Cole didn’t head directly back to the courthouse when he left Father Wagner. As he shut the rectory door, he was drawn to the large stone church. He walked over and tried the side entrance. The big wooden door opened smoothly. Cole didn’t know if they kept it open for visitors or if it had been inadvertent. Either way, he stepped inside.
He walked toward the main entrance and over to a side table. In the dim vestibule, he made out holy cards and copies of last Sunday’s parish bulletin. A shallow wicker basket filled with small metal crucifixes sat in the middle of the table beside a wooden offertory the size of a shoebox. Cole picked up one of the crucifixes and examined it. He reached into his right suit coat pocket and retrieved its twin, holding them up side by side to confirm it. He put five dollars into the charity box and opened an inner door to the church, the carved door groaning as it gave way.
Inside, he dipped the fingers of his right hand into the holy water font and made the sign of the cross. Memories of long ago Sundays flooded through him. There was a time he felt loved and protected in this solemn building. He walked down the long center aisle toward the altar and the large figure of Christ nailed to the wooden cross that hung on the wall behind the altar. When he got to the end of the pews, he genuflected and sat down in the first row, feeling a little odd carrying the beer and the rolled up church diagram. He lowered the kneeler, knelt and bowed his head. He thought of his parents and felt their loss anew, his loss magnified in this town, and even more in the old church.
At a table far to the right of the altar, rows of flickering candles swayed with the movement of unseen currents of air. Cole had been baptized shortly after he’d been born. On that day his parents and Godparents had committed to raising him in the faith. Later, when he was a junior in high school, he stood up and accepted the faith as his own during his Confirmation. That was one commitment he hadn’t lived up to very well, he reflected. This was the first time he’d been in a Catholic Church since his parents’ funeral Mass. The candles wavered again and he remembered that candles symbolized light in the darkness of life, especially in an individual life. Light also represented illumination, and Cole realized that right now he needed to be illuminated, about the case, and maybe more about his feelings for Michele.
He said a prayer that his parents were in a good place and asked that they watch over him and keep him in their hearts. And he said a prayer for Michele. As strong as she was, she was also wounded somehow. He asked the Lord to heal her and give her hope. Then he rose and went over to the table of candles. He picked up a stick match from a small box, struck it, and lit two red candles and a white one. He blew out the match, the dark smoke curling heavenward and the burnt match smell reminding him of incense. He put twenty dollars in the offering box there and walked toward the nearest door. Just short of the exit, he stopped and looked back at the entire church in all its quiet grandeur. Then he pushed through the door and out into the cold.