Page 55 of Brimstone Hollow
Leo chuckles again. “Orsomethingis right.”
I listen to the sounds in Leo’s background. A distant hum of traffic and, nearer by, birds, a bicycle bell. I remember he’d said he was going to Boston. Now he’s likely in a park somewhere. Probably just finished jogging. Not even out of breath.
“I couldn’t sleep,” I tell him. “So, I decided to do a little recreational B and E to pass the time till morning.”
“Nightmares?” he asks, softly.
“Yeah.”
I’m still paused in the hallway, backed away from where anyone looking through the kitchen window might be able to see me. I lean against the wall and click my light on again, shine it on the bulletin board layered with old papers and photos. I spot a younger Will, looking bright-eyed, wearing a vacation Bible school T-shirt. There’s an article clipped from a newspaper in Georgia with Ezra standing out in the open air, holding his hand to a woman’s forehead.TRAVELING PREACHER WORKS MIRACLES! HEALS THE SICK!
“This case—this girl and her dad—it was bound to scrounge up some shit,” Leo says.
“I know.”
My mouth pulls into a sad half smile. Neither of us has a relationship with our father. I haven’t talked to mine in a decade and Leo’s dad disappeared when he was twelve, never to be seen again.
I’m about to click the light back off when I stop and do an actual double take, shining the beam onto the paper in front of me.
“Shit,” I say. “So, I’ve been looking for a ledger all night long.”
“Did you find it?” Leo asks.
“No,” I say. “No, I didn’t find the ledger. But I found something just about as good.”
“What?”
“Proof that Ezra had criminal connections,” I say, nosing up to a big photo of Ezra with a group of men in orange jumpsuits. Faded slightly with age but still plenty visible, the photo is part of a printed-off church newsletter and features the headlineBROTHER EZRA SAVES SOULS AT BIG SANDY.
Ezra stands with the other men on a basketball court, a grassy berm and high fence in the background. Holding his Bible to his chest, he wears his all-black uniform and squints against the bright sun. Standing right next to him, smiling at the camera, is Kentucky’s King of Weed himself, Joel Shepherd.
SIXTEEN
HALF AN HOUR LATER,I’m outside Mount Zion Church of the Healing Redeemer, leaning against the Bronco. The sun is fresh-risen and shines on my face, warming me up as I watch Chief Dishman—in his cruiser—pulling up the gravel drive and, behind him, an old gray station wagon trundling along, Will Carpenter at the wheel.
“What’s going on?” Will asks when he gets out of the car. “What are you doing here?”
“I came here looking for you,” I say, a bald-faced lie. I put on my winningest up-and-at-’em smile to go with it. “You saidfirst thing in the morning.”
He looks dumbfounded, his mouth slowly falling open slightly. I take the opportunity to keep going. “Anyway, I figured you might be in the church and so I went up and looked in the window just in case and—”
“Why did you think I’d be in the church?” Will asks, his voice edged with annoyance and suspicion. “My car wasn’t even here.”
“I don’t know how you get to work,” I say, with a big shrug. “Maybe you walk.”
Dishman barely conceals an eye roll and says, “Annie, just tell me what I’m doing here at the ass crack of dawn on Tuesday morning, the day after a holiday that I didnotget to take off, when I’ve got an entire day of yetmorework to do.”
“Can you please let us into the church?” I ask Will.
He grumbles but pulls out his keys and leads the way. Soon, we’re all standing at the bulletin board. I point to the photo and say, “You wanted proof that Ezra had criminal connections. Well, here it is. Looks like he and Joel Shepherd were pals.”
Dishman leans forward, staring at the photo, scratching at the stubble on his chin.
“I’ll be damned,” he says softly.
Will gets closer to the photo wall and says, “That’s from Brother Ezra’s prison ministry.”
“His prison ministry, huh?” Dishman says. “Big Sandy. Did he visit other prisons?”
