“What’s wrong?” Lydia asked.
“I have to make a statement to the press in a minute and we need to be on the same page. Obviously, the bombing will force us to close down the project for a time—”
“Hold on,” Shea said. “I’ve been inside and the damage appears pretty superficial. Once the police finish their investigation, we could be up and running in a few days.”
“Even if you’re right, the hatred revealed by this attack has caused me to reconsider the entire project. Our intent was to help this neighborhood, but since so many locals clearly object to our restoration project, perhaps we need a new plan. One so ambitious that they’ll rejoice in it.”
“How ambitious?” Lydia asked.
“Instead of trying to recreate the past, we’ll embrace the future. Rebuild the whole block into a marvelous new community centered around a newly expanded church with a state-of-the-art broadcast facility. Four hundred apartments instead of the sixty we planned. A parking structure across the street joined by an overhead walkway. It will take a massive fund-raising effort, but I’m sure my flock will open their hearts and purses to continue God’s work here on an even greater scale. We can go over the details later, right now we just need a joint statement for the press.”
“If you want me to say the damage is too serious to continue the project, I can’t do that,” Shea said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not true. The blasts barely scratched the Chapel.”
“The damage may be more serious than you think, Mr. Shea. In any case, I’m shutting down the project tonight, and that’s the announcement I intend to make. If you feel you can’t endorse it, perhaps you should withdraw from the team.”
“I either back your story or I’m fired? Is that it?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way, but since the project is going on hiatus, I’ll understand if you wish to seek other employment. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have hired such a small firm for the job.”
Lydia started to protest, but Shea waved her off. “The blasts went off an hour ago and you’ve already got a whole new project in mind? That’s quick thinking. Maybe too quick.”
“What are you implying?”
“That it’s not a new plan. It was your plan all along. You got grant money to restore a historical structure but now this very convenient blast makes the project impossible. Since you didn’t mention returning any cash, I assume you plan to keep it and raise even more for a bigger project, one nobody would have green-lighted in the beginning.”
“You’re mistaken, Mr. Shea, and I warn you, if you carry any part of this fantasy to the authorities, my ministry will sue you for slander, incompetence, and anything else our lawyers can come up with.”
“You’d better not,” Lydia said. “I’ll back his story all the way.”
“Then we’ll sue you as well,” Arroyo said. “Win or lose, you’ll both spend years in court defending yourselves at a thousand an hour. Perhaps you can afford it, Mrs. Ford, but I doubt Mr. Shea can. So why don’t we settle this like reasonable people? Here and now?”
“What do you have in mind?” Shea asked.
“I’ll announce that the project’s shutting down. You’ll pull out quietly with no public statement. In return, I’ll see that you and your men collect the full value of your contract.”
“So I take the money and run? And keep my mouth shut?”
“That’s a bit crude, but not inaccurate.”
“Of all the incredible gall—” Lydia began.
“Deal,” Shea said.
“What?” Lydia gasped. “You can’t be serious!”
“I have no choice, Lydia. He’s right, I can’t afford a long court fight. I’ve got a crew to feed.”
“A very prudent decision,” Arroyo said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m already late for the press conference. By the way, Mrs. Ford, since the new project won’t be a restoration, your services are no longer required. You’re fired. God bless you both.” And he was gone.
“I can’t believe you’re going to let him buy you off,” Lydia said.
“What am I supposed to do? Tell the law I think Arroyo had his own building bombed as part of a fund-raising scam? And when they ask me for proof, what do I say then?”
“And that’s it? You’re really going to take the money and run?”
“Arroyo owes my men that money and they need it. Throwing it back in his face would be a grand gesture, but it won’t buy many groceries come winter. As far as running goes, to be honest, the sooner I see this place in my rearview mirror, the happier I’ll be.”
“Damn it, Dan, it’s wrong! You can’t let Arroyo get away with this!”
“I don’t think he will.”
“But if you won’t go to the police—”
“Black Luke had big plans for this place, too. It didn’t work out for him. It won’t for Arroyo, either.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure. It’s just a feeling I have. There’s something wrong about this place, Lydia. I’ve felt it from the beginning. I told you once that buildings talk to me. This one’s saying get the hell out. While you can.”
Dan Shea and his men packed up and headed north to Valhalla the next day. A rare treat for a construction crew, a vacation paid in full by Arroyo’s ministry for a job they’d barely begun.
Shea spent the autumn months working alone in the golden forests of the north, felling logs, cutting them to size, then snaking them out of the woods with a borrowed horse. Building a new addition onto his father’s house.
He did all of the labor by hand, measuring his talent and abilities against the skilled work his grandfather did long before he was born. But he didn’t finish the job by himself.
Around Christmas, an interior designer arrived to work on the project. She took a room at a local bed and breakfast but spent most of her time at Shea’s home, helping with the remodeling job. Small towns being as they are, rumors sprang up about the two. But died just as quickly.
The lady in question is a bit older, you see, and very much a lady. And in the northern counties, Dan Shea and his roughneck crew aren’t people to cross. Besides, Shea and his lady are so obviously happy together that the gossip seemed pointless.
In the spring, down below, a new construction crew from Detroit began work on the Arroyo Chapel expansion. But when they excavated the parking lot to pour the new foundations, the shock and revulsion of what they found brought the project to a screaming halt.
Saginaw police immediately taped off the site as a crime scene while state forensic techs from Lansing tried to sort out the carnage. It took months just to disinter the bodies, let alone identify them all. Perhaps they never will.
By then, Arroyo’s project was as dead as the corpses buried beneath the Chapel parking lot. His financing evaporated overnight. Why build apartments in a place no one will ever want to live?
After a few unhappy weeks in bankruptcy court, the reverend fled to Florida, flat broke.
Leaving the Black Chapel much as it was. Empty. Abandoned.
By night, streetwise lookouts still prowl its bell tower. But not even hardcore junkies will go inside the great nave anymore.
Too dangerous, they say. Perhaps the blast made the walls unstable. Loose bricks and fixtures seem to fall with deadly accuracy. Locals claim the Chapel is seeking new tenants for its ravaged cemetery.
The truth is, bone deep, people are simply terrified of the place. And they should be.
Its paint is peeling away like rotting skin now, but it makes no difference. The bricks beneath are stained black as sin.
And inside, voices echo in the cavernous murk of the ruined nave. The mad ranting of Black Luke, answered by the murmurs of the unquiet dead.