Page 64 of Brimstone Hollow

I look up Billy Shepherd’s address and drive, once again, through Brimstone Hollow and then beyond the church, all the way out to what had probably been a nice barndominium before it burned completely to the ground. The perimeter is wrapped in police tape, but I realize before I even get out of the Bronco that my coming here was wasted effort.

The propellant, combined with the stick-built structure, the hot dry air, and the amount of time it likely took before the fire department arrived meant that Billy Shepherd’s residence is nothing now but a low pile of char. Chief Dishman had been right when he said that if Billy hadn’t made it out before the place burned down, they never would’ve discovered the finger missing from his hand.

Defeated, I climb into the Bronco and head back to town in thegathering darkness. On the way, I grab some fries and a Frosty from a Wendy’s drive-thru and eat it all before I even get back to the motel. I spend the rest of the night scrounging through old news articles and databases, hoping to come across some key piece of information I’ve missed.

I read old news articles about Ezra’s tent revivals and find the circuit exactly as Will had described, visiting towns all over Southern Appalachia. But there’s nothing else. Nothing solid linking Katie’s father to any kind of crime besides what I’ve already found in Mount Zion: a tenuous connection to Kentucky’s King of Weed, two murdered men, traces of drugs, and a leg breaker who’s slipped the net.

As I’d told Katie, we would simply have to wait until the coffin was opened to know more. And, with that thought in my head, I crawl into bed and fall into a deep and blessedly dreamless sleep.

THE NEXT MORNING, AFTERmy call with Leo during a breakfast of vending-machine pretzels and motel-room coffee, I drive to the church, and at exactly seven forty-five, I’m standing at the graveside behind Chief Dishman and Coroner Bradley. The sod has been carefully removed and set aside and a man with a digger scrapes away layer after layer of freshly packed earth. A half dozen of Ezra King’s congregation members and a few townspeople stand off to the side displaying every emotion from angry disapproval to fear to morbid curiosity.

Thelma Worley, the church secretary, sits in a camp chair. Her hands wrapped tight around a thermos of coffee, she stares at the progressively bigger hole in the ground. Her face is impassable, unreadable.

Will Carpenter—stationed at the foot of the grave, as close as the gravediggers will allow—holds his Bible with white-knuckled hands. Ashen-faced and red-eyed, with tear-streaked cheeks, he moves his lips in silent prayer.

“You know this is a waste of time,” Coroner Bradley says to Dishman. His voice is barely audible, but I can hear the underlying anger and frustration in it. “I put him in the ground myself.”

“We need to know for sure,” Dishman says. “Now that all this has been stirred up, we can’t just let it rest. With everything that’s happened this week, talk’s getting out of hand. I’ve heard everything from serial killers to devil worshipers to trained rattlesnakes.”

Turning slightly away from the grave so he can meet Dishman’s eyes, Bradley says, “You’re kidding me. You can’t train a snake. That’s impossible… isn’t it?”

Dishman crosses his arms over his chest and says, “Impossibledon’t seem to be something folks are all that concerned with at the moment. I had a call this morning telling me the local chapter of the Masons are sacrificing people in secret rituals. I had to talk the man down from getting a posse together.”

“Hell,” Bradley says, directing his attention back to the grave.

The digger has finished his work and backs away. In the silence that falls after the back-up beeping, a couple of guys ease down into the grave and attach straps to the coffin so another machine can pull it up. Coroner Bradley moves away from Dishman, stepping up beside Will. Will sniffs, his face twisting into a pained grimace, and Bradley puts a hand on his shoulder, whispers some message of condolence in Will’s ear. Will jerks away from him, goes on staring at the grave, wallowing in his own private grief.

“Thanks for doing this,” I tell Dishman quietly, as I step up next to him.

“It’s got to be done,” he says.

“Did you find the ledger?” I ask. “When you searched Ezra’s house?”

“Nope,” he says. “I did call down to the Walmart, though. Thinking about that door hardware. I asked for the security footage and the manager had to send the request through corporate, if you can believe that. All the usual CYA. Sorry, that means—”

“I was in the military, remember,” I say. “I know what it means: Cover your ass.”

“So, we’ll get the footage when we get it. But I did mention it was part of an ongoing investigation and they wouldn’t want to hold us up. I also asked for the receipts from Friday night and they told me I needed a court order. So, that’s in progress. Hopefully soon.”

I nod.

There’s a long pause as we watch the coffin emerge from the ground.

“You get any sleep last night?” he asks.

“A little,” I say. “You?”

“Barely any. Digging up a body is just about that last thing I’d like to be doing this morning. But I need to be able to calm everybody down. I don’t know what we’re gonna find, but whatever it is, I hope it puts an end to all the crazy talk.”

I watch as Coroner Bradley pulls a hanky out of his back pocket and holds it over his mouth while two men approach the coffin. Others around the grave site do the same. The stench of an un-embalmed body, in the ground for three days in the middle of a heat wave, is not going to be pleasant and everyone knows it.

We all listen as Will recites the Lord’s Prayer and then the men pull the lid back.

Thelma gasps. Sitting right in front of the open coffin, she’s the first to react.

Pushing past Dishman and Bradley, I look into the cheap pine coffin, the lid pulled all the way off. Bradley inhales sharply as he moves to stand beside me, his face drained of color.

“What…?” he breathes.