Land of Entrapment (7 page)

That got its own stack. I had seen a lot of “how to”

stuff like this at gun shows. Y2K had come and gone, but many of these groups still prepared for an apocalypse and in this country, a lot of them were eying the Pacific Northwest as a place for an Aryan homeland. Which would be a major bummer, as I happen to be a big fan of Portland and Seattle.

I stood looking at my stacks of leaflets and then sat down at Megan’s computer. Maybe she had some photos on her desktop or in her files and if her Web access wasn’t password-protected, I would be able to check the Web sites she’d been frequenting. I turned it on, waiting as the familiar Windows icon unfolded across the screen, then clicked on the Explorer icon and it opened up onto AOL. I wouldn’t be able to access her e-mail accounts, but Melissa might know what her passwords were. I clicked Favorites to see what came up. Amazon, University of New Mexico, MapQuest. And, unfortunately, Stormfront, a hub site for white supremacists with a variety of views, and the site for the National Alliance.

The other favorites included a link to an ex-gay ministry, ultra-fundamentalist Focus on the Family, Aryan Nations, and one to a “Free the Order” site.

“Shit,” I muttered aloud, and I clicked on it just to satisfy my morbid curiosity. The Order was the group responsible for assassinating Jewish talk show host Alan Berg in Denver in 1984. I wrote that down. The last time I had checked, most of the members were serving prison sentences and had continually been denied parole. The leader, Robert Mathews, died in an FBI and ATF stand-off in 1984 on Whidbey Island, Washington. I scrolled through the site, which wanted all whites concerned with the future of America to help get the members out of prison. How was a concerned white person supposed to do this? Ah.

Letter-writing campaigns and sure, it was fine to send money to “our imprisoned brothers.” How special. I wondered if Cody sent money to them.

The stuff about The Order worried me. If the group that Cody ran with was interested in re-creating some of The Order’s exploits, that could mean trouble. The original chapter was based in Washington State, where Mathews had settled. They had been into theft, counterfeiting, and other illegal ways to fund the movement, including an armored car hijacking in California. If Cody and company were planning things like that, Megan was in a world of hurt and there wasn’t much Melissa could do for her, especially if Megan was with Cody of her own volition. The guys in the photos of incarcerated Order member stared at me. Shit.

I checked her document files next. Megan was meticulous in her organization, a bad idea if she was hoping to keep things secret. She had folders for every class and in each were assignments and papers.

I read through them, finding nothing beyond the usual analyses and argument papers that all college students had to write. The white supremacist right liked to recruit college students because they couched racist arguments in more palatable terms. Some recruits deliberately researched white supremacy for school papers, pretending they were nothing more than research topics. Megan apparently hadn’t gotten to that point, thankfully. Yet.

I slogged through every class folder, of which there were twenty, since Megan had just finished her sophomore year at UNM. She was a bit older than most juniors-to-be, but that wasn’t unusual these days. I eyed her “photographs” folder and opened it.

Thanks to her anal streak, she had labeled all her pictures with names, time, and date.

And voila. here was Mr. Cody Sorrell. I opened the earliest images first. On the label of the first photo she had included “cute guy I met last night!” The image was dated June 10th of last year. He looked to be about six feet tall. Broad-shouldered, dark hair, blue eyes. He was handsome in an all-American way and he had a nice smile. I could see why Megan might have been into him.

The next few pictures, taken about a month after their initial meeting, showed the two of them, arms around each other, smiling and staring at the camera.

Those pictures creeped me out a little. The photos dated two months after June 10th were a little more revealing, in many senses of the word. Cody with his shirt off, flexing his muscles. Showing off his tattoos.

On his left pectoral was the double lightning bolt of Hitler’s SS while on his right pectoral was the number

“88.” I saw the swastika that Melissa had noticed on his left forearm in these images.

I clicked on another image. In this one, Cody’s bare back was to the camera. I tried not to think about Megan taking the photo and hoped that one of his friends did. My eyes were drawn to a huge Nazi Third Reich-style eagle tattooed across his upper back. The swastika in the eagle’s claws dangled to his mid-back.

I clicked on the image to enhance it. Grudgingly, I had to admit that the work was very good. The artist had captured minute details on the raptor and the perspective was excellent. Maybe Chris had a line on local artists who might have done the piece. I noticed another tat on Cody’s left bicep that I didn’t recognize. It looked like a pissed-off rat clutching a Nazi iron cross. Above the rat’s head in gothic script were etched the letters ADR.

I went through the rest of the photos. There must have been fifty. The most recent date was June 5th of this year, about six weeks ago. Cody figured in about half. Some of the photos depicted other young men and women. Probably some of Megan’s other friends.

Two guys in a few of the other images looked like they might be friends of Cody’s. I’d have Chris check them out, as well. Megan had included names of everyone in her photos, little control freak that she was.I webbed over to Gmail, which handles my personal e-mail accounts, and zipped three photos of Cody to Chris. I included two others that pictured guys I thought might be part of his group. Maybe Chris would get some hits on them as well. I also asked her if she recognized the tattoos and if she knew of any local artists who did that kind of stuff. If not, I’d have to suck it up and visit local shops myself.

Finishing that up, I glanced at my watch. Three o’clock. No wonder I was hungry. I closed all the windows and stood up, stretching. Melissa probably wanted to hear from me. As I reached for my cell phone, it rang and I glanced at the ID. Speak of the devil.

“Hey. I was just going to call you.” Too late, I realized how that sounded. She didn’t say anything right away and I fumbled. “Uh, I finished some stuff up and I wondered if you wanted to come over and have a look. It might upset you, but—”

“I don’t care. I need to know. I’ll come by after work. Five-thirty okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll be here. See you then.”

“Thanks.” She hung up.

I closed the phone and stood staring blankly at Megan’s computer screen. Melissa used to rush home like that after work until Megan’s relapse. Then she started coming home later and later. The waves of my past slid over the beach of my present as I thought about the last time I had seen Melissa before she showed up in Texas, when she was standing ten feet from me, saying she loved me and asking me if we could talk. I’d slammed that door shut. Well, why not? She was having an affair, for chrissakes. That’s not something you forget. And it makes everything past that suspect. What was there to talk about? She was doing Hillary. She’d betrayed the relationship she had with me.

What the hell? Why am I trying to excuse her? The image of Melissa in Hillary’s Mercedes was burned into my brain. But as I focused on it and waited for the pain that accompanied it, only sadness came up.

Shoving it out of my head, I decided to walk the four blocks to La Montanita, a local cooperative health food store. I locked up and headed toward Central in the late afternoon heat.

Chapter Five

I LEFT THE outer security door unlocked and the inner door open. When Melissa showed up, she called softly through the wire mesh, announcing her presence before she came in. I had just finished putting my groceries away when I heard the door open.

“Kase?” she said again.

“Yeah.” I emerged from the kitchen. “You want something to drink? I got some Tazo at the Co-op.” I assumed Melissa still drank the stuff. I did.

“No. But thanks.”

“Okay. Hold on.” I returned to the kitchen and retrieved one of the small chairs from the table. I brought it over to the computer and set it down next to the chair that I had been using most of the day. I sat down and opened up Megan’s photograph file.

Melissa took her suit jacket off and tossed it carelessly onto the couch before she sat down next to me. She smelled faintly of citrus. I was careful not to touch her and instead opened Megan’s photo file. We clicked through together. She recognized a couple of Megan’s non-racist friends, but that was all. I clicked on the images of Cody without his shirt on.

“What do his tattoos mean?” Melissa’s voice sounded tight.

I pointed at the double lightning bolts on his left pectoral. “That’s a tribute to Hitler’s secret police, the SS.” I moved my finger to his right pectoral, where the number “88” was etched. “That means ‘ heil, Hitler.’ ‘H’ is the eighth letter of the alphabet. Hence, eighty-eight.”

Melissa looked at me, a hard expression in her eyes. She commandeered the mouse and clicked on the next image.

“That’s the eagle of the Nazi Third Reich,” I explained. “If the artist is local, I’ll see if I can find him.” I kept my tone gentle, since it was obvious that this was hard for her. She didn’t say anything and her jaw muscles remained clenched. I then explained some of the things about the flyers that I had discovered. “So basically, given the tattoos and the other stuff, I think Cody’s probably neo-Nazi. KKK

tats are different. They like the Confederate flag and hangman’s nooses and stuff like that. Or a stylized cross with a blood drop in the middle.”

“Why a blood drop?”

“It represents the oh-so-pure blood of the white race.”

Melissa stared at me. “You’re shitting me.”

“No. For real. They take that ‘blood’ stuff really seriously.” I retrieved a Klan flyer from the couch and pointed out a paragraph that went on about “pure white men” and “fighting for the pure blood” of the white race.

Melissa shook her head. “How the hell do you manage to look at this all day?”

“Not really thinking about it.” I caught her eye and smiled wryly. “Yeah. I’m compartmentalizing. If I don’t, I can’t do it.”

“You know, it’s funny, but I guess I never—I guess I wasn’t really paying attention to your research when we—when you were here.”

We sat in silence for a few seconds before I responded. “Shit was happening. I, um, might have kept a lot to myself.”

She handed the flyer back, expression unreadable.

“So do you know what the group’s name is?”

I relaxed. This I could talk about. “No, but I’ll check in with a colleague at the local chapter of the ADL.”

Melissa waited.

“Judy. You know. I met her in grad school.”

Melissa looked puzzled.

“I know I must have mentioned her when I was dissertating. Didn’t I? Judy at the Anti-Defamation League?”

She pursed her lips, thinking. “Maybe.” She kept her eyes on the monitor. “I e-mailed over there to see if anyone would help me but somebody—not Judy—

wrote back and said they were basically a non-profit watchdog organization and didn’t have the resources to conduct private investigations. I offered to pay for research, but they said they couldn’t accept the funds.”

I moved to put my hand on her shoulder but stopped. I instead ran my hand through my hair.

“So is he a skinhead?” Melissa was staring at the photo.

“No, though his tats are definitely neo-Nazi leaning. Except for this one.” I reached over and clicked on the one that showed the pissed-off rat.

“This could be skinhead, since skins like to put some Nazi stuff in their body art. And that is the Nazi iron cross. But skins like to have lots of tats signaling their allegiance. So I think Cody’s probably more neo-Nazi.”

“Okay,” Melissa said thoughtfully, “skinheads tend to be neo-Nazi but not all neo-Nazis are skinheads.”

“Bingo. I also think that Cody’s part of the recruiting arm of whatever group he’s in, which might be a local chapter of a larger one. Local chapters sometimes name themselves something other than the parent organization.”

“How do they recruit?”

“Lately, the Internet and, especially within the last few years, college campuses. They’ll flyer cars in parking lots there, but some are already students.

They want educated, articulate people for the movement. Think guys like David Duke.”

“Wait. You’re saying that they actually manage to get college kids in these groups?”

“Remember your college days? College is really freaky for some. It’s a time for trying on new identities and new ideas. And if you’re in a vulnerable place at home or with your family or for whatever reasons, these guys make you feel welcome.”

“Guys?”

“Yeah. The movement is mostly male. When women join, it’s generally through a guy. It’s rare to find a woman who goes and signs up all on her own.”

“Jesus, Kase,” Melissa said softly, staring at the photo of Cody on the monitor. “He recruited her.”

“Yes. He did. He’s probably very good at finding weak spots and manipulating them. And Megan’s history...” I allowed my voice to trail off. I didn’t need to go there. Melissa knew what I was talking about. I cleared my throat instead. “I haven’t gone through all of her files yet,” I managed, changing the subject.

“I have her e-mail password.” She didn’t look at me.I didn’t really want to know how Melissa had that information. I assumed it had something to do with Megan’s rehab years. Melissa probably had one of her IT friends figure it out.

“Is it recent?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Do you want to open it now?”

She reached past me to the legal pad I’d been writing notes on. I handed her a pen and Melissa wrote down the log-in information.

“Has she been e-mailing you too, or just calling since she left?” I looked at what Melissa had written and went to the AOL log-in site.

“Just calling.” I watched her out of the corner of my eye. Melissa kept her hands in her lap, palms pressed against her thighs. She was wearing another power suit, this one olive green linen. The color looked good against her skin. I glanced away and quickly typed Megan’s log-in and password into the blanks. Her account opened.