“You’d damn well better be.” Ben yanked a chair out from under the table and thought he finally might be able to sit down. “Now let’s get to work.”

“Is she dead?”

“Not yet. But she will be.”

Manly gazed down at her prostrate figure, head tilted to one side, legs bent back at an unnatural angle. “Put up a pretty good fight. Better than you’d expect. Till I clubbed her on the back of the head.”

“You sound as if you admire her.”

Manly paused, uncommonly reflective for once. “I admire conviction. I may not agree with her. She was, after all, part of the conspiracy to kill helpless children. But I think she at least believed in what she was doing. And she didn’t give up easily.”

“I thought you weren’t going to… advance the program this early on.”

“She was getting away. And she’d seen me. I had no choice.”

No choice, his friend thought, because you bungled everything in your usual stupid way.

“Do you think she’s dreaming?” Manly asked.

“I don’t know. If you’d like, I’ll club you over the head. Then you can report back to me.”

“Pass. Still, she seems so peaceful.”

“Not as peaceful as she’ll seem… after you finish.”

“True,” Manly said, nodding. “All too true.” He reached out with his hands, his fingers curled like claws.

“You’re going to strangle her? Like the others?”

Manly’s face twisted around until, finally, it resolved itself in a strange sort of smile. “Yes,” he said, as his hands clenched her throat. “Like the others.”

The Gospel According to Daniel

Be careful what you wish for, says the old axiom, which I believe is actually derived from St. Augustine. You may get it. Wise words indeed.

I had wanted to take the stand in my own defense all along. Although I was intellectually cognizant of my attorney’s reasons for advising against it, I still wished for the opportunity. It held an irresistible attraction for me. I fantasized about telling my story with such persuasion and eloquence that the prosecution’s case simply melted away. In my mind, a jury might well suspect me when all they heard were the words of my enemies, but once they heard me testify, once they heard my story told from my own lips, they would be unable to see me in any light but positive.

And it was not my plan to dissemble or fabricate. I would tell the story and tell it straight, to adapt the words of Dickinson. I would tell them the good and the bad, but I would tell it with clarity and sincerity. Confession is good for the soul, after all. While we may not be as driven to confession as our Catholic brethren, even an Episcopalian could see the merits, both therapeutic and judicial, in telling the story as it happened, warts and all. I would impress them with my forthrightness. I would dazzle them with my purity.

In retrospect, of course, I recognize this for the hubris that it was. If this were a Greek tragedy with me as the star-and indeed, many of the key elements are present-then my fatal flaw, my downfall, came from the sin of pride. I was in love with myself, my ideas and philosophies, my theological daring and innovation-when I should have been in love with God. I should have trusted Him in all respects instead of trying to do an end run around Him, trying to act as if He weren’t really necessary because I was so astonishingly brilliant on my own. I never lost faith, but too much of my faith was tainted, was a bad faith, because it was invested in the spirit of man rather than the Holy Spirit of God.

All of which is easy to say now. At the time, I couldn’t see it. I still perceived the opportunity to testify as a positive development. I still thought I could save myself.

How powerfully, unimaginably, stunningly wrong I was would become apparent with the speed and immediacy of a lightning bolt. A bolt, one might say, cast down from the heavens.

“How long have you served as a priest?” Christina asked him, sticking faithfully to her notes. Every word, every placement of a question, had been carefully worked out the night before. Served, not worked. Priest, not rector. Establish the length to make the point that he has had successful parishes in the past.

“Thirty-four years,” Father Beale replied.

“And how long have you been at St. Benedict’s?”

“More than three years. The bishop recommended my transfer, and the vestry accepted the recommendation. The parish had many problems finding a rector after the retirement of a longtime founding priest, and the bishop felt I might be able to get the church back on track.”

“Is that what happened?”

“No. Not even close.” Father Beale was doing well, Ben thought, watching from counsel table. Good thing. If he couldn’t handle himself on these softball questions, there was no hope for what would come later. His witness stand demeanor was good; he seemed cool, poised, and smart, without coming off as pompous. He still had a tendency to overintellectualize-Ben and Christina had coached him to use simple, direct words-but it wasn’t so extreme that it seemed arrogant. “From the outset, there was opposition to me and almost everything I did. It got worse, as time progressed, but it was there all along.”

“Why do you think that was?”

Beale stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I think there were many reasons. St. Benedict’s had benefited from an extended relationship with its previous priest, Father Raymond Ostler. It’s not unusual, after a situation such as that, for parishioners to have a difficult time making adjustments, accepting a new leader with his own way of doing things. In my field, the first priest after a long-termer is often referred to as the ‘sacrifice priest,’ because everyone knows that it probably won’t work, but that some buffer is needed, some interim rector who, despite his apparent failure, in fact helps the parish make the sometimes difficult adjustment to a new leader.”

“So you were St. Benedict’s ‘sacrifice priest’?”

“You could see it that way, and in fact, I know that the bishop did. I still had hopes that I could make it work. And at first, it was working. Although there were difficulties.”

“Such as?”

“I’ve always been openly political; I feel that religion and politics are inextricably intertwined. You can’t call yourself a Christian, in my view, and stand idly by while people are mistreated and discriminated against, whether it’s people of other races, or women, or people of different sexual preferences.”

“Did this create disharmony in the church?”

“Of course it did. The people of St. Benedict’s may be Episcopalians, but we still live in the Bible Belt, and it shows. Still, I felt I could make people come to see my viewpoint and, if not agree, at least respect my need and right to do what I was called to do.”

“Were there other problems?”

“Yes. When I first arrived, the church was deeply in debt. Pledges had fallen off, but the budget had not been adjusted accordingly. In order to stabilize the budget and put us on a firmer financial footing, I pressed for the elimination of some of our member-oriented programs. I didn’t like doing it, but I thought it better to eliminate that than to do away with the outreach programs I considered the most important part of our ministry. Nonetheless, as I’m sure you can imagine, anytime you eliminate someone’s pet program, you create an adversary.”

“What other problems did you have?”

Beale proceeded, in the same open, candid manner. “There was an initial conflict with the music minister, Paul Masterson, who had been at St. Benedict’s several years longer than I had. I think he was threatened by my arrival, and he soon began marshaling his adherents to his support, and against me. He seemed to think I was encroaching on his turf.”