Raising Cain Page 2

Cathy wrenched her arm free. “I gotta go. Thanks for trying to help.” She started for the door.

  Jennifer handed her a business card. “If he does anything to you, anything, call me. Day or night, it doesn’t matter. My home number is on the card. Call me, Cathy. And think about what I said. You have to take a stand.”

  Cathy mumbled another thanks and left the room. Jennifer followed and let her out the front door of the office, then listened as her footsteps faded down the marble courthouse corridor.

  Jennifer leaned against the receptionist’s desk and crossed her arms. It was late, and she was tired. Tired of pushing people who didn’t want to be pushed, tired of carrying the burden of righteousness, tired of a lot of things. She was senior assistant prosecutor in the county and Gardner Lawson’s live-in girlfriend. They shared an office and a bed. They were together around the clock. But somehow it wasn’t enough.

  “Mama is going to her room,” the woman told her seven-year-old daughter. “You and Molly play quietly.” They lived in a big house on a shady street in Arlington, Virginia. It had a wide porch, a grassy backyard, and a narrow wooden staircase leading to a long hall on the second floor. The light bulb at the top of the stairs was always burned out. Mama’s room was at the end of the corridor.

  Daddy worked for the government. He was gone all day and didn’t come home until late at night. Jenny and her sister watched TV in the den: cartoons, and puppets, and racing robots. And Mama stayed in her room.

  “I’m hungry,” Molly said.

  Jenny looked at the clock. It was six-thirty, dark outside.

  “I’m hungry,” Molly repeated, twisting an auburn curl with her tiny finger.

  Jenny tiptoed up the stairs and felt her way along the oriental runner with the tip of her sneaker. She knocked on Mama’s door. “What?” Mama called.

  “Molly’s hungry. Can we have dinner?”

  “In the freezer.”

  “Are you coming down?”

  “No.”

  Jenny went to the kitchen and removed two TV dinners from the refrigerator. She heated the oven and put them in. Then she set the table, poured milk, and helped Molly up into her chair.

  “Hungry,” Molly groused.

  “Dinner coming right up,” Jenny said with a laugh, pulling the foil off the top of the tins.

  “I hate chicken!” Molly complained.

  “Eat!” Jenny said.

  Molly picked up a drumstick and gnawed it with her baby teeth. And the two girls dined in the twilight of their silent home.

  “Jen!” Gardner called as he came through the office door. She was sitting on the desk in the alcove, her eyes focusing on something far away. “What’s wrong?”

  Jennifer stood up. “You’re late.”

  “Sorry.” He kissed her cheek. “I had to review the Payson file. Hell of a mess.… And Granville called.”

  “What about?”

  “Big spelling test tomorrow. I had to quiz him.”

  “Couldn’t his mother do that?”

  “She, uh…”

  “Don’t make excuses for her, Gardner. She couldn’t help him?”

  “No. She couldn’t.”

  They looked at each other for a moment. Jennifer had been with Gardner long enough to know the priorities in his life. Granville came first, above everything. If Carole dropped the ball, Gardner was right there to pick it up.

  “How did that domestic case go?” Gardner finally asked.

  “It didn’t.”

  “Spousal immunity?”

  “She loves him.”

  “Shit.”

  “She might change her mind, but I doubt it.”

  Gardner held up Jennifer’s coat. “You can’t force these things, Jen. They have to come around voluntarily.”

  “If they’re still alive.” Jennifer slipped her arms into the sleeves.

  “What say we stop by Paul’s Place on the way home? Grab a meal?” Jennifer hesitated by the door. “No.”

  “No? You must be starved.”

  “No,” Jennifer repeated. “I’m really not hungry.”

  Sallie Allen adjusted the volume on the miniature tape recorder in her pocket as the preacher’s voice rattled the tin roof of the open shed and echoed out into the night.

  “Praise God, and be healed of all your mortal sins!” the preacher cried, gesticulating from his makeshift pulpit.

  “Praise God!” fifty believers answered.

  Sallie joined in the refrain. She had to make it look authentic, like she was part of the program. A petite woman in her late twenties with an angular face and straight blond hair, she’d arrived at the isolated compound three days earlier and applied for admission to the Church of the Ark, Incorporated, also known as CAIN. After interrogation about her financial assets and beliefs, forfeiture of her cash, and a pledge of faith, she was welcomed into the group. No one knew that she was really an investigative reporter for Interview magazine.

  “You must give yourselves to the Lord, body and soul,” the preacher continued. “Body and soul…”

  Sallie studied the man as he held forth on the platform, testing phrases for her article titled “Inside Cults, U.S.A.” He was “tall, handsome, intelligent, and charismatic,” a man with refined Germanic features and a “piercing” stare. No. Too trite. “Deceptive eyes.” That was better. It had more punch. And his name was a killer: Thomas Ruth. Biblical as hell.

  “Others may not understand our beliefs,” Ruth continued, “but we stand firm in what weknow to be the truth!” He raised his arms in the air. “We see the light! We hear the call! We feel the touch of the Almighty on our skin!”

  Sallie cautiously glanced around. The crowd was mesmerized. This was hot stuff.

  “We take our instruction from no one but God,” Ruth went on, “and we follow his word to the letter.” His blue eyes narrowed. “To the letter.” There was a warning in that line. “God’s punishment for nonbelievers is swift.” His eyes narrowed again. “And it is deadly.”

  Sallie felt a shiver race up her spine. This was what she had hoped for: the newest cult flavor. CAIN. A fire-and-brimstone church in an abandoned granite quarry deep in the Appalachian mountains. A stunning preacher, a docile following. Secrecy, intrigue, danger. It was going to make dynamite copy.

  “Do you believe?” Ruth suddenly called out.

  “Yes!” came the reply.

  “Do you believe?”

  “Yes!”

  Sallie felt a tingle in her pelvis. Ruth’s voice was suddenly tender and seductive.

  “Can you prove your belief to God?”

  The crowd suddenly hushed.

  Sallie had heard one other sermon since she’d come to the compound, and it wasn’t like this. She wondered where he was heading.

  “Are you ready to walk the valley of death?”

  “Yes,” someone murmured.

  “Who will take the walk?” Ruth looked at the first row.

  A hand went up.

  Sallie suddenly felt uneasy. What was going on?

  “Will you take the walk with me?” Ruth pointed at a young man in the third row whose hand was down. The man nodded.

  “Raise your hand, son!”

  The hand came up slowly.

  Ruth smiled, his teeth gleaming white in the light of the naked bulbs strung down the center of the shed.

  Sallie adjusted her recorder again. This was getting interesting.

  “Who else will walk?” That wasn’t a question. It was a demand.

  Others began to raise their hands, and Sallie became nervous. What did it mean to walk the valley? She raised her hand, too.

  The room fell silent, and Ruth gazed at the congregation from his perch. Every hand was up. “Each of you agrees to walk the valley of death?”

  “Yes!” they replied.

  “You?” Ruth moved his finger from person to person.

  “Yes!”

  “And you?”

  “Yes!”

  Every person singled out sa
id yes. Sallie noticed the finger was nearing her position.

  “And you?”

  That was one row away.

  “And you?”

  Sallie heard no response.

  “Will you take the walk?” Ruth repeated loudly.

  Sallie gulped. He was pointing directly at her.

  “Yes,” she said tentatively.

  “Come.” Ruth beckoned her up to the stage. “Come to me.” Sallie made her way forward, and as she did, the crowd began to chant, “Fear no evil! Fear no evil! Fear no evil!”

  Ruth took Sallie’s hand and helped her onto the platform. Up close, he was even more handsome. His blond hair was thick, his skin unblemished. He could play himself in the movie, Sallie thought. He was wearing a gold medallion around his neck, but she couldn’t make out the raised image. “Be not afraid,” Ruth said gently.

  Sallie nodded, but she was too nervous to speak. Ruth motioned to two men at the side of the shed, who then left the lighted area. In a moment they returned with a large wooden barrel.

  “Fear no evil! Fear no evil!” the crowd repeated. The men set the barrel in front of the stage. It was sealed with a metal cover.

  Ruth detached the lid. “Tonight you and I will walk the valley of death.”

  Sallie’s knees shook, and she tried to hide it. She looked into the barrel and saw something move.

  “Be not afraid,” Ruth repeated, tipping the barrel over.

  A cluster of rattlesnakes slithered out. And Sallie felt like she was going to faint.

  “Trust the Lord,” Ruth said. Snakes were still gushing out of the barrel. “Take my hand.” Ruth slipped his slender fingers into hers as the assistants used sticks to arrange the snakes in two writhing columns on the dirt floor. Sallie squeezed his hand and leaned against him, inhaling a sweet male aroma from the sleeve of his silk shirt. She felt dizzy.

  “Walk with me,” Ruth said. “Fear no evil.”

  Sallie balked. She couldn’t do it.

  The earlier chanting of the crowd had given way to an expectant hush. “Walk,” Ruth said calmly, holding her hand in a powerful grip.

  Sallie took a deep breath and looked at the floor. The snakes were coiling and uncoiling across one another. She’d worked hard for this assignment, jockeying ahead of other reporters, pulling strings. It was showtime, and she had to perform. If she didn’t, they’d bounce her out of the compound.

  “Walk,” Ruth repeated, tugging her forward.

  Sallie kept her eyes on his face, not daring to look down. Maybe they’d defanged the snakes, milked out the venom. Maybe it was hocus-pocus, theater. Maybe they wouldn’t bite. Sallie took a step.

  “Walk….” Ruth cooed.

  Sallie took another step. She felt a snake slide across her foot, and she bit her tongue to keep from screaming. But she kept moving. Drawn by Ruth’s eyes, and hand, and voice, Sallie kept moving. Step by step by step. Until she made it through.

  Ruth helped her up on the platform and raised her hand in the air.

  “Praise God! Praise God!” the congregation wailed.

  Sallie tried to smile, but her lips trembled.

  Ruth squeezed her hand as he held it aloft. “I knew you could do it,” he said triumphantly. “Praise God.”

  Sallie smelled that sweet smell again and felt another tingle. But this one was an earth-shaker. “Praise God!” she screamed.

  And the crowd went wild.

  Sergeant Joe Brown arrived at County General Hospital at ten o’clock. He’d been out in the field, working a case, when the call came in. Known as “Brownie” to his friends, the stocky fifteen-year veteran of the police force was a master detective and crime lab chief, an intelligent, deadly stalker of criminals when he was on the job. But tonight the call was personal: his father had collapsed.

  Brownie’s mother greeted him as he rushed into the waiting area, but her eyes said he was too late.

  “Daddy?”

  Althea Brown put her arms around her son. “Gone,” she whispered.

  Brownie hugged his mother in silence as a collection of relatives gathered close. Then he turned to see his mother’s face. She was trying to be stoic, but the pain was immense. “How?” he asked.

  “Heart gave out coming back from checker club.”

  Brownie could hear his dad chuckling as he pulled off a quadruple jump on the board. “Where?”

  “On the path by Cutler Road. He tried to make it home in the dark.”

  “Dark?” Checkers usually ended by five.

  “Yes.” Althea lowered her eyes.

  “So he was late coming home.”

  “A little… yes.” Althea’s voice was barely audible.

  Brownie stopped talking. No use getting into old business now. He hugged his mother in silence, acknowledging several relatives and local clergy with a glance over her shoulder. Reverend Taylor had formed them into a circle, and they were praying. The Brown family was strong. They always came together in a crisis. “When did it happen?”

  “Seven, eight o’clock, not really sure. Someone called nine-one-one.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know exactly. They found him on the road and called an ambulance.”

  Brownie kissed her damp cheek. “Where is he?”

  Althea pointed to a curtained-off section of the emergency room.

  Brownie gently removed his arms.

  “Son?”

  “I’ve gotta see him.”

  Althea moved to the prayer circle as her son stepped to the curtain.

  Brownie hesitated as a thousand victim gurneys reeled through his mind. Then he held his breath and went in.

  Joseph lay under a white sheet, and Brownie slowly lifted it. Daddy’s eyes were closed, his face frozen in a scream.

  “Jesus, oh, Jesus,” Brownie gasped. Daddy looked like an asphyxiated fish. His lips were contorted, his skin taut against his skull. “ Jesus,” Brownie moaned. He must have suffered.

  Brownie tried to smooth out the lines, but they were set in the flesh. The skin was cool, leathery. Brownie took his father’s hand; it was beginning to stiffen.

  “Daddy,” Brownie cried softly. “Daddy…” He knelt by the bed and placed his head against the sheet.

  “Come on, Joe!” Daddy called. He was standing by the Ferris wheel at the county fair, reaching out for his son.

  “Don’t want to,” little Joe replied.

  “Yes, you do. It’s gonna be fun.”

  The line was moving forward, filling the blue metal baskets as they rotated down from above.

  “No,” Joe said.

  “It’s okay,” Mama urged. She was standing outside the chain, holding the baby. She wore bright red lipstick and a wide-brimmed hat.

  “You, too.” Joe pointed at her. “Bring him.”

  “Too little. Next year for sure.”

  “Come on!” Daddy appealed.

  “Go!” Mama said.

  Joe ran forward and entered the cart. The attendant slammed down the bar and engaged the gears, and soon they were wooshing up, into the purple summer sky.

  “Ohhhhhhh!” Joe screamed as they accelerated over the top.

  “Wheee!” Daddy laughed.

  They roared earthward in the fragrant air. And then they were skyward again, rocking into space. Joe snuggled next to Daddy, hollering and clutching his giant hand. And he didn’t let go the rest of the night.

  Brownie blinked back tears and started to place Joseph’s hand under the sheet. Suddenly he stopped. He’d seen something through the salty fog. He wiped his eyes and examined the wrist. Then he lifted the sheet and checked the rest of the body: head, neck, chest, arms, and legs. Finally, he rolled the sheet back into place. “Mama,” Brownie yelled. “Mama, come in here!”

  Althea entered expectantly.

  “Did you see this?” Brownie raised an arm.

  Althea didn’t understand.

  “Look!” Brownie pointed to a small straight-line mark on the wrist.

  Althea
shook her head.

  “Did he have that before he left home?”

  “Uh, I don’t know. Don’t remember….”

  “There’s one over here, too.” Brownie lifted the other arm.

  Althea was still dazed.

  “Mama, get the doctor.”

  She nodded listlessly and returned moments later with a young Middle Eastern man. His green robe was stained with blood, and his name tag said GIBOUTHI.

  “Did you work on my father?” Brownie asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What was the cause of death?”

  “Massive coronary.” The doctor pointed to an entry on the chart.

  “Did you see these marks?” Brownie raised the wrists.

  The doctor bent down. “Yes. They were like that when he came in.”

  “Do you know how he got them?”

  “When he fell, probably. They’re just minor abrasions.”

  “They look like rope burns to me,” Brownie said, “like his hands were tied.”

  “I’m not familiar with that. Whatever caused the cuts had nothing to do with his death.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “His medical history. Past heart problems. By the looks of it, a coronary was inevitable.”

  Brownie stared in disbelief. “I want him reexamined.”

  The doctor shrugged. “I’m not qualified for pathology.”

  Brownie pulled the chart from the doctor’s hands. In the section headed “Disposition of the body,” the “Transfer to funeral home” block had been flagged. Brownie crossed it out and checked another block: “Autopsy.”

  “I want to know exactly how he died,” Brownie said. Then he returned to the gurney, placed a finger in his father’s mouth, ran it along his lip, and smelled it. “Did you do a blood-alcohol analysis?”

  “No. Didn’t think it was necessary.”

  “Do one.” Brownie suddenly noticed his mother backing out of the room. “Sorry, Mama. Something’s not right here.”

  Althea didn’t reply. She returned to the mourners in the hall.

  “It was a heart attack,” the doctor insisted.

  Brownie shoved the clipboard against the doctor’s chest. “That’s what you say. I’m not so sure.”

  two

  Dawn came quickly to the mountain valley. The sun sneaked over the southern ridgeline and raced across the meadows and woods to a gray two-bedroom town house on the outskirts of the central village. Jennifer rose at first light, as usual, stretch-exercising and drinking her coffee before Gardner rolled down the stairs, bleary-eyed, grumpy, and sore. He was favoring his leg, and hadn’t slept well. Another day of work in the prosecution fields lay before them. Soon they were speeding through the morning mist toward the golden dome of the courthouse that ruled the miniature skyline like St. Peter’s Basilica.