Enigma (6 page)

* * * *

When I got to the reception area, Colin was waiting for me. He practically dragged me into the elevator, down the hall, and into Kommen’s office. What I guessed to be the letter was the lone object on the gleaming expanse of the big desk, but Andrew Kommen was standing at the window, hands clasped behind his back. He didn’t turn around when Colin ushered me in and then backed out, closing the door behind him.

“You said there would be another letter with the lyrics of that other song. You were right.” It felt odd, getting that acknowledgment from him.

I walked to the desk and picked up the letter.

June 15, 2009 — In honor of the approaching Solstice, REPENT!

“Return to Innocence”

Here it was, the famous song. Redemption, wild joy, and innocence. And then at the bottom, paydirt. Literally.

PS — To avoid complete destruction of the Abundant Life and Gospel Ministry Church have two cases, each containing $144,000 USD in non-traceable bills at Stelnach, Kommen and Breyer, ready for delivery, at 1:00 pm on Thursday, June 18th.

The traces of this letter’s origin were still fresh and easy to feel. A vortex of old pain, acute grief, and rage churned through me. I immediately recognized that particular blend of misery. I’d sat across from it for an hour last Friday. James Richardson had sent this letter, I was certain of it. I wasn’t ready to share that little discovery with Kommen just yet.

“Well, now it’s officially blackmail,” I said. “Or extortion, if you prefer.”

“I don’t prefer,” Kommen snapped without turning around. “I want a report. What progress have you made?”

“Actually, I’m pretty close to being able to provide you with Enigma’s identity,” I said. That got his attention. He turned around, his face comical with surprise.

“I have a few more things to confirm,” I continued, “but I should be finished with the investigation by Wednesday. That would be the seventeenth.”

I put the letter back on his desk. “My unsolicited recommendation is to have the money ready for Thursday as Enigma requested. I believe he can make good on his threat.”

“Your unsolicited recommendation is a crock of shit,” he spat. I watched him wrestle with his curiosity and lose. “He?”

“Yes, he.” I shrugged. “Ignore my advice if you wish. But if I’m right about Enigma, you’ll wish you’d listened.” I paused, almost feeling a little sorry for him. “That said, if I’m right, you won’t like my answer no matter what.”

Kommen leaned forward on his desk. “I insist you tell me who you suspect.” I hoped he wasn’t going to pound his fist on it, because I knew that in spite of my best efforts to the contrary, I’d laugh out loud at him.

“I will. On Wednesday. Keep a half-hour slot in your morning open for me, any time after ten o’clock. Reverend Richardson should be present, too. I’ll call Colin sometime tomorrow to get the appointment time.”

I drove home. I’d never solved a case where I’d known so little about what had happened in it.

Once I’d settled in my favorite armchair with a cup of coffee, I put
The Cross of Changes
CD in my computer and copied “Return to Innocence” onto my desktop. Then I dialed James’ cell.

“I recognized your number, Mr. Morgan,” he began. “I was wondering if you might call today.”

“And here I am.” I tried to sound light and conversational, but really, how do you ask a blackmailer if he knew he’d just sent another letter? I figured the direct approach was best. “Did you know that another letter arrived at Kommen’s office?”

“I’ve heard.” James’ voice was cautious, but to my surprise, completely unafraid. Happy, in fact.

“I’d like to talk to you about it, but somewhere…” I hunted for a diplomatic word for ‘well away from everyone else’, “neutral. Is it easy for you to meet, say, at Washington Park around lunch time tomorrow?”

There was a tiny hesitation. “Just checking. Sure. I can do that.”

“Great. Let’s meet at the parking lot on the west side of the lake. Bring a sandwich, and we can find some shade, eat while we talk.”

“Sounds like a plan. What time?”

“Can you do early? Eleven-thirty?”

“Sure. See you then.”

I sat for a moment, letting the conversation recede. On a hunch, I sent one of my favorite poems of all time to the printer downstairs.

Then I didn’t want to think about the Richardsons or their problems anymore. I needed to focus on something else. I remembered getting an email from The Center, calling for LGBT volunteers to help with their new SAGE program outreach mailing. I’d see if they could use another volunteer for a few hours.

* * * *

I was waiting in Wash Park’s main lot when James climbed down out of his honking big SUV and waved a cheerful greeting. He must have known that I suspected, but he seemed strangely carefree, as if he was confident I couldn’t prove anything. Or maybe he truly didn’t care.

As he strode toward me, something about him struck me as different. His dark hair was now blond. I decided not to mention it.

We shook hands. His aura sparked happy excitement, and I got still more confused. Maybe I’d got the whole thing wrong. “Thanks for coming,” I said.

“Perfect day for a picnic,” he answered. “What did you bring?”

“I like the custom deli sandwiches at King Soopers,” I said. “Roast beef, cucumber, and provolone on light rye, with sprouts and lots of horseradish is my current favorite.”

He hoisted a Subway bag, grinning. “Meatball marinara with double extra cheese. A contraband treat. Don’t tell Leigh.”

“My lips are sealed,” I said, instantly struck by the irony. He must have got it, too, because he barked out a short laugh but didn’t say anything.

We strolled around the north end of the tiny lake, mostly in silence. All the benches seemed to be out in the open, and I was going to need shade.

“Do you mind sitting on the grass?” I asked. “I don’t do very well sitting in direct sun.”

He loosened his tie. “Shade is definitely preferable for me, too,” he said.

We found a cluster of trees right at the edge of the water and set up shop, unwrapping our sandwiches. I was still a little unnerved by James’ calm atmosphere. He was as relaxed as if we were old friends who’d done this a hundred times, having a routine lunch at a favorite spot.

When we finished eating, we stuffed our trash into the Subway bag. As if James could sense that I was unsure of how to start, he stretched languorously and said, “About that letter.”

“Yes.” In that instant, I saw how to begin. I reached into my bag and opened up my laptop. “I want to play something for you. The sound isn’t very good on my machine, but it’s good enough for you to get the drift.”

I clicked on “Return to Innocence”
and the media player blossomed into action. “Ayy-yi-YI, Oh, ayy-yi-yii…” the haunting call of the song rose around us like ancient spirits finally set free to dance.

James closed his eyes, and his aura swirled and pulsed in the same dance. Before the words began, he was crying. When the song ended, we sat in silence for a while as the conifers all around us breathed their scent down on us in pungent whispers.

James wiped his eyes. “I’m glad you figured it out. Now you can tell Kommen and Howard, collect your fee and move on.”

“And you? Won’t they press charges?”

His smile turned hard. “No, it’s time for me to move on, too. And they won’t press charges. I’ve had fifteen years to plan this. They can’t touch me.”

“Why? And I mean that question in the broadest sense. I’d like to understand.”

He leaned back on one elbow. “Is it good, living openly gay?” he asked. “I have no choice, nor do I want one, but I’m scared.”

I recognized that state, and compassion flooded me like a river breaching its banks. “It’s very good.” I closed my laptop and put it away. “There are surprises, though. Many of them unpleasant. Straight white men in this country are generally blind to how privileged their lives are. You will become part of a marginalized minority overnight, and that can be very scary.”

“But spiritually. There’s an inner life there, right? Something to navigate by, other than the physical?”

It was my turn to feel the burn of incipient tears. “Oh, yeah. It’s there, I promise. Maybe involving a religion or maybe not, but there’s a spiritual life for you as big as you have courage to make it.”

“It’s not easy, though, is it.” It wasn’t a question.

“Not for me, not so far. All the standard paradigms in our culture are tooled for straight people. You’ll have to build your own. It’s worth it, though.”

James sat up and brushed dirt from his sleeve. “Good. I needed to hear that. Thank you.” He stared out over the lake, his aura thoughtful and determined. I got a flash of him locking the door to his Highlands Ranch house and walking to a waiting cab, on his way to his new life. He wasn’t carrying luggage. I wondered about the children.

I waited for what I hoped was an appropriate length of time, given the magnitude of what he was facing.

“Can you tell me more about why, and some of how?” I asked quietly. “And about the kids? Not that any of that is really my business.”

Slowly, James turned to face me, as if coming back from very far away. “Sure. You’ll get most of the story Thursday when I come to Kommen’s office for the money and my grand exit.” He grinned. “You’ll have a front row seat for the fireworks. It’ll be worth every penny, I promise you.”

He looked back out over the lake. “The main reason,” he said in a calm voice, “is because Howard Richardson is a brutal, cunning animal with the conscience of a crocodile. His moral compass is self-aggrandizement and power. He trades on the suffering and hope of others like a trader on the floor of the stock exchange. His hubris…” James’s voice tightened, and he swallowed hard, “is about to be chastised.”

I stayed quiet. James’ profile was as grim, competent, and resolved as a soldier’s.

“As it affects me directly, Howard Richardson’s use of people started with my mother. She was the daughter of another prominent evangelist, Jimmy Evans. Howard worked for him as a junior pastor. She got pregnant, not by Howard, but someone else. I’ve never learned who. The scandal would have destroyed her father, and an abortion was, of course, out of the question.

“Maybe she confided in him, but somehow Howard learned about her situation. He approached her father with a deal: he would marry my mom, pretend the child was his, and in return he would inherit her dad’s ministry. That’s how Howard got his head start.”

James paused. It’s a powerful thing when someone tells a story that’s been kept at the bottom of the heart’s well for a long time. Each word seems to weigh fifty pounds, and it has to be hauled all the way up to the surface and into the daylight. It’s hard work. I gave him space, knowing that as much of the rest of the story as he wanted to tell me was already on its way.

“He used that knowledge to bully my mom into submission. He bullied me with it, too. When I was ten, he told me I wasn’t his son, and that I’d been conceived in sin. Said I should be grateful he’d rescued us both. He blackmailed us into the behavior he wanted from us.”

He threw a little stone into the lake. After it splashed, and the ripples softened away, he smiled as if he approved of the calm water. “The blackmailer is finally on the receiving end of the stick. Seems more than fair to me.”

He fell silent, but I could tell his heart was busy processing. “He even made me dye my hair dark so it would look like his. By the time he went for the phony silver wisdom look, it was too late to change.”

He turned to me with a broad grin and pointed to his head. “This is my real hair color, and I’m liking it a lot.”

I smiled and nodded acknowledgment. “I noticed. Looks good on you.”

“I’m going to pause the story in a minute, but there’s one more piece that you should hear today.

“My mother didn’t want me committed to reparative therapy. The plague was everywhere in 1993, and she was terrified for me, but she wanted to let me live my life.

“Howard was adamant, though. To his followers, my conversion would be another marquee triumph in his ministry. My mom refused to sign the commitment papers. Howard signed them, which he had no legal right to do, since he wasn’t my biological father and hadn’t adopted me. He couldn’t, because my birth certificate already said I was his son.

“But because of all the earlier lies, he got away with it. That’s when she started using tranquilizers. She’s been adrift ever since. I truly believe she’ll be happy I’m doing this.”

He stared out at the lake for a moment, and his aura softened into tenderness. “I love her, and I’ll miss her. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve arranged a way for us to stay in touch, maybe even get together once in a while. With or without Howard’s knowledge, I don’t care.”

He turned to face me, his energy hard again. “While I was a prisoner in that torture camp—which is what it was—I realized my only chance of surviving intact was to pretend I’d been healed. As fast as I could, I learned what they expected as results from my ‘sessions’ and fed it back to them. Theology was the key. The torture got less severe, and little rewards started showing up. More food. The occasional warm shower, with soap, even. Less slave duty. But it still wrecked me. After I got out, I couldn’t have an orgasm, even on my own, for at least two years without feeling sick to my stomach, followed by a kind of paralyzing dread that I have no words for.”

He turned toward me again and pulled off his tie, putting it in his jacket pocket. “An old saying goes that if you give a man enough rope, he’ll hang himself. I’ve given Howard fifteen years of rope. He’s now trapped in a web that he’s spun all by himself, and when all is said and done, he’ll be damn grateful I cost him so little.” He almost giggled. “Ooh. I said, ‘damn’! That felt good.”

He punched me on the shoulder like we were veteran teammates. “The rest of the story is for Thursday. Go give Kommen your solution. Let him know I’m Enigma, and that I’m not kidding about the money.”

He stood, and I followed suit. “I wish I could see his face when you tell him, but I’m prepared to forego that little pleasure.”