Page 13 of Brimstone Hollow

“That’s right,” I say with a grin. I can’t help it. To this day the thought that Honey is mine-all-mine brings a smile to my face.

The man looks from me to Honey and takes the cigarette out of his mouth long enough to issue an impressed whistle.

“She’s a pretty thing,” he says. “Datsun 260Z? You don’t hardly ever see those. She looks pristine.”

“Yep,” I say. “That’s my girl.”

He chuckles and says, “You said you were in town for work. What kind of work is it that you do?”

I finish the form and slide the clipboard back to him. “I’m a private investigator.”

“No shit?” he says.

“No shit.”

He meets my gaze for the first time, his acorn-brown eyes, shining with interest. Reaching across the desk to shake my hand, he says, “Hollis Patton.”

“Annie Gore.”

“I’ve never met a real, honest-to-God private investigator. The hell you doing here?”

“I’m looking into the death of Ezra King.”

Hollis squints at me and says, “The preacher?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, hell, I heard about him croaking, but I thought it was a snake that got him.”

“Far as I know, it was.”

He takes a long draw on his cigarette, pulling the cherry all the way to the filter.

“So why you down here asking questions? Where’d you come from, anyway?”

“Louisville,” I say.

As if by magic, another cigarette appears in his hand. He lights it off the old one, which he pushes into a ceramic ashtray next to the computer’s keyboard, and says, “No, I got that from the form. I meant, where’re yourpeoplefrom? What county? You don’t look like a city girl.”

“About two hours south and a little west of here,” I say. “Cleberg County.”

“Damn. That’s about a hundred miles from nowhere.”

I shrug.

He takes another long draw from his cigarette and says, “So why are you asking about Ezra King?”

“His daughter hired me,” I say. “She didn’t find out about his death until this morning and, by then, he was already in the ground.”

“They already buried him? Damn. That was fast. ’Course I’d guess your body’s pretty damn nasty when you die from a snakebite.”

“Yeah.”

“I always said that’s what would happen. I think everybody figured he’d go like that. You screw around with rattlesnakes, eventually you’re gonna get bit. Surely his daughter knows that.”

“She does,” I say. “But there’s no other family and, with no autopsy,and her not being able to go to the funeral, I think she just wants to be sure that everything happened like she was told it happened.”

“Her money, I guess,” Hollis says. “Seems like a waste to me, but if she’s got it to spend…”