'Four hundred fifty-two dollars and seventy-five cents.' Doug grinned hugely.
'Yessss!' Betsy clenched her fists in triumph.
Clare and Doug signed off on the receipt slip and Doug zippered the deposit bag and dropped it into the lockbox.
'Are you two going out to celebrate your artistic and financial triumph?' Clare asked. She ushered them out of the sacristy and locked the door behind her.
Betsy shook her head vehemently. 'I'm going to go home, have a large bourbon, and crawl into bed. And I'm not getting out until Sunday morning.'
Clare laughed. 'You let me know if you want to stay there. I'm sure I can enlist someone to play guitar for us.'
'Not unless I'm dead. Guitars.' The organist shuddered.
'Are you headed for the rectory?' Doug asked. 'We'll walk you there.'
Clare checked her old steel Seiko: 8:45 P.M. Kevin Flynn had said 'they' would take Amado home. It probably meant he would return. Kevin. Not Russ. It probably wouldn't be Russ.
'Clare?'
'Sorry.' She smiled at the Youngs. 'No, I'll stay here until Senor Esfuentes's ride comes for him.'
She made her farewells to the Youngs in the narthex. The choristers had gone, leaving only Amado, wrestling the large upright vacuum cleaner into position in the north aisle. He was getting adept at doing everything one-and-a-half-handed. She cruised the pews, looking for hymnals or prayer books out of place, picking up discarded concert programs.
She had reached the front of the church again when the inner doors opened. She looked up, but instead of Russ or Kevin she saw two big, burly country boys, one with a reddish ZZ Top beard, the other with an oh-so-fashionable mullet. She stepped into the center of the nave, blocking their path. 'May I help you?' she said. The bearded guy looked familiar, but she couldn't place where she had seen him.
'Well, ma'am,' the mullet began, and the bearded one said, 'There he is,' and they both turned toward Amado with the coordination of sharks spotting a tuna.
'C'mere, lover boy,' the bearded man said. 'We wanna have a talk with you.'
Her sexton froze behind the vacuum cleaner. His caramel skin was pasty, throwing his scraggly beard and mustache into high relief. Clare doubted he understood anything they had said, but he didn't need to. The smell of violence clung to the intruders, filling the church. The kid shivered, toppled the vacuum into the aisle, and rabbited toward the hallway behind him.
'Hey!' ZZ Top roared. He and the mullet accelerated down the center aisle. Clare, seeing five hundred pounds of good ol' boy bearing down on her, whirled and dashed for the same doorway Amado had disappeared through. Hide. Where? Everything still unlocked had to be locked by key. She'd never have-
Just short of the door, she lunged sideways, to where the processional cross and torches were cradled in their wooden brackets. She grabbed the processional cross and spun back toward the invaders. 'Stop!' she shouted. Amazingly, they did so.
She held the heavy six-foot-long oak staff cross-braced in her hands, barring the way like Little John at the ford. The gleaming cross screwed atop it was a foot high, cast in solid bronze, weighty enough to break bones. 'Get out of here,' she said, her voice hard.
'What are you, a ninja? Get outta my way,' the mullet said. He feinted toward the door she blocked. Clare rammed the butt of the staff into his chest and, as he folded with an explosion of hacking coughs, hit him over the head with a crack that sounded like a branch being snapped in two. He dropped.
'What the hell!' The bearded guy stared at the fallen man. 'What did you do to my brother, you bitch?'
He lunged toward her. She tried the ramming trick again, but he dodged left, reaching for the staff. She let it drop out of one hand and swung it low with the other, slamming into his knees and calves, hard enough to hurt, not-
'You goddamn bitch!' He lurched forward, hands outstretched, deflecting her blows with forearms, left, right, left. She was backed against the wall beside the door, unable to get the leverage to make them count. He got his hands on the processional cross and shook, hard, Clare clinging on, jerking back and forth, knowing if she let go he'd use it to beat her unconscious. Bad breath and spittle and a stream of monotonously vile words spewed into her face. She brought her head back and then forward, fast, her forehead connecting to his nose with a crunch that left her eyes watering.
He howled. Rammed himself into her, oaken staff and all, splattering her with the blood running out his nose and driving the breath from her body. She stomped, stomped again, trying to get his instep, his foot, anything.
She heard a loud click.
'Step away from her or I blow your brains out,' Russ said.
The bearded man let her go. Raised his hands. Stepped back. Clare sagged against the wall, clinging to the cross.
'On the floor,' Russ said.
The bearded man looked at him sullenly. 'She attacked me! I was just-'
Russ holstered his Glock, drew back his arm, and smashed his fist into the side of the man's head. Clare shrieked. The bearded man reeled, and Russ punched him, once, twice, his back and shoulders working, until the attacker fell to his knees. Russ reached for him, twisting his fists in the front of his sweatshirt, ready to haul him up and pound him again. Clare dropped the processional cross and grabbed Russ's arm, trying, without much success, to drag him away from the injured man.
'Stop!' she said, her voice a strangled whisper in her throat. 'Stop!'
He looked at her with eyes she didn't recognize. 'You're bleeding.'
'It's not my blood. He was after Amado, not me. It's not my blood. I'm okay.'
He shook himself. Looked at Clare's assailant, who was bleeding copiously into his beard. Released his sweatshirt. 'Down on the floor,' Russ said. The man slumped forward without protest this time, spread-eagled on the polished wood.
From outside, she heard the rising and falling of a siren. Russ yanked at the handcuffs on his belt. He got down on one knee and clicked them around the bearded man's beefy wrists. 'You have the right to remain silent,' he said.
She raised the cross off the floor with shaking hands.
'You have the right to an attorney.'
The intricate bronze work was spotless.
'If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you.'
She drew her sleeve across her mouth, wiping away the blood and spittle, and kissed it.
'Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.'
In thanksgiving. In apology.
The siren broke off, and a moment later the inner doors swung open. Kevin Flynn charged into the nave, his gun out, followed by Amado, who stayed well behind, clutching his cast.
'Call an ambulance, Kevin,' Russ said, levering himself off his knee. The younger officer skidded to a stop, his eyes widening at the prone bodies and blood-spattered floor.
'What the-?' He looked at Russ. 'What happened?'
Russ glanced at the two on the floor. Then at her. 'They were stupid enough to mess with Reverend Fergusson.'
XII
Her kitchen light was on. He hadn't known if it would be. It had been at least two hours
