Faithless in Death

by Robb, J. D.

  Eve crossed over, took a tube of Pepsi, cracked it. “Feeney and/or McNab can brief us on the recorder placed in Gwen Huffman’s ’link, but the questions are: Who put it there, and why? To track her, certainly, and whoever did knew about the affair and her orientation. Did this individual kill Byrd to protect Huffman from exposure? If so, why—who stands as protector and why? Natural Order gains more if she’s cut off by her parents, but they’d risk embarrassment. Her parents are longtime, prominent members about to put on a big society wedding and merge with another prominent and wealthy family they hope to draw into the order.”

  “So do they take the money now, let the Huffmans deal with some humiliation, have the daughter cut off? Or,” Roarke continued, “do they guard their investment, look to the future? It’s a bit of a gamble, but the Caines are worth quite a bit.”

  “They’re going to cash in either way, right?” Yancy looked from Roarke to Eve. “And you factor in they eliminated a lesbian—it’s not hard to see how they’d justify that. And mixed-race, too. So, well, two strikes.”

  “That’s how I see it. The killer planned enough to plant the recorder, but the murder, that was spur of the moment. Cold, but impulsive. The timeline tells us that. Bitch is going to screw up this merger. That’s what it was to them, a merger.

  “Beyond the racism, the bigotry, the misogyny, and all the rest, Natural Order’s a big, fat business, and its business is money, power, and control.”

  “It’s kids, too.” McNab stepped back in. “That’s the future, guaranteed. Huffman’s been groomed for this, right? She’s been caught once being herself and re-a-fucking-ligned. She’s been smart enough to play along, and greedy enough to. But her purpose, according to this goddamn cult, is to marry the rich white guy and pop out some rich white kids. Their dad, their grandparents are more likely to go along once there are kids. Even if not, the kids are going to have trust funds, that’s the culture. But you can’t get there if Byrd rings the bell.”

  “We have to tie that thread to the order, and knot it tight. The order has big piles of money, and big piles of money buy lots and lots of lawyers. They’re going to have some judges, some politicians, and, I hate to say it, some cops on their rolls.”

  “They do have considerable wealth,” Roarke said. “Still, a great deal of it’s tied up in real estate. The Tribeca properties, for instance. The rent doesn’t quite cover the taxes, the maintenance. There’s depreciation, of course, and other ways, but they take a loss on those properties. And I’ve found a handful of others nationally that do the same.”

  “The cart driver said they have a farm system.”

  “They have several farms, ranches, orchards, which provide much of their food and resources. I’ll look deeper, but they don’t seem to be particularly profitable. They provide housing, schools, services for their laborers and staff at minimal rates. Laborers are also paid at minimal rates.”

  “When did you get all this?”

  “I ran some searches while you were briefing. Shallow at the moment, but enough to give me a sense.”

  “And your sense is they’re losing money with all this?”

  “They are, yes, but then if you want your personal vision to spread, you need teachers to teach that vision, schools and facilities where your natural order is enforced. Someone farms the land, and that puts a little in his pocket, but he’s a roof over his head, doesn’t he? His children have a free, private education teaching the values—so to speak—he subscribes to.”

  She could see it, yes, Eve thought she could see the overall plan. Sort of, to her mind, a long and intricate con.

  “But how do you sustain that—and accumulate enough money to buy a freaking island—if you’re plowing your profits into the ground?”

  “They make up for it, and quite well. Members are required to tithe twenty percent of their income. I suspect, once I scratch a bit more, I’ll find fees. Very likely quotas to be met, and deductions when they’re not. It’s very likely many of their wealthier members agree to bequeathing large sums to the order in their wills.”

  “They don’t have to pay someone like Ella Foxx, do they?” Eve asked. “She’s no one. They’d have more no ones. Slave labor.”

  “And with all that, Wilkey spends lavishly on a personal level. Several homes, two private shuttles, a jet-copter, a yacht—in his name. His older sons each have their own shuttle, and two homes each. The younger lives in the house at HQ and/or on Utopia Island, according to his data.”

  “The daughter said she had a place in the city.”

  Roarke angled his head. “There’s nothing in her name, but I’ll look into it further. Their official data lists their annual salary at about ten million for Wilkey, three-point-six for his older sons, one-point-two for the younger, and the daughter in the mid–six figures. None of those will be near to accurate.”

  “So maybe we can toss tax evasion and fraud in there when we bag them. Okay.” She took another turn around the board. “McNab, what can you tell us about the recorder on Huffman’s ’link?”

  “The ’link was damaged in the recycler, so we had to work around that. Lucky for us, the internals, including the tracker, held up with minimal damage. The tracker with recording features is illegal, unauthorized. No ID number so not law enforcement or military, as it’s required. I’m going to say no for the spooks and their kind, too, because it just wasn’t good enough. It’s decent, but it’s not that caliber. And that’s why it got the echo. It was breaking down. You’d get audio and video—probably clear for the first while, then the vid would get blurry, the audio echoes.”

  “Can you estimate how long it had been in use?”

  “I’d give it about a year outside, about nine months inside. I’m figuring that on the amount of use. Huffman used the ’link for texting and calls, and that’s it.”

  “Nine months to a year.” Eve nodded. “She got engaged to Caine last summer, and she met Byrd last fall. It fits. All right, Ariel Byrd’s our priority. But right up with her are Keene Grimsley and Special Agent Anthony Quirk, both missing, and it’s not a stretch to presume dead. And Ella Alice Foxx, alive and we presume being held against her will. They’re tied together, so we make those knots.

  “Peabody, use my auxiliary and start compiling everything you can on Wilkey’s two older sons, their wives. I’ll take the daughter, the youngest son, and the mother. Yancy, how about you do the same with Gayle Steenberg? She’s going to be Ella’s trainer, her immediate supervisor or whatever benign term they use for keeper in there.”

  “I’ve got my portable. I can do a run on her, her family on that.”

  “Great. You want coffee or whatever, there’s an AutoChef and a friggie in the kitchen. Feeney, Roarke, McNab, I need Ella Foxx’s data.”

  “We’ll get it.” Feeney scratched the back of his neck. “Might take some time, but Roarke’s got what we need in his comp lab here.”

  “Roarke, the more I know about Natural Order’s and the Wilkeys’ finances the better.”

  “It’s like music to my ears. I’ll set that up on auto in the lab while we find young Ella.”

  “Let’s get to it.”

  Eve settled in, tuned everything else out.

  She started with the mother.

  Rachel Leigh Wilkey, née Charles, Caucasian, age fifty-one.

  Pattern, Eve thought. Twelve years younger. And married, she noted, for thirty-two years.

  She skipped over the offspring, as she already knew, scrolled down to education. And as she expected, Rachel Charles had been a student—Montana U in Missoula—when Wilkey, the roots he’d planted with Natural Order already dug in and spreading, came to town. From a ranching family, she noted, one with an impressive dude ranch as well as a working one. Wealthy then, and wealthy still. Rachel had a brother, older, who’d joined the family business.

  She’d studied animal husbandry before she’d dropped out to marry Wilkey.

  Six weeks, from what she could put together, after he
’d come to her college.

  Didn’t pop a kid out—like McNab said—right off though, did she? Eve shut her eyes, did the math. Nope, it took a couple years. The second, right away, but then a four-year gap, then another four years.

  Interesting.

  She dug down into medical records, then sat back.

  “Peabody?”

  “Huh? What?”

  “Have you looked at medical records on the oldest sons?”

  “Not there yet.”

  “Look now.”

  “Sec.” A moment later, Peabody frowned. “I’m not finding any. I mean none. Not sealed, just nothing.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got nothing on Wilkey’s wife after their marriage thirty-two years ago. The standards up to then, then nothing.”

  She swiveled to face Peabody. “Their own hospitals, clinics, doctors, and so on. So no records. Not of injuries, illnesses, meds, treatments, in her case, childbirth. Or possible miscarriages or fertility treatments.”

  “He said his wife was ill, and on the island in treatment.”

  “That’s right, but what sort of illness, what sort of treatment?”

  Eve did another quick search. “Her parents and her older brother are alive and well on the ranch in Montana. Maybe they’re members, maybe not. I’m going to find out. I’m about to have a conversation. If you need quiet, I’ll take it elsewhere.”

  Peabody sent Eve an amused look. “Dallas, I work in the bullpen.”

  “Right.” She used her desk ’link, contacted Montana.

  A man with a short, graying beard and a big-ass cowboy hat filled the screen. “New York City? How ’bout that? What can I do for you, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve?”

  “Mr. Charles?”

  “That’s right. Morgan Charles.”

  “I’m investigating a case, and during the course of the investigation I’ve found some potential connections to Natural Order.”

  Everything about him went sour, his eyes, his mouth, his voice. “We don’t have anything to do with those crazy fuckers—excuse my language.”

  “My data states your sister, Rachel, is married to Stanton Wilkey, who is the head of the order.”

  “I know it. I’ve been sick about it for better’n thirty years. It doesn’t mean we’ve got anything to do with it. And I don’t much want to talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry to bring up difficult feelings, Mr. Charles. Could you tell me the last time you saw or spoke to your sister?”

  “More than twenty-five years ago, when they brought their traveling circus to Bozeman. I took my wife and my two kids—had one more after, but two at that point—to see her. I wanted to see my baby sister, to talk to her, to try to mend some fences.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?” His mouth stayed so tight, a muscle began to twitch in his jaw. “You might see better if I tell you my wife, the love of my damn life, the mother of my children, is Cherokee.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And what does she say to me, my own sister, in front of my beautiful wife and boys? She tells me my marriage isn’t recognized and my children aren’t legitimate. Until I restore order to my life, she won’t see or speak to me again. That she’ll pray I find my way back.”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  “I took my family home, and that’s been that. I don’t know how that son of a bitch turned my sister into that person I met in Bozeman. I never told my parents about it, they had heartbreak enough. I’d appreciate if you’d honor that.”

  “Yes, sir. She would have had children herself at that time.”

  “Two boys, another on the way. My wife said how hard it must be to have three kids so close together, and that’s maybe why she looked so sickly and tired out.”

  “Would you remember what year this was?”

  “Happens I do—or can figure—since you ask. Our oldest had his third birthday right before we went to Bozeman. So that would’ve been November of ’35 … Why?”

  “Just a detail. I realize these questions are personal,” she began.

  “You aim to tie that son of a bitching Wilkey to some crime in New York City? Put his ass in prison?”

  Though Eve chose her words carefully, she kept her eyes directly on his. “I’m pursuing all avenues in my investigation.”

  His jaw loosened as he nodded. “Yep, yep, I got a cousin who’s a sheriff around these parts. I know the lingo well enough. There’s a chance of it, ask away.”

  “Did or does your sister have money of her own? I mean hers to access?”

  “She had access to her college money when she took off with that son of a bitch, and she yanked it out before we could do a damn thing about that. Then what does she do? I still pray she wasn’t in her right mind.”

  Heat rolled into his face, fired in his eyes. “She has a lawyer contact our folks. She was to get a share of the ranch when she turned twenty-five, and a bigger share when they pass. The lawyer said she wanted the cash equivalent now. They said no, and the next thing you know she’s suing ’em for it.”

  His jaw didn’t tighten again, but he looked away, took several seconds to gather himself.

  “They were going to fight it, but it ripped them to pieces. Tore the heart right out of them. Their own child doing that, for money. They settled it. Wasn’t going to give them the share she’d’ve gotten when they were in the ground, fuckers—Sorry.”

  “Mr. Charles, I’ve rarely heard the term used more accurately.”

  “Appreciate it. They offered five and a half million, and she took it. She’s never once come to see them, written to them, called them, their own baby girl. Not once in all these years. I don’t know what that man does, Miz Dallas, but he turned my sister into something she wasn’t. He does that to people.”

  “That he does, Mr. Charles.”

  “Is my sister … is she in trouble, too?”

  “I don’t think she’s involved in the matter I’m investigating. I appreciate, very much, your taking the time to answer my questions.”

  “If you have any more, would you come back to me, and not my parents? They’re feisty enough, but they’re getting up there. And this is a hole in their heart. Their girl gone, grandkids they’ve never met. It’s a hole.”

  “If there’s anything else, I’ll come to you. I won’t contact them.”

  “Thanks for that. I gotta get on. But hey, do you know that New York cop they made that clone vid about?”

  “Actually, I … Yes.”

  “Sure hope you’re as good as she was in the vid and nail that son of a bitch’s ass to a splintery wall.”

  Peabody stopped working when Eve clicked off. “You let him get away with calling you Miz, not just because you didn’t want to interrupt the flow, but because, jeez, who wouldn’t feel for that guy? For his family.”

  “Just another reason I want to nail Wilkey’s ass to a splintery wall. She was pregnant, and there’s no offspring on record of that year or the next. Or until Mirium Wilkey in March of ’37. So either she miscarried or had a stillbirth, or the child died. And I’m betting that happened with her more than once.”

  “Kids guarantee the future.”

  “And he’d want a lot of guarantees.”

  She turned back to her screen.

  “Why isn’t the daughter married to some rich dude by now?” Eve wondered.

  The click that Yancy’s arrival interrupted clicked again.

  She started her next run.

  16

  Money, Eve thought as she began looking more deeply into Mir-ium Wilkey’s background and data. Was it all about money? Always a core motive for murder.

  She’d lived most of her life without it, or with just enough to get through. She’d gone hungry as a child, yes, but that had been a result of cruelty and neglect. She’d never developed a thirst for wealth.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t understand it, and its sometimes lethal power.

  Roarke had the thirst, and most of it a result of the cruelty
and neglect in his own childhood. He’d stolen to survive, then to quench the thirst. But rather than being driven by that lethal power, he’d held the wheel.

  He’d never killed for gain.

  Had Wilkey? Every instinct said yes, oh yes, he had. Maybe, just maybe, not with his own hands. But with words, with his deliberate, calculated, decades-long spread of intolerance, distrust, cool-blooded prejudice delivered behind the mask of faith.

  He’d raised his flock by giving them not just excuses to hate the other, but the right. He’d certainly raised his children by the same methods.

  Three sons, one daughter.

  The daughter received her primary education in Natural Order schools—no surprise there. She’d earned an MBA from Unity University, Natural Order’s online college. Another degree, same place, in hospitality and a third in computer science.

  Were those directives from the father, Eve wondered, or Mirium’s own interests and ambitions?

  And even with those three degrees, she’d been relegated to serving her father and running his household.

  According to her data, she owned no property in her own name, earned a salary considerably less than even her younger brother. Her job title: domestic manager.

  “I bet that grates,” Eve muttered.

  Would it grate to know she’d be expected to marry a man approved—maybe selected—by her father? Then produce a child every year or two?

  Or would that suit her own ambitions?

  After another thirty minutes of searching, scanning, absorbing, Eve got more coffee. She put her boots up on her command center and studied the board.

  Studied Mirium Wilkey’s ID shot.

  A young, not unattractive woman who presented herself as plain, wore clothes even Eve recognized as dowdy and unfashionable. An educated woman with three degrees and a substantial income, who owned nothing.

  Her older brothers owned homes, vehicles, held important-sounding titles.

  But not the daughter.