by Allen Kent
“She has something for you, Sheriff,” she said, handing me the phone.
Joseph answered my “hello” with “Sounds like that all went well,” then said, “and I’ve got some other good news for you. Harlan and Gomez will go to the church meeting tomorrow and wear a mini-cam. They won’t do anything but attend, try to catch as many people as they can on video, and turn it over to you. And this is all off-duty work, Tate. A favor to me.”
“A huge favor. How do I get the video?”
“I think it needs to come to your home computer to keep this unofficial.”
“My WiFi’s on a hotspot out at the house. That will be a big file to download. Can I pick it up somewhere?”
After an unnerving pause she said, “I’ll bring it down. There are some other things we need to discuss anyway. The church service is at 4:00 p.m., followed by a potluck. Harlan and Gomez will want to stay for that, I think, just to be credible. It will probably be after eight by the time I get it and can drive to Crayton.”
I glanced over at Allyson Penn who was deep in conversation with Able.
“Call when you’re on your way,” I said softly.
23
Rocky had the Saturday duty desk, giving me the full day to putter around the yard, worry about Grace and our lost teens, Conall MacKay, and what Joseph’s video and her mention of “something else” were going to tell me. For a person who likes to anticipate every possibility to avoid surprises, it amounted to a day of fretting, second-guessing, and trying to keep my mind and hands busy.
Two hickories on the slope below the deck had grown tall enough to block some of the view. I spent the morning braced against the steep grade with my chainsaw, working to drop the trees so they wouldn’t roll over me when they fell and ignoring my mother’s sage advice never to operate the thing when alone. With both trees down parallel to the ridge, I ran a cable around the trunks and dragged them behind the pickup to where I could cut them into firewood.
My weekend lunch is usually a sandwich of strawberry jam and sharp cheddar cheese on wheat. It was a favorite of my father’s that I developed a taste for when I’d carry his lunch to the mill and sit beside him on a rough-cut wooden bench until the big circular blade whined back to life at 12:30.
He always ate his with a thermos of coffee. I’d tried coffee as I got older but lost interest while in the Marine Corps when I needed to roll out every morning wide awake without the jolt of a big dose of caffeine. I’d replaced it with chocolate milk—not the healthiest substitute, but perfect with strawberry jam and cheddar.
I was trimming side limbs from the downed trunks and stacking them to burn when Grace called, answering my question about whether the Scots would be working Saturdays.
“What’s happening in your world?” she asked before I could get my own questions in. “Anything new on the fire investigations?”
I told her that in about three hours, two state troopers would be undercover at the church I’d told her about and hoped to get some video.
“I hope it works,” she said. “Is Joseph one of them?”
“No. In fact she’s staying away from the area until Verl’s suit gets settled.”
“And how’s that going?”
“We had a deposition with him yesterday. Able thinks it went well and could help us. He said he’d asked you about sending a statement describing our conversation with the Greaves about LJ needing medical attention.”
“Already sent. He should have it by now.”
I dropped onto the stripped trunk of the hickory. “What’s happening there? Any new leads on the kids?”
“We talked to more people today who have heard about this secret cult. It’s called something like Gleedhid Doras. We’ve tried to find a site for it online, but the guy who said he’d followed them for a while told us they’re only on the dark web and regularly change their site address. They call their members Clansmen, both the men and the women, and only people they trust are notified as the site changes.”
“I’m out cutting trees,” I told her. “Could you text me that name so I have the spelling? And if you have it, the name of the man who said he’d been part of the group? I may have an idea.”
“About what we’re doing here?”
“Maybe. It’s a long shot. I’ll let you know if it works out. I probably can’t do anything until Monday.”
“What’s your next move on the church thing?”
“I won’t know until I see the video.”
“You be careful, Tate. I hate you going after people who are doing crazy things without me being there to back you up.”
It was the best thing I’d heard all day. “I’ll be careful,” I promised. “And speaking of going after crazies, you be careful too.”
“For sure,” she said. “I probably won’t call tomorrow. It’s Sunday and Erin is taking me to see some of the sites around.” She paused. “I know that sounds bad, when we should be spending every minute looking for Miriam and Danny. But there’s nothing I can do tomorrow. And to be honest, I need a break.”
“I hear you,” I said. “Talk to you Monday.”
It was closer to 9:00 p.m. when Mara Joseph arrived with the video. She had called at 7:30, said Harlan and Gomez had quite a tale to tell, and that she was moving their recording onto an empty thumb drive. She would head down as soon as it was copied.
The evening was warm with a three-quarter moon painting the pasture beyond the creek a dusky gold. I moved my laptop out onto the deck and had a couple of comfortable chairs and a bottle of cabernet I knew she liked ready when she arrived. She knocked twice and walked in, dressed in snug jeans and a cotton T-shirt that stretched tightly enough over her lithe frame to make me remember one of the reasons I had missed her so much. She gave me a light brush of a kiss and glanced through the great room’s double doors at the computer and wine bottle in the dim glow of the post lights that ring the deck railing.
“What? No candles?” she said with a teasing grin.
“It’s late. The night’s warm. And I thought you probably have a couple of hours of video. We may as well be comfortable.”
“This may be more serious than you thought, Tate. Celine—that’s Officer Gomez—thought she might have heard them planning another hit of some kind.”
Moonlight and cabernet slipped quickly into the background. “When? Where? Did she hear any details?”
“Let’s look at what they got,” she said. “I think it might give us some answers. Gomez was wearing the camera and was pretty good about turning it off and on at key times. So we don’t have the full meeting and meal in real time.”
She led me through the French doors into the evening air and dropped into the seat in front of the computer. Two minutes later, the screen filled with a swaying view of plain wooden steps that climbed to what had been the loading dock of the old feed store. “Well, here goes nothing,” a male voice I took to be Officer Harlan’s said.
The camera turned, taking us through a single door with a windowed upper half. Harlan and Gomez were immediately greeted by a thin, angular man I placed to be in his forties. His long-sleeved white shirt, broken into checks by thin gray and blue stripes, was a step up from every-day casual wear and was paired with his best blue jeans. The smile on his wide mouth turned up only slightly and looked frozen. The camera angle appeared to come from a necklace around Officer Gomez’s neck and slightly elongated the man’s features.
“May I help you two?” he asked cautiously.
“I hope so,” Harlan said. “Me and my wife have been looking for a church that holds to the Bible a little more than where we’ve been going.” He chuckled. “Or maybe I should say, a lot more. My aunt told us that a friend of hers has a nephew who’s coming here and likes it. We thought we’d give it a try, if you’re open to people dropping in.”
I liked Harlan. He was a natural at this.
“Ah. Who’s your aunt? Someone I might know?”
“Might. Lives over in Crayton. Martha Ch
umbley. I’m Hank Chumbley. This is my wife, Celine.”
“And who is your aunt’s friend?”
“Lucy Studdard. Sorry, but I don’t remember the nephew’s name.”
“That would be Roy,” the man said. “Well, Hank. We do welcome visitors. But I need to let you know up front that we aren’t some liberal, find-what-you-want-in-the-scriptures church. We follow the old law as it was laid down by the prophets. Strictly.”
“May or may not be right for us,” Harlan said. “But we’re not too happy with how open our old church has become.”
“Oh? Open in what way?”
“Well, our pastor’s welcoming in the gays, folks living in sin, and just about anyone. Seems like they’re more interested in numbers than in holding to God’s word.”
The man extended a hand. “I’m Delmer Towan,” he said. “I’m the preacher here. I don’t say minister because we don’t pay our preacher. You’re welcome to come on in and hear what we have to say today.”
Well, thank you. We’ve been looking forward to coming.”
Towan’s eyes narrowed. “How did you find us way out here?”
Harlan chuckled. “Aunt Martha said to find the feed store in Whipple Creek. Then she told us how to find Whipple Creek. Once we got here, the cars parked around pretty well showed us where you were meeting.”
Joseph punched the hold on the video, reached for the wine, and poured for both of us. She absently swirled the deep purple liquid in the bowl of her glass. “You said you spoke to Martha Chumbley and she was okay with Harlan becoming her nephew?”
“It thrilled her,” I assured her. “Her husband was on the force years ago when the department was pretty well discredited for shielding a bunch who were cooking meth in the county. He was clean, but got painted with the same brush as the rest of them. And was fired. Martha thinks that’s what killed him and has been trying ever since to clear his name. And she’s part of the same gaggle that Lucy meets with on Sunday afternoons. Martha said she’s heard all about Roy and his new-found religion.”
Mara took a sip of the wine and nodded approvingly. “My guess is that some follow-up calling went on this afternoon. Would you know if it reached Martha?”
“Yes. She would have called. I suspect Roy called Lucy, and she told him Martha would know about the church. But Lucy will probably wait until she sees Martha at Church tomorrow to ask about the nephew. Martha’s ready to claim Hank.”
“Good,” Joseph muttered and punched the video back to life.
The camera followed the preacher into what had been the building’s open back where sacks of feed, hay bales, and blocks of rock salt had once covered the floor. Folding chairs now sat in a half dozen rows facing a lectern that looked like Delmer Towan had made it in his garage. Gomez’s secret eye slowly swept the room, showing seventeen curious, suspicious faces.
I laid a hand on Mara’s arm. “Stop there. Back up just a bit.”
She reversed the video.
“There. I know that guy. That’s Zack Kinnaman. We went to school together. He’s still in town and works out at Kilgore Homes.”
“Married?” Mara asked.
“No. I think he lives in his parents’ basement. They’re kind of reclusive, and he’s even worse. I run into him every now and then at the market, but when I say anything, he just turns and walks off.”
Mara started the recording again, giving me a good reason to lean up beside her as I examined the faces. Her hair smelled of lemon.
“No one else there I know,” I said when the camera had finished its sweep. I stayed pressed against Joseph’s warm shoulder and she chose not to ease away.
“Gomez cut out a lot here,” she said. “She only recorded part of the sermon but said we’d get the gist of it.”
The screen broke to Delmer Towan standing erect behind the crude lectern, a thick, well-thumbed Bible spread open in front of him.
“Now, my People of the Covenant,” he intoned. “Turn with me in your scriptures to Exodus twenty where the Lord first begins to enumerate his laws to his chosen ones. And follow me as I read verse four.”
The camera turned, showing those in the row in front quickly flipping pages. It appeared everyone was equipped to follow the reading. And like my mother, Delmer Towan favored the King James Bible.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or is in the earth beneath, or is in the water under the earth:
The camera’s eye focused again on the preacher at the dais. “Now, I ask you,” he challenged with the stilted voice affectations of a televangelist. “What likenesses has the Lord excluded from His list of forbidden images?” He paused, brows raised, and scanned the expectant congregation.
“None,” someone shouted from in front of the pair of officers.
Delmer jabbed a finger in the direction of the voice. “Amen, Brother Vineyard! None. Neither man nor beast. Fish nor fowl. Not even of angels in heaven. All of these are forbidden images.”
At this point, I reached across Joseph and clicked the pause button. “They’re aniconists,” I said. “Pretty extreme for a Christian group.”
Mara turned toward me with her chin lifted and an incredulous frown creasing her pretty face. “They are what? Did you make that up, just to see how gullible I am?”
“No. Aniconists. Against icons. You also see it in some of the more conservative branches of Islam. That’s why you don’t find images in mosques—just calligraphy and geometric and floral patterns. But I haven’t run across it in Christianity to this extreme.”
“Well, I suspect there is better still to come,” she said, clicking the video back into motion.
“And why are these images forbidden?” the preacher continued. “Because they become objects of our devotion.” He paused dramatically, sweeping his followers with an accusing finger. “How many of you have graven images in your purse or wallet—or on your phone of your children? Of your spouse? Of your dog or cat? And if I were to ask you to bring them forward and place them in this dish to be burned? How would you feel?”
He held up a shallow metal bowl. “If I asked that as we sit here now, you delete them from your phones, would you feel resentment? Would you feel anger? If so, I ask you to consider why?” Again, he paused and seemed to be looking directly at Harlan and Gomez.
“It is because you treasure them. It is because they have become objects of adoration. But I remind you of the Lord’s warning as given by Matthew, ‘Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven!” His voice dropped with a pastoral display of affection. “For, my dear brothers and sisters, ‘Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’”
He flipped hurriedly forward in the book before him. “We see people stand in worshipful awe in front of great paintings in museums. We read about them selling these images for millions of dollars. We see football teams touch a logo for luck as they exit their dressing rooms. Some of our misguided brethren rub the nose of some bronze figure for luck until it shines. This—all of this—is idolatry!”
The preacher went on. “Listen again to the word of the Lord in Deuteronomy.
… do not act corruptly and make a graven image for yourselves in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the sky, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water below the earth.
“No graven images. None. And again He warns, ‘Do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.’
A fervent “Amen” rose from the small congregation.
“And I promise you, my People of the Covenant, that those who do not fear God and do not keep this commandment will be consumed by fire!”
In the mo
ment of silence that followed the preacher’s sharp warning, I could hear the muffled beat of Celine Gomez’s heart. It seemed to quicken as the silence smothered the room. Then Delmer Towan spoke again.
“Come forward now, good people. Lay your idols before the Lord and we will consume them with fire in his presence.”
The audience hesitated, then a few resolute souls began to stir.
The preacher again held up the bowl, the camera catching a crazed glint in his eye. “Do you feel hesitation? Resentment? These are signs of your own misplaced adoration. They are symbols of our own wanton passions, your evil desires and greed which amount to idolatry. Come. Come forward. And if you have them on your phone, stand before the Lord and delete them.”
As the small congregation rose, Gomez and Harlan rose with them. We could hear Harlan fumbling for his phone or wallet.
“Are you going to do this?” Gomez whispered.
“I’ve got a ton of fishing pictures,” he murmured beside her. “That’s where my heart is. I can sacrifice some of them.” The camera followed him as he went forward and deposited a handful of snapshots in the dish.
Others filed in a line behind him, filling the bowl to the top. A wedding photo. A snapshot of family grouped together on the steps of a porch. A baby smiling with delight up into the camera. All dropped with trembling fingers into the bowl.
Delmer Towan pulled a longnecked butane lighter from a shelf beneath the lectern and ceremonially touched the collection to flame.
“A sacrifice unto the Lord,” he exalted, and the congregation again called “Amen”—this time, it seemed, with less enthusiasm.
The preacher’s voice again rose, his face flushed and the veins in his neck visible through the eye of Gomez’s camera. He raised the book in one hand, his eyes wild as they scanned the page. “For behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven,” he cried over the heads of his congregants, waving an accusing finger skyward, “and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts.”
