It was just about eight o’clock in the morning, and the Full Gospel Christian Church was already humming. The hurricane had done a lot of damage, more than Henry had admitted to the public. Volunteers were clearing debris out of the fountain in the courtyard and putting new shingles on the steeply sloped roof. The cross on the steeple had survived intact. It was made of tempered steel and indestructible. The cross in the church’s front yard hadn’t been so fortunate. It was made of wood, to be as authentic as possible, and it had fallen over and split in two. It was as if God was giving them mixed signals: the church was going to survive or it wasn’t. The only thing Henry was absolutely sure of was that God would win out in the end, and the Devil and his forces would be vanquished.
Henry’s wife Janet came in from the back of the church and waved to him. Henry waved back and came down off the podium. He had to be careful, because his arthritis was bothering him this morning. He ached more and more these days. He was getting old. All around him, volunteers were working hard in the church, cleaning up after what the people who had camped here had done during the hurricane. When Henry had invited people to come to the church to get in out of the rain, he hadn’t realized what it would do to the carpets. He made his way down the central aisle, leaning against the backs of the seats as he went. His chest hurt.
“Are you all right?” Janet asked him when he reached her. “You’re white as a ghost.”
“I’m fine,” Henry said, and oddly enough, it was true. The pain in his chest was gone. The odd feeling that he had suddenly forgotten how to breathe was gone, too. He felt better than he had in weeks. He straightened up, all at once aware of the fact that he had been bending over. “I’m fine,” he said again. “How are you? You look agitated.”
“I’ve spent all morning trying to find out about all those things you wanted to know,” Janet told him. “It hasn’t been easy.”
“Has it been fruitful?”
“Yes. It has definitely been fruitful. Or most of it has. Some things don’t seem to have any answers, which I think is very, very odd.”
Henry looked around the church. There were really far too many people here for them to talk privately, although he didn’t think they were going to say anything his congregation shouldn’t hear. Still, it was always better to be safe. He opened the door at the back of the church and pushed Janet through it into the hall. The hall was mostly empty. There were long slatted wooden benches against the walls. Henry sat Janet down on one of those and then sat down, too. The walls looked too empty out here, too blank. He was going to have to buy some religious pictures to decorate them with.
“Now, then,” he said, “tell me what you found out. About Mr. Demarkian or Zhondra Meyer.”
“Mr. Demarkian is the boring one,” Janet told him. You want to hear about him first?”
“Fine.”
“Mostly, what I found out about Mr. Demarkian is what I’ve read in the papers,” Janet said. “He used to be with the FBI. He was head of a department there and considered very important. He retired just after his wife died of cancer. Now he acts as a consultant when he’s called in on murder cases. He doesn’t have a private investigator’s license, by the way. I checked.”
“That’s odd,” Henry murmured. “I thought you had to have one. To do the things he does, I mean.”
“Maybe it’s different if you call yourself a consultant,” Janet said. “I’ve always hated that word. I’ve never understood for a minute what it was supposed to mean.”
“What about Mr. Demarkian’s religious affiliations? Does he belong to a church? Has he been born again?”
“I sincerely doubt he’s ever been born again, Henry. Don’t be silly. To tell you the truth, his religious connections are very fuzzy. He does technically belong to a church, Holy Trinity Armenian Christian Church, in Philadelphia—”
“Well, Janet, if it calls itself a Christian church—”
“It’s some kind of Eastern European ethnic thing, Henry. They don’t mean by it what we do. They just mean they aren’t Roman Catholics.”
“Does Mr. Demarkian actually go to this church?”
“I can’t tell,” Janet admitted. “I found out that his closest friend is a priest, though. The priest of this Holy Trinity—”
“But I thought priests are Catholic.”
“Some priests are Episcopal, Henry. And they’ve got priests in this ethnic church. But the really interesting thing is just how much of a connection Mr. Demarkian does have to the Catholics. You know John Cardinal O’Bannion, the one from Colchester, New York?”