Kevin Perry—okay, the delicious smell of french fries—brought me out of my thoughts. Billy. It was time to focus on Billy. For once. “Sorry it took so long,” Kevin said as he sat across from me.
“It’s all good. Thanks so much for meeting me on such short notice. Do you mind if I record this?” I indicated my cellphone.
“Nope. Don’t know how much help I can be, though,” Kevin said with his mouth full of fries. “I haven’t been back to The Temple or anything in over a month.”
“I think you’ll be surprised how much help you can be.”
“I hope so. I feel so bad for Gia. Like this is all my fault. If I hadn’t convinced Billy to go to one of those damn seminars…”
“Let’s start at the beginning. How did they recruit you?”
“Megan and some of the others were hanging outside the church where I go to NA. It was her, Vanessa, and Paul just handing out pamphlets for their next seminar. I found out later they usually did that, hitting up other support groups. I even helped them a couple times. Anyway, Megan flirted with me and I thought she was hot and it was free, so I figured what the hell? It couldn’t be worse than NA.”
“Did the other two, Vanessa and Paul, flirt as well?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I kind of zeroed in on Megan. But when I went out with them later, I guess some of the journey ambassadors did turn on the charm.”
“Journey ambassadors?”
“That’s what people who go out to recruit are called. We just did what they did to me. Find support groups, talk to the people as they came out, or sometimes we’d just put fliers on bulletin boards at libraries, coffee shops, hospitals.”
“Just around Grey County or—”
“No. Some went as far as Cleveland and Philly.”
“I can’t see people driving hundreds of miles to attend a seminar,” I said. “And I thought only Helen ran them.”
“She ran the ones around here, but there are others, I think, who do them too sometimes. I know Billy was over the fucking moon when he told me he’d been chosen for seminar training. I think there were four others trained as journey healers like Helen.”
“Journey healers?” I asked.
“Yeah. Technically anyone who helps spread New Morningism or its ideas is a journey person, but there are different kinds. Healing, ambassadors, helpers.”
“And this Mathias is the Grand Journeyman, according to the website.”
“Yeah. And anyone else just ‘being,’ ” he said with air quotes, “is a voyager.”
“And here I was calling them Morningstars,” I said with a smirk. “So pretty girl flirts with you, you go to a seminar to see her, what happened next?”
“It was a lot like NA, just with less personal blame and guilt. According to the Movement, our life choices were never really choices. The universe made us shoot up or drink as a part of a journey toward true happiness and enlightenment. I mean, come on. What junkie doesn’t want to hear it ain’t their fault? That it was out of our control?” Kevin rolled his eyes. “Plus, Megan was giving me the eye. We went out for tea after, and she invited me to a party at The Temple a few days later. Once again I figured, what the hell?”
“Was it always the same people acting as ambassadors?” I asked. “Megan, Paul, the other attractive members?”
He thought for a second. “I guess so. Considering I found out Megan was fucking like four other people while she strung me along for months, it would make sense.” He scoffed. “I’m all for free love, and I enjoyed that aspect of my time there, but four people at once is still a lot.”
“Yeah, Gia mentioned orgies,” I said.
Kevin’s face turned red. “Yeah. Part of the philosophy is that sex is one of the most natural acts in the universe. That there should be no shame in it. I mean, not everyone participated. Monogamy was just as accepted, but most of us were single, so why the hell not?”
“No judgments here. Whatever floats your boat. But if Megan hadn’t been so free with her affections do you think you would have kept going back?”
“I mean, at first, yeah, I was just there for the…affection, but everyone was just so fucking nice. We’d all been through similar shit and didn’t judge each other. We all actually listened and cared, or at least pretended to. If someone needed help moving or with bills, other voyagers stepped up.”
“People gave each other money?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Not like a lot, but yeah, a few bucks here and there. Of course those people who couldn’t pay their bills usually moved into The Temple the next month. Then I think whatever cash they had went to the Temple pool. That’s one of the reasons I never moved in. That and no privacy.”
“Do most people at The Temple have jobs?”
“Yeah. We all shared leads on jobs and stuff.”
“Were those the only circumstances where they asked you for money?” I asked.
“I mean besides donations for parties and seminars, pretty much. But looking back on it, some of the people living at The Temple and The Apex were pulling down like twenty-five grand a year or more and there are how many people living there? The Movement’s only been around for a year and a half. That ain’t bad.”
“So you were drawn in by sex, community, and acceptance. Is that why you became an ambassador and recruited Billy?” I asked.
“Shit, when you say it like that…” He scoffed. “I did the ambassador thing because they needed more people and they asked. And I didn’t mean to recruit your brother, okay? He was going through a shit time, and I really thought they could help him. I always felt good after the seminars—I did. I saw my buddy in pain and figured it could help him too.”
“So they never put pressure on you to recruit?”
“Nothing in your face, no. When you did bring recruits in, though, everyone, including Mathias, treated you like king shit, especially the women. Megan and Nessa were very appreciative when Billy came to his first Temple gathering. And the second,” he said with a smirk.
I suppressed a grimace. “Did you recruit anyone else?”
“No one that stuck around as long. But Billy, man, he was into it right away. He stayed after the first seminar with Helen for two hours and went to every seminar they had for almost a month straight. He never missed a Temple party, neither.”
“What made you change your mind about them?” I asked.
“Shit. Lots of things. They kept pressing me to move into The Temple. The new-age shit got annoying. Meditation and tea and reincarnation just ain’t for me. Megan stopped paying attention to me when I refused to be an ambassador anymore and wouldn’t move in. They wanted more and more of my time. It just got to be too much. Plus my other friends kept calling me ‘Waco’—you know, after that cult—and I finally realized they had a point. So I just stopped going.” Kevin shook his head. “Megan called me and shit, but it was Billy who went full court press trying to get me back into the collective. He wouldn’t shut up about how great it was and how much I was missing out. It was fucking constant. I finally had to ask to move down the line to get the hell away from his badgering.”
“Did you point this out to him?” I asked.
“Hell yeah! But he wouldn’t fucking listen. He just shut me down and started lecturing me on how miserable I’d be for the rest of my life if I didn’t go back. It was like talking to a brick fucking wall. I just gave up.”
I nodded. “Tell me what happened the day Billy quit.”
“Well, we weren’t talking much. I know he felt guilty about what happened with Betsy.”
“The affair,” I prompted.
“Yeah. It started up right before I left the group. They were going off on ambassador duty and one night, one thing led to another.”
“Was it a long-running affair?”
“Not really. I think it just happened once or twice. I was shocked, though. He adored Gia, and Betsy sure didn’t strike me as a home-wrecker. She used to be Amish or something. I noticed she had her eye
on Billy, but she was real shy. She never took part in the free-love perks that I saw. But who the fuck knows what happens at The Apex.” He bit into his burger. “Anyway, a few days ago Billy walked into work late and just up and quit. He was in, he was out. When he was cleaning out his locker I tried to get him to talk to me, but all he said was, ‘I know my path now.’ Then he just left. That’s the last I seen or heard of him.”
“It seems he moved to the farm and married this Betsy. She’s allegedly pregnant.”
Kevin scoffed. “Figures. Billy’s probably over the goddamn moon right now. Not only was he chosen to live at The Apex but he has a baby on the way? Hope you brought the fucking Jaws of Life to pry him out of that place. Of course if anyone can rescue him it’d be you, right?”
“Do you think he needs rescuing?”
“Isn’t that what you’re here for?” he asked.
“I’m just here to make sure he’s all right. That he’s not in physical danger or being taken advantage of.”
“I’d say no to physical danger, but hell yes to the taken advantage of. Gia told me he gave them all their savings.”
“What do you know about this Apex place?”
“It’s somewhere in Niagaraville, in the farm country. I can’t be more specific than that. I never went there. But the way people talked about it, you’d think it was the Garden of Eden and you were chosen by God himself to live there.”
“God being Mathias,” I said. Kevin nodded. “What goes on there?”
“Growing food. Milking cows and goats. Sweat lodges and meditation.”
“It sounds like a fucked-up spa,” I said.
“Yeah,” Kevin chuckled. “One thing that really stuck out for me was if you agreed to go, you couldn’t leave for a whole month.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It’s supposedly to strengthen your focus on the universe. All you do is meditate, work the farm, sweat in some tent, fast, then work some more.” He shuddered. That wasn’t the sales pitch Megan gave me the night before. “Fuck that, right? I turned them down every time.”
“You were asked?”
“Yeah. Toward the end. Megan practically begged me.”
“How many people do you think live there?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Twenty? Thirty? After the first month, I heard some stay forever and others go back and forth from The Temple or their own homes.”
“Who would you say were the ones chosen to go? Is there anything similar about them? Was it people like you who were about to leave the group?”
“No. Hadley got asked my first week there, and she was gung-ho about the Movement. There were a couple of us on the fence who were asked, but only one said yes. For me personally it did seem like a last-ditch effort to keep me around, what with, you know, hindsight.”
“Did they try anything else to keep you around?”
“There was one thing. But…you’re not still a cop, right? This stays between us?”
“You’re helping me. I won’t jam you up. I promise,” I said.
He nods. “Okay. It was actually Billy who did this, which really knocked me for a fucking loop. It was the last straw. Why I asked to be moved down the line. He…mentioned it would be a shame if someone told our supervisor about how I allegedly smoke pot. That the group could help me out with my problem before it got me fired. I basically told him to fuck off. Now I don’t got any proof it was him, but the next day I got selected for a random drug test. I tested positive for pot and almost lost my damn job. I know someone put him up to it.”
“Let me guess. As part of the process you had to share all your deepest, darkest secrets,” I said. “It’s another cult tactic. ‘We know all your secrets, so stay in line or else.’ ”
“Then thank fuck the statute of limitations is up on most of the shit I pulled as a youngster, and I’m open about it already.”
“So who would have told Billy to blackmail you? Megan? Do you think she’s in on the con or is she a true believer?”
He scoffed. “That girl eats, breathes, and shits that place. She was one of his first members. She told me all about her hooker days, her cons, and the rapes and beatings and shit. Then one day she met Mathias, and he plucked her off the street. He even found her a place to stay. With Helen, in fact.”
“So Helen was there in the beginning too?” I asked.
“She must have been. Ken too. Maybe Betsy.”
“What can you tell me about them?”
“I told you all I know about Betsy. Guess we had no use for one another. I actually like Helen. Everyone does. She used to be a drug rehab counselor or something but lost her license after she got caught stealing drugs. She went to prison and lost custody of her son.”
“Is she a true believer?”
“Hell yes. If not about the religion shit, then about the helping people. She seems genuine. A hell of a lot more than Megan, Ken, and Mathias do.”
“Tell me about this Ken. Gia told me she was unnerved by him,” I said.
“I get that. He never smiled, has all these tattoos, and he’s a big guy who works out. He barely talked to anyone, but he was never mean or aggressive. I do know some of the tats on his sleeves are prison tats, but most of us have had run-ins with the law. Even Helen. It was no biggie.”
“And Mathias? What can you tell me about him?”
“You know people, like movie stars or whatever, who you just can’t stop looking at? You feel like five percent happier just being near them? He’s one of them. He talks, you listen. When it was one-on-one, you really knew he was there. He cared. And he knew just by looking at you if something was wrong; then he came and asked you questions. Talked it out with you. Told you everything would be okay. And you believed him.”
“He sounds almost too good to be true,” I said. “Like Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. I saw some photos on the website. All that was missing was a pipe, slippers, and a Number-One Dad mug. And I met Helen. Definitely the mothering type.”
“You went to The Temple?”
“Yesterday. I pretended to be a potential member. Megan greeted me like we were best friends forever. Helen made fudge and listened to my fake troubles. Then I went back for a party and a guy named Paul fell madly in love with me at first sight. He swore the universe told him we were meant to be. If I hadn’t let it slip I had a sizable settlement from my fake ex-husband, I do wonder if I would have received the star treatment.”
“Probably not,” Kevin chuckled. “Most potentials were like me. Poor fuck-ups in need of some understanding and companionship. But the upper-classy types were fawned over a little more, I guess. There was this one trust-fund kid. He and this girl Kelly were engaged within a month and he was living at The Apex around the same time. He might still be there.”
“Why do you think they targeted Billy? He only gave them two grand.”
“Maybe Betsy really is pregnant. Maybe it was an accident. Or not on her part. He has a lot going for him besides money. The loyal sort is hard to come by nowadays. And Mathias seemed to pay her a ton of attention. She was always by his side. And like I said, Billy dove into New Morningism head first. He believed every damn word they say. As I said, he’s loyal.”
“Yet he still sold you out because they told him to,” I pointed out.
“True, and I was pissed as fuck for a while, but I realized that wasn’t really my buddy Billy. He covered shifts for me. He lent me money once after my car got towed. He didn’t do it to hurt me, or at least I hope not. They probably told him if it brought me back to the main road on my journey, a little pain was worth it. Or he was my instrument of change guided by the universe. Who the hell knows?” He checked his watch. “Shit. I’m sorry, I gotta go. I can’t be late. I’m still on probation.”
“That’s fine. You’ve been a big help. If you think of anything else that might help, or if you think of anyone else who might talk to me, you have my number. Don’t hesitate to call.”
Kevin collected his tray and
rose. “I will. And when you see Billy, tell him I’m still here if he needs me. I don’t hold no grudges.”
“I will.”
“Nice meeting you.” Kevin nodded before walking off. I shut off my recorder and sighed. With every interview, my worry grew. New Morningism was using almost every trick in the book to lure and keep people in their little movement. Sex, love-bombing, isolation, blackmail, even exhaustion. Working the land nonstop coupled with meditation and sweat lodges drained a body and mind to zero. People got so beaten down they had no defenses against a constant barrage of rhetoric. Cruel but effective. “Bastards,” I muttered to myself. Manipulating those broken women and men to be bait and whores was just downright fucking evil.
And even if my brother wasn’t tangled in their web, I needed to bring that web down with a giant fucking broom. Poisonous spider about to bite or no.
Chapter 8
The day’s confrontations took a lot out of me, so I went straight back to my grandparents’ house and vegged for a few hours in front of the TV after answering all my emails and sending the check to Gia. CBNN officially made me an offer, which I told my agent to accept. Miranda had visions of my own show dancing in her eyes. She already wanted to start pitching the idea of me becoming the next Nancy Grace or Tamron Hall to the networks, but I shut the idea down. I had enough on my plate even without the New Morning investigation.
After the Kevin Perry interview, my confidence in finding Billy within two days—or hell, within two weeks—hit a low. When I was on the train from New York City, I was convinced I’d just have to make a few calls, pull a few records, find the farm, talk to Billy, and report back that he was happy and healthy. Hope springs fucking eternal. As I sat with Grandma watching old sitcoms, I really tried to formulate a plan. The interviews provided zero new leads and my fingerprints probably wouldn’t be available until the next day. Okay, I knew what I should do next but wasn’t sure I had the energy to play make-believe, especially knowing all I did. I’d want to shake them all, smack some sense into them, especially Helen, and try to get them to see they were being used. That Mathias was just a pimp dressed up in the shroud of religion. But I knew what I had to do instead.
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