Brice started toward the corner to cross the street, and when he was out of earshot, Holland said to Virgil, “You see, that’s the kind of thing we have to deal with—skepticism, even from the Church. Or maybe he played a little too much football.”

“Yeah?”

“Notre Dame. Linebacker. Had a lot of head-to-head collisions,” Holland said.

“A university devoted to the Virgin Mary—interesting,” Virgil said. “I think he’s probably trying to protect the Church. Its credibility,” Virgil said. “If the apparitions turn out to be a fraud of some kind, they don’t want to be out front vouching for their authenticity. Gettin’ punked.”

“Who would do that? Who could be cynical enough to defraud the public using the Blessed Virgin Mary?” Holland asked.

Virgil stepped out to the edge of the sidewalk and looked up at the storefront sign, “Skinner & Holland, Eats & Souvenirs,” and said, “I have no idea. Nice sign, Wardell.”

“Hey!”

Virgil said, “See ya,” caught a break in the traffic, jaywalked across the street, and called to Brice before the priest entered the church. “Father Brice! . . . George!”

Brice stopped on the steps leading to the church’s portal, and Virgil caught up with him. “If there are no services going on, you think it’d be okay if I looked around the church?”

“Sure. Let me know if you see anything that . . . I should be aware of.”

“I’ll do that,” Virgil said.

Across the street, Holland shook his head and disappeared into the store.

—

Virgil had been in a lot of churches, most of them Lutheran, but a few Catholic or other Protestant types, as well as a few temples, both Jewish and Buddhist. He’d been in one of them as a result of his job, two more as the result of his relationships with hippie women, but most he’d been dragged into as a result of his father’s ecumenical interests.

As a result, he knew something of traditional church layouts, and, though small, St. Mary’s was traditional, built on the plan of a Christian cross.

Immediately inside the front doors—the portal—there was a vestibule called a narthex. Through the narthex door, he entered the main part of the church, called the nave, which consisted of a clutch of pews with kneelers and was suffused with the odor of melting candle wax. The pews were divided by a wide center aisle like the upright of a cross, with narrower aisles running along the sides. Above these side aisles were colored plaster reliefs denoting the Stations of the Cross, and at the end of each aisle was a rack of red votive candles, about half of them burning.