One way or the other, however, the people were sure that the mystery had been solved. Mr. Van Syke, whom, it turned out, no one in town had trusted very much, murdering poor old Justice of the Peace Congden over money or a dog. Poor Father Cavanaugh, whom, it turned out, all of the Protestants and not a few of the older Catholics had never considered that stable, had gone out of his mind with a congenital fever and had tried to attack his altar boy Michael O'Rourke before running in front of a truck.

The townspeople clucked and the phone lines hummed-Jenny at the county switchboard hadn't counted so many calls coming out of Elm Haven since the flood in '49-and everyone had a good time solving things while they kept one eye on the dark clouds that continued to build over the cornfields to the south and west.

The sheriff wasn't so easily convinced that things were solved. After lunch he came back for the third interview with Mike since the night before.

"And Father Cavanaugh spoke to your sister?" "Yessir. She told me that Father C. wanted to talk to me . . . that it was important." Mike knew that the tall sheriff had spoken to Peg twice before also.

"Did he tell her what he wanted to speak to you about?" "No, sir. I don't think so. You'll have to ask her." "Mmmm," said the sheriff, looking at a small spiral notebook that made Mike think of Duane's notebooks. "Tell me again what he did talk to you about."

"Well, sir, as I said before, I couldn't really understand him. It was like when a person's talking in a fever. There were words and phrases that seemed to make sense, but it didn't all go together."

"Tell me some of the words, son." Mike chewed his lip. Duane McBride had once told him and Dale that most criminals screw up their lies and alibis because they talk too much, feel too much need to embroider facts. Innocent people, said Duane, are usually a lot less articulate. Mike had had to go home and look up the word "articulate" after that conversation.

"Well, sir," said Mike slowly, "I know he used the word sin several times. He said we'd all sinned and had to be punished. But I had the feeling he wasn't really talking about us ... just people in general."

The sheriff nodded and made a note. "And that's when he started shouting?"

"Yessir. About then."

"But your sister says that he heard both of your voices. If you didn't understand what the father was saying, why were you talking?"

Mike resisted the impulse to rub sweat off his upper lip. "I guess I was asking him if he was OK. I mean, the last time I saw Father C. was when Mrs. McCafferty let me in to see him on Tuesday. He was really sick then."

"And did he say he was all right?"

"No, sir, he just started shouting that the Judgment Day was nigh . . . that was his word, sir, nigh."

"And then he ran off the porch and started attacking your grandmother's window," said the sheriff, checking his notes. "Is that right?"

"Yessir."

The sheriff scratched his cheek slowly, obviously not satisfied with something. "And what about his face, son?"

"His face, sir?" This was a new question.

"Yes. Was it ... strange? Lacerated or distorted in any way?"

Not if you don't call turning itself into a sort of lamprey snout distorted, thought Mike. He said, "No, sir. I don't think so. He was pale. But it was pretty dark."

"But you didn't see any scars or lesions?"

"What are lesions, sir?"

"Like deep scratches? Or open sores?"

"No, sir."

The sheriff sighed and reached into a small gym bag. "Is this yours, son?" He held the wafer pistol.

Mike's first inclination was to deny it. "Yessir," he said.

The sheriff nodded. "Your sister said it was. Aren't you a little old to be playing with squirt guns?"

Mike shrugged and allowed himself to look embarrassed.

"Did you have this out on the porch last night? When Father Cavanaugh was visiting?"

"No," said Mike.

"You're sure?"

"Yessir."

"We found it below the window," said the sheriff. He pushed his hat back on his head and smiled for the first time during the interview. "It shows how paranoid I'm getting in my old age ... I had the police lab up at Oak Hill actually analyze the contents. Water. Just water." Mike returned the big man's smile. "Here, son. Here's your toy back. Is there anything else you can tell me that could help? Where this came from, for instance?" He held up the Soldier's campaign hat.

"No, sir. Maybe it was in the bushes. Father C. had it on when he pulled the screen off."

''And it's the same hat you saw when you reported a soldier as a Peeping Tom a few weeks ago?" "I guess so, sir. I don't know." "But it's the same style of hat?" "Yessir."

"But you didn't recognize this soldier as your priest the other times you saw him out on the lawn?" The sheriff watched Mike very carefully.

Mike thought a minute, just as he had the last couple of times he'd been asked this. "No, sir," he said at last. "Before I would've said it wasn't Father Cavanaugh ... he seemed smaller the first time I saw him . . . but it was dark, and I was looking through the curtains." Mike made a confused gesture with his hands. "Sorry, sir."

The tall man unlimbered from where he sat on the couch, touched Mike's shoulder with one large hand, and said, "That's all right, son. Thank you for your help. I'm sorry you had to see that last night. We may never know what was wrong with that gentleman . . . your Father Cavanaugh, I mean . . . but I doubt that he meant to do what he did. Whether it was the fever his doctors were talking about or whatever, I don't think the gentleman was in his right mind." "I don't either, sir," said Mike, walking the sheriff to the door. Mike's father and mother were waiting on the porch. All three of them waved as the sheriff's car moved away slowly down First.

"Let's do it this afternoon," Harlen said in the treehouse an hour later. All of them were there ... all except Cordie Cooke. Harlen and Dale had gone out to the dump just after breakfast to find her, but there was no sign except for some ratty blankets in a shattered lean-to near the railroad embankment.

Mike sighed, too tired to argue. Dale said, "We've been over this, Jim."

Kevin was thumbing through a Scrooge McDuck comic-something about finding Viking gold to judge from the cover-but he put it down to say, "We're waiting till morning. I'm not going to steal Dad's truck right in front of him. We have to convince him that somebody else took it and sprayed Old Central with gas."

Harlen snorted. "Who? All the suspects are ending up dead. This'11 be the goddamnedist week in the history of Elm Haven, and somebody's gonna figure out that we had something to do with it sooner or later . . ."

"Not if you keep your big trap shut," said Dale.

"Who's going to make me, Stewart?" sneered Harlen.

The two boys leaned toward each other until Mike pushed them apart. "Cool it.'' His voice was very tired.''One thing's for sure, we're not going to sleep apart tonight and let those things pick us off one by one."

"Right," said Harlen, settling back against a huge limb, "let's all get together so they can pick us off in one big gulp."

Mike shook his head. "Two teams. My folks've already said I could stay with Dale and Lawrence tonight. They think I just want to get out of the house because of last night.''

The boys said nothing.

"Harlen, you got it cleared to spend the night at Kev's?"

"Yeah."

"Good. That way we can keep in touch all night with the walkie-talkies."

Dale tore a leaf from a branch and began stripping it into smaller and smaller pieces. "Sounds good. Then we load the tanker with gas in the morning and spray the school. Just after first light, right?"

"Right," said Mike. He turned toward Kevin. "Grum-bacher, you sure you can drive it?"