She looked at him as if he were cracked. "And you're looking for him here?" Then her mouth opened. "Oh. Is this the guy my brothers went after?" Her mouth quirked in an odd sort of smile. "The Mexican guy at the church?"

"Yeah. Have you seen him recently?"

She shook her head. "I never saw him." She put air quotes around the word 'saw.' "They just… Neil gets…" She smiled that smile again. "They got nothing to worry about."

"Did you tell them that? That he wasn't your boyfriend?"

She snorted. "No. Why? They'd just go after-" She jammed her hands into the pockets of her jeans. "It's done with. I don't wanna bring it up again." The angle of her arm slid her short sleeve back, and Kevin could see the edge of a purple and green bruise that must have gone to her shoulder.

"Um," he said. "But your brothers. If they're still under the impression you had a relationship, maybe they wanted to bring it up again."

She frowned. "No, they wouldn't…" She trailed off. "I don't think they would." She was talking to herself now. "Would they?"

"You mind if I go ahead?"

She waved him on. He made short work of the place-no closet, one bed, no trap door leading to the cellar. It'd be hard to hide a guy in here, since, he noted, there were nothing but screw holes in the doorjamb where locks or a hook-and-eye would have gone. There was another door at the far end of the room, but when he tried it, he was on the washer and dryer end of the porch. Convenient. He had a feeling the male Christies didn't do much housework.

He fished in his breast pocket and took out a card. "Here," he said. She took it. Read it. Her face closed. She handed it back.

"I don't need this," she said.

"Then pass it on to another woman who might," he said. "It's a toll-free line, twenty-four hours a day, no questions asked. They can keep you safe."

She snorted. "You don't know much, do you?"

Nothing he could say to that. He apologized again and left her, still standing, still frowning. At least she kept the card. He met up with the chief at the entrance to the narrow hall in the dining room.

The chief looked like a man who'd been verbally blowtorched. "Next time," he said, "we bring a trank gun."

"For the dogs?"

"For the fiancée." He raked a hand through his hair, skewing it in odd directions. "There's a baby and two little ones asleep upstairs. Two more kids and Donald's teenager live here, as well as the teen's baby daddy, sometimes, and the Christies. Bruce is out in the fifth-wheel trailer. We're looking for anything anomalous."

"Geez, Chief," Kevin said. "I didn't know you knew the phrase baby daddy."

The chief gave him a look. "I used to say bounder and cad, but I updated."

The upstairs was a bust, as was the trailer. No sign of Amado, no sign that any of the Christies had been vandalizing the rectory.

"Now what?" he asked the chief. They had closed the rickety trailer door and were walking across the grass.

"Now we send out an APB and hope somebody spots the guy." The chief blinked as another motion-detector light came on from the side of the house. "Unless Eric and Knox turn up something at the workers' bunkhouse, we've just blown through our only lead."

"I spoke to the sister," Kevin said.

"Yeah?" The chief paused. "What'd she have to say?"

"That she never went out with the guy. Said her brothers misunderstood the situation."

"Huh. Lot of misunderstandings around that relationship." The chief crossed to their cruiser. "You believe her?"

"Dunno. She seemed more concerned that her brothers might have gotten themselves into trouble again than she did about the church janitor." He paused. "I think somebody's been beating up on her."

The chief frowned. "Did she say anything?"

He shook his head. The chief sighed. "Doesn't mean she's not protecting her brothers, if one of them's doing it."

"I know." The crunch of wheels caught Kevin's attention. MacAuley's squad car reversed onto the looping drive from its parking spot beyond the barn. He backed up until he was parallel to them in the classic driver-to-driver position. His window powered down.

The chief leaned forward, his hands on the door. "Anything?" He jerked back. "Whee-ooh! What the hell've you been in?"

"Sheep," MacAuley said. He didn't sound happy. Kevin could understand why. He was several feet away from the open window, and even he could smell it. "We found diddly-squat," the deputy chief went on. "Although I'd by damn like to go back there with a good dog. I'm betting whatever they sell is there, in the byre. That stink could cover up a multitude of sins."

"Later," the chief said. "We need more." A dog's yelp made Kevin jerk around. Bruce and Neil Christie sauntered across the drive, Neil holding back two of the devil dogs. Kevin felt a clammy dampness along his spine.

"Everything okay, Chief?" Bruce grinned at them.

The chief jerked his chin down in a nod. "Thank you for your cooperation," he said.

"I hope you're putting the same effort into finding the guys who shanked my place," Bruce said.

"We treat all reported crimes seriously." The chief's good-citizen voice was starting to slip. He jerked his head toward Kevin. "Time to go, Officer Flynn. We've disturbed these folks enough for one night."

"You bet your ass you have," Neil Christie said.

Bruce shot his brother a look. "We'll keep the dogs back until you're past the gate." He grinned at them again. "Please don't forget to fasten it. We don't want the livestock getting out."

Kevin slid into the passenger seat. The chief got in, and fired up the engine. They followed MacAuley and Noble slowly along the rutted drive. Kevin glanced at the chief. He seemed lost in thought.

"Chief?" Kevin kept his voice low. "Whatcha thinking?"

The chief pinched the bridge of his nose. Made a noise deep in his chest. "I'm thinking this isn't the way I wanted to spend tonight."

ORDINARY TIME

June and July

I

Clare walked over to the church early Wednesday morning for the seven-thirty Eucharist. The night before, exhausted from the drive from Fort Dix and tense over the state of her home, she headed straight for the rectory, which had turned out to be so much neater and cleaner than it had been before the burglary, she was a little embarrassed.

Anne Vining-Ellis and her youngest son, Colin, were waiting at the great double doors. Her skirt and blouse said she was headed for the Glens Falls Hospital. Colin, in pipe-cleaner jeans and pointed shoes, looked like he was auditioning for an eighties revival band. "I'm delivering your acolyte du jour," Dr. Anne said.

The boy pushed his overgrown bangs away from his face. "Under protest. Organized religion is a tool of the capitalist machine."

"He's taking a summer AP course in Marxism-Leninism," Dr. Anne said. "God help us all."

Clare handed the teen her overloaded key ring and Thermos of coffee. "Would you open up for me, Colin? And drop this in my office?"

He took the jangle of keys. "Why not? I'm only a member of the proletariat, crushed by the oppressive boot heels of history. Want me to light the candles, too?"

"Thanks." Clare turned to his mother. "Remind me to give him some books on liberation theology."

"Don't bother. The second half of the unit is Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. He'll probably be selling the church silver on the free market." Dr. Anne watched Colin disappear into the narthex. "How are you doing? I almost came over last night, but I figured you'd be wiped after the drive from New Jersey."

"Thanks, yeah. I'm okay. I'd be better if I heard Señor Esfuentes has been found safe and sound."