Page 40 of Brimstone Hollow

He smiles again at the memory and then we both go back to staring into the empty hidey-hole. Eventually, he says, “I’ll get the guys in here to swab it. We’ll find out what was actually being moved.”

“Chief, what if Dean Griffon was smuggling drugs in Ezra’s RV,” I say.“And what if whoever he was involved with got spooked and came here to get them out of the RV and killed Griffon when he caught them?”

“I thought your whole theory before was that it was Griffon who tampered with your brakes. But now you think he was a victim?”

“No, not a victim, just—What if he was using Ezra’s revival circuit as some kind of cover for his dealing? Maybe Ezra found out about it and became a liability. I mean, Griffon traveled around with Ezra so maybe he knew how to handle snakes too. Maybe he and the other guy—whoever it was in the silver truck—were in on it, and killed Ezra or beat him almost to death, then used the snake somehow to cover their tracks. Maybe Silver Truck Guy came here to get rid of Dean and tie up loose ends.”

Dishman shakes his head and turns away from the hidey-hole, walks carefully out of the RV. I follow him back into the garage and we both stare down at Griffon’s body.

“Come on,” I say. “This isn’t a coincidence. Ezra dies on Friday night—”

“From asnakebite,” Dishman says. “It was an accident.”

I roll my eyes and Dishman groans. Equally stubborn and equally frustrated, we both take a step away from each other.

“Besides, what the hell do you want me to do about it?” he says. “Dig Ezra up?”

My mouth drops open.

“Yes!” I say. “Yes. Dig Ezra’s body up, send him to the medical examiner in Frankfort, get a real autopsy. There might be evidence of foul play on the body itself. Look, that’s all Katie wants. Just to besure.”

He grimaces, a look of real, pained sadness in his eyes and says, “I feel for Katie, I really do. I understand that… fathers and daughters can be…”

“Complicated?” I fill in, when he can’t seem to find the word.

He looks away from me, steps carefully around Griffon’s body, and maneuvers back through the door and outside. I follow and, squinting in the sunshine, Dishman lets out a long, thoughtful sigh, and says, “I know your client wants to be sure about what happened to her father and I understand that she wants closure but… we don’t all get the closure we need. Sometimes we just have to take what life gives us and move on.”

I study his face, unsure whether he’s really talking about Katie and Ezra or if it’s something closer to home. When he notices me staring, he steps away from me and says, “Thing is, Katie doesn’t live here. You go digging up that preacher’s body, you’re gonna have the whole of his congregation and a lot more besides up in arms.”

“So?” I say. “Let them pitch a fit. We need to know the truth.”

“And if it’s all for nothing? As it surely will be? You don’t think our coroner would’ve mentioned it on his report if there’d been evidence of a fight?”

“I don’t think your coroner did much of anything,” I say, trying and failing to stay calm. “He’s a funeral home director. He was probably out of his depth.”

“Coroner Bradley’s been at it a long, long time,” Dishman says. “I’m sure if there were signs of a fight, he would’ve said so.”

I exhale a grunt of frustration and watch as a cruiser pulls up and three officers—two I don’t recognize and the young guy, Gavin—all get out. They’re all carrying tool kits and bagged, sterile crime scene suits.

Dishman and I both step up to meet them.

“You said he was stabbed?” Gavin says to Dishman as he approaches, a mix of confusion, excitement, and anxiety playing on his face. I think about all the bodies Gavin has seen over the last three days. Ezra King’s. The man from the house fire, Billy Shepherd. And now he’ll see this one. Dean Griffon.

“Just see what you can find,” Dishman tells him, resting a hand on Gavin’s shoulder as the kid walks past.

Once the officers are out of earshot, I say, “Tell me about Billy Shepherd.”

Dishman turns and stares at me, apparently stunned.

“How’d you hear about that?”

I explain that I was in his office when Gavin told him about the fire chief’s summons. And I tell him about my encounter with Coroner Bradley this morning, how he’d mentioned needing to drive a body to Frankfort.

Dishman squints toward the officers as they struggle to get into theircrime scene suits, but he’s not really watching. Instead, it seems like he’s just wrestling with what he wants to say.

“Billy Shepherd was the grandnephew of Joel Shepherd,” he says. “You ever heard of him?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” I say.