He listened for the sound of anyone nearby, then took out his pocketknife and went to work on the simple lock; opening it only took a few seconds. The door was less than half height and opened on a crawl space that was behind the altar but within the wall that separated the altar from the back rooms. The space went in both directions and apparently was used to service the lights that illuminated the altar.

He crawled a few feet to his left, to a small door in the wall. When he opened it, he found himself looking at a floodlight. The door wouldn’t be visible from below, and he couldn’t see down, only the back of the light fixture. He closed the door and crawled back out. He noticed that while the walls of the crawl space were made of aging plaster, everything was remarkably clean and dust-free.

Also, he thought, evidence-free.

—

Virgil walked back down the stairs and into the church, looked up at the half dome that framed the altar. The light fixtures were two-thirds the way up, shelf-like affairs of painted plaster that concealed both the lightbulbs and the service door.

As he headed down a side aisle to the front of the church, Brice called out, “Virgil—hang on.” Brice said something to the men and women gathered around the meeting table, then hurried over to Virgil, and asked, “Was that you rattling around above the altar?”

“Yeah, it was. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“What disturbed us was the possibility that it was raccoons or a skunk,” Brice said. “Law enforcement officers are a lot easier to get rid of.”

Virgil laughed, and Brice asked, “Did you find anything interesting?”

“Actually, no.” Virgil scratched his neck and looked up at the altar. “It’s just that . . .”

“You’re looking for a scam, a cheat,” Brice said. “You’re not buying into a miracle.”

“I’m not there yet,” Virgil admitted.

“Neither am I,” Brice said. “If you find that there’s something . . . awkward . . . going on, it probably won’t be directly related to the shootings. In other words, not a crime that would be of professional interest to you. I hope you’d alert me before any announcement.”

Virgil nodded. “I’m not in the business of making announcements even when there is a crime,” he said. “I let other people do that. If I see something . . . awkward . . . I’ll let you know.”

Brice said, “Thank you,” and clapped him on the arm.

As Virgil was leaving, he realized that whatever the origin of the apparition, it probably had nothing to do—and everything to do—with the shootings. He suspected that there would have been no shootings without the apparitions, but the immediate cause of the shootings was something else. As Danielle Visser had suggested, money could be one cause, although a twisted religious fanaticism could be another.

—