by Julie Cave
Elise slapped the search warrant down on the girl’s desk. “Please familiarize yourself with this. It’s a search warrant, signed by a judge, and it’s legal. The court will require your full cooperation.”
“But — !”
“Call your boss. He’ll tell you it’s fine.” Dinah didn’t want to waste any more time arguing with her. She moved past the girl into the pastor’s office.
Vaguely, she heard Shana dialing and speaking to someone with great outrage. Dinah thought about giving her the World’s Best Secretary award for her efforts to protect her boss, but sensed her sarcasm would fall flat.
Angus Whitehall’s office was large and well-appointed. Important tomes on the theology, philosophy, history, languages, law, and ethics filled two large bookshelves. His desk was large and covered with a map of the United States, but with no computer. A Rolodex sat to the right of the map. In the drawers of the desk, Dinah found some stationery.
The deputies carefully looked through each bookcase, opening each book and checking for anything hidden or suspicious. Dinah flipped through the Rolodex. It contained names, numbers, and addresses of associates and congregants. There were no surprises, except that neither Malia nor Lola appeared there, under their current or former names. Equally, there were no pictures of his wife or children, no sentimental items from home or even a potted plant. It was a sterile environment that reminded Dinah of the apartments of both Malia and Lola. Were the three of them running away from something so terrible that they dared not make memories of a new life?
The office yielded very little, and after several hours, Dinah and Elise returned to the office disgruntled. Waiting for her was the cell phone and computer taken from Angus Whitehall’s home. While Elise started the computer, Dinah opened the cell phone and looked through the text messages.
There were several standard and generic messages between Angus and his wife — What time will you be home? Can you pick up the kids? Are you free for a barbecue on Sunday?
The messages between Malia and Angus were even shorter and to the point — Are you okay? Yes. Do you need anything? No. Don’t feel good today. I know.
It was the text messages between Angus and Lola that were the most revealing.
Lola, I checked on Malia today. Haven’t seen you around much?
Is she okay?
The usual. What’s going on?
I don’t know. I’m not feeling safe?
Did you see someone? Have you been contacted?
No to both.
So what’s wrong?
It’s just a gut feeling. There’s something bad in the air. I can feel it, but I can’t explain it.
Dinah wondered for a moment if at this moment, Lola had inadvertently alerted her killer to her suspicions.
Another exchange was started by Angus and read:
Should I be worried about my family and myself?
I don’t know. Noticed anything out of the ordinary lately?
Not really. But you were always better at sniffing out danger than me.
Finally, it appeared that Angus got frustrated with Lola’s disappearance.
Lola, where are you????
I felt I needed to get away. That town doesn’t feel right to me anymore.
Well, what about Malia and me?
Can you watch out for her?
Not really. I have my own family, you know.
Yeah. Well, I probably should come back, I suppose.
Had she just signed her own death warrant? Was Angus so worried about Lola freaking out on him, leaving him to potentially spill their secret, that he killed her?
In the days after Malia’s death and before Lola’s body was found, the text messages grew more frantic and were one-sided. At this point, Lola was no longer replying to Angus.
Lola, have you heard about Malia?
Call me! Malia is dead!
Do you know what happened to Malia? Are we in danger too?
Are you okay? Call me or text me.
Why aren’t you answering? Where are you?
Call me!
Dinah frowned. Angus either truly didn’t know what had happened to Lola, as evidenced by increasingly panicky messages, or they were a clever plant to mislead the police. She thought about what she knew of Angus: there seemed to be a cunning quality to him, a coldness, a self-absorption. These qualities made it possible for him to think he could outsmart her.
She scrolled through other text messages on the phone, but found nothing that seemed pertinent to the investigation. His call logs were very similar — most calls were to and from his home or office.
Dinah turned her attention to Elise, who had opened the laptop she’d found in his study. She could only do a cursory check here; any in-depth searches of the hard drive would need to be done by the forensic laboratory. But it was funny how many times criminals were arrogant enough to think the police would never find them, let alone look at their computers.
Angus’s emails were uninteresting. He hadn’t communicated with his family, Malia, or Lola by email, and it was all work-related. Most of the traffic came through Shana, the pastor’s secretary. On the computer’s desktop, she found icons for an Internet browser, the Microsoft suite of products and the church’s internal software. The internal software was password-protected, and Elise couldn’t go any further there. She opened up the Internet browser, where the homepage was CNN’s website.
Elise immediately went to the browser’s history to find out what websites the pastor had been accessing.
Surprisingly, there were few. He didn’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, and used no other forms of social media. He checked out a dozen different news sites every day, and used the search engine Google. It was the search history for Google that proved interesting for Dinah.
Every single search Angus had undertaken involved the name Harry Purcell.
Harry Purcell California.
Where is Harry Purcell?
Harry Purcell Virginia.
Harry Purcell jail sentence.
Harry Purcell parole?
Whereabouts of Harry Purcell?
What happened to Harry Purcell?
Dinah frowned. This was a new name, which hadn’t come up in the investigation so far — what did it mean? Who was Harry Purcell and why was Angus so obsessed with him? Was Angus searching for this person in the role of predator or prey? Did Angus fear Harry or should Harry have feared Angus?
As Elise looked through the history of the computer, it appeared that Angus had done some kind of search on Harry Purcell every single day. Did it have anything to do with this investigation? Perhaps Harry Purcell was simply an old friend Angus was trying to locate.
However, Dinah’s gut feeling was that this kind of obsession didn’t exist for an old friend. Harry Purcell occupied a different role in the life of Angus Whitehall, and for that reason alone she meant to find out what that role was.
She glanced at her watch and saw that it was past nightfall.
“Yikes, it’s late,” agreed Elise. “Let’s go home. Maybe one of us will have a dream that will reveal to us who on earth Harry Purcell is.”
Chapter 14
The former San Diego Chief of Police, Patrick O’Grady, had retired to the rolling green pastures of Lexington, Kentucky, to indulge in his beloved pastime of thoroughbred horse training.
Dinah and Elise took a 7:30 a.m. flight from Norfolk, Virginia, and knocked on the man’s front door two and a half hours later.
O’Grady opened the door to reveal a tall, bald man with a bristling gray mustache, sharp brown eyes, and the slightly bow-legged gait of a lifelong horse lover.
“Hello, I’m Detective Jones with the Ten Mile Hollow Sheriff’s Department,” said Elise, showing him her identification badge. “This is Dinah Harris, former FBI agent and consultant on the case.”
“Come in,” he invited. “My wife has her sewing club meeting in town this morning, so we can speak freely. Can I get you a coffee?”
&nb
sp; “Please,” agreed Elise and Dinah, in unison. Plane flights always exhausted Dinah; not so much the actual flying but the hassle of airport lines, security, and delays. They made her cranky and impatient, although she was wise enough not to antagonize the security staff.
O’Grady had led them into a large living room with picture windows that overlooked his property. It wasn’t a large house, done in a tribute to the log cabin aesthetic, but the views of the lush fields were priceless. A beautiful black horse flicked its head in a field nearby, its coat glossy in the sunshine.
O’Grady saw her admiring the horse. “That’s my Dark Magic,” he said, with pride. “Comes from impeccable stock. I think she’ll make a fine racehorse.”
“She is gorgeous,” agreed Dinah. For a moment, she continued to watch the horse as she trotted away.
O’Grady sat opposite the two women, knees popping. As Dinah put cream and sugar in her coffee, he asked, “So this is about the Southern Cross Militia?”
Elise gave him a quick rundown of the case against Angus Whitehall, and their mission to find the killer of Malia Shaw and Lola Albright, previously known as Theresa Scott and Rachel Sutton, respectively. She finished by explaining her conversation with the campus and San Diego police departments.
He sighed heavily, stirring his coffee. “I remember the Southern Cross Militia,” he said. “Took up a fair chunk of my time 20, 25 years ago or so. In those days, we weren’t so worried about foreign terrorism and more concerned with local groups stirring up trouble. The Southern Cross Militia was a white supremacist group based in San Diego, led by a rather crafty fellow named Randall Shutter.”
Dinah frowned. “White supremacy?”
“Yeah. They were just like the KKK in ideology, but left off the white hoods. Most of these groups were harmless, unless you count filling people’s heads with hatred. They would get together weekly or so and have a rant about how much they hated equality and that would be that. The Southern Cross Militia, though, walked the walk. They were dangerous.”
“What did they do?” Elise asked.
“Well, Randall Shutter was a former Marine with experience in explosives,” explained O’Grady. “He was smart enough to realize that getting all his racist groupies together wasn’t so smart, because it meant we, law enforcement, could keep an eye on things. So he formed what we now call cells — smaller groups of people who operate almost independently and communicate subversively. Cells are harder to track, harder to monitor. He put some of his most loyal lieutenants in charge of each cell, and they used a variety of communication methods without ever actually physically seeing each other or talking to each other by phone. Randall Shutter himself moved around constantly. The first thing they did was to mail a pipe bomb to the ACLU headquarters in L.A. The bomb killed two people and injured three others. Afterward, he sent a note to the press claiming responsibility with the words agere sequitur credere printed beneath their logo. That is Latin for action follows belief.”
O’Grady sighed. “There were two more pipe bombs, one at the State Legislature and one at the offices of a civil rights law firm. Both times, the Militia sent notes claiming responsibility, signed by Randall Shutter. A postal worker was killed at the Legislature, and the third bomb only injured two people. I think he grasped that eventually people would stop opening packages and he would no longer get the bang for which he was hoping. That’s when he formed his cell groups. He’d arrange tasks for them to do and they would carry it out.”
“What kind of tasks?”
“The murders of highly regarded African-Americans, for a start,” said O’Grady. “High profile African-Americans, like Reverend William Shore and the civil rights lawyer Elijah Morris. Both were killed in drive-by shootings, and the next day the press received a note from the militia. But they hated almost everybody equally. They assassinated a well-known Asian heart surgeon. We think they defaced the Holocaust Museum in L.A. Aside from the high-profile people, they would also assault any African-American, Asian, and Jewish people they could find — harass and stalk them, graffiti their homes and workplaces. Anything to intimidate and frighten them. And it worked. They genuinely struck fear into minority communities all throughout southern California.”
O’Grady poured himself another cup of coffee and refilled the cups of Dinah and Elise.
“It was particularly frustrating for the police,” he continued. “We had no idea which cell group would strike next, or where. Shutter had trained them well in the art of evasion, and each attack was well planned and executed. As far as we could make out, each cell was trained for a specific purpose.”
“And Angus Whitehall was part of the Militia?” Elise asked.
“Well, he wasn’t called Angus Whitehall in those days,” said O’Grady. “He was Robert Langer. He was one of Shutter’s top-ranked lieutenants. He led a cell group that consisted of two males, including himself, and two females. Their modus operandi was to use the females to lure a victim into a deserted area, where the two males would attack. He and his cell were responsible for beatings all across the southern California area, usually targeting single men on their way home from work. It was a cowardly, vicious assault; the victim didn’t stand a chance. The only favorable thing I can say is that at least his cell wasn’t required to murder, although they came close at times.”
“The two females in the cell — were they Theresa Scott and Rachel Sutton, by any chance?” Elise asked, sliding across recent photos of the women to O’Grady. “They’ve gone by the names Malia Shaw and Lola Albright recently.”
He studied them intently for several minutes. “Yes, I believe so,” he said. He indicated a thick folder on the coffee table. “I took copies from certain cases for my own files and I’ve refreshed my memory.”
“So did you ever catch them?” Dinah asked, wondering if Angus, Malia, and Lola had set up life in Virginia, on the run from California law.
“No. We didn’t catch that cell specifically, but we caught Randall Shutter. Bizarrely, because Langer’s — that is, Angus Whitehall’s — cell betrayed their leader.”
Dinah was entranced by the story. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you have to understand what things were like back then. The city was going crazy; half the population lived in fear and the other half was furious. There was pressure for me to resign because we simply couldn’t find the Militia. The FBI field office ran a joint investigation, which was as fruitless as our own. We managed to find and arrest a couple of cells, but we couldn’t get to the leader. We knew that if we could shut down Shutter, the group would fall apart. That’s the way these gangs are run — they rely almost totally on the charisma of the leader.”
He shook his head. “The L.A. riots had happened only a couple of years prior, and the air of the place was like a tinderbox, just waiting to be set alight. I’m not sure what motivated Robert Langer, but perhaps he thought he could be a hero. In any case, it appeared that most of his cell wanted to get out of the gang.”
“Most of the cell?”
O’Grady smiled briefly. “Right. Langer and the two women. The other member, Harry Purcell, did not want to leave the gang and had no idea what the other members were planning. Much like many of the gangs that still operate, the Southern Cross Militia had a blood-in, blood-out policy.”
Dinah’s ears pricked up. Harry Purcell! The person Angus had been obsessively searching for, every single day.
At this moment, she knew her case would be made for her.
****
“What does that mean exactly?” asked Elise.
“The Militia required evidence of one’s commitment before being admitted as a full member,” explained O’Grady. “Such evidence was the execution of an act of violence. Most members would be required to assault or kill a target. Equally, one was not permitted to simply leave the gang. Anyone who left was usually summarily executed.”
If I’m wrong, and Angus is not the killer, could the three be under attack from their old ga
ng? Is that why they have the fake IDs, the fake names, the new lives in Virginia?
“So what did they do to Randall Shutter?” Elise asked.
“The cells operated independently, as I’ve said. Shutter refused to allow most cell members, apart from his lieutenants, to ever see him. Very few people knew where he lived. It may surprise you to learn that he was supremely paranoid.” O’Grady chuckled. “But Robert Langer had direct access to Shutter, and he used this access to sneak into Shutter’s home, lie in wait for him, beat him senseless, and steal almost a quarter of a million dollars.”
Elise sat back and stared at Dinah for a moment. “Huh! Really?”
“The full story is that the Militia had extorted a huge amount of money from various members of the minority community in return for ‘protection’ and the cash was sitting in Shutter’s house. Only his top-ranked lieutenants would have known this. Langer and the two women broke into his home, waited for Shutter to arrive home, and attacked him with baseball bats. They took all the cash in the place and then disappeared from the face of the earth. Shutter was so badly injured that he was taken to the hospital after his cleaner found him. He was promptly arrested and eventually sentenced to life in jail. He has always professed vengeance against Langer, Scott, and Sutton.”
“What about the other cell member, Harry Purcell?”
“He was loyal to Shutter. Tried to provide false alibis and that kind of thing. He went to jail too, but only for about five years on an assault charge. When he came out, he also vanished. As far as I know, he also swore revenge.”
That changes things. How many people want to kill these three? Was Angus fearful of an attack from Purcell?
“And then Langer and the women pop up in Virginia,” mused Dinah. “Still together, after all these years, using false names. Would it surprise you to learn that they stuck together, rather than splitting up?”
O’Grady smiled. “Heard of honor among thieves, Detective? There is none. No, it doesn’t surprise me. The three of them disappeared with crimes more numerous than you have hairs on your head. They were wanted for attempted murder, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, extortion, harassment, and grand larceny. If there were two people in the world running around who know this about you, would you want to know where they were and what they were saying? I know I would. I think Robert Langer kept those two women close so that he could control them better.”