Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
LESS THAN HALF AN hour later, we’re standing in the gravel lot of the Church of the Healing Redeemer, watching as Will’s car makes its slow return back up the drive.
“God, he looks exhausted,” I mutter, as I watch Will park, then start to get out before he even turns the engine off. He’s carrying a to-go coffee cup from the Dairy and I guess he went into town for breakfast after Dishman and I left.
“Apologies for the intrusion, Will,” Dishman says. “We’re just—”
“Just doing your job,” Will says, “I know.”
He trudges up the parsonage steps ahead of us, and before he can pull out his key, Dishman holds out a hand to stop him.
“Just a minute,” Dishman says. “If you don’t mind.”
Dishman and I don gloves from his crime scene kit while Will tells him exactly the same thing he told me. He has no idea when the lock was replaced, and he got the current key from the kitchen drawer where they always kept a spare.
“Has anyone been inside the parsonage since Saturday morning when you found Ezra’s body?”
“The paramedics,” Will says. “And Officer Alvey. Oh, and the coroner, of course. Then, I came in yesterday to tend to the snakes. That’s when Miss Gore visited.”
“What about Thelma?” I ask. “Did she come in when the body was discovered?”
“No,” he says. “She stood at the door. It was … pretty clear what had happened.”
“Even so, that’s a lot of people leaving prints,” Dishman says. “EMTs would’ve had gloves on at least most of the time but not necessarily always. Whatever prints we take here can be sent to Frankfort. It’ll be a while before they come back to us with anything like a match but…”
“You’re thinking about Nathaniel Nickels?” I ask.
“We’ve got his prints on file,” he answers. “Gavin texted them to me on my way over.”
He dismisses Will, letting him know we’ll come and get him if we need to lock up again. Reluctantly, Will goes, heading back into the church through the side door.
“All right,” Dishman says. “Let’s get to work.”
Dishman kneels and opens the fingerprint kit.
We dust the doorknob, the plate, and the dead bolt, inside and out.
There are plenty of prints but, at least at first glance, none from Nathaniel Nickels.
While Dishman dusts around the rest of the door, I find myself drifting into the kitchen, where I sit again in the heavy wooden chair.
“That kid’s not the only one who looks exhausted,” Dishman says. “How much sleep have you had since you got here?”
“Maybe four or five hours?” I yawn.
After a minute Dishman says, “It’s not just the hardware that looks new. Somebody’s patched the wood and painted it, too.”
“Which means the lock didn’t just jam up,” I say. “The door was damaged.”
He nods. “Seems likely.”
I look around the kitchen: the clean countertops, the plain white curtains over the window. Dust motes float through the air and I think about Joel Shepherd’s house. The old man in the chair, seething with bitterness. I replay the conversation with him in my head and a name bubbles to the surface.
“Chief Dishman?” I say, my voice turning his name into a question.
“Yes?” he says, only half listening.
“Who’s Janey-Beth?”
There’s a long pause before he answers. Then, after he goes back to dusting, he says, “My daughter.”
“Oh,” I say. “That’s right. I forgot you said you have a daughter.”
Shepherd had said the name so casually, but the way Dishman reacted to it, jaw clenched, posture stiffened, I realize there’s more to it. I look at Dishman and he stops what he’s doing and meets my eyes.
“She died,” he says softly. “When she was eleven.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“Cancer,” he says. “Leukemia.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. My heart aches for him. For his loss. It hits me harder than I’d have expected, like a sudden, sharp pang.
“It was a long time ago,” he says.
“I’m still sorry,” I tell him.
Eleven, I think. And I picture myself so close to that age. Standing in a kitchen not unlike this one with my own dad. Both of us contemplating the freezer pizza we’d managed to burn. What would it have been like, I wonder, if my dad been more like Dishman?
“I appreciate it,” Dishman says, so quietly I almost don’t hear him. His jaw is clenched, the back of his neck is red, and his big shoulders are strained with tension. He turns his body away from me and steps outside to dust the exterior of the door.
I lean forward, chin in my hands, and stare at the table.
I realize now that I hadn’t seen its surface before.
With the snake-milking supplies, the snake box, and the towel on it, the tabletop had been mostly covered.
Now I see that it’s been scarred up, and recently.
Along with a big elbow-sized dent, three long scratches are gouged into the top, and they look fresh, but the wood within the scrape is mottled.
Some of it looks raw while other places are stained a much darker color than the rest of the table.
I run a gloved finger over them, thinking.
“Chief?” I holler. Dishman comes back inside.
I show him the table and he, like me, runs his finger down one long scratch. Then, he digs his keys out of his pocket and hands them to me.
“My forensic kit is in the trunk,” he says.
I jog out to the car and haul the big silver box out. As I head back into the house, Will comes out of the church and follows me.
“What’s going on?” he asks. “Did you find something?”
“Maybe,” I say.
I watch as Dishman mixes luminol in a spray bottle and then closes the kitchen and living room curtains to make it as dark as possible.
Will stands in the entryway watching and I look over Dishman’s shoulder as he mists the product into the long gouge on the table top.
It’s not more than a couple of seconds before the chemical reacts, illuminating the long scrape and the area around it a pale blue.
“Blood,” I say.
“Yep,” Dishman says.
Will looks at the scratches and then says slowly, “Ezra must have been milking the snakes when he was bit. And then he bled onto the table.”
“Are the scratches new?” I ask.
“I … don’t know,” Will says, his eyebrows drawing together. “The table is old, but it’s very good wood. Whenever we milk the snakes, I always put a towel down first thing because the boxes are rough and … Brother Ezra was never very careful. I tried to tell him, but he—he wouldn’t listen…”
“Let’s dust the table,” I say.
Dishman opens the curtains and brings the dusting kit into the kitchen. I watch as a few prints emerge along the edges. But no match for Nathaniel Nickels.
“Those are probably mine,” I say, pointing to the edge where I’d sat the day before. “And those are likely yours, Will.”
Will nods.
“It’s been wiped clean,” Dishman says.
“That was me,” Will says.
We both turn to look at him and he says, “I always clean the kitchen before and after I milk the snakes.”
“Was there blood on the table when you got here yesterday?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“I didn’t see any,” he says, tears in his voice. “I’m so sorry. If I’d realized—I didn’t mean to clean up—Is it evidence?”
“I don’t know,” I tell him.
I let out a sigh and sit again in the chair, slumping.
“If Nathaniel Nickels was here,” Dishman says, “we haven’t found any trace of him.”
I start to pull my chair forward, reaching out to grip the edge of the table, then suddenly stop myself.
“Wait,” I say. “Give me the kit.”
He pushes the powder and brush across to me and I slide out of the chair and crouch down under the edge of the table. I bite my bottom lip as I dust. An old habit. This stuff goes everywhere if you’re not careful. It’s like black baby powder.
I watch as several dark blotches emerge on the underside of the table’s edge.
“Can I see the prints again?” I ask.
Dishman brings his phone over and holds it while I compare one print after another.
“He was here,” I finally say.
“Who was?” Will says.
“Nathaniel Nickels,” I tell him, as I get to my feet. “You need to lift that print before somebody comes along with another dishrag.”
Dishman crouches down to compare the print for himself.
“Damn,” he breathes. “You’re right.”
“If Ezra was connected to Dean Griffon, the driver and mechanic,” I say. “And Dean was murdered by Nathaniel Nickels, the local leg breaker. And Nathaniel Nickels was here the night Ezra died…”
Dishman pulls some acetate from the kit and uses it to lift the prints from the underside of the table. He puts them in an evidence bag, then takes a scalpel from his kit and starts scraping at the blood in the scratched-up wood.
“Wait—” Will says, panicky. “That’s church property!”
“Not right now it isn’t,” Dishman says. “Right now this is a crime scene.”
“B-but—” Will stammers. “But—Wait, what about the snakes?”
Dishman says, “We’ll have to figure that out later. I’ll get officers up here to comb through this place properly. While they’re doing that, I’ll call the judge and get an exhumation order. We’re going to have to dig up Ezra King.”