Chapter Twenty-Six
TWENTY-SIX
I PULL OUT MY PHONE and snap a few photos of the scene before using the ascenders to get topside.
Once I’m back above ground, I strip off the mask, harness, and gloves and stomp over to the Bronco, where I grab a huge bottle of water and take several long slugs, trying and failing to wash away the smell, the taste, the sight of Nathaniel Nickels’s decayed corpse.
I pour some of the water over my hands and then the rest over my head, letting the clean water soak through my sweaty, stinking hair. I pull out my phone to call Dishman and pause when I’m suddenly reminded of my late night on the side of the road in Brimstone Hollow.
“No cell service,” I mutter at the lack of bars. “Damn it.”
I don’t want to leave the body down there, unguarded, any longer than I have to, but it’s not as if I can get Nickels out and transported to cold storage on my own.
With a grunt, I climb back in the Bronco and head back the way I came, roaring down the dirt road and back through Brimstone Hollow.
As I approach the church, I tell my phone to call Dishman’s number.
It rings. And rings. And goes to voicemail.
“Where the hell…?” I breathe, and press the gas.
Another minute and I’m back in the parking lot of Mount Zion Church of the Healing Redeemer. I jump out and flag down Gavin, who’s helping Jeanine take inventory of the cars.
“What’s going on?” Gavin asks, as Jeanine says, “Damn, where the hell have you been? You stink like a three-day-old diaper!”
I explain what I’ve found in the Hell Hole and Jeanine springs into action, calling the local rescue squad and grabbing the evidence kit from inside the cruiser.
It looks like no one’s been allowed to leave yet.
I assume that, until every vehicle and person is accounted for, they’ll all have to stay.
And, with a crime scene in the sanctuary, it’s not like there are a lot of options to get out of the heat.
I watch as a man picks up his little girl and carries her to a table someone’s set up with water bottles and paper cups of Kool-Aid.
The little girl, now hugged close to her daddy, pulls at the sunglasses hanging from a cord around his neck.
The cord shifts and turns, reflecting the light with its metallic thread.
I squint at the scene, realize something about it is sparking a flint deep in my brain. I can almost put my finger on it. The father. The daughter. The blazing heat. The bright sun. The—
“You get down there,” Officer Jeanine says, interrupting my thoughts as she thrusts the evidence kit toward Gavin.
“I’m the world’s worst with heights. Guard the Hell Hole till the rescue guys get there, then collect whatever evidence you can.
Stay with the body once they pull it up.
We can’t have Nickels going AWOL again. Meantime, I’ll call Alba Lane. ”
“Who’s Alba Lane?” I ask.
“Not who,” Gavin says, as Jeanine pulls out her phone and steps away. “Alba Lane Mortuary, the new funeral home across town. They’ll be able to transport Mr. Nickels’s body and put him in their refrigerator.”
“You still don’t know where the coroner is?” I ask.
He shakes his head as he starts toward the cruiser and says, “No. That’s where the chief went. To track him down. He just left a couple minutes ago.”
I imagine Dishman driving through the same dead spot I’d driven through, just farther along, when I pulled onto the road and tried to call him. I’d likely just missed him.
“Thanks,” I tell Gavin, as he gets behind the wheel and starts the car. “And good luck down in the Smell Hole. I’m sorry you have to be the one to go down there.”
“Shoot,” he says. “It’s my own fault for figuring it out.”
He pulls away and I climb back into the Bronco, rev the engine, and soon I’m going back the way I came. Through Brimstone Hollow, past the side road that leads to the Hell Hole, and into Mount Zion. When I get there, I try Dishman’s number again.
Still no answer.
I try to ignore the gnawing sensation in my gut. It’s anxiety, I realize. But why? Dishman’s a grown man. A cop. He’s got a career’s worth of experience and he knows what he’s doing. Wherever he is, he’s almost certainly fine.
So why isn’t he answering his phone?
Following directions from my GPS, I pull in and park beside Bradley Funeral Home. There’s no cruiser here. No coroner van, either. The parking lot is empty except for a late-model silver Volvo.
As I start toward the front door of the funeral home, Diana Bradley—Coroner Bradley’s wife—emerges, wearing an apron over her silk camisole and jeans and carrying a hefty watering can. When she sees me, anxiety creases her eyebrows. She sets the watering can down.
“Did you find him?” she asks.
“Who?” I ask. “You mean Chief Dishman?”
“No,” she says. “The chief just came by a few minutes ago. He asked where Roman was. I told him that when the first call came in, I let Roman know what had happened, and he left.”
“But that was over an hour ago,” I say. “It doesn’t take an hour to get from here to the church.”
She shakes her head, impatient, her big blue eyes suddenly glimmering with tears.
“No,” she says. “He wasn’t … he wasn’t here.”
At that moment, the door swings open behind her and a little girl bounds out.
She’s probably around five or six, with honey-brown hair and eyes the same startling turquoise shade as her father’s.
She squints against the sun, looking from me to her mamma, and asks, “Where’s Daddy? He still out fishing?”
“Yes, baby,” Diana Bradley says to her daughter.
Then, to me, she explains, “He stayed at the cabin last night. That’s what I told the chief and he said he’d go track him down.
I tried to call him again, but he hasn’t picked up since that first call.
I’m getting a little worried something’s happened to him. It’s pretty far out.”
“Give me the address,” I say. “And I’ll go check on both of them.”
On the road, I try Dishman’s number a few more times, and every time, it goes to voicemail.
“This isn’t right,” I say to myself, taking the Bronco hard around a tight turn.
Dishman had said that Roman Bradley’d been the county coroner for years.
Why would he agree to help Ezra King fake his death?
Did he take a bribe? Did Ezra lie to him, maybe make Bradley think he was in danger? Or was Bradley more involved than that?
And then I remember the morning I saw him outside the Dairy, geared up for a day of fishing, his dark sunglasses hanging around his neck with a shiny yellow strap.
“It wasn’t a necklace,” I say to myself. I picture the security footage from Walmart. Average height. Average build. Boonie hat. I couldn’t see his face, but from behind, I could see the back of a gold necklace.
“It was his fucking sunglasses strap,” I growl, and put my foot down. “He’s the one who helped cover up the busted door.”
I take the country roads as fast as I dare.
Diana Bradley had said that the chief must’ve set out only a few minutes before me, so I can’t be too far behind.
Still, my heart thumps as I finally turn onto the long, steep gravel drive, and watch as the dense foliage separates to reveal a rustic log cabin tucked into the hillside.
Dishman’s cruiser is parked out front, along with Bradley’s van.
I get out and tread up the steep wooden steps toward the cabin.
There’s a porch out front, furnished with three rocking chairs, empty and still.
Somewhere nearby, a rushing brook burbles past.
There’s no sound from within the cabin.
I break into a jog on my way up the steps, reaching around to the small of my back and pulling my gun as I go.
When I step onto the porch, I realize the door is cracked open.
As quiet as I can, I edge up to the door without touching it, and look inside.
All I can see is part of a small, well-furnished living room.
No people. But I can hear the tail end of a conversation.
Coroner Bradley’s voice, shaking, scared, despondent, says, “… been able to go back. He had to go. Ezra had to go and I … I did what I had to do…”
“Roman, come on,” says Dishman, nice and soft, soothing. “Come on, now. You don’t have to do this. We can go back into town together. We can get all this straightened out.”
“I can’t,” Bradley says. He sounds less scared now. More defeated. Cold.
“Roman—” Dishman starts.
“No,” Bradley says. “What I did … They’ll never forgive me. I never should’ve—Listen, will—”
“Bradley, please,” Dishman says. “Please, think of Diana and Sophia.”
At that, I edge into the room. The door creaks as I enter and I find myself just behind Dishman, who stands in the middle of the room. On the far side of it, behind a little kitchen table, is Roman Bradley, a revolver glinting in his hand.
He’d been aiming the gun at Dishman, but as I enter the room, he swings it toward to me.
“No!” Dishman shouts. “No, don’t shoot.”
His piece is still in its holster. He’s got his hands up.
All my old training whooshes back with a surge of adrenaline.
My heart rate settles and I take in the scene with practiced efficiency.
Bradley stands behind the kitchen table.
On the table is an empty tumbler, a half-empty bottle of whiskey, a pad of paper, and a pen.
Behind him is a little kitchen decorated in red-and-white gingham.
Wild lilies, orange and white, wilt in a beam of sunlight on the butcher-block counter.
Finally, I let my gaze settle on Bradley himself. His gun is still trained on me, but his hands are shaking. He’s sweating, swaying, probably drunk. His eyes are wide and wild. All the cool is gone, replaced with terror and grief and, likely, guilt.
I aim down my barrel at him, ready to shoot, hoping I won’t have to.
“Roman,” Dishman says, softly. “Please.”
Bradley swings the gun back toward Dishman.
“You don’t have to do this,” Dishman says, calmer now than when Bradley was aiming at me. “Just lay it down. We can all go home.”
“My family,” Bradley says, voice breaking. He lets out a shuddering breath. “Tell them I’m sorry.”
It only takes a second. But the images, I know, will be burned into my brain forever.
Bradley squeezing his eyes shut.
His mouth twisting into a pained grimace of expectation.
Swinging the gun away from us, thrusting it under his own chin.
“No!” Dishman shouts as I scream, “Wait!”
BLAM!
And, finally, the spray of red on wild lilies.