William Bernhardt - Criminal intent

Christina jumped out of her seat. "You don't have to tell me twice." She raced to the center of the parish hall.

Paula reared back with a full fastball windup, then released the bouquet into the air. Several arms reached for it, but Christina sprang into the air with a leap that would've made Michael Jordan proud and snagged it.

"I got it!" Christina crowed. "I got it!"

"All right," Jones announced. "Time for the garter."

Ben began looking for an exit.

"Wait a minute, Boss." Jones blocked his path. A moment later, Loving had a hammerlock on him and dragged him into the center of the parish hall, where several other mildly embarrassed males were waiting.

Ben tried futilely to escape. "This really isn't my-"

"Shush," Loving said. "Don't spoil it."

A moment later, Jones was at the front, garter in hand. He pulled it back on his thumb like a slingshot and let it fly-directly toward Ben's face.

"You caught it!" Loving cheered, slapping Ben on the back.

"As if I had a choice," Ben muttered.

Loving jabbed his knuckles into Ben's rib cage. "And you know what this means, Skipper?"

"You're all fired?"

"It means you're gonna be the next to get hitched. You and-"

"Calm down, Loving. We don't want to scare the boy off." Paula stepped between them and placed her hands on Ben's shoulders. "I have something for you, too."

"No more undergarments, hopefully."

"Hopefully is an adverb. You mean, No more undergarments, I hope." She smiled. "But no. Just this." She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "Jones and I would never have gotten together if it hadn't been for your kindness. Thank you."

"Nonsense. I had nothing to do with it."

Paula shook her head. "You're a wonderful person, Ben. Even if you don't know it." She stepped away and took Jones's hand. "And now, my love, I think it's time you and I-"

Her words were cut off by a piercing scream. Half the people in the room jumped at the earsplitting sound. Plates and punch glasses crashed to the floor.

"What on earth?" Jones whispered under his breath.

Paula shook her head. "We'd better go see."

Ben held them back. "You two go on your honeymoon. I'll see what's happening."

Jones and Paula nodded, then headed toward the rear entrance. Ben started in the direction of the scream.

By the time he'd left the parish hall and walked down the long corridor, a crowd had gathered before him. They were blocking the entrance to the glass-encased area where all the church employees had their offices.

"I went in looking for Father Beale, and I found her there, just like that." It was Ruth O'Connell, near hysterical, rambling to no one in particular. "I had no idea! I walked in and there she was, sprawled across the desk!" She covered her face.

Ben pushed his way through the crowd to one of the inner offices, the one farthest from the entrance.

"She's the one," he heard someone say quietly.

"Guess there's going to be another vestry election," said another.

Apparently Ben's status as the lawyer gave him some official sanction in the minds of the gathering crowd; they parted like the Red Sea as he approached.

Ben stepped inside the office-and gasped. A woman's body was sprawled across the desk, her skirt hiked up to her waist, her legs contorted in an unnatural position. The right side of her head was covered with blood. Her tongue was black and her face was an eerie, translucent blue.

He didn't have to get close to know that she was dead. Very dead.

It was Kate McGuire-the woman he had seen earlier in the corridor, arguing with Father Beale.

On a sudden impulse, Ben glanced at the nameplate on the door.

This was Father Beale's office.

Ben staggered out, suddenly overcome with a sickness rising fast from the pit of his stomach. Never eat wedding cake when you're about to view a corpse, he thought, trying to comfort himself with sick humor. He pushed through the crowd, hoping he could make it to the restroom in time. Throwing up all over the spectators would certainly betray his cool demeanor.

"Someone call the police," he grunted. And as quickly as possible, he found the nearest men's room and rushed inside.

Someone was already there.

Father Beale stood at one of the sinks, the water from the faucet running fast. There was blood all over his hands. And like Pontius Pilate before him, he was doing everything he could to wash it off.

Ben watched from a distance as the various white-coveralled technicians back-and-forthed over the crime scene. To an untrained eye, it might seem like chaos in action, so many different people crisscrossing one another's paths in the tight, enclosed space of Father Beale's office. To Ben's more practiced eye, however, it was like watching scores of ants passing through the many-tiered tunnels of a complex ant farm, each drone performing his unique and specialized task. The fingerprint team scanned and dusted, the hair and fiber team scrutinized every surface with magnifying glass and tweezers, the serology team scraped, the coroner's team sniffed, and the detective's team interrogated. From the sidelines, the videographers recorded everything.

And beside the body, supervising every one of these complex and multifaceted operations, was Major Mike Morelli, Tulsa PD's top homicide detective, not to mention Ben Kincaid's former brother-in-law.

More than an hour after the police arrived, Mike left Beale's office for the first time ("Isn't there any coffee in this church?") and Ben was able to grab his ear for a few moments when he stepped outside for some fresh air.

"Congratulations, Ben," Mike said, once he finally had some caffeine in him to calm his nerves and amplify his wicked sense of humor. "Once again, you're in the middle of some major nastiness. And on the side of the nasty."

Ben ignored the gibe. "Any word on the cause of death?"

Mike strolled down the sidewalk parallel to the parking lot. Most people would be drawn to the prayer garden, particularly lovely this time of year when the flowers were blooming. But Mike avoided it. Too many unsettling memories, Ben supposed, of the last time he'd been to this church-also to take charge of a corpse. "Oh, you know how coroners are. They don't want to say anything useful until they've had three weeks to write reports and run every test known to man."

"What have you learned about the victim?"

"Name's Kate McGuire. By all accounts a lovely mild-mannered young woman. Member of the vestry-senior warden, actually-which I'm told was greatly at odds with Beale and had been trying unsuccessfully to have him removed. And-get this-she was engaged to be married for the first time." Mike paused, then stared up at the sky. "She was in love. But that marriage will never happen." He took another deep breath, as if he needed some oxygen coursing through his system. "For the sword outwears its sheath/And the soul wears out the breast/And the heart must pause to breathe/And Love itself have rest."

"Very lovely. But what do you think? About the murder."

"You know perfectly well what we think. What does everyone think?"

"Listen to me, Mike. I've known Father Beale since I was a kid. He wouldn't do this."

"Yeah, that's what you told us the first time someone turned up dead here."

"I was right then and I'm right now."

Mike shook his head and inhaled another gulp of the coffee. "Well, I can tell you this, pal. It doesn't look good for him."

"I noticed you haven't arrested him yet."

"Give us a minute. This is going to be a very high profile case. Before we bring charges, we want to make sure we can make them stick." He took another swig of java, then crumpled the Styrofoam cup in his hands. "Still, at least half a dozen witnesses tell me he had an altercation with this woman just before the wedding. Two witnesses saw him after the wedding with blood on his hands. And the body was in his office."