Page 10 of Brimstone Hollow

“What about Shepherd?” Dishman asks. “Did they find him?”

“Sounds like,” Gavin says. “Fire chief says to come down there.”

“Me specifically?” Dishman asks, his brow knotted into an expression between suspicion and concern.

Gavin nods. “That’s what he said.”

Dishman turns back toward his desk and the duty belt hanging behind it. “Hope you don’t mind catching up with Gavin later,” he says, as he pulls the belt off the hook and unclasps the latch.

“Sure,” I say.

There’s no heaving up his chest or special shimmying to get the thing to fit. It just slips around his waist and then hangs there—all twenty-five pounds of it—like copping is exactly what this guy was meant to do.

He moves around the desk and opens the door for me. I walk through, and as we go down the hall together, I ask, “Why exactly is it that he handled snakes? Do you know?”

“It’s something from the book of Mark,” Dishman says. “Somethingabout how if a person’s belief is strong enough, he can take up deadly serpents and not be hurt.”

“So, he believed his faith would save him?” I ask. “Even from a deadly snakebite?”

“That’s the idea,” Dishman says.

Down the hall, Gavin finishes strapping on his duty belt and hollers, “You ready, Chief?”

“Yeah,” Dishman says. “Let’s go.”

He makes tracks with Gavin, fast-walking out the back door of the station to what I assume is the police parking lot.

I look down at the report in my hand and readCause of death: snakebites to the throat, cheek, and nose.

It’s signedRoman Bradley, County Coroner.

“All right,” I say. “I guess you’re next.”

THREE

BRADLEY FUNERAL HOME, ANold Victorian house, is perched high on a grassy hill, right next to the smaller, more modern-looking Mount Zion Florist. A set of white-painted steps leads up to both buildings from a sidewalk out front. I park Honey next to a white van with the wordsCOUNTY CORONERemblazoned on the side and start to climb the staircase but, on just the third step up, I hear the side door open and see a man exiting the building, carrying a bag and heading straight toward me.

“Excuse me!” I say as I meet him on the steps.

He turns with a start, as if he hadn’t noticed my presence until that moment. Of medium height and build and very suntanned, with wavy dark-blond hair, he pulls his sunglasses up onto the top of his head and looks down at me.

“Yes?” he says, with a questioning smile that’salmosta smirk.

I blink at him, realizing I’ve been stunned by a sort of seventies Robert Redford quality: a weird, dazzling nonchalance. His eyes are a startling shade of blue-green and his lashes are the long, black, lush type that my mother always fawned over.

“Are you Roman Bradley?” I ask, recovering myself. “The county coroner?”

“Yeah,” he says, starting toward the van again. “That’s me. Is this an emergency?”

“Um—”

I jog the rest of the way beside him and watch as he tosses his bag onto the passenger seat of the long van. Before he can escape, I push my ID at him and say, “I just need to ask you a couple of questions about Ezra King.”

“King?” he says, with surprise.

“His daughter hired me,” I say. “She’s a little concerned about the speed of his arrangements, the lack of autopsy, and—”

“Are you questioning my professional integrity?” he asks. He crosses his arms in front of his chest and gives me a stern look, but there’s a hint of amusement in his voice.