More Twisted

an expert. But I probably know Matthew, Mark, Luke and John better than your average rabbi, I suspect. Now, tell me how I can help.”
    “You’ve heard about the witness protection program, right?”
    “Like Goodfellas, that sort of thing? The Sopranos .”
    “More or less, yep. The U.S. Marshals run the federal program but we have our own state witness protection system.”
    “Really? I didn’t know that. But I guess it makes sense.”
    “I’m in charge of the program in the county here and one of the people we’re protecting is about to appear as a witness in a trial in Hamilton. It’s our job to keep him safe through the trial and after we get a conviction—we hope—then we’ll get him a new identity and move him out of the state.”
    “A Mafia trial?”
    “Something like that.”
    Silverman couldn’t go into the exact details of the case—how the witness, Randall Pease, a minder for drug dealer Tommy Doyle, had seen his boss put a bullet into the brain of a rival. Despite Doyle’s reputation for ruthlessly murdering anyone who was a threat to him, Pease agreed to testify for a reduced sentence on assault, drug and gun charges. The state prosecutor shipped Pease off to Silverman’s jurisdiction, a hundred miles from Hamilton, to keep him safe; rumor was that Doyle would do anything, pay any money, to kill his former underling—since Pease’s testimony could get him the death penalty or put him away for life. Silverman had stashed the witness in a safe house near the Sheriff’s Department and put a round-the-clock guard on him. The detective gave the reverend a generic description of what had happened, not mentioning names, and then said, “But there’s been a setback. We had a CI—a confidential informant—”
    “That’s a snitch, right?”
    Silverman laughed.
    “I learned that from Law and Order. I watch it every chance I get. CSI too. I love cop shows.” He frowned. “You mind if I say ‘cop’?”
    “Works for me . . . . Anyway, the informant got solid information that a professional killer’s been hired to murder our witness before the trial next week.”
    “A hit man?”
    “Yep.”
    “Oh, my.” The reverend frowned as he touched his neck and rubbed it near the stiff white clerical collar, where it seemed to chafe.
    “But the bad guys made the snitch—found out about him, I mean—and had him killed before he could give us the details about who the hit man is and how he planned to kill my witness.”
    “Oh, I’m so sorry,” the reverend said sympathetically. “I’ll say a prayer for the man.”
    Silverman grunted anemic thanks but his true thoughts were that the scurvy little snitch deserved an express-lane ride to hell—not only for being a loser punk addict, but for dying before he could give the detective the particulars about the potential hit on Pease. Detective Mike Silverman didn’t share with the minister that he himself had been in trouble lately in the Sheriff’s Department and had been shipped off to Siberia—witness protection—because he hadn’t closed any major cases in a while. He needed to make sure this assignment went smoothly, and he absolutely could not let Pease get killed.
    The detective continued, “Here’s where you come in—I hope. When the informant was stabbed, he didn’t die right away. He managed to write a note—about a Bible passage. We think it was a clue as to how the hit man was going to kill our witness. But it’s like a puzzle. We can’t figure it out.”
    The reverend seemed intrigued. “Something from the New Testament, you said?”
    “Yep,” Silverman said. He opened his notebook. “The note said, ‘He’s on his way. Look out.’ Then he wrote a chapter and verse from the Bible. We think he was going to write something else but he didn’t get a chance. He was Catholic so we figure he knew the Bible pretty well—and knew something in particular in that passage that’d tell us how the hit man’s going to come after our witness.”
    The reverend turned around and looked for a Bible on his shelf. Finally he located one and flipped it open. “What verse?”
    “Luke, twelve, fifteen.”
    The minister found the passage and read. “Then to the people he said, ‘Beware! Be on your guard against greed of every kind, for even when someone has more than enough, his possessions do not give him life.’ ”
    “My partner brought a Bible from home. He’s Christian, but he’s not real religious, not a