Shrake asked Virgil, “What are you going to do?”

“We haven’t talked to any of the people who run the church, except Father Brice. I’ll track down some of the church council and see if they have any ideas of what might be going on.”

“Weak,” Shrake said.

—

Jenkins and Shrake were out of town in twenty minutes, having spoken to Jared Andorra on the phone: he was in the Cities and could talk to them as soon as they got there.

Virgil had gotten Brice’s cell phone number and called him to ask about the church council. Brice had gone back to the archdiocese headquarters in St. Paul; Virgil had gotten the impression that he worked there as a kind of troubleshooter. “There’s almost always somebody from the council around the church in the afternoon,” Brice said. “Go on across and knock on the door.”

Virgil did that, and a Hispanic man opened the door and peered out. “You are the Virgil?”

“Yes. I need to talk to some members of the council.”

“Come in,” the man said, pushing the door open. Inside, Virgil found two more men and a woman mounting an elaborately framed, life-sized photograph of the Wheatfield Virgin Mary on the wall of the narthex. The photo had been taken by somebody with a decent camera rather than a cell phone. Thinking back to what Van Den Berg had said, threatening to blackmail Holland, Skinner, and Fischer, Virgil thought that the Virgin did resemble Fischer, except that the Virgin had dark hair, Fischer was a blonde. Looking closer, Virgil noticed that the Virgin had blondish eyebrows, which would be unusual for a brunette Israelite in the first century.

Something to think about.

As it turned out, all four people were members of the ten-person council. Virgil sat them down in the pews at the back of the church and interviewed them as a group. He learned nothing: nobody knew of anyone who was jealous of the church’s sudden fame, or resented it, or who’d wish to slow the stream of worshippers.

“Only two churches in town, and the other church—the pastor was happy with this vision,” one of the men said. “More people go to his church, too.”

—

Virgil went back to Skinner & Holland. He’d had breakfast but no lunch, so he bought a chicken potpie and a Diet Coke and carried them to the back room. He tried to think about the case but found he didn’t have anything of substance to think about. When he finished eating, he drove out to Glen Andorra’s house, went in, and spent the afternoon looking for anything that might be relevant.

Anything.