“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Everyone involved in this case will be there.” She thought of Father Frank O’Toole again. Would he show his face? “And Camille would want me to attend.”

“You don’t know that.” He rolled to a stop across the street from her garage.

“And that’s the problem, isn’t it?” she said. “I never will.”

“So what have we got?” Bentz asked as he and Montoya picked up ribs from a takeout place a few blocks from the station, then found a park bench where they could talk, pick at the bones, watch the storm roll in, and generally work out the day.

“You mean besides diddly-squat?” Montoya’s mood hadn’t improved much. Talking for hours with nuns who they were getting to know well enough to send Christmas cards to, being stonewalled by the priests, and trying to get a bead on the reverend mother had been draining for them both, Bentz knew, and Montoya, always more volatile, a “young buck,” wasn’t taking it well. Though he’d mellowed a little over the years—marrying Abby and becoming a father had helped—he was still explosive and impulsive. Working with Reuben Montoya was always a challenge and always exciting. Bentz bent rules; Montoya broke them.

They picked at their ribs, the sauce tangy and gooey, and watched ducks floating on a pond where the water was turning a worrisome shade of gray, reflecting the clouds rolling in. A woman was feeding them, and they were gathering around her, quacking and demanding bits of bread.

On the far side of the pond, a woman was trying to walk a black dachshund. He was straining on his leash, barking insanely first at the ducks and then at a squirrel that scurried up the bark of an oak tree.

“Stop it! Charlie! Come on,” the scrawny woman on the other end of the red tether commanded.

Charlie paid no attention, as disinterested in what she was saying as a teenage boy with a new video game.

“Why did Sister Lucia take off when she did? Why last night?” Bentz thought aloud.

“Maybe she knew that something was happening with Louise Cortez; she was the first one to find both the other bodies.”

“You think she was involved?” Bentz asked.

“With the murders?” Montoya sucked on a rib but shook his head. “No way. But she could have seen something that put her at risk. Cruz says she’s got some kind of ESP going on.” Montoya rotated his hand and shook his head, as if he didn’t really understand the phenomenon, but Bentz did, at least partially; his wife, Olivia, was either blessed or cursed with her own little bit of woo-woo, though it seemed to have died or gone dormant for a while. He hoped to hell it stayed that way.