Blindside (13 page)

Sherlock said to Katie as she started up her truck, “He never asked who it was claiming to see Clancy near his house.”

“No, he didn't, did he?”

H
e's
Rasputin.”

Savich had popped a pain pill ten minutes before so he was easily able to smile at his wife.

“Yes, but what did you really think?”

“He's scary.”

“In what way?”

“He's not quite here. It's like he's into an inner self where there's only his God and what he owes his God and what he can do to get other people to worship his God. The thing is, I'm not sure he includes women or if it's just men's souls that interest him.”

Savich said, “An otherworldly sexist. He sounds too preoccupied with himself to be a kidnapper.”

“Yeah, you're right, he does. But I haven't heard much condemnation about his ideas out of you yet.”

“Hmm.”

“Why don't you yell and holler that it isn't fair, that you denounce it, that you spit upon such notions?”

“It's not fair,” Savich said. “I can't spit because it would hurt my back. This guy sounds very strange, sweetheart.”

“Yes, he is. He's very intense, as I said, like Rasputin or, more to the point, some descendant of Rasputin. Now, since Katie and I didn't have a warrant, we just sort of wandered around outside their big Victorian house, which is really quite beautiful, and would you just look at what fell out of a window.”

“Fell out of a window? Yes, if I close my eyes I can see it falling right at your feet. Come on, what have you got?”

Sherlock tossed him a vial and told him about the hidden room off the small bedroom closet.

He read the label. Salvation. He blinked, unscrewed the top and sniffed the liquid, which had a faint almond scent. “Sex with a religious theme? Are you planning on drinking this, Sherlock? Have things gotten this bad?”

She laughed, hugged him very carefully, kissed his mouth. He fastened the cap back on the vial and handed it back to her. “When all this dies down, let's send it to the lab and see what's in this salvation stuff.”

“Maybe we can find out if it's manufactured or if the reverend makes it himself. There were about a dozen other vials, all with charming names like this one. I know I shouldn't have taken it but I just couldn't resist.” When she finished telling him about the whips and the green marble altar and the wooden block, he said as he looked down at his fingernails, “You wonder what that wooden block with the fur on top is for?”

“Well, I'm not going to chew off my fingernails if I don't find out, but yeah, I'd like to know.”

“It's to pad your stomach.”

“What? To pad . . . oh goodness, I see now. You know, Dillon, big hair rollers are one thing, but being propped up on a wooden block is quite another. No, I don't think so. Has Dr. Able been around to see you? I want to get you out of here.”

“Yes, he has. I'm fine, just need to sit forward for the next year or so. Stitches come out next week. You ready to
break me out of this place? I was just waiting for you to get here.”

Sherlock said over her shoulder as she fetched him the clothes she'd brought from home, “Yes, but we're in a bit of a pickle, aren't we? We have no idea why Sam was brought to Jessborough and we don't know yet who hired Clancy and Beau to bring him here. The investigation is just starting. Clancy's still out there and we need to help. I think, too, that Sam and Miles probably need to remain with us. It's dangerous for Sam and Miles to go back home alone, don't you think?”

“Yes, we'll stay,” Savich said, and got himself dressed. “Don't worry about a few more days. Mr. Maitland called a little while ago, told me to take it easy, not to worry about the math teacher killings.”

He looked big and tough, much more like himself with his leather jacket slung over his arm. Sherlock beamed him a brilliant smile. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yeah, but don't tease me, Sherlock.” He carefully put his arms around her, nuzzled her neck. “You know, I just might be ready for some hair rollers tonight. I wish we had time to check out what's in that vial, just maybe it's something we can use.”

At five minutes
after three o'clock that afternoon, five FBI agents, one former FBI agent, one sheriff, and two children congregated in Sheriff Benedict's living room.

If Butch Ashburn wondered why two young children were present during a meeting, he didn't say anything, just watched the little girl for a moment—the sheriff's kid—playing with a big-eared rabbit named Oscar. His own kid was now nearly twenty, but he could remember when she'd have been on the floor playing with a stuffed animal. The years just swept over you too fast, he thought, leaving you older and slower, and your little kid a grown-up.

“I'm thinking,” Savich said, “that I want to go to church. Does Reverend McCamy have a service this evening, Katie?”

“Yes, he goes all day on Sunday. The church is really nice, sort of like Paul Revere's church in Boston. Sooner also does tent revivals—every June, out in Grossley's pasture, about three miles west of Jessborough.”

Katie glanced over at Miles, who still looked dead on his feet. All his attention was on his boy. After she'd dropped Sherlock off at the hospital a couple of hours before, she'd taken Miles and the kids out to Kmart to buy some clothes. Miles was wearing the black jeans, boots, and plaid flannel shirt he'd bought. He looked, she realized, really good. As for Sam, he looked like a miniature copy of his father, down to the black boots.

“Papa forgot to pack clothes for us,” Sam had confided to her earlier in the truck. “He didn't think about anything else, he just wanted to get to me as fast as he could.”

“I wouldn't have packed anything either,” Katie said, smiling at Miles. “Not with a Kmart in the neighborhood.”

Of course, Keely had to have black jeans and black boots, and her mother, knowing when to throw in the towel, had given in.

Butch Ashburn said to Savich, “If you and Sherlock plan on staying in Jessborough for a while, I think Jody and I will head back to Washington. We're still running checks and interviewing all neighbors and employees, and I want to check Beau Jones's apartment myself. Also, since Miles is former FBI, we're checking particularly violent cases he was involved in. I don't buy the idea of revenge myself, but we're checking everything.” He looked over at Sam, who'd just taken a big bite of fried chicken. “I'm more pleased than I can say, Miles, that you've got such a brave, smart boy.”

Miles swallowed, then nodded, and said sharply, “Sam,
don't wipe your greasy fingers on your new jeans. Use the napkin.”

Life, Butch thought, was always unexpected and even, sometimes, like now, not bad at all. He said, “You guys work on Clancy's connection from this end and, like I said, I'll work the other end. Hopefully, we'll meet in the middle real soon.”

Katie smiled at Special Agent Butch Ashburn
—no wing tips on my neck from this guy.

Fifteen minutes after a telephone call, Katie's mother, Minna Bushnell Benedict, arrived to take charge of the children. She won Sam over with a chocolate chip cookie the size of Manhattan, and assured both Miles and Katie that she'd keep both Sam and Keely safe, with the help of the two deputies seated in their cruiser just outside the house.

“Butch, you have a safe trip back to Washington. Miles, Katie, we're off to meet the Sinful Children of God,” Savich said, and took Sherlock's hand. “Maybe we can talk to some of the congregation before the service starts.”

“Find Fatso,” Sam called after his father as they went out the front door. “Shoot him.”

The church of
the Sinful Children of God was on Sycamore Road. Katie was right, it looked like the Old North Church in Boston—a tall wooden spire, painted all white, the roof sharply raked with shingles, the windows small and traditional.

There were maybe twenty cars parked in the paved lot behind the church, which was set back from the road, at the edge of a thick stand of maple and oak trees. And Miles found himself marveling yet again at how many trees there were in this part of the country.

The church was nearly full, maybe as many as fifty, sixty people. Men were in suits, women in dresses, hats on their
heads. Children sat quietly beside their parents. The four of them sat down in the back. A couple Katie didn't recognize scooted farther down the bench, not speaking to them.

Katie realized, as she looked around at all those well-dressed people, that she didn't know very many of them. She wondered from how far away they came. It took her a while to recognize Thomas Boone, the postman, because he looked different in a suit. There was Bea Hipple, an expert quilter, sitting only shoulder high to her husband, Benny, a local mechanic. For the life of her, Katie couldn't imagine Bea being all that submissive.

She knew maybe twenty-five of the adults in the congregation, no more than that. The organist finished “Amazing Grace.” Throats cleared, papers rustled, and then the church fell quiet. Hearing “Amazing Grace” played in church always made Katie, hard-assed sheriff or not, get tears in her eyes.

Reverend Sooner McCamy rose from his high-backed chair to walk up the winding stairs to the pulpit that was set on a six-foot-high dais. He stood there for a few seconds, looking out. He was wearing a lovely white robe over a black suit and white shirt.

Reverend McCamy wrapped his large hands around the corners of the beautifully worked pulpit. They were strong hands, nicely formed, with short buffed nails, black hair visible on the backs even from a distance. When he spoke, his voice reached to every corner of the room, forceful and deep. Katie was aware that people were sitting at attention now, leaning forward a bit so as to not miss a word.

“I welcome all of you back again for our evening service. It has been a full, rewarding day, and a very unusual one as well. My wife and I spoke with Sheriff Benedict and an FBI agent at our home at noon. It seems that Elsbeth's brother, Clancy, is wanted for questioning in the kidnapping of the little boy who managed to escape. Yes, Clancy Edens is indeed my wife's brother. I would ask that
if any of you know of this very man's whereabouts to call the sheriff. I've been told there are posters of him all over Jessborough.”

He never broke eye contact with Katie while he spoke. She found herself nodding as one by one, the congregation turned to look at her.

Reverend McCamy paused a moment, looking, it seemed, at each of his congregation. He said finally, “Our spirits need constant nourishment, just as our bodies do. We recognize this need even if we don't understand how to bring deep into ourselves the nourishment our souls require. We must pray that Clancy Edens finds the nourishment tonight.”

“Amen. Amen.”

“We must all first realize there is a common bond among right-thinking men, men who recognize there is something more to living than being a part of the human herd, something beyond us. It is something more precious than life itself, something that can bring us all infinite understanding and peace. And these men know that this something is our beloved God, and that it is He who is our spiritual nourishment, He who brings value to our lives, He who makes us know the path we must tread. Let us pray for him tonight, brothers, pray that he seeks this path with us.”

“Amen . . . amen . . . amen.”

“It is we men who must lead, who must show these sinners, as we show our precious helpmates, the way to grace and salvation, ensuring God's forgiveness for their eternal sin. All of you seated before God and His messenger here this evening know that we each have a role in this life, some of leadership and some of submission. Both will free us. I exhort all of you: Seek always to understand what it is you must be and what you must do. Let nothing stop you from attaining what it is God wants you to have, what God wants of you.”

Only men can understand God? Sherlock felt Dillon
lightly touching his fingertips to her arm. When she turned, he was smiling. Then he winked at her.

“There are special graces that God grants a few men on this earth that allow them to be special victims of God's grace, to actually experience his own sacrifice for all of our sins.”

Victims of God's grace? What did that mean? Sherlock tuned him out until some five minutes later, when Reverend McCamy said suddenly, “Now it's time for us to divide into our Sunday evening study groups. Our topic for discussion this evening will be ‘Submitting to the Path of God's Grace.' ”

Katie looked at Miles, her head cocked to one side. His dark eyes were glittering, narrowed on Reverend McCamy's face. His hands were fisted, one on his thigh. She smoothed his fisted hand with her own, feeling the tension slowly ease. She would ask him what he was thinking later. It had been smart of the reverend to be up front about Elsbeth McCamy's brother, very smart indeed. She wondered if the good reverend would have said a word about Sam's kidnapping if the four of them hadn't trooped into his service.

After the congregation split into groups, Sherlock made a request to join them. Reverend McCamy looked infinitely patient. “I'm sorry, Agent Sherlock, but you must be a believer and member of this church before you can attend our study groups. Why did you come?” He looked at all of them in turn, one very black eyebrow arched up, a bit of a satyr's look, if he but knew.