Chapter Eight
EIGHT
THERE ARE SEVERAL TYPES of venomous snakes native to North America, and a few of them—copperheads, coral snakes, timber rattlers, pygmy rattlers, and water moccasins—make Appalachia their home.
The timber rattlesnake, as I recall from walks in the woods with my granny, is among the deadliest. Its huge dose of venom is capable of killing a full-grown man.
“Shit,” I breathe, as I freeze in place.
“What are you doing here?” Will asks, the forced evenness of his voice tinged with annoyance.
“I came to talk to the woman who found Ezra’s body. You said she’d be here today.”
Will looks away from me and back to the snake. He holds part of the snake’s black-and-brown banded body with one hand and its button-eyed, triangular head with the other. Will is a slender guy, but his arms are corded with lean muscle and his supple-looking, long-fingered hands are steady and sure.
The snake hisses, its tongue flicking.
The rattle shakes.
Kkksssshhhhhhhh.
Kkksssshhhhhhhh.
“Brother Ezra and I usually do this together,” he says softly, looking down at the snake.
“Do … what exactly?” I ask, my feet rooted to the carpet.
Will adjusts his hand on the snake’s head and its jaws open, revealing pale, wet fangs.
Kkksssshhhhhhhh.
The rattle shivers violently, but Will moves with quiet deliberation, bringing the snake’s head and open mouth toward a heavy-bottomed glass beaker with what looks like a blue balloon stretched over the rim.
He raises the snake’s head just enough and then—with a pop of speed and sound—the snake’s fangs sink into the thin membrane of the balloon.
An almost-neon-yellow liquid slides across the underside of the balloon and down the inside of the glass. As I watch, a cold trickle of sweat slips between my shoulder blades and drips down my spine.
“You’re milking it,” I say, with the realization.
Will nods, tilts his head to look at the level of venom in the beaker or the attitude of the snake. He lets out a slow breath through pursed lips and then pulls the snake’s head away from the beaker. The fangs release from the membrane with a barely audible snap.
I watch as he slowly stands and slips the snake into the large wooden box that rests on the table. Apparently content to return to its lair, the snake slithers freely into the box without a rattle and Will closes the lid behind it.
“Could I ask you a few more questions, while I’m here?” I say and notice the muscle in Will’s jaw flexing. He starts to shake his head, but, before he can tell me no, I add, “I promise it’ll just take a few minutes.”
“I guess,” he says with an apathetic shrug. The movement reminds me that, despite all this sudden grown-up responsibility, he’s still so young. Probably just out of college. Basically still a kid.
“What do you want to know?” he asks.
“First of all, why are you in here milking snakes?”
Will’s demeanor softens slightly—as if he’d been expecting a harder question—and he says, “Brother Ezra started doing it years ago. I used to help him. It’s a valuable community service. There’s a lab that the venom goes to.”
“A lab?”
“They use the venom to synthesize the antidote for snakebites.”
“Seriously?”
Will nods and then his face breaks into a bashful smile. He pulls a cotton hanky from his back pocket and pats his face.
“They also pay us well for the venom,” he says. “And the church needs the money.”
“Aren’t you afraid?” I ask. “Especially after what happened to Ezra?”
Will sighs heavily and then says, “Of course I’m afraid.
But we always do the milking on Mondays and Fridays.
I … I couldn’t make it on Friday because I was helping with the food drive.
Brother Ezra told me not to worry about it, that we’d just get to it today and then …
I guess he must’ve gone ahead by himself that afternoon and…
” He stops, grimacing as if in pain, then says, “I just didn’t want to let him down.
This work is important and it meant a lot to him. ”
“I thought you said Ezra was the only one who handled the snakes,” I say.
“In services, yes. In these conditions, early in the morning, quiet … it’s not as dangerous. What Ezra did, handling them with bare hands in the middle of a loud tent revival … no, that was only for him.”
I take a few steps forward and then lean against the entryway that separates the living room from the kitchen. Will goes to the fridge and opens it up.
“You want something to drink?” he asks. Apparently, his Southern-boy home training is more powerful than his desire to get rid of me. “We’ve got lemonade. One of the women from the congregation makes it.”
I almost say no, but when he takes out the plastic pitcher and pours himself a tall glass, I change my mind. I notice that today all of the windows are open and immediately realize why. There’s a lingering scent of death and necrosis in here. Rotten flesh. Will is clearly airing the place out.
“You know,” I say. “I think I’ll take that lemonade, after all.”
He takes another glass from the cabinet, fills it, and hands it to me.
We both drink. The lemonade is ice cold and so full of sugar you could probably stand a wooden spoon up in the pitcher.
Will refills what he’s already drunk of his lemonade and then replaces the pitcher and sits down at the kitchen table.
I take the other chair, gripping the heavy table with one hand as I scoot the equally heavy chair forward.
“If the snakes are milked, does that mean they aren’t dangerous?” I ask, suddenly wondering whether this might be the key to something. Maybe Ezra really was murdered. Maybe the snakes fit into it somehow, but it’s not as clear-cut as him just getting bit.
But Will shakes his head. “No. The thing is, the snakes don’t release all their venom at once—well, the adult ones don’t—so even though she’s just been milked, that timber rattler still has enough in her system to level a man.
Ezra didn’t take that one to the revivals much though.
Usually, he traveled with the two copperheads. They’re smaller, easier to transport.”
He looks at the snake box sitting on a thin old towel, stretched out there presumably to keep the rustic pine box from scratching the table top. He picks at the edge of the towel, pulling at a loose thread until it comes free. Then he balls the thread up between thumb and finger.
“Will you do the tent revivals now?” I ask. “With the snakes and everything?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ve been praying over it. Hoping that God will give me a sign. When I was younger—a teenager—I went along with him to the revivals a few times. But … what he did there was different. Preaching in a church is one thing. A revival is … it’s different.”
Without him telling me, I know exactly what he’s talking about. In my experience, the vibe in a Sunday morning church service is more like school, a lecture. A revival is like a wild, exciting stage show where you’re never sure what’s going to happen next.
“Are you going to use the snakes in your sermons here?”
Another head shake. He raises his glass to his lips and finishes the lemonade.
“I don’t know. When I first started coming here, back when I was a kid, it was different. Brother Ezra handled the snakes every week or so. It was thrilling to see a man of such powerful belief. It was breathtaking.”
“You admired him very much,” I say.
“When I was fifteen…” Will starts, and then falters. He shakes his head and starts again, his voice croaky. “When I was younger, I became very sick. I was sure that I wouldn’t survive. No one knew what to do, but it was Ezra who healed me.”
“Really?” I say. “That’s incredible.”
He smiles bashfully and meets my eyes.
“You don’t have to believe me,” he says. “It’s okay. I understand it’s a lot. I’m the only really religious person in my family. Faith is personal. For me, I know I’ve experienced a miracle. My faith is unshakable.”
“Was Ezra’s?” I ask, as gently as I can.
“Yes,” Will says. But he pushes away from the table, taking both our empty glasses with him to the sink. “Yes, Brother Ezra’s faith could move mountains.”
Before I can ask anything else, Will says, “You wanted to talk to the woman who found Brother Ezra on Saturday morning?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve called you. She got in touch this morning and said she’s too busy to come in. I mentioned you to her, though, and she said I can give you her address, as long as you don’t take up much time.”
“I promise I’ll be fast,” I say. “What’s her name?”
“Thelma,” he says. “Thelma Worley.”
I pull out my phone and tap Thelma’s information into it.
“Do you mind if I have a look around the parsonage before I leave?” I ask.
“You want to … to look for clues?” he asks, wincing. Like this house is now a shrine to Ezra King and Will is its keeper.
“I realize this is hard for you, Will,” I say. “I promise I’ll be careful not to disturb anything more than I absolutely need to.”
“I don’t know…” he starts, his expression pained as he looks around the house.
“I’ll be quick,” I say. “And then I’ll get out of your hair.”
He nods and I realize there are tears in his eyes.
“Okay,” he says. And then, more to himself than to me, “It’s okay.”
I turn and look around in the living room. A newer TV sits on an old hardwood entertainment center in front of a brown leather sofa. I look at the space where the recliner had been.
“Do you know who took the recliner away?”
“After the police cleared the house for use, I called a junk removal guy. It … it smelled really bad.”
I nod. There’s a little art on the walls, framed prints of nature scenes, mostly. No photographs. No sign of Katie or her mom or Ezra’s previous life as a father.
In the pantry, a few canned goods sit on high shelves, but aside from that, there’s only a mini fridge and three large tanks with lights and stones and sticks inside.
This is where the snakes live, I realize, as I catch a glimpse of a ginger-colored copperhead as it slithers behind a large rock.
I head back through kitchen, then the living room, and into the narrow hallway.
The bathroom is small but well kept. There’s a newer shower stall with masculine-scented drugstore shampoo, a toothbrush in its holder, toothpaste.
Nothing more exciting in the medicine cabinet than a nearly empty tin of black boot polish, another one still sealed and ready to go.
There’s also some ibuprofen and a couple rolls of antacids.
The bedroom is small but very tidy with a queen-size bed dressed in a dark-gray set of summer-weight linens.
Ezra’s closet features several all-black button-ups, black trousers, black boots.
A rain jacket and a black wool coat. His underwear drawer is much the same.
Clean black boxer briefs, black socks. Aside from the monochrome palette, there’s nothing out of the ordinary.
I spend another few minutes in Ezra’s small but well-appointed home and find nothing of substance.
If it weren’t for the black wardrobe, the terrariums in the pantry, the vials of snake venom in the fridge, I’d never think the man who lived here was anything besides a boring, conservative, private, small-town preacher.
Instead, it looks like he was a conservative, private, small-town preacher with a flair for the dramatic. Which I already knew.
“Thanks,” I holler to Will. He comes out of the kitchen with a dish towel in his hands.
“You’re done?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I didn’t find anything unexpected. Thanks for letting me have a look around.”
He nods and I head toward the door, pausing briefly as I approach.
Part of the doorframe, all around the mortise, looks newly painted.
I reach for the door and inspect the knob.
The doorknob and dead bolt look factory fresh.
They’re cast in heavy brass, and the yellow metal gleams. There’s no tarnishing, no patina, no scratches from badly aimed keys.
“Will?” I ask as I turn back toward the kitchen. “When was this replaced?”
“Huh?”
“The hardware on the door.”
His eyebrows scrunch up and he blinks at me, confused. He steps closer, and when he gets to the door, he kneels down and looks at the hardware.
“Do you know when these were replaced?” I ask again.
He shakes his head, slowly, and stands, still staring at the knob and bolt.
“No,” he says. “I couldn’t say. They look brand new.”
“Yeah,” I say. “They sure do.”
“Do you think it’s important?” he asks, eyes wide.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe the old set was just wearing out and Ezra replaced them a couple weeks ago and you just never noticed.”
He nods but looks doubtful.
“Do you have a key?”
“Well, I have the spare,” he says. “The one Ezra always kept in the church kitchen.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a ring of keys and a single new-looking key on a separate ring with an old leather fob. He puts the other keys back in his pocket and looks at the one on the fob.
“Oh…” he says, “I hadn’t noticed…”
“It’s new,” I say, when he drops it into my palm. “How’d you end up with it?”
Will says, “They—the police, I mean—when they got here on Saturday, they asked me and Thelma if we had a key. She went inside the church and got it from the kitchen and gave it to the officer. Then, after they took Brother Ezra’s body, I explained that I needed to take care of the snakes until the congregation decides what to do with them.
They gave the key to me so I could lock up when nobody’s here. ”
“So, where’s Ezra’s personal set of keys?”
“I’d guess the police still have them.”
“And you’re sure you don’t know when the hardware was replaced?” I ask.
He shakes his head, staring at the door, apparently baffled. I turn to go and he says, “You could ask Thelma when you see her. She keeps track of the church expenses.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll do that.”
Back in the Bronco, I bring up Thelma Worley’s address on my GPS and start on my way. Nearly twenty minutes later, I pull onto her road, and I’m almost to her drive when my phone rings. It’s Tina.
“I’m almost to town,” she says. She sounds grumpy and over-caffeinated. I realize I probably sound exactly the same, so I can’t blame her.
“That was fast,” I say.
“I can haul ass when I feel like it. Why don’t you tell me where Honey is?”
I do. I give her a mile marker and tell her about the skid marks, the guardrail.
“I don’t think you can miss it,” I say. “It’s in a place called Brimstone Hollow.”