Dead Center (18 page)

• • • • •

E
DDIE
C
ARSON DIED
because of me. There can be no doubt about that now. I got Cindy Spodek to help find him, and then I set him up to be murdered. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t do it intentionally; what matters is that I did it.

I can’t be sure that it was Madeline Barlow who told him I was the one looking for him. It could have been her mother, though that seems to defy logic. Or he could have found out some other way that is not yet apparent to me.

Also unknown right now is how whoever murdered him learned his new location. “Maybe they followed you,” Laurie suggests.

I shake my head. “No, Marcus followed us out there. If there were someone else following us, Marcus would have seen them. Besides, Eddie had been dead for a while when we got there.”

“I’ll check to make sure your phone isn’t tapped,” Laurie says, and then makes a quick phone call to get that accomplished.

“I’ve got a feeling it was Madeline,” I say. “There was something about that kid. She was the only one in that town who seemed like she had a mind of her own.”

“She could have set Eddie up to be killed,” Laurie says, “without necessarily realizing she was doing it.”

The idea that I was a setup man for Eddie’s murder is burning a hole in my stomach, and Laurie can see it in my face. “It’s not your fault, Andy,” she says. “Let it go.”

“Let it go? Let it go?” She must know me well enough to know that is impossible. “Earth to Laurie, come in, please. Come in, please.”

She tries to suppress a smile but can’t. “What’s so funny?” I ask.

“You’re thinking of staying to try to solve this.”

“I’m doing more than thinking about it,” I admit, realizing it for the first time myself.

“Sorry. I love having you around, but I’m the police here, Andy. This is my job. Besides, you don’t catch slimeballs, you defend them. Remember?”

“I won’t get in your way.”

“All right,” she says, “let me try another approach. You’d be going after people who may well have killed four people that we know of, including a lawyer.”

“I’m not going to subdue them, Laurie. I’m going to find out who they are and then turn them over to the proper authority. And if you play your cards right, that proper authority might be you.”

She’s not willing to accept this. “You’re a lawyer, Andy. With no case, no client, and no role to play in this.”

“I’m staying, Laurie.”

She smiles. “Good. So how about dinner tonight?”

“You got it. Now you can turn on the recorder.”

“After you tell me you’re going to get Marcus back here.”

I shake my head. “No, I don’t need a babysitter… at least not now.” I can see that she’s not thrilled with my answer, so I continue. “I’m not going to do anything stupid or dangerous… honestly. Besides, with the trial canceled, the bad guys would have no reason to think of me as a threat anymore.”

She frowns but turns on the recorder, and we continue the interview. I tell her the events as they happened, but my mind is elsewhere, trying to figure out how to trap what is rapidly becoming a mass murderer.

Reestablishing myself in Findlay is not a difficult matter. Basically, all I have to do is tell the real estate agent I’ll be taking the place for at least another month, and dump the stuff in my suitcases back into drawers. Tara seems understanding as well, especially since I give her two biscuits to soften the blow.

I feel fairly confident that the people I’m after are in Center City; what is disconcerting is how little I know about the place. To that end I call Catherine Gerard, the woman who contacted me before the hearing. She dropped the bomb that the Centurions killed her husband, a charge that carries some weight with me in light of the recent carnage.

She answers the phone in the middle of the first ring, as if she has been waiting by the phone for my call. She is very anxious to meet with me, as I am with her. Currently, she is living in Winston, about a four-hour drive from Findlay, and expresses a nervousness about coming back to this area because of its proximity to Center City.

Winston is out in the direction of the lake where Laurie and I had lunch, so I suggest we meet at the same restaurant. It has the double advantage of being midway between Findlay and Winston and having fantastic french fries. We agree to meet tomorrow.

The tech guy that Laurie sends to my house to see if the phones are tapped, or if bugs have been placed, turns up nothing. The information about Eddie did not come from me, increasing the likelihood that it was Madeline or Mrs. Barlow. I’m still betting it’s Madeline.

The obvious difficulty is how to talk to Madeline without Drummond, Wallace, and the rest of Center City finding out and either preventing or monitoring our conversation. The trick is in luring her out of that town and away from their oversight.

I come up with an idea to do just that, a plan that would require the help of Jeremy Davidson. I had planned to speak with him and his parents anyway, partially to explain an ethical dilemma that I have. Simply put, the purpose of my continuing investigation is to prove that the real killer of Liz Barlow and Sheryl Hendricks was not Eddie Carson and that his suicide note was coerced. Since that note is what prompted the dismissal of the charges against Jeremy, there is a risk that my success in this investigation could expose him to renewed jeopardy.

I call Jeremy and ask if he and his parents are available to meet with me. They are surprised that I haven’t left town already, and Jeremy himself was just leaving to go back to school. Allie is not home, but Richard and Jeremy agree to wait for me, and I head right over there.

I start off by taking them through the ethical dilemma I’m facing over possibly exposing Jeremy to renewed jeopardy. I can see the concern and confusion on their faces as I do so.

“So what would have to happen for the police to come after Jeremy again?” Richard asks.

“Two things,” I say. “One, I would have to prove that the note was faked and that Eddie did not murder Liz and Sheryl. Two, even though I could prove that Eddie was murdered and the note coerced, I could not show who did it.”

“But Jeremy couldn’t have murdered Eddie. He was in jail,” Richard correctly points out.

I nod. “But someone could have done it on his behalf.”

Richard is obviously troubled by this situation, as any father would be. “Let’s say all this happened… would you be allowed to go to the police? Isn’t your first obligation to Jeremy, your client?”

“Generally, but in this case it’s a gray area. I would be telling the police what I learned about Eddie’s death, without mentioning or referring to Jeremy. But it could have an indirect effect on Jeremy if the prosecution and police then turn their attention back to him.”

“Andy, I know your intentions are good here, but it makes me a little uncomfortable,” Richard says.

Jeremy, who hasn’t spoken up yet, responds, “No, I’m okay with it. Please do what you have to do.”

“Jeremy… ,” Richard says.

“Dad, if Eddie didn’t kill Liz and Sheryl, then whoever did shouldn’t be walking around. He should be strapped to a goddamn table getting a needle in his arm.”

I can tell that Richard is as surprised as I am by the intensity of Jeremy’s remarks. Richard relents, and after I once again make sure that Jeremy understands the complexities of the situation, I tell him I need his help in getting to Madeline Barlow.

“I hardly know her,” he says. “I only met her that one time when she came to see Liz at school.”

“Did she meet any of Liz’s friends?” I ask.

“Definitely. She hung out with them for a whole weekend. I was studying for a midterm I had that Monday, but Liz said she had a great time. She kept wanting to come back, but her mother wouldn’t let her.”

I describe my plan, which is to have Jeremy recruit a couple of Liz’s friends to call Madeline and ask her if she wants to come to the school to pick up some of Liz’s things, things that had been in the possession of those friends. It could be CDs or makeup or anything that might be appealing to Madeline to retrieve. They should also dangle in front of Madeline the prospect of hanging out and perhaps going to a party. When Madeline arrives, I’ll be there waiting to talk to her.

Once again it is Richard who is leery and protective of his son, and once again it is Jeremy who steps up and embraces the idea. He tells me that as soon as he gets back to school, he will speak to two of Liz’s friends, and he’s confident they’ll jump at the opportunity to help in any way they can.

I leave them, satisfied that I have a plan of attack, but all too aware that attacking is not my strong point. I’m a lawyer; my version of aggressive confrontation is to file nasty motions.

This promises to get even rougher than that.

• • • • •

H
ENRY WAS KILLED
four and a half years ago. About a year after he left Center City and about six months after the articles appeared.”

Catherine Gerard is wasting no time in getting to the point; we haven’t even looked at our menus yet. “How was he killed?” I ask.

“A hunting accident. At least the police ruled it an accident, but it wasn’t. They killed him.”

“
They
being the Centurions?”

She nods. “Yes.”

“Why would they kill him? Because of the articles?”

She nods again. “He exposed the secrets of their religion. No one had ever done that before, and they wanted to make sure that no one did it again.”

“Why did he leave Center City in the first place?”

“Because of me,” she says. “He was an accountant, and so am I. We met at a conference; they send some of their people out into the world to learn specialties. Mostly professional people. Henry and I hit it off right away; he didn’t tell me until later that he was married.”

It’s clear to me that this is a woman here to tell a story and that probing questions by me are not necessary, at least not at this point. So I just nod and let her continue.

“He told me that it was an ‘arranged’ marriage and that he never loved her. He said he was planning to divorce his wife even before we met, but that I made him realize he had to do it right away.”

The idea of an arranged marriage is completely consistent with what I already know about the Centurions, but divorce certainly is not. “But you would not have been welcome there,” I say.

“That’s for sure, but it was his wanting a divorce that made him leave. He asked the creep they call the Keeper for permission, but there was no chance. So he left, and as far as I know, he’s the only one ever to do so.”

“Why is that?” I ask. “What keeps people there?”

Her grin reflects the irony of what she is about to say. “Faith. They really believe in that wheel and in the Keeper. Hell, even Henry believed it. He never really forgave himself for leaving.”

“Tell me about the wheel.”

“Well,” she says, “I’ve never seen it, so I can only go by what Henry told me. It’s like this huge carnival wheel, the kind you try and guess what it will land on when you spin it. And it’s got all kinds of strange symbols on it that supposedly only the Keeper can read.”

“And that’s how everything is decided?”

“That’s right. There’s some kind of ceremony that each person goes through when they’re six years old. That’s when the wheel tells them what their occupation will be, who they will marry, where they will live, everything.”

She continues describing what she knows about the town and its religion, and her bitterness comes through loud and clear. “So why did Henry write those articles?”

“I suggested it; I thought it might help him deal with his guilt by getting things out in the open.” She can see me react in surprise, and she nods. “Yes, he felt guilty every day of his life for leaving, and the articles only made it worse.”

“What makes them listen to the wheel, no matter what it says?” I ask. I already know the answer, I just want her to confirm it for me.

She does. “They’re not listening to the wheel, and they’re not listening to the Keeper. Those people have no doubt they are listening to God.”

The rest of our time at lunch is more of the same, with her remembering other stories that her husband told her about life in Center City. She keeps going back to his hunting accident, and how positive she is that the Centurions murdered Henry to keep him quiet. It makes little sense to me that they would kill him after he had told all in the articles, but I don’t feel like I should point that out.

As we’re ready to leave, she says, “The ironic thing is that the articles had pretty much no effect. People read about the Centurions, and if they gave it a second thought, they just dismissed it as a kook writing about other kooks. It changed nothing.”

Catherine Gerard wants this lunch to do what her husband and those articles did not do. She wants it to change life in Center City and to make the leaders there suffer like Henry suffered.

I’m afraid she might well be in for another disappointment.

I spend the drive back being surprised by my reaction to what Catherine had to say. In the Centurions she painted a picture of a group of people who are eccentrics at best and intolerant lunatics at worst. Yet there is a certain logic to their life.

We are a country that reveres faith, and to be a person of faith is to occupy a position of respect. The Centurions are people who take ordinary, run-of-the-mill faith and quadruple it. They turn their lives over to it.

Yet who’s to say they are wrong? I certainly think they are, but what the hell do I know? They believe what they believe; and the fact that the world may disagree with them has little significance. Don’t most religious people who have a particular faith believe that believers of other faiths are wrong? For example, can Christians and Buddhists both have it one hundred percent right?

Over dinner with Laurie I relate my conversation with Catherine Gerard. Laurie is less interested in the religious aspect of it than I am; she dismisses them as misguided wackos. What she focuses on is the wheel and the fact that these people can completely give up their freedom of choice to it.

I assume my normal role, that of devil’s advocate. “Are they really giving up their freedom of choice if that’s what they
choose
to do?”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“I mean that, as stupid as it may sound to us, they believe in this wheel. They think that God talks to them through it. So because of that belief, they choose to follow it.”

She’s not buying it. “No, they’re brainwashed from birth into following it. You think it’s a coincidence that everybody born in that town just happens to believe in the wheel? It’s pounded into their heads from the day they’re born.”

“Of course,” I say, “but isn’t that true everywhere? Don’t all parents naturally instill their belief system in their offspring?”

“Not to that degree,” she says. “And what kind of life is that? Everything is dictated to you. Can you imagine how horrible it would be to learn who you’re going to marry, how you’re going to earn a living, at six years old?”

“It certainly wouldn’t be my first choice, I’ll tell you that.”

“It would be stifling,” she says.

I shake my head. “For you and me, but apparently not for them. Name a tough decision you’ve had to make, one you’ve agonized over.”

She answers immediately. “Whether or not to leave you and return to Findlay. It was torture, but it was a decision that I knew I had to make myself, and I finally made it.”

“Okay, but what if you had turned it over to someone else and gave that someone full power to tell you what to do? The torture is gone, isn’t it?”

She shakes her head adamantly. “Absolutely not; it would be replaced by a different kind of torture. I would feel helpless… childlike.”

“But if you believed, if in your heart you knew, that it was God making the decision? Wouldn’t that be incredibly freeing, if you could talk to God and let him tell you what is right?”

“No one can do that. Not like that,” she says. “And certainly not the Centurions.”

“It doesn’t matter if they can. It matters if they believe they can. That’s why they’ll do whatever the wheel tells them to do.”

“Including murder?” she asks.

I smile my holiest smile. “That, my child, is still to be determined.”