Page 101 of Brimstone Hollow

“Son, I doubt this church’ll be cleared by tonight, but we’ll do our best. In the meantime, I think you need to go get some rest. You too, Thelma.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Thelma says. She goes to the table and starts packing all the leftovers into a single box, which she apparently intends to take with her.

Dishman and I walk away from them into the sanctuary, and I look from the double doors to the red smear on the altar. Ezra’s blood.

I picture Ezra King standing in the middle of the church. And I picture Roman Bradley there before him. Maybe words are said. Maybe not. And then, I picture Roman Bradley swinging, landing the punch, his fist crunching into Ezra’s nose.

“Can we place Roman Bradley here this morning?” I ask Dishman. “Before you found him back in his cabin?”

“I spoke to Diana about it when I visited her,” he says with the voice of a man who’s more than just physically tired. “She said Roman couldn’t sleep and got out of bed when it was still dark, though she didn’t check the time. She said she went back to sleep and didn’t hear him leave, but by the time she got up around six, he was already gone.”

“Did she call him?”

“Yeah. Hesaidhe was out at the cabin. Decided since he was up, he’d get some fishing in.”

“But he came here to the church instead,” I say. “And killed Ezra.”

“It’s possible he didn’t mean to,” Dishman says. “It’s possible he just lost his temper, threw a punch, and Ezra fell and died by accident.”

“It’s true,” I say, nodding. “It’s definitely possible.”

Dishman looks again at the altar and then turns away from me. He starts down the aisle and I follow him, between the pews and through the double doors, onto the front steps. The sun filters, orange, through great gray clouds and the air buzzes with a frisson of electricity, the pent-up energy of things left unsettled.

“Even if it was accidental, Bradley knew there was no coming back from what happened here,” I say, leaning against the church wall. “Once Ezra was dead and we’d found Nickels’s body, Bradley knew we’d connect him to all this. Faking Ezra’s death, burying the wrong body, it would’ve all come out and he’d have lost everything.”

Dishman clasps his hands together and then unclasps them.

“Did he—” I say, just as he says, “What if—”

We both let out exhausted breaths of laughter and then he says, “Go ahead.”

“Did he confess outright?” I ask. “Before I got there? Did he admit to killing Ezra?”

Dishman shakes his head and says, “He was out of his mind. Talking in circles. Saying he was sorry over and over. Wouldn’t say exactly what for, only that he could never go back. Diana said he’d been wound up lately, depressed and agitated, said he hadn’t been sleeping well.”

“Since when?” I ask.

“Well, since the Alba Lane funeral home opened across town, but especially since Friday night.”

“The night Ezra supposedly died,” I say. “Are there cameras in the funeral home?”

“Only on the back entrance, where they bring the bodies in and out. It was part of his election campaign last time. Sort of proof that he was going high tech. But I asked Diana if I could see the footage.”

“Okay,” I say. “What’d you find?”

“They’ve been turned off since Friday night,” he says.

“So, there’s no record of his comings or goings,” I say. “Nothing since Nathaniel Nickels was killed in the parsonage on Friday evening?”

“Right,” Dishman says.

We both look toward Gavin as he approaches, holding an evidence bag in one hand and his phone in the other. He says, “Call just came in. DEA’s on the way.”

“So, they’re finally interested,” Dishman scoffs.

“Guess so,” Gavin says, tucking his phone into his pocket.

“Well, they’re more than welcome to sort through this,” Dishman says. “I’m sick of it.”