'Reverend,' Cochrane asked, 'do you know anyone in the habit of using that area for any purpose?'
Fowler said he did not.
'But the only access is through the churchyard, isn't it?' Cochrane asked.
Chief Higgins interjected. 'Well, sir, no. Not exactly. The woods come out near the train station.'
'They do, do they?' asked Cochrane, intrigued.
'They also border upon more than three dozen private homes,' Fowler seemed anxious to add. 'Really, Officer, there're probably a hundred ways to get to that location. None of them are particularly well watched.'
'Of course,' said Cochrane. He looked at Laura again. Another man's woman. His attention lagged again and he wondered what such a woman had seen in her husband. Then, of course, he sensed it. Fowler was well-spoken, and handsome. Chief Higgins had already confided that their parish minister was from a moneyed Main Line family.
'I suspect that's all for today,” Cochrane said. “Thank you.'
What was it, Cochrane wondered, that he did not like about the minister? Then he realized: Fowler had the type of woman that Cochrane had once upon a time wanted.
'Officer?' Fowler asked, as they all stood and as Cochrane moved toward the door.
'Yes?'
'Tomorrow's Sunday,' he said. 'If you're here in the morning, St. Paul's would welcome you. We have services at eight and nine-thirty.'
Cochrane's response surprised the minister. 'That's very kind of you,' he answered. 'I'll try to be there.'
Once again, Bill Cochrane thought he saw something strange in the man's eyes.
'Wonderful,' Laura said. 'My husband gives an excellent sermon.'
'People like it because it's short,' laughed Fowler. 'They can get home to breakfast at a reasonable hour.'
Then Bill Cochrane and Chief Higgins were outside the Fowlers' home again and Chief Higgins was talking as they walked down the lane that passed the church. Higgins was saying how popular the new minister was, how he had just come from seminary at Yale, and how he had eased the transition from the older Reverend Dryer, who was now quite ill.
Cochrane listened with one ear as they walked past the white wooden church. Cochrane looked skyward toward the spire.
Then several thoughts came together. The steeple of St. Paul's was the highest manmade point anywhere in the area. And then he suddenly recalled why the name Liberty Circle had leaped out at him. The town was almost dead center on the radius map drawn by the Bluebirds of radio transmissions. His mind played Satanic games as he thought back to Wilhelm Hunsicker's description of an elusive spy.
Except for one detail: Siegfried was German. Wasn't he?
Cochrane was suddenly in his own universe with the implications.
'What's wrong with you, Mr. Cochrane?' Chief Higgins' voice was urgent. “Hey! Snap out of it! Then Higgins’hand was on Cochrane's shoulder, shaking him, jarring him.
'.. wrong with you?' Cochrane heard him say.
Cochrane snapped back to where he was. 'Sorry,' he said.
'We're strolling along here, sir, and you plain stopped walking. You all right?'
'Yes,' Cochrane said, realizing that he had in fact stopped walking when a certain realization was upon him. 'I was thinking. That's all.'
'Must have been some thought.'
'Yes. Frankly, it was. Something personal though. Sorry, I can't share it.'
Fact: no one had ever established that Siegfried was a native German. That had been supposition. Dick Wheeler's, seconded by Hoover.
And, fact: there was no such thing as coincidence in this line of work.
Bill Cochrane checked into an inn situated in nearby Moorestown. From there he telephoned Dick Wheeler in Washington. He was staying here for a few days, Cochrane explained. Siegfried had been there four or five days earlier and no one had seen a stranger. So perhaps the spy wasn't a stranger.
'Don't get carried away, Bill,' Wheeler warned. 'Why would Brother Siegfried kill in his own backyard?'
“Because he could? Because he had to?” Cochrane suggested.
Cochrane could almost smell the white pipe smoke seeping through the line. Dick Wheeler cast his own spells.
'I don't know,' Cochrane answered. 'But it's as warm a lead as we've seen. So I'm staying.'
TWENTY-NINE
The turnout for both church services that Sunday morning was larger than usual. The news of a murder within friendly Liberty Circle had spread through town. By Saturday evening everyone knew. By Sunday morning townspeople wanted to see each other and know that the world would safely go on. So they went to church.
St. Paul's had pews of deep burgundy, two side aisles, light oak panels on the floor and the walls, and a pulpit to the center left. An ethereal, benevolent fair-haired Christ appeared on the stained glass behind the altar. Bill Cochrane was only an occasional churchgoer, but even he was moved by the old church -- 1797, said the historical marker outside -- the congregation that filled it, the service, and the pastor.
Stephen Fowler was a man of great seriousness that Sunday morning. The congregation joined the choir in Holy, Holy, Holy! -the processional hymn-and after an opening prayer and psalm, those assembled sang A Mighty Fortress. 'At least one Lutheran hymn a week,' Reverend Fowler liked to tell parishioners with a wink.
Then came the sermon. Stephen Fowler met head-on the subject that troubled his parish most. He avoided words 'murder' and 'homicide,' but he talked of the 'tragedy' in their midst. He spoke eloquently of death as part of life, touched upon guilt and original sin, and then moved to both forgiveness and trust: trust in God, trust in Christ; trust in the teachings of Christ. Follow me.
'Some follow and some stray,' Reverend Fowler concluded. 'It is up to each of us to decide which we are. But I promise you this.' He held his congregation in rapt attention. 'Those who follow are not those who need have fear now. Fear,' he said, 'is for those who have strayed. Let us pray…'
The recessional hymn, appropriately, was Faith of Our Fathers, which keyed something within Cochrane and summoned up memories of a Methodist childhood in Virginia. After the service he felt good, as if the service itself had routed the specter of war and murder.
But, of course, it hadn't. Afterward, outside on a sunny cool November morning, he found himself glancing upward at the spire again. Then he saw Reverend Fowler and Laura exchanging greetings with the faithful in the vestibule, so he joined them.
'It was good of you to come,' Fowler said to Cochrane, shaking his hand. 'I like to see new faces each Sunday.'
'It was a lovely service,' Cochrane said. 'Thanks for skipping Onward, Christian Soldiers.”
Reverend Fowler chuckled. 'I'll tell you,' he said, lowering his voice, 'we get requests for that mawkish bombastic piece. Once a year will do us fine on that.'
'Anything new?' Laura asked Cochrane, changing the subject.
'On investigation? No,” Cochrane answered. “I suspect I'll be turning it over to the state police this evening.'
'Then you're not staying?' she asked.
Cochrane shook his head. 'I'm on my way back to Washington,' he said. 'Federal employees can only get away for so long before it starts to look like a vacation.'
'I'm on my way to New York, myself,' Fowler said. 'Later today. Sorry we're not going in the same direction. We could have had a fine talk.'
'Maybe some other time.'
'Maybe.' Bill Cochrane turned to Laura and looked into the loveliest pair of brown eyes he could ever have
