“Tim was an active government agent starting on or about the same time he was discharged honorably from the Army. He was with the twenty-third division security dispatch. He continued his security work by joining the FBI and was quickly recruited by the CIA when they learned of his contacts throughout Egypt and Syria. Because of the security work he did in the army he had a relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hafez al-Assad; they considered him one of theirs. He fed them information prepared by the CIA and in turn they allowed him to be present during high-level briefings. I was forced to speculate most of the small shit because I don’t have security clearance for the un-redacted files, but in the end it seems his cover was blown, and he was brought back to the United States. He reported to the Dallas bureau until the end of two thousand two. Should I go on?”
“Yes,” I said. Everything they told me was a lie—make up a story and stick with it—it was all fiction.
“He continued his work for the CIA, mostly domestic until June of 0’two. He abruptly quit using his want to marry Marla and start a new life as an excuse. There’s a lot more in here about his college years. We’ll get to it in a minute.”
“They got married in two thousand two?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How did they meet?”
“They met at the drug rehab clinic where Marla worked in Dallas. The clinic had a contract with the government for drug testing of the Agents. Tim needed a bit of help passing his tests so he buddied up with Marla—co-owner and Physician in charge. They met in 0’one and married in 0’two.
“Every word, everything was a lie. How could I be so stupid?”
“You were a kid. You saw what you wanted to see, what you needed to see. You needed a family and they gave it to you.”
“I fell into their trap. How did they know?” I asked. “How did they know about the crew? How did I end up with them?”
“That’s the creepy part,” he said, reached into a bottom desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of whisky, took off the lid, wiped the top with his shirtsleeve and handed it to me. “Just a little to dull the nerve I’m fixing to hit.” He didn’t have to tell me twice. I drank once, swallowed hard and then drank again.
“Marla earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology when her name was Betsy Holder. She owned a private practice in Abilene for eight years and during that time was a highly sought out psychotherapist. She had new and inventive ideas on how to treat chronic mental illnesses with non-traditional behavioral sciences.” Kevin opened Marla’s folder and found a picture of the book, Breaking Tradition. I recognized it as the book Marla would read to me on several occasions. It was her tool in convincing me that I was not mentally ill.
“I know the book,” I said. My mind couldn’t wrap itself around everything I was hearing. “She said Betsy was her roommate in college. They were best friends.”
“She lived alone during her college years. The book made her semi-famous. She wrote about fictitious people and cases while claiming them to be real patients with real life success stories. Her practice grew after the book was published. People thought she was a miracle worker curing diseases like schizophrenia, bipolar and many others through behavior modification. She never used medications. The same way she had done for the fake patients in her book.”
He flipped through the pages in Marla’s folder, and pulled out three pictures. One was of a small bedroom furnished with two twin beds and a chest of drawers. Both beds were covered in blood. There were the shapes of two mutilated female bodies—one on each bed, tangled in the sheets and bathed in blood. The other two pictures were headshots of the girls when they were still alive. The attached police report said both girls had a glut of mental illnesses.
“What happened to these two girls? Did Marla, or Betsy do this?” I asked. I didn’t want my mind to speculate I needed facts.
“Betsy and Marla are the same person,” Kevin said.
“I get that asshole, but if Marla killed these girls why isn’t she in jail?” I asked.
“We have what she told the police, and what was said in court. She claimed self-defense and took a plea deal. Most of testimony was sealed for the protection of the one witness,” Kevin said. “She was contracted by two families to treat their daughters according to her methods written about in the book. Betsy locked herself, and those two girls in the apartment together—without medication. Betsy was the only one who came out, one week later, alive. She claimed the girls had joined their minds to become a single entity. They used the voices they heard to attack and try to kill her. Betsy’s words were: “It was me or them”. The Judge wanted proof of Betsy’s treatment successes. She brought him the only case study in her book based on an actual patient. The witness was Anna Ruth Green.” Kevin closed the folder and looked for my reaction.
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” I finally said, and took a long gulp from the whiskey bottle.
“What you’re feeling. What are you thinking?”
“I feel nothing. I have no thoughts. I want to know what Momma said to the judge.”
“The Judge met with Betsy and her lawyers in his chambers. Your mother was a witness. Nothing else is said about her. If it was recorded, we’ll never know. Nothing is written, nothing is noted and all we know is that Betsy was acquitted. She changed her name to Marla, went back to school to get her PhD and eventually she became part owner of the rehab in Dallas. When she met Tim, he helped solidify her new identity and eliminated the old one.”
“Make up a story and stick with it,” I mumbled.
“What?” Kevin asked.
“Why did the truck driver take me to her?” I asked.
“She’d helped the drivers pass their drug tests in the same way she’d helped Tim. She was also giving them methadone and other drugs for extra cash. A few of the drivers started coming to her for help with their mental problems. The driver who picked you up in Anson was one of the drivers she had helped. He made a video of you and sent it to Marla. She recognized the face and instructed the driver to bring you to her. He’s also the driver who brought Tim to Sunny. The photographer that Jim beat up was a private detective from Abilene hired by Tim to find you.”
“She never left my side. She was with me day and night. Every second I was awake she was with me, documenting every word I said. I was never left alone,” I said. I was trying to make sense of what Marla wanted from me in her reality. “If she went out of town, I went with her. I went shopping with her. I went with her to get a haircut. She would tell people I was her niece so they wouldn’t ask questions. I never wondered what questions she was afraid of. She knew Momma? Why…why would she?”
“You’ll never understand why. It’s not worth the headache. It was a lie all of it. Marla, Betsy, whatever you want to call the bitch was a fake, and an opportunist. That’s the only way to explain it and that’s good enough for now.”
“But she did help me,” I said. “She’s the one who knew writing would help me. She must have discovered it with Momma.” That’s the moment it began to make sense. She’d read Momma’s case to me. That’s what Marla had said, here’s a girl and she hears voices the same as you.
“I believe she knew the crew writings are prophetic. When she told Tim, he quit the CIA and started relying upon the crew for information he could sell to his friends in the Middle East. Marla made a pretty penny off the books, and the crew gave Tim a perfect cover. He could never be accused of stealing information from the government because he didn’t. If caught he would simply turn you over and secure his immunity. He used you until something went wrong, something unplanned.”
“They didn’t lock me up, and they were the ones that insisted upon my leaving and even secured a place for me to live, a place they controlled. What happened to Tim’s partner? Who blew up the car?” I asked.
“Frank Argot was up for promotion and started poking around in Tim’s old files. I think he caught on to what Tim was doing, and started to put the pieces in place. Ar
got met with Tim a month before the second book was printed. According to his notes, he questioned Tim about some large deposits of cash to his bank account. He asked Tim if he’d made any overseas trips recently—small shit like that—probably trying to spook him into saying something incriminating. After their meeting, Tim arranged the interview with Ceely Masters and fed her producers the information on Wayne Perkins. He sent you to Sunny and kept an eye on you, and used the private detective to be informed of what you were doing. The detective lost track of you during the move, and that spooked Tim. He must’ve thought Frank had found you and the gig was up. I don’t know for sure but I think he took Frank out of the picture. Tim and Marla planned on running to Mexico. He blew up the car and Frank, and then Marla was kidnapped.” Kevin took a breath and rubbed his forehead.
“Keep going,” I said.
“Finneaus Albert,” he said, and opened the folder. Inside were the crew sessions, and photocopies of a few pages from the books. “I know it looks as though I don’t have much.”
“How does he fit in with Tim and Marla?”
“As soon as I figured out who Finneaus Albert was the story was complete.”
“Ok so who’s Finneaus Albert?” I asked.
Kevin smiled and puffed out his chest. “Let me start at the beginning.”
“You are joking right? We’ve been talking for the better part of an hour. Drop the drama.”
“Do you have to piss on everything? I called the police in Oklahoma and got nowhere they’re giving everything to the CIA. All I had to rely on was internal documents and the crew. I was looking through some of Agent Argot’s files and found a name.”
“How’d you get your hands on his files?”
“Momma. Social workers have more security clearance than the President. He was a single father of underage children. She requested his personal files, and the Central Ignorance Agency gave her a log in and password. Wham-bam-thank-you-mam and there it is on my computer screen, every case, every note and almost every thought Frank Argot ever had.”
“You go Jade.”
“Damn straight, Momma ain’t no slack. I followed Frank’s notes, mixed it with a little crew and out popped a connection.” Kevin pulled my cell phone out of the desk drawer.
“That’s mine,” I said, and grabbed for it.
Kevin held the phone out of my reach. “Yes it’s yours. It was ringing nonstop for an entire day and night. I never answered it, but I did listen to the voicemail. First, I’m going to tell you the connection and then you listen to the voicemail.” He put the cell phone in his pants pocket.
“Frank started at the beginning—literally—with a birth notice. It didn’t give us the names of Tim’s parents, but it did give us the county and date of birth. The only school records he found were Tim’s first year at Hardin Simmons University in Abilene.” He opened Tim’s file and handed me the school admissions document. At the bottom of the page, next to the question—responsible party—was the name Doctor George Albert circled in red ink. “Doctor George Albert leads us to Nurse Flora Albert, AKA Flora Todd, mother of Agent Timothy Todd, brother of Finneaus Albert.”
“Stop talking like you’re a fucking TV detective. It’s fucking annoying. You got it fuck face?”
“Now that’s some pretty talk,” Kevin scolded.
“Shut the fuck up,” I wanted the information straight like a first grade primer. See Tim run. Run Tim run. Tim turns on Shanna. Run Shanna run. “Tim and Finneaus are brothers?”
“Flora Todd gave birth to an illegitimate baby—Tim—at the age of fourteen. She finished school with the help of her Aunt, went on to study and become a Surgical Nurse. When she started working for Doctor George Albert, she was twenty-nine, and Tim was going on sixteen. Not wanting the Doctor to know she was a tainted woman saddled with another man’s child she sent Tim off to boarding school. The Doctor and nurse fell in love, got married and had a son they named Finneaus. Are you still with me?”
“You could have just said half brothers. The Doctor must have known about Tim since he paid the college tuition.”
“They met at some point, but it’s not documented. We only know that Doctor George Albert paid for the first year of Tim’s college. The crew has however talked nonstop about them. Finneaus is the bomber.”
“You’re positive, no doubts?”
“No doubts.”
“Do we know where he is? Where he lives?”
“Yes.”
“What are we waiting for?”
“Listen to the voicemail.” There were sixteen calls from unknown. I looked to Kevin for an explanation. “There’s only one voicemail. Listen to it.”
“Shanna, where are you? You have to follow my instructions. Where are you?” a distraught Marla asked. Another voice could be heard in the background. I couldn’t make out every word but got the impression Marla was being fed her lines. “He’s got me. He says if you say his name he’ll let me live. If you don’t come soon and bring the crew he’ll kill me. Where the hell are you? You owe me Shanna. You owe me.” The line sounded muffled. She was talking with the other person, but it wasn’t clear. “If you show up with cops he’ll blow up everyone,” she was crying. “Listen to the crew carefully Shanna and get here. Save me.” The line went dead.
“When did she leave this?” I asked trying to push the right button with my shaking hands. Kevin took the phone while covering both of my hands with one of his. The warmth calmed me.
“Yesterday, an hour after the New Mexico bombing.”
“He knows who I am?”
“She told you to bring the crew, to listen to the crew. She was covering.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s with him.”
“Finneaus?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s he?”
“He lives in Sedona, Arizona. The crew gave us his address. They gave us everything. It’s a trap. He’s using Marla to get to the crew. He’ll kill anyone who gets in his way.”
“What the crew said, what I wrote is it in his file?”
“Yes, I think it’s all there. When you were out you said a lot of things. I should have recorded it, but Momma wouldn’t let me.”
I took the Finneaus Albert folder and quickly scanned through what the crew had said. Joseph flat out gave his address. The Preacher talked about his motives. The Professor described the making of bombs, and The Hippy, Mother, Singer and Poet chimed in. Arizona wasn’t close, and we needed to get on the road.
“I’m going to take care of this lunatic. You will not get involved. You’re the pipe not the vessel.”
“Oh good God in heaven. Please don’t start with that crazy shit again. Pipe, vessel what’s the difference? If I’m the pipe the one it flows through you have to take me. Without me, all you’ve got is an empty vessel.” I headed to the guest room with Kevin close behind, looked around for anything I might have left, and then went back to Kevin’s room.
“Get a suitcase packed.”
“What?”
“We’ve got everything we need. Let’s go, time’s a wasting.”
“No. You haven’t read it all. It’s a trap.”
“I’m going that’s that, enough said, let’s roll.”
“No. I can’t risk it. No.”
I started pulling socks and underwear from his dresser drawers. I opened another drawer and pulled out some t-shirts. “Where are your pants?” I asked. “In the closet?”
“No,” he said and sat on the bed. “No Shanna you can’t go with me.”
“I promised Jade I wouldn’t let you get killed, and I think you know that no one breaks a promise to your Momma. I’m not going to break that promise or any other promise I make from now on. I’ll give you one right now. I promise if you don’t get your ass up and get packed I’ll go at it on my own.” I sat on the bed next to him. “What are we going to do here? Argue it to death or go and get this son of bitch.” He packed a bag, and we were out the door within ten minutes. Jade
didn’t try to stop us. She sat in her chair and bowed her head while the rocker made the floor creak in rhythm with her prayers.
17.
The GPS was set for Sedona Arizona, eight hundred thirty-eight miles. Thirteen hours and four minutes later we would arrive, but until then I wanted more information. I held the folder marked Shanna Green in my lap. I wasn’t afraid of what was in the folder—it was what it was. It felt invasive and a bit embarrassing to have a file about me. It created an inequality between us, and gave Kevin an unfair advantage.
“Sun’s going down,” Kevin said. “We’ll arrive tomorrow morning.”
“Tell me a secret,” I said.
“About what? I haven’t kept anything from you. You know everything there is to know.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I want you to tell me something that would be in your file if you had one. Something I would learn from reading your file.”
“Oh I see where you going with this,” he said and gave me a smirk. “You think that file gives me leverage. Read it. The worst thing in there is a consent form for a marriage license that you and Jim applied for in Abilene when you were sixteen. You probably faked the signatures so it could in theory get you in trouble someday, but it’s unlikely.” He laughed. “Don’t worry about it. You were young and no one would care because it was just a consent form. Otherwise, there are the birth and school records of an average girl living in Sunny, Texas. You disappeared for ten years, no doctors, no income and no other movement. You show up again after Tim was arrested.”
“Is this all they know?” I asked.
“By now I’m sure they’ve sent agents to interview anyone who’d talk in Sunny. I’d say they know everything except for where you are right this second. They know about the house on the land and the hill people,” he said and looked for my reaction. “They know who you are, and they have a warrant out for you as a person of interest. No one in Sunny knows anything about Tim, but some still felt the need to talk so they gave the agents the witch and evil seed bit. It’s all in the folder. The CIA hung around a day or two and left without a credible lead. I talked to Jim a couple of days ago, and he said they grilled him good, but he’d never betray you. He didn’t let them talk to Jima.” Kevin took a sip of coffee, and again looked for a reaction. I gave him nothing. “He calls me from a payphone in Rotan, probably one of the last ones existing, in case they are tracking his calls.”
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