 
TRUE FOR X

WILLIAM WHITE-ACRE

Copyright 2017 by Smashwords Edition

*Other books by the author:

Surrounded By Mythology and I, The Hero

white-acre.wixsite.com/photography

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Chapter 1 The Price Of My History

Chapter 2 New As Old

Chapter 3 Lost Years

Chapter 4 Re-Entry

Chapter 5 Westward

Chapter 6 Squaring A Circle

Chapter 7 Nom De Meurte

Chapter 8 Gardarenes

Chapter 9 House Of Worship

Chapter 10 Golgotha

Chapter 11 It's In Leviticus

Chapter 12 An Unspoken Axiom

If A is predicated of all B and B is predicated of all C, then A is predicated of all C.

Aristotle

Organon

Chapter 1 The Price Of My History

Where to begin?

Let's start with my age. That seems like as good a place as any to begin. I am now forty years old and as a woman that is not a good milestone to celebrate. Not in the least. With menopause on the horizon, and half my life stretched out behind me, I have to keep reminding myself to keep looking forward--towards the end, you might say. Accumulated experiences have piled up in my memory banks, jumbled together, gathering dust and resisting any attempts to revive them. Not all, of course, because there are some that are always eager and willing to rush forward and remind me just what actually happened. Unfortunately they are, for the most part, uncanny in their precision. There are some memories that bring a mental shudder as I attempt to resist them.

Each morning brings another confrontation with my mirror, the unholy arbiter of my predicament: my tormentor. Oh, of course, there are the timeworn wrinkles to behold, the ones that are, so far, resisting any number of over the counter creams that I dutifully plaster on each and every night. I slide into bed smelling of toxic and fruity emollients and appearing for all the world like a refugee from a traveling kabuki troupe. These nocturnal masks seem to cost more and more as the birthdays mount up. Even though there is a persistent voice in my head telling me that the public can stand to see a few pesky crows feet, I am susceptible to the very next product on the market that promises me I will once again regain my youth.

Wrinkles are everyone's calling cards, the imprints of a life lived, or so said some female writer who was either being unintentionally humorous or just out and out phony--probably both. To me, however, they were the least of my problems. I was, in a word, a freak. Certainly freakish. Carny-like. I was, without exaggeration, an oddball character in one of those experimental novels no one reads. No, to be more accurate, I was like one of those characters in a graphic novel, the ones that almost always go on to be immortalized in film, a cult film, the type that are featured around mid-night on college campuses and attended by the wanta-be cognoscenti with a Liberal Arts mentality. Unlike me, unfortunately, the protagonist would be forever locked into that chronological sweet spot, say 30ish, preferably before childbirth and the inevitable cruel mid-driff expansion.

I was that "chick with the sick tatts," or so said one of my new found fans, a leering doorman at a swank hotel in Manhattan, the establishment that had been selected by a publishing house for my digs, a place to reside while they wooed me during the bidding war that had broken out over my soon to be second book. Bernard, my agent, was down right agog over the attention being paid to his client. I had become priority one, with even a personal assistant assigned to me, someone to cater to my every whim, or so said my agent without even a hint of a chuckle. He was all business. Where before my little writing endeavor had been relegated to an underling, one of the many just graduated BA candidates with the requisite Ivy pedigree, this time around the Big Kahuna himself was taking an interest.

Before, in the old times when I was just a shrink with a topical story to tell, one that had filtered through many news cycles before leaching into cable TV land, this was to be different. I was now a legitimate cultural touchstone. A phenomenon. I had a certain type of Q-factor, albeit one that just didn't quite fit the norm, but nevertheless one that registered like a clanging bell. There was money to be made.

Doctor Sarah Greene has survived a harrowing ordeal, and was now forever joined to a "perverse persona," or so said a TV talker with a show on one of those network cable off-shoots. Going against motherly advice and personal prohibition, I had gone on said show and given my side of the story, in between rapid commercials and a mouth breathing host's commentary. As expected, I was made to reveal at least one of my tattoos, complete with description. Yes, it was humiliating. However, as I continue to maintain, more to assure myself than anything else, it was only for the possibility of a thorough explanation of the events surrounding my captivity etc. More probing questions would follow.

Bernard had talked me into going on the damn show in the first place. It was valuable P.R. I was a national sensation. At least I didn't succumb to his browbeating and agree to go on one of those reality shows. He had wanted me to sign on for some show where I would have to do ball room dancing in front of the nation each week, complete with revealing costumes. "The people want to know. Everything," he had informed me, almost breathlessly. I just had to supply it, the "everything," from beginning to end. TV producers were salivating. The public had a right to know. One of the minions in my publicity agent's office had actually said something to that effect. Straight faced. While I, the putative victim, laughed in his face. And yes, I now had a publicity agent, to go along with my other agent, of the literary kind. My entourage was growing.

"Disconcerting," was all my father had to say, as he tried valiantly not to make eye contact with his only daughter, the erstwhile therapist, the one now who had the golden touch. I was, or had become in a very short time, a corporation of sorts. What next, my own call letters on the Nasdaq? Incorporated. Accountants, plural. A headquarters, commissioned logo on the facade, tucked away in a corporate park, with the usual glass facade and snooty receptionist manning the front desk, spoke of my arrival in the big time.

Jason, my husband, the real hero after all, was amused by it all, as he ducked interview after interview, choosing not to participate in any of it. A camera crew had followed him around campus 24/7 a few weeks after he saved his wife's life. Why not? He was telegenic, able to get off several witty one liners, some even profane, as he told the TV people just what he thought of their current mission to capture him on film. Made for good TV, so said one of the long line of contemptible producers loitering around our small town tucked up in the backwaters of upstate New York. Unlike his wife, who was, in a word, a whore for the media, Jason Finley was having none of it. And that included his own book deal and numerous appearances on TV shows, radio shows, and the odds and ends of the print media, complete with photo layouts. No dice. He had principles, or, at the very least, a fine tuned sense of where his privacy started and ended.

I didn't. I had to write another book. It was ordained by two things: one, I had already written one before, and, two, I felt the need to detail my experience. At least that is what worked for me when it came time to face myself in the mirror each and everyday. I had lost a good friend in Peter. I had almost been killed. I was now scarred physically and emotionally for life. Where and how should I conduct any sort of catharsis? Make it public. Tell everyone. My publicist and agent certainly agreed with that. Ring the cash registers.

As if to make the circle complete, right after my second book, I, The Hero, was published I received a congratulatory letter from Dr. Rey Flowers. You didn't need to read between the lines to see that he was mocking me for my eagerness in pursuing notoriety. Not to mention money. Being ridiculed by the one person who had landed me on this carpet ride of fame and, yes, infamy, was difficult to take. Now two books into this niche, this place in contemporary history, I didn't need to be hectored by a man with an inmate number.

What I needed was perspective. Something new. My family was still ensconced on our farm in upstate New York. The parents were still down the road a bit. Although they were older and my father was now retired from teaching, we still saw them frequently. Their health was holding and even though they talked of fleeing to a warmer climate I knew they wouldn't ever leave the small town tucked away in the middle of nowhere.

Jerry, my son, was in grade school and doing fine. He could be overly energetic at times and was suitably defiant to parental control on occasion but was nevertheless handling his mother's fame okay. For the most part, the kids in his class treated him like the kid who had the horses and was good at Little League baseball. Nothing more or less. He was popular and brought home good grades, what more could a mother ask for?

As to my husband, Jason, well, he had changed somewhat. He had grown more suspicious of everything and everyone who had any connection to the media. He was even hostile about it, refusing to speak to them, and that included exchanging pleasantries. "My people," as I jokingly called them, soon learned not to discuss anything with him. There had been times when my husband wouldn't field a phone call or pass on pertinent information that was connected to my new career. It was embarrassing but understandable.

I did have a new career, or, at the very least, a vocation. I had resigned my position at the college because it was, you know, sort of hard to conduct lectures with post-adolescent boys drooling in the aisles. To be clear, I hadn't suddenly become "all glam" or anything but when it came to tattoos and where they might be etched on specific body parts there was a certain element of the erotic about it. Don't ask me to define it, or describe it. The human mind is a fragile and mostly immature instrument that is, apparently, easily stimulated.

The college understood and were probably secretly happy that I removed myself from the line up of professors; although one dean did call begging me to reconsider. Somehow he had the idea that by having me teaching there they would reap more Alum money. Most didn't think so. In fact, there had been rumblings from some of the bigger donors that maybe the college and my name should not be linked again or they might just yank their yearly donations. Having a tattooed cultural sideshow freak on the faculty somehow didn't translate to superior academic standards apparently. Not at Corbitt. That isn't to say I didn't have offers at other institutions of higher learning, and that included one or two of the more esteemed Universities around. Don't think that didn't disgust my father, the history professor, the one who had never gotten over not getting tenure at...well it was an old wound that didn't need, you know, salt added to it.

I rejected each and every offer. Easily. Okay, there were a few that turned my head and triggered visions of me, on campus, with a loyal following of tweedy students, making my way across the manicured quad. Dreams die hard. And why not? It was a two way street. The fine institutions would reap what they will from my fame, while I get a nice dose of legitimacy. It worked both ways. Mutually beneficial. I didn't even have to give up my home life. I could just jet in and give lectures a couple times a week, then retreat to my colonial home, with horses, all the while maintaining a dual existence.

Fantasies aside, I stayed away from academia. It made my parents happy. Ditto with my husband, and presumably my son. It made me happy also--deep down. Admittedly I liked the idea of being credentialed in such a way. Saying you were a professor at so and so made for some heady ego boosting. The fact that I didn't really deserve to be there didn't need to register. What papers had I written? Where was my academic cred, so to speak? Hey, I had written two books. Best sellers. I couldn't walk down the street without someone accosting me for an autograph. I was more famous than...and then, of course, that was the problem. I was famous for being infamous. I was nothing more than a construct, one that might easily fit into a really bad novel.

In order to be who I was, or, rather, who I had become, required a large dose of sublimation. There was the sexual component of course, but it also reached into the realm of a certain awareness plateau. Not to dredge up old and forgotten psychological mumbo-jumbo, but Dr. Howard Tilson, a noted therapist of yesteryear, once said that mankind exists in any sort of coexistence because they are able to forget who they really are at any given time. True? Maybe. As to me, it was my one mechanism, the one psychological attribute that got me through the day when it came time to place myself out there. Pinpricks of awareness were forever sticking me in the recesses of my mind whenever I was made to display my plumage, if you will. I always knew somewhere in my brain that I was, on whatever level, out there on display regardless of the ridiculous factor. Being able to ignore silent derision is a defense mechanism that comes in handy when you are sophistically excelling at being absurd.

"You could at least go for a consultation," my mother was fond of announcing, repeatedly, referring to the world famous doctor who had promised to remove all my tattoos with some new sophisticated laser machine. He had assured me that there would be no residual scarring, even after he lasered me within an inch of my life. I was skeptical, of course. Don't think I hadn't thought about it. Researched it. Delving into all the latest improvements, drilling deep into what the Internet had to offer on the subject. I wanted, most of all, to be normal again. Yet, in the end, I hadn't done anything about my skin deep plumage. Subconsciously, I wanted my "tatts" to be billboards for my guilt.

I had survived. A lunatic and his minion had taken me to the brink and then left me changed, physically and otherwise. Two thirds of my epidermis was covered with tattoos of varying colors. My physicality had been forever altered. Being in the proximity of an untimely death was just the beginning. I was now made to endure a lifetime of...of difference. Sarah Greene was different. The attempt on my life was receding into history, my personal history, while the present was on display each and every hour.

Disrobing brought me back, back to my horror. There, and there, were the reminders, colorful displays of artistic and creative lunacy. What was the mindset for a person undergoing the application of a tattoo? I would never share in that. I had been the unwilling recipient. All of my female students, the ones with the emblematic tattoos etched into the small of their backs or around the ankles, had set out to rearrange their appearances. A pretty flower here, or maybe an ersatz panel of deep black embroidery snaking along the waistline there, it had been the result of an intent, however hasty or inadvisable. I hadn't reached a decision. I did not set out to costume my skin. Now, I was in full regalia, layered with intersecting lines and bursts of color. A few years removed from the frightening ordeal and I was still on occasion reduced to tears whenever the mirror told me the truth.

And now, at this juncture in my life, I was still maintaining my home in upState New York. At times it was claustrophobic in the way only small towns can be. I knew everyone, or, at least, they all certainly knew me. I was the local celebrity in their midst. Whether this was a good thing for the village was, naturally, debatable. I had not met with any real hostility, if you subtract the occasional stare and muttered recognition. My parents had been pillars of the community, as they say, for a very long time. As to my husband, well he was one of the most popular members of the Volunteer Fire Department, which goes a long way in describing his popularity with the locals.

I had, to my continuing consternation, a collection of ever evolving groupies; or so they were called by my ever vigilant husband. He found them, for lack of a better word, scary--and pathetic. They were, both. Finding them on any given day loitering around the town or even at our house was disconcerting to say the least. I had been urged by my publicist to hire body guards but found that option ridiculous.

Some of the more persistent ones had taken to hassling my mother and father at their home. Not good. My father, who was becoming more and more cantankerous in his old age, pulled no punches when it came time to root them off of his property. An old (non-working) Civil War gun replica had played a part on more than one occasion. I personally thought rousting out "lunatics" (my father's word) was good for his state of mind, as it tended to lift up his spirits somewhat. My mother, well, she had to be disabused of the idea that serving the latest of her baking creations didn't need to be offered to everyone that showed at their front door.

We were living a bucolic life. Despite the intermittent interruptions by my overeager fans, my husband and I settled into our homestead. For his part, he had the Fire Department gig, along with a set of friends to share hunting and fishing escapades with. His days as a detective for the DC police department had been, finally, left behind him. No longer did I catch him staring at the framed commendations and plaques adorning the walls of his study tucked away on the first floor, northwest corner, next to the pantry. In fact, he seldom ventured in there anymore. It had taken some years but he had managed successfully to separate himself from his past. As the years stretched out, and he set roots down in upstate New York, the phone calls from his buddies on the force called less and less. His times on the Internet perusing the Washington Post dried up as well. I suppose the final milestone of his newfound life was when he tossed his Washington Redskin baseball cap in the garage, never to wear it again.

We kept busy. Our son took up a great deal of our time, naturally. There were school events to attend. I had my secondary career as a writer to cultivate, which took me to New York City quite often. Relatives came and went. We decided to breed some horses. My mother even talked me into trying my hand at farming, which was, in the end, a bad idea. Cultivating crops was way too intensive for an amateur like myself; although we did manage to grow some nice tomatoes and, of all things, strawberries. It was a rural life circa 21st century.

Chapter 2 New As Old

There was a void in my life, something that couldn't be ameliorated by being a wife and mother. I had lost a good friend. Peter had died. We had delved into something that resulted in his death. That I was harboring a sliver of survivor's guilt was certain; although by any estimation there was nothing that I could have done to prevent his death. We were dilettantes and we had been scorched by our own naivete as we set out to probe into the criminal element. Death had been the end result. I had spent six months in therapy afterwards. Grief was settling into my thoughts, while I hoped to pull myself back, back from a place where I was sure I would be trapped. My mind had boxed me in, leaving me unable to evaluate my actions and my survival adequately. Jason, my loving and caring husband, had tried to shore up my resistance to depression but was ineffective. His clumsy attempts made me love him even more, but I knew that there was an element of some elementary PTSD operating somewhere in my psyche.

My therapist, a colleague from the college, had brought me along to a point where I could begin to discern the edges of my sorrow and, perhaps, meet them head on. Oddly, I had arrived at a plateau on my own, one in which I took to confronting myself in the mirror, the mirror that displayed a reflection of my new self, the new identity where I was now a living caricature of a victim--a survivor.

An unraveling had only just begun. There were a good many signs, I suppose, not that I picked up on any of them. I was too focused on myself and my mental recovery to notice. Being another statistic was little solace when it came time to dole out blame. It all happened in slow motion, creeping up on us and then we were suddenly broad sided, not unlike a car wreck at an intersection. The metaphor holds because my husband and I were at a crossroads in our marriage.

We had been married just long enough to realize our mutual shortcomings, especially after having survived some pretty tumultuous years together, ones in which our love had been tested on many different levels. Finally, it frayed and then broke. We were going in different directions and that is, without a doubt, the simple explanation.

The bulk of the blame lies with me. I will admit that right up front. Being psychologically whipsawed by my ordeal worked to undermine our marriage. Jason, to his inestimable credit, was always there for me, emotionally and otherwise. I had lost a friend and I was battling a raging case of guilt induced depression, leaving me with no excuses, of course, but I was damaged, psychologically and otherwise.

Our marriage suffered. We went through the motions for what seemed like a very long time before we finally confronted the problem. Jason, in his usual fashion, came right out and asked: "Are you ever going to be the same again?" I had no answer for him. All of my clinical training was proving to be useless against my mounting psychological bind that I had fallen prey to.

We tried some counseling, both individually and together. My parents made attempts to alleviate my anguish, but to no avail. Our son, Jerry, was shielded from most of the turmoil for the most part, as we kept up a happy facade for appearances sake. Behind the scenes things were crumbling.

As a stopgap measure, at the urging of my mother, I agreed to see the noted dermatologists, who did indeed remove some of the tattoos, the ones that were most visible. This allowed me to wear short sleeve blouses again at least, but was little consolation really. Lasering away skin deep artwork left by a psychopath went only so far when it came time to remember what had happened. After more than several office visits, I gave up and retreated to the relative safety of my home.

You hear people say about failed marriages that the parties simply grew apart. I suppose that was true for us, Jason and I, even if it was accelerated. He had established a life for himself in our small town. I, to my surprise, hadn't. My youth had been spent there and after I left for college, then moving more or less permanently for my career, I couldn't seem to merge with the surroundings again. Even though my parents were there and fond memories popped up everywhere I went, I didn't feel connected to the town anymore.

I had experienced tinges of this overall feeling even before my ordeal. We had set up a nice home and were working on a family. I guess most people would have been envious of our lifestyle. We had our health, friends, colleagues, relatives, and were financially comfortable. Still, I always felt a vague sense of emptiness. "Aren't you the spoiled one," Peter would probably say if he were alive today, chiding me for being so self-absorbed. He would be right, naturally, especially when you looked at it as stats on a spreadsheet. Yet, is that how life is to be measured?

Many metrics can be applied to living life. There are cultural cairns that might lead the way and they do provide for a type of roadmap when it comes time not to get lost. Unfortunately, I had gotten lost. Yet even the DSM V couldn't describe my psychological affliction. What I was experiencing was almost impenetrable. Somehow I had walled myself in.

One day, as I was sitting in my study, where I had begun to retreat to more and more often for privacy, I made a decision. Later on that day, at dinner, I told my husband. I would be leaving for New York City to live, further explaining that it was only a trial separation. "Do what you have to do," was all Jason said. There was no more discussion of the matter. We didn't engage in any screaming matches. I shed no tears, either. It was all...clinical.

I then informed my parents of the new development. My mother was aghast, telling me: "Hon, are you sure you know what you are doing?" My father eyed me for a moment, shrugged, then muttered something under his breath, before announcing, "I don't need to tell you that this is a momentous decision you are making. I hope it doesn't come back to haunt you later on." And then with a resolve I didn't know I possessed I jumped in my car and drove to the city.

Bernard had sublet an apartment for me in Chelsea. "What are agents for?" he exclaimed when I thanked him for his help in landing me a place to stay. He had met me that first day I arrived in the city, standing in front of the walkup with a welcoming gift of flowers and a smile. Latching onto one of my bags, he escorted me to my new (temporary) home. While I got settled in he peppered me with innocuous questions, hoping to steer the conversation towards my future plans, as in just when I was going to be writing again. In the publishing world the next book was always just down the road.

"I haven't given it much thought," I told him, immediately receiving a grimace in return.

"You've got a good story to tell, Doctor Greene," he chirped, literally wiping the grimace away with the back of her hand. "Lotta people like to read about that crazy nut and the whole tattoo thing, you know. A whole bunch of people," he added for emphasis.

"They would," I had said, teasing.

He ignored my remark then said, "This apartment looks like it was tailor made for some serious contemplation and--"

"Writing," I interjected, filling in the blanks.

Finally acknowledging my sardonic tone, he said, "Your loyal public awaits."

Of course at that point I had written all of one book and even though it had been a best seller I never considered myself to be indispensable in the literary world. Far from it. I knew though from experience that dollar signs and cash registers were the engines of American Lit and that made me bankable. Lined up behind my agent was a group of people salivating at the prospect of another non-fiction blockbuster, a line of business people that stretched from New York all the way to LA. In fact, my first book had been optioned and sold to a studio and was at that moment being filmed on location somewhere in the US. The only reason it hadn't been committed to the silver screen to date was because several producers had fought over it in an intense bidding war in Hollywood. To me, I was blissfully unconcerned, with only one reservation and that was just how they were going to portray me and how pretty the actress was going to be.

So I knew it would all begin anew. Another book, this time one that is much more salacious, would bring out the sharks eager to get their grubby hands on another project. This time around would be easier because, as you know, sex sells. There would be naked bodies embroidered with tattoos and layered on top of that would be murder. America's appetite for such things was insatiable. Throw in a dose of pedigree from my short career as a writer and you had the makings of a string of hit films. Investors would be lining up to sign on the dotted line, gladly opening up their bank accounts.

I answered the call. It might have taken me awhile, but I did as expected. The one bedroom walkup in Chelsea, with the leaky bathroom faucet and uncooperative AC wall unit, proved to be my sanctuary. I burned through several first chapters of my book in record time, hardly ever leaving my place thanks to New York's well developed delivery system, where you can get just about anything delivered to your door, from Chinese take-out to even my washed and folded clothes. This was an invaluable service for me, allowing (enabling) me to withdraw further into my own universe.

Six months passed before I realized it. Jason had agreed to shuttle Jerry down to the city for visits and we maintained the fictionalized version of our former marriage, explaining to our son that "mommy" was working and had to stay in New York for a little longer. It wasn't a perfect solution. We realized a reckoning was coming. Jerry, our son, would sooner or later have to be told that his parents had probably passed the point of no return.

Jason and I hadn't discussed it much, if at all. Being verbal wasn't my husband style, you might say. He had tried to understand my predicament. I had tried to explain it. There had been no meeting point. My escaping to New York had, mostly, made matters worse, the only accomplishment being my writing output. Putting words to paper hadn't removed my, for lack of a better word, funk. I had hoped that by reliving the events on my laptop I might break the logjam clogging my mind. It was not unprecedented. Delving into the written word had been successful as a therapy tool before, helping to lift a person's awareness if not anything else.

Then again, awareness was not my problem. My awareness, at times, seemed to work like a 3D movie, where bits and pieces of recollections flew right off the screen of my mind, penetrating, landing right between my eyes. "Confrontation can be the fulcrum in which everything is balanced," my mentor, Dr. Burke was fond of saying. I needed to confront my brush with horror. Over analyzing it had brought on a mental paralysis, handicapping me.

"He misses you, you know," Jason had said to me the last time he brought Jerry to see me. "We have to do something, something different than this arrangement."

"I know, Jason," I replied guiltily.

We were walking down the stairs in my building. Jason had parked down the street a block or two. With an obviously ecstatic Jerry between us, holding on to each of our hands, we strolled to his truck. It was probably the first time I had been out of the apartment in a month. Summer was giving up and Autumn was on the way. There was a slight breeze coming in off the Hudson River. I looked up to see that the sky was a royal blue color. Then I noticed I was wearing my sandals I wore around the apartment, bare, without socks, and you could see an almost arabesque swirl of flowers imprinted on both of my feet. Strangely, I stopped for a moment to stare down at my feet, wondering what the tattoos reminded me of. Was it some Renaissance painter? Then I was almost overcome with nausea and a bout of dizziness that left me wobbly on my feet. Jason helped me back to the apartment, where I collapsed on the couch, wheezing as if from over exertion.

"Daddy, why is mommy crying?" my son wanted to know, distressed by my episode of panic. Jason reassured him, while I struggled to regain my composure. I suppose it was then that I finally realized that I was going to have a very long road to recovery.

Matters progressed from there, slowly. I stayed on in New York. Jason continued his life upstate, continuing to drive our son south for visits, and, to his credit, acting as liaison with my parents. My mother did come and stay several times in the city, lending a hand as best she could. My father called frequently but had a difficult time demonstrating much sympathy, letting his frustration seep into his voice as he tried to jar me out of my stewing detachment. For my part, I consulted a colleague for treatment, utilizing the Internet and the web cam on my lap top in a makeshift attempt at therapy sessions.

My second book got written somehow through all of this, even if I missed the arbitrary deadline set by the publishers, which, as can be imagined, sent my agent into hysterics. Bernard had maintained a vigil over me for months, calling incessantly when he wasn't dropping by to hector his client in person. At times, most times really, I refused to answer the door but it was useless against him because he had a duplicate key to the building and the apartment. I had seriously thought of having the locks changed.

As my little world became smaller, with the perimeter having been reduced to the size of the walkup, I eventually got more and more comfortable with my surroundings. I developed a routine, which I stuck to religiously. By seven in the morning I would be up and at my small desk, with the window overlooking the street below. I would hack away at some words for maybe two hours then eat breakfast. If by that time I hadn't been disturbed by my agent I would go over what I had just committed to paper, editing slowly. After that, if need be, I would go online for any research I might need to do for the book, compiling notes as I went.

Lunch usually consisted of crackers, which I bought by the truck load, usually delivered by a teenage boy from, I think, South America. He worked at the corner deli and had become my lifeline of sorts to the outside world. His English was shaky but he was non-threatening and always reliable. I tipped him well and he "got" our working relationship. Sometimes I would see him more than once a day when I decided to have groceries delivered in the morning and, at night, a deli sandwich for dinner.

In the evening I watched, shamelessly I might add, junk TV, the more low-brow the better. It was no exaggeration that you could literally "veg" in front of the tube and lose yourself. Game shows, mindless dramas with implausible plots, comedies that weren't remotely funny, they were all represented on the many channels I received on my cable. I could mentally digest anything from screeching religion to beginners Espanol to reality shows where the participants were revealed to be functioning idiots with an audience. If not anything else, cable television had democratized the arts, bringing it down to a level that egalitarians could rejoice over. Everyone with a pulse was sooner or later going to get their shot at exposure and the public was going to have to accept that.

The discourse on the so called political shows wasn't much better than the (consensually speaking) moronic fare on the other channels. If you went out and purposely hired actors to play characters that were trying to replicate cartoonish and imbecilic spokespeople you couldn't have done better than the real life representatives that had somehow been elected across the land. On one side of the aisle you had elected officials practically reading from a script secreted in their lap and on the other side you had senators and congressman too pusillanimous to even speak their minds. It made me glad that I had never been too politically involved but alternatively disappointed that my country was in the hands of such a collection of powerful nincompoops.

I dutifully passed the hours, which accumulated into days then weeks and months. Locked in my minuscule world, Doctor Sarah Greene more or less stopped existing. I was logging the minutes but wasn't really showing up. To some parts of the world I was, nevertheless, being productive. Another manuscript would be delivered. More money would be made. Manufacturing in America might be ebbing on a scale never seen before in our country's history, but that nutty therapist with the tattoos was doing something to add to the GDP.

Truthfully, I didn't think in terms like that. Having me tap away on my laptop didn't really translate into thoughts of self-worth, not to mention as any contribution to the society at large. I was simply happy about being able to think in one direction. Being focused on one item in your life lent a sense of stabilization in your life. It was, in its way, therapeutic. I needed it.

The book was completed, as I said, and sent out to my agent first. He had been badgering me non-stop about beating the deadline, so I sent a PDF attached in an email right to his personal account. He had demanded that he have first read rights, browbeating me for weeks until I assured him I would let him read the finished product before anyone else could. It was obvious he didn't trust me. I had refused to let him preview any of the book as I went along. This scared him. "You're not going to write some wacko manifesto are you?" he had demanded to know on several occasions, laughing nervously to hide his mounting suspicion.

My loyal agent wasn't convinced of my literary intent. I couldn't, I suppose, blame him for that sentiment. I was holed up in a Chelsea walkup, separated from my husband and family, and displaying outward signs of being unhinged at best. I was capable of just about anything. Bernard probably thought I was going to go off the deep end and write some incomprehensible screed about--who knows what? "I'm not going to write a sixty thousand word critique on tattoos," I assured him one day, trying to make light of his lack of confidence in my writing ability.

In less than half an hour my cell phone had rung, which I didn't answer, as usual. In fact, I most times had it turned off because I didn't want to talk to anyone. Then my phone binged and I received a text message. I picked up the phone and read: I'm coming right over! It wasn't long before there was a rapping on my door and in walks Bernard. He was beaming.

"You must be a speed reader," I told him, laughing uneasily.

He stood there with this idiotic grin on his face and declared, "You did it! Can I hug you or something?"

I shrunk back and said, "Your happiness has been noted."

Thus it all began again. Having been through the book publishing charade before, that is the nuts and bolts of actually getting words entombed between two covers type of thing, I knew what to expect. There would be lunches with people from the publishing company, people I didn't really want to interact with, especially now, then there would be endless phone calls and emails about all the details involved in getting a product to market, (and make no mistake it was really only just another consumer item). That would only be a small part of it though. From now on my agent and I would almost share an umbilical cord because he would want to micro manage everything in order to maximize the effect, that being my contribution to the communal written word.

Somehow I had forgotten all about this aspect of being a writer. "Totally deleterious to your soul," a writer at a symposium had whispered to me while we were sitting on stage waiting to be assaulted by a room full of critics, all bent on dissecting our work. He had been referring to the selling of yourself, the necessary evil that came with being successful, at least monetarily.

I had neglected to discuss any of this with my agent, hoping to avoid the subject for as long as I could. He was on another track all together. Plans had been made and set in motion. It was the usual game plan.

There would be talk shows, on radio and TV. Lots and lots of travel would be involved. Then, of course, there would be the dreaded book signings, the ones where you would actually have to come face to face with the people who were actually reading your work. It was public contact in its elemental form. Smiles and small talk, topped off by hand cramping scribbling on fresh pages, still giving off that slight chemical smell of new bought books. You would be addressing trite dedications to wives, uncles, aunts, cousins, girl friends, some with names that you couldn't spell correctly.

You would try to ban any photos being taken but someone would always whip out a cell phone camera and take a furtive shot. Sometimes the store's security would enforce the rule with gusto, ushering the miscreant out the door. Most times your agent would politely but forcefully insist on no photographs. The camera prohibition would always be met with grumbling by the fans, the readers. To them, you were now their property in a way. You belonged to them. By them reading your work you had forfeited your personal rights, handed them right over. You, as the author, did not exist but for someone actually reading your words. It was, ultimately, existential in its way. Identity was predicated on being identified by your audience.

Chapter 3 Lost Years

I guess I can say here that the book tours didn't go well. They were disastrous really, with Bernard vacillating between bouts of anger and full blown frustration. He had decided to devote almost all of his time to getting me through the unfolding ordeal. From Seattle to Miami, he was going to see to it that I maximized my exposure to the public. Pushing back against this cross country regimen, of course, was me, me and my blossoming psychosis.

Just getting me out of my apartment in Chelsea was an ordeal, the magnitude of which took several weeks and numerous calls from my therapist and parents, with Jason thrown in for good measure. Some credit can be thrown Big Pharma's way too. With prescription in hand, I finally agreed to board a flight to Anywhere, USA and start on my book selling tour.

I can only imagine famous divas were less troublesome than I was. Not that I made many demands but rather I balked at most everything. It all began with the cover of the book that was initially being proposed. It looked like the art department from Hustler Magazine had designed it, with a profile shot of a naked woman's torso covered in day-glo tattoos. I protested, first through my agent, then through some nasty emails and finally with a few well placed phone calls.

Next came a request that I, and I am not kidding here, wear "tattoo appropriate apparel." This "suggestion" arrived in an email and was sent by one of the higher ups at the publishing house. I wrote back that I was thinking of wearing a bikini during all of my press events. The email went unanswered.

However the biggest problem was the tour itself. I was going to have to "practice social intercourse," as Peter liked to call it. This would require me to, first, leave my isolated domain, and second actually interact with people, strange and otherwise. "Can't you just hire somebody that looks like me to do this book tour?" I had actually asked my agent. He had looked at me and said, "My dear, you are one of a kind."

Off we went, first to some small towns out west. My agent had arranged it so I wouldn't have to deal with any large crowds at first. This was not for my benefit as much as it was for his. He wasn't sure how I would hold up under the pressure in a public setting. My agent was being circumspect, which was, in the end, a smart thing to do. I lasted all of two stops on the tour before having a melt-down of epic proportions.

As I remember it now, I was signing books in a hole in the wall bookstore in some mid-size burg near Seattle. The previous day's signing had gone according to plan with only one hiccup when a fan had wanted to hug me because somehow my previous book had changed her life somehow. The fan was close to tears and mumbling about the war and her father or something to that effect when she suddenly scampered around the signing table and tried to hug me. My agent tried to intercept her but was too late and the woman latched onto me and did as promised. We hugged for what seemed like a long time then she walked away, disappearing out the door of the book store. No harm done, I told my agent but he could see that I was shaken by the impromptu contact.

At the next stop, after having done an early morning interview on the radio, one in which the host fawned over me inappropriately, I had an encounter that, ultimately, broke me. I had only signed three or four books when this woman approached the table and said, "You are such an inspiration to me, Doctor Greene." Taken aback, I smiled and said something mostly unintelligible, completely shocked that I could be a role model for anyone.

It went from bad to worse from there. The woman pulled up her sleeve and proudly showed me a tattoo on her forearm. It was an exact duplicate of the one that had previously been on mine before having it lasered off. Of all the tattoos that had been forcibly applied to my body it was the one most prominently displayed in the media. After my story broke in the news, and all of the media outlets went almost 24/7 with it, the picture of that tattoo was front and center. Maybe it was because it was on a part of the body that could be shown on national TV, I don't know. For some reason it became the iconic tattoo that represented my nightmare.

The tattoo was a simple colorful flower that was bleeding. Drops of blood flowed from one or two of the petals, dropping down in the direction of my wrist. It was both garish and arresting. That someone would choose to replicate it on their skin made me sad, and disgusted. Horrified, I jumped up from the table and ran into the back of the store, where I exited out the back door and ran away. My agent only found me several hours later, sitting on a bus bench watching the traffic go by. The tour was over.

"If you don't complete the tour...well...they are going to cancel the printing edition for sure," Bernard threatened later on when we were sitting in my hotel room. "I am not going to be able to help you, Sarah. Really. It is all going to go up in smoke."

I was still intermittently crying, as I was continuing to have visions of that woman showing me her tattoo. What did that mean? I wondered. Was the woman trying to identify with my pain? Perhaps she was one of those insane women who thought my tormentor was somehow justified in his actions. They were all over the Internet. "Loopy-groupy," Jason liked to call them. I had never taken the time to examine their mindset. They were not unlike the women who fall in love with convicted murderers in prison, choosing to accept them as they are.

"I need to get back to New York," I told him, sobbing. "I want to leave tomorrow."

He threw up his hands and stated, "This will all be for nothing, Sarah. Trust me, you will be finished. Do you want that to happen? Think about it."

"I am not going on with this," I said and he could see that I was adamant about my decision.

"I hate to tell you but we are over too," he declared and left the hotel room.

As hard as it might seem to believe, I never saw him again. He left on a different flight than mine. We exchanged emails a few times after that but any other correspondence came through his office assistant. It was, apparently, just business. I limped back to Chelsea and returned to my reclusive ways.

The sales of the book didn't need me after all. It rested on the best seller list for weeks, garnering attention without any PR scheme at all. Movie rights to the book sold quickly after that. I didn't have to lift a finger. I was a household name, with a Q-factor rating in the stratosphere. It was all counter-intuitive, and frightening.

In time, after my windfall with the second book, I purchased a place in Manhattan, Westside. My marriage sputtered to a stop, then ended. Fortunately it was an amicable divorce, with Jason taking on the responsibilities of keeping up Brittany Farms, our homestead in upstate New York. We eventually worked out an arrangement for the custody of our son, one in which it allowed him to spend the bulk of his time in my hometown, thereby giving him access to a small town atmosphere with a little bit of the big city thrown in for balance. Jerry would spend a certain amount of time with me, in New York City, where I could, in a way, round out his education.

Initially, though, there were some lean years to endure. It would take me over two years to evolve, to climb out of my well of despair. I had systematically withdrawn from the world, while living in, arguably, the capital of the world. The irony wasn't lost on me as I eventually began to venture out onto the streets of Manhattan.

First off, I began to take short trips to Central Park, which was only a few blocks away from my apartment. Once there, I would just sit and watch the activities of the park unfold, not unlike some sort of surveillance. No one ever recognized me because I had changed my appearance to some extent, or, at least, I certainly didn't look like any of my more recent publicity photos. I now wore my hair ultra short, almost butch really, which, in cosmopolitan NYC, went mostly unnoticed. My neighbor, Wendy, jokingly called it Lesbo-chic.

Wendy was a few years older than me and stunningly beautiful, still, even though her modeling days were over. She had been a wunderkind in the modeling world at age 13 or 14, spending large chunks of her youth in Paris and Milan, before settling in New York as her career declined. She was a unique personality and very smart, especially financially. One of her suitors had instructed her years before on the arcana of Wall Street and she had successfully navigated through the straits of high finance, leaving her with a bundle of money and savvy investments to carry her through just about any downturn in the economy.

We had met at the mail boxes downstairs one day. She had been arguing with the doorman about some package left for her when I intervened to tell her that the package had been mistakenly delivered to my apartment. The day shift doorman, a rotund man originally from the Bronx, glared at Wendy, waiting for his apology. She looked at the doorman for a moment, then back at me, before walking over and placing a big kiss on his lips, telling him she was sorry for being so rude. He was too shocked to say anything.

We laughed all the way up in the elevator to our floor. At first, thankfully, she didn't realize who I was. Although she had graced the covers of literally hundreds of magazines, I didn't know who she was. She followed me into my apartment, which, at the time, sent alarms off for me. I had just begun to re-enter the public arena and was skittish about my personal space. Wendy, as was her personality, barged right in and began examining my apartment, telling me, "Woman, you have got to do something about this decor."

I laughed uneasily and replied, "What's decor?"

My apartment had embraced the minimalist approach to the extreme. In the living room there was a TV and two recliners, with an ersatz Greco statue in the corner that stood almost five feet tall. It was made of your garden variety white styrofoam. I had seen it at a thrift store and loved it for its unpretentious cheesiness. Oh, and the TV was plopped down on a crate one of the chairs had come in. There was no dining room table. I ate at a breakfast nook by the kitchen, where I had thoughtfully bought two mismatched bar stools to sit on. In the bedroom was just a bed and nothing more. The spare bedroom was empty, except for several boxes of books leftover from my teaching days.

"I know a guy you can use, if you want," Wendy announced, glancing in my bedroom and shaking her head. "Maybe you could just turn the place into storage and charge people to put their junk in here. I know I could use some extra room for some of my stuff."

"I'll think about it," I said, now beginning to feel the tentacles of panic creep in when my exposure to outside stimuli began to overwhelm me.

She left shortly after that and I sunk into one of my recliners and eventually fought off my demons. It was a week later when we ran into each other in the elevator and Wendy said, "Hey, you didn't tell me you were that freaky chick with all of the tattoos." I forced a smile and mumbled a reply, willing the elevator to get to our floor as fast as possible. "You know what, maybe we could get together and compare our tatts sometime--might be fun," she quipped, smiling at me. I didn't say anything, as I watched the floor numbers light up as we ascended.

Finally we got to our floor and I headed for my door, key in hand, muttering a good-bye as I went. Wendy walked to her door across the hall, then stopped, turned, and said, "You know, I was only kidding, Sarah." I nodded and fumbled with my keys, trying to get into my apartment as fast as I could. Then the door was unlocked and I was inside, closing the door behind me. I stood there collecting myself, trying to breathe slowly, deliberately.

Then there was a knock on my door and I flinched, holding my breath. "Open the damn door, it's Wendy," I heard her shout, her voice echoing in the hallway. "I know you are in there, Sarah. Come on!"

Hesitantly, I opened the door just a crack and peered out. She was standing there with her hands on her hips. "What is it?" I asked in a weak, almost trembling voice.

"What? Are you playing peek-a-boo with me?" she exclaimed, laughing. "I just wanted to tell you that I didn't mean anything by what I said before. Really. I didn't know you were so sensitive--jeez. Woman, you have got to start being a little more...a little more assertive or something. I mean weren't you like a therapist before? Don't you guys have to be all in your face sometimes? I mean you are supposed--"

"I'm not a therapist anymore," I explained, opening the door another inch or two.

"Good thing," she said, laughing. "Why don't you come on over to my place and see what furniture looks like. Might be educational for you."

Meekly, with trepidation, I followed her back to her apartment, the one with the balcony and the view. In many ways my apartment didn't seem like it was in the same building as hers. She showed me around, where I noted that she had three bedrooms and a bathroom that was as big as my master bedroom. On the short tour she pointed out pieces of furniture by this designer and that designer, all of which was lost on me entirely. On the walls she had expensive paintings by contemporary artists whose names I did recognize, as well as the almost obligatory (very) large photo of herself taken during her modeling days. It took up most of an entire wall in the living room. "I know, looks like some kinda high fashion porno," she remarked, laughing, when she noticed me staring at the photograph. "You were...beautiful," I mumbled, unsure of what to say. She snorted and said, "Oh what, like I'm not now!" Embarrassed, I stammered out: "Of course you are." She smacked my arm playfully and told me she was only kidding.

"Want some wine or something?" Wendy then asked, concluding the tour in her cavernous kitchen, complete with the car sized refrigerator. "You're not in AA or anything are you? I don't want to violate any no-no's."

In my descent into my abyss alcohol had never entered the picture. I hadn't had a drink of anything in a very long time. "I might try some white wine, if you have any."

"Are you kidding, I have a whole fucking wine cellar here," she declared, smiling as she plucked two wine glasses off a rack on the counter. "Let me see if I have some of the good stuff hanging around."

"You don't need to bother with that," I assured her, not wanting to impose on her in any way.

"Only the best for the good doctor," she chirped, which made me cringe hearing her call me doctor. She noticed my reaction and stated, "Look, you are going to have to get used to me saying just about anything that comes into my head. I can't have you going all...all flaky every time I say something you don't like. If I say something stupid just do your breathing exercises or whatever it is you do to get you through the day and we'll get along alright."

I smiled and said, "I might be breathing hard all the time."

"Oh, wait, did you just zing me or something?" she shot back, laughing. "Remember, I'm an ex-model and we aren't too smart."

Wendy served as my guide back through the wilderness in route to being a functioning member of society again. It was her quirky and forceful personality that worked to get me to a certain level of competency when it came time to complete the everyday tasks that came with living in the city. She had help from an unlikely source, the night door man, a razor thin man from, of all places, Albania. His name was Sali and he was, normally, a taciturn type, who hardly ever smiled.

Sali and I became, as far as his job would permit, friends. It wasn't unusual for New Yorkers to cultivate a tight bond with the door men to their buildings. He was, simply, the gatekeeper. Almost everything that happened in the building went through the front door and he was stationed there as a sentry of sorts. The tenants soon learned to rely on the door man for many things that might, (reasonably), reach out beyond his job description. I know I did.

There were a few notable celebrities in our building and along with that came some dicey situations with either camera toting trouble makers or attention starved fans. Wendy, at one time, had a man camped outside the front door for months trying to start-up a relationship with her. "We're connected by the stars," the man used to shout at her every time she entered or exited the building. "Why don't you see that?" he would wail, as she dashed away, hopping into a cab.

Joey, the day shift door man, took no prisoners when it came to defending his building. The star crossed man often times found himself forcibly hustled down to the street corner and given an ultimatum not to return. Some of the others were just autograph seekers and didn't pose too much of a problem; although some of them were persistent as flies and took offense at not being able to land an autograph when the opportunity presented itself.

There was a man, an actor, who lived on the floor below me that garnered a lot of attention from a gaggle of girls, usually "tweeners." He was on a TV show that had a audience that definitely leaned to the young pubescent girl demographic. To his credit, I guess, he was religiously polite and signed autographs gladly. The other celebs, such as they were, avoided any contact with the adoring public like the plague. I fell into that category for certain. Of course my public trended towards the weird, to say the least.

"Whoa, woman, I'm afraid to be seen with you," Wendy would say sometimes, referring to the times she had returned or exited the building with me and been accosted by some of my fans. They were, on the whole, usually aggressive and alarmingly unhinged. For the longest time after I moved in there was a girl, mid-twenties, who loitered around the front of the building carrying a handwritten sign that read: Share Your Skin. It was written in big, blocky red letters and underneath it in smaller print the woman had attached several photos of my tattoos to the sign. I couldn't imagine where she had gotten some of the photos of my tattoos and was suspicious of the dermatologist I had gone to, afraid that maybe he had sold them to one of the tabloids or something for a bundle. I mean at one time it had been reported that they were offering 50 thousand for a picture of my erogenous zones.

Some of the fans stationed around the building were, believe it or not, followers of my tormentor. This was truly horrifying to me. The local police precinct had been worried enough at one point to send a patrol car around frequently to roust them out, even taking a few of them down to the station house for questioning. At one point, there had been a standoff between the fans that sided with me and the ones that didn't. I was incredulous. How could there be two sides? "America is now a land of ambivalent morality," my father had said when he heard about this turn of events.

It was during this period of uneasiness that Sali proved his worth and definitely earned his paycheck. He was on duty in every sense of the word, repeatedly chasing off the "crazies," letting them know that he wasn't going to allow any disruptions at his building. They would all flee across the street, where they would maintain their warped vigil from afar, eyeing him coldly with a few shouted insults thrown in. Through all of these daily battles Sali never lost his cordial demeanor and was always eager to help me out.

Often times I couldn't sleep at night and would wander downstairs to the lobby, hoping to alleviate my rushing thoughts. Before long, Sali and I would start long chats at his desk by the front door, with him telling me all about his life back in Albania, while I would fill him in on my (edited) life in the upstate New York. He never asked me about my ordeal and I never volunteered any information. I always assumed he knew about me and who I was but he seemed to be unconcerned about any of it. I was grateful for that.

Many hours were passed playing backgammon, a game he was obsessed with. He had taught me to play and the quiet lobby at two in the morning would be alive with the sound of the rolling dice and our shouts of competitiveness as we moved around the board. After mid-night, the building yawned with inactivity for the most part, leaving us to ourselves, only interrupted by an occasional tenant returning from a evening out. They would look at us quizzically, not sure how to take a resident and the door man spending time together in the middle of the night.

Chapter 4 ReEntry

Between Wendy and Sali I was reintroduced to the world out there beyond the confines of my apartment. Wendy convinced me to venture around the city, often taking me with her as she went on personal field trips to see different things the Big Apple had to offer. I was many times dumbstruck by some of the places we went to, places that I never knew existed. She was like an encyclopedia when it came to knowing all about the less well traveled environs of New York. From the back alleys of the former meat packing district to the de facto park of the abandoned elevated Westside Highway to small ethnic shops in out of the way places only the locals knew about, Wendy was privy to all of them.

Sali, for his part, allowed me to, more or less, interact with a human being again, a relatively simple thing that was never the less vital for my recovery. Just the elemental act of having a conversation worked wonders for me and my seemingly intractable condition. After abandoning my therapy sessions on the computer, deeming them insufficient for my mental rehabilitation, I needed to have access to some sort of verbal give and take.

Of course, it wasn't lost on me that being a (former) therapist who had lost faith in the therapeutic value of therapy was rife with irony. Wendy let me know this, continually, gleefully poking at my former identity unmercifully. "Woman, I am here to tell you that therapy is a bunch of crap. I should know because I spent six months once with this turd over on the upper eastside and the only thing it got me was an empty bank account. The man was a lech and dumb as dirt. Really. All he kept asking me about was my sexual habits. I just know that after our sessions he was jerking off in his office." Not one to defend my profession, I shrugged and asked her, "Did you look to see if there were any hidden cameras?" "What?" she inquired, almost choking. "Do you think he might have...oh wait, you are screwing with me--right?" I smiled mischievously and said, "You never know."

A couple years passed. My son came for longer visits. I even furnished my apartment, using one of Wendy's interior designers; although we did lock horns over many of his suggestions, one being the disposal of my ersatz Greco statue. It remained in the corner of the living room. The extra bedroom was fitted out for an adolescent boys tastes, right down to the sports posters on the wall. My son was beginning to more and more resemble his dad, very athletic and handsome.

Our time together in the city pretty much centered around attending sporting events: up to the Bronx to see the Yankees, trudging to Madison Square Garden to take in a Knick game etc. Jerry liked the visits to New York but I could see that his heart was up state, where he enjoyed the rural life, complete with hockey on the frozen ponds and (to my dismay) snowmobiling in the winter, with summer time bringing out his dirt bike to ride the back roads and trails around the area. The horse experiment had gone by the wayside over the years, with neither me or my ex-husband getting into horseback riding.

The custody arrangement, although rough around the edges, seemed to eventually work out, even if I was more a mystery mother than anything else. In an odd twist of fate my mother had become more of a mother figure to Jerry than I was. As to be expected, Jason was seeing someone and, in the future, would probably remarry, thereby adding another layer to the working arrangement.

My social isolation had diminished considerably. I had to learn to embrace a more dispassionate outlook on life and, as clinical as that sounds, it worked for me.

Although my love life, despite Wendy's many interventions on that score, was zero. She had been my conduit to a cast of characters only living in New York City could expose you to. She knew a vast array of people, from Wallstreeters to actors to even politicians, where she was a reliable donor. I had been, by design, in more than several group outings, all arranged by the ever meddling Wendy. Nothing took. I was cordial, at best, but hardly inspiring as a future date. My conversationalist skills had been eroded to the point that I could easily have been mistaken for someone suffering from aspergers syndrome. Physically, in all modesty, I was okay. My figure had been honed at Wendy's, where she had turned one of her bedrooms into a mini-gym, complete with treadmill and various other workout machines. She had given me a lifetime pass, which I used religiously.

Sali often times teased me about my figure, shyly saying that I was "beautiful pretty," mangling the English language as he frequently did. He was a non-devout Muslim but still maintained many of the religion's strictures when it came to men and women. Wendy didn't exactly approve of me fraternizing with the "staff," but realized that I needed another outlet. She scolded me for taking walks with him early in the morning sometimes, after his shift, but I knew it was harmless because Sali was devoted to his wife back in Albania and was trying desperately to (illegally) bring her to America.

I will say that there had been one or two dates I went on. One was forced on me when Wendy conveniently found an excuse to leave the restaurant in the middle of dinner. She had talked me into going, leading me to believe there was going to be a group of six, maybe more people there. When I arrived at the restaurant I discovered that there was only to be four of us at the table. My nerves went on red alert, forcing me to flee to the bathroom, where Wendy appeared to talk me down.

"I should kill you right here and now!" I screeched, as I tried not to hyperventilate in front of the mirror.

"Calm down, Sarah," she cooed, stroking my hair. "It's just a dinner, for heaven's sake."

"I know what you are up to," I spat out, bending over at the waist, trying to control my breathing.

"We'll have a nice dinner, some good conversation, that's all," she reassured me.

"I'm going to puke right on the table--then what?" I wailed, eyeing myself in the mirror, noticing that I had turned sheet white.

"Woman, if you don't breath just a little bit more you are going to pass out," Wendy ordered, patting me on the back. "You'll be fine. Get yourself together so we can go back to the table. Have some wine or something. It'll calm you down."

"I'm still going to kill you," I almost shouted out.

Steeling myself, I went back to the table, where the two gentlemen were sitting there with perplexed looks on the faces. I couldn't help but wonder whether or not they were studying my body, hoping to see some of the telltale tattoos. What would be going through their minds at that point? Surely they would be thinking about the murderous sequence that lead to me being scarred for life, to include all of the salacious tidbits. My book had detailed everything pretty much, leaving little for the imagination. Then again, just maybe the imagination at this point would be in overdrive, as they thought about my body parts.

I visibly shuddered after I sat down, so much so that my surprise date asked me if I was cold or not. I assured him I was okay, delving into the menu as quick as possible, something to divert my attention away from the unfolding ordeal. My date, a nice man who happened to be a professor at Columbia and something of an authority on some arcane piece of European history, proved to be understanding. He didn't suddenly remember he had a previous engagement and bound out the door or inexplicably come down with the flu or anything. No, he stuck it out, right through the calorie dense dessert.

I couldn't say the same thing for Wendy and her escort for the night, a man who lived in a humongous loft in Tribeca and owned several buildings around the city. How the two men knew each other I couldn't imagine. The whole back story had been drowned out by the sound of my heart beating in my ears as they traded stories at the table, all the while Wendy kept a wary eye on me, hoping that I wouldn't take one of the steak knives to my wrists, or to her.

The main fare hadn't been delivered to our table more than five minutes when she was delivering a boffo performance, saying, "Oh, hey, I hate to do this but I just have to be going now because, because I forgot that I have to meet a friend who is flying in tonight from London. I'm so sorry." With that lame excuse, she stood up, bussed my cheek, and was gone. Her date, the real estate titan, followed suit, right on cue, and was waving good-bye as well.

I was, at that point, more shell shocked than angry. The anger would come later, of course. So it was me and the historian remaining. I had eaten very little of my dinner. When the two of them left, well, the conversation came mostly to a halt. He tried in vain to restart the conversation momentum but to no avail. I had resorted to monosyllabic responses and nothing more. He was having to do the heavy lifting, trying valiantly to change subjects, hoping to land on something (anything) that might ignite some feedback however banal.

Finally the dinner sputtered to an end. The dessert went half eaten. We retrieved our coats and walked outside, where we stood for an awkward minute wondering what to do next. I mumbled something about heading uptown and he offered to hail a cab for me. I begged off, telling him hastily that I was going to walk, whereupon I did an about face and walked away, leaving him standing by the curb. It was the inglorious end to my first date in over ten years.

Another date was less deceptive on Wendy's part. She had convinced me to meet this friend of hers and who wasn't a friend of hers? I had agreed, in a weak moment, to let her give him my phone number. He was what was generously called an "entrepreneur," which usually translated to mean that someone was systematically trying to make money with the least bit of effort. That was my take on it anyway. Whether or not the person in question was putting up a million dollars to make several times that or laying out a thousand bucks to make a fifteen percent profit, it all was the same to me.

This particular gentleman was in the former category and had invested gobs of money and made truck loads of cash. He had been profiled in several of those sleazy type of magazines, the ones that treated money making like some sort of newfound stimulating pornography. I found most of it distasteful for the most part, obscene even. Despite that personal assessment, there I was dutifully fielding his phone call.

He was, on the phone at least, very personable and, I admit, charming. We chatted easily, trading stories about upstate, where he had spent his childhood too, not two or three towns over from mine. He was a couple years older than me, so we shared a generational link as well. In the articles I had read about him he had come across as pretentious. I will confess that I did do some background research on him. A photo of him had been included in the profiles, giving me a preview, so I knew that he was handsome as well as rich.

On paper, as they say, he was perfect. Besides, we were both divorced and had children, making us even more compatible. "A computer couldn't have done a better job of hooking you up," Wendy sang out, as we were doing our exercises in her mini-gym one day. "You are quite the matchmaker," I said sourly, in between breaths on the treadmill. She smiled and retorted, "You might thank me some day, woman."

I seriously doubted that. Yet, I held out hope. It hadn't been exactly one of my goals to seek out romance but it was always in the background, not unlike some kind of white noise filtering into my consciousness. I knew full well that a relationship might only complicate matters, making it all the more difficult to merge back into the social stream.

His name was, of all things, Henry. Being ever conservative, and cautious, I arranged to meet him at the Lincoln Center. He had wanted to pick me up at my apartment but I begged off, feeling that by having him on my doorstep I might be forced into a situation I couldn't extricate myself from. The time was set. I marked it on the calendar hanging on my fridge. Then I prepared.

"It's not a...a war campaign, you know," Wendy teased, watching me steel myself for the coming event.

"I just want to be ready, that's all," I told her peevishly.

"You do know that your date isn't for three days, right?" she countered, laughing.

We were standing in my bedroom, where I had laid out several outfits to wear. I had discarded three or four outfits already, tossing them in a pile on the floor. Wendy was sitting on my bed with a glass of wine, pestering me about my preparations. I was trying hard not to let any manifestations of raging OCD enter into the picture.

"Do you think the blue one would look alright?" I wanted to know, trying not to whine.

Wendy glanced at it for a moment, then said, "How old do you think you are again? That looks like something my mother would wear."

"This from a woman who has a figure like a teenager," I shot back, tossing the blue outfit on the pile.

"Don't sell yourself short, woman," she exclaimed, standing up and looking in my closet, where I could hear her clucking her tongue as she slid the hangers from one side to the other. "Maybe we should go shopping for something for you."

"No," I said defiantly, remembering one of our previous trips to some off-beat boutiques in the Village, where she had me try on some skirts that barely covered my genitals. "I am not going to be on display."

"Excuse me then," she said, exhaling deeply, examining a few more outfits before yanking one off its hanger and tossing it at me.

It was a pantsuit, one that I had worn on TV before, very business like, conservative in a way that said I was not to be taken lightly. "Very funny," I told her, tossing it on the floor.

The next few days were torture for me. Even Sali, who was usually the picture of understanding, told me: "Sarah Greene, you have to please stop. The ears on my head cannot take it anymore." There seemed to be a countdown going on in my mind, not unlike an annoying metronome whose precision only mocks you. On the day of the date, I awoke and was sure I had the flu. "My aches have aches," I shouted out in the hall when Wendy refused to open her door. She told me to take some vitamin C, after she told me to shut up of course.

The appointed hour arrived and I was just getting out of a cab. Sali had hailed a taxi for me, ushering me in the car, reassuring me that everything was going to be alright. I clung to his doorman coat, not wanting to leave. The bemused cabbie chuckled and said something under his breath in Dari or Hindi or whatever language he spoke back in his native land. I sat in the back of the cab hoping my deodorant would hold up because I was beginning to get a bad case of nervous sweat. I had chosen to wear a long skirt and light colored blouse, with three inch heels that I could hardly walk in because it had been so long since I wore anything but running shoes.

It was a warm night in early Autumn. New York was coming to life after a brutally hot summer. The new season of the arts was cranking up. There would be openings of plays and musicals, as well as concerts. We were supposed to be seeing a dance recital, with a ballerina of some renown. It was all going to be very cultural and safe, as in a date where the participants could gauge their interaction with a the buffer of a large audience and entertainment. I didn't peg Henry as the Ballet type but who knew? "It's just a front, woman," Wendy had told me, giggling. "You know he'd rather be down in AC blowing his money at the craps table."

Perhaps. I didn't take him for being a Philistine or anything but going to the ballet did seem to be an offering of sorts, one in which he hoped to either impress me or put me at ease, maybe both. On the plus side, hopefully, the public setting would alleviate or at least minimize a great deal of interaction between us. It would allow me time to assess him and my response, with a really nice performance thrown in for good measure.

Wendy, being Wendy, had stuck a post-it on my door that read: No unscheduled visits to the bathroom--Doc. I was not anticipating a replay of the previous dating experience. Ever prepared, I had devised a silent mantra that I was going to recite over and over if need be to get me through the evening. It was a phrase one of my patients, a Veteran from my days back in DC, used to repeat when he faced another bout of PTSD. It went: Time will pass with or without me. I wasn't sure it made any sense really but it did seem to work for him.

Henry was waiting for me at the designated place. He was carrying a solitary rose, which immediately made me think of one of those reality shows on TV I had become addicted to of recent. I don't know what it was about rich men but one of the representations of their wealth was almost always displayed in their choice of clothing. His suit smelled of money and I knew that it had probably come from some tailor in London, on Savile Row. I had always bought off the rack, even after I had enough money to pick and choose from the expensive designer's creations. I suppose it wasn't overly ostentatious being seen in a two or three thousand dollar suit. The principle of got it-flaunt it did apply in the Big Apple, as well as other regions of the world, I guess. For me, personally, I got a squeamish feeling, something undoubtedly instilled in me by my parents. Then again, that is a tangent I don't want to pursue at this time.

We both came with reputations that preceded us, which easily allowed us to recognize each other in the premiere night crowd. On that score, particularly, I had been sublimating a thought that kept trying to surface in my mind, one that I knew was going to plague me eventually. What was motivating Henry? Was it just the simple desire to meet someone and, with luck, begin a relationship? That wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Place it in the pursuit of love column.

Then again, as my mind delved deeper, was it something more sinister? Did Henry just want to meet a bona fide freak? They existed, the people who got a kick out of rubbing shoulders with celebs on the fringe, which I certainly qualified as. He was rich. He had probably seen it all, or most of it. He could afford to slum a little and see the underside of things. As we were walking into the concert hall I suddenly began to have visions of him offering me bank vaults full of money to let him see my tattoos. "Sarah, I have a Swiss bank account set up in your name...all I have to do is call my accountant and whoosh, the money is wired to the account. Tax free! Just let me see you naked...just for five minutes. I won't even touch you. I promise." And here I was, rose in hand, walking to our box seats.

I quickly pushed the thoughts to the back of my brain. Henry was chattering on about some summer camp in the Adirondacks he had gone to when he was a kid, asking me what camp I attended. We had progressed quickly past the pleasantries stage of the conversation. Henry was, I could see now, a master at being glib; it was probably one of the main reasons he had been able to make money with money. He gave off a special aura of...of calm, maybe tranquility would be a better word. If I wasn't such a dyed in wool detractor, I would say it had a New Age quality to it. I felt at ease almost immediately.

We were seated by an usher, a twenty something guy with one of those jazz spots under his bottom lip that made me want to yank it off, who obviously recognized Henry and was (apparently) mentally debating whether or not to ask him for a stock tip. To my relief, he didn't recognize me. We didn't have much time to talk because the performance got under way. I was happy for that and sat there assessing my own performance, as the ballet troupe did their pirouettes and whatnot on stage.

My nervousness had ebbed quite a bit and my fear of pervasive flop sweat went by the wayside. Henry sat there intently watching the performance or, at least, fooled me into thinking he was. My own tastes leaned towards modern dance, finding ballet on the stuffy side. I had once had a ballerina, in her late teens, as a patient. She, without divulging too much, was suffering from a chronic case of compulsiveness, something she had picked up from having been a student of ballet since she was six or seven. The stilted life of a ballerina called for hours upon hours of physically demanding practice, which in turn excluded almost everything else from your life. It was, as told by her to me, a harrowing experience, one in which she almost never saw her parents or siblings and had very little participation in everyday life. Her schedule was monopolized by dance and its trappings.

The end result had been her developing critically bad compulsiveness, where she had taken all of those years and years of routinized and rote exercises at the bar and on the dance floor and extended them to some everyday practices. The poor girl couldn't get out of the shower unless she had counted all of the tile on the wall. Her therapy sessions had made me, unexpectedly, harbor some ill will towards the ballet world. So I sat there watching the anorexic ballerinas, "bun heads" as they called themselves, flit across the stage and I couldn't help but think about my patient.

At the intermission, Henry suggested we stretch our legs and head down to the lobby for a drink. Unfortunately, at this point I had worked myself up into a mental lather and had had it with the ballet performance. I manage to walk down to the lobby with him and waited while he got us two glasses of wine. As he walked across the floor several people stopped him to say hello and I could see how the powerful people interacted. Then I began fearing that he might want to introduce me to someone and slowly worked my way across the room, where I stood with my back to the wall, hoping that the intermission might be over soon.

Another fear crept into my mind, one in which I was suddenly ambushed by some society gossip columnists and his/her column would feature a story about me and Henry, the new item. Henry, the filthy rich entrepreneur, and Doctor Sarah Greene, erstwhile functioning therapists and recent looney-tune, are embarking on a relationship that is sure to be the talk of the social season. Doctor Greene, you may remember, is festooned with tattoos and was almost murdered by two psychopaths a few years ago. The two plan on summering next year on the Cape at his palatial compound, complete with helipad and two story aviary. Wendy would be jealous of my coming out after she was eclipsed on Page 6 time and time again by my every entry on the social calendar.

"Would you like to meet a friend of mine?" Henry asked when he returned from fetching our wine. Before I could reply the bell went off or the lights flickered for the end of the intermission. I suppressed a sigh of relief and almost scurried towards the stairs, leaving him to follow in my wake.

I am going to end this vignette now by saying the date ended in the backseat of his limo and not for the reasons you might think. After the dance recital, we made our way to his waiting limo and headed for a drink at a bar he knew about in SOHO. I was holding up at this point, even though there was a bundle of thoughts crowding into my head. Henry was engaging, as ever, and offered me some wine from his well stocked bar. I am not a wine connoisseur but I could see by the wine bottle that it had a vintage year which probably demanded a hefty price tag. All the while the limo sped downtown.

Then the phone rang. Henry was apologetic, telling me that he had to take the call. There was some give and take on the phone, with Henry's charming demeanor gradually giving way to what can best be described as post modern Attila the Hun. Some creative profanity eased into his conversation. I could see the chauffeur's eyes in the rear view mirror. We exchanged glances and he gave me a look that said: "Happens all the time." Somehow I didn't doubt it.

"Take me to the office!" Henry suddenly shouted to the driver, slamming his phone down. Turning to me, he said in a sweet voice, "Sorry about this but I have something urgent to attend to--like now. I'm going to get dropped off at my office then Sam can take you home. That alright?" Before I could answer he was on the phone again, yelling about some "asshole" in, I think, Bahrain. We then zoomed to his office and Sam took me home, telling me in a sympathetic voice good-night. Thus ended my other foray into dating.

Chapter 5 Westward

My routine in the city endured for another couple years, as did my celibacy. On a sad note, Sali left, returning home after being unable to bring his wife and family over to the States. He was replaced by an Hispanic man from the Dominican Republic, who was, all in all, unfriendly and not a likely candidate for my late night visitations. Fortunately Wendy picked up the slack after bombing out of another relationship, leaving her with time on her hands. I tagged along with her on the many excursions to the Hamptons she took, and a few to Cape Cod as well. She tried to talk me into going to Europe with her but I declined the offer, believing that the distance involved was too great and I didn't want to be stranded overseas when and if I had a sudden need to return to my home.

My recovery, ongoing as it was, had deposited me in two operating psychological spaces. Part A had to do with my new self, the one who could exist without any connection to my recent past. Part B was a character that needed to follow old signposts, which invariably led to painful memories. So it was safe to say my psychological footing was precarious for the most part, but, ultimately, something I had to cope with.

This was where I was at when something radical changed in my life. It was Wendy as usual who was responsible for this abrupt change in direction for me. She was friends with a priest, of all things, who made it known he wanted to meet me. This was odd on so many levels. "He said he wants to discuss something with you," Wendy had said matter-of-factly, as if a member of the clergy and me were somehow sympatico. "What for?" I wanted to know, which seemed like a logical question to ask.

"I think he wants to hear your confession, I don't know," she replied sarcastically. "He didn't actually tell me anything accept that he would like to meet you."

"I'm Jewish, you know," I told her, exasperated by her lack of details.

"So," she shot back. "I really don't think he's interested in converting you or anything. Come on."

"How can you be so certain?" I declared, unsure how to take this new development. The last priest I had talked to had been at a christening for my friend's kid back in Rumont. That had been maybe four or five years ago. As to religion in general, well, we weren't intimately familiar with each other, regardless of the denomination or brand.

"He's this nice old guy I met years ago while modeling," she explained. "He was a family friend of one of the guys I was dating at the time. We've kept in touch all of these years. What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I don't know...maybe because you being friends with a priest is kinda weird," I answered. "What would you and a priest have in common? Tell me, please. I'd really like to know."

"Okay, for one, we talk about religion--if you must know," she replied testily.

"You do!"

"What? Am I not allowed to have opinions and think about things?" she announced. "I don't attend church regularly but--"

"At all. You don't attend church at all, Wendy," I corrected.

"Sometimes I do," she whined defensively.

"When?"

"Well...I went back in October for that...that event," she said, trying not to laugh.

"That 'event' was a choral recital or whatever you call it, Wendy," I informed her, laughing. "It had nothing to do with a religious service."

"Well, it was held in a church," she said, smiling.

"Anyway, my point still stands. You're not even Catholic, right?" I asked.

"Heavens no," she replied, laughing. "My parents were staunch Lutherans, for heaven's sake. We barely tolerated the Catholics."

A meeting was set up with this Father Paul at his parish church in New Rochelle. Wendy drove me because I had only agreed to meet with the priest if she went along. As intriguing as it might have sounded, meeting a priest and all, I didn't want to go it alone. My newfound identity was still somewhat fragile, where unexpected events were something to be avoided for the most part.

We drove up on a Saturday morning, making our way through the chaotic traffic and roadways that made up the route from Manhattan to the suburbs of New York City. The drive gave you a first hand look at just how much the implementation of urbanization could stack up humanity and force people to exist in such close proximity. After several near death experiences at the hands of Wendy's less than competent driving skills, we arrived at the church, an uninspiring edifice that proved function over form affected even religious houses of worship.

"What is this early stripmall Gothic," I joked as we were getting out of the car.

"You know, Sarah, one of the least admirable things I find with your recovery is the return of your sense of humor," Wendy stated, frowning.

"Oh, come on, Wend, I was just making a joke," I protested.

"What's the difference anyway," she said, sighing, "they all house the same bullshit when it comes right down to it."

I looked at her for a moment, then said, "Your social commentary seems to be getting darker and darker as you get older."

"Bite your tongue, Doc. You know I'm not getting older--just better."

"The best money can buy," I sang out, regretting it immediately because I knew just how sensitive she was about any medical enhancements she might have had or was contemplating getting done.

"A tuck here and there wouldn't hurt you too, you know," she exclaimed nastily.

"Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean anything by what I said," I apologized, hoping she wouldn't slide into one of her snits, where she would punish me with stony silence for the rest of the day. Fortunately, she snapped out of it and told me all was forgiven.

Father Paul, a tall man, in his sixties, with a shaved head that made him look more like an aging biker than a priest, met us at the front of the church where he was instructing the groundskeeper to prune back some bushes from the sidewalk. My nervousness caught his eye immediately and he said, "I won't bite, I assure you." That broke the ice. It didn't take me long to see why Wendy had maintained a friendship with the priest. He was, simply, easy to get along with.

His personality leaned towards self-deprecation and he was actually very witty. Not having had much contact with priests, or clergy for that matter, he was a surprising revelation. Still, as we chatted I kept wondering just why he wanted to meet me. He didn't seem like a celeb junky of any type. My notoriety, although having slipped in the ensuing few years after my last brush with fame, was still potent enough to instigate public reactions.

In fact, not two weeks before, Wendy and I had been walking down Columbus Avenue when a man approach me demanding my autograph. I, as a rule, didn't sign autographs, finding it somehow ghoulish. Having my fame rest on two murderers (three if you count Rey Flowers) seemed, well, unseemly. The man wouldn't take no for an answer, following us for several blocks, all the while screaming at me for not meeting his demands. We had to finally duck into a bar and have the bartender order the man off the premises before we could escape the predicament.

What exactly did this priest tucked away up in a small New York parish suburb want with me? It was simultaneously puzzling and disturbing. As we chatted, sitting in his small office in the back of the church building, I began to experience some very familiar feelings, ones that I knew would escalate into a bad reaction if I didn't gain control over them. Wendy picked up on my discomfort almost immediately and declared in a sing-song voice: "B...R...E...A...T...H...E." Looking on, the priest had a confused expression. Then he did something totally surprising, grabbing both of my hands and calling out: "It is almost over. It is almost over."

I tried to pull away, but he held tightly to my hands and told me to repeat what he was saying. I mumbled a few words and he told me to speak louder. I recited along with him word for word. Then Wendy was saying the phrase too. A few minutes later I could feel my heart slowly stop pounding in my chest. I smiled at Wendy and then at the priest, who said, "And now it is over."

"Like some modern day exorcism," Wendy quipped, hoping Father Paul would find her comment humorous. He laughed, then released my hands.

"That was almost a bad one," I muttered, avoiding eye contact at first then looking at Father Paul. "Thanks."

"That's something they taught us at the Vatican," he joked.

"Sarah here wants to know why you wanted to meet her, father?" Wendy then spat out, utilizing her usual directness. "To be honest, she's kinda been freaking out about it. You know, stressing."

I shot her a look of disapproval and said meekly, "She's exaggerating."

"Oh sure," Wendy exclaimed, rolling her eyes.

"Well, let me see if I can dispel the mystery right away," Father Paul announced, smiling. "I just wanted to ask a favor of Doctor Greene."

This sounded ominous at best to me. I tried not to literally squirm in my chair. I nervously glanced around the small office, willing myself to be calm. Just behind the priest's head I could see a photo of a local politician, with Father Paul. They were both smiling and shaking hands. Next to the photograph was a small statue of--and I was sure I was seeing things, Michael Jackson. Looking closer, I could see it was a small sculpture make out of clay, like someone might do in a beginners class in sculpting. Probably a gift from one of the parish kids, I thought.

"Dispel away, Father," Wendy declared lightheartedly, grinning at me.

"I have a friend, a former classmate at the seminary in fact, who was murdered recently," the priest informed us, lowering his voice into a solemn register that made him seem even more...divine, I guess. Without realizing it, I had let out an audible gasp, which prompted Wendy to reach out and grab my hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you, Doctor Greene."

I held up my hand in a stopping motion and said, "I apologize for my reaction. Kinda took me by surprise. That's all. I wasn't expecting to hear something...something like that."

"I should have prefaced what I had to say with something a little more preparatory," Father Paul suggested, giving me a sympathetic look. "Anyway, his name was Father Tim and he was killed out in Arizona."

The word killed bounced through my comprehension, drilling deep down into my psyche. The priest didn't really have to say another word. I knew where he was going. It wasn't, in any way or fashion, going to be good. Immediately, I began to prepare myself for the worse.

"That's terrible," Wendy said. "So sorry for your loss, Father."

"Thank you," he said, nodding solemnly at her. "It came as quite a shock, of course. I must say it was the way he was killed that shocked me even more."

I didn't want to hear another word. I wanted the priest to stop talking, to stop revealing anymore. No more details, I wanted to shout out. A voice echoing in my head was pleading for him to change the subject. Talk about anything else, please.

Wendy could sense my uneasiness and tried to redirect the conversation by saying, "Well, Father Paul, I hope everything else at your church is going okay."

"He was crucified," Father Paul declared in a voice hollowed by fear and distress.

There was complete silence in the small room for a moment, only interrupted by the sound of a lawn mower off in the distance outside. Wendy looked at me, giving me a look that said she had no idea this was going to happen. I closed my eyes for a moment, hoping to block it all out. Father Paul was now rubbing his hands together and staring out the small window behind us.

"When you say crucified, father, do you mean like in the Bible?" Wendy asked, not sure what other comment might be appropriate.

He nodded yes, then said, "They found him hanging on a cross in front of his church. Some bikers were passing by when they saw him. Dead," he explained, with his voice trailing off.

"Bikers," Wendy muttered, "as in Hell's Angels type of bikers?"

"No, two guys on bikes...bicycles," he replied. "They were riding down the road when they found the body. Apparently there are a lot of bicyclists that ride out there...near Sedona."

"Oh, I see, Sedona," Wendy said, hoping that would end the topic. "Never been there myself. Almost went there once, a long time ago. For a photo shoot. I think it was a car commercial or something. No, maybe it was for--oh who knows?"

"It was a re-creation," Father Paul muttered, turning around and fumbling in his desk for a minute. He then produced a photograph of Father Tim, taken maybe five years or so ago. In the photo, which was inserted in a gilded edged frame, Father Tim and Father Paul were standing in front of one of those pinnacles Sedona was famous for. I noticed they were both wearing hiking gear. The casual observer would never guess they were priests.

I was hoping Wendy wouldn't pursue the subject but she did, leaning in to ask: "What do you mean by that exactly?"

Father took the photograph back, setting it back on his desk, then replied, "Like in the Gospels. Crown of thorns. Wound in the side. Smell of vinegar on his body. Someone or somebody re-enacted Christ's death."

"Have they questioned Mel Gibson yet?" Wendy joked, immediately regretting it.

Father Paul ignored her remark and said directly to me, "I was wondering if you could go out to Arizona and see what exactly happened. It's just something that keeps plaguing me and I thought maybe you could...you would be more successful than the local police. I fear that it is some sort of Mayberry police force out there and they aren't going to accomplish anything at all."

"Father Paul," Wendy spat out, unable to say anything else.

"I know it is a huge imposition and all but I think there might be something sinister going on out there and you--"

"I can't believe you are asking her to--"

"I just thought she would know how to zero in on what happened and all," Father Paul stated, staring at me for my reaction, my response.

"Father Paul, talk about stepping over the line," Wendy exclaimed, starting to stand up.

"Wait a minute," I finally said, motioning for Wendy to sit back down. "I want to hear more about the crime."

"You do?" Wendy said quizzically. "Are you sure? I mean this is out there, Sarah. Way out there."

"Please, Father Paul, continue, but take it slow, if you would. I need time to digest it, to process it," I told him, looking at Wendy to let her know I was handling the situation.

With therapy, as with life I suppose, you almost never have a Eureka moment. In the movies you might have such an occurrences, one in which you turn the page so to speak, or, better, open the door to another dimension in your personal journey. This time around, however, I did. It was not unlike a dam breaking. I knew I needed to get out and away from New York City; and I also had to face my fears on a larger scale, otherwise I would never make any definitive progress with my condition. Father Paul had just supplied me with an avenue for mental redemption of sorts. It was either that or I was going to suffer a rather dramatic setback trying.

Arizona, the southwest in general really, was a fabled land as far as I was concerned. I was from the Northeast and had long ago embraced every facet of what that entailed. Politically, we were liberal. Socially, we leaned towards a benign socialism. Our values had been honed by Ben Franklin and John Adams. The concentrated population made for post-modern Industrialism thinking, where we instinctually thought in terms of the whole and not the part.

Out West, it was different, diametrically so. The vastness of the land, with the wide open spaces, instilled a sense of individuality that was rooted in the arid soil. "Different angles," a therapist had said to me when explaining his home state of Arizona. We were attending a conference in DC and he was telling me just how much he hated being in a city. His personal philosophy, as told to me, was that geography alone could inculcate radically different visions of living life. His theory centered around perception as shaped by the environment you live in. At the time, I thought he was somehow putting me on, but then I got off the plane at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix and drove north. Unfolding before me was a carpet of gnarled mountains, with a serpentine road taking me in between them, finally depositing me in the expansive Verde Valley.

Descending down into the valley on I-17 had a Wizard of Oz aspect to it, as you plunged down from seven thousand feet to about 3 thousand, all the while in the distance you could see the famous Red Rocks of the Sedona area appearing like some weird geological apparitions. Being from back East, as they like to say, I was mesmerized by the rock formations and the color. It gave you an indication of why some people might think the region harbored some other worldly aspects to it, something emanating from the ground up. I wasn't one of those people, of course, but it was still a fantastic sight to see.

Father Paul had arranged for me to meet with one of the locals, from Cottonwood, who would show me around, filling me in on some of the details of the crime. He was a reporter for one of the hometown newspapers, one of those weeklies that are distributed free and rely solely on advertising dollars. According to Father Paul, the reporter had been a friend of Father Tim's. "He knows everything there is to know about the area," Father Paul had assured me. I hoped that he did because, judging by the terrain, my sense of direction was going to be put to the test. "You ever hear of a compass?" Wendy had joked when we heard that solving this crime might require some element of actually coming into contact with the outdoors. Make no mistake, I wasn't the outdoors type, before in my life and certainly not now. At summer camp I had been one of those campers who constantly whined about the bugs and the heat, not to mention any inclement weather.

The man, the reporter, I was supposed to make contact with was named Caleb. He was a native Arizonan, which was, in this day and age, becoming a rare commodity in Arizona with all of the resident transplants from somewhere else in the US. I expected to drive up and find a man wearing cowboy boots, complete with bolo tie and ten gallon hat, maybe even chaps if I caught him coming in off the range. He would be naturally taciturn, speaking in monosyllabic words when forced to. Salt of the earth would be how his friends would describe him. His word would be his bond, type of thing. I just hoped he didn't chew tobacco and answer my questions in between deftly placed spits into a coffee cup or some other handy utensil.

Expectations that shape images can be wrong. Mine was. The directions given to me by Father Paul to Caleb's office were spot on, and, being that the newspaper building was right on Main Street, I found it easily. Yes, the town of Cottonwood did indeed have a Main Street, proving that Smalltown, America is holding up their end when it came time to reinforce stereotypes.

As I drove up I found myself perspiring but it wasn't from nervousness. The AC in the rental car had been working overtime to ward off the demonic heat penetrating the windows of the car in early September. The vaunted monsoon season of desert Arizona was almost non-existent that summer, leaving the inhabitants to survive in triple digit temps for days on end. Usually, so I was told by a woman sitting next to me on the plane, the rains arrive to break the omnipresent heat. "It's a dry heat, don't worry about it," Wendy had assured me, as if a hundred and ten temperature would be mitigated by a flimsy moisture index. When I first arrived and was treated to just what a broiling desert feels like at high noon, I texted her a little missive: F--g hot is F--g hot no matter what!

To my dismay, I hadn't packed a hat of any kind with me for the trip. This was a giant blunder on my part, because now, as I exited the car, I could feel the sun's rays blasting my scalp. It felt like I was being irradiated right on the spot. I was certain that a person could literally burst into flames if exposed to this level of heat. Quickly, I scurried into the newspaper building.

The newspaper operation was housed in a quaint building with an ersatz facade that was, I think, trying to replicate what a frontier town might look like in say the 1880's. It came off as Disney does the Wild West more than anything else; although it was an improvement on the usual American penchant for building wall to wall strip malls all across the land. I noticed the name of the paper was the Cottonwood Times as I went inside.

Small town periodicals, of whatever stripe, are the backbone of America really. They have been there from the beginning and are still plugging along, bringing the news to small communities in every corner of the country. This particular newspaper looked like it was being manned by maybe a three or four employee crew. I could only imagine that everyone on the payroll was doubling up on different jobs in order to get the paper out. You had to be a jack of all trades in order to survive.

I was greeted by a woman, early thirties, who asked me if she could help me. I told her I was looking for Caleb and she directed me to a coffee shop a few blocks away. "Half the time he's over there," she said, smiling. I dreaded going back out into the heat but hurried to my car, firing on the AC immediately, greedily sucking in the cool air.

When I got to the coffee shop/bistro, complete with artisan breads and wholegrain muffins, I was shocked to see so many bicycles out front. There were bikes of every description, from Tour de France type road bikes to those funny looking recumbent types to expensive mountainbikes with large, knobby tires that looked like something from a Mad Max movie. It was obviously bike central for the Cottonwood area. Bikers were clustered around the outdoor tables, segregated into groups, with almost a naturalized separation between bikes that went on the road and bikes that went off the road. Then I realized I hadn't a clue what Caleb even looked like. I couldn't imagine myself standing up in front of all of these strangers and announcing his name. I simply froze, standing still right by my car.

Not thirty seconds later I heard a voice say, "You made it." I turned to see a man, late thirties, medium height, with a fashionable four day old beard. He had his hair cropped short and was wearing what appeared to be armor on his shins. I noticed that he had chocolate colored eyes and a dark complexion. He extended his hand, then quickly removed his glove and shook my hand. "You must be Caleb," I stammered, surprised. He nodded yes, grinned, then said, "I recognized you from...you know...from the media photos." I blushed and mumbled a few words about it being my cross to bear or something to that effect.

He asked me if I wanted something to drink and I can remember thinking that having a cold drink at that point in time might be the best thing that ever happened to me. We went inside the cafe and sat down at a table that was blessedly close to the AC vent. I was waiting for the cool air to rejuvenate me while he launched into the details of the crime, speaking like a crime reporter might, touching on all of the police department's input on the case.

"The crime lab here, as can be imagined, is sorely lacking," he told me, laughing. I was still trying to get over my prejudiced expectation of him. He wasn't trying to channel John Wayne, or even John McCain. His persona, on first impressions, was more Southwestern light. That is to say he was the new West, the one that encompassed active outdoor living, the one you might see in a REI catalog. One morning they might wake up and want to go kayaking and the next day might find them hang gliding or rock climbing. The life style was all predicated on doing some sort of exercise that involved toys of some kind. I didn't doubt that Caleb would think nothing of jumping off a cliff on his bike, hence the body armor. I had misread the contemporary Southwest. Caleb wasn't going to be chawing on tobacco, he was more likely to be slurping up some Power Bar goo.

I thought I sensed that he was trying to steer clear of my history, disciplining himself not to broach the subject in any way. I appreciated that. I was sensitive to being the only freak in a room and would probably always be. The passing of time had not lessened that problem for me. In my mind, I was sure he wanted to ask me questions about my ordeal, or, at least, about the tattoos. "Can't you just show me one?" I could imagine him asking me. "I read that you had one...down there," he would say, lowering his voice and pointing. I would be humiliated, again, and flee, running right out the door.

"Can I see where it happened?" I suddenly found myself asking.

"Sure," he replied, smiling back at me. "Oh, you mean right now. Okay. I have my bike here. Why don't you follow me back to my office so I can drop the bike off and then we can go on to the church."

We walked outside to where his bike was propped up against a pole. He straddled the bike, a menacing looking contraption that looked like it was made to tackle Pike's Peak, put his helmet on, and told me that he would meet me at the newspaper. With that, he was off, speeding down the street. I watched him for a moment and couldn't imagine where he got so much energy from. Then I noticed a few bikers staring and feared that they had recognized me. I quickly walked to the rental car and followed Caleb back down the street.

He offered to drive to the church when I got back to his office but I declined his offer, telling him that I would rather drive myself. He then jumped in my rental car and pointed towards the east, advising me to take a left and then a right. We drove out past some ranches, complete with the usual odorous scent of manure, as well as dozens of horses of every description, from pintos to little ponies. This part of the valley was State land, a vast tract of chaparral type terrain.

Caleb pointed to a smallish butte or mesa (I didn't know the difference.) and said, "There's Indian ruins up on top of there." I glanced over, trying to see what he might be talking about. "How old are we talking about?" I asked, trying to make conversation, having never, despite that one college course in Archeology way back when, gotten into ancient cultures as such. "Probably around a thousand or eleven hundred." "That's pretty old," I replied vacantly, cringing at my insipid comment. He didn't seem to notice.

Then we were on route 89a, the four lane road that took you up to Sedona, not fifteen miles away. Off to the left, about a mile down the road, I could see a large church. In the harsh sunlight it looked like one of those Spanish missions you might see in a bad Eastwood movie, you know, the ones were the banditos might show up in the small village and wreak havoc. The only difference was this particular church was massive and brand new. The architect had tried to (no pun intended) religiously keep to the original scope of the mission architecture. Unfortunately, the edifice looked like an example of an early mission cathedral on steroids. I wasn't from the area but I doubted there were enough Catholics in all of Arizona to fill the place.

Caleb noticed me staring at the mission in the distance and said, "Kind of big, huh?"

I shook my head yes and exclaimed, "Are there a lot of Hispanics living here or something?"

He shook his head no and replied, "Religious planning for the future."

We laughed together and he motioned for me to turn left. As I was following his directions, pulling into a parking lot, I was beginning to see that the Verde Valley was one hotbed for religion, religion of every stripe. Right across from the church was the check in office for a retreat, which had a location several miles down a dirt road. It was one of those places Sedona was famous for, the one where the guest can find peace and tranquility, all for a fee. The price of admission brought you closer to some undefined nirvana, interlaced with a spiritual rebirth at the hands of mother earth. All told, it was just another form of religion, one in which you were supposed to become intimately familiar with enlightenment.

My father had once written a book about religion and man's obsession with such and in it he had written: Perceptions are portraits and not photographs. I took this to mean that mankind responded to stimuli in different ways, each according to their own experiences. It was when man bundled those shared perceptions into concrete rules that religion became a force in the advance of history.

The lust for a religious cosmology was primordial, so said my father. "It is ingrained in all of us," he told me once, while in the background on TV we could hear the ranting cadence of some Sunday morning televangelist. My mother was surfing through the stations in search of the weather channel. "Honey, please, could you turn that nonsense off," my father complained, putting his hands up to his ears.

My father, who was well known for his distaste of organized religion, called the history of religion nothing but a showcase for the Dark Triad. The Dark Triad, which he wrote about in his second book, was how he broke down the players in history's march throughout the ages. The members of the Triad were narcissists, Machiavellians and psychopaths. His theory of cultural evolution stated that throughout history there was always a representative of these three agents working to change the times. I couldn't speak to the first two, but the last one I had personal experience with. To my father, religion was inseparable from the blueprint of history. The two were one and the same in so many ways. As I stood in front of this rather massive church tucked away in some backwater town in AZ, I knew my father must be right.

"It happened over here," Caleb called out, leading me around to the other side of the church. I followed him, wishing for all the world that I had a hat to cover my head. Somewhere overhead the sun was stalking me, sapping every last bit of my energy. Then Caleb was stopping and pointing.

"Here?" I asked, looking up at a row of three crosses, apparently put there to represent Golgotha. The cross in the middle of three was larger and, presumably, the one where Christ was to have been put to death. I stepped back a few feet, shielding my eyes from the glare of the afternoon sun.

"The priest was found on that one," Caleb stated, walking over to the cross, where you could still see blood stains on the wood. "He had been stripped down to a kind of toga or something. It was made out of a sheet I think. The coroner said he had been there maybe four hours or so. The roadies found him around eight in the morning."

"Roadies?" I asked, thinking that maybe he was talking about some Rock group that had been on tour in the area.

"Guys on bikes, you know, the ones with the skinny tires...like Lance Armstrong rides."

"Oh," I exclaimed, suppressing a laugh. "So he couldn't have been killed here then," I commented, running my hand along the base of the cross.

"No, I don't believe so," Caleb said. "Evidently the killer did his dirty work some place else then brought the body here and hung it up."

I walked around the base of the crosses, looking out in every direction. There were only two real access points by car, with one being a dirt road winding northward. I wondered just how dark it was around there at night, but then I thought there wouldn't have been anyone around the area after dark anyway. There would be a few cars headed up 89a. Then again, at that time in the morning it would be mostly deserted around there.

"How exactly did he...you know hang the body?" I wanted to know, as I looked up at the cross.

"The cops think maybe he used a crude pulley system or something," Caleb answered, walking around to the back of the cross and pointing to the top. "There are some rubbing marks across the top there. Otherwise he would have had to use a ladder and be a really strong dude to carry a body up a ladder and strap it to a cross."

"Firemen carry bodies all the time, don't they?" I asked, squinting against the harsh sunlight to see where he was pointing.

"Yeah, that's true," he agreed. "I ride with a firefighter...maybe he can be of some help. If you want, I can set up a meet. Might prove to be useful."

I glanced at him, trying to gauge whether or not he was mocking me. With Caleb, I was learning, you could never tell. He spoke in a dry, matter of fact way. Several days later I would discover that he was half Native American, on his mother's side and up until his twenties had lived on the Yavapai-Apache reservation near Clarkdale, a small town several miles away from Cottonwood. His diction had the usual Indian cadence, an almost sing song rhythm. His words were often a poetic stream of candidness, stripped of any pretense. I found this personality trait alarming at first, utilizing my best East Coast skepticism by refusing to believe anyone could be so guileless. In time, though, I found it refreshing.

"Ride?" I asked, puzzled, thinking that maybe he was referring to, you know, on horseback.

"Yeah, we go on the trails at Dead Horse Ranch Park," he explained. Sensing I wasn't getting what he was trying to say, he added, "On our bikes."

"Oh...of course, your mountain bike," I said, giggling, embarrassed by my ignorance. "They are big on bikes around here, I guess."

He didn't say anything. I could see him staring off into the distance towards the mountains towards the west. I followed his gaze and could see a tiny object descending slowly from the sky. It took me a moment to realize it was a parachute. I watched the colorful chute disappear as it reached the ground.

"Paragliding," he said by way of explanation. "I think that's Jimmy's wing. We launch from Mingus Mountain. Hang gliders too."

I was looking at the seven thousand foot plus of mountain and wondering why anyone would want to jump off of it. "You mean to tell me you fly one of those things?" I asked, incredulous.

Caleb smiled at me then said, "Yeah. Like an eagle. But technically it's not really flying, more like descending," he explained, laughing.

"You are definitely braver than me."

"I can take you for a flight sometime if you like," he offered, smirking.

"Two people can go together?" I asked, surprised.

"Yeah. That's how they teach people to learn how to paraglide," he replied, scanning the mountain range for any more paragliders.

"I'm not that insane," I declared, looking off into the distance, wondering how anyone could jump off a mountain, parachute or not. Thinking for a moment, I asked, "Anything left at the site?"

"Anything?" he replied, staring at me for clarification.

"You know, like symbols...or a note of some kind," I replied.

"Yeah, that's right, there was something written in the dirt under the cross," he explained, pointing off towards the cross. "It was in Latin, I think."

"Really," I mused, glancing around the base of the cross.

"It's in the police report," Caleb told me, adding, "I can get that for you if you want."

"I liked to look at everything you got on the killing," I told him. "Everything."

Chapter 6 Squaring A Circle

I was learning that the Verde Valley was one big version of Outdoor World, or something approaching that. Between the hikers, bikers, horseback riders, trail runners, rock climbers, backpackers, and even kayakers (the Verde River ran through the valley), the place was alive with outdoor types of every description. Add to that hang gliders, paragliders, not to mention your garden variety skydivers, and you were talking about a beehive of activity going on everyday. On top of that you had ardent offroaders, with their "lift kit" jeeps and trucks. Also, don't forget the hunters, clothed in their camo, armed with high powered rifles; some even had bow and arrow, high tech contraptions that would make Robin Hood wet his pants. It was a wonder there was even enough land to go around for everyone to use.

That the region was wild was underscored by the recent shooting of a bear, a male yearling that was getting too cozy with the backyard of one of the nearby developments. Rangers from the Game and Fish Department were called in but the local police didn't think it was prudent to wait and took the bear down with several shots from a service hand gun. On my second day in the valley a family up on the mountain had been attacked by bear in their tent. They only survived serious harm after the hungry bruin found some cookies to run off with.

It didn't stop there. A few months before my arrival a rabid fox had attacked a woman as she was getting in her car. She had to fight off the fox and eventually managed to toss it into the trunk of her car. She then drove to a Vet where the fox sprung out of the trunk when they opened it and attacked the Vet. The animal was eventually killed, ending the terror on Main Street.

That was nothing compared to being told by the maid at my motel the story about a mountain lion she saw kill a deer right in her own backyard. All of that was going on and I haven't even mentioned anything about the scorpions, tarantulas, and rattle snakes, which were abundant and troublesome to say the least. Hell, even the usually docile javalinas were proving to be dangerous, having gored several tourists, sending the victims off to be stitched up at the ER. A poor German guy had received over thirty stitches to close his wound. He had tried to snap a picture of a javalina, an ugly animal that resembled a wild boar but was from a totally different genus, and been brutally attacked for his troubles.

The closest I got to participating in any outdoor activity was when I attempted to go horseback riding back on Brittany Farms in New York. It didn't take me long to realize that I didn't really much care for hopping on the back of an animal and trotting through the woods. I was, to my endless consternation, really a JAP, Jewish American Princess. Now, however, I realized that I was going to have to actually come into contact with nature. Here, in Arizona, you didn't have to go far until you were in the wilderness. Almost every day on the local news there seemed to be a story about some tourist or hapless hiker getting lost and having to be rescued. Besides, I was severely handicapped because I had absolutely no sense of direction.

First off, my wardrobe was going to have to be upgraded. My summer sandals weren't up to the task of tromping around the woods. I also desperately needed a hat of some kind. I was reluctant to get any advice from Caleb, fearing he would ridicule me. I imagined that he found me unprepared for any of this. I could just see him sitting there with his biking buddies: "Dudes, you should have seen this chick from New York. Totally clueless." Then of course he would have to add the kicker: "It's that wacked-out shrink, you know, the one with all of the tatts. Talk about weird." Then they would all want to know what my tattoos looked like and whether or not they could meet up so they could ogle me. I would be the carny attraction for Cottonwood.

I banished these thoughts to the back of my mind, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. Keep focused, I told myself. On the bed in my motel room, one of those "suites," the ones with the mini-fridge and microwave, I had spread out all of the documentation from the priest murder that Caleb had handed over. We had exchanged cell phone numbers and assured each other that we would cooperate on the case. Although he was the lead writer for the small paper on the story, his editor had given him every indication that the story wasn't going anywhere unless they found the killer. "No follow up for now," Caleb had told me, mimicking his editor's voice.

It was a small town newspaper. The front page would soon be devoted to the town council's next vote or the opening of a new restaurant, with maybe an announcement of the VFW's fish fry on Friday. I was looking at the newspaper derisively because I had grown up on the New York Times, supplemented later on by the Washington Post. There were columns about the local hiking club and snippets about the arrival of a new doctor for the neighborhood clinic, fleshed out by a police blotter that included three teenagers busted for drinking beer in a parking lot and a broken window at the Dairy Queen, apparently by vandals. The Cottonwood Times was there to document living and breathing Americana.

I could see that Caleb was frustrated. He didn't have a Jimmy Olsen complex really but he thought that the story of the priest's murder merited more coverage, something beyond just replicating the police report. Maybe he sensed something bigger was lurking in the background. I knew I did. This was more than a random murder. I had yet, at this point, visited the police department, but there were whispers in the town, ugly innuendos about the priest's sexual orientation. Being that he was Catholic, that was understandable.

"Might be a gay thing," the motel maid had said to me, keeping her voice down as if maybe God might hear her. "Like, you know, with the little boys." I didn't respond and she continued: "I think, like, the priest did something back before and one of his victims got revenge on him. Now. Like years later."

I didn't know what to say, so I mumbled, "That's a theory."

"My husband thinks so too," she said defensively.

"It would make sense," I added, trying to seem agreeable.

She smiled back at me, and exclaimed, "It didn't just come to me. I thought about it for awhile."

Her name was Crystal and she lived in Rimrock, a neighboring town known for meth labs and your usual streak of individualism that defined the West, which normally translated to leave me alone--especially the government. Arizona was a Red State and people like Crystal were the constituents that made it so. She lived in a trailer on land that she proudly owned, with a dirt driveway leading to the county road They had a well and a septic tank, with a "swamper" on top.

I liked her but knew she thought of me as one of those nutty liberals from back East, the ones who were always meddling. Even though she knew full well about my history she hadn't once broached the subject. We didn't talk politics, keeping our conversations in a general mode. Most times I was peppering her with questions about the area. She was a font of information, having lived there her whole life. It hadn't taken me long to know most everything about her. She readily volunteered a personal bio that included: pregnant at 17 and again at 20. Husband who worked for ADOT, laboring on road crews around the State. Father disappeared. Mother lived in Prescott and was a "dirty drunk." Kids, both girls, meant that she had to have a boy for her husband's sake. She had always wanted to go to community college to be a dental tech. "I am twenty four years old and feel like I'm going on fifty," was the most relevant quote.

I had been back to the crime scene again, wanting to have a look without anyone else around so I could take my time. A copy of the police report that Caleb had generously handed over told me that they hadn't found any tire tracks in proximity to the crosses. So, I reasoned, the killer (s) had probably parked his car on the road, slung the body over his shoulder and hoofed it the fifty yards to the site. .

I abandoned my idea about the ladder. That would have been too cumbersome. Instead, as I stood there looking up at the cross, I figured that the killer probably tied off two ropes on the body and used the T of the cross to hoist the body up, then tie it off from the bottom. I had drawn a few diagrams to that effect and they seemed to be workable. This would have been the easiest way to place his victim and then retreat into the darkness.

Placing the body was all about the display of his work. His evil ministrations had all been done elsewhere. The cross, the body of a priest, that was the message. I was certain this wasn't the end of it. This had to be the beginning. In the police report, I found out that what had been scrawled in the dirt was a Latin inscription that read: Ad majorem Deum Gloria. After a quick visit on the Internet I discovered that it meant: To the greater glory of God.

Caleb and I disagreed on one aspect of the case. We were in agreement that this seemed to be the start of a killing spree. He thought that the killer must have known the priest. I didn't think so. Something was telling me that this was impersonal in that the killer and the victim were connected by one strand, and that strand was what the priest represented. Even though there hadn't been many clues left at the scene, I got the distinct feeling that the murder had been motivated by a belief.

Unlike in the past, with Peter on hand, I had no one to sound this hypothesis off of. Was I reaching? Yes, the priest had been stripped of his clothes but I thought that artifact of the crime spoke more of a message than a motivation. The minimal mutilation of the body was following a script, a Biblical one. True, this could have been emblematic of retribution for a specific sin but I sensed that it leaned more towards a statement about the totality of religion.

Caleb respectfully disagreed when I broke down and called him later on, deciding that I was going to have to use him as the outlet for my theories. "Sounds like a stretch," he had said over the phone. "I am going to interview some of his fellow priests there tomorrow. You can come along if you want." I thought about his offer for a moment, wondering whether or not if I should do the interviewing alone. Then I decided that he might have a better connection to the locals, so I said, "What time?"

Caleb had told me to meet him in Old town, the original part of Cottonwood, which dated back to the 1800's. "I'll meet you at the bakery," he had said, adding, "they have great artisan type bread." When I pulled up, I could see him sitting at an outdoor table drinking coffee and eating one of the bakery's fresh cinnamon rolls. On the way in from my hotel, which was in the more modern part of Cottonwood, I noticed that the older section of the town consisted of one street really, where the store fronts were facades for buildings that had been preserved from maybe the early nineteen hundreds. They were quaint in that way where the visitor, almost always American, thinks a century ago was a really long time as far as history went. History cred aside, this section of town did have its charm.

"So very punctual," I announced, as I approached the table, hoping to start the day off on an up note. I was beginning to realize that I was going to be needing Caleb a lot more than the other way around.

"Been up since five," he informed me, smiling. "Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

I looked in the window of the bakery, where I could see a small boy playing with some toy trucks on the floor. Two women were standing at the counter pointing at the bakery goods on display. "No, I'll go inside and see what they have in the way of something sweet to eat."

"Check out the cinnamon rolls," he suggested, pointing at the half eaten one on the table.

The aroma of fresh baked bread and other sweet bakery products swept over me as I stepped inside. A man pushed by me at the door with a loaf of bread under each arm. In the back of the bakery, just beyond the glass counter, I could see several guys toiling away, rolling out dough for the next batch of bread. There was a generous coating of flour covering their shirt fronts. The two women were trying to decide between buying some muffins or scones. Just then the owner plopped down a tray of cookies, his most recent batch. The women gasped, and said they would take a few of those, pointing.

The little boy I had seen through the window then drove a toy truck over my foot, squealing out beep-beep! Startled, I stepped back and the owner ordered his son to get away from the customers. I then took Caleb's advice and ordered a cinnamon roll and some coffee. I could feel the heft of the roll as I walked back outside. I often wondered about bakery workers. Did they ever grow tired of the delicious aroma at their work place? How about the prospect of biting into just baked bread, or, more enticing, the delectable pleasure of a warm, moist cookie ...muffin...scone?

"Oh boy, if you could only bottle the aroma from a bakery," I declared, raising the cinnamon roll to my nose and taking a whiff as I sat down.

"It's one of my favorite spots, for sure," Caleb agreed. "I live a few blocks away so I'm always here."

"You do," I said, surprised.

"Is that shocking or something?" he wanted to know, laughing. "What? Did you think I lived at the newspaper office?"

I laughed and replied, "No, silly, but I...I don't know. I thought you probably lived in a tent...up on that mountain." I pointed up towards Mingus Mountain. "I figured you were like Jeremiah Johnson, you know, always living in the woods."

"Who?" he asked, giving me a bewildered look.

"Jeremiah Johnson, from the Robert Red-"

"I know who he was," he said, laughing, slapping at my arm. "We do have DVDs here in the Wild West, ma'am."

"You do!" I said sarcastically.

Caleb laughed and said, "At least you didn't think I lived in a teepee or hogan."

"Hogan?"

"It's an Indian thing," he said, waving the subject away with his hand.

This was my first inkling that Caleb might be a native American. I thought about my comeback for a moment, wondering whether or not I should broach the subject, then asked, "Are you...a native American?"

He looked at me for a moment, then replied in almost a surly tone, "I don't know. Would that make me more a native or more an American?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you--if I did," I stammered.

He laughed and said, "You didn't. I just don't like being called a 'native American.' It's demeaning...like being labeled or something. Hey, what's wrong with Indian? Sure it's a misnomer but, hey, it gets the job done."

I couldn't tell if he was being facetious or not, so I replied, "I thought that was what was in vogue now."

"You are Jewish--right? Do you like being called the chosen people?" he shot back. "It is like selective prejudice."

I mulled this over for a moment, wondering when I had ever been called that and said, "No one's ever called me--personally--that, but I can see what you are getting at. To tell you the truth though, it doesn't really bother me. My Jewish identity is kind of fluid. What I mean is there isn't any over layer of religion so I don't really identify with my heritage in the way that you might." This sounded patronizing, so I added, "You are part of a sovereign nation...with a culture."

He actually visibly winced, then joked, "Doesn't Israel have a lot of Jews living there? I thought I read that somewhere."

The tense mood seemed to have lifted and I answered, "Never been there. It's in the middle-east, right?"

It was good that we were engaged in banter. I felt more at ease. Since we first met there had been some underlying tension between us, something I couldn't quite understand. At first I had attributed it to just meeting and then I thought maybe he felt self-conscious around me because of my infamous celebrity. He did seem to be straining to maintain a sense of formality between us. I wanted to make a real effort to befriend him, knowing full well that I was going to need his help if I was to be successful.

"Oh, I translated the Latin that was written in the dirt," I announced, trying not to sound too scholarly because I had actually retrieved the translation off the Internet. I then told him what it meant and he nodded, looking off across the street, apparently deep in thought.

"Sounds like this might be the opening salvo," Caleb then said, frowning. "I guess the question now is about this killer's focus. Are we talking about him zeroing in only on the Catholics? With the Latin and all you would think that maybe he's got a thing about the Pope or something."

I wasn't so sure. Of course, with the Latin, you would have to lean towards that assessment. I don't know what it was but I had a feeling that it might be something broader, something that was going to encompass religion as a whole. If so, then what did Cottonwood have to do with it? That is to say why would it occur here, of all places?

"I'm thinking that maybe this is going to be a warped version of Revelations," I suggested, watching Caleb closely to gauge his response.

"Oh, the Bible references," he commented, grinning. "Let me tell you right up front, Dr. Greene, I don't know shit about the Bible. True, we 'native Americans' do go in for that whole Christ fairy tale, but not me. My grandmother had this thing about the Bible and all. Hell, she was the one who named me Caleb...after some dude in the Book of Numbers or some shit like that," he spat out, laughing. He thought for a moment, then said, "And I don't consider myself some kind of wacked out animist either. Don't tell my grand father that though. The spirits have ears," he said in almost a whisper, holding his hand up to his ear. "Nii nahii' maaate'e, ya nahiika' ee at'e A, which translated means something like: The earth is our mother, the sky is our father. We Indians are all about that whole earth thing."

I laughed, then explained, "In the New Testament the last book tells about, you know, the end of the world as we know it. Christ battles the devil, or something like that. Hell, I'm Jewish, what do I know from Christianity," I chirped in an exaggerated New York accent.

I went on to tell him of my inchoate theory. It was my belief that perhaps someone was going to turn the small town of Cottonwood into a battle ground between the forces of good and evil. I believed that the use of a Latin inscription had been sardonic, almost as if the killer had been intentionally tweaking any religiosity that might be attached to the murder. Unfortunately, as I was talking I could see his eyes almost glaze over and then I realized that what I was saying sounded almost like science fiction; bad B Hollywood movies were more plausible.

To change the subject, he said, "You want to drive or should I?"

I had almost forgotten why we were meeting. Caleb was supposed to accompany me to the church where the priest was found dead. We had set up a couple interviews with some of the workers at the church. It had been difficult to arrange because the administration of the parish had put everyone on lock-down. The local Bishop had urged everyone to go into containment mode. The media had been kept at arms length and every comment for public consumption was being orchestrated through one spokesman, a priest in Phoenix.

Caleb had made a few attempts at contacting the priest's office but had been rebuffed repeatedly. I didn't have any desire to speak with the spokesman, believing that he had no important information to add. What I really wanted to do was talk to the maintenance man for the church or perhaps one of the regular parishioners, someone on the ground who might give me a taste of what the father was like and how the church ran its day to day operations. On this particular aspect of the investigation, Caleb and I were on the same wavelength because he was still looking for an angle on a story and I was trying to get a feel for what it was like to be a priest in a small town in the West.

I let him drive and we climbed in his Jeep, which was jacked up high enough to clear a small tree. Caleb took his hobbies seriously and that demanded that he have a vehicle that could take him places most cars couldn't go. So we zoomed over to the church, while I held on in the open air Jeep, with my hair blowing in my face and the hot desert air sucking my breath away. Over in the driver's seat, Caleb didn't seem to mind the omnipresent odor of skunk wafting up from the roadside or the myriad species of insects doing strafing runs throughout the interior of the Jeep.

"If you want," he mentioned, as he swerved to dodge some roadkill, "I can take you on a little tour out beyond the church so you can see the area."

This sounded like the last thing in the world I would want to do but I needed to see the lay of the land, so to speak, and I found myself saying, "Why not."

He grinned over at me and sang out, "You are going to love it. You never know, you might get Red Rock Fever and want to stay out here."

I seriously doubted that. Curious, I asked, "What kind of fever?" I had heard of Valley Fever before, an unusual disease that affected your lungs and was prevalent in sections of Arizona. It came from bacteria in the soil and could scar the lungs.

"It is when people see the Red Rocks and love them so much they never want to leave," he explained, laughing. "I think they might have a vaccine you can take against it."

"Yeah, it's called one hundred degree temperatures," I shot back, shouting over the rushing wind.

He frowned at me and said, "You will get used to it."

At the church we were, unfortunately, stonewalled immediately. A young priest met us literally at the door, telling us that there would be no interviews--not today, not ever apparently. He was excessively polite but firm. First, Caleb had a go at him, trying to persuade him to change his mind. When this was unsuccessful, I stepped in and attempted to charm him. The priest actually said: "Nice to meet you. I read your books. Liked the first one, not too crazy about the second one." Taken back for a moment, I replied, "One out of two is not bad." He smiled at me and then told us he had something to attend to and was gone, disappearing into the cavernous church.

Caleb and I exchanged looks, then he said, "Damn, I guess the higher ups got to him, huh."

"Should we push it?" I asked, looking around inside the church. "It has been my experience that people just love to talk about a murder."

"I don't want to have anybody lose their job over this," Caleb replied reasonably. I nodded in agreement. "How about we take a little ride. I can show you some of the backcountry near here."

This sounded like more wind, dust, bugs in my face but I agreed, reluctantly. Back in the jeep, Caleb steered northward, as we bounced over a dirt road that snaked into open land. In the distance, I could see the unmistakable outlines of the Red Rocks region. The morning sun was playing on the line of red cliffs and formations, making for an almost painting like landscape. It was, all in all, a marvel and I could see why people found it fascinating.

And they did. They came from all parts of the world to see the pinnacles and, if you were so inclined, the vortexes. Tourism was a booming business in Sedona and the surrounding area. On any given day of the year you could see fitted out jeeps driving around the backroads, weighed down with tourists ogling the terrain, with cameras in hand. The locals, like most inhabitants who lived in high traffic tourist locales, tolerated the transient guests, knowing they brought money and were, ultimately, good for the local economy.

To Caleb, however, they were pests, uninvited guests who trampled the land and increased the environmental damage to the ecology. One of his pet peeves was the idea that the residents would allow tour operators to defile the backcountry with endless streams of jeep and ATV tours. They were money makers though and weren't going to be banished anytime soon. Every time we would see one around town, laiden down with gaping tourists, he would spit out an invective, sometimes audible enough to be heard ten feet away.

Caleb pulled the jeep over suddenly and pointed off to the right. My eyes followed where he was pointing and I was surprised to see several animals grazing. "Antelope," he said, adding, "don't see them around here much anymore. Been driven out by the development." All of a sudden it had an Out of Africa feeling to it. I squinted, staring, then said, "I didn't know they had animals like that in Arizona." He kind of snorted then announced, "AZ has lots of wild life. We got eagles, hawks, owls, elk, big cats, bears, badgers...longhorns, ringtails."

"What the hell is that?" I wanted to know. He laughed and replied, "It's a funny looking little animal that looks like a cross between a cat and a monkey."

He then drove me to some Indian ruins that had been restored and on to a mesa, where he asked me if I wanted to take a little hike. I looked up at the trail that unfolded before us like a coil of wire and immediately started devising excuses to get out of it. He was eyeing me, waiting. "Up there?" I finally responded feebly, pointing to the top of the mesa. "Yep," he confirmed, jerking his thumb in the direction of the trail. He then assured me that he had some water in the back to take with us up the trail.

I glanced at him and then back at the trail. "I'm not sure if I have the time or not. Shouldn't we be following up on some leads?" He ignored my subtle whining and stated: "Got your new hiking shoes on I see. Might be a good time to break them in." I stole a quick look down at my shoes, the ones the girl in the outfitter store had told me were perfect for day hikes, and wished I had worn my flip-flops. "I've got my good shorts on...probably not a good idea to get them dirty." "They look like hiking shorts to me," he said, which was, of course, true. I had bought them when I bought the damn shoes. In fact, I looked like one of those models from an REI catalog, the ones who are clad from head to toe in the latest garb for tackling the great outdoors, from Pantalonia to the Serengenti.

"Oh, okay," I agreed reluctantly, if not petulantly, climbing out of the jeep, an unwilling participant in experiencing what mother nature had to offer. Cheerily, Caleb sang out, "You are in for a treat." I seriously doubted that. All I could think of was perspiration and dirt, two things that were going to be intimately connected by the time I got to the top of the looming mountain in front of us.

Caleb grabbed a small pack out of the back, and two bottles of water out of a cooler. Ever thoughtful, he dropped two energy bars in the outside pocket of the pack. Then we were off, with him announcing over his shoulder, "Keep an eye out for rattle snakes." What? echoed in my head. Did he say snakes? Rattle snakes? They bite you, right? You do die. "What did you say about snakes?" I cried out in an almost quivering voice. He ignored me, plowing on.

The trail was short in distance, but a lung buster never the less. It went up--and up, switchbacking all the way to the top. I was out of breath in less than two minutes. Caleb, my heartless backcountry guide, stopped frequently to offer encouragement, which went something like this: "Come on, it's not much further." I wanted to kill him and probably would have pushed him over the side, which was a nice two hundred (maybe three) foot drop, if I could only catch my breath.

Up we went. In front of me I could see his bulging calves flexing as he dashed ahead of me. As expected, I was sweating and, naturally, choking on dirt. When we stopped for a moment to take a quick drink from the bottles of water, I asked, "What exactly is fun about this?" He laughed in what I considered to be a sadistic manner and replied, "Take a look out there." I turned to look in the direction where he was pointing and saw an expanse of mountains and sky, punctuated by the red hue that made, so I imagined, geologists wet their pants over. "Nice view," I managed to say between catching my breath. "You might say that," he sneered. Then we were heading up again.

We were finally nearing the top and I was sure that death was imminent. It would come with my last breath, as it rattled around inside my lungs, which were straining to the bursting point. I could see how it would play out. A few of the tabloid shows on TV would pick it up from the local paper. Dr. Sarah Greene, of tattoo and crime fame, expired while hiking in the Sedona area. Her hiking guide had tried to revive her to no avail. Caleb's last quote would be: She had died complaining about her dirty socks and how she had just bought them--for twelve dollars. It would be Caleb's brush with fame. He would then be asked to be on a reality show in the fall, one in which he would take celebrities into the wild to see whether or not he could get them to expire on camera. Cable networks would actually get into a bidding war for the rights to the show.

"Is this it?" I gasped, looking around us, hoping that it was over.

"Nope," he answered, grinning at me.

"You are trying to kill me--right?" I called out to his back because he was pressing on. "People back in Cottonwood know where I was going today. You won't get away with this."

"Come on, lame-o," he shouted over his shoulder. "It's not much further."

"I doubt that," I shot back, trying to marshall my strength. Then I screamed. It was heartfelt in that way that demonstrates the level of your fear. I can best describe it as a feeling of terror, something that seems to rivet right to your spine. To my immediate right I had seen a movement, a blur really. I turned and there it was, a large, hairy animal. Caleb, shocked by my piercing scream, came rushing back.

"What is it?" he called out, running up to my side.

"I saw something...over there!" I exclaimed, pointing.

"Really, what?" he asked, looking around.

"I don't know. It looked like...like some kind of beast," I replied, unable to get my mind to work right.

"Beast," he said, amused. "Are we talking supernatural beast or what?"

"Very funny," I shot back, starting to head back down the trail.

"Hold up," he ordered, "let me take a look."

"It looked almost like that creature in the movie American Werewolf of London...or Werewolf from London...you know what I mean," I explained.

"I think I missed that film," he said, laughing. "I'm pretty sure we don't have any werewolves around here but you never know."

"You are a real comedian. Maybe you should go and do stand-up somewhere," I said angrily.

Just then the animal emerged from the brush and non-chalantly trotted away. Caleb laughed and declared in a loud voice, "Man, I wish I had my gun with the silver bullets in it."

"Do something!" I screamed out.

"It's just a javelina. I guess I could run after it and wrestle it to the ground. We could have it for dinner maybe," he joked. "He's not going to bother you, Sarah. Don't worry about him. He's more scared of you than you are of him."

"I seriously doubt that," I stated. "Can we go now? Please."

"No, I am from the Werewolf clan of Sedona and we want to initiate you into our--"

"I'm going to get hysterical on you any second now," I threatened.

"You mean to tell me you have stared down murderers before and one javelina is sending you over the edge," he said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Speaking of edge, I might just jump off this one right this second," I declared, leaning over to look at the three hundred foot dropoff. "You will have to explain why I ended up splattered all over your precious red rocks to the authorities and the press."

"Like hell, I'll just pretend like I don't know you. Besides, when you hit the bottom nobody is going to be able to identify the body," he joked, grinning.

My pulse was finally getting back to normal. I realized he wasn't going to be dissuaded from continuing on, so I relinquished any hope of convincing him to go back down the trail. We then continue on for another half mile or so, passing across the mesa to the other side. He stayed next to me, offering encouragement the entire way over. The final steps took us to an overlook where we could see towards Sedona and out towards the Mogollon Rim in the East. It was, without a doubt, a very beautiful view. Maybe there was something to this hiking business, I thought, as we studied the sights below us. Caleb pointed out landmarks and played the tour guide to perfection.

It was obvious now, to both of us, that we were locked into a collaboration of sorts, one in which we were going to have to work together in order to solve the mystery that seemed to be unfolding in the Verde Valley. We needed each other for perhaps different reasons, yet there was a mutual need. I was going to have to work with him. He, in turn, was going to have to reciprocate. It was both simplistic and confusing.

Chapter 7 Nom De Meurte

"It's happened again," I heard Caleb say on the phone. I knew what he was referring to immediately. "You predicted it," he stated. I could hear traffic noises in the background. "Where are you?" I asked. "How about I come right over to your motel and pick you up? The cops are on the scene right now."

When I hung up the phone I realized my hands were shaking. Must be excess adrenaline, I thought. When Caleb called I had been on my computer writing an email to Father Paul, trying to get more information on his friend, the first victim, something (anything) that might prove to be useful in the investigation. Although I still thought that the priest's murder had been an act that was disconnected from any familiarity with the victim, I wanted to make sure I covered all the bases. You had to be thorough, at all costs.

Father Tim was, originally from Long Island. He was Irish-American in the hyphenated world of modern America. He had gone to High School in a small town on Long Island, before going off to the seminary, which was in Mass. It all sounded like your average everyday bio, if you were going to turn out to be a priest that is. The man had been, apparently, a saint early on in his life. No juvenile rap sheets. No drug busts lurking in the background anywhere. The man didn't even smoke or drink. As far as I could tell there hadn't even been any girl friends either. And, as the times dictate, no boy friends as well.

There were no blemishes of any kind. His history was totally vanilla. He had been a good student, but not an exceptional one. With his grades and SAT's he could have gone on to an academically reputable college. Father Tim had, apparently, a great aptitude for science even. In the end, he had chosen the Church, where he had served for many years without any obvious problems; at least I couldn't find any. His religious career was distinguished by being ordinary.

The most prominent aspect of Father Tim's history was that he didn't stand out. I couldn't imagine why he would have been murdered. There was absolutely nothing that I could discover that would lend itself to being anywhere near controversial. There didn't seem to be a magnet, something that would attract attention. It was almost as if the killer had thrown a dart at a map or maybe opened a phone book and picked the priest at random.

I heard Caleb's jeep screech to a stop outside my ground floor room and a few seconds later he was knocking on my door. "Let's get a move on," he said excitedly, motioning for me to hurry up. I grabbed my purse and followed him back out to his jeep. "I got a tip from a friend at the police department," he explained, zooming out of the parking lot. I barely had time to buckle my seat belt. "The paper's gonna have to let me write up something now," he crowed, zipping in and out of traffic on 89a.

"Are we sure it's the same guy?" I asked, flinching as he downshifted and swerved around a parked car on the side of the road.

"Guess who the second victim was," he called out over the rushing wind.

"Who?"

"A rabbi," he answered. "I'm thinking that can't be a coincidence--right? I mean, come on."

Rabbi, I was thinking, wondering just how many Jews lived in Cottonwood. "Do they even have enough Jews in this town to have a minyan?" I said, as Caleb honked his horn and waved at a man on a bike. The biker waved back and pantomimed for Caleb to call him.

"That's one of my biking partners," he explained. "We're supposed to go riding tomorrow. What in the hell is a min-yan?"

"Like a quorum, only with Jews," I replied, laughing, finding it humorous that I was the one to be the authority on Judaism, having never even gone through my own bat mitzvah even. "In order to have any religious ceremonies, and whatnot, you have to have a certain number of Jewish men present in order to make it, you know, kosher."

"Why would any god come up with something so stupid?" he asked, frowning. "Man, religion is wacked out sometimes."

"I'm not here to defend it," I told him, trying not to sound defensive. I had never once, that I could remember, been in a situation where I was required to defend my inherited religion. It seemed strange, and exhausting.

"Anyway, the rabbi was offed in his house," Caleb said. "I think his church...I mean synagogue was up in Sedona. They must have a minyan of Jews up there."

"We're everywhere," I quipped, forcing a laugh.

He smiled at me, then pulled over in front of a house on one of the side streets part way up the mountain in Cottonwood. It was one of your standard Mcmansions built in the go-go years of the 2000's. There were two police cars parked in front and a crime scene van. A cop was just finishing up stringing out the ubiquitous crime scene yellow tape. The same cop warded us away with a scowl and an up turned hand.

"Jimmy," Caleb sang out, "what's going on?"

"Don't even think about it," the cop said, looking over his shoulder to see if any of his superiors were in earshot. "The scene is still pretty hot right now. They aren't going to let you anywhere near the place for sure. So do yourself a favor and get back in your Jeep and head on out of here."

"Jimmy...can't I just talk to the lead detective for a minute," Caleb cajoled. "You know I got to report on this."

"I got my orders...that's all I know," the cop declared unequivocally. "I don't want to get my ass in trouble."

Stymied, we stood by the yellow tape perimeter, while some neighbors started to assemble next to us. Then a Yavapai Sheriff's patrol car pulled up and a deputy strolled up to the tape. Caleb made small talk with him while I drifted around to the side, trying to get a glimpse inside the house. I could hear a woman weeping The crying was coming from one of the side rooms and I wondered if she was the rabbi's wife.

"There might be a jurisdictional issue here," Caleb informed me, pointing to the deputy. "The property is kinda on Yavapai County land and a little bit in the city of Cottonwood. The Sheriff's Department wants to make sure they aren't getting screwed out of something on their turf. What a bunch of dickwads, fighting over a dead body."

A woman came out of the house to retrieve something from the crime scene van, a technician I guessed, so I tried to get her attention. She was all business at first, ignoring my entreaties to her. Then as she was turning to go back inside she glanced at me and stopped for a moment. I could see she was trying to mentally align her memory with my face. Recognition arrived slowly and she smiled at me.

"You're Sarah Greene, aren't you?" she called out, walking over towards me. I nodded yes. "I read your books. What are you doing here?"

As much as I detested my fame (infamy), I always embraced it when it came time to utilize it for my advantage. I smiled back at her and replied, "I am doing some investigating."

She sidled up next to me, switching the CSI kit from her right hand to her left and stuck out her hand. I shook her hand readily, hoping to make some points with her. Nervously, She glanced back towards the house then surveyed the gathering crowd. I was going to have to work fast if I was going to get any information out of her.

"How did you know about this case?" she asked, lowering her voice conspiratorially.

"I was actually out here looking into the priest's murder and then this happened," I told her, speaking in a whisper.

"Really," she said. "I bet they are connected--huh? I mean there has to be a religious connection."

I nodded yes, and offered, "I was thinking the very same thing. Like minds think alike."

Flattered, she said, "I guess you're right."

After buttering her up I had to move in for some information, so I quickly launched into: "What's the crime scene look like? Can you see any obvious threads that might link the two murders? You are probably one of the few people that have seen the two. Wow, that must be an experience."

Her vanity kicked in and she went on to describe what she thought might be some points of linkage. Caleb had slipped over to within earshot and was furiously taking notes in his little spiral binder that he kept in his pocket. The crime scene tech didn't even notice him as she filled me in on what she had seen close up, adding her theories as she went. Since the success of the CSI TV shows everyone was a forensic expert. I gleaned the most I could as she talked, hoping her boss wouldn't interrupt before she got finished. It wasn't long before we heard a man calling out, asking where the camera was. She snapped to attention, apologizing, as she hurried back inside. Before she went I gave her my cell phone number and extracted a promise from her to call me later.

Caleb was beaming, telling me, "Way to work your fame, Doc."

I felt a little bit ashamed and said, "There are some benefits, I guess."

This wasn't going to be enough, of course. We were going to have to get closer, closer to the act itself. The killer was, and I was sure this had to be the act of one man alone, going to have to start leaving a legacy. This was an evil quest. It was in the early stages but well orchestrated, with parameters that would soon begin to take shape. These two murders were a living manifesto and we were soon going to be moving on to chapter three. Already we were behind the curve and would have to desperately try to catch up.

Later on that evening my cell phone rang and I answered it and heard a woman say: "G-no-mon." Excuse me, I thought before hearing, "It's Tina, from today. That word was written in the sand in the backyard. I don't know how you pronounce it. Hell, I don't even know what it means. Do you?"

Following her lead, I launched right into the conversation, telling her it was Greek but I couldn't remember what it meant. She seemed disappointed by this for a moment then said, "The rabbi was strangled...right in his living room. The wife wasn't there. Nobody was home but him. The perp came in the back door. It was--so it looks anyway--unlocked. Doesn't look like the rabbi knew him or anything."

Trying to slow Tina down, I asked, "The two murders were done differently. I mean, you know, the method varied? Is that what you are saying?"

I could hear her breathing into the phone, and I knew she was having a moment of professional conscience. A moment passed. A dog barked in the background and she shushed him. "Not the same. The crime scenes are all over the place really. We can't pinpoint shit, excuse my language. But I know its the same guy. I do."

"How? What are you picking up on here?" I asked, hoping that she wouldn't bail on me in the middle of the phone call.

She thought for a moment then asked, "Are you religious, Doctor Greene?"

What? echoed in my head, as I tried to discern where she was going with this. "Not very," I finally answered, immediately wondering if that was going to influence her one way or the other.

"I am and I think this smells like...like revenge or something," she explained. "I know it doesn't make much sense because there doesn't seem to be any connection between the victims and killer but I got a feeling about it."

I wanted her to spell it out more clearly but didn't want to press her on it, so I said, "Me too, Tina. I got that feeling right from the start."

This reinforcement worked wonders as she opened up completely, letting me in on numerous details about the two cases. She wasn't privy to the detectives end of the investigation but she knew where the forensics were steering things. She didn't want to meet in person, fearing she would be reprimanded or, worse, lose her job. I assured it wouldn't be necessary, trying as best I could to assuage her consternation.

The second victim's name was Rabbi Morris Gold. He too was originally from New York, Queens to be exact. Was this a connection? Two religious figures murdered and both of them were from back East, in New York State. I wasn't so sure. Although it would lead you to believe it might be, I thought it was one of those odd coincidences you find in cases and, actually, life too. Big world, small place, was how Peter liked to phrase it.

The Rabbi was a reform Rabbi, which was, as my father liked to put it, a waste of "theological input." My father, the often times militant atheist, was of the opinion that if you were going to be religious and part of any religious order you couldn't pick and choose your religious doctrine. With Judaism, there was the Torah and it didn't leave much room for equivocating. To him, my father, Reform Judaism was laughable, like having your religion with a side order of mitigation. That is to say, I guess, either you take the bitter pill of religious dictates whole or not at all. There couldn't be any half measures or, worse, theology light.

Judaism, like most religions in the modern world, had diversified. That was one way of putting it. Splintered religious entities had proved the norm throughout history and the Jews were no different. You had your everyday Orthodox, neo-orthodox, Reform, and on what might be called the outer fringes the Hasidic element of Judaism. They were the ones who were fond of wearing long black coats with the funny hats regardless of the time of year. They originated in Eastern Europe and followed a resident Messiah, proving that Jews could be as strange as any garden variety cult. Then there was the Kabbala contingent, which, inexplicably, some of Hollywood's finest were embracing as some new found spiritual outlet, and they weren't even Jewish.

The Rabbi had relocated to Arizona just over a year ago. He was in his early fifties and was survived by his wife and two children, both living back in New York City. His Sedona congregation was tiny, with under a hundred in attendance at the new synagogue. Rabbi Gold had been lured out West by a long time friend from the old neighborhood, telling him that Sedona was a wonderful town and he was going to love the scenery. The Rabbi's friend had made the jump out to Arizona two years ago and was still enthralled by the region.

Rabbi Gold's wife hadn't been so sure about the move, fearful of leaving all of their friends in Queens. She had never been the adventuresome type. She still lived in the same neighborhood where she was born. Her children lived a short subway ride away. New York City, for all of its faults, was home. Their friend persisted and the Rabbi finally agreed. The house was sold, at a large profit, giving them plenty of liquidity for the first time in their lives. A house was found not in Sedona, which was too expensive to buy real estate, but in Cottonwood, where they could realize a large margin when it came time for value. It had taken the Rabbi's wife six months to finally leave New York behind. She was just beginning to embrace the high desert style of living that Arizona offered.

"Where are we then?" Caleb asked me, as we sat at his favorite bakery enjoying some just baked muffins.

"What do you mean?" I countered, taking a whiff of the all natural ingredients in my cranberry muffin.

"The case," he stated, peeved. "Haven't you been, you know, working all of the evidence to see what's up?"

I looked at him for a moment, then said, "Of course. Listen, this stuff takes time. Besides I don't exactly have a lot to go on here. Two murders and hardly any concrete evidence to speak of. Can't you get me closer in on some of the police reports? I'm kinda flying blind here."

He got a sour look on his face and replied, "No, I can't. The cops are freezing me out completely. They know this is going to blow up any second now. Cottonwood is about to be headline news, Sarah. When that happens we are going to be SOL--bigtime."

He was probably right on that score. Tina had called me just that morning to tell me that a FBI profiler was in route and would soon be sticking his nose into everything. The local cops knew they had a serial killer on their hands. By now, understandably, all of the religious figures in town had been alerted to be cautious. I would have loved to hear or see that memo. How do you tell a minister, priest, whatever to be on the lookout for somebody who wants to strangle you for being religious. The Lord works in mysterious ways indeed.

"I looked into the Gnomon word," I told him, taking a sip of my coffee. "It has several meanings. Euclid used it in his geometric equations. It also has something to do with whole numbers or something like that. Hey, me and math weren't the best of friends. It also refers to the angled piece on a sun dial, you know, the thing that casts the shadow and tells the time of day. Oh, and it also means the one who discerns. So, take your pick."

Smirking, he said, "I guess it was meant to confuse us. If so, well, he is doing a good job."

"Let's take it one by one," I suggested. "I think the Euclid angle is a dead end. I mean what does geometry have to do with anything, right?" He nodded in agreement. "Now the sundial, at least at first, seemed like it might have something to do with the fucking sun out here--excuse the profanity. Then, really, what? Sundial. Sun going down. Ending of a life?"

"Sketchy," he mumbled, plucking a nut from his muffin and eating it.

"Yeah, you might say that," I agreed. "So we are left with the discerning bit. The killer is the discerned. He is discerning something. What?"

"That he is a wack-job," Caleb interjected, smiling.

"Very funny...but not helpful," I chastised. "Think. The killer is figuring it all out. I mean he is the only one that can figure it all out. He is going to save man from man."

"You lost me there," Caleb exclaimed. "The guy is a killer. How and why he justifies it doesn't matter does it?"

"Of course it does," I said condescendingly. "Listen, you have to cross over to his side for a minute. You know, get in his head. The killer is on an oddessy of sorts. He wants to rid the planet--or at least Cottonwood--of the vile purveyors of what he thinks is ruining the world."

"Religious dudes," Caleb announced, nodding yes. "I can see that angle, sure, but how in the hell does that help us find his ass. Tell me that!"

"Keep your voice down," I scolded, looking over at a couple sitting at the next table, who were staring at Caleb. He waved at them and they turned away. "This guy has got some education to go along with his homicidal tendencies, so I guess we have to start thinking of him in a certain way then maybe we can anticipate his next move."

"We can't exactly do surveillance on every minister in this town can we?" he asked, throwing his hands up.

"No, but don't you think that the killer's next logical move is going to be killing another representative of a different religion? Think about that for a minute, will you. We have a Catholic priest dead and then a Jewish Rabbi. The next step might just be a Protestant minister or preacher or whatever they have out here."

"You would think that," he muttered, then added, "but Cottonwood has all kinds of denominations going on. I mean, hell, you have Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, and even some of those weird ones, like the Witness ones and Seventh Day Adventists or whatever you call it. Oh crap, I left out the Mormons. We got it all here. Hey, maybe we could call in the National Guard and have them protect every church in a twenty mile radius."

This brainstorming wasn't working for me. Caleb was, at heart, a reporter, and, even though it was a smalltown paper, he still thought like a journalist. The thrust of his thinking was going to be after the fact, with the facts. Being a psychologist, I wanted to get out in front by working out an interpretation that led me to some kind of mental motivation. The killer's mind harbored a spark that created the murder spree. At this stage, I didn't know what to lean on. My experience was proving to be ineffective at this juncture. Added to that was the killer's single minded crusade. His narrow focus, although rife with signals, was difficult to combat.

At just that moment, my cell phone dinged and a text message appeared. As I read it Caleb gave me a puzzled look. I then had to read it again, as I glanced up and down the street. "What?" Caleb asked, slightly exasperated. I showed him the text on my phone. "I think we've just made contact."

"You mean you have," he corrected, surveying our surroundings.

"Men of the cloth have enslaved people 4 2 long," I read aloud in a hushed tone. "Do you think somebody might be watching us right now?" I hissed, leaning over the table. Caleb nodded yes. "Let's get in the car and drive somewhere...maybe somebody will follow us or something."

"Or something?" Caleb repeated, stealing glances across the street where our cars were parked. "I got a gun at home," he informed me. "Lotta good that does us now. How 'bout we head to my place and pick it up. It's a Smith and Wesson my dad gave me a long time ago, a 38 revolver."

I had never been a fan of guns, of any kind. Jason had kept a few around our home but I always insisted he keep them locked away. He had tried on several occasions to introduce me to the world of shooting but I always declined. We had more than a few battles over his intention of having our son be comfortable with the handling of firearms. I fought him over it but eventually lost out to his obstinacy on the subject and my son's sheer exuberance when it came to actually wanting to fire a handgun. It wasn't long before a makeshift target range had been set up on the back of our property, where on weekends I could hear the faroff cacophony of gunfire popping away. My motherly instincts were overwelmed by the flexing of Jerry's teenage masculinity.

"Okay," I mumbled, reluctant.

He tossed our coffee cups in the garbage can and we casually walked over to his jeep, trying not to swivel our heads too much as we scanned the streets. I almost had to laugh because Caleb was actually whistling, as if that might make him appear more non-chalant. He swung the jeep away from the curb and did a fast u-turn, then slowly drove down Main Street, even waving at a few friends of his standing on the corner.

I watched in the side view mirror, as he kept tabs on the rear view mirror. We pretended like we were carrying on a conversation like extras in a movie scene. I was gesticulating, trying to look like I was carrying on a conversation. Then I received another text, which read: God's messengers r doomed. I read it aloud to Caleb. He checked his mirrors again.

We pulled up to his house, a small bungalow built over seventy years ago. I could see that he had taken pains to restore the home, which was one of the original structures in Cottonwood. Next door, his neighbor's dog was barking madly and jumping up against a chain link fence. At mid-morning the streets were abandoned.

"I don't see anybody trying to follow us," he said, inadvertently whispering. "I'm going to zip into my house and grab my gun, okay?"

I checked the side view mirror and replied, "I don't know about staying out here in the car."

"Might not be a good idea," he agreed, motioning for me to come inside. "You never know what this nut might do."

We strolled into the house, trying to act normal, unhurried. Once inside, he locked the door behind us and immediately went to the front window to look out. I sized up his home, glancing around the living room, noticing the predictable giant flat screen TV and sound system. I was half expecting it to be furnished in the usual, standard Southwest decor, heavy on maybe wagon wheel coffee tables and Indian artifacts, with a desert landscape mural tapestry on the wall. However it actually leaned more towards modern, post-modern maybe, complete with a secondary colored couch and a set of jet black bishop's chairs. The house still had the original wooden floors, varnished to a gleam, with a tasteful area rug strategically placed in the center of the room.

"You have a nice place here," I exclaimed, failing to remove any surprise from my voice.

"Thanks," he muttered. "Not bad for some half-breed."

"I apologize if I have offended you," I said half-jokingly.

"My magaanii half took over I guess when I was decorating the place," he explained, laughing. Seeing my confusion, the said, "It means white man. My white half."

"Oh," I managed to say, walking into the kitchen, which was, without a doubt, a mess. Dishes were piled up in the sink and a row of beer bottles was lined up across the kitchen table. Now this is a bachelor's house, I thought.

He noticed me surveying the kitchen and called out, "I should have made you promise me you wouldn't be judgmental and all. If I knew you were coming over I would have tried to clean up a little bit."

"No need to do that on my account," I called out over my shoulder, unable to stop myself from looking in the refrigerator, where I found a six pack of beer, a half empty pizza box, several packets from a local Chinese restaurant and an empty carton of milk. In the door there was a bottle of ketchup and a jar of mustard. Wedged in the back, down on the bottom, was a crumpled bag from Sonic's.

"Find anything to eat in there?" he shouted out sarcastically. "Make yourself at home."

"I think I saw a sign for Merry Maids when I first drove in here," I informed him, snickering.

"I don't see any activity on the street," he stated, disappearing into the back bed room, where I could hear him rustling around in some drawers. "Got it!" he shouted out. "Now if I could only find the bullets."

Caleb reappeared, gun in hand, and went back to the window. He scanned the street outside for a minute, muttering. I wanted to see what the rest of the house looked like but thought better of it. Suddenly I was turning into my mother. Of course, by now, she would have been on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. I could hear him fumbling with the cylinder on his gun, spinning it, then holding the 38 up and aiming it at an imaginary foe.

"I hope you know how to use that," I announced nervously. "You aren't going to shoot yourself in the foot or anything, right?"

He ignored me and slid some bullets in, then snapped the cylinder into place. "Armed and dangerous," he mumbled, taking aim at a poster sized abstract photograph on the far wall. I noticed that it was a one of those computerized artist renderings of a Red Rock landscape. "You know, Sarah, in Arizona you can carry a gun in public...no questions asked."

I was incredulous. I was sure he was joking, trying to see just how gullible I was. "Maybe back in the eighteen hundreds," I said, hoping against hope that he was going to affirm that bit of historical perspective for me.

"I'm talking twenty-first century here," he answered, spinning the revolver around like a gunslinger might. Due to the infinite wisdom of my home state's Republican legislators, I can carry a fire arm--long as it is visibly displayed--just about anywhere I want to. No lie. This place is a NRA member's wet dream come true."

I was astounded and said, "So this is really the Wild West then."

He said, "Yep," and pretended like he was holstering his gun.

This new wrinkle, the new development didn't sit too well with me. With my husband Jason, I had been relatively comfortable with him handling guns around me. After all, he had been a detective, who had experience with a side arm. It was part of his professional description. As to Caleb, the small town reporter who liked to ride mountain bikes and jump off mountains, I wasn't so confident that he was going to be able to not shoot either me or himself in the process of defending us. It was true that guns, as a rule, were embedded in America's DNA. As to Arizona in particular, it was, apparently, a State given right not to be trifled with.

We decided to wait in the house for a few minutes, while he maintained look out at the window. I could hear him muttering under his breath, cursing his neighbor's dog, which continued to bark almost non-stop. "I'd like to do some target practice with that mutt," he said over his shoulder, pretending like he was shooting the dog in the next yard.

Meanwhile, I paced the living room, trying to decide what our next step should be. I then noticed a small photograph propped up in one of those cheap clear, plastic frames on a small table in the corner. Taking a closer look, I could see it was a blond woman. She was standing next to Caleb's jeep in the photograph.

"That's my former fiancee, in case you are wondering," he called out, startling me.

"Oh, really, she's pretty," I said, trying to sound disinterested.

"She was the real decorator in here," he said succinctly.

I didn't know whether to pry or not, but couldn't help myself and asked, "What happened?"

He didn't answer for a moment, then finally said, "Didn't work out."

Caleb had reverted to his Indian side for the time being, the one that instructed him to be laconic. I debated about asking more questions then finally let it drop by saying, "Sorry to hear that."

"I don't see shit going on outside," he stated, turning to face me. "How about we make a plan to do something. Like now."

I could see he had some stored up energy working, so I suggested, "I think we need to talk to the police about the text message. This is a break in the case for sure. We can't just sit on it without telling them."

"That profiler from the FBI is supposed to be here today, I think," he exclaimed. "Everything is starting to kick into high gear. What next? You know this is going to go national any second now. The TV hounds are going to be on this like stink. Can't wait," he said with a dose of irony in his voice.

I thought for a moment, then replied, "Time to talk to the profiler maybe. Offer what we know."

The Cottonwood police department was housed in a bunker type building on a side street. It appeared that the architect had tried to mesh several different construction styles together and the end result had come out early doomsday American because the headquarters looked like it might be able to withstand a small nuclear bomb. For the most part the building was windowless and constructed of concrete type blocks, with a geometrical design that would have fit right in on the set for the movie The Matrix.

We drove over to the Police Department and parked, all the while continuing to scan our surroundings. At this stage, I doubted the killer would be following us. He had intended to tweak me by sending the text. I was more disturbed by him knowing of my presence in Cottonwood. For one, he knew my phone number. I was beginning to think that he had been at the murder scene and eavesdropped on my conversation with Tina, the CSI tech. My arrival in Cottonwood hadn't exactly been on the evening news. I had, for the most part, been flying under the radar since arriving in Arizona. It was almost a crime show cliche to have the "perp" show up at the crime scene after the murder had been committed. Still, it did happen.

Caleb and I discussed this theory on the way over to the Police Station and we both came to the conclusion that the killer had to have been nearby. We racked our brains trying to remember all of the bystanders who were there that day. I just couldn't seem to put faces to memories at all. I was out of practice for these sorts of things, I told Caleb. He assured me I didn't have to worry about that, telling me maybe the police had taken some area photos which might prove useful to the investigation.

This encounter at the Police Station I knew was going to be an ordeal for me. We were going to have to divulge what we knew and, more importantly, why we were even involved in the case to begin with. I didn't relish having to do any of that, but, really, I didn't want to have to reveal who I was and then fend off the inevitable questions about Doctor Sarah Greene et al. It was going to be tiresome and invasive.

At the front desk, I let Caleb do the talking because he had dealt with many of the police personnel before. I tried to remain in the background as much as possible. He traded some banter with a twenty-something girl at the reception, flirting artfully, as he got her to make a call to the detective on the case, a Bob Patterson. The receptionist batted her eye lashes, then told Caleb the detective would see him right away. For the moment, my name hadn't come up at all.

We were met out in the hallway by the detective, late thirties, medium build, with a spiky hair style that required copious amounts of gel in order for it to continue defying gravity on top of his head. Introductions couldn't be avoided at this point and Caleb did the honors. The detective stared at me for a moment, unsure if he was being played for the fool, then shook my hand. His registered surprise was quickly followed by some superfluous praise for my books, which, I was almost positive, he had never read, then he segued into commenting on seeing a few of my interviews on TV. In the corner of my eye I could just see the bemused look on Caleb's face as the detective attempted to straddle the line between being obsequious and professionally detached.

"Your timing couldn't be better," the detective announced. "The FBI profiler just got here not ten minutes ago. We were just about to get started on this thing right now."

Incredibly, I had never actually talked to a profiler of any kind before. Well, that's not entirely true either. I had once spoken to a profiler (retired) on one of those cable TV programs, the ones where the host likes to spew out ultimatums at the legal system's representatives. He had done a profile on Rey Flowers, post case, which made absolutely no sense but it was television after all. We had an argument about the details of the case to the endless delight of the host, who sat back and encouraged us to verbally spar. In my ear plug I could hear the producer telling me to go for it, to continue arguing until the break. It all made for good ratings, so I was told after the show by a beaming and obviously pleased contingent of TV people.

I wasn't hopeful this time around either. The profiler would be some stuffy former academic type, who, for one, didn't like women on his turf, and ,two, thought I was some silly amateur delving into something they shouldn't be anywhere near. I would have to defend myself, and my profession, something I hadn't done much of lately on both scores. I knew I was going to wilt under the pressure and expected browbeating. Caleb would now see me for what I had become: weak and ridiculous.

"Special Agent Collins, let me introduce you to Caleb and someone you have probably already heard of before: Doctor Sarah Greene," Detective Paterson declared as we entered the room. All I really heard was Special Agent, the other words became garbled and unintelligible. I had, to my dismay, turned sexism upside down. I was positive the profiler was going to be a man. Gender mixups aside, I now came face to face with the FBI agent assigned to the case.

She was tall, maybe five feet ten, thirtyish, and obviously fit, having the physique of someone who participates in triathlons. I looked up at her as she shook my hand. And, judging by Caleb's reaction, she was attractive, as he was finding himself stumbling over his words. The stereotype resting in my head about some prickly guy with an attitude, backed up by too many training sessions at Quantico, went right out the window.

"What a coincidence, I just finished reading your book about the lifeguard," she chirped graciously in a syrupy southern accent, without a trace of derision in her voice. "Must have been a scarefest dealing with that wackadoodle."

Cross off that stuffy, professorial angle, I thought, smiling, saying in response: "Yeah, yeah it was." Then again, she could be working me. Maybe she was channeling Jodie Foster from that disgusting movie I couldn't remember the name of. This was the modern FBI, the one that had left Hoover and his demented ideas about crime fighting behind. I couldn't help myself but I was raising my defenses, putting up my guard against a perceived threat. I suppose it could have just been feminine competition rearing its ugly head.

"We've got some new info for you!" Caleb declared excitedly, horning in, directing his comments directly at Special Agent Collins. "Sarah received a text from the killer...at least we think it was the killer."

Collins raised an eyebrow and said, "What did it say? Did you save it?"

I produced my phone and handed it to her. She scrolled through the message, reading the message aloud. Looking up, she smiled at Caleb, brushing a strand of hair out of her face. "This is good stuff, Sarah."

Sarah, I thought. What happened to some professional courtesy? What happened to Doctor Greene? "We think the killer was at the scene...at the second murder. He must have overheard me talking." I stopped short, not wanting to implicate Tina in any way.

"Are there anymore messages from him?" she wanted to know.

"Not yet," Caleb replied. "Do you think he might contact us again?" he wanted to know, eagerly anticipating her response.

Us? I wondered. The killer had contacted me. I was the link here. For whatever reason I had been chosen to be the conduit. It wasn't something I was happy about. This turn of events moved me front and center. I now had no choice but to continue on.

Chapter 8 Gadarenes

THEN WENT THE DEVILS OUT OF THE MAN--LUKE 8: 33

If Special Agent Collins wanted more messages from the killer she got them. When I got back to my motel room and turned on my lap top I was treated to a long email from Gnomon. It had been tossed into the spam file but just before dumping it I noticed the subject line, where it read: credo quia absurdum. The killer was mocking philosophy and religion in one shot by saying he believed because it was absurd.

A murderer with a sense of humor didn't alleviate my sense of dread as I opened the email, which I will reproduce intact below.

Dear Doctor Greene:

May I call you Sarah? I think it is only appropriate because I think we are going to be getting to know each other better as the days pass during this journey I am on; and, by extension, you will be traveling on as well. Perhaps we can become good friends, comrades even. Any input you might have would be greatly appreciated. I value your expertise. After all, I think we probably have much in common, or at least there exists some common ground between us when it comes to the subject of religion. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think we both find religion to be nothing more and nothing less than perpetual supplication. I don't think I am being presumptuous when I say you agree that mankind has had to endure charlatans throughout the ages, you know the ones, who say an omniscient god can't control people from doing acts that have been proscribed by Him. But I don't want to hit you with too much muscular logic right from the start, Sarah.

I will await a reply and leave you with this:

God is omnipotent, God is omnibenelovent--Evil exists. Now that is a haiku I can get behind.

Gnomon

Nervous energy was condensating all over my body as I read the email. I could only imagine my history (infamy) had been the reason he had chosen to contact me in particular. By the jocular tone of his words, I could tell that he had to be at the very least a sociopath. The act of murder, to him, was almost inconsequential. Two men had been murdered and he wanted to make points about theology. It was obvious he was mired in an internal struggle. He wanted to appease some desire, some need to thwart what he found to be man's vital shortcoming and as a result the actual act of homicide had been relegated to simply a niche in the totality of things.

After reading and rereading his email, poring over it for some additional clues, I knew what I had to do. First, I forwarded the email to Special Agent Collins, as instructed. She had given me an email address to use specifically for this very purpose.

After I had done that I forwarded it on to Caleb, knowing full well that he would be calling immediately after he checked his email. The thought troubled me slightly. I wasn't sure if our working arrangement was going to be beneficial or not. In ways, we were working at cross currents. Our goals, although as yet undefined, didn't seem to be on the same track. Regardless, there was a mutual need between us and I was going to have to keep him in the loop.

As expected, my phone rang about fifteen minutes later. I picked up and heard: "Damn! I can't believe this. The fucker's writing you emails now."

"Aren't I the lucky one?" I said almost despondently.

"Are you kidding me?" he exclaimed excitedly. "You are gold on this, Sarah. Your next book is going to write itself."

I didn't respond at first. I could hear his breathing on the phone. Outside my door I heard Crystal yelling at one of the other maids about some supplies she needed on her cart. Next book? I thought, suddenly realizing that untidy fact just might be my sole purpose for being in Cottonwood. It was disheartening to think I had become nothing but a chronicler of death. Had it come to that? Was I going to be defined by my words, my descriptions of death's end result?

"I just hope I am up for this," I finally said, trying not to sound too gloomy.

My phone beeped and I then told him I had a call on the other line. He told me that it had to be "Missy." "Missy?" I teased. "So now you are on a first name basis with the FBI agent huh."

He laughed, trying to hide his embarrassment, then replied, "I can't believe she's a profiler."

"Oh, you mean because she's a woman...a good looking woman. Is that what you mean, Caleb?" I asked, tweaking him a little.

"What...what are you talking about?" he stammered.

"Aren't you kinda old to be having a crush on a girl?" I stated, laughing.

He giggled, then said, "Hey, I respect her for what she is, a professional woman in a demanding job who just happens to be a fox."

"Did you just say 'fox'?" I stated. "How old are you exactly? I didn't know they even said fox anymore. I'll be sure to tell Special Agent Collins you appreciate her for her...professionalism."

"Very funny," he shot back. "So what if I can appreciate a woman for being beautiful. This is the twenty-first century and men and women--"

"Okay-okay, enough with the speeches. I believe you. You are the modern man and, judging by your living room, very metro-sexual," I needled.

"I told you. That was my fiancee's doing," Caleb protested.

"Don't get all defensive about it. Embrace your feminine side," I cooed into the phone. "I'm sure 'Missy' likes her men to read Cosmo and Vogue and know the difference between Vera Wang and Versace."

"Take the call, will ya," he ordered almost peevishly. "I'll talk to you later."

As expected, it was the profiler, who told me that she had sent the email on to Quantico and was expecting some analysis by tomorrow. Analysis, I thought. Then I imagined a team of FBI personnel sifting through the words and coming up with one of their patented responses, which would invariably lean towards the usual: white male, late twenties to forty. Hated his mother. Liked to torture cats in his spare time. White collar job, where he didn't like to socialize. Missed out on his baptism as a child. I couldn't imagine how they came up with this stuff. Regardless, I didn't want to sell them short. I also didn't want to alienate the profiler, Special Agent Collins.

We talked for over twenty minutes and I started to realize that she wasn't in any way pretentious. My idea of a working profiler didn't match what she brought to the table. Special Agent Collins, Missy, (as she instructed me to call her), was a different breed. There was no grand standing in her. She didn't hide behind an arrogant persona at all. Quite the opposite. She was personable, letting her Southern charm surface. It worked on me. Missy disarmed me with well developed self-deprecation and candid remarks that only worked to bring down any defense mechanisms that might be erected to ward off practical communication.

At her suggestion, we arranged to meet for a drink, another unexpected gambit on her part. Any representative of the FBI I had ever spoken with were either dyed in the wool G-men, where they followed protocol as if J Edgar was watching over their shoulder, or so lacking in imagination they wouldn't know how to do anything but follow the appropriate manual for any given situation. As much as I hated to stereotype any given profession or rank, with the FBI it usually proved to be the rule. I told her to meet me at the only bar I knew about, a run down bar on Main Street. The only reason I knew about it was because it had been featured on the news when a rabid Bobcat entered one night and attacked several patrons, sending two to the ER for shots and stitches. She laughed and told me she had seen it on Youtube, where it had gone viral after one of the patrons posted a video he had taken with his cell phone camera, further proof that everything in life was documented.

"The place looks sort of seedy," I told her over the phone, laughing. "Don't be surprised if there are a bunch of bikers hanging out there."

"Oh, good," she joked, adding, "my favorite type of place."

"You do carry a gun--right?" I asked, snickering.

"Oh yeah, I'm packing," she answered in a mock snarl.

I arrived at the bar before she did and sat in my car, waiting. My recovery was advancing of course but I still had difficulties with entering some public places alone, particularly bars. The situation was rife with pitfalls for me. Going beyond the usual problematic aspects of functioning in the proverbial marketplace, as in being a single female entering an unfamiliar setting, there was that initial interaction with the bartender. I would be front and center. It would be me, the individual, having to conduct a part in a social situation. Although it was, on most levels, a simple commercial transaction, I would have to complete a task that required me to be on a stage and, as with any actor, I would have to overcome the real possibility of stagefright. As a result, I took the easy way out and cowered in my car.

It wasn't long before I saw Missy pull up in her rental car. She parked right next to me and got out, waving. I noticed she was wearing some kaki colored capris and some of those after sport slip-ons, with the very noticeable red Nike logos emblazoned on the sides. She also had on a powder blue tank top that not only showed her well developed biceps but her tan as well, coming undoubtedly after some hard earned hours training for her next triathlon race. Missy was all new school. No button down old FBI for her.

I got out and immediately told her that I had decided to wait in the car, not wanting to go into the bar. I conveniently left out my reason for sitting in my car. She seemed to understand, stopping a moment to survey the outside of the bar. There were indeed two Harleys parked out front but they were of the poseur variety, heavily laidened with custom features that no biker from a gang would ever consider putting on their bike. I just knew when we got inside we would find two middle-aged guys wearing leathers they bought out of a Harley Davidson catalogue; at least one of them would be wearing a doo-rag to hide his bald pate, better to not get sunburned while riding. Like a lot of States, Arizona didn't require motorcyclists to wear helmets.

The bar inside was straight out of central casting for a scene where the protagonist gets beat up by some shady character who happens to be either a drug dealer/gun runner/white supremacist or on the run from the law, most times all of the above. True to form, two guys were sitting at the bar wearing various signature Harley Davidson paraphernalia. They were both in their early fifties, which was, apparently, the motorcycle company's demographic. Both men turned to look at us as we walked in. Self-conscious, I let Missy lead the way.

She walked right up to the bar and called the bartender over. I cowered behind her, suddenly realizing that just maybe meeting in a bar wasn't such a good idea. Fortunately, the bar was mostly empty. Besides the two ersatz bikers, there were two men playing pool in the back. After giving both of us the once over, they went back to doing what they were doing before we entered; which was, evidently, passing time by drinking beer and playing eight ball.

"I'll have scotch, with a splash of water," Missy told the bartender, a thin man wearing a faded t-shirt where I could just make out some washed out lettering that read: Obama with the international symbol for no crossed over it. The bartender nodded and turned to me for my order. I smiled at him and couldn't think of one type of drink. Nothing came to mind. The bartender looked at me expectantly. "She'll have some white wine, if you got it," Missy finally said, smiling at the him. He grumbled something under his breath and walked away to complete the order.

I glanced around the bar for a moment, then at Special Agent Collins and finally found my voice and said, "Sorry about that."

She grinned at me and replied, "You don't get out much, huh?"

I smiled back at her and said, "Not recently anyway. I've been...well...secluded mostly. That's not entirely true. I do live in New York and get out and about of course. It's just that I have a friend back east--Wendy--and she runs interference for me alot."

"Interference," she mused. "Is she like your partner or something?"

I didn't like the sound of that and replied, "Partners, as in a relationship? No, not at all. She's my neighbor. She lives right across the hall from me."

"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything," she apologized. "Heavens, I hope you don't think I was being too personal."

"No offense taken," I stated, smiling at her. "I mean it's not the first time somebody has accused me of being a lesbian. No, wait, that didn't come out right. You weren't accusing me."

"How about we change the subject," she suggested, as the bartender delivered our drinks, plopping them down on the bar. "Thank you, sir," she chirped and he grunted and walked away. She raised an eyebrow at me, and suppressed a laugh.

Over her shoulder I could just see the two Harley poseurs. They were eyeing us and I was hoping they wouldn't migrate over and engage us in conversation. I had instant visions of just how excruciating that would be for me. Soon I was sending out telepathic messages for them to ignore us, and please (I beg you) do not send over any drinks by way of the bartender. The crack of billiard balls echoed in the background.

Missy was telling me about her flight out to Arizona from Virginia, elaborating on just how much she hated flying in general. I was trying to concentrate on her conversation but kept stealing looks around the bar, keeping up my own personal surveillance of the activities going on. A little while later I noticed Missy was monitoring the room by looking in the mirror behind the bar. Evidently, Her FBI training never took a break.

"You know, Sarah, I had an interview with Rey Flowers not long ago," she suddenly dumped on me. I wasn't sure I had heard her correctly. "It was for a training exercise we did. Got some interesting stuff for sure."

"Interesting? From Rey Flowers," I said, letting my voice trail off as I took a sip of my wine. For some reason this revelation seemed almost voyeuristic to me, as if Special Agent Collins was stalking me or something. It reminded me of the time a free lance journalist working with Rolling Stone magazine hounded me for months in an attempt to do an in depth interview about my life. He would call and plead for an interview, telling me he wanted to deconstruct my life and put the pieces back together, promising me that I would be on the cover of the magazine even. I knew that Rolling Stone hardly ever put non-musicians on the cover but forgave him for this bit of prevarication; but I never agreed to do it despite pressure from my agent to do so.

"How in the hell did you go man o mano with that creep?" she wanted to know, aiming her glass of scotch at me, waiting for an answer.

"Wasn't easy," I replied, looking away, not wanting to pick at some old, unhealed wounds.

"Oh, sorry, does talking about Flowers make you uncomfortable?" she asked, attempting to sound sympathetic.

I thought that I was beginning to detect a certain tonal quality to her voice, an almost minuscule tell, as a poker player might say. Perhaps this southern belle mannerism was an act, something she used to elicit information when she wanted it. Then again, I suppose, it could have been leftover vestiges of her upbringing in the South. That didn't seem all that likely though. I had googled her before coming to the bar, trying to assemble a quick profile on her. She had been born in Herndon, Virginia, which was hardly the deep South. Her undergraduate time had been spent at Catholic University and grad work at the University of Maryland. That was not exactly a mint julep pedigree. She had lived in the Washington orbit all of her life.

I was trying to tamp down my suspicions which were growing in the recesses of my mind, knowing full well that they tended to get out of control on occasion. Then again, I couldn't lose sight of the fact that she was an FBI agent, with an agenda. Naturally she would want to probe my, for lack of a better word, defenses.

"No, I guess not," I answered unconvincingly. "It's just that I hadn't heard that name much lately. Brings back some...some raw memories, that's all."

She patted my arm and said, "I can only imagine."

No you can't, I said in my head, trying to accept her weak attempt at empathy with an authentic smile. How would she ever know what it was like to be so connected to a homicidal maniac? Of course she had done her profiles, arranging words to fit a mold, something that she was promoting as the blueprint for a psychotic mind. I'm sure she had done her homework over the years, poring over evidence, looking for triggers that might eventually be pulled and lead to another string of murders. I couldn't take that away from her.

Yet, she hadn't been in such close proximity before to someone who would go on to act on their sadistic impulses. In her interviews, the ones she had conducted in maximum security prisons, they had always been after the fact, which made for a big difference when it came to being psychologically linked. She had spoken with men who were incarcerated, murderers who had been taken off line, decommissioned. For the most part, they only wanted to talk to an outsider in order to validate themselves, their egos. It was, in my opinion, simply post humous groveling by the interviewer. The interviews only supplied a platform for the homicidal maniacs to relive their crimes. Special Agent Collins could dress it up anyway she liked, but it still amounted to her facilitating more psychic jollys for the perps.

"Rey Flowers was a complicated guy, maybe even fascinating, but he was still just a killer," I told her, trying to disabuse any thoughts she might have about me and him being in anyway simpatico about anything. "About the only thing he did for me was give me the benefit of seeing up close how an evil mind works."

"That and some really good material for a book," she intimated, letting a grin creep to her lips.

This was clearly a shot at me, at my professional life. I glanced at her for a moment, then looked over her shoulder at the two men playing pool. This has to be another ploy on her part, I thought. She is trying to throw me off balance, keep me mentally unsteady.

"You could look at it that way, I guess," I stated, staring at her for a moment, trying to put up a strong front. "The book came from a different place though. I wanted--"

"You wanted to complete some kind of catharsis, right?" she interrupted, taking a slow sip of her drink.

I wasn't sure whether or not I detected any sarcasm, so I replied, "Writing the book was a process that helped me overcome some of my demons. Yes."

"The man escaped and killed two people under your care," she announced dryly. "There had to have been some soul searching going on after that."

I didn't answer for a moment. My hand was shaking a little bit so I put my glass of wine back on the bar. Must be excess adrenaline, I told myself. Maybe it is anger, I thought, then realized I wasn't really mad at her. Of recent, I didn't seem to have a temper. That was one of the benefits of my climb back to normalcy. Responding to stimuli was on a slow track most of the time, which for the most part eliminated any flashpoints that might lead to an angry response. It was almost as if I had gone through the best, most comprehensive anger management course in the world.

I laughed and said, "You have no idea."

"I'm sure I don't. Tell me about it. Fill me in on the details," she almost ordered, smiling at me incongruously.

We discussed the Rey Flowers case, while I danced around most of the details, something I was positive she already knew about. She had traveled to see him, to interview him. It was highly unlikely she wouldn't have done her research. Besides, I was sure Rey had filled her in on all the pertinent information, including our unusual connection in relation to the murders he had committed. If he had agreed to the interview then it must have meant that he was prepared to cooperate. Then again, knowing Flowers as I did, he might have taken the opportunity to amuse himself at the FBI's expense.

"This is all ancient history," I finally told her, hoping to move her on to the current case at hand. "Rey Flowers is incarcerated and, as far as I know, they threw away the key."

Smiling, she said, "He still thinks highly of you, Doctor. Wouldn't shut up about Sarah."

This sounded like mild ridicule to me, but I let it go and exclaimed, "He's fixated to some extent. I more or less released him from his mental prison and--"

"Physical prison too," she interjected, smirking.

"I don't know what he told you but I didn't have anything to do with his escape from the Barn," I protested in a loud voice. The two pool players looked up from the table. "Some patients continue to spiral down and some have a mini-breakthrough and spiral upwards. Due to unforeseen circumstances he was jolted out of his self-contained...well funk and committed some heinous acts."

"So it would seem," she stated, with just as trace of a grimace on her face.

I didn't like where this was going. This casual setting seemed more like an ambush than anything else. What was the purpose, her motivation? Did she want to disarm me completely, eliminate me from any competition in the investigation? It couldn't have been professional jealousy because I wasn't there in any professional capacity.

I had told her about Father Paul and his request that I look into his friend's death. The second murder was an unfortunate occurrence. Perhaps it was my fame that was responsible for her apparent animosity towards me. I had encountered some almost visceral hatred directed at me from police personnel in the past. To them, I was an interloper and an amateur. I got that. Yet this seemed different to me.

It was time to wind this meeting down, and for me to escape back to the safety of my quiet motel room. Now it had become obvious we weren't going to be working in tandem on the investigation. Special Agent Collins had, in her own unusual way, wanted to put me on notice, to show me that she was there to solve the case and it was a solitary endeavor.

Not wanting to be confrontational, I said, "I am tired, so I think I'm going to head on back to my motel room and get some sleep." I slipped off the bar stool and fished in my purse for some money to pay for my drink.

She latched onto my arm and said in an almost stern tone of voice, "Doctor, I will be catching this creep. You continue to pass along those emails and we will get along just fine."

I didn't respond, just hurried back to my motel room. I suppose in the good old days I would have enjoyed verbally jousting with the FBI agent, finding it somehow stimulating. Now, however, it was only a hindrance, as well as annoying, not to mention intimidating. To my surprise, once back at the motel room I found myself angry. It was an emotion I hadn't really had to deal with lately. In some ways it was welcome, giving me some much needed emotion.

Back at the motel I had noticed a police cruiser parked in the parking lot. They were there for my protection; although what they were going to do sitting in their car I couldn't imagine. I guess they were supposed to be a deterrent if Gnomon showed up and wanted to add me to his list of victims. It didn't make me feel any safer really, but it was something. Caleb had offered his spare bedroom but I could see in his eyes that the last thing he wanted was for me to bring the killer right to his doorstep. I had declined his invitation, telling him that I was more frightened of the mess in his kitchen than I was of the Gnomon. He had laughed, relieved.

In general, I hated sleeping in motels, hotels, B&Bs, you name it. This was a mania I had from way back, even when I was younger and carefree about things. Although I wasn't a germophobe in practice, I still didn't care for sharing other people's "leavings" as Peter liked to call it. Peter was a class-A germ freak. He seldom touched anything in a motel room without resorting to dousing some Germ-X or Purell on his hands. My problem centered around the smells, be it the toxicity of cleansers or, worse yet, mustiness. The culprit was almost always the carpet, a magnet for untold bacteria. We humans were carriers of all sorts of fungi and microbes too numerous to mention.

After the first day there I had instructed Crystal, the maid, on what I preferred she do when it came to cleaning my room. She had shrugged and then assured me that she understood, telling me that "hotel rooms are, like, really gross." At least we were on the same wave length. She then layed off the generic cleansers with the cloying smell and let me dictate when, where, and what I wanted disinfected.

Then, of course, you had to deal with the inherent loneliness inside the four walls of a hotel room always illicited. I never knew quite what it was about hotel rooms that made you want to cry. Was it the sameness? Travelers in America faced the monotony of standardization that the accommodations industry had installed all across the country. It was the business model for all the chain motels. Duplication made for a better bottom line at the end of the quarter. It left the traveler with an almost Kafkaesque familiarity with alienation, or, better yet, disorientation. Despite all of the industry's research, reams of data that told them to bring homogenation to the physical plant of their business, it made for a blandness that worked to dull the patron's senses. Perhaps that was the point after all.

Being alone, on the road, left to your own devices, brought out your personal weaknesses, or, at least, amplified them. I don't know how many times I had sat on the bed (with the questionable bed spread dutifully taken off) and stared at myself in the obligatory mirror and wondered why my life had come to this. Usually these times happened when I was on a book tour, a string of cities lined up in a row for me to conquer. The person staring back at me in the mirror never seemed to be enjoying the cookies left on a tray in the lobby or the complimentary USA Today or the continental breakfast in the morning--even with the new addition of self-help Belgian waffles, or the tiny bottles of shampoo, mouthwash, hand cream ripe for the taking or certainly not the bus tour of German tourists loudly talking in the hallway at five in the morning as they set out on another leg of their journey across America.

And now, back from the bar with my confrontation with Missy, I had slid into that twilight area where you are hungry, but not really. I kept tossing our encounter around in my head, wondering if I should have said this or that in response to what she had told me. It was an exercise in futility at this juncture. It was obvious what the Special Agent wanted from me. I was going to be the lab specimen. Let the "unsub", as they liked to call it on one of those crime shows on TV, come to me. She would do the rest.

I wouldn't have been surprised if she surreptiously recorded our conversation so she could transcribe it in her journal later on, something she could refer to when she wrote her book, the future best seller. There was no doubt that she was angling to commit something to paper. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she wanted to marginalize me from the beginning. Special Agent Collins knew she couldn't piggyback on my track record in the publishing world. That would have made her more or less the second string, if I have my sports metaphors right.

There was one of those ghastly Healthy Choice meals in the mini-fridge. I had stopped by the local Safeway and picked up some groceries for my room. Living off a microwave was something I was expert at. Wendy, back in New York, was appalled at what I ate. "Nutritional wasteland," was how she liked to phrase it. For a model, she was adept around the kitchen, whipping up large, complex meals with relative ease. I often times raided her fridge for the leftovers, carrying them back to my apartment and nuking them in the microwave.

Also in the fridge was a few bottles of Bohemia beer. I wasn't much of a beer drinker per se but I liked the name of the Mexican beer when I saw it so I bought it. It was an impulse buy that made me laugh later on, that and the bag of corn chips with flaxseed I bought, which I took a bite of and tossed out because it tasted like mildew. The food industry's idea of health food was ludicrous at best.

Then I noticed the red light on my phone was blinking so I called the front desk and was told someone had dropped off a package for me. This seemed ominous and I debated whether or not to call Missy as instructed. Finally, after thinking about our meeting at the bar, I decided to take a look at the package before calling anyone. The front desk clerk, a twenty-something guy with several tattoos peeking out of his shirt sleeve, smiled at me and handed over one of those 10 X 13 flat envelopes. There was nothing written on the outside but my name. It had been securely taped on each side.

The clerk, who by now knew my identity, beamed at me, hoping to engage me in conversation. I had visions of him rolling up his sleeves and showing me his tatts, then wanting me to follow suit. He would cajole then encourage me to drop my pants and show him all of the lurid ink on my lily white skin. There would be compliments on that lunatics inking skill and then he would ask (beg) me to let him take a photo with his camera phone. Hell, he might be really ambitious and switch from still to motion and then post it on the net. It would then garnish lots of hits and I would be in the top ten on Google's search engine, wedged in between Paris Hilton and one of those idiots from the Hills or the Beach or whatever they were calling it this year.

I was safe. The front desk clerk, usually bored silly and non-responsive to almost all inquiries, only wanted my autograph. He had asked in an apologetic way so I was weak and agreed, signing a piece of stationary from the motel, including his name. He seemed pleased and smiled widely back at me, thanking me several times. I took the envelope and scurried out of the office as fast as I could without actually running.

Surveying what my body guards were doing in the parking lot, noticing they were chowing down on what appeared to be a pizza, I sneaked back to my room. Inside, I felt the envelope gingerly, wondering if Gnomon was into bomb making. That nasty bastard the Unibomber had blown off some limbs if I wasn't mistaken. Letter bombs didn't have to be bulky or heavy. Generally speaking it was an act of terror that counted with that form of bomb making.

Now I was unsure of what to do. Call in the authorities, have the bomb squad go over it. Did little Cottonwood have a bomb squad? Yavapai County probably had one but it was most likely one poor guy who got a small bump up in pay to take a course over the Internet on how to dismantle ordinance. He would most likely be the guy who liked to work with his hands, as in tinkering with his car or motorcycle. He would be called in and probably take the envelope and stick it in the middle of the nearest empty parking lot then blow it up with some small charge of dynamite, sending the contents high into the air.

This crazy scenario played in my head until I decided to just open it. First, though, I took a pillow and the plastic tray that the ice bucket was sitting on and placed them between me and the envelope, hoping that if there were a blast of any sort they would deflect the explosion. Slowly, very slowly, I ripped away the tape. Then I took a look inside and saw that it was only some papers, and laughed at my paranoia. There was no note inside but I knew who it had to be from. Tina had left off the crime photos of the latest attack, along with the coroner's report. I knew she was risking her job and vowed that I wouldn't divulge where I got the file from.

I popped the chicken concoction in the microwave, almost immediately smelling up the room with a perverse blend of garlic and onions, with a dash of what had to be oregano. Opened a bottle of beer and sat down to go over the two crime scenes side by side. If Special Agent Missy Collins thought that I was going to step aside for her then she was sadly mistaken. I raised my beer, looked in the mirror, and declared, "Doctor Sarah Greene is back."

Chapter 9 Houses Of Worship

The FBI was working on tracing where the emails and text originated. I knew, even with my limited knowledge of IT, they weren't going to find anything. As Caleb had said to me: "Of course he anonymized any Internet footprints and I bet the phone he used was stolen or one of those disposable pieces of crap." As it turned out he was right on both counts. The phone was traced to a high school girl who had misplaced her phone at the Cottonwood library. The emails had been sent through several disguised portals and, as far as they could tell, the user had been poaching off the library wifi. As expected, it was all a deadend. I could have told them that. Gnomon, in my own little, brief profile of him, was one smart psycho.

As I sat on my bed and went over the case files, I knew what was coming next. It would only be a natural progression. Technology wasn't divorced from the machinations of evil. The human mind dictated that stimulation be more and more interesting. This went hand in hand with not only the discipline of entertainment and the art world but with almost anything that has to do with dissemination. Cerebral impulses needed to be stroked.

Tina's package included photos of the rabbi's murder, in the grisly detail the forensic expert usually hones in on. He had been strangled, garroted. The official report said that the victim had ligature marks that appeared to be left by a military or combat style weapon. I was puzzled by this. Admittedly, I wasn't up on my Special Forces manuals. Certainly the report had to be referring to something beyond the ordinary soldier. As far as I knew America wasn't training everyday recruits in Boot Camp to garrote the enemy with Army issue assassination kits.

Strangling someone was personal business, meaning the killer, Gnomon, wanted to be hands on, so close to the victim that he could derive some twisted pleasure out of the act. Using a gun was less personal, removing the perp from the act; not to mention it was more convenient and efficient. Stabbings were up close and personal too, but, ultimately more about the actually use of a weapon than the closeness of the act.

No, the killer wanted to be involved to such an extent that he could actually be the arbiter of death. "Destruction is creation," Rey Flowers had once said to me. It hadn't made sense to me, of course, sounding like some kind of nihilist bullshit. Then, later, as I pondered what exactly might be occurring in the mind of a homicidal nutjob, it began to make sense. With a psychopath there are no parameters when it comes to ethics or morals. They operate in a world where up can be down and vice versa. At the same time, they still possess most other characteristics that go into assembling your every day personality, and that, most times, includes creativity. So naturally, it would follow, they don't see anything wrong with the act of murder being included in any desire to be artistic.

Gnomon had garroted both victims, the one constant in the two cases. The Rabbi had been posed with a Magen David prominently displayed around his neck and a Bible opened to Ezekiel 37.1, which reads: The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones. I could just hear him laughing over the Rabbi's lifeless body as he opened the Bible to the selected scripture. That this was a religious crusade was obvious, but from where did it originate.

My phone then rang and I saw that it was Wendy calling me from New York. She wanted to find out how I was doing. We spoke for twenty minutes or so, with her saying that she was thinking of coming out to Arizona to visit me. I knew she wasn't serious. Wendy hated the desert and its heat and dryness. "Bad for the skin, you know," she was always saying. "Zaps the moisture right out of the epidermis." I told her she didn't need to lie to me and that I was getting along fine, but that I appreciated her concern. We signed off, with her agreeing to check in every few days to see how I was progressing. I told her not to worry and to tell Father Paul I was laboring away on the case.

After I hung up, I opened up the newspaper Caleb worked for and went through it looking for the entries about the local churches in the worship section. I was shocked to see Cottonwood had over 40 churches for a population that couldn't have been much more than ten thousand. If you threw in the other small towns in the Verde Valley the impromptu census showed there was a large percentage of religious people centered in such a small region. The demographics supported everything from your everyday Evangelicals to Methodists, to Jews, to Catholics, to the Jehovahs, to Seventh Day Adventists, to Latter Day Saints, to even adherents to the Bahai Faith, which, to my dismay, I didn't know existed or what it even was.

My elementary plan had been to try and figure out where Gnomon might strike again. He was, it seemed, hitting the mainstream religions first, judging by the first victim being a priest and the second a rabbi. "The killer is ecumenically fair at least," Caleb had quipped when we talked on the phone earlier that day, immediately apologizing to me for sounding callous. I hadn't been offended. I was focused on getting into Gnomon's head. By any practical reason, so I thought, he would go after a Protestant next.

That in itself was problematic because the Protestants, as a whole, represented many different denominations. In fact, to be truthful, I found the vast array of Protestant leaning congregations baffling. It was as if religion was some sort of freeform (amorphous) endeavor in which the participant could worship just about any set of theological dictates they wanted to as long as it included a guy named Jesus. That is why you ended up with churches with tabernacle in the title, or calvary, or united, resurrection, episcopal, fellowship, trinity, and--my favorite--vineyard. There was a smorgasbord of religious houses to choose from when it came to Luther's offspring.

As I was reading something then caught my eye towards the bottom of the page. It was an advertisement for (and at first I was sure I was imagining it) atheists. In small block print it read: Meeting for all who want to return to the Age of Reason. Sponsored by the Verde Valley Charter of the Atheist Foundation. The ad gave an address and a phone number to call. I had to call.

I was surprised to hear a woman answer the phone, because I fully expected the Atheist Foundation to be comprised of strange men who were socially inept and unable to interact with society at large. They would all be wearing cheap dress shirts with the buttons buttoned to the top and have on wrinkled slacks, with scuffed loafers they had been wearing for the last five years. To a man, they would have subscriptions to Reason magazine or Scientific American, probably both. The last movie they had probably seen would have been some documentary about that New Testament book supposedly written by Judas and secreted away in Egypt. Something like that anyway.

"Are you calling about the next meeting?" she wanted to know, getting right to the point.

"Meeting? Yes, yes I am," I stammered, caught off guard for a moment.

She told me when the meeting was and where, then added, 'It will be great to have another woman there for a change."

This nugget of information confirmed what I had been thinking about any such group. I smiled to myself and said, "Oh, is that so. I look forward to meeting you."

I had given her my name so as not to raise any suspicions about my motives. She didn't seem to register any recognition of who I was, which was a good thing in the scheme of things. I had scribbled down the directions to the place where the meeting was going to be held the following night. Judging by the number of churches in the town I couldn't imagine that this atheist group could have been very popular with the townspeople. In fact, I began to think that they just might be on par with an abortion clinic and merited the same violent response from the more radical religionists out there at large.

It wasn't that farfetched if you think about it. Doctors had been shot over their continuing practice of pregnancy terminations. Certainly some unbalanced miscreant could take out his hunting rifle and turn it on some heathens in their midst; and it would all be in the name of God don't you know. Maybe I didn't need anymore bulls eyes on my back at this stage. Then again, I thought there might be some valuable intel I could gather at the meeting. Gnomon, in a perfect world, might just be a member of this oddball organization--and I say that in a good way, like perhaps they were stressed humanists who just needed the comforts of human contact without all the trappings of a doctrinaire religion.

After calling Caleb and telling him of my latest gambit, and listening to him laugh for a minute or two, I decided to go to the meeting alone. He offered, through involuntary guffaws and snorts, to accompany me but I told him to forget about it. He told me not to hang up mad and I did just that, enjoying my petulance a little too much. He then called me back but I let it go to my voice mail and went to bed.

The meeting took place in a small office park off the main drag. It was held at one of the member's place of business, which was, as far as I could tell, a tree surgeon's office. Although I had often heard the name or title thrown around all these years I didn't have a clue what they did. Besides, was there a big demand for that? Did people need their trees operated on?

Jesting aside, the tree surgeon met me at the door with a hearty handshake and a beaming smile. I was dismayed to see I was the first one to arrive for the meeting. This left me with the unenviable position of being stuck in a forced conversation with a stranger. The tree surgeon was gracious however, offering me some bottled water or fruit juice, my choice, along with some cookies. Awkward as ever, I took some bottle water and a cookie and followed him into a back room. The room was, unfortunately, small and hot, which had claustrophobia written all over it. We sat down on some hard, folding chairs across from each other.

With my ears perked up, listening for the arrival of any of the other members, I sat there wondering if this tree surgeon just might be Gnomon. He was in his early thirties, with a strong, athletic build. He was wearing a t-shirt which showed his physique and I couldn't help but think that he was certainly capable of strangling someone with his bare hands, not to mention with a garrote. I had an almost overwhelming desire to excuse myself and run out of the room and the building.

"Helen told me we might have a new member coming tonight," he said cheerfully, biting into one of the cookies. "It's always nice to have fresh blood at these things."

I almost choked on my cookie, one of those pre-fab store bought types by the way. It tasted like sugared sawdust. "Really, I guess so," I exclaimed, forcing a smile, wondering when and if anybody else was going to show up. Maybe they are all in on it, the murders, I thought. Serial killers didn't, normally, travel in groups but anything was possible. Perhaps they had made a pact to get rid of all the "purveyors of nonsense" as my dear father was fond of calling men of the cloth. Each member was taking turns snuffing out the useless denizens of the various religions in the community, deeming all of them just vestigial parts to the ever evolving society. It would all be decided on after some sessions of highly reasoned logic and voted on unanimously.

"Hello!" I heard a woman call out from the other room, startling me. "Jim, are you here?"

"Back here, Mary," he called out, standing up, brushing off some cookie crumbs from his lap. "It won't be long before we have our quorum," he announced to me, grinning.

Mary entered the room and shook Jim's hand formally, almost as if they were meeting for the first time. I stood up and waited to introduce myself. She beamed at me and then gave my hand a few almost violent shakes. Jim asked her if she wanted anything to drink or eat and she begged off, insisting that she was "maintaining a constant vigil about my weight." I laughed along with her at this comment, giving her a look that I understood where she was coming from. We then sat down and made small talk, waiting for the others to arrive.

"So, Mary?" I offered questioningly, grinning.

She laughed a hearty laugh and said, "Kinda ironic, huh? I will say I never had anything against the Madonna and all. Hey, if you can have a virgin birth, then go for it. Who needs men anyway?" she joked, jerking a thumb in Jim's direction. He laughed uneasily, unsure just how to take her comment. "There have been plenty of times I liked to have taken my husband out of the equation. After two kids though I guess I kinda need him around at least a little bit."

She asked me if I had any kids and I gave her a short bio on my son, while Jim sat mute, eyeing the door, hoping, so I assumed, that his buddies would soon arrive and deliver him from these two chattering women. I didn't detect any real overt misogyny, just your garden variety awkwardness around the opposite sex. Jim had probably spent too many hours and days counting tree rings.

Mary, a voluble dynamo, went on to tell me about her husband and how he thought she was nuts for having her specific beliefs. "He ain't religious or anything but he fears a god out there in the ether...or maybe a devil would be more like it. The man's bought into all of that Hades business big time. Thinks he going straight to hell where he will fry like a greasy burger," she explained, chortling. "Can you believe it? A grown man worried about burning up after he dies."

I nodded, and said, "Some people need to have parameters in their lives, something to give them a psychological footing that--"

"Whoa now!" Mary bellowed out. "I know who you are. Damn Jim, do you know who this is?" she called out, while Jim looked truly perplexed.

"Oh no, you're not here to proselytize are you?" Jim almost wailed. "Is she a Jehovah's--"

"No silly, this that psychologist woman...the one you see on TV sometimes," Mary interrupted. "What on earth are you doing here in Cottonwood?"

Jim stood there dumbfounded, then asked, "You aren't secretly taping this are you? We can't have you doing that--not without our permission."

I saw how nervous he had become so I stated, "There's nothing to be worried about. I'm just here to get some information, that's all."

The two of them exchanged looks, then Mary asked, "What information?"

I was saved by a knock on the front door and a man shouted out: "Is this where all the pagans meet up?"

"That's Jensen," they said in unison, laughing.

A short man, late forties, with a large pot belly, walked in the room. He was wearing overalls and a sweat stained cowboy hat. He stopped short at the door when he saw me, hesitated for an instant, then continued on into the room, where he shook both of their hands before turning towards me. I stood up again and offered my hand. He shook it, using both hands, locking onto my eyes like a politician working a campaign event.

"Who do we have here?" he sang out, glancing back at Jim.

"My name's Sarah," I answered before they could respond.

"It is about time we got some fresh ideas in our group," he declared. "We are gettin' kinda stale, if you know what I mean."

I didn't, really, but I said, "I hope I can add something to the discourse."

"Discourse," Jensen repeated, eyeing me for a moment.

I regretted sounding pedantic, so I added, "This is my first time attending one of these types of meetings."

"Might be a bumpy ride," Jensen said, laughing.

"Shew-wee," Mary muttered, "Jensen, can't you ever change your clothes before you come to the meetings?"

"What? Doesn't salt of the earth mean anything to you?" he teased.

"Jensen here owns a ranch, if you haven't already figured that out by now," Jim explained, waving his hand in front of his face like he was warding off a bad odor.

The smell of manure wafted over towards me, so I took a step back. Right about then two more people showed up, two brothers, called Bill and Bob. They were both retired from the military, the Navy to be precise. I introduced myself again, hoping I hadn't made a gigantic mistake by coming to the meeting after all. They all traded stories for a few minutes before Jim called the meeting to order. Apparently, so it seemed, a quorum meant anything over three people in attendance.

"My name is Jim and I used to be a Baptist," Jim began, getting the ball rolling. The others snickered, it being the thing to do when you usurp the greetings mantra of AA evidently. "The meeting is called to order. As you can see we have a visitor from out of town and we welcome her and hope she can come back again."

"We'll see what happens after she hears us talk," Jensen stated, giggling.

"The last two didn't come back," Bill and Bob said in chorus, elbowing each other.

I smiled sheepishly and debated on whether or not to match their repartee, but Jim continued on with: "During the last meeting we discussed putting out a...a bulletin of some sort and couldn't come to a consensus. Do we really need to broadcast our views to the public?"

"Hell yeah," Jensen almost shouted out. "Oh, right, my name is Jensen and I used to be a Lutheran. Look, Jim, everyday the agony junkies in this town are poisoning everybody's mind with their garbage. We should give out something alternative to think about."

"Agony junkies," I found myself saying out loud before I realized it.

"He means the Christians," Mary explained. "You know, Christ dying on the cross and all. And, honey, you have to say your name and former religion."

"Oh, I see," I mumbled, embarrassed. "My name is Sarah and I used to be sort of Jewish," I said almost apologetically.

"My name is Bob and we used to be Catholics," the one brother called out. "What do you mean sort of?"

I then launched into my incomplete upbringing in the Jewish faith, including never even having a Seder, if you don't count the ones my father used to have that mocked the whole Moses leaving Egypt enterprise. I couldn't tell if they were entranced by my story because I was Jewish or because they all collectively realized just who I was. At any rate, they sat in rapt attention while I spilled my guts about my oddball family life as a kid, complete with the story detailing how my mother secretly made hamentashen cookies for Purim and hid them from my father.

"Well, Sarah, you are the first member of the twelve tribes to attend one of our meetings," Jim declared, raising his bottled water as if he were offering a toast.

"Yeah, now all we gotta do is get a Muslim and we'll be complete," Jensen joked.

As I sat there listening to them deconstruct Christianity, I wondered if they had heard about the two murders in their community. Did it make them apprehensive? After all, they advertised right in the local newspaper. It wouldn't be long before someone from the authorities came knocking. They were all, whether they knew it or not, suspects. Motives for the murders at this stage in the investigation were negligible at best. A coterie of angry atheists might fit the bill.

As the meeting progressed, and trust me these people didn't lack for any pithy subjects, from particle physics to Bill and Bob's contribution, in tandem, about Sextus Empiricus' exposition on Pyrrhonism, (huh?). I surveyed each individual's mannerisms, trying to get a bead on the prospect of any of them being a serial killer. They were all, apparently, an erudite bunch, with Bill and Bob being grads of the Naval Academy and Jensen having a masters from, of all places, Stanford, and Jim a U of A alumnus, leaving Mary, who was no academic slouch either, having gone to the University of Washington, in St. Louis. She had, for her part, dragged Betrand Russell into the discussion.

I ruled Mary out almost immediately. She was a shade over five feet and couldn't possibly have hoisted the dead body onto the cross, even if she had managed to garrote Father Tim. While it was true she might have been able to harangue the priest to death, I seriously doubted she was the murderer.

Jensen was another matter. Although he was probably not fit enough to carry out two murders that required this particular level of physical output, I never the less saw him as much too garrulous to be able to carry off another persona that required him to be deceptive.

The two brothers I crossed off the list early on too because I could see they did everything in lockstep and, unless they were a serial killer team, I didn't see them as likely prospects either. Of course even though in the annals of crime it wasn't unheard of to find co-killers, it was still unusual. Besides, I believed they were outside the age range, both of them being in their late sixties.

That left me with Jim. He was a shade over six feet tall and, as I said, muscular. He had an ax to grind about religion so he would fit into a loose profile of what it might mean to be an avenger against ministers. By now, as they were winding up the meeting, he would know why I was there. He hadn't let on before about my identity but I was almost certain he knew about my past. Even if he professed to not watch all that much TV, somewhere along the line he must have come across Sarah Greene. I wasn't speaking from the vantage point of an over inflated ego. I, personally, had the misfortune of crossing culture boundaries, going from the print media to the visual media, with academia thrown in for good measure. "You got them coming and going," my agent liked to say boastfully, as he saw dollar signs light up over my head like a warped version of some virtual comic book.

Gnomon, I was positive, would have been able to maintain a cool, composed demeanor if he needed to. In fact, I had mentioned to Caleb just that morning about how it was possible (probable) that I had already come into contact somewhere along the line with the killer. It would definitely be his style. For however briefly he might have crossed my path, it would have been an encounter that gave him some sort of perverse visceral pleasure. "Now you are just trying to scare the shit out of me," Caleb had muttered, and I could hear him shuffling around his house, probably looking out the windows while we talked on the phone.

I can't say I wasn't happy the meeting finally wrapped up. Even though I wasn't overly religious, if at all, I found this group, you know, out there. Human frailty, as I well knew, often dictated the need for something on the order of spiritual guidance in order to get through the day. If religion supplied that need with order made answers, then so be it. Of course, don't tell my father that. He would be appalled by such latitudinarian attitude towards organized religion, or, for that matter, religion as a whole. He saw it as a burden man, with a capital M, had to live with, deeming theology an unnecessary evil mankind had to endure.

We all stood up, joined hands, at Jim's urging, and bowed our heads and recited, I kid you not: If God were to exist, there would be no alternatives.

There are alternatives

Therefore, God does not exist.

Syllogism recited, the meeting adjourned, with me trying to beat a hasty retreat, heading for the exit as fast as I could. I wasn't quick enough as Mary intercepted me at the door, intent on extracting a "get-together" out of me, telling me that her husband would be "tickled pink" to meet me. Somehow I doubted that but I told her anyway I would call her, edging closer and closer towards my rental car. As I got in my car I caught a glimpse of Jim standing in the doorway of his business, watching me. He then waved good-bye and I quickly drove away.

I met Caleb the next morning for coffee at our usual place. He had ridden his bike over, propping it up against the wall beside the table. It was relatively early in the morning so the heat hadn't yet reached the boiling point, or frying, depending on where you might be standing. As I got out of my car, I looked up to see him waving a just baked pastry at me, smiling. These rendezvous at the bakery weren't doing my waistline any good, I thought, dodging a ATV as I crossed the street. The driver made a left turn and zoomed up a side street, before disappearing down an unpaved road going up a hill. The mode of transport in Arizona leaned towards utilitarian most of the time, being that you didn't have to go far in order to leave the pavement behind.

"Just baked," Caleb called out to me as I approached, dangling the pastry under his nose and taking a whiff.

"Not for me, thanks," I told him.

He laughed and said, "Sure, like that's going to happen. Go on, I already got you one. You know you want it."

"Enabler," I cried out, plucking the pastry out of his hand and taking a bite.

"So, how was it with the anti-god squad?" he wanted to know, grinning. "Did they make you take a pledge, promise not to pray anymore or something?"

"Oh yeah, that and a promise to burn my bible when I got home," I joked, glancing up and down the street, looking for any suspicious characters who might be loitering around. Ever since the first text message I had been vigilant about surveying my surroundings. Right about then a police car cruised by, slowing down briefly to give me the high sign. I waved and the cop drove off slowly, then parked at the end of the street.

"You got your own personal escort or body guard," Caleb declared, craning his neck to watch the police car drive away. "Cottonwood five-O on the job. I doubt they have money in the budget for that sort of manpower. The Police Chief must be worried about you."

"Jealous?" I shot back.

"Me? What do I have to be worried about? I mean, really. The wack-job's after you...not me," he said unconvincingly.

"Oh, and that wasn't you on the phone yesterday staring out his windows while we were talking. Must have been somebody else I was talking to," I teased. "I could be wrong, but it sure sounded like you were kinda nervous. There did seem to be some definite wavering in your voice--kinda girlie-boy even."

"What? Now you are impugning my manhood, Doctor Greene," he exclaimed. "That's the last time I buy you any bakery products for sure."

The banter soon diminished as we launched into specifics about the case. I wanted to know if he knew any of the people at the meeting I had attended. He reminded me that Cottonwood was indeed a small town but everybody didn't know everybody, then had to immediately take it back when I mentioned Jim. He knew him from a charity event held each year, a bike ride. I wanted to know everything he knew about him, which was, in the end, not all that much.

"He's basically a normal guy, that's about all I can tell you," Caleb informed me, picking at the crumbs on his plate. "He is a small businessman in a small town. End of story. Probably."

"What do you mean 'probably'?" I wanted to know, throwing my balled up napkin at him.

"Just what I said. Hey, as far as I know he is unmarried, or maybe divorced, no kids, and likes to help charitable causes. Sounds like an evil guy to me," he said sarcastically. "I mean you aren't seriously thinking about him being Gnomon are you? Come on! The guy is pretty normal...except that he doesn't like religion. Hell, I don't like religion either. Does that make me a suspect too?"

I didn't reply for a moment, then said, "Maybe."

"Are you trying to play with my head, Sarah? Me?" he shot back, surprised.

"I guess not. You don't seem organized enough to be Gnomon," I stated. "Look at your kitchen. Would this type of psycho ever have such a mess in their house?"

"What is it with you and my kitchen anyway?" he said, exasperated. "It's doesn't always look like that you know. You caught me on a bad day."

"He doth protest too much," I sang out, laughing. "No, seriously, do you think this Jim guy would be capable of two murders? I mean I realize you don't know him all that well but what does your instincts tell you about him?"

"It tells me that you are nutty," he answered, grinning. "I grant you that he has the physicality and all, and the access probably, but no, it doesn't ring true to me. Then again, with this guy you are probably dealing with a type of person who is chameleon like and can pull off being a different personality when he needs too. Right?"

"Definitely," I agreed, watching as a car pulled into the empty parking space in front of us. "Fuck," I muttered under my breath, as I noticed it was Special Agent Collins in the car. Caleb instantly perked up when he saw who it was. "Don't wet your pants," I told him, receiving a sour look in response.

"It's the good doctor and the reporter," Missy announced as she walked up to our table. "Thought I'd try out some of the bakery goods everybody keeps telling me about. Are they as good as they say?"

"Better," Caleb answered, almost giddy. "Try the cinnamon rolls. They're great."

"Heard you had a meeting with some rather interesting characters last night," she said, addressing me and more or less ignoring Caleb. "Hope it was fruitful."

"Must be a small town," I said in a tone of voice that I hoped sounded steely and non-chalant simultaneously.

Special Agent Collins laughed, then said, "A celebrity like you can't expect to go around unnoticed, Doctor Greene. I sure hope you were only exercising your first amendments rights when it comes to religion, or lack thereof, and not meddling in my case."

Caleb was beginning to pick up on the cat fight that was taking shape, so he interjected: "Don't forget to try one of their loafs of bread too. I recommend the nine grain. You can't go wrong."

Proof that timing is everything, my cell phone binged and a text message appeared. I peered at the screen for a moment, while Missy and Caleb looked on. It read: +X gain = -X loss. Two less people to spew doublethink to the ignorant.

"Is it him?" Special Agent Collins demanded to know.

I held up the phone so she could read it, saying, "Must be."

She read the message several times, as Caleb leaned over to take a look. My eyes darted back and forth, trying to scan up and down the street. All I could see was one man, with a cane, standing in front of the local book store, one of those businesses that sell used books and trinkets out of a store front property. Across the street, a few stores down, I could see a woman just opening her business, one that sold interesting southwest artworks; in fact, I had intended on buying one of the metal sculptures and having it sent back East to Wendy.

"Are those typos?" Caleb wanted to know, knitting his brow in confusion. "Looks like algebra or something."

"We'll have to get right on this one," Missy declared, blasting off a text message to Quantico.

"Basic econ," I stated, hoping to sound authoritative.

"What?" Caleb exclaimed, staring at me as if I might be speaking Urdu or something. "Are you sure?" he said, incredulous.

"Please, Doctor Greene, enlighten us--will you," Missy said in a surly tone.

I gave her a look, one that said: What, you don't know? Then I replied, "It's the whole zero-sum idea, you know, where the winner doesn't just win, the loser has to lose."

Special Agent Collins exhaled dramatically, giving away the fact that my childish condescension had gotten to her, then she asked, "Do you even know what you are talking about?

"I guess not," I said, glancing at Caleb and grinning.

"Fine," Missy muttered, before she aboutfaced and went into the bakery.

I motioned to Caleb that it was time to leave, giving him the high sign that I would meet him at his house. He looked at me, then glanced in the bakery window, watched Missy at the counter for a moment, then reluctantly got on his bike. Then I hurried over to my car.

Just as I got in my car my phone binged again and a text popped up, reading: Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it? Amos 3.6. For a moment I thought about going back into the bakery and showing it to Missy, but changed my mind and drove to Caleb's house instead. Later on, after I showed it to him, I would forward it to the FBI lab for analysis.

To my surprise, Caleb, true to his word, had cleaned up his kitchen. It was spotless even. I remarked on this and he gave me a I told you so look. I was sure he must have called in a maid service as I had suggested, so I casually looked around for a business card that would have given him away. There was a post-it stuck on the fridge with a local phone number. Must be it, I thought, squelching a laugh.

"New text," I announced after we had settled in, doing our usual surveillance of the neighborhood through his windows. "More Biblical nonsense, from the Book of Amos. Hell, I don't think I've ever heard of Amos before. Maybe this loon is making this stuff up."

"The only Books of the Bible I know of are in the New Testament," Caleb confessed, shrugging.

"What about Genesis?" I said. "I know you've heard of Adam and Eve before."

"Okay, Genesis," he exclaimed, slightly peeved. "Revelations is about the only thing I ever remember about--you know, with the end of the world shit that's going to happen to all of us. Isn't that where Jesus comes back and we all have to repent or something? You'd think Gnomon would be all over that."

I thought for a moment, wondering about the killer's fixation with the Old Testament. Admittedly, I was a neophyte when it came to understanding the connection between the Old and New Testaments and how they were linked when it came to Christian theology, but I did pay attention sometimes when my father would rail against organized religion during my childhood.

Having an atheist father had left me devoid of many compulsions other religious people inculcated throughout their lives. My childhood friends had gone through Vacation Bible school, summer camps where the campers were expected to spend part of everyday delving into what the Bible proscribed. This instruction was supposed to instruct the budding Christian, leaving them with a set of rules in order to live their lives like Jesus wanted them to.

As my classmates and friends were going through this "brainwashing," as my father liked to call it, I was left to my own devices, as they say. I usually ended up doing a great deal of reading as a result, which is not a bad thing of course but it did leave me with a social deficit to some extent. It goes without saying that there wasn't any other atheist children on the block that I could have playtime with. My mother filled the void as best she could, trying desperately to teach me how to bake and other hausfrau duties.

She may have been a closet Jewess, or, at least, enjoyed the trappings of Jewish traditions, but she bowed to my father's wishes and didn't insist on having any Hanukah or Passover meals. Not that there weren't arguments over it because, early on in their marriage, there were. Especially when her relatives got involved. Although she had been raised by only nominally practicing Jews, they still wanted to participate in the annual Jewish rituals. Most of my relatives thought it was the least they could do to maintain an historical tradition that had stretched back for centuries. It was, for them, a continuing of their Jewishness.

My father wasn't onboard with that assessment of his ancestry. No, he had gone down the whole Judaic road before, having almost emigrated to Israel at one point in order to get in on the Zionist movement. I often times found it hard to believe that my father had bought into the dream of being a returning Jew. It wasn't to be, however, because he soon realized the new Jewish State was going to be manipulated (even co-opted) by the more religious elements out there, the ones who wanted to buttress their return to the Holy Land with an emphasis on the Holy part.

That didn't sit well with my father. It was one thing to agree with the socialist thrust of the early Zionist but something entirely different to agree to the religious blackmail of the more rabbinical leaning members of the cause. I think it galled him that some of the apologists for the Zionists found it necessary to legitimize their retrieval of the Holy Land by dragging the Bible into it. Biblical passages weren't solid and undeniable reasons to found a new country. In fact, according to my father, it detracted from the history making process.

"I went over and over the list of churches in the town, trying to get some kind of idea where Gnomon might strike again," I informed Caleb. "I was hoping maybe the Bible would help but religion is just...just confusing to me. I can't understand most of it."

"You can't," Caleb sang out, laughing. "I thought my mother was a wacko most of the time when she tried to get me involved in her church. I think the best thing to do is just not think about dying. Makes it easier on your psyche. Right? I mean enjoy life as best as you can and then it's over."

"Spoken like a true Hedonist," I joked. "How about you go over the list of churches and see if anything sticks out." He gave me a skeptical look and I continued, "Really. I personally think he is going to hit a Protestant church. They are next in line. Think about it. They--"

"Listen to yourself," he chided. "You are approaching this like it's some kinda game or something. This isn't some board game, Sarah. People are dying."

I didn't like being called out on the way I was trying to solve the case, so I replied, "Sometimes you have to be...you know, you have to be disconnected from the process. Sure it sounds cold and calculating but it is part of the process."

"Were you like this before you got...kidnapped?" he suddenly asked, wincing a little bit when he realized how far he had gone.

I stared back at him for a moment, not wanting to answer. Silence filled the kitchen. The neighbor's dog was barking again outside. A garbage truck stopped in front of his house and the grinding machinery echoed up and down the street. It was the first time Caleb had mentioned anything about my history and the one episode that we had more or less avoided completely.

"I am a therapist, Caleb, and we often times approach everything from an analytical perspective," I replied coldly.

"I shouldn't have said anything about..." he offered, letting his words trail off.

"Can't be avoided," I told him, pulling up my blouse to reveal one of the remaining tattoos on my stomach. "I live with these everyday but that doesn't change the way I conduct my investigations. It just doesn't. Criminality doesn't change and the way to combat has to be constant too."

He tried not to stare at the tattoo on my stomach, but he couldn't help himself. Holding my blouse up wasn't so much erotically charged as the sentiment one might feel if they were looking at a carny freak show. I was the accident rubberneckers couldn't turn away from.

Finally Caleb said, "Nice abs."

We both laughed and I dropped my blouse back into place, smoothing it down before saying: "Your lie is greatly appreciated."

We were then startled by another text message on my phone. I picked it up dreading what would be on the screen. I read: We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement. Isaiah 28.15. I showed it to Caleb. We exchanged glances, knowing full well that another death was eminent.

"He is taking you along for the ride, Sarah. I don't think there is any doubt about that now," Caleb declared, shaking his head.

"I know--I know," I said, despondent, knowing now that I was going to be integral to the killing spree.

Chapter 10 Golgotha

"Hey, guess what?" Caleb announced excitedly. I gave him a puzzled look. "My piece about the rabbi got picked up on the net, you know, linked. Gives me some national exposure."

"That's great," I said, genuinely happy for him; although, for me, more exposure usually translated to more hassles. "Is your editor going to let you have more autonomy on this now?"

"I don't see how he can keep a lid on it at this point," he said, laughing. "You're involved. The FBI is involved. It won't be long before one of the cable outlets get their hooks in it. You are going to have to give me some pointers on how to deal with the media, Sarah."

I glanced at him, trying not to frown. "You might not like it once you are up to your neck in it," I warned. "Like a bunch of piranhas."

"I can handle them," he stated with bravado. "Oh, by the way, about the churches, what we need is some sort of heuristic system, something that will narrow down the choices or possible victims. Maybe then we can concentrate on where Gnomon might hit next."

"Well, unfortunately up until now Gnomon hasn't wanted to play the clue game. No riddles to solve. He is just content to taunt me with the Bible. I'm not sure he is going to want to lead me to his next victim. It would seem like he wants me to be around for the aftermath portion of his act, sort of like an audience. He has an ego but one with a small e maybe, one that doesn't include him challenging the police or FBI. That pretty much tells me that he is intent on accomplishing his goal and what that goal is is anybody's guess."

"To kill as many religious figures as he can," Caleb announced, giving me the usual "duh" look.

"Very funny," I shot back. "Let's step outside the box for a moment, if I might use that cliche."

"Okay, what would he want to do at this point in his quest to kill as many ministers as he can?" Caleb asked, looking at the ceiling, then going over to the fridge and pulling out one of those ghastly fruit flavored vitamin water drinks. He offered me one but I declined. "So you are thinking Protestant, right?"

"It would seem so," I replied, picking up my phone to forward the text to the FBI. "Is there an outlier of some sort we can zero in on? There has to be something that sets all of the other ministers apart from one of them. Doesn't there? Think. Is there a preacher that is in the news more than anybody else. Oh, how about a minister that's gotten into trouble with the law, you know, adultery or--"

"Not that I know of," he interrupted, adding, "and I see everything that crossed my desk at the newspaper."

"Do you have that nexus-lexus thing at work?" I asked, hoping that maybe a thorough search might turn up something.

"Of course," he said in that tone he used when something was blatantly obvious. "I can do it from my laptop right now if you want. Might turn up something you never know."

I walked over to the window and scanned the street, hoping to see something out of the ordinary that might indicate that Gnomon was watching us. All I saw was the usual police car parked at the end of the street. I told Caleb our protection was on the job and he grunted. I could hear him tapping away on his laptop, muttering to himself. I had glanced over his shoulder when he started up his computer and saw that his wallpaper was a photo of him on his mountainbike hurtling down a steep incline. I chuckled to myself.

Where are we going with this? I asked myself. Even if we found out where and who Gnomon was going to strike next what would we do with the information? If I were to take it to Special Agent Collins she would probably laugh right in my face. The police would only turn it over to her. That would leave it up to me and Caleb. Could we even approach the minister in question and warn him? He would, in all likelihood, think we were two nutcases. Our next option would be monitoring his church 24/7. How would that work exactly? Shifts of 12 hours a piece. Lots of coffee. Binoculars. Pee breaks by the side of the road.

"This is really hopeless," I said dejectedly, realizing that we had been relegated to the background.

"I can't find shit about any of these guys," he called out over his shoulder, slapping at the table. "I did get an email from my mother though," he joked, smiling at me.

Then it clicked in my mind, like serendipity in all its glory. And my phone binged again before I could spell out my revelation. Caleb gave me that look, the one that asked: Is it him again? I looked at the LCD and read aloud: I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be quiet. Timothy 2:12. Gnomon.

"It's a woman!" I almost screamed out. "Has to be. You mentioned the email from your mom and it triggered something in my brain, then this," I explained, holding up my phone. "He is confirming it. This is the first clue. Gnomon is stepping out of his profile--evolving."

Caleb turned back to his laptop and entered some information, coming up with a minister, a woman, of The Golgotha Ministry. Pastor Irene Givens, he told me, probing deeper, trying to find out all he could about her. Caleb wanted to know what in the hell Golgotha meant and I told him it was the place where Christ was crucified.

By the sound of the church's name, I figured it must be one of those storefront houses of worship, the ones where the congregants were usually outnumbered by the minister's family. I had seen them almost everywhere, including New York City. Protestantism was so freeform you could establish just about any congregation, even ones centered around the most obscure Biblical interpretations. It made for some interesting set-ups when it came to worship spaces. I once saw a tiny make-shift church in DC where the pews where plastic orange chairs and doubled as seats for the waiting room of a Korean acupuncturist office.

"Looks like the church is some tiny place in a strip mall," Caleb informed me, snickering. "I just love those places."

"Proof that god isn't a snob," I declared, smiling.

"I never thought of it that way," he said, shaking his head yes.

"He is egalitarian," I continued, waiting for Caleb to one up me.

"Enough," he chided me. "So what do we do now, Doctor Greene? Go and warn her or what?

I thought for a moment. With the police protection outside the door we would be under watch anywhere we went. I didn't want to tip our hand just yet to the FBI. I had decided to wait on sending the latest text because I knew they would arrive at the same conclusion we did. Besides, in the pit of my stomach something was gnawing away at me. Gnomon hadn't taken the crucial step to advise me of his intentions. Now, I get a text pointing in one direction only. Then, as I thought about it, I begin to realize that maybe this wasn't a heads-up at all but an invitation.

"How can we get out of here without the cops seeing us?" I asked Caleb, peering out the window to see what the police car was up to.

"Can you ride a bike?" he asked in all seriousness.

I shot him a look that said he was an idiot for asking, then said sarcastically, "No, I've never been on a bike before."

"Hey, never know with you city girls," he said defensively. "I got a spare bike in the garage. It was my fiancee's bike. She hated it from the very first day I bought it for her. Didn't like to get dirty on the trails."

"And you two were engaged," I taunted, laughing. "Did you two meet through one of those ridiculous Internet dating sites or what?"

"Don't want to talk about it," he stated, holding both of his hands up in front of him. "We can slip out the back, cut across the neighbors yard and go down the side street. That is if you can keep up."

I looked at his well defined calf muscles and wavered a little bit, with visions of me huffing and puffing behind him as he cruised down the street way (way) in front of me. It was going to be humiliating. I hadn't been on a bike in a long time, so long I couldn't remember when. There would be those stupid gears to work and a torture seat to sit on. Knowing Caleb, he would make me wear a helmet, one that sat on my head looking like some pumpkin from outer space, squishing my hair down in the process.

We sneaked out the back door and retrieved the bikes from the garage. Fortunately, the bike fit my height, but, as expected, the helmet sat on my head like a bucket. Caleb squelched a laugh as he checked the air in the tires, then we were off, with me wobbling behind him like a six year old trying to learn how to ride. I fumbled through the gears, trying to find one that would permit me to pedal without becoming exhausted by the next block. Up ahead, true to form, Caleb was dashing along, slowing down every so often to turn around and exhort me to hurry up. It didn't take long before I wanted to kill him right on the spot.

We weaved in and out of the back streets, finally arriving at The Golgotha Ministry church. It was in a small strip mall, sandwiched in between a blinds store and a watch repair shop, one that advertised in big letters that they bought old jewelry, gold in particular. The sign on the building out front was hand written, giving the church an almost charming facade, lending a sense of extemporaneity to the pursuit of gaining Christ's trust. In the door window someone had written the pastor's name, as well as the times of Sunday service and a phone number to call presumably if you needed an intermediator to help with the Lord.

While Caleb peered in the window, I rubbed first the left thigh then the right, trying to get all of the lactose burn out. I felt like I had just finished a marathon. He told me he was going to have a look around the back and I told him to take his time, wondering whether or not Cottonwood had taxi service to take me back to his house because I really didn't want to get back on that bike. I couldn't imagine how they road up and down mountains on one of those.

It wasn't two minutes before Caleb was back and his face was sheet white. I knew immediately he had discovered the next victim. Pastor Irene Givens had been murdered. I thought he was going to hyperventilate.

"She's dead isn't she?" I asked in as calm a voice as I could muster.

He nodded yes, and walked away from me, stopping on the other side of the parking lot. I had seen enough crime scenes to know that it takes--as Peter liked to say--a little bit of your soul away. It is an act of destruction distilled to its elemental impact. Some are worse than others of course, but they all share that one singular component that makes them all interwoven into a fabric of hostile stimuli. And it will bombard your defenses, attack them even. Your senses can become callous but they never do rebound from that initial contact with the aftermath of death.

I left Caleb in the parking lot and walked around back, slowly. We should have been calling the cops but I wanted to see the crime scene first hand. Gnomon wanted me to. This had been his gambit, draw me in further. Expose me to what he had done, and could continue to do. I was his witness.

The backdoor to the church had been left open an inch or two. There were no windows in the back of the building so I knew Caleb must have at least stepped inside a few steps in order to see what was there. Being careful not to disturb any evidence, I gingerly took a step or two into the room. The back door opened into a small room with a desk and chair. There was a stack of papers on the desk and a photo of what must have been the minister and her husband. She looked to be in her early forties in the photo.

I checked the floor, looking for a trail of blood or foot prints. It was mostly clean, except for a piece of paper. I stooped over and tried to read what was written on it. It appeared to be one of the church bulletins from the Sunday service perhaps. Going in further, I stopped at the doorway to the main room. From there I could just see outside to the parking lot. Caleb was standing by his bike, nervously looking back and forth.

The room had a row of fold up chairs and what appeared to be a home made cross leaning against the opposite wall. It was a good six or seven feet tall. Along the other wall there was an alter, again home made I think. Like the cross, it looked like it had been made out of salvaged two by eights because the wood was weather beaten. There was a gigantic leather bound bible opened on the altar, with two large plastic candelabras on either side.

Then I saw the body. The pastor had been stripped of all of her clothes. It was, for what it is worth, a relatively clean crime scene, meaning there wasn't any blood. I could see the ligature marks around her neck. Her eyes were still open. I couldn't help but wonder what she had seen last before he choked the life out of her.

Looking closer, I could see that Gnomon had written in magic marker a Biblical passage on her bare stomach. It read: Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil. Isaiah 5.20. I recited it over and over a few times, wanting to remember it, but then I decided to use my cell phone camera and take some photographs to reference later. It seemed ghoulish, and disrespectful, but I made myself do it. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Caleb pacing back and forth outside in the parking lot. I needed to work fast, fearing that someone might arrive on the scene at any time.

Where are her clothes, I wondered? Was Gnomon taking trophies, crossed my mind? I didn't think that would fit his MO. Rape didn't seem to fit either. Nakedness, I deduced, could be his way of adding a humiliation factor to his act. After a quick search I found the pastor's clothes in the other room, discarded under the desk. Taking a moment, I tried to imagine how the crime unfolded. Pastor working late. Knock on the back door. She's the trusting type. Opens door. He greets her, probably wants to know if she can offer him some kind of religious guidance etc. The ruse works. Steps inside. Talks to her for a moment. Lures her into position. Slips the garrote into place. Removes her clothes. Applies the passage. Sneaks out the back.

The murder had to have happened at night. The blinds store and the watch repair place would have been closed. Gnomon would have had time. This crime would have been easier than the previous two. The priest might have put up a fight and maybe the rabbi too. Would there be a disappointment factor involved, as in the crime being so easy to accomplish Gnomon wouldn't derive any pleasure out of it?

No, I didn't think so. As with some killers, it was about the technique of the crime itself. The crimes didn't seem to have any consistent touchstones the killer had to complete, except for the Biblical angle and that was the denouement of the crime not the stepping stone. Silencing the opposition was the motive and, apparently, the use of a garrote was the chosen method he derived the most pleasure from. It seemed to me I would have to start there, the actual cause of death.

"What in the hell do we do now?" Caleb called out to me when I rounded the corner of the building. "Man, I can't believe I just saw a dead body...this sucks."

"Keep it together, Caleb," I said in a whisper, trying to calm him down. "We have to call this in...now. I'm going to call the cops--not Collins. They can pass on the info to her. We are on the same page about this, right?"

He looked at me, then glanced around the parking lot, before saying, "He might be here right this second. Watching us. It gives me the creeps, Sarah."

"I know," I agreed. "Listen, I want you to ride your bike to the other end of the parking lot then stop and survey the area. You heard me, just do it. You might catch somebody acting weird. Look in all the cars and storefronts. Don't worry about looking obvious about it. I'm going to call 911, then walk to the other end of the parking lot. I'll try to see if anybody is watching from across the street."

I phoned the police, telling them that we had found another murder victim. Less than a minute later sirens could be heard wailing in the distance. My police escort, picking up the call on his radio, was the first to arrive. The police officer screeched to a stop in front of me. He jumped out of his car and demanded to know how I had gotten away from him. I ignored him and pointed at the church, telling him the body was in there. His eyes got big and he scrambled back in his car and pulled up in front of the stores, leaving his lights flashing.

Across the parking lot I could see Caleb peering into stores and cars, riding his bike in circles. Shielding my eyes against the sun, I scanned across the street. There was more strip malls on the other side, all with store front windows, offering plenty of places for someone to watch the proceedings. Another police car dashed into the parking lot, stopping next to the first police car. The cop jumped out. I walked over and told him the back door was open and the other officer had gone around to the back. He asked me if I was the person who called it in and I nodded yes. He told me to wait there, releasing the strap on his handgun as he hurried around the building.

Then another police car screamed into the parking lot, stopping right next to me, quickly followed by Special Agent Collins. I could see her stony expression as she got out of her car. She then gave me a sour look and asked, "Did you see him?" This sounded like a ludicrous question, and I answered, "You're kidding, right?" She ordered me to wait right there and went around to the back of the building.

A few of the merchants were drifting out of their stores in order to see what all the commotion was about. Caleb rode up on his bike and stopped next to me, telling me that he didn't think he would be able to pick out anybody at this late stage. I nodded, and told him I had been ordered to wait for questioning. He rolled his eyes and told me that it was going to get "sketchy" from here on out.

I heard one of the cops yell out to the other cop that they had a crime scene and to get out the tape. Soon the crime scene unit would arrive, followed by, probably, the police chief and mayor. The siege mentality was beginning to take shape. There would be a mobile TV unit on the scene, if Caleb's prediction proved correct. The TV affiliates from Phoenix would be all over this soon. On the street talking heads would be broadcasting live, supplemented by leaked information about the gruesome tidbits of the continuing case. Gnomon was about to go national.

"Sarah, you have lots of questions to answer," Missy called out to me, as she made her way through the gathering crowd. "Could you get these people back a little bit, thanks," she chided over her shoulder, waving her arms in the direction of the gallery that had gathered to gawk at the scene taking place. "Is this a coincidence you finding this?" she wanted to know, working hard to hold down her hostility.

I looked at Caleb and then said, "Not exactly."

"Officer, could you do me a favor and escort this gentleman to the other side of the parking lot," Special Agent Collins asked, pointing across the lot. Perplexed, the officer motioned for Caleb to follow him.

"Good police work," I chided. "Separate the witnesses. Want to prevent any collusion." I gave her the thumbs up sign.

"I sure hope we don't find any of your finger prints in there," she exclaimed, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. "Wouldn't want to have to run you in...keep you on ice for a few days."

"I got a text, one mentioning women in the Bible, so I put two and two together and figured it out," I explained. "You can keep your threats to yourself."

"Did you forward it?"

"Of course," I replied in a cold tone. "Gnomon wants me to...to accompany him--in a way."

"What? Are you just trying to sound nutty or what?" she shot back, smirking. "You mean to tell me you think the perp is linking himself with you in some way? That's absurd. I had heard that you can be out there but this takes the cake, Doctor Greene. Maybe you need some more therapy sessions."

This was below the belt, but I calmly said, "What can I say? Nutjobs like me."

"I guess I can see why," she announced in a nasty tone. "We are going to need for you and what's his name to come down to the police station. You are going to have to tell me everything you know about this guy. Both of you."

My phone binged in my pocket and I stole a look at the text message, reading quickly: Greenie, me thinks we are in the perfect Nash Equilibrium. We both have nothing to gain by unilaterally changing our strategy. G. I wasn't up on my Game Theory but I had seen the movie and knew who he was referring to in Nash. It appeared that what had started out as the great anti-crusade to eliminate representatives of religion was now deteriorating into a live version of a video game. Gnomon was enjoying taking someone else along on his journey of heinous acts of murder.

Caleb and I assured the police chief that we would drop by the police station for questioning about the most recent murder. While standing there I saw Tina entering and exiting the building and she gave me a quick wave. I motioned to my eye, trying to show her that I had seen the crime scene. She nodded that she understood, quickly looking around to see if her superior was watching.

As we were leaving, I got Special Agent Collins' attention and said in almost a whisper, "Better get used to the spotlight, Missy." She gave me a puzzled look, so I continued, "Tomorrow the clock is going to start ticking on your 15 minutes of fame. Might want to get a make-over." I jumped on the bike and rode away before she could answer.

On the ride back to Caleb's house, as we dodged traffic, the two of us discussed the ramifications of the case. We needed to know how Gnomon was moving around undetected. Caleb thought that maybe he worked for a cable or telephone company, some business that was so ubiquitous no one noticed when the truck was in the area. It sounded plausible. Yet, I thought Gnomon had to be some sort of polymath and, while this didn't exactly preclude him from working for one of those kind of companies, I thought his particular personality wouldn't allow him to function in a blue collar level job. No, I reasoned, his sense of self-importance would be way too much for that type of employment.

By the same token, I thought, he wouldn't be a former, disgruntled man of the cloth, maybe excommunicated or defrocked, drummed out of service to the Lord. Anything could turn a man's mind inside out, resulting in homicidal impulses, but being ostracized by your church didn't seemed to fit that mold. This level of psychotic behavior had to have been seasoned by a whole host of cause and effects, something that was perhaps nurtured for a length of time by perceived injustices and then finally ignited by a final act or instance. Everything has a tipping point.

Then, of course, there was the Cottonwood connection. Why, here? Where was the link? Did Gnomon live here or return here for the enactment of his deadly deeds? The questions were cascading into my thoughts. I needed to assemble them, bracket the logic.

"Gnomon is now bringing some weird econ theories in it," I told Caleb when we finally reached his garage and I practically staggered off the bike.

He laughed, and asked me if I needed help into the house. I gave him a "very funny" look and he said, "Are we talking economics here? Buy low sell high type of stuff?"

"It's complicated," I said, waving the subject away with my hand. "I think it's safe to say that we are dealing with a guy who knows his way around just about any subject. I don't know, maybe he's an avid reader and would ace Jeopardy or he's got some background in the sciences--like a professor maybe."

"Of what, Strangling 101?" he shot back, forcing a laugh. "Maybe he teaches theology and got layed off and now blames god for it."

"Very funny," I said, clearly showing that I wasn't amused. "Look," I announced, showing him the latest text message. "This guy is a walking wikipedia. It looks like he has the time to sit around and fill his head with all kinds of arcane crap. Professor's have lots of time on their hands. I know, I was one way back when."

"You were," he said, surprised. "What did you teach, 'How to get involved in murders without really trying?"

"Again, not funny," I chastised. "I taught psychology, dummy."

"Did you ever do a class on self-esteem because calling me dummy doesn't help with my self-image," he joked, smiling. "No, seriously, I see where you are coming from. But I hate to break it to you, the only colleges we have around here are of the Community kind and if our killer is teaching there he ain't exactly Noble Prize material."

"Maybe he's slumming," I offered, grinning. "No, listen, he wouldn't have to be at the top of his game...or, better yet, lost his tenure somewhere else and landed here as a consolation prize. Makes sense, right?"

"In an alternate universe," he chided. "By the way, what in the hell are we going to say to the cops about the crime scene? I don't want to get hung out to dry on this one. And I definitely don't want to have to hire an attorney. I mean who has money for that? I seriously doubt the paper is going to spring for the lawyer's fees either."

"Oh, please, what a wuss," I teased, poking him in the shoulder. "I'm sure you can do time in jail standing on your head. Besides, with those abs and good looks your prison time will be a snap."

He shot me a look, then said, "Prison? Are you serious? I'll move back to the reservation and hide out before that happens. Trust me."

"Oh sure, go on and hide behind your heritage--or at least half of it," I exclaimed, laughing.

"Damn! I've never seen this side of your before, Doctor Greene," he cried out. "I'm not so sure I like it either. Kinda cruel. Kinda harsh."

We had slipped back into our incessant bantering again, something that we did as if it were on automatic pilot. I was relatively sure we weren't going to get burned on this, the fact that we had violated a crime scene. At any rate, I knew several lawyers who could help us out if need be and I was fully prepared to cover Caleb's legal bills if necessary. I didn't advise him of this fact because it was, truthfully, fun to watch him sweat, maybe knock a little bravado out of him in the process. I did have to tell him that from here on out it might get, you know, precarious for us, individually and together.

After Peter's death, I realized it was the least that I could do. He had been murdered in the pursuit, just as Caleb might be. My safety I was willing to take responsibility for. Unlike before, I now continued on knowing full well that it could all end badly. To that end, I had prepared a disc for my son, with instructions for my ex to show it to him when and if that day ever arrived. On the video, I didn't resort to any maudlin histrionics but rather delivered a standard farewell, adding what I thought I hoped I had meant to him. Okay, there might have been a tear or two but, for the most part, it was straight forward and, paradoxically, a celebration of living life.

I was summoned to the police station the next day by my dutiful body guard. He had knocked on my motel room door, and told me that I was supposed to come with him in the squad car. Ever polite, the cop had apologized for any inconvenience. On the way to the police station he had shyly asked for my autograph, telling me that his wife had read my books. I obliged his request, reminding him to thank his wife for reading my work. He assured me that he would.

At the station, I saw Caleb's jeep parked out front. We caught a glimpse of each other in the hallway as I was arriving and he was leaving. He rolled his eyes at me and mouthed out: "What a bunch of bullshit.." I laughed and pantomimed that I would call him.

Also parked in the parking lot was, as predicted, a TV mobile unit van, complete with collapsible satellite dish to broadcast on location. Special Agent Collins was about to get her star turn in the glare of the national media. The beat cop handed me off to a detective just inside the door, where I was immediately whisked behind closed doors. He was all business, with a grim expression and monosyllabic instructions. I followed him, trying to make small talk as we went.

Then, as expected, I was face to face with my nemesis. I could see she had made that extra special effort to spruce up her appearance: a tad more makeup, hair perfectly in place, and a new power suit in the required dark blue. I looked closer to see if she was wearing new shoes. Plastered on her face was the usual fake smile, as she urged me to take a seat at the table, where I could see several files layed out.

"Sleep okay last night?" she asked cordially, pinching the words just a little bit too much. "The motel's alright, isn't it?"

I glanced around the room, noticing that there were two men standing off to the side. Reinforcements, I wondered. "The bed's too soft," I replied, smiling. "Hurts my back."

She ignored my remark and launched right into her interview, introducing the two gentlemen in rapid fire fashion as she went. I didn't get their names, but I gathered they were from the Bureau and had probably been sent to aid Missy in the investigation. They were both older than Missy and I wondered if they found it difficult to work for someone who had been with the FBI less time than they had. Both men had stoic looks on their faces, as if to say they were there to do their job. I tried smiling at them but got no response.

"Anymore texts come your way?" Missy wanted to know. I shook my head no and she exhaled deeply, running a hand through her hair, a tell tale sign that frustration was beginning to mount with her. I could only imagine her superiors had been riding her daily to get some results. "This Gnomon character is going to slip up sooner or later and then we are going to crush him."

"Did you call me in here for a pep talk?" I asked, laughing. One of the men actually smiled my way. "It's pretty obvious we are dealing with an intelligent guy here, Special Agent Collins, so we probably can't sit around and wait for him to make a mistake."

Missy eyed me for a moment, then glanced over at her colleagues, before saying, "Our team is analyzing everything and...so we will break this for sure."

"Sounds good," I said cavalierly. "What do you need me for?"

She wagged her finger at me then threatened, "If I hear that you are holding back any information on me I will take you down, Greene."

"I am here only to help," I said non-chalantly. "I will always defer to the FBI's superior expertise on matters like this." It sounded insincere, and unconvincing, so much so that both of the men laughed.

Missy glared at them for a moment, then announced, "You are playing with fire here, Doctor Greene."

The rest of the interview went down hill from there. I answered all of their questions, spending over an hour while the three of them circled me like some out of control tag team. I wasn't sure what they were aiming at, what exactly they hoped to accomplish. I suppose that maybe they hoped I would be tripped up and reveal some information I had been previously withholding from the investigation. It was incredible to me that they would think I had anything to do with the murders. By now, I imagined, they had contacted Father Paul and gotten the scoop on how and why I was even in Cottonwood. I was connected to the whole matrix of the case by one single reason. That it had spiraled into a major case was an instance of timing.

My link to Gnomon, obviously, was a product of happenstance. The killer couldn't have known I would be on the scene. After seeing me involved I had become part and parcel of the entire enterprise, much to my dismay. My infamy was probably the driving force behind it. The killer saw me as a vehicle, something he could use to further his homicidal quest or, at the very least, to have some stimulating entertainment along the way.

"I am being somewhat victimized here too, you know," I protested, thinking it sounded perfectly reasonable to present.

"Don't play the victim with me," Missy criticized, throwing her hands up. "Poor little therapist is being used by a killer--boo-hoo." The two men laughed. "Are you trying to make me sick or what?"

"That would only be a bonus if that happened," I snarled.

"Look, Doctor Sensitive, from now on I want you to start returning the creep's text messages. Got that?" she ordered.

I made a mock salute and said, "He probably doesn't need anymore encouragement but I'll do what you want. I doubt you will be able to trace the phone though."

"Leave the technical stuff to us, Sarah," she snipped.

Just then a detective from the Cottonwood Police Department knocked on the door and poked his head in the room. He motioned for Missy to come over, where they spoke in whispers. I heard her tell him that she would be able to give a statement in a few minutes. The detective told her he would pass on the message. She then fluffed up her hair a little bit and informed me the interview was over. Not once had she asked me about the specifics of the case, or whether or not I had any theories. She was determined to discount anything I had to offer, be it from a psychological perspective or personal experience with murderers.

"We are done here," she then declared, dismissing me with a wave of the hand. Taking the cue, the two men flanked me on either side and almost helped me to my feet.

Not wanting to pass up a parting shot, I told her, "Missy, you might want to unbutton that second button on your blouse...the media loves sex appeal."

She scoffed at my remark, motioning for her two minions to escort me out of the room. When we were at the door, I glanced back and saw that she had retrieved a compact from her purse and was looking at herself in the mirror. The camera is going to love her, I thought, exiting the building as a street reporter and camera crew were entering. Fortunately, they passed right by me and didn't recognize who I was.

Chapter 11 It's In Leviticus

The latest turn of events didn't sit well with me. I didn't want to have a dialogue with Gnomon. It was bad enough being on the receiving end of his text rants. I was already caught in his web and didn't think I needed to get in any deeper. However, I was willing to do anything possible within reason to capture him. If that required me becoming his BFF, as they say, then I would have to do what was requested of me.

"Are you nuts?" Caleb exclaimed when I called after leaving the police station. "This wacko has already given you a front seat to this insanity. What, do you really want to become the bride of Gnomon or something?"

"Now that you put it in...in those terms, well, I guess it sounds pretty crazy," I told him. "Special Agent Collins could care less what happens to me--that's obvious."

"She's a nutjob for sure," he spat out and I could hear the venom over the phone.

"Uh oh, trouble in fantasy land," I sang out, laughing.

"Oh shut up," he shouted back. "I don't care if she is a babe, the woman is not to be trusted."

"I was so hoping the two of you would hit it off," I chortled. "Small town reporter and FBI agent, has all the makings of a Hollywood movie. Hey, you could maybe get a credit as an advisor on the set when they film the movie. Maybe even a bit part...on your bike, you know, riding by and ogling the actress who is playing Missy."

"Oh, damn, I am hanging up now," he announced, and the line went dead.

When I got back to my motel room, I found Crystal cleaning. Another one of the reasons I hated staying in hotels was the maid service. It was, to me, an intrusion. Having the room cleaned was a necessity of course, but it amounted to an invasion of privacy in a way. My ex-husband had always jokingly called it first stage paranoia. Still, I didn't like strangers seeing, much less going through, my things. Most times, as a result of this personal mania, I would place a Do Not Disturb sign on the door knob. This time, in my haste to go to the police station, I had forgotten to do just that.

"Hello," I called out to Crystal, who was, apparently, in a bad mood. When she turned around I saw why. She had a black eye. Embarrassed, she turned away and busied herself at the sink. Awkward situations like this I didn't need, but I felt the need to comfort her in some way. "Should we talk about it?" I asked, not being able to come up with any other way to broach the subject.

"What?" she said over her shoulder, wiping out the sink.

"Unless you have a second job as a boxer, I would guess that you--"

"It's no big deal," she said angrily, walking into the bedroom, where I could hear her running the water in the tub.

Let it go, I told myself. None of my business. You don't really know the woman. Then I heard myself saying, "Wife beating, now that's something you don't see everyday."

"Fuck off," she growled and then she slammed the door to the bathroom.

Good therapists skills, I thought, wondering when I had lost my touch when it came to treating patients. Wait her out, I told myself. She has to come out of the bathroom sooner or later. While part of me, a very small voice, was telling me to butt out, leave the poor woman alone. Like she doesn't have enough problems to deal with. She doesn't need some pushy East Coast therapist looking down her nose at her, telling her how to conduct her life.

The bathroom door then swung open and I found myself stating: "You can talk to me, you know. I am a good listener."

She glared at me for a moment, then mumbled, "It was just a stupid argument--that's all. He didn't mean to pop me in the eye. The kids were doing what kids do and things got out of hand. Sometimes you can't shut them up so it can get kinda crazy in the house. Everybody has fights, don't they."

"Not everybody gets punched," I said, wishing I had rephrased it slightly.

"Forget I said anything," she said in a surly tone of voice.

"Crystal, sit down for a moment," I encouraged her, pointing at one of the chairs by the table. "You can talk to me for a minute, can't you? Come on."

"Only for a minute though, I got work to do," she declared, wringing a dust rag in her hands as she sat down.

"Domestic abuse can get worse," I stated, hoping I wasn't going to push a button that would set her anger off again. "If your husband has been doing this to you repeatedly then it might be masking a bigger problem down the road."

She glanced at me, then looked out the window at the parking lot. "He drinks sometimes...and it makes things worse."

"Ever talk to anybody about this?" I wanted to know, trying to gauge just how much a problem the physical abuse was without having to delve into her marital past. She shook her head no. "Well, how about a minister at your church? Maybe they could help you out."

She seemed to brighten for a moment, then a frown crossed her face and she said, "My husband would freak if I mentioned this to Reverend Simms. He'd really kill me then."

"Hear what you just said to me, Crystal? That's not good," I told her.

She look puzzled for a moment. "You are talking like what you are doing is the problem. Think about that for a moment. Your mindset is telling you that you are the one who is at fault. In life, you know, it doesn't always work like that. One person can't always be at fault. Can they?"

She thought for a moment, then answered, "No, I guess not. It's just that my husband is...like the boss when it comes to the marriage. It's always been that way. I guess I was raised to accept it."

I shook my head and told her, "Now that is really fucked up." We both laughed. "I am probably not the one to be given marriage advice because I'm divorced and all, but with my husband we never had any physical abuse of any kind. Arguments we had, everybody does, but black eyes--not going to happen."

"Maybe I should take a karate course or something," she joked, and I saw her familiar smile return.

As we were talking my cell phone rang and I heard an unfamiliar man's voice address me as Doctor Greene. Then he said, "Stretch the boundaries of a pictorial scene, like an extra-curricular dimension." I knew it had to be Gnomon and he was not only now phoning me but venturing out beyond Biblical passages. The proverbial chill went down my spine.

Crystal hesitated, before she excused herself, gathering up her work supplies. I apologized, telling her that I had to take the call. Then I thought better of it and motioned for her to wait, while I picked up a piece of motel stationary and frantically wrote out Missy's cell phone number on it, scribbling below the number: Call this number and tell them I am on the phone with him right now and they need to trace the call. She gave me a confused look and started to say something. I held my finger up to my lips, urging her not to say anything. I pointed at the phone and then my ear. She nodded okay and backed out the door. I could see her through the window calling on her cell phone. I figured the FBI would be monitoring my phone but I wanted to be sure.

I turned my attention back to the phone call. I noticed my hands were sweating. Nothing seemed appropriate to say to him. Missy hadn't given me any guidelines to speak of. If I was going to do this I was would have to go it alone. This was going to be two minds locked in a mock battle. I knew it would be better to challenge him in some way, a cerebral approach.

"I think we have a Whorfian problem," I offered, trying to find my voice. "Must be a disconnect going on," I added, wondering what tone I should adopt in order to draw him out. I was hoping what I said would bait him in some way so he might reveal something more about himself. I needed something to get a bead on him.

I waited. Nothing. I could hear him breathing. Perhaps by being aggressive I had thrown him off his game. It had been a one way street before. This new wrinkle might make him withdraw. My gambit might have backfired.

I heard him sigh, then he stated in stentorian tones: "You shall not let a sorceress live. Exodus 22:18."

Again with the Bible, I thought, completely overlooking the content of the message. I tried to concentrate on what he had said. Is he talking about me? Am I the sorceress? Did he equate therapists with sorceresses? Was he reacting to bad experiences with past therapists he had been treated by. Maybe it was a code, I wondered. What now?

I was in my own conversation from hell. I had tweaked him with a quip about linguistics and he had reverted back to the Bible. Just how significant was that anyway? It could have been some offshoot of bi-polarity or perhaps his way of confusing me. It was time to reach back and utilize all of those diatribes against religion my father harangued me with as a child. Who knew they would come in handy one day.

Crystal slipped back in the room and wrote out on a piece of stationary: FBI is on it. I mouthed out a thank you and she backed out of the room. I thought about my response for a moment, then said, "What I would say to you is that you are, on a certain psychological level, attempting to prove to yourself that God couldn't possibly exist because of what you are."

This was another huge gamble because I was now passing through a different threshold, one that was going to put him in the forefront of his actions, and all with a religious veneer. This could easily trigger a violent response, judging by his willingness to carry out murder when it served his mental desires. I was in uncharted territory for sure. It was too late to turn back anyway. He had, more or less, just threatened me. While it might have been a bluff, something to keep me in line, I couldn't be sure. At any rate, it was done. I had rolled the dice.

I could hear him chuckle, then he replied, "This religion thing is only about 'a god' being infinite, while 'man' is finite. God equals perfect. Man equals imperfect. God Eternal. Man not so much. God Powerful. Man weak. And so it goes."

I mulled this over for a minute, trying to judge the import. It seemed like boilerplate atheism to me, so I stated: "You are striving to be evil as defined by God--your God." I knew the last bit would probably infuriate him. I was labeling him in a way, telling him that I thought he was still in the everyday throes of a powerful being. Not only that but he bought into it.

He didn't laugh this time. I heard some crows in the background and wondered if he was standing outside. This was all happening in real time so I was hoping the FBI was on top of it. This might be our only chance.

"If God is omnipotent and omniscient, where was he on three specific occasions?" Gnomon wanted to know. I could definitely discern a little trace of boasting in his voice.

This was far and away the most bizarre phone conversation I had ever been involved in. I had to think for a moment. Where did I want to push him, in what direction? Then it occurred to me that tracing the phone was, in all probability, a deadend. The cell phone towers for the valley were located on top of Mingus Mountain and the range was extensive. Gnomon could be just about anywhere, as well as moving in his car when he needed to be.

My phone binged and it was a message from the FBI telling me to keep the ball rolling. Apparently they thought they were zeroing in on some frequency. I doubted that, but maintained our conversation.

I then remembered an aphorism by George Santayana, one of my father's favorites. He had made me study his go to poet when I was in the eighth grade to the point that I had to recite it at dinner time. Later on, when I was just out of college, I would tease my father about his borderline sadistic parenting and the mandated homework assignments. I quoted: "Each religion, by the help of more or less myth, which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny." That's just off the top of my head," I apologized, forcing a laugh.

I didn't know if he was up on his Santayana or not. At the very least he would want to find out what in the hell I was alluding to. This might add some more life to our exchange.

He said almost instantly. "God is omnipotent. God is benevolent. Evil exists. As the Greeks like to say, either god can take away evil and will not or god simply can't. Such is the conundrum for the weak minded. You are not weak minded are you, Greenie? I like to think some of your father's words rubbed off on you somewhere along the line."

His last comment shocked me, as, I imagine, he intended it to. He had done his homework. Most of my father's writings had long ago been out of print. He would have had to dig deep for any background. I was impressed and frightened.

Are you kidding me? I asked the ceiling. How did I fall into the philo. class from hell? I, personally, hardly ever thought about God, a god. To me, so it seemed, the whole god business was nothing but a commodity that many different cultures had co-opted for their own purposes. Religion was, in its true essence, globalism writ large. It had been exported and imported throughout history. Different forms of it had stood the test of time. It had been improved like any other product line and even had what can be likened to research and development departments. Catholics had there Vatican II, Protestants had regional flavored doctrine, Judaism had different levels of adherence to the Torah, not unlike 2 percent milk or skim. Buddha, Hinduism, you name it, have all transitioned their product in order to best serve the customer.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and whispered aloud, "Girl, you are your father's daughter."

It was time for me to ground the conversation in something more concrete. I wanted to nudge him towards the actual deeds, the destruction of human life. There was probably never going to be any good time to do this, so I plunged right in and asked: "Why have you murdered these religious figures?"

"Greenie, what a stupid question. I was trying to provoke god--any god. Let him come to me," he declared.

My question hadn't gotten any sort of response that I thought I could work with. He was resorting to wordplay, a dodge that served him well. He wanted to couch his actions in, well, cute religious drivel. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism that enabled him to continue on in his maniacal quest to murder religious figures, spokesmen for what he thought was deleterious to mankind.

Feeling I needed to play his game as best I could, I tried to tweak him with some of his own predilection for theological chicanery. I said, "Christ died for your sins. Your actions will forever be absolved in the end. Does that give you comfort?"

"Greenie, are you just trying to piss me off? Gotta go." He hung up abruptly and was gone. My thoughts were all hazy. I was left bewildered at what just happened. Was I now a functioning part of his homicidal determinism? Did he need me? I mean did he have to have me on board in order to complete his hellish task?

The phone in my motel room rang suddenly and I picked it up. It was Special Agent Collins, telling me that they had traced the phone to a spot up on the mountain but found no one around. I told her he had ended the call in a hurry so he must have seen you coming. She cursed and then told me to wait and see if he gets in touch again.

I immediately called Caleb and brought him up to speed, telling him about the Houdini act that Gnomon had just pulled off. He wanted to know where he had disappeared from. "Let's go check it out," he suggested on the phone eagerly. "I'll be there in a minute."

Crystal was loitering around my door, wanting, so I imagined, to be briefed on what exactly was going on. I wasn't in any position to bring her into my confidence, even though she had been privy to what just happened. I would have to satisfy her curiosity without divulging too much about the case.

Caleb was at the door before I knew it. He barged in, sidestepping Crystal's cleaning cart that was still in the doorway. She eyed him suspiciously and I introduced to two of them.

"Crystal was here when he called," I said by way of explanation. "Heard the whole thing."

"Really," Caleb uttered, looking her up and down. "Got your adrenaline going, huh?"

I looked at him, smiled, and replied, "You might say that."

"The FBI's all over it," Crystal announced, hands on hips, aiming her comment at Caleb.

"Yeah...good," Caleb said, stuttering slightly. "Things are starting to roll now. Speaking of rolling," he said, motioning for us to get going.

I told Crystal I would have to talk to her later on, and we hurried out the door. I couldn't talk Caleb into letting me drive, so we jumped in his jeep and headed up the mountain to where the police said they lost the signal. I hung on as he speeded down some side streets, climbing up the hills on small roads that died on the sides of the Black Hills.

The Black Hills mountain range was over seven thousand feet and stretched the length of the valley. They were, in Caleb's words, "technical," with some steep trails of loose volcanic rock, and honeycombed with mine shafts left over from decades of copper and silver mining. If anyone knew the mountains it was him. He had camped there, biked the trails, taken his jeep off-roading, and jumped off them with his paragliding rig. Since he was only a kid, Caleb had spent many hours enjoying what Mingus Mountain and the Woodchute Wilderness had to offer.

"This must be the place where they lost the signal," Caleb announced, pulling his jeep over to the side of the road. "Judging by your description that Missy gave you, this has to be the place."

We got out of the jeep and walked around the area. We had driven up a dirt road almost to the very end of it. As with so many small roads in Arizona, this one started out with promise only to end up at a deadend, petering out all together. It was no wonder OHV type of cars were so popular in Arizona because there were dirt roads almost everywhere. You couldn't drive five minutes without seeing some dirt or gravel road stretching out in the distance, before ultimately disappearing over the next hill.

"How did he get away from here without being seen?" I asked, looking up at the mountain looming over us. "This doesn't make sense to me."

"Dirt bike," Caleb suggested, looking around the fringes of the road for any tire tracks. "It's the only thing that makes sense. I mean an ATV would be too slow in getting around some of this terrain. And a jeep, forget about it."

"It looks pretty dangerous to me for any kind of vehicle," I stated, looking back down the steep hill we had driven up. I now had a bird's eye view of the valley below and the Red Rocks in the distance towards Sedona. "Maybe they got their signal crossed or something," I mumbled, more to myself than to him.

"There ain't any tracks around here that I can see," Caleb called out to me, kicking at the dirt. "There is an old miner's tract back down the road a little ways, but most of those have long since collapsed over the years. The trouble is this mountain has paths all over it. The miners back in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds were on this place like stink. They were mining almost every inch of this place. You know, millions and millions of dollars was extracted from around here. Jerome had more than fifteen thousand people living there. What a zoo that must have been."

Caleb was referring to Jerome, the erstwhile ghost town perched up on the side of the mountain at five thousand feet. It had gone from a rip roaring miner's town, complete with brothels and a wild west social scene, to a tourist destination. There were art gallerys, restaurants, and even walking ghost tours to inform the visitors of the town's violent past and the resulting unsettled souls who still inhabited the buildings. I had been up there only once and found it, well, quaint, where they kept the kitsch to the minimum. The town was still sitting on a sizable ore deposit but no one thought they would reopen the mining operations that had been closed since the 50's.

"So, presumably, he could have gotten away on a dirtbike then," I said, shielding my eyes and looking back up the hillside. "It would be feasible?"

"I guess," Caleb answered unconvincingly. "Not easy though. From up here he would have been able to see way down the road and see the cops coming after him." He pointed down the road, then swung around to look towards Jerome. "It would have given him plenty of time to jump on his bike and grind up the road--or what's left of it. I don't know, though, wouldn't the cops have seen him leaving the area on his bike? I mean they can see up the mountain, just like you can see down. Doesn't make sense to me. You don't think they are holding out on you, do you?"

I thought for a moment. Missy would probably do that in a heartbeat. Keeping me in the dark would be her move, for certain. She hadn't exactly been forthcoming about what happened when they traced the phone location. I had gotten the information second hand from a detective and that had been almost by accident.

"You got a point there," I said, shaking my head in disbelief. "This bitch is starting to get on my nerves."

"Whoa, Doctor Greene, tell it like it is," Caleb shouted out, laughing.

"Funny," I shot back. "Look, what we do know is that Gnomon couldn't have gotten away going down the hill, right? I mean, really, the guy's not Evil whatever his name was. He didn't jump over a bunch of cops and speed away on his motorcycle. So that means he went either laterally across the mountain or straight up."

"That about sums it up," Caleb agreed, cracking his knuckles. There are maybe two houses down the way there but I'm sure the cops checked that out. Pretty sure he didn't go and hide out there. He wouldn't be that stupid anyway. I mean would he really call from his house? Don't think so."

"Do you have a dirt bike by any chance?" I wanted to know.

"Me. Sure, got them stacked up in my garage. No, I don't have a dirtbike," he replied, rolling his eyes.

"Well, you seem to have everything else," I stated, rolling my eyes back at him. "You seem to be stuck in this perpetual adolescence. Lots of toys to play with. I mean, what? You don't have a dirt bike too! Don't you feel left out or something? All the other boys must have dirt bikes. What do you do when they go riding around the trails? You don't cry do you?"

"Ha ha, very funny, Sarah," he declared, making a face at me. "Are you sure you shouldn't go back to your motel room now or you might have a panic attack? Who knows what phobia might pop up at any second."

"That's below the belt, Mr. smalltown reporter, I chided. "Pick on someone's mental illnesses. Don't you feel superior now. Oh, wait, I think I hear your editor calling, she wants you to cover the potluck dinner at the Elk's club tonight. Make sure you bring a casserole with you."

"Oh, now who's the one hitting below the belt," he cried out, trying not to laugh. "Make fun of Anytown, U.S.A why don't you. Just another unpatriotic intellectual from the big city. Should have known."

It was becoming obvious our banter was morphing into something else, almost like foreplay. I suppose I had been denying the sexual component of our interactions. My libido had been mostly MIA for the last year or so, and that didn't take into account the sideaffects of the prescriptions I had sampled. It was time for me to suppress any feelings that were beginning to take shape. There was no place for any, shall we say, extracurricular activity. Not now. The case was entering a dangerous stage and I needed to crystallize my focus.

As we were driving back into town my cell phone rang. Caleb and I exchanged looks, as I dug the phone out of my purse. He asked me if I wanted him to pull over. I suggested it might be a good idea. In his open jeep it was difficult to hear with all of the wind rushing by. Caleb wanted to know what number was calling. I told him it was Gnomon. Steadying my voice, I answered the phone.

"Doctor Greene, I presume," he announced, giggling. "And company."

"Yes," I replied succinctly, waiting to see where the conversation was going.

"You have been a bad girl, Greenie," Gnomon chided. "Tapping ones phone is bad manners. I'll have to keep this phone call short, I guess. And I so enjoy talking to you, Doctor."

"Am I your only outlet?" I asked point blank, hoping to take over the exchange as soon as possible.

"Always probing, Greenie. No wonder you and your husband couldn't make a go of it," he shot back, giggling again.

Taken back for a moment, I replied, "You must read all the tabloids."

He was silent for a moment, then said, "Just let me say one thing, before I forget. It's about the Rabbi. Nice guy. Funny too. He actually said to me--after he knew what his fate was going to be--something that cracked me up. He said something like: 'Are you descended from an ape on your mother's side or your father's side?.' Now that's hysterical. Here I am getting ready to snuff out his miserable lying life and he's doing stand up comedy. I like that in a man. Most of those religious charlatans are humorless. Made for a good laugh before I squeezed the life out of him."

I didn't know how to respond to that revelation, but I knew I needed to steer him towards the immediate future. I wanted him to fall victim to his own ego and maybe reveal his next move. Before the last murder he had felt the need to broadcast his intentions. Now, if we were lucky, he might want to tell me something, even if it was the smallest, vaguest clue.

"Did you have a chat with all of your victims before hand?" I asked, listening intently, trying to hear any background noises that might giveaway his whereabouts.

"Curious are we?" he sang out, laughing. "Is that the number one attribute of being a therapist, Greenie. Do you have to be curious about every little detail?" he asked, but then launched into a diatribe about religion, declaring, "You know it takes a long time for light to reach us here on earth from a far away star. Right? In fact, many of the stars you see at night have already died. Poof. Gone. Burned away to dead matter. What if God has died and we just don't know it yet? Now we are left on our own, to our own devices. Damn, that's some Einsteinian, mindboggling stuff. Isn't it? Think about it. God created this mess then up and died and left all of us with this unholy crap on our hands."

"That would make what you are doing pointless wouldn't it?" I asked, trying to make my voice hard edged so it might penetrate his clouded mind.

"Oh, Greenie, you got me there," he announced, giggling again. "I bet Jason never won any arguments in your house. No. You probably wouldn't allow that. Your ex probably had to resort to a good beating to win a fight. Knock you around a little bit maybe--keep you in line. Is that why you two got a divorce?"

I let those comments slide by, and then replied, "Sounds like maybe your dad might have abused your mother by what I am hearing from you."

He snorted, then said, "Pop psychology, Greenie. I thought you were better than that."

"Was your father some fire and brimstone minister, Gnomon," I taunted. "Come on, you can tell me."

"What is it about God's self-derived existence that makes people's minds feel all warm and cozy? How did we all get here?" he wanted to know, as he rolled into another harangue. "God created himself, sounds reasonable to me," he joked, giggling. "And these mental midgets make fun of primitive cultures for their oral myths handed down. These are the same people who believe in eating flesh and drinking blood of some Jew who died over two thousand years ago. Now that is enlightened."

"Did your father make you participate in communion every Sunday?" I asked, hoping to drive him in the direction of his childhood, anything to get him to stay on the phone.

"Wrong tack, Greenie," he suddenly stated, snapping out of his trance like state as quickly as he had slipped into it. "My father was an honest working man, who never, and I mean never, forced religion on me. He was too busy working for that."

"So you were a momma's boy then," I exclaimed, adding a laugh for emphasis.

"Oh, you are very fiesty today, Greenie," he told me, laughing too. "Very brave for a woman with a police escort that falls asleep in his car every night. Must be too many carbs. Not enough coffee. You didn't think this hick town would have an efficient police force did you?"

He surprised me with that comment. I had suppressed the idea that he might be stalking me. The police protection gave me, apparently, false confidence. Had Gnomon been monitoring my movements? Part of me had been convinced that he didn't want to harm me, that I was simply a conduit for his madness, a release valve for his murderous ministrations.

"Am I now part of your...your mission?" I asked hesitantly.

"Nervous are we?" he said in a sing song tone of voice. "You are, more or less, an atheist--right? I'll put that in the plus column. Then again, you are kind of a pain in the ass too. Maybe even a closet pious Polly. You aren't a wicca are you? Nah. You are too uptight for that. No. I peg you for a neurotic, pill popping disaster. With skanky tattoos too. Hey, is that why you and Jason got divorced? He couldn't stand looking at all of those weird tattoos in the old erogenous zone, right? Creepy stuff. Spiders and bugs. Even a snake. Must be a real Garden of Eden down there and--"

"Well, now that you have given the FBI an ear full, thanks for that," I interjected, mainly because my embarrassment level was rising at the thought of someone transcribing this conversation as the tape rolled. "Why Cottonwood?"

He was quiet for a moment, then said, "Well, if you must know, first, it had to be in America. I mean, think about it, this is the land of technology but a plurality of the people still believe the world is only six thousand years old. Six thousand years old, what a hoot that is. Talk about religious buffoonery! These people think Darwin was an imbecile. As to Cottonwood, well...time to go again."

The phone went dead. Caleb had gotten out of the jeep and was scanning the hillside with his binoculars, looking to see if he could see anyone in the distance. He said he could see some ATVs heading across a contour road that snaked across the mountain. It was a well used road on weekends by off-roaders and hunters.

"I don't see any sign of a motorcycle heading east or west on the road," he informed me, continuing to scan the mountainside. "The guy's good, I give him that. How's he doing it?"

"I kept him on as long as I could," I said more to myself than Caleb.

Special Agent Collins called me then and told me they had missed him again. The search was continuing. I doubted they would find him this time either. He was prepared otherwise he wouldn't have attempted to call me. It was becoming obvious that he knew the area extremely well.

"Man oh man, I can see all kinds of cops up there now," Caleb called out, as a helicopter flew overhead, then hovered over us for a moment before moving on.

"The man's a ghost," I exclaimed, frustrated. "Maybe it's one of the ghosts from Jerome past," I joked.

"Hey, why don't we tell Missy that," Caleb joined in, smiling. "I'm sure she would appreciate the valuable tip."

When I got back to my hotel room, after spending over an hour waiting for another call, I found that Gnomon had emailed me. I opened the email and read: If a man lie with a man, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Leviticus 20:13.

Have a nice day, Greenie,

Gnomon.

I immediately forwarded it to the FBI and then called Caleb again. We agreed that the message was obvious. However, our next move wasn't. What could we do? If there was a homosexual minister in Cottonwood was it public knowledge. I knew that the Episcopal church was struggling with admitting Gays into their clergy but the other denominations were adamantly against it. As to the Catholic church, they might have homosexuals in their ranks but it was hardly condoned by Rome. How exactly were we going to find out what church was harboring a Gay or Lesbian clergyman who was living under the radar?

"How in the hell would I know who was gay or not?" Caleb almost screeched over the phone. "Do I look like I hang out with limp wristed types?"

"Didn't mean to touch a nerve," I half apologized. "You are certainly manly enough, sorry."

"Oh, okay, the limp wristed comment was uncalled for," he mumbled. "My sexual orientation is intact, thank you very much."

"Are you sure? Remember, I've seen your living room," I cracked, snickering.

"Just because I haven't hit on you doesn't make me gay," he countered.

"Oh, I thought you had but just weren't very good at it," I quipped back.

"I quit, you win," he announced. "Can we just discuss what our next move is going to be."

"Your surrender has been duly noted. And, for the record, I think your machismo is right up front."

"Whatever that means," he muttered. "I mean I can't help it if I don't have as many tattoos as you do."

"Thanks for--"

"That was a joke, Sarah," he immediately added. "I am only kidding you. I have always had a thing for biker babes, really. Very sexy stuff."

I was quiet for a moment, letting my neurotic feelings about my appearance subside, then I replied, "Maybe I will show you them sometime."

It was his turn to fall silent, before saying, "I can't wait."

Another line had been crossed. Our warped version of romance was evolving. I could hear him breathing on the line. Both of us didn't know what to say. Then there was a tapping on the door and I heard Crystal call out: "Housekeeping!" I told her to come in, thankful for the diversion.

"Doctor Greene," she exclaimed, glancing around the room to see if Caleb might be there. "Is he gone?" I pointed at the phone and she winced. "I just wanted to know how it went out there."

"Another deadend," I told her, apologizing to Caleb for the interruption.

"Oh hell, I was hoping you'd catch the bastard," she declared almost angrily. She caught sight of my open lap top on the table and I could see her reading the email from Gnomon. "Is that from him, the killer?"

"I am afraid it is," I answered, while I could hear Caleb in the background telling me to tell her to 'get lost.' "He has a way with the Bible."

"That's about faggots--I mean gay people," she said, correcting herself, blushing with embarrassment. "I don't have anything against them really, just don't push it on everyone."

"I am not sure they are looking for converts," I said, letting a sliver of disapproval slip into my voice.

Crystal giggled, then said, "I don't want to sound like some prejudiced jerk, Doctor Greene. I'm not like that. Now my husband is. He hates them. Thinks they should be rounded up and put somewhere. Against the laws of nature. I mean just the other day he almost had it out with two Mormon boys who came to our house."

"Mormon boys?" I said quizzically, unsure what she meant.

"Yeah, you know, the ones who go around on bicycles and try to talk you into becoming a Mormon. They wear the white shirts with the ties. They ain't as bad as those damn Jehovah Witnesses though," she said in almost a whisper. "Can't say that too loud because my boss happens to be one of them."

"Mormon?"

"No, silly, Jehovah Witness," she said, laughing, while stealing a look out the half open door. "No, these two boys came up to our door and started in with their spiel about their Mormon faith and all. My husband was sitting there drinking a beer and watching TV. They were polite, like they usually are of course, but my husband had a hard day of work that day and was in no mood to listen to anybody talk about religion."

"What in the hell is she talking about?" I heard Caleb say on the phone. I shushed him.

"Long story short, they got in a shouting match. Actually it was just my husband telling them to get the fuck off his property--excuse my language. They didn't say much at all, just backed down the steps and got on their bicycles and rode off. Nothing but polite, even though they were getting yelled at. My husband slammed the door after that."

"Does this have anything to do with the Biblical passage, Crystal?" I finally asked, wondering where she was going with her story.

"That's just it," she stated. "That particular Biblical passage reminded me of what I saw that same day."

"The day of the confrontation with the Mormons," I said, trying to guide her towards the relevant part of her story.

"Uh huh," she agreed, nodding yes. "Right after they left I jumped in the car and drove to the local Dollar store for some milk and there they were."

"Who?" I asked, flummoxed.

"The two Mormon boys. They were off by the side of the road, on their bikes," she explained.

"So," I said, almost exasperated.

"Doctor Greene, they were, you know, acting like...like they were together," she said, lowering her voice and looking around.

"Together?"

"Together," she repeated. "You know what I mean. Together...like two people would be who were...together."

"The two Mormon boys were homosexuals," I said, incredulous.

"Gay Mormons, yeah right!" I heard Caleb say on the phone.

"I guess so," Crystal confirmed. "I mean they were holding hands."

"You don't think it could have been something innocent do you?" I asked her.

"It looked like two guys together," she insisted. "In fact, when I drove by them, and they realized a car was coming, they acted like they had just done something they shouldn't have. You know, like they had just been caught. I know what I saw, Doctor Greene," she said defensively.

"What you saw was guilty behavior," I coached, trying to determine whether or not what she had seen was accurate.

"They acted guilty as hell," she declared, laughing. "I don't imagine the Mormons go in for that sort of thing."

"Two Mormon missionaries doing the nasty," Caleb screeched on the phone. "Is that what Joe Smith had in mind when he dug up those gold plates?"

"Very funny," I scolded. "Focus, please."

"I'm coming over," I heard Caleb yell into his phone.

I wanted to separate myself from Crystal and needed a polite excuse in order to do it. Saying I had to go meet Caleb foot the bill. Halting him in his tracks, I ordered, more or less, to stay where he was and that I would be coming over. Then I turned to Crystal and apologized, telling her I had to go.

Just as I was leaving I had a thought. It struck me that Gnomon might be a local and had gone to High School in Cottonwood. Arizona's population, like much of the booming Southwest region, was comprised of a large percentage of transplants. There was a good chance he had moved there recently. It was worth a shot though. If Gnomon was a native Arizonan, then perhaps I might find some information on him at the local High School.

"Crystal, did you go to High School in Cottonwood by any chance?" I asked her as she was leaving.

"Mingus Union," she replied, adding, "go Marauders!"

"You know, I was wondering if there was some way I could get my hands on some of their yearbooks," I said, hoping she would have a solution.

"One of my girl friends is a teacher there," she told me, smiling. "We went to school together there. Sometimes I can't believe she is teaching back there at our old High School. How weird is that?"

"Pretty weird," I confirmed, returning her smile. "Anyway can you set up a meeting between us? It might be helpful to the case."

"Sure," she said eagerly, whipping out her cell phone and speed dialing a phone number. "She's probably in class now but I'll leave a message on voice mail. Okay?" I nodded yes. Then I heard her say, "Hey girl, whatcha doing? Glad I caught you between classes. Listen, need a favor. A friend of mine wants to talk to you. About the school. You don't know her. It's Doctor Sarah Greene. That Doctor Greene. From the books and TV. I told you she was staying at my motel--dummy. She is standing here right now. No lie. You want to say something to her?" She handed me her phone and whispered that her friend didn't believe I was there.

"Hello..." I said, looking at Crystal, wondering what the friend's name even was.

"Judy," Crystal interjected.

"Judy, this is Doctor Greene, I need to ask you a favor," I offered, not knowing what else to say. The excitement in her voice bubbled over the phone. Even at this stage, I was always surprised (perplexed) that people would be excited to come into contact with me. "Anyway we could get together? I need access to some past yearbooks from your High School there. For research." She told me anytime. "Great. How about today?" We then set up a time at the end of the school day to meet and I hung up.

"You just made her day," Crystal announced, laughing. "She teaches losers all day long. This will definitely perk her up."

Caleb was waiting for me at the newspaper office. I saw the jeep in the parking lot out front, with his mountainbike perched on a rack attached to the back of the vehicle. Probably has plans to go for a ride later, I thought as I pulled into the parking lot. I was going to run my plan by him about poring over some old High School year books to see if anything might stand out. It was, admittedly, a long shot, or Hail Mary as Caleb might say. Gnomon, so I imagined, must have been both athletic and scholarly, two attributes that would, hopefully, make him stand out in the annals of Mingus Union High School history. Perhaps some of his exploits on the football field or basketball court might stand out. Combine that with an academic scholarship to a prestigious college and you would have a ready made profile of an individual capable of physically and mentally pulling off several complex murders.

"You might be on to something Doctor Greene," Caleb told me after I informed him of my latest plan. "And that business about the Mormon boys, that has legs to me. I mean two Mormon homo missionaries. It doesn't get any weirder than that. Not even in the movies."

"Yes," I said, ignoring his slur for a moment. "In his email he uses the Leviticus passage to specifically mention two victims, right? I'm not wrong about that am I?"

"Nope," he said immediately. "He is going to off two people this time around--the ambitious dickwad."

"Dick...what," I exclaimed, laughing. "Very colorful. Must be some local cowboy vernacular, huh."

"Oh, I forgot, you are from the cloistered world of...of academia," he teased. "Probably sit around most days and talk about just how tight you can maintain your anus with all your other scholars."

"How did you know?" I shot back, chuckling. "Anyway, we need to go to that Mormon place near the High School and see if we can find out where those two missionaries are today or even if they are still here in the area. I mean don't they move around alot doing whatever it is they do?"

"You asking me?" Caleb asked, jerking his thumb at himself. "What would I know about Mormons? Nothing."

"I thought you told me you were brought up by a polygamist sect in northern Arizona," I stated, trying not to laugh.

"That's right, Sarah," he called out, grinning at me. "That was about the same time you were wearing long skirts and those scarf things on your head at the Hassidic compound in New York. You ate gefilte fish every night, with latkes."

"Truce," I almost shouted out, squelching a laugh. "Listen, we can drop by the Mormon place before we go across the street to the High School and meet Crystal's friend. Oh, by the way, maybe we can look you up in one of those year books. Wouldn't that be fun! In your class picture are you wearing one of those feather head dresses?"

"You know what, the Mormons think the American Indians are descendents of the Jews. Maybe you and me are related. How about that?" he countered, pretending to be serious.

"I guess we do kind of look alike," I replied, pointing at him then back at myself.

"Now you are just being cruel," he declared to the ceiling.

Chapter 12 An Unspoken Axiom

Their names were Luke and John and, as Caleb said, spoke of the Gospels in the New Testament. We had stopped at the Mormon center in Cottonwood, a ugly low slung building across from the High School, which housed a genealogical research office. It was news to me that the Mormons were committed to genealogical probes from near and far. Caleb laughed at my ignorance, surprised that I hadn't known that well known fact about the Mormon faith. This preoccupation with ethnic histories was, in his mind, a way of linking Mormonism to everything. Apparently if you look far and wide enough you will eventually find a Mormon relative lurking somewhere in the American experience. I had to laugh at his cynicism and mild paranoia.

We hadn't come for any genealogical reassurance though. Although I did have to tease Caleb about his putative Jewish ancestry, when and if you followed the Mormon dogma literally that is. We were met by an earnest looking man, mid-twenties, who greeted us with a wide smile and a warm hello. I let Caleb take the lead because I didn't want my notoriety to cloud our line of questioning. He slipped easily into his journalist mode and fished for some information about the two missionaries, telling the smiling young man that he wanted to do an article about the local missionary experience. The story sounded legitimate, so we hoped. It wasn't our intention to set off any alarm bells at this point.

In fact, on the drive to the Mormon center we had a brief argument on whether or not we should apprise the FBI of our plans. I had already forwarded the email to them that Gnomon had last sent me. That they didn't know about the intel supplied by Crystal was immaterial really. I was of the belief that they would probably laugh off any connection, most likely believing Crystal's story was only so much folderal anyway. It was, admittedly, not exactly hard intelligence. She could have totally misread what she saw on the road that day. Two gay Mormons seemed out there for sure. Yet, as I saw it, it was almost one of those kismet moments, when things seem to interlink or line up or however you want to label it.

Besides, what choice did we have? Gnomon, in my estimation, wasn't one to supply clues that only prove to be false leads. He was all about reason and a legitimate rationale. He was, without a doubt, going to kill a homosexual, and that victim was going to somehow be connected to a church. We couldn't be sure just how flimsy the connection might be. It could be the man might be only a deacon or maybe a usher at any given church. Organist. Choir leader, as suggested by Caleb. We didn't know.

Caleb proved his mettle as a reporter, working the young man expertly. We had the names of the two individuals in no time at all. They were living with a family in Cottonwood. We had been given the green light to contact them. By the way Caleb painted it, the story would be a wonderful puff piece about delivering Mormonism to the Verde Valley by two fine, upstanding young men.

Next, off to the High School. This was Caleb's alma mater. There was going to be some ghosts in residence for him, so I imagined. He told me he hadn't set foot there since he graduated. I was trying to gauge whether or not he was one of those people who rather not ever revisit those formative years in their lives. My own time in High School had been close to idyllic. Good grades. Lots of friends. It had been a small town school and with it came all the trappings of that particular slice of Americana: proms, homecomings, football games, and eventual departure for college. Besides the usual crushes and occasional heartbreaks it had been four years of fun.

When we walked in the door Caleb suddenly went quiet, as he stood in the hallway and took in the familiar ambience. Then he smelled the air and said, "Still smells the same--like stale piss."

I looked at him, trying to size up his mood, then said, "I think that's lysol."

He glanced at me for a moment, then announced, "Come on, I know where her classroom is."

We were to meet Crystal's friend at her classroom and were running a little late. I hurried behind Caleb, while he half ran down the hall, stopping a couple times so he could peer in a classroom and mutter under his breath. A steady stream of students walked by, giving us the once over, probably wondering what we were doing there. Thankfully, not one of them recognized me.

"This is it," Caleb announced finally, stopping in front of a classroom. The door was open and we could see a woman sitting at her desk grading papers. "Boy, does this ever bring back memories," he whispered to me.

Crystal's friend heard us in the hall and jumped up to greet us. She was a pretty woman, with long blond hair (extensions) and dressed casually as was, apparently, the new dress code for teachers. We introduced ourselves and she told me that she had read my first book and liked it very much. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Caleb smirking. Then she told him that she read his column in the paper all the time and it was my turn to return the smirk.

We got down to business right away. She took us to the library, where we found Mingus High School yearbooks stretching back to the school's inception. Crystal had already told her what we intended to do. She offered to help, so we all sat down at one of the tables, with the books spread out before us. I explained to her what we were looking for, telling her that the perp might have gone to the High School and would most likely be a "high performer," someone who would be good at sports and noteworthy academically as well. He wouldn't have to necessarily be the class valedictorian but would probably have gone to a upper tier college.

Then we set off looking through yearbooks, poring over class photographs like a mug shot book at the police station. It wasn't long before we were all pointing and laughing at the photos. As I imagine Caleb feared, his photo surfaced. To be honest, I had been trying to find it, guessing the years he had attended the school.

"Now here's a guy that was probably voted most likely to succeed in his class," I declared, trying not to laugh. I passed the yearbook to Caleb, who knew right away what it was.

"Somehow I knew you were going to see that," he muttered, pushing the book back across the table.

Crystal's friend glanced at the photograph and laughed, holding her hand up to her mouth then asking, "Is that really you?"

"It was my Indian phase," he replied almost mournfully.

In the photo Caleb had shoulder length hair and was wearing an embroidered headband that his grandmother had made for him. He looked like a handsome Indian you might see in a Hollywood movie. I glanced at the photo again, then said, "So, you embraced your heritage back then, huh."

"Very funny, Doctor Greene," he mumbled. "Can we get on with this?"

We continued to plow through the yearbooks until all the faces started to look the same. There were only a few candidates that fit the profile. We wrote down the biographical information on them and then winnowed it down to a dozen likely suspects. All three of them shared the same characteristics, from an active High School sports career to accomplished academics. Several prospects had gone back east to attend reputable colleges, with some of the others attending State schools in the mid-West. They had all played football or basketball. None of them had gone into the military but it was my opinion that the killer wasn't former military. The garroting was something he had devised in order to enact the murders as a personal form of vengeance and not a method he had been instructed to do.

We thanked the teacher and went out to the car to plot our strategy. As we sat there in the car, I noticed Caleb was checking his mirror constantly. He noticed I was watching him, so he told me his "Spidey senses" were tingling. This pop cultural reference was lost on me. He shook his head and filled me in on Spiderman and the comic, not to mention the movies etc. Then he laughed and told me that I was a functioning recluse. Not to be ridiculed with impunity, I said he was a functioning adult with the mind of a teenage boy, forever stuck at the age of fifteen. Then I had to pile on and add that I thought he looked very cute as Cochise. Fortunately, he let that pass and we got down to business about our next move.

"How in the hell are we going to approach the two Mormons?" he asked me, throwing up his hands. "We can't just go up to them and say that some nutcase wants to off two homos and you guys are it."

"No, I guess we can't do it exactly like that--can we?" I said, giving him a look.

"What?" he asked, shrugging. "Okay, maybe they aren't gay but how do we know that? If they aren't then they ain't on the menu are they? Then we are just wasting our time with them. We are going to have to ask them. We have to find out."

"We can't just drive up to their house and ask them that," I stated, laughing. "Are you nuts? I think we are going to have to just trust Crystal on this one. Proceed with the understanding that they are gay and go from there. We could just stake out the place where they are staying. I mean I don't think Gnomon is going to try to capture them in broad daylight. Speaking of that, how in the hell is he going to get two guys anyway?"

"Drug 'em," Caleb answered, shaking his head yes. "He is going to have to drug them somehow. Otherwise how would he overpower two of them at once. It's not possible."

"I guess he could hold a gun on them. He could do it that way," I suggested. "Not in the middle of the day though. But, if you think about it, the boys do travel on the backroads a great deal of the time. Plenty of places where Gnomon could--"

"That's true," Caleb interjected. "Toss their bikes in the brush, off the side of the road. Boom!, he's in business. Of course, he would have to have a van or something to put the guys in. Couldn't just dump them in the backseat of a...a Ford sedan. They would have to be gagged and handcuffed or something. Doesn't make sense to me. We are pretty sure he's not just going to shoot them, right?"

"Serial killers have been known to change their methods, yes," I stated, thinking back on some cases I had reviewed from years ago. "They evolve. And sometimes they are forced to change because of detection concerns. Gnomon, I think, is going to want to finish his warped intentions with the garrote. But you never know. I just can't see him taking pot shots at his victims. It wouldn't be...you know, satisfying for him."

"Man, how do you deal with these sickos all the time," he commented, whistling for emphasis. "No wonder you are screwed up."

"Thanks for that," I shot back, smacking him on the arm.

We both realized we had very few options. The Mormons angle was questionable at best. I had heard of stranger coincidences happening when it came time to break a case. In fact, often times it was serendipity that played a large part in tracking down a suspect. It really left us with no choice but to proceed with the understanding that the two Mormon missionaries were the next victims.

We drove to the home where the two Mormons were being housed by some locals. It was a large house almost half way up the mountain. The lot backed up against Federal land and there were no neighbors within a quarter mile. Caleb and I had the same, identical thought when we arrived at the house. The surroundings made it almost the perfect location for an ambush of some sort. Further more, a home invasion looked to be readily possible. Who would hear any commotion? The nearest house was so far away any suspect noises would never be heard.

We decided to walk past the house on the road just to see what the layout of the property was like. As we walked by we noticed that there was no barking dog, which eliminated another deterrent. There was no fence either. They did have one of those security company signs placed on the front lawn, warning any potential criminal that the house was protected by an alarm system.

"You know what we haven't really thought about, Sarah?" Caleb asked me when we got back to the car. "How would Gnomon know about these two guys being gay? I mean was it broadcast on the local news or something?"

"Good question," I said, watching a red tail hawk hover over us, then glide out of sight. "Could he have seen them like Crystal did? You know, in a compromising situation."

"What are these guys doing, going all around the valley advertising their...their gayness?" he asked, laughing. "Unless, maybe, he is a Mormon himself and it is common knowledge in the Mormon community. How about that?"

"Wouldn't they be ex-communicated or shunned or whatever they do to gays in the Mormon religion," I stated, trying to remember any information I knew about the Mormon church. "If anybody knew they were having relations they would probably be stoned--don't you think?"

"Cool, would the Mormons actually stone somebody?" Caleb joked, laughing uneasily.

"And now you are fifteen again," I chided, frowning at him.

"I have you know I turned sixteen last month," he declared, giggling.

"Anyway," I said, ignoring his remark, "Gnomon seems to know a lot of things about this town."

"How about this then," Caleb offered, "maybe he had designs on these guys anyway then happened to find out they were gay in the process. I mean think about it, the nutcase has crossed off a Catholic, a Jew, a Protestant, maybe a Mormon was next in line. Around here we are kind of short on Muslims so he would have to start in on the religious second string."

"You have a point there," I said, smiling at him. "Give the little boy a gold star."

"I suppose he must have stalked his victims for a little while before he actually zoomed in for the kill," he stated, snapping his fingers. "He follows them around on their bicycles, sees them getting busy, then figures he got a twofer going on."

"A what?"

"You know, two for the price of one," he explained. "Not only are they religious purveyors of religion but they are gay too. He must have thought he hit the jackpot. That's why he sent the Leviticus thing. Don't you agree?" he asked eagerly.

"Yeah, I do," I told him. "It would certainly make his day. Two individuals, on a mission, are breaking one critical thing proscribed in the Bible that they are proselytizing about. Wow, he must have wet his pants over that contradiction and hypocrisy. It is what he is all about. Gnomon wants to expose the...the preposterous nature of religion as a whole and specifically the players involved in perpetuating it."

"If we are so sure about it then how is he going to do it?" Caleb asked me, throwing his hands up. "How are we going to stop him?"

"Look," I said in a serious tone, "I think he is going to do it here, at this house. He is careful. He does his research. This time around he is going to have to have time in order to kill two people. I can only imagine that these two are going to be trusting types. The guy at the Mormon center mentioned that the two acting as a host family are older, which means, probably, there are no children around. Gnomon can wait until the couple is away from the house and then strike. Maybe use a ruse, you know, come up to the door posing as somebody and then force his way in with a gun. After that the scenario takes on the usual shape of things."

"You mean with the garrote and all," Caleb interrupted.

"Right," I said, putting my hands up to my neck. "This time around he will have to have one disable the other, while he bides his time for the initial kill."

"Look at you," he suddenly announced. "Got the adrenaline going. Fire in the eye. Boy, this homicide thing really gets your juices flowing."

Embarrassed, I said, "I'm in the moment."

"Don't let me stop you."

We agreed that the murders would have to be enacted at that house. Caleb speculated that Gnomon might ride up on his dirt bike, maybe approach from the mountain on some of the forest roads. He wouldn't be seen. Then he suggested that he could take some overhead photos from his paraglider, giving us a literal bird's eye view of the surroundings. He said he was going to be paragliding the next day with a couple friends. I told him it sounded like a good idea.

While Caleb was busy playing birdman the next day, I got a call from Missy, who wanted to know if I had any more contact with Gnomon. She sounded harried on the phone, so I figured she was getting pressure from the home office to show some progress on the case. I tried to feel sorry for her but couldn't quite manage it. I was all business, telling her just the minimum required to get her off the phone. As we were talking, I got another call on call waiting, and told her to hold on. I switched over and heard: "Hope you haven't missed me." I immediately switched back to Special Agent Collins and told her he was on the other line and hung up.

"Ready for more religious polemics?" I asked in a sardonic tone of voice.

"Sure," he said enthusiastically. "How about who designed the designer? All we need to know is that things attract and things repel, that is the foundation for everything. Do we really need a god after you realize that one singular proposition?"

I heard him chuckling to himself. Background noises were filtering into his phone. I listened hard, trying to figure out what the noises might be. I thought I could hear machinery in the distance.

"Are you going to stay on long enough this time for us to have a real debate about god today?" I wanted to know, hoping to goad him into being careless.

"Greenie, you are so transparent sometimes," he countered. "If only it were you and me--and not the fucking FBI too," he continued, shouting into his phone. "Get that, guys?"

"Occupational hazard, Gnomon," I told him pointedly in a firm voice.

"I know, Sarah, it goes with the territory I suppose," he said jokingly. "Besides, thinking about religion is like taking a course in comparative mythology--right?" he exclaimed, laughing. "Christian dogma makes illogical thought universal truth."

"For you," I intimated.

He ignored my remark and said, " I suppose you got my email then. Have you been thinking about it? Do I need to spell it out for you?"

I thought about revealing my theory about the Mormons but decided against it. On the one hand it might thwart his latest move, but, then again, if he knew nothing about the Missionaries it might give him some ideas. This mental chess game we were having had real consequences. I had to be careful.

"I have been thinking about it and I have a theory," I said, hoping to pique his interest.

"You do," he said with mock excitement. "Please do enlighten me. I can't wait to hear it."

Reaching back to some of my philosophy courses in college, I threw out some palaver by stating: "The axiom about determinism can't be undermined by your actions, even if you think they are."

He was quiet for a moment, then said, "That construct would only work if I bought into the whole Prime Mover baloney. How lame do you think I am, Greenie? Now you are just trying to piss me off. Pay attention, dear Sarah. The Armageddon battle is coming pretty soon, only it isn't going to go according to script. Got that?"

"What role are you playing then?" I asked hurriedly, fearing he was about to end the call. "You can't be the anti-Christ...and you certainly can't be Christ. What part can you play in the--"

"I see you," he suddenly screamed out. "You little fuckers thought you could sneak up on me."

The phone went dead. Apparently, as I would learn later, the FBI had called in a special Swat team who had camouflaged themselves on the mountainside, waiting for him to make another call. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Gnomon vanished into thin air again.

Later on that day, Caleb called me, asking me to come over to his house to see the photos he had taken from his paraglider. He also told me he had a theory about the case that he wanted me to consider. I tried to get him to tell me it over the phone but he didn't want the FBI to hear it.

When I got to his house I found him sitting on the front porch drinking a beer, and grinning. He was trying to contain his excitement, as he urged me to come inside, offering me a beer once we got in the door. On the kitchen table he had laid out several aerial photographs that looked like something from Google.

"I know how he is getting away from the FBI," he finally announced, unable to contain himself any longer.

I shot him a look of incredulity then said irritably, "Please, tell me how. Reveal it."

"Okay, miss impatient, it came to me while I was soaring like an eagle," he declared, channeling perhaps one of his ancestors from the Apache tribe. "It is so simple. I should have thought of it before but I didn't."

"What?" I almost shouted.

"Mine shafts, the bastard is using the mine shafts to get around on the mountain," he finally said. "The whole fucking mountain is laced with tunnels. They go everywhere. I saw it from up above. Think about it. He slips away into the mine shafts when the FBI comes looking for him. And--wait for it--I think he is living in one too."

"Come on," I exclaimed, laughing. "How can you live in a mine shaft for heaven's sake?"

"I don't how but I'm sure you can," he replied. "I also think he might have been--or is still--a geologist or something. Some job with the mine company. That would make him or give him the expertise around mines."

"I thought the mining companies were kaput," I exclaimed. "They haven't mined the area for years. The whole mountain is dormant, isn't it?"

"Not really," he answered. ""It's true they haven't been doing any large scale mining lately but they still do have some little projects going on. Besides, I checked into it. They are doing this giant reclamation project, one where they are extracting gold or ore or something from the slag that was leftover from all of those years of mining. You know what I mean, those big piles of black gunk you see sitting around town."

I thought for a moment and remembered seeing them. They were huge lumps of black rock practically sitting right in the middle of town. This could be a positive lead, one that would point us in the direction of Gnomon's identity. At the very least it might narrow down our search.

"Caleb, this is incredible," I announced, giddy, as I reached out and hugged him. Surprised, he hesitantly hugged me back, then we were kissing. I broke off the kiss, embarrassed, and mumbled, "Where did that come from?"

He raised his eyebrows and said, "Must be the moment."

Wanting to change the dynamic quickly, I exclaimed, "Show me the mine shafts in the photos."

Apparently it worked because he said, "Sure, I've marked them with a red X."

"Why is this one marked with double red Xs?" I asked, pointing to the photograph.

"That's what I wanted to tell you about," he said, beaming. "Guess where that shaft comes out."

I looked over the photo, then I realized what the object was in the photo and said, "Don't tell me that is the same house where the--"

"Can you believe it?" he almost shouted out. "The mine shaft opening can't be more than a few hundred yards from where the Mormons are staying. That's how he's going to do it. And you know what, the Rabbi's house is near another mine shaft too, maybe an eight of a mile. This is some horror film creepy shit."

Caleb then showed me a website on the net run by an amateur historian living in Jerome. On his site, which was chock full of every imaginable trivia about the town, from the names of prostitutes to the number of murders committed on any given year, there were diagrams of all of the mines that were officially and unofficially mined. The historian had painstakingly drawn up every detail, including the length of the mines and the amount of minerals produced. Anyone who had worked for the corporation that ran the mining operation would probably have even more information about the area.

We were getting close and I still hadn't revealed anything to the FBI. It might have been a foolhardy mistake but I wasn't sure what concrete evidence we had. Caleb had more confidence in his discovery however, and wanted, at first, to call them in right away. I finally got him to agree to a little more time before we dumped our theory on the authorities. Naturally, as a journalist, he wanted to get the story in print as soon as possible.

We then went back over the names from the year books again, winnowing through the list until we zeroed in on the candidates who had gone on to get degrees in the science field. I had been wrong in looking towards the higher end of colleges, leaning towards the private institutions. It was State colleges we needed to focus on and, in particular, ones with science departments that concentrated on the fields that overlapped with mining. Since neither one of us knew anything about mining, we had to do a crash course on all aspects of the industry.

It didn't take long, really. One name stood out almost immediately. He had graduated in 1980 from Mingus Union High School. As expected, he had played on the football team at linebacker, making him, physically able to carry out the murders with ease. He had gone on to college in Flagstaff, majoring in geology. Caleb went to work on his family background. As luck would have it, his editor happen to know the family.

We got the lead and ran with it. The family home was still in Cottonwood. We decided to go to the house and see if we could push the envelope, so to speak. It was a gamble, of course. For all we knew, Gnomon might be there. Although I had never met him in person, I was almost certain I would recognize his voice when I heard it. He had neglected to disguise his voice on the phone out of, presumably, arrogance. In his mind, he wasn't going to get caught.

Caleb drove us over to the house. It was located in the working class section of Cottonwood, where the houses leaned towards utilitarian, complete with swamp coolers on top of the roofs, weathered paint, and junked cars in the drive ways. There was a chain link fence around the house, which was falling down in the front. As we approached, we could hear a dog barking inside. Caleb and I exchanged glances, instantly regretting our decision to proceed without the aid of the police.

"Here we go," Caleb whispered to me, as he knocked on the door.

Almost immediately, we heard: "I don't want any!" It was an angry woman's voice. We froze, unable to decide what to do. Then the door swung open and a short, squat woman, fiftyish, appeared in the doorway. "Whatch you want?" she demanded to know. From some back room we could hear a dog barking. She turned and told the dog to shut up.

I looked at Caleb for a moment, then said, "Are you Dennis Liston's mother?"

"Who wants to know?" she shot back, eyeing both of us suspiciously. Before we could answer, she declared, "I don't have anything to do with the bills he owes. Now leave me alone."

She started to shut the door, so I said, "It's not about any debts, Mrs. Liston. Honest."

"Yeah, then what?" she asked, hands on hips, sneering.

"We just wanted to talk to you about his...his job," Caleb said, not knowing what else to say.

She snorted and replied, "What job? The boy don't work as far as I know. Did have a job working with rocks before, but that...that went south on him too."

I didn't really want to hear about his work history as much as I wanted to get inside the house to get a feel for his upbringing. It was obvious his relationship with his mother was strained. We needed to hear about the father and maybe if he had siblings, anything that might offer some clues.

"Mind if we come in and chat about Dennis for a moment?" I asked as sweetly as I could.

She looked me up and down, then said, "What about? That boy is nothing but trouble. Always has been. Gets it from his father, I think."

I thought I could use that as an opening, so I said, "Is Mr. Liston here by any chance?"

She laughed and exclaimed, "I hope that bastard is six feet under by now."

We laughed along with her, as I stepped a little bit closer, trying to gently force the issue. She then told me to come on in if I had nothing better to do. Caleb and I followed her back in the house, which was dark from all of the curtains in the house being closed to keep out the sun. It was stifling inside, even though we could hear the swamp cooler grinding on the roof. There was a TV on and, remarkably, on the daytime talk show the panel of women were discussing me. It was one of those out of body experiences that made my life truly bizarre. I listened for a moment, as one of the women said that my books degraded a woman's role in society, or something to that effect.

"So, you and your husband aren't exactly on talking terms then," Caleb offered, nudging me and nodding his head in the direction of the TV screen.

"Hell no," she shot back, making a face. She then picked up the remote and turned the TV off, muttering about the women being a bunch of clucking hens. "Been divorced for over ten years now, I think. Good riddance. The man ran around on me and now I hope he gets run over by a bus."

"Does Dennis have any brothers and sisters?" I asked, wanting to move the interview along as quickly as possible, fearing that at any moment she was going to get more volatile and throw us out.

"Has a sister, lives in Tucson," she replied, eyeing me again. "What are all these questions about anyway? Just tell me what Dennis has done. Like I told you before, I ain't paying any of his outstanding bills. Got my own to pay. My unemployment check doesn't pay for shit," she spat out, squinting at us, as she sat down in an easy chair that had been patched up with duct tape.

"We just wanted to know if Dennis ever worked for the mine here?" I asked, glancing over at Caleb.

"Yeah, Mrs. Liston, we are trying to find out about his work history, that's all," Caleb stated, smiling at her.

I looked around the room, surveying the contents. I didn't see any obvious displays of religious devotion. There weren't any crosses hanging on the wall. No Bibles lying around. No pictures of saints either. Besides the interior being a shambles, with piles of newspapers and food wrappers cluttering up the couch and coffee table, it was devoid of any religious paraphernalia. Why had Gnomon gone off the rails? I wondered.

"That boy wasted years up at that college in Flagstaff, then amounted to nothing," she said coldly, smacking the arm of the easy chair for emphasis. "Not like his sister. She's got a good job done in Tucson, works for the city. Good job. Got a family too, with a good husband."

"Does Dennis live here by any chance?" Caleb came right out and asked.

"Hell no!" she almost shouted. "Do I look crazy to you? The last time he stayed here I heard him cursing the Lord so I put him out--on the street."

"So, he doesn't care for religion then," I commented, trying to use a neutral tone of voice.

"The boy is all mixed up in the head," she replied, tapping the side of her head. "Gets it from his father--I tell you. Like father like son, that's what they say."

"His father didn't like religion either, huh," Caleb offered, shooting me a side glance.

"His father was a no good piece of garbage," she declared in a loud voice. "But he still had a place for the Lord in his heart, that's for sure. Now Dennis, that's a different story all together. The boy had some pretty screwed up ideas floatin' around in his head. I'll tell you that. Some of the nonsense that comes out of his mouth would make you sick to hear. Must have got it up there at that college, I guess."

"Did Dennis ever like religion?" I wanted to know.

"How do I know?" she screeched at me. "The boy isn't right upstairs. Are you listening to me? Hell if I know what happened to him. Used to be a good boy back before. Now--" she trailed off, then started muttering to herself.

"So, as far as you know, he did work for the mine at one time," Caleb asked in a low tone of voice. She nodded yes, then turned the TV back on, which was our cue to exit.

Our next stop was to see a guy that Judy, Crystal's teacher friend, had told us about. Judy's older brother had gone to school with Dennis Liston. I had called him for information about Dennis and he had mentioned a guy named Derek Bolton, who had not only gone to High School with Dennis but college as well. Bolton worked at the local hospital as an administrator of some sort. I had already set up an interview for that morning.

We met him at his office, where he was fielding a string of phone calls, apparently getting more and more exasperated with each new call. He apologized to us several times, in between answering another call. Finally, after about fifteen minutes, he turned his attention to us.

"You wanted to know about Dennis, right?" he asked, staring at his phone, willing it to stay quiet.

"Yes," I answered. "We heard that you went to college with him."

"Yep," he replied, pointing at the bookcase against the wall, where we could see a photograph of a football team. "I'm standing next to him there, back row, second from the left. We both played defense. That is until he quit end of sophomore year."

"Why did he quit?" Caleb wanted to know, standing up and walking over to examine the photograph.

"He flipped out," Derek explained. "It all happened after the accident, the injury."

His voice had dropped off and he was looking out the window. I exchanged glances with Caleb, then asked, "Was Dennis hurt or something?"

Derek stared at me for a moment, then said, "No, no he caused the injury. It happened during a game. He tackled an opposing player and the guy broke his neck and later on died. It was a clean tackle. Just a freak accident."

"I remember that now," Caleb announced. "Was that Dennis? Man, there were actually people who wanted to ban football from NAU after that happened."

"Yep, there was," Derek said mournfully. "We had three more games in the season and nobody wanted to play much after that. Especially Dennis. He went off the deepend. Quit the team. Found God and everything."

"Found God," I exclaimed before I realized it.

"Yep, started walking around campus with a Bible stuck under his arm," Derek stated, shaking his head. "Talked about starting some kind of ministry. I think the guilt was eating away at him. I'm surprised he was even able to finish school after that. He was acting so weird. The school offered him counseling but he went with religion. Too bad, he was a good football player."

"Ever talk to him?" Caleb asked.

"I haven't talked to him in probably three or four years, I guess," he replied, staring out the window again. "Last time I heard he was working up on the mountain for the mining company. He majored in geology, I think. Was into rocks, even in High School."

We thanked him for his time and went back to Caleb's house. Although I had been wrong about my initial profile of the perp, I now wanted to make it right. Dennis Liston seemed like the murderer. He was Gnomon. Now we had to take it further.

"How many flashlights do you have?" I asked Caleb, smiling impishly at him.

"I know what you are thinking, Greene," he spat out, shaking his head no. "I'm not doing that, no way. If you think I am going to go down in those holes you can forget about it. Let the FBI handle it."

"Okay, I just thought you might want some adventure, that's all," I taunted.

"Adventure," he scoffed.

"Well, you know how you are always going on about your exploits in the wild, I thought this might appeal to you. But if you are scared of the dark...well, what can I say?" I said with mock sympathy. "Some people like to play it safe."

"I know what you are doing, Doctor Greene," he exclaimed, pretending to look for something in the refrigerator. "Not going to work. Not with me."

"Just thought I would ask, that's all," I told him, making a clucking sound. "You know, it's almost time for lunch, how about we have...KFC for lunch. My treat. We can get their new roasted chicken. Everybody likes their chicken, don't they."

"Your Eastcoast humor is lost on me," he announced, slamming the fridge door. "And I happen to not like chicken, roasted or otherwise. Thank you, very much. I am going to make myself a sandwich. You are welcome to scrounge up anything you like."

I stamped my foot, frustrated, then suggested, "How about we at least go and check out the mine shaft that's near the Mormon's house. Is that a good compromise?"

He thought for a moment, then said, "Okay, but I'm not going in the shaft. You hear me?"

I nodded yes, then muttered, "Okay, Captain Courageous."

"I heard that," he shot back, frowning at me. "Also, I'm bringing my gun, whether you like it or not."

Truthfully, I didn't want to go anywhere near the tunnel. The State of Arizona was littered with abandoned mine shafts. Some were blocked off by barbed wire fences, with a skull and crossbones sign attached warning you to keep out. Others had collapsed long ago, but still posed a danger to anyone foolish enough to venture in them. In fact, it wasn't my third day in the State when I heard on the evening news that an ATV driver had literally fallen into one of the shafts when they inadvertently drove right over it. The driver had to be rescued from the pit and was injured pretty badly. It was no wonder Caleb wanted nothing to do with them.

We gathered up some flashlights from Caleb's garage, including the type that you can strap to your head, leaving your hands free. He also had a battery operated lantern that he used for camping. I assured him it was just in case we saw some vital evidence in the entranceway. He gave me an look, one that said he knew what I was up to.

At the Mormon's house, we stopped momentarily to see if anyone was home. There weren't any cars parked out front but we couldn't tell if there were cars in the closed garage. We decided to drive past the house to the end of the dirt road and park. Caleb had printed out the diagrams from the website and also brought along the photograph he had taken. I was relying on his orienteering skills because I couldn't find due north with a compass. He told me, as far as he could determine, we had to bushwack across the terrain for approximately five hundred yards or so. Caleb grabbed the backpack with our supplies, and I strapped on a hydration lumbar pack he had lent me, after he adjusted it around my waist, tickling me in the process.

"A little levity before the doom," he intoned, grinning at me. He then slipped his handgun into one of the pockets of his cargo shorts, ignoring my look of disapproval.

As expected, I knew the short hike over to the mine site was going to be arduous for me. There was no hiking trail to follow, just uneven terrain with bushes and rocks to avoid or scramble over. We hadn't been gone five minutes before I scraped my knee on a cactus. A trickle of blood ran down my leg, as Caleb told me to stop whining.

After what seemed like a long time, especially in the hot sun, Caleb stopped to consult the compass on his space age watch, the one he seemed to be so proud of, the one that could tell you not only the altitude, temperature, and compass bearing but what time it was in several different time zones. He then studied the diagram and the photograph, walking around in short circles, as he talked to himself and consulted his little GPS device.

"Is this some Indian ceremony?" I said, immediately regretting that I had needled him.

He held up his hand for me to be quiet, then said, "I think we are off the mark by about maybe fifty yards or so. We need to be down that way."

My eyes followed where he was pointing, then I saw something in the topography that didn't look quite right. There seemed to be an artificial ridge sticking up. Then I noticed there was a small pile of rocks layed out off to the right.

"Is that one of those cairn things?" I asked, pointing off to the southwest.

He then saw it too and called out, "That's it!"

We both started to run over to the cairn then stopped in our tracks. I looked at him and he looked at me. I saw him reach in his pocket for the hand gun. We then slowly walked over to where we thought the mine shaft might be. A few feet from the cairn we found a small opening in the ground, not much bigger than two feet across.

"That's the mine shaft?" I asked in a whisper, looking around to see if anyone was watching us.

"There not like in the movies, the Westerns," Caleb whispered back at me. "Look, if you roll that rock away the opening is plenty big enough."

"Big enough for what?" I exclaimed, peering into the hole.

"You're the one who wanted to do this," he stated, laughing.

"I guess I forgot about having to get dirty," I joked.

"You can go down in there and I will keep watch here," Caleb said, grinning at me.

"Very funny," I shot back.

What in the hell were you thinking? I asked myself, as I watched Caleb roll the rock out of the way. We shined our flashlights down into the hole and could see once you were past the opening it expanded to where you could actually stand up. Caleb helped me put the miner light on my head and we literally took the plunge, crawling on our bellys for the first few feet into the shaft.

It was cool inside and dark, as dark as the blackness of space so I imagined. I had once dated a guy back in college who was into spelunking and he told me that the inside of a cave is the darkest place in the universe. He wasn't exaggerating. The darkness, once you were inside, entombed you, giving your level of courage a workout. It was, all in all, psychologically debilitating. I wanted to crawl right back out of that mine and run full speed into the blazing daylight.

Caleb turned on the lantern, which gave us more light, but by the same token cast off eerie shadows as we shuffled along. In some places, we had to stoop over in order to get through. After we had walked twenty or thirty yards into the dank darkness, I heard Caleb curse then stop.

"We need to check for footprints," he whispered. "If Gnomon has been watching the house then he's left his prints. Try to look for some ground that is not too hard. That way we can see if he's been hiding out in here."

I took the hand held flashlight and trained it on the ground as we crept along slowly. Spider webs got caught in my hair and I let out a scream. Caleb flinched, spinning around fumbling with his hand gun. Then he told me it was just spiders and they were nothing to worry about unless they were black widows, which, incidentally, Arizona is littered with.

The shaft seemed to stretch on forever. We walked along until we came to a fork in the shafts. Underground directions are impossible to detect. Caleb's compass was being thwarted by all the metals in the ground. He then held his lantern down close to the ground and we could see the distinct pattern of footprints in the dirt. They were going off into the right branch of the tunnel. He suggested we put down a marker in case the shaft branched off yet again. I then helped him gather up some loose rocks and we made a cairn on the ground to point the way.

Caleb asked me in a whisper if we should proceed on. In the lantern light I could just make out his face. Where before he didn't want anything to do with the mine shaft, I could now see that he was intent on exploring further. I was now the one who didn't want to take the risk. He held the lantern up to my face and waited for my answer. I nodded yes finally and we pressed on.

I wasn't sure what the attraction was with caving, but it was without a doubt primordial. Back to the womb sort of thing, I suppose. You were entirely enveloped by darkness, by mother earth if you like. It was dank, moist. Conversely, there was coldness too, a cold that penetrated your bones. If Gnomon was residing in these mine shafts then I knew he must have gone insane.

It wasn't long before we reached another split in the tunnel. Again Caleb found the footprints and we followed them, this time to the left. We left another cairn by the fork in the tunnel. A few more minutes brought us to a small stream of water. Caleb whispered to me that there were springs all over the Black Hills, telling me many of the early miners had used them to supply their drinking water. We jumped over the underground stream and kept going.

Finally we came to a large room, where the ceiling height reached up to over twenty feet. Sunlight was peeking through several holes in the surface. It was like finding a lost world after being in the narrow, dark mine shaft. We explored around the cavernous room and found some food wrappers laying on the ground.

"I think we are closing in on him," I whispered. "How are your spider senses doing?"

Caleb smiled back at me and said, "Spidey."

"Excuse me," I said, laughing.

"Man, I think this dude might be living in the mines," he suggested, kicking at the food wrappers with his boot. "Must love junk food," he said, smiling at me.

We then found an opening to the outside and scrambled up into the daylight again. It was like being reborn. Caleb helped pull me up and we stood and took in the view of the valley below. Our tunnel passage had taken us half way up the mountain. The bright sunlight was hurting our eyes so we hurriedly put our sunglasses on.

"Where are we exactly?" I asked, squinting, trying to get my bearings.

"Forest road Four thirteen is right over there," Caleb replied, pointing off towards the right. "You can see how he was able to make calls and then disappear so easily. The FBI was probably going right by him and didn't even know it."

"But the mine seems to end right where we got to," I said, confused.

"Right, not all of the tunnels are contiguous," he explained. "If you study the diagram you can see that he would have to enter and exit the tunnels at various points around the mountain. The next entry point is about one or two hundred yards in that direction."

Caleb rechecked the map, and then we headed up the mountain until we found another shaft. This one had been covered up with tree limbs in an attempt to camouflage the entrance. We moved the limbs away and cautiously entered. The shaft almost immediately opened up into a large room, about twenty yards by twenty. There was sunlight filtering in from above. Someone had installed two makeshift skylights out of plexiglass in the ceiling of the cave. Off towards the back of the room there was an opening that lead to another smaller chamber. To our surprise we found a camping cot and, of all things, a bookcase full of books. Next to the cot was a kerosene heater, along with a lawn chair and small table with a lantern.

"We found him," I stated, looking over at Caleb, who was looking through the books. "What now?"

"We get the hell out of here and call the cops, that's what," he declared, yanking a book off the shelf. "Look, he's got one of your books."

"I don't believe it," I exclaimed, walking over to the book shelf.

"Your number one fan," Caleb chortled, laughing. "Hey, maybe you should sign it for him. Put...Dennis, hope your days are numbered."

"How does anybody live like this?" I muttered, looking around the small cave.

"You have to be looney, that's how," Caleb answered, laughing. "Come on, let's get out of here before he shows up."

We carefully placed the tree limbs back into place, not wanting to tip Gnomon off that someone had been there. It was time to call in the FBI but we wanted to make sure they didn't come in all gangbusters and alert Dennis to the discovery. They would have to stake out the mine and wait for him to reappear so they could nab him.

Walking back out towards the other mine shaft, we discussed the possibility of retracing our steps without having to go back down through the tunnel. Caleb knew of a few trails nearby that would take us back down the mountain, before we would have to eventually cut over to get back to where our car was parked. It sounded like a good idea, anything to not have to re-enter that mine.

As we were starting to hike down we noticed something move in the woods up ahead. We froze in place. You can't imagine how visceral fear can be until you are thrust into a life or death situation. I literally felt a shiver go up my spine. Caleb took out his binoculars and peered into the forested area up ahead, trying to see if it was an animal or not. Elk and deer were prevalent in the area, along with, of course, bear and mountain lions. It could have even been a skunk or raccoon. We stood there stockstill for a few minutes, listening.

Then I saw Caleb point towards the south, so I followed where he was pointing and got a glimpse of blue moving through the forest. He held his finger up to his mouth for an moment, then fumbled in his pocket for the hand gun. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.

"What do we do?" I hissed at Caleb.

"I think he's moving down the hill," he told me, nervously checking the safety on his revolver. A moment later, he said, "I think he went in the other shaft, the one we came up. He must be heading down the hill to the Mormon's house. Maybe we can go down the hill and intercept him at the other end."

"Are you crazy?" I almost blurted out. "Let's call the cops from here, right now."

"No, let's make sure he is inside the mine so he can't hear us first, then call," he suggested. "But first, we have to get closer to the mine shaft so we can see whether or not he went in for sure."

This sounded definitely dodgy to me, so I replied, "Maybe we should just wait a little bit then make the call."

Caleb shot me a look, then said, "You know how loud people are on cell phones. You can hear it a mile away. We have to make sure he went inside the mine."

I reluctantly agreed and then he insisted that I stay put while he went ahead by himself, telling me it would make less noise. What he said sounded reasonable but I was fearful for him, and me. It was obvious Gnomon knew these woods exceptionally well and that would put us at a distinct disadvantage. Then again, we had no choice.

Caleb reached over and squeezed my hand, then set off, quickly disappearing into the woods. Before, when I had been with him, I hadn't felt vulnerable. Now, however, as I stood there by myself, every sound in the forest echoed in my head. I found myself flinching as birds flew overhead or a squirrel scampered up a nearby tree. I kept hoping that at any moment Caleb would reappear.

"Doctor Greene, I presume," a voice suddenly called out behind me, as I almost jumped out of my skin.

I whirled around and saw him standing there. I remembered him immediately from his year book photo. Except for the four day old beard, He hadn't changed all that much. He was smiling at me.

"Dennis," I manage to say.

"Oh, I see you have progressed with your investigation, Greenie," he announced cheerfully. "Good for you. I think maybe you missed your calling. You should have been a detective. Of course, you weren't a bad therapist either."

I didn't know what to say. I could see that he was carrying a rifle, with a scope. He was dressed in slacks, with a blue dress shirt. He looked like an executive who had suddenly decided to go hunting right from the office; although he was wearing camouflaged hiking boots.

"Talked to your mother," I offered, hoping to keep the conversation off-kilter long enough for Caleb to get back.

"Dear old mom, she's a piece of work, huh?" he sang out, laughing. "Miserable bitch," he then uttered, staring over my shoulder in the direction where Caleb had gone. "Hey, Sarah, if you wouldn't mind, before your friend there gets back I'm going to have to take you hostage. You understand, right? I don't really want to hurt you or anything but you two have pretty much forced my hand."

"I don't think we fit into your overall plan, Dennis," I stated, using his first name to link myself to him. "Remember, it's that whole religion thing."

"You crack me up, Greenie, you really do," he announced, giggling. "Why did your husband ever divorce you? I mean you are good-looking. You're smart. And you have a damn good sense of humor. You are the whole package, Doc."

"Now you are just trying to butter me up," I said, as I stole a few glances around to see if Caleb was coming back.

"I don't mean to be a horrible host, but I need for you to start moving in that direction right about now," he said, dropping the friendly tone in his voice.

I hesitated for a moment and he aimed his rifle at me, then pointed to the left, where he wanted me to walk. Somehow I willed my feet to move and we slowly made our way back to his lair. By the way he was talking, I knew that Caleb was still alive and he hadn't ambushed him. Gnomon had probably waited until Caleb passed by then doubled back to capture me.

We made it back to the mine, and he urged me to go back in, saying, "Greenie, you made me change my plans a little bit. I think the final battle had to be moved up, you know, Armageddon. Good against evil and all that."

"I thought you didn't buy into all that Biblical nonsense," I told him, smirking, taking the chance to tweak him even though I was in desperate straights.

He laughed, motioning for me to have a seat in the lawn chair, then said, "Let me posit this if I could. What if a supreme being fashioned a place called hell and then designs a large percentage of human beings who are destined to be relegated to such a place, that supreme being would be one sadistic son of a bitch. On top of that he must be one poor planner too." He smiled at me for a moment, then walked over to the bookcase and picked up my book. It was my first book, the one about Rey Flowers. Holding it aloft, he declared, "You know of what I speak, Greenie. You have stared into the face of evil. You have tasted it. What god would come up with something like that?"

I wasn't sure what he meant by the final battle, except that he might be planning some attack in a public place, perhaps a church service. I had foiled his plans, interrupted the continuity. It didn't seem like he harbored any ill will towards me personally; to the contrary, it seemed like he was relieved and now could go out in one act of violence.

"Dennis, you know it was an accident on the football field," I decided to say, hoping that it would bring him around, maybe redirect his mental anguish at least temporarily. "Football is a violent sport and anything can happen."

He shook his finger at me, then announced, "You are the sly one, Greenie. Always working it, that psycho babble. You never give up."

"Because religion didn't work for you doesn't mean you can't...can't have peace again," I offered, slipping into my best therapist tone of voice. "I have seen--"

He tossed my book across the room and shouted out: "What's up with the whole hell concept anyway? All those poor souls who are consigned to burn in hell because they didn't comply with some phony Christo dictates. Then what about all those Hindus and Muslims? Do they get a free pass because they are ignorant? Doesn't seem fair, does it, Greenie? I don't want to spend a minute in the inferno if I know some rag head is getting a jail free card," he sang out, laughing.

"It's not too late to convert to Islam," I joked, smiling weakly at him.

He wagged his finger again, then said, "Look at you, would ya. Sitting in an abandoned mine with a gun totin' lunatic and you're making jokes. You got some big ones, Greenie. If I didn't have to deal with all of these moral slackers out there we might have been friends. The Second Coming is upon us but it ain't gonna be what they expected," he taunted, raising his rifle and making gunshot sounds. "Isn't this religious belief compulsion optional?" he asked, directing his comment to the skylight overhead.

Then there was a loud explosion outside and Dennis whirled around and gave out a whoop. The whole ground seemed to shake. The reverberation rattled the cave. He turned back around and looked at me, smiling. Another explosion went off but it seemed farther away. I could see him counting in his head, as he turned and faced the west. A moment later there was another loud boom that shook the ground.

"If god exists then the attributes of God are consistent with the existence of evil. The attributes of God are not consistent with the existence of evil. Therefore, God does not exist," he recited in a loud voice, laughing. "Don't you agree, Sarah?"

"Old sophistry," I chided, holding my hands up to my ears from the loud noises. "You can do better."

"Tough audience," he joked. How about this: "If God exists, then he is perfect. If God is perfect then everything he creates is perfect. We all know the world ain't perfect. So repeat after me: God don't exist!"

"Does his existence really matter at this stage?" I wanted to know.

At that moment there was a loud boom and the cave filled with dust and debris. Gnomon turned to me and shouted out: "It's a very curious thing, this being the recipient of God's attention. Feels like I won the lottery or something."

He then rushed out, shooting in all directions. I could hear some automatic arms fire coming from outside the mine. Men were shouting. The sound of a helicopter flying low overhead echoed in the mine. My ears were ringing. I noticed there were superficial cuts on my arms and legs from the rocks that had been thrown up. Two men in swat uniforms were helping me to my feet, asking me if I had been shot. I kept shaking my head no, trying to form words but I couldn't manage to say anything.

Moments later I was outside in the sunlight. There were men in combat gear swarming everywhere. Caleb suddenly appeared and was holding me, telling me that he was sorry for leaving me there in the woods. I hugged him and tried to tell him it wasn't his fault. Special Agent Collins was at my side, yelling at me, saying something about how stupid I was. Another helicopter zoomed into view, taping for the evening news.

"Just another post mortem, huh?" Caleb said, grinning.

"They are all different," I muttered, glancing at all the bandages on my arms and legs.

We were sitting in front of our favorite bakery enjoying my last installment of artisan sweets. Two couples at the next table were whispering about us, pointing, telling each other that we were the ones who found the serial killer. Caleb was getting a dose of what it was like to be notorious. We both knew that it was over in another way too. I would be returning to New York City. He would remain in Arizona, grounded in the open spaces that defined his spirit.

As it turns out he had been the one to save me by calling the FBI when he returned and realized I had been kidnapped. He gave them the GPS co ordinance from his pocket GPS device and they converged on the location. Fortunately, the FBI had their team in place ready to go at a moment's notice. The only unexpected wrinkle had been the explosives Gnomon had placed around his lair. Several swat team members had been seriously injured in the assault on the mine.

Gnomon met his fate, a death he ultimately wanted, mowed down by a hail of fire from the authorities. His restless psychosis had been extinguished at last. I was of the mind that he really didn't want to harm me, that I was peripheral to his heinous quest. That belief hadn't mitigated my fear, however. To him, everything was non-negotiable.

There are metrics that measure almost everything save one and that is the capacity of the human mind to devise evil. A little known philosopher once wrote that there is a certain creative beauty in destruction. Man's will tends to get bent around into odd shapes and forms, leaving the rest of us with the notion that if a God is all powerful then he must be able to prevent evil from existing.
