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that.”
    “Under the First Amendment, anyone has the right to call more or less anything a religion. Today the Salem witches could probably claim protection under the Free Exercise Clause, even if they were guilty. But there aren’t any such groups I know of in Texas that demonstrate predication—whose ideology would make them federal meat. But I can look into it for you, if you like.”
    “I’m all out of good ideas on this one. Lousy ones, too, if I’m honest. So, go ahead.”
    I collected my stuff off his desk and started to get up from my chair.
    “Wait a minute,” said Harlan. “You don’t get to leave until you’ve seen the whole show.”
    He picked up the PowerPoint presenter and started to move through some grisly-looking mortuary shots. All of the vics had been shot at close range several times with a small-caliber weapon—that much was plain from the entry wounds in their heads and faces. Brent Youman had taken one bullet through the eye, which had burst out of its socket like an oyster hanging off the edge of its shell. The exit wounds were rather more spectacular; the back of Vallie Pyle’s skull had been blown clean away to reveal a whole damn butcher’s counter of brain and tissue.
    “They were all shot with a .22-caliber Walther,” said Harlan. “Firing a flat-nosed short round from a weapon fitted with a Gemtech sound suppressor. He almost always shoots at night or first thing in the morning and operates just out of range of any CCTV cameras.”
    “So he doesn’t want to get his picture in the newspaper.”
    “Oh, I’ll get him. Even if I have to walk around the city in a nun’s habit singing hymns, I’ll get this sonofabitch.”
    I thought about making a joke about that and then flicked the idea away. Harlan was much too unpredictable to meet head-on with a joke about cross-dressing FBI agents.
    “I see the first victim was shot on June 29,” I said.
    “What about it?”
    “It’s the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul. In the Roman Catholic calendar of saints, it’s a holy day.”
    Harlan handed me a printed sheet of paper. “Any of these other dates mean anything to you?”
    I glanced down the list. “No.”
    “You a Catholic, Martins?”
    “You could call me an atheist who goes to church. Or maybe an agnostic. I don’t know.”
    Harlan grinned. “My wife, Molly, is the one who’s sweet on Jesus. I just go along because it’s easier than having an argument and missing Sunday dinner. By the same token, she comes along to see the Astros although she stopped believing in them a long time ago.”
    “That’s the kind of atheism it’s easy to understand.”
    Harlan let that one go; the case for believing in the Houston Astros was, by any measure, indefensible.
    “Which church is it that you go to, son?”
    “Lakewood.”
    “The hell you say. Lakewood’s my church.” Harlan smiled again. “How come I never saw you there, Martins?”
    “That’s a little like asking how come you never see me at the ball game. Astros would be glad of a regular crowd like the one they get at Lakewood.”
    “Is that how you and your wife met? At Lakewood?”
    “We met as law students at Harvard. We were neither of us particularly religious then. Until we lived in Houston. We started going to Lakewood Church because we were both believers then. Me included. Although in my case, I’ve really forgotten why.”
    “Now I get it. You blame Texas for giving her the sweet talk about the Lord’s love, don’t you? She’s got her pussy all wet for Jesus and you figure it’s us who have messed her panties up.”
    “No.”
    “Sure you do. It’s as obvious as a turd in a punch bowl.” He shook his head. “Let me tell you something, son. This has got nothing to do with Texas.” Harlan grinned. “Plenty of Texans don’t believe in God. Haven’t you figured it out? That’s why we have so many guns. In case he’s not there.”

FOUR
    I n most churches I could have dozed through the