Dean to see what they had figured out. He told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to investigate the murder. He relented when I reminded him how much he owed me, and told me what they had pieced together. Azrael, who had gone missing in the last few days, surely on his way to safety in Mexico, had no proper name.

He was an orphan. Raised in an orphanage in Minnesota, he had a long record of cruelties to his name, he left one spring before he was eighteen. The Church did not keep track of him after he disappeared. For them it was ‘Out of sight and out of mind.’

I laid back in the car seat as Sandra turned the corner. “I need to get into your mental file cabinet.”

“Shoot.”

“What was Father Steven doing before he came to New Jerusalem?” I asked her, trying to focus my thoughts.

“About twenty years ago he had another post. A Church in San Diego. But the Church shut down and Father Steven became a guest Priest, traveling from diocese to diocese before accepting a position at Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.” She stated.

“Is there any way to figure out where he went on his travels?”

“No.” She said, frowning at her lack of credible research.

“We’re going to the Church. There’s got to be something in his office they didn’t see.”

Sandra and I were at the Church by the hour’s end. No longer was the place a scene of a crime, as it had been cleaned, though temporarily shut down to the public. Through a side door, I permitted myself to enter the office. Father Steven’s office was well-maintained, with files and calendars that went back a number of years.

Sandra is a fast reader, and poured through calendar dates quickly, digesting all therein. She had a growing stack of discarded ledgers.

My brain was pounding its way out of my skull. Finding it hard to think, I looked out the windows of the office and saw the Rectory. A two story Victorian, as nice a place as any you could find in New Jerusalem was seated behind a long walkway, landscaped to perfection. “Good gardening.”

“Father Steven spent all his downtime cultivating plants.” Sandra did not look up from the calendar, one of many she flipped through and discarded. I was not sure what she was looking for until she looked up and said, “There are a few pages missing out of this calendar.”

“When was that?”

“About a month’s worth from about twenty-five years ago.” I was shocked that the Priest’s meticulous documentation went back as many as twenty-five years. I was not shocked, however, at Sandra’s uncanny abilities in speed-reading.

“That’s the only part missing?”

She nodded.

“We need to talk to the nun. Sister Margaret knows a lot more than she let on.”

I looked out the window again. In the garden, standing at six-feet five inches, in a long white tunic, Azrael held a bottle of liquor with a strip of cloth dangling from its neck. His right hand gripped a zippo lighter. Not especially fast on that draw, I only had a few moments to move before the killer turned his bottle into a Molotov cocktail. I dove for Sandra and we rolled out the door into the sacristy as the window glass shattered and the firebomb exploded.

Drawing my revolver, I gripped Sandra’s hand and we made our way to the side door. I stepped aside and kicked the door open; the smoke from the annex fire was filling the air inside the Church. I did not think Azrael was armed with a gun. Using shears one day, and a Molotov the next, he preferred improvisation as his killing method.

Azrael was nowhere to be found. I grabbed at Sandra, kept my gun arm level, and searched the bushes around the Rectory. I considered going back for the phone, but my thoughts were on the nun inside the vicarage. There was more than a good chance this Azrael would be after her next.

“Go for help.” I told Sandra.

She gave me a mustang look that said she would not follow my instruction. “You aren’t yourself.”

“I’m going to save the nun’s life. You need to call Dean. Get them all down here. Get the fire brigade down here. Or this whole block is going up.” I insisted. “Will you do this?”

“Just be careful. You don’t want to leave behind four widows, do you?”

She made her way to the car and I checked it carefully that Azrael was not crouched in the backseat. He was probably in the Rectory with the Nun. Sister Margaret was in danger.

Sandra kissed me and peeled the Chevrolet out to the street, vanishing as the flames from the Church caught the walls. There would be very little time for that place.

I ran up the walkway to the Rectory. The door was chained shut. I reeled back and rammed my shoulder into the hard oak. It was no time to be graceful. My shoulder felt distended, as if it too were on fire. Despite my pain, the door gave, splintering on impact and breaking down.

The house was quiet, and as I was sure to have already blown my opportunity at stealth, I yelled, “Sister Margaret!”

Azrael stood tall in the kitchen, a long white pick in his hands. “You have come to kill me?”

He spoke with the voice of a child. Against the backdrop of the burning Church through the window, he had the look of innocence and purity which was remarkably out of place. Azrael’s face was round, his eyes a steadfast blue. He was like a snow leopard without its spots.

“Come with me, son. We’ll get you help.”

“What sort of help do you think I need? What suffering will you give me?” He asked, the same chilly child’s voice coming from his throat.

“A fair trial. You’ll end up in a State Hospital.” I tightened my grip on the trigger.

“He was a Doubter, Father.” The ring of ‘father’ did not have the right inflection.

“You can seek forgiveness, son. You can seek it from Him.” I said. “All you need to do is ask.”

“I have asked my whole life!” Azrael plunged the pick into his heart. The blood welled like an oil derrick in the center of his chest. His white tunic was soaked in crimson as he fell. By the time I reached his body, all I could do for him was close his child’s eyes.

“Azrael.” A soft voice spoke behind me.

The nun stood in the hallway, quiet, holding a Bible to her chest. Wearing her habit and robe, she looked like a dazed penguin.

“Mr. Winters?” She said as if spotting me through a fog.

“The Church is on fire. We have to get out of here.”

“I tried to protect him.”

I looked at the body. His sheer white fabric was see-through. There were letters written on his skin in bold black tattoos. I ripped the cloth around his shoulders.

MARGARET

“You were his mother.” I said.

“I came to the orphanage as a young Sister in the order. At that time, it was not uncommon for certain Priests to have their ways with the sisters.”

I nodded. “And Father Steven was such a man.”

“We loved each other.” She gripped at the Book.

“You had the child and raised it as an orphan.”

“He was such a special boy. He did not know his parents since we had both left him. Several years ago, I went looking for him. I took him away from that place.” She skirted the wall, her eyes looking every direction away from her slain child.

“Why did he kill the Priest?”

“I told him that Steven was his birth-father. When he read the article that his father was a doubter, he could not let it pass. His faith was so strong.” She had the sound of a woman half proud and half terrified at his behavior.

“And you covered for him?”

“I could not let my son be caught. I would do anything for him.” And she opened the Good Book. Her derringer pistol was hidden in a hollow in the middle of the Bible.

Having no wish to shoot a nun— “Put that down.”

“I loved him. He was my child.” Her eyes were too far gone, somewhere in the blackness of her mind.

“You removed the pages from the calendar. You found me where Azrael stashed his evidence. You and he planned the whole thing from the beginning.”

“You and I both know He has returned. All those that deny His return will perish and burn forever.” She raised the derringer.

“You shot me in the head. You were the one that taught that boy to flagellate himself. To suffer.”

“His life was a sin. He lived to purify his existence.”

“And you?” I asked.

“I will never be pure.” Sister Margaret put the derringer pistol under her chin and though I moved to stop her, I could not move as quickly as the bullet.

In the Rectory, the smell of sulfur and blood shocked my system. The police were at the door in a matter of minutes. Sandra and Dean helped me out to a waiting medic.

“She was behind it all.” I said to Dean.

The medic pulled my arm back into its socket. I took the pain with Him in mind. I sat on the curb watching the fire consume the Church. If the fire was ever extinguished, only cinders of Father Steven’s house of worship would remain.

Sandra took notes, but looked over at me from time to time, asking Dean questions until he put up his hands and said he had nothing more to say.

We rode home in silence.

I ate dinner but did not entertain much conversation. I looked about the table at the faces of my loving family. What He told me so many years ago came true. By surrounding myself with love, burying myself in it, I can survive this job. With Sara, I had quiet fortitude. Lydia gave me innocent joy. Sandra was a partner I could trust with my life, a pit of strength that would never replete. And in Jamie, I had the chance to give calm to a troubled soul.

When it was all concluded, I pulled Lydia aside. “I know it’s our weekend, our anniversary, but I owe something to Jamie. Might we go next weekend instead?”

Lydia screwed her eyes up and bit her lip. I was ready for anything. “You and me go next week, or you’ll wish you had the psychotic nun after I’m through with you.”

She kissed me sweetly and I told Jamie the good news.

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PART I

Someone killed the Priest in his Sacristy. A grim blood trail weaved through the pews. Droplets of gore splattered on the wood floorboards, the benches, and across that fateful Book. I got the call to come down early that morning; sunrise was still hours away. The phone rang twice before I picked it up. My old partner woke me out of my deep sleep, disturbing Lydia.

Lydia’s my Fourth Wife. This was her day of the week.

A multitude of onlookers had gathered at the steps of the Church. The press and the flashing bulbs burned at my eyes as I broke through the crowd. Captain Dean Powell of the NJPD stood against the wall. Looming in his large brown coat, he had the look of a man who had seen too much in too short a time.

Dean told me what’s what. The Father was operating over-night confessionals. He kept the door open for the drunk or the druggy that wandered off the streets and decided to spill the beans. I am not Catholic. I do not need that sacrament.

Dean and I bowed our heads and he took me by the hand, “Almighty Father, bless us with your Insight. Help us be stronger and better men. Thank you for the opportunity to avenge our slain Brother.”

Dean did the sign of the cross out of respect for Father Steven; hat, toes, wallet and watch. I kissed the gold Cross around my neck and tucked it away under my collar.

It was New Years Day in New Jerusalem. 1951 was getting off to a shaky start.

I walked the scene with objectivity. I had never met this controversial Priest. It helped me to remain clueless about the man; I was sure to get the whole tale later. The only thing I knew about him was an editorial piece in a recent tabloid, where he had been labeled a “Doubter” by a community of believers. In this town, that’s an invitation for trouble.

The sacristy was so full of fresh blood there wasn’t a spot I could step in without getting my toes covered with grime. My senses were assaulted by the smells and sights of the carnage. Dean brings me in on the cases that have religious overtones. I am not employed by the police, which is why I am not employed by the company that ran things in this town. Nor do I have to answer to its Holy CEO. For the short term, that is the case.

Father Steven lay prostrate on the floor. His face was deep in the blood, probably choked on the stuff. Bloody footprints were all over the Priest’s cassock. They looked over-sized.

“Did you find a weapon?” I asked.

“Nothing.” Dean said as he signed the documents for the coroner.

“Where does the blood trail start?”

Dean led me to the confessional booth. The funny little box had one portal between where the Priest and the Confessor sat. A mesh of wood was blistered and twisted out from a jagged hole. A spray of blood arched on the wall inside the confessional. The convenient shape of a man’s body made a clean gap in the biological paint job.

“We’re looking for a man at about six-feet five inches at about two hundred and fifteen pounds.” I told Dean. “He wears size thirteen shoes. The grips of the heels suggest Army Issue boots.”

“Got it.” Dean called a flatfoot over. “Get pictures of the crowd. Take names and get physical descriptions. Look for army boots.”

Killers like their handiwork. Often they will stand in the audience of a crime scene. Dean knows this because he is a smart man.

I walked the trail. I could see what happened as clearly as if I had watched the horrible scene. The Father sat in the booth when the assailant entered. They shared some words with each other. The killer drove his weapon through the mesh and got the Father by the throat. Coroner will probably say it was a stabbing weapon. When the Father stumbled out, probably to lock himself in the sacristy for safety, the killer stalked along behind him. He pushed the Priest this way and that with his boots; kicking him, taunting him.

This was a vile death.

I stepped outside to compose myself and lit a Pall Mall. There was a chill in the air and I was thankful for my hat. I saw the flatfoot taking pictures and dutifully asking questions to members of the gathered crowd. He appeared to me quite an adept young rookie.

“Mr. Winters.” I heard over my shoulder. The voice belonged to the sultry Sandra, an investigative journalist for the New Jerusalem Herald.

“What got you out of bed this early?”

“There was a phone call that roused the children. That split the ears of all the sleeping women. When you take off, dear husband, I follow.”

Sandra is a news reporter. She’s also my First Wife. She smiled at me and accepted a kiss.

“You want a quote?” I asked.

“Not from you. From the real cops.” Sandra teased.

On cue, Captain Dean Powell stepped through the doorway. He wiped at his hands with a white handkerchief. They’ll never be clean enough, pal.

“Dean, my old friend.” Sandra put on an affectionate voice and turned her attention on him. She never wants to quote me, says it would look bad. I’ll only get a passing mention in the article even if I get the bad guy.

An officer was sitting with an older nun. She was crying inconsolably into his uniform. I walked over to her and introduced myself, “I’m Private Detective Nolan Winters. Do you think you can answer a few questions?”

“I don’t know.” The nun had a pained expression.

“Where were you?”

“I was in the Rectory. That’s out back.” She blubbered. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“I didn’t ask what you heard.” I stopped myself and made my voice gentler. “How long have you known Father Steven?”

“Twenty-five years. He was a visiting priest at my last workplace. He stole me from them.” She said, with a fleck of a smile on her sad face.

“You were his assistant?”

“Yes.” She had a withering look that said they meant much more than that to each other.

“Do you see the people as they come in and out of the church?”

“I was in the back of the house.” She dabbed at her eyes with my handkerchief. I let her keep it. “I was asleep.”

“Okay.” I turned my attention away from the nun. “Thank you, sister.”

“Sister Margaret,” the officer with her added.

“May He bless you, Sister Margaret.”

I stepped up to the flatfoot. “See anyone with boots?”

“No one had any boots, Mr. Winters.”

“Please. Call me Nolan.”

“Yes, sir. We got plenty of shoes. No size thirteen’s. I even saw a guy in his robe and slippers.”

“Where?” I asked and he got a look that said he needed more experience.

“He’s on the South End of the street by the light pole.”

I took a look over my shoulder. Sure enough, a tall man stood with a cigar in his mouth. His hands were in his pockets. He wore a red satin dinner jacket. From what I could see, he had no pants. And certainly no army boots, but house slippers were hugging his feet. His feet would take a size thirteen. I could not see his face very well, the light made heavy shadows on him, but his bleach-white hair blazed in the lamplight.

“Not fooling anyone, buddy.” I said and pulled the flatfoot close. “You know how to put a tail on someone?”

“I can manage.” He said.

“Good. Duck back. Make yourself invisible. Follow this guy wherever he goes. Call me at home and let me know where he stops.”

“Why don’t you bring him in?”

I laughed. “Don’t know this town very well. Do you?”

“I’m new.” He pointed to his badge. His name was Marquez.

“Welcome to New Jerusalem, Marquez. Go on. This is a real test for you. Don’t let me down.” The rookie disappeared into the crowd.

Sandra got what she wanted out of Dean and was hailing a taxi as I pulled up to her. “They don’t need me from here. I’ll take you home.”

She had her reporter hat on. “It wouldn’t be kosher.”

“You can get in the car with your husband. There’s a killer out and I don’t trust anyone out here, this morning.” After killing me with her eye daggers, she stepped into the Chevy.

“What did you get out of Dean?” I asked.

“You’ll see in the paper today.” She was smiling.

Sandra was my age, nearing that big four-oh, but she did not wear the troubles like I did. My brow is a maze of wrinkles and worry lines. My skin was hardened by bruising and my body cut up with old Nazi bullet wounds, now covered by scar tissue. Sandra could pass for a twenty-five year old, were it not for the street-thick husk to her voice.

She still turns me on like a lamp.

“What do you got on that Priest?” I asked her. Sandra’s mental file cabinet was better stocked than the library and quicker, too.

“Father Steven St. John.” She said. “He was a Doubter.”

“That much I know.” My eyes scanned streets for the dark things lurking in the shadows of the black morning.

“Did you know that he filed a lawsuit against Omega last year?”

“No.” I would have preferred not knowing that information right away. “What for?”

“He wanted a blood test on Him.”

“What was he hoping to get from that?” Trouble, was all he could get.

“There’s a whole underground for academics that believe they could figure out where He came from by testing His blood.” As she said it, there was a twinge of something in her. Excitement. Not for the bedlam of the night, but for the prospect of evidence. She was a bit of a Doubter herself.

That was her job.

“What happened with the lawsuit?”

“Nothing. Judge threw it out.” Sandra said simply. “You going to check out Omega?”

“It’s not enough reason for that just yet. This thing would get shut down fast if I did.” We drove up to the house, a large brownstone that had been in my family for years. At the moment, all nine rooms were occupied. I don’t have nine wives.

Only four.

We had family in town for the New Year celebration. I idled for a moment on the driveway, bracing myself for the large family chaos. We stepped in to find conversation, clinking of silverware on porcelain, kids kicking each other’s shins and crying babies wanting so desperately to be heard. Mountains of pancakes were stacked at the center of the table. My other wives, Lydia, Jamie and Sara were fussing with the children. I made the rounds and kissed the foreheads and Lydia pulled me aside.

“I wish you wouldn’t get out of the house like that.”

Lydia was the youngest and newest to the brood. She was pretty, but in a petite way. When she wanted something, she would turn the screws by whining. She had none of the brass balls Sandra carried.

“I got a call. I can’t skip out on that.”

Lydia put her thin arms around my waist. “But the best part is when I wake up with you beside me.”

I had to take her hands off. “Enough of that now. We’ll get the weekend together. Go to the Palace.”

“Really?”

“It is our first anniversary.” I said, surprising myself that I remembered. Sandra was the one to set up those sorts of dates. She’s the romantic in the marriage.

My brother and his wives were down at the end of the table. They were dressed in a different manner from mine, their hair never went uncovered. That was one of the rules that got relaxed when He came back. Nine years ago, a plural marriage like mine would have been against the law. On His return, he made sure that changed. I’m grateful for it. There is more love in my life now. I am surrounded by it.

“Nolan, we’ll say grace again if you want to sit down.” My brother said. Jed was a Mormon; I belonged to the New Church.

“It’s all right. I just need coffee.” I put my hand on Sara’s shoulder. “Any messages for me?”

She nodded, and in her soft way, rattled off the address Marquez gave her. My second wife was not the prettiest of them, but her maternal way was very alluring. While she may remain silent for most of the day, our talks are often the most profound. Her wisdom sees through all of my bullshit. When she has to take a stand, her backbone trumps Sandra’s brass balls.

I kissed them all goodbye, giving a little more effort to Jamie, whom I tend to overlook. Jamie’s the third wife, and a student in Creation Science at NJU. Jamie, Sara and Lydia do not see the demons of my work. With them, I can escape the seedy reality I face every day. When I can steal away from the city, and spend alone time with one of my wives, it’s a breath of much needed fresh air. Only Sandra gets down in the muck and sees what a rough life this gumshoe thing is.

But I must provide for them. And since I can’t sing and dance—

Four blocks from the Church of the Immaculate Conception, where Father Steven died, patrolman Marquez stood in an alley, wearing plain clothes and sipping on a cup of coffee. Morning was breaking for noon when I arrived.

“Good work. Which one is it?”

Marquez subtly pointed to a high window. The white curtains were drawn. “Hasn’t made a move since this morning.”

I looked down the street. There were workers jack-hammering, and breaking bits of road with sledgehammers. I walked up to a large man with a Navy tattoo. This world is full of vets. I waved my hands to get his attention and he bobbed his thick head up, stopped the hammer and spoke with a surly voice, “Too loud fer ya?”

“It’s fine. I just want to know how long you’ve been here today.”

He wiped his brow with the sweaty back of his hand. “You know how commissions are. Gotta get it done. I’d say, six, seven hours. Been dodging flower pots all morning.”

“Thanks.” I said and turned back across the street to Marquez.

“What’s the scoop?”

“That jack-hammering was going on so early, I’d say there was a good chance it was this loud the time of the murder.”

“Meaning?” Marquez asked.

“The only way a man sitting in that room, in his dinner jacket, could have known there was a murder four blocks away was if he heard police sirens. That’s our killer.” I lit a cigarette. “What say you stay on this guy a little longer?”

“You really in a position to give me orders, Mr. Winters?”

I laughed and grabbed his cuff. “Are you really in a position to not do what I tell you? And call me Nolan.”

I left Marquez behind me and hoofed a zig-zag to the steps of the church. Along the way, every time I saw an exposed storm drain, garbage can, or cardboard box, I stopped and checked it out. When I made it to the end of the line without so much as a bloody footprint, I turned around and took a longer way around. Before I knew it, I had three kids tailing me on scooters.

I stopped at the corner and turned to them, “You kids wanna make a fiver?”

On several loose leaf pages I drew out the maps and passed out pencils. I told them to check everywhere they would want to hide something. Find me anything interesting and they put on X on the map. I tore half a St. Anthony five and gave it out. I told them to meet me back on that corner in three hours. Assured them to really look for it, I expected for them to come up with something.

Sandra was right, and it had been gnawing on my mind all morning. There was a lawsuit filed against Omega. Now the man responsible for it was dead. A “Doubter” was slain in his own Church. One of the faithful butchered in a house of God. The idea made me sick to my stomach.

I was a member of the New Church. I believed in Him. I had good reason to.

Omega tower held the title as the largest skyscraper in the world. It inched over the Empire State Building in New York to claim that. At its very top, where would normally stand a spire, is an ornate Cross. After all, He ran the company. It only makes sense.

I am not an employee of the company. I own my house. I have money in a non Omega bank. I buy cars outside of the city. They do not own me. In this city, there aren’t many who can claim that. The only way they could get to me was if they shut off my water and electricity. We’d slum it. We Winters are strong folk. Pioneer types.

Bring it on, boogeyman.

Dean was waiting for me at the entrance to the building, I did not tell him I was coming. “Dean.”

“Nolan I thought you might turn up here.”

“You knew about Steven’s lawsuit?” I asked.

“I know a lot of things.”

“And you didn’t think it was pertinent at the time?”

“Still not convinced it is,” Dean smirked.

Unlike me, Dean was heavily indebted to Omega. All the city jobs were bought and paid for. His home, his money, everything he had was tied into the company. A good, God-fearing man, Dean saw no reason to push the status quo.

In that regard, we are different species.

“We’re talking to Goldman.” I said and pushed through the doors.

Ernest Goldman was a Jew, not a Christian. All the top level executives were Jewish. They all believed in Him, though. Hard not to when you’re in the same room and you feel that electricity. Goldman was a lawyer in a previous life, and though being one of the Twelve, he certainly would have been in the thick of it.

When he pretended not to know anything about Father Steven, I lost my finely tuned patience.

“Come on, Goldman!” We sat in his office, a plush suite if there ever was one. A collector of rare pieces of art, he hoarded them like a squirrel in winter. DaVinci beside Vermeer, Van Gogh and Caravaggio, Monet and Maria Callas, all of them littered his wall like my teenage daughter’s Swing band and Movie posters. He played every trick in the book when it came to room design. Sitting across from his desk, a man ten foot tall would feel like Tom Thumb.

“I seem to remember something about it. But that was so long ago. You must understand, Detective, I am one of the Twelve.”

That meant he was too busy and important to worry about trifle litigations. In the past I would have believed him, but my faith was being tested by a Priest’s murder.

“Then we get a warrant and search your files.” I said.

Dean put his hand on my shoulder, “Come on, Nolan. We can’t do that.”

“It’s a shame.” Goldman said smiling wide. “We have a whopper of a file on you.”

I’d run in to them before. Back when I was Captain Winters of the New Jerusalem Police Department and Silo Sturgess, a member of the elite Twelve was arrested for beating up his wife. In what would be called a witch hunt, I was given an early retirement and the whole sordid business was swept under the rug. I didn’t want the same to happen to Dean. We left with nothing.

“It wasn’t them,” Dean said as he held my car door open.

“What makes you so certain?”

He sighed. “I have faith.”

I had two hours to kill and my blood was boiling. Jamie sat at the kitchen table when I entered the house, took the leftover breakfast and said a blessing.

“You look tired.” she said, looking up from her textbook.

“I’m fine.” I wanted the small talk, but Goldman’s face was still smug in my memory. Jamie was the only one without a child. We tried, but something wouldn’t take. The doctors had a reason for it, but Jamie did not accept that truth. She spends her free time studying for other means of conception.

Anything short of immaculate, we had already tried.

“I bet you’re happy about this weekend.” Jamie was half-amused, half-upset.

“We’ll go away soon. I promise.” Last month I got stuck on a case during our anniversary. She was a sweetheart about it, but she and I rarely see each other, keeping strange schedules. Her coursework leaves her little flexibility in her schedule.

Jamie and I could sit and talk about anything, but lately she has been more demure, keeping to herself. I was getting another Sara. When the last baby miscarried, some part of her went away. I’m still trying to find it.

The phone rang. Marquez talked excitedly on the other end, “He’s on the move.”

I took a roll with me, gave Jamie another something extra kind of kiss and disappeared on the roads of New Jerusalem.

We met up on the road. Marquez sat next to me as we followed the taxi.

“I was doing some asking around.” Marquez said.

“And what did you get?”

“Neighborhood people say he calls himself Azrael.” An archangel’s name. Specifically—the Angel of Death.

“What do they say about him?”

“He keeps to himself. He feeds the birds in Elijah Park. Wears only white clothing.”

“Only white?” I asked. “I guess the dinner jacket’s just a statement.”

“They say no one other than him goes in or out of the apartment. Late at night, neighbors below can hear him screaming. They think he has night terrors.”

“Good work.” I pulled over at the red light. He was in the cab five cars up. “Here’s a twenty spot. Take a cab. Don’t get too close. Call my house and leave a message when you get where you’re going.”

“Nolan. Is it like this all the time?” The flatfoot asked.

“Only in my line of work, Marquez.” He got out of the car. “Best you can hope for is a desk, a couple thousand donuts and a pension when they’re through with you.”

I booked it back to Azrael’s place. He lived on the third floor. His was the kind of neighborhood where even in these Eden times, human drama can be painted in broad, violent strokes. Even after His return, some were not convinced of His validity. Still, others figured they were destined for Hell anyway. I whittled at the lock with my pen knife and the door went slack, creaking open.

I’ve done this a long time, and I have never seen an apartment as unusual.

Every inch of the apartment was covered white. Thick, white paint. The one room apartment had all the regular amenities. All Azrael had for food was a bottle of milk, crackers and white cheese. His cot was made with the precision of a regular army man. White down to the screws on the frame. He had about six hundred dollars tucked into a plain white envelope stuffed in a pillow. Everything was spotless. He had a toilet that was so clean, it appeared it had never once been used.

A white leather case was on the trundle desk. I unzipped it to find perfect white instruments. Its contents included a small leather flagellate, a rod and a missing instrument that could not be found anywhere else. If I had to guess, from the imprint on the satin lining, whatever was missing was a long, thin and sharp instrument.

It must have been the offending blade that poked all those holes in that Priest.

Under the bed was a length of white canvas. I pulled it out from its hiding place, and unrolled it on the blanched floorboards. Spots of coagulated blood were sprinkled at the center of the nine by nine stretch of canvas. I put my knees down in the center of the canvas, at the center of the room. I looked at the window. I looked at the wall. On the wall was a nail with nothing on it. A spot where a cross might have been.

I’ve seen all sorts of devotions. But I could never get my head around self-mutilation. The thought that He suffered, and therefore we must also suffer. It’s strange. It’s masochism.

It just ain’t Christian.

We had our man. I took the phone at the end of the hall and put a nickel in the slot. I called home. Marquez left the address. Azrael had stopped in a Christian bookstore. I made a call to Dean. He would take twenty minutes to get there. I would be there in ten.

I stopped at the corner and found the kids with pleased looks on their faces.

“What did you get?”

I collected the maps out of their hands. One had a giant X on it.

The scruffy kid explained. “There’s a bloody bundle of somethin’ right there. I’m guessing that is what yer looking for?”

I fished out the other half of the five. Gave them a dollar on top of it, told them to spend their fortune wisely and followed the map to the giant X.

I could swing by, get the evidence, and apprehend the suspect. All that before dinner. I was outdoing myself.

Azrael killed the priest and ran to the alley behind Jack’s Soda Shop. The run was less than a block away. An old drainpipe was busted and rusting, and according to the kids, that was where they had found the bundle. They touched it, but they didn’t pull it out. Still damp from that morning, I pulled out the whole mess. Two army boots painted white. A button up white shirt, a pair of white slacks. He really had a wardrobe which was all in white.

And after labor day. Criminal.

I pulled out a bloody towel and unwrapped the lot. At the center was a once perfect ivory ice pick with a sharpened end.

A car backfired somewhere nearby and everything went dark.’

(To be Continued…)

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