Grant had called Mrs. Thelma King of Cleveland, Ohio, to reinterview her. By this time, she was taking a break from traipsing through Trinity Church in Boston’s Back Bay (“. . . amazing stained glass, but truthfully, Commander, by the fifteenth cathedral it’s hard to differentiate”). Thelma had roused Grant’s interest because she’d stayed near Saint Patrick’s after the fire alarm had gone off. The first fire truck arrived twelve minutes after the alarm first rang, but the firefighters found the doors locked tight. Even though no one spotted smoke, they couldn’t get through the massive bronze doors, so they raced to the side of the cathedral and busted in there.

Thelma had been glued to her section of the sidewalk, intently watching as more fire trucks appeared, immediately followed by a half-dozen squad cars.

“When did you find out someone had been murdered?” Grant asked.

“It came out in dribs and drabs. First, I heard someone say there was a body inside. I thought it was the monk who chased us out—that maybe he’d died in the fire. Then I overheard one of the police radios saying it was actually that poor priest.”

When he asked if she’d seen the hooded monk again—possibly slipping out a side door—Grant could practically hear Thelma shaking her head.

“Not after we fled the sanctuary. Do you think he killed the priest?”

Grant sidestepped an answer and told Thelma they were still pulling facts together. He thanked her and hoped she enjoyed the rest of the tour.

And so went the morning. By the time they headed to Saint Patrick’s to check out the crime scene in the daytime, Grant was only too happy to leave the tiny office.

The rain had stopped and the sun was poking through cotton candy clouds gliding across the Manhattan skyline at a furious pace. Grant was certainly used to the dampness that pervaded his London streets, but the wind tunnel effect between the avenues, caused by being squeezed between skyscrapers and the Hudson and East Rivers, was an altogether new, and unpleasant, experience.

Sadly, the daylight investigation of the cathedral yielded nothing worth noting. The perpetrator either entered the church with the general public or snuck in the back service entrance. As for changing into the monk’s robe, that wasn’t caught on the surveillance cameras; neither was the alarm being pulled.

Grant didn’t think it a coincidence—with each successive murder it became apparent their quarry had carefully planned every step.

Grant and Frankel made their way to the office of Father Timothy Polhemus, the senior priest at Saint Patrick’s. With gray hair and rosy cheeks that Grant imagined came from sampling the sacramental wine a tad too often, Polhemus said his colleague Adam Peters was a priest loved by all and a threat to none.

“You don’t remember a disagreement with a parishioner?” asked Grant.