The Switch

by Sandra Brown

  "He's offed himself," Lawson told him. "It's not pretty, but I'd like you to take a look for ID purposes. From the looks of his place here, he was one sick puppy." He turned back into the house, saying over his shoulder, "Don't touch anything." Then he stopped and faced Chief. "You don't have a weak stomach, do you?"

  "I survived the Vomit Comet."

  "Yeah, well, this'll make that seem like a day at the beach." Under his breath, Lawson added, "I've seen more than my quota of blood today, that's for fucking sure."

  The small apartment was stifling inside and smelled like a meat locker. It was soon apparent why. As Lawson had warned, there was a lot of blood.

  Dale Gordon lay face up on the floor in front of what appeared to be an altar of some sort.. His body formed a cross, with his arms extending straight out from his shoulders, palms up, his feet overlapping. He had slashed his wrists. Near the body, a wicked-looking knife was lying on the floor, along with his eyeglasses, as though he had removed them as an afterthought before assuming the Christ-like position. He was naked.

  Lawson looked over at Chief. "That him?"

  Chief gave a brusque nod. In the distance he heard a siren, signaling the approach of an ambulance.

  "Lawson?" Keating stepped out from behind a curtain partition. He was holding a pair of boxer shorts in his gloved hands. "These match the pajama top you found in the Lloyd woman's bedroom?"

  Lawson sighed in disgust. "His souvenir."

  Keating extended them so that both Lawson and Chief could see the dried residue on the fabric.

  Chief's stomach clenched. Swearing, he pressed his fingertips into his eye sockets and rubbed them hard, trying to wipe out the image of the soiled garment.

  Lawson asked Keating if he'd found anything else.

  "Still looking." After bagging the pajamas as evidence, he returned to searching other parts of the apartment.

  To divert his mind, Chief asked, "Is that the knife he used on Gillian?"

  "The bloodstains on it will be tested against hers. And as soon as I get the ME's report, I'll know if the wounds are consistent with this type blade. I'm betting yes to both. He's our man."

  Chief looked across at him, knowing there was more he was holding back."What?"

  "This was one disturbed dude," the detective admitted with a frown. "Before I called you in, we found a whole file of stuff on Gillian Lloyd, along with pictures of her. Inside there." He indicated the chest that had served as Gordon's altar.

  "Pictures?"

  "Candid shots that she didn't know were being taken. While she was in the examination room of the clinic." "Jesus."

  "Yeah, that, too," Lawson said wryly. "He was some kind of religious freak. Look at all this stuff. More candles than church. Icons. A whip with blood on it. Ten to one it's his blood. A collection of apocalyptic literature. Real spooky shit. Looks to me like he was a man in conflict. A religious fanatic with a hard-on for Gillian Lloyd. He couldn't handle it."

  "Especially after he saw her with me."

  "I guess," Lawson mused. "He saw her at the clinic. Became obsessed with her. Built his sexual fantasies around her. Then he spotted her with you last night. Got jealous, freaked out. Solved the problem of not having her for himself by killing her."

  A mournful groan brought both men around. Melina Lloyd was standing behind them. By her expression, Chief could tell that she'd heard at least a portion of Lawson's summation.

  The detective asked what the hell she was doing there. Chief took her by the shoulders and tried to back her through the door. She resisted. "Is he the one who killed her? Why? Why?"

  "You shouldn't have come here," Lawson said sternly. "Outside. With me," Chief said, taking her arm.

  "No!" She took a step toward the corpse, but he blocked her path. "I want to see his face!"

  "How'd you get here?" Lawson demanded.

  "Oh, it took some real detective work. I looked him up in the telephone directory. Get out of my way!" she cried when Chief again blocked her from advancing any farther into the room. She pushed hard against his chest. "I want to see him. I want to see her killer. I want to know he's dead."

  "No question of that." Chief covered her hands with his. "Melina, please." He continued to struggle with her until she seemed to lose her will to fight. At the first sign of her relenting, he hustled her outside, where he gathered her against him. She collapsed onto his chest and began to sob dryly. He wrapped his arms around her for comfort and to protect her from the escalating chaos.

  The wail of the siren died as an ambulance pulled into the driveway, where the Pomeranian was bouncing like an animated powder puff and emitting earsplitting barks. The old woman looked frightened and confused and got in the way of the paramedics as they rushed past her pushing a gurney. "Did something happen to Mr. Gordon?" she called after them.

  Neighbors were congregating on the tree-shaded sidewalk. They were mostly retirement age. The real-life drama being played out was more entertaining than the afternoon talk shows on TV. The atmosphere was charged with excitement.

  Chief stroked Melina's hair. "You don't need this. You shouldn't be here."

  She wrested herself free. "Why shouldn't I? He killed my sister."

  "It looks that way."

  "Then I belong here." Angry eyes flashed up at him. "But

  you don't. You made it clear by lying about your involvement with Gillian that you wanted to distance yourself from her. From all this. So what are you doing here?"

  He explained that he was there at Lawson's invitation.

  "More like insistence. He thought he'd be questioning Gordon and wanted me to make a positive identification."

  "Did you?"

  "Yes. No mistake. It's the guy."

  "Then you've served your purpose. Why are you still hanging around?"

  Her rebuff shocked and angered him. He was here to help.

  He could think of a thousand ways he'd rather be spending a mild autumn day than looking at a naked dead man lying in a congealed lake of blood.

  With Gordon's suicide and the evidence they'd collected, the case would be closed. He'd done all he could do. Lawson didn't need him anymore. Come to think of it, what was he doing here?

  "Damned if I know why I'm hanging around," he returned, matching her vituperative tone. "But before I go, I want you to know one thing."

  "And that would be...?"

  "That I hate what happened to Gillian. I hate it more than you give me credit for, and I hate like hell that I played a part in the tragedy." Moving his face down closer to hers, he added, "But I'm glad it was Gillian who escorted me last night and not you."

  CHAPTER 13

  Lamesa County was the smallest in New Mexico, but it seemed vast because it was also the most sparsely populated. Sheriff Max Ritchey liked it that way.

  To some, the scenery through his windshield might have looked desolate. Not to him. To him it looked as cozy as the womb. He'd been born and reared in Lamesa County. He'd lived here all his life except for the two years spent at college in Las Cruces, a period of time he did not look back on with fondness, and his stint in the Air Force. He accepted an early retirement from military service, with no rank to speak of, returned to Lamesa County, married a local girl, and had three kids by her, one boy, two girls. He would likely die and be buried here.

  Before becoming sheriff, his career history had been as undistinguished as his military service. He'd stocked and clerked in a hardware store, but after being passed up twice for an assistant managerial position, he quit and tried his hand at selling used cars and pickups. Sales wasn't his forte, either. That year had put a financial strain on his family from which they hadn't completely recovered until seven years ago when he landed a job as deputy sheriff.

  He had served in that capacity only three years when he was approached and urged to run for the office. His opponent hadn't posed much of a threat, and Ritchey had practically been guaranteed a victory. Voter turnout that year had been at a record-breaking lo
w. Nevertheless, Ritchey was as surprised as anyone when the ballots were tallied in his favor. He hadn't been contested in the past two elections, which he took as a sign that folks were pleased with the job he was doing.

  He loved being sheriff, every aspect of it, from the smart brown uniform to the compact office he shared with three un-ambitious deputies. He liked cruising around in the patrol car and having people wave to him with an attitude of respect. He liked that he was permitted to carry firearms. He'd been taught at an early age how to use guns of all types, and his marksmanship skills were kept well honed by frequent trips out into the desert to shoot at the cans and bottles that his wife thought he collected to be recycled.

  His shooting skills had never been tested on the job, however. Not in seven years. There was little crime in Lamesa County. Year before last they'd had a rape. A local teenager had picked up a hitchhiker on the highway. The drifter was long gone by the time she reported it. She was little help in identifying him; he'd never been caught.

  A homicide had been committed on the reservation. A man had caught his wife in another man's bed and killed them both. The reservation's independent police force had done most of the investigative work, although there'd been no mystery to solve. It had been a clear-cut double murder, a crime of passion. Ritchey's role had been restricted to paperwork. As a rule, he let the Indians take care of their own business. He had no quarrel with them, and they appreciated his hands-off policy and wished every government official would adopt it.

  Last fall some boys had been caught breaking into a rival high school for the purpose of shearing the buffalo-head mascot. Actually, that had been pretty funny, that bald-headed buffalo. The boys had been expelled for a few days, and their parents were forced to buy a replacement buffalo head.

  Every now and then Ritchey would lock a drunk in jail until he slept it off, or settle an argument between spouses. That was about the extent of the crime in his county.

  So it was with a great deal of excitement that he had taken the call this morning from a Senior Corporal Lawson. "Dallas PD," the man had said in the gravelly voice of a present or former smoker.

  "What can I do for you?"

  "I've been investigating a homicide. The victim was a white female, thirty-five years old."

  Ritchey sipped from a cup of coffee as he listened to the facts of the case. "Writing on the walls? Ugly."

  "It was that. We got our perp. A little too late, as it turns out." Lawson went on to describe the bizarre suicide. "Eerie as all get-out," the detective concluded.

  "Sounds like. Also sounds like you've got your case wrapped."

  "Just tying up a few loose ends. This guy, name o' Gordon, was your classic loner. Weird as hell, but above-average intelligence. Good at his job. He was a lab technician at an infertility clinic."

  "You don't say."

  "Got along with the other staff okay but kept mainly to himself. Didn't mingle or shoot the shit at the coffee machine, know what I mean? And other than his obsession with the victim, he seemed to have no interests. No bowling league. No computer games. No church groups. And that's what's really odd."

  "In what way?"

  "Because he was real religious. You know of a Brother Gabriel?"

  Sheriff Ritchey laughed. "Doesn't everybody?"

  "Well, I didn't. I mean, I'd heard of him, but I'd never watched his TV show or listened to one of his sermons until after I discovered Dale Gordon's body and started going through his stuff."

  "What's a killer got to do with Brother Gabriel?"

  "That's where you come in, Sheriff Ritchey."

  As a consequence of that call, Ritchey was now snaking his way up the narrow mountain road that led to the compound at the peak. As a professional courtesy, he had agreed to Law-son's request that he have a chat with Brother Gabriel to ask why Dale Gordon would have placed ten calls to him this month alone.

  "Why don't you call him yourself?" he'd asked.

  "I could. But I'd probably get the runaround. People tend to freeze up, get skittish over the telephone, become suspicious and won't tell you squat. They know you. You might get more. Besides, this is only background, follow-up stuff."

  Ritchey was savvy enough to know that he couldn't just barge in on the county's celebrity citizen unannounced. Brother Gabriel owned the whole mountain on which his sprawling compound was situated. The last thing Sheriff Ritchey wanted to do was offend the famous evangelist, although Brother Gabriel took exception to being called such. Other TV preachers had given the word a bad connotation. Besides, he was unlike any other and resented being lumped into the umbrella classification.

  Sheriff Ritchey had called ahead. He was expected. When he pulled to a stop at the entrance to the Temple, the guard stepped to his driver's window and said, "Peace and love, Sheriff."

  "Peace and love," he said back, feeling a little foolish.

  The guard looked him over, checked the back seat, and then returned to his booth and opened the electronic gate. From there it was another half mile (point six, to be exact) to the heart of the compound.

  In addition to the main building, there were several outbuildings, among them dormitories for the people who lived and worked there. One building was a dedicated school with a well-equipped playground. The building with the satellite dish on the roof was, of course, the television studio from which Brother Gabriel transmitted his various programs.

  The building without windows was the command post for the elaborate security system, which was necessary to protect a world figure like Brother Gabriel. It was said he had recruited his guards from armies and intelligence forces around the world, handpicking the cream of the crop from soldiers and mercenaries trained to protect heads of state and willing to die if necessary to ensure that protection.

  Brother Gabriel had legions of followers. Naturally, a man with that much power and influence over the spiritual lives of men and women had also cultivated many critics. He wasn't paranoid, but he was sensible.

  He lived in what he called a "carnal" world, where lost souls were wont to do just about anything, sometimes for the thrill, sometimes for attention, sometimes for reasons that were permanently locked inside their troubled psyches. So the compound's security setup was extensive and state-of-the-art.

  This was only the second time Ritchey had been to the compound. He was a little intimidated. He knew his every move was being monitored by strategically placed video cameras. He felt eyes watching him from deep inside the security building as he alighted from his sheriff's unit and climbed the granite steps to the imposing entrance of the main building.

  It was rather like a sinner approaching the Pearly Gates. He wasn't all that confident of being admitted. His heart was pounding with excitement and trepidation as he depressed the button to the right of the wide glass doors.

  He could see the guard seated behind a console inside the marble foyer. "Sheriff Ritchey?" The voice came through a speaker directly over Ritchey's head.

  "Yes, sir?"

  "Could you remove your hat, please?"

  "Oh, sure."

  He took off his wide-brimmed hat and practically stood at attention. "Come in," the guard said.

  He heard the metallic click as the locking mechanism was released. Pulling open the heavy door, he stepped into an oasis of pastel marble. Soft music was playing. The guard was uniformed, spit-and-polished, but he smiled congenially. "They're waiting for you upstairs. Take the elevator to the third floor."

  "Thank you."

  There were cameras in the ceiling of the elevator, too.

  Ritchey tried not to let his self-consciousness show. He concentrated on not shifting his weight from one foot to the other, on not clearing his throat.

  After a smooth, soundless ascent, the doors opened and he stepped out. A man was standing there to greet him, whom he recognized as Brother Gabriel's right-hand man. Tall, erect, soft-spoken, immaculately groomed, a white carnation in the lapel of his dark suit jacket.

  "Hello,
Sheriff Ritchey. Nice to see you again. It's been a while."

  "Mr. Hancock." Deferentially he shook the manicured hand that was extended to him.

  "Brother Gabriel is waiting."

  Without further ado, Ritchey was escorted into an enormous chamber that reminded him of the Great Room at Carlsbad Caverns, the one you had to troop miles through the deep, dark cave to reach. But when you got there, it was worth the time and effort. So was this.

  Gold everywhere. Molding. Furniture. Doorknobs. Hinges.

  Everything that could be gold was gold. The wattage of the lighting was kept low, otherwise one might have been blinded by so much brilliance.

  The walls of the room were royal blue, a shiny textile he figured was silk. The ceiling was one big painting. Like the churches in Europe that he'd seen pictures of. He didn't want to gawk, but he took a quick glimpse and saw a lot of puffy pink clouds and angels with wings.

  The rug seemed larger than a basketball court, the desk bigger than a railroad car; the man seated behind it was larger than life.

  Brother Gabriel smiled and motioned him forward. "Sheriff Ritchey. It's always a pleasure to see you. Would you like something to drink?"

  "Uh, no, no thanks," he stammered as he took the chair Brother Gabriel indicated. It reminded him of a throne, with a high, knobby back of gilded carved wood. Not that comfortable, actually.

  "Well, then." Brother Gabriel linked his long, slender fingers together and set his hands on his desk. "Why did you request this meeting?"

  Max Ritchey had never entertained a homosexual tendency in his life. In fact, he had no use for that kind. But he would have to be blind not to notice that Brother Gabriel was truly beautiful. Broad forehead, piercing green eyes, a thin, straight nose, full lips saved from being pretty by a cleft chin and square jaw. All crowned by thick white-blond hair. He was otherworldly beautiful. If the angel Gabriel came down to earth, he would look like this. Maybe not even this good. And he probably wouldn't be dressed as well, either.

  Catching himself in a spellbound stare, Sheriff Ritchey cleared his throat and tried to find a more comfortable position in the chair. "I hate to bother you with this. It's nothing, I'm sure."