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  He sat and combed his fingers through his hair. “Emily Flounders is dead.”

  Rose dropped into her chair. “But—oh, no.”

  “Was she at the vestry meeting?”

  “Of course. Emily never misses a meeting. Even when she isn’t feeling well.”

  Rose realized she was clutching her purse so tightly that her fingers hurt. She set the purse on the floor and watched the detective press his elbows onto the rector’s desk. “What happened to her?” she asked.

  “We don’t know yet,” he said, “but I need to ask you some questions—while tonight is still fresh in your mind.”

  Tonight was going to be fresh in her mind for a long time, Rose wanted to tell him. How could she ever forget falling over Philip Graves’s body? An unhelpful grief counselor she’d met with once, right after Mark’s death, had assured her that the memory of her husband’s body on the kitchen floor—an image that still sometimes jarred her awake in the night—would eventually fade from the foreground of her consciousness. “You’re focused on your pain right now,” he’d told her confidently, “but time will turn the lens of your memory a little to the right or left, and that traumatic image will blur.”

  Rose had been too polite to tell him his theory of mind was academic and useless to her. She hadn’t been looking for facile reassurance that her pain would end. She’d wanted someone strong enough to walk with her into the dense forest of that pain, and Mother Anna had obliged. Rose had never considered herself to be a spiritual person, but Mother Anna’s prayers had soothed her. She’d found genuine solace in this little office. But she felt no comfort here now. Would she ever find it here again? “What do you want to know?”

  “What time did the meeting begin?”

  “We usually start at seven thirty, but tonight we didn’t begin until seven forty-five. That’s when I arrived. We need to have at least seven members of the vestry for a quorum. I was the seventh. I wasn’t going to come tonight—my daughter has a cold—but Philip called to say two other vestry members couldn’t make it and he needed me. I had to wait for my babysitter to arrive.” She stared above the detective’s head at the framed reproduction of Mary Magdalene looking out from her shimmering cloak at Christ’s tomb on Easter morning. Rose had always liked that Mother Anna had this painting in her office.

  “And what time did the meeting end?”

  Rose twisted her loose watchband around her thin wrist. “Ten thirty or so.”

  “And Mr. Graves was the first to leave?”

  “Dr. Graves,” Rose corrected. “He has a PhD. He always got annoyed if people called him Mr. Graves.”

  “I see. And Dr. Graves left first?”

  “Yes.” Rose nodded.

  “At the time he left, was everyone else still in the Blue Lounge?”

  “No. Not everyone. Things were breaking up, you see.” She closed her eyes and saw those minutes like a movie. “Roger went to the men’s room, I think, and Vivian took the tea service back to the kitchen—she always brews tea for the meetings and cleans out the pot when we finish.”

  Rose looked at her watch. Was it already twelve forty? “Can I please go soon? My daughter—”

  “Just a few more questions,” the detective said, cutting her off. “Was Peter Linton in the Blue Lounge when Dr. Graves left?”

  “He got a phone call, I think. He went somewhere to take it.”

  “Was Emily Flounders still there?”

  “Just for a minute, finishing her meeting notes. She left shortly after Philip. Emily usually helps Vivian with the tea service, but Vivian insisted that she go home right away because Emily’s daughter was flying in tonight. Martha. She lives in Seattle now. Oh, my God. Someone has to tell Martha.”

  Rose watched the detective jot a note in his small spiral notepad.

  “And Dr. Bentley?” he asked.

  Rose covered her face with her palms, pressed her fingers against her closed eyelids, and wished she were home. She should have told Philip she couldn’t make this meeting. Why did she always have so much trouble saying no to people? Waking Lily for school tomorrow would be even more brutal than usual. “Can’t we talk in the morning?” she asked.

  “This is important, Mrs. Bartruff. Just a few more questions, please. Was Dr. Bentley in the Blue Lounge when Dr. Graves left?”

  “I think she walked out with him.”

  “What time did they walk out?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t check my watch every time someone gets up and leaves the room,” Rose snapped uncharacteristically. She regretted the remark immediately. “I’m sorry. You’ve been very kind to me tonight. I’m just worried about my daughter.”

  The detective smiled. “Forget the time. But you’re sure Dr. Bentley left the room with him?”

  “Yes. I heard her say she would walk him to the door. She got up and followed him out of the lounge. I went to the coatrack in the hall as they were heading down the corridor. I saw them turn the corner toward the door. They were talking.”

  “Did you see the doctor leave the building with him?”

  Rose shook her head. “No.”

  Detective Haggerty squinted at her. “No, you didn’t see her leave, or no, she didn’t leave.”

  “The former,” said Rose. “But I don’t think she went out.”

  “Why is that?”

  And now Rose considered the purpose behind the detective’s questions. The possibility that any of her fellow parishioners—people she planted the garden with or kneeled beside at Holy Communion—could be a killer seemed as incomprehensible to her as astrophysics. She pressed her fingers lightly over her mouth. “No. You can’t believe that—”

  The detective lowered his pen. “Mrs. Bartruff,” he said reassuringly, “I’m not drawing any conclusions about anything or anyone right now, and neither should you. These are the standard questions we ask. Please just answer as honestly and thoroughly as you can.”

  Then Rose began to cry—for Emily, for Philip, for herself. She’d been so negative about the vestry on her way out of the parish house earlier, and she suddenly hated herself for judging the other vestry members and for minimizing St. Paul’s importance to her. She reached for a tissue from the box on Mother Anna’s desk.

  “What makes you think Dr. Bentley didn’t go outside with him?” Detective Haggerty asked her again.

  Rose pressed the tissue to her eyes. “Because she came right back almost immediately and asked to speak with Mother Anna. I saw them go into the Community Room.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Two rows of framed portraits hung on the wall outside the Blue Lounge. Codella paused to study them before she entered the room. Below each portrait was a plaque bearing the name of a St. Paul’s rector and his or her years of service. The oldest was a charcoal drawing of Benjamin Seabury, who had served the congregation from 1793 to 1821. She ran her eyes from left to right across the top row of solemn male faces, noticing the gradual transformation of clerical fashions and facial hair. Anna Brookes’s color photograph hung on the far right side of the bottom row. Her straight auburn hair fell to her neck, her green eyes stared out warmly, and her slightly crooked smile made her look vulnerable.

  Codella opened the door and stepped into the lounge. The room desperately needed a fresh coat of paint. A long blue couch and matching love seat formed a ninety-degree angle under the window along the back wall. Several straight-backed chairs—also upholstered in blue—were arranged in a semicircle facing the couch and love seat.

  Codella visualized the St. Paul’s vestry members gathered on those chairs earlier this evening. The fact that they were churchgoers seemed irrelevant now. Beyond their status as leaders of St. Paul’s, she doubted they were any more homogenous than the staff of a school, corporation, hospital, or any other microcosm in this vast city. One or more of them might very well hold the answer to what had happened here—and she intended to find out.

  As she stepped farther into the room, she thought of Haggerty down t
he hall in the rector’s office with Rose Bartruff, the church gardener who had tripped over the body. She wanted to hear that woman’s story. She wanted to hear everyone’s story for herself—and not because she didn’t trust Haggerty to ask the right questions, record the facts meticulously, or accurately judge each person’s veracity. He was a skillful interrogator. But dividing the interviews meant that each of them would only hear half the narratives. They could easily fail to draw important connections or detect subtle discrepancies between the account of one witness and another.

  She returned to the corridor. She was about to tell Officer Kovac to bring in Roger Sturgis when Detective Eduardo Muñoz appeared at the end of the corridor and called out to her. She waved him into the Blue Lounge and closed the door. At six foot five, he towered over her, and she had to stare up to meet his eyes. “How are you, Eduardo?”

  “I’m well, Detective. It’s good to see you.”

  She smiled. “It’s good to see you too.” There was no time for more. “We’ve got what looks like a double homicide here. I called you in to be our third on this case.”

  “Thank you, Detective,” he said. “I’m honored.”

  “Well, you’ve earned the role.”

  “Maybe, but I’d never get it from anyone else.”

  Not from most of his detectives at the one-seven-one, she supposed. He was like her, after all—someone who didn’t fit the brotherhood mold—and maybe that’s why she’d bonded with him early on. During the Sanchez case six months ago—when she was just back from cancer and he’d been a precinct detective less than a week—he’d chased a fleeing subject down nine flights of stairs when she didn’t have the stamina to do it herself. Over lunch an hour later, she’d thanked him for saving her ass, and he’d begged her to keep him on the case. I don’t mean to be presumptuous, he’d said, but I imagine being a woman who just got back from a medical leave puts a lot of pressure on you—at least as much as there is on a gay detective who just got outed on his first night drinking with the other precinct detectives. Let me stay on this case with you. Let me help you solve it. She’d taken a chance on him, and he’d never disappointed her.

  “I need you to go give two death notifications,” she told him now. “Have you ever done one?”

  Muñoz shook his head. “But there’s a first time for everything, right?”

  “Right. Just be yourself. You know how to say the right things. And listen. Be observant. Find out whatever you can.” She patted his shoulder. “There’s a female officer working under Zamora. Officer Dunn. Take her with you.”

  When he was gone, she stood in front of the long blue couch and glanced at the door as Officer Kovac led Roger Sturgis into the lounge. Sturgis’s dark-brown eyes held hers as he approached. His black hair, she noticed, was even curlier than Haggerty’s. His nose was long and straight, and his moustache obscured his upper lip in a way she supposed some women would find sensuous, but she did not. He stopped behind one of the straight-backed chairs, lowered his eyes to her shoes, and followed the fabric of her tight black slacks to her thighs. She watched his lips curl into a suggestive smile as he studied the shield clipped to her belt. Don’t you look sexy playing the tough detective, his eyes seemed to say. And then he stared boldly at the contours of her breasts before he returned his gaze to her face.

  She gave him a smile, glanced down at his loafers, and ran her eyes up his pant legs to the zipper of his worn khakis. As he watched, she lowered herself onto the couch and patted the arm of the adjacent love seat. “Have a seat. Don’t be afraid.”

  She saw a flash of irritation on his face. He recovered quickly, however, and sat perpendicular to her with his legs spread apart and his hands behind his head as if he were settling in to watch a March Madness game. “You’ve got your hands full,” he observed.

  She leaned her elbow on the arm of the couch. “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, I’m not a detective, but my math is very good. You’ve got six suspects right here—myself included, of course.” He was staring at her breasts again. “It reminds me of that Agatha Christie movie. You know, Murder on the Orient Express.”

  “Are you suggesting that everyone here tonight had a hand in whatever has happened?”

  “No, of course not. I’m just—never mind.”

  She smiled. He was just being an asshole, she wanted to tell him as he crossed one leg over the opposite knee and folded his arms so that his thick gold wedding band was prominently displayed. What, she wondered, did his wife possibly see in him? He seemed like the type to do more than objectify the women who threatened him. Was he one of those men who spent time on the most degrading porn sites? Did he cheat on his wife? “What do you do, Mr. Sturgis?”

  “I rescue failing businesses.” He watched for her response.

  She gave him none. “Do you have a theory about what happened here tonight?”

  “I can think of several.” He shrugged.

  She waited.

  “I suppose one us could have done it. We’re all capable of the unimaginable, aren’t we?” He smiled, apparently pleased by his demonstration of psychological insight. “Then again, the church has a basement full of homeless men. And I’m sure every one of them is taking a combination platter of antipsychotic meds. Maybe one of them forgot his dose.” Sturgis raised his left eyebrow.

  “Maybe.”

  “And then there’s the possibility that a random person on the street ventured through the gate.”

  She nodded. “That’s possible too.”

  “Three months ago, our rector launched a Christianity-Islam study group, and someone keeps spray-painting over the sign outside that advertises the group.”

  “Do you have the name of this person?”

  “No.”

  “Can you describe him or her?”

  “I don’t think anyone actually saw it happen. But clearly somebody in this neighborhood doesn’t like our cross-cultural open-mindedness.”

  Codella leaned closer to him. “What happened at tonight’s vestry meeting?”

  “The usual boring business.” Roger Sturgis rolled his eyes.

  “You don’t sound all that enthusiastic about your vestry duties, Mr. Sturgis.”

  “My wife’s the religious one. She comes from a long-standing St. Paul’s family. It’s a point of pride with them.”

  “So she volunteered you for the vestry?”

  “Let’s just say she does things for me, and I do things for her.” He smoothed his moustache.

  Codella found herself pitying the wife. “Tell me about Philip Graves.”

  Roger sniffled and rubbed his nose. “He’s a history professor at Columbia. Divorced. I don’t know him all that well. I don’t spend time with him outside of church.”

  “I get the sense you didn’t like him.”

  “Really?” He smirked. “Well, I don’t like a lot of people.”

  Codella didn’t like his supercilious grin. “What was the topic of tonight’s meeting?”

  “There’s never just one topic. Each of us heads a committee. We all report on our committee activities. Rose described the flower arrangements for the Palm Sunday service. That went on for twenty minutes. And then Vivian pitched an after-school reading program for children in the Frederick Douglass projects five blocks north. Then Peter gave a cemetery report.”

  “Were there any arguments or disagreements?”

  Roger squinted and shrugged. “Not really. I mean Peter made his usual complaints that we’re not investing enough capital improvement funds in our cemetery. He wants us to replace the crematorium furnace and upgrade the chapel. He’s a broken record about that. We’re all pretty sick of hearing it. But that’s nothing new.”

  “Anything else?”

  Codella watched him think for several seconds. “How can I say this delicately, Detective? Most of these vestry people desperately want to have a voice in something. They make everything into an issue. We once spent forty minutes on whether or not to s
erve Starbucks coffee at the social hour.”

  Codella stared at Roger for several seconds before she spoke. “You can go now, Mr. Sturgis. But I’ll probably have more questions for you tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Vivian Wakefield lowered herself into a chair on the other side of the rector’s desk. Her emphatically erect posture made Haggerty want to sit up straighter. He stared at the large gold hoops that dangled from her earlobes and the intricate salt-and-pepper braids. Was she in her sixties, or was she older? He couldn’t tell. The collar of her cream-colored blouse highlighted flawless skin, and it occurred to him for the second time tonight that she was a serene figure.

  As he took notes, she named the seven vestry members present at the night’s meeting and the order in which they’d arrived. And then, following his lead, she recalled what had happened when the meeting adjourned.

  “Philip stood up at ten forty-two. He was putting on his jacket when I began to collect the teacups.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  Vivian smiled. “There are two couches in the Blue Lounge, Detective, and I always sit on the one that faces the wall clock adjacent to the door. I confess I’m a clock watcher.”

  “Did Emily Flounders get up too?”

  Vivian nodded. “She left a couple minutes after Philip. She had to get home. Her daughter was arriving for a visit.”

  “How long were you in the kitchen?”

  “Hmmm.” She pressed her thin fingers to her chin. “I’m not sure.”

  Haggerty observed the junior churchwarden’s placid countenance. Was she a little too relaxed? And how was it that she knew the precise timing of everyone’s movements except her own? What, if anything, should he conclude from that? “Just give me a rough estimate,” he insisted.

  “Perhaps five minutes?” she asked rather than stated.

  “And when you returned to the lounge, was everyone else still there?”

  Vivian’s eyes focused on the bright round liturgical calendar on the wall to her right. “I think Peter Linton was there,” she said. “Roger might have been in the men’s room.”