The Burial Place

by Larry Enmon

  Frank tucked the report back into the folder. Oh, yeah. This one will be a charm to interview.

  * * *

  Katrina’s depression deepened with each passing hour. Annabelle was dead. There would be no ransom demands for her. These nuts didn’t care about money. They had a religious agenda. Once they were through with her, she’d be discarded like yesterday’s garbage.

  “Katrina!” Sister Ruth’s shrill voice screamed. “Bring that mop and bucket in here. You missed a spot.”

  Katrina reached for the bucket and glimpsed the calendar on the kitchen wall. April thirtieth. Her birthday. She was twenty years old. She paused and gave silent thanks.

  “Katrina! Did you hear me? Get in here, now!”

  Katrina hated that rotten bitch.

  25

  The next morning, Frank dozed in the passenger seat as Rob drove to Rusk. Rob hated when Frank slept, especially on long drives. They’d left Dallas at eight o’clock and had just passed through Athens—a little over halfway there. Frank didn’t mean to be rude, but being in a moving vehicle made him drowsy, a tendency that had probably started when he was a baby.

  Frank napped peacefully, arms folded, knees against the dash, head cocked to the side by the window. An eighteen-wheeler topped the hill about two hundred yards out, going in the opposite direction. Rob put both hands on the wheel at the ten and two positions and steadied his nerves. When the eighteen-wheeler was about a hundred yards away, Rob eased his left wheels across the white stripes. The truck was now only fifty yards out. Rob waited for the truck driver to make the next move. Sure enough, the truck blared its loud horn. Simultaneously, Rob cried out as if he were being crucified and jerked the car back into his lane as the roar of the rushing truck blew past.

  Frank jumped two feet off the seat and screamed like an eight-year-old girl. His sunglasses flew off and his eyes were as big as melons. He slapped his hand against his chest as if he were checking to see if his heart still beat. He jerked his head toward Rob. His mouth gaped, but he appeared unable to formulate words.

  Rob wasn’t sure he could keep a straight face, but if he didn’t play it to the end, Frank would sleep again on the next trip. “Sorry, I don’t know … I mean, I was looking at the road and there wasn’t anyone in sight. Then the horn blew and a truck just appeared in my lane,” Rob stammered. “I must have dropped off.”

  “Must have dropped off? You can’t just drop off—you’re driving,” Frank screamed. He had an incredulous expression, as if he’d just learned that Bigfoot was real.

  Rob threw up his hands. “Hey, I’m sorry. But with no one to talk to, I get sleepy sometimes.”

  Frank still clasped his chest, but he had stopped taking deep, panicked breaths. He sipped his bottle of water, and they drove in silence for a few minutes.

  “Talked to Roger Wells last night,” Frank said.

  “Roger Wells? I know that name.”

  Frank slid down in the seat and propped his knees on the dash while adjusting his sunglasses. “Used to work Burglary and Theft. Resigned a couple of years ago.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember. Nice guy,” Rob said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why were you talking to him?” Rob asked.

  “He works corporate security for Bank of America.”

  Rob’s stomach tightened. “So how’s he doing?”

  “Good. Making a lot more money … better hours, company car, expense account.”

  Rob didn’t say anything. He already knew why Frank had made the call.

  After a minute, Frank said, “I asked him about life on the outside—you know—what it was like. We talked for a while, and he asked when I was thinking about pulling the plug. I told him probably by the summer.”

  The world dropped out from under Rob. He took a slow, deep breath but didn’t want to show surprise. “Wow, that soon, huh?”

  Frank cut a sideways look at him. “If I don’t have a future here, why stay? Better to leave now.”

  This was all happening faster than Rob liked. He’d expected Frank would drag his feet about resigning and probably talk himself out of it in the end. But he was serious and already making contacts. “Summer, huh. Gee, that’s right around the corner,” Rob mumbled.

  “Roger said they had a VP job in security opening up in Charlotte. He’d put in a word for me if I wanted.”

  Rob’s skin tingled and he dreaded to ask, but did. “What did you tell him?”

  Frank stared at the road for a couple of seconds before answering. “I told him to do it.”

  “That’s great.” Rob’s tone didn’t mask his disappointment.

  Frank muttered, “Yeah, great.”

  * * *

  At exactly 10:30 AM, Rob and Frank rolled up to the gate of the Skyview Unit. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison nudged up against another: the Hodge Unit. Texas liked to keep its rotten apples in a tight cluster. Skyview, a fifty-eight-acre cogender facility, had opened in 1988 and held only psychiatric inmates. Frank had been instructed to enter through the rear gate and check in at the visitor’s center.

  As Rob pulled up at the intercom box outside the ten-foot chain-link fence topped with double razor wire, Frank said, “Let’s make this quick. I hate these places.”

  Rob agreed. All prisons gave him the willies, but this place was especially creepy. Just knowing about the sick minds that dwelled within these walls caused goosebumps the size of blueberries. Rob pushed the button on the box. Several guards with shotguns strolled behind the fence, keeping their gaze on the car.

  “State your business,” a voice said.

  Rob leaned out the window. “Detectives Soliz and Pierce to see Deputy Warden Hightower.”

  There was no answer. Rob looked at Frank and he shrugged.

  After a minute, the voice asked, “Are you armed?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have to check your weapons at the visitor’s center. Stand by.”

  A small pedestrian gate opened and a guard carrying a shotgun strolled toward them. Two other guards meandered around the catwalk on the fifty-foot tower beside the gate, also dressed in gray and carrying shotguns. They watched with increased curiosity as the corrections officer approached Rob’s car.

  “Morning,” the sergeant said. “Identification, please.” The man looked middle-aged but could have been younger. Rob had always noticed that places like these aged people faster than nature.

  They handed over their credentials.

  The sergeant studied them briefly and pointed. “Drive through the gate, and they’ll direct you.” He waved to the guys on the catwalk, and they nodded. The metal gates slid open and an armed guard waved them inside.

  After checking their weapons, Rob and Frank followed the sergeant outside to the administrative wing, passing inmates in white shirts and pants. The prisoners stopped weeding the flower bed and gawked at Rob and Frank. A tall black prisoner swept the sidewalk with a cavalier motion. His lazy swipes with the broom left as much dirt and grass as he swept off. He smiled as if someone had just told him a joke that wasn’t all that funny. The man stopped sweeping and stood motionless. He didn’t look at them but whispered something to the handle of the broom. When he turned, only a dark hole outlined where his right eye should be. The other eye was a dull, lifeless gray.

  The sergeant pointed at him. “Benny, either put it back in, or wear the patch, or the sunglasses. Okay?”

  A scary grin crept over the man’s face. He mumbled something else to the broom and slipped on the sunglasses.

  “Don’t mind him,” the sergeant said. “Old Benny is harmless.”

  “What’s he in for?” Rob asked.

  “A few years ago, voices told him his infant daughter was possessed,” the sergeant said. “That if she wasn’t sacrificed, she could never enter the kingdom of God. Benny waited for his wife to fall asleep, slipped the baby from her crib, and laid her on a meat chopping block. After he finished and saw what he’d done, he must have had a f
lash of sanity, because he ripped out his eye and ran from the apartment screaming. Likes to carry his glass eye in his pocket.”

  Rob glanced at Frank to get his reaction, but his partner stared straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with the inmate as though not acknowledging the guy would mean he wasn’t really there. Rob couldn’t blame him. He’d developed a pretty thick callus over the years to what human beings did to each other, but this place held the worst of the worst.

  The sergeant unlocked a door on the next building, and they filed in. He relocked it and led the way to the office at the end of the hall. The place had a hospital smell, sparkling tile floors, and cinder block walls painted bright white. The sergeant knocked on a door and a voice said, “Come in.”

  Rob and Frank sauntered into a small office with institutional furniture, and a man greeted them.

  “Good morning. I’m Deputy Warden Tim Hightower.” He was a football-coach-looking guy, short, with a salt-and-pepper flattop and welcoming smile.

  Another man sitting on a sofa against a wall also stood. He extended his hand. “I’m Doctor Poe, the unit psychiatrist.” He wore a suit, whereas Hightower had on only an open-collar shirt and dress pants. Dr. Poe could have been Steven Spielberg’s twin, except he stood a head taller.

  After introductions, Hightower reviewed Marshall Woodard’s arrest and incarceration history. He showed them a photo of the Wormwood tattoo on the inmate’s back. It matched the one on Eddie Jones.

  Hightower dropped the file on his desk and sighed. “He goes crazy if anyone steps on his shadow, refuses to have anything to do with the other inmates, and is very manipulative. I have to ask, does your interview concern any charges he’s currently serving time for?”

  “No,” Frank said.

  “Does your interview concern additional charges that might be brought against him at a later date?”

  “No.”

  Hightower rocked back in the chair and interlaced his fingers on a bulging stomach. “In that case, I’ll turn it over to Dr. Poe for his observations.”

  Poe cleared his throat and relaxed on the couch, crossing his legs. “Mr. Woodard is one of the most interesting patients I’ve ever encountered. While I object to the use of the word crazy, he does make crazy seem normal.” Poe chuckled at his joke. “He maintains an illusion about a living deity. He refers to him as the Prophet. According to Woodard, this prophet was sent to earth by God to warn the true believers of the Savior’s return.” A trace of a grin cracked the corners of Poe’s lips. “And only those ordained by the Prophet will survive the biblical end-of-days event predicted in Revelation.”

  Poe shifted on the sofa and rubbed his knee. His voice dropped a little. “We’ve diagnosed him as bipolar with a severe persecution disorder. He can be lucid one minute and irrational and violent the next. Probably caught him in the nick of time. He’s only murdered two people we know of. If left untreated, he has the makings of a serial killer.”

  Rob raised his eyebrows. “Serial killer?”

  Poe cleared his throat again. “Yes, grew up lonely and isolated. Psychologically and sexually abused by his father and has admitted to acting out sexual fantasies on animals as an adolescent. Prefers autoerotic activities. Unable to maintain any kind of normal relationship.”

  Rob stopped taking notes. “Any hope for someone like that?”

  Poe’s brow furrowed. “We’ve tried all the standard psychotropic drugs and counseling. But until he lets go of the fantasy, we can’t move forward in the treatment.”

  Rob wrote a mile a minute in his notebook and flipped the page to a new sheet. Frank hadn’t asked one question. His face had a blank expression. Rob wondered if he was thinking about the case or about the VP job in Charlotte.

  Rob turned his attention back to Poe. “This deity that he talks about … does he have a name?”

  Dr. Poe shifted again and leaned an elbow on the armrest. “He refers to him as Brother John,” Poe chuckled, “but also calls him—”

  “Wormwood,” Frank said.

  Poe sucked a sharp breath between his teeth. “How in the world could you know that?”

  Frank stood. “Because it’s not just a fantasy.”

  * * *

  Dr. Poe led Frank and Rob into an interview room in the maximum-security unit of the prison. After Frank’s disclosure, Poe had practically begged to join them in the interview. Neither saw any harm, so they agreed. Poe was chatty on the way, wanting to know everything about the man called Wormwood. Rob kept his explanation short. The doc probably had only a clinical interest, but Rob wouldn’t be forthcoming about a case still under investigation.

  The sparsely furnished room had all the charm of a holding cell at Dachau. Bars and wire outside the windows. A table bolted to the floor. Three straight-backed chairs with well-worn green leather seats. Frank squirmed and kept folding his hands in his lap as if he were resisting a severe case of the heebie-jeebies. When the guard led Woodard in, Frank stood, and Rob could have sworn he saw Frank’s shoulders instantly relax and the wrinkles in his forehead disappear. His partner was in his element now—the inquisitor.

  “Hello, Marshall,” Dr. Poe said. “Please, have a seat.” Poe pointed to the opposite side of the table.

  Marshall Woodard could be described in one word: wiry. He was no more than five five, and his intelligent and suspicious eyes scanned everyone, seeming to immediately assess the situation. He wore shackles on his ankles and wrists, attached to chains around his waist. Although an old stain marred his left sleeve, his white shirt and pants were clean and well pressed.

  He shuffled to the desk with a smile that said, “I’m ready—let’s go.” The guard unlatched a cuff and ran it through a metal eyelet on the table before locking it in place. Poe, leaning against the wall as far as possible from Woodard, motioned for the guard to leave. Rob and Frank sat across the table from the inmate. Woodard nodded his head, as if he agreed with something someone had just said. His mysterious smile didn’t disappear until Dr. Poe spoke.

  “Marshall, these men are with the police.”

  Woodward gazed blankly at Rob and Frank. The hair on the back of Rob’s neck rose. He had no idea what was going on in that head, but there was a big part of him that didn’t want to know.

  Poe crossed his arms and casually asked, “They’d like to ask you a few questions. Do you feel like talking today?”

  The prisoner glared at Poe. Woodard tried pointing at the doctor, but the handcuff prevented it. In a sulky voice, the inmate said, “They took away my Bible again.”

  Poe flashed a defensive grin at Rob and Frank. “Sometimes Marshall gets a little worked up when he reads the Bible too often. Don’t you, Marshall?”

  Woodard shot a stare at Poe. “Screw you. You’ve damned my soul by cutting my hair and beard and keeping me in this den of sin. What’s my crime? The least you could do is allow me one last chance at salvation. Now I’m as cursed as the rest of you.”

  Poe stepped a little farther away but maintained eye contact. “Marshall, your salvation has nothing to do with your hair and beard. And you are perfectly aware of your crime.”

  Rob kept as far away from Woodard as he could while still being able to use the table for note taking. Woodard didn’t appear to notice.

  “Marshall,” Frank said.

  The man’s gaze drifted away from Poe. He blinked a couple of times, as if he were having trouble focusing.

  “I’d like to know more about your salvation,” Frank said, “about why cutting your hair and beard is damning your soul. Will you tell me?” Frank leaned forward, his forearms on the metal table.

  A Cheshire Cat smile crossed Woodard’s lips. “Sure,” he said.

  Frank sat on the edge of his chair and locked eyes with Woodard.

  Marshall scanned Frank’s face, then Rob’s. “Because the Prophet said that only he with uncut hair could enter into the saving grace of the Father,” Woodard quoted.

  A cold tingle raced up Rob’s back. Echoes of
Eddie Jones.

  Speaking in a soft voice, Frank asked, “Why’s that?”

  Marshall blinked a couple more times. “Because the Prophet said it. Don’t you see? He’s the mouthpiece of God here on earth. He rose to meet the Father and was sent back to earth to deliver His message.” Woodard relaxed in the chair with a peaceful expression.

  “Yes,” Frank said. “I understand now. Tell me more. I want to know.”

  Woodard squinted and moved closer, rolling his head toward Poe, and said, “He thinks I’m crazy, but we’ll see who’s crazy when the third angel sounds its trumpet.”

  Frank nodded in agreement. “That will herald the rise of Wormwood.”

  Woodard’s eyes brightened. “You know your scripture. You a true believer?”

  “I want to be,” Frank said.

  “I am.” Marshall edged even closer and dropped his voice to a whisper. “You know I only sleep two hours a night.” He giggled and swatted away some imaginary insect from the side of his face. “I spend the rest of the time praying.”

  Frank leaned in so there were only inches between their faces. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, and I tell you something else,” Woodard said. “God opens his salvation to everyone—even women—but they can’t be harlots and whores. They must remain pure. Can’t expose their skin, stop painting their faces, and can’t cut their hair. They can’t even wear undergarments … except, you know, on their private areas, down there.” Woodard’s eyes lowered to his crotch.

  “Yes, I see what you mean,” Frank admitted. “But I want to know more about Wormwood’s teachings. Or should I just call him Brother John?”

  Woodward giggled and winked. “Don’t matter none. One and the same.” He grinned. “I’ll tell you a secret not even Dr. Poe knows.” Woodard glanced at Poe, who was still leaning against the wall. “You can’t kill the Prophet,” Woodard whispered.

  “Really?” Frank asked.