by Joss Cordero
Smoker shuffled through the photos again until he got to the ones of Courtney’s bedside tables covered with burned-down candles. It was Zach’s private little altar. “Did the task force find the Holiness Church of True Believers?”
“Yeah, in a converted tractor garage so rural you practically need a tractor to get there. A couple of dozen true believers, who along with handling snakes drink strychnine for kicks and occasionally pick up hot coals in their bare hands. The guy who does the preaching, Brother Caleb, has the distinction of having been bitten thirty-two times over the past forty years. But when you consider he handles snakes every Sunday, he’s beating the odds. The idea is when the Holy Spirit anoints the place, the snakes sense it and don’t bite.”
“Except for those thirty-two times when they’re feeling cranky.”
A squirrel who was making his rounds stopped by to see if there was any lunch going, stared at Smoker, then Ingersoll, concluded there was nothing happening at the moment, and hopped away.
“The problem is,” said Ingersoll, “no one in the congregation recognized his picture.”
“Maybe they were all high on strychnine.”
“I like mine with 7 Up.”
“Right, takes some of the edge off.”
“The congregation not recognizing him doesn’t mean you’re wrong about the anointing. It turns out there are snake churches in all four states where he’s killed before . . . Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky.”
In a hanging branch beside the bench, two lizards signaled to each other, inflating their orange throats. “They’re passing on essential information,” said Smoker.
“Did you learn that at the reptile house?”
“My Aunt Thelma has a neck like that. Only hers isn’t so bright.”
The two men fell into silence. The lizards switched positions, and resumed their signaling.
“At least we don’t have snake churches in West Palm,” said Ingersoll. “Though a local two-year-old was strangled by the family’s pet python in her crib.”
“Like I told Dottie, pythons are taking over the state.”
“It was digesting the baby inch by inch when the policewoman arrived. Seems the caring owners hadn’t fed it in a while. I guess there weren’t any rodents on sale that week. Actually, by the look of it, they hadn’t fed it in years. An eight-and-a-half-foot Burmese python should’ve weighed a hundred-fifty pounds, not fifteen. So you can’t blame the snake. It was doing its righteous job, prowling along the baseboard . . .”
The squirrel had returned and was eyeing them hopefully again.
“Watch your step, pal,” Ingersoll warned the rodent. “You don’t know who’s slithering through the bushes.”
“Where did he kill his first victim?”
“A village called Cross Bottom, Tennessee. The investigation at the time of the murder came up with nothing. But you know what they say about that kind of place. Crimes are never solved in communities where everybody’s got the same DNA and there are no dental records.”
“You wouldn’t think you could capture so much personality in a scrap of porcelain,” said Tara, examining a terrier called Charming Eyes.
The oldest cairn terrier was from 1908 and in pristine condition, like everything Matthew sold. He was photographing the menagerie next to place cards listing age and pedigree: Royal Doulton, Royal Copenhagen, Dahl Jensen, Bing & Grondahl.
“To be absolutely realistic, they should be humping.” He moved them head to tail and began mounting one on top of the other.
“You’re carrying art too far again.”
“It’s just to e-mail to a client. BJ will understand. On second thought, maybe not. Let’s clean up this dog act . . .”
Matthew separated the humping terriers. “BJ’s own cairn is fourteen, lame, with one blind eye, and deaf. BJ can’t bear being away from her for a minute, so he bought her a little orange vest and sewed on a service dog patch. Now she accompanies him into stores and eats with him in restaurants.”
“Do people actually believe that such a pathetic little old dog is a service animal?”
“If anybody asks, BJ tells them he’s epileptic and his cairn warns him when a fit is coming. Maybe he’ll buy all my humping dogs, and we won’t have to dust them anymore.”
“That’s the problem with having a house full of wonderful things. You have to dust them.”
“Except for you. You’re wonderful and I don’t have to dust you. Besides, there’s only one of you, even if it is the large economy size.”
“I used to hate being big.”
“Before I took you in hand.”
“Yes, till then. I longed to be one of those petite girls that boys didn’t have to approach with caution.”
“I must introduce you to BJ. He’s marvelously tall, marvelously rich, and unfortunately straight.”
“He doesn’t sound straight.”
“Believe me, I’ve probed.”
“Where are we to conduct this romance? You know I’m supposed to keep out of public places.”
“If you go out with BJ, you’ll have a service dog protecting you. Blind, deaf, and palsied.”
“Why do I have the feeling he’s not my type?”
“What exactly is your type?”
The doorbell rang, and Faith rushed to answer.
Matthew cut her off, and looked through the peephole. “I think your type has arrived.”
Smoker stood on the stoop, holding a white cardboard box, which he extended to Faith. “Rutabaga pie.”
“Where in the world did you find a rutabaga pie?” asked Matthew.
“I commissioned it.” And, thought Smoker, it took some fancy footwork to explain to Dottie why I wanted it.
“How very thoughtful. It’s not often Mother is remembered.” Matthew turned to his mother, who stood frozen in place with her pie. “I hope you’re going to share it with us?”
She came to life and scuttled off to the kitchen with her pie.
She placed it on the kitchen counter and considered it.
“This is a pie,” she said. “Take it out of the box.”
She looked around the kitchen. “Those are knives.”
She took a knife from the holder. “What am I doing with this?”
She stared at the refrigerator, she stared at the stove, and then her eyes moved back to the counter.
Pie, she remembered, and began slicing it.
Matthew was leading Smoker to the dining room . . . and Tara.
Smoker gazed at her and saw the same confusion of pleasure and apprehension on her face that always greeted his appearance. One day he’d come to say, I caught the bastard. And then . . . what? Would the orchestra begin to play?
“Smoker,” interjected Matthew before they could greet each other, “I’m giving you first refusal on this parade of porcelain dogs. After this, they’re going straight to another collector.”
Smoker looked uncomfortably at the parade of little dogs. They reminded him of the pit bull miniatures Dottie had paraded on the kitchen table for the groom cake, and how she’d accused him of going around floating on air because of his amazon.
“Terriers burrow after small game, Smoker. The perfect dog for a private eye.”
“I’m after bigger game.” But he picked up one of the terriers anyway.
Tara watched him examining the dog. How small it looked in his big hand. She wished those hands were caressing her.
“Unless you’re going to buy it, Smoker,” said Matthew, “we need it back in line.”
Smoker returned the terrier to the table, and Matthew showed him the image in the lens. “A circle of well-behaved dogs. That’s the effect we’re after. No humping.” He snapped the picture and glanced up at Smoker.
Smoker wished he could keep the small talk going, but his news couldn’t
be put off. “He killed another woman.”
Tara’s hand went to her throat as if her scar were a tracking device the killer had embedded to keep in constant touch with her. Matthew put his arm around her and drew her close. “Think of Smoker and me as your service dogs here to protect you.”
“How do you know he did it?” she asked.
“There’s no question it’s the work of Zachariah Whitman.”
“That’s his name?”
“One of his names.”
Zachariah Whitman. It reverberated in her brain like some biblical curse.
“Who did he kill?”
“The realty manager at Seafarers Landing.”
“My God, he went back again?”
“Yes.”
“And slit her throat?”
“And laid her out ritualistically.”
Matthew said brightly, “I never thought I would feel such a need for rutabaga pie.”
He ushered them into the kitchen, where Faith was sliding the cream-topped pastry onto plates.
Tara busied herself making coffee, but kept glancing questioningly at Smoker.
He said, “The DNA has linked him to several other murders.”
“How many is several?” asked Matthew.
“This is his sixth, unless there are bodies that haven’t turned up yet. As far as we know, Tara’s the only one who got away.”
Faith gazed blankly from one to the other.
“That’s why Tara came here,” Matthew reminded his mother, “so we can keep her safe.”
Faith put her hand on Tara’s shoulder. Tara reached up to pat Faith’s hand, then sat down at the table, still staring at Smoker, still feeling her scar reverberating with Zachariah Whitman’s signal.
Smoker said, “Now that the FBI is on the case along with the cops and the U.S. Marshals, that’s a lot of manpower closing in on one guy with a knife. Just stay here until it’s over. And keep your semiautomatic handy.”
Matthew forked up a piece of pie, and thoughtfully tasted it. “Interesting. More complex than pumpkin. What do you think, Tara?”
Tara tasted a piece, but the world itself had lost its flavor. “Delicious,” she said.
Smoker took a guilty bite, thinking of Dottie peeling and steaming the rutabagas, rolling out the dough, crimping the edges, whipping up the cream, and all so he could sit here and eat it with his amazon.
Tara’s effort to eat her slice of pie didn‘t go unnoticed. “Yes,” said Matthew, “you’re being held captive in an antique dealer’s attic, but as long as designer pie is delivered to the prisoner, there’s hope.”
Tara managed a smile of appreciation. It had been kind of Smoker to bring a gift for Faith.
“Messages are often smuggled to the prisoner in pastry.” Matthew poked around with his fork, separated a bit of crust, and declared, “Here it is. Meet me in the men’s room of the Tri-Rail Station. Oh, sorry, that one was for me.”
“Speaking of trains and travel,” Smoker said to Tara, rising to his feet. “I’m going to be out of town for a few days. But you can always get me on my cell. Or you can call Ingersoll. Give me your cell phone.”
She handed it over.
He programmed in Ingersoll’s number, gave his lopsided smile, and said, “I’ve got to go.”
His steps were heavy, weighed down by the death of two women: Megan, whom he’d only met in her casket, and Courtney, who’d tried to sell him a penthouse. Balanced against the dead was this living woman, his desire, and his responsibility.
She walked him to the door, wishing he didn’t have to leave, not ever.
“At least he doesn’t know where you live,” said Smoker.
“Or he would’ve been here by now.”
Smoker’s conscience forced him to say, “Now that we’ve got so much evidence against him, you don’t really need to stick around anymore as a witness.”
“I want to stick around.”
Their eyes met, and he realized she was sticking around for him. The pleasure he felt warred with his dismay that she was risking her life for a romantic hang-up on a married man, a hang-up he’d done his best to encourage. He should tell her about Dottie, but it just happened her name never came up.
Tara stood at the door and watched him drive off, then fastened the extra lock and dead bolt Matthew had recently installed.
In the kitchen, Faith observed with concern, “He didn’t finish his pie.”
It was midafternoon when Smoker reached the site of Zachariah Whitman’s first murder. Two mountains cast intersecting shadows, explaining how Cross Bottom, Tennessee, got its name, and Smoker wondered what sort of people would choose to live in this hollow of foreshortened days. People of faith, he reckoned, who saw the sudden drop of darkness as the hand of God.
When night’s full darkness dropped on him he was in his room at the Sleep Well Motel. According to the folder on his bedside table, he was still in time for squirrel hunting, and the fish were biting; he noticed that many of the motel’s visitors were dressed in vests with multiple pockets and armed with fishing tackle and coolers. The exceptions were the Saturday night lovers next door, four in one room. Unlike Matthew’s porcelain cairn terriers, all of them were humping.
The small space heater did little to dispel the mountain coldness, so he drew himself a hot bath through vintage plumbing that emitted a musical series of sputterings. After drying himself with the thinnest towel he’d ever encountered, he put two plugs in his ears, laid a sock across his eyes to block out the light that came through the gap between the curtains, and went to sleep.
Next morning he drove to a long dirt road, at the end of which stood the Holiness Fire House of Prayer, a barn dwarfed by the surrounding mountains. No sign marked it as a church, a sign in itself that they’d had trouble with the law. According to the printouts the Crooked Man had given him, the new young generation of snake handlers in Tennessee worshipped openly, but this congregation near Cross Bottom was old enough to have suffered several Sabbath deaths over the years, which accounted for its wariness.
A single half-ton truck was parked in the field. The driver stepped out, eying Smoker quizzically.
“I hope I’ve come to the right place,” said Smoker. “I was told there’d be a church at the end of the road.”
“Depends what road you’re on.”
Smoker wasn’t sure if this was hostility or a style of preaching. Optimistically assuming the latter he said, “I’m hoping it’s the road to Jesus.”
The man studied him closely, then seemed to relent a little. “You’re on it, brother, but you’ve come a long way.”
“A friend sent me here.”
Suspicion resurfaced like a snake from its hole. “And who might that be?”
“He calls himself Zachariah Whitman.”
“Let me mull that over.” He walked around to the back of his truck and lifted out a box. Smoker heard a rustling sound coming from it.
“Go on in and get yourself a seat up front,” said the man.
Smoker did as he was told, choosing a folding chair in the first row. A pleasant smell of old hay and horses still lingered in the barn, and he found himself wondering about real estate in rural Tennessee. Just as he’d pictured himself tying up his nonexistent boat at Seafarers Landing, he pictured himself now with a stable for his nonexistent horse.
Shafts of winter sunlight shone down through the cracks in the roof, and a chain formerly used to off-load hay hung above the slightly elevated stage; at the end of the chain, instead of a pulley, hung a cross made of twisted branches. A cast-iron coal stove gave off just enough heat to take the chill out of the barn.
As the congregation trickled in, Smoker noticed a subtle dress code among the women. Nothing tight, low-cut, or flashy. No makeup or short haircuts. Some of the men carried boxes, which they placed on a table on
the stage.
Three musicians arrived with a set of drums, guitar, bass, and amplifiers. Even here in this unmarked church at the end of nowhere, you couldn’t escape amplifiers. The bass player frowned at Smoker as he tuned his instrument, either with suspicion or listening for the note he was after.
At ten o’clock the doors were closed, and the man Smoker had met outside mounted the stage. He tapped his microphone, gazed in silence at the congregation until silence settled on them too, and struck up the service by calling for the song “Jesus Took the Outlaw Out of Me.” Smoker learned that the outlaw in question had been partial to pills, booze, and fast women, until he was led out of darkness.
When the tune was finished, the preacher read a passage from the Bible, then swung into a rhythmic commentary, punctuated by drum rolls, jingling tambourines, and a scattering of “Hallelujahs” and “Amens.”
Gradually, both mood and music intensified. The preacher paced excitedly back and forth, banging his Bible for emphasis. A couple of elders moved through the congregation, anointing heads with oil. As the oil touched the man to Smoker’s left, the gentleman began talking in tongues, sounding like something from the flight deck of a space alien movie. When the oil-soaked finger touched Smoker, he bowed his head and prayed he wasn’t on a wild goose chase. A woman behind him started sobbing. A little boy leapt out of his chair and took the opportunity to show off his cartwheeling. As if on cue, the musicians launched into a rocking beat that pulled the rest of the congregation from their seats.
An ecstatic feeling was building, but with ominous overtones.
Only Smoker was still sitting.
Overcoming his reticence, he got to his feet. Now that he was upright he couldn’t just stand still and gawk, so he clapped and swayed with the rest, as the preacher punched the air and shouted, “Satan, take that.”
The preacher spun round toward the table where the boxes had been placed, opened the lids, and plunged his hands in without giving any thought to what the snakes were up to. “When you grab the Lord, you grab everything,” he shouted, drawing forth two handfuls of huge serpents and turning back to the congregation.
