Murdering Ministers Read Free Page A

they remained unmoved. Most were staring dully at their hands while he spoke, avoiding his eyes. They had shown little enthusiasm during the earlier parts of the service, rising wearily to mouth the three or four hymns and bending over so deeply in the pews during the long prayers that they practically disappeared. Perhaps they were playing baccarat?
    â€œAnd what do we find when we actually study the Christmas story in the scriptures?” Piltdown went on. “Do we find a harsh innkeeper turning Mary and Joseph from the door of the crowded inn, with his tender-hearted wife running after the couple to offer accommodation in their stable? No. Do we find an ox and an ass? No. Nor do we find a stable, for that matter. Or three kings, whom tradition has named for us.”
    â€œIf I could get up to that balcony,” Ben whispered, perching beside Oliver as he reloaded his camera again, “I could do a great overhead shot pointing down on the pews. But the door’s locked.”
    Oliver swiveled to look up at the shallow balcony behind and above them, but from the low angle he could only make out more high-backed pews in the darkness. Lowering his gaze, he met the stern eyes of a middle-aged woman in the rear pew. She winked at him. He smiled weakly and turned around again, wondering what he was missing on television at that moment.
    Paul Piltdown had been speaking now for fifteen minutes on the need for Christians to promulgate the biblical facts of the Nativity story without the accretions of tradition and myth. He paused suddenly, and although he did not utter a blessing, it was clear the sermon was over. Piltdown beamed around the church, coughed, and glanced down at his notes.
    â€œNow before our final hymn,” he continued, “I’m going to ask our good friend Nigel Tapster to share his musical witness.”
    Piltdown sat down in the pulpit, sinking from sight, and a man sitting among the teenagers rose to his feet and sidled out of his pew. He was tall and rangy, with a balding head and a sparse, straggling beard that had been fussily shaped to his chin. His gray suit seemed a size too small. He stooped to pick up a large twelve-string guitar, which had been lying in a case beside the piano, and passed its leather strap over his head and one arm. The teenagers all seemed suddenly far more animated, and smiled and whispered to each other as Tapster reached the platform.
    He paused, his head down, as if listening intently to words whispered urgently into his ears. Ben’s camera clicked several times. Then Tapster lifted his gaze, looking around the church with dark, intense eyes.
    â€œFriends, dear friends,” he said, his voice reedy and nasal. “The Reverend Piltdown has just told us what the world believes when it shouldn’t. I’d prefer to sing about what the world doesn’t believe when it should.” He strummed the guitar strings, wincing momentarily.
    â€œIt’s no good, I’ll have to send it back to the shop to be tuned,” he said apologetically, stepping off the platform and rummaging in the guitar case. One of the boys in the group let out a short, loud laugh. It echoed sharply off the bare walls of the church, as if the building was swatting away the unfamiliar sound. Tapster blew softly into a pitch pipe, fiddled with the tuning heads, and returned to the platform. “You know, not many people play the twelve-string guitar,” he muttered, “because it takes a lot of pluck.”
    The joke was old and weak, but perhaps it was new to the young people, because they all laughed heartily for as long as it took Tapster to finish tuning the instrument. He played an E major chord, nodded with satisfaction, and began to strum in a different key. It was hardly an infectious rhythm, but within two bars, the young people were already swaying in time with the music. Tapster began to sing, very badly.
    The song seemed to consist of little more than