by Polly Iyer
At age twelve, Diana could no longer bear the pressure of leading police to missing people, most of whom were dead, so she said she’d lost her psychic gifts. Because her father was unwilling to give up the notoriety and the money his daughter generated, he devised her act. Her performances employed assigned seating, and a series of computer hackers matched the information culled from the credit card payments to the people she called onstage. Though using most of her researcher’s material to avoid giving herself away, she couldn’t resist incorporating a tidbit from her psychic impressions that, despite raised eyebrows, she logically explained away.
Computer hacker Jason Connors was the latest in a line of techno geeks employed first by her father, then later by her. They all signed a confidentiality agreement, and to date no one had cashed in on what would surely be a juicy story. She picked up the phone, punched in Jason’s cell number, and felt a wave of nostalgia when she heard his enthusiastic greeting.
“Wow, Diana,” he said, “I never expected to hear from you.”
“Why not, we’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, but now that you’ve retired, I didn’t think you’d have any need for me.”
“Ah, surprise. I do need you. How’s your new job?”
“Boring computer crap. Nothing like the excitement of working for you, but it’s a job that pays the bills.”
“I’ve got an assignment for you. I want you to research a guy by the name of Edward Slater. I need to know everything about him, especially medical records. Also, while you’re at it, do a number on Silas Compton. When you finish, send me a bill.”
“Compton, the billionaire?”
“Yeah. I know you’ll find a lot of anti-government dogma, but it’s his religious views I’m most interested in. I don’t want the standard Googling; anyone can get that. I want what isn’t attainable.”
“He’s gonna be tough. From what I’ve read about him, his privacy is guarded like Fort Knox. I doubt I can break into his system. It’s probably tighter than cracking the Pentagon, and that was the hardest crack ever.”
Diana chuckled. Jason had hacked into the Pentagon to see if he could do it. Fortunately, hackers who knew what they were doing also knew how to use backdoor programs to cover their tracks, and Jason was one of the best.
“I know, but for you it should be a snap. Start with Slater first.” She gave him all the basic information she had. “There are ten years when you might not be able to find anything on him except some drunk charges. Those are the years I want. See if you can find out where he was during that time. He tried to commit suicide a few times, so there should be records.”
“You don’t make it easy.”
“If it were easy, I wouldn’t need you.”
* * * * *
Because of the warning note Diana received in the mail, Lucier begged her to be careful when she went out. After an hour and a half of performing at the children’s ward of the hospital, she picked up some groceries, then locked herself securely inside her house, made lunch, and settled on the sofa with a book. No matter how hard she tried, her thoughts wandered back to her bizarre experience in the nursing chair, knowing that the incident frightened her but acknowledging, in a sliver of reality, it also intrigued her. She still felt the phantom hardening of her breasts, the sensation of nursing a baby. Her hand unconsciously moved to her chest, and her fingers caressed her sore nipples. She smiled at the maternal feeling it generated―until she thought of Edward Slater.
If that strange and wondrous event occupied part of her thoughts, Slater dominated the rest. His confession confirmed her original impression of a conflicted persona. There were rare times when she couldn’t separate intuition from her highly receptive sensory channels―those things she envisioned―as one overlapped the other. Slater confused her because emotions got in the way. Even though he’d come to terms with his situation, she felt sorry for the life he didn’t have and for the torture he’d endured.
In the past, her psychic abilities connected her to missing persons, audience participants looking for fun, or wealthy patrons planning their lives by what she sensed in their futures. With the exception of relating to a death, rarely did those associations delve any deeper or develop into anything more personal.
Slater wasn’t a subject, not overtly, and he’d been careful not to put himself in that position. Nevertheless, he confided in her as one would to a close friend, and that touched her deeply. She thought of what he’d gone through, and before long she was sobbing like a baby, while scolding herself for becoming emotionally involved.
* * * * *
“Silas Compton, for all his notoriety, is a hard man to get a handle on,” Jason said when he called back a couple of days later. “He hasn’t given an interview in over twenty years, only statements, and every article about him is pure research on the part of the journalist. He never even comments on them. His financials are off limits because his holdings are privately held. Because Compton International has the resources to do what few others can, his bids on government contracts are the only bids. Everything is in the control of the Compton family. No shareholders. Forbes estimates his to be the largest privately held company in the States, maybe the world, and Compton to be one of the richest men.”
Diana held the phone to her ear and circled the room, walking off the tension that had her strung tight. “What else?”
“That’s the easy stuff. You know, Diana, I can usually hack into anything, but his computer system is ironclad. I got what anyone with minor hacking abilities could get.”
“Give me what you have. I doubt anyone else could do better.”
“Okay, here goes. I know you asked for Slater first, but I’ll start with Compton, because he’s more complicated. Born in Oklahoma to dirt poor farmers in 1950. He worked his way through the University of Oklahoma in the engineering program and got a job with Barton Oil and Petroleum. Before long, he was running the place. When he tendered his resignation ten years later, he was a multi-millionaire. Then he started Compton International. A few years before, he purchased a parcel of land in Southern Oklahoma. Compton perfected new methods of deep drilling, making him a billionaire a few times over and one of the most powerful men in the state. Behind the scenes, he backs political candidates who promote his agenda―fiscally right, socially left, and he’ll ruin anyone who gets in the way of his business. If he could start his own government, he’d be God and Master.”
“How’d he get to Louisiana?”
“Offshore drilling, oil, and gas. Made him billions more and expanded his political clout. Of course, all the dollar amounts are supposition because no one really knows his worth.”
“What about religious affiliations? Any contributions to any particular church or religious organization?”
“He’s covered every base into heaven,” Jason said. “Donates to all of them: Jewish philanthropies, Christian charities, even Muslim awareness programs. Not millions, mind you, but enough to build allies against government’s intrusion into an individual’s personal business, more specifically, his personal business. Those donations are a matter of public record, so no way he can hide the information. If he’s funded other organizations, he’s done it under the radar through a PAC, because I couldn’t find them.”
Diana marveled at Compton’s ingenuity. He’d made sure everyone was on his side. Hard to go against someone whose deep pockets fill your coffers.
“He’s a strange dichotomy,” Jason continued. “Against government. Thinks social work should be the domain of the private sector and that people need to raise themselves up by their bootstraps like he did, without the help of government handouts. ’Course, he forgot that he went through college on government loans, but that’s another story.”
“That seems to be a common occurrence these days. I got mine; you’re on your own, kid. What else?”
“He’s publicly condemned the IRS as a tool of government waste and feels that people should be free to invest or spend a
s they see fit. I’m sure he’s finagled his taxes to pay as little as possible, all legally, of course. Probably stashed money offshore, where the government can’t touch it.”
“I’m sure he’s not the only rich guy doing that.”
“You do that, Diana?”
She laughed. “No. I don’t have that much money, and even if I did, I wouldn’t stash it. I believe in government. Keep going.”
“Here’s what I meant about the dichotomy. He’s made comments that label him socially liberal. Doesn’t care who marries whom, believes in a woman’s right to choose, and is in favor of a separation of church and state.”
“Interesting,” Diana said. “Not the average right-winger. What about family?”
“Married in 1971 to Eliza Fannon, daughter of Gault Fannon.”
The name struck a familiar note. “The senator?”
“Same. She and Compton had three children, two girls and a boy. The boy was retarded. He drowned in the family swimming pool at age five. Shortly after, Mrs. Compton committed suicide. The articles written at the time implied the guilt was too much for her. Nothing suspicious, but that didn’t stop tongues from wagging.”
“What do you mean?” Diana asked. “Did the articles imply that Compton had anything to do with his wife’s suicide?”
“No, but not long after he appeared in the society columns with Selene Crane, daughter of Phillip Crane. Name mean anything to you?”
Diana whistled through her teeth. “I’ll say. Looks like Compton knows how to pick the women in his life. Crane’s a multi-gazillionaire.”
“Yup. His grandfather struck oil. Crane was raised in enormous wealth, as were his children, and both he and his father increased the fortune tenfold. He’s not only Compton’s father-in-law, they’re best buddies.”
“This is getting more interesting by the minute,” Diana said.
“When they married, Compton was thirty-nine, Selene Crane twenty-one, with a degree in philosophy from Harvard. Early photographs show a beautiful young woman. Reading between the lines, Phillip Crane brokered the marriage.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Tabloids show the three of them before Compton and Selene were married. If his daughter marrying a much older man bothered Crane, it didn’t show in the photographs.”
“Hmm, this is getting better with every revelation. Do these two have any children?”
Jason hesitated. “Um, I don’t know.”
“What do you mean? Do they or don’t they?”
“The second marriage is where Compton’s private life gets really private. Selene is rarely seen in public and there’s no record of any children.”
“How does he manage to keep that under the radar? They’d have to have social security numbers and all that.”
“There’s a doctor on staff. Maybe everything happens in house, so to speak. I don’t know, but if they have kids, he’s found a way to keep their existence secret. Researching unearthed plenty of Comptons, but none traced back to Silas, other than the two daughters from his first marriage.
“What about them?” Diana asked.
“Maia and Dione. Both graduated from LSU, but while there, they returned to the Compton compound every night like good little girls. Compton keeps his family close. The daughters are said to be smart, beautiful, and unmarried. They hold positions in his companies but still live at home, except for the times they travel as troubleshooters for their father’s business. They go overseas for months at a time to take care of foreign investments, both in the Middle East and Europe.”
“Boyfriends?” Diana asked.
“Not that I found. Compton owns houses all over the world, and they’re like fortresses. State of the art security systems keep out trespassers. Compton International maintains a fleet of private jets, so he never avails himself of public transportation.”
“So no one sees the wife or knows anything about offspring?”
“Selene Compton does a lot of charity work. She ventures out occasionally, mostly to a play or an art exhibit, an occasional shopping spree in Europe, but she’s not the social butterfly she was before she married. I dug up a recent picture of her at the symphony, alone, by the way. It’s pretty grainy, but she’s still a knockout.”
Diana was always amazed at how much information Jason unearthed. Whatever floated around in cyberspace or in someone else’s computer, Jason would find a way to access it. If he couldn’t get the information, no one could.
“Good job, Jason. Now Slater?” He was the one she was really interesting in.
“You were right. Those ten years were tough to research. Shortly after dropping out of divinity school, he stacked up major medical bills. I hacked into the hospital accounts, but his personal records are probably on microfiche in the hospital’s archives. Even though he was still insured by his parents because he was in college at the time, the bills were astronomical. I hacked into the insurance company but like the hospital, records that old aren’t accessible.”
Diana knew what cost so much, and she couldn’t ignore what it must have been like for Slater to go through that.
Jason went on.
“I found half a dozen arrests, drunk tank stuff, nothing violent. Also a drug possession charge. They held him for a few days and Mr. Anonymous bailed him out.”
“No name?”
“Uh-uh. Nothing after that until he started the Sunrise Mission eight years ago using the name Brother Osiris with money from, guess who?”
“Silas Compton.”
“Bingo, among others. How’d you know that? Don’t tell me you’ve got a psychic thing going with him.”
“No. Slater told me yesterday. Besides, that’s public record.”
“They get backing from the state, but most money is raised through donations.”
“Did you find out anything unusual about Slater? Love interests, friends?”
“Nothing. The guy’s a monk. Good-looking monk from the picture on his driver’s license. His mug shot, not so good. Looks wasted.” Jason detailed Jeannine Highsmith’s lawsuit against the mission, and Diana told him what Lucier had found out. “Plenty of recent articles in the paper, all praising his work. The Brother Osiris moniker is a bit pretentious, but, hey, whatever works.
“Okay, Diana, what’s the story? You wouldn’t be checking into this if something damn interesting wasn’t going on. Wanna fill me in?”
“Not yet, because I have no idea what all this means. When I know, I’ll get back to you. Fair enough?”
“Sounds good. Now my interest is piqued.”
“Thanks for the info. Send me a bill. I emailed you my address, didn’t I?”
“No charge. My pleasure. Besides, I don’t think I got anything you couldn’t have gotten yourself.”
“I doubt that. Besides, you do it fast and thoroughly. Send me the bill, Jason. I mean it. I may need you again, and I don’t want to feel like I can’t call on you because you won’t charge me.”
“Okay, if you insist. I’ll fax you everything I found on Compton, credit card charges, etc. Those things go to his accountant.” Jason laughed. “His computer was tough but not impenetrable, except I couldn’t access Compton’s tax records. His accountant must remove them from his electronic database. Most everything else is tangled in that big shell game I mentioned.”
“What about Slater’s money?”
“The man doesn’t even own a credit card. The Mission does, but not Slater. Most of the charges are for supplies, food, like that. He draws an annual salary of eight thousand dollars, and doesn’t spend much of it. He rents a room in a boarding house, eats at the mission, and I suppose spends money for clothes. Looks like the way he lives, he must have some money in an account, but I couldn’t find it.”
“Thanks, Jason. You know I love you.”
“Yeah, like a friend. I know.”
Diana tapped her phone shut. Why would someone like Silas Compton fund the Sunrise Mission? What was in it for him, and what the hel
l did it mean?
Chapter Sixteen
The Invitation
Lucier picked up the phone in his office.
“Lieutenant Lucier, Ralph Stallings here. Thought you’d be interested in one other set of prints we found at 107 Parkside besides Compton’s.”
“You bet.”
“Another big Louisiana name: Fernando Reyes.”
Lucier’s head went into a spin. “Another multi-millionaire. What’s going on here?”
“Haven’t a clue. What do you make of it?”
“Has he ever been connected to a fringe religious group or cult?”
“Not that we can find. When we asked both men what their prints were doing in that house, Compton divulged that he and Reyes were the owners, saving us a lot of trouble unraveling the mess of paperwork. He said they went to look the place over before they bought it. Their plans fell through, so they hired an agency to rent it out. Only knew of Deems by name. Never met him, they said.”
“How could Deems afford a house like that on a janitor’s salary?” Lucier asked. “And if he rented it, why was he trading off a bed at the mission for work? It doesn’t make sense.”
“The guy offed himself before anyone had a chance to ask.”
“Damn. I suppose Reyes didn’t know anything about the drawings on the wall.”
“Right you are. Compton received no complaints from the agency. The renter paid on time, and that’s all he cared about.”
“Sorry, but that doesn’t ring true. Satanic meetings went on there, and Compton knows about them. Deems didn’t have friends with the expensive cars parked at the house during what he called their card games.”
“Why would a guy like Compton be involved in the black arts and kidnapping babies? If he is, we’d sure like to know. He’s a major thorn in the side of government. My bosses in Washington are salivating to get something on him. I don’t suppose Ms. Racine would go with you while you interviewed Compton, would she? I know she stopped helping law enforcement long before that serial killer debacle, but maybe if she met him, she might tune into things we can’t. We can’t use anything she comes up with, but it might give us an edge.”