"This is peachy," he'd said, "but who's who?"

Trish, pointing: "I believe that's Judas. Or maybe Andrew."

"Christ."

"Right there," Trish had said helpfully, "in the middle."

Whereupon Demencio had expelled her and settled down with the cooters to paint. There was no sense getting fancy, because the animals' corrugated shells were difficult to work with – as small as silver dollars. Beards was the way to go, he'd told himself. All the big shots in the Bible wore beards.

Soon Demencio had found a rhythm – restraining each baby turtle with his left hand, wielding the brush with his right. He'd been steady and precise, finishing the job in less than three hours. Although every apostle was given lush facial hair, Demencio had tried to make each one distinct.

Beholding the miniature visages, Trish had asked: "Which is which?"

"Beats the hell outta me."

And, as Demencio had expected, it hadn't mattered. One pilgrim's Matthew was another pilgrim's John.

Avidly Reverend Moody's followers had clustered around the cooter corral that Trish had fashioned out of plastic gardening fence. Demencio had called out the names of each apostle as he pointed with deliberate ambiguity among the scrabbling swarm. The pilgrims hadn't merely been persuaded, they'd been overwhelmed. In the center of the small enclosure Demencio had stationed the fiberglass Virgin Mary, who (he'd announced) would not be crying on this special day. The pilgrims had understood completely – the Holy Mother obviously was cheered by the unexpected arrival of her Son's inner circle.

The apostolic turtles proved such a smash that Demencio decided to use them again the next morning. By noon the yard was jammed. Demencio was fixing a sandwich in the kitchen when Trish urgently reported that the cooters were dehydrating in the sun and that the paint on their shells was beginning to flake. Demencio solved the problem by digging a small moat around the fiberglass Madonna and filling it with a garden hose. Later a divinely inspired tourist from South Carolina asked if that was holy water in which the turtles were swimming. When Demencio assured him it was, the man asked to buy a cupful for four dollars. The other visitors rushed to queue up, and before long Demencio had to refill the moat.

He was aglow at his windfall. Turtle worship! Reverend Moody had been right – it was pure genius.

The visitation proceeded smoothly until midafternoon, when Dominick Amador showed up to hustle Demencio's overflow, exhibiting his seeping stigmata in a most vulgar way. Trish chased him away with a rake. The altercation took place in full view of Mayor Jerry Wicks, who made no attempt to intervene on the shameless Dominick's behalf.

Mayor Wicks had arrived at the shrine in the company of three persons who definitely weren't pilgrims. Two of them Demencio recognized from around town; the third was a stranger. Demencio acknowledged the group with the air of a busy man on his way to the bank, which he was.

"Please," the mayor said. "We won't be long."

"You caught me at a bad time." Demencio, stuffing the last of three fat envelopes.

Jerry Wicks said, "It's about JoLayne Lucks."

"Yeah?" Demencio, thinking: Shit, I knew it was too good to be true. The damn turtles are probably stolen.

Trish popped her head in the front door: "More lettuce!"

Demencio locked the bank deposits in a drawer and headed for the refrigerator. "Have a seat," he said indifferently to his visitors. "Be with you in a minute."

Roddy and Joan were thrilled to assist Joan's brother on such an important journalistic assignment; in fact, they'd have been ecstatic to help with the weekly crop report. Roddy worked for the state, inspecting gasoline pumps, while Joan taught third grade at the county elementary school. They didn't get much company in Grange so they were delighted when Sinclair asked if he could come over for a few days, to work on the lottery story. Because it had been their tip to the newspaper that had gotten the ball rolling, Roddy and Joan felt duty-bound to help Sinclair locate his star reporter, missing with JoLayne Lucks. The Lotto mystery was the most commotion to sweep Grange in ages, and Roddy and Joan were pleased to be in the thick of it. Sinclair hadn't been in town twenty minutes before they introduced him to the mayor, who listened to Sinclair's account of Tom Krome's disappearance with puzzlement and a trace of dismay.

"Whatever's happened," Jerry Wicks said, "rest assured it wasn't Grangians who are responsible. We are the most hospitable folks in Florida!"

Sinclair balanced the notebook on his knees while writing down every word. Sinclair assumed that's how real reporters worked; like a supercharged stenographer, preserving each article and preposition. He didn't know any better, and was too proud to ask around the newsroom for guidance before he'd left on his trip.

One drawback to Sinclair's exact note-taking technique was the extended silence between the moment a sentence was spoken and the moment Sinclair finished transcribing it. He was an uncommonly slow writer; years at the computer keyboard had left him unaccustomed to the feel of a pen in his hand. To make matters worse, he was a neat freak. Copying every trivial comment wasn't enough; Sinclair painstakingly put in the punctuation, too.

Roddy and Joan loyally remained alert while Joan's brother hunched for what seemed like an eternity over the notebook. The mayor, however, was growing antsy.

"I won't mind," he finally said, "if you want to use a tape recorder."

Sinclair's only response was a fresh burst of scribbling.

Jerry Wicks turned to Roddy: "Why's he writing thatdown?"

"I'm not sure."

"Who cares what I said about the tape recorder – "

"I don't know, Mr. Mayor. He must have a reason."

Sinclair reined himself, midsentence. Sheepishly he glanced up and capped the pen. Jerry Wicks seemed relieved. He suggested they all go visit the last person to see JoLayne Lucks before she left town. The man's name was Demencio, the mayor said, and he had a popular religious shrine. Sinclair agreed that he should speak with the man as soon as possible. He tucked the notebook in his back pants pocket, like he'd often seen the male reporters at The Registerdo.

Sliding into the back seat of the mayor's car, Joan murmured to her brother that she kept a portable Sony at the house.

"Thanks anyway," Sinclair said stiffly, "but I'm fine."

And upon meeting Demencio, he whipped out the notebook once again. "Could you spell your name for me?" he asked, pen poised.

"You a cop?" Demencio turned to the mayor. "Is he some kinda cop?"

Jerry Wicks explained who Sinclair was and why he'd come all the way to Grange. They were seated in Demencio's living room – the mayor, Roddy, Joan and Sinclair. Demencio was in his favorite TV chair, nervously tossing a head of romaine lettuce from one hand to the other, like a softball. He was leery of the stranger but he didn't want to blow a shot at free press coverage for the shrine.

Sinclair asked, "When's the last time you saw JoLayne Lucks?"

"Other night," Demencio said, "when she dropped off the cooters." Roddy and Joan were very curious about the tank of baby turtles, as well as the painted ones in the moat outside, but for some reason Sinclair didn't follow up. Meticulously he wrote down Demencio's answer, then asked:

"Was there a man with Miss Lucks?"

"A white man?"

"Yes. Mid-thirties," Sinclair said. "About six feet tall."

"That's the guy. He took pictures of my Virgin Mary statue. She cries real tears."

Roddy, trying to be helpful: "People come from everywhere to pray at his weeping Madonna."

"There's a visitation every morning," Demencio added. "You oughta stop over."