Margaret Truman's Undiplomatic Murder

by Margaret Truman

  “I know,” she said, “and I am so appreciative of what you’ve done for me.”

  “It’s important that you recognize that. The minute you forget it, you are in jeopardy of falling back into your old self-destructive pattern. We wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?”

  “No, we wouldn’t want that to happen.”

  He sat back, laced his fingers, and rested his chin on his hands. “I must say that I was disappointed in your brother. He did not follow the instructions he was given.”

  “He was— My mother is very upset.”

  “And your father?”

  Mentioning her father, Congressman Walter Skaggs, caused her thin lips to tremble.

  “Your father was at the root of your problems, Kamea. I hope you haven’t forgotten that.”

  “No, I—”

  “You’ve come a long way since deciding to get out from under his thumb. As you know, it hasn’t been easy for you to achieve your freedom from his tyrannical grip. Had your brother followed the instructions he was given, he would have returned to the center. Unfortunately, he paid the price of disobedience.”

  She started to say something but stopped.

  “What is it, Kamea? You’re free to speak. We don’t keep secrets from each other at the center.”

  “I … I want to go home for the funeral.”

  His disapproving expression returned. “I’m sorry to hear you say that.”

  “It’s just that—”

  “You know that going home will set you back, Kamea. The progress you’ve made is because you’ve discarded all the negative baggage your family burdened you with. You’ve achieved the freedom you so desperately sought when you came to me in California. But if you return home, even for a short visit, you’ll quickly slip back into your life the way it was before—misery, anger, questioning whether you even deserved to live. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen.”

  “Please don’t misunderstand,” she said in a small voice tinged with pleading. “I know that what you say is true and has always been. I am so grateful for what you and the center have done for me, and for Paul too. But my mother was so upset—I haven’t spoken with her for years—and because Paul is dead and I’m their only child and— Oh, I don’t know what to do.”

  Prisler reached and patted her hand. “I know that Paul’s unfortunate death has upset you and has upset your mother too. But such things are always out there, poised to undo all the good work that we’ve accomplished. I want you to go back to your apartment and read The Book. You have always found solace and wisdom in The Book, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “The outside world is a dangerous place, Kamea, especially our own country. It is controlled by evil men—like your father and his ilk—who impose their greed and hatred on all the downtrodden, the millions of decent people in other lands who want desperately to be freed of the slavery our country imposes upon them, including our own people. But we have found a better way here at the center. It is imperative that you not begin to question what is in the Book. Immerse yourself in it, my child, and you will soon feel differently about going home for the funeral. Thomas will hold a ceremony here in Paul’s honor within a few days. I’m sure that you will find it a warm and comforting way to remember your dear brother. I’ll be away on business, but Thomas will make sure that everything runs smoothly.”

  She stared at him with glassy eyes, her body rigid. He stood and beckoned her into his arms. His embrace of her was prolonged.

  “Thank you,” she said when they disengaged.

  “I love you, Kamea. We are your friends here, your only friends. Always remember that.”

  * * *

  Samuel Prisler claimed both a Ph.D. in behavioral science and a master of divinity, although no graduation certificates adorned his office wall. What he did possess was a charismatic personality that convinced others, at least those lacking healthy egos, that his view of mankind and human relations was blessed by some unseen, irrefutable being.

  He was born in Hawaii to a German father who’d settled there, married a native wahine, and made a fortune in real estate and sugar processing. They had little contact with their son once he’d become an adult and left the islands to strike out on his own. With a certificate in social work from a California community college, he worked a variety of low-paying jobs, most funded by local government welfare agencies and community churches. But he’d long harbored a dream of establishing a center over which he could reign.

  The thousands of disgruntled young people flocking to California in search of an alternative lifestyle, who were also missing a father figure from their lives, provided the human capital that allowed Prisler to turn his dream into reality. The death of his first wife only a year after their marriage—the car she was driving veered off a fog-shrouded California road and plunged into a ravine—and the large insurance payout from a policy he’d taken out on her months earlier, provided him the financial capital to buy the land on the California coast and to officially begin the Prisler Center for Healing. Crash investigators initially questioned whether some of his wife’s injuries would have been caused by the accident, but their speculations were dismissed.

  The twenty lost souls who comprised his first batch of followers were recruited from the churches and welfare programs with which he’d worked. Prisler rented trailers to house them as they set out to build permanent structures. Those who found jobs in the area contributed their salaries and wages to the center and recruited new members. Their number grew to more than thirty. The center’s buildings took shape. At the same time, California authorities began to investigate the center’s claim that it was a legitimate religious sect and exempt from taxation. Too, a disillusioned member bolted from the center and told a local newspaper reporter that Prisler sexually abused some of the younger male members of the cult.

  Sparked by the resulting article, the authorities brought increasing pressure on Prisler and his center. As he struggled to ward off their attempts to tax him and the organization, and their probes into charges of sexual abuse, fate and human frailty intervened. His father died in Maui, and while his will directed that most of his wealth go to relatives in Germany—Prisler’s mother had died two years earlier—he left his twelve-acre estate on Maui to his only child, Samuel T. Prisler.

  Prisler didn’t hesitate to pack up the California complex. With his loyal acolytes in tow, he moved the Prisler Center for Healing to the island of Maui and the spectacular tract with its ocean views, stunning sunsets, moderate climate, ample sunshine, and, he hoped, a less contentious legal situation. As the membership rolls swelled, he invested in various businesses—real estate, restaurants, a fishing charter service, and gift shops. It was during this period of impressive growth that Morgana Skaggs, daughter of U.S. congressman Walter Skaggs, fell under his spell.

  * * *

  Prisler returned to his office in the main house after Kamea left the conference room, and he pondered the conversation they’d had. He’d sensed a growing anxiety in her over the past six months and had increased the number of her group therapy sessions—long, brutally confrontational sessions in which the center’s philosophies as contained in The Book were hammered home, souls laid bare, tears flowed, and wails of anguish reverberated within the four soundproofed walls of the facility. At the end of these sessions, the participants were left exhausted, bodies drenched in sweat, minds dulled. But there was also the requisite hugging of “friends,” as cult members were called, and negative thoughts that anyone had brought to the session were left on the floor, wrung from their spent bodies and minds, and all was well again.

  Prisler checked his watch. He had to get ready for the trip he would take in the morning to Washington, where he would meet with his own private lobby, two men who oversaw his interests there and whose allegiance to Prisler was unassailable, not because they came under his charismatic spell, but because they were highly paid to keep tabs on the nation’s capital and how it
s machinations might affect his operation.

  Before leaving the office, he called his second-in-command, Hawaiian-born Thomas Akina. Akina had signed on with Prisler from his earliest days on Maui and had earned his trust—to the extent that Prisler trusted anyone.

  “Thomas, it’s Sam. I’ve just met with Kamea. She’s naturally upset over her brother’s death, but I’m afraid that her faith in the center and its mission is wavering. I want you to keep an especially keen eye on her while I’m gone. Pay particular attention to the tap on her phone, and don’t allow any mail to reach her without reading it first.”

  “I’ll see to it, Sam,” Akina assured.

  CHAPTER

  15

  When Brixton swung by Marylee’s house to drop off the photos of Janet, he was relieved that her new husband, Miles Lashka, wasn’t there. Jill answered the door, and he followed her in to where Marylee and two neighbors sat in the kitchen. Marylee introduced Brixton to the other women, who took his presence as an excuse to go.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Marylee said to them as they left. “You define what good neighbors are all about.”

  Brixton handed her the envelope with the photos. She took them out, carefully studied them, then began to cry.

  “Yeah, it’s tough looking at them,” he said, squeezing the bridge of his nose. He waited until her tears had subsided before asking, “How are plans for the funeral coming along?”

  She answered by handing him a printed sheet from a local funeral parlor on which the schedule was detailed: The closed casket would be on display for two days beginning tomorrow at two in the afternoon. The church service would follow the final day of viewing—if you could call it that—and burial in the Greene family plot.

  “It sounds fine,” he said.

  “I dread it,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “How are you, Robert?”

  “Me? I’m taking it day by day.”

  “You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

  “Trouble? What trouble?”

  “The congressman’s son that you shot. They say that—”

  “I’m tired of hearing what they say, Marylee. I know that the kid was involved in the bombing. I just have to prove it.”

  She went to a small desk in the corner of the kitchen and returned holding a copy of the local newspaper.

  He assumed that she wanted him to read an obituary of Janet. But a cartoon in the lower right-hand corner told a different story. It was of a man who looked somewhat like him. The cartoon character wore a large six-gallon Stetson. He held two pistols. Smoke came from both. One hung at his side. The other was held to his mouth as he blew away the smoke. The character had a satisfied grin on his face. A badge on his shirtfront read STATE DEPARTMENT AGENT.

  Brixton dropped the paper on the table in disgust.

  “I’m so embarrassed,” she said.

  “Embarrassed?” he said in a voice more angry than he’d intended. “You believe what they say?”

  “He wasn’t even armed, Robert. All he had was a cell phone.”

  “That’s right. He had a cell phone—and blood on his hands, our daughter’s blood.”

  “Will there be media at the service?”

  “I have no idea and I don’t care. Look, Marylee, I didn’t come here to have you sit in judgment about something you don’t know squat about. I came here to deliver the pictures and—”

  His raised voice brought Jill into the kitchen. “Why are you yelling at Mom?” she demanded of him.

  “I wasn’t yelling, I was— Oh, what the hell, thanks for the information about the funeral. I’ll see you both there.”

  Once he got into the car, his anger was more directed at himself than at his ex-wife. She had the innate ability to bring out the worst in him, although he also acknowledged that the worst of him was there to begin with.

  He looked back at the house before he drove away, and realized that apart from their two daughters, his marriage to Marylee meant little. It was as if their four years together in D.C., when he was a uniformed cop, had never happened. This big white house, the manicured lawn, the fancy cars in the driveway defined Marylee and her family. It meant nothing to him. He was neither nostalgic nor envious, but detached from what had been a momentary blip in his life.

  He thought of Flo Combes and hoped that she would follow through on her offer and come to Washington. She was present tense. She was reality.

  As he drove toward the District and his scheduled meeting with the retired Justice Department lawyer Charles McQuaid, he was struck with a renewed sense of purpose. When with Marylee and his daughters, he tended to shrink into a defensive shell. He’d done the same thing since the shooting of Paul Skaggs, talking a good game but unsure of whether he could play that game and pull out a victory. He didn’t feel that way now. He knew that he was right. He also knew that there were people who could give him the answers he sought, and he was committed to seeking them out and exonerating himself.

  He owed it to Janet.

  * * *

  When he’d called Charles McQuaid about meeting, McQuaid seemed pleased to hear from him.

  “So you’re a pal of Will Sayers,” the retired Justice Department official had said.

  “Afraid so,” Brixton had said, laughing to lighten the comment.

  “He’s a character, that’s for sure,” said McQuaid. “Of course, I knew about you before he called. I read the papers.”

  “I try not to read them,” Brixton had said. “I really appreciate the chance to get together. Have any time available today?”

  “I always have time. That’s an advantage of retirement, Mr. Brixton. Or maybe a curse. Too much time. Sure, come on by. You get seasick easily?”

  “No. And please call me Robert. But not Bobby. I have a thing about that.”

  “Fair enough, Robert. But you can call me Charlie.”

  “Sounds like a deal.”

  “Good. We’ll take a spin in my boat, have some lunch and a few drinks, and talk about Mr. Samuel Prisler.”

  McQuaid lived in a modest ranch house in the southwest quadrant of Washington, the city’s waterfront area and the location of myriad fish restaurants and markets. As Brixton drove up he saw why McQuaid lived there. Across the street was a boatyard at which a few dozen craft were docked, some approaching the size of a luxury yacht, most of them smaller boats that Brixton associated with middle-class families who enjoyed a Saturday on the water after a week working mundane jobs. Brixton knew that the area attracted many government workers because of the moderately priced homes, and he assumed that McQuaid had been drawn to the area for that reason, as well as a convenient place to park his boat.

  The man who answered the door was small in stature. Even his face seemed smaller than average, although Brixton had no idea what an average-sized face was. McQuaid wore glasses tethered by a red cord around his neck, pale blue jeans that were too big for his frame, a yellow T-shirt with I’D RATHER BE FISHING written on his chest, and shoes commonly known as Top-Siders. For a small man, his handshake was firm. He enthusiastically greeted Brixton and led him to the kitchen that overlooked the boatyard.

  “Trouble finding it?” McQuaid asked.

  “No, no trouble at all. I take it that you enjoy fishing.”

  “I love anything involving the water, although I don’t fish anymore. I used to bring home some beauties, gut ’em, fillet ’em, and cook ’em for dinner. But since my wife died, I don’t enjoy cleaning fish. Take-out from the restaurants around here does just fine. Beer? Whiskey? Coke?”

  “A beer would be fine.”

  They settled at the kitchen table with their beers. McQuaid raised his can to Brixton’s. “Here’s to life,” he said, “or what’s left of it.”

  Brixton wasn’t sure what to say in response but clicked his can against McQuaid’s.

  “Let’s get the unpleasantness out of the way,” McQuaid said. “I am very sorry about what happened to your daughter.”
/>   “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  “I have three grown children, all living in different parts of the country, two grandchildren too, and another on the way.”

  “I have one, a grandson. I don’t see much of him. My wife and I were divorced a long time ago. My daughters—daughter—lives in Maryland with her son. My wife remarried.”

  “When I read about what happened to you, I became angry, damned angry. I felt as though I knew you. And when Will Sayers called and asked if I’d agree to meet with you, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. I don’t know if I can be any help, but I certainly want to try.”

  “Can’t ask for more than that,” Brixton said, realizing how much he liked this man after only a few minutes.

  McQuaid took a healthy swig of his beer and said, “I made up some sandwiches—hope you like tuna fish; it’s on fresh rye bread—and potato salad made by my neighbor. Best potato salad I’ve ever tasted, plenty of beer too in the cooler, and chips.” He stood. “Let’s go. They say there’s a front coming through later today. No sense getting ourselves wet.”

  McQuaid’s boat was smaller than Brixton had anticipated, eighteen feet long, according to its owner, and had been meticulously maintained. The hull was painted a vivid red; the wooden canopy above the controls was a glistening white.

  “It’s more like a small fishing dragger,” McQuaid said as he went through his machinations to prepare the craft to leave the dock. “Not fancy or sleek like most boats this size, but I prefer it, like its classic lines. It’s all wood, no plastic; takes more work to keep her shipshape but worth it.”

  Brixton had to smile at McQuaid’s immense pride in his little boat. Brixton didn’t care about boats and had no interest in owning one. Marylee had wanted them to buy one when they were married, but he’d balked—“Nothing but work,” he’d said—which sent her into a two-day pout. But he did enjoy going out on other peoples’ boats, and he found himself relaxing as McQuaid guided the small craft along the Washington Channel and into the Potomac River, the breeze playing on his face, the rumble of the engine pleasing to his ear, like a low, sensual voice of a sexy woman. The boat was named Alicia after McQuaid’s deceased wife. “I couldn’t name her after my girlfriend, now could I?” he’d quipped as he stood proudly at the wheel, every bit the captain in command.