Chapter One #2
“Not until I was seventeen,” she says. “I was curious and I wanted to … I don’t know.
I’d been in a fight with my mom. She said sometimes I was just like him.
And I told her I didn’t see why that was such a bad thing.
I slammed the door and got in my car and drove back to our old town—Mount Zion—and there he was, right where we’d left him.
That same little church in that same little town. Big as life. No … bigger than life.”
Katie closes her eyes and presses her lips together. When she finally speaks again, she keeps her eyes closed, seeing the memory in her own private world.
“I think on the way there, I’d pumped myself up for some sappy, emotional reunion.
I got to town on a Wednesday evening, during church service.
I walked right in and sat in the back row.
He didn’t even know I was there. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
He held them all in the palm of his hand.
He never shouted or screamed or anything but …
something about it. I don’t know. It unnerved me.
Then, I watched as two men carried out a big box.
They stood back while my father opened the lid and brought out a snake.
The whole church went quiet. You could hear the rattle. You know the sound?”
I nod.
“He held the snake up above his head. And that was it. Just like my mother, I stood and walked out. I never even spoke to him. That was ten years ago.”
“Okay.”
Suddenly, Katie stands and walks away from the desk.
Mirroring her, I stand too. I open my mouth to ask if she’s leaving when she turns to the side and approaches the wall of photographs and art.
She takes a long, shaking breath, her back still turned to me as she observes the pictures.
There are photos going back through my time in Louisville, my years in college, my Muay Thai fights, my Air Force days.
Besides that, there are a couple of fine art photographs, a watercolor from a friend, and a large wood-block print.
In the print, a storm of crows swirls—black and blurred—over a cornfield.
Still turned toward the wall, swaying slowly side to side, Katie says, “I read about what you did in Quartz Creek.”
The name of that little Western North Carolina town tugs at my heart. A shiver runs over my skin, raising goose bumps.
Katie turns toward me finally and says, “I’d never even heard of that case until I looked you up downstairs in the diner. And that’s … What you did there is the reason I knew I couldn’t go to anyone else. I knew I had to see you as soon as possible.”
“What’s happened?” I ask.
When she speaks again, her voice is small and haunted.
“Do you ever have nightmares?” she asks. “Bad ones?”
I could go into my history—from the time I was a child, waking up gasping, frantically pulling loose from the clutches of whatever feral darkness lurks inside me, the feel of its claws under my skin, the hammer of my heart—it’s an almost nightly occurrence.
But I don’t. What I say instead is “Yes. Of course.”
“Well, I don’t,” Katie says. “In fact, I’ve barely dreamed at all since I had the baby. And I’ve never had a dream like I had last night.”
“Okay,” I say. “Tell me about it.”
She turns and walks toward the window again. Looks out at the steeple.
I watch her in profile as she takes a deep breath and then says, “I was standing in my father’s church.
But there was no roof. It was just the open sky above.
The sky was purple, stormy-looking. But there was no rain.
And then, I heard singing. It was my father’s voice.
He was singing ‘Praise for the Fountain Opened.’ Do you know it? ”
I nod. It’s an old hymn. Beautiful but definitely not for the faint of heart. It’s more commonly known by its first line, “There is a fountain filled with blood.”
“Yes,” I say. “I know it.”
“It’s so strange,” Katie says. “I don’t think I could’ve told you any of the words from that song, but in my dream, it was so clear. I stood there in the church, listening, and wondering where he was. And then the singing stopped.”
She closes her eyes in memory and, for a moment, the only sound in the room is the whirr of the box fan.
“There was a flash of lightning,” she says.
“It began to rain, but … it wasn’t regular rain.
It was a rain of blood. I shut my eyes against it and, when I opened them, he was standing there.
My father. He was speaking to me. No … shouting.
But there was no sound coming out. It’s like he was screaming for help, but …
all I could hear was the rain. I looked down and there were snakes all around him, crawling up his legs.
And then he jerked forward, suddenly, dropped to his knees.
He looked up at me and opened his mouth.
But all that came out were bugs. Locusts.
They swarmed around me, their wings cutting like little knives. Then I woke up.”
“Katie…” I start, though I have no idea what to say. Dream interpretation is not typically the purview of a private investigator.
“That’s not all,” Katie says. “I woke up and I saw a hand. A disembodied hand, but … it was wrong. Not skin. More like it was made of light. It shimmered. It was hovering in the air, writing on the wall next to my bed. It wrote a message in blood.”
“What did it say?” I ask.
“It said, The king has been judged. His kingdom is no more. My father’s name was King. Ezra King.”
She walks back to the chair and sits down. Then, she takes another drink of water from the bottle and holds it to her face. With it still pressed to her forehead and her eyes closed she says, “Miss Gore, please understand, I’m not crazy.”
“I don’t think you are.”
She shakes her head and says, “I have a degree in chemistry. I do water analysis for an environmental company. I live in an HOA fifteen minutes outside Louisville with my husband, who’s an attorney.
We both drive Volvos and we host a Derby party every year.
I didn’t come straight here from the loony bin. ”
“Okay,” I say, despite the fact that her supposedly idyllic life sounds about as palatable to me as a trip to the psych ward.
Her eyebrows knit together and her cheeks redden and, suddenly, she looks less like a sophisticated, well-educated, classy young mother and more like the little girl she once was.
“Take your time,” I tell her.
“Miss Gore,” she says. “I’m here because I think the dream was …
Well, I had the dream and then woke up with the phone ringing.
It was the police in Mount Zion. They were calling to tell me that my father, Ezra King, was dead.
That he died on Friday night of a snakebite. They found him yesterday morning.”
“Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
She shakes her head.
“I’m concerned that something is off about it.”
“Off? What do you mean?”
“Well, the policeman told me that there wasn’t an autopsy.”
“There’s still plenty of time,” I say. “You said they only found him yesterday, right? I know it’s a shock to hear—”
“No,” she says. “No, there isn’t going to be an autopsy.”
“What? Have they already scheduled the funeral?” I ask.
“They’ve already had the funeral.”