Hidden Pearl (32 page)

"Pure ambrosia--food for the gods."

"Sounds promising. Do I need to leave an offering?"

Hank grinned. "Well, the way you managed to mess up your face, I'm not sure. I had hoped to have you enough in my debt that I could set you up in front of my camera, but until you heal, it would be pointless."

"The way my life's been going lately, you may have a long wait."

"I have noticed a decided tendency to get yourself into damaging situations. Has that been a lifelong habit?"

"I only recently started to consider that it might."

"The proverbial death wish."

"Not going quite that far, I hope."

"The mythic hero of ancient times, going off to do battle with the dragons, no thought of safety, no preparations for survival--a death wish in Freudian terms."

S.T. laughed. "How much do you know about Freud?"

"Not much. I'm more of a Jungian myself. A modified Jungian since I'm also a Catholic."

S.T. knew he was going to lose if he tried to discuss any of this but asked anyway, "Exactly what is a modified Jungian or for that matter a Jungian?"

"I take it, as well as not being a student of mythology, you are not a fan of psychology," Hank suggested.

"Bingo. I was too busy learning how to plot a line that intersected another where it was supposed to."

"Well, as a photographer, I thought I should know the ways of man. I could have done as Chris did--study anthropology, but the inner workings of the mind, the whys of human action and interaction interested me more."

"You find it applies much?"

Hank grinned. "It's great when I'm shooting a wedding supposedly for the money, but I turn the photographs into a journal on the real emotions behind the people's actions—modifying the negative aspects, of course, since I want to hear from those families again."

Christine pushed open the kitchen door. "You're a wicked man, Hank Brannigan."

He smiled innocently. "I just take my amusement where I can."

"Like all those shots you took of S.T.  while he was sleeping?" she suggested.

S.T. rose out of his chair, then subsided back as pain shot through his side. "He didn't," he growled.

"No," she said, kissing the top of S.T.'s head and smoothing down his long, black hair. "But he did suggest he would like to."

"I'd have called it the 'Wounded Hero' series," Hank lamented. "I'd have taken prizes for it everywhere. Especially if our beautiful Christine would have let me photograph her sitting beside the bed, her long blond hair flowing onto your chest, your limp hand in her delicate fingers. It was a powerful moment. Unfortunately she was resistant."

"Thank God," S.T. muttered.

"Not to interrupt your tormenting of S.T., but I think I found something interesting." Christine sat on the chair next to S.T. and put a yellow pad full of her notes on the table in front of her.

"You found our boy."

"Make that plural," she said with a proud grin. “I checked the bulletin board again and someone anonymously had left a tip to check on Louis Price. I started a new search and found several references.”

S.T. raised his brows questioningly, but Hank was more direct. “Come on, lady. Give us the dope.”

Christine smiled and looked down at her notes. "There were several newspaper articles, and then some blogs to add to it.”

“Blogs?” S.T. asked.

“Personal journals online which can be like little editorial boards. They also show up on searches. Anyway the earliest reference to Louis had him working under a minister named Zebediah Crawford.”

Hank chuckled. “That name for real?”

“If you want to hear this, be quiet,” Christine ordered. “Louis gradually took over the church and from what I could tell Zebediah anointed him as the new leader before he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“There were rumors,” Christine said, looking up, her eyes troubled, “but nothing definite ever turned up. Louis built up the church with the help of his brother Herbert and they began fund raising to build a conference center. Between mails and direct solicitation, quite a lot was raised, but nothing was built. Finally someone got suspicious, investigations were launched. The brothers were charged with mail fraud. Herbert was let off on probation beings he wasn’t the main instigator—so far as they knew. Louis did a year and a half. When he got out, he vanished.”

"Where’s the proof that he was Soul?"

"In one of the articles, there were pictures of the arrest. Louis Price is definitely a less suave and younger Peter Soul."

"And you think Herbert is George?" S.T. asked shifting in his chair to look at her.

"It would fit.”

“Is that likely to be their real names or might we peel these onions to a lower level yet?”

“I belong to a genealogy site and looked there. It seems to me these are their names.”

“So the trained dog is an act, and George probably has as much say in what happens as Peter.”

"Likely one of them deals with one set of customers and the other another," Hank said.

“The question is whether this is enough to go to the police,” S.T. said as he considered the known facts. “If they figure we are onto them, they could either disappear, or if there really are graves, move them and we’d have nothing. Not illegal to change names.”

“The scary part,” Christine said, “is with them being brothers, and the whole relationship a scam, we don’t know that it’s not George who runs things… The dangerous one like Jerry told us when he saw his photo."

"You found something else?" S.T. asked, wishing his head was clearer.

"When I saw there was a Herbert Price, I began to look for his record, anything I could find. He also spent time in prison earlier. In one of the pieces, it said that when George was seventeen, he nearly beat a man to death. The only thing that saved him from prison was his age and the guy not pressing charges; in fact, vowing he'd work against the courts if the case went to trial. The D.A. settled for a misdemeanor."

"Well we did know George is scary," S.T. said, rubbing the back of his neck. Christine moved behind him and began massaging the large muscles of his shoulders.

"You said when you made him mad, you saw him change. I’m thinking his submissiveness is just a thin veneer over a volcano." She loosened a button on his shirt, giving her greater access to his shoulders and also distracting him for the moment by her touch against his skin. He wondered how Hank would feel about the two of them taking a nap and then reminded himself something serious was being discussed. He grunted as she began working a particularly sore spot in the long muscle heading down his back.

Hank rested his foot on one of the chairs, leaning forward to look at Christine’s notes. “Anything more?”

She shook her head. “Not so far, but maybe Jerry could access some stuff we cannot.”

Hank moved around to sit at the table. "So where does this leave us?"

"Us?" S.T. repeated.

"I'm in. Call it my fighting Irish spirit, but I'm going to see this to the end."

"You know how dangerous it is," Christine reminded him.

"I know these guys aren't playing games, but I’ve had a little experience with religious fraud myself, and I want my share in bringing them down. So what's the plan?"

“What experience?” Christine asked. This was a story Hank had never shared with her.

“When my mother was widowed--about ten years ago, a guy came around, courted her, married her, then used his so-called church to take her for everything she had. He did it all legal enough that there was nothing could be done about it. If there’s anyway to do it, I want my piece of nailing scum like that.”

"Before you decide, there is something else not related to the search," Christine said. "Remember I mentioned the forums?"

"Yeah."

"The tip wasn’t the only message. Actually there’d been a threat earlier.” She looked into S.T.’s eyes, ignoring his growing scowl. “I didn’t say anything because I didn’t think it would stop
you
. That guy had called himself follower of the master or something like that."

"And?"

"The first says, 'Beware you who would search into the depths of that which you do not understand. Soul is the Antichrist. All who would attack him face power beyond the physical.' The other--'People who join Servants of Grace have a way of disappearing. If you don't want that to happen to you, stay away from those who run the work. Tell me where Zebediah Crawford, Marian Shipley, Donald Sanders, and Shonna Taggert are today.'" She stopped, glancing down at S.T.'s set face, then read the rest. "'Ask Soul about these names. They all trusted him one time too many.'"

There was a silence that was broken only by the sound of the spaghetti sauce bubbling on the stove. Then Hank said, "You figured it was something like that."

"I wanted to be wrong," S.T. admitted. He wanted to believe he’d have another chance to be a brother to Shonna. So much for hope.

"There were two more," Christine said, "supportive of him, that denied the words of the others, but the wording in them was so much alike that I think maybe the same person put them in the threads."

"I'm so sorry," Christine said when she saw the muscle twitch in S.T.’s jaw, his eyes take on a bleak cast. "The thing is anybody can post somewhere like that. It’s even possible George or Peter did it make you angry enough to come back knowing it wasn’t evidence in any realistic way."

"So, possibly there is more than one grave up there." The thought was ugly but would likely make finding the site easier. That is if they buried them together. They  would not have had to nor did they have to even bury them on their own land; but the risk of someone else finding a grave would be reduced if they could protect the site.

"How do we find them?" Hank asked, leaving the table to stir the sauce.

"I wish you'd both stay here," S.T. said, wincing when Christine's fingers tightened on his neck, pinching the skin. "Did you do that on purpose?" he asked.

“Nervous twitch.”

His grin was thoughtful. The sound of the buzzer in Hank's front office ended whatever else she might have said.

"A customer?" S.T. asked, looking at Hank.

"Not after six," he said, then headed for the studio.

"Wait," S.T. said rising himself, awkwardly but adequately.

"For what?"

"I'll get my gun and wait in your office."

"I don't like guns," Hank growled.

"I have a permit for it. Sometimes they prevent worse things from happening," S.T. said, not bothering to argue with him as he headed for his room.

"I can't believe it's necessary," Hank shot after him.

"A lot of things I haven't thought necessary have turned out badly," S.T.  said over his shoulder. "This time we won't take a chance. If it's them, bluff your way through it if you can. I won’t come out unless it turns ugly."

Christine stared blankly at the door through which S.T. had gone. "It'll be okay," Hank said, patting her shoulder.

"Except when?" she asked. "When can we stop being afraid? When will this be over?"