A transept—an aisle like the crossbar of a cross—divided the pews from the altar and pulpit. There was a bell tower directly above the transept. From the inside, the tower revealed a domed ceiling, also made of painted plaster, with faded angels playing ten-foot-long Renaissance-style trumpets. At the left end of the transept was another rack of candles, this one with white tapers, most of them showing bright, flickering flame.

The Marian apparition had appeared over the altar, which was at the far opposite end of the church when seen from the entry.

Five or six men and three women had gathered at the right side of the transept, where a table and chairs had been set up for the management meeting.

As they walked toward it, Brice said quietly, “We have to have our meetings in the church. There used to be a rectory right outside, where the little park is, but it burned down thirty years ago. Never replaced.” He added, “Probably shouldn’t go wandering around the altar, but you can see the back parts of the church if you take the stairs over there.”

He pointed out the left side of the transept as he turned right, toward the men around the table. Virgil went left, out a door at the end of the transept, where he found a closet containing threadbare vestments and church paraphernalia, a tiny kitchen, two restrooms, a room full of new-looking cleaning gear—push brooms, mops, buckets—and a back door. The door opened to the parking lot. He went back inside.

Everything about the structure was old and not recently repaired, but originally had been well built and well fitted with brick and oak, and now it was very clean, as if every inch had been scrubbed by hand. Virgil realized that being the scene of a miracle, it probably had been.

A door that must have been directly behind the altar, which was on the other side of the wall, opened to a narrow winding stairway. Virgil took it up to the top of the tower. There was still a bell there, but both it and its clapper had been tied off with heavy blue nylon ropes that appeared to be years old, if not decades.

Openings to the street were covered with louvers. There were four newer-looking 4×12 Marshall speaker cabinets perched on metal racks so that they faced up and down Main Street, with two amplifier heads connected to a central control unit connected to a CD player. Three CD cases sat next to the player: three identical copies of the Bells of Notre-Dame.

Nothing to see up there, Virgil thought. He went back down the stairs; partway down, there was a small maintenance door in the wall. Virgil tried to open it, but it was locked.