“My dear Miss Evans, our church is named Church of the Real End. It would seem that you have confused the term real with the notion of immanency. Real does not necessarily imply that the end of the world is coming soon. Perhaps you might want to study more of our doctrines,” Fletcher said and then blew a rather large smoke ring that ascended almost to the ceiling before it broke and disappeared. He was good at that.
“So I am wrong about your marketing ploy with the students of Regis College. You did not tell them that the world would soon end and that they need to get their life in order.”
“Well, yes, of course, we do in fact use that, as you say, marketing ploy, for the college students. It seems to encourage them in their decision making,” Fletcher said.
“Bate and switch,” I said.
“Not really. You must understand that sometimes it is necessary to allow potential converts to feel that the end is near and thereby change their lives. It’s not that different from hell fire and damnation of the evangelical churches from a previous century. Or from your neck of the woods, I think.”
“Except that most of the evangelical churches believe what they are telling potential converts, even in my neck of the woods. You seem to say one thing to recruit them, and then teach them something quite different.”
“Miss Evans, since you have never attended any of our seminars regarding what we believe, you have no idea what we teach new converts. The truth is we believe the real end of the world has already begun and that those who convert to our faith are the ones who are given the second chance to be saved. The real end of the world is already occurring. But it will take quite a while to be fully realized, fully activated, and ultimately completed. That is why we can and will build again. Bigger and better this time, I think. The cash flow has already begun and is quite generous thus far.”
“Thanks for the theological insights concerning your belief system. I was laboring under a false understanding of what you believed. At least you have cleared up that tidbit. Now, if you would be so good to tell me, where might I find your daughter?”
“I thought you knew that my daughter was a student at Regis College,” Fletcher said.
“I did have that information. That doesn’t tell me where I can find her,” I clarified.
“She’s on the campus somewhere. Classes, student activities, dining, studying, you know, all the things that co-eds do in college.”
“You have an address for her?”
“You likely consider yourself a master detective of some renown, so why don’t you just use your super-detective powers and find her yourself. I am sure that you are more than capable of that,” Fletcher said as he stood up. Our conversation was ending.
“We’ll show ourselves out. You needn’t bother with walking us to the door,” I said.
“Why do you want to talk with my daughter? I don’t like people bothering her while she is trying to obtain an education. She is very busy.”
“My questions to her will not take long.”
“What questions?” Fletcher said. He was no longer puffing on his pipe blowing smoke rings.
“I’m curious about her rise in power in the church. That high priestess gig has got to be something else.”
“You’ve done some research.”
“Some.”
“So you know that she is to be the next high priestess. What of it?”
“I was just wondering how she felt when you were about to marry Melody. That would be the end of her becoming the next high priestess since there is only one female divine in your system.”
“She understood her role. There were no issues there. Besides, that’s all in the past. She will become the next high priestess.”
“If you don’t marry someone,” I said.
“Don’t forget your dog here as you leave. He would not like staying with me.”
“He wouldn’t stay with you. Too many theological differences.”
The Reverend Fletcher summarily dismissed us with the wave of his pipe.
55
“I need you to hack into the computer system of Regis College and get me the address of Sandra Chatterworth,” I said to Rogers.
Rosey, Sam, and I were sitting in my SUV in the parking lot near the administration building of the college. The sun was shining and an easterly breeze was cooling things down a little. I was waiting for Rogers to work her magic and provide an answer forthwith. Or sooner.
“I think Fletcher surprised you with his theological explanation,” Rosey said.
“Some,” I said, trying not to show my hand.
“I think the lady doth protest too little.”
“You’re misquoting the bard.”
“I’m turning a phrase to fit the moment. You made an assumption about his religious beliefs and he caught you,” Rosey insisted.
“Okay. I was wrong, unless he was lying. Hold that thought. However, if he was being straight with me, then he cuffed me with a left jab. I didn’t see it coming. There, are you satisfied?” I said.
“Pretty much. Just wanted to be sure that you understood what happened back there.”
“But I did gain a point concerning his daughter and her becoming the next high priestess in the church.”
“Yeah, what was that line for?”
“Well, as I see it, she was in line for it and then along comes Melody Legrand and she loses out to this janey-come-lately who is to marry her daddy. Then, suddenly, Melody kills herself and … presto … Sandra is back in line for the high priestess gig.”
“You suspect that sweet Sandra might have done something unseemly to Melody?”
“I do. The green eyed monster is alive and well … living among the humans of our world.”
“You learn anything else from his comments?” Rosey said.
“Yeah. I think he was telling us the truth about not knowing the two bozos, Gerald and Bo.”
“I picked up no emotion from him when you mentioned their names, nor when you said that one of them was dead. No flinching, no raised eyebrow, nothing. Either he is a skilled liar or he was telling us the truth,” Rosey said.
“I’m not ready to buy his voracity hook, line, and sinker. Make no mistake about it, the man is a skilled liar; however, I do think that from time to time he is capable of telling the truth.”
“You and ministers, huh?” Rosey said.
“Given my track record with preacher-types concerning their truth-telling skills, well, to say the least, it is somewhat slanted. For the moment, I‘m working on the principle that he is leveling with us about Bo and Laney.”
“For the time being, I’ll go along with you,” Rosey said.
“You good with that, Sam?” I said.
A low growl emanated from the back seat. Sam had his head down on his stretched out front paws pretending to sleep.
“The jury is still out for the dog,” I said.
“I can’t believe that you trust a canine’s insights and you still question my abilities to process logical data,” Rogers added.
“You have the address?”
She gave it to me.
“A phone number?”
“Land line or cell?”
“Both.”
I wrote them down.
“You want her home address?”
“Is it not the same as her father’s?” I said.
“It is not,” Rogers said.
I checked my notes and told her what I had.
“It’s not the same as what is provided in the college’s records,” Rogers said.
“Give me what you got.” I wrote that down, too.
“What kind of stuff are you learning since your last update?” Rogers said.
I told her everything I could recount, plus the stuff about Owens and his doughnuts.
“You ever notice that you seem to attach yourself to overweight hierarchical police people, detectives and captains, who love to eat doughnuts and drink tons of coffee?” Rogers said.
“I like doug
hnuts and tons of coffee myself. I’m not overweight.”
“You keep up this lifestyle and that can change, lady.”
“You sound like my mother,” I said.
“I’m just sayin’.”
We drove to the building where Sandra Chatterworth’s college records said that she lived on the campus. The room number was 1107 B. I knocked on the door. The ever vigilant Sam was standing beside me. Rosey waited at the car. He said he didn’t want to upset the coeds who might be around simply by being there. I laughed at him.
A minute or so later, I knocked again. There were no sounds coming from the other side of the door numbered 1107 B. Not wanting to be outdone and to continue my zealous streak, I knocked once more after waiting a disproportionate amount of time. Must have been two minutes or more.
Nothing.
Sam gave me a look that seemed to suggest that we could leave any time now. I followed him out of the building back to the car.
“Nobody home, apparently,” I said.
“You think daddy gave her a head’s up?” Rosey said.
“Likely, but one never knows with Fletcher.”
“Still, blood and water,” Rosey said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You wanna leave a note?” Rosey said and laughed.
I drove our trio to her town address. It was late afternoon and we had a couple of hours to kill before our evening meal rolled around. The address took us to the outskirts of Weston. We followed Conant Road out of Weston in the direction of the reservoir. We made a right onto Winter Street right next to the reservoir. Sandy Chatterworth’s address was listed as 329 Garden Place. The GPS told me that Garden Place was off of Winter Street, it just didn’t tell me where.
On the third time around the reservoir, we spotted a dirt road that had a small sign hidden by some low hanging tree branches still clinging to a few leaves. Rosey saw it when he had turned to look behind us as we passed the unpaved road. I stopped as close to the small sign as I could navigate the vehicle.
“It says Garden Place,” Rosey said. “Obviously someone has not updated the GPS.”
“You think?” I said.
We followed the dirt road for what seemed like miles. Measuring actual distance is difficult when directions are convoluted, the GPS no longer has you anywhere in sight, and you are anxious about finding someone. I could have checked my odometer when we turned onto the road, but I didn’t think of that at the time. Hindsight.
We found a house but there was no number, so we had no way of verifying if it was where Sandy lived. We drove on. There were no other houses on Garden Place. Garden Place came to an abrupt dead-end. We turned around and drove back to the only house on the road.
“You think this is it?” I said to Rosey.
“I have no thoughts on the matter. What I do think is that we can go check it out and see what there is to see. Reconnoiter. That’s my method, that’s my motto. Let’s boogie,” he said.
“Let’s boogie?”
“I heard it once.”
“Come on, Sam. It’s time to explore. Rosey can boogie if he likes.”
Sam bounded on ahead as the sun was setting behind us. We approached the white framed house with a little caution. It was nestled in some sparse woods. Leaves were thinning. I guessed that we were about a mile from the reservoir and maybe two miles from Conant Road.
I pushed the doorbell, but there was no sound from inside the house. I knocked. I thought I head a sound.
I motioned for Rosey to go around to the back. Sam stayed with me.
I knocked again. Sam whined a little and I reached down to pat him on the head. It was a gesture that I seldom did, but for some reason it felt like the thing to do. For whatever reason, it came to me that Sam needed to be reassured at that moment. I leaned over and patted his head again. A simple move. A simple, fortunate move for me.
The shotgun blast not only blew a hole in the front door exactly where my upper torso had been, but it also caused the door itself to come off of its hinges and land on top of both me and Sam. If I had remained in an upright position after knocking, then I would be no more. Or, if I were still alive, my face would have been slightly rearranged and parts of it scattered around the front yard of this lovely little house on Garden Place. Imagine that.
Thank God for a simple move, a gesture of kindness to Sam. I live to fight again another day. In the meantime, I kicked the door off of us, drew my leg weapon since it was closer and easier than trying to roll over and retrieve the one from my back. I slid quickly over to the right side of the door jam and waited for the next blast. Sam was behind me out of harm’s way.
I patted his head once again.
“I owe you, buddy,” I said to Sam.
He licked my face.
“Sandy?” I yelled into the house now that the front door had been removed.
No answer.
“Sandy!” I yelled again.
No response.
I heard noises coming from way inside the house, but I remained in my more or less protected position. Rosey emerged through the doorway and walked over the rubble, the pieces of what used to compose the front door.
I lowered my weapon. Sam greeted Rosey with a welcome bark.
“Nobody’s home,” Rosey said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No ma’am. No one is here.”
“Then who tried to kill me?”
“Can’t say who, but I can show you what,” Rosey said and he pointed to an old wooden chair that had a double barreled shotgun attached and a motion sensor wired to the trigger. The wire of the motion sensor ran along the floor to the front door.
“When you knocked that second time, you must have engaged the sensor wire and … bang!
How did it miss you?” he said as he inspected the door lying on the front porch.
I told him.
“I think we need a vacation to Las Vegas. With the kind of luck you have, we’re sure to come away filthy rich.”
“I’d say you are half right. The vacation sounds enticing.”
56
“Why can’t anything we do be a bit easier?” I said to him as I chewed my prime rib. “Why couldn’t we just go up to a nice house here in town, knock on the door, and ask Sandy if she killed Raney and Melody? She would then say, ‘Oh, yes, do come in and I will confess it all to you. Let me make tea. I will tell you everything, how I planned it and how I hoped to get away with it. Do come in.’ Why can’t our investigations go like that?”
Rosey was silent as he chewed his steak. He had ordered the Porterhouse. It was the size of Houston. My prime rib was large enough, but much smaller than his cut. He stared at me while chewing but said nothing.
“You’re not answering me,” I said.
“I’m thinking of something clever to say.”
“The quick quip is always better than a slow response to my ranting,” I said.
“True, but sometimes your ranting is pointed and it requires more imagination than a quick response. Besides that, I don’t always have a quip to come back with,” Rosey said.
“You jest.”
“Truth.”
“This is all frustrating.”
“It’s what you do.”
“Yeah, it’s what I do.”
“Solving human puzzles is not for the faint of heart.”
“Never been accused of having a faint heart. Just wishin’ I was a tad smarter and more like my favorite sleuth, Mr. Holmes,” I confessed.
“He was fictional.”
“Yeah, I envy the rascal. He had Conan Doyle pulling his strings,” I said.
“No one pulling yours,” Rosey said.
“Except the villains I chase. They seem to have a jolly old time of pulling my strings or pushing my buttons.”
“You need a doughnut,” he said.
I laughed. I thought it was a good line.
“You don’t think you’re closer than, well, when you started this dubious investigation
?” he said.
“It was dubious, wasn’t it? Fool’s errand. I admitted it when I started. Even someone as superficial as Duchess Legrand told me the same. Golly Bob, it’s enough to make a grown woman cry.”
“You admitted it, but you really didn’t believe you couldn’t do it.”
“Pride goeth before a fall,” I quoted.
“Maybe you’re too invested in this,” Rosey said.
“I hate to see a young girl’s life snuffed out because of some involvement with a church, of all things.”
“People sometimes get over their heads in religion. It takes a toll. You can’t stop that.”
“I know. I can still be angry, though. I don’t have to like it. I just want to get to the truth of it. Melody deserves at least a portion of the truth to be told, if in fact she did not commit suicide.”
“Or maybe even if she did,” he added.
I thought about that. He likely had a valid point.
“You still have questions about that?” Rosey said.
“I’ve always tried to keep a balanced view of what may have gone down in Melody’s life. Yeah, it’s a possibility. She made have lit the fire and pulled the trigger, but perhaps someone was pulling her strings.”
“The presence of that unknown person in the recording,” Rosey said.
“Yeah, that’s the thing. Plus the other stuff floating around and the people that are trying to get rid of me. It points to something beyond suicide.”
“I’m with you, kid. Onward and upward. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Let’s have some dessert to cap off this great meal,” he said.
“You think food is the answer to everything?” I said.
“It helps to sooth the savage beast.”
“I thought that was music,” I said.
“You don’t hear that country song in the background while we are dining so sumptuously?”
“Ricky van never really did it for me, but the steak is good.”
“Let’s try some key lime cheesecake just to see,” he said.
We met Detective Owen the next morning in his office. He was drinking coffee but the doughnuts were conspicuously absent from his desk top.
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