Jade Sky (13 page)

"What do I win if I have?"

She didn't reply.

"No, I haven't. What's up?"

"You put in a requisition for warrants on Conor Flynn's financial activity. The warrant cleared, and we pulled up his info. The only thing interesting is several credit-card purchases from Lake Barnacle. He spent three days at the Alligator Moon Motel four years ago February, or at least his credit cards did, and in that time he spent almost a grand on food, drink, and hardware supplies. Mostly the latter."

"Where is this place?"

"Not too far outside Forsyth, off Route 83."

He drew a blank trying to bring it to mind. "Nope. Not ringing a bell."

"The internet's pretty spotty on it, too. Population eighty, no post office, no church, no stores. A commune, they're Ben Case's 'family,' who moved there after being ousted from Savannah in '89." He could downright hear the quotations around "family."

"Why does 'Ben Case' sound familiar?"

"He claimed he was the love child of Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys and Marnie Reeves, whose real name is Patricia Krenwinkel."

"Krenwinkle. You mean Katie Krenwinkle?"

"That's right."

Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel had killed several people, including Abigail Folger of coffee fame, on the orders of Charles Manson in the late nineteen-sixties. "So this guy's a whackjob, and Flynn spent time with him?"

"Nobody stays at Lake Barnacle without his permission. It's a closed commune."

"Of whackjobs," Matt said.

"Not my place to judge," Janet replied.

"Are these guys dangerous?"

"Doesn't look like it. No complaints, no warrants for anything serious besides a tax evasion case back in '94, which they resolved peacefully."

"But they're a Manson cult, right?"

"No, not really. They rejected Helter Skelter in favor of something called the Process Church of the Final Judgment, a Scientology spinoff Manson incorporated but ultimately rejected. You know it?"

"Never heard of it."

"Well, you'll have to Google it, then. Apparently Case left the Process Church to form his own splinter in the mid-eighties
—
extreme pacifists, vegans, mostly harmless. That's all I got."

"Thanks," Matt said, and hung up. He called operations and booked a flight to Atlanta for 6:10 the next morning. His phone rang forty minutes later while he read up on the Process Church. The Caller ID said, "Hannes, Jeff."

He hit Talk. "Hello."

"Hey, buddy. I just got a requisition for a solo flight to Atlanta?"

"Yup, you did."

"All right. What am I putting on the paperwork?"

Matt thought about it for a moment. "Tell them I'm following a lead on Conor Flynn's psychotic break."

Silence, then, "Is that what you're doing?"

"Yeah. I and C just got word that Flynn spent three days with Ben Case down in Georgia four years ago. I'm going to go check it out."

"Ben Case the Manson kid?"

"That's the one."

"Why the hell would Flynn
—
"

"That's what I'm going to find out."

"You really think that's a good use of your time? We've got Dawkins intel
—
"

"Yeah, I do. Dawkins can wait a couple days."

"You sure, buddy?"

"I wouldn't have booked the flight if I wasn't."

"All right. I'll sign it."

*   *   *

Matt touched down in Atlanta at 8:32 am, grabbed his duffel out of the overhead compartment, and headed to the Hertz desk. He took the rented XTerra south into wooded nothing, following the GPS to Lake Barnacle. Just outside of town he came to a one-lane bridge, blocked by a chain, over a tiny splash of water not quite worthy of the name "creek."

He got out to read the sign that hung from it, letting the engine idle.

Welcome to Lake Barnacle Commune.

This land is the property of Benjamin Case, Lord Processean and Prophet of Jehovah, Lucifer, and Satan, may they be Reconciled on the last of days.

Visitors wait to be admitted.

Matt leaned against the hood of the car and pretended he didn't see the heat signatures of the two people lurking in the brush on the other side. A few minutes later, a man pulled up in an old Jeep with peeling army-green paint. He got out and stood so that the door obscured most of his body, but his disheveled, curly red hair and beard stood out over it.

"Help you?"

"Morning," Matt said, hands in his pockets. "I was hoping to talk to Mr. Case
—
"

"PROPHET Case," the man corrected.

"Prophet Case. I don't have an appointment."

"Yes, you do. All supplicants are welcome to the presence of the prophet."

"All right, then." Matt got back in the rental car while the man unlocked the chain and dragged it to the side of the road. His drab clothes were made of hemp or some other natural fiber, a crude weave you might find on a frontier doll, and he moved with the urgency of a snail on Nyquil.

Matt followed the Jeep at five miles an hour down a winding dirt path that almost counted as a road, through a forest of chalk maple and sourwood, the roadside and occasional clearing overgrown with bright, orange-yellow goldenrod. They passed an abandoned farm, the old barn caved in and bristling with saplings, the sad two-story colonial devoid of paint, the door a black gash open to the elements.

They came to another gate, just two concrete pylons connected with a chain. Beyond it sat a huge pond populated by hundreds of sea gulls, the shore scattered with dozens of multicolored tents. Naked children ran through the grass, kicking a ball in a game Matt didn't recognize, and maybe a hundred adults crowded around an oak tree, long-ago shattered by lighting or some other calamity. Next to it stood three massive crosses, one upright, one even like a plus sign, and one inverted. Each bore the same carving.

The Ul.

At the behest of his guide, Matt stood to the side and waited. Case sat in a rickety, sun-faded, aluminum-and-plastic lawn chair. His followers ringed around him, lounging on blankets or sitting Indian-style in the trodden grass. They wore the same natural-fabric smock-like things, had unkempt hair, no makeup, and, judging by the smell, no deodorant. In his jeans and black T-shirt, Matt felt overdressed.

Case spoke to his flock in a chaotic mix of Spanglish, Pig Latin, and what had to be made-up words. They stared at him with rapturous eyes and responded to each pronouncement with a murmured, "Eh-la eh-la." Matt couldn't quite get over Case's hair, a giant, dirty-blond, white man's afro that just might fit through a door.

Twenty minutes later, Case finished, and the adults moved off to other activities: tending children, cooking, weeding the enormous garden on the far side of the pond, a few staying where they were to copulate in plain view of everyone. Aside from a few curious glances, nobody paid Matt any attention.

His guide whispered in Case's ear, burying his face in the massive 'fro to get close enough. Case raised his dark blue eyes and beckoned Matt forward. Matt decided against shaking hands, and Case made no move to do so as he sized Matt up with the same bland expression he'd worn since Matt got there.

Case twitched a finger, and the guide walked away.

"Good morning," Matt said.

Case's expression didn't change. "They always are. What brings you before the Prophet today?"

Matt pulled a photocopy of Conor's family portrait from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it to Case. The prophet bit his fingernails, despite the dirt caked beneath them. "Do you know these people?"

Case tapped Conor's face. "This man, yes, he came to us some time ago. The woman and child, no." He handed the paper back. "Who asks, and why do you want to know?"

"He was my friend, and he's passed away. I'm trying to figure out why. He did some awful things," he nodded toward the crosses, "and that symbol had something to do with it."

"And you believe that his visitation with the Three Gods led him to do these things?"

Matt had read about the Process Church's three gods: Jehovah, who demanded stern adherence to morality; Lucifer, who encouraged peace and harmony and living life to the fullest; and Satan, whose dual natures were asceticism and violent hedonism. "Flynn had a . . . visitation?"

"As you are now, brother . . . ?"

"Matt. Matt Rowley."

Case stood from the chair and walked away from the scattered couples on the lawn. Matt followed as he wandered to the shoreline; and without seeming to scatter, everyone gave them a wide berth, even the children. "Brother Rowley, Conor Flynn came to us seeking knowledge, and we are duty-bound to provide it when we can. But he came to us filled with too much of the Satan-pattern's darkness, and took into himself yet more before he left us."

"What did he want to know?"

Case picked up a flat rock and skipped it across the choppy water. "Why do you want to know what he wanted to know?"

Matt weighed the value of telling the truth. "Because he was my friend, and he murdered a lot of people, and forced me to kill him to keep him from killing more."

They walked in silence for a minute, distancing themselves further from the raucous noise of children at play. On the far side of the pond, the land sloped downward to reveal a hidden garden, several acres wide, of neat, well-ordered winter crops. "That is a dark thing. One cannot kill without dying. It is why we eat of no flesh, possess no weapons, take no drugs or alcohol, and live in harmony even with the thetan spirits that seek to corrupt from within and without."

"So?" Matt asked. "What is it Conor wanted to know?"

Something thrashed in the water behind them, and the world erupted with the cries of gulls. Matt turned. Bloody ripples spread from a point fifty feet from shore, and a few white feathers bobbed on them. The rest of the gulls had taken to the air, screaming their distress to the blue sky.

"Alligators?" Matt asked.

"Conor sought knowledge of bridges," Ben said, ignoring his second question. He continued walking. Matt followed, one eye on the shore.

"Bridges?"

"Between this realm and others. He sought the Old Way, where man and demon and angel are not separate but are one. He refused to accept that this will not happen before the Reconciliation, and would not rejoice with us in the Lucifer-pattern's hospitality." They rounded a thicket of blackberry brambles and came to a simple graveyard, each mound of earth pierced with the three crosses. Case dropped to his knees beside one and placed his hands on the mound. "He fell to the Satan-pattern's darker nature, and my darling Katie paid the price for it. After, we asked him to leave. He went."

"I'm sorry. Who was she?"

"All who give of their womanhood to join with the Prophet are Katie, as she was and will be from Genesis to the forever beyond, eh-la eh-la."

That didn't make any sense, so Matt asked, "What did Flynn do to her?"

Case bowed his head. "Too much and not fast enough, without the barest shred of human mercy. We beseeched him to stop, but he took her blood and her toe and left her skin beside her on the ground."

"You didn't try to stop him?"

Case stood from the grave and grabbed Matt on the back of the neck, an earnest, fraternal gesture. He stared deep into his eyes. "Brother Rowley, we no sooner harm a man than we harm our own spirit."

"So you let him torture and kill this woman
—
"

"Not just a woman. A Katie."

"
—
this Katie, because you wouldn't hurt him to stop him?"

"It is not our place to lead a man away from where the Three God-patterns have led him."

Matt jerked back, out of his grip, and didn't try to mask his disgust. "It's not your place to stop a man from torturing and killing
—
"

"That is what I said."

"Did you report it? To the police?"

Case shook his head. "We answer to no external authority and do not invite them to meddle in the Three God-patterns' affairs."

"Jesus."

"No. It was the dark nature of the Satan-pattern working in Conor Flynn, and He has not yet Reconciled with the Emissary."

"So if I call the cops? Tell them there's a murder victim here?"

Case held up his hands as if in supplication and closed his eyes. "If that is where the Jehovah-pattern leads you, el-ah el-ah."

"You'll go to jail. You can't just not report a murder."

"Those who embody the Jehovah-pattern of course contain the Lucifer-pattern and Satan-pattern, and we will not be well treated by the men outside. If that is the enduring legacy of Conor Flynn's brutality, we will accept it as the Jehovah-pattern demands."

"Her family deserves to know what happened to her."

"When a woman becomes Katie we are her family, and we know too well."