Where to start? Taking direction from yet another A.A. cliché, KISS, I decided to keep it simple, stupid.
God? I’m not really sure how to do this. I was right. I felt stupid. But I kept on. I’m scared. All the time. And I can’t take much more. I felt a shift in my psyche—or maybe my soul. God, there are some things I’m going to have to do, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to need your help. Please. Okay, then. Amen.
Chapter Six
Saturday morning was one of those crispy-clear days that are perfect for a long-sleeved T-shirt and a jean jacket. As I headed in from the church parking lot, I could smell the smoky autumn perfume of leaves burning in the neighborhood. Aromatherapy.
Again the door was unlocked in that Midwestern belief that only good things would come in. Tracy puttered around the kitchen making dark roast coffee. More aromatherapy. Armed with warmth and caffeine, we headed back.
“Okay, Letty, let’s look at this,” Tracy started off before we had even sat down. “My thoughts on the easy issue first. Regarding a knowledge of scripture, I think you need some understanding of the more obvious Bible prophesies. The books of Revelations, Daniel, Matthew, and First Thessalonians, for example.” She ticked each book off on her fingers as she spoke. “But that’s not a complete list. The thing is, you aren’t an expert and you shouldn’t try to pass as one. They’ll nail you as a fake right away. Go in as an initiate and let them instruct you in their message, which is what cults want to do anyway. In fact, if you’re too knowledgeable, you would probably be considered a threat to their power base.
“That said,” she continued, “you do need a thorough grounding in cult formation and the theoretical positions regarding the End Times. I’ve got several books for you to read starting with these.”
Tracy indicated a stack of books teetering on the office desk. If not for graduate school, it would have been daunting, but I’m a “knowledge is power” kinda girl. The stack appeared to be evenly divided between cult-centered titles with words like rapture and Israel sprinkled through them. I was pretty sure they weren’t talking about a Jewish love story.
“Two last pieces of advice: if you don’t already have one, get a study version of the Bible. Something with life application notes, with profiles and historical footnotes. I recommend an NIV version, even though the group may not like that particular translation.” She saw the question in my eyes and clarified. “New International Version. It’s just easier to read. Fundamentalist groups often reject most modern translations.
“The second thing I want to say is that your research skills are going to be needed the whole time, not just to prepare for entry. Cult members are not stupid. Many have spent a lifetime seeking wisdom, truth, and a higher purpose. Cults have to be able to offer philosophies that make sense to the seekers while they simultaneously elicit strong emotional responses. The thing that makes cults so attractive is that the deceptions they rely on are wrapped around truths. Twisted truths, if you will.
“One of your biggest weapons will be the ability to verify or discredit the information they’ll be feeding you. You may have to sneak away and check out a library, or call me, or call a pastor. But be careful with it. They aren’t fond of dissenters by any means, and if your friend has already involved the police, they’ll be jumpy.”
Now I was daunted.
Laughing, she rose and ran her finger over the bookshelves, hunting. “Here you go. Start with this one. It’s an easy read and funny as heck.”
“Funny?”
She handed me a yellow paperback whose bright orange title screamed POCKET GUIDE TO THE APOCALYPSE!
“Really funny,” she assured me.
“I thought I was supposed to be a novice,” I said.
“Yes, but in order to recognize if a theory is twisted, you need to be aware of legitimate ones. You won’t be an expert after reading these. That would take years of study. But you will be able to recognize a scam when you see it. I hope.”
“I hope so too.” Rising, I started to reach for the pile of books.
“Letty? That’s only one side of the coin, isn’t it?” she asked gently.
Sighing, I sank back down. “I suppose you’re referring to the whole emotional mess as well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Me. I mean me. I’m the emotional mess,” I said.
Tracy sat quietly for a few minutes. Then she said, “You mentioned yesterday that you needed to prepare emotionally for this venture. What will be different in you that will make you feel prepared?”
I groaned. The “what will be different” question is an excellent one for helping a client devise a specific goal, but it was weird being on this side of it. Leaning my head back against the plump chair, I examined the ceiling for an answer.
“I wouldn’t be scared,” I finally answered.
“You’d be silly not to be. In fact, I’d be more worried if you weren’t.”
“Okay, I wouldn’t be incapacitated by fear. I wouldn’t be embarrassed by freaking out for no apparent reason and making a fool of myself.”
“Hmmm… Let me ask you this—what kind of people do you think cults recruit?”
The shift in subject relieved me. “Well, you said they weren’t stupid. Maybe people who want to belong, to find a place.”
“A place?” she prodded.
“A place to feel safe.”
“So if they aren’t safe now, that means they’re what?”
“Vulnerable,” I said, suddenly understanding where she was going with this.
“Just as your anxiety and panic attacks make you feel vulnerable.”
“So are you saying I should use my fear?”
“I’m saying you won’t need a disguise. Your fear, which is very real and would be difficult to fake, could actually be used to establish credibility.”
Huh.
When I got home I checked my messages, hoping that either Eli or Rachel had called. Nothing. I felt like I had been stood up twice.
I should have gotten busy on all the tasks I let drop over the last few days. Instead, I curled up on the couch with the stack of books from Tracy and the new Bible I had stopped to buy on my way home.
Siggy came to inspect my purchases, chewed on the covers of several books, and seemed unimpressed with my dire predictions of fire and brimstone if he ate the Holy Scripture. While I tried to read he curled up on my lap, so he could bat at the pages as I turned them. This was my punishment for using my fingers to hold a book instead of scratching kitty itches.
After several hours I had given myself a headache and decided to self-medicate with my current drug of choice: chocolate.
I was digging into the back of the drawer where I keep the kitchen towels and, for some reason, my candy bars, when the phone rang. From somewhere. I only had four rings to find it before it clicked over to voice mail, because I had never been able to figure out how to reprogram it. In my hunt-for-the-cordless-phone frenzy I cracked my shin on the table, dumping coffee over my new Bible. Much cussing ensued. Siggy ran away.
I finally dug the phone out from between its nest in the couch cushions in the middle of the fourth ring.
Rachel. Asking me to a Discussion Supper for that very night.
During a brief stint as a gotta-pay-off-those-college-loans telemarketer, I had been taught that smiling projects a certain warmth into your voice, regardless of whether you could be seen or not. However, given the number of times the other party slammed the phone down in my ear, I wouldn’t vouch for the results. Still… Clenching my teeth, I smiled past the pain and accepted the invitation.
After hanging up, I tried calling Eli again. I hadn’t heard from him since he stormed out the door the night before last, and since it was Saturday afternoon, I knew he didn’t have classes. We had never gone this long without talking since we’d met. Of course, we had never had a fight of this magnitude either, but I wouldn’t have suspected Eli of being a silent treatment kind of guy. I hated that.
&
nbsp; Still no answer.
I checked for messages again and got the same robot telling me no one loved me. Well, it said no messages. Same thing. Maybe, I speculated, my voice mail was broken. It could happen. I used my cell phone to call my home phone and left a message; ditto my house to my cell. After a few minutes, my cell beeped, signaling a message. After clearing my own voice from the cell, I called my home voice mail. One message: me. Well, hell. All I had accomplished was confirming the worst.
I stood there with the phone in my hand brooding over this latest complication when the thing rang and scared the living crap out of me. I made one of those nyannnnh sounds and barely managed to keep from throwing the instrument across the room. Ignoring my spastic reaction, it patiently rang again.
Heart pounding, I gasped out a greeting.
“Uhhh… Letty?” Jimmy sounded a mite concerned. Not surprising, since I sounded like I had been caught smack in the middle of a lewd sex act, and Jimmy was nothing, if not conservative.
“Hi, Jimmy. What’s up?” I tried to play it off using the same voice we all use when we vehemently deny being awakened from a sound sleep. Fools no one.
“I just wanted to check in,” he said. “I haven’t heard from you since Wednesday. I was worried about how we left it.”
“I’m fine, Jimmy. Have you heard from Beth?”
“Not a word. I was hoping you had.”
“Sorry, no. But listen,” I said, “I’ve been invited to Corinth House tonight. Did Beth ever mention someone called Rachel?”
“No. The only one she mentioned by name was Dr. Abe.” Jimmy paused, then, “Are you absolutely sure this is a good idea?”
Duh. Of course, this wasn’t a good idea. Hadn’t I been saying that all along?
“You said yourself that I should have been with Beth to begin with. And you were right. What else can we do?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been considering going to the police.”
My heart jumped with hope. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to back out and let the professionals handle this mess. But it wouldn’t work.
“What are you going to tell them, Jimmy? The part about your wife leaving, because she was afraid of you or the part about her joining the group voluntarily?”
Jimmy’s sigh rattled through the phone. “I see your point,” he said. “But I still think you should reconsider your involvement in this. Despite what I said before, I don’t think you should put yourself in this.”
What had changed Jimmy’s mind in just three days? Beth was still missing, and Jimmy still hadn’t heard from her. Of course, that didn’t mean he hadn’t heard from someone.
“Jimmy, have you talked to Eli recently?”
Jimmy’s turn to pause. “He’s just worried about you. There were some things I didn’t understand about your situation.”
I sat there fuming. My situation? As in—she’s too weak? vulnerable? crazy? to deal with this problem?—and if Eli was talking to Jimmy, why wouldn’t he talk to me? Damn these men, anyhow.
“I don’t need to be protected, Jimmy. I can do that myself. If my best friend is in trouble, I’m not going to sit around with my thumb up my butt just to make you and Eli feel better.”
“Letty—”
“I have to get ready for tonight, Jim. I’ll call you later.” I hung up. Pretty forceful for a recovering people pleaser.
Chapter Seven
I was still pissed when I pulled up to Corinth House, but since I was about five minutes early, I sat with the car running. The house was a big old rambling structure on a double lot. The detached single car garage had enough boards missing that in spots you could see the other side. It leaned at the same tilt my Uncle Stanley used to have after a couple of drinks and looked just as shaky.
Thankfully, the house was in much better shape. The stray shingles littering the otherwise-well-kept lawn told me it had recently been reshingled, and a vegetable garden on the side of the house sprouted festive-looking pumpkins and gourds.
Electrical repairs must have still been on the “to-do” list because when I tried the doorbell it gave a tired buzz. Not sure if it would be heard, I lifted my hand to knock and almost took the nose off the woman who opened the door. She gave a little squeak and jumped back.
“Oh, geez. Are you okay?” Nice. I had nearly assaulted a cult member. Not an auspicious beginning.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Won’t you come in?”
She didn’t look fine. She looked pissed.
I entered, apologizing profusely. She kept repeating that apologies weren’t necessary while wearing the same pissed expression. It didn’t look like we would ever be besties. The clattering of dishes and silverware from deep within the house signaled supper preparations, but I waited for my greeter to escort me. She still hadn’t told me her name.
She led the way down a dim hallway at the end of which was a door. Light seeped through the gaps in the aged doorjamb. The kitchen sounds grew louder, identifying the room before the door even opened.
Stepping into the kitchen was like stepping back into one of the few happy childhood memories I had. Before my father’s drinking got too bad for even the worst of our hard-drinking family, my folks used to host Thanksgiving at our house. At the time, we lived in an old farmhouse with plenty of space for kids to chase each other around without getting underfoot. Gender-divided holidays had the women bustling around the kitchen, talking about the men while the men sprawled across the living room or the front porch, smoking and talking about the crops. When my dad was forced out of farming, we moved into town, thereby forfeiting the Thanksgiving host position to my Aunt Carol.
I pulled out of my reverie in time to notice the crying woman from the Peace meeting, who had gotten there ahead of me. I struggled mentally for her name before remembering. Cheryl. I nodded to her, but she averted her head. If Rachel hadn’t smiled at me from where she stood cooking at the stove, I might have given up my friendship badge for life. She lifted the lid to stir a pot, releasing a steamy fog of beefy good smells.
The spell broken, a woman stepped forward and warmly shook my hand. Unlike the others, she wore pants and an eye-burning, kelly-green smock emblazoned with cartoon teeth dancing cheek-to-cheek with bright red toothbrushes. I hoped she changed clothes before supper. A white name tag pinned over her left breast announced “Hi! I’m your dental hygienist Myrtle.”
Tuning in on the conversation finally helped me pick up the door opener’s name. In sharp contrast to her dress and manner, she had the unlikely name Jazzy. Unlike Rachel, the long-skirt-and-no-makeup uniform didn’t sit well on her. Rather than offering an old-fashioned charm, she looked drab and resentful. Continuing to ignore me, she scooped up a stack of bowls and disappeared through a side door that presumably led to the dining room. I caught an exchange of glances between Rachel and Myrtle after the door swung shut behind her, but didn’t know them well enough to decipher it. It seemed as if Jazzy’s attitude might be congenital, not just a result of my taking a swipe at her nose.
Rachel sighed and turned to Cheryl. Like me, Cheryl had worn a skirt. However, where I had merely toned down my makeup, she had eliminated it entirely. Of course, if she planned to bawl her eyes out like the other night, perhaps it was a strategic decision.
Just as Rachel pulled two loaf pans full of bread from the oven, an outside door banged open, letting in a swirl of cold air and a fuzzy, pink yeti. The creature was swaddled in enough faux fur to keep her warm in a Siberian blizzard. Even her boots, which she was enthusiastically stomping despite the utter lack of snow, had fuchsia tassels.
It soon became obvious that the young woman had gotten her coat zipper stuck in the multiple scarves that swathed her neck, and she switched from happy humming to frustrated grunts.
“Wait, Baara, I’m coming.” Rachel crossed the kitchen to help. As layers peeled off, they revealed a young woman in her twenties with a head covered in soft, blond curls.
“Oh!” Baara exclaimed when she
noticed Cheryl and me. “I forgot. We have visitors tonight.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” I said.
“Nice to meet you too.” Her speech was thick but spoken with careful precision. The social niceties over, she padded over to a large cookie jar shaped like a beehive and rattled the top off.
“No cookies,” Rachel called out from the stove. “Five minutes until supper.”
“Aw.” Baara replaced the ceramic top and ambled into the front hall. Then she hung a left at a side door, and the sound of splashing water and more humming drifted out.
Rachel turned away from the stove and flashed me the first real smile I had seen from her. She loaded up a large serving tray while I grabbed the bread baskets. Cheryl, stranded in the center of the kitchen, looked lost. I handed her the bread and took the serving tray from Rachel.
Rachel hoisted up a handmade-ceramic soup tureen nearly the size of a five-gallon bucket and led us into the dining room. The rectangular room had a bay window overlooking the yard and held a long table with an eclectic assortment of chairs arranged around it. An ancient serving buffet rested against the wall with a spray of autumn flowers in a chipped, blue ewer. A large wooden serving bowl of salad, pitchers of water, and mismatched china had already been laid out.
Rachel heaved the tureen to the center of the table and motioned us all to sit. I noticed the others had waited for permission before taking their places. Baara bumbled in, taking a seat between Rachel and myself, which put her across the table from Cheryl.
“I like stew.” Baara beamed at us.
“I certainly hope so. We have enough to feed an army,” Rachel said. She reached out to the people on either side. Clasping hands, we said grace. As the dishes passed, I wondered who would initiate the conversation or if we were expected to remain mute like monks. I tossed up a fervent prayer for conversation, because the sounds of people chewing and swallowing made my skin crawl. Literally. I once had gotten off a school bus six miles from home because the cheerleader two seats behind me was slobbering on a hunk of Bubble Yum.
The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (A Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mystery Book 4) Page 5
