Stealing Flowers (37 page)

“I would like to sleep with you,” she said,
“but not for a while.”

I seized her and kissed her until she kissed
me back. It took all my self-control not to push her to the
hardwood floor and take her there by force. I was so excited that
it hurt. I pulled her into my room and locked the door. When I had
her under covers, I lost control. Touching her naked body in the
flesh evoked an immediate reaction. This appeared to turn her on
and she got into it. I’d always hoped she would like me this way. I
strongly suspected that she did.

Twenty seconds later, we achieved complete
total rapture together. It was exquisite. I felt I could breathe
again and there were tears streaming from my eyes. I didn’t let her
go until midnight when I snuck her out of the house, begging her to
phone me the next day which she did. I’d have had her back at once.
I must admit, I loved her already, but several days later, late in
the evening, Hiroyuki Nakamura was killed in a hit and run outside
of The Carewell Complex. It threw Tappets into a crisis and hit me
hard. On a personal level, it was depressing. I’d loved the old
man. On a business level, he was going to help me make my mark at
Tappets, now I sensed I was to go down. Everything at Tappets was
turning against me. Mary and Stan made Lloyd Mills the interim
operational executive, and at once, he stopped all investigations
into the Tappet embezzlement conspiracy. I continued to talk to
Susan on a daily basis. She came to Hiro’s funeral with me, as did
Peter.

“Do you think Hiroyuki Nakamura was
murdered,” I asked him the afternoon of the funeral when we’d a
moment alone.

“We’re looking at all the possibilities,” he
answered. “Tell me about Lloyd,” he said and I proceeded to tell
him the whole story, leaving out only the parts that were
embarrassing to me.

Although I didn’t see Peter until over a
month later, I talked to him every second day or so.

On April 11, he asked me to join him for an
interview with Lloyd at the Vanderbilt Plaza. What this would lead
to, I’d no clue.

“Mr. Burgess and Christian Tappet are here,”
Carla said in a pleasant soft voice into her desk phone when we
arrived. She was Hiro’s former secretary. “He’ll just be a few
minutes. He’s so busy. Can I get you a coffee?”

We both nodded. “Did you know Sally Tappet
well?” Peter asked her.

“Sally and Lloyd were on friendly terms,”
she said after a moment of thought. “He’s been quite upset.” The
receiver beeped. “You may go ahead,” she said further. “Good luck
to you Mr. Burgess in helping Christian, we all know that he’s
innocent.”

This almost made me teary eyed. Lloyd sat at
his desk writing intensely and didn’t rise, but looked up quickly.
“Hello, gents. Make yourselves at home.”

On the walls were two enormous paintings,
one of The Watchman, a rock formation in Zion National Park, Utah,
and the other on the opposite wall, The Calling, of a covered
bridge in Philippi, West Virginia, near the site of the first
skirmish in the Civil War. I knew this because Hiro collected early
American paintings and talked to me at length about them. He was
more American than almost anyone I had ever met. At length, Lloyd
rose and stretched.

“Helen got you coffee, good. I’m at your
complete disposal for a few minutes.” I noticed that his eyes had
become more sunken and it was perhaps from overwork, although he
didn’t give me the impression of being overtired, but he was as
lean as ever.

“How can I help Christian?” he asked.

“Confess to the murder,” Peter said
sarcastically.

I laughed, but saw that neither Peter nor
Lloyd even smiled.

“You didn’t come here to simply rattle my
cage?” Lloyd asked.

Peter shrugged and I realized that was
exactly why he’d come. Lloyd had guessed it right off. “I’d an
intriguing interview with one of your old buddies the other day,”
Peter said. “Seems that you’ve believed for a long time that you
were going to run Tappets one day when Mary and Stan retired. Maybe
that’s enough motivation to do something to bring it about.”

I felt myself sitting up on the edge of my
seat. Lloyd gave a half-frown, looked at me, and sat back to calm
himself. “Mary and Stan know that my friendship is beyond question.
I loved their daughter and lots of people say things they shouldn’t
when they’re drunk.”

“I think you’re behind Sally’s death.”

“What?” I said.

With his eyes, Peter indicated for me to be
quiet. “Who’s going to believe that?” Lloyd said. “Look at
Christian’s reaction.”

“People believe that corporate America is
filled with avaricious businessmen,” Peter said. “It might be easy
to convince them that you were involved with a conspiracy to commit
murder to gain control of a large conglomerate. In a recent poll, a
majority of Americans believed predatory overpaid executives
controlled the markets and that they were greedy and corrupt. I’ve
tracked down Graham Roberts. He revealed that you were involved
with him and Cheryl Garland, and others, to embezzle millions out
of Tappets.”

This was a complete surprise to me. I’d
assumed Graham Roberts was dead. Lloyd rose out of his chair, his
hands gripping the edge of his desk, and his eyes filled with
anger. “Get out!” he shouted.

We rose. “I know that you’re involved with
this case,” Peter said flatly, further inflaming him. “You want
Tappets and will do anything to get it. I know you’re guilty and
I’ll get you.”

“If Graham said that of me, then he’s a damn
liar,” Lloyd said, still shouting. “I’d never steal from the
Tappets and I certainly never have hurt Sally. I loved her.”

“If you’re innocent, then you won’t refuse a
polygraph, that way, I can take you off my suspicious list?” He
nodded. “When?”

“If you want, I’ll do it today.”

We left The Vanderbilt. I was mystified and
strolled a block before I could say anything. “Do you really think
Lloyd had something to do with this?”

“He agreed to a polygraph and that surprised
the hell out of me.” It was the first beautiful spring day in New
York City and while we walked on the busy streets, I tried to
remember my former feelings of spring fever. It was disturbing that
I couldn’t. “I do know for sure that Lloyd has people following you
and your family,” Peter continued at length. “The first thing is to
get the polygraph done. If he passes the test, then I’ll have to
search other avenues, especially The Family of Truth alternative,
but that will be difficult, better if it was Lloyd.” He shook his
head. “Something is missing,” he said softly as though to himself.
“What is it?”

We stopped at a street vendor and bought a
cold drink. I purchased a copy of The Times. The headline read,
‘Iran-Contra. A High Pentagon source states that the Contras
benefited from funds diverted from payments made for secret arms
sales to Iran by the CIA and the Reagan Administration.’

Peter’s cellular phone rang when we came
within sight of his car. “Damn, this keeps getting worse,” he said,
looking at me after he rang off. “Strange as it sounds, they’ve
just pulled Graham Roberts’ car out of the drink and he’s in the
trunk.”

Two confirmed deaths. More and more, it
looked like someone from Tappets was behind it, and not The Family
of Truth after all. I saw Graham’s body that day. It was remarkably
preserved. He had always looked bloated, and that day he was
bursting at the seams.

In the early morning of Friday, April 17, I
flew Peter to Denver, Colorado to meet Anna Chapati, the former
Love Israel. She was the one who’d had the Marilyn Monroe type body
and who let Andy cop a feel that July day all those years ago.

We met at eleven o’clock in a Just Desserts
on Coles Street. She stood a full foot shorter than Peter. She was
still voluptuous, perhaps ten pounds heavier, but now sported a
dark tan. Her eyes were focused and her smile more natural. Inside
the coffee-shop it smelled of freshly-baked donuts and had few
customers inside, but on the patio it was busy. It had become a
warm sunny spring day and the sunlight hit directly along the east
side of the street. Fifty feet down, store windows glared in the
sunlight and the sidewalk collected rivulets from dripping air
conditioners.

“I’ve met you before,” Peter said after we
had re-introduced each other, “the day that I encountered The
Family of Truth selling flowers from the bus.” This seemed to
puzzle her. “Can I record this conversation?” Peter asked. She
nodded and he brought out a small pocket recorder. “State what your
name was inside the cult, I mean, church?”

“You can call it that, that’s what I call
it,” Anna remarked.

“Is Divine Love still in the cult?” Peter
asked, referring to the tall pretty blond girl who had been one of
the original bus-people.

“She has been Love Moses’ mistress since
1985. Inside the cult, we were married to whomever they said. All
marriages were consummated with alcohol and drugs, I think, but who
can really say? Mine were, but I think they changed the rules as
they went. I’ve heard that the old man, David Moses, is nuts.”

“When I talked to Susan Zucker,” Peter
continued, “she thought you could help Christian.”

“The elders who Sally Tappet accused of rape
were married to me at one time or another, and all spoke to me,
separately, or together, about the incident; I think that was the
first time those five elders, the ones named in Sally Tappets
litigation, ever use force for sex and it was a turn on for
them.”

If Peter was startled, he didn’t show it,
but I couldn’t keep the shock off my face. “All five of them?” I
asked.

“They often had gang sex with me. Also
later, but before I left, they became part of a military unit for
the family. This included Thought Jacob. He was a distant aloof
elder, the head elder of Denver; Holy Truth, a timid heavy-set
elder; Goodness Tranquility, a big burly enforcer, a man who had
enjoyed his work; and Grave Revelation, the one who ordered the
branch created, a creepy guy. Then there was a rake-thin quiet guy
who was the assistant to Moses Truth, Ezekiel Observance. He has
since become the Over-Elder in America. The Denver Elders became
Warriors for the Lord, and they changed their names. Swift
Retribution, the leader, for instance, was formerly Thought
Jacob.”

Peter reached for his file. “Grave
Revelation, one of the rapists, ordered the creation of the
Hostility Branch and he’s still alive as far as you know?”

“You see the other litigates?” she said. “As
I said, Thought Jacob is Swift Retribution, Holy Truth is Silent
Righteousness, Grave Revelation is Blood Justice and Goodness
Tranquility, the hateful enforcer, is Proud Punishment. They all
belong to the Hostility Branch.”

The little table between us became cluttered
with paper and coffee cups. “My son works for our agency,” Peter
said, “and he gave me something on the Hostility Branch, just hold
on.” Peter found a sheet with a dozen names on it, studied it, and
passed it to her.

“They’re all here,” she said at length.

“If only we had their birth names,” Peter
asked.

“I can tell you how to get that,” she said.
“The Family of Truth shares a building with a company called the
Zortichii Group. They keep track of everybody in the family from a
filing system using the birth-names. It’s a secret place but I know
of it because Divine Love often worked there and told me about it.
She’d been a filing-secretary before she joined the family.”

He scribbled the name on one of the
file-folders and rose, putting away his papers. “We’ll be in touch
in a couple of days.” She nodded.

“Can I help you out for this?” I asked.

She winked at me. “I just want to help you.
I know that you’re a good person. They raped your sister, and I
think they killed her too.”

I reached over and hugged her, then we
left.

In the next month, I flew Peter, his
partner, or his children, whenever, wherever they wanted to go, but
I could sense their growing frustration. Susan came by for a dinner
invitation one Sunday evening. Mary and Stan liked the idea that I
was dating Sally’s former lawyer. We hadn’t told Susan yet about
the worst of it, that is, Sally and my affair. Una told me she was
the one, and I believed Una, but to what purpose? When she found
out about Sally and I, she’d fly. Besides, I was becoming afraid I
was going to jail, and for a long time. In all the hearings, the
inevitable horrible date finally drew near, and on Monday, May 16,
I found myself arriving at the Park Avenue Courthouse to begin the
trial.

Chapter
Thirteen

The day was wet and waiting crowds seemed
dull with their long grey coats and black umbrellas. The limousine
approached slowly, pushing through a cluster of heavy traffic and
crowds of reporters and onlookers. I saw that the faces hated me,
and in turn, I felt ashamed. To be the center of a murder
investigation was horrible enough, yet the real horror was that I
probably wouldn’t be found guilty of murder for killing Sally, but
for sleeping with her. Confusion and pushing began as we stepped
out. Una, Mary, and Stan were with me. Isaac had driven us. The
police were there to help, but this didn’t deter the cameras and
microphones being aggressively shoved into our faces.

“You be good now,” Una shouted at them, but
they shouted right back.

“Tell us Mr. Tappet, what do you think of
bail being set at two million dollars?” “Is it true that you’ve
passed three police polygraphs?” “Can you confirm that a senior
homicide detective has become a hostile witness?” “Is the story in
the Times about a conspiracy theory true?” “Is this how Burlington
is going to defend you?”

Stan pulled me quickly toward the front
doors, and the flock of journalists followed. Stan half-pulled me
through the throng. Some at the back screamed their questions and
pushed to get to the front. “How low a level of self-esteem do you
need to do that?” Stan whispered once we were inside.