All the Sinners Bleed

Titus does not cancel the Fall Fest but asks for extra backup officers from nearby counties. Kellie calls to say she’s done editing the podcast interview. Titus agrees to go visit her and Hector at the inn where they’re staying that evening to listen to it.

When Titus arrives that evening at Todd’s Inn to meet Kellie and Hector, he notices that the door is wide open despite the cold. He enters with his gun drawn to find Hector wounded and hears Kellie screaming from inside a closet. Titus runs toward the screams. The man in the wolf mask is there, trying to stab Kellie through the closet door. The masked man throws his knife in an attempt to hit Titus and fails, but he is able to escape before Titus can shoot him. Titus then checks on Hector, who is either already dead or close to dead. Kellie is unhurt.

Davy, Trey, and Carla arrive to investigate the scene. Trey observes that the killer wants to taunt Titus, but he questions why the killer would target Titus’s ex-girlfriend rather than his current girlfriend, Darlene. Titus claims that it’s just due to gossip. Later, Darlene calls and asks him to come over. She says that she no longer feels safe in town and plans to move away, along with her parents. She doesn’t want to have a long-distance relationship and she does not believe that Titus truly loves her, although he seems to wish that he did.

This time in the present tense, the narration shifts to an omniscient perspective once again. Both Preston Jeffries and Paul Garnett are haunted by the corpses they found. All the townspeople are likewise disturbed by recent events. The community continues to refer to the third killer as “the Weeping Willow Man” (298) (as opposed to the “Last Wolf,” as Titus calls him). Latrell Macdonald’s younger brother Lavon is afraid for his life and carries a knife around, and he also deeply misses Latrell. Darlene moves to Atlanta. The planners of Fall Fest continue planning, refusing to let a killer steal their fun. However, the woman running it, Elizabeth Morehood, plans to embezzle the funds. Some of the neo-Confederates want to bring guns or weapons to the Fall Fest, but Ricky Sours is trying to convince them not to because he thinks it could get out of hand. People seem to want revenge and they might enact it on random people since they haven’t identified the real killer yet. Dayane goes missing and is suspected to have been murdered.

At Fall Fest, many citizens seem to enjoy the rides, games, and food. When the neo-Confederate parade is about to start, the police officers get into position to prevent potential rioting. Titus does not enjoy having to do crowd control in service of a neo-Confederate parade that he finds abhorrent. Meanwhile, Jamal and a group of citizens march in a counter-parade. A neo-Confederate person yells out a racial slur, and a physical fight breaks out, involving many people. A truck drives into the crowd and runs over a male reverend and a woman. Denver Carlyle is the one driving the truck. Titus and Carla shoot him. In the aftermath, it is discovered that Reverend Wilkes is dead, but the other person, Sandra James, is still alive, so an ambulance comes for her. Jamal is horrified and feels discouraged; Titus tries to reassure him that he is not at fault for Reverend Wilkes’s death. Elizabeth Morehood still wants to keep the festival going, but Titus sends everyone home. At home later, Marquis visits Titus and Albert. Titus gets a call letting him know that Lavon Macdonald, Latrell’s younger brother, is missing.

Titus sends his officers out to find Lavon, but nobody can locate him. Calvin and Dorothy (Lavon’s parents) beg Titus to find him, but Titus cannot make this promise. Later, Titus tells Dr. Kim that he wants to give the case to the state police; he can still help out, but he feels that he and his small-town team lack the resources necessary to solve the serial murders. Dr. Kim is concerned that the state police might not care as much about solving the case as Titus does, but she hopes that the state police can finally help her identify a T-shaped object that she found in the body of one of the children. She texts Titus a picture of the object, and he immediately has an epiphany. He rushes to the Cunninghams’ flag factory and finds Caleb Cunningham, the manager. Titus tells Caleb that one of the deceased children had a T-shaped truck lock inside their body. Yesterday at Fall Fest, Titus noticed that the truck Denver was driving (a Cunningham flag-factory truck) had this same type of lock. Titus asks to see the truck logs for Denver’s deliveries. On one particular day, somebody else drove Denver’s usual truck for him—Royce Lazare, a bus driver for the school and one of Ricky Sours’ neo-Confederate group members. The date matches up with the missing bodies, and Titus concludes that Lazare (which is an anagram for Azrael, the angel of death) probably took the lock from Denver’s usual delivery truck and put it down a child’s throat. Based on the evidence, Titus now believes that Royce Lazare is the third killer and is in fact Gabriel.

Titus alerts his officers to search for Royce Lazare and Lavon Macdonald. Titus arrives at Royce’s house to find Tom waiting for him. Even though Tom was put on administrative leave and then fired, he now wants to help Titus catch the criminal. At first Titus says no, because Carla is on her way. However, she is taking a while to arrive, so Titus agrees to let Tom help in the meantime.

Royce’s door is unlocked, so Titus and Tom simply go inside. There’s a sweet smell as if Royce has burned a lot of scented candles. The house is very sparse with few decorations, not even photographs of family. The house does have a very large kitchen. They enter the bedroom and find Dayane Carter, who has been tortured and mutilated and is barely alive. The sweet scent is meant to cover the smell up. There are infected wounds and phrases carved into her that are not real Bible quotes but have a Biblical tone and subject matter, just like at the other crime scenes. Tom calls to get medical help for Dayane.

Suddenly, Royce Lazare appears and shoots Tom in the head. Titus tackles Royce, who loses his gun, and Titus shoots Royce in the hand, but Royce gets away. After the scuffle, Titus’s head is seriously wounded, and he starts to go into shock and drift in and out of consciousness. He considers surrendering to death because it feels like a relief, but he hears his mother’s voice telling him to get up and keep going, so he does, despite the growing blood loss. Titus looks around to learn where Royce may have gone; he knows that Royce has a secret bunker, shed, or other structure with angels all over the walls. He notices a patch of grass that is a different color than the rest, and a fake azalea bush on top of it. He pulls on the fake plant and a door opens. 

Titus climbs down into the bunker. It’s decorated with “garish excess” (328): lava lamps, beanbag chairs, colored lights, crosses, an embalming table, and many angel paintings and statues. Titus finds Royce there, holding a knife to Lavon’s throat. Royce claims that God is sociopathic because he didn’t save Royce from Elias, nor did he save the kids that Royce murdered. Titus says that Royce hates the Black part of himself, which is why he targeted seven Black children. Royce says he killed more than seven.

Lavon pulls a small knife from his pocket and stabs Royce in the arm. This distracts Royce enough that he lets go of Lavon, who runs aside. Titus struggles with Royce and finally stabs him in the throat, killing him. Lavon then calls 911 with Titus’s phone to get medical attention for Titus. Titus wakes up two days later in a hospital, with his father and brother watching over him.

About six weeks later, in December, Titus is now leaving Charon County and moving to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to start his new job as a criminology professor. He’s resigned as sheriff, making Carla the interim sheriff until the next election. The Cunninghams have also moved out of town and closed their flag factory and fish house. Maquis burned down the Watering Hole but did not get caught, although Titus knows what he did. After bidding farewell to his father and brother, Titus starts his long drive.

On the way out of town, Titus passes the Confederate statue that Ricky Sours and the neo-Confederate group had a parade for: “Ol’ Rebel Joe” (338). Having once dreamed of destroying such a statue, then later dismissing this dream as childish, Titus now has a change of heart once again. Because he is no longer the sheriff, he pulls over and looks both ways to make sure nobody is watching. Then he gets a tow strap out of his Jeep, attaches it to the statue, and pulls the statue down . He unhooks the strap and lets the statue tumble away. This brings him great joy as he leaves town and moves toward his new future.