We made the usual small talk while we walked to the church—how long had he been here, what did he know about the town. He’d grown up in Atlanta; his mother had worked for Bayard Rustin, which was how he’d gotten his name. Lawrence was an adjustment, small town, small African-American community, but he loved the spirit in the place and loved bringing the university students into the St. Silas family.

“You weren’t here for the St. Silas hundred-fiftieth anniversary?” I asked.

He stiffened. “What do you know about that?”

“Just making conversation. I saw the photo in Ms. Albritten’s living room yesterday,” I said. “It wasn’t there today.”

“I came here the following year,” he said. “Sister Albritten wanted the picture next to her bed. I moved it for her this morning.”

“When you saw me coming up the walk?”

He gave another social laugh. “Chicago manners are more unceremonious than I’m used to, Detective. I always thought coming to Kansas meant moving north, but manners here are much more southern.”

I nodded, acknowledging the rebuke but still wondering about the picture. Our conversation had brought us to the church door, which meant an easy change of topic.

“God’s house ought to be open to anyone needing a sanctuary,” Clements said, “but we can’t afford to employ anyone to look after the place, and it’s sad but true that people help themselves to what they see sitting around, even in a church.”

The sanctuary had a musty smell, not unpleasant, but I could see the warping in the floorboards from the river damps. I asked him about floods, and he said they’d done the best they could with foundation protection. After the 1951 flood, the Corps of Engineers had put in dams along the river, which helped as well.

“Lately Kansas has been more plagued by drought than flood, so we forget the menace the river can offer.”

He led me into the cellars. I was worried about my precious Italian boots, but the floors were cemented over. Even so, water had pooled in the uneven surface and the walls felt clammy when I ran my hand over them. Clements turned on the lights—naked bulbs strung across low-hanging ceilings—and stood in a corner, arms folded, watching me with an ironic smile while I looked for any signs that someone had been here recently. Not so much as a La Perla bra strap or a USB port.

It was also cold. Someone desperate—a runaway slave, a black youth scared of the cops—might tough it out, but I doubted that Emerald Ferring would want to. She might have come up the hard way, but that had been fifty years ago.

Clements was parked behind the church. When he realized I was on foot, he offered to drive me to my own car, but he seemed surprised that I’d parked at the library.