He was staring at his grandfather, but when I touched his sleeve, he turned to me. “Why did you bring him here?” he demanded. “I thought I could trust you!”

“I didn’t bring him. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that you might be here-you’ve been worshiping at Mt. Ararat, you admire Andrés, you sing in the choir. And then Grobian told someone he’d seen you on Ninety-second Street with a girl.”

“Oh, why can’t people just mind their own business? Boys walk down the street with girls all over the world, every day! Does it have to go up on the By-Smart Web site because I do it?”

We’d both been hissing at each other to be heard above the electronic music, but his voice rose to a wail now. Josie was eyeing us along with the rest of the choir, but while they were frankly curious she looked nervous.

“And now what’s he doing?” Billy demanded.

I looked behind me. Buffalo Bill was trying to get to his grandson, but the five men who’d been helping with the service were blocking his path. Bysen actually tried to strike one of them with his walking stick, but the men made a circle around him and moved him from the dais-even the old one with the bobbing head and quavering voice was shuffling along, one hand on Bysen’s coat.

Mrs. Bysen struggled out the far side of the pew, her arms stretched out toward her grandson. I noticed Jacqui stayed in her seat, wearing the catlike smile of malicious pleasure she put on for Bysen family discomfiture. Mr. William and Uncle Gary knew their duty, though, and joined the bodyguard in the aisle. For a moment, it looked as though there was going to be a pitched battle between the Bysen men and the Mt. Ararat ministers. Mrs. Bysen was being buffeted dangerously in the melee; she wanted to reach her grandson, but the ministers and her sons were squeezing her between them.

Billy watched his family, white-faced. He made a helpless gesture toward his grandmother, then jumped down from the riser and disappeared behind a partition. I clambered over the riser to follow him.

The partition blocked the body of the church from a narrow space that led to a robing room. I ran through the room as its second door was swinging shut. When I pushed it open, I found myself in a big hall where women were fussing around with coffeepots and Kool-Aid pitchers. Toddlers crawled unsupervised at their feet, sucking on cookies or plastic toys.

“Where’s Billy?” I demanded, and then saw a flash of red and a door closing at the far end of the room.

I sprinted across the room and out the door. I was just in time to see Billy climb into a midnight blue Miata and roar south on Houston Street.

“Billy’s been sleeping here.” I made it a statement, not a question.

Josie Dorrado was sitting on the couch with her sister and the baby, María Inés. The television was on. I had muted the sound when I came in, but, for once, Julia seemed more interested in the drama of her family’s life than in what was happening on the screen.

Josie bit her lips nervously, pulling off a piece of skin. “He wasn’t here. Our ma don’t let no boys sleep over.”

I had driven straight to the Dorrado apartment from the church, waiting outside in my car until Rose walked up the street with her children, and then following her to their front door.

“You,” Rose said dully when she saw me. “I might have guessed. What devil was in me the day I asked Josie to bring you home? Ever since that day it’s been nothing but bad luck, bad luck.”

It’s always good to have an outsider to blame your troubles on. “Yes, Rose, that’s a terrible blow, the destruction of the factory. I wish either you or Frank Zamar had talked to me frankly about what was going on there. Do you know who burned down the plant?”

“Why do you care? Will it bring my job back, or return Frank to life, if you find out?”

I pulled the soap dish out of my shoulder bag. I’d sealed it in a plastic bag, but I handed it to Rose and asked if she recognized it.

She barely gave it a glance before shaking her head.

“It wasn’t in the employee bathroom at the factory?”

“What? Something like that? We had a dispenser on the wall.”

I turned to Josie, who had peered over her mother’s shoulder at the little frog.

“You recognize this, Josie?”

She shifted from foot to foot, looking nervously behind her into the living room, where Julia was sitting on the couch. “No, Coach.”

One of the little boys was jumping up and down. “Don’t you ’member, Josie, we seen them, they was at the store, and-”

“Quiet, Betto, don’t be butting in when Coach is talking to me. We seen them-saw them-around, they had them at By-Smart around Christmas last year.”

“You buy one?” I prodded, puzzled by her nervousness.

“No, Coach, I never.”

“Julia did,” Betto burst out. “Julia bought it. She wanted to give it-”

“She bought it for Sancia,” Josie put in quickly. “Her and Sancia used to hang out, before María Inés came.”

“Is that right?” I asked the boy.

He hunched a shoulder. “I dunno. I guess so.”

“Betto?” I knelt so my head was at his level. “You thought Julia bought it for a different person, not for Sancia, didn’t you?”

“I don’t remember,” he said, his head down.

“Leave him alone,” Rose said. “You went and bothered Frank Zamar and he got burned to death, now you want to bother my children so you can see what bad things happen to them?”

She grabbed his hand and dragged him into the apartment. The other boy followed, casting me a terrified glance. Great. Now the boys would think of me as the bogey-woman, able to get them murdered in a fire if they spoke to me.

I pushed Josie into the apartment. “You and I need to talk.”

She sat on the couch, the baby between her and her sister. Julia had clearly been paying attention to our exchange at the door: she sat tense and alert, her eyes on Josie.

In the dining room beyond, I could see the two boys sitting under the table, quietly crying. Rose had disappeared, either into the bedroom or the kitchen. It occurred to me that the couch had to be her bed: when I was here before, I’d seen the twin beds where Josie and Julia slept, and the air mattresses for the boys in the dining room. There wasn’t any other place in the apartment for Rose.

“So where did Billy sleep?” I asked. “Out here?”

“He wasn’t here,” Josie said quickly.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “When he left Pastor Andrés’s house he had to go somewhere. He drove you to the hospital yesterday. I know you and he are seeing each other. Where did he sleep?”

Julia tossed her long mane of hair. “Me and Josie shared one bed, Billy slept in the other.”

“Why you have to go shooting off your mouth?” Josie demanded.

“Why you have to let that rich gringo stay here in your bed when he could buy a whole house if he want a place to sleep?” Julia shot back.

Little María Inés began to fuss on the couch, but neither sister paid any attention to her.

“And your mother was okay with this arrangement?” I was incredulous.

“She don’t know, you can’t tell her.” Josie looked nervously at the dining room, where her brothers were still staring at us. “The first time, she was at work, she was at her second job, and she never even got home until one in the morning, and then, last night and Friday, Billy, he come in-came in through the kitchen door after she was in bed.”

“And Betto and your other brother won’t tell her, and she won’t notice? You two are nuts. How long have you and Billy been dating?”

“We’re not dating. Ma won’t let me date anyone because of Julia having a baby.” Josie scowled at her sister.

“Well, anyway, the Bysens don’t want Billy dating no spic girl,” Julia flashed at her.

“Billy never called me a spic. You’re just jealous because a nice Anglo boy is interested in me, not some chavo like you picked up!”