Absence of Faith (31 page)

"Yeah, got a beer?"

"Sure. Have a seat out
there."

A few moments later, Stokes
appeared with bottle of Heineken and a tall narrow glass. He sat
down next to Homer and Homer took the bottle.

"I think we should consider all
non-believers our enemies. This is a war between the devil and us
and we could win if we just keep the faith and have everyone else
around us do the same," Homer said tilting the bottle up to his
mouth. "I believe my wife when she says she went to hell. Martha is
not one for tall tales. Now she just sits home and prays all day.
I'm not saying we should not pray, but she's too scared to go
anywhere except church. She believes that if she goes too far from
the house or the church, the devil will get her. In a sense, I've
lost her, just as you have lost Mary. We have to do
something."

"Yes. We have to lead the way and
show they are wrong. The Bible foretells of the moral collapse of
men, that the evil ones will be lovers of themselves, lovers of
money, disloyal, with no self-control, betrayers, headstrong,
proud, and lovers of pleasure. Evil men have advanced from bad to
worse and this is what we are seeing now."

"What can we do?" Homer asked
taking another drink of his beer.

"I think we have to find the devil
worshippers and try to convince them to follow us," Stokes said.
"Go to them."

"But they are evil! Shouldn't we
get rid of them...run them out...scare them off?"

"No, Homer. They are children of
God just like you and me, but they have lost their way."

"You sound like the pastor," Homer
said bringing the emerald green bottle to his mouth
again.

"I have to be. Someone around here
has to lead the way."

"So how do we find
them?"

"We know that Henry was one of
them..."

"Doctor Graber? You must be pullin’
my leg!"

"We have good reason to believe he
was one of them. It's hard for even me to believe it. You know he
had to have associates."

Stokes looked out at the old maple
tree its leaves were still and the last orange beams of the setting
sun streamed through its entangled branches. Homer watched him
waiting for an answer. The men were silent while a warm breeze
played with their hair like a mischievous child.

"She could be one of them," Stokes
said, his voice disconnected from the moment.

"Who?"

"Nurse Doherty. She was always with
him as if she were his private nurse. He had requested that she
follow-up on all his patients. It was a special request and she was
assigned to him. She could be one of them," Stokes took another sip
of cognac.

"Homer, can you get one of the guys
to follow her after work for about a week? Get one of the younger
guys because he'll have to watch her place all night. Get someone
good. These people are clever and they retaliate in extreme
ways."

"Hmmm?"

Homer finished the beer.

"I think I can get Jack Graham to
do it and he’s good," Homer said.

"He's not so young."

"Oh, he'll do it. He'd love it and
he would stick it out. He hasn't done anything like this in
years."

"Okay, if she is one of them, then
I want to know where they meet. Get as much information as
possible."

"Okay." Homer got up to
leave.

Stokes grabbed his arm. "I'm sorry
about your wife."

"Thanks, doc. I'm sorry about Mary.
I'll have Martha say a prayer if she’s not already."

Homer left the porch and then came
back a few seconds later.

"Can I get another beer?" He said.
"Martha won't allow alcohol in the house."

"Sure. Help yourself. Let me know
if Jack will do it."

"Okay, take care," Homer said and
left.

Stokes sipped his cognac and stared
at the old maple tree. Something seemed to move near the settee at
the base of the tree. A white luminous gas appeared at Mary's spot.
The light coalesced into a form - a human form. It was Mary. She
looked at Stokes, smiled, and waved. Stokes rubbed his eyes, and
then looked again. She was still there.

"Mary!" he yelled and raced down
the porch steps to the tree.

When he got there, the luminous gas
had dissipated. He stared at the tree's ancient trunk for several
seconds trying to comprehend what he had just seen. Then he sat
down and ran his hand over the spot where Mary usually sat on the
settee. The air was cold and damp.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" he screamed.
"Why did you have to die, Mary? Why did you leave me? Why did the
devil take such a good person? Oh, Mary I love you so much. Why?
Why? Why? You were too young to die!"

Stokes pounded the settee with his
fist.

"It's so unfair! So unfair! You
were cheated out of life...I was cheated!"

T
he young
rookie extended the fishhook into the Shark River until it reached
the floating body a few feet from the dock. He moved it slightly,
hooked it under one of the arms, and pulled.

"Oh this is the worst!" the police
officer said as he rolled the floating torso around to get a look
at the dead man's face. The young cop handed the fishhook to
another officer, turned to the other side of the dock, and threw up
the ham and eggs biscuit he had just eaten for
breakfast.

"Gee! No head," the other police
officer said.

"Shit! They took his hands, too.
Now we'll have a heck of a time ID-ing this one," Nick Vancuso
said.

Several other police officers and
detectives turned away. The officer with the fishhook rolled the
body over again. Its bloated gray skin seemed more fish like than
human.

"What do you think? A mob hit? It's
typical. No dental charts or finger prints to ID," Jerry
Vandergarde said, Nick's partner.

"Maybe," Nick added. "They usually
dump them in New York Harbor. There is no way this body could have
floated into the inlet and up river this far. Mob hits usually end
up on the beaches. The currents just wouldn't bring it up this
far."

"So who could do something like
this? This is pretty sick shit!" Jerry said looking down at the
headless torso.

"I have a gut feeling that it's a
cult," Nick said. "Look his clothes are all black. He could be a
minister or priest."

"You really believe that shit about
these cults and human sacrifices? It’s pretty weird stuff," Jerry
said moving his right hand through his short blonde
hair.

"I've been investigating a break-in
that could be related," Nick added. "A young couple out in Ocean
Village. I took the call last night when I got off duty. Remember
the Harmon case in Little Silver?"

"Yeah, the kid who murdered his
mother...cut her face up like a steak. It was the worse thing I've
ever seen," Jerry said.

"Well, I think Satanism is on the
rise again with this new generation of teenagers. You know that
report that came in last month from the library about the missing
books? Most of them were books on cults and Satanism. Try finding a
book on Satanism in the library; the computer will tell you it's
either checked out, lost or long overdue. Lost means it was stolen.
Libraries don't lose books - people steal them," Nick explained.
"Go to any web search engine and put in Satanism and tens of
thousands of sites pop up."

"Yeah, but today's kids are into
video games and downloading music. They don't have time for that
shit!"

"You know back in 1978 when Jim
Jones committed suicide with all those people in Guyana, people
said it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, an exception and that it
would never happen again. Well, it did happen again in Waco with
that sicko Koresh. It could happen again given the right set of
circumstances and the right people," Nick said, staring at the body
bobbing gently from the movement of the water. "There are potential
Jones towns out there waiting for the right moment. It just takes
something or someone to light the fuse."

"When did you become the cult
expert?" Jerry asked.

"After the Harmon murder. I found
it so repulsive and so dangerous that I had to know more. What
could drive a person to be so savage? It obsesses me."

"Did you find out?"

"Sort of. There are things to look
for like an extraordinary devotion to the cult leader or the group,
members isolated from family and friends and an attitude that all
non-believers are evil and out to destroy them," Nick explained
wiping beads of sweat off his forehead. "Look at the damn
terrorists - you can call that one big cult."

"The Harmon boy wasn't in a cult,"
Jerry said.

"We don't know that for sure. Just
because we couldn't track those bastards down doesn't mean he
wasn't a member. I talked to his father months afterward and he
told me that the boy did change somewhat...a drop in grades, mood
swings, loss of interest in old friends, but he thought it was just
the normal changes kids go through as teenagers," Nick explained.
"I believe he was involved with a group of outlaw
Satanists."

"What do you mean?"

"There are two basic groups. There
are the traditional Satanists, who openly worship the Devil in
their own churches, conduct Black Masses, and live their lives as
they want. Then there's the outlaw Satanists, who form secret cults
and use sex and drugs to lure teens into committing crimes. The
Harmon boy was probably a member of an outlaw cult. Satanism and
its powers especially intrigue teens because it’s the religion of
defiance, the religion that challenges the status quo, its rules
and regulations. They don’t live their lives fearful of the wrath
of God for doing what they want. They live freely. Teens are
attracted to this like a moth is to a candle. And you know the
killer of this is that these groups are made up of doctors and
lawyers, law enforcement, pastors, and ministers," Nick explained
taking in a deep breath.

"No. You’re pulling my chain!"
Jerry said looking down at Nick from his six-foot frame.

"Yeah, it's true. Satanism is
infiltrating every aspect of American life," Nick said. "The
typical Satanist is a person with a strong ego, a lot of confidence
in himself...too much confidence. He's mad at God for all the bad
things that has happen to good people. He thinks, 'if God is really
good, why does He let all these bad things happen?' He has a higher
sense of justice than most people do and he likes everything to be
completely fair. Unfortunately, many things that happen in the
world are unfair. The other element is power - power over yourself,
over others, over your surroundings. He begins to believe that he
can actually obtain this power through Satan and the rituals they
perform."

"Really?"

"Do you remember that case in 2005
about that pastor in Louisiana, who confessed about abusing
children and animals in his church and performing Satanic-like
rituals?"

"Vaguely," Jerry said.

"I’m telling you – it happening all
over and it’s getting worse."

"If you say so. You’re the
expert."

Jerry shook his head and walked
down to the end of the dock. A few minutes later Nick called
him.

"Here comes the coroner and the CSI
folks. Let's go. Wait up."

Two men dressed in black coroner's
overalls lowered a stretcher with a black body bag onto the
floating dock where the other police officers were standing. Two
other men and woman followed wearing the dark blue uniforms of the
Crime Scene Investigative unit. The coroner followed dressed in a
gray suit and red tie.

"Hey, Kraas. What's with the red
tie...to hide the blood stains?" one detective asked.

"No, asshole. It's to impress
idiots like you."

The coroner's men opened a black
cylindrical-shaped athletic bag and took out white plastic
overalls. They slipped them on, and then placed white painter's
masks on their faces and rubber gloves on their hands. They laid
out the black body bag on the dock near the body and zipped it
open. The woman from the CSI team began snapping photographs of the
body. When she finished, the coroner's men lifted the body out of
the water and placed it on the body bag.

"Wait a minute," the coroner said.
"Open the shirt more." One of the men moved the bloodied shirt out
of the way. There was a large hole in the center of the
chest.

"Looks like something else is
missing," Kraas said.

"What?" the other detective
asked.

The coroner leaned over the body
and looked closer.

"Looks like his heart."

N
ick
returned home to his empty apartment and opened the refrigerator;
the one bare bulb cast a pale yellow glow on a few items perched on
the dirty glass shelves. He grabbed yesterday's tuna sub and a
bottle of beer. He walked into the living room and placed the beer
on a chipped mahogany end table of the Italian Renaissance period -
a left over from his marriage. Just as he turned on the TV the
phone rang. He picked up the black receiver.