The Rapture of Omega Page 4

  The next two days seemed like a blur. Michael was right about the storms; they skimmed us. Regardless, they were bad enough that the home visit and custody hearing had to be put off for one more day. Lola took to the girls and Sean immediately, and they to her. Michael even dove in, changing diapers and feeding her. I could tell she was definitely growing on him. My mother was in charge of interviewing potential nannies. With the jobs that Michael and I held, child care for four children would be a nightmare. Day care wasn’t an option. I didn’t want Lola in a million different environments at once, and since Michael and I were in a comfortable financial situation, we could afford it.

  We had family visiting five times a day to meet Lola and by the time I went back to work almost a week later, my head was spinning.

  Chapter Four

  I was walking into the police department when I happened upon two uniformed officers standing just outside the door. This was not unusual, of course, but the subject of their conversation caught my attention.

  They were rookies, and for the life of me I couldn’t remember their names, but one of them, a short, pudgy man with glasses, was laughing as he told his partner about his wife’s trip to the grocery store the night before.

  “…they said she didn’t need a man! Can you believe that shit? She called ’em Amish, but the way she described them they sounded like a bunch of fucking Hare Krishnas. Fucking kooks. Couldn’t have been Amish. I ain’t ever heard of them stinky-ass horse niggers promoting feminism before.”

  The other officer began laughing before they noticed I was standing there. The amusement on their faces turned to instant horror at my presence.

  “Oh! I’m sorry, Sergeant, I didn’t know you were—” Red-faced, Pudgy did his best to take back his cultural insensitivity.

  “Tell me again what you just said,” I interrupted.

  “It’s just a figure of speech, Sarge. I didn’t mean anything by it.” His face turned two shades paler at what he clearly thought was going to be an ass chewing from me.

  “I don’t care about that.” I waved my hand at him. “Though you might want to rethink using terms like ‘horse nigger.’ I want to know about the people your wife ran into last night.”

  “Huh?” Realizing he was off the hook, he exhaled the breath he had been holding.

  “The Hare Krishna people,” I said calmly, forcing him to refocus.

  “Oh, yeah, them.” He adjusted his glasses. “I was just telling Logan here that my wife was putting her groceries in the car last night when a group of Amish people came up to her and wanted her to go with them to their farm. Well, I don’t think they were Amish, but she said they were dressed funny and were holding baskets of roses.”

  “Why don’t you believe they were Amish?”

  “For one, they came in some loaded SUV and we know Amish don’t drive cars, let alone a fifty-thousand-dollar utility vehicle like that. Second, she said the women were doing the talking—unheard of for Amish women. She said they saw her wedding ring and asked her if she was truly happy, and if she wasn’t, she could go with them to see what ‘real happiness’ was or some horseshit like that. Sorry, there’s that horse word again.”

  “How many were there?” I asked, ignoring his last remark.

  “I think she said around eight or nine, mostly women. I told her it sounded like some freak cult to me and to stay the hell away from them.”

  I nodded. “Did they give her any names, anything like that?”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so, but I can ask. Are you guys investigating them or something? Are they dangerous?”

  “No, no investigation. I think I ran into one of them last week and I found him just as strange. I’m curious is all. Yeah, if you talk to your wife about it and she remembers names or something else, let me know, would you please?”

  “Sure, Sarge.”

  Knowing I had Kelly Dixon’s homicide to work, I couldn’t help but focus on this Mormon group that seemed to be popping up everywhere. That is, if they really were Mormons. I passed my own office and went into Coop’s. Naomi was in there with him and they were assigning cases.

  “Glad to have you back, stranger. How’s Lola?” Coop pushed a chair at me.

  “She’s adjusting.” I took the offered seat. “She’s still asking for her mother every day, but I don’t think she understands it. For the most part, the kids are occupying her, even had her on the trampoline the other day.”

  “She is absolutely beautiful, CeeCee,” Naomi added. “I’m glad to see you didn’t have any problems obtaining custody.”

  “So far so good.” I thought of Lola and smiled; I missed her already. “Off the subject, Coop, do you remember the weird guy at the homicide scene?”

  “How could I forget?”

  I filled him in on the conversation with the uniformed officer and, mistakenly, brought up the suggestion of discreetly looking into the group.

  “For what?” Naomi piped up. “You’ve got a homicide to work. Not to mention, these people haven’t committed any crimes. So for us to look into them is a waste of time, time that we already don’t have enough of.”

  I should’ve known better than to bring up something like this in front of Naomi. She was a dear friend, but on the flip side, she could be a complete pain in the ass as my boss.

  “I’m aware I have a homicide to work, Naomi. All I’m saying is let’s just keep our ears and eyes open about them—that’s all.”

  She waved her hand at me. “Whatever, I just want this Kelly Dixon thing cleared up as soon as possible. The other detectives are getting overwhelmed by the gang murders and they might need your help. J.P. called yesterday and said the autopsy results should be in by this afternoon. That should get you started.” She stood up to leave. “Keep me posted.”

  After Naomi left, I turned to Coop and raised my eyebrow. He knew what I was thinking and wanted no part of it.

  “No way. You heard what she just said, CeeCee.”

  “Oh come on, just a few phone calls. She’ll never know.” I smiled coyly.

  “That is the woman I go to bed with every night and wake up next to every morning. Believe me, she’ll know.”

  “I told you it was a bad idea to start fucking the boss.”

  Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrow at me. He knew I was joking, but there was a bit of truth to it.

  “What do you want me to do?” he conceded.

  “Find out who owns the property down there. Whose name it’s deeded to, and how they paid for it. See if you can’t do a discreet drive-by and run some license plates on any cars. You know the drill. Oh, and see if you can find out if there’s any children living there.”

  “If Naomi finds out, it’ll be me and my hand for the next six months.”

  “If she does, I’ll pay for a hooker.”

  “I think I’d prefer my hand.”

  “Suit yourself. Let me know what you find out.” I gave him a wink and headed down to my office.

  Ignoring the Kelly Dixon file that glared at me from atop my desk, I picked up the phone to call Michael. He hadn’t arrived in his office yet, and when he answered his cell phone, I asked my question without even saying hello.

  “Does the FBI have a specific unit that tracks religious cults?” I knew I sounded impatient.

  “Oh, hello to you, too. I’m fine, honey, thanks for asking,” he answered sarcastically.

  “Sorry, I’m in the middle of something. So, can you find out for me?”

  “What does this have to do with the Dixon homicide?” he asked, furthering my irritation.

  “Michael, please! I’m busy, so can you find out or not?”

  Hearing his soft laughter through the phone, I found myself smiling. He knew me well and sometimes liked to play just to see my reaction.

  “Okay, Sergeant, when I get to the office I’ll do some checking and call you back. Good enough?”

  “Yes, it is. Oh, and Agent Hagerman?”

  “Yes, Sergea
nt Gallagher Hagerman?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Michael still gave me butterflies, no doubt about it. Hanging up the phone, I wished he were here in my office. It had been a long time since we’d worked a case together, but we made an amazing team. I remembered a time where I thought I had lost Michael forever, thinking he was the victim of a Mafia-related car bombing. It was, unquestionably, the most agonizing experience of my life. Just thinking about it made me tremble.

  Concentrating my efforts on more important tasks, I began to flip through the Dixon file while I waited for Michael to call back. The folder held nothing of significance so I closed it and tossed it on my desk. Losing what little patience I had left, I contemplated rummaging through the stack of less important cases I’d been assigned. Regrettably, my mind was elsewhere and they’d have to take the back burner. I looked at my watch and saw that almost an entire hour had passed. I’d been fighting the urge to call Michael back, so I breathed a sigh of relief when the phone rang.

  “What took so long?” I barked.

  “Sorry, Cee, it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Let me guess, you have no fingernails left?”

  “I have acrylics on. They can’t be chewed.”

  “Fantastic, how many cigarettes have you smoked?”

  “Michael.”

  “All right, all right. I looked everywhere and we don’t have a unit specifically geared toward religious cults. I talked to a guy in Washington and he said that any type of threatening cult or militia falls under domestic terrorism.”

  “So that means Homeland Security keeps their eye out?”

  “Not necessarily. For the most part, if a weird cult pops up somewhere, it falls under local jurisdiction, unless they start stockpiling weapons and such, like that whole Waco thing. It all depends on what they’re doing. If it’s weapons, they’ll bring in the ATF, which in turn will notify Homeland Security or the FBI. For the most part, they’re pretty harmless. He did say they’ve been keeping their eye on the Church of Scientology lately.”

  “There’s a surprise. Any moron could see what’s going on with those people. So essentially you found out nothing?” I sighed.

  “Oh, ye of little faith. You know better than that, don’t you?”

  I perked up. “Let’s have it.”

  “The FBI put out a report in 1999 called Project Megiddo. It was basically a watchdog report for the new millennium. Remember all the hype on The New World Order and Y2K?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “I’m not going to explain the whole thing, you can look it up on the Internet, but to sum it up, the new millennium brought a lot of apocalyptic visionaries who preached the end of the world at the turn of the century. The FBI put watchdogs on these groups to ensure they didn’t cause some type of social breakdown on a large scale. Thankfully, nothing major happened. I also know they rewrote a lot of the policies and procedures in dealing with ‘doomsday’ cults after Waco. Bottom line, unless a cult is into something illegal on a large scale, it falls on the local cops. Now, you want to tell me what this is all about?”

  “I’m hearing some rumors about a group that moved in south of Butler. I also happened to have a run-in with one of them at the Dixon homicide. He claimed he was a Mormon.”

  “There you have it. Most cults are usually splinter groups of Mormons or Baptists. Unless you get one like the freak in California that had his whole group eat poisoned applesauce so they could board a spaceship.”

  “I remember that, they were called Heaven’s Gate.”

  “Right. Maybe they’re having a barbecue with E.T. as we speak.”

  “Doubtful. On another subject, how was Lola when you left this morning?” I worried about her waking up without me there.

  “She was good. Your mom was giving her a bath when I left. Listen, I’ve got to run. I’ve put in a couple of calls on the cult thing that I haven’t heard back on so if I find something new, I’ll call you.”

  For a few minutes after hanging up with Michael, I thought about everything he said and wrote a few notes. Then I pushed the Dixon file aside and pulled up Project Megiddo on the Internet. Michael had summed it up pretty well. As astonishing as it was to find there were nearly 1,000 cults operating in the United States, the FBI deemed very few of those to be credible threats. For the most part, it used to be widely believed that the cults would engage in violent acts with law enforcement (whom they declared Satan) to put forth the perception that they were religious martyrs. The new millennium was a declaration of war against the arm of Satan (the federal government) in the world’s final battle—the end of days. What the FBI essentially concluded was that these martyrs were not using the Bible to interpret the end of days, as most thought, but were mainly using it to justify their ideology.

  One interesting element of the report was directed at local law enforcement—specifically what to watch for in a religious cult. It listed eight common factors and included: the cult is led by a single male charismatic leader who dominates his members through physical, sexual, and emotional control, and extreme paranoia exists within the cult concerning interests from outsiders and law enforcement. These factors may produce three social-psychological components referred to as the “Lethal Triad.” According to the report, if a Lethal Triad is present, law enforcement had better be prepared.

  I sat back in my chair and stretched. It was getting late and I had done nothing all day but research a group of people who had probably done nothing wrong. Regardless, the information was useful, if not a little creepy.

  Just as I was walking out the door to go home for the day, my phone rang again. It was J. P. Sanders with Kelly Dixon’s autopsy report. I listened for a while as he read off the list of medical jargon associated with such reports. Then I interrupted.

  “Sum it up for me, J.P., my dinner’s getting cold.”

  “Sit on it and that hot ass of yours will heat it up just fine,” he snickered into the phone. “Perversion comes so easy when you’re old and it’s much more tolerated. Okay, kiddo, the sum is, she did have a crude abortion. It’s unknown how far along in the pregnancy she was since we didn’t find the fetus, but if I had to guess considering the shapes of the abrasions and the trauma in the uterus, I would say the instrument of choice was the age-old coat hanger method.”

  I cringed and subconsciously crossed my legs. I couldn’t even imagine how much Kelly Dixon had suffered.

  “Please tell me she wasn’t conscious when that happened.” I shut my eyes and prepared for his answer.

  “Unfortunately, I would say she was, but we may never know for sure. It wasn’t the abortion that killed her. It would have eventually, but her lungs were completely filled with water—which ultimately caused her death. Whoever did this is a sick motherfucker.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” I breathed deeply and tried to shake out the horrible vision of Kelly Dixon I had. “Anything else, J.P.? Fibers? DNA?”

  “Nope, clean as a whistle. I’ll let you know if anything turns up. We’re gonna keep her for a few more days until we figure out what to do with her. No one claimed her body yet.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Listen, if no one claims her, call me. I’ll take care of her arrangements.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, please, I owe it to her daughter.”

  The least I could do for Lola was give her mother a proper burial, a place she could go as she grew older to find some peace. I couldn’t imagine explaining to her, fifteen years from now, how I allowed her mother to be cremated and thrown in a field somewhere.

  I looked out my office window at the sky; it was all clear. It had been another sizzling day with high humidity, but so far there weren’t any storms in sight. I thought it would be a perfect day to take the girls to the park for a picnic.

  While driving home, I happened to glance down a side street and saw several police cars with their lights on, parked in front of a run-down motel. I flipped my police r
adio on just in time to hear an officer call for the coroner. After turning around in the nearest driveway, I headed back to the motel.

  I was surprised I hadn’t gotten a phone call about what was going on. I parked on the outside of the crime-scene tape, where I was met by a uniformed officer who was in charge of keeping onlookers out. Barry Kingman, a veteran of the department, recognized me immediately.

  “Hey, Sarge, I didn’t realize they called out Major Crimes for this,” he announced as he opened my car door. “I mean, I told my lieutenant I didn’t see anything suspicious about it.”

  “You’re probably right, considering I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” I slammed my door shut. “I just happened to be driving by and heard someone call for the coroner so I thought I’d be nosy. What’s going on?”

  “No biggie, just an overdose. The motel manager hadn’t seen the guy in a couple of days and he wasn’t paying so he went in the room. The stink is something awful with the heat we’ve been having. Needles and empty heroin balloons were next to the bed and the guy already made friends with the flies. There was some methadone, too. Could have OD’d on that. The manager freaked and called us. He still ain’t doing good, but other than that, it looks pretty cut and dry.”

  I saw the other officers standing in front of the motel room door, room twelve, waving their hands in front of their faces in an attempt to blow the stench away.

  “Why don’t I go in and take a look to see how cut and dry it really is?”

  So much for a picnic at the park.

  Chapter Five

  Overdose deaths and suicides are quite different from an average homicide scene. Most law enforcement officers have little sympathy for someone who takes their own life or is ignorant enough to play with fire and unintentionally cause their own death.