as he explained. “Even on the most badly charred bodies, fragments are protected in the flexures of the armpits or groins. Might help you later on.”
Russo asked everyone to step away from the sheet as he ran his flashlight across the section of the portico where the body had been. There was a glint of something sparkling on the ground.
“Mike,” I said, “see that?”
The men who were tending to the deceased looked around, too, as Russo’s beam fixed on the tiny object that caught the light.
“Coop could find a freaking nugget in a pile of manure, as long as it’s gold,” Mike said to Russo. “Take a picture of that, will you?”
“What is it?” I asked.
The flash went off several times before Mike lifted the paperthin object with the tips of his tweezers.
“It’s a star. A six-pointed gold star. One of yours, Coop,” he said. “A Jewish star.”
Bixby ordered the cops to hold up before folding the sheet over the deceased. He rolled her body gently to one side, examining the skin on her back.
“You can see the form of it here, Detective. And even the suggestion of a chain extending up from the star. The heat almost embedded it in her back. It may prove to be a chain she was wearing when—uh, before she was killed.”
When she had a neck, is what he started to say.
Russo photographed the faint outline of the tiny symbol that was etched in the skin of our victim. Then she was finally ready to be wrapped in the sheet and lifted into the church vestibule so the rest of the scene could be examined for evidence.
“Go ahead, Coop,” Mike said. “Wrong church, wrong pew. Got to be something in this. More than your average murder-and-dump job.”
Sergeant Grayson didn’t agree. “Some local kills a girl. Maybe it’s a rape, maybe not. What else is he gonna do but toss the body? Maybe he’s a parishioner here. Could be he’s looking for salvation.”
“Aren’t we all?” Mike said. “The star might have belonged to the killer.”
“Too feminine a piece,” I said. “It’s tiny. And wafer-thin.”
“You still can’t assume it was hers. She could have ripped it off the guy’s neck during a struggle.”
I walked ahead of him, past Amos Audley, who was standing watch over the entrance to his beloved sanctuary. “I realize how unusual a decapitation is. What else did you mean about this not being an average murder, Mike?”
“Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make a statement. Kill a woman, decapitate her, get up and over that tall fence or come from within this place. Could have dumped his prey somewhere a lot more remote and make a much easier escape than climb to the front steps of Mount Neboh, get away clean. If the murder happened inside the church—and I guess we’ll know that shortly—he could have just left the body here. And if she’s Jewish, then what’s the point of bringing her to a Baptist church?”
Amos Audley mumbled something, but I couldn’t hear him.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“The dead girl, she a Jew?” he asked.
“It’s possible. We don’t know who she is yet.”
“Well, maybe the Lord just brought her on home,” Audley said.
“Home?” I didn’t get where he was going.
“Take a look, Ms. Cooper.” Audley favored his left leg as he limped out of the vestibule.
I continued on after him, and saw that there must have been more than a thousand seats in the barrel-vaulted sanctuary of the church. A great organ with towering pipes filled most of the wall at the opposite end.
“Overhead,” he said.
I stretched my neck for a better view of the trio of splendid stained-glass windows that arched above me, forming a triptych of gigantic skylights.
“You see that?” Audley asked. “Those letters in the glass?”
“It—it looks like the writing is in Hebrew. Is that possible?”
“Indeed it is.”
I couldn’t read the ancient language, but the lettering was clear, as were the various symbols of the Jewish faith etched into the amber, emerald, and cobalt-blue glass. In the middle frame were the two tablets displaying the Ten Commandments, topped by a sixsided Star of David.
“Mercer—Mike,” I called out to them, “you’ve got to see this.”
“A hundred years ago, Ms. Cooper,” Audley said, proudly showing off the church he’d been associated with since his birth, “this here was built to be a synagogue.”
Mike rested his hands on my shoulders as he leaned back to look up.
“What kind of detective you be, Mr. Chapman?” Audley asked. “In that pediment