“It even includes pizza after.”

“I’m sold.”

“Tess.” He put a hand on her arm, though he still found the trim gray suit she wore intimidating. “About last night…”

“I thought we both already apologized for that.”

“Yeah.” She didn’t look weary or vulnerable now, but in control. Untouched, untouchable. He backed off, still holding the chunk of amethyst in his hand. It matched her eyes. “Ever make love in here?”

Tess lifted a brow. She knew he wanted to shock, or at the very least, annoy her. “Privileged information.” She plucked her briefcase up from beside her desk and headed for the door. “Coming?”

He had an urge to slip the amethyst in his pocket. Annoyed, he set it down carefully and followed her out.

Ed stood beside the secretary’s desk, sipping tea. His face was nearly as red as his hair.

“Mrs. Halderman,” she said to Tess, sending Ed a sympathetic look. “I managed to nudge her along before she devoured him.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Ed.” But Tess’s eyes glistened. “Would you like to sit down a minute?”

“No.” He sent his partner a warning look. “One word, Paris.”

“Not me.” All innocence, Ben walked to the door and held it open. As Ed walked by, Ben fell into step beside him. “You are a big one, though, aren’t you?” Keep it up.

Monsignor timothy logan DIDN’T look like Ben’s childhood conception of a priest. Instead of a cassock, he wore a tweed jacket over a pale yellow turt;eneck. He had the big, broad face of an Irishman, and dark red hair just beginning to go wiry with gray. His office wasn’t like the hushed quiet of a rectory with its somehow sanctified fragrances and old dark woods. Instead it smelled of pipe tobacco and dust, like the den of an ordinary man.

There were no pictures of the saints or the Savior on the walls, no ceramic statues of the Virgin with her sad, understanding face. There were books, dozens and dozens of them, some on theology, some on psychiatry, and several more on fishing. Instead of a crucifix there was a mounted silver bass.

On a stand rested an old bible with a carved cover; a newer, though more well-used one was open on the desk. A rosary with fat wooden beads lay beside it.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Monsignor Logan.” Tess held out her hand in a colleague-to-colleague manner that made Ben uncomfortable. The man was a priest, tweed or not, and priests were to be revered, even feared a little, and respected. God’s proxies, he remembered his mother saying. They handled the sacraments, forgave sins, and absolved the dying.

One had come to Josh after he was already dead. There had been words of comfort, sympathy, and kindness for the family, but no absolution. Suicide. The most mortal of the mortal sins.

“And you, Dr. Court.” Logan had a clear, booming voice that could easily have filled a cathedral. Yet there was an edge to it, a toughness that made Ben think of an umpire calling strike three. “I attended the lecture you gave on dementia. I wasn’t able to speak to you afterward and tell you I thought you were brilliant.”

“Thank you. Monsignor, Detective Paris and Jackson-they’re heading the investigation team.”

“Detectives.”

Ben accepted the handshake and felt foolish for expecting, even for an instant, something more than flesh and blood.

“Please be comfortable.” He gestured to chairs. “I have your profile and report on my desk, Dr. Court.” He swung around it with the free, easy strides of a man on a golf course. “I read them this morning, and found them both disturbing and intuitive.” You agree:

“Yes, with the information from the investigators report, I would have drawn up a reflecting profile. The religious aspects are undeniable. Of course, religious allusions and delusions are common in schizophrenia.”

“Joan of Arc heard voices,” Ben murmured.

Logan smiled and folded his broad, capable hands. “As did any number of the saints and martyrs. Some might say fasting for forty days might have anyone hearing voices. Others might say they were chosen. In this case we can all agree we’re not dealing with a saint, but a very disturbed mind.”

“No argument there,” Ed murmured, his notebook in hand. He remembered feeling a little… well, spiritual, after a three-day fast.

“As a doctor, and a priest, I look on the act of murder as a sin against God, and as an act of extreme mental aberration. However, we have to deal with the mental aberration first in order to prevent the sin from being committed again.”

Logan opened Tess’s file and tapped his finger on it. “It would appear that the religious aspects, and delusions, are rooted in Catholicism. I have to concur with your opinion that the use of the amice as a murder weapon could be construed as a strike against the Church, or devotion to it.”

Tess leaned forward. “Do you think he might be a priest, or have been one? Perhaps wanted to be one?”

“I believe it’s more than possible he had training.” The frown came slowly, and seemed to lodge between his eyes. “There are other articles of a priest’s habit that would be as effective for strangulation. The amice is neckware, and therefore, grimly accurate.”

“And the use of white?”

“Symbolizing absolution, salvation.” Unconsciously he spread his hands, palms facing, in the age-old gesture.

Tess nodded agreement. “Absolving a sin. Against himself?”

“Perhaps. But a sin that may have resulted in the death or spiritual loss of the woman he continues to save.”

“He’s putting himself in the role of Christ? As Savior?” Ben demanded. “And casting the first stone?”

Because he was a man who took his time, watched his footing, Logan leaned back and rubbed his earlobe. “He doesn’t perceive himself as Christ, at least not yet. He’s a laborer of God in his mind, Detective, and one who knows himself to be mortal. He takes precautions, protects himself. He would realize that society would not accept his mission, but he follows a higher authority.”

“Voices again.” Ben lit a cigarette.

“Voices, visions. To a schizophrenic they are as real, often more so, than the real world. This is not split personality, Detective, but a disease, a biological dysfunction. It’s possible that he’s had the illness for years.”

“The murders started in August,” Ben pointed out. “We’ve checked with homicide divisions all over the country. There haven’t been any murders with this M.O. It started here.”

Detailed police work interested Logan but didn’t sway him. “Perhaps he was in a period of recovery and some kind of stress brought the symptoms back, resulting in violence. At the moment he’s torn between what is and what seems to be. He agonizes, and he prays.”

“And he kills,” Ben said flatly.

“I don’t expect compassion.” Logan, with his dark, priest’s eyes and capable hands, spoke quietly. “That’s my territory, and Dr. Court’s, and can’t be yours with your dealings in this case. None of us wants to see him kill again, Detective Paris.”

“You don’t think he has a Christ delusion,” Ed interrupted as he continued to make methodical notes. “Is that just because he takes precautions? Christ was destroyed physically.”

“An excellent point.” The clear voice took on a richness. There was nothing he liked better than to have one of his students question his theories. Logan looked from one detective to the other and decided they made a good pair. “Still, I don’t see him as perceiving himself as anything but a tool. Religion, the structure, the barriers, the traditions of it, loom more predominantly than theology. He kills as a priest, whether he is one or not. He absolves and forgives as God’s proxy,” he continued, and saw Ben wince. “Not as the Son of God. I developed an interesting theory you missed, Dr. Court.”

She came to attention instantly. “Oh?”