takes the right step. We are like the Infinite, only infants that are, ever so carefully, experimenting with first attempts at walking
.
“Mr. Noland?”
Doris Milne was wearing a green dress with yellow polka dots that came down just below her knees. The neckline was high and the sleeves short. Her pumps were medium gray and she carried a small pink suitcase that Xavier did not remember bringing.
“Where’d you get the bag?” Ecks asked.
“Sister Hope gave it to me. I didn’t have anything the right size.”
Hope was standing there behind the girl.
We are all sinners
, Frank said at some point in every sermon. Xavier understood this claim more and more each day.
Inside Frank’s antechamber, behind an antique African tapestry depicting an early European settlement somewhere on the Ivory Coast, was a doorway that Xavier had not seen before. The tapestry was composed like a rude painting, with some people made from white cloth and others rendered in red. Frank had explained that the red people were the whites whose skin flushed under the strong African sun.
“And the white ones are black like me,” Ecks had said.
“Amen, Brother.”
The doorway led to a ladder that carried the trio down forty feet or so to a wide tunnel that hadbeen excavated and reinforced decades before.
“Bootleggers once used this route to move their liquor and guns,” Hope said.
“You mean this wasn’t always a church?” Xavier asked.
“It was always a house of worship,” she replied. “Sometimes their intentions had gone astray.”
The tunnel went on for nearly a mile until they came to another ladder. At the top was a door that was disguised from the outside as a stone slab. They exited into a cave where the smell of the ocean was strong.
Outside, from behind a stand of coastal mugwort brush they came to a parking lot not twenty feet from the sand beach. The lot was made for eight or nine cars but there was only one vehicle there—a dark green 1961 Cadillac with its stubby fins and heavy white shark form.
“This is the minister’s private automobile, brother,” Hope said. “He asks everyone who borrows it not to dent it—if possible.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s only a car,” Hope said.
Knowing her past, Xavier thought that he understood what she meant.
“So,” Xavier said as he drove the Fleetwood in heavy morning traffic down the coast highway, “how did those two thugs know to come to the house?”
“What?”
“Come on now, Doris. Two men came to the Culver City house to remove evidence and burn the place down. They even had a plastic body bag with them.”
“Did you kill them?”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“I … I knew somebody was coming but I didn’t call them.”
“You knew that they’d get rid of your aunt’s body.”
“She called them. She told me that they were going to do scorched earth on the house.”
“What about the body bag?”
“Isn’t that obvious? That was meant for me.”
“The note came from your hotel.”
“Auntie had a whole stack of that stationery. If you have the note you can see that it’s in her hand. Anyway, I don’t know how to write.”
“So you figured they’d take Sedra out with the bones. That way there’d be no evidence against you.”
“I didn’t know what would happen, not exactly. It was her plan.”
“But her death was definitely first-degree, premeditated murder.”
This time Doris merely nodded.
“You’re a very dangerous woman, Ms. Milne. And, you know, coming from me that’s saying something.”
“I did what I had to do,” she said in an odd tone.
“Did your aunt Sedra used to say that?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“How many of the children buried in the vault did you kill?” Xavier asked.
“None.”
“You sure?”
“I helped Sedra kill the two men and a woman, but the children were either sick or they got in trouble. One came to us with a broken arm and Sedra told me to kill her but I
.
“Mr. Noland?”
Doris Milne was wearing a green dress with yellow polka dots that came down just below her knees. The neckline was high and the sleeves short. Her pumps were medium gray and she carried a small pink suitcase that Xavier did not remember bringing.
“Where’d you get the bag?” Ecks asked.
“Sister Hope gave it to me. I didn’t have anything the right size.”
Hope was standing there behind the girl.
We are all sinners
, Frank said at some point in every sermon. Xavier understood this claim more and more each day.
Inside Frank’s antechamber, behind an antique African tapestry depicting an early European settlement somewhere on the Ivory Coast, was a doorway that Xavier had not seen before. The tapestry was composed like a rude painting, with some people made from white cloth and others rendered in red. Frank had explained that the red people were the whites whose skin flushed under the strong African sun.
“And the white ones are black like me,” Ecks had said.
“Amen, Brother.”
The doorway led to a ladder that carried the trio down forty feet or so to a wide tunnel that hadbeen excavated and reinforced decades before.
“Bootleggers once used this route to move their liquor and guns,” Hope said.
“You mean this wasn’t always a church?” Xavier asked.
“It was always a house of worship,” she replied. “Sometimes their intentions had gone astray.”
The tunnel went on for nearly a mile until they came to another ladder. At the top was a door that was disguised from the outside as a stone slab. They exited into a cave where the smell of the ocean was strong.
Outside, from behind a stand of coastal mugwort brush they came to a parking lot not twenty feet from the sand beach. The lot was made for eight or nine cars but there was only one vehicle there—a dark green 1961 Cadillac with its stubby fins and heavy white shark form.
“This is the minister’s private automobile, brother,” Hope said. “He asks everyone who borrows it not to dent it—if possible.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s only a car,” Hope said.
Knowing her past, Xavier thought that he understood what she meant.
“So,” Xavier said as he drove the Fleetwood in heavy morning traffic down the coast highway, “how did those two thugs know to come to the house?”
“What?”
“Come on now, Doris. Two men came to the Culver City house to remove evidence and burn the place down. They even had a plastic body bag with them.”
“Did you kill them?”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“I … I knew somebody was coming but I didn’t call them.”
“You knew that they’d get rid of your aunt’s body.”
“She called them. She told me that they were going to do scorched earth on the house.”
“What about the body bag?”
“Isn’t that obvious? That was meant for me.”
“The note came from your hotel.”
“Auntie had a whole stack of that stationery. If you have the note you can see that it’s in her hand. Anyway, I don’t know how to write.”
“So you figured they’d take Sedra out with the bones. That way there’d be no evidence against you.”
“I didn’t know what would happen, not exactly. It was her plan.”
“But her death was definitely first-degree, premeditated murder.”
This time Doris merely nodded.
“You’re a very dangerous woman, Ms. Milne. And, you know, coming from me that’s saying something.”
“I did what I had to do,” she said in an odd tone.
“Did your aunt Sedra used to say that?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“How many of the children buried in the vault did you kill?” Xavier asked.
“None.”
“You sure?”
“I helped Sedra kill the two men and a woman, but the children were either sick or they got in trouble. One came to us with a broken arm and Sedra told me to kill her but I
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