Death Du Jour (34 page)

The sun through the venetian blinds threw bright stripes across my desk. Down the hall, a door slammed. Slowly, an idea took shape.

I reached for the phone.

“
T
HANKS FOR MAKING TIME FOR ME THIS LATE IN THE
day. I’m surprised you’re still on campus.”

“Are you implying that anthropologists work harder than sociologists?”

“Never,” I laughed, settling into the black plastic chair he indicated. “Red, I’d like to pick your brain. What can you tell me about local cults?”

“What do you mean by cult?”

Red Skyler slouched sideways behind his desk. Though his hair had gone gray, the russet beard explained the origin of the nickname. He squinted at me through steel-rimmed glasses.

“Fringe groups. Doomsday sects. Satanic circles.”

He smiled and gave me a “carry on” gesture.

“The Manson Family. Hare Krishna. MOVE. The People’s Temple. Synanon. You know. Cults.”

“You’re using a very loaded term. What you call a cult someone else may see as a religion. Or family. Or political party.”

I had a flashback to Daisy Jeannotte. She, too, had objected to the word, but there the similarity ended. In that interview I sat across from a tiny woman in a huge
office. Now I faced a large man in a space so small and crowded I felt claustrophobic.

“All right. What’s a cult?”

“Cults are not just groups of crazies who follow weird leaders. At least the way I use the term, they are organizations with a set of common features.”

“Yes.” I leaned back in my chair.

“A cult forms around a charismatic individual who promises something. This individual professes some special knowledge. Sometimes the claim is access to ancient secrets, sometimes it’s an entirely new discovery to which he or she alone is privy. Sometimes it’s a combination of both. The leader offers to share the information with those who follow. Some leaders offer utopia. Or a way out. Just come along, follow me. I’ll make the decisions. All will be fine.”

“How does that differ from a priest or rabbi?”

“In a cult it’s this charismatic leader who eventually becomes the object of devotion; in some cases he’s actually deified. And as that happens, the leader comes to hold extraordinary control over the lives of his followers.”

He removed his glasses and rubbed each lens with a square of green material he took from his pocket. Then he replaced them, wrapping each bow behind an ear.

“Cults are totalistic, authoritarian. The leader is supreme and delegates power to very few. The leader’s morality becomes the only acceptable theology. The only acceptable behavior. And, as I said, veneration is eventually centered on him, not on supreme beings or on abstract principles.”

I waited.

“And often there is a double set of ethics. Members are urged to be honest and loving to each other but to deceive and shun outsiders. Established religions tend to follow one set of rules for everybody.”

“How does a leader gain such control?”

“That’s another important element. Thought reform. Cult leaders use a variety of psychological processes to manipulate their members. Some leaders are fairly benign, but others are not and really exploit the idealism of their followers.”

Again I waited for him to go on.

“The way I see it, there are two broad types of cults, both of which use thought reform. The commercially packaged ‘awareness programs’”—he gestured quotation marks—“use very intense persuasion techniques. These groups keep members by getting them to buy more and more courses.

“Then there are the cults that recruit followers for life. These groups use organized psychological and social persuasion to produce extreme attitudinal changes. As a result they come to exert enormous control over the lives of their members. They are manipulative, deceptive, and highly exploitative.”

I digested that.

“How does thought reform work?”

“You begin by destabilizing a person’s sense of self. I’m sure you discuss this in your anthropology classes. Separate. Deconstruct. Reconstruct.”

“I’m a physical anthropologist.”

“Right. Cults cut newcomers off from all other influences, then get them to question everything they believe in. Persuade them to reinterpret the world and their own life history. They create a whole new reality for the person, and in so doing they create a dependence on the organization and its ideology.”

I thought back to the cultural anthropology courses I’d taken in graduate school.

“But you’re not talking about rites of passage. I
know in some cultures kids are isolated for a period in their lives and subjected to training, but the process is meant to reinforce ideas the child has grown up with. You’re talking about getting people to reject the values of their upbringing, to toss out everything they believe in. How is that done?”

“The cult controls the recruit’s time and environment. Diet. Sleep. Work. Recreation. Money. Everything. It creates a sense of dependency, of powerlessness apart from the group. As it does that it instills the new morality, the system of logic to which the group adheres. The world according to the leader. And it is definitely a closed system. No feedback allowed. No criticism. No complaints. The group suppresses old behaviors and attitudes and, bit by bit, replaces them with its own behaviors and attitudes.”

“Why does anyone go along with that?”

“The process is so gradual the person isn’t aware of what’s happening. You’re taken through a series of tiny steps, each one seemingly unimportant. Other members grow their hair. You grow your hair. Others speak softly, so you lower your voice. Everyone listens docilely to the leader, asking no questions, so you do the same. There is a sense of approval by the group and of acceptance into it. The new recruit is totally unaware of the double agenda that’s operating.”

“Don’t they eventually see what’s happening?”

“Usually new members are encouraged to break all contact with friends and family, to cut themselves off from their former networks. Sometimes they’re taken to isolated places. Farms. Communes. Chalets.

“This isolation, both physical and social, strips them of their normal support systems and increases their sense of personal powerlessness and need for group
acceptance. It also eliminates the normal sounding boards we all use for evaluating what we’re being told. The person’s confidence in his or her own judgment and perception deteriorates. Independent action becomes impossible.”

I thought of Dom and his group on Saint Helena.

“I can see how a cult has control if you live under its roof twenty-four hours a day, but what if members work outside the headquarters?”

“Easy. Members are given instructions to do chants or meditation whenever they’re not working. Lunch hour. Coffee break. The mind is occupied by cult-directed behaviors. And outside the job all their time is devoted to the organization.”

“But what is the appeal? What drives someone to reject his past and turn himself over to a sect?”

I couldn’t wrap my mind around this. Were Kathryn and the others automatons, controlled in their every move?

“There is a system of rewards and punishments. If the member behaves, talks, and thinks appropriately he or she is loved by the leader and by the peer group. And, of course, he or she will be saved. Enlightened. Taken to another world. Whatever the ideology promises.”

“What
do
they promise?”

“You name it. Not all cults are religious. The public has that idea because back in the sixties and seventies a lot of groups registered as churches for the tax break. Cults come in all shapes and sizes and promise all kinds of benefits. Health. Overthrow of the government. A trip to outer space. Immortality.”

“I still don’t see why anyone but a nutcase would fall for such crap.”

“Not at all.” He shook his head. “It’s not just marginal
people who get sucked in. In some studies approximately two thirds of the respondents came from normal families and were demonstrating age-appropriate behavior when they entered a cult.”

I looked at the tiny Navajo rug beneath my feet. The mental itch was back. What was it? Why couldn’t I bring it to the surface?

“Has your research shed light on why people seek out these movements?”

“Often they don’t. These groups seek you. And as I’ve said, these leaders can be incredibly charming and persuasive.”

Dom Owens fit that description. Who was he? An ideologue forcing his whims on malleable followers? Or just a health-fad prophet trying to grow organic butter beans?

Again I thought of Daisy Jeannotte. Was she right? Had the public become overly fearful of Satan worshipers and doomsday prophets?

“How many cults exist in the U.S.?” I asked.

“Depending on your definition”—he gave a wry smile and spread his hands—“anywhere from three to five thousand.”

“You’re kidding.”

“One of my colleagues estimates that over the past two decades as many as twenty million people have had some involvement with a cult. She believes that at any given time the number is two to five million people.”

“Do you agree?” I was astounded.

“It’s awfully hard to know. Some groups inflate their numbers by counting as a member anyone who ever attended a meeting or requested information. Others are very secretive, and keep as low a profile as possible. The police discover some groups only indirectly, if
there’s a problem, or if a member leaves and files a complaint. The small ones are particularly hard to track.”

“Ever hear of Dom Owens?”

He shook his head. “What’s the name of his group?”

“They don’t use one.”

Down the hall a printer whirred to life.

“Are there any organizations in the Carolinas that the police are monitoring?”

“Not my area, Tempe. I’m a sociologist. I can tell you how these groups work, but not necessarily who’s at the plate at any given time. I can try to find out if it’s important.”

“I just don’t get it, Red. How can people be so gullible?”

“It’s seductive to think that you’re elite. Chosen. Most cults teach their members that only they are enlightened and everyone else in the world is left out. Lesser in some way. It’s powerful stuff.”

“Red, are these groups violent?”

“Most aren’t, but there are the exceptions. There was Jonestown, Waco, Heaven’s Gate, and the Solar Temple. Obviously their members didn’t fare too well. Remember the Rajneesh cult? They attempted to poison the water supply in some town in Oregon, and made threatening moves toward the county officials. And Synanon? Those fine citizens placed a diamondback in the mailbox of a lawyer who brought suit against them. The guy barely survived.”

I vaguely recalled the incident.

“What about small groups, the ones with less profile?”

“Most are harmless, but some are sophisticated and potentially dangerous. I can think of only a few that have crossed the line in recent years. Does this have to do with a case?”

“Yeah. No. I’m not sure.” I picked at a hangnail on my thumb.

He hesitated. “Is it Katy?”

“What?”

“Is Katy involved with . . .”

“Oh no, nothing like that. Really. It’s related to a case. I came across this commune in Beaufort and they got me thinking.”

The border of my nail began to bleed.

“Dom Owens.”

I nodded.

“Things aren’t always what they seem.”

“No.”

“I can make a few calls if you’d like.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“Do you want a Band-Aid?”

I dropped my hands and stood.

“No, thanks. I really won’t keep you any longer. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Any more questions, you know where I am.”

*   *   *

Back in my office, I sat and watched shadows lengthen across the room, the feeling of an unformed thought still teasing my mind. The building was heavy with after-hours quiet.

Was it Daisy Jeannotte? I’d forgotten to ask Red if he knew her. Was that it?

No.

What was it that kept calling from the labyrinth of my neural wiring? Why couldn’t I drag it into consciousness? What link did my id see that I did not?

My eyes fell on the small collection of mystery writers I keep on campus for exchange with colleagues. What did these authors call it? The “Had-I-But-Known”
technique. Was that it? Was tragedy approaching because of a subconscious message I couldn’t manage to retrieve?

What tragedy? Another death in Quebec? More killings in Beaufort? Harm to Kathryn? Another attack on me, with more serious consequences?

Somewhere a phone rang and rang, then stopped abruptly as the messaging service cut in. Silence.

I tried Pete’s number again. No answer. He was probably off on another deposition trip. It didn’t matter. I knew Birdie wasn’t there.

I got up and started filing papers, sorted through a stack of reprints, then switched to shelving books. I knew it was avoidance, but couldn’t help myself. The thought of going home was unbearable.

Ten minutes of restless activity. Don’t think. Then,

“Oh hell, Birdie!”

I slammed a copy of
Baboon Ecology
onto the desk and slumped into my chair.