A Beeline to Murder

“No, you are right. It wouldn’t be good for Sugar, either.”


“There!” Philippe pointed to a narrow dirt road that twisted away from the heat-shimmering asphalt several hundred feet ahead. The weather-beaten gate on the split-rail fence had been flung open wide, as if in permanent welcome to visitors. The church building itself appeared in harmony with a landscape that included many dark and deep canyons; the Las Flores River, which dried to a trickle in the summer but swelled in the winter to fill the local reservoir; and towering coast redwoods, pines, and oaks, which swayed year-round in an ancient dance orchestrated by forceful winds sweeping up the western side of the mountains from the Pacific.

The church’s dark exterior suggested to Abby repeated applications of redwood paint and annual coats of stain, a feature characteristic of buildings in the harsh microclimate of the mountains. A single wooden step rose from the thin soil to the black-handled doors of the sanctuary. From the roof overhang above the entrance, a solitary porch light hung inside a squat metal frame. As Abby studied it before stepping inside, she doubted a single bulb would cast much illumination, but any light, however dim, would facilitate finding the door during moonless nights or during the dark, stormy days of winter, when the fog wafted by in sheets so thick that you couldn’t make out the person standing next to you.

“During our brief phone call,” Abby told Philippe, “the priest said to push the button by the literature table.” She walked straight to it and pressed her thumb against it. “I guess it rings in his cottage behind the church, so he’ll know when we’ve arrived.”

While they waited for the priest to show, Philippe strolled up the center aisle, hands outstretched, briefly touching each carved pew. His steps ceased before the altar, a simple wooden table with four straight legs and draped in a cloth of white lace. The weekly bulletin had been placed on the table, next to a vase of wildflowers and a white pillar candle. Philippe bowed his head slightly and made the sign of the cross so quickly that it almost seemed like a circle. Perhaps it was an old habit, learned in childhood but not practiced so much in adulthood. He walked back to the rear wall, where a religious painting caught his attention. Darkened possibly by candle smoke and exposure to the elements, the painting required close examination to make out the figures. Abby stepped aside so Philippe might peer closely at the images.

He murmured, “This is old . . . beautiful. It needs cleaning.” He stood with fingers interlocked behind his back. “To her, the Samaritan woman, He revealed himself.”

“Yes,” Abby, replied, not sure what to say. She, too, looked intently at the painting, trying to discern the images of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, a Bible story she actually knew. The Samaritan woman was neither Jewish nor chaste, having had five husbands and living with another. Even she was surprised when Jesus asked her, a woman shunned by her own people, for a drink of well water, knowing that it would necessitate Jesus—a Jew—to use her utensil, and that doing so would make him ritually unclean. But he spoke of living water and revealed himself as the Messiah. Philippe was right. Jesus had revealed Himself to her and on many other occasions had demonstrated His inclusiveness of women and men whom society had marginalized.