Westermann drove a rutted dirt road in the cool of morning, looking for what Allison had called “the colored trees.” Westermann had looked to him for an explanation and Allison had said, “Trust me.” Westermann still wasn’t sure what to make of it, but continued on, driving slowly, worried about the car’s axles.
He was still unsettled from the previous night at the Holiness Church, the feelings that he had experienced there. He couldn’t find a purchase on it. It challenged his concept of himself. He’d felt something similar to this once before, in the aftermath of his killing Sam “Blood Whiskers” McAdam after McAdam had killed Officer Klasnic. Then he had been forced to face both his cowardice and his capacity to end someone’s life. It had been unpleasant. This, though, was something different, more like a reassessment of what had been his certainties about the world. Not damning like after McAdam, but maybe even more distressing.
In this frame of mind, he rounded a curve in the road to see the sparkling of hundreds of points of shimmering color, as if a rainbow had dropped from the sky and shattered. He slowed further and came to a spot where an even more primitive dirt track branched off to the left. He could now see that the lights were actually hundreds of shards of broken glass in myriad colors, strung from tree branches.
Westermann pulled off onto this new track and saw a shack in the distance. He parked as far to the side of the road as he could without risking getting stuck and covered the rest of the distance on foot.
Glass shards dripped from trees all the way to the shack. The effect of their manic twinkling was nearly hypnotic; the sound of his footsteps on the dirt and rock of the road was unnaturally clear. Westermann felt exposed as he stood before the shack, a tattered structure that seemed constructed—or at least repaired—with whatever had happened to be around: logs, plywood, sheet tin, scrap lumber. The sturdiest part seemed to be a narrow porch that ran the length of the front, chairs scattered about it. Behind the shack, Westermann could see edges of a garden and hear the sounds of chickens coming from an outbuilding that seemed to be barely standing.
“Hello,” Westermann called out to the shack. “Mr. Symmes? I’m looking for Mr. Symmes.”
Westermann heard voices inside the house and the groan of the floor under footsteps. The front door opened and a thin man in overalls stepped out, holding a shotgun by the barrel; just to let Westermann know he had it.
“Mr. Boyce Symmes?”
The man had mottled cheeks and a narrow jaw. He looked to be in his sixties, the horse shoe of hair around his skull shaved nearly to the skin. He stared back at Westermann with suspicious eyes.
“Mr. Symmes, I’m Lieutenant Westermann. Brother Allison sent me here to talk to you.”
The man nodded, but didn’t move.
“I’m hoping to talk to you about Prosper Maddox.”
This time the man spoke. “Maddox?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You ain’t from around here.”
“No, I’m not. I came up from the City.”
The man nodded. “Well, I guess you might as well come have a seat.” He turned to the open door and yelled inside. “James, put some water on and bring us two mugs of coffee.” Westermann climbed three buckling steps to the porch, and Symmes nodded to a chair that he might have fashioned himself.
“Maddox having his troubles in the City?”
“Well, I don’t know that I’d put it quite that way.”
“There were those—myself among them—that counseled him not to go. Even though he weren’t really Holiness Church anymore; at least not the way most of us were.”
Westermann shifted in his chair, trying to get comfortable. “Can you explain what you mean by that, sir?” Wind agitated the tops of the trees and they creaked quietly with the strain.
Symmes considered this for a minute. “I understand you attended the prayer meeting last night.”
“That’s right.”
“You see how things are. There’s leaders, but it’s not like the Baptist Church or what have you, where you’ve got a preacher. Maddox, he was a leader in our meetings. One of them. We also get traveling preachers from time to time, doing the circuit of Holiness churches. Well, a number of years ago, one comes by the name of Purcell. He comes and he preaches his message, and that is that we are in the End of Days, awaiting Jesus’ return. This is far from our usual fare, Lieutenant. In other words, End Times preaching just ain’t something we concern ourselves with. But Prosper, he was real keen on this.”
A younger man emerged from the house, carrying two steaming mugs on a tray with his left hand.
“Thank you, James,” Symmes said, not introducing Westermann.
James was tall and broad-shouldered, but the right side of his face drooped and he limped badly. He was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and Westermann could see that his right arm was atrophied and he held it awkwardly to his chest. A large, solid-blue rectangle was tattooed on his right arm. Westermann took his mug and nodded his thanks. James nodded in return and limped back inside.
“My son. The war,” Symmes said, and left it at that. “Maddox, like I said, was keen on Purcell’s preaching, and he took to studying Revelation and such. He’s a smart boy, Prosper. And he starts preaching Revelation at prayer meetings, and to be truthful, some people kind of wearied of it. Like I said, it’s not normally our concern. Eventually, Maddox started holding his own meetings, mostly for younger folks, but some older, too. My son was one. One day, this was during the war, Prosper says he’s moving the flock to the City. He’s got some places there or some such. So a couple dozen of them just up and left. Never looked back.”
“Not your son?”
“He was still with the army. Came back, his church was split in two.”
“Was there any other reason why Maddox might have felt like he needed to leave?”
The sound of a car approaching on the dirt road was suddenly audible. From the periphery of his vision, Westermann could see that James was standing in the doorway. He saw Symmes check the location of the shotgun. Nobody spoke. Westermann watched the approach to the house, the dirt track running between the trees, alive with colored glass.
The sound came closer and the front of a police car became visible crawling slowly toward them. Symmes stayed tense, but didn’t move for the shotgun. The police car pulled to a stop fifty feet from the house. McIlvaine emerged.
“Boyce. James. Lieutenant Westermann.”
Symmes nodded. Westermann registered the tension.
“Lieutenant,” McIlvaine said, “we got a call for you from a”—he consulted a piece of paper in his hand—“Detective Grip. Said he needs to speak with you. Urgently.”