We were back in his study, still thrashing it out over a second pot of tea, when the doorbell rang, a harsh, loud buzzing that fitted the priest’s own voice. He pushed back from the chair and moved out to the hall on his light dancing step. I followed: if Lacey was bait in a Global trap I didn’t want to be sitting under a crucifix waiting for it.

The star was alone, her cloud of red curls tucked inside a motorcycle helmet. No one would have known her in her nondescript jeans and jacket.

She put an arm around the priest. “I’m so sorry, Father Lou. Sorry about everything.”

“Oh? And what do you have to be sorry for, miss? Something that you and I should talk about privately in a confessional?”

Her head jerked up and she squinted over his shoulder down the hall. When she saw me she moved away from Father Lou, and away from her sad drooping. “Who is that?”

“That’s a detective, Magdalena,” the priest said. “She’s private, but she’s got some questions about Lucy you would do well to answer.”

Lacey turned toward the door, but Father Lou grabbed her left wrist in a businesslike grip and pulled her forward. “Your old playmate, and I have to call you to get you to come talk to me about him. That tells its own tale, Magdalena.”

“Isn’t this rather melodramatic?” Lacey said. “Midnight meetings in the church?”

“Why not?” I put in. “The whole of the last two weeks has been B–grade garbage. Did you talk to Alex Fisher about coming here? Is hers going to be the next knock on the door?”

“Alex doesn’t know I’m here. She’s making me nervous these days.”

“This something that came on you suddenly after you saw the news about Frenada?” I demanded.

“Girls—ladies, I mean. Let’s go sit down. More light, less heat.”

Father Lou put a muscular arm around each of us and propelled us back to his study. He came up to about my nose, but I wouldn’t like to test the strength in those arms. He poured cold tea into three cups and set the pot down with a firm smack on the tray.

“Now, Magdalena, you’d better tell me everything you know about Lucy’s death.” He spoke with an old authority over her.

“I don’t know anything about his death. But—oh, I don’t even know where to begin. I’m so confused.”

She blinked tears away from her large blue eyes, but I didn’t feel moved to pity, and Father Lou apparently didn’t either. He fixed her with a hard stare and told her to save her dramatics for her movies. She flushed and bit her lip.

“What about the cocaine,” Father Lou said. “Do you know anything about the drugs that were planted in his shop?”