Son of a Gun (A David and Martin Yerxa Thriller - Book 2)

by Ed Markham

  David recognized the man from the photographs in the FBI briefing: Harvey Horn.

  Horn was red-skinned and barrel-chested, and had a mane of sandy hair that fell almost to his shoulders.

  “You have no right to do this,” Horn said calmly but to no one in particular as the SWAT members walked him toward the police cruisers. He looked from one of the men that held him to the other. His voice—soft and mellow—sounded strange coming from such a big body.

  When he saw David, Horn seemed to understand immediately, intuitively, that this was the person in charge, and he lost interest in the men who had pulled him from bed and had their hands clamped around his arms. He spoke directly to David, repeating his objection in the same gentle tone: “You have no right to do this.”

  David motioned for the SWAT personnel to bring Horn over. They sat him on the rear bumper of one of the vans, and he looked up at David with weary acceptance. “I’m helping these people,” he said softly. “You don’t understand it, but that’s the truth. I’m giving them what they need to overcome their afflictions. They’ve tried everything else, but it doesn’t work. What I do does work.”

  “What do you do?” Martin asked him.

  “I heal,” Horn said dramatically, raising his chin with pride.

  “How do you heal?” David asked him. His tone and expression were not mocking.

  “I administer a substance that frees men and women from the psychological shackles of substance addiction.” Horn spoke as though he were repeating a rehearsed script—an infomercial tagline. “I used to be an addict myself. Cocaine and alcohol ruined my marriage, and threatened to ruin my life. Ibogaine saved me, and now I’m trying to save others.”

  David looked at his father. Martin stood with his arms folded over his chest, regarding Harvey Horn with curiosity and something that resembled pity.

  Horn caught the glance that passed from David to Martin, and he looked from one Yerxa to the other. “Are you two father and son?” he asked, his eyes widening a bit.

  David ignored the question, and Martin said, “One of the men you were healing, James Ganther, is suspected of some very serious, very violent crimes.” Before he’d finished speaking, Horn had started to shake his head.

  “No, no, no,” he said. “James is a good man. A gentle man. He’s had his struggles just like the rest of us, but he’s better now. He wouldn’t harm a fly.”

  “Yeah bullshit,” Dorsey interjected. “He tried to rip my goddamned eyes out in there.”

  “He was frightened of you, that’s all,” Horn said to the SWAT captain. “He’s on a very powerful psychotropic substance, and you came barging into his room with weapons and black clothing. Anyone would have been frightened—and the iboga root no doubt exacerbated his fearful reaction.”

  “How long has he been here with you?” David asked.

  Horn looked at him and then turned his attention up to the brightening sky, his eyes squinting a little against the gathering light. “Six weeks, maybe longer. The first, ibogaine-aided stage of the therapy only lasts five days, but the subsequent stages of contemplation and psychological rehabilitation, which include smaller doses of iboga root, can take up to three months. We don’t ask anyone to leave until they’re ready.”

  David nodded. “And you’re certain James Ganther was here all that time?”

  Horn lowered his gaze to look at him. “This isn’t a prison. We don’t monitor people here, or hold them against their will. They’re free to come and go.”

  “But you would notice if someone was gone for days at a time?”

  Horn considered this. “Yes and no. Some people enjoy the comforts of the house, while others prefer a more solitary setting for their rehabilitation—their return to themselves. I provide access to several well-stocked cabins and tents. Some more isolated than others. At times, James took advantage of these resources. There were also times when I was away from my house on business, and so I can’t account for his whereabouts every moment of every day.”

  “Do you have any people—employees or assistants—who keep records of those times when Ganther was on his own?”

  Horn smiled and shook his head. “This is a place of healing, not of spying and bookkeeping.”

  David thought of Mark Stephenson—the most recent victim. “Do you remember if James Ganther was here at the house last weekend?”

  Horn looked thoughtful. “I believe he was here, but I’m not certain.”

  “And these cars,” Martin said, motioning toward the row of automobiles parked alongside the circular drive. “One of these is Ganther’s?”

  “Yes, the green Ford Bronco is James’s.”

  David looked at the SUV and then at the police vehicle holding Ganther. He saw the man slumped to one side with his head resting on the window, his breath fogging the glass.

  He heard his father say to Horn, “We’re going to need the exact locations of each of your cabins and tents.”

  Chapter 29

  FULLY CLOTHED AND clutching a steaming cup of green tea, Harvey Horn sat expectantly in front of Chief Dale Markenson’s desk.

  The Jonestown P.D. had no formal interrogation space, and so David had asked Markenson if he could use the police chief’s office for that purpose.

  Horn looked across the desk at him now with the polite expression of a psychotherapist about to begin a session with an especially confused patient.

  Martin sat a few feet behind Horn on a desk chair brought in from another room. He had his spiral notebook out, ready to assume his usual role as cataloguer and occasional interrogator.

  “How’s your tea?” David asked.

  Horn smiled. “Not very good, but I appreciate you making the effort to find me some. I’m sure very few of the officers here are tea drinkers.”

  “You’re welcome,” David said.

  Horn dipped his nose to his tea and inhaled deeply before taking a sip. “Whatever it is you believe James has done, I can promise you you’re mistaken.”

  “How can you promise that?” Martin barked at Horn’s back.

  Horn turned his head to acknowledge Martin’s presence. “Because I know the man. I’ve spent a great deal of time with him during his recovery, and I’ve never met a more repentant or gentle soul. Troubled. No doubt about that. And obviously struggling to forgive himself for sins of the past. But certainly not violent.” He blew lightly on his tea and added, “You said this morning the crimes you were investigating were violent in nature. I don’t see that in James.”

  David was quiet for a moment, regarding Horn carefully. “Mr. Horn, in my experience the most violent people are often gentle and soft-spoken. In your line of work—”

  “Please. Not work,” Horn said, gesturing dismissively with one hand. “It’s not work for me, Agent Yerxa. It’s a calling—a mission maybe. But no, not work.”

  David looked at him calmly for a time and Horn, getting the message, said, “Excuse me. I didn’t mean to change the subject.”

  “My point,” David said, picking up where he’d left off, “is that the most violent people are often mild and soft-spoken when not behaving violently.”

  Horn seemed troubled by this. “Yes, I have experienced that. But I don’t see that sort of violence in James. Not anymore. If you’d been with him during his therapy sessions, you’d agree with me.”

  “Not anymore?” Martin asked.

  Horn, who had been dipping his nose down to his cup of tea, stopped abruptly. He turned to glance at Martin and seemed to be deciding how best to respond. After a few seconds pause, he said to David, “Agent Yerxa, are you familiar with the properties of the iboga root and the ibogaine treatment process?”

  “Explain it to me,” David said.

  Horn adjusted himself in his chair. “Ibogaine, somewhat like LSD and psilocybin mushrooms, induces an intense psychological experience. I don’t typically use the term mind-altering, but I suppose it’s appropriate. During treatment, either myself or one of my assistants sits with
the patient while he passes from one stage to the next of the iboga experience. During many of those stages, we ask the patient a series of pre-determined questions based on a worksheet he or she completes upon first arriving at the house. The questions pertain to the patient’s struggles, or addiction. The therapy works only if the patient is made to confront and wrestle with the psychological sources of his affliction. The patient is also told to talk through his experience, as verbalizing seems to help establish new cognitive pathways and foundations of self-comprehension.”

  David could see his father shifting uncomfortably in his chair, as though he wanted to tell Horn how fucking ridiculous he sounded.

  “I consider the information contained in a patient’s profile or revealed during therapy private and confidential,” Horn continued. “But I will say that James revealed details about his past that were disturbing. Very disturbing.”

  David waited silently for Horn to go on. Eventually he did.

  “Many of the visitors to my home have difficult stories to tell and are struggling with terrible psychological burdens. But it’s not my place to judge. Monsters aren’t born. They’re made.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Martin asked.

  Horn smiled briefly at David and then turned in his chair to address Martin’s question.

  “I mean we’re all products of our environments, Agent Yerxa.” Horn placed his plastic cup of tea on top of Markenson’s desk and continued to address Martin directly. “Studies confirm it. Take identical twins and separate them at birth, and one may end up President while the other turns into a violent criminal. Identities are corruptible—and much more so when we’re young and malleable. You meet the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that alone could trigger a descent.” Horn turned to David and smiled. “Sons of lawyers tend to become lawyers. And those of FBI agents become FBI agents. I don’t believe that anyone has absolute—or even very much—control over his life. But eventually, some of us are lucky enough to find a little peace and forgiveness. That’s what I try to offer. No judgments. Just a second chance.”

  Martin scoffed. “A second chance in the form of an illegal drug neither you or anyone else probably understands.” He shook his head.

  Horn looked at David and shrugged as if to say, “Your father doesn’t get it, and that’s fine.”

  “And how about you, Agent Yerxa?” he said to David. “I can tell just by the calmness in your voice that you’ve achieved some level of enlightenment—of tranquility. I can hear it in the way you breathe and I can see it in the way your eyes absorb the world around you. You see some value in what I’m talking about.”

  David regarded Horn thoughtfully. “I agree that sick people deserve our compassion. But I’m sure you’ve encountered men who are past the point of recuperation—men who are only capable of corrupting others. The wrong people, you called them. It’s my job to make sure those wrong people don’t have the chance to be in the wrong places at the wrong times.”

  Horn folded his hands in his lap and considered the top of Markenson’s desk wordlessly. His wide back was slightly hunched now, as though he were trying to protect something he knew they were going to take from him. After a time he said, “I won’t tell you what James revealed to me during his therapy sessions or in his worksheet, which we always destroy after the first week of rehabilitation. But ask me anything else, and I’ll answer truthfully.”

  David nodded to let Horn know he appreciated this concession. “You said people who have consumed ibogaine are counseled to relive and confront the sources of their troubles?”

  “Yes, that’s part of the therapy.”

  “In your estimation, is it possible that this confrontation could rekindle old impulses—revive long-dormant emotions?”

  Horn was silent for a few seconds. “I suppose that’s possible.”

  “From what his friends told us, James was at your clinic to overcome addictions to alcohol and crystal methamphetamine. Assuming he blamed his substance addiction on certain negative or traumatic experiences from his past, is it possible that in reliving those experiences, he was pushed toward a psychologically unstable or unhinged state?”

  Again, Horn was quiet for a few seconds. “By its nature, ibogaine therapy is psychologically unhinging. I’ve never seen it induce destructive behavior, but I can’t say that’s not possible.”

  “Do you know the date James Ganther arrived at your clinic?”

  Horn thought for a moment. “I’m sure it was sometime in September. Mid or late September. I remember that he arrived shortly before I left for a two-week trip to Africa in early October.”

  “So you don’t know for certain where he was during that time?”

  Horn shook his head, and David thought the man seemed openly troubled now as he was forced to confront a reality that didn’t harmonize with his philosophy.

  “No,” Horn said. “Apart from his first five days at the clinic, when he was undergoing the initial ibogaine-aided stage of his therapy, I can’t be sure of his whereabouts. He came and went, and took advantage of my other facilities.”

  “Did you notice anything suspicious or unusual—anything that might indicate his involvement in something perverse while he was a visitor at your house?”

  Horn thought for a moment. “No. Truly, I did not. But I have to admit that I wasn’t looking for anything like that.”

  “All right,” David said. “I appreciate your honesty.”

  He made to stand up, but Horn raised a hand to stay him. “One thing that was strange,” he said. “I noticed James’s truck was often gone. The cabins and tents are only a short walk from the house—no more than a quarter mile, at most. Most people enjoy walking along the lake. But James always preferred to drive.”

  David nodded. “Anything else?”

  “Yes,” Horn said. “I know this may sound insignificant, but I was surprised when James shaved his beard. It was only a day or two ago. I thought it was strange because he’d obviously had it for a very long time.”

  Chapter 30

  “WHAT DO YOU think of Horn?” Martin asked.

  He sat at the table in the break room of the Jonestown Police Department, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his navy windbreaker, watching his son pace along one side of the small room.

  Both Harvey Horn and James Ganther were in holding cells down the hall. David was planning to move them both to a federal facility in Philadelphia, where Ganther’s blood would be taken for DNA testing and compared to the sample found on Mark Stephenson’s body. But first he wanted to hear back from his people and the police personnel he’d dispatched to check out Horn’s various cabins, tents, and ancillary properties. He hoped they’d find Carson Affeldt, alive and well.

  “I think Horn told us the truth,” David said to his father. “And I think he believes he’s really helping these people.”

  Martin nodded. “Who knows? Maybe he is.” He was quiet for a moment, his expression contemplative. “People in Africa and the Americas have been using shit like that as medicine for thousands of years. As a country, we’ve rejected this type of alternative medicine. But we’re a nation of goddamn Puritans, so we reject a lot of things.”

  David examined his father’s face. “You seem a lot more sympathetic now than you did in Markenson’s office. What was that? Good cop, bad cop?”

  Martin smiled. “I could tell he liked you from the beginning. I figured a little hostility on my part would help paint you as an ally.”

  David nodded his approval, and Martin added, “Tell me the truth, son. You think of me as a close-minded kind of guy?”

  He thought about this. “Stubborn and opinionated. But no, not close-minded.

  Martin slapped his palms on the tops of his thighs and rubbed them vigorously. He stood and began to walk back and forth along one side of the room, his eyes no longer meeting his son’s. “I’ve never told you this, but when your mother was struggling with her chemotherapy she had terrible pain. B
ody aches and nausea. Awful. We tried everything we could to help her. But you know what finally did the trick? The only thing that did any damn good?”

  “I can guess.”

  Martin nodded. “Marijuana.”

  “It helps a lot of people in pain.”

  Martin pursed his lips and stared at the ground. “I felt like a goddamn hypocrite at first. But we’d tried everything else, and one of the women in Angela’s group had begged her to try it. And she was right. It helped.”

  David could tell it took a lot for his father to admit all this.

  “I don’t pretend to always know what’s right or wrong,” Martin said. “I do my best, but I’m willing to admit when I’m out of my depth. Your mother found comfort in an illegal drug—at least it was illegal at that time in Pennsylvania. And I bought it for her. Illegally.” He grew quiet for a moment. “What I did was totally out of line considering what we do for a living—who we work for. But the woman I loved was in pain, and I would have done anything to take that pain away, laws and the Bureau be damned.”

  “Any good husband would,” David said, trying to be kind.

  Martin looked at him. “Maybe the people who visit Horn’s home find their own kind of relief? I can’t say either way, but I wouldn’t rule it out. And it gives me no joy to bust a man like Harvey Horn. I think his methods are reckless, but I think his heart's in the right place. ”

  David nodded, and neither he nor his father spoke for a long time.

  Chapter 31

  ALTHOUGH HE WAS still half asleep, Carson was aware of the coarse material pressing into his cheek. He opened his eyes, and the whole world was mint green and smelled of mildew. He blinked a few times, and turned his head away from the couch cushions and up toward the stucco ceiling.

  It took him a second to recognize the shape of his basement cell and to remember where he was. When he did, he closed his eyes and pulled his knees to his chest. He lay like that for a few seconds, silently praying that when he opened his eyes again the couch and mildewy smell would be gone, and he’d be in his own bed at home, his mother downstairs in the kitchen or putting on her makeup in the bathroom down the hall.