“Do you think this murder was committed by a stranger? Do you think the murder of the baby was?”
“I think none of this makes any damn sense at all,” John Chester said. “I think—oh, Jesus.”
“What is it?” Gregor said.
“God damn it to hell,” Clayton Hall said. “How did they get in here? I’m going to bust somebody’s ass just for letting them in here.”
“What is it?” Gregor asked again.
There were too many people milling around in the clearing, that was the problem. Gregor had a hard time seeing past the cops and the women. Then he realized he was looking in the wrong direction. It wasn’t the path where the commotion was. The disturbance was arriving from the other direction, from the far side of the clearing, through the thick stand of trees.
The disturbance was being led by a six-foot cross painted gold and mounted on a long stick. The cross was held high in the air, and it came with chanting.
Dear sweet Jesus Christ, Gregor thought. Now what have I gotten myself into?
3
IT WASN’T JUST A cross and chanting. It was dozens and dozens of people. It took only moments for that to become clear. It took only moments more for the implications of that to be felt. The clearing was really very, very small. Gregor was pushed back into the knot of women and separated entirely from the uniformed police. The uniformed police were pushed in the other direction. They should have responded, but they seemed to be stunned. The cross advanced inexorably. People fell away from in front of it, like vampires in a Bela Lugosi movie. Then Gregor realized that what he had first thought of as chanting wasn’t chanting at all, but singing, done badly. They were trying to do “Give Me That Old Time Religion,” but too many of them were tone-deaf.
He turned around and saw Maggie Kelleher standing beside him, her arms wrapped around her chest, her forehead furrowed into deep lines.
“What is this?” he asked her. “Who are these people?”
“It’s Henry Holborn and the Full Gospel Christian Church,” Maggie said. “It looks like the whole Full Gospel Christian Church. Henry is the older man next to the cross.”
It was a young man who was actually holding the cross. Gregor turned his attention to the man beside that one and decided there was nothing much to see. Henry Holborn seemed to be an ordinary, well-kept man in late middle age, not somebody you would notice twice on the street.
“Somehow, with everything I’ve heard about him, I thought he’d be more—charismatic,” Gregor said.
“He’s charismatic enough,” Maggie told him. “Just you watch. I can’t believe he’s doing this.”
“Doing what?” Gregor asked.
In the center of the clearing, the cross had been raised high into the air. It was stuck up among the pine boughs now, partially out of sight. Henry Holborn had his eyes closed and his head thrown back.
“Lord God Almighty, Lord Jesus Christ, hear our prayer,” Henry Holborn cried.
The rest of the crowd who had come with Henry Holborn, and some of the people who had not, said something fuzzy that Gregor took to be “Amen.”
“Lord God Almighty, evil has been done in this place,” Henry Holborn said. “Satan has been worshipped in this place. The powers of Hell have been called into being in this place.”
Where were the police? Gregor wondered. Where was Clayton Hall? If Henry Holborn and his people were doing nothing else, they were destroying a vital evidence scene. At least the state police ought to be doing something, even if Clayton didn’t have the resources.
“Lord Jesus Christ,” Henry Holborn said. “Cleanse this place. Take the evil out of it.”
“Amen,” the crowd said.
“Soften the hearts of these evildoers and bring them to Your righteousness.”
“Amen.”
“Cast the Devil and all his minions into the outer darkness.”
“Amen.”
“Cleanse this place.”
“Henry Holborn ought to be locked up,” Maggie Kelleher said furiously. “I can’t believe Clayton is letting him get away with this.”
“I can’t even see Clayton,” Gregor said. “Are there people here who belong to Holborn’s church but aren’t in the core group?”
“Half the town belongs to Holborn’s church. Excuse me, Mr. Demarkian. I’ve got to get out of here before I commit a murder of my own.”
Gregor had no idea how Maggie was going to get out of this crowd. He could barely move himself. Henry Holborn and his entire congregation seemed to be swaying, like tall grass in a high wind. The young man who was holding the big cross on the stick had put the stick down in the middle of the circle of stones, as if he were claiming the circle and all it influenced for his sovereign Lord.