Pastor Roland Hannah and Deacon Charles Waite offered service at 7:00 am. Roland’s sermon was one of hope, of renewal. He spoke of The Cross and The Cradle. He quoted Matthew 2:1-12. The baskets overflowed. later, roland and Charles sat at the table in the basement beneath the church, a pot of cooling coffee between them. In an hour they would begin to prepare a Christmas ham dinner for upwards of one hundred homeless people. It would be served at their new facility on Second Street. “Look at this,” Charles said. He handed Roland the morning’s Inquirer. There had been another murder. Nothing special in Philadelphia, but this one had resonance. Deep resonance. This one had an echo that reverberated over the years. A woman had been found in Shawmont. She had been discovered at the old waterworks near the train station, just on the eastern bank of the Schuylkill. Roland’s pulse raced. Two bodies found on the banks of the Schuylkill River in one week. Then there was the story in the previous day’s paper, an article reporting that Detective Walter Brigham had been murdered.
