by Diane Kelly
* * *
Half an hour later, I stood before the magistrate judge again, giving him the same information I’d given Jackson. “Zeke tackled the young man, sat on his chest, and pinned his arms down,” I said as I wrapped things up. “Another man held his legs. When they let him up, they each grabbed one of his arms and led him back to the barn. He looked back over his shoulder at the young woman, but Zeke grabbed his chin and forced his face forward. I’m fairly certain the young man had a black eye, too.” I went on to tell the magistrate that Zeke had deep claw marks across his face. “I saw him at a farmer’s market. When I asked him about it, he claimed he tripped and fell on a saw. But the spacing of the marks and the fact that there were four of them tells me the wound was inflicted by a human hand.” I held up my hand and hooked my four fingers to demonstrate. “I can’t say who he’d fought with, maybe the same young man he tackled today, or maybe the baby’s mother. Regardless, it’s clear there’s violence going on in that compound.” The People of Peace seemed to be anything but.
“We need some answers,” Jackson said, putting the icing on the cake of our plea. “Before it’s too late.”
The magistrate chewed the earpiece of his reading glasses as he mulled things over. The deep lines on his brow told me he didn’t like the possibility of being responsible for a death or serious injury he could have prevented. Finally, he pointed the earpiece at me and Jackson. “I’m going to issue the warrant,” he said, “but I hope you two realize the seriousness of this situation and the potential ramifications. There’s no telling what the baby’s parents might have told the other members of the church about the baby’s whereabouts. The members likely know who the baby’s mother is, but the father’s identity might not have been revealed to them. I strongly caution you on disclosing that she was left at the fire station and who left her there. Hold your cards close to your vest.”
For the second time in an hour, the word “understood” left my lips.
The man signed the warrant and handed it to the detective. We thanked him and left the building. As the door swung shut behind us, Jackson said, “Let’s go get some answers.”
THIRTY-THREE
TASSEL HASSLE
Brigit
She’d been disappointed when Megan took the leather tassel from her, but it had tasted a little funny anyway and smelled of polish. The liver treat had been an acceptable substitute.
Megan pulled the cruiser to a stop at the store they’d gone to earlier. Brigit put her nose to the cruiser’s window and scented. She smelled body odor coming from the big male cop Megan didn’t like. The other male cop smelled like the pizza he’d had for lunch. A floral scent came from the other female officer. Brigit also scented gasoline, bait fish, and hamburgers cooking. Mmm. Her mouth hung open, a drop of drool falling from her lips. She barked an order to Megan. Woof! Woof-woof! Translation: Get me a burger! Now!
Megan didn’t speak dog, and often didn’t understand what Brigit was telling her. Instead of getting her a hamburger, Megan returned to the cruiser and started the engine.
“Sorry, girl,” Megan said. “No time for a burger right now. If all goes well, I’ll get you one later.”
Brigit cocked her head. Megan had said the word “burger.” Maybe she understands me, after all.
THIRTY-FOUR
OPEN AND SHUT CASE
Father Emmanuel
He couldn’t be sure what all the cop had seen from the ridge. The trees would have blocked some of her view into the grounds, but had she seen the scuffle between Zeke and Luke? Just in case, he’d ordered Jeb and Zeke to toss Luke into the silo, too. He didn’t like the idea of putting Juliette and Luke in there together. Hell, he’d managed to keep the two apart for months. But he’d had no choice.
The lawyer had called him back after speaking with the cop, told him that being open with the officer about the baby had seemed to surprise her. He could only hope it would also appease her. He was damn tired of her and her K-9 sniffing around his kingdom. He wanted things back under control—his control.
THIRTY-FIVE
SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND
Megan
Armed with the search warrant, as well as her gun, pepper spray, and Taser, Detective Jackson led the way to the gate of the People of Peace compound. We four officers followed shoulder to shoulder, Brigit at my knee. There was no need to turn on a siren to get the attention of the inhabitants this time. Joshua Purcell was working guard duty in the deer blind. He’d already spotted us and jumped on his radio to announce our arrival.
“Hello, up there!” Jackson called to the man as we approached.
I raised a hand in greeting. “How are you today, Mr. Purcell?”
He didn’t respond to my question. Instead, he said, “What’s going on?”
Jackson raised the document. “Serving a search warrant. Come on down and let us in.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I don’t have a key. But Father Emmanuel is on his way.”
“Okeydoke,” she said nonchalantly. “Any chance you’ve got a gun up there with you?”
“No,” the man said. “The People of Peace abhor weapons.”
“Good to know.” She gave the rest of us a look that said Don’t trust him. He could be full of BS.
A moment later, Father Emmanuel appeared behind the second gate, dressed in his long brown robe. Today, he had the hood raised over his head.
Derek snorted. “What the fuck is that?” he muttered under his breath. “An Ewok?”
Jackson silenced him with a cutting glance.
Emmanuel gave us a nod in acknowledgment. “I see you’ve returned,” he called, offering a mirthless smile. “With friends.”
Jackson raised her hand. “We’ve got a warrant. You’ve got no choice but to let us in. No need to make this any more difficult than it has to be.”
He made no move to unlock the gate, but stared her down for a long moment before saying, “What is it that you seek, Detective?”
“Still looking for the girl,” she said. “She hasn’t been found.”
We’d strategized in the parking lot of the store and decided to stick with our earlier ruse, at least until we could get Zeke alone and question him about the baby. It would serve both our purposes and the purpose of the Baby Moses law. Zeke obviously knew the baby had been surrendered at a fire station, because he’d been the one to do it. Presumably Father Emmanuel knew of the baby’s surrender, too, though it was possible he did not. It could have been Zeke who called the lawyer. We’d be careful not to raise the issue with anyone but Zeke.
Father Emmanuel heaved a long-suffering sigh before pulling a key chain from his pocket, picking through the keys, and inserting one in the lock. He opened the gate and stepped through, walking up to a number pad mounted inside the gate where we waited. Before typing in the code he eyed us pointedly and said, “You’ll see that the People of Peace are just simple people with a simple way of living. I daresay you’ll be disappointed. We have absolutely nothing to hide.”
A paraphrase of the Shakespearean quote popped into my head. The man doth protest too much, methinks.
He punched in a code and the gate began to slide open.
Jackson waited only until it was wide enough for her to slip through sideways before proceeding. “Round up all your people,” she told Emmanuel. “Have them meet in the church.”
Though his jaw flexed, he said, “As you wish.” He looked up at Joshua in the deer blind and motioned for him to come down. “Come, brother. Let’s gather the flock.”
We officers waited near the open double doors of the church as the members streamed in, bewildered looks on their faces, some of them casting worried or irritated looks our way as they took in Brigit, us uniformed officers, and the weapons mounted on our belts. Jackson, Summer, and I offered warm smiles and greetings, doing our best to reassure the congregants that they had nothing to fear. Derek’s cocky smirk didn’t help, however. And while several of the women cast appreciative glance
s at Spalding’s muscular form, just as many men sent grudging glares his way. Evidently they didn’t like their captive brood realizing what they might be missing.
Eventually, purportedly everyone who lived in the compound was seated in the church, Father Emmanuel presiding over them from an ornate, high-backed throne to the side of the altar. Though Zeke sat in the front row, the claw marks on his face having faded somewhat, neither the young woman with the blue hat nor the young man who’d been tackled were in the room.
Jackson looked to me for verification of whether the two were present. I pretended to scratch my chafed cheek again, while discreetly shaking my head. They’re not here.
Jackson didn’t call Emmanuel’s bluff, though. Instead, she stepped up next to the altar. “Good afternoon, folks. We are very sorry to interrupt your busy day, but when I explain I am sure you will understand why we had to take this measure.” She pulled out the photograph of her niece and held it up. “This girl has been missing for several days now. Her name is Kendra. She ran away from her parents’ home not too far from here. Her mother has told me that Kendra had been going through a difficult and emotional time. Her friends had begun dabbling in drugs and alcohol and drifted away when she refused to participate. Her parents were having some marital problems, too. Kendra was in a very bad place emotionally and spiritually. We’ve been searching the area for her, and we simply need to confirm whether she came to your group looking for help.”
One of the toddlers who was sitting on his mother’s knee in the front row waved at Brigit. “Hi, doggie!” he cried happily.
While a few of the congregants chuckled or smiled, most remained stoic. These might be the People of Peace, but they looked like a bunch of party poopers.
Jackson gestured to the male officers. “Officers Spalding and Mackey will stay here with you, while the rest of us take a look around. We respect that this is your home, and we will be very careful not to disturb your personal property any more than necessary. When we return, we will release each of you one by one, and ask you some questions. Please know this type of thing is routine and there is nothing at all to be alarmed about. We hope that if any of you has some information about Kendra, you will share it with us. We’re not interested in prosecuting anyone here who might have helped her out, and we will gladly sign legal documents giving you immunity if you provide information. Our only goal here today is to find the young lady and return her to her parents.” Her spiel complete, she added, “I’d be happy to answer questions if you have any.”
She ran her eyes over the crowd, but not a single hand was raised. “Okay, then. We’ll get moving so that we can get you out of here as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation.”
With that, she signaled me, Brigit, and Summer to follow her out of the church. As the four of us made our way to the yellow schoolhouse, the unattended dogs trotted up to meet Brigit. While most exchanged friendly butt sniffs, the wolflike one Jebediah had brought to the gate the first time we’d come to the compound held back, watching warily from twenty feet away. At least he did until I tossed a liver treat his way. “Lighten up, buddy!”
He sniffed the treat where it fell on the ground, gobbled it up, then raised his head, wagging his tail now.
Jackson, Summer, Brigit, and I went into the schoolhouse. Forty or so desks and chairs in various heights were lined up in rows, the shorter ones on one side of the room, the taller ones on the other. Books lay open on the older students’ desks. A chalkboard bore the 8 times multiplication table.
Summer pointed to the blackboard. “That right there? That’s why I decided to become a cop. No math required.”
Actually, cops often had to add up significant sums of drug money or determine just how many grams of crystal meth a dealer had in his backpack. But I knew she was joking so no sense in pointing it out.
We opened the supply cabinet at the front of the classroom, but found no young man or woman hidden inside, only glue sticks, notebook paper, crayons, and colored pencils.
When we’d searched the building thoroughly, we headed back down the steps.
“You know what they didn’t have in there?” I said. “A geography textbook or a map.” No doubt they hoped to convince the children that the compound should be their whole world. That type of insular education was a disservice to the students.
We continued on to the next building, which was the garage. I reached down and grabbed the handle of one of the rolling doors. As it went up, it revealed several trucks, including the Chevy, the Dodge, and the Toyota. It also revealed the nineties-era Ford F-150, the truck Zeke had taken to the fire station.
“That’s it,” Jackson said. “That’s the truck the security cameras picked up.”
We proceeded methodically through the rest of the compound, looking under every bed in both bunkhouses, checking behind the curtains in the communal showers and the doors to the toilet stalls. Jackson even bent down to look up the wide chimney in the dining hall. There was no one hiding in the big pantry in the kitchen, nobody hiding between the sheets hanging from the clothesline. Inside the barns, we found the vats where the women dipped the candles, the tables where they worked on their quilts. We also found Proverbs 16:27 painted on the side wall—Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. The same quote appeared in the men’s barn, above a table saw.
While I stood back with Brigit securely leashed, Summer and the detective checked the chicken coop. The birds clucked and squawked and fluttered about inside the enclosure, clearly perturbed by the unexpected intrusion. One spread its wings and charged Summer, who slammed the door shut just in time to avoid being pecked. Bam!
“Those birds are crazy!” she cried.
When we reached the small structure I’d wondered about, I pulled the door open and looked inside. The only thing there was a queen-sized bed and a night table. As it dawned on me what this building was for, an “Ew!” leaped from my lips. I whispered to Jackson and Summer. “I think this is where the married couples go to have sex.”
Summer whispered back. “It’s no less disgusting in a whisper than at full volume.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “It just seems like the kind of thing you’re supposed to whisper about.”
Jackson’s lip curled. “This is a strange, strange place.” She whipped out a pair of latex gloves and put them on before lifting the covers to see if anyone was hiding under the bed and opening the drawer on the bedside table. She pulled out a strip of wrapped condoms. “You nailed it, Megan.”
I grimaced. I didn’t want to nail anything in this room.
Father Emmanuel’s house was spare and tidy. Though his furnishings were modest, his electronics were not. He had an expensive laptop computer on his kitchen table, along with a tablet. An enormous television, the only one we’d seen in the entire compound, was mounted to his bedroom wall.
Jackson retrieved his remote from the bedside table and turned the TV on, flipping through the channels. “He’s got the premium cable package. Figured as much.” She clicked the TV off and returned the remote to the table.
As we aimed for the church, we discussed what we had—and hadn’t—found.
“The only books other than the Bible were the textbooks in the school,” I said. How could people get by without mysteries and romances and thrillers to entertain them? I knew I couldn’t. The lack of books was another indicator that Father Emmanuel was keeping his people isolated from the outside world.
Summer added, “None of them seemed to have family photos. All of the pictures were of groups.”
“That’s all part of breaking down the family unit,” Jackson said. “Typical MO for these types of cults. They try to sever any bonds that aren’t connected to the leader or the group as a whole.”
That thought pained my heart. My family could drive me up the wall sometimes, but they meant the world to me. We shared not only DNA, but also a special bond forged by shared experiences and concerns. Could people here forge these intimate connections
? Or had Father Emmanuel made it impossible?
We returned to the church, where we made a quick round of the restrooms in the foyer. Nothing.
Jackson led us back into the church, where she raised a conciliatory hand to the people inside. “Almost done, folks. Just need to check out the back of the church.”
Summer and I followed her through a door at the back that led directly from the pulpit to a large office. Bookcases filled with every Bible translation imaginable and a multitude of religious texts lined the walls. The Quran, sacred to those of the Muslim faith. The Hindus’ Bhagavad Gita. The Sikhs’ Guru Granth Sahib. The Buddhist Tripitaka. Judaism’s Talmud and Tanakh. The Tao Te Jing, the primary Taoist text. He even had a copy of the Wicca Book of Shadows. I still wasn’t sure whether Father Emmanuel was simply an odd duck or a total fraud, but if he’d read all of these books he must have an enormous knowledge of the world’s religions. Maybe I was lazy to simply follow the Catholic traditions of both my Irish and Mexican ancestors, but the Catholic faith seemed as good as any, and I found the familiar rituals comforting. Plus, I thought the stained-glass windows were pretty and I liked the smell of incense.
I wandered over to his desk. On the surface was a Bible tabbed with sticky notes. Next to it were notes he’d made, and what appeared to be the outline for a sermon that began with the well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
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;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
