Was that what he wanted?

A crack of lightning and the lights died for several long seconds. They flickered on, dimmer, the interior now a land of shadow. I didn’t see Winkler, and then I did … the crushed wheelchair a dozen feet behind the ’dozer, the tank torn open by the blade and leaving a trail of diesel fuel over Winkler’s flattened remains, the thick fumes now burning my eyes.

I scrambled for the door as lightning found the metal roof and sparks tumbled from five stories up. I saw the camel rise and run toward the door as the ’dozer approached the needle, Dredd standing erect, screaming toward the sky like a man possessed by the Furies.

“AND HE CARRIED ME AWAY IN THE SPIRIT INTO A WILDERNESS AND I SAW A WOMAN SITTING ON A SCARLET BEAST … FULL OF BLASPHEMOUS NAMES AND HAVING SEVEN HEADS AND TEN HORNS …”

Lightning again flashed as I dove through the opening followed by a second flash and a thudding whooomp: the sound of hundreds of gallons of fuel igniting in a closed space.

59

“Eliot’s been obsessed,” Vanessa Winkler said, sitting in a conference room borrowed from the Osceola County Police Department. “He got MS and started throwing money at everything and everyone, looking for a cure. Then he found Schrum, who did a laying on of hands and pronounced Eliot clean. Eliot suddenly got better. It was a remission, not uncommon.”

Two hours had passed. There was little left of the structure. Even less of Eliot Winkler.

“Eliot figured Schrum hot-wired him to God,” Ms Winkler continued. “Even when Eliot got sicker, he was convinced it was Schrum keeping him alive. ‘Look at you, Eliot,’ I’d say. ‘You’re getting worse.’ He’d snarl that he’d be dead if it wasn’t for Schrum.”

“Your brother got sicker still.”

She nodded. “When Eliot realized he was gonna get stuck in the ground like everyone else, he became obsessed with Mark 10:25, camel and needles and all that. He started blubbering about saving his soul by giving the money – every fucking cent – to charity. Then Amos says ‘Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way, Eliot …’”

“The project began,” I said. “1025-M, Mark 10:25. Put a camel through the eye of a needle and your brother could go to Heaven.”

“Madness,” Winkler said to herself, then turned to me. “Is Amos here? I want the joy of telling that asshole the Winkler gravy train died tonight.”

“Schrum never left Key West,” I said.

Disgust filled Vanessa Winkler’s face. “He sets the idiocy in motion and finds someone else to do the work. That’s Amos Schrum, Detective. I predict he’ll be back on stage within three weeks.”

I let Ms Winkler return to a life that had probably improved considerably and moved to the cell holding Andy Delmont. He’d been outside the Ark at Hallelujah Jubilee, singing songs in the dark and waiting to pick up Frisco Dredd, no doubt so they could complete the Lord’s work on Sissy Carol Sparks.

I passed another cell on my way, seeing three men inside, the larger of the two trying to look tough, barking at the older and bespectacled fellow. “Man up, Roland, the lawyers are on their way.” The larger one was Hayes Johnson and I resisted the urge to tell him we’d spoken on the phone.

A guard opened Delmont’s cell and I entered to find the singer not on the cot but sitting on the floor beside the toilet, arms around his knees. When he looked up I saw the same eerie smile and empty eyes noted in the online images. Delmont was in the room with me, and yet wasn’t.

“Andrew Dredd?” I said.

“Not any more,” he said amiably. “It got changed to Delmont ’cos Dredd wasn’t a proper name for a praise singer. The Reverend Schrum helped me make it my official name.”

I sat on the cot since Delmont seemed content with the floor. “Frisco Dredd was your cousin, right, Andy?” I said. “A member of the family band.”

Delmont looked pleased that I knew his family’s history. “Frisco’s mama died when he was born so we took him in, the Christian way. He became my brother an’ we spent all our time together when we was little. We never seemed to stop trav’lin’ … had an ol’ bus we lived out of. Me an’ Frisco was best buddies and did ever’thing together.”

“Everything?”

He stared, an eerie and enigmatic smile on the baby face. I felt a sensation of cold on my back, there and gone. “Who was in charge of your family, Andy?” I asked.

“Mama. Daddy died from drinkin’ when I was twelve. Mama said the demons ate him from the inside out.”

“Did your mama have any demons inside her, Andy?”

Something flashed through his eyes so fast I couldn’t peg the meaning, then his face went blank.

“Andy …” I tried again. “Did your mama—”

He reached up and pressed the flush button on the toilet, producing a howling five-second Whooooosh. He gave me a polite smile, like he didn’t hear the question.

“Come on, Andy. Did your mama have any—”

Whoooosh. The toilet again, followed by the I-can’t-hear-you look. Delmont wasn’t going there.

“Who’s the Prince of Lies, Andy?” I asked, going somewhere else.

“The Devil, sir,” he said easily, back on a topic he could deal with. “That’s one of his names.”

“Do you lie?”

“Lots, when I was younger. But since I got saved by Reverend Schrum there’s no need to lie. It’s a sin to be false.”

I took a deep breath. “You helped your cousin kill three women, didn’t you, Andy?”

Delmont stared at me with his head cocked as if the question was perplexing. “We saved the ladies, sir. They was fallen and was gonna pull the Reverend down with them … they’d have told on him because it’s the way of whores and Jezebels. The Reverend has holy work to do here on earth.”

“It was just those women who, uh, tempted the Reverend, Andy? The four of them?

“The Devil took Reverend Schrum to Mister Johnson’s sinful lake house seven times, sir. But the Lord interceded and made the Reverend stop his downfall.”

Or … I thought, Schrum wised up, realizing getting caught would put a big damper on donations. Or maybe it was delayed or sublimated guilt … I’d seen that as well.

“Tell me, Andy … was silencing the girls – I mean, dealing with the whores – your idea? Or was it Frisco’s? I guess what I’m asking is … was any part of it from Reverend Schrum?”

“The Reverend and I spent a lot of time together, sir. The last few months he would drink spirits and confess to me about how he’d fallen to temptation. I protect him when he’s like that, sir. And no, weren’t no reason to tell Reverend Schrum what Frisco and me were doing. He’d a just worried more.”

“Frisco had been tempted by Jezebels himself, right, Andy?”

“Women like that have powers from Satan. Satan tempted Frisco with dirty thoughts even when we was little. His soul was filthy sick for years. But last year I got him to come live with me on my farm. He read the Bible all day an’ most nights and figgered he was deep in debt to the Devil and hell-bound fer sure … spending all eternity on fire. Frisco needed a holy task to buy back his soul. God gave me the message to use Frisco to save Reverend Schrum.”

“Who came up with the idea of stoning the women?”

“The Bible told Frisco how it worked, sir,” Delmont said with a beatific smile. “He pulled the whores from a path to Hell and sent them to Judgement in the righteous manner. The Lord is merciful.”

“What about the needle? You knew about that?”

A frown crossed the radiant face. “Mr Winkler was scared for his soul because he had so much money. The Reverend told Mr Winkler if a camel went through a needle, things could change. It was supposed to be like a parable, but it was all Mr Winkler could think about. He started building things on his own. Reverend Schrum used to say Mr Winkler was getting on his nerves, but it was his heart he meant. He came to Key West to get away from Mr Winkler, but that man just wouldn’t go away.”