Faithless in Death

by Robb, J. D.

  “But we do thank you for your cooperation.” Eve rose. “We’ll have you escorted back to your cell.”

  “You lying bitches. You cheating cunts. All of you, all of you worthless whores.”

  “Now you’re getting me excited. Dallas and Peabody exiting Interview. Record off.”

  When they stepped out, Eve leaned back against the wall a moment. “A moron. A vicious, woman-hating, nasty-assed moron.”

  “He never asked for the deal in writing. You know what?” Peabody added. “He wasn’t listening, not really. Because we’re women. He just heard deal, and jumped.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s jumped in a cage for the rest of his nasty-assed life. Have him taken back and have them send Stanton Wilkey up. Then take twenty, get your mind clear.”

  She walked back to Observation and found Mira, Teasdale, Reo, a couple other APAs, and Shelby.

  They used the wall screens, she noted, splitting them among the interviews in progress.

  Reo tapped her earbud off, gestured Eve back out.

  “Jenkinson and Reineke finished with Gwen. You’ll want to talk to them before you take Mirium. We’re not going to push for prison time there. Yes, she knew, at least about some of it. Yes, she’s a selfish, greedy, entitled diva who doesn’t give a shit about anyone but herself. But her fear’s just as real. She tossed her parents under the bus, then ran them over a few times. I can’t really blame her.”

  “I’m not going to feel sorry for her.”

  “Nope, no sympathy here, either. She had choices, and she chose wrong, again and again. But for someone like her? Knowing her days as a rich socialite are finished? That’s genuine punishment, and justice, too.”

  “I can live with it.”

  “Good. Po crumbled so fast we could barely keep up. We’ve got a lot of names, and that’s going to make processing, identifying, and helping abductees easier. She’s done. She’ll live out the rest of her life in a cell. Same with Vince Poole—no challenge there. There’s a man more terrified of his wife than prison. And more terrified of the order than his wife. They’re bringing Barbara Poole up now. She’ll be more of a challenge, I think.”

  “They’ll handle her. Challenge is good.”

  “You didn’t get one with Piper. What an idiot. I actually saw Teasdale smile when you wrapped him up.”

  “Did you record it?”

  “Sorry, wasn’t quick enough. It may happen again. Who’s up next for you?”

  “Stanton Wilkey.”

  “Good call.” Reo turned back to Observation. “Oh, the coffee’s appreciated.”

  Eve rounded up her detectives between interviews, got the highlights, shared her own.

  She hit more coffee to wind up for her own next round, then met Peabody outside of Interview.

  “No lawyer,” Peabody told her. “Barbara Poole took a public defender, and so did Harstead. The Huffmans—excluding Gwen—reached out to what looks like a friend of a friend’s lawyer. Not in the order, and not a high flyer.”

  “I heard. Let’s see what the supreme leader has to say for himself.”

  She walked in where Wilkey, now in an orange jumpsuit, sat with his legs folded on the chair, his open hands palms up on his knees, and his eyes closed.

  Meditation’s over, fucker, Eve thought.

  “Record on.”

  23

  He opened his eyes and smiled as Eve read off the rest of the data. “I’m sending pure light into the universe to push against the dark you, misguidedly, brought to so many. It must be so difficult to carry so much dark inside you. I could help you.”

  “How? By locking me in a room, restraining me to a cot, maybe giving my brain a few good jolts? Or just letting Mother Catherine loose on me with her shock stick?”

  His smile never faltered. “Meditation, self-examination, coming to an understanding of your place and purpose in the natural order brings peace and calm to the mind, the body, the spirit.”

  “And if that doesn’t work, a dip in the sensory deprivation tank. You’ve declined legal representation, is that correct?”

  “I have no need. My faith and my faithful sustain me.”

  “Great. You should know, a lot of your faithful are already rolling on you.”

  “To be weak is human.”

  “Christ.” Eve scrubbed her hands over her face. “I don’t get paid enough to listen to this. You’re facing a multitude of federal charges, including but not limited to human trafficking, illegals trafficking, enforced slavery, abductions, torture, ordering the performance of medical procedures against the will of the patient, the abduction, torture, and forced imprisonment of a federal agent. There will be global charges as well, including the above, and along with forced sterilization, abortions.”

  She paused a moment, but he said nothing.

  “The international police have shut down your island, Wilkey, and have all the records your people so meticulously kept. When your insane Realignment tortures didn’t work on homosexuals, you chemically castrated the men, sterilized the women.”

  “Such a perverted lifestyle choice cannot be allowed to disrupt the natural order of the greater good.”

  “If individuals of different races living or imprisoned on said island managed to slip through the cracks to form a relationship, the punishment was shock treatments followed by thirty days’ solitary confinement. If said relationship resulted in pregnancy, the pregnancy was terminated and both parties sterilized.”

  “Of course, of course.” He nodded as if they were in perfect agreement. “The mixing of races dilutes the power and light of the whole. To each their own kind, my dear. This preserves cultures, it enhances the strengths and diminishes the weaknesses in each race. It brings peace and true freedom.”

  “The above charges violate international laws.”

  “The laws of our order answer to a higher power. Utopia Island is a sovereign nation—”

  “In violation of a crapload of international laws. But we’ll just leave that to those authorities and focus in on the multiple lifetimes you’ll be doing courtesy of New York.”

  “You and they have no authority over me and mine.”

  Peabody rolled her eyes. “Which is why you’re sitting here in that fashionable suit.”

  “Where my corporeal form resides means nothing. My spirit remains free.”

  “Your spirit’s never going to know freedom again,” Eve said. “Your wife remains in a coma after her latest attempt to self-terminate. Her chances are fifty-fifty.”

  “Sadly, my wife suffers from typical female weaknesses and complaints, so her mind and spirit are in constant struggle. The universe decides in these tragic matters, not I.”

  “But you decided, though she was physically and emotionally incapable of carrying more children, to continue to impregnate her so that she suffered multiple miscarriages.”

  “A woman’s purpose in life, indeed her greatest joy, is creating life, then nurturing that pure spirit. A husband is duty bound to fulfill his wife’s purpose and bring her joy.”

  “Right.” Eve flipped through her file. “So her physical and emotional health, her willingness to accept your decree of her ‘purpose’ doesn’t apply. So when your wife underwent a hysterectomy to save her own life, you then impregnated, by forced insemination, a nineteen-year-old female—recorded as Patricia Hemstead.”

  Eve looked back at him. “Apparently your so-called marital duty doesn’t just apply to your wife.”

  “The young girl trod on a crooked path. We helped her find the way, and gave her purpose.”

  “By forcing her to become an incubator,” Eve snapped back. “To fulfill your purpose. Hemstead was then kept against her will, often in restraints, forced to complete the pregnancy, after which you took the child from her. You transferred Hemstead to your farm system, just getting off the ground then—in Kansas. In the case of the male child you named Aaron, your wife was given the child to raise.”

  “We saved the vessel from a
life of chaos and poor choices, and gave her the greatest gift a woman knows.”

  “And Patricia Hemstead, again according to your own records, died eighteen years ago when she slit her own wrists with a piece of broken glass.”

  He lifted his hands, briefly bowed his head. “We mourn her terrible choice.”

  “I bet. Your youngest son has spent most of his life tending to the woman he believed was his mother, and much of that in restriction on the island.”

  “A child is subject to his parents’ will, and has no greater purpose but to honor them.”

  She saw the little cracks forming. His smile, not so calm now. His eyes not so dreamy. A man used to deference, even reverence, didn’t care for questioning and disgust—and she made sure hers showed—especially by women.

  “And keeping him on the island’s handy, as it would be embarrassing for the head of Natural Order to have a gay son.”

  For the first time Wilkey’s face tightened. “My son has not chosen to be a homosexual.”

  “No, he hasn’t, because choice has nothing to do with it. But let’s move on to your other kids. Your oldest … What’s his name again?” Eve made a show of looking through her files.

  “That’s Samuel,” Peabody told her. “The embezzler.”

  “Right, right, the one who likes to dip into the membership fund to finance his lifestyle.”

  Wilkey flicked a hand. “That’s nonsense.”

  “You must’ve taught him something.” Peabody smiled broadly. “Because he kept really good records, in both sets of books.”

  “I was getting him mixed up with the other one, the one who likes to look at little girls.”

  “That’s Joseph,” Peabody said helpfully. “He’s got an extensive collection of child porn—a lot of little girls right from your membership rolls. Most of them with paternal permission. But we give him some credit, as for sex he hits up adults. Licensed companions.”

  “These are terrible lies. The weakness of women, by nature, often resorts to lies, to cunning.”

  “We’ve got the pictures,” Eve said. “And what do you care? They’re females. Just getting groomed for their purpose in life, right? Anyway, both of your older sons are going away—we’ll be talking to them for a long time. It’s a Wilkey family affair.”

  “We can’t leave out the daughter.”

  “Sure can’t,” Eve said with cheer. “No embezzlement there, no sick taste for ten-year-old girls.” Eve sat back. “She’s just a murderer.”

  “More lies.” But his soft hands balled into fists. “No one will believe your lies. How I pity you, how I will pray for you.”

  “You can save the pity and prayers for yourself. This is truth, and your faithful as well as the world in general are going to get a whole crapload of truth. And a lot of those faithful will suddenly turn faithless and roll all over you and the rest. And the rest of the world? They’re going to stop seeing you and your sick order as crazies or bigots and see just how unnatural you are.”

  “The true flock will never turn away.”

  More cracks, deeper cracks. Eve smirked at him, pushed harder.

  “Keep thinking that. And just an FYI, if you’re thinking that Congressman—Jeez, what the hell is his name? It’s been a long few days.”

  “Congressman Orlando, Oklahoma,” Peabody provided. “And there’s Senator O’Connell, Kentucky.”

  “Right—what would I do without you? If you’re waiting for either one of those gentlemen—and I use the word loosely—to come to your defense, strike up the fucking band, forget it. They should both be in custody about now. Bribery—accepting and making—conspiracy to defraud the United States of freaking America. But you don’t need to hear about their problems when you’ve got so many of your own.”

  “Freedom of faith, my constitutional right, protects—”

  “Don’t you begin to speak to me about rights.” Eve slapped the table, lurched up. “Let’s talk about Fiona Vassar’s rights. Abducted, drugged, tortured, forced to go through a bogus marriage ceremony to become your breeding wife. Raped by you repeatedly, restrained, forced into servitude.”

  She paused a moment, pulled herself back. “Her children are with her now. Cassie, Robbyn, and Seth—that’s the name she gave him before you had him sent to what you called the Nursery—with several other kids.”

  Berenski at the lab had come through with the DNA match there, Eve thought. Sometimes Dickhead didn’t earn his nickname.

  “They’re all together now, safe from you now.”

  “So are the others you designated as breeders,” Peabody snapped out. “You perverted fuck.”

  “Ella Alice Foxx,” Eve continued, “abducted, drugged, tortured, forced into servitude, and held against her will. You’d already banked payment of a hundred thousand—she was a prime one—for her forced marriage, to take place next week—you had the date marked.”

  She reeled off names, no need for the file now, no pretense, of women taken—the ones he’d kept, the ones he’d sold.

  “They have stories to tell, you pathetic excuse for a human being, and they’re telling them. Your block on Tribeca’s done. Your jailer there’s in custody. The Huffmans are in custody, your recruiters—what a tame name for a vicious practice—are in custody.”

  Now his voice roared out, a fanatic in the throes of persecution. “You, the unworthy, the unnatural, attack our faith. Our faith will stand and spread and triumph over your vicious and unholy attacks.”

  But his face had paled, and the knuckles of his folded hands went white.

  “Not a chance. The judges, the cops, the lawyers, and all the rest on your rolls—in custody. Some of them will flip hard on you and yours to save their own asses. You’re done. And you know why you’re done, why your cult is finally broken? Because your daughter’s been planning and plotting how to take over, and she killed rather than risk a hitch in those plans.

  “I’m betting you were on her list of disposables.”

  His face relaxed again. So sure of himself there, Eve thought. So sure a daughter would remain ever loyal.

  “You lie. You lie to test my will, my faith. Mirium would never betray me or the order.”

  Eve leaned forward, spoke softly now to give each word import. “She despises you, and because I know that, I’ll turn her. She knows everything there is to know, your personal assistant, your recruiter.”

  “Mirium is blood of my blood. She is fruit of my seed. She will never turn against me. If you make a martyr of me, the faithful will rise up.”

  “Nobody’s going to mistake you for a martyr. Did you authorize and finance the abductions of selected individuals in New York City? Deny it,” Eve invited. “Because every one of them deserves their day in court recounting what you did.”

  “I saved their lost souls.”

  “You don’t deny the abductions?”

  “I deny nothing. I am shepherd to the lost sheep.”

  “Did you authorize the restraint, imprisonment, the use of shock devices, forced feeds, sensory deprivation, physical beatings on individuals abducted from New York City?”

  “We trained them, educated their minds and their spirits. We saw that they had proper nutrition to cleanse their bodies of the toxins of your secular world.”

  “Were the instruments and procedures I just named used in this training?”

  “Yes. The dark and the false freedoms must be burned out to free the spirit.”

  “Did you sell and profit from the sale of human beings abducted from New York City for the purposes of forced marriages and for impregnation of the females abducted?”

  A bead of sweat trailed down his left temple, and that was fear. His eyes burned into Eve’s, and that was hate.

  “You are an unnatural creature.”

  “Okay. Do you need me to repeat the question?”

  “A woman’s purpose is to serve at her husband’s will, for a woman’s will is fragile and fickle. It is her purpose to bear the joy and pain
of childbirth and bring life forth.”

  “And with this in mind you abducted, trained, then sold women to men who would pay the fee.”

  “A man must invest in family.”

  “So yes. Did you authorize and provide—at a fee—trackers with shock options to be utilized by these husbands on wives and minor children who they deemed required them?”

  “A man is the head of the household, and a woman is duty bound to obey. You have a sickness, a terrible sickness enhanced by the perverted freedoms and laws you cling to.”

  Eyes flat, Eve just stared back at him. “So another yes. Did you authorize the removal of Marcia Piper’s body, and the contamination of the crime scene after she was beaten to death by her husband, Lawrence Piper?”

  “I regret his methods reached that extreme, and he will be punished by the order. But she disobeyed him. My people didn’t contaminate the household. They purified it.”

  “Okay then.”

  She rolled through more charges. She could read the fury in his eyes now, and the spread of real fear. But he remained stubbornly adherent to his tenets as justification for all.

  “That wraps up this part of the program. You’ll be escorted back to your cell, have a break before the feds get their shot at you. After them, Interpol. I almost hate to send Mirium to Omega, seeing as she started this ball bouncing. But duty calls.”

  Eve rose, and now his eyes looked at her, fevered, fervent.

  “You’ll never stop the order, its righteousness. Our spread is wide, our roots are deep.”

  “Wide maybe.” Peabody shrugged. “Or it was wide, but those roots can’t be more than an inch deep. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so easy to rip out.”

  Because Eve smiled at her, Peabody shrugged again. “Dallas and Peabody exiting Interview. Record off.”

  “Nice parting shot,” Eve told her when they stood outside. “That’s a gardening thing, right?”

  “Yeah. Jesus, I need another shower after that.”

  “Take an hour.”