Last Writes (22 page)

“I don’t know.
My head felt like it was stuffed with old socks. I didn’t—” She broke off, tears trickling down her face.

Claudia reached for a tissue from the box on the table beside the bed and handed it to her. “Don’t worry about it; it’s gonna be okay. What were you talking about with Lynn Ryder?”

Kelly squeezed her eyes shut, her brow furrowing as she strained to recapture the conversation. She shook her head. “It’s all blank. I remember . . . she came into the classroom and asked for me, then . . .”

The door opened. “Time’s up. Doctor wants her to get some sleep. You can come back later.” Martha Elkins was smug with the satisfaction of giving the orders.

“I’ll just be a moment longer.
Please.”

The woman clicked her tongue in disapproval. She walked away, leaving the door open. Claudia turned back to Kelly. “Can you travel? I’ve got all our things packed. If I can just get you to the car—”

“Lemme sleep a while. Maybe later.” Kelly’s words slurred, eyelids drooping.

“Kelly?”

Her eyes fluttered open. “Stick around, Claud, don’t leave me.” The words trailed off.

Claudia sighed. “I’ll come back in a couple of hours to check on you.” But her promise was lost on Kelly, who was already asleep.

 

Claudia decided to complete her assignment by working on the final set of handwriting samples until Kelly regained consciousness. There was the possibility that something in these handwritings would give her additional insight into what was going on at the Ark; something that could be helpful to the Feds.

She retrieved the laptop from the Jag’s trunk and set up in Rodney’s office once again. Claudia removed the handwriting samples from the envelope Lynn Ryder had handed her that morning and flipped through them. Trying to decide where to start, she found it impossible to concentrate on the task.

She wondered what part the security chief might have played in Kelly’s amnesia. Kelly had said she was talking with Lynn Ryder when she’d suddenly blanked out.

Claudia searched for an answer, but none came. Perhaps it was standard TBL practice to soften up prospective members: drug and hypnotize, plant a suggestion to hand over their bank accounts and join up. It wasn’t such a far-fetched concept. Would Lynn Ryder have participated in that aspect of indoctrination?

Too bad Stedman had insisted on making Claudia return the first set of handwriting samples so fast. She would like to have taken another look at Lynn’s.

But since the sample wasn’t available to her, she decided to go looking for Rita.

 

 

 

She found Rita in the kitchen behind the reception area, pouring sun tea from a big glass jar. The curtains were drawn against the afternoon sun, leaving the room in shadows, but still sweltering. Rita’s eyes were tired and her green linen shift hung limply on her slender frame. She set the jar on the counter and held the glass to her forehead. The ice cubes were already melting. “I’ll be glad when summer is over and the weather cools down,” she said as Claudia came into the kitchen. “How about some tea, sister?”

Claudia shook her head. “No, thanks, Rita. I was wondering if you could you tell me where I might find Lynn Ryder.”

Rita’s brows lifted in question. “I’m sorry, but Sister Ryder isn’t here at the moment. She’s gone to visit her aunt and uncle. Is there something I can help you with?”

“You mean she’s away from the Ark?” Claudia felt a little kick of surprise. She had already become accustomed to thinking of the compound as an entirely self-contained community for its members. Of course some of them must have relatives elsewhere.

“Her aunt and uncle live in San Jacinto next to Hemet. Sister Ryder was so pleased when she was accepted to live at the Ark because it meant she could be close to them. Her uncle’s been ailing for the last few years. He’s in a wheelchair and they’re getting on in years. It’s too hard for her aunt to take him around, so Sister Ryder takes them to doctor appointments and does the grocery shopping for them. We try to help out, too. Some of us go with her from time to time to help clean up their house and yard, fix what needs fixing.” Rita smiled. “We haven’t yet been able to convince them to join us, but we’re working on it.”

“It’s good of you to help them out when they’re not members.”

“We’re happy to do it for Sister Ryder. She’s a very capable woman, but she can’t do everything by herself. She’ll be back in a little while. She’s usually only gone for three or four hours at a time. She takes her duties here very seriously.”

Claudia wondered again whether those duties might include drugging visitors.

 

Back at Rodney’s desk, the heat brought out a fine glaze of sweat on her forehead and Claudia was soon regretting that she hadn’t accepted Rita’s offer of iced tea. She sifted through the samples in the envelope, setting aside the one that most interested her—the one her memory told her was similar to the note Erin had showed them from Rodney.

She had a strong feeling that the two would be a match, but until she could put them side by side and make a direct comparison, the sample that she now set aside could be viewed only as block-printed writing. That put it in the same general category as the Rodney/ Erin note, which had also been block printed. But there were also many other important elements—the margins, the spatial arrangement, the individual letter forms, and dozens of additional characteristics that she would have to take into consideration before deciding they were of common authorship.

Even though her gut insisted that she was right, Claudia refused to rely solely on her memory and jump to a conclusion that might be incorrect and lead her in a wrong direction. Until she was able to make that comparison, she would look for something else of interest in this batch of writings from Harold Stedman.

It would have been helpful if Stedman had at least let her know the gender of each writer and their ages. It could impact her conclusions if, for example, the writer were actually a young male who wrote like an older female. Or if it were a young woman whose writing was similar to an adult male’s.

One of the samples she selected from the envelope was a copybook style, but it contained personality traits that were more traditionally masculine than feminine. She took her magnifying glass from her briefcase and pored over the sample for anything that might escape the naked eye—tiny hooks or extra loops within oval letters, filled-in dots of ink; found nothing of consequence.

The slant of the upper loops was mixed, leaning left and right and straight up and down; the baseline wavering as it crossed the page from one side to the other—evidence that at the time of executing the writing, the writer had been plagued with vacillating emotions, moodiness. The personal pronoun capital
I
was stunted in size and width. Add to that the bloated upper loops, which suggested sensitivity to the point of defensiveness—the writer had a tendency to blow small slights out of proportion—and you had a picture of a highly emotional person with an immature ego.

After she had reached her initial conclusions, Claudia began to read the text of the essay, which delved into the writer’s views about the foreshortened future of the earth and desire to work with TBL’s leadership to recruit as many members as possible.

Huh.
Not so different in content from the essay she had found in Rodney’s file cabinet. Considering the TBL’s old-school attitude toward women, she became certain from what was written in the sample that the writer had to be as she suspected—male.

The other samples in the envelope were all over the map. One was an application for membership from someone who referred to her husband’s death and her desire to be with him again in the new earth. She wrote that until she could join him, she would devote the rest of her life to the TBL. She wished to be accepted into service at the Ark and was willing to take on any job, regardless of how menial it might be.

The handwriting contained many loops and sloped sharply downhill; the pressure lacked energy, one indicator for depression. A paternalistic religious cult might easily attract a depressed person, Claudia speculated. One who lacked the physical or emotional stamina to bother making major decisions and would rather hand over the responsibility to someone else. One who felt secure only when operating within a strict framework of rules and regulations that were handed down to them by a person in a position of authority.

The next sample she examined contained angular formations in the lower loops where they did not belong. The writer harbored hidden anger directed toward women, which could pop out in overtly hostile behavior at unexpected times. The text of the sample suggested another female writer. Claudia concluded that she would be a difficult person to deal with, but aside from that, there were no red flags in the writing that would indicate that she was lying. In fact, this writer would be apt to share whatever was on her mind in no uncertain terms. How well would she fit into life at the Ark?

Maybe not so well since Stedman had included the sample for analysis.

The heat made it impossible to keep her attention on the samples for very long. Beginning to feel as if she were suffocating in the pocket-sized office, Claudia slid the papers back into the envelope, then got up and stretched. Perspiration glued her shirt to her back and caused the waistband of her pants to chafe. She would have given a hundred bucks to lie down and take a nap. Instead, she decided to take Rita up on her earlier offer of sun tea.

 

Rita poured the amber liquid into a tall glass. “Do you want any sweetener? I don’t put any into the jar.”

“No, this is fine, thanks.” Claudia accepted the glass and drank a long mouthful. “In fact, it’s delicious.” She leaned back against the counter, hoping that Rita might relax with her and open up to a casual chat. “Everyone I’ve met at the Ark seems really happy.”

Rita smiled. “We are, mostly. Of course, like any large group of people living in a small community we have our little conflicts and things that go on, but they’re always resolved.”

“You mean like the person who was excommunicated today?”

Alarm shadowed Rita’s face. “Oh, that’s something we can’t discuss. When someone leaves the fold after knowing the truth about what’s going to happen to the earth, they have only themselves to thank. We have to cut them out completely, like a deadly cancer.”

“But he didn’t leave voluntarily.”

“No, and the judicial commission doesn’t take such a serious matter lightly. They counsel the sinner several times before taking this final step. When a member is cast out, it means he simply isn’t repentant; not interested in mending his ways.”

“It seems like a cruel way to treat someone who’s given up everything to be part of the group.”

Rita’s posture stiffened and her chin went up as if she felt personally criticized by Claudia’s observation. “The elders know what they’re doing in these matters. Brother Stedman has been our shepherd for more than thirty years now. He’s never, ever led us astray. When he brings us new light, we know it’s from the Lord God. We listen to him.”

Claudia reached out and lightly touched her arm. “I can see I’ve upset you. I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to.”

“We can’t tolerate unrepentant sinners, Sister Rose. You know that old saying about one rotten apple . . .”

“I understand, spoils the barrel. Okay, let’s talk about something else I wanted to ask you about. I heard some talk at breakfast about a birthday celebration. It sounded like some really special preparations were being made.”

“That would be Kylie Powers’s consecration.”

“Consecration? Oh, I must have misunderstood. I thought it was her birthday.”

“It
is
her birthday, she’s turning three. And she’s about to enter a special school. That’s what the celebration is for.” Rita’s face softened. “Our Kylie is the most beautiful child I have ever seen, bar none. Amazingly bright, too, with the looks and disposition of a cherub. We’re going to miss that sweet little face around here, but it’s such a tremendous privilege to enter this program, it’s worth the sacrifice.”

The word
sacrifice
made Claudia inwardly shiver. “It must have been difficult for her parents to make such a choice.”

“Oh, no, not really. Brother and Sister Powers—Kylie’s parents—were ecstatic when Brother Stedman told them that their daughter was the Chosen One—overcome with joy.”

“Chosen One? You mean chosen for Jephthah’s Daughters?”

Rita blinked in surprise. “Oh, you know about that?”

“Just a little, but I’m interested to hear more.”

“The one time a girl can be accepted is on her third birthday, so it only happens once in a while. There have been other little girls over the years whose parents have given them to Jephthah’s Daughters, but none of them were the Chosen One, as Kylie is.”

“Chosen for what?”

“That will be revealed when the time is right.” She sounded sure of herself.

“Don’t take this as a criticism, Rita, but I think it would be hard on these little girls to be separated from their parents at such a young age. Are they ever allowed to come back to visit their families?”

“It’s a lifetime commitment. Once they go away to the program, that’s where they live the rest of their lives. They’re trained as priestesses.”

“And they never return? Their parents don’t see them again? That’s a huge step to take. You say they become priestesses. What do they actually do?”

“I suppose you could say they’re our version of a nun. They do good works for the TBL within the walls of the temple. And they train the next generation of priestesses, of course.”

Rita was beginning to sound a touch impatient and Claudia wondered how far she could push the questions. She gave it another try. “I wonder what would happen if the parents changed their minds and didn’t want their daughter to go after all?”