by Kyle Mills
It had been torture. A black cat had wandered in front of them on the way to the restaurant, then a woman who had something that looked like an enormous wart on her nose sat down in booth next to them. He’d bravely resisted temptation, though. and managed to make not a single comment through the appetizers and most of the main course. Then she had to go and start telling a story that somehow involved a broom. He’d ended up alone with a lap full of red wine.
Since then, there had never seemed to be time. Always some life-or-death case tempting him from the sidelines or some administrative snafu that promised to make his life miserable if he didn’t deal with it yesterday.
Until recently, his plan had been to continue with his former lifestyle and drop dead of a heart attack a few years before he reached mandatory retirement. But he finally realized that was stupid. There was more out there than the quickly waning adrenaline rush of a good case.
Beamon went into the bathroom and smoothed down a curl in what was left of his hair. At least the weight he’d lost had thinned out his face. A significant improvement, though he still wasn’t in any real danger of being described as good looking. But what the hell—he had other endearing qualities.
Beamon rapped on Carrie’s door and glanced at his watch. Only ten minutes late. She came to the door almost immediately, accompanied by her daughter and the smell of garlic.
“Will you accept me empty-handed, Carrie? I just walked in from work.”
“Absolutely. Come on in.”
Emory attached herself briefly to his leg as he stepped into the house, a credit to her mother’s exhaustive training.
“You’re dealing with that better and better, Mark,” Carrie said as she walked back to the kitchen. “I think my conditioning experiment is working.”
Beamon picked Emory up almost to the ceiling and spun her around. “I remember my first autopsy, Carrie. It’s amazing what you can get used to.” He swung the little girl back to the floor, ignoring the smirk on Carrie’s face. “Right, Emory?”
“Right!” she agreed and threw herself onto the sofa in front of the TV. “Your show’s over.”
Beamon walked into the kitchen with a questioning look on his face.
“Emory seems to think you have your own show. Every evening at the same time she switches the TV to the local news and watches for you.” Carrie poured him a rather full glass of red wine. “She’s very impressed.”
Beamon smiled and sipped at the wine. He’d never really acquired a taste for it. “It’s nice to know I have a fan.”
“How are you doing on that case, Mark?” she said as she turned to check the oven. “I saw the thing about the white slavery ring. It’s so horrifying.”
“There is no godda—” Beamon cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “There is no white slavery ring.”
“No?”
“No. That came from some psychic. The press printed it like it was gospel ‘cause they consider violence without sex kind of dry.”
She slid a bubbling casserole out of the oven using a pair of garish oven mitts and then reached back in for a tray of muffins. “I think we’re about ready.”
The meal was indescribable. Despite the rich garlic smell and the satisfying bubbling of the deep red sauce, Carrle’s eggplant parmesan tasted like, well, like his fork. Its blandness was matched only by that of the almost dressing-free salad.
“You know, Mark, someday I’m going to write a cookbook,” Carrie said, right on cue. “I swear, the cookbooks you get today are so full of things like sour cream and butter that the dishes could kill you If you just look at them.” She pointed at his plate. “I just leave all that stuff out. You can’t even tell the difference.”
“I sure can’t,” he lied through a mouthful of muffin that seemed to be soaking up sallva faster than his body could produce It. “How’s that thesis you’re working on going?”
“Really well, thanks for asking. It’s almost done, It looks like It’s going to get published next month,”
“That’s great, Congratulations. I trust you didn’t have to crash any more weddings to finish It,”
She affected a seductive pout that seemed to transform her Into an entirely different woman. “You’re not still mad about that, are you? You did get two free dinners out of it, for God’s sake.”
“No, no. Not mad,” Beamon said, laying down his fork and hoping that dessert wasn’t on the menu. “Intrigued. I actually find the Kneissians fascinating.”
That turn In the conversation was the last straw for Emory, who asked to be excused from the table and rushed off to her room before her mother could answer.
“Me too. You know, It’s really the first religion to embrace science. Most falths in one way or another are at odds with technology. I mean, God has to make statements, and those statements remain static while the world continues to move forward, Causes friction. The other thing I find Interesting is that the Kneissians’ belief system isn’t built around a lot of set-in-stone—if you’ll excuse the pun—rules like many other Western religions. Right and wrong is a little more of a gray area. They’re more interested in being all they can be.”
Beamon nodded thoughtfully and reached over to refill her wineglass. “Does that make them dangerous?”
She thought about that for a moment. “I don’t mean to say that they don’t have a strong sense of morality—all you have to do is look at them to see that they do. All I’m saying is that their Bible allows for more flexibility. That in turn should keep it from becoming obsolete as we continue rushing toward.. whatever it is we’re rushing toward.”
She stood and stacked Beamon’s plate on top of hers.
“Let me help you with that,” Beamon said.
“Oh, I’m not cleaning up—just getting these out of the way. Back in a sec.”
She was wearing a pair of brown wool slacks and a loose-fitting white blouse that, once again, draped along the curves of her body beautifully. Beamon watched her with admiration as she glided off to the kitchen and then reappeared a moment later.
“Let me ask you a related question,” he said.
“Am I being interrogated?”
“Absolutely not—I’m just trying to distract you while I get you drunk.”
“Oh, that’s okay, then,” she said, sitting down and picking up her wineglass. “What’s your question?”
“From a psychological point of view, why isn’t religion as important now as it was, say, a thousand years ago?”
She swirled her glass and stared into the deep red liquid contained there for a few moments. “What you expect me to say is that we Just don’t need it as much. That we used it to explain things we didn’t understand and we understand more now. That we don’t suffer as much during our lives now, so we don’t need an afterlife as desperately.” She took another sip of her wine. “But I don’t know if that’s it. With the speed that our lives go by now, we don’t have as much time for real companionship. We’re losing the ability to reach out to people around us. Maybe we need God more now than we ever did.”
“God, yes. But religion?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think the answer to your question is as psychological as it is political. You’re a historian, aren’t you?”
Beamon chuckled. “I squeezed in a history degree between benders at Yale, yes. But I don’t think anybody would confuse me with a historian.”
She looked at him with what might have been affection; his senses in that arena were hopelessly dull. “Somehow I think you’re being modest. You tell me, Mark. You don’t seem to be in the habit of asking questions you don’t know the answers to. Why is religion less dominant today than it was a thousand years ago?”
Beamon took a deep breath and tapped his nail against his glass, producing a clear, unwavering tone. “Maybe it’s not the worshipers, but that religions limit themselves.”
“How so?”
“It seems to me that all organized religions have some factor that keeps them from gaining pow
er. The most obvious is what we were talking about— the backward thinking. Some of the older religions of the world have customs and dogma that worked well when they were first implemented, but now, hundreds or thousands of years later, they create barriers to progress—to meeting the needs of today’s worshiper. The Catholic church in the United States might be a good example of that. Their views on the marriage of priests, women, abortion, divorce—all reflect a time that’s long gone.”
He paused for a moment to examine her expression and make sure she wasn’t finding this offensive. So far so good. “Another limiting factor, particularly for newer religions, would be a very unusual belief system. The Mormons and Scientologists—right or wrong—run into trouble there. What they have to say is perhaps too new. It doesn’t tie back to a concept that people grew up with and therefore don’t question.”
“What about some of the Eastern religions? What’s their ‘limiting factor’?”
“A lot of them are more philosophies than religions. They lack a central deity to order them around and really don’t seem to have developed political agendas. Too inward-looking.”
“Okay, then. Here’s one for you. What’s the Kneissians’ ‘limiting factor’?”
Beamon picked up the wine bottle in front of him and poured some into his glass. “That’s just it. I can’t think of one.”
30
THE PATTERN HAD COME CLEAR OVER THE weekend. Three cars. All Ford Tauruses—one blue, one green, and one red—rotating daily.
Beamon had dropped the red one in town almost an hour ago. It really wasn’t difficult to lose a tail; the problem was making it look like an accident. They’d find out he knew they were watching eventually, but he preferred to put that off for as long as possible.
Beamon checked his rearview mirror one more time, looking back over the empty road and flat, snow-dusted desert behind him. Satisfied that he was the only thing moving for miles, he decided to cover the last quarter-mile or so on foot and pulled his car to the curb.
Despite the fact that all the houses in this oasis of a neighborhood looked the same, Beamon found the one he was looking for with little difficulty. After almost a minute of pounding on the door, though, there was still no answer. He stepped back and double- checked the numbers between the garage and front door. They were the ones given to him that morning when Ernest Willard’s former book agent had called him out of the blue and told him that the man who had written the now-unavailable exposé on the church had agreed to a meeting.
Beamon thought he heard a dull scraping sound coming from inside the house and stepped back onto the porch. “Hello?”
“May I see your ID?” came a muffled voice on the other side of the closed door.
Beamon pulled out his credentials, but the door didn’t open. He stepped back and, finding a peephole oddly located about halfway up the door, held them up to it.
A moment later, the door swung open and he was faced with what looked a little like a small tank in a sunflower print muumuu.
The woman backing up to give him a clear path into the house seemed impossibly fat. The garish tent/dress she wore went from her thick neck to her knees in what looked like a perfectly straight line. Her legs, where they appeared under the dress, resembled gigantic sausages in tan nylon casings. What gave her that true tanklike feel, though, was the wheelchair she had, by some strange anomaly of physics, managed to stuff her rear end into.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Beamon. I was in the back.” She diverted her gaze to the chair for a moment. “It takes me a little longer to make it across the house than it used to.”
“I’m the one who should apologize, I didn’t mean to attack your door like that. I thought maybe you couldn’t hear me,” Beamon said, closing the door and following her as she wheeled through the hallway toward the back of the house. “Is Ernest Willard in?”
She pulled to a stop in a small room overflowing with computer equipment, newsmagazines, and reference books. There wasn’t a single surface that hadn’t been used to haphazardly route cables or wasn’t covered with some piece of high-tech machinery or phone book-thick document.
“About Ernest Willard,” Beamon prompted again, “I think he agreed to see me?”
“I did,” the woman said, turning her wheelchair to face him. “I’m Ernest Willard. Well, actually I’m Ernestine Waverly. But I wrote the book you’re interested in.”
“A nom de plume,” Beamon said, moving a stack of computer disks from a chair and taking an uninvited seat.
“At the time, it seemed like a good idea.”
“Well, I’m glad we have the opportunity to talk. When my associate called your agent a while back, he was told that she hadn’t heard from you in years.”
She smiled. “I provide her with books—computer tech manuals now—and in turn, she protects me.”
“Protects you? Prom what?”
“The church has … held a grudge. They can be very difficult. I don’t see anyone anymore.”
“You’re seeing me.”
She used her thick arms to propel herself toward him, stopping a few feet from where he sat. “I dream about you, Mr, Beamon.”
Beamon shifted uncomfortably in the chair as the woman stared at him. “I’m not quite sure how to respond to that.”
“It started a few months ago,” she explained. “I couldn’t see you clearly at first, but every night your face became a little sharper. Of course, I didn’t know who you were, until I saw you on TV.”
“And what am I doing in these dreams?” Beamon asked, not sure he really wanted to know.
“Different things. Tell me, Mr. Beamon, do you believe in God?”
“That’s a complicated question.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Let’s say I have an open mind.”
His answer seemed to satisfy her. “That’s more than most people can say. Now what is it I can do for the FBI?”
Beamon let out a quiet sigh of relief. He wasn’t really looking to spend the day debating theology with a woman who seemed to have a less than iron grip on reality. “I’m interested in the Church of the Evolution and I’m told you’re probably the most knowledgeable resource in the world.”
“May I ask what this is about?” she said, though there was something strange in her voice that made Beamon think she already knew.
“Nothing in particular. I’m just looking for general background information.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Beamon,” she said, suddenly sounding like a surgeon telling someone that they had a week to live. “I did do a significant amount of research into the church before I wrote Betrayal. But that was in 1986—more than a decade ago.” She looked down at the floor and shook her head sadly. “I don’t know if I can help you anymore …”
“Hey, it’s okay, Ernie,” Beamon said, reaching out and patting her soft shoulder. She looked like she was about to start crying for some reason. “I’m sure you’re going to be a lot of help.”
Beamon picked up an old copy of the Wall Street journal lying on the table next to him. He recognized the issue as one containing an article on the church’s business dealings. “It looks like you still keep up.”
“Only superficially. I’ve let myself get distracted by work.” She punched herself in the leg. “And by my own stupid problems. If only I’d known earlier that you were coming …”
Beamon looked over at a wood-framed photograph propped on the table next to him. It depicted a pleasantly plump woman with what rooked like a touch football team. “You?” he said, trying to distract her before her mind wandered so far it got lost.
“In happier times.”
“When you were with the church?”
She nodded slowly. “When I was an official member of the church.”
“What was it that drew you in, Ernie?”
She cocked her head for a moment and then waved a thick arm around at the computer systems that surrounded her. “I’m a programmer, Mr. Beamon. A mathematician and formerl
y a Baptist. Like many people, I suppose, I had a hard time devoting six days a week to the study of science and technology and then forgetting everything I’d learned on the seventh so that I could be with my God.”
“So it was the church’s mix of science and theology that appealed to you.”
“Initially, yes. Then I read Albert’s Bible.” Beamon noted the reverent drop in her voice at the use of Kneiss’s name.
“I’ve read it,” Beamon said. “Brilliant. He even had me going there a couple of times. And that’s not easy.”
“Have you ever seen him speak, Mr. Beamon?”
“Please call me Mark. On TV.”
She shook her head sadly. “It’s not the same. I can’t imagine anyone seeing him in person and still doubting that he is who he says he is.”
“God?”
“God’s messenger. But then, you know that.”
“So it was seeing him that hooked you.”
“There’s so much more, Mark,” she said, struggling into a more comfortable position. “It’s hard to explain to someone who’s never been involved. After you show initial interest, they barrage you. Invitations to dinners, picnics, promises of important business connections, as well as more personal introductions. If you have children, they’re invited on camping trips and other activities. I guess they gave me a sense of belonging that I wanted but had never had.”
Beamon looked down at the picture again and at the other faces staring out of it. They all had that clean-cut look of optimism that stamped them as Kneissians. “How long were you involved with the church?”
“As a member? Four years.”
“Really?”
“You sound surprised.”
Beamon laid the picture down. “I guess I expected you to say six months or something. I understand that you wrote a pretty scathing exposé. I assumed you joined, hated it, and left.”