McCarry asked why Decker was with Pluto at two in the morning.
'A good question,' Decker said. 'Wait until you hear the answer. We had been up at Central City, at the Order's chicken ranch, trying to pry out a swollen, disarticulated, decapitated torso stuffed into a kitchen cabinet.'
The trio went slack-jawed... without comment.
Decker went on. 'The body turned out to be another high ranking member of the Order - a podiatrist who called himself Guru Nova. The corpse was less than two days old because we had interviewed him around forty-eight hours ago. He signed Jupiter's death certificate, ruling it as an OD. We wanted to know why. He was squirrely around us. Obviously, he felt fear from somebody. And from the outcome, his fears were well grounded.'
Barak's mouth opened and closed. 'Did Bob cut up Nova, also?'
'Bob's high on our hit list. A distant second suspect is the ranch's hired help - a man named Benton, who's holed up in the Central City jail. I left a couple of my guys up there to interview Benton so that I could come back down here and execute search warrants for the Order. When Bob opened fire on Pluto, I was about thirty... forty feet behind him. My guys and I dropped. We managed to reach safety. I called in the incident.' A pause. 'Now you're up to date.'
McCarry played with his tie. 'Why'd Bob kill Nova?'
'I don't know that he did.'
'Well, why did he shoot Pluto?'
'Beats me.'
'You must have a theory.'
'I have several and they're all incomplete. Before I shoot off my mouth, I'm waiting for more facts.'
Barak said, 'So Bob's taking over the Order?'
'Looks like it.'
'Anyone else in his way?'
Decker told them about Venus.
McCarry said, 'Any idea if she's alive?'
'Nope. If he calls, I could ask him to put her on the line. But Bob's an irritable guy. He's not going to like demands.'
Barak said, 'You said Bob was a disciple of Ganz.'
'Yes I did.'
'So he was a scientist... once?'
'I don't know if Bob actually worked as a scientist. He was majoring in astrophysics at Southwest U when Ganz resurfaced as Father Jupiter. Bob followed him into the Order of the Rings of God, and the rest is history.'
'What do you mean resurfaced as Jupiter?' McCarry asked.
'What do you know about Ganz?'
'Cult leader of the Order of the Rings of God. Been around... what, ten years?'
'Fifteen.'
'He used to be a well-known scientist.'
'Twenty-five years ago, Dr Emil Euler Ganz left his job and all his prestige at Southwest University of Technology and walked off the face of the earth. For ten years, his whereabouts were unknown. Fifteen years ago, he came back as Father Jupiter and started the Order.'
'Where'd he go in his ten-year absence?' Lombardo asked.
'No one knows. From all accounts, Jupiter had just vanished. His family thought he was dead. Ganz's wife hired people to look for him, but they got nowhere, and she gave up. Then, suddenly, Ganz resurfaced as Jupiter.'
'How convenient.'
'Not for the wife.'
'Where is the wife?'
'She died four years ago.'
'Who told you this?'
'Ganz's daughter.'
'Ganz had a daughter?'
'Ganz has three children. The daughter is the only one with something to gain from Ganz's death.' He explained the insurance policy.
McCarry frowned. 'You keep coming up with these zingers. What else haven't you told me?'
Decker shifted positions and met McCarry eye to eye. 'I'm not holding back, Special-Agent-in-Charge McCarry. But I do have a two-day jump on you.'
McCarry said, 'Can you tell us why there's no Bob matching Guru Bob's description in our computers?'
'Your computers are either incomplete or Bob Ross isn't his real name. Which wouldn't surprise me. Most of the cult members have changed their names. Right now, the majority are astral names -Venus, Pluto, Andromeda-'
Barak said, 'So why is Bob just... Bob?'
'Asserting his independence, maybe.' Decker shrugged. 'Venus's real name is Jilliam Laham. Originally, she was a friend of Ganz's daughter, Europa. Andromeda's name is Lauren Bolt. She's missing, by the way. She, and a twelve/thirteen-year-old kid named Lyra, disappeared from the Order around eighteen hours ago.'
'Are you putting me on?' McCarry asked.
'Wish I were. Yesterday Pluto called up the station house in a rage. He all but accused us of kidnapping them. Which is one of the reasons we were up at the ranch... sure you don't want to write this down?'
McCarry's disbelief was cut short by the ring of the cellular. The tapes clicked on and he connected the call. 'This is Special Agent McCarry of the FBI. Talk to me.'
Guru Bob was pissed. 'Get me Decker!'
McCarry had experience with these types of situations. He had worked with the Freemen in Idaho and Montana. The trick was to keep cool yet remain firm. He said, 'He's not available. What can I do for you, Bob?'
'It's guru to you, shithead. Besides, I don't talk to idiots I can't see-'
'I'll step outside-'
'Don't interrupt!' Bob was shouting. Decker could hear him through the receiver, see his voice waves spike on the monitor. 'You have a minute to make Decker available, Special Agent McCarry or I'll pulverize seventy-six children to dust. I've got plastics as well as conventional explosives strategically set throughout the entire compound. So don't even think about a sudden raid. We've made over three hundred pounds of the shit - sulfuric acid, nitric acid, toluene along with gel explosives. I've got TNT stored not only in cell batteries with long-range detonators, but we've also got stuff in shootable projectiles and pellets. If you think I'm bluffing, I'll send a sample from our chem labs. I aim at your face, Special Agent McCarry, and you're cosmic vapor.'
'I understand, Bob. I don't think you're bluffing. I'll give you
Deck-'
'Stop interrupting me! As long as you're on the line, just shut up and listen! Don't even think about turning off the electricity. We have backup power. If you start in any way, shape or form to flex muscle, I'll flex mine. And I'm looking at a detonator switch and my finger's getting itchy!'
McCarry said, 'Bob, I believe you. I'll try my best-'
'Like Yoda said, there is no try - just do or not do.' A raspy breath. 'And you know what I'm going to do for you, Special Agent McCarry? I'm going to call the media circus and tell them your name. So when they report the seventy-six dead kids flying in the air, they can announce to the world that Special Agent Bennett McCarry tried his best!'
'Wait a minute, wait a minu-'
But Bob had hung up. McCarry cursed. He had a loud voice and his swearing reverberated in the van. He was sweating as if trapped in a hotbox.
Decker raised his eyebrows and held out his hand.
Wordlessly, McCarry gave him the phone.
The apartment was a mile from the university, easily within biking distance. Europa obviously took advantage of that fact as evidenced by the European two-wheeled racer in her living room. An athletic woman, she had hung her walls with pictures of herself skiing down a steep, snow-packed slope, battling choppy, white waters in a raft, standing in a vegetation-packed forest decked out in hiking gear and showing off a glorious view while precariously balancing on a mountain bike. Other photographs included ice-cold landscapes of stellar-laden skies. Her concession to the ordinary was a prefab entertainment unit containing a stereo receiver, a CD player and holder, and a small TV. There was also one particle-board bookshelf filled with paperback novels. The furniture consisted of two tan, overstaffed leather love seats topped with patchwork throw pillows, a free-form wooden coffee table piled with magazines, a pair of low-slung, bag-type chairs, and a telescope.
After waking Europa up, Martinez and Webster gave her a two-minute rundown on the turmoil at the Order. She immediately switched on the TV. At three-thirty in the morning, t
he unfolding events had full network coverage and were on most of the local and cable news stations as well. The men gave Europa a chance to dress. But when she returned to the living room, she was still in her green terry-cloth bathrobe. She was holding a beat-up photo album, the cover torn and tattered.
Brushing her soft bangs off her face, she said, 'I found a few old pictures of him.' She rubbed her eyes. 'I don't know if they'll help.'
She showed the detectives the page where the photographs had been mounted askew. The man in the snapshot was as thin as spaghetti. He had hair past his shoulders and sported a long, full beard. He wore bell-bottomed jeans, and his shirt print was of a melee of gawdy, tropical fruit. He had his arm around a woman who was also skinny as wire. She had stringy, dishwater hair and her ears were adorned with large hoops. Accoutrements included wire-rimmed glasses and platform shoes.
Europa noticed that Webster was staring at her. 'Hippie dress. You're probably too young.'
Webster smiled. 'You flatter me.'
Martinez stared at the photographs. 'More like... hippie-cross-disco.'
'Astute,' Europa commented.
'Hippies would have been wearing earth shoes.'
'College protester or former vet?' Europa asked him.
'Vet.'
'Poor you.'
'I know,' Martinez said. 'I saw Hell and missed all the fun.'
She studied herself in the snapshot. 'You're absolutely right. This was post-hippie time although Southwest was never a bastion of antiwar sentiments. They couldn't afford it, since the war machine built half of the current campus... state-of-the-art labs. We have one hell of a particle smasher - two and half miles long. They don't come cheap.'
She removed the snapshots from the album.
'You can have these if you want. God only knows why I kept them. Bob wasn't the love of my life.'
She glanced at the TV. Nothing but sweeping exterior shots of a lifeless compound. A sudden cut to the police and FBI commotion yards away.
Martinez took in the pictures. 'Bob's last name is Ross? He never
did tell us.'
Europa said, 'When I knew him, it was Robert Ross - playing the WASP. He claimed he was an Easterner.' She spoke with her nose up in the air. 'Yeah, Easterner all right. New Joisey. Have a seat. Can I get either of you anything?'
'No thanks.' Webster parked himself in one of the slouch chairs. 'So Ross is his real last name?'
'Maybe,' Europa said. 'With Bob you can't tell. He was always hiding things. This is not supposition, this is fact. He was expelled from Southwest early on. Why didn't I tell your lieutenant this juicy bit before? Because Bob wasn't the focus of his investigation - my father was - and it didn't seem important. Now it does. Sit down, Detective Martinez.'
Martinez sat on one of the leather couches. She took a seat on the opposite arm.
'Bob showed up at my dorm one day, asking questions about my dad,' Europa said. 'That wasn't unusual. After all, Southwest had been the great Ganz's school and I was the great Ganz's daughter. I found it annoying - everyone asking about my father - but I was polite about it.'
'What kind of questions did he ask?' Webster inquired. 'It was a year before Dad's miraculous reappearance. Back then, the school's favorite parlor game had been Where in the world is Dr Emil Ganz? Basically, Bob asked me if I had any inside dope as to the whereabouts of my dad. As if I'd be holding back.' She clutched the photo album and sighed. 'Anyway, Bob was barely maintaining a C average. And this was after grade inflation. Schools were still sympathetic to the students even though the draft had been abolished. Ten years earlier, Bob would have flunked out. His average in real grade time was closer to an F.'
'Why was he doing so poorly?' Webster asked. 'Hard to keep all the math straight when your brain's saturated with hallucinogens. Still, there were other druggies at the school who did fine. Bob was a weird case. First of all, I think he only got into Southwest because of connections.' Martinez was scribbling notes. 'Who sponsored him?' 'I don't know if someone sponsored him or his dad gave money or if he was a legacy... you know, an uncle who's an alumnus. It's impolite to ask.'
Suddenly, she stopped talking. Her face registered anguish. 'I can't believe Bob gunned down that poor guy just like that. Was there some kind of internal politicking... you know... was this guy a threat to him?'
'I don't know,' Webster answered. 'Do you reckon that Bob might react violently if threatened?'
'Bob always had a suspicious nature.' A laugh. 'Small wonder. He was doing illegal things. Guess that would make you look over your shoulder. Anyway, backtracking for a moment - to Bob and school. How should I put this?' She mulled over her ideas.
'Bob had some real interesting flashes. Mental flashes-' 'You mean visions?' Martinez asked. 'No, no, no,' Europa answered. 'Although I'm sure he had plenty
of drug-induced trips. I'm talking about mental mathematical flashes. Partial solutions to age-old problems - which divides the kids from the adults in abstract math and physics.' Tm lost,' Webster said.
'It's hard to explain,' Europa said. 'The true geniuses often have these epiphanous, mental pictures of a mathematical solution - a drawing or chart or a diagram or an object - way before they even begin to work with the math. Einstein actually visualized his theory of relativity. He saw space bending in the presence of dark matter, he saw time distorting and objects foreshortened. All of them - Euler, Fermat, Gauss, Bohr, Heisenberg, Hawking, the famous Feynman diagrams, the Riemann sums, which are the basis of calculus. The greats seem to possess this uncanny ability to formulate images that answer mathematical problems. Of course, they need the numbers to prove them correct. But the numbers are rarely the starting point. When Einstein tried to fit his theory around the math, he made one of the biggest blunders of his life.'
Webster said, 'So Bob had these genius mental pictures?' Europa smiled. 'I believe the word I used was flashes. He got some momentary flashes, but they never resolved into anything meaningful because a) resolution takes perseverance and patience and work ethic, and Bob had none of those qualities, and b) math was not Bob's forte. Sure, he could teach calculus to a bunch of engineers. But you need more than the basics to be a brilliant astrophysicist. I don't know if Bob was lazy or if he just didn't have it up here.'
She touched her temple. 'They kicked him out?' Martinez said.
'Yes, he was kicked out, but not for failing. He was expelled for embezzling. He should have gone to jail. But because he said he'd leave quietly, they let him go.' 'Tell us about it,' Webster said.
'He worked the register at the cafeteria. When things got hectic at lunch, people would put down a buck for a ninety-cent item and leave without their change. Bob didn't ring up the sale. Instead, he pocketed the dollar.
'The other way he pilfered cash was by adding lunch items in his head. He was a mental calculator. He'd always give the customer the correct total - tax and all. He wouldn't ring up those sales, either. He'd keep the money, and make change from his pocket. And he was clever about it. He rang up just enough sales to make it look like there was activity. Still, he'd pull fifty, sixty bucks a day. Five days a week. You figure it out'
'He must have carried around a lot of pocket change.'
'Nah. Whenever he needed change, he' d feed the register a twenty, and take the change from the drawer. Everything always balanced. Finally, a disgruntled girlfriend finked on him.' She shook her head. 'He always had this way of getting people to do his dirty work.'
'Yourself included?' Webster asked.
'Not stealing, but he talked me into drugs. We tripped together. I was lonely and we both missed my father.' She paused in thought. 'Actually, Bob possessed lots of my dad's lesser qualities - egotistical, grandiose, paranoid, sharp-tongued, glib-'
'A pathological liar?'
'Well, there was a psychopathic quality to him - the substance abuse, the stealing, the lying, the feeling that people were out to get him. Which was only reinforced when they did catch him stealing. Putting
others down to bolster his own ego. Yeah, you did well in linear algebra, but grinds are usually good at the easy stuff. Wait till you hit number theory or group and ring theory.'
She shook her head.
'You know, sexually, he wasn't good. But he always managed to make me feel like I should feel grateful. He was so full of himself. Still, I'll say this much for him. He was one of the few guys who never made fun of me or my father's wacky ideas.'
'The time machine,' Martinez said.
Faye Kellerman - Decker 11 - Jupiter's Bones Page 27