The Body and the Blood Read Online Free Page B

splotchy, and I wondered if he had been crying. His hands and hair were damp, the label on his uniform was missing, and he wasn’t wearing shoes.
    “Are you okay?” I asked.
    He glanced at me and gave me a small twisted-lip frown and a quick nod.
    “Next time I call for service, you either go right then or not at all,” Potter said. “Understand?”
    “Yes, sir,” he said. “Sorry, I fell asleep.”
    Potter didn’t say anything else and Sobel made his way over to the back row of chairs and took a seat. Almost as soon as he sat down, Potter called him back.
    “Where the hell’re your shoes?”
    Sobel looked down at his socked feet. “This is now holy ground. It’s my tradition.”
    “I got some traditions of my own you gonna find out about if you don’t go git your goddam shoes on.”
    “Yes, sir,” he said, and quickly headed back to his cell.
    “Complete control,” Daniels agreed with so little sarcasm that Potter didn’t pick up on it.
    “Damn straight,” Potter said.
    I scanned the small crowd of inmates for Justin Menge, but he wasn’t among them. Though an outspoken critic of the Catholic Church, as far as I knew he never missed Mass.
    Potter raised his eyebrows as if a thought had just occurred to him. “If we did have a murder down here . . . wouldn’t be a bad thing.”
    Daniels started to comment, but Potter’s radio sounded the return of another inmate from the library.
    Daniels eyes grew wide when the inmate appeared at the door by himself. “Where the hell’s his escort?”
    “They just bring ‘em as far as the front door of the dorm. Officer in the wicker watches them from there.”
    “When he’s there,” Daniels said, shaking his head.
    We fell silent for a while as Father James continued his homily. Eventually, Sobel came back with his shoes on, though he had missed most of the service.
    The dim light coming from the high ceiling of the quad seemed to obscure more than it illuminated, casting everything in a ghost-like vagueness that seemed far too appropriate for the anticipation of murder.
    Potter’s radio sounded again and Pitts told him he was going to do a visual walk by of the cells, which he promptly came and did, his dark skin shining in the dull light of the quad. Even from a distance, it was obvious Pitts was athletic. His casual, yet crisp movements demonstrated his comfort with and confidence in his body. After he made his rounds, Pitts gave Potter the thumbs-up gesture and returned to the wicker.
    As the service continued, I looked around the quad, bowing my head periodically as Father James prayed, preparing to serve the Holy Eucharist.
    “Pray, brothers, that our sacrifice may be acceptable to God, the almighty Father,” he said.
    His small congregation responded more or less in unison, “May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of his name, for our good, and the good of all his Church.”
    “Lord Jesus Christ, you said to your apostles, ‘I leave you peace, my peace I give you.’ Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and grant us the peace and unity of your kingdom where you live for ever and ever.”
    When I looked up again, Potter was shaking his head, but he stopped when Father James held up the elements.
    “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper.”
    I looked around the dorm some more, and though I was prepared for what came next, I still shuddered slightly when Father James said, “The body and the blood.”
    I glanced over at Daniels and Potter. They both looked pale.
    When nothing happened, it was as if the collective breath being held was exhaled, though what followed was only a slight release of tension, not a complete exorcism of our uneasiness.
    As Father James came around the table and presented the sacraments, the inmates stood and began filing down the center aisle to receive Holy Communion.
    Father James held the bread in