by J. A. Kerley
“Bless this mighty symbololahhheeeegagawashae, oh Lord, and thank you for giving it us and ahhahgagmelbethashaloma …”
The three of us were spellbound as Owsley stepped into the needle, yanking the rope. The camel balked, perhaps spooked by the thunder, and stopped dead. Owsley strained at the tether.
“HARDER!” the old man howled. “PULL HARDER!” He turned to the shadows, screaming, “HELP HIM, YOU FOOLS!”
Two burly security types ran from the dark, one helping Owsley with the tether, the other putting his shoulder to the camel’s rump, causing it to buck and jump.
“GET IT DONE!” the old man raged.
Harry and I stood transfixed until a bolt of lightning seemed to explode inside the building, followed by the shrieking of metal being torn. We turned to see a huge section of the wall crash inward. Support timbers tumbled to the floor in a cloud of dust. The walls shook.
“What the hell?” I said.
“A bulldozer just pushed in the wall,” Harry said. “It’s pushing a … Jesus!”
“What?” the kid asked, staring at the mayhem.
“About a thousand gallons of diesel fuel,” Harry said, eyes wide in horror.
I saw it through the settling dust, the big Cat bulldozer from outside, its wide blade rolling a silver tank over fallen timbers and sheets of corrugated metal. “BLASPHEMY AGAINST GOD!” a voice howled. I saw a man standing at the controls, shirtless, a horizontal slash across his chest and madness in his eyes.
Frisco Dredd.
“BLASPHEMERS!” Dredd screamed, shaking his fist, his face a rictus of anger. “YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE LAWS OF GOD!”
The scene was so unreal that no one moved. Lightning exploded. The lights shivered and went out, returned seconds later. The camel had dropped to the ground, its last defense. No way the men would move the beast. They turned and ran, competing with Owsley for the lead. Three others appeared in their wake, probably the crew who’d been handling spotlights and audio. The woman was beside Winkler, trying to pull him from the building. He spat at her and swatted her away.
“Get the kid out,” I yelled over the pounding of thunder and the roaring of the ’dozer.
Harry tossed the kid over his shoulder like a sack of meal. “Run, Carson,” he shouted, heading for the door. I watched the bulldozer pivot, aiming for the needle. Eliot Winkler, his face a mask of fury, seemed to take it as a challenge and rolled his wheelchair before the oncoming bulldozer, holding up his hands in a Halt motion. I pulled my weapon and drew a bead on Dredd, but smelled fuel fumes and held the shot: Sparks from my gun could ignite the air and turn us all into Dredd’s sacrifices.
Was that what he wanted?
A crack of lightning and the lights died for several long seconds. They flickered on, dimmer, the interior now a land of shadow. I didn’t see Winkler, and then I did … the crushed wheelchair a dozen feet behind the ’dozer, the tank torn open by the blade and leaving a trail of diesel fuel over Winkler’s flattened remains, the thick fumes now burning my eyes.
I scrambled for the door as lightning found the metal roof and sparks tumbled from five stories up. I saw the camel rise and run toward the door as the ’dozer approached the needle, Dredd standing erect, screaming toward the sky like a man possessed by the Furies.
“AND HE CARRIED ME AWAY IN THE SPIRIT INTO A WILDERNESS AND I SAW A WOMAN SITTING ON A SCARLET BEAST … FULL OF BLASPHEMOUS NAMES AND HAVING SEVEN HEADS AND TEN HORNS …”
Lightning again flashed as I dove through the opening followed by a second flash and a thudding whooomp: the sound of hundreds of gallons of fuel igniting in a closed space.
59
“Eliot’s been obsessed,” Vanessa Winkler said, sitting in a conference room borrowed from the Osceola County Police Department. “He got MS and started throwing money at everything and everyone, looking for a cure. Then he found Schrum, who did a laying on of hands and pronounced Eliot clean. Eliot suddenly got better. It was a remission, not uncommon.”
Two hours had passed. There was little left of the structure. Even less of Eliot Winkler.
“Eliot figured Schrum hot-wired him to God,” Ms Winkler continued. “Even when Eliot got sicker, he was convinced it was Schrum keeping him alive. ‘Look at you, Eliot,’ I’d say. ‘You’re getting worse.’ He’d snarl that he’d be dead if it wasn’t for Schrum.”
“Your brother got sicker still.”
She nodded. “When Eliot realized he was gonna get stuck in the ground like everyone else, he became obsessed with Mark 10:25, camel and needles and all that. He started blubbering about saving his soul by giving the money – every fucking cent – to charity. Then Amos says ‘Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way, Eliot …’”
“The project began,” I said. “1025-M, Mark 10:25. Put a camel through the eye of a needle and your brother could go to Heaven.”
“Madness,” Winkler said to herself, then turned to me. “Is Amos here? I want the joy of telling that asshole the Winkler gravy train died tonight.”
“Schrum never left Key West,” I said.
Disgust filled Vanessa Winkler’s face. “He sets the idiocy in motion and finds someone else to do the work. That’s Amos Schrum, Detective. I predict he’ll be back on stage within three weeks.”
I let Ms Winkler return to a life that had probably improved considerably and moved to the cell holding Andy Delmont. He’d been outside the Ark at Hallelujah Jubilee, singing songs in the dark and waiting to pick up Frisco Dredd, no doubt so they could complete the Lord’s work on Sissy Carol Sparks.
I passed another cell on my way, seeing three men inside, the larger of the two trying to look tough, barking at the older and bespectacled fellow. “Man up, Roland, the lawyers are on their way.” The larger one was Hayes Johnson and I resisted the urge to tell him we’d spoken on the phone.
A guard opened Delmont’s cell and I entered to find the singer not on the cot but sitting on the floor beside the toilet, arms around his knees. When he looked up I saw the same eerie smile and empty eyes noted in the online images. Delmont was in the room with me, and yet wasn’t.
“Andrew Dredd?” I said.
“Not any more,” he said amiably. “It got changed to Delmont ’cos Dredd wasn’t a proper name for a praise singer. The Reverend Schrum helped me make it my official name.”
I sat on the cot since Delmont seemed content with the floor. “Frisco Dredd was your cousin, right, Andy?” I said. “A member of the family band.”
Delmont looked pleased that I knew his family’s history. “Frisco’s mama died when he was born so we took him in, the Christian way. He became my brother an’ we spent all our time together when we was little. We never seemed to stop trav’lin’ … had an ol’ bus we lived out of. Me an’ Frisco was best buddies and did ever’thing together.”
“Everything?”
He stared, an eerie and enigmatic smile on the baby face. I felt a sensation of cold on my back, there and gone. “Who was in charge of your family, Andy?” I asked.
“Mama. Daddy died from drinkin’ when I was twelve. Mama said the demons ate him from the inside out.”
“Did your mama have any demons inside her, Andy?”
Something flashed through his eyes so fast I couldn’t peg the meaning, then his face went blank.
“Andy …” I tried again. “Did your mama—”
He reached up and pressed the flush button on the toilet, producing a howling five-second Whooooosh. He gave me a polite smile, like he didn’t hear the question.
“Come on, Andy. Did your mama have any—”
Whoooosh. The toilet again, followed by the I-can’t-hear-you look. Delmont wasn’t going there.
“Who’s the Prince of Lies, Andy?” I asked, going somewhere else.
“The Devil, sir,” he said easily, back on a topic he could deal with. “That’s one of his names.”
“Do you lie?”
“Lots, when I was younger. But since I got saved by Reverend Schrum there�
�s no need to lie. It’s a sin to be false.”
I took a deep breath. “You helped your cousin kill three women, didn’t you, Andy?”
Delmont stared at me with his head cocked as if the question was perplexing. “We saved the ladies, sir. They was fallen and was gonna pull the Reverend down with them … they’d have told on him because it’s the way of whores and Jezebels. The Reverend has holy work to do here on earth.”
“It was just those women who, uh, tempted the Reverend, Andy? The four of them?
“The Devil took Reverend Schrum to Mister Johnson’s sinful lake house seven times, sir. But the Lord interceded and made the Reverend stop his downfall.”
Or … I thought, Schrum wised up, realizing getting caught would put a big damper on donations. Or maybe it was delayed or sublimated guilt … I’d seen that as well.
“Tell me, Andy … was silencing the girls – I mean, dealing with the whores – your idea? Or was it Frisco’s? I guess what I’m asking is … was any part of it from Reverend Schrum?”
“The Reverend and I spent a lot of time together, sir. The last few months he would drink spirits and confess to me about how he’d fallen to temptation. I protect him when he’s like that, sir. And no, weren’t no reason to tell Reverend Schrum what Frisco and me were doing. He’d a just worried more.”
“Frisco had been tempted by Jezebels himself, right, Andy?”
“Women like that have powers from Satan. Satan tempted Frisco with dirty thoughts even when we was little. His soul was filthy sick for years. But last year I got him to come live with me on my farm. He read the Bible all day an’ most nights and figgered he was deep in debt to the Devil and hell-bound fer sure … spending all eternity on fire. Frisco needed a holy task to buy back his soul. God gave me the message to use Frisco to save Reverend Schrum.”
“Who came up with the idea of stoning the women?”
“The Bible told Frisco how it worked, sir,” Delmont said with a beatific smile. “He pulled the whores from a path to Hell and sent them to Judgement in the righteous manner. The Lord is merciful.”
“What about the needle? You knew about that?”
A frown crossed the radiant face. “Mr Winkler was scared for his soul because he had so much money. The Reverend told Mr Winkler if a camel went through a needle, things could change. It was supposed to be like a parable, but it was all Mr Winkler could think about. He started building things on his own. Reverend Schrum used to say Mr Winkler was getting on his nerves, but it was his heart he meant. He came to Key West to get away from Mr Winkler, but that man just wouldn’t go away.”
“You told Frisco about the needle, right?”
“I’d never seen Frisco so mad. He said it was a blasphemy. When God says something, you can’t make it change.”
I recalled Harry telling me that Owsley had started receiving anonymous threats when he came to Florida, took the shot: “It was Frisco who called Pastor Owsley, right, Andy? Made threats?”
A head bob. “The Pastor was trying to help Mr Winkler go against God’s laws.”
“Would Frisco have killed Pastor Owsley if he got the chance?”
Again, the beatific smile. “Yes. To save him.”
I’d spent enough time in Delmont’s broken world. I stood and looked down at the mad singer, smiling at me like I was a momentary swirl in a wide and ancient river.
“You know you’ve broken laws, Andy,” I said. “You’ll have to go away for a very long time.”
“Man’s laws and Man’s time, sir. I have all eternity with Jesus.”
60
It was four in the morning. Since it was a big operation and I’d alerted Roy what we’d be doing, he was up and waiting for news.
“I’m heading in, Roy,” I said on my cell. “I’ll give you the full report tomorrow. You won’t believe it, but I swear it’s true.”
“I want to hear this story tonight. Or I guess it’s morning, isn’t it?”
“I have to track down Belafonte and find out what—”
“Belafonte’s here at HQ, Carson,” he said. “She’s been here for hours.”
“She drove to Miami? Why?”
“She wanted to bring us a gift.”
“Pardon me?”
“Just come in, Carson. We’ll have a parade.” Roy was being cryptic, but he also sounded oddly happy, like he had a lobster dinner on his desk. The night was still producing oddities. “Hey … you bringing Nautilus?” Roy asked.
“I figure Harry’ll hang out on Matecumbe for a few days.”
I rang off. All the guys who’d accompanied Belafonte were gone and I spoke to the desk officer as we headed out. “What happened on Tohopekaliga?” I asked.
“We got the three guys in custody,” the DO said, meaning the Johnson half-brothers and the doctor. “The other one went with the tough lady back to Miami. She’s from Bermuda. It’s a British protectorate. I just learned that tonight.”
“Other one? What other one?”
A shrug. “Some Hispanic dude. She jammed cuffs on him, locked him to the D-ring in the back of a cruiser. She said a lot of people were looking for him.”
I was shaking my head as Harry and I headed to the waiting chopper. Would the weirdness never end?
We were in the air minutes later, the storm dissipating, the night sky clearing to the south. The world below sparkled with lights of small towns and vehicles strung like chains of white-eyed insects on the roads below our beating rotors. Speech was difficult with the noise and helmets with microphones, but Harry and I managed a bit before shutting into our own worlds.
“The girl,” I said, “Rebecca. What’s gonna happen there?”
“Rebecca’s the only adult in the family, Cars,” Harry said, looking down on a dark plain studded with light. “She starts college in a couple years, wants to study science, probably biology. I expect Rebecca will get her way. She’s good at that.” He paused. “Cars …?”
“What?”
“That was fun tonight, y’know? Like old times.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like old times.”
In what seemed scant minutes, we hit the Clark Center as day dawned in the East, the long and lonesome blue of the ocean dappled with the pink and orange glitter of sunrise over waves, iridescent and glorious and hopeful all at once.
The Center was quiet as we stepped from the elevator. “Hello?” I called. “Anyone here?”
“Back here in your office,” Belafonte’s voice called.
We headed down the hall until stopped by Roy’s voice at our backs. “You hit the mother lode, Carson. It’s over. You deserve a parade.”
“Parade? What’s over? What are you talking about, Roy?”
He winked. “Go see Belafonte for details.”
We entered my office. Belafonte was sitting on the couch and I did introductions. “The desk guy at Osceola said you hauled a prisoner back, Holly. What’s that about?”
Roy appeared at the door. He nodded to Belafonte and she put her arms behind her head and leaned back on the couch. I’d never seen her so relaxed.
“We followed the Johnson limo to the house on the lake,” she said. “Three men and the girls went inside and the chauffeur parked at the head of the drive. I wanted the man silenced before he pulled his cell and alerted our rascal boys. I crept behind the limo, yanked the door open, and flashed my badge.”
I heard a chuckle. Roy.
“The chauffeur’s name was Hector Machado,” Belafonte continued. “An ex-gang member who got religion and hired on at the Hallelujah ranch as a groundskeeper. He was promoted to driver for Johnson after a month.”
“I don’t need every detail, Holly. Did the girls get pulled out?”
“Oh sure, we handled that little job rather quickly.” She smiled. Was that coy? Laughing and coy … who was this woman?
“We entered the home and found four young ladies in shorty gowns and negligees. There was enough liquor to start a pub, plus various pills and marijuana. Hayes John
son, his brother Cecil, plus a buggy-eyed gent named Uttleman were lounging about in their undies. The latter stated that he was a doctor and had rights. I told him he had the right to get handcuffed first, which didn’t seem the effect he was hoping for.”
“Great that you got the girls out of that hellhole,” I said, thinking it was, unfortunately, an easy rap to beat “… the women were all over the age of consent, Your Honor,” a high-priced lawyer’s voice said in my head, “and willingly accompanied the men to the house for drinks and dinner, bringing illegal drugs, unbeknownst to the gentlemen …”
“Don’t you want Belafonte to finish her story?” Roy said.
“I thought she just did.”
“You’ve forgotten Mr Machado,” Belafonte said. “When he stepped from the limousine, the first thing Machado saw was the Osceola unit in tac gear: rifles, helmets, full body armor, knives strapped to thighs, night-vision glasses …”
Roy said, “You’re gonna love this, Carson.”
“It seems Mr Machado thought he was the target,” Belafonte said. “He dropped to his knees and commenced bawling like a baby, saying he’d confess if we kept his sister in the home. I said, ‘What are you bloody talking about?’”
“Need a drum roll, Officer Belafonte?” Roy said. “This would be the time.”
Belafonte stood and leaned against the wall, arms crossed and a look of grand amusement on her face. “Mr Machado confessed, Detective Ryder.”
“Confessed to what?”
“The killing of Roberta Menendez.”
I stared, dumbfounded. Roy sat on the front of my desk, though I should have been the one to sit, the world spinning.
“You’ll need the backstory,” Roy said. “Miz Menendez, a religious lady, visited Hallelujah Jubilee recently, part of a church group. A frugal woman, she was a bit dismayed by the expense. She went home and did due diligence on the park, finding its paltry reported income at odds with her experience. When she found there were no huge debts – like land payments – our numbers lady suspected proceeds were being siphoned off before they hit the books.”
