The Scientology Murders

by William Heffernan

  “What’s the story, Georgie?” Harry asked.

  Rios looked up from his work and smiled. “Harry, Vicky, Max, you guys on this case?”

  “Max is,” Harry said. “Tarpon is handling this murder, but it’s connected to a murder in Clearwater. That’s Max’s case. Vicky and I are just interested parties.”

  “Which Clearwater murder was that?” Rios asked.

  “Mary Kate O’Connell.”

  “I don’t remember that one,” Rios said. “Musta come in on my day off.”

  “Did you find anything on your preliminary exam?” Max asked.

  “Nothing significant. But I understand we found some hair on her clothing that could give us some DNA. We also found some clothing fibers. I haven’t cleaned out her nails yet. There could be more there. I’m hoping for some tissue samples if she fought the killer.” He shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “Who’s the doc handling the post on this one?” Max asked.

  “Angela Sugarman. She’s due to start in about fifteen minutes.”

  “We’ll wait,” Harry said. “Thanks.”

  Harry stared at the pale, lifeless body, the muscles slack, the back darkened by lividity. The eyes were partially open and he tried to look into them but they had already begun to cloud over. One word seemed to be coming from Lilly’s corpse but it didn’t make sense to him.

  Vicky had been uncommonly quiet and when Harry glanced over at her he found that she, too, was staring at Lilly’s body. He found it strange looking down at the young body after just speaking with the woman the previous day. He could only imagine how Vicky felt. Vicky had known Lilly most of her life and had set up the meeting that may have led to her death. Now she was peering down at her on an autopsy table, all of it just settling in her mind, becoming real to her.

  Harry slipped an arm around Vicky’s shoulder. “You doing okay?”

  “No,” she responded in barely a whisper. “I remember going to her birthday party when she was seven years old. Looking at her now, I feel like shit.” She turned and gave him the hardest look he had ever seen on her face. “And Harry, I’m telling you now: I want this bastard bad and I don’t care what it takes to get him.”

  * * *

  Dr. Angela Sugarman arrived for the post with the air of a diva moving to center stage. She was a short, heavyset woman somewhere in her late forties with a doughy face that softened her large, sharp nose and broad forehead. Her blond hair clearly had help from her hairdresser and her nails bore the signs of a recent manicure. She knew Max and Harry and quickly introduced herself to Vicky. “I’ve seen you around the building several times but I don’t think I’ve ever worked one of your cases.” She paused. “You look angry. Is everything okay?”

  “I knew the victim,” Vicky said. “I grew up with her.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be here for the post. That’s not the last memory you want to have of your friend.” Dr. Sugarman raised her chin toward Lilly’s corpse. “This looks like a pretty clear-cut case. We have two entry wounds from what appears to be a wide-bladed knife; one to the heart, one to the liver. Each would have been fatal. You wait in my office or call me in an hour and I’ll give you the results.” The woman’s words left no room for argument. Vicky was being dismissed.

  Harry put his arm around her again. “Come on, I don’t need to see this either. I’ve seen enough autopsies to last me a lifetime. Max can fill us in.”

  * * *

  Max came out an hour later to find Harry and Vicky seated under a tree near to where they had parked their cars. “You guys look like you’re waiting for a picnic lunch to be delivered,” he said.

  “What did Sugarman find?” Vicky asked, dismissing Max’s attempt at levity.

  “Nothing that wasn’t obvious. The murder weapon is a six-inch-long double-edged blade that’s two inches wide in the upper part then tapers to a sharp point, just long enough to reach every vital organ in the body. There were some contusions indicating that she fought her attacker, and like Rios told us, they found some hairs on her clothing. They were blond—blond from a bottle.”

  “What was the underlying color?” Vicky asked.

  “White,” Max said. “According to the lab report, the original color of the hair was pure white.”

  “Like an albino,” Harry said, then turned to Vicky. “That was the one word I got from her: albino.”

  “So it was that son of a bitch Rolf,” Max said.

  “Let’s find him. Let’s find him now.” The tone of Vicky’s voice was so fierce that it sent a shiver down Harry’s spine.

  Chapter Seven

  Tony Rolf sat in the small salon of his sailboat home. An empty box of Just For Men hair color sat on the chart table before him. He had returned to the boat after his encounter with the woman, making one stop at Walmart on the way. There he bought a baseball cap, the hair dye—a medium brown—and a tanning lotion to use on the exposed portions of his body. Now he studied the results in a handheld mirror. An entirely new person looked back at him. He added a Tampa Bay Rays baseball cap to complete the new look and smiled at the result.

  Across the marina Harry walked slowly toward his boat. He had invited Vicky to come with him, offering to cook her dinner, but she had declined, telling him that she needed to be alone, needed time to think everything through.

  As Harry neared his boat a voice called out: “Hi, stranger.”

  Harry followed the sound and found Meg Adams sunning herself on the forecastle of her sailboat. She was wearing a bikini small enough to make Harry forget—at least for the moment—all the unpleasantness of the day. “You look absolutely fetching.”

  “That was the intention,” Meg said. “Want a drink?”

  “Very much, thank you. Do you have something strong, like Jack Daniel’s?”

  “Only wine, I’m afraid. But good wine, if that makes a difference.”

  “I have Jack Daniel’s . . . your boat or mine?”

  “I like yours. It’s roomier.”

  “Then grab a bottle of wine for yourself and come join me.”

  Meg stood, making the bikini she was wearing even more alluring, and slipped on a T-shirt that went almost to her knees. It was a tease, he thought, one that forced him to remember what lay beneath.

  Harry waited while Meg collected her wine, and together they boarded his boat and made their way to the galley. Harry poured a heavy dose of Jack Daniel’s over ice, then held up Meg’s wine to the light.

  “Châteauneuf-du-Pape,” he said. “You weren’t kidding when you said a bottle of good wine. I’ve seen this go for $350 a bottle.”

  “This isn’t quite that good a year,” she replied. “But it wasn’t a bad one either. I think this set me back about fifty-nine bucks.”

  “So you’re serious about the wine you drink.”

  Meg waited while he uncorked the bottle and allowed it to breathe. “Wine is one of the things I take very seriously,” she said.

  “What are the other things?”

  “You discovered one a few nights ago; now you’ve learned another.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And now you’ll have to wait and see what else you can learn.”

  Meg took her glass and entered the salon. When Harry followed he found her tucked into one end of the sofa with her legs curled beneath her.

  “Let’s play house,” she said teasingly. “How was your day, darling?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “That bad? Then sip your drink and forget about it.”

  Harry paused a beat, then said, “You pay pretty close attention to what’s going on in the marina. Have you noticed anyone paying close attention to me?”

  “Other than the women I’ve seen checking you out?”

  Harry ignored the tease. “This would be a man, slender, about five eleven, medium build, blond hair, extremely pale complexion.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Deadly serious,” he said. He filled her i
n on the deaths of Mary Kate O’Connell and Lilly Mikinos.

  “And this guy works for the Church of Scientology?”

  “Yes, he works for the office of church discipline. I’ve heard that the church keeps close watch on its members and have people whose job it is to confront those who stray across the line, whatever that line is.”

  “A few years ago I took one of their courses, sort of on a lark, and I didn’t see any of that. Of course, all the people in my class were like me—they were just beginners.”

  Harry struggled to hide the alarm bells that had suddenly gone off. “And you didn’t go on with it after that first class? Scientology, I mean.”

  “No, although I admit there was quite a selling job by church members. They really push you to take the next level of courses. And I’ve got to tell you, they are pretty pricey. But it just wasn’t for me. It was too rigid, too dogmatic. The members that I met were so insistent that the church’s way of life was the only way you could live, and I’m too free a spirit to ever buy into that.”

  “How about the other people in the class, did many of them go on to another course?”

  “Oh, yes, I’m sure many of them did—at least half, I’d say.” She watched Harry’s eyebrows rise. “Most of the people I met were very needy. They were searching for something that was going to turn their lives around. And that’s what Scientology promises to do.”

  “Hey, I’d like to turn my life around . . . especially after today.”

  “Then sign up.” She offered up an impish grin. “After a year you’ll have more wisdom than Buddha. It’s guaranteed.”

  * * *

  Regis Walsh sat behind his oversized desk, his chair tilted away from the only illumination in the room. He heard a light knock on the door and pressed a button on his desk that buzzed it open.

  Tony Rolf stepped through the door and closed it behind him.

  “Take a chair, Tony.”

  Rolf’s eyes darted around the darkened room.

  “You’re always so cautious, Tony.”

  “That amuses you?”

  There was an edge to Rolf’s voice that Walsh did not like. He chose to ignore it for the moment. “It doesn’t amuse me, it surprises me. This should be the one place that you feel safe.”

  “I don’t feel safe anywhere.” Rolf paused, then added, “Or with anyone.” He stepped forward slowly and sat in the chair he’d been offered.

  “That’s a very disturbing statement. You should know that you’ve always been a very valued and trusted member of our small family. We’ve all relied on you during difficult times.”

  Rolf stared at him but remained silent. Walsh found it unnerving, something he was unaccustomed to feeling in his own office. “Don’t you have anything to say?” he demanded.

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “Thinking about what?”

  “About all the criticism you heaped on me when things didn’t go perfectly.”

  “It was only the death of the girl and the shooting of the retired police officer that upset me. It all seemed unnecessary and it presented some potential difficulties for the church—serious difficulties.”

  “It’s hard to judge if something is necessary or not when you’re sitting behind your desk and not out there when it’s happening.”

  Walsh glared at him. “Don’t presume to lecture me, Tony. Not about this or anything else where the good of the church is concerned.”

  “What about the good of Tony Rolf?”

  Rolf was glaring right back at him and it caused Walsh to visibly squirm in his seat as he realized how dangerous the moment was. “I’m always concerned about that—always.”

  “How would you feel if I told you it was necessary to kill another 1.1 last night?”

  “Who?” Walsh’s voice was little more than a whisper.

  “A turncoat bitch named Lilly Mikinos. You remember her? It was a little more than a year ago. A Greek priest showed up in the center of our community and took her away. And we did nothing.”

  “Why did she have to die?”

  Rolf seemed momentarily confused by the question. “She had been talking to that cop, Doyle, and his female partner. When I confronted her about what she had been telling them, she attacked me, screamed at me. She knew who I was, even with the dyed hair, and I knew she would turn me in to those cops as soon as she could.” His voice had been rising with each statement. Now it became soft again. “I knew she’d even drag the church down just to get me. There was that kind of hatred in her eyes. I’ve seen that hatred before in the eyes of rabid animals and I knew there was only one way to stop her.”

  Walsh was silent for almost a minute. “I want you to leave the marina,” he finally said. “It’s too dangerous for you there. I’ll arrange for a church apartment where you can lay low for a while. Then we’ll put you on the Freewinds and get you out of this area.”

  Tony stared at him. “Freewinds? Where Mary Kate O’Connell was supposed to go for auditing?” He gave Walsh a knowing look that ended in a bitter smile. “I’ll have to turn you down on that. I don’t need an ocean voyage.”

  Again Walsh found himself squirming in his chair. He felt he had to get them off the subject or risk . . . what? “Let’s just put that conversation aside for now,” he offered. “We can talk about it later. What’s important is finding a way to keep you safe.” Walsh picked up his phone and placed a call to Ken Oppenheimer. “First let’s get you into a safe apartment or house.”

  * * *

  Oppenheimer entered Walsh’s office at seven the following morning. Like Walsh he was unshaven and groggy from lack of sleep. “He’s in a house in Safety Harbor,” he began as he took a chair, “and he seems quite paranoid. He made some obscure comment about the house being better than Freewinds that I just ignored. Frankly I’m a bit concerned about his stability.”

  Walsh snorted, and told Oppenheimer about his earlier meeting with Rolf.

  “Jesus,” Oppenheimer said. “That’s two murders and one attempted murder. And we’re getting very close to being accomplices, if we aren’t already.” He ran a hand over his face. “Have you thought about turning him in to the police?”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. We sheltered him after the first killing. We could probably argue that he was only a suspect then and we helped the police as much as we could, but now . . . I think we’ve lost that argument.”

  Oppenheimer leaned forward, clearly anxious, and asked: “What have you got in mind?”

  “I think we have to get him the hell away from here. Either that or . . .”

  “Eliminate him?”

  Walsh shook his head. “I don’t even want to discuss that possibility.”

  Oppenheimer nodded his head slowly. It was clear they were already discussing it. It was also clear that it might be the only way he and Walsh would survive this madness Rolf had created.

  Chapter Eight

  Tony Rolf stood in front of the massive floor-to-ceiling window that looked out onto a secluded garden. The house Oppenheimer had hidden him away in was only a short walk to Safety Harbor’s main thoroughfare, but it might as well have been tucked away in the rural reaches of the county for the privacy it offered. Oppenheimer had explained that it was the home of a senior Scientology administrator who was on temporary assignment to a church office on the West Coast.

  Oppenheimer had warned him to stay out of sight and to leave the house only in an emergency, but Rolf had no intention of obeying that directive. He needed to scout the area, find escape routes; locate one or more cars he could steal if the need arose. And he was certain it might. This detective who was pursuing him was a dogged son of a bitch and he knew that sooner or later Detective Harry Doyle would have to be added to the body count. There was simply no way to avoid it.

  * * *

  Harry Doyle awoke with his body spooned around a naked Meg Adams. It was dawn and the first rays of a rising sun were seeping through the starboard portholes of his stateroom
. He had been dreaming about an albino man who was relentlessly following him and in the dream he had wondered how that could be, how had he never noticed. It was almost as though the albino was some kind of ghost who remained invisible to him.

  Meg pressed back against him, driving the albino away, and he kissed her shoulder, eliciting a purr.

  “You awake?” he whispered.

  “Almost,” she breathed back.

  A voice called out his name from the dock and his body stiffened. He slid out of bed, grabbed a bathing suit and T-shirt that lay nearby, and pulled them on. Out on deck he saw her standing there, a beatific smile spread across her face.

  “Harry,” she said in a soft, soothing voice. “Oh, I miss you, Harry.”

  Harry stared into the face of his birth mother, Lucy Santos. Psychiatrists at the prison where she had spent the past twenty years had determined that she was no longer insane, no longer a danger to herself or others. She was normal now, they had said, capable of caring for herself, ready to be paroled back into society. Harry looked down into her eyes. The madness was still there, would always be there for him. He still had the letters she had sent him, one every year, each posted to arrive on the anniversary of the day she had killed both him and his six-year-old brother Jimmy, letters that always held words of love, and always ended with her wish that he would soon be with Jimmy basking in the glory of their Lord, Jesus Christ. He had sought and received a court order directing her to remain three hundred feet away from his domicile at all times, an order she ignored just as the court ignored his efforts to have it enforced. As he looked down at her now he felt not an ounce of pity, only revulsion. She was fifty-two and nothing remained of the beautiful young mother he remembered. She looked older, tired, beaten down. The lines in her face were carved deep and her once-lustrous black hair was mostly gray. Prison had not worn well on her. He pushed those thoughts aside and took out the cell phone he had brought on deck and dialed the marina office. When the dock Nazi answered he simply identified himself and said: “My mother is standing on the dock next to my boat. Get down here and get rid of her; call the cops, do whatever you have to do, just do it now.”