Hard to know where to start.
I guess to tell the story of the Good Friday murder through my eyes, I gotta
start here.
Nine months ago, when this half -old deacon said something way out of line,
I did this.
Shit.
So, you're a fighter, then?
No, Father, absolutely not.
Well, we have a deacon who would say otherwise if his jaw wasn't broken.
In my previous life, yes, I was a boxer.
I lived on the streets. I did some other things. We need fighters today, but to
fight the world, not ourselves.
A priest is a shepherd.
The world is a wolf.
No.
I don't believe that, Father, respectfully.
You start fighting wolves, and before you know it, everyone you don't
is a wolf.
I still got that fighting instinct, and I gave into it today. But Christ came to
heal the world, not fight it.
I believe that.
This, not this, you know?
I just want to be a good priest.
Show broken people like me the forgiveness and love of Christ.
The world needs that so bad.
Give me one more shot, and I promise I'll do that.
You suck your neck out for me so many times, and I'll let you down. All right,
all right, all right.
Deacon Clark is famously a dick.
Nobody's actually that upset that you clocked them. In fact, kind of the
opposite. But we do need to do something about it.
We're sending you to a small parish in Chimney Rock.
It's just one priest there now.
Some pastor?
Eh, well, curb your enthusiasm.
What?
You're going to Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude, led by Monsignor Jefferson
Wicks. Have you heard of Jefferson Wicks?
Okay, look, Wix has its supporters here. I'm not one of them.
Between you and me, I think he's a few feet shy of a full rosary and a real son
of a bitch.
But what's undeniable is that his flock is shrinking and even calcifying.
It could use some of what you said in there. You understand?
Not at all, but yes.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Spirit's got me. Let me at him. Hey, hey.
This? Not this, right?
Good luck, kid.
So, that's how I came to Chimney Rock.
Daniel in the lion's den.
David facing off Goliath.
Young, dumb, and full of Christ.
Ready for anything.
Father Jefferson?
Hello, Chateau Plentissy from Albany?
Lord be with you, Chateau Plentissy from Albany.
Are you here to take my church away from me?
Oh, no.
Good.
Okay. Call me Monsignor Wicks.
I think you've met Martha.
Martha? No?
Monsignor Wicks.
I woke up early to polish the sofa.
It was a bit blotchy.
That'll be fine, Martha.
Father Judd, you are welcome here.
Thank you, Martha.
I was actually just saying to Father Wickes.
Monsignor Wickes.
Monsignor Wickes, sorry.
And sorry to think he's a... This has gone great, I think.
Bishop Langstrom sent you, huh?
Mm -hmm.
Langstrom.
I know him well.
The hand picture he sent you here.
It says something to me.
Tells me a lot.
What? I'm used to playing solo, but I'm here to serve.
Take my confession.
All right.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
It's been six weeks since my last confession.
I've envied the material wealth of others.
I saw this luxury car commercial. Sam had it on his TV.
Lexus. And I thought, that was a good looking car.
The coupe.
I've envied the power of great men.
I think my grandfather's power as a priest, I wanted that.
Always did.
I've masturbated four times
this week, four or five generally, and what did I say, six weeks?
Well, let's say 30 times masturbated.
This week in my bed, in the morning once, once in the shower, standing up,
which was convenient.
use the bath gel.
Oh, once in the middle of the night after a dream about one of those
cat cafes.
And I read this article, but the cats were girls and, you know, so,
and I hadn't prepared.
So I had to finish into a copy of Catholic Chronicle magazine, just what
the end table, which is probably its own kind of thing.
I don't know, maybe not.
Not good.
At the time, I thought this was just weird.
But looking back now, I know.
This was Wicks' first punch.
Five Hail Marys and one Glory B.
Thank you, Father.
It wouldn't be his last.
Oh, and welcome to my church.
Over the next few weeks, I settled in at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude.
The only other full -time employee was the groundkeeper, Samson.
Sam.
I'm Senior Wicks.
It gives me the strength every day to not go back to the bottom.
He used to drink too.
But he said to me once, if I can stave off that demon, you can.
And every day, it is a struggle.
But I have.
I credit him and my sweet Martha.
Your sweet Martha?
I'd do anything for her.
My angel on earth.
As far as the church goes, Martha does it all.
She keeps the books, manages donations, filed everything.
She launches the vestments, stocks the supplies, feeds WIC, plays the organ.
She knew where the bodies were buried.
So this is the crypt.
Yep. Damn shame.
Gotta put up a security camera.
Is there an entrance?
There is.
It's right here.
The Lazarus door.
It takes construction equipment to open from the outside, but cantilevered is
such that one push can send a tumbling to the ground from inside.
Who's in there, then?
Prentice. With his grandfather, the founder of this church.
Well, like a father to me.
Makes me sick.
These kids painting rocket ships all over his sacred resting place.
What are you doing?
Oh, uh, well, I do a little bit of working, so I could borrow some of Sam's
tools, make a proper one. We'll leave that. A reminder of the shameful sin of
the harlot whore.
Take my confession?
Yes, the harlot whore.
That was Wick's mother.
Okay, so what's the deal with that?
She was a harlot and a whore.
When Prentiss entered the priesthood and founded this church, he was widowed
with a daughter.
Grace was her name.
Always a bad seed.
She loved revealing clothes in her fancy brands.
Fancy brands.
Yeah. As a teenager, she slutted around bars, was impregnated by a drifter.
Prentiss had a vast family fortune in the bank.
To protect his grandson, Wix, he promised that if Great stayed under his
roof, the fortune would be willed to her.
And so the whore waited for her father to die.
Oh, it weighed on him heavily.
Martha, remember this.
Wealth, and the power that comes with it, is Eve's apple.
Temptation that leads to the fall.
We must protect our loved ones from its corrupting influence.
At all costs.
His day came at last.
I was there.
I saw Prentiss take his final communion and die on the holy altar.
At peace.
The harlot whore went straight to Prentiss' attorney.
Give me my money.
She said.
And do you know what he said?
Yes, you are heir to every single penny Prentiss had.
And in his accounts, not one heart died.
What did he do to the fortune?
Give it to the poor, say some.
Throw it in the ocean, say others. No one knows.
It was gone.
That holy man's...
final act of grace was to keep the corrupting evil out of wicked hands.
All that he left her was this.
What is this? She said.
But I knew.
Look not for his apple.
Your inheritance is now.
night she had her revenge.
In a demonic rage, she defiled this holy place.
Evil incarnate.
After Grace, God, your father, will forgive you in his love.
She died, throwing herself against Prentiss's tomb.
Brain injury, they said.
Struck down, I say, by God, in his mercy.
Holy shit.
Sorry, sorry.
The darkness of that story was the bedrock of this place.
You could feel it.
So what would draw someone to make this their spiritual home?
The core group of regulars all had their reasons, and these will be our
suspects. So I should introduce them.
Farrah Draven, local attorney. She was loyal and devoted.
My dad was Luke's attorney and drinking buddy.
The boys.
And so you became a lawyer so you could take over his family practice?
I became a lawyer because I wanted to do great things in the world.
But... This place was my dad's legacy, and he wanted me to keep it going after
he passed.
So, here I am. Yo, yo.
Hi, Vera.
Hi. Did you fill this up? Thank you.
Her adopted son, Cy, just moved back home after trying and failing to get a
foothold in politics.
Okay.
Good night. Have me in back.
Vera was young. Her dad came home with a 10 -year -old thigh out of the blue and
told Vera she was going to raise him. No questions asked.
The whole town knew he was obviously her illegitimate brother.
But Vera accepted it.
She did it.
I've given up a lot to be loyal to my dad and to thigh and to
Wix.
So I think that...
When my dad is looking down on me from heaven, I think he is very pleased
with me.
So I guess that's nice.
I came this close. I was the GOP golden boy, the great hope. I've got
connection, an in and out. I was on the cusp, but I just couldn't engage voters.
I didn't have that causal personality thing I got. It's hard connecting with
people in a genuine way. I know.
And I tried everything. Believe me, I hammered the rape thing, I hammered the
gender thing, the trans thing, the border thing, the homeless thing, the
thing, the election thing, the abortion thing, the climate thing, thing about
induction soaps, Israel, library books, vaccines, pronouns, 1847, socialism,
BLM, CRT, the CDC, DEI, 5G, everything.
All of it I did. Nobody, just nothing.
People are just not these days. I don't know why.
Maybe we need to get back to fundamentals.
You know, basic building blocks on how to genuinely inspire people.
The basics, like show them something they hate and then make them afraid it's
going to take away something they love?
Well, no.
Here. That's Sean, the town's local doctor.
His life revolves around his wife, Darla.
She was his everything.
Darla left me last week.
Took the kids, moved to Tucson, with some guy that's been on a fishmonger's
board.
Fishmonger? I had no idea.
Dr. Knapp was spinning out.
He wasn't successful enough, rich enough, good enough for her.
He would do anything to get her back.
the closest thing we have to a low celebrity the sci -fi writer lee roth
probably know at least some of his books the crescent limbo series ice pick of
time the crystalline juncture 10 years ago lee moved here from new york
connected with wicks in the church and as he puts it unplugged my brain you
from the liberal hive mind and come here
His book sales and popular standing have been in slow decline ever since.
But he spent the last year writing a massive book about wicks.
He changed my reflections, essays, and recollections of an acolyte at the feet
of a prophet.
The Holy Man and the Troubadour.
I found it a tough read, but he pinned all of his hopes on it. This is my last
chance to take it out of sub -stack hell. I can't take it anymore. My
these days, I mean, they are...
survivalist freak pillow like John Goodman in The Big Lebowski.
Good little shit wick thigh.
He's got a little influencer fang in him on video, ain't he?
We don't like him. We're like, wicks, be careful or you gotta shake him off.
He's bad news.
Opportunistic poet -taster.
We're gonna have to protect wicks from these stupid wickies.
The moon is new to town.
and new to the church. She'd been a world -class cellist.
Forced to retire five years ago for health reasons.
Chronic pain.
Some myriad nerve thing that doctors cannot diagnose.
I believed they could heal me.
Suckered.
Dipshit moi.
Need to take someone's faith and exploit it for money.
It's the ultimate evil.
Don't you think it is?
Yeah. Yeah, it's bad.
But I understand why you believe.
This feels different though.
Faith in God to heal me.
This is different.
I feel hopeful now.
Like a miracle could happen.
That's how I'm feeling right now.
Spirit really moves him today, huh?
Monsignor!
Warrior! Wicks kept his core group tight.
And the seductive power of his charisma was undeniable.
But his method, every week he would pick someone out, a newcomer usually, and he
would attack.
The world wants us all to be okay.
Any of your choices. Make your choices. They're your choices.
Don't feel bad.
Have that affair.
Tell that lie.
Have that child at a wedlock.
Satisfy your selfish heart.
Selfish. Yes.
Depriving that child of a family.
Of a father.
An assault on our castle. The institution of manhood. My own mother
selfish choice with me. And I curse her selfish heart for it every day of my
life. Putting her needs and wants.
Before the family God intended. I am enough.
Me.
Selfish. Harlan's heart. You are not.
Might as well beat that child. Yes might as well starve that child. Defy the
family. That the Lord intended.
And watch your child burn. Beneath that burn.
This is not the true church.
You ask even the most hardcore of those in the pews. They'll say, no, of course
this is not what they believe.
It's Wicks being Wicks, pushing it too far.
And what he's pushing for every time is a walkout.
Why did he do this?
Because when that person walks out, everyone watches.
And even if in the light of day it's indefensible, deep down in the dark, it
scratches an itch.
And by staying put in that pew, that side is taken.
What's this side?
Testing tolerances, tapping deep poison wells, hardening, binding with
complicity.
So I try to offer a counterbalance.
Okay, welcome to our first Father Judd prayer group.
Thank you all for being here.
And this is all about... breaking down walls between us and Christ, us and
each other, us and the world.
When I was 17, I was a boxer.
I killed a man in the ring.
I built up so many walls of anger, addiction, violence.
I was the only one I felt safe enough to put my dukes down, open my arms,
confessed my deepest sin.
That was the day that Christ saved my life.
He didn't transform me. He sustained me every day.
That's daily bread, right?
I think that's what the church should be.
That's what I want this church to be for me and for all of you.
Monsignor Wicks isn't coming.
No, but... No.
So, I thought we'd just talk and start sharing. Well, he knows that we're doing
these right.
Sure, of course.
Of course, I'll tell him. I just, I wanted to connect and, uh, you'll tell
You'll, you'll tell him? Contraction of the simple future tense, meaning you
haven't yet told him?
Why wouldn't you tell him?
That feels kind of weird.
Okay, got it.
prayer meeting it's not a secret anything it's a secret prayer meeting no
literally what it is i just texted the monsignor great so it isn't a secret
anymore now we can just get back to breaking down those walls through christ
love he says what the holy heck oh i'm i'm sorry father i
came because i thought this was an official church function only he didn't
the word heck Thank you, Martha.
Is the church function, Vera? Is that a church? It's with me. It's official.
Or holy.
Can I see that? I think I should go.
Okay. Thank you. Is that it? Yeah.
Wow. Yeah, sorry about that. I don't want to piss him off.
Nice try, guy.
Thanks, Tom.
I'm probably going to post this tomorrow. Can I tag you? I prefer you
probably will anyway.
I know.
I'm so sorry, you're a little coug.
failed this afternoon, Father.
My coup?
Martha, really?
If we want to pray or need to confess something, we can do it with Monsignor
Wicks. Can you?
Because you all seem scared to death of the guy. Could you walk into that church
of your own free will and confess your deepest sins to Wicks, Martha, without
fear?
Because if not, this whole place is a whitewash tomb.
Yes.
I could.
Well, good.
The week of special services leading up to Easter.
It was on Palm Sunday that I finally broke.
And then, uh, twice in the shower this week, doing that thing I told you about
where I hold my hand upside down?
Five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys.
Well, we're at nine months now, Judd.
How are you enjoying it here? Are you breaking down some walls?
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been a week since my last
I betrayed a fellow priest's privacy.
I know that Martha keeps her medical bills filed in the office, so... I went
through them.
I learned you had a radical prostatectomy five years ago, making you
incapable of an erection.
I can handle...
whatever this is for the past nine months i've seen the way you tend this
don't like it you don't like it no my senior i don't nat sharp man
needs to forgive and start living his life and christ loves to be a launching
pad for that and instead he's just every day getting more and more angry and
bitter against his ex -wife against women it's bad and lee He's a
and it's like his superpower has been turned against him. The only story he
tells is, the world is out to get me. He was brilliant, funny, and smart, and
respected, and now he's just spinning out and angry all the time.
Paranoid. Did you know he literally built a moat around his house?
Really?
I mean, it's mostly symbolic, but yeah.
And Simone, I'm sorry, Monsignor.
But I'm afraid you've taken advantage of her.
I've seen the donation numbers.
I know how much she's giving now. And the past few months, she's basically
supporting this place.
And yes, I believe in the possibility of miracles through Christ. But what
you're giving her is not that.
It's transactional. Through you. And God help you, it makes her feel betrayed
again. God help me. Anything else?
Yeah, why not?
Cy Draven.
Doesn't his new YouTube stuff he's doing worry you?
Every week now, he takes clips from what you say in math and plugs them into his
political rant.
He's co -opting, and honestly, I think that's representing the church in a
dangerous way.
When was the last time a new person laughed at more than one Sunday?
Word's gotten out.
Every week now, it's just this hardened fist of regulars, and it seems like
you're intentionally keeping them angry and afraid.
Is that how Christ led his flock?
Is that what we're supposed to do?
Right now, you're angry.
You should be. You'd be dangerous if you weren't. I'd see you helpless, and I'd
do it again and again.
I'm the world. You're the church.
Stay down.
Good.
Right. Yes!
Anger! Anger lets us fight back, take back the ground we've lost.
And we've lost so much ground.
And now you're afraid.
Look at those bare -knuckle instincts coming back. Good!
You're afraid. I'm going to come at you again. But you're protecting yourself.
Because the world wants to destroy us.
Your version of...
Love and forgiveness is a thop. It's going along to get along with modernity,
not wanting to offend this garbage world. Meanwhile, they destroy us.
Feminists, Marxists, whores. Bit by bit, they do.
But I carry my burden.
I hold the line.
And you?
You stubborn child from Albany?
gonna get angry and fight.
You're poisoning this church.
And I'll do whatever it takes to save it.
To cut you out like a cancer.
Five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys.
Christ, you didn't give up on me.
I'm not giving up on this church.
He was one step ahead of me.
Father, judge, prayer meeting.
I have kept this church. I have fought for the truth of God and now the
to find my authority and faith and life itself challenged and from inside my own
sanctuary.
Get out!
Wait for the final move.
Open war against me.
I got great tokens.
The world's a wolf.
You devil.
You devil wolf.
You're a devil wolf.
Nikolai, I'm sorry. I broke that. Don't worry about it.
You're a junk lance. A junk lance. Come on. Hey, can you get the drone? Yeah.
Are you sure?
And that brings up the Good Friday.
Here we go.
It was a 3 p .m. service.
Just the regulars.
There was a strange tension in the air.
I can't recall the homily, but it felt different.
The anger felt less calculated.
More unhinged.
As always, After the homily, Wicks was spent emotionally and physically and
needed some time to recover.
He would duck into the small storage closet just to the side of the sanctuary
he'd be out of sight.
He'd fortify himself, and I would continue the service until he felt
enough to rejoin and take over.
Behold the wood of the cross, on which hung the salvation of the world.
That's it.
The ambulance took just five minutes to arrive.
When I joined the others outside, the police were just arriving.
This was an insane event for a tiny town.
And poor Geraldine, the local chief, was thrown in headlong.
of questioning all through the day, Saturday, until finally... You're the
one on stage who can not see any of the time of his killing.
Any of his prior possessions, the wolf had figurine attached to him or to
weapons.
And you're the only one at that church who hated his guts.
I don't hate any guts.
It's literally impossible for anyone to have done this, so I don't... Oh,
I don't know what this is.
Father, why don't you go get some rest?
I should warn you before you walk out of here, the town is talking.
Signed, Raven, put this up on his YouTube this morning.
I turned on my phone for two minutes and that was a mistake.
A flood of messages to the killer priest.
I wasn't thinking about getting arrested or defrocked. I was thinking
Wicks had won.
It's getting the part of my soul that cannot lie to Christ or myself or you.
I was happy the old man was dead.
Jesus.
Help me.
Show me the way through this, please.
Hello?
I'm sorry.
Are you open?
Always.
You alright?
Yeah. Uh -huh. Sorry.
There's no Easter mass.
I'm sorry.
You're welcome. Come in. Thank you. Come in. Thank you.
I don't want to take you away from your priestly duties now, do I?
This stuff.
Right?
Hard to be in here and not feel his presence.
Whose?
Oh, God. Oh, yeah. Right.
Yeah. You're not a Catholic. No, very much not. No.
Proud heretic.
I kneel at the altar of the rational.
Uh -huh. You weren't raised in a faith?
My mother was.
Very, very religious.
Were you close with her? No.
When I was a boy, we... It's called family. Yeah, that's
right.
How does all this make you feel?
How does it make me feel?
truthfully, sure.
Well, the architecture, that interests me.
I feel the grandeur, the mystery, the intended emotional effect.
And it's like someone has shone a story at me that I do not believe.
It's built upon the empty promise of a child's fairy tale filled with
Malevolence and misogyny and homophobia and its justified untold acts of
violence and cruelty while all the while and still hiding its own shameful acts.
It's like an ornery mule kicking back. I want to pick it apart and pop its
perfidious bubble of belief and get to a truth I can swallow without choking.
Very fine, though. Listen,
you want to kick me out, you go right ahead.
No, no.
You're being honest. It's good.
Telling the truth can be a bit of a rub.
Now, I suspect you can't always be honest with your parishioners. You can
be honest by not saying the unhonest part.
Yeah.
You're right.
It's storytelling.
And this church is not medieval. We're in New York.
Neo -Gothic 19th century has more in common with Disneyland and Notre Dame
the rites and rituals and costumes, all of it.
Storytelling.
You're right.
I guess the question is, do these stories convince us of a lie?
Or do they resonate with something deep inside us that's profoundly true?
That we can't express any other way.
Except storytelling.
Touché, Padre.
Son,
I'm sorry.
And now I'm going to lose that.
I'll lose my purpose and I'm frightened.
I don't know how I'll live.
Mom!
Hey, you found him.
Who
are
you? I probably should have led with this. My name is Benoit Blanc. I'm a
detective of...
Take an interest in the murder of Jefferson Wicks.
You're a detective, so you're with the police? No, no. I work in the private
capacity. Everyone thinks I did it. I didn't do it.
But in my heart, maybe I didn't.
And the way it happened was some kind of miracle.
And... I don't know.
I'm lost. I don't know.
Would you allow me to help you?
What?
Your lips.
The crack, the dehydration. You haven't slept all night.
You spend it outdoors by the stadium, pat legs on your knees in prayer.
What I see is not a guilty man in torment, but an innocent man tormented
guilt.
Let me help you.
How? This was dreaded as a miracle.
It's just a murder.
An assault murders.
Wait, but...
Were you the Kentucky Derby thing with the murder and the guy that they got
the photo from his camera seat? So you were on the view. Yeah. What are you
doing here? I need to come up to speed rapidly on the events of that Friday
service. And the going's on here at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude.
Geraldine has graciously allowed me access.
If you can spare the day and accompany me on my investigation, view the body.
trace the murder weapon, inspect the crime scene.
You are in a unique position to assist me.
The body.
Yeah,
I've changed my mind. I don't think I should be here.
No,
no, no, no, no, no. I want you to get a clear clinical picture of what happened
here. Because he works as he is. A corpse. Just an empty vessel.
Not a mythologized monster in your mind, but merely flesh and blood. Dead from a
knife wound. Weak and analyzed.
Just flesh and blood.
Flesh and blood.
That's how we live, isn't it?
Please don't tell me that.
Tammy. What do you mind?
Flipping the meat.
Pancake them.
One,
two, three.
Hey! No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't belong here. I can't be in here. I don't
know why you brought me here.
You want absolution?
You want to be a priest again? Then you need to go through this with me.
The real killer is out there.
We've got to find him, nail him, I'm sorry, catch him, and get your life
Father, I need to know you understand the situation.
We are not all buddies running around trying to solve a case. You are still a
suspect.
The point is you do not need to be here without a lawyer. Do you understand
that?
I didn't do this.
If I can help find out who did, then I'm in, yeah.
Let's do it, yeah.
Okay.
The body, next the murder weapon, then the crime scene.
Skip with me.
He loves it. And then, you know, double, double, double, bang.
I don't know. But that did, right?
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
But, you know, it wasn't red, though. It's red now.
It's pink.
Yes, yes.
Freshly painted.
Until there was some kind of plaster and stuck the blade in that way.
the red devil head thing that ended up where in the church i threw it at the
church and broke a window i don't know why and then after the christmas mass on
monday martha said she found a small broken window but nothing else
Do you see that?
Yeah.
Oh, that is a... Dr. Nat?
Hey.
You said it was lunch.
I didn't, I don't think, yeah, I know.
I don't think I'd prefer that.
I'd prefer not that.
Ah, there it is.
That's what you did it with.
Huh? Come on, man. Cut him out like a kid.
You son of a bitch.
Tell him that.
Yeah.
Son of a bitch!
You're a priest!
First off, I know Detective Elliot approved that gift for giving me your
I'm just glad to be of service.
Harold, you had the foresight to see that this goes way beyond normal police
work. This is something you and I have not experienced.
A textbook example of a perfectly impossible crime.
The stuff of detective fiction. This should not exist in our real world.
And yet here it is.
The Holy Grail.
Yeah, I love the passion. I just think you feel confident that you know this
case is culpable.
Well, I'm incapable of myself in a crime.
That moment of checkmate.
When I take the stage and unravel my opponent's web.
Well, you'll see.
It's fun.
Great. How did we get there? The source.
John Dixon Cost, The Hollow Man.
A golden age detective novel.
And a veritable primer on the locked door mystery, The Impossible Crime.
Hold up.
Father Judge, once again, earn in your keep.
Whose body? I'm interested in the rumor.
Roger Ancroft, the murderer of the Vickery.
My God, this is practically a syllabus for how to commit this crime.
And the whole flock is in this group?
Who chose these books?
Oprah.
I suppose it came less from Oprah's fate.
Well, it's confirmed in my theory.
The killer certainly imitated the traditional methods of a locked -door
story.
Which makes things simple.
Or club time.
Come on, kid.
The detective, Gideon Fell, put the rundown of all possible methods of a
-door killing.
So let's line them up and knock them down.
Possibility number one.
Wicks was stabbed with the knife before entering the closet.
Father Judge, would you take your place right where you were?
Wicks completes his sermon.
Any device behind him capable of propelling a heavy, unbalanced dagger
back would have been hidden from the camera and the witnesses in the
nave, but certainly would have been witnessed by Father Judd.
No, I didn't see a nice human robot behind him. No.
Possibility one. Next.
Possibility two.
He was killed while inside the closet by someone or something
that was outside the closet.
Like someone shot the knife into the closet from out here? No, that's not...
impossible on several fronts. Possibility two, nicked. Progress.
How many more possibilities are there? Not many. Three.
He was killed, well, inside the closet by a device that was also
inside the closet.
So something was placed beforehand and what triggered was a remote?
Well, these walls are thick, but a very strong RA signal could blast through.
Where would one hide a fully functional remote control knife -propelling
device in an empty box?
Wicks fell on his stomach.
I remember that clangy thud.
And his face was towards the door.
So he was standing at the back facing out.
So the knife must have somehow come through the back wall.
Clangy thud.
Very good.
I will rocket your brawl, sir.
What about a false wall that was removed late?
Go to town, Father Brown.
No, no. My boys would have noticed a fake wall.
You know, removing it later would have been no small tab.
Nothing else was found on the floor of this space, yes?
Nope. No, just the red thread.
Wait, what? The red thread?
Two strings of thick red thread, about three inches long, down there, over by
the body, next to the hip.
So, what's the possibility for it?
Martha?
Throw them out.
Martha? Throw them out.
To walk this holy place like some crime scene, like some
tawdry police show.
talking of robots.
It's not right, Father. It isn't. It's not right.
Martha, you should go home and get some rest.
Can I do anything for you?
Leave.
No one wants you here anymore.
You've always hated the Monsignor, and you have nothing but contempt for us.
That's not true. Murder in your heart, blood on your hands, just like the
whore. Your original sin has stained this place.
False priest.
Sorry.
But yeah, if finding the facts with that detective puts me against healing this
plot, then so be it.
Can I use your bag?
Sure. Go ahead.
Are you okay?
A fog with Mary.
This is a puzzle that was solvable. The body, the weapon, the crime scene, robot
knife guns, and angles of view, and stone walls, and remote control.
Okay,
I've overlaid a time stamp taking into account the broadcast delay.
Dr. Sharp's call to the hospital happened at 3 .47 p .m. and 90 seconds
that.
But to answer your question, yes, it is consistent with a strong burst of RF
interference that you might get from a souped -up remote control.
Damn. This is it, right? This triggered the knife robot.
This has got to be it. You can solve it now, right? Did you set this up with the
hospital? I did, yeah. The iPhone video has a timestamp. It's very precise.
Okay, can you show it, please?
Yeah.
birth happened, he was already on the ground with a knife in his back, and
Father Judd was staring right at him.
And how did that work?
Well, for the knife robot, it doesn't. So, this was nothing?
No, no. This was very much something.
We have all the pieces laid out before us now.
We do?
Yeah. Consider the origin of the devil's head, the red thread, the clanky clock,
the diamond of the RF remote.
lines up.
So give me the answer.
I can't.
You said if you had all the pieces, you would have an answer. And yet, with all
the pieces on the table, this crime still truly appears impossible.
You told me you could solve this.
That's what you do.
I put my faith in you.
Oh, God.
You haven't slept in 36 hours. I think it's bedtime.
Yeah.
It's been a hell of a day.
Good night, Father Jack.
I'll drive you back.
You know, you're right.
This can't be impossible.
There must be a piece of me...
See, I think there's something in there, in your head, that I need to solve this
case.
And if I can't shake it loose, I'm sorry.
But I'm going to have to go in there and get it.
Okay, you're freaking me out now.
I don't understand.
I don't get how this will help.
You want me to write the story? Yes, the story.
The story of the Reverend Wicked Mood.
One pina jalapeno. Okay. I need to see his murder and the events leading up to
it through your eyes.
Starting where?
Oh, wherever you like.
Just keep it interesting. Keep it moving. Spare no detail.
Look, I'm not a writer. Take your time.
Cool.
I'll be quite comfortable.
So I spent the past hour doing exactly that.
And now I'll put down this pen.
and hand it to you.
I guess wait while you read my story of the murder of my senior Jefferson Wicks.
Her question is, why did I think I could lie to you and get away with it?
Oh, no, you didn't lie.
I knew you wouldn't.
You didn't say that you thought his part out loud.
When I joined the others outside, the police were just arriving.
Join the others outside.
See you stand inside.
So you were the only person with unobserved access to the utility closet
the murder or before the police searched it.
Why protect him?
I didn't do it to protect Wicks.
I did it to save the people who believed in him just a little disillusionment.
Well, surely everyone knew.
I mean, it would have been on his breath after every mass.
He fortified himself.
I have a word in there.
But everyone must have known.
The spirit really moves him today, huh?
No, not everyone.
Sam.
One good person in this whole place.
Getting sober saves his life.
I don't know if the press and police were there. Why let that be part of the
story?
Wicks had been stabbed.
I don't know how or by whom, but I knew he'd been stabbed.
But it had nothing to do with it. It was an impulse.
A little storytelling to protect my flock.
Oh, bullshit!
And in protecting their bubble of belief, you have shielded a killer!
Where is that flask?
Shit's not here.
God, I'm sorry.
He was stabbed, so I didn't think it. No, you did not think.
But we're into the woods now, so you better start.
I'm broken in my room.
This is hitting me.
This is deviant. It's calculated against me. And now you see the enemy we're up
against.
You have listened to this block of stories with empathy and grace, but
done with that now.
We've wasted enough time.
Tomorrow. We used the gathering at the burial to question them all together. We
must discover what happened that night.
And what this flock of wicked wolves is hiding.
The train.
Pierced.
Murdered.
And left in a hole to rot.
To be forgotten.
As with our savior, so with the church.
Our church is assailed by wicked modernity. By the enemies of God. The
harlot whores. The vermin who would oppress and silence.
and bar us from our rightful place as the rulers of a Christian nation of
And even as I stand before you as a warrior of Christ, in the armor of God,
ready to fight the world to my last breath, you shall not pass!
As our Lord was, I am betrayed by Judas.
Gentlemen, may I have a moment?
Judas in many forms.
Always. The true threat comes from within.
Remember my words.
On this Good Friday, remember what's to come. Remember, all of you.
You will rise again.
You will be okay.
You will rise again.
You will rise. The hour approaches, the hour I have warned you about.
Remember what I have promised you all come Easter Sunday, for I will make good
on that promise. Yes, I will.
For behold, though he is struck down, the righteous son of God will rise
Eve's apple restored to the tree and the wealth of his kingdom and his rising
rain.
And as you gnash your teeth in the darkness, you unfreeze. Faithful devils,
you lie cold and forgotten and alone, he will rise again
to reclaim what is his.
Strike down the wicked and raise his true son to the throne of this nation.
Yes, he will rise. Yes, he will rise. Yes, tremble in fear, for he will
rise again in glory, in vengeance, in war.
I am lost, Father.
Here, sign on the bottom.
This is between you and me.
I don't care what the Internet says.
I think there's a chance you didn't do it.
All right, everyone, listen up. Oh, would you look who it is? It's Judith
Father, you are not welcome here. All right, stop!
Here's what's going to happen. Benoit Frick and Blanc and I are going to ask
all some questions, and you're going to ask them, and we're going to get to the
bottom. Who killed my senior wick and why?
And then, that's it.
Okay? Okay.
So.
Thank you, Father Judd. That was pretty good. And we're going to start with what
happened that night right here in this very room.
You mean the time Judd admitted to all of us that he killed a man? Okay. No,
that was the boxing thing. And now he's covering his eyes by attacking us. He's
a pinot. A pinot?
Priest in name only.
Helping Benoit Blanc crack the mystery of the evil, evil church.
And then some libtard will make a podcast about all this. And before you
it, the idiot versions of all of us will end up on Netflix.
Oh, the idiot version.
God forbid.
Jesus!
It's a miracle!
I can walk, Martha.
It just hurts.
I say good.
Expose it all.
Wicks is a con man.
Miracle, supernatural power of God bullshit.
I really believe.
I still want to believe.
How sick is that?
Well, actually, I was inquiring not about your prayer group, but about the
shadowy meeting with Wicks that took place in this room on Palm Sunday.
was that meeting actually about?
Who wants to go first?
I'll tell you.
Si. Hey, wait, wait, wait. Hold on there, buddy. Hey, no, no, no, no. You
your mouth, you little shit. Wait, no, this isn't your decision.
You tell me nothing. Oh, hey, see, I apologize.
I promise you that what we talked about that night has nothing to do with witch
killing, okay?
But it does have to do with things that, if made public, can ruin people.
In this room. I recorded the whole thing. Just hit play.
No!
All right.
Very dramatic, Vera.
Cut your audience. What's this about?
I've been thinking about your mom.
I never knew her, but growing up in this church, I knew the story
of the harlot whore. And I've been thinking about what her life must have
like to be trapped in a house with her father and her son, closing rank,
shaming her.
and teaching us all to shame her.
That poor girl.
Yesterday, I got a call from a family law colleague in Brooklyn.
He wanted to double -check contact details for Monsignor Jefferson Wicks,
client, because my client had filed an AOP with him.
In Brooklyn.
Though I would not know.
What's an AOP?
Acknowledgement of parentage.
Affirmation that I, Jefferson Wick, am the biological father of Cyrus Draper.
No shame for you.
Right? Who was the mother?
Does it even matter?
No, no.
It was she came back and dropped this poor kid in your lap.
And then she went and had a life.
And my faithful father came to the rescue. Once again, the boys club,
drinks, and there I was, the loyal little idiot, trapped.
And I obeyed and I honored and raised your son while you sat on your
pulpit. Shameless, you hypocritical son of a bitch!
Si?
Did you know?
Not until Vera told me this morning.
Yes.
Si is my son.
From a loose woman of no importance, who I knew for one night and haven't seen
in 30 years, Vera's father and I kept a secret, but no longer.
He is my heir.
My son.
Now the world is going to know it.
So, rats, flee the sinking ship?
Don't cut the shit.
You're all standing by here, man.
I just wanted to see it. I wanted to see it for myself. You eat his shit with a
spoon and come back for a second.
That's kind of condescending, Vera. You don't know what we're feeling.
I think we're all, as Christians, very shaken up by what you just said.
But we're fighting an existential war here where the end justifies the means.
The church doesn't need some pussy who's going to lie down and take it. We need
a warrior. We need a warrior.
And I believe that God chose Monsignor Wicks.
to be his warrior.
So you and your son have my sword.
And we don't know this woman.
We do not know her.
We do not know, right, how she... What is truth?
Right, with various sources. We don't know that. We don't... What exists?
Does any of this exist?
So... Well said, Doc.
Thank you.
You promised if I stuck with you, you could heal me.
That's true.
I don't need you to be a saint.
We're with you, my senior wick.
And literally nothing that you say or do is going to change that.
I will give my final service a week from today on Easter Sunday.
And then I will close the doors of this sad little church for good.
But not before I have destroyed each and every one of you.
Sir, wait, what, what?
You're drinking, Matt?
What? No, you're a dangerous man.
Going to work drunk, treating patients, children while drunk.
This community should know. The medical board should know.
No one must ever trust or hire you again.
And Lee, this Troubadour book you've been writing, its bootlicking
idiocy is an affront to my ministry. It's my duty to warn not only the
but my friends in the publishing world. It must be buried. You must be buried.
Exposed. Is the irrelevant clown that you are. What the hell? What is even
happening right now?
And Vera, you are your father's nightmare.
He would be so ashamed.
Simone, I cannot heal a faithless woman.
I cannot help you. You said you could cast it out of me.
I promised you nothing.
I've given you all of my savings. You cannot buy God's healing.
You will never be healed.
You will die in pain in the prison of that chair.
Why are you doing this?
I don't understand.
This is a joke. I am so confused.
This is a joke.
Is this payback for the Father Judd prayer meeting? No, Father Judd's prayer
meeting?
I have kept this church. I have fortified it with the truth of God. And
betrayal to find my authority.
and faith and life itself challenged him from inside my own sanctuary
all
of you
you can't follow my path yes we are at war and i
cast you out of my fortress on easter sunday when the pews fill with
i will lay bare the sins of this flock Cut you loose and shake the dust of this
place off of my sandals.
Into hell.
With you all.
Well, Glory, they cleared the room.
Si.
Why'd he do that?
Thay, tell me what was happening.
Why'd he torture them all? Why would he do that? Because I told him to.
When Vera told me the truth, I went and found him.
And he embraced me as a son for the first time in my life.
He unburdened himself.
I hate this place.
I hate this sad flock of losers.
You wanna get out?
And now finally, I can.
He told me his grandfather's family fortune lost all these years. He told me
found it just this week.
No. No, that money is gone. Nobody knows where Prentiss put it, but it's gone
without a trace.
He told me he found it.
He was going to shutter this dump and retire in filthy wealth.
And I told him, are you nuts?
Retire. Do you know the power of what you do on that stage?
I've shrunk the flock. No, you radicalize them.
That is power.
In a small town, there are only so many witches to burn and zealots to activate.
Your flame lacks fuel.
But on the internet?
Wildfire.
That's money.
You're a cult of personality.
Are you kidding me?
Give me four years.
You could be president.
Together, we can build a real empire.
There's a father and a son.
Like in the Star Wars?
Yeah, exactly like the Rebels.
His ministry and my political instinct fueled by enough money. Can you imagine
what we could do in Christ's name?
Yeah. Yeah, I think I can.
First, I told him, and I'll admit this is a little personal. First, I told him
we need to burn this flock.
They're a liability.
If they associate themselves with us, show up on cable news, even want to play
from this thing, we need to burn them off like leeches.
That's why I torched them all.
Because if you're a petty vindictiveness, one of them might have
it. You know that, right?
Getting back to this vast fortune.
So it's yours now?
Technically, yes.
Technically? He didn't tell you where it was?
No.
There's a counter empty. There's nothing.
So where is it?
And then I realized 50 years ago, what was the safest way for Prentice to hide
$80 million?
A Swiss bank account.
Uh -huh. And so all you need to do is find that account number.
No luck there?
It has to be written down somewhere. Martha filed everything and it isn't
I don't know.
Here, I thought I might do a clone because he kept saying Eve's apple would
restored to the tree. That was a thing.
As if Eve's apple is the fortune.
But it seems to count. We're looking for 19 of her, so it doesn't work.
Vera, did he ever tell you anything?
Even if he did, I would go to my grave before giving it to you.
Yeah.
You'd have done anything to keep the prodigal son from getting the fortune.
burns you up.
You bitter hag.
Money is one psalm in the bible of my bitterness.
You fucking child.
You should come and get your shit. It'll be around the street.
Yeah, you're an detective.
I'll pay you. I don't care. This is very important. My inheritance and future
political career depends on it. Can you think?
of anything related to eve's apple that might contain that number
what did you think
of anything you'll call me oh yeah give back all right
look
everywhere it might be
the metal.
I need to file this. File that.
It doesn't make sense. I know.
An $80 million fortune.
But if Eve's apple is the fortune and it's not a pile of cash in a Swiss
somewhere, what is it?
What? The big print of the day limit.
It says the crypt opening thing was ordered last Wednesday.
That can't be right.
Who had pre -ordered burial equipment for a man who isn't dead?
Someone I knew with great certainty when that day and hour would come. Give me
that.
Oh, that computer printer, that's not a misprint. That's it. Whoever called in
that order, that's the key. Okay, yeah, yeah.
Feel a little construction, Mr. Belize.
Hello, Belize. It's a closet job from Potential Fortitude.
Oh.
Hello. Hi, Louise. We have a piece of your construction equipment here today
a foot to open a crypt.
Not too often we get a crypt opening order. Great. So I need to know. I
process that order while I do all the processing. Yeah. What I need to know,
Louise. I run this place with my brother James. Right. He takes orders, but I
process the order. Right. So the reason I'm calling, Louise.
I've been to that church of yours.
I don't think you were there. No, I'm new.
I'm relatively new here. Louise, I have to ask.
No, he's an older guy.
Father... Monsignor.
Monsignor. Father Monsignor. Okay, well, he was preaching one -on -one, and I've
got to tell you, that is not that nice, man. But I am sorry that he, yikes,
died. And, you know, for all y 'all blots over there, it's pretty sad.
I have to interrupt.
I have a question.
Yeah. The order for the forklift.
I need to know who placed the order.
James takes the orders, and he's actually left for the day. Can I have
number? This is very important. We need to find out who placed that order.
No, no, look, I don't think I can do that, but you know what I can do? It's
important. Excuse me, Father.
What I can do, as I was saying, is I can get that information for you, and then
I will get you... That's it. That's great. And if you can call James now, I
would appreciate it so much. Thank you, Louise. Okay, I will.
Yeah, though, I mean, if you can make it quick, this is a priority for us right
now. We should call you back.
last time we talked.
She has a tumor in her brain that's affecting her and it's making her say
really terrible things and so I said bad things back and now I'm afraid that
that's going to be the last thing that we ever say to each other.
Father, I am, I'm feeling pretty alone.
I'm so sorry, Louis.
You're not alone.
And I'm right here.
I'm here.
Can you tell me your mother's name?
about his love.
And it will come to her in this time. Lord, I pray for Louise.
Be with her and give her wisdom and guidance.
Hold her in your healing arms and let her know that you have loved.
She is not alone.
And we pray through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Okay, Louise.
You have my number anytime, day or night.
I'm here for you.
This church is yours.
Bless you.
A storm.
I came to close up.
I'll get the church. You take care of the rectory.
Don't follow me, Blondes. I'm done.
And, uh, why exactly?
I had a road to Damascus thing.
Paul had a holy revelation on the road to Damascus. Yes, I know. He was struck
blind and a lad hard -washed.
Probably just a case of pink eye.
But he was not on the verge of solving a murder when it happened.
I mean, what do you think we're doing here?
Why do you think I became a priest? No bullshit. Really, why?
You felt guilt for taking a life.
And the church, it offered you a place to hide and a clear method to give you a
sense of absolution.
The guy I killed in the ring, I hated him.
I remember. I knew he was in trouble, and I kept going and going until I felt
him break. It wasn't an accident. I killed him with hate in my heart.
hiding from that. There's no solving it. God didn't hide me or fix me. He loves
me when I'm guilty. That's what I should be doing for these people, not this
whodunit game.
Now, now, wait a minute.
Excuse me.
You look at me when I'm talking to you.
We're looking for a murderer. This is not a game. It is a game!
Solving it! Winning it!
Getting your big checkmate moment!
And by using me in it, you're sending me against my real and only purpose in
life, which is not to fight the wicked and bring them to justice, but to serve
them and bring them to Christ.
Otherwise, I'm just as bad as wicked, making it about me and not Jesus.
Listen, you don't have to understand, blog, but just please, please, please,
please let me be.
see that again no i'll make it about you not jesus like wicks you said father
this is important help me understand we are here to serve the world not beat it
that's what christ did so so when wicks was talking about fighting the world for
christ's sake he wasn't talking about christ he was talking about his own ego
and power he's never talking about christ
Yes, over and over he talked about Christ, rising in power, getting his
on the unspeakable.
Eve's apple is the treasure.
Eve's apple restored to the tree. What does that mean?
I don't know.
I don't care.
That'll be Jeremy coming for our update on the case. Now, Father, you're right.
This is my case, not yours.
Why don't you head back to the rectory? I'll handle it.
Thank you.
Thanks for the door shut when you leave.
Hope you catch a killer, Ron.
Thank you. I will.
Not here.
I want you to search those bathrooms and that closet thing, too.
Oh.
It's good, right?
It's great, actually.
Especially the part where Gideon fell and walks you through the possible
solutions of a locked -up crime.
Yeah, you covered three of them. Then you stopped.
Now, having read the fourth, I know why.
See, I re -watched the video and I realized something.
From the moment Judd enters the closet until the first of the flock has a line
of sight into that closet is nine seconds.
Nine seconds alone and unseen.
Plenty of time to do the deed with a concealed knife.
That's how it's done, right?
No games, no bullshit. That's how it was done.
Yes.
And you knew. You knew all along and you toyed with that poor child. You're like
a cat with a mouse. I don't have the whole picture just yet.
If you could give me a little more time. No.
I'm going to be able to. No.
I found my killer and I'm bringing him in.
Where is he?
Here.
Oh, shit.
Who's that?
The groundkeeper, Samson.
This was 100 % medically dead dead.
We know this. I'm just saying, mate.
Right.
Cannon, you can also say out loud, a man can't just rise from the dead.
And there's obviously some scooby -doo shit going on here.
Scooby -dooby -doo. Praise to God!
Praise and glory!
Praise and glory to the Almighty.
Hey, Rick, set a perimeter on the road. The music is going to spread fast, and I
don't want any looking.
Chief,
that motion detector light there, it's also a camera, but it's not hooked up to
anything. Camera?
Maybe it's recording something on a chip inside. Why don't you bring it into the
media lab?
Hallelujah. Praise God. He has raised up his servant.
from hey we do my favorite hip -hop this entire area down to the growth the
homicide scene the ground keeper is dead
This is Father Judd.
Father Judd, it's Louise. How are you doing?
I hope it's not too late, but he said it was urgent, so I just wanted to tell
you. I spoke to James, and the order for the fourth book was actually placed by
Monsignor Wicks.
He spoke to James directly about it, so I do hope that this clears things up.
And God bless you, Father. You have yourself a good night, okay?
Uh, yeah.
Yeah, you too, Louise.
Martha, what?
What?
It's a miracle.
Bullshit. No, it happened. Martha said the tomb is empty. I'm calling everyone.
I'm on my way now.
Did you, uh... What are you doing? You don't smoke.
I did.
I smoked for 15 years.
Did Lee call you? Did he tell you?
Yeah.
Okay, well, I'm going to go witness a miracle. You enjoy your cigarette
He's got it.
All right, so it's not great quality.
It's fine.
Yeah, so it records any time there's motion, and this clip is four seconds
later.
Okay.
Craig, from the guarding tool.
We did a wonderful database check to suspect your questions.
It's Father Judd.
Fuck.
I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it.
myself in. No, you are not.
I did it, right? I'm guilty. You have to let me in. Listen, you're going to tell
me exactly what happened, but right now, how do I get to Dr. Nat's house?
Get quickly.
I regret my story.
I only hope we're not too late. Now, just get down.
Is it real?
I need to see.
Please, I need to see.
Just waiting you know
Oh, there it is.
Wake?
Yeah, it's him.
Is he?
Yeah. I mean, for what it's worth these days.
This might get unplugged. I mean, more unplugged.
Dr. Yeah.
In the flesh, the Elf was left good.
Geraldine, it's Blanc.
Yeah, he's standing right here.
Listen to me. You're going to want to come to Dr. Nat's house.
There's a body or two.
It's all here.
Yes, yeah.
It's finished.
I'll call you back.
Father John, wait, wait. I killed Ben. I have to do this.
Have to do it in my own free will or it won't mean anything.
Call General Lee for me, please.
If Father Judge returns to his church, he's ready to confess.
Father Judd, I'm here to arrest you for the murder of Monsignor Jefferson
Winston Sampson Holt and your person of interest in the death of Dr. Nathaniel
Sharp. What did Dad say?
Murdered in his home.
We also recovered Wicks' body.
It's over.
Anything you say can't be used against you in a court of law.
But if you'd like to confess to anything, this seems like a pretty great
to do it.
Yeah.
Years ago, I murdered a man in a boxing ring.
And I killed him with hate in my heart.
Last night, that same sin rose in me, and in a moment of fear and rage,
I... I'm sorry. That was
dramatic, but I needed you to stop talking.
No, no, no. Just sit down and listen. Please continue.
Please continue. In a moment of fear and rage... Do not silence the voice of the
Lord! But sit down!
And behold the wickedness and shame of the guilty laid bare before you all!
Let us begin with Wix's murder.
Right here, on Good Friday, the impossible crime.
Geraldine, you were correct in your deduction.
When Montefiore Witt collapsed in that closet space, he wasn't dead.
He wasn't even stabbed, not yet.
The flag he kept stashed in the breaker box was sparked with a very powerful
tranquilizer. He drank from it, fortified himself, and within minutes
the floor unconscious.
A clanky clunk.
Leaving him defenseless and giving the killer their chance to enter the closet
and deliver the deadly blow.
I said that already.
Father John. No. The knife was in his back when I found him. Something in his
back. So how? When?
It's impossible, my father. What did you see?
The red devil head.
Blood? You assumed it was Wix's. Now, I'll show you the answer to this. Did
see?
Il Diablo. The pizza bar. The photograph.
You thought you saw.
But that wasn't it. No.
It was a second identical lamp. A second identical devil head.
Yeah.
And it was also missing.
Two devils.
Yes.
Why, too?
And why paint it red?
Well, it's not red, though. It's red now. The same red as the Good Friday
vestments. The same exact red as the mysterious thread found in the closet.
Because the second devil head was there all the time.
Sewn to the back of his vestments.
Hollow, light, filled with a small squib of blood.
Triggered by an RF remote.
Hit all.
at the exact right moment a doctor the
voice of authority who can wait for the discovery he needs before taking charge
the moment of distraction presents
itself and the deed is quickly done the
final task to remove the incriminating drug -laced flask. But
where was it? It was gone.
The one hiccup in his plan.
The result of a moment of foolish grace by Father Judd, who concealed the flask,
to hardwix his drinking, and returned later to retrieve it.
My God.
Nat.
Why?
Wiggs was going to forge the Earth.
He was going to ruin him.
No, the bigger why. The why that brought you here. Why'd you allow this insane,
elaborate stuff, the theatricality, the impossible crime?
Why?
Indeed. So, if Dr. Nat killed Wiggs, who killed Nat? Well, now we get to it.
Not some fiddly locked -door mystery with devices and clues, but a
much...
larger scheme one whose roots run to the bedrock of this church and one which
draws me an unbeliever in every sense of the word into the realm of belief
i had to look at the myth that
was being constructed
Not to solve whether it was real or not, but to feel in my soul the essence of
that which it strove to convey.
A holy priest struck down by no man, but by the hand of Satan himself,
laid to rest in the sealed tomb of his father, but then risen by the
will of God.
Risen as something new. No longer a fallible man, but now a symbol of the
power over death.
His justice for the holy.
His vengeance for the wicked.
Okay. And now, what really happened?
Yes. Yes. It is time to break this.
tawdry facade of miracles and resurrections and reveal what really
is time for Benoit Blanc's final checkmate over the mysteries of faith.
Are you okay?
Damascus.
Damascus?
What?
A road to Damascus, then? Yes. Yes, Damascus.
I cannot solve this case.
What?
Are you saying that your conclusion, Benoit Blanc, is that when Senior Wick
from the dead, that it was a miracle?
I'm saying I cannot solve this case.
That works.
Thank you.
You know what really happened? You should tell everyone.
Is he sparing our faith or being respectful or something? Because we
truth. It is not.
I need the truth.
Can't you just give us the answer? Isn't that what all this is for?
And would you consider blurbing my book?
No.
Okay. All right.
Show's over. Everyone out.
Out.
Add another chapter, and then we're ready. We're ready
to publish.
Trust me, Alan. Call random. It's going to be huge.
What we witnessed is a miracle confirmed by Benoit Blanc himself.
The world will know what happened.
What the
hell was that?
Road to Damascus.
Scales fell from my eyes.
So what? You believe in God and all this? No,
no. God is a fiction. My revelation came from Father Judd.
His example to have grace.
Grace for my enemy.
Grace for the broken.
Grace for those who...
Deserved to lead it.
But I'm needed the most.
For the guilty.
Mr. Balak, you know the truth.
I do, yes.
And you made yourself the fool just now.
So that you could do this of your own free will.
And now you better do it.
Quickly.
Confession. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It is the week since my last
confession.
I told myself it started with pure intent.
But the truth is, it started.
To take his final communion.
This is Eve Apple, lover.
My entire cursed fortune.
All the sin in the world.
All that Eve hungers for.
I have trapped her.
She'll never again be plucked by evil hands.
He took the jewel to his grave.
I swore that I would protect this great secret.
But Grace, she discovered that he had bought the diamond.
I don't know how.
She knew a fancy brand.
What would come in a custom -made Fabergé box itself worth maybe $20 ,000
trinket?
Plastic Jesus, no.
Something fascist, worth a fortune.
A jewel.
But she didn't know where he hid it.
So that night... She didn't have to create the church in anger.
No, she was looking for the hidden jewel.
A dark life of desperation.
A prisoner to shame and judgment.
It was her one way out.
Martha, what did he say to her?
I know where he hid it.
And you'll never find it.
Through Harlot Hoare.
Where is it?
Where is it? I kept the secret
of Eve's apple locked in my heart for 60 years.
A terrible burden.
Until... Until... I challenge you to confess it.
With defiant pride, I confess.
Time is of the essence now. Let us undo the rectory.
Vera confronted Wicks, and you learned about Psy.
I could accept that he had strayed.
But as he spoke, something became clear.
This was something much bigger.
He was embracing that terrible boy.
That's when I suspected.
So you call the construction company.
Thank you, James.
And I would say...
He had ordered the equipment to open the crypt, to steal the diamond for his own
greed and lust for power. The corrupted sin of Eve's Apple would be
unearthed, and this church would fall because of it.
Everything Prentiss had warned me about, I had failed him.
All my life.
I was not the bad one. I was the good one, the faithful one, serving and
protecting the church.
If I failed in that, what is my life?
My sole purpose.
And I failed.
it forever and with the same stroke race wakes up as a miraculous risen
saint not a fallible man but a symbol that would save my church
all it would take is a miracle
Despot. Someone who would fall in line to face a surgeon with a day in mind to
cover his shame.
And who had access to medical grade tranquilizers.
Yes, and that.
If all went according to plan.
Oh, God.
My vanity. So wicked.
Master?
I understand. I promise I do.
Keep going. I'm here. I didn't reckon the cost.
Forgive me, Samson.
Strong Samson. Fatal Samson. Samson.
Who made the coffins.
You were right.
He didn't understand why we were doing it.
Anything for you.
My angel.
But he trusted me.
Because he loved me.
Oh, look.
How did it go so wrong?
It was supposed to be so simple. The doctor gave the signal.
Samson retrieved the jewel.
The Lazarus door served his purpose.
All caught on camera the way we planned.
Dr. Knapp would drive off with Rick's body in his truck and dispose of it in
that nasty look in his cellar.
And the next day, Samson would tell the tale of the risen saint and his word of
blessing to his faithful groundskeeper.
Before ascending back into heaven.
A miracle.
You wouldn't be there.
I wasn't supposed to be there.
You most certainly were not.
Did you know what had happened when you found Samson's body?
I had an idea.
But I had to be sure.
He told me the fairy tale of how everything had gone according to plan.
It was only then that I told him I'd been to the crypt.
And I knew he was lying.
And then he told me the truth.
This is it. I can't let him see it.
My second mistake, underestimating the temptation of Eve's apple.
Our agreed mission was to destroy it or throw it in the sea.
But all this power will I give thee.
Christ himself could resist temptation, but this desperate little man,
all that stood in his way was Samson and I.
Now here was his opportunity to remove his obstacles,
frame a young priest with a violent past, and keep the duel.
He took it.
And all that remained in his way was me.
He poisoned my coffee with a lethal dose of pentobarbital.
No remedy once ingested.
Painless. With a little numbness in the lips.
Then in ten minutes, time for your final prayer.
Then he begged me to understand why he was doing all this. That the money would
lure back his harpy wife.
Blah, blah, blah.
I told him I understood.
I understood why he did it.
These things I did with innocence in my heart.
Vengeance is mine, said the Lord.
And that's the story the crime scene will tell the world, but inside
my heart.
Then, then, I confess to you, Father.
I have lied.
I have killed.
And now, I have topped it all off with a real doozy.
Father, quickly now. Quickly.
What's happening?
I don't know. When I saw her lips.
It was already too late.
She's taking the pentamobitol.
Call the ambulance now!
There might be a point they get in the prowler!
You're really good at this.
God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son, has
reconciled the world to himself and poured out the Holy Spirit for the
forgiveness of sins.
And through the ministry of the Church, may God grant you pardon and peace.
The jewel was never found.
The church closed for a while.
The flock, what was left of them, scattered.
Some got what they wanted, only to discover the one thing every holy man
God has a sense of humor.
Got a fresh start.
Maybe to find a path that's theirs, I hope so.
And found God's great miracle.
Not being cured or fixed, but finding the sustaining power to wake up every
and do what we're here to do.
In spite of the pain.
Daily bread.
That's what I pray for with you.
That you find what you're looking for.
Where is it? I know.
God damn it, I know you both know. This is your last chance or we're going to
drag your ass within the court. Mr. Wicks, control yourself.
We hoped this mediation would resolve this matter. She gave it to them and
they're hiding it, I know. We've allowed your representatives to search the
church and rectory thoroughly. They found nothing.
Also, Mr. Blanc was there when Martha passed.
And he denies anything untoward.
Hey.
Any hint you've sold it? Any big charity donations? You fix the roof?
You upgrade your shitty communion wine? I will watch. I will audit. I will find
out.
I hope you come back to the church one day. Your real inheritance is in Christ.
Bitch. His video with you is still trending. Yes.
Benoit Blanc owned.
Owned with a P.
Whatever that means.
We keep pushing the facts out there. Martha, what really happened, but it
doesn't seem to matter.
We extruders keep flooding our Facebook. It's an outhouse fire.
Such a time to be alive.
You're going to be very popular once you open.
Maybe not in a good way.
Are you ready to take that on?
Let him come.
Good luck, kid.
Listen, I'm going to go.
First map is coming up.
Do you want to stick around?
That's so nice of you. There is nothing I would rather not do.
Too little.
Welcome.