“How do you invent a religion?” Evie asked.
Will looked over the top of his spectacles. “You say, ‘God told me the following,’ and then wait for people to sign up.”
Evie hadn’t given religion much thought before. Her parents were Catholics turned Episcopalian. They attended services on Sunday, but it was all pretty rote, like brushing your teeth and bathing. Just something you did because it was expected. Evie hadn’t always felt that way. For a year after James had died, she’d cupped his half-dollar pendant between her pressed palms and prayed fervently for a miracle, for a telegram that would say GOOD NEWS! IT WAS A TERRIBLE MISTAKE, AND PRIVATE JAMES XAVIER O’NEILL HAS BEEN FOUND, SAFE, IN A FARMHOUSE IN FRANCE. But no such telegram ever arrived, and whatever possible faith might have bloomed in Evie withered and died. Now she saw it as just another advertisement for a life that belonged to a previous generation and held no meaning for hers.
“We haven’t answered the most basic question of all: Why? What purpose is served by these murders?” Jericho asked, jolting Evie from her thoughts.
“He’s a monster,” Evie said. “Isn’t he?”
Will reached into a bowl of bridge mix. He juggled the candies in his hand without eating them. “Indeed. But that’s a what, not a why. Nothing is done without purpose, however twisted that purpose may be.”
“Why did he take her eyes?” Evie asked.
“He might be keeping them as souvenirs.”
Evie made a face. “A pinwheel from Coney Island is a souvenir, Unc.”
“To us, yes. To a madman? Perhaps not. But he might need them in some way for the ritual. Some cultures believe that ingesting the flesh of your victims makes you immortal. The Aghori of India eat the flesh of the dead in the belief that it confers supernatural powers, whereas members of the Algonquin tribe believe that anyone who eats human flesh will become a demonic spirit called the Wendigo.”
Evie’s stomach turned. “Well, there’s nothing in the Bible about holy cannibalism.”
“Transubstantiation?” Jericho said. “ ‘Eat of my body, drink of my blood’?”
“Right,” Evie conceded. “I’ll certainly never feel the same way about Communion again.”
“As I’ve said before—America is a young country comprising all sorts of people. Beliefs converge and become something new all the time.” Will finished his second cigarette and Evie could see his fingers twitching for a third, which, thankfully, he resisted. The cigarette smoke hung thickly in the air as it was.
“There’s something I don’t understand. The note…” Evie searched through the mess of papers on the table and retrieved the photograph of the note left with Ruta’s body. “The note says, ‘This was the fifth offering.’ Why the fifth? Why not the first?”
“Yes. Troubling.” Will paced around the table, his cigarette case still clutched in his palm. “Jericho, could you telephone Detective Malloy and ask if there are any unsolved murders that might be similar in nature?”
“Don’t you think he would have mentioned that?” Evie said.
“Never assume,” Uncle Will said, and it was clear that it was his final word on the matter.
“It’s almost time for your lecture at the Women’s Association’s Ancient Order of the Phoenix club,” Jericho reminded Will.
Will squinted at the mantel clock as if he meant to rebuke it for displaying the wrong time, then gave two curt nods, like a headmaster finally accepting a student’s scholarly argument in class. “So it is. I’d best gather my lecture notes.”
“You left them upstairs,” Jericho said.
“Ah. Good. Good.” Will paused for a moment longer, his eyes scanning the room. “I can’t help feeling that there’s something we’re missing here. Something important.”
The fire cast Will’s face in shadows. He shook off his misgiving and was gone.
There was a knock at the door. Finally, a customer! Jericho was up first. From the way he bolted, Evie figured she wasn’t the only person worried about the museum. She heard voices, and a moment later Jericho returned with none other than Sam Lloyd in tow.
Evie’s eyes narrowed. “Well, well, well. I suppose you’ve got my twenty bucks.”
Jericho glanced from Evie to Sam and back again. “Do you two know each other?”
“Actually, I’ve come to see Mr. William Fitzgerald. Is he here?” Sam craned his neck.
“Dr. Fitzgerald. And what business do you have with my uncle?”