The Scientology Murders

by William Heffernan

  Walker was tall and thin with a hooked nose and protruding Adam’s apple. His brown hair was cut in a high and tight military buzz and Harry guessed it hadn’t been long since he’d started on patrol.

  “Fine with me,” Walker said. His brown eyes narrowed. “But the captain ain’t gonna like it, he finds out.”

  “You’re right,” Abrams said. “So we won’t bother him about it. Understood?” He waited for Walker to nod agreement. “Any problem comes up, I’ll take the heat.” Abrams gestured toward the man Walker had been interviewing. “Whatshisname, he give you anything new?”

  “His name’s Edward Tyrell,” Walker said. “He’s a stockbroker and his story’s pretty much what he told you. He had just brought his boat back in and was washing it down when he heard what sounded like two shots. So he goes to see what’s up and he spots Jocko in the water hanging onto a ladder. He hauls him out and calls 911. End of story.”

  “Okay, you go back to the car and write up your report. Harry wants to thank this guy for saving his dad. I’ll introduce him.”

  Harry grinned as he watched Walker head off. “Nice maneuver.”

  “Hey, what can I tell you? I only inherited the kid a week ago. Everything’s a learning experience for him. Today he learned when to mind his own fucking business.”

  * * *

  Edward Tyrell was a tall, trim, well-built man who clearly put in plenty of time at the gym. He had sandy brown hair, a straight nose, blue eyes that could only be described as vibrant, and very white, capped teeth. Vicky immediately dubbed him “the movie star” in her mind. Harry thought he looked too slick by half.

  “Mr. Tyrell, we met earlier,” Abrams began. “This is Detective Harry Doyle and his partner, Detective Vicky Stanopolis. The man you pulled out of the water, retired Sergeant Jocko Doyle, is Harry’s father.” He gave Tyrell a smile that lacked any warmth and Harry figured that Max didn’t cotton to the man either. “Harry’s got a couple of questions.”

  “Sure,” Tyrell said, flashing a broad, very white smile. “Anything I can do to help.”

  “First, I want to thank you for pulling him out. I don’t think he would have made it if you hadn’t.” Harry extended his hand.

  “Happy to help.” Tyrell took Harry’s hand, squeezing it harder than necessary.

  “So tell us how you happened on him.”

  Tyrell placed his hands on his hips and nodded down the dock. “I had just brought my boat in and was washing her down. She’s the fifty-three-foot Hatteras yacht three slips down. Well, I was on the other side of the boat so I didn’t see anything, but I did hear what sounded like two small explosions, sort of loud popping sounds. So I went to look. I thought some kids might be setting off fireworks and that’s not too cool to do around boats, what with all the fuel on board. But there’s no one there and as I’m walking back I hear this moaning and I look down and there’s this guy hanging off a ladder. So I hauled him up.”

  “Did he say anything to you?” Vicky asked.

  “He was out cold as soon as he hit the dock. That’s when I saw he was bleeding and called it in to 911.”

  “Could you show me exactly where he was?” Harry asked.

  Tyrell walked them to an empty slip where a finger dock jutted out into the water. A ladder ran down the side of the dock and now, at close to low tide, stopped just a foot above the water. At high tide the ladder would extend well into the water.

  “How deep is it here?” Harry asked.

  “At high tide it’s about eighteen feet,” Tyrell said. “At dead low you’re talking about twelve to fourteen—still plenty, even for a large-keeled sailboat. It’s a good marina for large boats.”

  “Have you heard anything about the Scientologists buying it?” Harry asked.

  A veil seemed to fall over Tyrell’s eyes, but he quickly pushed it away. “Not a word. If they do, I hope they let me keep my boat here.” He forced another broad smile. “Like I said, it’s a helluva marina for a big boat and great access to the gulf.”

  Harry walked to the edge of the slip Jocko had been pulled from and knelt, staring into the water. Almost a minute passed before he stood and turned back to Max Abrams.

  “You need to get some divers out here, Max.”

  “Divers?”

  “Yeah, and you need to do it now.”

  * * *

  An hour later the divers brought up the body of Mary Kate O’Connell. They placed her on the dock, her pale, colorless face and faded blue eyes staring blindly at the men who stood in a semicircle above her. Harry knelt down next to her and listened but the words that came to him were garbled. He thought she looked grateful to finally be out of the water.

  * * *

  Harry Santos had died when he was ten years old, murdered by his mentally disturbed mother. He and his six-year-old brother, Jimmy, were drugged; then dragged into the garage of their home and left there with the engine running in the family car while their mother went off to her church. An alert neighbor heard the car and called the police. Two Tampa patrol cops broke into the garage and dragged the boys outside. Neither had a heartbeat and neither was breathing. CPR eventually brought Harry back, but it was too late for Jimmy, who was younger and smaller. When Harry’s mother was sent to prison, he was placed in foster care with Jocko Doyle, a Clearwater police sergeant, and his Cuban-born wife, Maria. The couple adopted him a year later.

  After graduating from the University of South Florida, Harry Santos Doyle joined the Pinellas County sheriff’s office. Five years later, when he was promoted to homicide detective, the story of his boyhood death came out. Cops being cops, they quickly dubbed him “the dead detective,” a moniker that took on an eerie connotation when they later learned that the dead seemed to speak to him.

  Chapter Two

  The room was lit by a solitary desk lamp which allowed the man seated behind the desk to lean back in his heavy executive chair and keep his face in shadow. It pleased him to do this, because he knew that those he spoke to from this vantage point were immediately disoriented and unable to gain control of the conversation. It was a carefully orchestrated setting. It was ten o’clock in the morning, but heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows, keeping a sun-filled Florida morning at bay.

  The man leaned forward, bringing his sharp features into the light. “It seems you were unable to carry out a very simple, very straightforward task.” His voice was low and steady, and his eyes made no attempt to hide his displeasure. “Would you say that assessment is . . . accurate, Edward?” he asked with contempt as he again receded into the shadows.

  “There were unanticipated problems,” Edward Tyrell said. “And the man you sent didn’t react well to—”

  “The man I sent? So this regrettable situation is my fault. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just—”

  “It’s just what? Just like the excuses you make when the investments we allow you to choose for us fail to earn the income you project.” Tyrell started to speak but the man raised a hand that demanded silence. “This is more than a small financial failing, Edward. This could easily prove to be a disaster.” He waved his hand, dismissing everything that had been said, and then leaned forward again, bringing himself into the small cone of light. “Tell me, Edward, what did you believe your task to be? What was it you were supposed to do for us?”

  “The girl was supposed to be brought to my yacht and then taken out past the twelve-mile limit, where we were to rendezvous with the church’s cruise ship, Freewinds.”

  “And what did you think would happen to her once she was aboard Freewinds?”

  Tyrell twisted nervously. “I had no idea. It wasn’t something I was told.”

  “Well, let me tell you then.” The man inhaled and continued: “It had been determined that the girl was 1.1. We had ordered a disconnection, but her family was still reaching out for her. They had even gotten a retired police sergeant to search for her. Their intent was obvious, so
we decided auditing was the best solution for the young woman and we wanted that auditing to be done somewhere where she could not be located until it was finished—ergo, Freewinds.” He stared into Tyrell’s face. “Auditing, Edward; not elimination. And we certainly never envisioned the elimination of the retired police sergeant who was trying to find her.”

  Edward quickly translated what he had been told. The girl was 1.1, a very dangerous and wicked level of spirituality for Scientology members: someone who perhaps engaged in casual sex, or even homosexual activity, or who had openly expressed opposition to church teachings. In this case the young woman had been ordered to separate from her family, i.e. disconnection, and was going to undergo auditing, or extensive spiritual counseling, aboard Freewinds, which was one of several seagoing vessels owned by the church.

  “I didn’t know any of that,” Tyrell said. “Your man had just gotten her on board. She noticed the engines were running and asked why. When I told her we were going out on a short cruise she got nervous. Your man tried to calm her by explaining that we were going to rendezvous with a church-owned ship, but it had the opposite effect. She panicked and jumped back onto the dock. Your man was on her before she got very far, and the next thing I knew he was throwing her body into the water.

  “Then he heard something and ran around the side of the vessel in the next slip and I saw what the problem was. A man was jogging down the dock, and even worse, he had a pistol in his hand. He ran to the place where the girl had gone into the water and knelt down to see if he could find her. That’s when your man came out from the vessel he had hidden behind and shot him twice. Before I knew what had happened, two people appeared to be dead and the man you had sent was heading down the dock.”

  “And that’s when you discovered the retired police officer was still alive and pulled him out of the water?”

  “I had to. When I went to the slip where both bodies had been thrown in, he was there hanging onto a ladder. He stared at me, saw me. What else could I do?”

  “And then you called 911.”

  “Yes. I had no choice. There were two other boat owners in the marina and I wasn’t sure what they’d seen.”

  The man was silent for several moments. “Let us hope this retired police officer moves on to a new and better existence. Otherwise I fear we will have further problems.”

  “I’m afraid we already have those problems.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The injured cop’s son is a sheriff’s department detective and he’s investigating what happened to his father.” Tyrell shifted his weight nervously. “I did a computer search on the son. He’s a dangerous man.”

  “That’s unfortunate. It’s unfortunate for us and it’s unfortunate for this dangerous detective. Give me all the information you have on him.”

  * * *

  When the church offices opened for business the next morning, the man was still seated behind his desk, the room still darkened by the heavy curtains, the only light coming from the solitary desk lamp. The man’s name was Regis Walsh and he was in charge of discipline for the Clearwater church and reported only to the church’s national leader, who was based in California. Walsh, however, regarded himself as sole arbiter when it came to discipline and had not reported to the church’s national leader, or to anyone else, in more than six months.

  The door to the office opened and Kenneth Oppenheimer, Walsh’s first assistant, slipped into the room. “So, we need someone close to this detective,” Oppenheimer said.

  “Like a second skin. I want to know his plans before he’s even certain of them himself.” Walsh handed Oppenheimer a thin file that summarized everything he knew about Harry Doyle.

  Oppenheimer weighed it in his hand and frowned. “I better get busy. Fortunately we have some members who work in the sheriff’s office.”

  Walsh raised his eyebrows and stood up behind his desk. He was tall, almost regally so, and slender. His brown hair formed a widow’s peak and his blue eyes were piercing­—together with his sharp nose this gave his face the look of a raptor. He had not known the sheriff’s office had been infiltrated and this fact pleased him. But it was not surprising. A number of years back, when the Internal Revenue Service was giving the church fits, IRS files had suddenly disappeared, allegedly destroyed by church members who had been embedded in the IRS. The agency had eventually granted the church’s request for tax-free status.

  Walsh smiled at Oppenheimer. It made him look even more raptor-like and had an even more chilling effect. “Work your magic, Kenneth,” he said.

  Chapter Three

  Harry returned to the hospital and found that his father’s condition had improved. His mother was asleep on a waiting room sofa and someone had given her a blanket and pillow. Patrolwoman Moore was seated in a chair close by and she stood when Harry entered. “Jocko’s better,” she whispered, as she led Harry away from his sleeping mother. “He’s still listed as critical but the nurse assigned to him told me he’s been improving steadily. Your mom finally fell asleep after she heard that.”

  “He’s a tough guy,” Harry said. He looked back at his mother. “So is she.”

  “Did they come up with anything at the crime scene?” Moore asked.

  “They found Mary Kate O’Connell’s body. She was in the water, not far from where Jocko went in. We’re guessing he was going after her when he was shot.”

  “This shooter’s a piece of work,” Moore said. “He shoots a retired police sergeant and drowns a retired cop’s kid. That’s putting a big bull’s-eye on your back. Who’s notifying Joey O’Connell?”

  “Max Abrams. He and his partner, a guy named Walker, caught the case.”

  Moore nodded, indicating her approval.

  “Thanks for staying with my mom,” Harry said. “I can take it from here.”

  Moore took a business card from her pocket and wrote a number on the back. “That’s my personal number. Don’t hesitate to call if you need me.”

  “Thanks.” Harry glanced at the card and saw that Moore used the initials M.J. as her first name. “What does M.J. stand for?”

  Moore smiled. “Just M.J.”

  “Good enough,” Harry said.

  * * *

  It was nine o’clock before Harry and his mother were allowed into the intensive care unit. Jocko Doyle lay in bed with tubes coming from every visible orifice. He was as pale as Harry had ever seen another human being, and had it not been for the heart and respiratory monitors he would have checked his father’s pulse to make sure he was alive.

  Slowly, Jocko’s eyes opened and flitted between Harry and his wife. “I feel like crap,” he growled around the tube that was taped at the corner of his mouth.

  While his mother moved in to stroke Jocko’s head, Harry smiled down at him. “That’s what happens when you let somebody pump two bullets into your back. What happened to the idea of ducking? That’s what you always told me to do.”

  “He snuck up on me.” A faint smile toyed with Jocko’s lips. “I must be getting old.”

  “I’m working the case with Clearwater PD thanks to Max Abrams. Can you tell me what the shooter looked like?”

  Jocko nodded and Harry could tell the effort to talk was taking its toll. “He was a weird-looking guy, a very pale complexion; tall and wiry, but strong. He had snow-white hair, but he was no more than thirty, so the hair really stood out.”

  Harry spent the next half hour with Jocko, then left him in Maria’s care and headed toward the marina where he kept his boat. Two months earlier he had sold his beach house to the builder who had been pestering him for years. The decision to sell had been forced by his birth mother’s release from prison and—despite a condition that forbade her from coming within one hundred feet of him—her regular appearances at the end of his street and on the beach that bordered his house.

  Complaints to the parole board were met with inaction—The parolee in question has the right to use public streets, parks, beaches, and places of bus
iness, they wrote in response to his complaint. Harry’s solution was simple. He sold his small oceanfront house and bought a forty-eight-foot trawler—a boat large enough to serve as a comfortable home and one he could untie and move to a new marina whenever needed. It also left him with more than a million dollars in the bank and the security of knowing he could leave his job whenever he chose.

  At present, the boat was docked at a small private marina just across from downtown Clearwater, only half a mile from his former home. The marina was fairly secure, due mostly to an extremely nosy dockmaster, who regularly paraded up and down the docks wearing a pith helmet and complaining about any minor infraction he found—a dripping water line, a gasoline container left on the dock, anything he could find from a long list of “violations” that the marina published and gave to each boat owner. Harry had heard other boat owners referring to him as “the dock Nazi.” But he provided Harry with one definite advantage: he also questioned anyone on the docks who he did not recognize. The dock Nazi would be a welcome barrier to Harry’s mentally disturbed mother when she eventually found him again.

  Harry walked down the main dock to the Grand Banks trawler he had christened Nevermore, in a nod to his favorite author and an expression of his intent to escape the woman who had killed him and his younger brother Jimmy. The boat, now ten years old, had received tender care from the original and only previous owner. It had two staterooms and two heads, each with its own shower, a sizable galley with a three-quarter fridge, a full oven, sink, microwave, and even a hidden washer and dryer, located three steps down from a large salon furnished with a sofa, two reclining chairs, and a large-screen television set. It was every bit as roomy and comfortable as the small beach house he had sold. The sole difference, as far as Harry was concerned, was that instead of having a view of the ocean, he now floated on it.

  After boarding, Harry went straight to the chart table and began writing down his notes on the case. As he was finishing, a voice floated in from the dock.