“Who says anything about that?”
She glanced up at him. “That you wear earphones on a case? That you like to listen to music?” She paused. “Nobody.”
He watched his driving and made no reply. Seconds later, the car was filled with rising voices. A chorus –sopranos and altos – singing a lilting, haunting melody.
Reed asked what it was.
“They’re called The Tallis Scholars. They’re doing a piece called ‘Spem in alium.’ It means ‘Hope in any other.’”
The choir of voices continued to rise, then quieted, then rose again. He picked out several voices, at least five, each on its own undulating path. Then they would come together for a moment – harmonize, he supposed – and break off again. Beautiful.
“Thanks,” he said to Virginia. “It’s not bad.”
“Thought you could branch out a little from Metallica.”
He felt the corner of his mouth twitch with a smile.
22
The cover of religion
They rode to the barracks together. Virginia would call Julia Hetfield. Reed had asked Jackson Marrs, the reporter, to meet him, and Marrs was prompt, there at two p.m. on the dot. Kruse arrived a few minutes later with a box of donuts. An afternoon perk-up, he said.
“You’re killing me,” Reed said, and grabbed a powdered-sugar number with fire-engine-red jelly inside.
After cleaning off his fingers with both his mouth and a napkin, he looked at Marrs. The reporter was sitting patiently in front of Kruse’s desk, Kruse himself on the other side of it, working on a bear claw.
“What’s your feeling on this all being part of cult activity?” Reed asked.
Marrs looked like a pupil finally called on to give an answer he knew to the class. “Absolutely. I was thinking Children of God.”
“Children of God,” Kruse repeated, flicking a look at Reed.
Reed had heard of it. “They go more by something else today, right?”
Marrs nodded. “The Family International. But, anyway, not them.”
Kruse repeated, “Not them.”
“But a group like that,” Marrs said. Then he looked between the two cops. “Why? What have you got? What are you basing that on?”
Reed shook his head. “Questions are only going one way today, my friend.”
“Well, I think it’s right,” Marrs said. “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’ve covered several cult stories.”
Reed flicked a hand, meaning, hit me with a couple.
Marrs said, “I covered the Word of Life Church scandal. When that teenaged boy was beaten to death by his own family – his sister and his own parents – because he wanted to leave. Plus, I’ve followed the Anthroposophic Society, Golden Quest… And everybody knows about NXIVM.” He pronounced it Nex-ee-um.
Reed asked how to spell them all and wrote down the names.
“I’m not saying it’s any of these groups, though,” Marrs said.
“I know.”
“Cults are getting smarter, is the point. Like a bacteria learning to adapt. They know they’re more visible in rural areas. That’s why they try to blend in with other things that are more acceptable. If you’re in a more urban area, maybe, your cult looks like personal growth, strengthening your brand, getting better at marketing – things like that. But when you start hearing terms you’ve never heard before – Thetans and Engrams or The Society of Protectors – that’s a cult.” He finished by saying, “And really, nine times out of ten, what’s behind it are men looking to have sex. Sorry to be so blunt, but men who probably had trouble having sex the normal way, but they get into these cults, and it’s part of the belief.”
Reed let it all soak in. “So if it’s not Children of God up here…”
“FM,” Marrs said. “That’s what I think this is. Well, I think some of the people orbiting around these three cases you’ve got – they’re FM. It means Freedom Mission. I believe it’s also sometimes called Freedom of God.”
Reed jotted this one down, too, circled it. “Is it a big thing? Nationwide? Worldwide?”
Marrs seesawed his hand. “I’ve seen it here and there. Starting in the late sixties or early seventies, but never really spreading that far. Upstate New York has a fair amount of cults. New England has its share, too. I think it comes down to how we think about religious freedom. People are free to think up new religions – and they do. For one thing, it helps when a new community is being established. People come from outside; something to rally around. Social cohesion. Keeseville was settled for iron milling. Both there and Orville, you know, they chased off the Native Americans.”
“You’re losing me,” Reed said. “You saying you think this goes back a ways?”
“Like I said, maybe the sixties. But I don’t think Freedom Mission ever got a lot of real traction. It was almost like, maybe too ahead of its time.”
“In what way?”
“You know, sort of seeing the fallout of neoliberalism, global trade, the corporatization of the society. Seeing the little guy sucked up into the system.”
Kruse said, “That was going on in the sixties.”
“The sixties were about love, right? And peace? Staying out of Vietnam, people being free to love each other, have rights, be equal. Today it’s about getting yours. Getting even. Penance. It’s angrier today.”
“You said blending in…” Reed reminded him. But his mind was bouncing off Aaron Mosier again. His plan. His thoughts on global catastrophe. Today, all a kid needed was an internet connection to freak himself out. But Reed wondered about Jeremiah Mosier. What thoughts might be in his head about the world. About sexual right and wrong.
Marrs said, “Around here, where it’s rural, you’re going to stick out more if you sound like some Tony Robbins life coach person. Cults that work in areas like this tend to look more like standard religion. Members aren’t likely to flaunt their involvement. In fact, they’re more likely to say they’re a part of some local congregation.”
Another ding in the back of Reed’s mind. “Like Pentecostal, maybe.”
“Sure,” Marrs said with a nod.
After a moment, Reed said, “You were never doing a piece on me. You were looking into this.”
Marrs looked worried, as if remembering his fear of Reed from their previous encounter. “I thought if I told you I was doing this piece on you, you’d be more open. If I just said it was about cults in upstate New York, you’d shut me down…”
Kruse looked at Reed. “He’s humble, that Raleigh.”
Reed ignored it. “What do you know about Zachary Paine?”
Marrs showed the whites of his eyes. “I know a little bit. In fact, it’s my understanding he initiated a chapter of FM up here, back in the early seventies.”
Well, there it was.
Full circle.
And they talked for another half an hour.
Virginia had used another office to speak privately with Julia Hetfield by phone. Reed’s plan had been for Virginia to introduce herself as a researcher, following up and getting background on Hetfield since the victim had been last seen at her house.
“She was pretty snippy,” Virginia told Reed back in Kruse’s office.
“Uptight?”
“Uptight and uptown.”
It was hard for Reed to picture Julia Hetfield any way besides in that video, sweaty-haired and moaning. “Any soft spots when you talked about Daryl Snow? How did you bring him into the conversation?”
“I said we were considering the possibility that Snow picked up Kasey Stevens that night, and asked how well she knew him. She didn’t show any soft spot whatsoever. She said she knew his name, face, and that was it.”
With that, Reed’s phone buzzed.
The number was vaguely familiar – he hadn’t created a contact, but thought he knew who it was. The woman sounded slightly timid. “Mr., um, Investigator Raleigh? It’s Katherine Zurn.” At least she pronounced his name correctly.
“Hello, Mrs. Zurn.”
<
br /> “Can we meet? I’d still like to talk to you.”
Katherine Zurn led Reed and Virginia into the townhouse-style apartment she shared with Andy Zurn, Kasey’s biological father. In the kitchen, Reed and Virginia each accepted a coffee. In jeans and a loose T-shirt that said “Drexler Contracting” (a wrench and a hammer formed the X), Katherine was tall, with low hips and a long torso. She looked like her brother, Daryl, a bit in the way her blue eyes were close set.
The afternoon showed gray in the sole kitchen window. A small table occupied one side of the room, otherwise high cabinets all around, a wood block in the center. “So your boys are at school?” Reed asked. The coffee wasn’t bad. Maybe a little nutty. “It’s almost four o’clock.”
“The boys are both in baseball. Andrew picks them up from practice. He tries to get there a little early and watch.”
“So what does Andrew do?”
“He’s got a big roofing job right now. This time of year, he goes crazy. Everybody wants to work in May.” She wrapped hands around her own coffee mug, warming them. “He’ll actually make half the money for the year in these two months, May and June. He’s just out straight, seven days a week.”
“And what do you do, Katherine?”
“I do a little bit of everything, actually. I substitute teach, usually fifth or sixth grade, which I’m doing right now – I called you as soon as school ended. I sell Norwex, too – I host parties here at the house or at a friend’s house and sell – and I do a little bit of bookwork for Andy. He’s a scatterbrain when it comes to paperwork. You should see his truck – he’ll buy something and throw the receipt in the back seat. And that’s his filing system.” She shook her head. “He’s just too busy.”
“It must be hard right now,” Reed said. “It’s his busy season, and then there’s everything that happened.”
Katherine looked down at the floor. The pressure in the room seemed to rise. She was quiet for a while, then shook her head, put her hand over her lips, and started to cry.
Virginia got up from the table and put a hand on Katherine’s shoulder.
Katherine spoke with a kind of choked emotion. “It’s just so sad. Kasey was such a sweet girl. Such a smart girl. And then what Daryl did was just…”
She curled forward and sobbed. Virginia got a little closer, but not too close, and simply laid her hand on Katherine’s upper back while it passed. Reed looked around for a box of tissues, saw some sitting on the counter’s end, and grabbed a couple. “I’m sorry,” Katherine said after a minute. She took the tissues from Reed and thanked him. Straightening up, she said, “This has just been one of the hardest weeks of my life.”
“Of course.” Virginia removed her hand, but remained by Katherine’s side.
“I just… how do you react to something like this? There’s just no way.”
Reed waited a bit longer. “Were you and Kasey close?”
Katherine seemed to think about her response. “Andy isn’t in the picture much. That’s how Ida wanted it. He had Kasey with Ida a long time ago, and then she ran him off. Our boys are younger – third and fifth grade.”
Virginia eased her way back to the table and sat down as Reed said, “Did you know where Kasey was staying, most of the time?”
Katherine’s face tightened, her eyes seemed to dry. “I know she was staying with my brother. That’s why I called you.”
“Okay, right. And that’s why I asked you if you were close. I thought maybe…”
“Maybe because she was staying with Daryl, we had some kind of secret relationship? No. I have two sons. A husband who’s working around the clock.” She seemed to soften a bit and said, “But he did talk to me about her sometimes. Daryl wasn’t the most communicative brother in the world, but he did talk to me if I bothered him enough.”
Reed nodded for her to go on.
“Daryl told me that he was worried about her. About Kasey.”
“Why?”
“Not in like a… she-was-in-immediate-danger kind of way. Her potential, I guess. She was very smart. Very smart. She was going to go into forensic science. You know, in your field. She’d already spent a summer going around to the college… what do they call that?” Katherine cast her gaze up at the ceiling. Then, “Upward Bound. Something like that.”
“Did you know that Kasey was staying at the Wheeler house for a little while? Before she was at your brother’s?”
Her face expressed it: she didn’t.
“Here’s what we know,” Reed said, setting down the coffee. “Ida and Kasey weren’t getting along. Kasey ran away and stayed with the Wheelers – not long, about a week. But Kasey refused to come home. So Daryl, your brother, intervened. He had Kasey stay with him. Would he have kept that from Ida?”
Katherine shook her head. “Maybe, but I doubt it. And Ida would’ve found out.”
“Was Daryl worried about Kasey being in that house? With Ida?”
“Oh sure. He thought it was a terrible environment for her. All the partying. Ida thinks she’s still in high school. The only person Ida Stevens ever cared about was Ida Stevens,” Katherine said. There was ice in her voice. “I don’t know if she was born that way or something happened to her, and I don’t care which. What’s amazing is how you have a girl like Kasey who is sweet and has this wonderful disposition. And she came from that. It’s one of the great mysteries of life.”
“What makes you say that?” Reed asked.
“About Ida? Ask anyone. I don’t know how she keeps so many people around her. Must be fear. Because she is one giant, royal, haughty bitch if you asked me. Please excuse my language.”
Reed said, “I mean what makes you say that about Kasey’s nature. Her disposition. You said you didn’t really have a chance to know her…”
Katherine made eye contact with him, held it a moment, then said, “Hang on.” She left the room and was gone just long enough for him to share a look with Virginia when Katherine returned with a large photo album.
She set it on the table between them and sat down in the third chair, pulled herself close. Then she went through a couple of pages. “There. Look at her right there.”
They edged closer with the chairs. The picture showed a little girl, about two, Reed guessed, held by a young man. Both had beaming smiles, the girl’s around the chubby hand in her mouth. “Look at that precious little thing.” Katherine flipped a page in the album and pointed out more photos. She had a point: Kasey looked delightful and seemed to enliven everyone she was with.
He thought of her crushed neck. The ugly mark carved into her stomach.
He pushed those images away and lingered over a photo, a birthday party in which he recognized Ida’s house and property. There were some vaguely familiar faces, decade-younger versions of the people he’d seen around Ida, gray beards turned black. He pointed to one. “Who’s that right there?”
“That? Um, Vincent, something, I think. But look at Andy. Look at how much joy she brought him…” Katherine was suddenly on the verge of tears again. “To see him now, working hard as he is, while being just devastated, just heartbroken like this.”
Reed said, “The records show he had no custody, and there’s no visitation arrangement, but he has parental rights. Did he ever go down to see her? Elliston is only forty minutes away…”
Katherine shook her head rapidly and used a wadded tissue to blow her nose. “I’m telling you, you don’t know Ida. She didn’t want Andy anywhere near Kasey.”
“Why not?”
“She wouldn’t let him. Ida feared Kasey getting older, getting her license, getting independent. Moving on. But that’s what Daryl wanted for her. And me and Andy. But we just had to keep our distance.” Katherine stiffened and said, “I know what you’re thinking, that we should have done something.”
“Not thinking that at all,” Reed said.
“Andy is as gentle as they come. He got taken in by Ida when he was young. She was an older woman. She’s like a… she put a spell on A
ndy, he was just a young guy in his twenties, and she put a spell on him, he gave her a child, and then she got rid of him. She threatened him. She said if he ever came near Kasey, she would kill him.”
Reed looked from Katherine to Virginia. Hard to know where the rubber met the road with Katherine Zurn – she seemed a little high-strung in general – but there was a real shape to her version of things: Ida being a highly possessive mother, worried over her daughter’s growing independence, maybe angry at Daryl for allowing Kasey to stay with him, for being in contact with Katherine. Reed could picture Ida snapping. But ending Kasey’s life? Driving Daryl to suicide?
You had to have some crazy shit in your head for that to be the result.
“Katherine?” Reed asked. “Andy ever say anything about Ida being a part of something? Like a cult?”
Her forehead creased in concentration. “Oh, I don’t… no, not exactly. It was just a… loose kind of environment. Ida wanted to keep it like the sixties.”
Reed met eyes with Virginia and saw the question in her eyes. To Katherine, he said, “I need to ask you a hard question. It’s personal, and I’m sorry.”
Katherine Snow held his gaze this time, a record.
“Why do you think your brother killed himself?”
She took in two long breaths. “I think Daryl was trying to help Kasey. And something happened.”
Reed could sense Virginia, feel her move just a little closer to him. He asked Katherine, “Help her how?”
“Get her out. Get her away.”
“Right, but – to come stay here?”
“No. Ida would find her here.” Katherine looked at the album, smiled at another picture of baby Kasey, and flipped the page. “This was her second birthday. Not a lot of kids around, mostly just Ida’s friends, and Andy, and Andy’s cousin Bob. Ida didn’t let Andy have many people around. Just Bob, and probably because he lived next door. That’s how they met – Ida met Andy over at Bob’s place.”
“Bob,” Reed recalled. “You’re talking about Robert Zurn.”
Rough Country: A gripping crime thriller Page 22