Redemption (33 page)

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

Jane reread the verses again. “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” Was it a coincidence that Bartosh’s first name was John? Was Bartosh implying that
he
was sent from God and that his word was filtered through God? That’s the way it appeared to Jane. Bartosh could have chosen any book from the Bible as his manifesto for his Congregation, but he chose a book that cleverly insinuated a Divine connection. He was either an egotistical militant or a power monger or both, Jane decided. The next bolded text was verse twenty-three.

“He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah.”

An asterisk followed the word “Isaiah.” When Jane checked the bottom of the page, Bartosh wrote a brief footnote: “Members must seriously study the book of Isaiah as it outlines the signs of the end times, especially chapters one and two.”

Jane grabbed a pen from her visor and circled the footnote. It occurred to her that Bartosh had specifically quoted from Isaiah during their visit. Something about children rebelling and becoming corrupters. Searching through her satchel, she found the tape recorder with the cassette tape still inside it. Jane noticed that the
ninety-minute tape had run nearly to the end of side one. She punched the REVERSE button, allowing the tape to spin midway through their conversation before hitting the PLAY button. Bartosh’s booming voice seemed to reach out of the recorder.

“We are in the fight for our final redemption
.” Bartosh exclaimed, taking a deep breath. “If we lose this fight, the hammer of God will fall, Lucifer will rule, and darkness will engulf this earth, erasing the beloved blood sacrifice of our Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Jane’s ability to recall conversations and remember the pace of what was said convinced her to speed the tape forward. Taking another drag on her cigarette, she hit the PLAY button.

“I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.” Bartosh recited, in midverse. “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers,
children that are corrupters
: they have forsaken the
Lord
, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger,
they are gone away backward
.” Bartosh took a deep breath. “Isaiah, Chapter one. Verses two and four, respectively.”

Jane stopped the tape. Between the raging storm outside and the state of her mind at that moment, she didn’t want to hear Dr. Bartosh’s grating voice any longer. She noted the next three, bolded verses of John: twenty-nine, thirty-two, and fifty-one.

“The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

Aha! The origin of the name Bartosh’s chose for his Congregation suddenly came to light.

“And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.”

Jane couldn’t make any reasonable connection to why Bartosh bolded that verse. Then the final verse, number fifty-one.

“And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

Okay. Perhaps, Jane reasoned, this final bolded text served to stir the cockles of his follower’s hearts. After all, just the visual promise of angels ascending and descending was enough to make true believers rise up and spread The Word.

The second featured article from the debut issue was titled “The Hammer of God Will Fall on All Sinners.” Dr. John Bartosh was, once again, the author. A drawing of a hand holding a hammer in a striking pose framed the top of the article. Reading through it, Jane felt as if she were hearing a fire and brimstone speech, filled with castigating vitriol and dire warnings. “The hammer of God is swift and sure,” Bartosh wrote. “Our Lord Jesus rebukes anyone who chooses to sin against Him. Understand that to sin against Jesus IS a choice we all make consciously. God made us perfect. It is WE who soil our souls and entrap our minds with the filth the secular world offers. While our Lord and Savior is a loving God, history has shown that He will only allow so much sin before He willingly allows his hammer to fall onto those who refuse The Word.” Jane decided the text was extremely visual. She tried to imagine Jesus chasing sinners with a hammer in his hand, screaming that He was going to pound them into submission. Somehow, Jane concluded, it just didn’t seem to fit Jesus’ profile.

Peeling through the thick stack of newsletters, Jane chose another at random and read the back page. There was a large “Acknowledgements” box that referred to “our sisters” and “our brothers” and their achievements.

“Thank you to our sisters who baked the pies for the recent Brotherhood Council Conclave in Big Sur,” read one posting. The date on the newsletter was May, 1992. Ah, yes. The Brotherhood Council. The group of men who, as Kit said, “didn’t acknowledge
the Goddess.” It was the same bunch of men Bartosh had been visiting on the morning she contacted Ingrid. Jane mused that every organization she knew, whether it was a golf club or a church organization, made a point of creating a hierarchy that included a niche for those extra-special people. Golf clubs had the “Hole in One” Fraternity; churches such as The Lamb of God Congregation formed The Brotherhood Council. She pictured a group of stodgy old relics, their hair white and their body odor stale, sitting around in a private room in dusty wingback chairs, debating the future of their brethren. What power they must yield, Jane deduced. What blatant ego it must take to accept such a position. What secrets they must share. In Jane’s mind, The Brotherhood Council sounded akin to the Masonic Temple with a Fundamentalist twist.

Jane located the most recent newsletter from December. Halfway down the Acknowledgments box on the back page, a word caught Jane’s eye: Oakhurst. It read: “Many thanks to Rachel Hartly from Oakhurst, California. Our devoted sister in Christ single-handedly keeps the flame of God burning for all who need to hear The Word. Her tireless efforts have welcomed many to Jesus through her organization of our summer CYMC camp south of Yosemite. Because of the efforts of our sister, Rachel Hartly, many more children will know the Lord! May the Lord Jesus watch over you, sister Rachel, and hold you in His heart as you diligently prepare for another inspiring summer of hope for our young people!”

The rain slowed to a soft pitter-patter against the Mustang’s front window. A glint of sun splashed across the hood, teasing Jane with the prospect of better weather. Before she had her plan fully formulated, Jane squashed out her cigarette in the ashtray and ran into the cabin. Thankfully, Kit was ensconced in the bathroom. Jane quickly located the phone book in the drawer of the bureau next to the Gideon Bible and looked up Rachel Hartly’s name. She quickly found it and jotted down the address on a scrap of paper. The semi-rural address was another county road location that
Jane recalled passing earlier in the day on her way to Lou’s former house. She started for the door, when Kit opened the bathroom door, drying her hands on a bath towel.

“Leaving again?” Kit asked, sounding deeply frustrated.

“I’ll be back. Eventually,” Jane hastily announced, heading out the door. As she pulled the Mustang out of the parking lot, she couldn’t miss Kit’s irritated face peering out from the curtains.

Jane’s memory of the county road’s location was impeccable. Turning onto the dirt road that sat just outside of town, she drove up one steep hill before plateauing on a stretch of rural developments. The single-story homes stood on several acres and were well kept. There was a section of raw land and then the tiny, blue home on the hill to her right that belonged to Rachel Hartly. A sturdy metal fence surrounded the house, creating the appearance of an unapproachable fortress. Jane parked the Mustang 100 feet up from the driveway. The rain had stopped, but the rural road stood saturated in deep, muddy puddles of gravel and silt. Navigating around the slosh, Jane walked to the metal gate. The butt of the Glock pressed against her chest, reminding her that she was carrying. She buttoned her jacket nearly all the way to conceal any sign of the gun.

Two intimidating metal signs greeted her at the gate. One read, KEEP OUT! in red letters. The other read, WHAT PART OF “NO TRESPASSING” DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?! A large trash can sat to the left of the fence with a square plastic blue recycling box next to it. Jane propped open the trash can and found six neatly tied white trash bags stuffed into the bin. She lifted the lid of the recycling box with the toe of her boot. A stack of
The Sierra Star
newspapers filled the box. She pulled out the first paper on the stack and glanced through the pages. Every two to three pages, Jane found suspicious sections carefully cut out. She lifted ten issues of the town’s thin, twice weekly offering out of the box and repeated her inspection. Each paper was missing sections that ranged from a few inches wide to half a page—identical to the newspapers she discovered buried in the bin at Lou’s former
residence. Jane stacked the ten papers together, unbuttoned her jacket, and flattened the stack around her torso. She rebuttoned her jacket, securing the papers underneath.

Jane headed for the front gate and stopped at the plain white and black mailbox. Yes, it was against the law. Technically. But laws sometimes have to be broken in order to solve crimes, she reasoned as she popped open the box and withdrew the contents. All the mail was addressed to Rachel Hartly. Much of it was a handful of cream-colored postcards from local return addresses. On the back of each postcard, it read: IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN OUR SUMMER CYMC (CAMP FOR PRETEENS AND YOUNG ADULTS,) PLEASE RETURN THIS POSTCARD AND WE WILL SEND YOU INFORMATION. Jane assumed the CYMC stood for “Christian or Congregation Youth Ministry Camp.” She took a gander around the area to make sure her illegal actions were not being observed. Returning to the contents of the box, everything else looked innocent. She replaced the mail in the box and took a good look at Rachel’s house. The tiny blue residence stood on a slight hill at the top of the gravel driveway. A cluster of thirty-foot conifers hugged the rear of the property, cloistering what looked to be a workshop. There was no sign of a motorcycle or a car on the property.

Jane opened the metal gate and entered Rachel’s property. The gravel crunched loudly under the soles of her boots. Jane noticed a separate garage to the right of the house with old-fashioned doors on the front of it that latched. From her point of view, Jane could not decipher whether a car was inside the garage. Between the house and garage was a small pen with young goats. A trio of hens and a single rooster filled another pen a few feet away. The closer Jane got to the house, the more the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. There was a decidedly unsettling feel to the property. She stopped and “felt” her way into the moment. When all else failed in her law enforcement career, she could always rely on her astute intuition and the unexplainable “creep factor” that usually signaled danger. Jane felt that creep factor very strongly as she turned to the left of the driveway and worked her way toward the
stand of conifer trees in the rear of the house. When she was within fifty feet of the trees, she realized that the building secluded by the trees was a small, gray guesthouse. While Jane wasn’t certain, the 600-square-foot guesthouse fit a certain MO for Lou in that he purposely sought out the guesthouse on Kit’s property in Big Sur.

Jane skirted around the stand of conifers, keeping an eye out for any sign of life around the house. The closer she got to the guesthouse, the more her gut churned. In the distance, the rooster let out a loud “cock-a-doodle-doo” that echoed through the trees. Jane struggled through a thicket of wet branches before reemerging against the back wall of the guesthouse. There was a lone window a foot square on the back wall, covered by a white curtain. Jane waited momentarily, listening for any sign of music or conversation. Hearing nothing, she headed around the cabin and came upon a trio of two-foot-square windows. A thick white curtain cloaked the first window. Jane walked to the next one. It, too, was also obscured by a white curtain. She headed with greater purpose to the third window. As she approached it, she could see that there was no curtain across it. Jane was just about to peer into the window when the cold, hard business end of a rifle touched the side of her head.

She froze. Whoever was behind her proved to have greater covert ability than Jane. She held her hands away from her body, never once turning her head. Jane could feel the pressure of the Glock against her side, underneath the stack of newspapers beneath her jacket. However, there was no way she could get to her gun and defend herself against the person behind her; she would have to rely on tact and creative subterfuge. Frustrated, she uttered a faint “shit” under her breath. The person with the rifle piped up.

“‘His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud.’” The voice belonged to a woman.
“Psalms 10:7,”
the woman added with emphasis.

At that moment, Jane wished she knew the Bible better so she could rattle off an appropriate verse that would assuage the woman’s desire to shoot her in the head. “Excuse my language,”
Jane offered, speaking quietly and keeping her face forward. “I just get a little nervous when a gun’s pointed at my head.”

“Who are you?” the woman asked with a menacing tone.

For some reason, the only name she could think of at that moment was her mother’s. “Ann.”

“Ann what?” the woman replied, forcing the cold steel into Jane’s skull.

Jane traversed the ground with her eyes. “Stone. Ann Stone.”

“Can you read, Ann Stone?”