Project Purple

12 - The Detective

"Every life is golden," the preacher said, pausing before his tiny flock of shopworn colonists.

The camera set-up in the Chapel was always good, and someone had already edited the video before posting it onto Rigor's Twitter page-another Sabbath gathering; three hours on hard, little stools. Rigor watched, again, looking for new clues as to location and identities. The date stamp was June fifteenth, two days before the supposed death of the Cowleech.

"I never use Twitter acount," Rigor confessed.

Felix sneered, "But there it was, right?"

"They want you to search around for it, earn it," said the man in Felix's monitor wearing a Groucho mask- with the fake glasses, nose and mustache.

It wasn't the cheap ninety-nine cent disguise-It was a pullover mask, so his real hair was concealed, and Rigor could make out no distinguishing characteristic of the person-other than that of Caucasian male, middle age, heavy-set; and even that was no sure thing.

"Every life is special," the Preacher forged on, unyielding in his resolution not to be side-tracked by the insolence of the non-believers, "and as decent citizens of this world, we will not turn away when a human life is destroyed."

The Goatwench was there, shifting, ill at ease next to the Cowleech in the back row. Had the Scarlet Letters and their obstinate pestering finally brought her to heel?

"We will take no part in this culture of death..."

"And we will take no part in these rattlebrained abortion speeches, Bob," drawled the Cowlech in that liquidy Texas lilt.

"Rattlebrained?" echoed the preacher with great offence.

The Chapel fell into general pandemonium as they scolded one-another.

"Clean, right?" Felix asked.

"Squeaky," came the response from Groucho in the monitor.

"Squeaky?" asked Rigor, the odd-man-out in the fragmented exchange between Felix and Groucho.

"Squeaky clean," Felix confirmed.

"How can that be?" Rigor asked.

"Guangzhou."

"It's coming from some province in China?"

Meanwhile, the Matron turned to the back row with a sugary scowl, "You should thank the Almighty your mothers didn't abort you little honey buns."

The Matron's face was always drawn, her gray eyes calm; she liked to couch her barbed assaults with folksy vocabulary from the kitchen. She then turned back to the preacher with a pious smile, and he stumbled to get back on track.

"The thing is, ya'all's buttocks are clenched way too tight," the Cowleech said, flashing the Goatwench another of his spicy grins.

"But that guy's already out of the competition," Groucho noted of the Cowleech.

Rigor nodded, "He dies two days later."

Felix pushed his thick-framed glasses up on his nose. "Morale-Don't fall for a Goatwench."

The preacher, dismayed again at the usual squabbling, stood at his podium as if he was some toy that needed winding up.

"I don't see..." began free man Buford, a large African-American, who spoke in a deep, syrupy, late-night D.J. voice.