On the way out of town, he went slowly by Morris’s house. There were lights on inside it, although it wasn’t dark yet. He heard loud music and drunken voices. Poor Clancey and Tad. Had it been like that when they had to live with Morris? He recalled what the Martins had said, and he felt sick at his stomach. There was no telling just what Clancey’d had to put up with. Well, Morris wasn’t going to hurt her ever again, or Tad, either. He’d make sure of it.

He wasn’t aware of a curtain moving as he sped up, or a conversation that led three men outside to a car.

The church was on the Victoria Road back in a grove of pecan trees, just as Merissa Kirk had described it. Colter got out of the SUV and closed his eyes. He used his hearing often when he tracked animals and men. In a quiet place, even the snap of a twig was loud.

He listened but he didn’t hear a thing. Until he was tapped on the shoulder and almost jumped out of his skin.

“How do you do that?” he demanded as Reverend Jake Blair came up beside him.

“Long years of practice. I wasn’t always a minister,” he added with a mysterious smile.

“Have you seen anyone around here?”

“Not yet. But there’s an old blue Chevy back on the highway that keeps going up and down the road. It hasn’t seen me. I’ve certainly seen it, however. I imagine your being here is provoking some interest.” He didn’t add that the car might have been following Banks down here.

“I had a tip. It may lead to the solving of a five-year-old murder,” Colter replied.

“Hence the curious Chevy,” the reverend replied.

Banks’s eyes narrowed. “I went by Morris Duffy’s house on the way out of town. If he knew my SUV from my visit with the Martins, he might have recognized it and followed me.”

“I thought about that myself,” Jake said.

“This could be dangerous,” Colter began.

The reverend pulled his jacket back over a deadly looking combat knife. “I don’t kill people. But I can wound them, in a good cause,” he added with a grin. “Come on.”

“I did phone Cash Grier,” Colter said.

“He’s in Houston at a workshop,” the minister replied. “My daughter works for him, so she heard your message on the answering machine.”

“Now I get it.”

“Let’s get to this.”

They walked into the deserted church. The front doors would close, barely, but with gaps. Colter had his tire tool with him. The curved end would be good to use if he had to pry up boards.

“What a shame, to see a piece of history like this just allowed to decay,” Colter murmured.