Megan
Armed with the search warrant, as well as her gun, pepper spray, and Taser, Detective Jackson led the way to the gate of the People of Peace compound. We four officers followed shoulder to shoulder, Brigit at my knee. There was no need to turn on a siren to get the attention of the inhabitants this time. Joshua Purcell was working guard duty in the deer blind. He’d already spotted us and jumped on his radio to announce our arrival.
“Hello, up there!” Jackson called to the man as we approached.
I raised a hand in greeting. “How are you today, Mr. Purcell?”
He didn’t respond to my question. Instead, he said, “What’s going on?”
Jackson raised the document. “Serving a search warrant. Come on down and let us in.”
“I can’t,” he said. “I don’t have a key. But Father Emmanuel is on his way.”
“Okeydoke,” she said nonchalantly. “Any chance you’ve got a gun up there with you?”
“No,” the man said. “The People of Peace abhor weapons.”
“Good to know.” She gave the rest of us a look that said Don’t trust him. He could be full of BS.
A moment later, Father Emmanuel appeared behind the second gate, dressed in his long brown robe. Today, he had the hood raised over his head.
Derek snorted. “What the fuck is that?” he muttered under his breath. “An Ewok?”
Jackson silenced him with a cutting glance.
Emmanuel gave us a nod in acknowledgment. “I see you’ve returned,” he called, offering a mirthless smile. “With friends.”
Jackson raised her hand. “We’ve got a warrant. You’ve got no choice but to let us in. No need to make this any more difficult than it has to be.”
He made no move to unlock the gate, but stared her down for a long moment before saying, “What is it that you seek, Detective?”
“Still looking for the girl,” she said. “She hasn’t been found.”
We’d strategized in the parking lot of the store and decided to stick with our earlier ruse, at least until we could get Zeke alone and question him about the baby. It would serve both our purposes and the purpose of the Baby Moses law. Zeke obviously knew the baby had been surrendered at a fire station, because he’d been the one to do it. Presumably Father Emmanuel knew of the baby’s surrender, too, though it was possible he did not. It could have been Zeke who called the lawyer. We’d be careful not to raise the issue with anyone but Zeke.
Father Emmanuel heaved a long-suffering sigh before pulling a key chain from his pocket, picking through the keys, and inserting one in the lock. He opened the gate and stepped through, walking up to a number pad mounted inside the gate where we waited. Before typing in the code he eyed us pointedly and said, “You’ll see that the People of Peace are just simple people with a simple way of living. I daresay you’ll be disappointed. We have absolutely nothing to hide.”
A paraphrase of the Shakespearean quote popped into my head. The man doth protest too much, methinks.
He punched in a code and the gate began to slide open.
Jackson waited only until it was wide enough for her to slip through sideways before proceeding. “Round up all your people,” she told Emmanuel. “Have them meet in the church.”
Though his jaw flexed, he said, “As you wish.” He looked up at Joshua in the deer blind and motioned for him to come down. “Come, brother. Let’s gather the flock.”
We officers waited near the open double doors of the church as the members streamed in, bewildered looks on their faces, some of them casting worried or irritated looks our way as they took in Brigit, us uniformed officers, and the weapons mounted on our belts. Jackson, Summer, and I offered warm smiles and greetings, doing our best to reassure the congregants that they had nothing to fear. Derek’s cocky smirk didn’t help, however. And while several of the women cast appreciative glances at Spalding’s muscular form, just as many men sent grudging glares his way. Evidently they didn’t like their captive brood realizing what they might be missing.
Eventually, purportedly everyone who lived in the compound was seated in the church, Father Emmanuel presiding over them from an ornate, high-backed throne to the side of the altar. Though Zeke sat in the front row, the claw marks on his face having faded somewhat, neither the young woman with the blue hat nor the young man who’d been tackled were in the room.
Jackson looked to me for verification of whether the two were present. I pretended to scratch my chafed cheek again, while discreetly shaking my head. They’re not here.
Jackson didn’t call Emmanuel’s bluff, though. Instead, she stepped up next to the altar. “Good afternoon, folks. We are very sorry to interrupt your busy day, but when I explain I am sure you will understand why we had to take this measure.” She pulled out the photograph of her niece and held it up. “This girl has been missing for several days now. Her name is Kendra. She ran away from her parents’ home not too far from here. Her mother has told me that Kendra had been going through a difficult and emotional time. Her friends had begun dabbling in drugs and alcohol and drifted away when she refused to participate. Her parents were having some marital problems, too. Kendra was in a very bad place emotionally and spiritually. We’ve been searching the area for her, and we simply need to confirm whether she came to your group looking for help.”
One of the toddlers who was sitting on his mother’s knee in the front row waved at Brigit. “Hi, doggie!” he cried happily.
While a few of the congregants chuckled or smiled, most remained stoic. These might be the People of Peace, but they looked like a bunch of party poopers.
Jackson gestured to the male officers. “Officers Spalding and Mackey will stay here with you, while the rest of us take a look around. We respect that this is your home, and we will be very careful not to disturb your personal property any more than necessary. When we return, we will release each of you one by one, and ask you some questions. Please know this type of thing is routine and there is nothing at all to be alarmed about. We hope that if any of you has some information about Kendra, you will share it with us. We’re not interested in prosecuting anyone here who might have helped her out, and we will gladly sign legal documents giving you immunity if you provide information. Our only goal here today is to find the young lady and return her to her parents.” Her spiel complete, she added, “I’d be happy to answer questions if you have any.”
She ran her eyes over the crowd, but not a single hand was raised. “Okay, then. We’ll get moving so that we can get you out of here as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation.”
With that, she signaled me, Brigit, and Summer to follow her out of the church. As the four of us made our way to the yellow schoolhouse, the unattended dogs trotted up to meet Brigit. While most exchanged friendly butt sniffs, the wolflike one Jebediah had brought to the gate the first time we’d come to the compound held back, watching warily from twenty feet away. At least he did until I tossed a liver treat his way. “Lighten up, buddy!”
He sniffed the treat where it fell on the ground, gobbled it up, then raised his head, wagging his tail now.
Jackson, Summer, Brigit, and I went into the schoolhouse. Forty or so desks and chairs in various heights were lined up in rows, the shorter ones on one side of the room, the taller ones on the other. Books lay open on the older students’ desks. A chalkboard bore the 8 times multiplication table.
Summer pointed to the blackboard. “That right there? That’s why I decided to become a cop. No math required.”
Actually, cops often had to add up significant sums of drug money or determine just how many grams of crystal meth a dealer had in his backpack. But I knew she was joking so no sense in pointing it out.
We opened the supply cabinet at the front of the classroom, but found no young man or woman hidden inside, only glue sticks, notebook paper, crayons, and colored pencils.
When we’d searched the building thoroughly, we headed back down the steps.
“You know what they didn’t have in there?” I said. “A geography textbook or a map.” No doubt they hoped to convince the children that the compound should be their whole world. That type of insular education was a disservice to the students.
We continued on to the next building, which was the garage. I reached down and grabbed the handle of one of the rolling doors. As it went up, it revealed several trucks, including the Chevy, the Dodge, and the Toyota. It also revealed the nineties-era Ford F-150, the truck Zeke had taken to the fire station.
“That’s it,” Jackson said. “That’s the truck the security cameras picked up.”
We proceeded methodically through the rest of the compound, looking under every bed in both bunkhouses, checking behind the curtains in the communal showers and the doors to the toilet stalls. Jackson even bent down to look up the wide chimney in the dining hall. There was no one hiding in the big pantry in the kitchen, nobody hiding between the sheets hanging from the clothesline. Inside the barns, we found the vats where the women dipped the candles, the tables where they worked on their quilts. We also found Proverbs 16:27 painted on the side wall—Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. The same quote appeared in the men’s barn, above a table saw.
While I stood back with Brigit securely leashed, Summer and the detective checked the chicken coop. The birds clucked and squawked and fluttered about inside the enclosure, clearly perturbed by the unexpected intrusion. One spread its wings and charged Summer, who slammed the door shut just in time to avoid being pecked. Bam!
“Those birds are crazy!” she cried.
When we reached the small structure I’d wondered about, I pulled the door open and looked inside. The only thing there was a queen-sized bed and a night table. As it dawned on me what this building was for, an “Ew!” leaped from my lips. I whispered to Jackson and Summer. “I think this is where the married couples go to have sex.”
Summer whispered back. “It’s no less disgusting in a whisper than at full volume.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “It just seems like the kind of thing you’re supposed to whisper about.”
Jackson’s lip curled. “This is a strange, strange place.” She whipped out a pair of latex gloves and put them on before lifting the covers to see if anyone was hiding under the bed and opening the drawer on the bedside table. She pulled out a strip of wrapped condoms. “You nailed it, Megan.”
I grimaced. I didn’t want to nail anything in this room.
Father Emmanuel’s house was spare and tidy. Though his furnishings were modest, his electronics were not. He had an expensive laptop computer on his kitchen table, along with a tablet. An enormous television, the only one we’d seen in the entire compound, was mounted to his bedroom wall.
Jackson retrieved his remote from the bedside table and turned the TV on, flipping through the channels. “He’s got the premium cable package. Figured as much.” She clicked the TV off and returned the remote to the table.
As we aimed for the church, we discussed what we had—and hadn’t—found.
“The only books other than the Bible were the textbooks in the school,” I said. How could people get by without mysteries and romances and thrillers to entertain them? I knew I couldn’t. The lack of books was another indicator that Father Emmanuel was keeping his people isolated from the outside world.
Summer added, “None of them seemed to have family photos. All of the pictures were of groups.”
“That’s all part of breaking down the family unit,” Jackson said. “Typical MO for these types of cults. They try to sever any bonds that aren’t connected to the leader or the group as a whole.”
That thought pained my heart. My family could drive me up the wall sometimes, but they meant the world to me. We shared not only DNA, but also a special bond forged by shared experiences and concerns. Could people here forge these intimate connections? Or had Father Emmanuel made it impossible?
We returned to the church, where we made a quick round of the restrooms in the foyer. Nothing.
Jackson led us back into the church, where she raised a conciliatory hand to the people inside. “Almost done, folks. Just need to check out the back of the church.”
Summer and I followed her through a door at the back that led directly from the pulpit to a large office. Bookcases filled with every Bible translation imaginable and a multitude of religious texts lined the walls. The Quran, sacred to those of the Muslim faith. The Hindus’ Bhagavad Gita. The Sikhs’ Guru Granth Sahib. The Buddhist Tripitaka. Judaism’s Talmud and Tanakh. The Tao Te Jing, the primary Taoist text. He even had a copy of the Wicca Book of Shadows. I still wasn’t sure whether Father Emmanuel was simply an odd duck or a total fraud, but if he’d read all of these books he must have an enormous knowledge of the world’s religions. Maybe I was lazy to simply follow the Catholic traditions of both my Irish and Mexican ancestors, but the Catholic faith seemed as good as any, and I found the familiar rituals comforting. Plus, I thought the stained-glass windows were pretty and I liked the smell of incense.
I wandered over to his desk. On the surface was a Bible tabbed with sticky notes. Next to it were notes he’d made, and what appeared to be the outline for a sermon that began with the well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace.
That verse covered just about every eventuality, didn’t it? Unfortunately, our time to seek was over, and we’d lost. We hadn’t found the dark-haired young woman in the blue knit cap, or the young man with the black eye.
Jackson exhaled sharply and glanced at her watch. “That was forty-seven minutes of our lives we’ll never get back.” She motioned for Summer and me to follow her. “The only thing left to do is talk to these folks.”
I whispered again. “I thought we weren’t supposed to mention the baby.”
“We won’t,” she whispered back. “Not directly, anyway.”
We went back into the church.
Jackson addressed the crowd from the pulpit. “Obviously, we didn’t find the girl here. Officer Spalding will dismiss you one by one. We’d like to speak with each of you individually. If there’s anything any of you know and would like to tell us, we will keep your identity secret. We won’t even ask your name. Okay?”
Emmanuel rose from his throne. A blue vein stood out on his neck. Good thing vampires didn’t really exist or they’d come straight for this guy and enjoy a feast.
Despite the throbbing artery, he managed to maintain his composure. “I mean no offense to you, Detective, but this is utter nonsense. My people are honest and law-abiding. If they know anything, they’d tell you, right here in front of everyone.” He paused for a millisecond before adding, “And God.”
“I’m certain they would,” the detective said. “But there are specific protocols we are required to follow, regardless of the circumstances.” With that, she stepped down from the pulpit and headed down the aisle. Summer, Brigit, and I headed after her.
Jackson addressed the man sitting on the aisle of the back row. “Please step outside with us, sir.” As he rose, she turned back to Summer. “Come stand at the door. When I raise my hand, you can call the next person out.”
The man walked out ahead of us, and Summer stopped at the door behind us, propping it open a few inches with her steel-toed shoe.
The man stopped at the bottom of the steps, but Jackson continued past him, motioning for him to follow us to a spot under a tree thirty yards away. “If you have seen the girl,” Jackson said, “even outside the refuge, please tell us.”
“I haven’t seen her,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
“All right,” she said. “Thank you, sir. You are free to go.”
With a nod, he headed off toward the barns.
Jackson lifted her hand and made a “come-here” gesture with her index finger. Summer opened the church door a little wider, and waved the next person in the pew outside. A middle-aged, auburn-haired woman ventured forth tentatively, walking as if she wasn’t sure her feet were worthy of touching the earth. Funny, because as meek as she was, she’d inherit it one day.
Jackson asked her the same question. “Have you seen the girl?”
“No.” The woman shook her head, her reddish locks swinging about her face. “I don’t know anything about her. I do hope she finds her way home, though. The world can be a scary place when you’re all alone.”
She seemed to be speaking from experience, but most of all, she was speaking. Maybe she’d tell us something we could use.
Jackson seemed to have had the same thought as I. “Indeed it can,” she agreed. She eyed the woman closely, lowering her voice. “Is there anything else that you’d like to talk about? Anything that’s caused you concern?”
“Like what?” the woman asked.
Jackson shrugged. “Anything at all.”
The woman didn’t bite. “No, ma’am. There’s nothing else.”
“Okay, then. You have a good day.”
We continued on, running through the same routine with person after person. Nobody seemed to want to tell us anything. Did that mean they had nothing to tell us, that they were in the dark? Or did that mean they were all in cahoots, keeping a dark secret? We had no way of knowing for sure, but my gut told me these people were being sincere.
The church door opened and one of the few remaining members stepped out, a petite woman in her forties. She had dark, silky hair, similar to the baby’s, with a few gray hairs sneaking into the mix. She resembled the young woman I’d seen in the garden. Could she be the baby’s grandmother?
Detective Jackson asked her the same questions she’d asked the others before her. “Do you know anything about the missing girl?”
“No,” the woman said. “I haven’t seen or heard anything about her.”
“Is there anything you would like to talk about while we’re here?” Jackson asked. “If there’s anything we can do to help you or your fellow church members, we’d be happy to help.”
The woman shook her head.
Before Jackson could dismiss her, I spoke up. “Do you have children or grandchildren, ma’am?”
The woman cut me a wary look. “Why do you ask?”
Jackson sent me a warning with her eyes. Be careful, Megan.
I chose my words cautiously. “It’s just that the mother and grandmother of the missing girl are heartbroken. I thought if you had children of your own, you might understand how it would feel to lose a child or grandchild. Maybe we could count on you to let us know if the girl shows up here later on.”
The woman looked into my eyes with a heavy gaze. My mind willed her to tell me whether she knew the pain of losing a grandchild, one that had been taken from their family. If this woman raised the subject, the magistrate couldn’t fault us for crossing the line, right?
Unfortunately, she revealed nothing, saying only, “If the girl comes here, surely Father Emmanuel will let you know.”
Jackson and I exchanged a look. Neither of us was sure of anything where the group’s leader was concerned.
The woman looked from me to the detective. “Am I free to go now?”
“Yes,” Jackson said. “Thanks for your time.”
Jebediah was the second-to-last congregant to exit the church and step over to speak with us. “How can I help you?”
“Still looking for the missing girl,” Jackson said.
He shook his head sympathetically. “Her parents must be beside themselves.” His demeanor today seemed very different than it had when we’d come by before. Then he’d been guarded. Today he seemed open. Ironically, I trusted him more when he seemed to trust us less.
“You know anything?” Jackson asked.
“About the girl?” he replied.
She cocked her head. “Something else you know about?”
Pink blotches blossomed on his cheeks. “No.” He rubbed his nose with a finger. Between the blush and the reflexive attempt to hide behind his hand, it was obvious he was lying to us. Jackson didn’t let on, though.
“Okay,” she said. “If the girl shows up, please give us a call.”
“I sure will.”
Finally, Zeke emerged from the church and came down the steps. He walked over and stopped in front of us, saying nothing.
“Hello, Zeke,” Jackson said.
His eyes narrowed on either side of his snub nose. “How do you know my name?”
Jackson didn’t flat-out lie to the man, but she did mislead him. “The church’s attorney spoke with Officer Luz.” She gestured to me. “He admitted what we already knew about the baby. That you left it at the fire station.”
His pupils flashed in alarm now and he turned instinctively to look back at the church, where Father Emmanuel sat inside and out of sight, waiting his turn to be called.
She raised a palm to calm him. “Please don’t worry,” she said. “You’ve done nothing illegal and we haven’t told anyone else that you surrendered the child.”
He said nothing, his expression still wary.
“We’ve come here only to find out who the baby’s mother is,” Jackson told him. “The foster parents want to adopt her, but the rights of the biological parents have to be terminated first. Since you are the one who surrendered the baby, there will be no issues where you’re concerned. But we need to find the mother so she can sign the paperwork to relinquish her parental rights, release the baby for adoption.”
Zeke opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, and glanced back at the church again, as if unsure how to proceed. Finally, he said, “The baby’s mother left the refuge. She didn’t want the baby and I wouldn’t have been able to raise it on my own.”
The baby is a she, I thought. Not an it.
Jackson said, “It’s perfectly understandable why you’d surrender a baby under those circumstances. We just need to know the mother’s name and how to get in touch with her so we can get the documentation taken care of.”
“You promise you aren’t going to tell anyone?” he asked. “I’ve told everyone that Eve left with the baby. I don’t want them to know I gave it up myself.”
“We won’t tell a soul,” Jackson said.
When he looked my way, I nodded in agreement.
“So the mother’s name is Eve?” the detective asked.
“Yes,” he said. “At least that was her chosen name. Most of us picked new names when we arrived here, to symbolize that we were starting a new life. I don’t even know what Eve’s name was before.”
Jackson’s expression turned sour. “Just Eve? That’s all you can tell me? No last name?”
“No. Not even Father Emmanuel has that information. I don’t know where Eve came from, or anything about her family. But our lawyer told us that it wouldn’t be a problem, that when a parent can’t be located the government can post notifications about the custody proceedings in the newspaper and that’s enough for things to move ahead.”
“That’s true,” Jackson acknowledged. “If the mother can’t be found it will have to be done that way. But it takes a lot longer. There’s a waiting period. The couple is anxious to get the adoption finalized, to know that the baby is officially theirs. I’m sure you can understand.”
“I get what you’re saying,” he said, “but I’ve told you everything I know. There’s no way to track the mother down. I have no idea where she came from or where she might have gone. She said she came here to forget the past and get a fresh start. She never talked about the life she had before joining us here.”
The needle on my bullshit meter was at one hundred percent. This story seemed so cut-and-dried, too neat and tidy to be true. Family-law matters were never so clean-cut. They were dirty and messy and ugly and complicated.
“I guess that’s that, then,” Jackson said. “Thanks for clearing things up. We’ll move ahead without the mother’s signature.”
He nodded and turned to leave.
Wait. What? The detective was going to let this liar go without confronting him? I knew she must have a strategy, but what was it? The young man and woman could be in danger. We couldn’t leave here without getting answers, could we? I doubted Zeke was the baby’s actual biological father. The baby was cute and dark-haired, while Zeke was unattractive and blond. And there was no way on God’s green earth that this so-called Eve was the baby’s mother. We’d come here to get answers, and I wasn’t leaving without getting at least one.
Before he could take a step, I blurted, “That birthmark sure was cute.”
He turned around.
“The heart-shaped one,” I said. “On your baby’s behind. I was the officer who responded when the guys at the fire station called to report the surrender. I saw the birthmark when I changed her diaper.”
Zeke stared at me a moment before saying only, “I hope she’ll have a happy life.” With that, he turned and walked away.