She took her first sip of the soup. “Umm, good. But still hot. Be careful, Mrs. Hollowell.”

She was right. The lentil soup was delicious. For a few minutes we concentrated on eating. At least I was eating. Betsy was stirring her soup, lifting an occasional spoonful.

The sun disappeared suddenly from our table. The wall of clouds had made it halfway across the sky.

“Susan’s funeral is in the morning at eleven,” Betsy said listlessly as if the sudden shadow had reminded her. “We’re having it at the funeral home, not at the church.”

“What about Holden Crawford’s?” I asked.

“They haven’t released the body yet.” She shivered. “You know how he died, don’t you?”

“I heard.”

Another stir of the soup.

“Well, what I wanted to tell you about your cousin was that Monk never would have hurt her. Chances are that she’s okay somewhere.”

“But he was found dead in her car.”

“That’s what I heard.”

Betsy put her spoon down and touched a napkin to her mouth. “I want to tell you about Monk.”

“Okay.”

“He wasn’t educated, grew up poor as dirt on a tenant farm up near Scottsboro, but he was a good man. A man who believed in his church and his family.”

I nodded and Betsy continued.

“He built that church up there on Chandler Mountain and was known all over the Southeast as one of the leading preachers and handlers.”

Known all over the Southeast? How had I missed out on all of this?

“But when his wife died and then Ethan, he lost his faith,” Susan said. “Got bitten by a timber rattler last summer at a brush-arbor meeting in Tennessee. Almost died.”

I interrupted her. “What’s a brusharbor?”

“It’s like a makeshift church. The handlers don’t have too many real churches or places to meet so in the summertime they build brush-arbors, they call them. Vines and branches. Maybe put plastic over the top. Maybe not. Just temporary places to have meetings.

“Anyway, Monk nearly died, said God had turned his back on him.”

Betsy lifted a spoonful of soup to her mouth and tasted it thoughtfully.

“Like I said, Susan and I didn’t talk about it much, but she told me that Monk had quit handling and was gone most of the time, house painting. She was worried about the church.”

“The church?”

“Apparently there’s a lot of politics involved just like in everything. Several people were eager to take Monk’s place.”

“As head snake handler.” I sounded more cynical than I had intended.

But Betsy didn’t take offense.

“Including Susan, I’m sure,” she said.