by J. D. Robb
“Dr. Paula Huffman is my obstetrician. She’s helped me deliver healthy children into the world.”
“Your husband knew Oliver Huffman prior to your marriage, as Oliver Huffman performed a minor surgical procedure on him.”
“What of it? They’re excellent doctors and good people. We’re blessed to have them in our lives.”
“Your husband was a member of Natural Order when you met.”
Marcia’s eyes darted toward the window she’d just cleaned as if expecting to see someone staring in.
“My husband showed me the way. My husband saved me from a life of debauchery and uselessness. He fulfilled me, and he provides for me and our children.”
“You’ve got bruises on your arms, Marcia. Did he put them there?”
Her already pallid skin lost all color. “How dare you! Get out, get out of our house.” With those same jerky moves, she marched to the door, flung it open. “If you don’t leave, I’ll tell my husband. He’ll deal with you.”
“Feel free to give him my name. Lieutenant Eve Dallas.” Eve walked to the door. “Do you know where he was Monday night? From about nine to midnight.”
“My husband was here, in his home, as he is every night. Go away!”
She slammed the door.
“She’s not right,” Peabody murmured as they walked back to the car. “She’s on something.”
“Yeah. A little chemical help to keep her going, and a lot of indoctrination to keep her firmly in the fold.”
“She looks so tired. And she has to be about six months pregnant. She needs help, Dallas.”
“We can’t help people who don’t want help.” She got back in the car. “Larry stays on the list. A man who’d put marks on his pregnant wife shouldn’t have too much trouble killing. Protecting the Huff-mans maybe, removing a threat to Gwen so she could go right on and marry the proper type, and the type with plenty of money.”
“Which they’d hope would eventually flow into New Order.”
“Maybe not probable, but possible. Let’s hit the East Village.”
“Idina Frank, spouse Anson. She’s twenty-eight. Prior to marriage, she was a teacher, elementary level. Four kids, ages five, four, and two-year-old twins. The husband’s forty, a genetic researcher employed by Natural Order. They’re African-American.”
As Eve drove, Peabody probed a little deeper.
“Jeez, Dallas, she was orphaned at the age of eleven when her father killed her mother, then himself. No relatives willing or able to take her, so she went into the foster system. No criminal other than the assault. The husband’s got a bump for assault, too—four years ago. No time served. It looks like a pushy-shovy that got heated.”
“Older husband, lots of kids, short amount of time. Same path. Let’s see if she’s as whacked-out as Marcia.”
The neighborhood didn’t resemble a zombie enclave. The street offered some shady trees—some litter, which made it feel normal. Duplexes, townhomes, a few restaurants taking advantage of the weather with offers of outdoor seating.
The Frank house fit right in with its old, faded red brick, white doors. It had a short green area inside a decorative gate with some flowers adding cheer and color.
A toy lawn mower sat by the stoop.
The stoop held a mat that read: WELCOME TO CHAOS.
“Four kids,” Peabody commented. “Sounds right.”
“Good security.” And through the open windows Eve heard bright, chiming music and methodical banging.
She pressed the buzzer.
Rather than a computerized response, the door opened.
A woman with a glorious explosion of hair, wearing black sweatpants and a pink tee that read WOLF MAMA and carried a long yellowish stain down the center, stood with a big-eyed toddler on either hip.
She looked a little frazzled, and the big dark eyes she’d passed to the toddlers, tired. But she smiled.
“Adult human females. I’m sorry to say I don’t have time to buy whatever you’re selling. Try two houses down. My neighbor loves a bargain.”
“We’re the police, Ms. Frank.” Eve held up her badge. “We’d like to come in and talk to you.”
“Police.” Idina gathered the kids closer. “Did something happen? Is there trouble in the neighborhood?”
“No, ma’am. We’re investigating another matter. Your name came up as an acquaintance of Gwendolyn Huffman.”
“I see.” Idina’s face went carefully blank. “I haven’t seen or spoken with Gwen in years. I’m not sure how I can help you.”
“If we could come in.”
Idina stepped back.
The methodical banging came from a little girl on the floor of the living area banging a spoon on a pot to the beat—sort of—of the chiming music generated by a somewhat smaller boy who punched bright buttons on a cube.
A laundry basket sat on a table with most of the laundry in it folded. More toys scattered.
“Sasha, Harry, you mind the twins while Mommy talks to these ladies.”
She set down the twins, who immediately made their toddling way to the scattered toys.
Idina walked through and into the big kitchen/lounge area, where she could keep her eye on her brood.
“I was just eighteen, working toward my college tuition in the fall, when I met Gwen. I had a job with a family as a kind of baby-slash-dog sitter. Take the kids and dog to the park, feed them, entertain them, tidy up after them, that sort of thing. And I went along with them for their two weeks at the beach.”
“The Hamptons.”
“Yes, that’s right. I met Gwen. We were friendly. Then the two weeks were up, and I came back with the family. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since.”
“She states you were her first.”
Idina took a quiet breath in, let a quiet breath out. “I suspect I was. She was also mine. Euphemisms are important here,” she added, with a chin nod toward the kids.
“Understood. Who ended the friendship?”
“It just ended. We weren’t serious friends, if you know what I mean. Experimental friends. I was in a sensitive time in my life where I had made the decision never to marry or have children. I assume you know why.”
“Yes.”
“Then this family, this job. The kids, the dog, the happiness. I was young and torn and I met Gwen. She was engaging, wanted a friend, so that happened. Then it ended, and I went to college and thought, for a while, I could satisfy my love of children by teaching them. Then I met Anson. I don’t know what that brief, experimental friendship so long ago could have to do with the police now.”
“Were you aware that Gwen and her family were, and are, members of Natural Order?”
“Not back then, no. Of course I know now, as Anson and I are members.”
“And you’ve had no contact with her?”
“None. I’m pretty occupied, as you see. Becca, baby, we’ll fold the rest later,” she called out as one of the toddlers began pulling laundry from the basket. “Oh well. Is this about Natural Order, or Gwen, or what?”
“Gwen is a material witness in a homicide investigation.”
“Oh my God. Jasper, share those blocks with your sister.” Idina shoved a hand over her hair. “Someone’s dead?”
“Yes. We’re looking at any possible connection to Natural Order.”
“Okay, okay, give me a minute. Juice tubes!” she called out with incredible cheer that caused a small stampede into the kitchen.
She snugged the toddlers into some sort of seats that attached to the counter, and the two older kids at a tiny red table. They hooted, shouted out preferences, banged while she got the tubes and little bowls of tiny crackers or cookies, or something kid friendly.
“That’ll hold them for a few minutes.” She moved out of the kitchen into the lounge while the kids slurped, chattered, and made an unholy mess with the contents of the bowls.
“I have to be very careful here. I have four children to think of. My husband has his career as well a
s our family to think of. We’ve been planning how and when to ease out of the order. Anson had his reasons for joining, and he was my reason. But since the kids.”
She glanced back at them.
“It doesn’t reflect who we are now, our beliefs, our values. At the same time, the order puts food on our table, and they can be … proprietary.”
“That’s a word,” Eve said.
“He’s looking for another job, even if we have to move out of New York. We love this house, this neighborhood, but we’d move if that was best for our family.”
“Have you had trouble, threats?”
“No, absolutely not. And I’d tell you. For them.” She watched the kids toss tiny crackers at each other. “They’re our world. And if one of them, if all of them fell in love with someone who doesn’t look like us, or has the same gender, they’ll still be our world. We can’t be in the order and know that. Anson, he’s a lab rat—a really good one. He’ll find another job. And when the twins are old enough, I can go back to teaching. We’ll be fine.”
“Would your husband talk to us?”
“He would, if necessary. He’s not inside the circle, if you understand. He does his job, he comes home to his family. We don’t do a lot of socializing, not with other members. That’s overlooked, as we have four children. But Sasha will start school next fall, and she’ll be expected to attend one approved by the order, and begin weekly instructions.”
“What kind of instructions?”
“On the tenets of the order.” Her chin firmed. “We’re not going to allow that, not with our kids.”
“Are you afraid, Ms. Frank?” Peabody asked her.
“Apprehensive. If Anson and I feared for our kids, we’d already be gone. We’re not important enough to be afraid. Gwen would be, I think,” she added.
“If you become afraid, or if you need help, if you think of anything that might aid our investigation, contact me.” Eve drew out a card.
Idina studied it. “Was the person who died a member?”
“No.”
“Is it terrible I’m relieved to hear that?”
“No,” Eve said again. “Talk to your husband, and if he has any information that may help, any small detail, please contact me.”
“We’ll talk tonight, after the kids are in bed.”
“You have a beautiful family, Ms. Frank,” Peabody told her.
“They’re a mess,” she said cheerfully. “But they’re my mess.”
They let themselves out so Idina could deal with her mess.
“Can’t see it.” Peabody shook her head. “Can’t see any pertinent connection there. She’s so normal.”
“People who join cults or do the weird often seem normal. But I agree. The thing with Gwen was a sad and needy teenage thing. Anson might have looked at her due to the order, and she might have looked at him as a kind of stable father figure. But that’s not the whys now.”
“I hope they get out without any trouble. That’s a happy house.” Peabody glanced back at it as she got in the car. “You can tell. Just like you could tell the one in Tribeca was anything but.”
“We’ll see what the potter in SoHo has to tell us.”
13
“Savannah Grimsley,” Peabody read as they pushed through traffic. “She’s twenty-six, a potter who works at the Village Scene—one of the places Ariel Byrd sold her art. She also works as an art model. Shares her loft with Vance Bloot—another artist. Roommates, not cohabs.”
“The brother?”
“Keene Grimsley, age twenty-four—twenty-two at the time of his disappearance. He joined Natural Order at eighteen, while at college, dropped out of college at twenty to work for the order in IT. He’s been missing since June 12, 2059. His sister filed the MP on June 15.”
“Other family?”
“Parents, divorced. Mother, remarried, living in Jersey City; father, remarried, living in Delaware. Maternal grandparents, Sag Harbor; paternal, divorced, both living out of state.”
“No connection to Natural Order with the other family?”
“None that shows.”
As she drove, Eve rolled it around and around. “Tribeca, the Pipers—he’s higher up, and she’s shaky. So they’re planted on that strange block where wives are kept under control. The Franks, not so high up, have more space. I’m betting there are other quiet little enclaves where the equivalent of upper middle management get planted.”
“I have to say again, creepy. Add that an IT guy—like the missing brother—works with data. You wouldn’t have to be especially high up to find a way to access sensitive data, or data you’re not supposed to have.”
“Or having worked with said data, have a change of heart.”
“Or that.”
Spring in the Village brought out the street artists, and the tourists who occasionally shelled out enough for an artistic souvenir of New York.
Since the parking sucked, Eve considered a lot, then opted for a loading zone and her On Duty light.
Instead of trying the buzzer on the door between Café Vegan and a place called the Modern Witch, she mastered through, and walked with Peabody up the narrow stairs.
“Fun neighborhood.” Peabody admired the chalk mural of flowers and vines running up the staircase walls.
“If you like tofu and witches.”
“I like good witches, and tofu’s not horrible if you know how to cook it. She’s 2A.”
And straight off the stairs to the left.
The same artist, Eve assumed, had painted figures of a man and a woman on the door. The woman at a potter’s wheel, the man at an easel.
Music pumped against the door from the inside.
Eve buzzed. Buzzed again. On the third try, she distinctly heard someone yell, “Fuck!”
But the door opened a couple minutes later.
The woman who opened it said, “Fuck,” again. Then added, “What the hell?”
Eve held up her badge. “Lieutenant Dallas, Detective Peabody. We’d like to talk to you about your brother.”
Irritation leaped to hope. “You found Keene.”
“No, I’m sorry. We’re investigating another matter. We’re looking for connections.”
“Two years, two years of nothing. Goddamn it. Is this Natural Order crap?”
“We’d like to talk to you,” Eve repeated.
“Screw it.” She gestured them into a tiny living area. Tiny because a double art studio took the bulk. She had her potter’s wheel, tools, worktable on one side. The other held easels, canvases, painter’s tools.
She plopped down on a sofa.
She hit about five-three, Eve gauged, though the pink-streaked blond hair bundled and twisted on her head added another couple inches.
She wore a splattered apron, a sleeveless shirt, and shorts cut off at the knees with a pair of work boots as splattered as the apron.
She had long hazel eyes, a long thin nose, a wide mouth, and managed to look exotically bohemian.
She pulled a tube of water out of her apron pocket as she eyed them.
“Do I have to go through the whole thing again?”
“We’re aware your brother went missing on June 12, 2059. Peabody.”
“The report stated you had no reason to believe your brother would just take off, break contact with you. And in fact had spoken with you the night before his disappearance. And, as far as you could tell, none of his belongings had been taken from his apartment.”
“Somebody’d been in there. I said that, too. Keene’s messy, but he’s messy in a certain way, and this was different. I can’t be sure if anything was missing because he had a shitload of electronics—that was his thing. And there’s no fucking way he’d have left all of it behind. There’s no fucking way he wouldn’t get in touch with me, especially with what we’d been talking about the last couple weeks.”
“Which was?”
“Natural Order. I mean, Jesus, he finally woke up, he finally got his head on straight. He told me he f
ound out some shit that really opened his eyes.”
“What shit was that?”
“See, that’s the thing.” Savannah gestured with the tube. “He wouldn’t tell me. I thought he was being paranoid, okay? He leaned that way, which is one of the reasons he got sucked into that freaking cult. He said he couldn’t tell me, it was for my own safety. How he was going to put it all together and put it all online so they’d be exposed.
“He didn’t trust the cops,” she added. “He didn’t trust the media, either, so he was going to take care of it himself.”
Pausing, she rubbed the heel of her hand under her eye, and smeared some clay on her cheek.
Somehow it only added to the bohemian.
“Look, I thought he was just on one of his tears, but I was so glad he was getting out of that cult shit, I went along with it.”
She took a drink. “The night before he went missing, he came over, all juiced up. Actually, I think literally juiced, which is, again, why I thought he was paranoid. He told me he only needed another day or two, then it was going to blow wide open. And he figured once it did, he’d be famous, and make millions from telling the story. It was, I thought, Keene stuff. That’s the last time I saw him.”
She set the tube down. “I tried to tag him the next day, but his ’link was dead. I thought he’d shut it down or whatever. I tried a couple more times, and finally went over there. His neighbors said they hadn’t seen him. I finally got worried enough to go to the cops.”
“His supervisor at Natural Order claimed he quit on June 13, via email.” Peabody again referred to her PPC. “According to the report, the email was sent from one of your brother’s devices.”
“They disappeared him, that’s what they did.” Long eyes hot, she jabbed a finger at Peabody. “I don’t care what you say.”
Eve pulled Savannah’s attention back. “Do you know any of his friends or associates from Natural Order?”
“No. Keene and I barely spoke after he joined that crap. He tried, at first, to convert me—that would be the word. To, like, renounce my way of life for the true way. Jesus Christ, I’m gay and he’s preaching at me about how that’s unnatural. My roommate, my best pal, is mixed race. Keene wouldn’t even speak to him. He wouldn’t come over here. And then he came back. He was coming back.