Stealing Flowers (45 page)

Nick shrugged. “It’s coming through
well.”

Tony smiled. “Is that what you meant?” Peter
shook his head. “They haven’t asked for a lawyer,” Tony observed,
“that’s something.”

“Let’s see what we can get,” Peter said, “an
admission here might get me confessions from Blood Justice and
Swift Retribution in New York City.” We returned to the living
room. “Will you talk?” Peter said. They both nodded. Relief washed
over me and I felt very emotional, wiping the tears from my eyes
out of their sight. I realized that it was almost over. Again, how
wrong that proved to be. “What’s your birth name?” Peter said to
Proud Punishment.

“Charlie Falken.”

“And yours?”

“Rob Tuck.”

“Who killed Rick Edwards?”

“Swift Retribution planned it,” Proud
Punishment said, “and he’s the one who shot him.”

“Silent Righteousness, do you concur?”

“Yes, it was Swift Retribution who shot Rick
Edwards.”

“Are there other people whose murders have
been caused by The Hostility Branch of the Family of Truth?”

They looked over at each other. “Yes,” they
both answered.

“Barry Wall?” Again they both answered yes.
“Anna Chapati?” They both answered yes a third time. “Where’s her
body buried?”

“Underneath a dilapidated barn on an
abandoned farm near Sedgewick Creek just out of Lakewood,
Colorado,” Proud Punishment volunteered. “Swift Retribution
strangled her.”

“Do either of you know anything about the
death of Cheryl Garland and Graham Roberts?” They both shook their
heads and said no. “Two LAPD officers are going to come in and read
you your Miranda Rights. They’ll take statements and make
recordings. Do we have your cooperation?

“Yes,” they both said in unison.

Yan stepped up before them and began to take
the tape off their arms and legs. “You’ll never regret this,” he
said, “and you’ll finally get some help. Moses Truth is completely
evil and has broken every commandment that Moses brought to mankind
from the Lord.”

The detectives came in. Josh and I stepped
out of the room and gave each other a bear-hug. “Let’s go and get
the rest,” he whispered.

Using all my self-control, I stopped myself
from crying. The next days went by torturously slow, but word came
that Ezekiel Observance, Swift Retribution, and Proud Punishment
were presently in Denver, hiding at the Compound. Now they were
wanted men. I was almost happy.

By Sunday 17th we were ready and a shiver
went through me as we approached the back roads which led to the
Woodlands. I looked over at Peter who sat beside me in the back
seat. Josh drove and Yan sat in the front-passenger’s seat. The
Family of Truth was truly an evil institution, but why did
otherwise rational people join? What was it about the allure of a
simple life of mystic servility, poverty and rigidity that was so
appealing to them? The scary thing was that on some psychological
level, it appealed to many people. Martin Luther, the first leader
of the Protestant Reformation, wrote, ‘Whoever wants to be a
Christian, should tear out the eyes of his reason.’ Rick Edwards
had told me one time that when you deprogram a cult member, you’re
forcing them to think for themselves. If you force them to think
about things that they aren’t programmed to respond to, then the
formula breaks down and they’re forced to use their own critical,
mental processes.

“Are you okay?” Peter asked.

I nodded and Peter looked at his watch.
“These people raped and murdered your sister,” Yan said. “You know
what they say, Christian. I think it’s a French expression. Evil in
one, evil in all.”

We followed two unmarked Police cars
carrying Detective John Ruben of the NYPD, Tony Kray of the LAPD,
and other veteran officers. Behind them, trailed three black and
white cruisers. They had warrants to search the complete Woodlands
Compound and arrest Ezekiel Observance, Swift Retribution, and
Proud Punishment. I sat up as we took the final turn toward the
front gate. The metal fence, higher than before, had been
re-fortified with even more barbed-wire on top, perhaps now nine
feet high. Maybe from the inside, it seemed a fortress against the
forces of the devil: Industry, capitalism, freedom, liberalism,
personal responsibility, and democracy; abstract institutions which
weak-minded, weak-willed, and non-productive people look at with
suspicion, but from the outside it looked like a concentration
camp. At the gate, the police were let straight through. Recruits
were everywhere, hundreds of them.

“They’re not selling flowers today,” I said
disappointed. “They’ve stayed behind. They’ve been tipped off.”

Peter looked over. “Don’t be let down,
Christian, but I did that,” he said. “We’ve men watching the place.
I hoped our three suspects would make a dash for it and we could
get them out of the Compound to avoid violence, but, no matter.
We’ll get them anyway.”

We drove up to the first building and the
police cars all emptied. Several elders approached the veteran
detectives and became involved in a heated conversation with them.
One elder was nearly shouting at us. I saw Yan and Peter heading
for the Elder’s residence and followed them. Josh stepped up beside
me. We approached the main house and a group of young recruits
blocked our way.

“No one looks armed,” Peter noted.

I stepped up and was about to say something,
when such a loud persistent chorus of boos erupted around me that I
was unable. Josh came forward and laughed hardily as though to mock
them. He took out his gun in a provocative manner, then shot it
into the air. This was followed by their complete attention. The
police from the reception house raced forward to our position. I
could hear Peter cursing his son under his breath. “Christian
Tappet’s sister lived here for some time,” Josh shouted at them.
“You owe it to yourselves to listen to a few words.” He stepped
back. “Go get them, Christian.”

“Every cent you earn goes to Moses Truth in
Zurich, or to his holding company, The Zortichii Group,” I shouted,
“an industrial-based conglomerate which serves the greed of one of
the most evil men America has ever produced, David Moses, who was
born David Zortichii.”

A burst of heckles rose with shouts of,
“Liar!”

I could see that Peter and Yan had stepped
away from the group guarding the Elder’s residence and entered from
the back. Two more black and white cars had pulled up behind me. “I
know many of you here want to live a life serving Christ,” I
shouted even louder, “and I hope you will. When my beautiful sister
came here to the compound, they made her work and live there in the
Elder’s residence behind you with five Elders, who administrated
this place. She cleaned and served them. They brutally raped her,
when she refused their sexual advances. These five men later
changed their names and became members of The Hostility Branch.
They’re the men who killed Rick Edwards, the famous anti-cult
deprogrammer, who one time kidnapped my sister. When she filed suit
against The Family of Truth for the harm done at this very
compound, they murdered her. Ezekiel Observance ordered it on
behalf of Moses Truth. They also murdered Barry Wall and Anna
Chapati. These are the reasons why their arrests are taking place
today.”

I’d moved others to actually listen and
focus on my words, but others called out limply, ‘Liar,’ or
mumbled, ‘Satan-lover!’ I saw that Blood Justice had been taken
into custody, now escorted out under heavy police guard. Blood
Justice was the former Grave Revelation, the creepy one. I looked
at the recruits who still stood before me and immense pity came
over me. I wanted to tell them to go home and hug their parents
whom they had been told to hate. I wanted to tell them how horrible
their mistake was, but I knew it would be futile. Yan came up
beside me.

“Swift Retribution isn’t in the compound,”
he whispered, and then looked up over the crowd of recruits. “A few
of the recruits today will leave because of what you just said, the
rest will go when they’re ready. If someone’s not around to kidnap,
deprogram, and watch you until you’re safely out of their reach,
you lose a good part of your life to it – I did!”

A tall thin teenage male approached us and
reached out to shake my hand. “I guess that you’re right,” I said.
“A few of them were listening.”

When I returned home, we celebrated.

Three days later, on Wednesday, July 22 we
formally presented our new evidence to the prosecutor’s office
using Fats Cramer. Brad, Peter, and Stan came with me. I was
surprised to see how intently the homicide investigators listened
to the tape of Silent Righteousness and Proud Punishment’s
confessions while reading the documentation from The Zortichii
Group. In fact we gathered quite a little crowd. I found myself so
excited that I could barely hear a single word. Fats Cramer kept
raising his large head to look at me with glee. Brad on the other
hand sat beside him visibly angry. Although the murder charges
against me had been withdrawn on Monday, the District Attorney had
been uncooperative and unapologetic. He’d also kept us waiting this
morning. This made me angry as well, but I was so happy that it was
hard to feel any other emotion. The Prosecutor’s office was
behaving childishly. I knew Fred Newel and Denzil Burch were behind
it. From the first, they were overly zealous in their pursuit of
me. But why? Cramer passed a file to his partner, a young man with
a military haircut and broad shoulders.

“Look at that one,” he said. “I told them
over and over.” He turned to me, while scanning computer readouts.
“Peter did good, kid, he’s saved your hide.”

“I think so too,” I said and looked at Peter
with a big smile. “What are those?”

“It’s the electronic data on Swift
Retribution, a.k.a. Thought Jacob and a. k. a., Tim Daniel – that’s
the name he’s running under now – I got this from the Feds. They
think he’s involved in some abortion clinic bombing and that The
Hostility Branch of The Family of Truth has hooked up with the
Extreme Christian Fringe.”

Denzil Burch arrived a few minutes later and
planted himself in the middle of the room. He stared belligerently
at me. I could feel my cheeks flush. “What are you doing in our
offices?” he said. “You can wait in Visitors with everyone else.
You’re a convicted murderer, for God’s sakes, and you’re not going
to be treated like a celebrity.”

I jumped up and sucker-punched him in the
face. He took the hit hard and I think I broke his nose, however,
he jumped right back up onto his feet, wiping the blood from his
mouth and wanting to box it out. Brad and Fats restrained us from
any further altercation. “You’ll be sorry you did that,” he
said.

“If I ever see you in my life again,” I
shouted back, “you’ll be the one who’s sorry. All the charges have
been dropped. Look at the evidence. We’ve done it all for you, you
incompetent buffoon.”

I jerked myself away from Brad and
straightened out. “From the beginning,” Denzil retorted, “I knew
that you’d spend your way out of it.”

I threatened to rush him again and he jumped
back cowardly. “You’re one of them,” I said, shocked at my own
words, but knowing it at once. He was one of them, or was on their
payroll.

“You’re the one who killed your sister,” he
said. “No conspiracy theory can explain the amount of evidence
against you.”

“Have you gone mad?” Brad said.

“Mr. Burch,” Detective Cramer added, “I
would like you to leave the office.”

He frowned and left. I took in a deep
breath. “The evidence against me was overwhelming,” I said softly,
“and conspiracy theories are always convoluted and hard for people
to buy, especially this one. Who’ll believe that a religious cult
united with a long-time Tappet Executive to join in-league with an
international corporate spy agency? On the face of it, it’s absurd.
Sure they’re connected around Sally and me, and both the Cult and
Zortichii are the same, but how many will believe it?”

“We’ll make them believe,” Brad said.

Fats nodded in encouragement. I looked at
them both and smiled, but was skeptical. I knew that most people
would never believe I was innocent. That day, I visited Sally and
my mother’s gravesites, laying flowers for both and telling them
about Susan and how I could soon put it all behind me. Even in my
heart, I felt it was over. I was free again, and Susan and I
started to talk of marriage. Since the four cult members we had
captured testified that Swift Retribution, a.k.a., Thought Jacob,
a.k.a., Tim Daniels, was the actual trigger man in all the
killings, we kept Peter on the payroll. He in turn, had Josh
hunting Tim Daniels full time. I received a letter from Yan two
days later. He informed me that Bobby Stevens, the cult’s most
famous recruit and the son of the famous Senator, Al Stevens of
Washington, had committed suicide.

Within months, I took over Tappets’ day to
day functions, with Una, Stan, and Mary, on call for advice. My
first real day in charge, we fired the personnel involved with the
embezzlement scheme, even the Stanroids.

It felt good to get back to work, and the
weeks flew by, and summer passed. I heard nothing from Peter and my
mind turned to other things. We were thinking of selling all our
Japanese operations, and an offer had been made on Factory Bright
that I was sure Stan and Mary would accept in the weeks ahead.

The First Law of Life disappeared from my
radar screen. To be frank, I no longer believed in it, nor God, nor
magic, nor any other indistinct force, but The First Law of Life,
for suckers like me, was in full force, laughing, all the time,
laughing . . . and waiting.

Chapter
Fifteen

October turned into November, and I hardly
noticed the first snows. Every second day, I was on a plane. Josh
phoned me from the Port Authority near lower Manhattan one
Wednesday morning, the 11th with news on Tim Daniels, the former
Thought Jacob. I was in the car with Susan, just leaving the
mansion to Teterboro Airport. Once we were inside the building, he
directed me with his cell until Susan spotted him. We shook hands.
I could see he wasn’t happy about Susan’s presence.