I needed to connect some dots of my own. “How do you know your unnamed caller was really an insider?”
“The caller rattled off the data on Jason Forester’s federal PIV smart card, along with his Social Security number, his date of birth, and the date he began work at the US attorney’s office. Everything checked out.”
“So why you?”
“Somehow the phone tipster knew I had a law enforcement connection with Forester, and the caller needed to tell someone ‘outside the Beltway.’ I asked why that was. The informant said there was a criminal investigation Forester was running, and it might have something to do with his death. That the caller didn’t know, quote, ‘who can be trusted on my side of the Potomac.’”
Dick Valentine ended the call by asking if I would look into the Jason Forester incident. He wondered if I could help the US attorney’s office to “see the light,” convincing them that this incident required a deeper look-see. I told him I’d think about it.
I knew that if I said yes to Dick, it would mean another matchup against Vance Zaduck. That could send me down a very embarrassing, very public waterslide. I had read recently in the National Law Journal that Zaduck was receiving serious consideration for a judicial appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. That made him a rising star in the legal universe. The DC Court of Appeals is a prestigious bench. In fact, judges from that bench are frequently culled as possible nominees to the United States Supreme Court. No question about it: in recent years, Zaduck seemed to have the amazing knack of catching the wind at his back.
I, on the other hand, was a washed-up, ex–New York City criminal defense lawyer, disbarred for refusing to undergo psychiatric examination as a condition of saving my law license. Between me and Vance, guess who wins the credibility contest.
In the big picture, though, “credibility,” as attorneys use that term, has only limited utility, mostly in things like lawsuits, media debates, and Washington politics. When you’re doing combat with the powers of hell, “credibility” doesn’t help you much.
2
I was grappling with Dick Valentine’s request. It wasn’t about the money, so I didn’t bother to ask who was going to pay me for my trouble if I decided to investigate the death of AUSA Jason Forester. On the other hand, since losing my law practice, I had acquired a new appreciation for three square meals a day. After my disbarment and my relocation to an island off the North Carolina coast, I had been barely scraping by, writing true-crime articles for magazines on topics that came naturally to me because of my prior criminal defense practice, mostly grisly homicides and off-the-wall lawsuits. My last one was a piece on street kids being forced into human trafficking rings.
That was my day job. But my calling—my real mission—was something different. I knew my burdensome gift of detecting the invisible world was no accident. I decided that Divine Providence was the driving force behind my special talent. My response to Dick would have to take that into account, even if the rest of the planet took me for a guy whose mind had run away and joined Cirque du Soleil.
At the same time, you can understand why the legal establishment in the New York Bar Association treated me like a psychiatric case. But then, I knew things that other lawyers couldn’t fathom.
So there I was, stewing over all of that one hot day in August, sitting at my desk in the tiny corner room of my cottage, only a little larger than a walk-in closet but with a window and a good view of the Atlantic. Ordinarily I would have jumped right into the Forester case, particularly when it was Dick Valentine doing the asking. But not because I had any attraction to the subject. On a visceral level, the combination of Forester’s strange, terrible death coupled with obtuse, supernatural angles turned my stomach. I knew too much about that world. At the same time, though, it stirred me deep inside. Something had to be done about it. If not me, then who? It was the kind of case that had become my niche.
Yet there was a wrinkle. I wasn’t alone in my island home at the time, and I had to consider what that might mean. My daughter, Heather, had made her first visit, having just arrived at my home the day before.
That morning I had risen early to do some work and to ruminate on the Forester case, but I heard sounds like someone was stirring in the guest room. Maybe it was Heather. For most fathers that would be no big deal. But I wasn’t like other dads. For twenty-two years I had been led to believe that Heather had never been born.
Heather was the product of a college one-night stand with my youthful crush Marilyn Parlow, who insisted, seven weeks later, that her mind was made up and she would abort. In point of fact, she didn’t, but for all those years, the thought of an intentional and premature end to Marilyn’s pregnancy had been a backpack loaded with rocks for me. I lugged that burden around everywhere I went.
But the truth won out, thanks to Ashley Linderman, a police detective friend from my hometown. Ashley dug around until she unearthed the details about Heather’s birth and subsequent adoption. Even though the news came more than twenty years late, miracles do happen. As for those years that the locusts had eaten, they can still be restored. I believe that.
In my little working room I listened for more sounds that Heather might be awake. Hearing nothing except for the noisy surf from the Atlantic just off my front yard of sand and sea grass, I mentally returned to the Jason Forester matter and his “death by voodoo” that had been hanging over me. I grabbed my iPad off my desk and started doing an Internet search on the occult subject. As usual, I quickly began a free fall, down the research rabbit hole. I was interrupted by the sound of Heather, who had quietly slipped in behind me and started clearing her throat loudly.
“Okay, so you tell me this is supposed to be our time together,” she said. “To get to know each other. And you say to me, ‘I dare you to drop your iPhone into a drawer.’ To forget about it. Which I actually did, by the way. So who’s the hypocrite now?”
With a little embarrassment I hit the power button on my iPad, dropped it on the desk, and studied my daughter, now standing in front of me. I thought to myself, For twenty-two years I kept wondering about it. And now I know. Thank you, God, she’s here.
Heather turned her gaze toward the picture window that fronts the ocean. She was looking out to the blue-green sea, just beyond the dunes and the sea grass.
I was planning on extending an olive branch, but she was wearing a yellow T-shirt at the time, and it just happened to expose her neck. Which triggered something, and I stupidly blurted it out loud: “You know, tons of people, when they get older, regret getting tattoos like that.” But I was smiling when I said it. Honest.
She whirled around. “This is not going well.”
Then the voice of Ashley Linderman, the mediator. “I’m here to have fun. Why don’t you two mix it up some other time?” Ashley, a skinny brunette, was wearing shorts and a faded denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Cute. The only thing marring her flawless face was a thin scar on one side, the vestige of her heroism in the line of police duty.
I wasn’t surprised that Ashley had joined Heather on the visit to my seaside cottage. Even before Ashley helped me locate my daughter, the two of us had become close, working a murder case together in Wisconsin; she was the investigating detective, and I, the friend of the victim in pursuit of justice, was convinced that behind the killing, there was something hellish going on. Ashley seemed attracted to me, and the feeling was mutual. Still, there was that divide between us. The chasm. During her island visit, I needed to have a difficult discussion with her about our future.
After my comment about her tattoo, Heather blew off Ashley’s attempt to cool things down. She gave me an irritated shake of her head and announced that she was going for a stroll along the beach, adding, with the plural verbiage of royalty, “And we are walking alone.” Then she stomped outside by herself.
That hurt. No question about it. Male egos pretend to be made of titanium steel, but at the core they’re Jell-O.
With Heather gone and just us left in the house, Ashley gave me some advice. “I don’t think you can play the Father Knows Best thing with her until the two of you cover some other ground first. Just my opinion. But on this, I’m right.” Then she asked, “How did this start?”
“I was doing some research on my iPad. She called me a hypocrite.”
Ashley stared me down.
I shrugged. “She might have a point.”
“Research on what?”
“The killing of an assistant US attorney, Jason Forester.”
“What federal jurisdiction?”
“District of Columbia.”
“What’s your interest in this?” Ashley asked.
“They mentioned voodoo as the cause of death.”
The tone of her voice turned subtly cynical. “Oh, so you’re branching out? Now it’s voodoo?”
“I don’t think it’s a stretch.”
She shook her head. I knew what that meant. But she plunked herself down in the wicker chair next to me, so dialogue was still open. By this point in our relationship, I was pretty sure Ashley had resigned herself to the fact that I had a strange vocation—not my day job writing news articles for crime magazines, but my other pursuit. We had continued to disagree about my other line of work. It had gone beyond just the philosophical and was getting intensely personal.
“Okay,” I said, “let’s forget it.”
But she wouldn’t and followed up with another question. “Have you already agreed to dive into this voodoo thing?”
“Not yet.”
Ashley was jiggling her foot where she sat. She took a long look out the window toward the ocean, and then, after a while, she stood. After eyeing my iPad, she snatched it up and tapped the screen to read where I had left off in my research.
She announced, “I’m going for a walk. I’ll catch up to Heather if I can.” She handed my iPad back to me and said, “Meanwhile, just for giggles, tell me what you find out about voodoo death.”
3
The next day I used every bit of my charm to get Heather and Ashley to join me for the Sunday morning service at Port-of-Peace Church. The small congregation operated out of a little weather-beaten clapboard chapel on the island, not far from an ancient cemetery where the inscriptions on the gravestones had been rubbed into indecipherability by time, tide, and hurricanes. The chapel had seats for about sixty people, which was good, because the regular attendees had numbered forty before I started showing up and made it forty-one. It had a part-time minister by the name of Banks Trumbly, who preached on Sundays and in his spare time would make visitation to the sick or the infirm. His day job was running a commercial fishing boat.
Banks Trumbly was a good man and had a no-nonsense approach to the Bible. What he lacked in theological finesse, Banks made up for with enthusiasm.
During the service, Banks preached on a touchy subject: Satan and his worldly dominion. It was touchy only because I had not spoken to Heather about my special “gifting.” I had talked openly about God, the Bible, and my faith encounter with Christ. But Satan and his army of demons? No, I had left that one alone for the time being.
As I drove the three of us back to my cabin after the church service, Heather let loose. “Your pastor sounds like a Neanderthal,” she blurted out. “He seriously believes there is a hierarchy of demons working under an actual devil! Like some kind of government bureau from hell.”
I responded. “Yes. Not a bad description.” Then I added, “Ask yourself this: Do you believe in demons or not? Seems like a perfectly legitimate question for someone studying anthropology.”
She shrugged.
I pressed it. “You’ve said a few positive things about Jesus since you came to the island. So consider the many times in the Gospels where Jesus encountered demons that had possessed people. And each time, Jesus vanquished them. Every one. And in the process, he never hedged on the reality of the supernatural realm.”
She pushed back. “Okay, Trevor, let’s correct something. What I like about Jesus is what Deepak Chopra and the other mystics call ‘Christ consciousness.’ But you and that pastor of yours, and anyone else who goes on a Bible rampage like your pastor did, you’re all victims of the anthropomorphic fallacy.”
“You have to either take all of Jesus or none of him,” I said. “You can’t pick and choose. And you and Deepak Chopra and his mystical compatriots who want to cram Jesus into a nice, tidy box, you need to understand something: Jesus won’t be crammed.”
Ashley kept stone silent in the back of my Land Rover. I could guess what was going through her mind.
That night we had a quiet dinner at the cottage. Afterward Heather said she was tired and announced that she would be going to bed early. I gave her half a hug, still being cautious, and quietly whispered that I loved her. No response. Just a quick smile.
Ashley followed her to the bedroom, but not before I told Ashley that I would like some time together the next morning, just the two of us, to talk.
“I’d like to talk to you too,” she said, “about things.” She reached out, patted me on the cheek, and then slipped into the bedroom.
Left to myself, I swung the screen door open, cringing at the sound of the rusty groan and vowing to oil it in the morning. I strolled barefoot onto the stretch of sand and sea grass that was my front yard and kept going until I was just a few feet from the rolling tide that was edging up the beach line. The moon was full, and the ocean was calm. I was thinking back to the phone call from Detective Dick Valentine and the reasons he gave me for why I should check into the Forester death—and why I was the right man to do it.
But down deep, I was losing an appetite for the Forester case, even though I suspected that something darkly supernatural was afoot.
I wanted to focus on Heather, trying to kindle something out of the ashes of our being apart for more than two decades. I wanted to see some kind of peace sign, any kind, from her. None yet, but I was hopeful. So far she had settled into calling me just “Trevor.” I suppose “Dad” was still a long way off. Maybe never.
I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of churning salt water and the faint fish smell from seashells and tiny ocean life that would wash up with the night tide. But nothing else. Nothing foreboding in the air.
Then, as I turned to go back inside, something caught my eye. Something on the surface of the ocean, about a hundred yards from the beach. I looked closer and recognized the figure of a man, and he was definitely standing, not sinking. And something more. He was not illuminated by the moonlight. It was as if he were a black hole in space, swallowing up the light. Defying the laws of physics by standing on the sea, as if supported by solid steel. The sight of it gave me a sudden shiver, like insects scampering over me. I squinted and looked closer, trying to make out his features.
I blinked, and the figure vanished.
At another time in my life, I would have worked hard to dismiss it. But that was then. Now, in this life to which I have been called, I tucked that image away for safekeeping. My heart racing, I wiped sweaty palms on my shorts. It was time to remind myself that God still governed the affairs of the universe. Including those of men and of angels. And even demons.
I had the distinct impression that the figure out there on the ocean was issuing me a warning. Maybe a threat. About what, I didn’t know.
But there was something else. Something that was missing. Unlike all the times in the past, I hadn’t received my usual sensate alert, hit with the repulsive scent of burning refuse and death that had always signaled when one of the underworld m
onsters was near. That night it didn’t happen. The absence of a sensory warning was a shocker. My head was flooded with questions. About my special “gift”—detecting the supernatural realm—and my previous early warning system. I had relied on it. Maybe too much. Was I losing control?
4
Early the next morning I was wakened by the smell of brewing coffee. Ashley was already up, so I jumped into a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and ambled into my little kitchen to join her. I was ready to ease into casual conversation with her until I could segue into our relationship. The serious stuff.
But I didn’t have to. Ashley opened up the discussion as I sat next to her.
“So I’ve been thinking,” she began. “About the compatibility thing.”
I listened.
“Not just,” she went on, “about our different geographies. Me up there in chilly Wisconsin, and you down here in the South, living the life of a beach bum on Gilligan’s Island.”
I laughed.
“It’s more than that,” she said. “Don’t you think?”
I agreed. This was friendly direct examination, not aggressive cross-examination. So I asked a lawyerly question. “Tell me, what do you think is the biggest point of incompatibility?”
“Dirty lawyer’s trick,” she said with a fake complaint in her voice and a smirk. “Are you really going to make me spill it first?”
“Okay, fine,” I said. “From the beginning of our time together in Wisconsin, you knew where I was coming from. You knew about my unusual work. And you knew that I consider myself on a mission from God. Now, you’re in law enforcement. You deal with the aftermath of evil. Me? Whatever I am, I deal with the genesis of evil, the kind that comes from another dimension.”
“Kooky, that’s for sure,” she said. “Your so-called ability to detect demons. Based on . . . let’s see, what was it? . . . Oh yeah, catching their smell. You realize, don’t you, there are psychological explanations for that.”
The Empowered Page 2