On Friday there was a burst of activity. Clark and Jess teamed up to find an agent for the sale of both the Heartland property and the bakery business. Sue-Ann and Dean finished the library inventory and boxing; duplicates were still left on the shelves, but now to serve as a skeleton library until the actual move. Max looked for rental-van bargains online and planned the route to the New Mexico property. Gloria and Rosco went through the storage rooms in the trailer, deciding what would be taken to New Mexico and what could be given away or sold. Casey took a load of dishes into town for firing while Betsy kept painting.

Jess and Dean got only a few minutes to talk. They spent the time speculating on which pair of Lifeblood members might have killed Nick, but couldn't come up with any two that seemed vastly more likely than any others.

When Dean was released from his Probationer class at 9:50, he strolled casually past the meeting hall, then looked around to be sure he wasn't being observed, then ducked behind the building and got out his phone.

It was answered immediately. "Hello, Dean."

"Cas! Good to hear your voice."

"It's good to hear yours, too. I'd rather see you in person."

"That goes double, buddy. I'd suggest a quick round of phone sex, but I'm outdoors and it's a little chilly for that."

Cas laughed. "I guess you'll have to settle for the real thing tomorrow. What time will you be back? Can I come and get you?"

"Not sure. We're going to be here most of the day – Jess wants one more shot at Nick's office, although I think that's a wild goose chase myself. Sometime when I can do it I'm going to put my stuff in a box and smuggle it out to the car. About 5:30, when Jess usually goes to close down the bakery for the day, she's going to take me with her and say she needs my help on something. We'll go straight to the Sheriff's office and she's going to tell them about the knife, and about our trying to re-create the crime. After that, how long it takes is up to them. If they think we're brilliant and want to hear all about it, we might be there a while. My guess is, they're gonna say, 'Oh great, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, that's what we need,' and kick us politely out. What I'm saying is, somewhere between six and nine o'clock, and you'll probably be picking me up at the Sheriff's office."

"The only thing I have scheduled tomorrow is a visit to the Spencer Museum at 11:30, so we'll obviously be out well before six, but if you – "

"'We?' As in, you and Balthazar?"

"And some friends of his. Don't do this, Dean."

"I'm not doing anything. Look," Dean leaned against the meeting house wall, "I know we've got this thing where there's my stuff and there's your stuff and there's stuff we do together. I'm just saying, Balthazar's smart friends aren't the only ones who can enjoy a museum, y'know."

"I know. I've thoroughly enjoyed it when we've gone to museums together."

"Maybe I should suggest it more often, or something. I know I'm not the most cultured – "

"Dean, I'm not going to listen – "

"— and I shouldn't get bent out of shape when you enjoy being around cultured people – "

"I enjoy being around you more than anyone."

"Well. Thanks."

"And for some reason, you don't believe me."

"I know I'm pretty bright for a normal guy. But you're hanging out with PhDs and college teachers, and – "

"You're talking about status, not intelligence."

"Either way, it feels – " Dean pulled himself straight. "Well. Look. I'm in this for the long haul. I'll learn to deal. Um, any special exhibit you're going to see?"

"Trash. As a reflection of society."

"Like – actual trash?"

"Arranged in three dimensional collages and sculptures, yes."

"Oh. Well. Have fun."

Cas laughed. "I don't know about fun, but I think it'll be interesting. The point is, I'll have my phone off in the museum, but I'll be out long before you'll be at the Sheriff's office. I had a question. – That was it. Won't Jess be in trouble with the group when she leaves with you and comes back without you?"

"No, she'll just say that it surprised her when I pulled a box out of the back seat and said I was leaving to resume my former sinful life. She tried to talk me out of it for however long, but finally I just walked away and left her – Wait."

His voice dropped to sudden quiet as he saw a figure yards away, walking toward the barn in the darkness.

"Dean?" The syllable was sharp and concerned.

"Don't worry. Nothing dangerous. Gotta go. Love you." Dean disconnected so quickly that he almost didn't hear Cas' response, and began following the moving figure by moonlight.

It was Dirk, and he not only walked toward the barn, he went in.

Dean hesitated. Then, slowly, he approached the barn door, which hung askew and slightly open. Clinging close to the wall, he peered as best he could into the building. All he could see was a familiar-looking point of orange light that moved up and down once as he watched.

Casting an apprehensive glance up at the roof, Dean stepped into the barn.

Dirk made a sudden move and swore. "Who the hell is that? Dean?"

"Yeah, it's me. So this is why you sneak down here at night? To smoke?"

"Yeah. If you're gonna tell anyone, I don't care."

"I'm not gonna tell anyone." Dean looked around as best he could in the near-complete blackness; Dirk was apparently sitting on a chair, and there was no other sign that Dean could see that humans spent any time there. "I'd never cross a guy with the balls to share his smoking place with rabid bats."

Dirk laughed softly. "All there are in here is mice and 'possums. Sometimes an owl. I saw a fox coming out once just before I went in."

"Bet there weren't many 'possums for a while after that."

Dirk chuckled. He took another drag as Dean looked around.

Then, just as Dean took a breath to say something, Dirk said, "I was here. The night the Messenger was killed."

Dean leaned forward and peered to his left, out the barn door. The outline of the meeting hall was visible in the darkness, but just barely. "Did you hear anything?"

Dirk shook his head. There was a moment's silence.

"You'd think that'd make me quit."

"You mean – "

"Knowing I was here, and he was over there, and maybe if I'd been paying attention I could've – "

After another moment, Dean said, "I don't know what you could've done. They stabbed him in the throat first, probably exactly to keep him from yelling. After that, maybe a couple chairs turning over. I don't think anyone could hear that from here."

"Maybe if I'd been where I should've been, or noticed the light go on over there, instead of being holed up in here stewing about – "

Dirk showed no inclination to finish that, and Dean did it for him. "Gloria?"

Dirk looked up at him, took another drag, looked down at the ground.

"I mean, you two – it just seems like you get along pretty good."

"She's great," Dirk said. "She's been through a lot of crap. The Messenger probably saved her life."

Dean waited, then decided to plunge. "Did he figure she owed him for that?"

"He wasn't like that!" Dirk snapped.

He took another puff. "He wasn't like that."

"But if he had been – "

"You didn't know him. So shut up."

Dean backed off. "Yeah, you're right. Sorry. Kinda put me off when I heard the thing about the three wives."

"If something puts you off, you need to ask someone about it. Get it clear in your head. We have enough enemies out there, we don't need any here."

"Whoa! I'm not an enemy."

Dirk was quiet for a moment. "Yeah, OK."

"I mean, you can have questions without being an enemy, can't you?"

"Sometimes you need to accept things. Not go stirring up discontent with questions."

"Like you accepted – "

"God, you're worse than the cops." Dirk jumped to his feet, and Dean braced.

But Dirk simply stepped outside, dropped his cigarette butt on a patch of bare dirt, and ground it out with his foot.

Dean followed. "Where do you hide the butts?"

"Bury 'em out back." Dirk huffed a laugh. "Clark found 'em once, waited out here to see who was coming down and smoking."

"Crap. What happened?"

"No big deal. I had to confess in front of everyone at the next meeting, wear a chain for a few days. I actually quit for a while."

As if trying to sound un-cop-like, Dean asked very casually, "So, uh, when'd you start again?"

Silence. Then Dirk said, "Actually, that night."

"Was there any – " Dean began, but then Dirk chuckled and said, "Don't tell anyone. Clark gave me the cigarettes."

"No way."

"Told me he appreciated how hard I worked at the Festival that day, and I deserved something for it. He just said, make sure you stay in the barn where no one will see the light, and don't tell anyone I gave 'em to you."

"What do you know."

"Yeah. I decided the stick up his butt isn't as big as I thought."

Dean laughed, even as his eye was caught by motion at the top of the hill – a blonde woman running from the trailer to the house.

"I'm gonna have one more," Dirk said. "Want one?"

"No, thanks. I'm gonna crash. See you tomorrow."

"See ya," Dirk said, and disappeared back into the barn.

Dean hustled across the grounds and up the slope, and was almost to the house when Jess came out the back door and ran the few steps to meet him.

"I should've guessed," she whispered breathlessly.

.

About the time that Dean had left his Probationer class, Jess had put down her paintbrush, blinked hard, and focused across the hall of the trailer to the classroom window that, from this angle, showed only stars. She and Betsy were sitting close together at the small table in the small room they were using for the dishes project. Freshly painted plates, saucers and bowls lay on every available surface; and still a stack sat, blank and white, mocking them.

Jess stretched her arms straight up – the only way she could stretch them in the confined space – and yawned. "You are incredible, Betsy. I don't know how we'd have ever done this without you working so hard on it. Casey didn't realize what she was getting us into."

"I've been grateful for the work," Betsy said quietly. "It's so calming. And it lets me focus on creating something, instead of on – destruction."

"That's why you decided to keep up the project even after Casey – even after it was decided that we'd all go to New Mexico?"

Betsy looked up from her work with a droll expression. "Yes. And you must admit, we could use new dishes."

"No kidding."

Betsy looked back down, focusing on the movement of her tiny brush. She said, "You can talk about it, you know. I mean, Nick communicating with Casey. I still don't really understand. But I didn't understand a lot of things when he was alive, and still I know that he was divinely inspired. And I know that he loved me."

Betsy turned the plate in her hand, seemingly unaware that Jess had stopped painting and was looking at her.

Then Jess said, "You were married to him, weren't you? You were his legal wife."

Betsy nodded without looking up.

"Why isn't your last name Munroe?"

Betsy smiled a little. "When we moved here to begin the movement, Nick changed his name to Munroe. That's his middle name, or was. He felt that if we tried to attract followers and had the same name, people would think of Lifeblood as a 'mom-and-pop' operation, as if one of the few followers he could attract was his own wife. We had so few members in the beginning. It was very hard – well, of course it still is hard to convince people to join a movement that spurns materialism."

"Why did you come here?"

"Nick was doing some work in Chicago. He believed in it, but it was frustrating. He was trying to help people, but just couldn't find a way to reach them. He was sitting in the living room worrying when I went to bed one night. When I woke up the next morning, he was still in the living room, but he was pacing and excited and alive. He told me that he'd had a revelation from God, that God had told us to go someplace where His message might be received better – a smaller town, a college town – and God would tell Nick what to do from there. We left in three days."

She put her paintbrush down and wiped sudden tears from her face.

"People – the Misled, sometimes even former members – people have tried to point out Nick's sins to me, as though, if he was imperfect, he was a complete hypocrite. They expect God's Messenger to be perfect. And of course," she laughed a little, wiping tears again, "he wasn't. He was a human being."

Jess looked away for a moment, clenched and unclenched her jaw, then looked back at Betsy. "I didn't realize that the two of you were married until just recently. You know, when I joined, both you and Casey were called Brides, and I just assumed that the Messenger had always had Brides. I just – I wanted to say I'm sorry."

Betsy smiled a little. "That's very thoughtful of you, Jessica. Thank you." Determinedly, she picked up the brush and went back to work.

"How could you bear it?"

"It was hard."

For a moment it seemed like that was all she would say. Then she sucked in a breath. "Oh, you know, the, the physical aspect of marriage – wasn't that important to me. I actually, I actually had – some problems with it. Nick was very patient and very sweet, but when Casey came along – In a way, I didn't blame him."

Jess shook her head, very slightly.

"And she was good for him, in a way, all that energy. What was good for Nick was good for Lifeblood, you know. At first I resented her ferociously, but after a while I realized that – my part of him, the trust he had in me, the way we could communicate, the way he made me feel safe – that was all still there. Casey brought out the side of him that made Lifeblood grow. She encouraged him to do what needed to be done. So when you came along, with your intelligence and the ideas you had, it didn't surprise me, really. I didn't blame you. And there was still that part of Nick that was all mine. And always will be."

With incredible casualness, Jess went back to painting as she said, "Still, it's really lucky that Clark happened to come by here that night. The night Nick died. A lot of people, the detectives especially, might have thought you had good reason to kill him."

"As if I would care what the damned Misled would think."

Betsy's tone was so sharp that Jess looked up, startled. "I could tell from the questions they asked me, the relentlessness, I could tell they thought I had some hand in it. Or that I might make a good scapegoat. They would have laid the blame on any of us if they could have. They were determined to prove that Lifeblood was corrupt and murderous. I would have given any of our members an alibi, I would have accepted an alibi from any of us, before I let any of us be in peril of being falsely accused."

After a moment, Jess began, "So did you – " but Betsy wasn't through, although her voice became calmer. "I understand that you want to have faith in people, even the Misled, Jess. You're very young, and you have a good heart, so you assume everyone can be saved. That was why you were against establishing the Damned status among the Misled. But you were wrong. Some of the Misled really are lost beyond redemption. Some of them are – terribly cruel, even while they show a shiny perfect surface to the world. Some of them really are damned."

Jess nodded, slowly.

"We need to protect ourselves from people like that. Reaching out to them poisons us with their filth. Nick understood that."

She blinked hard and focused on painting. "He understood a lot of things."

"He did."

After a moment, Jess took a breath. "After what you were saying, I feel terrible asking for this favor, but it keeps – I keep having the feeling that this is important, for some reason, and I was hoping that you could, could talk to Clark. On my behalf."

"What is it?"

"I wanted to be by myself in Nick's office. With his urn. I wanted to – commune with him, in a way, not like Casey, I don't think he'll speak to me, but just be there with what remains of him. It's – I know it's incredibly rude of me to ask this of you, but I asked Clark about it once, and he said no, and I was wondering if you could maybe speak to him on my behalf."

Betsy's expression was mildly puzzled. "Why do you need me to ask Clark about the office?"

"Well, he has the key."

Betsy smiled demurely and, even before she reached into her pocket for a keyring, Jess had closed her eyes with a Stupid-Me look. "Of course you have a key."

"Of course I have a key." Delicately, she was freeing it from the ring. "I was the only one that Nick would allow in his office without his being there."

She extended the key.

"Do you – mind?" Jess asked, as if in spite of herself.

Betsy smiled. "It's just his ashes."

"I was planning on going to bed now, since I get up at four. Would you mind if I kept this until tomorrow?"

"No. I don't go into the office much now. The urn makes me so sad. Dishes – well, food is for living people."

Jess stood, and then quickly, as if on impulse, leaned forward and kissed the top of Betsy's head. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Sleep well."

Jess kept to a normal pace walking to the trailer door, but the moment she was outside she ran for the house's front door.

She tried to walk in casually, though. To her left, Sue-Ann was sitting in the formal living room reading a Bible. "Did Dean go on downstairs, do you know?" Jess asked.

"I don't know. He might have taken a walk. He does that before the Night Bell."

"Of course. Well, I'll catch him sometime," Jess said airily, and strolled down the hall.

She checked the kitchen and dining room quickly, then looked out the back door. She saw Dean coming up the slope and ran to meet him.

"I should've guessed," she said. "Betsy has a key to the office. She loaned it to me."

"Well done, Jess!"

"I don't think we should go in right now, though."

"With Eagle-Ears Sue-Ann about to wash up and get ready for bed right next door? No."

"I'll think of something that I need your help on and I'll leave a note tomorrow before I go to Baked. By the time I'm back, almost everyone will be out doing mission work. We can search the office then, and take whatever we find to the police at five-thirty."

"You know, Jess – I know you think we're going to find something crucial, but remember – "

" – the Sheriff's detectives will have taken anything crucial with them. I know. I'll bet you a quarter we find something that points to a specific person as the one who killed Nick."

"Betting? Sin's running rampant around this place. Dirk's down in the barn smoking as we speak."

"He started that again?"

"And Clark bought him cigarettes once."

"Oh, he did not!"

"According to Dirk. Dirk reports that the stick up Clark's butt isn't as big as previously thought."

Jess giggled, then looked around.

"There was something – " Dean began with a puzzled look, then shrugged. "Too much stuff in my head. I'll remember later."

"I'm half-wacky myself. I've got to get some sleep. We'll get into the office about 10:30 tomorrow."

Dean put a hand on her arm as she turned to go back to the house. "Keep in mind, Jess – if we do find something that clears most of your friends, it'll be because it incriminates two of them."

She nodded. "I'm focusing on the people who'll be cleared. Dean – "

It almost sounded like she wouldn't finish, and he tipped his head.

"I hope it's not Betsy," she whispered.

He took a breath as if he were going to say something more complex, but all he said was, "I hope not too."

They walked back up the dark hill to the house.

.

Of course there was a crisis at the bakery next day, and of course Jess was held up. By the time Dean could secretly box up his stuff, someone had taken the only car that wasn't out on work obtaining donations, apparently to go and pick up Jess. Dean put his box in the library, where it blended with the other boxes, then hung around the house, trying to look like he had a project going.

But once Jess was driven back, they were in luck. Max, who drove her, joined the people packing up the trailer's storage rooms. Others were out of the house doing chores or on "mission" work. There was a low murmur of conversation coming from the Brides' bedroom, but the door was closed, and they slipped into the office unnoticed.

Jess shut and locked the door behind them as Dean looked around. A desk of heavy dark wood, old and worn but impressive, sat with its back to the window; the blinds were drawn. A computer monitor sat on the desk, and a desktop printer sat on a short squat safe nearby. There were a couple of filing cabinets and an elegant cupboard, where Nick's urn reposed in front of a mirror on top and a locked glass case below revealed bottles of alcohol and glasses.

Jess immediately went to the wall between the desk and the urn-liquor cabinet, where there were three tall sets of bookshelves, almost full. Even from just a week's worth of Probationer classes, Dean knew that a lot of these books were deemed Corrupted Literature by Lifeblood, not so much because they were sexual – although several of them were – as because they were agnostic or opinionated.

Dean, looking back at the safe, shook his head. Surely that would have been the first thing the police told Clark to open.

"Only money in the safe," Jess said softly.

"What?"

"Nick told me once, 'I keep only money in the safe. When the Misled authorities come for us, it'll be the first place they look.'"

Dean sounded amused, though he too kept his voice down. "He thought the top-secret documents would be safer in his desk?"

Jess laid her hand on a set of law books that filled four shelves. "I think he thought they'd be safer here."

Dean looked at them more closely. They were all a uniform pleasant green with gold lettering on the spines. Each read, "West's Missouri Digest" at the top and gave law categories underneath: "Banks And Banking to Burglary" and "Clerks Of Courts to Conspiracy" were typical.

"He was gonna fight Kansas authorities with Missouri law books?"

Jess laughed softly. "He used to ask us to get these for him if we ran across one or two when we were in Kansas City. You find them sometimes when law firms are updating, or at estate sales or antique stores. He didn't care if he had a complete set or even all from one year. He told us they were for show, that they made the library look impressive."

"They kind of do."

Jess nodded, and made a sweeping gesture encompassing the whole wall. "If you were going to search a library for hidden documents, how would you do it?"

Looking suspiciously at her, Dean pulled out a volume titled simply, "Evidence." He held it upside down and flipped the pages, shook the book thoroughly, put his hand into the space behind the books on the shelves, and finding nothing, put the book back and shrugged.

With a smile, Jess took one of the digests off the shelf and opened the back cover, showing it to Dean. A flap covered about three-fourths of the inside back tightly, attached as part of the book's binding.

"I got a few of these one time, and they all had little brochures in the back. They're updates to the laws. The paper is very thin, but the back cover is thicker, kind of like file-folder paper. You stick the back cover under the flap and that way the updates stay with the book, until a new update comes out, or a new edition of the book."

She took the book over to the desk and looked over the desktop. "One of my chores that day was gathering up the trash and taking it out, and I noticed he'd thrown out the updates. I wondered at the time, why bother to throw them out if the books are just for show?"

She picked up a letter opener, a self-confident smile on her face, and slid it into the paper-thin pocket. "And I always wondered – "

Her jaw dropped and her eyes flew open. Dean smothered a laugh. She'd seemed so sure that she'd find something, and she was flabbergasted when she actually found it.

With the letter opener, she pulled two pieces of paper, each folded in quarters, out of the book flap. Each page was headed "Promissory Note," and each was signed by Dirk.

Jess scanned one of them quickly as Dean looked over the other. "It looks like – he couldn't afford to pay his Primary Tithe," she said, and glanced over at the other note. "Or Secondary. He promises to pay with interest – but I don't see a date – "

"'Upon demand by the Board of Directors of Lifeblood, Inc.,'" Dean read, pointing to the phrase.

"I think it means that if we make the demand and he didn't pay, we could sue him."

"I think so too," Dean said, folding both pages and sticking them in the back pocket of his jeans.

"Dean – "

"You know what this is for, Jess. It's to threaten Dirk with if he ever tried to do anything Nick or the Council didn't want him to."

Jess sighed and nodded. She put the book back as Dean found another letter opener, and they both went to work.

Neither found anything for a couple of minutes. Then Jess said, "Oh. Well."

Dean looked over. Jess was holding a photograph of Casey, topless, with a sultry smile. Her head was tipped and her long black hair spilled down one side of her head and breast, revealing the clean beautiful line of her neck and shoulder on the other side.

Jess turned the photo over. "Nick – Thinking of You," was written on the back.

"Nice," Dean said. "But I don't see it as a murder motive. It's not like everyone didn't already know."

"I wonder why he hid it?" Jess said. "He let Betsy come in here by herself – maybe he was hiding it from her?"

"Why bother?"

"The more I know, the more I think Nick had a weird – contradictory feeling about Betsy."

"Sue-Ann thinks he wanted Betsy around because she knew him better than anyone else. Here's something."

Dean slid a small safe deposit key out of the back of a volume titled "Banks And Banking to Burglary."

"Does Lifeblood have a safe deposit box?" he asked.

"I don't know. If we do, they got it before I came on board."

"Whose name is on the bank account?"

"On the checking account, Nick was, of course, and Betsy and Clark. I think it's the same for the money market account and the CDs. The Council passed a resolution yesterday to put Casey on the accounts."

"Communing with the Messenger has tangible rewards."

"Well, it's not like she's going to run off with our money, Dean. Even if she wanted to, any amount over two hundred fifty dollars requires two signatures on the check. That's why Clark suggested Casey – if we needed money urgently and either Betsy or Clark was unavailable, we'd be out of luck."

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Personally, if I had a big bank account, I'd rather have you signing on it than Casey, but – So, if the safe deposit box is Nick's personally, what would you guess?"

"No idea. But it might have our murder motive."

"Except that the Sheriff's office has probably already looked over Nick's and Lifeblood's bank accounts, maybe even drilled the box if they couldn't find the key."

"It makes me nervous to give it to anyone here, though, just in case it's evidence – "

" – and they make it go away. Right."

"I'll give it to the detectives tonight," Jess said, putting the key in one of the two capacious pockets of her skirt. "If they say, oh, we already knew about that, no harm done."

They resumed their search, and a minute later Dean said, "Wooa."

He was looking at a poem, carefully hand-written in black ink on rich cream-colored paper.

No, sin is not in the beholder's eye.

It's absolute, objective; Judgment's knell

Will toll for those who dare to climb the tower

And mock perdition, tearing down its bell.

The imperfection at your waist I kissed

Perfected my rebellion, and I fell.

Descent into your warm and moving flesh

Meant rising on a Stygian tidal swell

To view them all, the holy and the damned,

As chilly chattering creatures in a cell.

Our passion, reigning over darkness' realm,

Will burn more brightly than the flames of Hell.

"Wow," Jess said. Then she sucked in a breath. "That's Clark's handwriting."

"And whose," Dean asked, pointing at a scrawled line at the bottom of the page, "is that?"

The line, in a very different careless writing, read:

ONE OR THE OTHER, "FRIEND"

"That's Nick's. He gave me a note once, after I disagreed with him on the Damned Misled issue. He wasn't supposed to communicate with me, of course, but he was really angry. And a lot of the note looked like that."

"What – did I tell you?" Dean said, suddenly remembering to lower his voice. "Clark's gay. He was having a thing with Nick, and cheated on – "

"Oh he was not either, Dean! I would have known!"

"Then what does 'One or the other' mean?"

"I don't know, but – "

As Jess shook her head, Dean suddenly chortled. "I'm going home tonight, so you get stuck with figuring out who has an imperfection at their waist. Maybe you can say that – "

"Casey."

Dean looked at her sharply. "Yeah?"

"She has a birthmark on her hip, right here," and she pointed to a spot just below her waistline.

"He was banging a Bride of the Messenger?"

"That's what 'One or the other' means." The words raced each other out of Jess' mouth. "Not between two people. Between Casey and Lifeblood. That's why we were going to leave Clark behind to start the Lawrence chapter all over again. He gave Clark a choice, Casey or staying in Lifeblood."

"And he picked Lifeblood?"

"No. I think they picked Door Number Three."

"Kill the Messenger," Dean said, and couldn't resist the smile that flicked across his face.

"In a way, it makes sense," Jess said. She took the poem from Dean and looked it over as she said, "They've been smart about it. If they acted like they hated each other, everyone would say they protest too much. So they just acted like they didn't have much use for each other."

"Casey told me that Clark was the kind of guy who just couldn't step up to the plate."

"Clark told me she brought him into Lifeblood. She was looking for a lawyer to handle a tax thing for us. Later he said that one hour changed his life, and supposedly he was talking about meeting Nick, but I have the feeling he was thinking about one hour – "

"Yeah," Dean said with a grin. "You remember I told you that Sam found out about Clark having an affair with a client, taking her money?" He tapped the paper. "Clark wrote her poems. But how did Nick get a hold of this?"

"He must have suspected something and done a spot check of Casey's property. He got furious, wrote that on the poem, and – " Jess rolled her eyes a bit – "I can see him doing this – called Clark into his office and slammed it down on the desk in front of him."

"Hard to talk your way out of a hot poem in your own handwriting hidden in a girl's personal stuff."

"So then Clark either said, Sure, I'll stay behind, you can have Casey, or he said let me think about it. Then he and Casey talked – "

"And decided, Screw this noise, let's kill the SOB."

"Exactly."

"But let's slow down a moment," Dean said. "I mean, sure, on a TV show it would be a good reason to kill somebody. But wouldn't it just be easier to leave and start their own cul – uh, spiritual movement?"

"Oh, no. It took Nick several years to get Lifeblood to the point where it is now. I mean – " she gestured – "Heartland doesn't look like much, but it's a lot of real estate, and our finances are healthy enough that we could get a loan to buy a big tract in New Mexico. We have contributors all over the country. Casey's been here for a while, so she'd know it wasn't easy, and Nick was the – "

She broke off, sighed shakily, and continued quietly. "People thought he was the Messenger of God. Lifeblood members wouldn't follow a couple of people who just walked away from the Messenger. Clark and Casey would have to start from scratch."

"And the way Nick has it planned, Clark spent a year sucking up to him and winds up stuck in an old house in Lawrence by himself, and Casey spent a couple years, well, doing her thing, and she can't even get him to divorce his original wife. With Nick out of the way – "

" – and Casey saying that she's speaking for the Messenger – "

" – they can have everything – the followers, the money, the real estate. Sue-Ann thinks that Clark's the leader Lifeblood needs, and the three of them could outvote you and Betsy on expenses, doctrines, possessions, anything."

"And if Sue-Ann starts getting disillusioned, they could promote more people to the Council who'd vote their way." Jess put the poem on the desk and the book back in place. Then she made a little sound and pointed at the spine, which read, "Seduction to Sentencing And Punishment."

"I just realized what was nagging at me last night," Dean said. "The night of Nick's murder? Everyone was where they were because of either Clark or Casey. The Accepters were in a class that Casey called for. You were off the property getting paint that Casey asked you to buy. Betsy was in the trailer designing plates that Casey bought and asked her to start on. Sue-Ann was by herself, doing the library inventory Clark asked her to do that day. Dirk was down in the barn smoking cigarettes that Clark bought for him. Everyone was either giving Casey an alibi or set up so they didn't have an alibi themselves. Sue-Ann was even on the side of the house that looks out the front, to the road, and Betsy was on that side of the trailer. No way they'd have seen anything hinky."

"The classroom looks out over the meeting hall, though."

"Only if you're facing the class, looking out the window. If you're in the classroom chairs, facing the chalkboard, your back's to the window. The first night I was here, I was standing where Casey stands when the light came on down by the meeting hall. I saw it, but the meeting hall's far enough away that if you were facing away you wouldn't notice it. Especially if you're dead tired from working at a festival all day, drowsy, staring at a spot on the board, chanting the same thing over and over. Casey saw the light go on, saw Nick go into the meeting house, told everyone to stare at the board and chant, excused herself to go to the bathroom, and ran down to help Clark clean up blood." Dean grinned briefly. "If Eve hadn't been ticked off enough to do the counting thing, and hadn't been willing to tell you about it, we'd never have had any idea how long Casey was gone. She could've said two minutes, no one would've known better."

"So we know that Casey was in the classroom except for four minutes, which would've given her time to help Clark clean up. But Clark was with Betsy. Anyway, that's what they said."

"Would Betsy lie to give Clark an alibi?"

"She as much as told me she would, last night," Jess said. "I didn't realize how violently she despises the Misled. She's convinced that one of them killed Nick, and that the Misled authorities want to frame someone innocent from Lifeblood." Jess picked up the poem, folding it slowly. "If she saw evidence that Clark isn't just a, a religious innocent – "

"But her giving Clark an alibi would have to mean that she knew about it in advance. The police separated you all so you couldn't do things like set up alibis with each other, right?"

Jess sighed. "Damn. I didn't want – Oh!"

Her eyes flew open, then closed. "I was on the floor, giving Nick CPR. Clark was applying pressure to his wounds, shouting at Rosco to go up to the road and flag down the ambulance. Dirk was crying and praying. Betsy was hysterical, getting in our way. And Casey – " Jess' eyes opened – "pulled Betsy outside."

"And said something like, Clark's been sitting alone in his room all night – "

"Maybe Nick will live, but whatever happens, the police will try to make it look like one of us attacked him. You need an alibi, Clark needs an alibi. Just tell them he came by and talked to you for an hour."

"She could even tell Betsy not to bother trying to make up a conversation. She could say, Just tell the police you don't remember anything, you're in shock, but you know that Clark was talking to you for an hour before you heard –"

There was a metallic click, the sound of a doorknob turning, and Clark walked into the room.