“And a pretty wild story,” Donna reminded him.
“Well . . . after all we’ve been through, and everything we’ve seen and learned, it isn’t that wild. It’s disgusting, it’s tragic, it’s bizarre, but at this point I find it incontrovertible, especially since Mulligan—and perhaps yourself—have stooped to such terror and intimidation tactics to keep the boys quiet about it.” Donna didn’t look like she had any comment to that, but Mark didn’t wait for one. “Donna, you said that what happens here at the plant is your business and none of my concern. Well, what happens to my church is my concern, so let me just get down to the direct question: Were you there at the Benson farm on Sunday night?”
“No,” she said simply.
“Are you involved in witchcraft or occultism?”
“No.”
“Are you trying to destroy my church with gossip and division?”
She chuckled, and the chuckle had a note of mockery in it. “Of course not. Hey, you’re going through difficult times. If you don’t all stick together, you won’t make it.”
“What about Sally Roe?”
“Never heard of her.”
An unplanned question occurred to Mark. “What about the social worker for the CPD that took Tom’s kids, Irene Bledsoe? Is she purposely working against us, trying to destroy Tom’s reputation?”
Donna laughed. “Hey, as far as I know, she’s just doing her job. If you ask me, Tom’s a sick man, and I think she can see that.”
“What about that time you saw Ben Cole first visiting Abby Grayson here at the plant? Did you report that to Sergeant Mulligan?”
“You mean, did I snitch?”
“Whatever.”
“I don’t really know Mulligan. Why would I go out of my way to tell him about one of his own cops?”
Mark looked at Donna, and Donna returned his gaze. There was no question remaining between them.
“Donna . . . you don’t lie very well.”
She smiled that same subtle, mocking smile. “On the contrary, Mark—you did approve my application for church membership.”
Mark nodded. “So I did. So I did.” He’d heard enough. “Well, I could go through the Biblical pattern and come back with some witnesses to go through all this again with you, but . . . what do you think? That probably isn’t worth the trouble, is it?”
Donna just kept smiling. “No need, really.”
The phone rang. Donna picked it up. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll be right there.” She hung up. “Well, sorry, that was Mr. Bergen. He wants to meet with me right away.”
“I know,” said Mark, rising from his chair. He let himself out the door, and walked down the aisle. Donna was not far behind him.
Mr. Bergen’s office was about halfway down the floor. Mark looked through the window; Abby Grayson, Kyle Krantz, Kyle’s friend Billy, and Marshall Hogan had already been there quite a while. Mr. Bergen, a stern-looking man in his sixties, was pacing about the office, waiting impatiently, visibly angry.
Mark cracked the door open and stuck his head in long enough to catch Mr. Bergen’s eye. Bergen looked his way immediately; he was expected.
“It’s all true,” said Mark.
Then he closed the door and went on his way, pausing just long enough to look back and see Donna Hemphile go into the office of her boss.
CHAPTER 37
LUCY BRANDON COULD feel her scalp crawling and her stomach twisting into a knot. This was her second such phone call today, interrupting her work at the Post Office and scaring her to death.
“Don’t talk to Hogan,” said her once-kind friend Claire Johanson. “Don’t say a word to him, or to any of those people! It could go very bad for you if you don’t protect any knowledge you have!”
Lucy tried to keep her voice down so Debbie wouldn’t overhear. “Claire, what’s happened?”
“Nothing has happened!”
“I got a call from Gordon Jefferson just like yours. He wasn’t kind at all. He kept telling me I’d be in legal trouble if anything leaked, and I didn’t even know what he was talking about . . .”
Claire didn’t answer right away. She was working on a reply that was safe—or downright deceiving. “The hearing before the federal Court of Appeals is coming up soon, and things are getting critical, that’s all. I think it has all of us on edge.”
“So why come down on me?”
“It’s not just you. We’re clamping down on everyone, even ourselves. Too much information is getting out, and it could ruin our case. We have to be careful. I’m sure you understand that.”
“This all seems so sudden.”
“Well, it just seems that way. Don’t worry about it. Just keep quiet, and keep things to yourself from now on. I have to go.”
Click.
I’m going to explode, Lucy thought. I’m just going to go crazy, stark raving mad. I can’t take this anymore!
Ding!
A patron was at the counter. No, I can’t see anyone, I can’t talk to anyone. I just want to get out of here. But where could I go? How would I explain my daughter? What about the trouble I’ve gotten myself into?
Ding!
Oh, where’s Debbie? Lucy looked at the clock. Oh, wonderful! She’s on break, probably across the street buying some sugarless gum or something.
“Coming.”
She gathered herself, trying to calm down, and stepped to the front.
The patron was Tom Harris.
Both of them immediately felt awkward and even shied back a little.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Tom. “I mean, I don’t have to—”
Lucy looked this way and that. There was no one else in the lobby. “Well, I can wait on you.”
Tom stood back from the counter. He extended his arms to lay some packages in front of Lucy. “I wanted to send these to my folks.”
Lucy pulled the packages toward her, turned them around, turned them around again, read the addresses, read them again, still didn’t know what she’d read. She just couldn’t think. Was she supposed to weigh them? She set all three on the scale at once and fumbled with the sliding weights. No, no, this wouldn’t work, not all three . . .
She set the packages down and without looking up tried to say, “I’m sorry any of this ever happened,” but her voice was too weak and trembling.
Tom heard her anyway. “Sure. So am I.”
She tried to concentrate on the packages. “Well, I guess we aren’t supposed to talk about it.”
“I understand.”
“Do you think Amber’s possessed?”
The question didn’t just slip out—Lucy pushed it out. She wanted to know.
But Tom Harris was muzzled, and acted like it. Even though he wanted to answer, he could only look at her in obvious frustration. “You know I can’t talk about that.”
“I need to know. For me.”
He shook his head sadly, painfully. “I can’t talk about it. But listen . . .”
She listened.
“Uh . . . Jesus Christ conquered the spiritual forces of evil on the Cross. The Bible says He disarmed them and made a public display of them. He has all authority over them, and He’s given that authority to His people, the true believers in Him. He’s the answer. That’s all I can say.”
“Have you ever seen someone possessed?”
Tom took back his packages. “I wish I could tell you all about it. Maybe when this lawsuit is over, huh? I’ll . . . Listen, no offense, okay? I’ll mail these later.”
He hurried out the door, leaving Lucy with her questions unanswered.
“EVANS, SANTINELLI, FARNSWORTH, and McCutcheon,” said the receptionist.
“Mr. Bardine, please,” said the woman’s voice on the other end.
The receptionist hesitated. “Uh . . . I’m very sorry to inform you, but Mr. Bardine is deceased. Did you have any current business with him? We can arrange for someone else to complete that.”
The other party was understandably shocked by the news. “Did you say
Mr. Bardine was deceased?”
“Yes, I’m sorry to tell you that. He was killed in an auto accident several weeks ago. It was a real blow to all of us here at the firm.”
“Well, I’m . . . I’m shocked to hear that myself.”
“I’m sorry. Perhaps you’d like to talk to Mr. Mahoney, Mr. Bardine’s superior. Perhaps he can help you.”
“Oh, thank you, no. Let me sort things out first.”
“Fine. Thank you for calling.”
“Good-bye.”
The receptionist hung up the phone and went back to typing a letter on a sophisticated electronic typewriter, sitting at a massive, dark oak, brass-fitted desk, in a plush carpeted office with twelve-foot-high, wood paneled walls and ornate lighting fixtures, as gray-haired senior partners, junior partners dressed for success, aggressive legal assistants, ambitious secretaries, and powerful incognito visitors moved tight-lipped and chin-high up and down the halls with their briefcases, legal files, or yellow legal pads.
The Chicago offices of Evans, Santinelli, Farnsworth, and McCutcheon were more than a palace; they were a citadel of power and legal technocracy, where knowledge and power were synonymous and time was money—lots of money. Here the czars of case law and the architects of legal precedent groomed the future by challenging, bending, stretching, and even crossbreeding the law, turning it their way as far and as often as their money, skill, connections, and power would allow.
These were the offices of the elite: the promoters of the favored and the deposers of the dispensable, the guarantors of success and the instigators of ruin.
Atop this ivory tower, at the pinnacle of the pyramid, strode the ruthless and powerful Mr. Santinelli.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Santinelli,” said the receptionist.
“Good afternoon,” he replied with a faint, obligatory smile, extending his hand to receive the newly typed letter. “I’ll be having a special meeting for the next half-hour; there will be no calls, no disturbances.”
“Yes, sir.”
Santinelli continued down the aisle to a tall and imposing mahogany door. An aide swung the door open just in time for him to pass through it, and then closed the door after him like a slab over a crypt.
Santinelli was in the private conference room adjacent to his office, a soundproof, secret, and rather gloomy place. The woodwork still seemed to absorb the light, and the floor-to-ceiling, velvet curtains were still drawn over the windows.
Three men stood in a tight cluster at one end of the room, talking in hushed voices. They nodded a greeting when Santinelli came in.
One of them was Mr. Khull, the man entrusted with the elimination of Sally Beth Roe.
Santinelli made some quick introductions. “Gentlemen, allow me to formally introduce Mr. Khull, who will be assisting us in the present pressing matters. Mr. Khull, I present to you Mr. Evans, a partner in this firm, now fully devoted to our present legal concerns, and Mr. McCutcheon, our director of administration and finance.”
“A pleasure,” said Khull.
“I’ve spoken with Mr. Goring at Summit and Mr. Steele at the Omega Center,” Santinelli reported. “It’s clear to all of us that Sally Roe has been tracking down the owner of that ring she slipped from Von Bauer’s finger, and using Von Bauer’s fee to finance her cross-country sleuthing. They agree with us that the rosters are enough to lead her to the late James Bardine, which means she’ll have to come here, though we can’t be sure when. Mr. Khull has secured the building for that eventuality, and of course we have your assurance, Mr. Khull, that the failure at Bentmore University will not be repeated?”
“Last time we were a little too discreet, I would say. I have twice the personnel here as I had stationed at Bentmore, and our techniques will be much more direct this time.”
“The hearing in the federal Court of Appeals is on Monday,” Santinelli fumed. “A ruling in our favor will not be much consolation if Roe is still at large. When she comes, you may bring her to this room and kill her right here, as far as I’m concerned.”
Khull stifled a laugh.
JUST ACROSS THE conference table, Destroyer and the twelve grotesque warriors who flanked him did not stifle their laughter at all, but thoroughly enjoyed the thought of killing that woman.
Destroyer’s laugh was a brief indulgence, however. He still bore the bruises and shame from his recent meeting with the Strongman, and now his exhilaration at the thought of Sally Roe’s impending death was mixed with desperation.
You will take her this time! he growled, his wings flared in anger, his crooked finger pointing across the table. You will take her and kill her! Then he shouted to his warriors, “Surround this place, and post sentries over the city! She will not evade us this time!”
The warriors swooped out of the room with a thunderous war cry, almost crazy with a thirst for blood.
Destroyer glared at Khull, and muttered to himself, Come to us, Sally Roe. Whatever your condition, Cross or no Cross, this time nothing will stop us. Nothing!
ON THE OUTSKIRTS of Chicago, Sally Roe sat in a dismal, musty room at a cheap motel, staring at the telephone and wondering what to do next. So James Bardine was dead! She’d spent no small amount of time preparing herself to confront him face to face, to bring it all to a head, and she had come so close, but now what could she do? Well, there was no point in visiting Evans, Santinelli, Farnsworth, and McCutcheon. The man she sought was no longer there.
But obviously Bardine wasn’t the only player in this game; there were other players and strategists, from the clumsy police in Bacon’s Corner to the mind-molders at Omega, to the highest levels of the educational establishment at Bentmore University, and even beyond that. They all knew about her, they all wanted that ring, and they all seemed quite determined to kill her.
With reluctance, she brought back an old thought she’d entertained several times in the past few weeks and went over it again. There was one final ploy she could try, one do-or-die way to find and identify the people who were responsible for this whole nightmare. Did she say do-or-die? It would most likely be die, if God didn’t see fit to spare her.
Funny. Before she encountered the Cross, she saw no reason to live but feared death. Now she had a reason to live, but did not fear death at all. It was an odd kind of peace, a fascinating sense of rest and stillness deep in her soul. Someday she would have to analyze it and clarify just what had happened to her, if she lived long enough. If not . . . Well, maybe she’d lived long enough already.
She got out her notebook again, and began to compose her very last letter to Tom Harris.
Nathan and Armoth were tense with anticipation and preoccupied with strategy, but they were there by Sally’s side when she started that letter.
“‘The word of her testimony, the blood of the Lamb, and she does not love her life so much as to shrink from death,’” said Nathan.
“That’s three,” said Armoth.
Sally’s pen glided over the paper.
Tom, this will be my last letter to you. I have told you all that I have done, and all that I know, and I’ve shared with you my encounter with the God and Savior you serve. What more could remain but to see you face to face and finally bring this trouble to an end?
There is no doubt in my mind that the ACFA has pulled some big strings, or vice versa, and are connected with the attempt on my life, which must be connected with the attack against you and your school. I now have the gold ring taken from my would-be assassin as well as the four volumes of the History and Roster of the Royal and Sacred Order of the Nation which prove the ring belonged to the now deceased James Everett Bardine, an attorney in high standing with the ACFA. I also have other information, much of which I have provided in many letters, that should prove invaluable to you in your defense against this lawsuit.
All that remains now is for me to return to Bacon’s Corner to aid your attorney in building his defense, and ultimately to testify in open court on your behalf.
I believe it’s time
I heard from you. Please contact me at the Caravan Motel.
She gave Tom the address and telephone number, then closed her notebook. If she hurried, she could get the letter photocopied and mailed.
But first, there was one more letter to write. She flipped to a fresh page in her notebook—she’d used up the pages in two notebooks by now, and was starting into her third—and began her first and last letter to Bernice Krueger, c/o the Ashton Clarion. She wrote hurriedly, saying only what was essential.
The young clerk at the Post Office was just bagging up the mail for the evening pickup when a lady in jeans and a blue jacket came to the counter with some more. He was in a hurry; the truck was coming any minute. He took care of her quickly, applied the necessary postage, and threw the rest of the mail into the mailbag.
There was the truck! He grabbed the bag and headed for the back door.
The lady went out the front door, glad she’d made it in time.
In the rush, one letter fell from the mailbag to the floor under the front counter and lay there facedown.
It was addressed to Bernice Krueger, c/o the Ashton Clarion.
CHAPTER 38
ON MONDAY MORNING, without prior warning and totally unexpected, the fax machine in the Ashton Clarion office warbled its electronic ring and was barely heard over the prepublication bedlam that usually marked Monday mornings. Bernice didn’t hear it at all; she was in Marshall’s glassed-in office trying to convince Eddy’s Bakery to buy just two more column inches so she wouldn’t have to keep filling in that space with stupid one-liners.
“Hey listen,” she said, “we’ll make the donut bigger, and then make the coffee mug bigger, you know, show more steam coming out or something. The readers will grab right onto it. Sure they will!”