Page 104 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

Reed waited somewhat impatiently. He wasn’t going to talk the pros and cons of this religion, which he considered whacked out. For now, he was just trying to find the person who had wanted to use a snake to scare and potentially harm Nikki.

The pastor led him through his small house, where several lamps burned and a woman, presumably his wife, was washing dishes in the kitchen.

He stopped to call to her. “Annie,” he said loudly, and when she didn’t turn around, a little louder, “Annie!”

“Oh, what?” She started, her hands in plastic gloves shooting out of the water, suds flying against a garden window where African violets were blooming. “Ezekiel, you scared me to death!” She snapped off the faucet, and the sound of rushing water disappeared. Turning around, she said, blinking in surprise, “Oh my. I didn’t know we had company.”

“Detective Reed, my wife, Annabella.”

She pulled off her gloves and shook his hand. Her hair was long, streaked with silver, and she wore neither lipstick nor mascara. “Welcome. Nice to meet you. Uh . . . Detective?”

“Nothing to worry about, Annie. He just wants to check the serpents,” Byrd said.

“Why?” she asked quickly.

Ezekiel sent her a warning look. “Nothing to worry about. We’ll discuss it later. Now, Detective, this way.” He showed Reed into the hallway again, and from the corner of his eye he saw the reverend’s wife stare after them before she turned back to the sink and stuffed her hands into her gloves again.

“Here we go,” the reverend said, unlocking the door to a back room that might have once been a porch; the screens had been replaced by windows, now with their shades drawn. The room was small, but warmer than the rest of the house. At waist level, stretched along long tables, were individual terrariums, each complete with its own soft light, mulch or sand, a chunk of some kind of wood, and a very live rattlesnake.

Seven sets of tiny eyes with slits for pupils were trained on Reed.

A soft rustle started as the first rattler vibrated his tail, and then another sounded a warning that caused the hairs on the back of Reed’s neck to lift. “Just rattlesnakes?”

“Currently yes,” the reverend said, “but, of course, we’ve had others. Cottonmouths. Copperheads. Once a cobra, but that didn’t last long. I prefer domestic.”

“You’re June O’Henry’s brother,” Reed said as he watched one of the rattlers slowly uncoil to slide across the bottom of his Plexiglas cage.

“Yes.”

“And she attends with her family? Calvin and Niall?”

“Some members of the family attend,” the preacher agreed. “Others do not. Leah gave up the faith, but listen to me, I shouldn’t be discussing members of the congregation even if I am related to them. So . . .” He motioned toward the trapped reptiles. “Did you want a closer look? I can certainly take the snakes from their cages. They’re used to it.”

“I’m good,” Reed said and searched for a glint of anger, even superiority in Ezekiel Byrd’s gaze to see if the minister were testing him. It appeared not. The man seemed to be a true believer in his unusual faith.

“Do you have anyone in your congregation who keeps snakes?” Reed asked.

“Oh, yes. A few.”

“Calvin O’Henry?”

“He and June did at one time. No longer, I think, though.”

“Can you name anyone else?”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” he said, a little more anxious than he had been. “I think Herb Curtis, he had a couple of rattlers, and Willie Carter had a cottonmouth a few years back.” He was thinking hard, actually scratching his chin. “Oh, yes, and Donny Ray Wilson, he and his stepbrother, they used to trap them.”

“Roland Camp?”

He nodded. “But I think Roland gave it up because he was having a child and the mother insisted. She’s a fearful one. Doesn’t understand God’s will.”

“Imagine that,” Reed said. He felt a little twinge of excitement as he drove away from Byrd’s home.

Roland Camp and Donny Wilson.

Stepbrothers with an affinity for snakes.

How convenient that twenty years ago Wilson had been Roland Camp’s alibi.

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