Page 34 of Artifacts

“There, right?” Sean swung a foot at the first polished dark-wood bench of seats before the platform at the front. “Leave it there?”

“Yeah.” He kept watch as Sean placed the bag with the dummy box in it at the end of the bench.

Sean came back and jerked his head to the right. “Someone’s there, on the other side. A few rows back. Crouched down.”

“Praying.” Darrell had spotted the elderly woman kneeling on the floor between her seat and the one in front.

“You think that’s—”

“No. Hey, pew-pew!”

“What?”

“The benches are called pews and when we were kids, if we were taken into a church, we used to pretend to shoot and go ‘pew-pew’.” It didn’t sound funny now that Darrell mentioned it.

“Heathen.” Sean didn’t seem to find it amusing either. “That why you became a cop?”

Darrell shrugged. It was as probable as any other reason. The woman stood and inched her way out of the pew to walk to the front of the building. She gave them a hard stare as she passed them to exit. “We should make ourselves scarce,” he suggested.

“Move away from the bag,” Sean mocked. “I still think this is some stupid trick. A classic would be getting someone here to do this, then robbing their place.”

“Maybe.” Darrell led the way down the central aisle to the back of the church. He squeezed down a pew to look at the small plaque on the wall. There wasn’t a great deal to see. “If this was a Dan Brown book, there’d be clues in the paintings on the wall, or even up there, in those designs on the ceiling,” he said.

“And I’d get to fuck the snobby foreign chick with a stick up her ass,” Sean replied. “She’d be, like, a history professor or nuclear physicist or something, with those little black glasses, but wearing really high heels.”

“Which never seem to stop the women when they have to run their asses off to the next location,” Darrell pointed out.

“Oh, and she’s a martial arts expert. Tries to take me down, but I’m better,” Sean proclaimed. “That’s when her hair escapes from the clip or bun or whatever the fuck it’s called.”

Darrell eyed him. “You really put thought into this, huh?” It would definitely be more exciting than this, trying to kill time and remain unobtrusive, while keeping a watch on a package thirty feet away.

Thirty minutes in, Sean was the first to crack. “Nothing’s happening. This is whack.”

“Let’s check out the front of the church,” Darrell suggested.

Sean’s face showed what he thought of defiling the altar. Their bag was still there, still in the position they’d left it. Darrell noticed a door to the left of the entrance, and checking all around, pushed it open. He peered into the small anteroom it led to. “What’s this for?” he asked Sean.

“The hell should I know? Oh, Jesus. Damn. Sorry!” Sean apologized to the room in general. “Bathroom?”

It wasn’t. It was just a storeroom, or changing room or waiting room. Darrell resisted making a ‘three-in-one, just like the trinity’ crack. Suddenly the door they’d come in through was pushed open and a portly man in black clothes came in and froze, his wide eyes and flared nostrils suggesting he was startled to see them there.

“You shouldn’t be in here. Who are you?” he demanded.

Startled and angry.“SAPD.” Darrell took out his badge.

“And?” the man continued, advancing.

“And who are you?” Sean O’Hara, king of the comebacks.

“The deacon, foryourinformation.” The man accompanied this with a finger pointed in Sean’s chest. “The mission is closed to the public at this time.”

“Yes—” Darrell started.

“And the police hold no jurisdiction in a church.”

“We—” Sean tried.

“Well?” cried the man, rounding on them both. “What have you got to say for yourselves?”

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