“Bizarre,” I said, unable to pull my eyes from the screen. “Is that all there is?”
Harry held up a finger. “He’s got a coda.”
I turned back to the monitor. Scaler was dabbing his head and face with the handkerchief again. Beads of sweat had gathered in the thick folds beneath his tragic eyes. He tucked away the cloth and turned back to the watchdog lens.
“Excuse me. I wanted to get this recorded before my will failed. Sometimes the best place to hide a truth is in plain sight. Thus it will live in the Tower of Babel. I have made mistakes, I have walked a lie. I have been led astray by false companions over years. If I don’t falter, many things will soon come to light. I will tell you the truth through the Trinity, and what I now believe to be –” Scaler put one finger atop the other to indicate a capital letter – “the Truth.” He slid his finger down to the first digit, forming a cross. “The Way and the Light,” he whispered.
He stared at his gesture. His hands fell to his lap and he began weeping. I saw him reach for the white remote control and the video died.
“It’s cryptic deluxe,” I said. “The ravings of a madman?”
“Actually, it’s making more sense to me,” Harry said. “I think Scaler himself put the video on the web. Hiding his truth in plain sight.”
“The Tower of Babel,” I said, suddenly catching Harry’s drift. “His video tucked away with ten million others. One grain of sand in an hourglass.”
“But what’s this ‘truth’ he’s talking about?” Harry said.
“The parable, the analogy to the house…I figure house either pertains to himself, or to his empire.”
“I like the second one, myself,” Harry concurred, sighing and flicking the computer off. “The empire as his house of worship, the church enterprises, fits well with the parable house. But Scaler and the institution were pretty much one and the same, so it could be representative of both.”
“In either case, something’s been built on sand,” I noted. “But he didn’t know that until the ‘expert’ did work for Scaler, work seeming to undermine Scaler’s mysterious edifice. Is the expert Christ?”
Harry frowned and tumbled it through his head.
“Not making the nut for me. There’s something in it that doesn’t have the reverent tone I’d expect if Scaler was using Jesus as his expert.”
“It’s Richard Scaler, bro. The scuzzball would –”
Harry waved me silent. “For thirty years I’ve been looking at Scaler and every time I did I swear I could smell something bad in the room. But now that I’ve been through his sermons and tapes a dozen times…” He shrugged, like he couldn’t understand his coming words. “I believe he’s sincere.”
“Sincere?”
“The bible has passages of great compassion and love, often butted against passages of vengeance and pain. It seems to me that self-titled men of God define themselves through the passages upon which they build their theology. I don’t agree with Scaler’s selection. But I think the guy actually felt he was following scripture.”
“Scaler?” I scoffed. “He was an ignorant cracker bullshit salesman.”
Harry said, “A girlfriend gave me a book of poems by a guy from the sixties, Richard Brautigan. He had a short poem about a schoolroom where once a day the teacher pulled a red wagon across the floor and that was all the kids knew.”
I waved my hand in front of his eyes, said, “Earth to Harry.”
“Don’t you get it, Carson? If that’s all you’re taught, that’s all you know. Especially if it starts when you’re in the cradle.”
“You’re giving Scaler a pass because he’s been a preacher for fifty-odd years?”
“I give Scaler a semi-pass because I suspect he got pumped full of fundamental hate-ology as a kid.”
“Just because you start life as a blank slate doesn’t mean accepting what others write there.”
“I don’t understand that level of self-delusion, Carson, but I understand the process that creates it: Endless spewing of hate and aspersions. To deny a parental belief questions the entire family.”
“You think Mrs Scaler might help make sense of this?” I said. “Hubby’s weird monologue?”
“You’ve been there, so it’s your call.”
I pulled my black briefcase from beneath the desk. I kept my old Apple iBook in it, used the computer for moving files from work to home. I pulled out the computer and handed it to Harry.
“Let’s give the lady a show.”
The housekeeper led me into the Scalers’ home. She wore an apron and had a feather duster tucked in the strap. I was surprised to find the living room painted rose instead of the white I recalled. Accents were scarlet and sun-yellow, a bold deployment of color. I smelled fresh paint in the air. Saw ladders and drop-cloths.
“Is Mr Fossie around?” I asked.
“Mee-star Foss-see he ees een the room named Jim,” she said.
“Si.” She began pumping her arms up and down.
“Ah,” I said. “Gracias.”
Wandering to the back of the house, I heard a moan and a squeaking sound and stuck my head in the exercise room, the gym. Fossie was sitting on a quadrilaterals machine, legs under the padded bar, trying to lift with the pin in the fifteen-pound block. He saw me and, startled, let the block clank down all of the four inches of elevation he had managed.
Fossie unwrapped himself from the machine clumsily as I pretended to look the other way. He did a couple of side stretches and a toe-touch attempt, making as if shaking off a major-league workout.
“She’s having the place re-painted?” I asked, nodding toward a stack of folded drop-cloths.
He dabbed his face with a towel and nodded. “The rooms have too many memories. Patricia wanted the change.”
“You’re spending a fair amount of time here, I take it?”
“I have the time, and it makes Patricia feel secure to have me here. At least until she’s better. How are you feeling?”
“I’m sleeping better. And I think some of my energy’s returning. It comes and goes.”
“Good. But returning your body and mind to a balanced state doesn’t come as quickly as getting a shot of penicillin for an infection. Regimen is the key. Keep taking the vites and avoid processed food. Don’t stay up late. I’ll drop off more vitamins when I’m out on Dauphin Island in a day or two. Maybe add a bit of Tibetan ginseng to the mix, perhaps some kelp.”
I nodded my thanks and started to climb the stairs, but paused.
“Mr Fossie?”
“Yes?”
“Have you had any luck looking for…” I ended the sentence with a raised eyebrow, got a look of guilt in return.
“I-I will. It feels strange to look through things that aren’t mine. Like I’m ransacking.”
“Don’t do anything that makes you feel ill at ease,” I said. “But you’re the one who wanted us to uncover more about Richard Scaler.”
He nodded and looked happy to retreat. I continued up the stairs and knocked on the door.
“Mrs Scaler? It’s Detective Ryder. May I come in?”
“Just a second, please.”
Her voice sounded as faded as the last time, a tired wisp of sound. The second-hand of my watch made three revolutions until I heard the voice again.
“Come in, sir.”
Patricia Scaler was a-bed, one that configured every whichaway. It was a huge bed, king-sized at least, and she had the head elevated. She seemed lost inside a fluffy yellow robe, the sleeves at her fingertips; her husband’s robe.
“How may I help you, sir?”
“I need you to help me make sense of something odd, ma’am.”
“Your words frighten me, sir. But I’ll do what I can.”
I pulled the laptop from my flight bag. “Are you familiar with sites like YouTube?”
“A warehouse for pictures? Richard mentioned it.”
“You’re basically right. YouTube is a huge data-bank, hundreds of thousands of videos that –”
“Who keeps all the videos?”
“Pardon?”
“Who sorts and arranges all the videos? Is it like the Mormons having all the names inside the mountain? And who sends you the pictures when you want to see them?”
“It’s all digital, ma’am. The videos are in computer code. They’re kept in computer memory.” I wondered if she’d ever used a computer.
“What a scary world it’s become,” she whispered. I wondered if I held up the granola bar in my bag would it frighten her? Behold the amazing concoction of grains and raisins! I also wondered if she’d ever been under the care of a shrink to help her counter her timidity.
I turned my laptop so Mrs Scaler could see the screen. She was emotionless as the odd video played, either thinking so hard it overwhelmed expression, or trying to blot out thought. When the screen faded to black, her hand reached out and covered mine.
“This, this storehouse…did it tell you how the pictures of Richard got there? Where they came from?”
“There are ways to prevent that sort of thing, though we’ll try. Did you understand anything Richard was talking about?”
“No. Richard was having…one of his bad days. Like I told you about.”
“Would you know the expert he refers to?”
“God? The divine specialist in everything?”
“Um, I get the impression this was someone your husband hired. A less omniscient expert.”
“I wouldn’t know, Richard was gone so often. He’d go out at night, be gone for hours. I was terrified the police would stop him. Then I wanted them to. To make him see into himself, to stop.”
“To see himself doing what?”
She looked away. “He’d come in and go to his bedroom. There was the smell of strong drink. And strange perfume. And smells I couldn’t identify, ugly things.”
“No one else saw this?”
“We’d do the show and he was Richard, then we’d get away from all the workers and audience and people from the college, and he became someone else.”
She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. I turned the laptop off, waited for it to beep itself to sleep. I noticed Mrs Scaler’s mouth was less puffed, the damaged teeth attended to, perhaps with temporary crowns. She had put on a bit of make-up, giving her pale face a semblance of color.
“You’ve had dental work done, I take it?” I said, small-talk to fill the dead air.
“The restoration is just starting. But little by little God is fixing my body.” The eyes turned expectant. “Will I see you again, sir? I hope to.”
“I…truly don’t know, Mrs Scaler.” I stood.
“May I see you to the door?” she said. “I’d very much like that.”
“Certainly.”
“Let me visit the little girl’s room first.”
She sat up and tugged the robe tight, slipped her small feet into the slippers and padded off to a dressing closet. My gaze fell over her tight-robed derriere and watched it bob in a rhythmic motion before shame pulled my eyes away.
I took a final look at the room, saw a photo on a corner dresser that caught my eye, drew me over. I hadn’t seen it before.
It was an eight-by-ten head shot of a woman, typical portrait pic. A relative of Patricia Scaler, I figured; there was a family resemblance in the eyes and ovoid facial structure. But where Patricia Scaler was plain at best, the other woman was lovely, with a fairy-princess nose and straight and gleaming white teeth behind lips so full I wondered if they were enhanced. Her cheekbones were model-high, her jaw firm and symmetrical. Bright highlights shone in rich auburn hair. Her skin was firm and tight and she looked in her mid thirties.
Though the woman was – in the jargon – a hottie, the photo itself seemed cold and mechanical. There was a name printed lower right: Blackburn Studios.
I heard a throat cleared at my back. Mrs Scaler had returned so quietly I hadn’t heard her. She was in a loose-fitting pantsuit and watching me study the photograph.
“I, uh…”
“Don’t be embarrassed, sir. You’re a policeman. I expect you’re allowed to search my room.”
“I, uh, wasn’t searching, ma’am. I was just looking and saw the, uh…”
“The picture. It drew you in, right? Like it was calling you?”
“I have to admit it did.”
“That’s my sister. Isn’t she lovely?”
“She is rather attractive, Mrs Scaler.”
Her eyes fixed on me. There was something in them I couldn’t read.
“Rather attractive, sir? Some say she’s gorgeous.”
I smiled and set the picture down. “Your sister’s very pretty.”
“She has her pick of men, you know. A banquet. But she’s very selective.”
“Pardon me?” For a moment I felt as if I’d wandered into a chapter of Great Expectations, Miss Havisham speaking to young Pip. It fit in its own small and sad way, aspects of Mrs Scaler seemingly minted in Victorian times.
We walked slowly downstairs, crossed the room to the door. Patricia Scaler held out her hand. It was surprisingly firm and I figured she gardened.
“I wanted to thank you for your time, sir. I’m sorry you had to listen to the failures of the lives in this house.”
“May I make a suggestion, ma’am?” I asked. “I don’t mean offense, it’s just my take.”
“Of course, sir.”
“You can’t change the past, but you have a much different future than you did a few days ago. That’s the direction I’d be looking.”
I went back to the department and grabbed Harry. We had two more dominatrixes on our list supplied by Mistress Layla, one of them over in Pensacola. We did the visits and the interviews and came up empty-handed. We were running out of leads, and left with the horrible feeling that, unless forensics pulled some kind of evidence from the cabin, or someone unknown stepped forward with new information, the case would always have a question mark at the end.
We got back to town at seven in the evening. Harry tottered off for his fix of Noelle, and I stopped by a health-food store for organic brown rice and quinoa, another of Fossie’s recommendations. By the time I got home, I was too tired to fix anything and fell asleep on the floor watching Andy Griffith re-runs. Somewhere in the night I dreamed of the beautiful woman who was Patricia Scaler’s sister, jolting awake with her breath in my throat.