Copyright

The events and characters in this book are fictitious.
Certain real locations and public figures are mentioned,
but all other characters and events described in the book
are totally imaginary.

Copyright © 2003 by Bluestocking, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Lines from “Let There Be Peace on Earth” by Jill Jackson and Sy Miller,
copyright © 1955 by Jan-Lee Music;

copyright © renewed 1983. Used by permission; all rights reserved.

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

First eBook Edition: December 2009

ISBN: 978-0-446-56548-6

To angels past and present—Louise Ann, Charles, and Elle …
and to Gerry and Ike—the best of friends in this life, or any other

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to thank Dr. Karen Ross, Herbert Erwin, Gerrie Singer, Robert Aberdeen, Lisa Cordon, Dr. Alfredo Suarez, Bill Troy, Stirling and Migo Nagura, David Spiess, Dr. Hugh W. Buckingham, Rabbi Barry L. Weinstein, Jim Churchman, Chuck Farrier, and others who helped lend an air of authenticity to James Sakura’s fictional world. Any errors or creative interpretations are the author’s.

Thanks also to Mel Berger of William Morris and his assistant Donna, and to editors Jackie Joiner and Colin Fox. A special thanks to Barbara Alpert for helping to make it all happen.

PROLOGUE

The man’s ear, an inch above the chest, listened for the silence. No breath. No beat of heart. His mouth longed to suck up the brilliant light now seeping from the pores. Passing from his too human vision. A firefly pinched between the fingers of God.

There was a reverence in the manner in which he cleansed the body. And a meticulousness—depositing the soiled toweling and alcohol wipes into the garbage bag he’d packed. Rolling and safeguarding the Visqueen that had lain beneath the body.

Now he straddled the waist, pulling the torso up toward him, angling the pale shoulder into his chest. In death there was a kind of clumsy resistance that made his work difficult, though not unmanageable. Carefully he rotated the torso farther to the side so that hips and legs remained parallel, the head in profile.

The scalpel slipped easily into flesh as though through softening butter. There was no blood. The time of bleeding had passed. He inserted his latexed fingers into the deep pocket he’d made, severing more cleanly skin from muscle. The wound was precisely under the shelter of shoulder blade.

Twisting the body to the opposite side, he made an identical incision. He bent the torso forward, head to knees, and slowly inserted the sharp projections of cartilage into the open slits, careful not to damage the tissue. Cradling the juncture of flesh and feather, he released the body back, flat against the bed. Arranged the arms and hands.

He got up from the bed and retrieved the camera, loading a fresh roll of film. Through the Nocta’s lens the body seemed satisfyingly less human. He snapped the first photograph. The split-second illumination from the flash burned the white skin whiter, made the dark recesses of the body blacker. He focused on a crevice, the point where armpit fit chest. Click. Then down the long thin line of shadow tucked from groin to ankle. Click.

He danced at the foot of the bed, moving from one side to the other. Clicking, clicking in rapid-fire succession, shots from a gun, the artificial explosions from his camera mimicking the natural explosions of dry lightning jumping through the uncurtained window. Big light. Little light. The whole of the room emitting a kind of cosmic warning signal.

CHAPTER

1

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few. Driving through dark streets to the scene of murder, Detective Lieutenant James Sakura repeated the words to himself, an important reminder of weakness as well as virtue.

If not for his special FBI training, he would still be home in bed lying next to Hanae. But on Friday evening he’d been called to the apartment of Luis Carrera, a dancer with the Metropolitan Ballet, who’d been found in circumstances that suggested more than an ordinary murder. Now, less than seventy-two hours later, a second victim had turned up over an art gallery in the East Village. The investigation had been officially transferred from the precincts to his Special Homicide Unit.

At three thirty-seven on a Monday morning, there was relatively little traffic on the Bowery. Sakura raced through intersections, running lights like beads collected on string. When he turned off on St. Marks, homicide and radio cars were already jamming the street. He pulled his own car halfway onto the sidewalk and got out.

The month had been colder and wetter than was normal for October, and tonight’s rain waited in an indeterminate sky that seemed to feed on light. Despite the damp chilliness, a collection of street people from the nearby park had gathered at the lines of yellow tape. One of the patrolmen, canvassing for witnesses in the crowd, spotted Sakura and walked over.

“Are you first officer?” Sakura flashed his gold detective’s shield.

“No, sir. Frank Kramer’s first. He’s inside.”

Sakura felt relief. Kramer was a good cop, a twenty-year veteran who knew how to protect a crime scene.

Inside the gallery detectives from the local precinct stood talking to the chief of detectives. Lincoln McCauley’s presence at the murder scene was an indication of the importance that was being attached to the case. Sakura waited as McCauley detached himself from the group and walked over.

“You made good time.” The chief of detectives reached into his pocket for the case that held his cigars. “Crime Scene’s still photographing the bedroom.”

“Have my people been called?”

“On their way.” McCauley parked an unlit cigar securely in his teeth. Put the case back inside his jacket. “Dr. Linsky’s been notified too.”

Sakura nodded. Linsky had been the medical examiner at the murder scene on Friday. Calling him tonight would insure continuity.

“Have you been upstairs?” he asked McCauley.

“Yeah, Jimmy. I’ve seen worse. But never anything like this.”

Sakura understood. Certain things weren’t measured in blood.

In the bedroom the smell of dead incense was a cloud existing at eye level. It crawled into Sakura’s throat, recalling the death scene on Friday, feeding his awareness of what waited for him on the bed. He fought off the image. This room and what it contained had to stand apart. Later, when he could reconstruct every detail in his mind, then the two murder scenes could be compared. By then, anything that was different should shout at him as loudly as that which seemed the same.

The room, apart from the bed, appeared to be, if anything, too normal, without even the usual clutter of cast-off clothes. There was no sign of a struggle. A collection of clay figures stood undisturbed on a shelf. Canvases on the walls hung straight. There was no blood spatter on the rugs or wooden floor. Not a piece of furniture seemed to be out of place.

Sakura turned to the bed. It, too, was neat, seemingly undisturbed by the nude body that lay on top. There was no illusion of sleeping. The man on the bed was dead, with the overwhelming sense of flesh vacated. The arms were arranged, hands crossed over genitals tucked between the legs. The blue eyes, half open, fixed in an expression that Sakura had observed many times. Of course was what the eyes seemed to say, as if dying brought the solution to some very simple riddle.

The spent sweet smell of incense was stronger near the bed, concentrated in the charcoal letters scrawled across the wall. The same ashy residue stood out darkly on the victim’s chest in a pattern of roughly concentric circles, with other lines coming down.

Sakura moved closer. The bedspread beneath the body was a gray, heavy silk. Against its dull luster, the small blood pools forming beneath the shoulders were nearly invisible. Leaking from incisions cut into the victim’s back, the stains were only apparent because he’d known they would be there, overshadowed though they were by the large white wings that stretched across the pillows.

He stared at what had once been human on the bed. For some detectives, the motive in finding the killer was a kind of sanctioned revenge, and Sakura knew veterans who spoke sentimentally of victims in forgotten files who still cried out for justice. For him, it was simpler. Murder, the most heinous of crimes, was the most disruptive of social order. To restore balance, one must find and punish the killer.

Looking at the winged corpse, the indecipherable writing, he suddenly understood what it was about these crime scenes that most unnerved him, what had kept him awake at Hanae’s side each night since the first murder. It was not doubt that he could do the job, but a much more primal fear. In the undisturbed room, in the weird and careful ritual, lay a precise if bizarre logic, the signature of a mind that, in its own twisted way, craved order as much as his own.

The living area had the same studied spareness as the bedroom. Artwork dominated. A few large canvases, mostly abstract, arranged on pale glazed walls—collections of small ancient-looking objects on glass and wrought iron tables. The Crime Scene Unit had begun their work in the rest of the upstairs apartment, and fingerprint powder like drifting volcanic ash lay everywhere on the living room’s hard surfaces. A single sooty shoe print marred the bleached wool carpet, like an artifact or an omen.

Sakura stood inside the doorway observing the man on the sofa. Jerry Greenberg was, according to Kramer’s report, the victim’s business partner and lover. He sat hunched forward on the gray leather cushions in a classic pose of mourning, elbows on knees, the heels of his palms pressed hard against his eyelids. He wore jeans and a turtleneck sweater, which showed above the collar of the outdoor jacket he had not taken time to remove. He did not seem aware of the heat in the apartment or that anyone had entered the room. Sakura walked over.

“Mr. Greenberg …”

An indistinguishable noise, a simultaneous sucking in of breath and grief, shuddered in the fabric of the jacket as Greenberg pulled himself up, his blond head thrown into relief against the abstract painting behind him. He was thinner than Sakura had first imagined, and the vague slackness of sudden shock made his face appear older than the thirty-six listed in Kramer’s report. The pale eyes seemed unnaturally large, as if he had to concentrate to keep them open.

“I’m Lieutenant Sakura, Mr. Greenberg,” he introduced himself. “I’m sorry for your loss, but there are questions I have to ask.”

Greenberg swallowed once, nodded.

“As I understand it,” Sakura began, “you’ve been away for the last few days. You arrived here from the airport around one forty-five this morning.”

“Yes, I’ve been on a buying trip. I was supposed to fly home tomorrow.” Greenberg’s voice was unexpectedly deep and resonant. It made his simplest statement sound important. “But I finished up early and managed to get a flight….” The words trailed off.

“What happened when you got here?”

“I came straight up to the bedroom.”

“The downstairs door was locked as usual?”

“Yes.”

Sakura nodded. As with the Carrera apartment, there had been no sign of forced entry. “So you came upstairs, and you saw Mr. Milne,” he prompted.

“Yes,” Greenberg said again, “but I couldn’t make sense of it. I mean, I didn’t even know it was David at first. It wouldn’t register…. Then I just knew he was dead.”

“Do you have any idea who might have done this?”

Greenberg shook his head. He was no longer looking at Sakura.

“Could you have done it?”

The gray eyes flashed upward, indignation penetrating the grief. “What kind of question is that?”

“Direct.” Sakura didn’t smile.

“I loved David.”

“That doesn’t disqualify you, Mr. Greenberg.”

Greenberg had pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. Now one of them came out. “This does.” He held up a boarding pass.

Sakura took it, read the time and flight number. “May I keep it?”

“Of course … check it out.” Greenberg’s voice had developed an undertow of belligerence.

Sakura did not react, slipping the boarding pass into his pocket. “Perhaps Mr. Milne invited someone up here this evening,” he said.

Greenberg’s eyes flashed again, but his answer was calm. “David and I were faithful to each other.”

“But you had friends?”

“A lot of them. Everyone loved David.” There was no irony in the statement.

Sakura held the man’s eyes. “Were you or Mr. Milne, or any of these friends, into any kind of religious or ritualistic … activity? Something that could get out of hand?”

Greenberg didn’t flinch. “I know no one who could have done this.”

Sakura let it drop. “We’ll want a list of those friends,” he said, “as well as lists of your artists and clients…. You get a lot of traffic in the gallery?”

“Yes.” For the first time Greenberg nearly smiled. “David was a sculptor,” he said. “The problem was he had rheumatoid arthritis. He started the gallery when he couldn’t continue to work. He liked finding new artists and helping them. Even when our people made it uptown, a lot of them would come back here and do shows for us.”

Sakura listened, letting him finish. “I think you would have to agree,” he said, “that there is a certain artistic element to what happened in that bedroom. I ask you again. Can you think of anyone who might have done this to Mr. Milne?”

“No.” Greenberg was shaking his head violently. “And I find it disgusting that you could call what I saw in there … artistic.”

Sakura watched him. There was a suggestion of performance in all Greenberg’s reactions. The man was very self-aware. It did not follow, however, that the emotions had to be anything less than genuine.

He tried another tack. “Does the name Luis Carrera mean anything to you?”

“No,” Greenberg said, looking up again. “Should it?”

Sakura did not answer. The truth was, he’d been hoping for some easy connection between David Milne and Friday night’s victim, who’d also been homosexual, but Greenberg’s denial seemed real. And with no personal link between the gallery owner and the dancer, it seemed more probable that the killer was targeting gay men at random.

“It’s important,” he said finally, “that you don’t talk to anyone about the details of Mr. Milne’s death. Especially anyone from the media.”

Greenberg nodded.

“One of my people will drive you to headquarters for a formal statement. You can wait here till we finish; then get whatever you need. The building will have to be sealed for a few days.”

Greenberg stared, and Sakura could read in the man’s face exactly what he was thinking. That a few days would do nothing to change the enormity of what had happened.

“I’ll want to speak with you again,” he said, “so make sure we know where you can be reached. If anything occurs to you before then”— he pulled a card from the inside pocket of his jacket—“this has my number. And don’t forget what I said about talking to anyone about the details of what happened here tonight. That would damage our chances of finding Mr. Milne’s killer, and you could be charged with obstruction of justice for interference in a criminal investigation.”

Greenberg’s eyes had gone blank again. He took the card without looking. Kept it in his fingers.

At the door Sakura turned back. The man had not changed position. His stricken face, made paler by distance, seemed frozen and flat, floating like an icon on the painted surface behind him.

Beneath the corner of Thirtieth Street and First Avenue was the realm of the dead, the basement morgue that handled Manhattan’s homicides. Colder and damper than the outdoor October, the morgue was a fluorescent-lit underworld where toe-tagged bodies waited like hitchhikers along the steel-lockered corridors for attendants who would wheel them into the cutting room. Fortunately for Sakura, the hierarchies of city bureaucracy reached even beyond the grave. Bodies with clout moved to the head of the line.

Still with a weekend between the two murders, Sakura had yet to receive even the most basic toxicological or lab reports. And Saturday’s autopsy on Luis Carrera had failed to establish a cause of death. Earlier at the Milne apartment, he had tried to question Linsky, but the medical examiner had remained determinedly closemouthed, deferring any discussion of his findings to this morning’s autopsy on the gallery owner.

The procedure had been quickly scheduled, and Linsky, as was his custom, had shunned the protective “bunny suit” for more traditional scrubs and apron. The son of Russian émigrés, the medical examiner possessed the preciseness of an old-world technician. It was not unusual for the apron to remain virtually spotless throughout the most involved procedure. A starched white lab coat would replace it as Linsky exited the swinging metal doors.

The cutting room was silent except for the shuffling of the attendant and Linsky’s monotonous droning as he talked through his external examination for the overhead mike. Some medical examiners played taped background music on the theory that sound helped to dampen the brain’s response to odor. Linsky took no such mercy. A detective was present to preserve the evidential chain. The smell was part of the job. For the moment Milne’s body remained unopened. It lay facedown on the stainless table, the two shoulder wounds like butcher cuts in tallow.

“… A pair of wounds are present on the posterior chest wall, parallel to the spine and deeply incised into the underlying skeletal muscle.” Linsky continued to speak for the microphone. “The incisions are approximately five to six centimeters in length. Margins are sharp and even, suggestive of a small knife or a scalpel-like instrument. Lack of bleeding into adjacent tissue indicates the injuries were made postmortem. Bruising about the mouth and around the ankles and wrists is consistent with the use of duct tape.

“You seem to have a question, Lieutenant Sakura?” The M.E. had cut the mike and was looking at him through the plastic visor shield.

“I was wondering about the fingernails,” Sakura said.

“The lab work isn’t in yet for Carrera. But I saw no obvious skin fragments beneath his nails or Mr. Milne’s here … if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You said that the bruising was consistent with the victims struggling after they were bound?”

“Yes … after.” Linsky’s voice betrayed a bit of impatience. “Otherwise, we’d expect to see more bruising or abrasions. On the hands for instance.”

“That’s what puzzles me,” Sakura said. “Why didn’t they struggle before he taped them? Why just let him do it?”

The medical examiner was notoriously reluctant to speculate. A moment passed while he appeared to weigh the worth of the question. “Perhaps these were bondage situations that turned into something else,” he said finally. “Or given that these victims were both relatively small men, it’s possible they felt sufficiently threatened physically that they just didn’t fight…. I don’t know, Lieutenant.”

“Neither do I,” Sakura admitted.

He watched as the attendant helped Linsky turn the body. Faceup again on the table, David Milne was suddenly real, the body somehow more human than it had appeared last night in the bedroom. Sakura felt an odd pang of impersonal guilt, as if the indecency of the forensic procedure and his own silent witness could take as much from the dead man as the killer.

Milne was small, with that adolescent boniness that Sakura associated with some gay men. His chest was pale and hairless. The killer’s charcoal drawing stood out below the nipples, more smudged and faded since last night. Linsky obliterated it further. Pressing with one hand against the sternum, he began the thoraco-abdominal incision. First the long shallow curve through the pectorals from one shoulder blade to the other. Then the straight deep line from breastbone to pubis. With the Y-shaped cut gaping open, Linsky peeled back flesh and cartilage from the rib cage, then crunched with the cutters through the breastbone to the pale milky sac veiling the organs. Standing behind the medical examiner, Sakura could identify the lungs and liver above the snaky loops of intestine. With the layers coming away, it was easier again to think of Milne as just a body. The smell resisted abstraction.

The process continued. Linsky removed the organ tree, transferring it to a metal sink. He proceeded to extract his samples, inspecting and weighing the organs. Sakura thought the medical examiner looked no more satisfied than he had at Carrera’s autopsy. He waited for a moment when the M.E. ceased speaking for the mike.

“You still don’t know how they died, do you?” he said.

Linsky turned to him. “No, Lieutenant Sakura, I do not. The needle marks on the arms are suggestive, but on Saturday, when I opened Carrera, I found no damage to the organs. And the basic toxicological screens turned up nothing beyond a common pain medication, an anti-inflammatory, and an antidepressant.”

“And Milne …?”

“The organs, as you’ve heard me say, appear normal.”

“You said the needle marks were suggestive—”

Linsky cut off the implied question with a look. “It is my intention,” he said, “to push through a much wider range of tests on blood and tissue samples from both victims.”

“When?” Sakura asked.

“As soon as possible, Lieutenant. I don’t like mysteries any better than you do.”

In Kyoto the Japanese instinct for elegance and restraint had been tempered by the realities of day-to-day living in the simple home of Hanae’s parents. The cages of their daughter’s finches had shared space with the family, bedding and clothing stored beneath the raised tatami floor, a large tansu holding most of the family’s smaller treasures. Rooms were created with screens that could easily be moved. And though Hanae’s marriage had taken her from one crowded island to another, James Sakura had made a promise not to deny his wife when she’d asked to bring her birds.

Since he had come home, Sakura had spoken little more than a dozen words to Hanae; they had not touched. The touching would come later when they drew back the tsutsugaki, the quilt cover that was a wedding gift from Hanae’s parents, and lay together for the night. For now, he was taking immense pleasure in sitting on the tatami rug of their living room and watching his wife move from one cage to another. When he was working on a major case, the birds, as well as Taiko her dog, kept as irregular hours as he and Hanae.

She reached and closed the last of the cages that held her beloved finches. He watched her place a seed in her mouth and move her face against the metal cage. Tee-tee-tee. She made a kind of trumpeting sound, and the dominant bird came closer to pluck the seed from between her teeth. Then she walked over to a worktable and removed a cloth shrouding a mass of clay.

At first her fingers moved lightly over the surface of the bulky shape. Then they constricted, working the mass deliberately. The arms that slipped from her kimono sleeves appeared startlingly naked, and Sakura thought that the flat of his wife’s hands seemed too plump and childish for her slim delicate fingers.

“You and Taiko should find other work,” she said without turning.

“We enjoy watching you.” He reached to scratch behind the dog’s ears.

“And what do you see?”

“That your fingers are too long for your hands.”

“And …?” She turned then, fixing him with her sightless eyes.

“That my wife is naked beneath her kimono.”

“Japanese men do not lust after their wives.”

“I’m American.”

At this Hanae laughed. “You are right. Sometimes I think that except for your thin face and lidless eyes, there is little of your Japanese ancestors in you.” She returned to her modeling, the light from the chochin reflecting in the blackness of her hair.

“Did you go to art class this afternoon?”

“Yes, I’m still working on the birds. Ms. Nguyen is a very patient teacher.”

“What is this you’re sculpting?”

“I am not sure. My hands will tell me when they are ready.”

He knew it was a lie. The bust was going to be a surprise for Christmas. He could recognize his features already forming in the crude mass.

She moved her fingers deeper into the moist clay. “Vicky called today.”

“And how do they like Minneapolis?”

“She said it is not Manhattan.”

“Not a very good review,” he said. “You’re going to miss her, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “I’ve never had a friend like Victoria.”

“You’ll find someone else.”

She shrugged. “I have a lot to keep me busy.”

“I can see that.” He stood and walked behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders, his thumbs finding the nape of her neck. “It looks like a head.”

“It will be.” She let her hands fall into her lap. “How is your investigation going?”

Despite his efforts, she had sensed his mood. “This appears to be a serial case,” he answered. “They are always difficult.”

She dipped her hands in the bowl of water, then wiped them with the towel. “Have you spoken to Kenjin?” She turned her face up to him.

The question had surprised him. A moment passed when even his breath was silent. “No,” he said. “I haven’t talked to Michael for a while.”

“I think this time you may need him.”

“He won’t come back, Hanae.”

“But it is not impossible?”

“Michael was cleared of any wrongdoing. It was his decision to resign.”

She pulled him down to her, taking his face in her hands. “Tell me about that night.”

He had no wish to reopen the wounds that had scarred, if not healed, in the time that had passed. But his wife’s instincts were a deep, slow-stirring sea. He did not question the tides that moved her.

“A suspect was killed,” he said to her.

“This much I know, Jimmy.” She waited.

“The suspect didn’t have a weapon,” he said finally.

She sighed, as if the knowledge were a release. “But Kenjin shot him.”

“Michael thought the man was firing at us,” he explained. “He believed he saw a powder flash.”

“What happened?”

“Backup arrived. Barney Edleman saw right away we had a bad shooting. He pulled out a drop piece he had under the seat of the patrol car.”

“A drop piece?”

“A gun that couldn’t be traced. Michael said no. But Edleman said he was crazy, throwing away his career for someone like Robby Hudson.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing. I watched Edleman wrap Hudson’s hand around the grip, then wipe his own prints off the barrel before he tossed it in some trash. The report read that the weapon was found in the search, that the suspect must have dropped it as he fell.”

“Kenjin allowed this?”

“I was the officer of record. It was my name on the report.”

The pressure of her fingers softened on his cheeks. “And Kenjin resigned.”

He shook his head. “It was a couple months later that the offer came for me to attend the program at Quantico. That was when Michael resigned.”

“Because you accepted?”

“Because Michael was afraid I wouldn’t. I had lied to keep him on the force. He would never resign as long as I was there. And he knew I understood that.”

Her hands still cupped his face. He reached for them, took them into his. “Michael changed after the shooting, Hanae. He didn’t trust himself. He was trying to regain his balance.”

“He was depending on you.”

“Yes. But I failed him. My lie betrayed him more than the truth.”

“The guilt you feel is foolish, my husband. As is your anger. You chose once for Kenjin. In the end he chose for himself.”

“I didn’t like what I did. I still don’t. But Michael was a good detective. He should have remained on the force.”

“Your faith in him was greater than his own. But time has passed,” she said. “Will you ask him to return?”

His wife’s commands, ever gentle, rested in the guise of questions.

Father Andrew Kellog measured an extra finger of bourbon into his glass and walked to the parlor window that gave a view to the street. He had thought he’d heard Father Graff’s Jeep, but pulling back the curtain, he could see nothing outside but the dark and silent patch of failing neighborhood. The black pane of glass breathed coldness, and he stepped back, pulling the robe tighter around him in the under-heated room. The living quarters at St. Sebastian were as old and unre-modeled as the church itself. And while a lack of change might be deemed a virtue in a building that mimicked twelfth-century Gothic, for the two priests assigned to the outmoded Brooklyn rectory, the neglect meant mostly discomfort.

He took a sip of the drink, then shuffled like the old man he was becoming to the recliner in front of the TV. He should be thankful for the archdiocesan attention, which the younger priest’s assignment to St. Sebastian represented. But charity was in as short supply as faith and hope in his heart—virtues lost not through some brave battle with temptation, but drained away softly in the acid rain of years. Was it the world that had changed, or had he? Was it time or the devil that had curdled his soul?

As always, he regretted the bitterness of his thoughts, and in all his more honest moments, he acknowledged that he was not cut out to be a pastor, and in the old days never would have been one. Now, with the shortage of priests, men more than twenty years younger than he were getting their own parishes, better and richer parishes than St. Sebastian. Thomas Graff, he knew, would be presented just such a plum for his work in parish renewal.

He reached down to the space heater and turned up the dial, welcoming the warm blast of air on his feet. On the television the news had ended, and a cop show, decades old, was playing. The violence seemed stilted, infinitely less real than the daily dramas that played in the nearby streets. He keyed in the time on the remote: 11:52 in glowing blue-green appeared in the corner of the screen. Surely, Father Graff had not forgotten that it was his turn for early Mass tomorrow.

He frowned, sipping again at the drink, allowing a memory of the old days when the church had been full. Perhaps the chronic bad weather had something to do with it, but even with all Graff’s efforts there seemed to be fewer and fewer people scattered in the pews. Though Marian’s husband, of all people, had been there this morning.

Light rose and skittered across the curtains. This time, unmistakably, he heard the sounds of the Jeep. In a few moments Thomas Graff came into the foyer. Despite the cold, he wore no coat over athletic pants and jacket. He looked boyish with his duffel bag and the baseball cap riding his fair hair. With a pang of what he acknowledged as jealousy, Father Kellog thought of how quickly the women, young and old, had taken to Father Graff.

He watched the man take off his cap as he came into the room. The priest greeted him and smiled.

“Cold out?” Kellog sought conversation.

“Pretty cold.” Graff nodded. “Mrs. Callahan thinks it’ll snow before Christmas.” He was unfailingly pleasant. A subtle condescension.

“You saw Mrs. Callahan?”

“Her daughter asked me to drop by and bring her Communion. I visited a friend after that.” Graff looked at his watch. “Later than I thought,” he said. “Mass tomorrow. I better get some sleep.”

Father Kellog nodded his good-night, watching as the younger man bounded up the stairs. Thomas Graff was not quite as youthful as he appeared, but he kept fit, running most mornings he didn’t say Mass.

The hall clock struck midnight. The deep chimes seemed incomplete and ominous. He looked down into his drink, finished it. He picked up the remote, settling back in his chair. Flipping through the channels, he searched for a movie in black and white, putting off bed and the silence of his cold room.