He reached over and pushed the office door shut, and said, “We’re fucked. She was lying through her teeth—she was enjoying the whole performance—but she covered all the bases. Every piece of evidence we have against her, she explained. And she came to us. Voluntarily. She just did a number on us.”
“But we know what’s going on, with the church,” Coakley said.
“Yeah, but the case itself is pretty much gone,” Virgil said. “It’s solved. Flood and Crocker were taking little Kelly Baker out and banging her brains loose. Then something happened. They accidentally killed her or she died . . . whatever. Everything is cool until Flood takes his shirt off, and Tripp figures out that he was the one with Kelly.”
Coakley picked it up: “Flood finds out that Bob was ‘friends’ with Kelly, and he assumes that Bob was having a sexual relationship with her, not knowing that the boy was gay. Could just be one of those man-to-man things, ‘Pretty great piece of ass, huh? I could tell you stories. . . .’”
Virgil: “You get Bob to the jail, everything is fine. But during the night, he tells Crocker the whole story, the one he was saving for Sullivan. Crocker thinks, Holy shit, they know I’m Flood’s best friend. If they got any DNA out of Baker, it’ll be in the database, and they’ll ask me for a sample. . . .”
“So he kills Bob to keep him from talking. Then he freaks out because of what he did—”
Virgil: “Or because he thinks that we’ll figure it out, and do DNA on him in the jail death. In fact . . . I wonder if he might have called up to the ME, as a sheriff’s deputy, and somehow got the murder verdict?”
“Whatever reason, he’s cooked, if he’s in the database.”
Virgil picked it up again. “Now, one of two things happened. He really did commit suicide, which I don’t believe, because people say he was too much of a chicken, and because I could see in her eyes that Spooner was lying like a motherfucker; or, he told Spooner about it, and she realized that he’d bring down the whole World of Spirit, trade them in, to keep himself out of jail. Or if not that, to get special handling and a shorter sentence. And she killed him.”
Coakley: “You think it’s the second one. That she killed him.”
“I do. But I don’t see how we can get her,” Virgil said. “She’s got the perfect alternate story. We’ve got ours, she’s got hers, and there’s no way a jury will find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A nice middle-class drugstore worker killing a man she hoped to get back with? No. Not without something else that would show animus on her part.”
THEY THOUGHT about that for a minute, then Coakley said, “I could do you again right now.”
Virgil slipped a little lower in his chair and said, “Well, the spirit is willing, but the flesh might be a little weak after last night. That was . . . something else.”
“Did you enjoy yourself?” she asked.
“Does a chicken have lips?”
She frowned. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I think it means, ‘Yes.’ ’Cause I did. My God, woman, you were a prodigy.”
She stretched, smiled back, yawned, and said, “I felt so good until the moment I walked in the door, and there she was. Goddamnit.” She jabbed a finger at Virgil: “But we know what’s going on out there, and we’re going to trash those fuckers. We’re gonna trash them.”
“Maybe I’ll take a nap first,” Virgil said.
COAKLEY DIDN’T REALLY believe that he was going back to take a nap, but he did. A nap, of sorts. He put his keys, cash, coins, and cell phone on the motel desk, took off his boots, and lay on the bed, closed his eyes, and slept for fifteen minutes. When he woke, he lay still, and began to plot.
The case, as such, was over—and if he hadn’t gone into the Rouses’ place and found the photos, it’d be finished for sure. But now that he knew about the Rouses, he couldn’t let it go, and neither could Coakley.
One problem: they couldn’t tell anyone why they wouldn’t let go.
SOLUTIONS:
• Find a legitimate reason to hit the Rouses’ place with a search crew. Even if the photos were destroyed before they got there—unlikely, now that the World of Spirit people most likely thought they were safe again—they’d been printed on a computer printer, which meant that the pictures might still live somewhere on a hard drive. If they could get the Rouses on charges of child abuse, pedophilia, and incest, they might, in exchange for some other consideration, crack and unload on the World of Spirit.
• Crack Loewe. Loewe was gay, which might mean that he hadn’t had sex with any of the younger girls—or might be able to credibly claim that he hadn’t. There might be a deal there, Virgil thought, as long as the WOS didn’t permit homosexuality. If he’d had relationships with any little boys . . . no flexibility there.
• Go after Alma Flood. There was something cookin’ behind Alma Flood’s forehead, and the pressure was building up. If incest was a regular feature of the WOS, then she may have been forced to have sex with Einstadt, and her daughters with Jake Flood or other members of the church.
• Pressure Spooner. Spooner had murdered Crocker—Virgil had no doubt about that. If he confronted her, told her that he was going to put her in jail for murder, one way or another, if she didn’t talk about WOS, would she call his bluff? Or would she talk? At this point, she’d probably call his bluff. He needed something else.
• Go after the Bakers. Did they know that Crocker and Flood had gang-raped their daughter? And then there was that whole thing about Kelly Baker visiting relatives before she disappeared for the night. Had that actually happened, or had there been a party, with more than Flood and Crocker involved? Perhaps the Bakers themselves?
Other possibilities occurred to him. A small fire at the Rouses’ place, while they were gone . . . a fireman discovering the box in the closet. But that was fantasy, that would involve a conspiracy too big to sustain.
Still: had to get into that house, legitimately. If he could extract those photos, they would identify other members of the WOS and pull down the whole structure, leaping from one family to the next in a chain reaction.
As soon as it became apparent that the whole church was involved, they’d be able to get search warrants for all members, would be able to get all the children talking privately with Social Services investigators.
Huh. Had to find a way to get the chain reaction started.
He called Coakley, said, “Let’s go someplace—not here—and talk. Bring a couple of deputies that you’re sure about. Who won’t talk. The county attorney—”
“His wife is the biggest gossip in Warren County,” she said. “Not a good idea.”
“All right. But let’s meet.”
“My house,” she said. “Noon. The kids will be at school. I’d like to bring in Dennis Brown, too; he used to be my boss—”
“I’ve met him,” Virgil said. Brown was the Homestead chief of police. “You’re sure he’s okay? He wouldn’t be under your thumb?”
“He’s one of the best people in Homestead, and he knows everybody in the county, I swear to God. And I’m thinking Schickel. He’s a tough old boy, and he’d go after these people with a chain saw, if he knew about this.”
“We can’t talk about the photos,” Virgil said. “Let me handle the briefing. You just arrange the meeting, and I’ll be briefing you, along with the others. Ask questions. We’ve got to get into the Rouses’ place, but we’ve got to forget about the photos.”
“Got it.”
“See you in an hour,” he said.
HE BRUSHED his teeth, loaded up, and headed into the café, which was in its mid-morning customer slump, no more than eight or ten people scattered around the booths and stools, reading newspapers, talking two by two.
Virgil took a booth, and Jacoby came right over: “Pie?”
“Diet Coke, hamburger with no mayonnaise, or any of that other sauce you put on there.”
“You don’t like Thousand Island?”
Virgil shudder
ed: “Not on my hamburgers, no. Also, French fries with no salt, and . . . blueberry.”
The guy in the next booth asked, “Anything new?”
“Woman came in this morning and said she was there when Jim Crocker shot himself,” Virgil said.
Jacoby sat down across from him, Virgil’s order forgotten for the moment. “Would I know her?”
“Crocker’s ex-wife, Kathleen Spooner. Said he was all morose about Tripp, and he shot himself.”
“Whoa.” Jacoby scratched his nose, said, “I know her. Dark-haired gal. I think she was one of those religious people out there.”
“Yeah, she was. Or is,” Virgil said. “Her story’s a little shaky, but I don’t see any way to break it.”
A couple more people moved in, on stools, and in the booth behind Jacoby. One of them said, “You said you thought Jim Crocker was murdered.”
“Still possible,” Virgil said. “The same set of facts that say he was murdered can, if they’re turned around just right, say it could be a suicide.”
“But you don’t believe it,” Jacoby said. “I can tell by your voice.”
Virgil nodded. “You’re right. I don’t believe it. I think it was murder.”
“You think you can get her?” Jacoby asked.
“I don’t know. Haven’t even arrested her, for what she did, unless Coakley did it after I left,” Virgil said.
Jacoby got up and walked down the café and clipped Virgil’s order to the cook’s order rack, then came back, sat down, and said, “Damnedest thing. She might’ve done it, and she might walk away.”
“No way to tell, for sure, unless there was a third person there,” Virgil said. “I don’t think that’s likely.”
The guy behind him said, “But if she murdered him, why did she do it?”
“Cover something up,” Virgil said. “She told us that Crocker might have been scared because he thought we might take DNA evidence from him, because of the jailhouse suicide when he was on duty. And that he might have had something to do with the death of that Kelly Baker girl last year. Him and Jake Flood. And they might have left some DNA behind.”
“Holy shit,” the man in the back booth said.
The one on the other side, behind Jacoby, said, “They’re all those religious people. Spooner, Flood, the Bakers . . .”
Virgil nodded.
The guy behind him said, “If you ask me, you need to know more about that church.”
Virgil said, “They don’t talk much to outsiders. . . .”
HIS FOOD CAME, and he sat munching through it, as the panel discussion continued, then confessed, “I’m pretty much stuck if I don’t get more information coming in. But, you know—win a few, lose a few.”
“That ain’t right, Virg,” somebody said.
Virgil shrugged and said, “We’re talking about law enforcement, not television. Nothing’s perfect. Without the information . . .”
“I’d hate to see you quit and leave town,” Jacoby said. “You’re better than TV. Business is up ten percent since you started coming in.”
“Happy to do it, Bill. Just wish this could come to a better end.”
The waitress appeared and slid a saucer with a slice of blueberry pie across the table.
Virgil picked up the fork and cut into it, became aware of the silence around him. He looked around and said, “What?”
The guy in the booth behind Jacoby asked, seemingly fascinated, “You really gonna eat that?”
Jacoby twisted, said, “Hey!” Back to Virgil. “That’s perfectly good . . . pie.”
THE CONSENSUS in the café was that Virgil should keep pushing, and find a way around Spooner’s confession; the patrons voted unanimously that she was lying, that Crocker’s death was murder.
“Maybe we should get up a lynch mob,” Jacoby joked. He added, “That was a joke.”
“I’ll hang around a day or two to see what happens,” Virgil said. He ran the tip of his tongue around his gums. “I’m really gonna miss the . . . pie.”
WHEN HE CAME out of the café, with a feeling that he had purple sticky stuff lodged between all of his teeth, he still had some time to kill. He looked up and down the street, spotted the redbrick tower of a church, and ambled down that way. The sign out front said, “Good Shepherd Lutheran Church,” and Virgil climbed the granite steps, pulled at one of the big wood doors, and walked in. A woman was pushing a dust mop down an aisle between pews, looked around at him, said, “Can I help you?”
“Is the pastor around?”
“He’s in the office. Do you have an appointment?”
“No. I’m an agent with the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. I’d like a few minutes of his time, if he’s got it.”
“Well, c’mon back. He’s not doing anything but reading the paper, anyway.”
Actually, he was polishing his shoes, with his feet on the paper he’d apparently finished reading. He was a soft, middle-fiftyish man, with white curly hair, blue eyes, and gold-rimmed glasses that sat on a wide German nose. He was listening to soft rock on a Wave radio.
Virgil introduced himself and the minister half-stood and put the polish rag in his left hand and stuck out his right. “John Baumhauer,” he said. “I’ve heard about you, Virgil. Down at the café.”
“I do my best thinking there,” Virgil said. And, “I guess Joshua was right: the house of God still has its hewers of wood and drawers of water.”
Baumhauer brightened, ticked a finger at Virgil, and said, “Not many people pick that up, Baumhauer being a chopper of wood. And you know your Old Testament.”
“My dad’s got a church over in Marshall.”
“Flowers? Oh, heck yes. He’s your dad? We’re old pals, we overlapped in grad school, he was a year ahead of me. How’s your mom? She was a looker, let me tell you; still was, I saw them a year ago at a conference up in St. Paul. . . .”
They spent a minute or two connecting, then Virgil said, “John, I’ve got a problem. We’re starting to turn up some answers on this string of murders, and also the murder last year of Kelly Baker, down across the Iowa line.”
“I remember that. That was a mystery.”
“It was, but now . . . Look, I’ve got to ask you first, I want to keep this talk private,” Virgil said. “At least for a while. Even if it turns out you don’t know anything, or don’t want to talk about it.”
Baumhauer was interested, intent with a small smile. “Sure. As long as it’s not, you know, illegal.”
Virgil nodded. “But you might not want to talk about it when you hear the question.”
“The question is . . . ?”
“I’ve only been here a couple days, but we’ve made some progress—but everywhere I turn, in this thing, I stumble over the World of Spirit.”
“Those guys,” Baumhauer said.
“Yeah. Have you heard anything that would suggest there’s something wrong with that group? Something not right?”
“You do make me feel a little like a rat,” the minister said. “But . . . yes, a bunch of us church people in town have thought about them. We had a Catholic priest here for a few years, Danny McCoy—he’s up at the archdiocese now, doing something important. We used to play poker with a couple of other guys. He was no good at it, he couldn’t bluff worth a darn. He won’t tell you anything, because I think it came in a confession, but he apparently heard from somebody that there was no good going on there. He was conflicted. He mentioned it to me privately; I’m sure he wouldn’t talk to you. I don’t know if it went any further than me, or if he took it up with his superiors—he took the bonds of confession seriously. He was never explicit, but I got the feeling, though, that there was something sexual going on.”
“Have you ever felt that?”
Baumhauer took a deep breath, looked away for a moment, then said, “Yes. I can’t say where or how, because I can’t remember—it’s just rumors and implications and comments over the years, about marrying them off young over there, and things like that.
”
“Mmm. You never mentioned it to anyone?”
“Well, I suspect you’d find a lot of older people around here, especially churchgoers, who have heard something. But it’s all vague,” Baumhauer said. “The other thing is, when I was a kid, I was working in an area in Indiana with a lot of Amish. I got to know some of them, and they’re good folks. Solid. They have some of the same characteristics as the World of Spirit—they keep themselves separate, they homeschool, they intermarry. And they’re good people. So you get the feeling, you can’t pick on a whole church. If you even hint at it, people are going to go off in all directions. That’s just not right, either. Tainting a whole church, with no real knowledge at all.”
Virgil sighed and said, “Yeah.”
“But, that said, they’re not the Amish,” Baumhauer said. “The Amish are separate, but not secretive. They’re not paranoid. And you can see why they believe what they do—they’re staying away from the modern world, and it carries right through from the way they dress, to the vehicles they drive, to the way they furnish their houses. No TV and so on. The World of Spirit, you don’t see that—they’ve got TV and nice cars and big tractors, and back during Vietnam, their boys would get drafted and go off to fight. The only thing they’re different about is what happens with their church, what it’s all about, and they’re secret about that. Paranoid.”
“As you say, you don’t have anything specific.”
“No, no, I don’t. But . . . did you ever hear of Birdy Olms?”
“I have. She supposedly ran away from them.”
“I’ve heard that, too. Quite a few years back. The story in the church circles here was that the local Jehovah’s Witnesses took to witnessing on her porch when her husband wasn’t around, and she began to doubt the church and got into some kind of trouble with the church and ran away. If you can find her, she’d be worth talking to, I think.”