Storming Heaven (8 page)

And now, as the new Assistant Special Agent in Charge-Flagstaff, this was
his
problem. He had to figure out a way to straighten this kid out before he did or didn’t do something that would permanently fuck up his career. The question was, how? Tell him to cowboy up? Walk it off? No, wait—how about, “There are a lot of fish in the sea?”

Christ.

Beamon dropped the folder on the couch and let the Jennifer Davis problem creep back into his mind. While he was sitting around worrying about the sexual trysts of his staff’s spouses, her clock was ticking. The statistics on this kind of disappearance were clear—every day she was missing, his chances of finding her alive got cut in half.

“I’m sorry, I was expecting Mark Beamon. What can I do for you?” Carrie Johnstone said, stepping back to better take in the full impact of what stood before her.

Beamon tugged uncomfortably at the lapel of his suit. The silky-smooth wool felt strange beneath his fingers. “C’mon, Carrie. Give me a break. I feel weird enough as it is.”

“Weird?” she said, motioning for him to come inside. “Why would you feel weird? You look fantastic! I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a suit that fit you and didn’t have holes in it.”

Beamon nodded self-consciously. “It was a gift. I mean, it’s a great suit, but it makes me look like I mugged a European tourist,”

She reached around the back of his neck and yanked his collar up. “Hugo Boss? Someone gave you a Hugo Boss suit?”

“Yeah. A mob boss in New York, actually.”

“I see,” Carrie said as she sat down at a small writing desk in the living room and started scribbling on a Post-it note. “Should I be concerned that my tax dollars are paying the salary of an FBI agent who receives expensive gifts from organized crime?”

“Probably,”

Her dress was a deep maroon that seemed to change color magically as she moved. High-quality silk, Beamon knew—he’d become something of an expert at identifying different fabrics on an investigation involving a bomb planted in a clothing-filled suitcase.

What was important, though, was that it clung to her body perfectly. Not too tight, but suggestive
in all the right places. Her auburn hair swayed slightly as she wrote, revealing brief glimpses of the smooth skin of her back.

She looked much younger than she did in the business suits and heavy sweaters Beamon normally saw her in. He made a mental note to try to devise a clever way of ferreting out her age over the course of the evening.

“When did you start wearing glasses, Mark?” Carrie asked without looking up.

“I got them a few months ago, but I don’t wear them much. Having kind of a hard time getting used to them.”

Carrie finished what she was writing and looked down a hall to her left. “Stacey! We’re leaving now. I left some instructions on the stuff in the oven and my cell phone number in case there are any problems. Don’t call me unless it’s an emergency, okay, hon? I’m going to be in a church.”

Beamon heard a muffled reply and Carrie, apparently satisfied, grabbed her purse and slid an arm into his.

“Why?”

“Why what?” Beamon said, having a little trouble holding onto coherent thoughts as she brushed against him.

“Why are you having a hard time getting used to them? I think they look very distinguished.”

“Oh, it’s not the glasses per se, it’s more the clarity. I’m not sure I didn’t like the world better with softer edges.” Beamon reached out and opened the door for her. “By the way, have I mentioned how incredibly beautiful you look tonight?”

“No, you hadn’t, actually.”

“Well, it’s because I was trying to find a more artistic way of phrasing it.”

She smiled as they walked out into the silence of the snow-covered courtyard. “I think most women would settle for ‘incredibly beautiful.’”

Beamon had read somewhere that the construction of a church pew was actually an art of some subtlety. The craftsman had to strike a perfect balance between intense discomfort—so your less fervent worshippers wouldn’t fall asleep—and ergonomics, so the truly devout wouldn’t suffer crippling back and neck injuries.

Fully an hour into a ceremony that didn’t seem to be in any danger of wrapping up, Beamon managed to find a position that briefly relieved the pressure on his spine. Permanent damage might yet be avoided.

His chiropractic distress momentarily eased, Beamon was able to turn his attention back to the ceremony, which he had to admit had been very educational.

He knew criminally little about the fledgling Church of the Evolution and its leader Albert Kneiss, especially considering that it was headquartered right in the middle of his new back yard. It was the fastest-growing religion in the world and it was unpopular with the German government. Other than that, his knowledge consisted of a bunch of unconnected factoids.

There was really no excuse for his ignorance. The Kneissians had brought countless jobs to the area, built hospitals, schools, and museums. Beamon seemed to remember reading somewhere that their numbers had swelled to over eleven million members worldwide, and their influence over the Flagstaff area, and Arizona in general, continued to expand.

He turned to Carrie to ask her a question about the progress of the ceremony, or more accurately
when the hell it would be over, but she seemed to be lost in the thoughts she was scribbling into the notebook on her lap. He sighed quietly and looked around him.

The cathedral surrounding them had been only recently completed, but the architecture and carefully chosen materials gave it a look of permanence usually reserved for buildings hundreds of years old. The complex grid of arches supporting the ceiling were hewn of a light wood and tipped with ornate geometric carvings that dangled into space like stalactites. That touch of vaguely Scandinavian informality was countered by the heavy stone of the walls—a few of which had water running down their mossy faces into marble pools.

Despite its size, the church was packed. With few exceptions, the congregation had that well turned out but unimaginative way of dressing and impeccable grooming that the world had come to associate with followers of Kneiss.

At the altar, the bride and groom were passing their hands ceremoniously through the flame of an ornate candle held by a pious-looking man spouting some mumbo-jumbo about purification.

Beamon looked over at Carrie, who was still scribbling furiously, and decided to interrupt her. He had never been much for long religious spectacles. By now, even God had to be about ready for a couple of stiff drinks and a cocktail weenie.

“Nice ceremony,” he whispered.

She looked up from her pad and smiled.

“Uh, about how much longer do they generally go on?”

“Don’t really know, Mark. I’ve never been to one of these.”

“Really? You mean you’re not….”

“A Kneissian? No.”

Beamon nodded silently but decided to exercise a little more of his curiosity while he had her talking. “What’s that you keep writing?”

She looked around conspiratorially and leaned so close that he could feel her lips brush against his ear. “I’m doing a study on how religious affiliation can influence various psychoses. I don’t really know that much about this faith, and I thought this would be helpful.”

Beamon let that process for a moment.

“Lucky you knew a Kneissian who happened to be getting married this weekend,” he said hopefully.

Her expression went blank for a moment.

“We’re crashing this wedding, aren’t we, Carrie?”

“‘Crashing’ is such an ugly w—”

The congregation stood and the sound of rustling clothes and dropping Bibles drowned out the rest of Carrie’s sentence.

Beamon smiled politely and waved at the young couple as they walked elatedly down the aisle, followed by their attendants. He leaned over to Carrie again. “They make such a nice couple. And what a beautiful wedding. I can’t wait for the reception.”

“I wasn’t really planning on going to the reception,” Carrie said. “I think that might be pushing it.”

“Are you kidding? There’s no way I’m sitting through an,” he looked at his watch, “hour-and-twenty-minute
wedding ceremony and not going to the reception.”

“I thought maybe I’d take you out to dinner instead,” she said, starting to sound a bit apprehensive.

Beamon shook his head. “Wouldn’t be much of a substitute, would it?”

Now this
was
fun. Already it had completely made up for that endless ceremony.

The conference room of the Radisson, lined with balloons and paper streamers for the occasion, had been set up with countless small round tables, each surrounded by tipsy wedding revelers. The band at the other end of the room had just started and the table where he and Carrie sat had been abandoned at the first chords of “Louie Louie.”

Beamon swirled a shrimp in a blob of cream cheese and popped it in his mouth. One thing he had to say about the Kneissians—they could really throw a party. Great food, and enormous open bar with only top-shelf stuff, and man, were they friendly. At a minimum, twenty-five people had approached them and struck up a conversation. And thankfully, due either to the nice suit and glasses he was wearing, or the dim light and booze, not a single person had recognized him as the man who had been recently besieged by the press over Jennifer Davis’s disappearance.

Of course, his anonymity had been helped along by the fact that he told everyone who approached him that he was hard of hearing and really only Carrie’s date. She was the one intimately acquainted with the bride.

Thus had started a rather long and painful
evening for Carrie Johnstone. She’d delighted Beamon for the last hour with a string of confused lies and brief outbursts of nervous laughter as she discussed the bride from childhood to present.

The blue-haired woman who had been chatting with Carrie through a smile that looked like it was held in place by fishhooks finally straightened up, waved a good-bye to Beamon, and began weaving though the crowd toward the bar.

“Shrimp?” Beamon said, holding a cream-cheese-doused shellfish in Carrie’s general direction.

“I’m going to get you for this, Mark. I don’t know how. And I’m not sure when. But I will.”

Beamon slipped into his most innocent smile. “You’ve just spent an hour conversing with your test subjects, Carrie. I thought you’d be thanking me.”

She held out her hand and scowled. “Give me the shrimp.”

She popped it in her mouth, then sucked down half the glass of wine in front of her.

“C’mon, Carrie. You can’t tell me this hasn’t been even more productive than the ceremony. I’ve learned volumes just sitting here. As venues for people-watching, wedding receptions are right up there with …” He was about to say “strip bars,” but caught himself. “Uh, public parks.”

She took another gulp of her wine. “Well, what
I’ve
learned is that
you
can’t be trusted. I assume from my conversations that you’ve been telling people that you’re just my date and that you don’t know anybody here.”

“Uh, I think I used the words toy boy, actually. Oh, and there was that deafness thing.”

“Right, a few people mentioned your little hearing problem. You’ll be happy to know that I told them it was the result of untreated syphilis.”

That probably explained the strange looks on the faces of a few of the people Carrie had spoken to and their furtive glances in his direction.

“Touché,” he said, surprised at the depth of the relief he felt when her face broke into a beautiful smile. He’d had no idea how she would take his little prank. Some women seemed so perfect, but then you found out that they couldn’t laugh at themselves.

Beamon scooted his chair closer to her and looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. “Serves you right. Getting the head of the FBI’s local office to aid and abet you in crashing a wedding. At least tell me what the paper you’re writing is about.”

“It’s about the way religion affects people’s mental health.” Beamon could hear the excitement creep into her voice as she started to explain her work. Another mark in the Carrie Johnston plus column. He loved people who were passionate about something. Didn’t really matter what.