Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
Dishman looks again at the altar and then turns away from me.
He starts down the aisle and I follow him, between the pews and through the double doors, onto the front steps.
The sun filters, orange, through great gray clouds and the air buzzes with a frisson of electricity, the pent-up energy of things left unsettled.
“Even if it was accidental, Bradley knew there was no coming back from what happened here,” I say, leaning against the church wall.
“Once Ezra was dead and we’d found Nickels’s body, Bradley knew we’d connect him to all this.
Faking Ezra’s death, burying the wrong body, it would’ve all come out and he’d have lost everything. ”
Dishman clasps his hands together and then unclasps them.
“Did he—” I say, just as he says, “What if—”
We both let out exhausted breaths of laughter and then he says, “Go ahead.”
“Did he confess outright?” I ask. “Before I got there? Did he admit to killing Ezra?”
Dishman shakes his head and says, “He was out of his mind. Talking in circles. Saying he was sorry over and over. Wouldn’t say exactly what for, only that he could never go back. Diana said he’d been wound up lately, depressed and agitated, said he hadn’t been sleeping well.”
“Since when?” I ask.
“Well, since the Alba Lane funeral home opened across town, but especially since Friday night.”
“The night Ezra supposedly died,” I say. “Are there cameras in the funeral home?”
“Only on the back entrance, where they bring the bodies in and out. It was part of his election campaign last time. Sort of proof that he was going high tech. But I asked Diana if I could see the footage.”
“Okay,” I say. “What’d you find?”
“They’ve been turned off since Friday night,” he says.
“So, there’s no record of his comings or goings,” I say. “Nothing since Nathaniel Nickels was killed in the parsonage on Friday evening?”
“Right,” Dishman says.
We both look toward Gavin as he approaches, holding an evidence bag in one hand and his phone in the other. He says, “Call just came in. DEA’s on the way.”
“So, they’re finally interested,” Dishman scoffs.
“Guess so,” Gavin says, tucking his phone into his pocket.
“Well, they’re more than welcome to sort through this,” Dishman says. “I’m sick of it.”
And he really does seem sick of it. All of it.
His town is tearing itself apart. And, in the space of a week, five men are dead.
I picture the line again. Ezra King at one end. Joel Shepherd at the other.
Nathaniel Nickels, Dean Griffon, Billy Shepherd, and now Roman Bradley between them. All dead. And now, of course, Ezra is dead too. And sitting in his ruin of a house, slumped in his chair, Joel Shepherd, Kentucky’s King of Weed, is dying too. Slowly but surely.
“You know, I don’t really understand it,” Gavin says. “I mean, did Mr. King just pay Mr. Bradley to go along with all this? Burying the wrong body and getting the door hardware and all of it? I mean, were the Bradleys that hard up for money? I always thought they were well off.”
“The Bradleys have always had money,” Dishman says. “And Diana’s people are wealthy. But maybe the new funeral home was really cutting into their cash flow.”
“And you never know the truth about someone’s financials until you dig into it,” I say. “I see it all the time with people who came from money. They have a tendency to overextend themselves when times are tougher than they expect.”
“I guess that’s true,” Gavin says. “I guess it’s just hard to imagine. Mr. Bradley just never seemed the violent type.”
“Every man has his breaking point,” Dishman says. “But you’re right, Gavin. I looked at Bradley’s knuckles when we collected his body. There wasn’t any bruising or anything.”
“There wouldn’t necessarily be evidence on his hand,” I say. “Noses are a lot softer than knuckles.”
“You sound like you know from experience,” Dishman says.
I shrug.
A deep, bear-like groan emerges from Dishman’s chest. He scrapes his palms over his face and then says, “I’m going to get a court order, pull Roman Bradley’s financial records, get a warrant to search the funeral home.
If he did help Ezra fake his death and then kill him to cover it up …
God, if all this—five dead bodies in the space of a week—if it was over a pile of cash… ”
“People have killed for less,” I tell him.
He nods, but I get the feeling my words are no comfort. He starts trudging toward the cruiser and I push off the wall and follow.
“I’m going to use the coroner van and take the bodies over to Frankfort,” he says. “Ezra King, Nathaniel Nickels, and now Roman Bradley. They all need to go.”
“Surely the other funeral home—” I start, but he shakes his head.
“No,” he says. “We can’t leave ’em there.
Alba Lane’s got no official jurisdiction and their space is full as it is.
Plus, I know for a fact the state pathologist has a backlog as long as my arm.
But maybe if I drive the bodies over there myself, I could get them to move the process along a little faster. This town needs answers.”
And so do you, I think, as I watch him get back behind the wheel of his cruiser.
“You heading back to Louisville?” he asks.
“Probably,” I say. “I’ve got a feeling if I’m still kicking around when the DEA gets here, they’ll send me packing anyway.”
“Okay,” he says. “Well, if I don’t see you again … it was good working with you.”
“You too,” I say.
He revs the engine and then he leans out the window and says, “Stay out of trouble, okay?”
“Trouble?” I snort, though it’s half-hearted. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”
He gives me a long, searching look, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and bittersweet sadness. Then, before he pulls away, he says, “Just be careful, Annie.”
“Sure,” I say, and watch him drive away.