He noticed a few other cops in plainclothes, mingling with the crowd, some even subtly taking photographs and videos from hidden cameras; it was so easy to do these days with cell phones and pocket cameras.

Montoya caught Bentz’s gaze and nodded when the priest, the often-missing Father Thomas, now standing at the mic, had mentioned the Wembleys, the couple who had been Father Frank’s alibi on the night of Camille Renard’s homicide. Arthur and Marion, solid parishioners, had made a generous donation of their beloved Steinway piano.

Montoya had done his research on the devout couple. They were giving most of their earthly possessions to charity, as they’d recently moved from a four-thousand-square-foot mini-mansion on the Mississippi to a small apartment in an assisted-living complex.

Montoya had talked to the couple. After spending most of their lives amassing material possessions, the Wembleys were now more concerned with the hereafter than their collection of classic cars, art, and their beloved Steinway Louis XV, now up for auction.

And there was something more he’d seen when visiting the aging Wembleys at the hospital, where the old man was fighting a losing battle with the Grim Reaper. Though they played the part of the loving, dedicated couple, there was something that didn’t sit quite right with Montoya, as if the wife wasn’t as dependent upon Arthur as he was on her. Probably because of the old man’s declining health, Montoya told himself, but he didn’t quite buy it.

It was almost as if a lie had been flitting around Wembley’s hospital room, the truth chasing after it.

Or was he imagining things, seeing falsehoods because he expected them?

Tonight there was a buzz of excitement in the dining area, a charge of electricity. Unfortunately, he thought, it wasn’t only because of generous and giving souls ready to pay far more than items were worth for a good cause. No, there was more going on here; the newspeople were here en masse, hoping for a story, one tied to the macabre murders at St. Marguerite’s.

Sick freaks!

And the fact that the auction had sold out was no doubt due in part, not to the local celebrities who were donating their time, nor the good feeling of donating to a worthy cause, but to the bit of scandal associated with St. Elsinore’s.

The two women who had been killed had been orphaned themselves, put up for adoption from within the very walls that were now scheduled to be sold and probably demolished. Camille Renard, a novitiate, had been pregnant, rumored to have been involved with Father Frank O’Toole, the handsome priest who was here tonight.

Free publicity, gruesome though it may be.

Yeah, there was a current of electricity moving through the crowd, and some of it could be attributed to the heinous crimes that Montoya was investigating.