She had swiftly (like, overnight) become fed up with the lifestyle: drudgery, little sleep, bad food and a den mother in Mother Esther who continually harangued the girls about their duty to provide white children to the cream of the crop white men, aka Barney and—presumably—Nathan, Voorhees and Trucker Bob, among others. She had taken off before the repetitive sermonizing and haranguing had time to take effect on her psyche.
I was left puzzled by so much. As a cult the Light and the Way Ministry was mismanaged. It felt like no one was united in any kind of belief system; all were there for their own purposes. Even the prophet didn’t appear to believe a word of his own crazy religion, though he seemed to have some of his adherents fooled. He clearly preferred to farm out the religious responsibilities: sermons were old tapes, Mother Esther shepherded the girls, and the congregants did all the physical labor, while he snuggled comfortably in his electronic hideaway. Even as I was listening to Mariah’s wild tales, I knew that as far off the rails as Gordy had gone, he would never have stuck around if there was rape, drugging and sexual torture involved. He was misguided but not evil.
Virgil had retreated to speak to some of the other sheriff’s deputies. He returned to my side. “They’re packing up here. Nothing to see. They’ve taken some of Mack’s porn collection into custody but I doubt they’ll find anything out other than that he is a pretty normal joe.”
I leaned against my car and watched Mariah, who was sulking and glaring at Mack. “I’m not buying any of it,” I said suddenly. “This whole religious angle . . . it’s weird. It’s a fraud.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve kind of figured that out.”
“No, I mean . . .” I sighed and shook my head. “I guess that’s self-evident now, right? But still . . . some of them thought it was genuine. They all poured their own convictions into the so-called religion. That’s why I couldn’t get a handle on it. It felt like each one of them had their own interpretation of what the Light and the Way was all about. But I would bet that not one of the congregants was aware that this was all a cover for a convicted felon, Bardo Voorhees—masquerading as the brother he murdered and hiding out so he would not be recognized—to run a drug smuggling ring close to the Canadian border.”
“It worked for a while, right?” Virgil’s handsome face was wreathed in a weary smile. “They were betting that local law enforcement would be afraid to tangle too deeply with the boundaries of a religious organization. Baxter was suspicious, but he knew he had to be careful.”
“And yet he mounted a raid that turned up nothing.”
Virgil, suddenly tight-lipped, nodded. “I’m worried about him. He’s not been acting rationally for a while. Kelly says that her dad has changed even in day-to-day behavior, not just his job.”
Virgil’s ex-wife, Kelly, still called him from time to time, and I was okay with that. They had split years ago, and she had caused him real problems with unfounded accusations, but my husband is a good man and had forgiven her. They were family once, and those ties don’t completely dissolve.
I hugged him. “Maybe Ben will step down as sheriff.”
He nodded. “Maybe.”
Everyone was packing up. Mariah wasn’t arrested. So far, lying to another citizen wasn’t against the law even if, this time, it had led to a waste of sheriff’s department time. Virgil strolled over to talk to Urquhart, so I approached Mariah, examining the sour look on her face. “Why all this?” I waved my hand around at the assembly of police cars and Mack the trucker scowling at her from fifty feet away.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
She stared at me. Her expression was cold, her pale eyes steely. “I was married, you know that?”
“Okay.”
“All I was to him was cook, housekeeper, nurse. I was fed up, so I left.”
“And went to the Light and the Way Ministry. Was living in dirt and squalor and being a sister-wife to Barney better?” All she was there was a cook, housekeeper and nurse, it seemed to me.
“Better to make my own choices in life. People suck, you know that? Women, men, girls, boys . . . they all suck.”
Okay. Misanthropy was alive and well. “I’ll give you a ride back to the encampment if you want. Or . . . where do you want to go?”
She sniffed in disdain and looked me up and down. Succinctly, she told me what I could do to myself and then said she’d find her own way back. She marched off across a field as I stood watching.
What an odd duck. Her lies had been brazen and bizarre, and to what purpose? Just to give Mack trouble, it seemed, for his sexual rejection of her. Now that she had achieved her goal, she was off. Her figure, tromping purposefully across the field, became smaller and hazier. She appeared to know exactly where she was headed. Some people have an unerring sense of direction. Having come by road I had no idea how to get back to the Light and the Way property across country, but she headed toward woods at the back of Mack’s farm with a firm and certain step.
I turned away, bewildered once again by the oddness of some local folks. I’m sure they would have felt the same if they were plopped down in the middle of my muddling, befuddling, beloved New York City. There were odd ducks everywhere.
I had not forgotten, nor had Virgil or Urquhart, that there was still a murder left unsolved. The sheriff had suspects to question (Urquhart had been tasked with helping Baxter’s investigation), but first he was taking his niece back to his sister. Mack was asked to come into the station to shed some light on Mariah’s accusations, and he agreed to be there the next morning, though he was as puzzled as anyone as to why she had made such bizarre and outrageous claims.
Virgil and I took Madison home to her parents, who wept and hugged and consoled and loved on her. There would be much more to come; the girl had been there a long time, over a year, and she was changed. How she reintegrated back into her family, how they came together, how they mended the rifts and sorrows, would take time and professional help. I hoped they had both.
Virgil and I sat in the car after dropping her off. “Do you think she’ll be okay?” I whispered, watching the house. Another car raced up the street and screeched to a halt at the curb. A woman got out and raced up the front walk and bolted inside. Probably a relative relieved to find out that Madison was alive and relatively well.
“I know some folks who can help,” he said. “There’s a counselor at the women’s shelter. I’ll call her tomorrow and make sure the girls from the Light and the Way can get help.”
The shelter. I searched his eyes. “Virgil, this is in confidence, but Shilo told me there was a woman at the shelter who had escaped the compound. She might have important information, but . . . but being a survivor of abuse, she might not come forward on her own. Is there any way . . . I mean, can she be contacted to give information? Or testimony?”
He thought about it for a long moment. “Let me talk to my contact. I’ll see what I can find out. At least Voorhees is in custody. But some cops have been back to the camp . . . neither Nathan nor Barney was there. Those guys have an uncanny ability to evade the police.”
“There one minute and gone the next,” I murmured. I frowned and tapped one finger on the steering wheel. “I wonder where Barney went? He was there, trying to keep us from taking Felice to the hospital, but then he was gone. You’d think he would have been there right to the moment she was taken away. Why would he try to keep us from helping her?”
Virgil squinted and stared down the street. “He was losing control over her, right? Those kinds of creeps don’t like their women getting away from them, having choices. Maybe that’s it.”
“Maybe,” I said. But something bothered me about that. “What is Barney’s last name?” I asked.
Virgil brought up a file on his phone, where he keeps all his notes. “We never got a last name for him. No one seemed to know it and he refused to answer when asked.”
“That’s weird.” I looked over at him. “You know, it once occurred to me
that the compound would be a great place for an escaped felon to hide out. Do you suppose he’s wanted?”
“Maybe. Let me look into it.”
• • •
The exhausting events of Saturday were behind me. I called Lizzie. She told me that Alcina had been able to visit her mom in the hospital. All tests had indicated that Felice had a bleeding ulcer, which was why she had been throwing up blood. She had a transfusion and was on medication, and was going to be okay. Alcina’s dad had taken their little boy to the hospital to see his mother, too. Lizzie, who had gone with Alcina, reported that it was a teary reunion. It seemed that there was hope for the Eklund family. Alcina’s dad had rented a house near his sister’s, and that was where he, Alcina, and Teddy were going to live; Felice, too, once she left the hospital.
It was Sunday morning, and I wasn’t sure what to do with my time, so I cleaned my kitchen and vacuumed while listening to a recording of the LSO doing Vivaldi’s “Autumn.” Virgil had left early; he wanted to talk Urquhart into interviewing his niece, convinced that the girl might know a lot more than she had so far said about her time at the camp. They were still doggedly trying to solve Glynnis’s murder.
I reminded him about my own questions, particularly about Barney. He was always out there, shouting at people berating women. But other than that, what sign was there that he was truly religious? It always felt like he was going through the motions, maybe for his own ulterior motives. I had thought about it a lot, about how there was scant indication the group was a religious organization other than Barney and Nathan and their insult campaign against women and the taped lectures they used to indoctrinate their followers. Were they using religion as a front to keep people away from the Light and the Way Ministry? Locals wrote them off as nuts, and, other than Sheriff Baxter’s hasty and ill-planned raid, the police were wary of interfering lest they be hit with a lawsuit against them for interference with religious freedom. The bottom line was, the group had been left alone for years with no oversight.
Something was tickling my brain, something I had been thinking about, and had even said at one point. It went back to when Hannah looked up the FBI list of most wanted criminals. I sat down at the kitchen breakfast bar with my laptop and found the site she had showed me, the FBI wanted list. There was a name I remembered, one I had remarked on at the time. I found it, and looked more carefully at the photo attached, thought about the name, and considered Barney. I really looked, examining the face and the wound that cut up into his hairline. What would that look like healed?
I called Virgil, asking him if they had found Barney yet.
“He’s taken off. They have a BOLO out on him. Urquhart got Baxter to have a deputy go out to the compound this morning to ask some questions, but he came back and said the place is virtually deserted; folks are leaving the Light and the Way Ministry. All of us want to talk to Barney, given how much control he seemed to have, and how he was the most active recruiter for the cult, but he’s gone.”
My heart pounded. “Virgil, I think I know why. I’m looking at a photo on the FBI’s most wanted list.” I told him the name and clicked to send the link to his inbox. “The guy looks like Barney might look if he had a beard and longer hair, and he has a wound on his forehead. Virgil, Barney has a scar that would match the cut! The mug shot would explain why Barney was short-haired and clean-shaven when the rest of the Light and the Way guys have scruff, beards and long hair. He needed to look as little like his wanted poster as possible, given how much time he spent in public, on the streets.”
“I’ll look.” He disappeared off the phone for a long minute, then came back. “I think you’re right.” He’s accustomed to facial recognition, to being able to identify people regardless of changes in hair or dress.
“So you agree. Barney is likely literally John Doe, wanted for armed robbery?”
“I’d bet on it. What made you connect the two?”
“I’ve been thinking for a while that the encampment would be the perfect place to hide if you were a wanted felon. I didn’t figure it would be the one guy who is out front and on the streets! It was chance that Hannah and I were looking at mug shots, and I saw the one of the guy with the forehead cut. But I didn’t connect it with Barney until this minute.” I hesitated. “I suppose he could be Glynnis’s murderer. Cecily said Glynnis was a snoop. Maybe she figured out who he was.”
“It’s possible. I’ll hunt him down if it’s the last thing I do.”
My heart calmed; Virgil is very very good at hunting criminals, and with the connections he has with police departments across our area and the country, I knew I could count on him.
I finally sat down with my coffee and reflected on the murder of Glynnis. What I knew was, she had been at the Light and the Way Ministry cult camp, and had, it seemed, either been beaten and escaped, or escaped and been beaten by someone else or—the most likely fate, in my mind—had been beaten at the camp and then taken away to be dropped on the side of the highway, presumably dead.
I made a list of the possible suspects, something I usually do much earlier when I am involved in a tragedy like this. So much else had happened, and there had been such a confusing set of personal involvements in this, with Felice and Alcina and Lizzie’s concern over them, our rescue of Cecily, Gordy’s predicament, which had involved me initially, and finally finding Lynn there and rescuing her.
It seemed to me that there were several possibilities in the murder of Glynnis:
Prophet Voorhees: now known to be Bardo, not Arden. He was such a shadowy figure. I didn’t have a clue if he’d kill, but he had a lot to lose if Glynnis had, perhaps, in her “snooping” (as Cecily called it) come across information indicating who he really was.
Mother Esther: aka the real Arden’s wife; that woman was a coldhearted bitch and, I thought, possibly the only true believer in the cult message they were selling. If a girl had decided she no longer wanted to live like that, and perhaps did not want to be the mother of the next generation of neo-Nazis, the woman may have killed her, rather than let her leave.
Barney: Voorhees’s next in command. With what I now knew, I thought his motives for killing Glynnis could have been similar to ones I considered for Voorhees. Maybe she could have figured out who he was. If she had threatened to turn him in, he would have killed her. The venom he spewed toward women seemed genuine; I could imagine he would beat a woman to death.
Trucker Bob: now known to be tied up in the illegal side business of the Light and the Way. They were up to their necks in drugs, and in altering trucks to carry them across the border into Canada. Had Glynnis figured it out? She had gotten in trouble for leaving the encampment, and so may have wandered as far afield as the prophet’s shack, or even Bob’s farm, and may have seen what she ought not to have, and paid the price.
Mariah: That woman, that piece of work, was as vile a liar as I had ever met, and as venomous as Mother Esther. She appeared to be a jealous witch, taking revenge on Mack for not falling under her sexual spell. Who knows what conflicts she may have had with the other women? Glynnis was pretty, Cecily said. That may have been enough for Mariah to become even more unhinged than she already was.
And it was also quite possible that the assailant was someone I had not met, or hadn’t figured out yet. This case didn’t have the cut-and-dried closed circle of suspects I was accustomed to. I needed to know more . . . much more.
My phone rang and I picked it up. Pish! “Hey, my love,” I said. “What’s up?”
“Lynn is home from the hospital.”
“Already? I thought she’d be there a week, at least.”
“She’s doing better than they expected. I brought her here, to the castle, and a nurse is going to check in twice a day, to make sure she’s okay. She wants to see you. Can you come?”
I sighed and set the phone down. This was not on my agenda for the day, making my way through Lynn’s labyrinthine ability to lie, manipulate and blame-shift. I picked the phone back up. “O
kay. I’ll be there in ten.” This was not for Lynn, this was for Pish. I could not bear to look like a lout in his eyes.
“See you in ten,” he said.
I was nervous, regressing to the old me. I understood it; I was going to be faced with someone who in the past had the ability to manipulate me, make me ashamed and guilty and upset. She had used me for two years and had delighted in humiliating me. But that was over. I would combat those old feelings and come through even stronger.
I slipped on a tawny Zelie for She skirt and sweater set. The skirt was mid-calf and form-fitting, and yet so comfortable I could have done a cartwheel in it . . . if I had ever been able to do a cartwheel, which I never have. The clothes from that designer are fashion-forward and very chic, and I adore them. I twisted my long dark hair up into a messy bun, slipped on a pair of black Louboutin booties, got my Birkin bag and donned Cavalli sunglasses and headed out the door, armored by designer labels. I’m shallow enough that that alone gives me confidence.
Becket rode with me, leaped out of the car when I parked, and pranced into the castle at my feet. No pocket puppy for me; I prefer a tiny tiger. I headed to the kitchen and entered, removing my sunglasses, still filled with trepidation.
Lynn was at the long center table. She rose when she saw me come in, her eyes filling with tears, almost mewing in distress. Pish put his arm around her shoulders and guided her around the table toward me. I didn’t know what to do. I examined her, how thin she was still, how gray, the bags under her eyes, the tissue-thin look of her skin, under which threaded blue arteries. Was it safe for her to be out of the hospital? Despite Pish’s reassurance, I was deeply worried. It was strange, but in that moment I realized that I had missed her. As miserable as our two years as boss and gofer had been, there had been good moments, or I wouldn’t have stayed so long. I had just forgotten—or blocked out—those good moments.
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