He smiled at the Director’s paraphrased scripture. The Director was not known for his Biblical erudition. Bishop Prince wondered if the man ever cracked open the book at all.
“God can speak through the most unlikely mouths, I see,” Bishop Prince said.
The Director shrugged, offered a rare smile.
The motorcade arrived at the tall wrought-iron gates of his mansion. The agents at the guard booth waved them through, and the vehicles entered the long, wide, curving driveway.
“Do you wish for me to remain on the premises, sir?” the Director asked.
“That won’t be necessary. Contact me with any updates you receive.”
Bishop Prince glanced at his Piaget watch. The Swiss timepiece featured an eighteen-carat white gold case and bracelet set with baguette and trapeze-cut diamonds, a dial with trapeze and brilliant-cut diamonds, and a winding crown set with round brilliants. Priced at over a quarter of a million dollars, the watch had been a present from a European financier who wanted Bishop Prince to guarantee that his soul would be conveyed to heaven after his death—a destination the bishop had assured him was his upon receiving the gift. He who gives greatly to the man of God shall receive greatly from God, too.
It was eleven o’clock.
He just remembered: he had a date with an angel.
62
“An anagram,” Anthony said. “You mean a word that, if you switch the letters around, can form another word, right?”
“Exactly. A single word, a phrase—any of them can be used to create an anagram.”
He slid his chair beside hers and studied the small letters arrayed on the table.
E L E L M R W O A Y K R
“Each letter comes from the name ‘Kelley Marrow,’ ” she said. “We’ve found out that this Bible never actually belonged to the girl, so Bob must’ve meant to use her name as a code to shed light on these highlighted scriptures.”
“Do we have to use all of the letters?”
“That’s usually how it works. You have to use every letter in the original word or phrase, and you can use the letter only once in the new word. For example, ‘parental’ and ‘paternal’ is an anagram. So is ‘eleven plus two’ and ‘twelve plus one.’ ”
“Now I know why I asked you to handle this stuff.”
“Come on, you ought to be better at this than I am, baby. You’re the writer. Words are your stock in trade.”
“Stories are my stock in trade. The words are only a method to communicate my meaning.”
“Just like Bob’s anagram.”
She began to move the squares around the table. He picked up the Bible and paged through it.
There were hundreds of verses highlighted in several colors. Which, when strung together sequentially, made no coherent sense, as they’d learned from their tedious efforts to transcribe some of them last night.
Think, dammit. What is Bob trying to tell us?
He swung the laptop toward him and powered it on. Lisa ignored him; she was submerged in concentration, hands flying as she arranged and re-arranged letters.
He restored the Internet connection. On Google, he entered the search term: anagram.
Over a million results popped up. He selected a site that featured something called an anagram server.
He skimmed the Web site. The anagram server would create an anagram from the word of your choice, or assist in decoding one, for free.
In the Decode field, he typed: KELLEY MARROW.
Within a few seconds, the server returned a list of thirty-seven possible results. He read the list.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
“What is it?” Lisa asked. She looked up. She was grinning.
“I think we’ve got our answer. What’re you smiling about?”
“Why don’t we compare?”
He read the letters she had configured. Her solution was the same answer the anagram server had placed at the top of the list.
YELLOW MARKER
“That’s the one I found online,” he said. “I used an anagram generator Web site.”
“I used this.” She tapped her head. “Good old-fashioned brain power. No computer can compare.”
“I think it was Einstein who said that he didn’t know the answer for everything, he just knew where to go to find it.” He opened the Bible and sped through the pages. “If I ever see Bob again, I’m gonna give him a gold medal for cleverness. Marking up all these passages in different colors, making it look like some studious teenager’s Bible—that was a stroke of genius.”
“What’s the first verse highlighted in yellow?” she asked.
“Just a minute.” He turned a page so frantically that he tore the corner.
He located the first passage outlined in yellow marker. It was Genesis 34:1-2. He read it aloud:
And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.
They had read the same verse last night, and it had meant nothing to him. But reviewing it this morning brought gooseflesh to his arms.
Lisa chewed her bottom lip. “I don’t get it. Do you?”
But he hardly heard Lisa—Susie Marrow’s words were whispering through his thoughts: After what happened to my baby? After what that terrible man who calls himself a prophet did to her?
He dug Bishop Prince’s book out of his satchel. He stared at that face. That disturbingly familiar face.
. . . he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.
And he realized, at last, the terrible truth.
Hands trembling, he fumbled out his cell phone.
“What is it?” Lisa asked. “Who’re you calling?”
“The one who can give us the answers we’ve been looking for,” he said. “My sister.”
63
On the fourth ring, Reuben answered the phone at the house in Decatur. Hip-hop boomed in the background.
“Reuben, it’s your Uncle Tony. Turn down that music, will you?”
“My bad.” The music’s volume dropped several decibels. “Wassup, Unc? I been working on that press release blaster thing for you since the crack of dawn, man. Be done soon, today prob’ly.”
Anthony had to concentrate for a moment to remember what the hell the kid was talking about. The press release blaster. The program he’d asked Reuben to create, to help promote his books. It was as if he’d the conversation about it with his nephew in a previous life.
“Thanks, Reuben. I appreciate it. Listen, is your mom around?”
“Nah. She spent the night with some dude. She got her celly with her, though.”
“She never answers when I call her cell.”
“Just keep blowing her phone up. I gotta do that sometimes to get her.”
“That’s what I’ll do then.”
“You got a new number or something, Unc? I never seen the number you’re calling from.”
“What’s your mom’s cell number?” he asked, ignoring the question. “I don’t have it memorized.”
Reuben gave him the number. Anthony scribbled the digits on a notepad.
“You all right, man?” Reuben asked. “You sound kinda uptight or something.”
“I can’t get into it right now.” A troubling thought occurred to him. “Hey, why don’t you go to a friend’s place for the rest of the day? Somewhere you can chill out.”
“Huh?”
“Reuben, I don’t have time to explain. Just do it.”
“But I’m working on this code, man. Can I stay another hour?”
“Fine, one more hour. Then go. And be careful. Call me at this number when you’re settled.”
He terminated the call and punched in Danielle’s number. After five rings, voice mail picked up. He hung up and called again, fingers drumming the table, Lisa watching him with a befuddled expression.
On the third attempt, Danielle finally answered
in a scratchy voice. “Who the hell keeps calling me?”
“It’s me, Tony. We’ve gotta talk. Right away, and in person. Where are you?”
“Boy, you done lost your goddamn mind? You having some kinda war flashback or what?”
“We’re coming to pick you up. Give me an address. Please, Danny, it’s important.”
She muttered something under her breath about his rudeness, but she gave him an address in Stone Mountain, which he jotted down.
“What’s this all about, anyway?” she asked. “You talkin’ crazy, Junior.”
“We’ll be there within an hour.” He hung up before she could ask more questions.
“Now, will you please tell me what’s going on?” Lisa asked.
“I’ll tell you on the way,” he said, gathering their things. “Let’s move out.”
64
Sitting in the SUV in the bowels of the Armory’s underground garage, re-reading Thorne’s file for perhaps the tenth time and wracking his brains for a strategy to apprehend the man, Cutty suddenly received an emergency notification from Genesis.
There was a possible hit on Thorne.
After they had lost Thorne and his harlot at the Midtown condominium, Cutty had directed Genesis to place wiretaps on the telephone lines of Thorne’s family and friends. At a quarter past eleven o’clock that morning, an unidentified cell phone had called the home in Decatur at which Thorne’s sister and nephew resided.
The mystery phone could have belonged to anyone. But he remembered that Thorne had ditched his cell in a restaurant trash bin in Duluth. Most likely, Thorne had purchased one of those pre-paid gadgets that didn’t require ID or credit authorization—and which would show up as “caller unknown” on a wiretap.
In a revelatory flash that could have only been divinely inspired, a plan instantly formed in his mind.
“The Lord and Prophet are my shepherds,” he whispered, reciting a variation on Psalm 23 that he’d learned during Kingdom Bible study. “They guide me on the path of righteousness for the sake of the Kingdom.”
He called Valdez. At the sound of her soft voice, a shiver trickled down his spine, and he thought of the Prophet’s promise. A man who finds a wife finds a good thing.
“I’ll collect you in five minutes,” he said. “We have a new mission, and the spirit has revealed to me the perfect means to fulfill it.”
65
In light, late-morning traffic that metro Atlanta enjoyed only on weekends, Lisa drove to the address in Stone Mountain, a forty-five minute trip from Kennesaw. Anthony sat in the passenger seat, the Bible open on his lap, and explained to her his theory about Bob’s intended message to them based on the verse in Genesis.
“God, I hope you’re wrong,” she said when he finished. “But it’s such an awful possibility it has to be right. It explains so much.”
“Including, maybe, why they killed my dad.” His gut was as tight as a drum; the prospect of learning the truth at last had virtually given him a stomach ache of anticipation. “It’s not going to be an easy conversation with Danny. But it’s long overdue.”
He also searched out the other scriptures marked in yellow. As he located each one, he folded back the top corner of the page, for quick reference afterward, and read the passage aloud to Lisa.
“After the verse in Genesis, the next one is from second Samuel, chapter four, verse seven,” he said. “It says, ‘For when they came into the house, he lay on his bed in his bedchamber, and they smote him, and slew him, and beheaded him, and took his head, and gat them away through the plain all night. ‘ “
“What the heck does that mean?” She glanced away from the road with a frown.
“Don’t know. But it’s damn violent. Like something I would’ve written.”
“We’ll have to chew on that one for a while.”
He licked his finger, flipped forward in the book. “The next one is from Nehemiah, ninth chapter, thirty-fifth verse. ‘ For they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them, neither turned they from their wicked works.’ “
“That reads like an accusation directed at New Kingdom,” she said. “They have great resources, but do wicked works.”
“Power corrupts,” he said. “According to what Bob told me, they’ve committed every crime under the sun.”
“Any more?” she asked.
“Let’s see.” He searched, found another passage. “Jeremiah, twenty-third chapter, fourteenth verse. ‘I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness; they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.’ “
“Sounds like a reference to Bishop Prince,” she said.
“The self-proclaimed prophet? Who walks in lies and encourages evildoers?”
“And commits adultery,” she said, with a disgusted grimace.
Thinking of the interpretation at which they’d arrived about the bishop, Anthony felt a little ill, too.
“Next is Micah, chapter two, verse one,” he said. “‘Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand.’ “
“Could be a generalized indictment of evil people,” she said.
“Very generalized. Too generalized for Bob to have included it, unless he wants us to interpret it some other way.”
“Let’s table that one for further consideration.” She slowed the car as they approached a traffic light. “Is this our turn?”
“Yeah, make a right,” he said, and lowered his head to the book again. He flipped through pages. “Okay, found another one. John, chapter eight, verse thirty-two. ‘And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ “
“When you find the truth, you’ll be free, baby,” she said. “You’ll be free of the weight you’ve carried on your shoulders all these years. You’ll have closure.”
“I want justice,” he said. “It’s not enough to simply know the truth. I have to do something about it.”
“We will,” she said. “Is that the last one? It sounded like a closing statement.”
“Hang on.” He riffled through more text. “Wait. Galatians, chapter four, verse sixteen. ‘Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?’ “
“I don’t understand that,” she said. “Bob is your enemy?”
“It’s the last verse marked in yellow.” He closed the Bible, clasped it in his lap. “I’ve gotta think on it.”
“That gives us three scriptures we’ll have to review later,” she said. “The rest are clear, relatively speaking.”
“The others we think are puzzling might actually be clear, too. Bob’s plan is too important—he couldn’t risk us drawing the wrong conclusions. I’m thinking we’ve got to take a step back and view the scriptures in the context of what we’ve learned. Much easier said than done, though.”
“He couldn’t have picked a better book for hiding a message, that’s for sure,” she said. “Show a Bible passage to ten different theologians and ask them what they think it means, and you’ll get ten different interpretations.”
“That’s why I hated Sunday school,” he said. “My take on things was usually different than the teacher’s, but they would say I was misinterpreting the text.”
“It’s not like math,” she said. “There are no definitive answers.”
“I sure could use a definitive answer right now. We think we know what the bishop has done, but we still don’t know where Bob has hidden all his damning evidence. Or if he really has any.”
“He does,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”
He looked up at the road. “Hey, our street’s coming up. Make a left.”
66
They turned onto a twisting road that wound through an olde
r neighborhood of split levels and ranches with big, sloping yards. Anthony indicated the house nearing on the left.
It was a brick ranch that had seen better days. Peeling white trim. Rain gutters clogged with leaves. A sheet of plywood covering one of the front windows like a pirate’s eye patch. Two old, rusty cars were parked in the muddy driveway, one of them sitting on cinder blocks, and random pieces of junk—old tires, hubcaps, and other assorted auto parts—littered the weed-choked lawn.
Danielle’s Ford Explorer was parked at the end of the driveway. Lisa inched in behind the vehicle.
“This boyfriend of hers must be a real winner,” she said. “This place reminds me of Sanford and Son.”
“Please, no smart-ass comments to her. She’s going to be pissed that you’re here at all.”
“I promise to keep my mouth shut.”
He reached over Lisa and tapped the horn three times.
“If she’s high like usual, she won’t bother to come to the door,” Lisa said.
“She’s expecting me.”
Lisa looked doubtful. After about five minutes and several more honks, Danielle still hadn’t come out.
“She must be puffing on some good stuff,” Lisa said.
“I’ll be back.” Grabbing the bishop’s book, Anthony got out of the car and approached the house, weaving around the discarded auto parts.
The door bell was broken. He rapped on the scarred front door with his fist.
“Danielle! It’s your brother! Open up!”
Another minute passed, and the door finally opened. Danielle stood on the threshold, blinking sleepily and rubbing her puffy eyes.
Anthony’s physical features were a balanced blend of traits he’d inherited from his mom and dad, but Danielle had taken almost entirely after their father. She had his mocha complexion, thick eyebrows, penny-brown eyes, high cheekbones. She was slim like Dad, too, and stood only a couple inches shorter than their father’s five-ten.
She wore her normal everyday gear of long, wrinkled t-shirt, and faded loose-fitting jeans. Her dry hair was tied up in a blue scarf.
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