Chapter One
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR Joseph Rafferty was only half-listening as Father Kelly led him, and his fiancée, Abra, through their wedding rehearsal. The warm sun of an early June evening shining through the stained-glass window, rendered him somnambulistic. Father Kelly, verbose at the best of times, became even more put-you-to-sleep loquacious on occasions, such as today, when he was master of ceremonies, breaking off from the rendition of the service to interject with other bits of information he thought they needed.
Their wedding was three weeks off, and things were speeding up, with the days flashing by. It was suddenly becoming all too real and rather scary. Rafferty found himself dwelling more and more on the speech he would have to make on the day. It wasn’t something he was l
