A suddenly-widowed professor of poetry abruptly leaves her home in Los Angeles to visit Taos, New Mexico, where she and her older husband had many happy trips. She goes there in hopes of mentally and emotionally healing. Fortuitously, she finds an apartment in the complex surrounding the famous old church in Rancho Las Amigas, a few miles from Taos. The apartment was newly-remodeled by the pastor of the church who left on a back-packing trip just a few hours before she arrived. On the dark side, 'sacrifices' by a devil worship group have occurred on Labor Day during the 'mudding' or restoration of the outside walls of the church. Labor Day is coming up. While she struggles with her grief, she becomes entangled in the local politics, and the search for the identity of the devil worship group and their real purpose. She is not a sleuth, but is curious and becomes a catalyst when the guilty parties think she is not what she appears to be.