at Winter Baptist.
Birds were chirping from somewhere up around the ceiling. They had come into the church and set up their nests. I thought that the minister probably left them there to make that sacred space seem something like the Garden of Eden.
“Do I know you?” a gravelly voice asked.
He had come in from behind me, probably hoping to see if he knew me and my implied threat.
“No, sir,” I said, rising to my feet. “My name’s Easy Rawlins.”
“What do you want?” Reverend Winters looked more country than usual that evening. He wore blue jeans and a checkered red work shirt. The brown leather of his shoes was old and worn out. You could see the impression of his baby toes on the outer edges. A pair of shoes like that might have outlasted a marriage.
“Can we talk privately for a moment, Reverend Winters?”
The minister made a gesture with his head, and Bumpy started patting me down. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t lay him out either. Bumpy grunted and Winters motioned toward the other side of the room.
We walked together, under the scrutiny of his private guards.
“Well?” he asked me. “Let’s get this over with. I got a sermon to deliver in just an hour and a half.”
Winters wasn’t tall or striking, neither was he delicate or particularly strong. His chin was subpar, and the top of his head was almost large enough to indicate a whole new species of man. His skin had the color and luster of dark honey standing on the windowsill. But it was his voice that set him apart from mortal men. As I said, it was raspy, but it was also rich and commanding. His voice alone made you want to go along with whatever words he was making. It was very disconcerting, but other things bothered me more.
“Cedric Boughman and Etheline Teaman,” I said.
That brought the minister up short. He seemed to be studying his own reflection in my eyes.
“This some kinda blackmail or somethin’?” he whispered.
“Never did like that word,” I said. “And you don’t have nuthin’ I want, except maybe the truth.”
“Fuck you.” The words shocked me. For some reason I never expected a man of God to be coarse in that way. But the shock went deeper than that. It was like a slap in my face, making me aware of my situation.
“Somebody stole somethin’ from Etheline,” I said. “An album of photographs.”
“How the hell would you know that?”
“I got my ways, Brother Winters. Believe me. Someone stole her photograph album.”
“So what?”
“Do you know where it is?”
“Why would I?”
“Etheline was a prostitute not a month ago,” I said. “She had a regular, a man in your employ name of Cedric Boughman. She also attended your church. She got special instructions from you—in person. Now Cedric is cryin’ in his bedroom and you sendin’ him his salary until he’s fit to come back to work.”
“This is a Christian institution, Mr. Rawlins. We don’t turn away lost sheep. We don’t persecute a man when he loses someone he cares for.”
“That sounds good, but it’s a lie. Cedric is either crazy or he don’t even know that Etheline is dead.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“I don’t know what’s goin’ on,” I said. “I don’t know who killed Etheline or why. All I know is that there’s a picture I need to see lost somewhere, and I intend to find it. I will keep on asking questions until I do find it.”
“Easy,” the minister said. “That’s your Christian name?”
“Ezekiel.”
“Good name. Where you from, Ezekiel?”
“Texas mostly. I was born in Louisiana.”
“New Orleans?”
“New Iberia.”
“Country, huh? Like me.”
Just that quickly, Winters had gotten the upper hand. If we were boxing, I would have been the tomato can from Podunk, and he would have been Archie Moore.
“You know country is plain and simple,” the minister said. “A country man does what he does, day in and day out. If the year is good then his wife got a few extra pounds on her. If it’s bad he works a little harder. That’s all.”
I would have bet that those words were destined for that evening’s sermon.
“Brother Boughman is in charge of school administration. He’s a good boy, but young. He gave in to temptation. He had congress with the devil, but what he found in that devil’s pit was a lost angel. He talked her into coming to church. Then he talked her into leaving that house of sin. And when she did that, he sent her here to me.”
“Then you told her to leave him and come to you,” I said. “Then somebody stabbed her in the heart.”
The minister winced. “I been workin’ hard for more’n eighteen years, Brother Rawlins. Eighteen years on the front lines against Satan and his crew. I work every day, all day. I’ve pulled men out of the bottle and the needle out
