by Diane Kelly
Inside were printouts relating to inventory he’d purportedly bought on eBay, as well as handwritten receipts for cash purchases he’d evidently made in person. Still, these documents could be fakes. “Willing to show me your PayPal and bank accounts?”
“If it’ll put an end to your baseless accusations, hell yeah, I will.”
As I watched, he laid the tablet on the table and logged into his PayPal account. There, he showed me several transactions and the name of the recipients of his payments. I ran a search on my phone with the recipient’s name and the name of the brand they sold, verifying via Web sites or past-dated social media promotions that they’d been involved in selling the brands. We ran through the same routine with his bank account.
“Satisfied?” he demanded.
I held up the jar of skin cream. “If this gets rid of my problem areas I will be.” I pulled $12 cash from my wallet and handed it to him. “Thanks for clearing things up.”
Though he was still scowling slightly, he dipped his head in acknowledgment and resumed the Bond flick.
Having struck out on the burglary case, yet again, I aimed for the People of Peace compound. As usual, I stopped at the top of the hill and pulled out my binoculars to take a peek. Nothing struck me as unusual, just people going about their business. I set the glasses aside and cruised on down the hill.
On my way into the park, I passed two men on foot with fishing poles. Both were clean-shaven and wore tan fishing hats, the strings hanging down in front of their chests. One of them carried a tackle box. Their plain shirts told me they’d been sewn by hand. These guys had to be from the People of Peace compound.
I drove slowly around the park road, stopping at a lot near the shore. Texas weather tends to change on a dime, and doesn’t always follow the seasons. It was as if Mother Nature liked to toy with us, and had a spinner she used to determine what the weather would be on any given day. Today, that spinner had landed on warm and windy.
I parked the cruiser, climbed out, and let my partner out, too. She trotted onto the grass and popped a squat. I whipped a doo-doo bag from my pocket and promptly cleaned up the mess, tossing it into a metal trash bin with a klunk. Even though I had to deal with Brigit’s poops, she was still less disgusting a partner than Derek had been.
A breeze blew in, parting Brigit’s fur down the center of her back as she trotted toward the shoreline. She watched as three pairs of ducks soared in and landed on the water. Bounding into the water, she began to swim out to them. I made no move to stop her. She was having fun, getting a little exercise, and there was zero chance she’d actually harm the birds. They’d fly or paddle off before she got too close.
I wandered along the shore, picking up any flat rock I saw, and skipping it across the surface of the water, keeping track of my best score. Four skips. Then five. A flat rock the size of a half dollar skipped a whopping seven times.
Out on the water, the ducks spotted Brigit and took to flight. Disappointed, she swam in a semicircle and headed back to shore. I stepped away to give her a wide berth as she emerged from the water. She stopped once all four paws were on dry land and gave herself a thorough shake, sending up a shower. Fortunately, I’d learned to stay well out of range when she was wet.
Her ears pricked and she turned her head to the side. She raised her snout in the air now, scenting.
“Smell something, girl?”
She turned and began to trot in the direction she’d looked. I could have called her back, but I was curious to know where she was going. Just like Detective Jackson had learned to trust my instincts, I’d learned to trust Brigit’s.
I followed her as she entered a small copse of trees, ducking my way under low-hanging branches, and sweeping away spiderwebs with my hand. Eventually we emerged on the other side. The two men I’d seen earlier were standing on the shore, poles in hand, fishing line running from the poles to spots in the water a dozen yards out.
My first instinct was to retreat or at least stop, to keep my distance for fear of frightening them off. But then I realized they were not forest animals and that this situation posed a unique opportunity for me to learn more about these men.
“Having any luck?” I called, continuing in their direction.
They turned, looked at me, then looked at each other.
“Not yet,” said the closer one after a brief hesitation.
Brigit reached them and sniffed around their tackle box. I didn’t stop her. One of the men cast her an annoyed look, but said nothing.
I walked up to them. “What are you hoping to catch?”
There was another hesitation before the man who’d spoken earlier said, “Catfish.”
On hearing the word “cat,” Brigit looked up and around, scenting the air again. When she neither saw nor smelled a cat, she continued sniffing the tackle box.
I knew squat about fishing, but I had to engage these guys if I wanted to learn anything. “You fishing for fun? Catch and release?”
“No,” the man said. “Fishing for food.”
“My dad likes catfish, too,” I said. “The spicier the seasonings, the better.”
Like the fish, these men didn’t bite. Instead of picking up the conversation with a reply, they let my words just hang in the air. So that’s how you’re going to play this, huh? Given that my attempts to engage them in friendly banter hadn’t worked, I took a different tack. “You two have fishing licenses?”
“Yes.” The closer man put a hand to the reel and turned it quickly to retract the string. “They’re in the tackle box.”
When his lure popped up out of the water, he finished reeling it in, leaned his pole against the tree, and began walking toward the tackle box.
I stepped between him and the box and stopped him by raising a hand. “Hold on just a minute.” For all I knew, there could be a handgun in the box. Out here, there’d be nobody to witness him shooting me or Brigit. It couldn’t hurt to take precautions. “Mind if I open it myself?”
“If that’s what you prefer.”
Keeping one eye on him, I stepped over to the box and knelt down to open the latches. Snap-snap. As I lifted the lid, a tray attached to the hinges swung forward. Lying right on top were two fishing licenses. One was issued in the name of Glenn T. Clarke, the other in the name of Joshua A. Purcell. Both had expired on August 31.
I looked up from the box. Because the fishing licenses contained no personal photograph, it was impossible to tell which one of these men was Glenn and which was Joshua. “Which one of you is Mr. Clarke?”
The one closer to me reflexively raised a hand. “That’s me. But I go by Elijah.”
Did nobody at the People of Peace compound use their given name? Sheesh. I eyed the other. “I suppose that makes you Mr. Purcell.”
He nodded.
“I hate to tell you two,” I said, though I didn’t hate it at all, “but these licenses are expired.” Call me immature, but after their leader had refused to let me and Detective Jackson into their compound—or refuge—it felt good to push back a little, flex a little muscle.
“Expired?” Glenn/Elijah repeated, looked genuinely surprised.
Joshua did, too, his brows lifted to the bottom of his fishing hat. “I thought they were good until the end of the year.”
I shook my head. “Nope. That’s a common misconception. Texas fishing licenses run from September first of one year to August thirty-first of the next.”
The men exchanged glances. I debated what to do. Normally, wardens from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department handled hunting and fishing violations. Calling the TPWD out was one option. Another option was to simply give them a warning. My gut told me to go with the latter. As much as I would enjoy giving them a little hassle, antagonizing members of the church wouldn’t serve my purpose, which was to get into that compound and search for the baby’s mother. Better to try to build some rapport, if I could.
I closed the tackle box, snapped the latches closed, and stood. “No worries
,” I told them. “I don’t want to ruin your good time. I suspect the fish would be of a different mind, though.” I forced a chuckle and was glad to see both men break a small smile, too. “Just be sure to get current licenses before you come out again. The guys from Parks and Wildlife might not be so forgiving.”
The men nodded. Glenn said, “Thanks, Officer.”
Now that I’d hopefully earned their trust, I wandered a little closer. “Are you two from that place next door? The church camp?”
“Refuge,” Joshua corrected me. “It’s a refuge.”
I dipped my head in acknowledgment. “I love patrolling out here by the lake. It’s so pretty. It’s a good place for my partner to stretch her legs, too. I was glad when we were asked to fill in at this division.” I hoped they’d take this tidbit back to the guards in the watchtowers. Maybe they’d assume my regular drive-bys weren’t so much an attempt to keep an eye on the People of Peace as to enjoy the scenery. “Seems like it would be nice to live out here, so close to the water. How long have you two been living in the refuge?”
They hesitated again. Clearly they weren’t happy to give me any information, even if it was something as simple and useless as the length of their residence. Nevertheless, they gave me answers, however reluctant.
“About two years,” Glenn said quietly, as if afraid someone might overhear. Father Emmanuel, perhaps?
“Four,” said Joshua in an equally soft voice.
“Looks like a big place. How many people live there?” I’d seen over a hundred at the prayer circle, by my quick estimate. But I had no way of knowing if all of the members had been in the circle at the time.
Glenn’s evasive answer would have earned him an F on any math test. “A good number,” he said.
Sheesh. How many was “a good number”?
“My dad used to take me fishing when I was little,” I said, lying again. “I didn’t much like baiting a hook, but I liked having that special time with my father. You guys ever bring your kids out here?”
“We don’t have any,” Glenn said.
Both men were reasonably attractive and at the age when the majority of men had settled down, married, and reproduced. These men could be gay, I supposed, but it seemed the more likely explanation was that Father Emmanuel, like many cult leaders, devalued families and encouraged more communal ties. The family bond was seen as a threat to the members’ loyalty to the larger church, and romantic relationships were touted as sinful and selfish.
Brigit had wandered to the edge of the water and pawed at something, pulling it up onto the dry land. The breeze carried its odor my way. Dead fish. Ick. She sniffed it, licked it once, then proceeded to flop down on top of it, belly up, and roll.
I scurried over. “No, girl!”
Brigit’s wet dog smell would already stink up the cruiser. No sense adding the aroma of festering fish to it.
Brigit stopped wriggling and looked up at me, defiance in her eyes. She protested with a soft growl. Grrrr.
I pointed a finger at her. “Don’t you talk back to me.”
She rolled off the fish, stood, and heaved a sigh worthy of any rebellious teenager.
While I wanted to ask the men more questions, I decided not to push my luck. “It’s been nice talking with y’all. It gets a little lonely on patrol. My conversations with my partner tend to be one-sided.” I forced another chuckle, clipped Brigit’s leash to her collar, and raised a hand in good-bye. “We’re heading out now. Have a good day.”
They mumbled good-byes in return, and we turned to go.
I repeated the men’s names in my mind as I led Brigit back to the cruiser. Glenn T. Clarke. Joshua A. Purcell. Glenn T. Clarke. Joshua A. Purcell. At the car, I loaded Brigit into the back, took my seat, and turned my dash-mounted laptop in my direction. I ran a quick search on both of the men and determined Glenn’s middle name was Thomas, while Joshua’s was Alan. Neither appeared to have a criminal record. No marriage license was issued in either name. While I found their birth certificates, I found none listing them as the father of any children. Like Mary Seeger, these men had let their driver’s licenses lapse, though only in the last year. Neither showed up on social media. It was as if they were fading, leading only a partial existence.
It dawned on me then that the children born in the compound might not even have been issued birth certificates. If they didn’t have birth certificates, they wouldn’t have social security numbers, either. They’d be totally off the grid. The government wouldn’t know they existed. The concept was strange and more than a little eerie, as if we had ghosts living among us.
* * *
That night, I washed my face and examined it closely in the mirror. Unable to determine exactly where my problem areas were, I applied the Nouveau Toi cream liberally all over. Couldn’t hurt, right? I’d be curious to see what I looked like in the morning, whether the jojoba oil and shea and coconut butters would transform my skin.
Smelling like a piña colada, I flopped down on my bed to do a little reading. Brigit hopped up next to me, sniffed my cheek, and whipped out her tongue to swipe me from jaw to brow. “Ew!” I pushed her face away. “Stop that!”
The warm, wet tongue was gross enough, but the fact that her breath smelled like liver treats made it even more disgusting. My protestations only seemed to make her try harder. She went for my face again, putting a paw up on my shoulder for leverage.
“No!” I pushed her back again.
She came after me with just as much determination and before I knew what was happening, we were engaged in an all-out wrestling match on my bed, with her trying to lick the cream off my face and me trying to fend her off.
My cell phone chirped from the bedside table. I grabbed it and checked the screen. Mom. Yanking the sheet over my head and cowering under it, I accepted the call.
“I got a 96 on my exam!” my mother cried happily. “Can you believe it?”
“That’s great, Mom!” I said. “Congratulations.”
“I’ve got all As so far,” she said. “If I can keep my grades up, I could make the dean’s list.”
“I’m proud of you,” I told her.
“I’m proud of me, too. Now I just need to pick a major. I never knew it was so hard to figure out what you want to be when you grow up.”
I supposed it was difficult for some people to decide on a career, but for me it had been a no-brainer. I’d loved mysteries, even as a kid, loved to examine the clues and see if I could figure out whodunit. With my stutter, I’d developed a habit of keeping my mouth shut and observing. You can learn a lot that way.
My mother reminded me of the incentive I’d offered her. “Don’t forget you promised to take me out for ice cream.”
“I’d love to.” We agreed to go on my next free evening.
When we ended the call, I sneaked my hand out from under the covers to return the phone to the table. I reached up and turned off the lamp.
“Good night, Briggie,” I said through the sheet, hoping I wouldn’t suffocate under here. I had two big cases to solve.
Luckily, the dog seemed to have given up on licking my face. She flopped down next me and settled in for the night.
THIRTY
I CAN LICK ANYONE
Brigit
Her partner sure could be a party pooper. First Megan scolded Brigit for rolling on that wonderfully stinky dead fish, then Megan scolded Brigit again for licking the cream off her face. Why had she put something so yummy-smelling on her face if she didn’t want Brigit to lick it?
Megan considered herself the alpha of their two-member pack. Brigit, on the other hand, knew she was the one who was really in charge. She was smart enough to keep Megan in the dark about that fact, and obeyed—mostly—while they were on duty. But off duty? Brigit would find a way to get what she wanted.
She lay still and quiet next to Megan until she heard Megan’s breaths become slow and shallow. Brigit knew that meant her partner was asleep now. Taking the edge of the sheet in
her teeth, Brigit carefully eased it back until Megan’s face was exposed. She gently put the end of her tongue on her partner’s forehead and waited to see if Megan would react.
She didn’t.
Good.
* * *
Slowly and gently, Brigit licked the cream from Megan’s face. She had no idea what was in the stuff, but it tasted greasy and good.
At one point Megan stirred and Brigit quickly put her head down and closed her eyes. When her partner stopped moving, Brigit opened her eyes just a little bit. Megan’s were closed. The coast was clear again. She continued to gingerly swipe the goo with her tongue.
When Megan’s face was completely clean, Brigit licked her lips and put her head down on the pillow next to Megan’s. Yep, I’m the boss here.
THIRTY-ONE
PRIVILEGES
The Father
Thursday afternoon, he sat in his office in the church building, writing Sunday’s sermon. He’d decided to speak about loss, how pain and grief were essential to appreciating life’s joys, how suffering was an integral part of God’s master plan.
He had assumed things would move on quickly, that the women would avoid talking about Juliette’s baby in an effort to put it all behind them.
He’d been wrong.
Those cackling hens wouldn’t shut up.
The hidden microphones he’d had installed in their work barn and bunkhouse brought him no end of discussion about how the “poor little thing” had been “taken much too soon.” No matter how many times he reminded the women that death takes a person to God’s holy realm and was something to celebrate rather than mourn, the death of Juliette’s baby hung like a dark shroud over the refuge.
Ecclesiastes 3:1–8 was the go-to verse for times like these.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
