Dead Sleeping Shaman (18 page)

Still 9 days to go

The campground, which had
intimidated me with shadows in the dark, looked shabby and ordinary in daylight. Tents, cars, and beat-up campers were pulled in at odd angles, nosed under trees, lined around the perimeter of the meeting space, or drawn up beside one of the blackened fire pits dotting the brown grass. The pits looked greasy and cold despite all the people who must have cooked a meal or two over them. Clotheslines hung listlessly from tree to tree, drooping under scallops of pinned shirts and yellowed underwear. The whole place had a crazy Steinbeck feel to it. Like the Joads and other Depression-era families had taken up residence, waiting for a dust storm to clear.

Around the edges of the campground, people sat huddled at crooked picnic tables, leaning forward in their heavy jackets though the day wasn’t cold, only chilly. Some looked up as we passed, staring with lifeless eyes. Many were bald clones of one another—men and women in their heavy robes. They looked like Martians, with their knobby, misshapen heads. Others, maybe new to the group, wore nondescript sweatpants and sweatshirts with football logos on the chest, or stained black-and-white sweatshirts with THE END IS COMING emblazoned across the back. The strain of what they waited for was showing. I guess seriously contemplating one’s own demise can bring up some pretty dire thoughts. Even the children, leaning into parents for warmth, were unnaturally quiet.

Crystalline asked one man, who stood and nodded as she greeted him, where we could find the Reverend Fritch. He pointed to the back of the campground, behind the stage where a circle of tall pines formed a separate clearing.

At the edge of this clearing, just before the place where the forest began again, a huge RV was parked, taking up all of the space between two tall oak trees. In front of the RV, a circle of picnic tables surrounded a deep fire pit; the pit smoldering with large, stacked logs giving off ribbons of smoke. Men in robes covered by heavy jackets sat at picnic tables or in low folding chairs, reading Bibles. A few, I noticed, read that morning’s
Northern Statesman
. One by one, the men looked up as we drew close, then stood, their faces taking on wary smiles. Two ambled toward us.

“Good day to you, sisters.” A tall, middle-aged man got to us first and put out his hands, taking one of mine and then one of Crystalline’s in his. He moved to Felicia and Sonia, taking their hands but dropping them quickly, looking down at his palms in surprise, as if he’d received a shock.

“Welcome! Welcome!” He turned, indicating the RV, their clearing, and the other men. His voice resonated around the open space. “I’m Brother Samuel. May I be of service?”

“We’re here to see Reverend Fritch.” My voice cracked halfway through the reverend’s name. I was feeling confined, or maybe trapped was a better word, by these men. Crystalline’s face had gone an odd shade of puce, that strange color between red and brown. Felicia frowned and stood with her back straight, her head rearing away from the man. Sonia made a face and hung behind Crystalline.

“The reverend is resting. What was it you needed to see him about?” Brother Samuel smiled benevolently as his dark eyebrows went up.

“I’m with the
Northern Statesman
.” I nodded to the Sunday newspaper one man held in his hands. “I’d rather discuss it with Reverend Fritch. I’m … eh … writing a story on your group and what you’re doing here.”

“Of course.” Brother Samuel clasped his hands together across his narrow chest.

“And there’s been a murder.”

He frowned at me. “What’s that got to do with any of us?”

“A woman’s been killed. She told her friends here,” I indicated the women around me, “it had something to do with Reverend Fritch, or what’s going on …”

He tilted forward, then back on the balls of his feet, like watching a pole about to fall.

“And you are …?”

“Emily Kincaid,” I said, then introduced the women behind me.

He nodded, sighed, thought awhile, then motioned to one of the other men, who headed up the steps of the RV. The man returned, standing in the open doorway. He nodded to Brother Samuel. He stepped back, indicating we were to go on in.

The Reverend Fritch stood with a great deal of trouble as we stepped up inside the RV. He moved to take our hands—one by one—and welcome us.

“Bless you all.” The reverend pulled me close to him. I was hugged hard against a wide, soft body and then released. He hugged the others, whispering something in their ear. I was uncomfortable, and dying to find out what he’d said to them he hadn’t found fit to say to me. I imagined we would laugh later. It was that normal inclination—toward nervous laughter—forcing me to stay where I was though I felt exceedingly creeped out and ill at ease.

The reverend pointed to a sofa, then settled himself in a low and wide captain’s chair with a grunt. He tented his thick hands at his chest and began to nod his head. He nodded at nothing. He said nothing. The nodding became a rocking motion of his whole body. He closed his eyes and rocked faster and faster, until he snapped his eyes open and leaned forward.

“You’re not saved.” This was directed toward me. The words were said with gravity, and pointed accusation. The small, dark eyes had me pinned where I sat.

I nodded my head, agreeing. Nope, not that I knew of.

“What will you do on October 27? Where will you be?”

I shrugged, feeling dumb, the way I had in third grade when Miss Shirley made fun of girls and punished boys by putting them under her desk to look up her skirt.

Probably waiting for the end of the world with the rest of you,
I wanted to say but decided that might sound flippant.

He nodded. “Are you aware that you will die a terrible death?” I thought he would go on, maybe with a graphic description of what I didn’t like to think about. He only waited, expectantly.

“Sister Sally told me about you,” he said, surprising both of us. “She and Dolly Wakowski have been worried.”

“Really?” There was a needle of aggravation growing somewhere around my shoulders. If anybody should be worrying about her soul, it should be Dolly, I thought.

The reverend turned to a very thin man who had joined us from the back of the RV, the mute man of the revival. He turned anxious eyes on the preacher. “Brother Righteous, why don’t you invite Sister Sally to join us?”

The incredibly thin man looked hard at the reverend’s face, then at us, one by one. His face was beardless, dotted with acne scars. There was agony in his eyes. His lips began to move, to push out as if needing to form words, then work from side to side. All that came from the effort was a single sound that frustrated him even more. He stopped, panted hard a time or two as if he’d been running, took a deep breath, and left the room the way he’d come.

Crystalline, impatient, spoke up. “Our dear friend was murdered out near Deward. Before she came to Leetsville she told me there was something she had to take care of here. It had something to do with you. She didn’t say your name, only that it had to do with what was going on here. Maybe it’s somebody in your … group. We need to know in order to find out who killed her …”

The reverend watched Crystalline’s face as if reading her lips rather than listening. The look was intense. “Many people come,” he finally said, leaning far back in his chair. “Not all have the faith …”

“It wasn’t about faith.” Felicia leaned forward, her narrow face tight with a mix of fear and belligerence. “She came here to help somebody.”

“You think it’s one of our followers? A lot of people mistakenly think they have to save a loved one from our group. As if the End can be avoided. If there was someone here … do you have a name? We could talk with that person. Perhaps they don’t even know the woman met an unfortunate end. The ways of the world are harsh, you know. Evil is loose …”

I’d had enough of whatever was going on. The reverend seemed to find us irrelevant, a way to launch into one of his canned speeches.

“Would you ask among your followers? Her name was Marjory Otis.” I stepped into the middle of his rhetoric just as he described the hoof of a mighty horse falling on the neck of an unrepentant sinner.

He turned his big body my way and blinked slowly a few times—getting me into focus. “Very sad. Maybe, because we’re all strangers here, you’ve decided the murder must have been committed by one of us. Is that what you have in your mind?”

“No,” I shook my head. “The woman lived in Leetsville at one time. She was here to help someone, and it had something to do with you. That’s all we know.”

He raised his eyebrows and moved his wide, red lips over his teeth as if tasting something bad.

“What she said was that she had to do something about ‘the whole thing.’”

“What ‘whole thing’? That hardly describes our mission here, at the end of all time. And there is nothing here for an individual to stop. The wheels are in motion. The end is near. Perhaps what the woman meant was that she was coming to join us, put a stop to the way she had been living her life. People from around the world are coming, you know. They see that the time of terrible sin and greed is over. They gather with me to save themselves from the eternal fires.”

“I don’t …” I was about to protest that wasn’t Marjory Otis’ mission.

“Marjory Otis, you said? Was that her name?” He fell deep into thought, ruminating like a camel, cheeks moving from side to side. Finally he looked up. “I’ll ask among the faithful. Maybe someone knows her or has information. I wouldn’t, however …” He gave me a conspiratorial smile as Sister Sally came from the back of the motor home and stood with her hands up either sleeve of her robe, hood halfway off her bald head. I couldn’t imagine how she kept that hood in place. No hair to stick a bobby pin or clip to. Maybe double-stick tape, I thought. Or maybe magic.

Her small, dark eyes went from me to Crystalline to Felicia to Sonia. She said nothing, simply narrowed her eyes more and stood very still.

“But please understand …” He went on talking without acknowledging Sister Sally’s presence. The emaciated man entered the room and took a seat behind the Reverend Fritch. The preacher reached around and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. Brother Righteous bowed his head, tucking his chin into the button holding his robe closed at the neck. He stayed that way.

“There isn’t anything to worry about,” the reverend said. “You see, the woman will be back among us on the 27 of this month. She’ll walk the earth and point to her murderer. If she is saved, and clear with God, she will be helping all to that place of salvation. I’ll ask for prayers for her soul. We’ll pray her into heaven. Then she will do the same for us. Amen …” He bowed his head as his plump lips moved in silent prayer.

There was a quiet knock at the outer door. The reverend, startled from his reverie, called out, “Come in and be welcomed.” He pulled himself up straight with a mighty lunge of his big body.

A small woman, lost in one of the cult’s archaic robes, hood drawn forward over her face, walked up the three steps, then turned to close the door behind her. When she looked up, saying nothing, her misty blue eyes went to Sister Sally, then to Brother Righteous, then to the preacher. She stood straighter. Her hood fell back from her face. It was an odd face, under the slick bald head. A kind of bunched-up face with small eyes lost behind puffed cheeks.

I held my breath. There was no way …

The woman turned to look at me at last. The right eye veered nervously off, away from mine.

She pushed the hood completely from her head. A strange blank canvas of a face. A head of many knots and slopes, the cranium bulging out behind.

I didn’t know the bald head. I’d never seen it before and hoped never to see it again. It was the face I knew. The small face that could draw itself up in distaste. Could be wide open with a broad smile. Could frown hard enough to scare any lawbreaker.

Dolly Wakowski.

Crystalline tried to say
something on the way home but I shook my head. This was beyond anything I could believe in. Not cranky, sad, needy, overly officious Dolly. Not my good friend—probably one of the best, and most frustrating, I’d ever had—caught up in this mass delusion. And after the 27 of October? Would she go on believing if given another date?

The sight of that vulnerable head with enough dips and valleys to compete with the moon made my stomach ache. Walking out, leaving her behind, was like walking away when your sister is about to face a firing squad.

I had to get the women, who had finally fallen into a respectful silence, back to their motel. Then I had to find somebody who could make sense of this whole thing. It didn’t feel like being caught up in a nightmare as much as being trapped in a space warp where nothing was as it should be and there was nothing solid to hold on to. Part of me wanted to go home, sit down, and cry. I couldn’t figure out what part of that was childish jealousy—my friend had turned her back on me—what part was fear for Dolly’s sanity, and what part was total, flaming anger.

I went back into Leetsville, to the police station—which was locked, with a number to call in case of emergency on a card pasted to the door glass. I drove over to The Skunk Saloon, parted the clouds of cigarette smoke, and found the pay phone on the wall by the men’s room.

I dialed the number. Lucky Barnard answered immediately. Because I was choking with everything I had bottled inside, all I could do was tell Lucky who I was and that I had to talk to him about Dolly. He was at home, just finishing Sunday supper, he said, and invited me to come right over.

Lucky lived a few blocks from the police station, on a dead- street of small white houses set under big trees, with plenty of space between houses. He met me at the door and said his wife had taken their son to her mother’s house so we could talk. I figured it must be all over town—that Dolly had joined the cult. Something this big wouldn’t have gotten by Leetsvillians, who seemed to pick news out of the air, as if it were pollen.

“What’s going on?” I asked as soon as I got in the door and sat on the nearest chair in their small living room with fall floral bouquets on every table. He sat and put his hands between his knees. He shook his head, taking a long, deep sigh before looking up. “I haven’t got a clue, Emily. All I can tell you is she came in yesterday and said she was taking the rest of the month off work. She’s got a lot of vacation coming to her but I asked if this was a good time—what with all the people in town and her on this murder case with you.”

“What’d she say?”

“That it was something she had to do. She started to say more then stopped, like she couldn’t bring herself to admit she’d joined the cult or there was something she didn’t dare tell me. I don’t know. I’ve never seen Dolly act like this before. She’s always been a responsible police officer. Oh, maybe she’s smashed a few of our patrol cars, but that’s because of trying too hard to do her duty. This … well … I don’t get it.”

He looked at me, face serious. “Maybe the two of us could work together. With Dolly out I won’t be much help. I mean, somebody’s got to take care of town business, and with this group here things are going crazy.” He hesitated. “It’s up to you.”

I looked at him hard. I wasn’t in law enforcement. Lucky was putting a lot of faith in me. Maybe more faith than I had in myself. He looked tired. The crowd in town had to be getting to him. There was a lot of worry on his face, as if he couldn’t figure what was going on with Dolly any better than I could. He was a good man, a good police chief, and probably the best friend Dolly had—other than me. With his help and with Lieutenant Brent or Officer Winston feeding me the forensics data as they got it from Lansing, I asked myself, why couldn’t I do this alone? What was holding me back?

Maybe a lack of training? Maybe a lack of experience dealing with murderers? This was scary stuff I was into. My instincts told me to run, let the state police, the sheriff, anybody but me, handle it. Then, from another part of my brain, came a resounding yell:
Hell no, Emily. Something’s wrong. That’s not the Dolly you know. She’s in trouble. More going on here than you can imagine. Is this the kind of friend you are?

I looked at Lucky and skewed my face into a wince. “If I’ve got you, and all of Marjory’s friends, I’ll keep at it, Lucky. I won’t get in trouble—at least I hope not—and if I think I’m in way too deep, I’ll turn everything over to you and get out.”

He looked relieved. “Want to talk about what you’ve got so far? Maybe a fresh eye looking at things will help.”

“Hasn’t Dolly kept you up to date?”

“She’s been … well … I’d call it preoccupied. She told me the friends were in town and that you both talked to them, but that’s about as far as it got.”

I caught Lucky up to date—what the women had said about Marjory and her reason for coming to town; about looking into the Otis’ background in Leetsville; about seeing the tractor salesman and now having doubts that the mother had ever left town on her own.

“So, maybe two murders. Is that what you’re saying? You think Marjory got onto it? That’s why she came here? Murderer probably still in town, then. Must be a local. Probably the one who met her out at Deward—or went with her.”

“Had to be they went out together, in his car. Dolly found her car at the IGA.”

He thought awhile. “Yeah, there’s that. And the tire tracks at Deward didn’t match Marjory’s tires. You think maybe it could be a woman? Somebody she trusted? Seems kind of logical.”

“What about strangling her? You think a woman could do that without Marjory fighting back? She would have had to be overpowered.”

He nodded. “Probably right. So a man.”

“What I’m thinking,” I went on, “is that this whole thing goes back to when the mother disappeared. I don’t know what really happened, or when, but it seems like the pivotal point. The place where everything began.”

I went on to tell him I was going to Bellaire to see the aunt as soon as she was well enough.

“And that brother of hers, the guy running for the Michigan senate from downstate somewhere. I talked to him,” Lucky said.

I nodded.

“He’s coming to address the Young Republicans in Traverse City this Thursday. He’ll be over here right after that. See what he can do to help. I have to tell ya, he did ask me to keep it quiet. Because the election’s so close, he doesn’t want any of this getting out.”

“Yeah, like his sister getting murdered won’t hit the papers. You know I’m putting him in my next story—I mean, being her brother and all. Won’t take more than a few hours to be everywhere after that.”

He shook his head. “I told him you worked for the local paper and knew all about the case. He asked me to request you keep his connection to Marjory out of the paper until he has a chance to talk to you.”

“As if that’s going to happen,” I scoffed.

“The guy knows a lot of people in high places. Somebody will be onto your editor pretty quick.”

I had to smile. Anybody telling Bill Corcoran not to publish a legitimate story was in for a surprise. If anything, Bill would run the story sooner.

Lucky stood. We were finished. He showed me to the door. “I’ll call Winston. Let’s plan to meet with him on Wednesday. That all right? When I hear from Arnold Otis I’ll set up a time with him, too.”

I agreed and walked to the door. “And about Dolly? I’m going to do everything I can to get her out of that group …”

“Wish you luck, Emily. You know Dolly when she gets something in her head.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t know me when I get on a story. If I have to follow her to get her alone, without that awful Sister Sally around, that’s what I’ll do. She’s done dumb things before. This is just one of her dumber efforts.”

Lucky nodded, smiled, and walked me out onto his leaf-littered porch.

Home and no phone call from Dolly. I thought sure there would be. I could hear her strained little voice:
Emily, it’s all a joke. You know how I am. Thought I’d get involved and see what they’re all about. A joke, Emily. Don’t get pissed off at me … we got a lot of work to do …

One call. Regina Oldenburg, Jackson’s assistant, asking me to call her. I dialed her number, wondering if I was going to get an earful about what a terrible letch Jackson was, or maybe a threat to sue him for sexual harassment. But no, such things wouldn’t come to me. It would give me too much joy. I let all of that waddle around in my brain for a while before realizing trouble for Jackson didn’t really make me happy after all. I’d just feel sorry for him again; a brilliant man who hadn’t caught on how to be a good human being. He tried—I’d give him that. But the actual knowing was beyond him. Some people didn’t always get it, what being human meant. By the time I called Regina I was hoping the call was to tell me how much she enjoyed meeting me and how she hoped we could be friends … and all that other stuff everybody hopes for but rarely gets.

This time I got what I wished for.

Regina answered. There were voices in the background. She turned away from the phone to ask her dad to be a little quieter. That was followed by laughter, then quiet.

“Hi, Emily. Sorry about the party the other night. Your Jackson can be a little dense, I’m finding.”

I had to laugh. “Once in a while,” I agreed.

“Well, I’m still working for him, but we have very strict rules, and one is that I’m not going anywhere with him as a date. Only business.”

“Good rule,” I said, hoping I hid my skepticism.

“Anyway, the reason I called was because you asked me to find out if Daddy knew anything about Arnold Otis, remember?”

I agreed that I did remember, though I hadn’t until she called.

“Well, Daddy said Mr. Otis is coming to town this week. Did you know that?”

I said I’d heard.

“Daddy said that he remembered something involving Mr. Otis from way, way back. He thinks it was when he was in college—I mean Mr. Otis. It was a story he told at a Young Republican party back then, about his mother dying when he was a young boy.”

I thought fast. The woman didn’t die when Arnold was young. She ran off. Why would he change the story? To make himself look better? After all, a mother running off with a tractor salesman might not have played as well with the party, or with the public. I hoped to meet Arnold Otis soon so I could ask him. Here was the wedge I needed. The small fact that might throw him off.

I thanked Regina and wished her luck with Jackson. We talked for a minute about my computer system versus hers but decided there would be no problem with my files since we both used Microsoft and had virtually the same program. I hung up after telling her to call if she needed help—and meaning it. I liked her and thought maybe she was the right person to handle Jackson’s need to dominate every woman in his life, and maybe the right person to keep him off my back for a while.