Storming Heaven (29 page)

“No.”

Beamon was momentarily confused by Goldman’s answer. Could he have been wrong? “You couldn’t? It’s impossible?”

“Shit, I don’t know if it’s possible or not. But why the hell would you want to? Think for once in your life, boy! Why buy a goddamn phone company for millions of dollars when you could hire one of my more unscrupulous colleagues for a few thousand? And then you’d get the goddamn local calls, too.”

“But what if you wanted to spy on a group, Mr. Goldman? Let’s say you hated, I don’t know, Jews. You could offer a great long-distance rate to influential Jews through the mail and get a feel for what they were doing though their long-distance conversa—”

“You saying that we kikes’ll do anything to save a few cents a minute on long distance?”

“No, sir. I was just using it as an example—”

“Think we’re stupid?”

“No, I—”

“That’s an interesting theory you got there, Marko. It’s clean—almost no chance of detection. Elegant—except for the part about not getting local calls. I’d have to research it, but off the top of my head I can’t think of a reason it wouldn’t be technologically possible. Of course, you’d have to have serious computer power to monitor the number of lines you’re probably talking about. And a hell of a lot of storage space, too, it wouldn’t be practical to have people listening in real-time.”

“So, it’s possible?”

“What did I tell you? I’m going to have to look into it. it’s an interesting concept, though. Interesting. Maybe I should come out there. Get the lay of the land. Yeah, get a feel for what you’re into.”

Beamon bolted upright in his chair. “No! Uh, thanks anyway, Mr. Goldman, but there’s no way I can get authorization for your fee … “

“We could work that out, Mark. I’ll tell you that I’m getting good and goddamn sick of sweeping the offices of a bunch of fatcats for bugs. Not one of them’s got a damn thing to say that anybody would want to listen to, let alone record. Yeah. Maybe I’ll come out and give you a hand …”

Beamon desperately switched gears and tried another approach. “You know, Mr. Goldman, it’s really not much of a case. Embezzlement. I’ve spent the last three weeks reading through a ten-foot- high stack of paper filled with about a million numbers. Starting to go blind.” He paused to see if his words had any effect and then added, “It’s not even about that much money,” for good measure.

Goldman didn’t seem to have even been listening. “Yep. Sounds like you’re in over your head again.” The phone went dead.

Beamon began banging his head slowly and repeatedly on the blotter that covered his desk. How could this day get any worse?

When he sat back up and looked through the window into the outer office, he saw Jake Layman, flanked by two rather serious-looking men in dark suits. The speed at which they were moving his way seemed to answer his question.

“That’s them over there,” Layman said, pointing to the boxes stacked along the wall. He looked up at Beamon. “Are those all the Davis files?”

“Afternoon, Jake. I’d ask you to sit down, but my chair is otherwise occupied.”

“Are those all the files?” he repeated angrily.

Beamon watched the two men who’d burst through his door alongside his boss struggling to lift the overflowing boxes. “That’s all of them.”

Layman balled his fists and pressed them against Beamon’s desk as he leaned toward him. “I got a call from Travis Macon today.” Beamon recognized the name of one of Arizona’s senators. “You know what he said?”

Beamon shrugged.

“He said that he got a call from one of his constituents at the Church of the Evolution yesterday. That you went to one of their most sacred buildings and started throwing around threats.”

Beamon smiled weakly. He didn’t regret the way he’d handled his meeting with Sara Renslier—he needed to shake this case loose. What he
was
starting to regret was the way he’d handled Layman. His boss probably wasn’t a bad guy. Just trying to play it smart and not suffer the repeated screwings that Beamon had brought upon himself. That was fair.

“Look, Jake. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone in there without talking to you first; sometimes I can be kind of an … asshole. Tell your guys to go get a cup of coffee and we’ll shut the door and I’ll lay out what I’ve got on this case. I think once you’ve heard—”

“I didn’t ask you what you think,” Layman yelled. “I just spent two hours on the phone getting a lecture on the meaning of religious freedom from one of the most powerful senators in the country! You are off this case, Beamon. I told you twice—clear enough for even you to understand—to back off. I’ve written a full report to headquarters about your conduct and I’m telling you that you don’t have many fuckups left. You’re lucky to still have a job.”

Beamon suddenly came to the realization that every time he tried to be reasonable and maybe even lightly kiss an ass or two, it was like throwing gas on a wildfire. It was time to face the fact that he just didn’t have the gift.

“I don’t feel lucky, Jake.”

Layman stormed over to the remaining boxes, picked up one that was too heavy for him, and refused to put it back down. He looked a little like a penguin as he teetered out of the office toward the elevator.

B
EAMON HAMMERED ON THE DOOR OF THE
small house again, this time harder. “Ernie! It’s Mark! Open up.”

He knew she was home. There were no tire marks in the driveway and little chance that she could negotiate the snow-covered walk on foot or in her thin-tired wheelchair.

Beamon bent at the waist and put his face close to the peephole so that she could see him. A moment later he heard a chain rattling on the other side of the door.

“Ernie! Damn, I was starting to get worried.”

“I’m sorry. I was downstairs,” she said, backing her wheelchair away from the door.

He followed her as she glided down the hallway, trying to decide what he was going to do. “I lied to you, Ernie.”

She stopped for a moment but didn’t turn around. “The difference between a saint and a hypocrite is that one lies for his religion, the other by it.” She gave the wheels another push and they passed through the door to the cluttered office at the back of the house.

“Albert Kneiss?”

“Minna Antrim. But it was one of Albert’s favorite quotes.” She picked up a piece of pizza
from her desk and slid the steaming end of it into her mouth.

“I told you that the questions I was asking about the church didn’t relate to the Jennifer Davis case. That isn’t entirely true.”

She peered out at him through the folds of flesh on her forehead but seemed to be seeing something else. “I know,” she said finally.

There was a casual thoughtfulness in her voice that for some reason made Beamon believe her. “How did you know?”

“Because I dream about
her,
too.”

Beamon questioned his strategy for the fiftieth time since leaving the office. Spilling everything he’d learned and suspected about Jennifer and the church to a morbidly obese woman prone to ecstatic visions seemed a little stupid. But what choice did he have? Layman would make damn sure he wouldn’t have access to the Bureau’s resources to run down the church. And he wasn’t going to get this done alone.

He took a deep breath, forcing his doubts from his mind. At this point there were no other options. But if she started showing any signs of stigmata, he was history. “Do you understand the connection between Jennifer and the church, Ernie?”

She shook her head. “God hasn’t seen fit to reveal that to me. I assume that’s why He sent you.”

“This is just between us, right, Ernie? You, me, and God. I’m about to tell you some things even the guys at my office don’t know.”

“Of course.”

Beamon hesitated. Getting her involved in this wasn’t fair. It wasn’t her job. What the hell was he doing here?

“Are you all right, Mark?”

“Look, Ernie. You’ve come up against the church before and look what happened. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.” He started to stand. “I’ve changed my mind. You don’t need to be involved in this.”

“Please sit down, Mark.” Ernie said. “I already am involved in this. I have been for years. I thought that God had directed me to write my book—to warn Albert about what was happening to his church—and for all these years I thought I’d failed Him. Now I know that my real purpose was to be here for you.”

Beamon hesitated and finally sat back down. He was feeling increasingly uncomfortable and dishonest—like he was a fraud playing to this woman’s faith.

“Okay, Ernie,” he said slowly. “You’re in, but I feel like I should tell you again that I don’t for one minute believe that I’m being directed by God. I just want to find this girl so I can look like a hero and twist the knife in my boss. If, as a by-product, Sara Renslier takes a beating and your church gets the overhaul you think it needs, then fine—but in the end, I don’t really care. It’s not my job to save people from themselves.”

She smiled. “It doesn’t really matter what you believe. What either one of us believes. God will do what He will do.”

Beamon took off his parka and threw it on the floor after extracting his copy of the Kneissian bible. He pulled a couple of legal-sized sheets of yellow paper from the book and smoothed them out on his lap. On the sheets, he’d sketched out the theory that had woken him up at 2:00
A.M
. that
morning. What he needed from Ernie was for her to tell him he was wrong.

“What’s that?” Ernie asked, wheeling her chair around and handing Beamon a slice of pizza. He accepted it gratefully.

“It’s something I want you to help me think about.”

She craned her thick neck and looked at the unintelligible writing connected by undecipherable arrows and grids.

“I think better in pictures,” Beamon explained. “Let me translate.” He took a bite of pizza and slurred through a mouth full of cheese and dough. “Fact number one: Jennifer is Albert Kneiss’s granddaughter.”

Ernie shook her head. “Carol Kneiss died childless.”

“Actually, your research wasn’t entirely accurate with regard to her death. Carol Kneiss died Carol Passal in a fire in the early eighties after changing her name and moving a number of times. I’m guessing that she knew she was being watched by the church and that she was afraid for her daughter.”

“I didn’t know …” Ernie said sadly.

“Fact two. Well, actually, this is more of a strongly supported hypothesis, but let’s raise it to the exalted status of fact. Eric Davis killed his wife and committed suicide. Both had been members of the Church of the Evolution since the late sixties.”

“What? Why?” Ernie stuttered.

“They adopted Jennifer shortly after her biological parents’ death—I’m guessing at the direction of the church.”

“But why would they …”

Beamon held his hand up and silenced her. “I thought it was to cut Jennifer off from her support system. The church couldn’t kill them without alienating Jennifer and they couldn’t leave them alive because she’d have a home and family to get back to. And what better way to show Jennifer their strong belief and dedication to the church?”

“So you think they’re trying to brainwash her to replace Albert?”

“I did. Until last night, I was convinced that when Kneiss died, the church would tell the world they had her. They’d have her say that she knew Albert was her grandfather all along. That her father went nuts, killed her mother and himself, and she ran to granddad—her only living relative. The church elders would swear they didn’t know anything about it till Albert told them on his deathbed.” Beamon took another bite of the quickly cooling pizza. “Then Jennifer is inserted as head of the church. Easy as pie.”

Ernie shook her head. “Except one thing. Sara Renslier will never give up her power over the church. She gives God and Albert almost no credit in building it—she believes that it’s hers.” The hatred in her voice cut through the air.

“I met Sara,” Beamon said. “And I got the same feeling. That, combined with the fact that Albert’s already dead, is what woke me up last night.”

Ernie jerked back in her wheelchair so hard that it drifted back a foot. “Albert isn’t dead. He can’t be. Not until Good Friday.”

“I know this is hard for you, Ernie, but let me finish. I tried to get in to see Albert the day before yesterday. Sara told me he was in Turkey meditating.”

Ernie looked like she was about to say something, but Beamon ignored her and continued. “There’s no record of him entering Turkey, nor is there a record of him taking a commercial or private flight to Turkey. Why would Sara keep me from talking to him? The best reason I can come up with is that he’s dead. He must have ordered Jennifer’s retrieval before he died. Sara wouldn’t have wanted to, but she would have had to obey. So we can hypothesize he was still alive as of the day Jennifer was kidnapped—give or take. Then, at some point since then, he’s died. I mean, the guy was pushing ninety and hadn’t been seen in public for years. He had to have been on his last legs.”

“But he can’t die until Good Friday. That’s God’s will!” Ernie repeated in a voice tinged with desperation. “What if Sara has isolated him completely? Taken over …”

Beamon shrugged. “Maybe, but we know he wasn’t isolated before Jennifer was kidnapped—he must have given Sara the order in front of a group of people, probably the Elders, or else she could have just ignored it. And I think it would have been difficult for Sara to suddenly isolate him in his final days when everyone is wondering what exactly to do with their new leader, don’t you? No, the simplest answer is the best in most cases. He’s dead.”

Beamon doubted he was ever going to win Ernie over with the dazzling logic of his argument. Logic was oil to religion’s water—always had been. She’d need more.

He opened his copy of the Kneissian Bible to a page marked with a Post-it note. “There is a way that he could be dead, Ernie.”

She looked at him blankly, obviously still Struggling
with what he’d told her and the credibility she thought God had bestowed on him.

“It says here that Kneiss hasn’t always been the Messenger, right?” Beamon said, trying to coax her out of her stupor. She didn’t respond.