Page 51 of Brimstone Hollow

“Drugs he might not have known anything about,” I say. Hollis throws me a skeptical look and I pick up another slice of pizza as I tell him, “I’ve got no real evidence he knew anything about it. The RV wasn’t even on his property.”

“So what?” Hollis says. “You gonna give up?”

“No. No, I haven’t done my job until I’ve explored every possibility, and the fact that two other guys—Dean Griffon and Billy Shepherd—both died violently the same weekend as him… it’s not something I can leave alone.”

He wipes his fingers on his napkin, balls it up, and tosses it easily in the wastebasket. Then he starts toward the door and, before walking out, says, “Well, you know what they always say in the books.”

“What’s that?” I ask.

He grins. “Follow the money.”

I laugh to myself, and as soon as the door shuts behind Hollis, I open my phone and find the number of the church secretary who found Ezra’s body: Thelma Worley. She answers on the third ring—the sound of kids shouting over a TV in the background—and hushes me when I apologize for calling so late.

“Honey, these grandbabies of mine’d like to never go to bed. They’re binge-watching some vampire show. What was it you wanted to know?”

She listens patiently while I ask about the bookkeeping for the church.

“Well, yes, honey, I sure do keep the accounts. Have for years. That’s why I know how bad we needed that bake sale money today. We’re about to have to choose between a new roof and a new furnace and I don’t like the idea of doing without either one.”

“So, would you mind if I had a look at the financial records for the church and Ezra’s tent ministry?”

There’s a pause on Thelma’s end and then I hear her whisper-shouting to someone else, “Go and turn that down. No, tell him to turn—I said turn it down! I’m sorry, honey—you wanted to see the church’s financial records?”

“Yes, please. And the records for the tent ministry.”

“Well, I don’t mind one bit to show you the records for the church, though I can’t imagine why you’d want to look at them. It’s pretty dry reading. But the records for the tent ministry and all of Ezra’s outreach, well, he kept all that himself.”

“He did?” I ask, leaning forward as if she’s right in front of me. “Why?”

“Oh, who knows,” Thelma says, exasperated, as if she’s just picking up the tail end of a long-standing aggravation. “He said it was his responsibility and he didn’t like to bother me with it.”

I thank her, hang up, and call Will Carpenter. He answers immediately, sounding frazzled and exhausted.

“Will, are you aware that Ezra did his own records for his outreach and tent ministry?”

“I mean… I guess?”

“But Thelma did all the books for the church,” I say, hoping he’ll have more information than he’s letting on.

But he only says, “Yeah?” More of a question than a statement.

“Do you knowwhyEzra kept things separate?”

“He said he didn’t like giving Thelma more work than she could handle. He kept everything from his traveling ministries in a ledger. He’d write it all down while he was still on the road so he had less to do when he got back.”

“A ledger?” I ask, my heart swelling with sudden hope. Ezra’s money trail seems more and more suspicious all the time. “He didn’t use software? It was all by hand?”

“That’s right. He was kind of old-fashioned. He liked pen and paper so he kept all his outreach stuff, the tent ministry and everything, in a big brown leather ledger.”

“So where is this ledger now?” I ask.

There’s a long exhale and then nothing. I almost wonder if he’s hung up on me. Or maybe fallen asleep. He really soundsthatexhausted.

“Will?” I say, more insistent. “Do you know where the ledger is?”

“No. Maybe the parsonage, maybe the church office, maybe the RV?”

“Probably not the RV,” I say, more to myself than him. “I watched the police going in and out and didn’t see them take out anything like a ledger.”