The Cult (3 page)

Bishop Daniel McGill peered over his bifocals at the blond boy seated on the couch across the room, then pushed his glasses up his nose.
 

“Jeremy, I want to tell you a couple of things about myself before we start, you know, as a way of establishing my background and credibility.”

The boy leaned back in the couch with a sigh, chewing gum. “Whatever.”

The Bishop nodded, his chair creaking as he lay back. He stared at the ceiling, fingers steepled on his chest. “I consider myself a good man, a pious man with a good sense of humor and an impeccable track record in my diocese.”

The teenager snorted.
Whatever
.

“Probably the oddest thing you noticed about me is that I am a black man.” He sat up in the chair. “Do you want to know why a black man is named Daniel McGill?”

The teenager sat there, a faint smile on his lips, chewing his gum noisily. “I don’t care.”

The Bishop nodded slowly, stood up. “I was born in the Congo a smidgeon over half-a-century ago.” He turned to face the boy. “Which makes me what, hmm?”

“Old.”

The grey-headed man chuckled. “I was hoping you would say extremely wise. But yes, I guess you are right, I am a fossil, as the kids like to say.”

The kid smiled.

“I was abandoned at an Anglican missionary, and was lucky enough to be adopted by my dear father Joseph McGill and his pretty wife, Amy, both Irish missionaries in deepest, darkest Africa. I found my reason for living in the Anglican Church and I will probably end it here.” He glanced at the boy. “Sorry, I’m rambling. Now where was I?” He lifted a forefinger. “Ah, yes, my credentials.”

He sat on the table, swinging his legs back and forth. “When I was a couple of years older than you are now, I became a bit of a rebel, you see. A rebel without a cause.” He chuckled. “Do you want to know what I did?”

The kid shrugged.

McGill jumped off the table and strode over to the kid, then grabbed his neck and pulled a finger across the kid’s throat, in a slitting motion. “I killed a man.”

The boy’s eyes widened, and he stood up in the sofa, his eyes darting towards the door.
 

“Relax, pal,” McGill said, pulling the white collar from his neck, sauntering back to his chair. “All I’m saying is that we all screw up in our lives.” He flopped down into his chair and put his feet on the table. “The situation you’re in today may seem like the end of the world.”

The kid nodded uncertainly, his hand to his neck.

“But it isn’t. Trust me. Things could get much worse.” He rummaged in his drawer and pulled out a baseball, tossed it to the kid who caught it with both hands.

“Here’s the deal: every time I catch the ball, I’m allowed to ask any question I want and you must answer truthfully.”

“And if I catch the ball?” the kid asked, tossing it in the air.

“You may ask me a question.”

“And if one of us drops it?”

McGill chuckled. “Then this session is over,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “Do we have a deal?”

The kid tossed the ball up and caught it, then scrutinized the bishop. “Deal,” he said and chucked the ball at McGill.
 

The ball smacked into the Bishops hand above his head.
 

“Good catch.”

McGill smiled. “Why did you steal the car, Jeremy?”

The boy glanced at McGill through his long fringe. “For the money.”
 

McGill lobbed the ball to the boy and he caught it. “Why did you kill a man?”

McGill took a long look at the boy, then finally said. “Because he killed my wife and daughter.”

The boy’s eyes lit up in surprise. “Your wife? How?”

“One catch, one question, one answer.”

Jeremy pulled his arm back and tossed the ball as hard as he could. It smacked into McGill’s hand a couple of inches in front of his nose. “Why do you need money, Jeremy?”

“For my mom.”

He tossed the ball and the boy caught it. “How was your wife killed?”

“Poisoned.”

Jeremy hesitated a couple of seconds before tossing the ball, gentler this time, and McGill caught it.

“Why does your mom need the money, Jeremy?”

“She’s a drug addict. Do you have kids?” the boy asked, without waiting to catch the ball.

“Nope. Where’s your dad?”

“In jail. How long were you in for?”

“Twenty years. Wanna get a pizza?”

The boy smiled. “Sure.”

Daniel McGill stood up and pulled his jacket over his shoulder before leading the boy out of the office.

Alexa walked purposefully towards the Administration building, Neil by her side. The students looked up and gawked at them, the super model and her bouncer, and steered clear of the mean-looking duo.

She entered the foyer and glanced around. It reminded her of a bank, white marble tiles and a glassed-off reception area in front, poles with ropes forcing the people into orderly queues.

Alexa marched to a counter marked ‘Information’ and flipped her badge at the woman behind the glass partitioning. “Captain Guerra, Interpol. This is Senior Superintendent Neil Allen. We would like to speak to the chancellor.”

The young woman behind the counter nodded and smiled. She wore horn-rimmed glasses, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Please wait a sec,” she said and stood up, walking around the counter and unlocking a door to let them in. “Please, follow me to the boardroom.” She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes lingering on Neil’s face for a second. “How may I help?”

Neil grabbed her elbow and steered her away from a column a millisecond before she would have smacked her shoulder into it. “Careful.”

She put her hand on her mouth and giggled. “I can be so clumsy sometimes.”

Alexa smiled. “We need information on one of your students.”

She led them to a conference room with stained glass windows. “Please take a seat while I call our chancellor, Mr. Ashcroft.”

They sat down and surveyed the place. The room contained an aluminum table with a heavy glass countertop and twelve plastic chairs arranged around it. A whiteboard stood in front of the room and a telephone was placed at the end of the table. Cheap but functional.

The door opened and a tall, distinguished-looking man with bushy eyebrows marched inside, a leather satchel swung over his shoulder. He stuck out a beefy paw and introduced himself before sitting down on the opposite side of Alexa and Neil and folding his hands on the table. “How may I assist you today, agents?”
 

Neil spoke. “A student of your establishment, Mika Wattana, was recently found murdered,” he said and handed Ashcroft a photo of the girl.

Ashcroft nodded and pulled a laptop from the leather satchel and started punching something on the keyboard with two fingers. He looked up. “Mikasukhi Wattana, social studies. Yes.” He talked in a clipped tone with a hint of a British accent.

“Are any of her lecturers available?”

He picked up the phone and punched in three digits. “Mrs. Massey, please come to the conference room for a minute.” He shook his head, a smile playing on his lips. “No, nothing is wrong. Yes, okay. Good bye.” He placed the phone back on the cradle and folded his hands, then smiled at them and lifted his bushy eyebrows.

They sat in silence, the man smiling at them, Alexa and Neil leaning back in their chairs. Every couple of minutes the man would lift his eyebrows, then nod his head, smiling. Finally the door opened and a plump lady with greying curly hair and a round face entered. She gave Ashcroft a questioning glance, then looked at Alexa and Neil, her hand on her chest. She smiled uncertainly. “You wanted to see me, Mr. Ashcroft?”

The man nodded, holding an outstretched palm to the chair. “Please, take a seat. This is Captain Guerra and Superintendent Allen from Interpol. They have some questions concerning a student of yours, a certain Miss Mika Wattana.”

The lady pulled out a chair and folded her dress beneath her legs. “Yes, she hasn’t been in class for a couple of days. Is she okay?”

Alexa shook her head. “She was murdered two days ago.”

The woman’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh my, no.”

“Do you have any information about her that you could share with us? Anything at all?” Neil asked, leaning forward.

She shook her head, fidgeting with her dress. “No, I don’t…,” she said and hesitated. “Wait, there was something.”

Alexa land forward in her chair. “What?”

She smiled tentatively. “It’s probably nothing.”

“What was it?” Alexa asked again, more urgently this time.

“She came to ask me if I knew a counselor.”

“Why?” Neil asked.

Mrs. Massey brushed her hair back with her fingers, her eyes flitting between Mr. Ashcroft and Alexa. “She found a destitute boy somewhere, and she wanted to help him.”

“Who did you refer her to?”

She turned to Ashcroft who nodded with a sanctioning grunt.
 

“His name is Bishop Daniel McGill.”

Ashcroft wiggled his eyebrows and cleared his throat. “Yes, good choice, he has an excellent track record.”

“Do you have his contact details?” Alexa asked.

Ashcroft’s index fingers rattled along the keyboard, and he picked up the phone. “Jillian, please bring me the printout.” He pushed the laptop away and folded his hands, then turned to face Alexa and Neil and wiggled his bushy eyebrows, nodded.

A couple of seconds later, the ponytailed girl opened the door and placed a single sheet of paper in front of him. “Thank you, Jillian,” he said and pushed the paper toward Alexa. “His address and phone number. I’m afraid he doesn’t have an email address, he’s quite old fashioned in that way.”

Alexa took the sheet of paper and smiled, holding out a hand. “Thank you for all your help.”

They shook and the man wiggled his eyebrows. “I’m glad we could have been of assistance.” He cleared his throat. “Is there any reason Interpol is involved in this case. Anything I should know that could…“

Alexa shook her head and smiled. “No, not at all, Chancellor. I’m simply following up on some leads.”

Mrs. Massey lifted a hand. “Because there have been some rumors of bums peddling drugs on campus—“

“That will be all, Mrs. Massey,” Ashcroft said sternly. He turned to face Alexa and Neil. “I assure you, I have that situation firmly under control,” he said with a slight bow.

“That is good to know, Chancellor,” Alexa said hesitantly.

The man nodded and wiggled his eyebrows, grunted and gave them each a firm handshake before promptly leaving. “Let me know if you need anything else, I’ll be happy to oblige,” he said before disappearing around a pillar.

“How old are you, Jeremy?” McGill asked, crunching into a slice of pizza.

“Fourteen,” the boy said slurping noisily on his cola.

McGill whistled softly. “Almost a man. What do you want to do with your life?”

The boy glanced up. “Haven’t really thought about it.”

“Is your mom an addict, Jeremy?”

The boy kept silent, his eyes on the pizza, chewing.

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

Jeremy looked up, biting his lower lip. “How do you know?”

“Because we all have a free will to make our own choices. Your mom made the wrong choices in life, that’s all.”

Jeremy ground his jaw. “So why should it screw up
my
life?” he asked, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

McGill sighed and leaned back in the cubicle, staring out of the window.
 

The kid studied him for a moment, chewing. “You believe in God?”

McGill’s eyes locked onto the boy’s. “Do you?”

“I asked you first.”

“Of course I do.”

Jeremy’s face contorted into a pained grimace. “Then why is he so mean?” he sobbed.

McGill allowed the boy to cry. After a minute Jeremy wiped his eyes and looked up. “So?” he asked, sniffling.

“Sometimes God uses life to polish his most precious gems to a shiny sheen, Jeremy.” He grabbed the kid by the back of his head and pulled him forward. “Like a river creates those shiny, round stones. We have to endure some hardship to come out better in the end.” He ruffled the kid’s hair. “It’s God’s way of saying that he has something important for you to do.”

The kid blinked. “You think?”

Daniel McGill nodded firmly. The first bridge had been crossed. Now he had to figure out how he was going to deal with the mom. “I know so, Jeremy.” He motioned to the waitress and indicated that he wanted the bill. “Trust me, I know.”

“Get out of my house, now!” Eden Calloway screamed, tucking a strand of tasseled hair behind her ear. She turned to Jeremy, pointed a wavering finger. “Go to your room, now!” she ordered with a trembling voice.