They passed a vast bowl half sunk in the ground, above it a rubberized fabric stretched tight by ship-weight cables. At the far end was a broad stage and lighting system.

“An amphitheater,” Nautilus said.

“It seats twelve hundred guests. We have three plays daily, ending with the Passion nightly at seven. Tickets sell out in advance, but I can get you comps.”

“Is there normally a charge?”

“Twelve-fifty for adults. But that’s for the Passion. The other plays are five dollars.”

Tawnya reached for the steering wheel and Nautilus shot a glance toward her long-sleeved arms, a theory forming in his mind. The streets entwined and led different directions, and then they were past and into a grove of compact and silvery leafed trees.

“Olive trees?” Nautilus said.

A hair-bouncing nod. “Olive trees grow particularly well in the Florida climate. At the peak of ripeness the fruit is pressed into oil. It’s available for sale and most people find it perfect for anointing. It’s very blessed since it comes from the heart of Hallelujah Jubilee.”

As he had several times before, Nautilus had the impression of hearing words read from a script. The cart continued for several hundred feet, stopping before an artificially constructed hillside, a mound rising fifty feet above the flat terrain where a massive wooden boat was nestled into the ground, over two hundred feet of steep wooden hull with a single-story structure on the deck high above. Nautilus saw a door in the side of the hull and a beaten path leading from the door into the fenced pasture beyond, the grass as green as a golf course in spring. A throng of visitors ringed the attraction, gawking and taking photos.

“The Ark,” Tawnya said needlessly. “There’s a daily parade of animals from inside. It’s like being there when it really happened. People get so overcome with the Spirit that they faint.”

Nautilus looked out into the pasture and blinked in disbelief. “Uh, there’s an elephant in the field.”

“That’s Ezekiel. We have three elephants. Look past the trees over there … that’s one of the donkeys, I can’t tell who. Everyone loves it when the animals come two-by-two from the Ark. Twenty-one species, including elephants, camels, donkeys, zebras, horses, dogs and cats. The parade is the first attraction of the morning, at nine, the costumed handlers bringing the flock from the Ark to the ground of Ararat.”

Nautilus pictured being shut inside the ark with a horde of stinking, braying, spitting beasts and figured he knew why it was the first attraction of the day. He looked a half-mile into the distance, surprised to see a tall and slender building, five stories at least, looking like a mine tipple from eastern Kentucky or West Virginia. It was as tall as the cross.

“That strange skinny building … is it one of yours?”

“It’s on the property, but it’s not part of the park experience yet. The administrators are always developing new attractions and I know it’s going to be something really exciting one day.”

If the distant building was on the property, Nautilus realized, the park had to be over a mile in each direction.

“Who owns the park, Tawnya?”

“Reverend Schrum started it to give families a place to visit where their values were respected. It’s a non-profit organization, an educational institution. Any fees are for the upkeep, which is ongoing and always a challenge, given the amount of attractions.”

Rote recitation again. Tawnya continued her packaged soliloquy as they passed various replicated sites: “… a representation of the Wailing Wall … the Church of the Annunciation … the Mount of Temptation … the Garden of Eden …”

She returned Nautilus to the entrance and handed him her business card. “Anything you need, Mr Nautilus, call me. I’m here to make your stay as perfect as it can be.”

His fingers seemed to bobble the card and it flapped to the ground. The lithe young woman reached to the concrete, pulling her sleeve two inches higher. Nautilus smiled to himself, his suspicions confirmed, the girl’s wrist encircled by a tattoo of barbed-wire. It explained long sleeves on a hot day: Tattoos were not an image the park endorsed.

And maybe the lovely young Tawnya had a sportier past than the aw-shucks-gee act suggested.

Tawnya waved and zipped away in the cart. Head reeling with odd images, Nautilus headed to the parking lot, passing by the gift shop at the exit. In the front window were small tear-shaped bottles, beside them a sign: Hallelujah Jubilee Anointment Oil, from olives grown in America’s Holiest Site!

You could buy an ounce of the pale yellow fluid for $39.99. Though on the bright side, Nautilus thought, a park-logoed cap was only $19.99. He walked outside as a trio of buses were unloading, happy pilgrims exiting and streaming through the gates, wallets pulled, bills waving, credit cards shining in the sun.

Hallelujah, indeed.

23

Judge Hubert Hawkins turned his jowly visage to me. “You can step down, Detective Ryder.”

I exited the witness stand, shooting a glance at the jury box where a dozen faces weighed my testimony. I shot a look toward the defendant, a mercurial little psychopath named Hugo Valenciana, his face coated with tattoos, like he was going trick-or-treating as a sketchpad. He gave me dead eyes and I gave him a smile and turned my next glance to Ronnie Billings, the prosecutor from the DA’s office. He shot me a wink and tapped his thumb to his lips, Ronnie’s sign for You did a great job, go grab a drink.

I left the courtroom, happy to have finished a day of testimony and full-bore cross-examination by Valenciana’s ruthless lawyer, but bemoaning a lost day for the Sandoval and Mailey cases. The Valenciana case had been looming for months and my presence was absolute, since I’d been the lead on the investigation.

I stood in the Halls of Justice and looked at my watch: 4.30 p.m. A voice called from behind.

“How’d it go, Detective Ryder?”

I turned to Holly Belafonte, dressed in a blue blouse and pressed denim jeans, a light jacket with a simple pin, a cloisonné conch.

“Valenciana’s toast. How’d your day go?”

She nodded, as prim and businesslike as ever. “Several things were accomplished, I believe. I checked the flow rate.”

“Pardon me?”

“In the canal. Where Teresa was found … you asked me to—”

I’d forgotten, the thought lost in mental minutiae. “Sorry. What do you have?”

“Slack tide that period, with outflow beginning near dawn. Absent rainfall in the previous twenty-four hours, the flow was approximately nine hundred feet per hour.”

I smiled. “Pretty precise. You toss two cigarette butts in the water this time?”

She dug in her bag for a notepad, flipping through pages of tiny, perfect script. “I obtained concurring opinions from the US Meteorological Service, the US Geological Survey, the Everglades Protective Association, and the Metro Miami Water Authority, which monitors four electronic stream-flow meters on the canal, situated approximately one-point-three miles apart and stretching from—”

I held up my hand to cut her off and recalled the interstate near the site where the body was found, Highway 441 upstream of the interstate. “If I remember, that would indicate the body could have been dumped from the 441 bridge – your original conjecture. But there’s another highway crossing the waterway, plus a large lake further upstream.”

She shook her head. “Not if we assume the body was placed in the water after midnight, which keeps to approximate time of death per the postmortem. It’s either the always-busy interstate or the less-traveled 441, at least at that time of night.”

I thought it through. She seemed right. But she had more.

“I also spoke to several of the odious T’Shawn Matthews’ stable, if that’s what it’s called.”