Beneath the Mall of Madness (A Jaspar Windisle Mystery Book 1) by A.D. Folmer

orange and ate it on the way to the church. The weather had taken a turn for the worse. I should have bought an umbrella earlier, or tried to borrow one from the hotel. I’d had enough warning about the unpredictable weather the other day.
    I arrived ten minutes early, and the church was already crowded. I was glad that I’d picked up my dry cleaning yesterday. The whole congregation was dressed to the nines. I didn’t see a single pair of jeans or sneakers on my way to a pew. Fiona and Cecilia spotted me on the way in and I ended up sitting between them during the service. Everyone was very subdued, but I couldn’t tell if that was because it was a church or because of all the recent deaths.
    They weren’t so subdued after the service. I can’t remember much, but Pastor MacReady really poured on the fire and brimstone. And the napalm.
    ***
    “What the fuck was that?” Cecilia asked the universe in general as we stood in line for coffee and cake. Fiona giggled.
    “Don’t swear in church,” she admonished. “Especially now.”
    “Hey, you heard Pastor MacReady. Rage Jesus doesn’t care. He’ll set you on fire, and you’ll like it.”
    “Yeah, I wasn’t really expecting the Lamb of God to make an appearance in such an Old Testament sermon,” I said.
    “Must have been from repressing it all these years,” Fiona mused. “I wonder if he’ll do it again forty years from now.”
    “One thing’s for sure; everyone who skipped will regret it. Today will become the stuff of legends,” Cecilia said. “I wonder what brought it on.”
    I was going to take my cake and run, but Fiona urged me to stick around.
    “We’re going to have a community meeting about what’s been going on,” she said. “We just have to wait a bit.”
    “Why?”
    “The Methodists aren’t done with their service yet and Pastor MacReady’s infamously dull, so I’m not surprised people waited until they were sure it was over before coming in.”
    Sure enough, as churchgoers began to leave more people arrived. Most of them were also dressed for church. Officer Earl showed up in jeans and a windbreaker, towing Steve along with him. Steve was looking pale, and his clothes were rumpled. I guess he hadn’t had time to go back to his own place to freshen up. Two more men of the cloth walked in as well. I raised my eyebrows at that.
    “Our church is biggest,” Cecilia explained. “We have all our town meetings here. The Baptist minister doesn’t usually wear his robes though. Maybe he didn’t have time to change.”
    We went back to the pews and sat down. Pastor MacReady took the podium once again. He was back to his earlier kindly demeanor, with no hint that half an hour before he’d been threatening us with hellfire.
    “As you all know, strange things have been going on around here. Again. Now, the new mall is far enough away from town that we’re arguably safe, but somebody’s been messing around in Bishop’s Corner. That is what we’re here to discuss. Mike, did you have something to say?” The Catholic priest had raised his hand.
    “Yes. Are you still on schedule for the reenactment?” There were murmurs in the crowd.
    “Yes we are,” Pastor MacReady said.
    “Should we cancel it?” Someone else asked.
    “No!” the pastor said. “It’s a tradition we’ve kept going no matter what for over a hundred years, and this is going to be the best year yet.”
    “We’ve put too much work into that wall to quit now!” Someone else called out. Sheriff Warren stood up and waited for everyone to quiet down.
    “As long as everything’s finished up before dark I don’t see what the problem would be,” he said, “but that may change. We’re setting up surveillance that won’t be affected by anomalies in the area. If it looks like . . . things . . .are starting to react we may have to relocate the reenactment. Of course,” he continued, raising his voice over protests from the crowd, “we’re looking into catching