“She told you that?” Jeffrey asked, and he could imagine Abby trying to use the information for leverage, thinking she would talk the crazy old man out of putting her in the box.

“Liked to broke my heart,” he said. “But it also gave me the conviction to do what had to be done.”

“So you buried her out by the lake. In the same spot Chip had taken her to for sex.”

“She was going to run away with him,” Connolly repeated. “I went to pray with her, and she was packing, getting ready to run off with that trash, raise their baby in sin.”

“You couldn’t let her do that,” Jeffrey encouraged.

“She was just an innocent. She needed that time alone to contemplate what she had allowed that boy to do. She was soiled. She needed to rise and be born again.”

“That’s what it’s about?” Jeffrey asked. “You bury them so that they can be born again?” Connolly didn’t answer, and he asked, “Did you bury Rebecca, Cole? Is that where she is now?”

He put his hand on the Bible, quoting, “‘Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth… let the wicked be no more.’ ”

“Cole, where’s Rebecca?”

“I told you, son, I don’t know.”

Jeffrey kept at him. “Was Abby a sinner?”

“I put it into the Lord’s hands,” the other man countered. “He tells me to give them time for prayer, for contemplation. He gives me the mission, and I give the girls the opportunity to change their lives.” Again, he quoted, “‘The Lord preserveth all them that love Him, but all the wicked will be destroyed.’ ”

Jeffrey asked, “Abby didn’t love the Lord?”

The man seemed genuinely sad, as if he had played no part in her terrible death. “The Lord chose to take her.” He wiped his eyes. “I was merely following His orders.”

“Did He tell you to beat Chip to death?” Jeffrey asked.

“That boy was doing no good to the world.”

Jeffrey took that as an admission of guilt. “Why did you kill Abby, Cole?”

“It was the Lord’s decision to take her.” His grief was genuine. “She just run out of air,” he said. “Poor little thing.”

“You put her in that box.”

He gave a curt nod, and Jeffrey could feel Cole’s anger revving up. “I did.”

Jeffrey pressed a little more. “You killed her.”

“‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,’ ” he recited. “I’m just an old soldier. I told you that. I’m a conduit through which He speaks.”

“That so?”

“Yes, that’s so,” Connolly snapped at his sarcasm, banging his fist against the table, anger flaring in his eyes. He took a second to get it back under control, and Jeffrey remembered Chip Donner, the way his guts had been pulverized by those fists. Instinctively, Jeffrey pressed his back against the chair, reassured by the pressure of his gun.

Connolly took another sip of coffee. “With Thomas like he is…” He put his hand to his stomach, an acrid-sounding belch slipping out. “Excuse me,” he apologized. “Indigestion. I know I shouldn’t drink the stuff. Mary and Rachel are on me all the time, but caffeine is the one addiction I cannot give up.”

“With Thomas like he is?” Jeffrey prompted.

Connolly put down the cup. “Someone has to step up. Someone has to take charge of the family or everything we’ve worked for will go to the wayside.” He told Jeffrey, “We’re all just soldiers. We need a general.”

Jeffrey remembered O’Ryan telling them that the man at the Kitty gave Chip Donner drugs. “It’s hard to say no when someone’s waving it in front of your face.” He asked, “Why were you giving Chip drugs?”

Connolly moved in his chair, like he was trying to get comfortable. “The snake tempted Eve, and she partook. Chip was just like the others. None of them ever resist for long.”

“I bet.”

“God warned Adam and Eve not to partake of the tree, yet they did.” Cole slid a napkin from under the Bible and used it to wipe his forehead. “You are either strong or you are weak. That boy was weak.” He added sadly, “I guess in the end our Abigail was, too. The Lord works in His own way. It’s not our job to question.”

“Abby was poisoned, Cole. God didn’t decide to take her. Somebody murdered her.”

Connolly studied Jeffrey, coffee cup poised before his mouth. He took his time answering, taking a drink from the mug, setting it down in front of the Bible again. “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to, boy,” he warned, menace underlying his quiet tone. “I’m not just an old man, I’m an old con. You can’t trick me with your lies.”

“I’m not lying to you.”

“Well, sir, you’ll excuse me if I don’t believe you.”

“She was poisoned with cyanide.”

He shook his head, still disbelieving. “If you want to arrest me, I think you should go ahead. I have nothing else to say.”

“Who else did you do this to, Cole? Where’s Rebecca?”

He shook his head, laughing. “You think I’m some kind of rat, don’t you? Gonna flip on a dime just to save my own ass.” He pointed his finger at Jeffrey. “Let me tell you something, son. I-” He put his hand to his mouth, coughing. “I never-” He coughed again. The coughing turned into gagging. Jeffrey jumped from his chair as a dark string of vomit emptied from the man’s mouth.

“Cole?”

Connolly started breathing hard, then panting. Soon, he was clawing at his neck, his fingernails ripping into the flesh. “No!” he gasped, his eyes locking onto Jeffrey’s in terror. “No! No!” His body convulsed so violently that he was thrown to the floor.

“Cole?” Jeffrey repeated, rooted where he stood as he watched the old man’s face fix into a horrible mask of agony and fear. His legs bucked, kicking the chair so hard that it splintered against the wall. He soiled his pants, smearing excrement across the floor as he crawled toward the door. Suddenly, he stopped, his body still seizing, eyes rolling back in his head. His legs trembled so hard that one of his shoes kicked off.

In less than a minute, he was dead.

Lena was pacing beside Jeffrey’s Town Car when he made his way down the stairs. Jeffrey took out his handkerchief, wiping the sweat off his brow, remembering how Connolly had done the same thing moments before he died.

He reached in through the open car window to get his cell phone. He felt sick from bending over, and took a deep breath as he straightened.

“You okay?”

Jeffrey took off his suit jacket and tossed it into the car. He dialed Sara’s office number, telling Lena, “He’s dead.”

“What?”

“We don’t have long,” he told her, then asked Sara’s receptionist, “Can you get her? This is an emergency.”

Lena asked, “What happened?” She lowered her voice. “Did he try something?”

He was only faintly surprised that she could suspect him of killing a suspect in custody. Considering all they had been through, he hadn’t exactly set a great example.

Sara came onto the phone. “Jeff?”

“I need you to come to the Ward farm.”

“What’s up?”

“Cole Connolly is dead. He was drinking coffee. I think it must have had cyanide in it. He just…” Jeffrey didn’t want to think about what he had just seen. “He died right in front of me.”

“Jeffrey, are you okay?”

He knew Lena was listening, so he just left it at “It was pretty bad.”

“Baby,” Sara said, and he looked past his car, like he was checking to make sure no one was coming, so Lena wouldn’t read the emotion in his face. Cole Connolly was a disgusting man, a sick bastard who twisted the Bible to justify his horrible actions, but he was still a human being. Jeffrey could think of few people who deserved that kind of death, and while Connolly was up there on the list, Jeffrey didn’t like being a spectator to the man’s suffering.

He told Sara, “I need you to get over here fast. I want you to look at him before we have to call the sheriff in.” For Lena ’s benefit, he added, “This isn’t exactly my jurisdiction.”