"I dunno. I said, how can you love too much? Loving someone is a good thing - you don't have to be forgiven for that. I wanted to make him feel better, you know, but he said love could be terrible, he said love could be the Fifth Horseman and could kill you as dead as the other four, and then he started crying and I felt so bad I started crying, and I put my arms around him because I wanted him to feel better, but he didn't want me touching him like that. He kinda unwrapped me and gave back my hands and said let's keep praying, okay?, asking me real nice, 'cause that's the only thing will make it better, so we kept praying, and I didn't even know what he meant until Thomas told me."

Thomas's voice came quietly from the dining room.

"The Horsemen. She didn't know about the Four Horsemen, so I had to tell her what he meant by the fifth."

He was watching us from the mouth of the dining room. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were war, pestilence, disease, and famine - the four forces that could destroy the world. Herbert Faustina had added love to the list.

Thomas glanced at Dana, then me.

"We don't know nothin' about a murder. She didn't have sex with him or solicit anything, so this ain't prostitution. It ain't against the law to be paid for saying your prayers, am I right?"

"That's right. No harm, no foul."

"So what can they pop me for if I drove her to pray?"

"Nothing."

"All right, then -"

He nodded some more, still circling his commitment, then finally went for the meat.

"All right, he had a brown car."

Dana looked horrified.

"Thomas -"

He stopped her with the finger.

"That asshole Stephen hadda bring me into this, now I got to look out for me. All I did was drive you to pray, and now I'm gonna cooperate with the police and earn my love. You got to give to get, and I will NOT go to prison. This is me, being a good citizen. He had a brown Honda Accord. The left rear hubcap was missing and it had a big dent back there, right by the wheel."

I stared at him, then looked at Dana, but Dana had an empty expression like she didn't have any idea what he was talking about.

"Were you in his car? Did you go for a ride with him?"

"She didn't go anywhere with the man. She finished with the praying like she said, and came out and got in the car - my car - and told me about what they did, the prayin', and that's when I set her straight about the Horsemen. Then we talked about what we want to do, get something to eat or go have some drinks or come home, and she says, hey, look, that's him."