“Well, all right then,” he said. “I think it’s for real, or let’s just say I suspect so, and most of my reasoning’s based on pathology. Sure, okay. Black Mass. It happens. But anyone doing those things is a very disturbed human being, and disturbed in a very special way. There’s a clinical name for that kind of disturbance, in fact; it’s called satanism—meaning people who can’t have any sexual pleasure unless it’s connected to a blasphemous action. And so I think—”

“You mean ‘suspect.’ ”

“Yes, I suspect that Black Mass was just used as the justification.”

“Is used.”

“Was and is.”

“Was and is,” the detective echoed dryly. “And the psychiatric name for the disorder in which the person is always having to have the last word?”

“Karrasmania,” said the priest with a smile.

“Thank you. This was formerly a lacuna in my vast store of knowledge of the strange and exotic. In the meantime, please forgive me, but the things with the statues of Jesus and Mary?”

“What about them?”

“They’re true?”

“Well, I think this might interest you as a policeman.” His scholarly interest aroused and stirring, the Jesuit’s manner had grown quietly animated. “The records of the Paris police still carry the case of a couple of monks from a nearby monastery—let’s see…” He scratched the back of his head as he tried to recall. “Yes, maybe the one at Crépy,” he said at last. The priest shrugged. “Well, whichever. Some town close by. At any rate, the monks came into an inn and got belligerent about wanting a bed for three—the two of them and a life-sized statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary that they carried in with them.”

“Ah, that’s shocking,” breathed out Kinderman.

“No kidding. But it’s a fair indication that what you’ve been reading is based on fact.”

“Well, the sex, maybe so, this I can see; that’s a whole other story altogether. Never mind. But the ritual murders now, Father? That’s true? Now come on! Using blood from the newborn babies?” The detective was alluding to something else he had read in the book on witchcraft, describing how the unfrocked priest at Black Mass would at times slit the wrist of a newborn infant so that the blood poured into a chalice and later was consecrated and consumed in the form of Holy Communion. “That’s just like the stories they used to tell about the Jews,” the detective continued. “How they stole Christian babies and drank their blood. Look, forgive me, but your people told all those stories.”

“If we did, forgive me.”

“Go and sin no more. You’re absolved.”

Like the shadow of some pain but briefly remembered, something dark, something sad, flitted swiftly across the priest’s blank stare. He turned his head and looked ahead. “Yeah, right.”

“You were saying?”

“Well, I really don’t know about ritual murder,” Karras said; “about that I have no clue. But I do know that a midwife in Switzerland once confessed to the murder of thirty or forty babies for use at Black Mass. Oh, well, maybe she was tortured into saying that,” he amended with a shrug. “But she sure as heck told a convincing story. She described how she’d hide a long, thin needle up her sleeve, so that when she was delivering the baby, she’d slip out the needle and stick it through the crown of the baby’s head, and then hide the needle again. No marks,” Karras said as he turned a glance to Kinderman. “The baby looked stillborn. You’ve heard of the prejudice European Catholics used to have against midwives? Well, that’s how it started.”

“Ah, my God!”

“Yes, this century hasn’t got a lock on insanity. But—”

“Wait a minute, wait now!” the detective interrupted. “These stories—like you said, they were told by some people who were probably tortured, correct? So they’re basically unreliable. They signed the confessions and later, the machers, the pious shmeis and the haters, they filled in the blanks. I mean, there wasn’t any habeas corpus then, right? No writ of ‘Let My People Go.’ ”

“Very true, but then a lot of the confessions were voluntary.”

“So who would volunteer such things?”

“Doubtless people who were mentally disturbed.”

“Ah, another reliable source!”

“Oh, well, you’re probably right about that too, Lieutenant. I’m just playing devil’s advocate.”

“You do it so well.”

“Look, one thing that we sometimes tend to forget is that people psychotic enough to confess to such things might also be psychotic enough to have done them. For example, the myths about werewolves, let’s say. So, okay, they’re preposterous: no one can turn himself into a wolf. But what if a person were so disturbed that he not only thought that he was a werewolf, but he also acted like one?”

“This is theory now, good Father, or fact?”

“Fact. There was a William Stumpf, for example. Or maybe his first name was Karl. I can’t remember. Anyway, a German in the sixteenth century. He thought he was a werewolf and murdered maybe twenty or thirty young children.”

“You mean, he—quotation marks, Father—confessed it?”

“Yes, he did and I think the confession was valid. When they caught him, he was eating the brains of his two young daughters-in-law.”

From the baseball practice field, crisp in the thin, clear April sunlight, came the ghosts of chatter and ball against bat. “C’mon, Price, let’s shag it, let’s go, get the lead out!”

They had come to the parking lot, and for a brief space of time they walked in silence until at last, when they had come to the squad car, the detective turned a mournful, moody look to the priest. “And so what am I looking for, Father?” he asked him.

“A psycho on drugs maybe,” Karras answered.

Staring down at the sidewalk, the detective thought it over and then mutely nodded. “Yes, right, Father. Yes. Maybe so.” He looked up, his expression now pleasant. “Listen Father, where are you going? Want a ride?”

“No thanks, Lieutenant. It’s just a short walk.”

“Never mind that! Enjoy!” the detective told him, motioning Karras to get into the backseat of the car. “Then you can tell all your friends you went riding in a police car. I will sign a certificate attesting to it. They will envy you. Come on, now, get in!”

With a nod and a sad half smile, the priest said, “Okay,” and slipped into a seat in the back of the car while the detective squirmed into it beside him from the opposite side. “Very good,” said the detective, a little short of breath. “And incidentally, good Father, no walk is short. No, none!” He turned to the policeman at the wheel and said, “Avanti!”

“Where to, sir?”

“Thirty-Sixth Street and halfway down Prospect, left side of the street.”

As the driver nodded and started backing the squad car out of its parking spot, Karras turned a mildly questioning look to the detective. “How do you know where I live?” he said.

“It’s not a Jesuit residence hall? You’re not a Jesuit?”

Karras turned his head and stared through the windshield as the squad car slowly headed for the campus front gates. “Yeah, right,” he said softly. He had moved his quarters to the residence hall from his Holy Trinity courtyard location just a few days before in the hope it might encourage the men he had counseled to continue to seek his help.

“You like movies, Father Karras?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You’ve seen Lear with Paul Scofield?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Me, I’ve seen it. I get passes.”

“Good for you.”

“I get passes for the very best shows, but Mrs. K., she gets tired very early. She never goes.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yes, I hate to go alone. You know, afterward I love to talk film; to discuss; to critique.”

Silent, Karras nodded, then looked down at his large and powerful hands that he was holding clasped between his legs. Moments passed. And then Kinderman asked in a wistful tone of voice, “Would you like to see a film with me sometime? It’s free.”

“Yes, I know. You get passes.”

“Would you like to?”

“As Elwood P. Dowd says in Harvey, ‘When?’ ”

“Oh, I’ll call you!” The detective was beaming.

“Okay, do that. I’d like that.”

They had exited the campus front gates, taken a right and then left on Prospect Street and had arrived at the residence hall and parked. Karras opened the door on his side partway and, looking back at the detective, said, “Thanks for the ride,” got out of the car, shut the car door and, leaning his forearms on the open window jamb, said, “I’m sorry that I couldn’t be of very much help.”

“No, you were,” said the detective. “And thank you. In the meantime, I’ll give a call about a film, I really will.”

“I’ll look forward,” said Karras. “Take care, now.”

“I will. And you too.”

Karras pulled back from the car, straightened up, turned around and was moving away when he heard, “Father, wait!”

Karras turned and saw Kinderman emerging from the car and beckoning him to come to him. Karras did, and met Kinderman on the sidewalk. “Listen, Father, I forgot,” the detective told him. “It completely slipped my mind about the card. You know, the card with the writing in Latin on it? The one that was found in the church?”

“Yes, the altar card.”

“Whatever. It’s still around?”

“Yes, I’ve got it in my room. I was checking out the Latin but I’m finished now. You want it?”

“It could show something. Yes. May I have it?”

“Sure. Hold on and I’ll go get it for you now.”

“I’m obliged.”

While Kinderman leaned back against the squad car and waited, the Jesuit went quickly to his ground-floor room, found the card, placed it inside a manila envelope, came back out to the street and handed the envelope to Kinderman.

“Here you go.”

“Father, thank you,” said Kinderman as he lifted the envelope to his scrutiny. “There could be some fingerprints, I’m thinking.” Then he looked up at Karras with incipient dismay. He said, “Oy! You’ve been handling the card, Kirk Douglas, replaying your role in Detective Story? No gloves? Your bare hands.”

“I plead guilty.”

“And without an explanation,” grumbled Kinderman. Shaking his head and eyeing Karras dismally, he added, “Father Brown you are not. Never mind, maybe still we could find something from it.” Here he held up the envelope. “Incidentally, you studied this, you say?”

Karras nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“And your conclusion? I await with bated breath.”

“I couldn’t say,” Karras told him, “except whatever the motive was—hatred of Catholicism, maybe. Who knows? But what’s certain is the guy who did this is deeply disturbed.”

“How do you know it was a man?”

Karras shrugged and looked away, his gaze following a passing Gunther beer truck as it rumbled on the cobblestones of the street. “Oh, well, I don’t,” he said.

“And it couldn’t be some teenage lout?”

“No, it couldn’t.” Karras turned to look at Kinderman again. “It’s the Latin,” he said.

“The Latin? Oh, you mean on the altar card.”

“Yes. The Latin’s flawless, Lieutenant, and more than that, it’s got a definite style that’s extremely individual.”

“That’s so?”

“That’s so. It’s as if whoever wrote it can think in Latin.”

“Can priests?”

“Oh, come on!” Karras scoffed.

“Just answer the question, please, Father Paranoia.”

Karras turned his stare back to Kinderman and, after a pause, admitted, “Okay, yes. There comes a point in our training when we do—at least the Jesuits and maybe a couple of the other orders. At Woodstock Seminary in Maryland, our philosophy courses are taught in Latin.”

“Why is that?”

“For precision of thought. It expresses nuances and subtle distinctions that English can’t handle.”

“Ah, I see.”

Looking suddenly grave, his stare intense, the priest leaned his face in close to the detective’s. “Look, Lieutenant, can I tell you who I really think did it?”

The detective’s eyebrows furrowed with interest.

“Yes, who!”

“The Dominicans. Go pick on them.”

Karras smiled, and as he turned and walked away, the detective called after him, “I lied! You look like Sal Mineo!”

Karras turned with a grin and a friendly wave and then opened the door to the residence hall and entered, while outside on the sidewalk the detective stood motionless, speculatively staring as he murmured, “He hums like a tuning fork held under the water.” For a few seconds more he continued staring pensively at the residence entry door. And then abruptly he turned and, opening the right front door of the squad car, he slid into the passenger seat, closed the door and told the driver, “Back to headquarters. Hurry. Break laws.”

Karras’s new quarters in the Jesuit residence hall was sparely furnished: bookshelves built into one wall, a single bed, two comfortable chairs, plus a desk with a straight-backed wooden chair. On the desk was an early photo of his mother, and on the wall above his bed, in silent rebuke, hung a bronze-colored metal crucifix. For Karras, the narrow room was world enough. He cared little for possessions; only that those he had be clean.

He showered, scrubbing briskly, slipped on a white T-shirt and khaki chinos, then ambled to dinner in the priests’ refectory, where he spotted pink-cheeked Dyer. Wearing a faded Snoopy sweatshirt, he was sitting alone at a table in a corner. Karras moved to join him.

“Hi, Damien.”

“Hey, Joe.”

Standing in front of his chair, Karras blessed himself and closed his eyes while inaudibly murmuring a rapid grace, then sat down at the table and spread a napkin on his lap.

“How’s the loafer?” Dyer asked him.

“Whaddya mean? I’m working.”

“One lecture a week?”

“It’s the quality that counts. What’s dinner?”

“Can’t you smell it?”

Karras grimaced. “Oh hell, is it dog day?”

Knockwurst and sauerkraut.

“It’s the quantity that counts,” said Dyer; then, as Karras reached out for a pitcher of milk, the young priest quietly warned, “I wouldn’t do that,” while he buttered a slice of whole wheat bread. “See the bubbles? Saltpeter.”

“I need it.” As Karras tipped up his glass to fill it, he heard the scrape of a chair as someone pulled it back and joined them at the table.

“Well, I finally read that book,” said the newcomer brightly.

Karras glanced up and felt instant dismay, felt the soft crushing weight, press of lead, press of bone, as he recognized the young priest who had come to him recently for counseling, the one who could not make friends.

“Oh, and what did you think of it?” Karras asked as if with interest. He set down the pitcher of milk as if it were the booklet for a broken novena.

The young priest talked and, half an hour later, Dyer was table-hopping, spiking the refectory with laughter. Karras checked his watch. “Want to pick up a jacket and walk across the street?” he asked the young priest. “I like to watch the sunset every night if I can.”

Soon they were leaning against a railing at the top of the steps that plunged steeply down to M Street. End of day. The burnished rays of the setting sun flamed glory on the clouds of the western sky before shattering in gold and vermilion dapples on the darkening waters of the river. Once Karras met God in this sight. Long ago. Like a lover forsaken, he still kept the rendezvous.

Drinking it in, the young priest said, “So beautiful. Really.”

“Yes, it is.”

The campus tower clock boomed out the hour: 7:00 P.M.

At 7:23, Lieutenant Kinderman was pondering a spectrographic analysis showing that the paint from Regan’s sculpture matched a scraping of paint from the desecrated statue of the Virgin Mary, and at 8:47, in a slum in the northeast section of the city, an impassive Karl Engstrom emerged from a rat-infested tenement building, walked three blocks south to a bus stop where he waited alone for a minute, expressionless, then clutched at a lamppost with both his hands as he crumpled against it, racked with tears.

At the time, Lieutenant Kinderman was at the movies.