Redemption

by Laurel Dewey

  “Thank you to our sisters who baked the pies for the recent Brotherhood Council Conclave in Big Sur,” read one posting. The date on the newsletter was May, 1992. Ah, yes. The Brotherhood Council. The group of men who, as Kit said, “didn’t acknowledge the Goddess.” It was the same bunch of men Bartosh had been visiting on the morning she contacted Ingrid. Jane mused that every organization she knew, whether it was a golf club or a church organization, made a point of creating a hierarchy that included a niche for those extra-special people. Golf clubs had the “Hole in One” Fraternity; churches such as The Lamb of God Congregation formed The Brotherhood Council. She pictured a group of stodgy old relics, their hair white and their body odor stale, sitting around in a private room in dusty wingback chairs, debating the future of their brethren. What power they must yield, Jane deduced. What blatant ego it must take to accept such a position. What secrets they must share. In Jane’s mind, The Brotherhood Council sounded akin to the Masonic Temple with a Fundamentalist twist.

  Jane located the most recent newsletter from December. Halfway down the Acknowledgments box on the back page, a word caught Jane’s eye: Oakhurst. It read: “Many thanks to Rachel Hartly from Oakhurst, California. Our devoted sister in Christ single-handedly keeps the flame of God burning for all who need to hear The Word. Her tireless efforts have welcomed many to Jesus through her organization of our summer CYMC camp south of Yosemite. Because of the efforts of our sister, Rachel Hartly, many more children will know the Lord! May the Lord Jesus watch over you, sister Rachel, and hold you in His heart as you diligently prepare for another inspiring summer of hope for our young people!”

  The rain slowed to a soft pitter-patter against the Mustang’s front window. A glint of sun splashed across the hood, teasing Jane with the prospect of better weather. Before she had her plan fully formulated, Jane squashed out her cigarette in the ashtray and ran into the cabin. Thankfully, Kit was ensconced in the bathroom. Jane quickly located the phone book in the drawer of the bureau next to the Gideon Bible and looked up Rachel Hartly’s name. She quickly found it and jotted down the address on a scrap of paper. The semi-rural address was another county road location that Jane recalled passing earlier in the day on her way to Lou’s former house. She started for the door, when Kit opened the bathroom door, drying her hands on a bath towel.

  “Leaving again?” Kit asked, sounding deeply frustrated.

  “I’ll be back. Eventually,” Jane hastily announced, heading out the door. As she pulled the Mustang out of the parking lot, she couldn’t miss Kit’s irritated face peering out from the curtains.

  Jane’s memory of the county road’s location was impeccable. Turning onto the dirt road that sat just outside of town, she drove up one steep hill before plateauing on a stretch of rural developments. The single-story homes stood on several acres and were well kept. There was a section of raw land and then the tiny, blue home on the hill to her right that belonged to Rachel Hartly. A sturdy metal fence surrounded the house, creating the appearance of an unapproachable fortress. Jane parked the Mustang 100 feet up from the driveway. The rain had stopped, but the rural road stood saturated in deep, muddy puddles of gravel and silt. Navigating around the slosh, Jane walked to the metal gate. The butt of the Glock pressed against her chest, reminding her that she was carrying. She buttoned her jacket nearly all the way to conceal any sign of the gun.

  Two intimidating metal signs greeted her at the gate. One read, KEEP OUT! in red letters. The other read, WHAT PART OF “NO TRESPASSING” DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?! A large trash can sat to the left of the fence with a square plastic blue recycling box next to it. Jane propped open the trash can and found six neatly tied white trash bags stuffed into the bin. She lifted the lid of the recycling box with the toe of her boot. A stack of The Sierra Star newspapers filled the box. She pulled out the first paper on the stack and glanced through the pages. Every two to three pages, Jane found suspicious sections carefully cut out. She lifted ten issues of the town’s thin, twice weekly offering out of the box and repeated her inspection. Each paper was missing sections that ranged from a few inches wide to half a page—identical to the newspapers she discovered buried in the bin at Lou’s former residence. Jane stacked the ten papers together, unbuttoned her jacket, and flattened the stack around her torso. She rebuttoned her jacket, securing the papers underneath.

  Jane headed for the front gate and stopped at the plain white and black mailbox. Yes, it was against the law. Technically. But laws sometimes have to be broken in order to solve crimes, she reasoned as she popped open the box and withdrew the contents. All the mail was addressed to Rachel Hartly. Much of it was a handful of cream-colored postcards from local return addresses. On the back of each postcard, it read: IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN OUR SUMMER CYMC (CAMP FOR PRETEENS AND YOUNG ADULTS,) PLEASE RETURN THIS POSTCARD AND WE WILL SEND YOU INFORMATION. Jane assumed the CYMC stood for “Christian or Congregation Youth Ministry Camp.” She took a gander around the area to make sure her illegal actions were not being observed. Returning to the contents of the box, everything else looked innocent. She replaced the mail in the box and took a good look at Rachel’s house. The tiny blue residence stood on a slight hill at the top of the gravel driveway. A cluster of thirty-foot conifers hugged the rear of the property, cloistering what looked to be a workshop. There was no sign of a motorcycle or a car on the property.

  Jane opened the metal gate and entered Rachel’s property. The gravel crunched loudly under the soles of her boots. Jane noticed a separate garage to the right of the house with old-fashioned doors on the front of it that latched. From her point of view, Jane could not decipher whether a car was inside the garage. Between the house and garage was a small pen with young goats. A trio of hens and a single rooster filled another pen a few feet away. The closer Jane got to the house, the more the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. There was a decidedly unsettling feel to the property. She stopped and “felt” her way into the moment. When all else failed in her law enforcement career, she could always rely on her astute intuition and the unexplainable “creep factor” that usually signaled danger. Jane felt that creep factor very strongly as she turned to the left of the driveway and worked her way toward the stand of conifer trees in the rear of the house. When she was within fifty feet of the trees, she realized that the building secluded by the trees was a small, gray guesthouse. While Jane wasn’t certain, the 600-square-foot guesthouse fit a certain MO for Lou in that he purposely sought out the guesthouse on Kit’s property in Big Sur.

  Jane skirted around the stand of conifers, keeping an eye out for any sign of life around the house. The closer she got to the guesthouse, the more her gut churned. In the distance, the rooster let out a loud “cock-a-doodle-doo” that echoed through the trees. Jane struggled through a thicket of wet branches before reemerging against the back wall of the guesthouse. There was a lone window a foot square on the back wall, covered by a white curtain. Jane waited momentarily, listening for any sign of music or conversation. Hearing nothing, she headed around the cabin and came upon a trio of two-foot-square windows. A thick white curtain cloaked the first window. Jane walked to the next one. It, too, was also obscured by a white curtain. She headed with greater purpose to the third window. As she approached it, she could see that there was no curtain across it. Jane was just about to peer into the window when the cold, hard business end of a rifle touched the side of her head.

  She froze. Whoever was behind her proved to have greater covert ability than Jane. She held her hands away from her body, never once turning her head. Jane could feel the pressure of the Glock against her side, underneath the stack of newspapers beneath her jacket. However, there was no way she could get to her gun and defend herself against the person behind her; she would have to rely on tact and creative subterfuge. Frustrated, she uttered a faint “shit” under her breath. The person with the rifle piped up.

  “‘His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud.’” The voice belonged to a wo
man. “Psalms 10:7,” the woman added with emphasis.

  At that moment, Jane wished she knew the Bible better so she could rattle off an appropriate verse that would assuage the woman’s desire to shoot her in the head. “Excuse my language,” Jane offered, speaking quietly and keeping her face forward. “I just get a little nervous when a gun’s pointed at my head.”

  “Who are you?” the woman asked with a menacing tone.

  For some reason, the only name she could think of at that moment was her mother’s. “Ann.”

  “Ann what?” the woman replied, forcing the cold steel into Jane’s skull.

  Jane traversed the ground with her eyes. “Stone. Ann Stone.”

  “Can you read, Ann Stone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why are you standing on my property when my signs at the gate explain how I feel about trespassers?”

  “‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us....’” Jane offered, hoping averse from The Lord’s Prayer would soften this woman’s resolve.

  “Is that your idea of humor?” the woman yelled. “Bastardizing our Lord’s words to fit your immediate needs?”

  Jane found the question oddly ironic, given the woman’s knee-jerk, verse-spouting of Proverbs 10:7 just a minute earlier. Jane had had enough of the stalemate. “Look,” she said quietly, “put the gun down. This is not what Jesus wants you to do.”

  The woman pulled the rifle point off Jane’s head. “Turn around,” she ordered.

  Jane obeyed and looked into the emblazoned blue eyes of Rachel Hartly. She was a veritable mountain of a woman, nearing six feet tall. Rachel was the kind of woman people describe as big-boned and beefy. Her wavy, salt-and-pepper hair was cut in a no-nonsense style that brushed her earlobes. She wore no makeup, no earrings, no jewelry. Her boxy plaid wool barn jacket hid whatever size breasts God had given her. A pair of dark denim jeans fit loosely, scraping the tops of her well-worn, L.L. Bean gum boots. Instead of securing the rifle at her side, Rachel opted to simply take two steps back, continuing to hold Jane’s head in the site.

  “What do you want, Ann Stone?” Rachel asked with a sneer.

  Jane found herself surprisingly calm for someone who was staring down the long barrel of a .22 rifle. “I assume you are Rachel Hartly?”

  “That’s right. What of it?”

  “You greet everyone with your .22, Rachel?” Jane knew that one of the best ways to deal with someone who had you at gunpoint was to constantly repeat their name.

  “No. Just those who come on my private property uninvited. Now, I’ll ask you once again. What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for someone, Rachel, and I have reason to believe he might be living in this guesthouse. His name is Lou Peters.” Jane watched for any sign of falsehood crossing Rachel’s face.

  “No one by the name of Lou Peters lives here,” Rachel steadily replied. Her cadence was strong and believable.

  Jane stared into Rachel’s eyes, searching for any sign of deception. There was something there. It was behind her eyes. It was like a word that lingered at the end of a sentence with no punctuation. Jane knew there were so many ways for the criminal mind to rationalize a lie by the way the question was asked and then carefully answered. “Do you know Lou Peters, Rachel?” Jane pressed.

  “I do not.”

  “He’s a member of the Lamb of God Congregation. Are you not a member of that organization, Rachel?”

  “I am. And proud to be so! But I do not know anyone named Lou Peters.”

  “Well, that’s curious,” Jane continued very matter-of-factly, “because Lou does live in this community and the two of you are probably the only members of the Congregation from this area. Common sense says that you would know Lou.”

  Rachel slowly lowered the rifle, never taking her steely eyes off Jane. “I vaguely remember the name from long ago. But I assure you, he does not live here any longer.”

  Long ago? Lou had registered as a sex offender less than seven months ago. Certainly “long ago” did not usually imply less than a year. Jane decided to let that claim go. But she would not let Rachel’s second statement go unchallenged. “How can you assure me he’s not living here if you don’t know him?”

  Rachel stiffened. “You attempt to manipulate my words. So typical.”

  “So typical of what?”

  “Your kind. You’d like to see all of us behind bars or dead. But we will not lie down and take your abuse any longer.” Rachel held her index finger high in the air. “A Divine declaration has gone forth from on high to those who are true believers! The Great Commission of Christ demands that we ratchet up our ministry to a new level! We will no longer seek tolerance toward us. We are not weak! We are not passive! We have taken our rightful ownership of Jesus!”

  Jane was certain that Bartosh used those same words during their conversation. It appeared that anyone outside of the Congregation was considered suspect and someone who wished to thwart the Great Cause. It also seemed in vogue to parrot Bartosh’s words. Jane figured if you can’t speak for yourself, mimic someone else who you respect. Jane shifted her stance and in doing so, the newspapers slid down her jacket. She grabbed the bottom seam of her jacket, pressing her hand against her body to prevent exposing the papers.

  “What are you doing?” Rachel asked suspiciously.

  Jane reacted quickly. “I haven’t been feeling well lately. I ate some bad fish.” Jane grimaced in pain and realized she had a clear way out. “You’ll have to excuse me, but I need to go.” She turned, placing both hands on her jacket to secure the papers as she walked. “Sorry for any misunderstanding,” Jane said over her shoulder.

  “If I see you near my property again, I’m contacting the authorities!”

  Jane nodded and headed for the front gate. The authorities, she wondered. A woman like Rachel Hartly certainly didn’t trust the secular world of law enforcement. She must be talking about God and His soldiers.

  As she neared the Mustang, she heard the faint ring of her cell phone inside the car. Jane swung open the door and answered the phone. “This is Jane,” she said. Silence. “Hello?” Jane said, irritated. It sounded like dead air, but then Jane realized there was the faint sound of someone breathing on the other end of the line. She quickly looked at the caller ID. Restricted. That was the same ID display from the caller who dialed her number after she left Lou’s former address. “Goddammit! Stop fucking with me! Who the hell is this?” Jane yelled into the phone. There was a moment of silence before the line went dead.

  A bolt of electricity sped up Jane’s spine. Very few people had her cell phone number. Her brother, Mike, had it. A few of her connections at the FBI had it from the botched undercover job. Sergeant Weyler had it....

  Just then, her cell phone rang again. Jane pressed the button to answer it without looking at the caller ID. “I don’t know who the fuck you are, or how you got this number, but you better stop playing with me!”

  “Well, I see you’re still the same innocent, carefree young lass I grew to admire.”

  Jane didn’t have to check the caller ID. She knew the sound of Sergeant Weyler’s voice.

  CHAPTER 22

  “Oh, shit,” Jane mumbled under her breath. She hadn’t talked to Sergeant Weyler in nearly six months. She had outright avoided his incessant phone messages. And now, after all this time, she had answered his call with a misguided, profane greeting. She nervously lit a cigarette and took a drag. “Um....” Jane stumbled briefly, trying to salvage the conversation. “Sorry about that, Boss. I’m in the car. Somebody called me right before you did and I don’t know who the fuck they are or how they got this number....” Jane suddenly realized that instead of feeling uncommunicative—the main reason she never returned Weyler’s calls—she found herself rattling on to him about her problems just like in the old days. They had shared a deep bond of respect from the first day Jane went to work for DH in homicide. Jane could always be who she was, warts and all, and Wey
ler still liked her.

  “Boss?” Weyler interjected, his smile reaching through the phone. “I thought I lost that title when you declined to return to our dysfunctional little family at DH.” Weyler always had an elegant way of speaking. Jane chalked it up to his love of PBS.

  “It just slipped out,” Jane argued.

  “You called me Boss on the voice mail message you left. One slip-up I can accept. But two?”

  Jane let out a long sigh. “Look, you think it was easy for me to contact you?”

  “Obviously not. They’ve had five pledge drives on PBS since I last talked to you. I didn’t know if you were okay or if you’d—”

  “I saw you on television,” Jane interrupted, “with all the drugs and counterfeit money from the cartel bust. You were wearing your power suit and your red tie. And you looked pissed.”

  “I was irate. DH shagged that bust from your sweat and labor. We rode your coattails and I told them so.”

  Jane took a hard drag on her cigarette. “Told who?”

  “Everyone who would listen!”

  “Does that include your newest prick on the job, Sergeant Kenny Stephens? Was he the best you could get for that job?”

  “No. The best turned me down. The best wouldn’t return my phone calls.”

  Jane was touched by Weyler’s words. For a moment, she didn’t feel so inadequate as she had for the last few days. “That means a lot to me, Boss. But I don’t think that I’m the best anymore.”

  “Tell that to your legions of fans who still call here on a regular basis! Not a week goes by that I don’t screen calls from people asking for your help. Hell, I had a call from a woman today asking if you could speak at her son’s graduation!”

  Weyler’s statement seemed incongruous. No one had ever asked Jane to speak at a graduation ceremony. “What the hell—”

  “That’s the price of fame, I guess.”