“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said, head down as he walked up the nave. “You need to set yourself down and have a little prayer, young lady. That’s what you all be needing.”

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Audley,” Mike said, “I’ll have to ask you to stay close. We’ve got to look around the church before you touch anything, just in case the killer was in here.”

Audley narrowed his eyes and stared at Mike as though he was crazy. “Not likely, Detective. I won’t cause you any grief, but not likely. Not a fit place for a killer.”

From this point in the entryway, I could see enormous stained-glass windows in the ceiling of the sanctuary. It was streaks of moonlight from above that made me conscious of them, although it was still too dark for me to make out any of the images.

“You heard Mr. Audley,” Mike said. “Take a seat.”

“Well, since everybody’s here now, and both Bixby and Russo have done a visual and taken photos, why don’t you just take her straight to the ME’s office?” I asked.

“No can do.”

“Why not?”

“Her body’s going to be pretty brittle because of the fire.”

A blast of cold air blew in the doors that Audley had opened. I looked over my shoulder at Russo and some of the cops who were spreading another clean white sheet on the ground beside the victim.

“Brittle?” I said, shivering against the chill of the night and my thoughts of the deceased.

“Just the ambulance ride downtown could jostle things. Change the way she presents at autopsy. That sheet will capture any trace evidence that falls off the body. Keep her as intact as possible.”

Mike watched, too, and inched a few steps closer to the doors as the team took direction from Russo and moved in to lift the woman. I stood beside him. When he walked back out onto the portico to oversee the change in positioning to the sheet, I went along.