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during the mass because the pews had been taken out about a week earlier. I bought one, by the way, and took it to my next parish as a memento.”
    “So did Mrs. Stifler. I remember seeing it when Maddie and I went to her house. What I’m really asking is, could someone have buried a body in the church before the day of Maddie’s christening?”
    He shook his head slowly. “I don’t see how. The men working there were around all the time.”
    “But not at night. A soldier could have come back at night.”
    “True, true.” He thought about it. “But they were billeted some distance away, and bused in and out. Getting from the barracks to the church—with a body—I just can’t see how that could have been done. And as I said, I was in the church every day. I was watching the army’s progress even though I wasn’t officially overseeing it.”
    “What about after the Fourth?”
    “We were out of there. That was the agreement, and as far as I know, everyone adhered to it. There weren’t that many people left anyway. All the stores had already closed, and most of Main Street had been bulldozed. I had my bags packed and I left the day after the christening, I’d say along about noon.”
    “Do you remember if you said good-bye to the others?”
    “To all of them. They all seemed to drop by the rectory on their way out of town. It was very emotional.”
    “I’m sure it must have been.”
    “Well, we seem to have narrowed down when this killing happened.”
    “Not that it matters,” I said. “But if it couldn’t have taken place before the christening and if the army got everyone out the next day, then it must have happened on the Fourth of July, day or night.”
    “Oh, they got us all out on schedule. I didn’t stay around the area, but several parishioners wrote to me, and some of them described the wire fences the army put up to keep people out while they bulldozed and cleaned up. Knowing the army, I wouldn’t be surprised if they kept a guard there at night.”
    It sounded logical to me, too. “I know there was a picnic after the baptism,” I said.
    “Oh yes, a great celebration in the yard behind the church.”
    “Then people must have gone in and out of the church to use the bathroom or get water.”
    He looked thoughtful. “Why do I think they didn’t?” he asked out loud. And then, almost immediately, he came up with the answer. “They’d already shut off the water in the church and taken out the plumbing. No, no one went into the church after the baptism, not that I could see anyway. They used the bathroom and the kitchen in the rectory that day.”
    “And where was the rectory?”
    “Right behind the church. I used to go in through the back door.”
    “That must be near the stairs to the basement.”
    “Right next to one set of stairs, yes.”
    But someone could easily have walked away from the group and gone into the church through the front door, which was completely hidden from the view of the picnickers. Which led me back to the uncomfortable assumption that one of the guests at the baptism had been a killer, and another had been a victim.
    I decided not to pursue it any further. Surely the Stiflers would have known if one of their guests disappeared. And that Christmas card list Carol Stifler had mentioned—someone on that list would have let her know that a husband, wife, parent, or child had dropped from sight. It wasn’t worth thinking about.
    “Tell me, Father, how is it that the army didn’t bulldoze the church along with all the other buildings in Studsburg?”
    “That was due entirely to the intervention of the bishop.”
    “How interesting.”
    “St. Mary Immaculate was one of the oldest Catholic churches in the state. As you saw this morning, it wasn’t all that big, but it was architecturally very fine, a graceful building. When the bishop heard that it was going to be razed along with everything else in Studsburg, he flew into a rage. There were stories in the