By this time, Ellis was quite adept at catching the creatures in their natural habitats—underneath rocks and rotting logs and in muddy sloughs—but once they were placed in the cages, he wasn’t allowed to handle them. That privilege was reserved for his father and some of the elders of the church.
It was a common misconception that serpent-handlers believed the Holy Spirit would keep them safe. Every last one of them knew the dangers of what they did. Many had lost fingers and limbs as a result of the infection brought on by a bite. One or two had even lost their lives.
It wasn’t a matter of faith, Ellis’s father had once explained. It was about obeying the word of God.
Ellis’s first snakebite had come just after his fifteenth birthday.
He’d found a copperhead sunning on the bank of the creek that ran behind their house. Holding the head so that the snake couldn’t strike, he’d lifted the reptile close to his face, admiring the flicker of the serpent’s tongue, the dark gleam in the slitted, catlike eyes.
Ellis had become so engrossed in watching the play of sunlight on the glistening scales that he hadn’t realized the snake’s head had slipped free of his grasp.
The fangs caught him in the side of his neck, and the copperhead hung there for a moment as Ellis’s skin started to burn like wildfire.
Afterward, he hurried home, washed the bite with soap and water and kept his mouth shut. He didn’t tell anyone about his carelessness or that he’d flown into a rage and killed the poor snake before it could slither away.
A few hours later, he began to feel achy and weak, like he was coming down with the flu. The bite area was swollen and tender, but he told himself he’d be fine. Copperhead venom wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the poison from the other pit vipers. Sometimes the bites had no effect at all.
But within days, gangrene set in. His skin around the afflicted area turned black and felt cold to the touch.
Still, he tried to keep the wound hidden by wearing his collars buttoned, but his science teacher noticed the swelling and discoloration one day and sent him to the school nurse. She took one look and rushed him to the hospital.
What followed was a nightmare scenario of painful surgeries and skin grafts where the dead flesh had to be cut away from the bone.
Convinced he had been bitten as the result of his father’s dangerous religious practices, CPS removed Ellis from his home, but rather than placing him in foster care, they sent him to the state hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
It was there, in that place of misery and confusion, that he had finally experienced his religious awakening.
It was there, in a dark and reeking room, that Ellis Cooper had accepted his true calling.
A nurse passing him in the corridor gave him a curious glance. Ellis turned slightly so that she could see the “bad” side of his face. When she caught a glimpse of the scar tissue, she quickly looked away. Then her gaze came back to him, and she smiled in the tentative, flustered way that Ellis was used to.
He turned and watched as she hurried down the hallway, and when she glanced over her shoulder, the smile he flashed seemed to momentarily stun her.
Ellis gave a low chuckle. That was the cool thing about his appearance. His scarred, pale countenance seemed to attract even as it repelled.
Today he had on a black suit that was perfectly tailored to his thin frame. He cut a striking figure and he knew it. He was only thirty-seven, but he’d started to go gray during his incarceration in the mental hospital. By the time he was released, his hair had been as white as snow, which he took as an outward sign of his spiritual metamorphosis.
He’d worn his hair natural for a long time, but these days, he’d taken to dyeing it black, and he liked to slick back the glossy strands from his high forehead in the manner of an old-timey preacher.
But his hair and even the scar played second fiddle to his eyes. They were by far his most prominent feature. So dark a brown they were almost black, but in the center radiated the heat and fury of a fire-and-brimstone zealot.
Ellis didn’t think of himself that way, though. He considered himself a soldier and sometimes a prophet.
Turning his attention back to the glass panel, he lifted the origami crane he’d found in Mary Alice’s room and watched her over the graceful curve of the paper head.
She stared back without blinking. Her eyes were clear and blue and mesmerizing in their intensity.
And Ellis thought, almost in awe,
It was almost as if Mary Alice Lemay could peer straight down into his soul.
The day was still, hot and hazy as Evangeline and Mitchell drove into the Garden District.
The streets in this glorious old neighborhood were lined with the gnarled branches of live oaks, and the lush, vivid yards—heavily painted with crepe myrtle, oleander and flaming hibiscus—provided a striking contrast to the gleaming white houses.
Underneath second-story verandas, ceiling fans rotated in the sluggish heat. Children played in the lawn sprinklers while gardeners dripping with sweat clipped hedges and weeded flower beds thick with petunias and geraniums.
This was a neighborhood steeped in history and quiet refinement; a lifestyle of summer garden parties, servants and drinks by the pool.
A world very different from the one Evangeline knew.
After leaving the crime scene earlier, she’d showered and changed her clothes, but the scent of Paul Courtland’s rotting flesh still clogged her nostrils as she pulled the car to the curb in front of his house.
She leaned her arms against the steering wheel and stared out the window at the house, dreading the moment when she would have to climb out of the car, walk up to the house and ring the bell.
“Evie?”
For a moment, Mitchell’s voice seemed so much a part of her memory, Evangeline forgot he was in the car with her. She turned and glanced at him. “Yeah?”
“You ready to do this?”
“Can I just go have a root canal instead? Or maybe get some surgery done without anesthesia?”
“’Fraid not. Comes with the territory. Could be worse, though,” he added, and Evangeline knew that he was thinking about the night Johnny died, too.
Silently, they got out of the car and started up the walkway together.
The Courtland home was a three-story Greek revival with wide Doric columns in the front and a walled garden in the back. Baskets of trailing ferns hung from the balconies, and the carefully tended flower beds exploded with color.
The sound of splashing water and laughter drifted over the garden walls, and as Evangeline walked up the front steps, she heard a child singing in the back, a happy, inane tune that tugged at her heart and made her wish she was anywhere in the world but where she was—standing at a dead man’s front door.
A middle-aged woman with short gray hair answered the door straightaway. She wore brown slacks and a blue, nondescript top that she tugged down over her rounded hips. “Yes?”
“We’re NOPD,” Mitchell said as he hauled out his wallet and showed her his ID. “Are you Mrs. Courtland? Mrs. Paul Courtland?”
“No, I’m the Courtlands’ nanny.” Her hazel eyes flickered with uncertainty. “Is there some trouble, Officer?”
“It’s Detective. And, yes, I’m afraid there’s been some trouble. Is Mrs. Courtland home?”
“She’s out by the pool with her daughter. Hold on a second and I’ll get her for you.”
