In a matter of an hour, and with the help of some handy software, I’d managed to crack Charles’s password. I accessed all his documents with ease, which included his attempt at a novel. I wouldn’t even call it a story. Perhaps it was his initial research. He’d compiled a bunch of facts about the strange movement. There were all these weird laws I couldn’t discern—things about what to eat on what day and who could lead which group. There were categories for each type of facet within the group. As interesting as all this was—and it might help Harper prove her husband’s frame of mind—an overwhelming sense of disappointment overtook me. There wasn’t anything specific I could use.
Everything seemed like nonsense to me, and not the smoking gun I’d hope for. When Beatrice had behaved the way she had, I’d thought I was going to find out that Charles had evidence that LJ killed his father and attacked me, and, dare I say, I also wished for an audio confession. There wasn’t anything like that on this computer. However, I continued to search Charles’s files.
I tapped on the document titled “The Legacy of Father Bingham. The picture he’d given me that matched the enlarged print in the Richardson home popped up on the screen. Someone had drawn a big circle around the tallest man’s head. A line drawn out to the side read “Father Bingham Folsom.” Folsom? Why was that name familiar? I took a sip of my Coke Zero. The next few people had names that didn’t ring a bell. But then I spied Leonard Richardson’s name, and though I’d suspected as much, it still shook me to read my mother’s and grandmother’s names. My grandmother had a massive X over her face, and my mother had what appeared to be an infinity symbol drawn next to her. Another girl, standing on the opposite side of Father Bingham, also had the same symbol.
Huh. I did a quick search on the computer. Yes! He had a document entitled “Symbols.” I scrolled down the doc and read that the infinity symbol meant future mothers of the movement.
My stomach turned. Were these girls supposed to be breeders? These crazy people had tagged my mother like an animal, to further the populace of their insane lifestyle. No wonder my grandmother had fled in the night. I wished I’d known her better. Finally, I understood why I’d found it so difficult to locate my mother and uncle’s past. I’d had their surname all wrong. Folsom. It clicked! The name Charles had freaked Uncle Calvin out by mentioning. He’d known all along who Calvin was and how he’d been adopted. How?
Going back to the image, I stared at the little face of my much younger teenage uncle. He had such a stern and angry appearance. Someone had drawn a line from Calvin’s picture and printed under his name “a future enforcer.”
I sat back and gaped. “What did y’all live through?” I said aloud.
I grabbed my laptop and went into my data bases to search Calvin Folsom. Nothing. I searched Mother’s name with the same result. I got a hit when I plugged in “Bingham Folsom.” News reports and old newspaper images came up on the screen.
“Local Raid on a Commune” one headline read. The date at the top of the paper read 1964.
Before dawn on July 26, 1964, 100 Oklahoma officers of public safety and soldiers from the Oklahoma National Guard entered the Plains Commune. The community—composed of approximately 200 minimalistic fundamentalists—had been tipped off about the planned raid after abuse reports were filed with the local police department by a previous member, and were packing up to leave. The group leader, known as Father Bingham Folsom, resisted arrest and incited violence by shouting orders to the elders within his movement, who attempted to attack arresting officers. The officers took the entire community into custody. Among those taken were 112 children. Seventy of the children who were taken into custody were not permitted to return to their parents. None of the children born in the commune were registered with the state of Oklahoma. Girls in the commune were forced to marry at 14, some to men as old as 70.
I couldn’t read anymore.
“Oh, Mother.” I felt ill.
My grandmother, the one with the massive X over her face, had reported the group and fled the commune in the middle of the night. I just knew it. She probably ran to save my mother, who would have become a child bride. No wonder my mother had struggled and wanted me to be so strong.
That man doesn’t deserve our sympathy. My bones chilled once again. She knew Leonard, and if she believed he planned on starting up another commune to abuse children, then by God, she was right. If only she’d confided in me and explained why she needed her life to be the way it was. Things would have been different between us. When she had me, she’d probably envisioned the life she’d never had. And when I became interested in true crime and working in the field, she believed she’d failed. Now she was trying to save Harper as her mother had saved her. Bless her heart. I saw my mother in a completely different light now. And my uncle. We’d all have to sit down and clear the air, wouldn’t we?
I wondered if Leonard had recruited Charles or if Charles had found Leonard. I felt confident that Charles planned to write about their past and tie it together in some mystery thriller. And it would be a great story—a story I could not let him write.
I sighed. Bea meant well, turning over the clues that would leave me to discover my family’s past. Yet I knew that in turn she wanted my help in sending her father’s murderer to jail. Which told me she didn’t believe it was Harper. I’d hold up my end and disentangle us from contributing to Charles’s story in the process. Or I’d try to.
My cell rang, and I glanced down and saw Mel’s face come up on the screen. I slid the green phone icon over to answer. “Hey, Mel. You on your way?” I was eager to share what I’d learned with my best friend. I had to tell someone.
“Hey,” Mel whispered, her face too close to the screen.
“Why are you whispering?” I closed the laptop and slid it back into the bag.
“Because I’m in my car. I finished up at the shop a while ago. Amelia called, and she and Ethan came down with the stomach bug.”
“Oh no.” Poor Amelia. I’d have to call and check in with her.
“Yes, but that’s not why I’m calling. She asked me to drop some ginger ale and other supplies at their front door. On my way back through town, you’ll never guess who I saw right in the middle of everything!”
“Who?” I picked up the phone.
“LJ Richardson and his band of weirdos.”
“What?”
“Yep. I drove around the square and parked in the second lot behind the new brewery, where I can keep and eye on them. I’m watching them right now, yucking it up and enjoying our local craft beers after LJ hurt you and while poor Harper is on house arrest. The jerk!” I could almost see steam emanating from my friend’s ears. She flipped the view around, and sure enough, I could see LJ dressed in a faded denim jacket and matching jeans, standing in a group of men laughing. “I’m just calling to say I’m going over there and mess him up. If something happens to me—”
“Melanie Smart! You stay put.” I was on my feet, grabbing my purse and shoving my feet into my shoes. “I’m coming to meet you.”