I tell him about my earlier conversation with Blue. “Blue told me Dale Michaels attended services at his church sometimes. Evidently, he hadn’t yet read the text about Dale Michaels’s mysterious meeting.”

“That’s interesting,” Pickles says. “Because now that you mention it, I remember Blue Branson and Dale Michaels running around together as teenagers. Michaels was a good kid. Kept his nose clean. Blue, not so much.”

“That is interesting.” I wonder why Blue would lie about something so seemingly benign. “What kind of trouble did Blue get into?”

“I arrested him for felony assault back in the early ’80s. He was out of high school by then. Got a conviction for it, too.”

“So our righteous pastor has a checkered past.”

“I’ll say. Night I busted him … it was a bar fight. Saturday-night crowd. Rowdy place called Suzy’s Lounge that burned down a few years back. I was off duty, having a drink, and I saw Blue coldcock a guy with a set of brass knuckles.” Setting his elbows on his knees, Pickles leans closer to my desk, his eyes level on mine. “One punch, and that guy was in a coma for a week, lost his front teeth, and let me tell you, he wasn’t the same when he woke up. All over a ten-dollar game of pool.”

“Sounds like Blue has a temper.”

“Or a mean streak that runs right up his self-righteous back.” His eyes hold mine. “You think he had something to do with Michaels’s death?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him.

“Well, once upon a time, they ran in the same circles. If they’d had some kind of falling out”—he shrugs—“might be worth looking into.”

We fall silent and for a moment the only sound comes from the rain smacking against the window and the ringing of the switchboard in the reception area.

I turn to my computer and pull up the spreadsheet from the BCI technician. “I’m working through Michaels’s phone records. Right before calling Blue Branson, he made a call to Jerrold McCullough. Another one to The Raspberry Leaf, a gallery owned by Julia Rutledge.”

Pickles sits up straighter. “I think McCullough ran with them, too. He was a big-shot high school football star. I remember him because he got aggressive with a girl once and she called the law. No one pressed charges and everything sort of got swept under the rug. But I always had my doubts about that guy.”

“Chief?” Skid taps on the doorjamb and enters my office. Nodding at Pickles, he passes a sheet of paper to me. “This just came in on Blue Branson.”

Taking the paper, I scan the list and read it aloud. “Arrested in 1978 for possession of a controlled substance. No conviction. Two years later, he was convicted of felony assault and did four months in Mansfield. Nothing after that.”

“He’s kept his nose clean since he found God and turned his life around,” Pickles says dryly. “But thirty-five years ago, he was a scary fuckin’ guy.”