“Meaning?”

“They’re sitting in a shelter up in Atlanta feeling all sorry for themselves, looking for a change of scenery, thinking that’ll be the final thing that makes them change.”

“But it’s not?”

“For some of them it is,” Connolly admitted, “but for a lot more of them, they get down here and realize that the thing that got them into the drugs and the alcohol and the bad ways is the thing that keeps them there.” He didn’t wait for Lena to prompt him. “Weakness, young lady. Weakness of soul, weakness of spirit. We do what we can to help them, but they first have to be strong enough to help themselves.”

Lena said, “We were told that some petty cash was stolen.”

“That’d be several months back,” he confirmed. “We never caught who did it.”

“Any suspects?”

“Around two hundred,” he laughed, and Jeffrey assumed that working with a bunch of alcoholics and junkies didn’t exactly foster a lot of trust in the workplace.

Lena asked, “No one more interested in Abby than they should be?”

“She was a real pretty girl,” he said. “Lots of the boys looked at her, but I made it clear she was off-limits.”

“Anyone in particular you had to tell this to?”

“Not that I can recall.” Jail habits were hard to break, and Connolly had the con’s inability to give a yes-or-no answer.

Lena asked, “You didn’t notice her hanging around anybody? Maybe spending time with someone she shouldn’t?”

He shook his head. “Believe you me, I have been racking my brain since this happened, trying to think of anybody who might mean that sweet little girl some harm. I can’t think of nobody, and this is going back some years.”

“She drove a lot by herself,” Lena recalled.

“I taught her to drive Mary’s old Buick when she was fifteen years old.”

“You were close?”

“Abigail was like my own granddaughter.” He blinked to clear his tears. “You get to be my age, you think nothing can shock you. Lots of your friends start getting sick. Threw me for a loop when Thomas had his stroke last year. I was the one what found him. I can tell you it came as a hard reckoning seeing that man humbled.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Jeffrey could see Lena nodding, like she understood.

Connolly continued, “But Thomas was an old man. You can’t expect it to happen, but you can’t be surprised, either. Abby was just a good little girl, missy. Just a good little girl. Had her whole life ahead of her. Ain’t nobody deserves to die that way, but her especially.”

“From what we’ve gathered, she was a remarkable young woman.”

“That’s the truth,” he agreed. “She was an angel. Pure and sweet as the driven snow. I would’ve laid down my life for her.”

“Do you know a young man named Chip Donner?”

Again, Connolly seemed to think about it. “I don’t recall. We get a lot in and out. Some of them stay a week, some a day. The lucky ones stay a lifetime.” He scratched his chin. “That last name sounds familiar, though I don’t know why.”

“How about Patty O’Ryan?”

“Nope.”

“I guess you know Rebecca Bennett.”

“Becca?” he asked. “Of course I do.”

“She’s been missing since last night.”

Connolly nodded; obviously this wasn’t news. “She’s a strong-headed one, that child. Runs off, gives her mama a scare, comes back and it’s all love and happiness.”

“We know she’s run away before.”

“At least she had the decency to leave word this time.”

“Do you know where she might have gone?”

He shrugged. “Usually camps in the woods. I used to take the kids out when I was younger. Show ’em how to get by using the tools God gave us. Teaches them a respect for His kindness.”

“Is there any particular spot you used to take them?”

He nodded as she spoke, anticipating the question. “I was out there first thing this morning. Campsite hasn’t been used in years. I’ve got no idea where that girl might’ve gone off to.” He added, “Wish I did- I’d take a switch to her bottom for doing this to her mother right now.”

Marla knocked on the door, opening it at the same time. “Sorry to bother you, Chief,” she said, handing Jeffrey a folded piece of paper.

Jeffrey took it as Lena asked Connolly, “How long have you been with the church?”

“Going on twenty-one years,” he answered. “I was there when Thomas inherited the land from his father. Looked like a wilderness to me, but Moses started out with a wilderness, too.”

Jeffrey kept studying the man, trying to see if there was a tell to his act. Most people had a bad habit that came out when they were lying. Some people scratched their noses, some fidgeted. Connolly was completely still, eyes straight ahead. He was either a born liar or an honest man. Jeffrey wasn’t about to lay down bets on either.

Connolly continued the story of the birth of Holy Grown. “We had about twenty folks with us at the time. Of course, Thomas’s children were pretty young then, not much help, especially Paul. He was always the lazy one. Wanted to sit back while everybody else did the work so he could reap the rewards. Just like a lawyer.” Lena nodded. “We started out with a hundred acres of soy. Never used any chemicals or pesticides. People thought we were crazy, but now this organic thing’s all the rage. Our time has really come. I just wish Thomas was able to recognize it. He was our Moses, literally our Moses. He led us out of slavery- slavery to drugs, to alcohol, to the wanton ways. He was our savior.”

Lena cut off the sermon. “He’s still not well?”

Connolly turned more solemn. “The Lord will take care of him.”

Jeffrey opened Marla’s note, glancing at it, then doing a double take. He suppressed a curse, asking Connolly, “Is there anything else you can add?”

He seemed surprised by Jeffrey’s abruptness. “Not that I can think of.”

Jeffrey didn’t need to motion Lena. She stood, and Connolly followed her. Jeffrey told him, “I’d like to follow up with you tomorrow if that’s possible. Say, in the morning?”

Connolly looked trapped for a second, but recovered. “Not a problem,” he said, his smile so forced Jeffrey thought his teeth might break. “Abby’s service is tomorrow. Maybe after that?”

“We should be talking to Lev first thing in the morning,” Jeffrey told him, hoping this information would get back to Lev Ward. “Why don’t you come in with him?”

“We’ll see,” Connolly said, not committing to anything.

Jeffrey opened the door. “I appreciate you coming in and bringing everybody.”

Connolly was still confused, and seemed more than a little nervous about the note in Jeffrey’s hand, as if he very much wanted to know what it said. Jeffrey couldn’t tell if this was habitual thinking from his criminal days or just natural curiosity.

Jeffrey said, “You can go ahead and take back everybody else. I’m sure there’s work to do. We don’t want to waste any more of your time.”

“No problem,” Connolly repeated, jutting out his hand. “Let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

“Appreciate it,” Jeffrey said, feeling the bones in his hand crunch as Connolly shook it. “I’ll see you in the morning with Lev.”

Connolly got the threat behind his words. He had dropped the helpful-old-man act. “Right.”

Lena started to follow him out, but Jeffrey held her back. He showed her the note Marla had given him, making sure Connolly couldn’t see the secretary’s neat, grade-school teacher’s cursive: “Call from 25 Cromwell Road. Landlady reports ‘suspicious smell.’ ”

They had found Chip Donner.

Twenty-five Cromwell Road was a nice home for a well-to-do family living back in the thirties. Over the years, the large front parlors had been divided into rooms, the upper floors sectioned up for renters who didn’t mind sharing the one bathroom in the house. There were not many places an ex-con could go to when he got out of prison. If he was on parole, he had a finite amount of time to establish residency and get a job in order to keep his parole officer from throwing him back inside. The fifty bucks the state gave him on the way out the door didn’t stretch that far, and houses like the one on Cromwell catered to this particular need.