Maria read from the sheet. ‘The prints belong to a man named Elijah Caleb Longstreet, white male, date of birth June twenty-fourth, 1951. Last known address is in a place called Cuzzart, West Virginia.’
‘What’s he in the system for?’ Dre Curtis asked.
‘It seems Mr Longstreet was involved in a number of assaults, one aggravated, did some state and county time in the seventies.’
‘Is he still living there?’ Westbrook asked.
‘Hard to tell,’ Maria said. ‘I couldn’t find any current records on him at all. No DMV, telephone, nothing.’
Dana Westbrook picked up the phone. ‘I’ll contact the West Virginia state police,’ she said. ‘See what I can find out.’
Jessica glanced at her watch. It seemed like she’d been up for days. She wanted a long, hot bath, but she was afraid she’d fall asleep in the tub and drown.
Westbrook looked at Jessica and Byrne. ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘What do you mean, Sarge?’ Jessica asked.
Westbrook handed Jessica the sheet with Elijah Longstreet’s last known address on it.
‘Get down there.’
THIRTY-ONE
They sit atop the small ridge overlooking the valley. The air is cold, but the sun is bright and warm, painting the hills in lustrous hues of rust and gold.
‘Tell me about how it looked then, Mama.’
She tells the story as she knows it, of when the house was built, of how fine and strong it had stood, how level and true the ridge, how plumb the jambs. She tells about how there had been neighbors who had helped, and how the woods then were neither ragged nor sparse nor timbered flat. She tells about how the water in the creek once ran pure and cold, and how, every April, if you squinted your eyes, and gave rise to the belief, the mountains seemed to blush yellow with flowers.
The house is fallen now, the old church stands empty, home to only pigeons and beetles and vermin. She tells about going there as a very young girl, when the service was full of majesty and mystery and solace. There was comfort in the Word, yes, there was.
But when the Preacher came to her that night it all changed.
She looks at the old stead, takes out what she needs, leaves it behind. It won’t be long. She knows that she has a connection to the detective, one that transcends all the machines and test tubes and electronic equipment. One that lives in their two hearts.
‘Are they coming?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Very soon.’
There is one God, she thinks, but He is many things to many people. Hers is the God of vengeance, and at his right hand sits the last saint.
There are four more churches to go.
THIRTY-TWO
The drive to West Virginia took just over five hours, but that was not according to Detective Jessica Balzano, who slept most of the way. When she awoke the car was stopped, parked on the side of a dirt road, with the strangest anomaly occurring. There was sunlight coming in the windows. Bright yellow sunlight. It was by no means warm, and there were patches of snow dotting the endless, rolling brown hills, but the sky was blue and the sun was dazzling.
Jessica glanced over at Byrne. He was staring out the window, lost in thought. When he noticed that Jessica was awake, he reached into the back seat, brought back a container of coffee.
Jessica sat up. ‘Don’t tell me I slept the whole time.’
‘Purt’ near,’ Byrne said with a smile.
‘Wow. We must be in West Virginia.’
Jessica rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She brought down the visor, opened the lighted mirror. ‘Oh, my God.’ She snapped it shut, took the coffee from Byrne. ‘Are you saying we stopped, you got out, bought coffee, got back in, and we drove some more without me waking up?’
‘Actually we stopped twice.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Last time was an hour ago. The coffee won’t be hot, but it’s strong and it’s pretty good. Sweet rolls are in the back if you want one.’
Jessica opened the coffee, sipped. Byrne was right. It was forty-weight.
‘You’re going to love this,’ Byrne said. He reached out, tapped a button on the navigation screen on the center console. Jessica put on her glasses, looked at the readout.
There were two lines. If they were in Philadelphia, or just about anywhere else, the entire screen would have been cross-hatched with streets, boulevards, expressways, turnpikes. Here, at the northeastern tip of West Virginia, there were two roads. One going north and south. One going east and west.
‘Have you ever seen this screen so empty?’ Byrne asked.
‘Never.’
Driving around Philly, with its one hundred neighborhoods and thousands of streets, Jessica quite often needed to pull over, put on her reading glasses, and scan the screen. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, navigation was a lot easier.
‘You said we stopped twice,’ Jessica said.
‘I stopped at the sheriff’s office. There’s only two deputies working. It’s really more of an outpost.’
‘They didn’t see me sleeping in the car, did they? Please tell me they didn’t see me sleeping in the car.’
‘No. I parked a block away. The whole town was only five blocks long, so we were pretty much on the outskirts.’
‘And you left me alone in the car? In the middle of such a hotbed of criminal activity?’
Byrne smiled. Jessica sipped her coffee again, then chugged half the lukewarm cup. She had to get it together. She rolled down her window, let some of the cold air in. ‘What did we get from the sheriff’s office?’ she asked.
‘Not much. The older of the two deputies was about twenty-five, and he said that the address we have used to belong to the Longstreet family, but no one has lived there for quite some time. He said our best bet was to see a woman named Ida-Rae Munson, who lives along here somewhere. He said if we couldn’t find it to call him and he’d come out.’ Byrne held up his cell phone. ‘I tried. No signal yet.’
Jessica glanced out all four windows. There were rolling brown hills in all directions, but not a single dwelling of any kind.
‘Did you get a map?’
‘No,’ Byrne said. He tapped the navigation screen again. ‘This is about as detailed as it gets.’
Byrne pulled back onto the road. About a mile away they came to a long thicket on the right.
‘Stop,’ Jessica said.
Byrne stopped, backed up. There seemed to be an opening in the thicket, which led to a long hardpan lane that headed up to and over a ridge.
Jessica looked at Byrne. As he pulled in, scraping the sides of the sedan against the dried bushes, she finished her coffee, and willed herself awake.
There was no way of knowing what they were going to find over this ridge.
The house sat atop a low rise, at the end of a 200-foot driveway. The closer they got to the structure, the more Jessica began to wonder what kept it standing. It was a three-room shack, with a roof so patched and tar-papered it looked to be in danger of blowing off any second. The ridge of the roof was so bowed it looked ready to snap. There was a crumbling chimney to the left, one at the back. Smoke poured from the larger of the two. In the fields surrounding the shack were the rusted remnants of old trucks, stoves, car parts. A well pump stuck out of the ground at the end of a trampled trail through the weeds.
Jessica and Byrne got out of the car, walked to the house. The sun was still out, but a frigid breeze blew over the hill. They stepped cautiously onto the swayback porch. Jessica knocked. From inside they heard a dog bark. It was a high-pitched sound, which was good news. No one, outside of postal carriers, had more of a love/hate relationship with dogs than police officers. This did not sound like a big dog — Rottweiler, shepherd, or even an old redbone hound. This was a beagle at best.