Rick Liddy thought it over, rubbing his knuckles along the blue stubble on his jaw line.

"Let's say he couldn't figure out what to do with it. If he wants to knock John Tinker out of there so he can move in, who does he take that crap to? Fat sister? She wouldn't forgive the messenger. He could take it right to John Tinker and tell him to move over, or else. Or else what? That's what John Tinker would ask him. Does he find some anonymous way to slip it to Rolf Wintergarten? So Rolf shoots his wife, and then John Tinker and then himself. And when all the laundry is hung out to dry, Walter Macy might find himself kicked out by Mary Margaret, who would be very likely to find out what he did and how he did it."

"This stuff is too raw for publication anywhere," Erskine said.

"But maybe if some magazine had it locked in the vault, they could go ahead and do some action-proof articles on the Reverend Doctor John Tinker Meadows. Juicy ones."

"The sort of thing that Mrs. Owen from that Out Front magazine could have been looking for."

They were policemen and their minds worked in a police fashion, having been shaped and formed by early knowledge of the infinite capacity for evil and misadventure the human animal possesses. They sat silently, with Richard Liddy looking blindly at the security map that covered the blank wall, and Elly Erskine staring out at the curtain of rain beyond the windows and not seeing it.

Erskine spoke first.

"I'd say she wasn't alone with him more than one and a half minutes before I went hurrying into his office. She didn't ring true. She set off all my bells."

"Ninety seconds isn't much time."

"Time enough to set something up."

After another long silence Erskine said, "And it could be why he can't let go, why he can't tell me to quit. He wants it to look to me and maybe to his wife as if he is still gathering information, and has never made any attempt to use it."

"Provided he let his wife know about it. What are we trying to do here?" Liddy asked irritably.

"What have we got here anyway? Isn't this supposed to be some kind of church?"

"We're both members, Rick."

"We have to be. Sure. But aside from that, I would be anyway. It answers something for me. It fills up some kind of hole I used to have inside me. It means a lot to Martha and me.

It means we'll never lose each other, no matter what. How about you?"

"I don't know. The time I feel the presence of God is when I take time off and walk across the countryside. The growing things and the birds and the small animals. It fits together into a plan that I don't think could ever have happened by accident.

And I don't think I'm the end product of a series of accidents.

The machinery is too complicated."

"Okay, so the Church is valuable and worth protecting and we are part of the machinery of protection, Elly. So where do we go from here?"

"I think I better tell Doctor Macy I have to beg off because you've given me some extra duty and I won't have enough time."

"And see how he acts?"

"If he gets really nasty mad, we've been thinking bad thoughts. If he just blusters around a little, or acts relieved, are you going to try to follow up on anything?"

"I don't know. I just don't know. I might go back through the records and see if I can find out where he was on the afternoon and night of the seventh of May."

"As employees and as members of the Church, Rick, isn't it our duty to eliminate him as a possible choice?"

"If we can. Yes. I guess so. He works hard. He puts in long hours. He does all those programs and he's forever going out of town as a guest preacher. I wish the old man was still functioning. He was fantastic. You came aboard in time to hear him, didn't you?"

"He was great. Let me put it this way: he was so great I don't want Walter Macy, like they say, wearing his moccasins."

"A strong church shouldn't depend on just one man."

They sat in silence, thinking of their shared dilemma.

Erskine got up. He told Rick to keep three or four of the photographs, just in case. Keep them in the vault. He said he'd bring Rick a dupe of the tape. He said he'd report on Doctor Macy's reaction. And, holding the canvas bag under his raincoat, he headed down the hall toward the torrent outside.

When the heavy rain began, Jenny Albritton had to suspend her guided tour of Meadows Center, cancel the helicopter flight and drive the female reporter from Out Front back to the Meadows Center Motor House. She parked and went in with her to make certain her deluxe reserved rooms on the second floor in the rear, overlooking the fields and farmlands, were now ready for occupancy.

As she had been taking the woman around, to the Tabernacle, the University grounds, the Settlements, the Mall, she had been trying to get some clues about her attitude toward the Eternal Church. Carolyn Pennymark was in her late twenties, Jenny guessed, with a mop of tangled chestnut-brown hair, a small delicate face with pointed nose and slightly receding chin, prominent upper teeth. She wore glasses with very large lavender lenses and thin silver frames. She was slender, except for a meatiness of hip and thigh, wore a wrinkled brown blouse, baggy khaki pants and running shoes. She carried a huge canvas shoulder bag, and when she asked questions of Jenny Albritton, she taped the question and the answer on a little mini-cassette Sony, and from time to time she took photographs, using a Leica so old that the white metal showed shiny where she held it and pressed the shutter and the film advance.

When Jenny had glanced sidelong at Carolyn Pennymark several times, she'd decided that the woman had the face of a surly fourteen-year-old boy, blank, skeptical, indifferent and clean of any suggestion of makeup. Jenny left her at a table in the motel coffee shop, saying she'd be back in a minute, and soon she returned from the desk carrying a large brown envelope. As she sat, she placed it in front of Miss Pennymark.

"This is our press package, and I've added some other material that may help you understand us better. Now even though the Church organization had absolutely nothing to do with the...

disappearance of your colleague, we want you to be our guest."

The Pennymark woman stared gloomily at her.

"I don't like this shit, lady. I didn't come down on promo."

Jenny shrugged.

"It's nothing I had anything to do with. Mr. Efflander talked yesterday to Mr. Jeremy Rosen."

"Who is Efflander and who is Rosen? Just for starters."

"Mr. Rosen runs the conglomerate that owns your magazine and he is a friend and supporter of the Eternal Church. Mr. Efflander is the chief administrative officer here. It's all been arranged. Look, I think I know how you feel. I've worked on newspapers."

"I bet you have."

"Are you trying to be rude, Miss Pennymark?"

"I'm not trying to be anything at all, pal. I don't have to be anything or do anything except look this freak farm over and write a story." The no-color eyes behind lavender lenses were unblinking.

"All right, so this is awkward for you."

"I didn't say that."

"I wouldn't have set it up this way."

"I don't care what you've set up. What I don't want is any more guided tour, okay? If you have one all set up, forget it.

Guided tours have a funny smell. They steer you away from anything interesting."

jenny Albritton looked down at her fists and took a deep breath.