And scattered in and around the boxes and furniture I could see the detritus of decades of parish life. Hideous paintings in dusty, ornate frames. Every piece of broken equipment that had ever been banished from the offices above, including an IBM Selectric typewriter, an Apple IIe computer, and what appeared to be a 1950s mimeograph machine. Hulking unidentifiable papier-mâché objects left over from bygone children’s pageants. Why did we have a mini trampoline leaning in one corner?

Still, the undercroft was looking better than it had the last time I’d seen it. Shortly after Robyn’s arrival, Mother and the ladies of St. Clotilda had renewed their long-standing offer to reorganize all the church storage spaces, from attic to undercroft, and unlike Father Rufus, Robyn had given her approval. The crowded shelves of food that formed the food bank were gone, reorganized into a former junk closet upstairs. The dozens—perhaps hundreds—of cardboard boxes of old files had been sorted, weeded down to the essentials, and stored in neatly labeled waterproof plastic bins in the attic. The basement really was the last bastion of disorder—well, the basement and my office—and once the Christmas season was over and the guild had time to organize the rummage sale, even those would be gone. The very thought made me cheerful.

I ended my inspection at the back door, which opened into a concrete well where a set of steep stairs led up to the churchyard. The stairwell was screened by a thick privet hedge, which made the back stairs precisely the sort of discreet entrance I would use if I were a prankster looking to smuggle ducks, snakes, skunks, or other unwanted livestock into the church. I double-and triple-checked the locks on that door.

And then, having found no stowaways and no security breaches, I took the stairs back up to the ground level and reported to Robyn.

“All secure,” I said as I handed over the key ring.

“Thanks,” she said. “But keep the key ring. Until the prankster is caught, we’ll be locking the church a lot more. Which shouldn’t inconvenience anyone with a legitimate reason to be here—we must have a million spare keys out there in various parishioners’ hands—no reason you shouldn’t have one set, in case you need to get into your office.”

“Not that I’m complaining, but shouldn’t Riddick be helping with all this checking out and locking up?” I asked.

“He’s home with his migraine,” she said.

“Again? He had one yesterday, didn’t he?”

“He seems to be having a lot of them lately.” She shook her head. “Frankly, I doubt if we’ll see much of him as long as we have so many people from other congregations coming and going. Intruders, as he calls them.”

“He’s very protective of the church,” I said.