Page 80 of Brimstone Hollow

She sniffs and shakes her head. “Not exactly like that, but… he got scared sometimes. Acted without thinking.”

“Scared?”

“He spent time in juvie when we were kids. He never wanted to go back, but then, right after we turned eighteen, he did. But it was real jail. So it was worse. After that, he was terrified about having go in again. He said he couldn’t do it. He’d rather die…”

More tears come and she presses her face into her hands.

“I don’t think he would’ve been trying to kill you, though. Honest, I don’t think he could’ve killed anybody. He wasn’t like that. You have to believe me, Miss Gore.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s okay. I believe you.”

Whether I do or not doesn’t really matter. But maybe she’s telling the truth. At least as far as she knows it. Maybe Dean never meant to kill me that night. Maybe, if itwashim, he was only trying to scare me off the case. Trying to get rid of me but not in a permanent way.

I watch as she fiddles with her coffee cup, turning it this way and that, before she says, “Everybody thinks I’m crazy. They’ve always said I just want attention and I know they’ll say it again now, but, Miss Gore, I know I feel crazy sometimes but I’mnot. I know I’m not. I know what I saw. Everyone around heresaysthey believe in God—in prayer and faith and angels—but Iknowthat stuff is real. I’ve seen it.”

“You mean Ezra?”

“Before Brother Ezra. From the time I was a kid, I’ve had visions. Angels, usually. Most times, it’s when I’m falling asleep. I’ll hear someone say my name and I’ll wake up and can’t move and there they’ll be.”

“Angels?”

She nods.

“What do they look like?” I ask.

“Not like they do in movies,” she says with a laugh. “They’re like… shiny. So shiny it always hurts my eyes, but I always look anyway. They have voices like thunder and they’re naked, but their bodies don’t have—Well, you know. They’re like Barbies.”

“Okay. So, usually, you see angels. Is it always when you fall asleep?”

“No,” she says. “No, sometimes it’s when I’m waking up. That’s how it was with Brother Ezra.”

I take a drink of my coffee and wait, hoping she’ll elaborate on her own. What she’s describing sounds exactly like sleep paralysis and hypnagogia, a more common phenomenon than most people think and not far off from what Katie probably experienced. Still, even if it was a vision manifested by her subconscious, Crystal knew Dean and she knew Ezra. So maybe her intuition was trying to tell her something. Maybe it’ll even be useful.

“You knew Brother Ezra,” I push, trying to get her started.

She nods and says, “Yes, I knew him because Dean worked for him. And I’d see Brother Ezra around Dean’s sometimes. Or at the Dairy. He never made me feel stupid or crazy. He always listened to me going on about angels and auras and all the stuff. The stuff nobody ever listens to me about.”

“He was kind to you,” I say.

“Yes,” she says with a soft smile. “And he was good to Dean. Dean grew up really rough. He started using when he was just a kid. And I meana kid. He was only twelve. And it wasn’t just pot either. Everybody smokes pot. Dean was using pills. But then—after the last time Dean was in jail—Brother Ezra got ahold of him and helped straighten him out. After that, Dean worked for him whenever Brother Ezra needed help with the tent revival stuff. Dean was happy to do it. He said helping Ezra got him back on the right path.”

“Crystal,” I ask. “I know you said Dean was clean, but is there any chance he was maybe moving drugs for someone else? MaybewithBrother Ezra?”

Her eyes widen in a mix of surprise and alarm.

“What?” she asks. “No way! No, Dean was—”

She looks down at her hands, searching, and then in a very small voice asks, “I thought… Was Dean dealing again? He promised…”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It looks like there was definitelysomethinggoing on, at least with Dean and Ezra’s tent revival circuit, if not Ezra himself.”

She shakes her head but less, this time, in disbelief than in shock and disappointment. “I thought… I thought Dean was done with all that. He promised me…”

“Did you ever hear the name Joel Shepherd?” I ask. “Or Billy Shepherd?”

“I mean, I know the names. Everyone here knows about the King of Weed but…” Pausing mid-sentence, Crystal lets out a long, tired sigh, her cheeks paling.

“What?” I ask. “What is it?”