He read the promo piece again and recalled the uniformed crew in the van parked on the ridge where Adam had died. Smelled like a cult.
An impression borne out by another link Mack had included: to an article from The San Francisco Daily Times. The story was about cults preying on the vulnerable for money or sex, or simply because the leader was hungry for the power that comes from adulation and obedience.
The piece was long, and the author dissected a number of cults. There was a mention of the Osiris Foundation, though a very brief one.
Some organizations appear to be cults, as they have charismatic leaders, demand absolute loyalty, teach spiritual or emotional advancement and require significant financial commitment. However, they are so shrouded in secrecy that it is impossible to say exactly what they are: predatory cults taking advantage of the vulnerable and gullible, or legitimate self-actualization groups. Among these are WayForward and the Thompson Program, both of which are in California, and the Osiris Foundation, in Washington State.
Shaw decided to call the article’s author, Gary Yang, and see if he could tell him more about the Foundation. But when he scrolled to the next page of Mack’s email he read:
Note that Yang was killed in a robbery outside his town house in the Mission District of San Francisco.
The death had occurred one week after the article had appeared.
Never accept coincidence at face value.
Shaw put a connection between the reporter’s death and the article at forty percent, high enough that he felt it was worth looking into.
He went online and called up news stories about the crime. Yang’s killer was Harvey Edwards. He’d shot Yang after demanding his wallet. Then he fled. He was subsequently shot to death by police. A day laborer at the time of the robbery, Edwards had a troubled past, including criminal convictions for assault, burglary and drug possession.
On the surface, the murder seemed to be a typical mugging gone bad. Shaw wasn’t convinced. Why shoot someone who’d cooperated and handed over his cash? He did some more searching. He found next to nothing about Edwards, only several social media photos from years ago. The killer wasn’t what Shaw had expected. Not a sullen or shifty visage, not a glare of suspicion and anger. He was good-looking, athletic, cheerful of expression. The images were of him on a beach somewhere, squinting into the sun, smiling. An attractive blonde sat beside him.
Shaw was about to log off when he froze.
In the photo Harvey Edwards was wearing a necklace. It was a thin black cord, and from it dangled a piece of jewelry: a purple infinity symbol.
The logo of the Osiris Foundation.
16.
Tom.”
Shaw was sitting at the banquette of the Winnebago, speaking to his friend, the former FBI agent Tom Pepper.
The man asked, “We still climbing Two Wolves Face? Weather permitting.”
“Weather? Don’t you worry,” Shaw replied. “I’ll hold the umbrella for you”
“Haw.”
The three-hundred-foot cliff, in the Sierra Nevada chain, had been on their free-climb to-do list for some time, and they’d planned it for August.
Shaw said, “Need the name of another detective.”
“Tacoma?”
“No. This one’s in San Francisco.”
“Hmm. Lot of homicides out there. Lot of detectives. You know, Colt, you’d think, being so pretty, the Bay, the bridges, Ghirardelli Square, all those old hippies singing Jerry Garcia, nobody’d want to tap anybody.”
Shaw explained about the journalist.
Pepper grunted. “Now, that pisses me off. Free press has to stay free. And alive.”
“I need the lead detective.”
“Give me five.”
Shaw brewed a cup of coffee. He made the beverage as he always did: the old-fashioned way, boiled water poured through a filter. Capsules were not his favored technique; convenience always comes at a price. He added some milk. One sip, two. Pepper called back with a name and number. Shaw wrote it down, thanked his friend. A third sip, then he punched the number into his phone.
“Detective Etoile.” A rich, vibrating baritone. Shaw imagined that that voice could shake confessions out of suspects within a dozen words.
“This is Colter Shaw.”
“Oh, Mr. Shaw. Yes, your associate, Tom Pepper, just called.”
Associate. Somewhat true. Shaw let it stand.
“This’s about the Gary Yang murder?”
“That’s right.”
“Mr. Pepper said you’re a private investigator.”
This too was close enough. Shaw said nothing about his reward-seeking work.
“Detective, can I ask how the murder happened?”
“It was pretty straightforward. Plenty of witnesses. The victim was approached outside his townhome, robbed and shot. The suspect fled. Responding officers cornered him in a convenience store. He didn’t surrender. There was a firefight. He was killed. No one else was injured.”
“Edwards had no history of violent crime?”
“No history of arrests or convictions for violent crime,” Etoile corrected.
“I’ve found out that Yang had written an article about cults. One of the groups he mentioned was the Osiris Foundation in Washington State. I think Harvey Edwards was involved with it.”
Etoile was silent for a moment. “The implications being that (a) the robbery was a cover-up for a hit and (b) others might have been involved.”
“Did you find anything in the investigation about the Foundation? Literature? Anything with an infinity sign on it?”
“Like the number eight on its side?”
“That’s right. It’s their logo.”
“Nothing I recall. But we didn’t toss . . . we didn’t search Edwards’s place much. No need. You heard the facts. Homicides don’t get any more open-and-shut than that. You’re probably interested to know if we looked at the new stories that Yang was working on, for possible motives.”
Shaw said, “And the fact you raised the point tells me no, you didn’t.”
“Correct. Like I said, open-and-shut. What is this group, Osiris Foundation? Like the Manson Family?”
“Doesn’t seem to be. Talks about self-help. That kind of thing.”
“And what exactly is your interest, Mr. Shaw?”
“One of the followers of this outfit killed himself. Adam Harper. Tacoma Public Safety has the details. And I saw another follower, a woman, I didn’t like the way she was being treated.”
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t know.”
Silence in response to this too.
“I just want to make sure nobody else connected with this outfit gets hurt.”
“You clearly have some law enforcement experience, sounds like, so you know once a case’s closed, brass treat it like used chewing gum.”
“I’m sure.”
“I’ll ask some questions. Give me your contact information.”
Shaw did so and thanked him.
They disconnected the call.
More coffee. He looked up a third website that Mack had sent. There was a “Contact Me” email address at the bottom of the page. Shaw composed a brief note and sent it off. He wondered if he’d hear back.
Three minutes later, he did.
17.
Osiris Foundation? Not one I’m familiar with.” The person looking back at Shaw, via Skype, was a handsome businesswoman sort, with trim hair, a dress blouse and gold chain around her neck. Middle age. “And, frankly, I’m familiar with most of them.”
Anne DeStefano was among the top cult experts in the country. A doctor in psychology, she advised law enforcement about such organizations, testified as an expert in trials, and deprogrammed—“de-brainwashed,” as she put it—followers who’d escaped from cults and other o
ppressive organizations and individuals.
“What does this Foundation do?” DeStefano was in her Los Angeles office. Shaw could see a half-dozen certificates from various institutions and schools on the wall behind her.
“You have another computer?” Shaw asked.
“Yes, a desktop.” She glanced to her left. “You sending me an email?”
“No. There’s a website.”
“I’ll just Google it.”
“They scrub their name from search engines and social networking sites.”
DeStefano lifted an eyebrow. “That’s a technique you see with some of the more troublesome cults. What’s the URL?”
Shaw recited it and DeStefano turned away, typing on the other keyboard.
Eyes to the left, she read the Foundation’s homepage. “Hmm. Hard to say from this. Most true cults want you and your loyalty for life. A three-week session? More like a dude ranch or yoga camp. Have some fun in the country, listen to lectures, sit around a campfire and sing ‘Kumbaya.’ At worst, you’ve wasted some time and money. But then there’s ‘Osiris’—the Egyptian theme. That’s a bit occult. And Master Eli. A lot of the more culty leaders give themselves titles like that. You know anything about him?”
“Not much. His data’s scrubbed too. Was a businessman a few years ago, then gave it up to run the Foundation. I saw some of his followers. They were all wearing matching clothes.”
“Then it’s not your typical self-help outfit. But that doesn’t mean it’s a cult.”
“What exactly is a cult?” Shaw asked.
DeStefano chuckled. “Somebody once said a cult is a religious or a social movement that you don’t happen to like.”
Shaw smiled.
“Well, what’s a cult and what isn’t?” she mused. “For me, it’s like that Supreme Court justice who said he wasn’t going to try to define porn but he knew it when he saw it. People with common interests and goals get together every day. You could say a sports team with a mesmerizing coach is a cult. You could say the Catholic Church is a cult. The Shriners, the Lions Club, the Masons. Me? I define a cult as a group that presents a potential physical or mental danger to the members or those outside.
“I borrow my test from a book by Margaret Singer and Janja Lalich, Cults in Our Midst. For them, a cult, one, controls the environment of the followers; two, has a system of rewards and punishments; three, creates a sense of powerlessness among the followers; four, uses fear for control; five, promotes dependency on the leader or cult; and, six, has a mission to reform followers’ behaviors.
“There’s another element too: nearly every cult is headed by a single controlling leader. He—it’s usually a man—has a consuming ego, attacks his enemies, lashes out in anger, has an absolute belief that he’s correct, won’t listen to advice or criticism, is paranoid and craves worship and adulation.”
DeStefano’s eyes cut left to the second computer. “This Osiris Foundation?” She shrugged. “Can’t really say without more information. It seems to fall into the category of a personal improvement and transformational cult—the least harmful. Usually the followers are people who’re sick of their jobs or can’t find satisfactory romance. The leaders’ll use hypnosis, meditation, dream study and encounter sessions to change your outlook on life. The lack of a social media presence is troubling, though. Are they hiding anything?”
“You mentioned categories of cults. What would those be?”
DeStefano stretched back. “The majority are religious, drawing on traditional sects, hybrids or made up out of whole cloth. Then the political ones—we can thank 8chan and the internet for most of those. There are business-oriented cults that suck in members for get-rich-quick schemes. Then the really bad ones: racist, like the KKK or Aryan Nations. Militant separatists. White supremacists. Psychopathological cults—Charles Manson, for instance. Black magic. Satan worship, animal and human sacrifice. There are more of these than you’d think.”
The deprogrammer leaned forward and eyed Shaw. “Can I ask why you’re interested?”
He told DeStefano about the murder of the journalist Gary Yang and the likelihood that the killer had been a member of the Foundation.
This drew a frown. “Yang wrote an exposé on it?”
“Not really. It was just one reference to the Foundation. But the piece suggested that the group might be a cult. Yang was killed a week after the article ran—by someone who probably had been a member.”
“So the killer either wanted to get revenge for what Yang wrote, or he was afraid that Yang might be planning to write more, maybe revealing some secrets.”
“I was thinking that.”
DeStefano thought for a moment. “There’s a phenomenon in all organizations called the isolated negative. Let’s take a benevolent group whose purpose is to help people, Transcendental Meditation, for instance. Something like that. The leader or teacher’s not on any power trips, truly wants to better people’s lives. There’s no abuse, the fees are reasonable, its programs are uplifting and positive and effective. No control. You meet every Tuesday night and go out for cocoa after.
“But the group exists to help people who, to a greater or lesser degree, are troubled—otherwise, they wouldn’t be there in the first place. Right? That means the membership contains a higher percentage of individuals more likely to act out, sometimes violently. That goes against the entire purpose of the cult but they don’t care. Those individuals are ‘isolated negatives.’ I’ve seen them in completely harmless organizations. They’re fine . . . until they snap and assault and sometimes kill fellow followers or outsiders.”
“There was another death involving a member. He killed himself.”
Her brow furrowed at this news. “Do you know why?”
“History of depression. Lost his mother recently. He was about to be arrested, though I think the charges would have been dropped. He should’ve known that. Still, he took his own life.”
“Some cults—especially the transformational ones like this Osiris outfit seems to be—can be tough on the unstable. Encounter sessions can amount to institutionalized bullying.”
That word resonated. He explained about the treatment of the brunette by the driver of the van.
The woman was silent for a moment. “Mr. Shaw, I get your concern. But, my two cents: there’s something that happens when people fall under someone’s spell. Jim Jones convinced over nine hundred followers in his Peoples Temple to murder hundreds of children and then kill themselves with poisoned fruit punch—not Kool-Aid by the way, another brand. Up until 9/11, it was the largest civilian loss of American life in a single non-natural event.
“Charles Manson told four of his followers to slaughter complete strangers in the most gruesome way they could and they didn’t blink twice before doing just what he asked. David Koresh, founder of the Branch Davidians, convinced his followers to battle it out with the FBI. Seventy-five people died. Warren Jeffs was the head of a fundamentalist Mormon cult. They believed in polygamy and marrying children as young as twelve. He had eighty-seven wives. He’s now in jail for life.
“Cults brainwash. There’s another name for brainwashing: menticide. Murder of the mind and the personality.” A wave at the offstage computer to her left. “This Process that the Osiris Foundation talks about might’ve turned its members violent or even homicidal. Even if it’s beneficial on its face, it could still be home to dangerous isolated negatives.
“I haven’t even touched on the hundreds of anti-cult organizations out there. They attack cults, the cults attack back. And cults fight one another, competing cults. It’s a running battle, often physically dangerous.
“So, Mr. Shaw, the situation is filled with risk.” DeStefano lifted her hands. “My advice is this: if you don’t have a personal stake, just stay away. I mean it. Far away.”
TWO:
THE BEST IS YET TO COME
> 18.
June 15
Colter Shaw was driving the pickup truck along a gravel drive, past a modest sign, purple type on a white background:
∞
THE OSIRIS FOUNDATION
Shaw continued toward the main entrance, through a narrow gap in a rock formation that was fifty feet high. It reminded him of a scene in a series he’d read and reread as a boy: The Lord of the Rings. The image that had come to mind was the forbidding entrance to some ancient kingdom. Shaw noted that a rockslide here—at the hand of nature or man—would effectively block the only way into and out of the Foundation by vehicle. He had pored over maps of the area; no other roads, not even old logging trails, serviced the Foundation’s camp.
Once through the rock wall he saw ahead of him a six-foot-high chain-link fence. He drove to the guardhouse beside the motorized gate. The shack was about ten feet by ten feet. A chimney protruded, which told Shaw the gate was manned constantly, whatever the hour; evenings would be chilly in this mountain valley, even in the summer. He recalled that the Foundation camp was closed in the fall and winter. Harbinger Road would be impassable for much of the colder months.
A solidly built man in black slacks and an odd gray shirt—a tunic that reached to mid-thigh—stepped up to Shaw’s window. He wore the curly earbud of security people and TV talking heads, and a walkie-talkie rode on his hip. Out of instinct, Shaw scanned the uniform, if that’s what it was, but could see no outline of a weapon because of the loose cut of the cloth. On the man’s chest was a tag that read ASSISTANCE UNIT.
“Afternoon.” The man offered an easy smile.
“Hi,” Shaw said. “I have an appointment.”
“Name?”
The Goodbye Man Page 8