“I TAKE IT THIS is the really, really seedy side of town,” said Jamison as they pulled up in front of a dilapidated, wooden-clad three-story building that looked around a century old. It was about a quarter of a mile from Cramer’s apartment, but in an even less desirable part of London.
“You could say that.”
“Who owns the building?” asked Decker.
“Hugh Dawson, or one of his companies. In fact, like Ida Simms mentioned, he owns pretty much all of London, the good and bad parts.”
The man at the front desk was about forty and looked like he would rather be anywhere else on earth than where he currently was. He put down his iPhone, took off his black rimmed specs, wiped them on the sleeve of his shirt, and replaced them as they strode up to him. He barely glanced at Decker or Jamison.
“Hi, Joe,” said the man, nodding at Kelly with a wary look.
“Ernie, these folks are with the FBI out of Washington,” replied Kelly, indicating Decker and Jamison.
Ernie’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like an out-of-whack elevator car.
“Okay,” he said suspiciously. “Never met any FBI agents before. You look pretty normal. Thought you’d be scarier.”
“We can be very scary, if the situation calls for it,” said Jamison brightly.
“We want to ask you some questions and have a look around,” said Kelly. “I’m sure you have no problem with that, right?”
“Yeah, I do. What kind of questions? And I don’t know if you can look around without a warrant.”
Kelly leaned in close to Ernie. “You surprise me, Ernie. That doesn’t sound too helpful or friendly.”
“I’m not paid to be either one.”
“Fact is, we’re investigating a murder.”
“Who got killed?”
“You would probably know her as Mindy.”
Ernie’s features screwed up tight. “Mindy? I don’t know nobody by that name. Would’ve remembered that one.”
“Sure you do, Ernie,” said Kelly. “I met her here one night. You saw me with her and I saw you.”
Ernie shook his head. “Your memory must be a lot better than mine.”
Kelly glanced past him. “What do we have here? An ex-con drug dealer with a bottle of pills on that shelf back there that doesn’t look like prescription drugs? That would be a serious violation of your parole. You don’t want to go back inside, do you?”
Ernie glanced nervously at the bottle. “Those ain’t mine. Just holding ’em for a buddy.”
“You have no objection to me seeing what they are.” Kelly started to walk behind the reception desk to get the bottle.
“Okay, I know Mindy,” he blurted out. “Are we done here?”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“I forget.”
Kelly started to reach for the pill bottle.
“Okay, okay, it was last week.”
“Be more precise than that,” said Decker.
Ernie rubbed his lower lip and did the calculation in head. “Six days ago.”
Decker looked at Kelly. “Now our TOD is down to four days. That alone made it worth talking to this guy.”
“Did you speak with her?” asked Kelly.
“No.”
“Was she with anyone?” interjected Jamison.
“She doesn’t come here unless she’s with someone,” replied Ernie flatly. “That’s sort of the point of the, um, line of work she was in.”
“The guy’s name?” asked Kelly.
“They don’t tell me. They pay me cash and they get the room. And I don’t ask no questions and nobody shows ID.”
“Description, then,” demanded Decker.
“Short, muscular, blond, young, stupid, horny.”
“Male or female?” asked Jamison.
“Are you serious?” Ernie snapped. “It was a guy.”
“Fracker?” asked Kelly.
“He looked it. Hands all chewed up and skin sunburnt and a wallet full of cash nearly as big as he was.”
“How long were they here?” asked Decker.
“About forty-five minutes. They usually all take about that much time. I don’t imagine there’s much chitchat that goes on.”
“Did they leave together or separate?” asked Decker.
“Guy left first, then Mindy.”
“How’d the guy seem?”
“How do you think? He was smiling ear to ear with a spring in his step. Hell, it was like he’d won the lottery or something.”
“She seem okay?” asked Kelly.
“She didn’t seem not okay.”
“Be more specific,” prompted Jamison.
“Well, she seemed happy, actually. Maybe the sex was good, I don’t know.”
Jamison said, “You must have other women come in here with men, to . . . have a good time.”
“Look, I don’t know what you mean,” blustered Ernie.
“We’re not looking to bust you over this,” said Jamison. “I just want to know was Mindy different from the other ladies?”
Decker glanced at her and then stared at Ernie, awaiting his answer.
“Different how?”
“I think you know how,” said Jamison.
Ernie let out a long breath. “Look, the other gals come down still counting their money, if they do take cash. Some insist on Venmo because it’s safer. But it’s all business with them. It’s not like they enjoy getting strangers off over and over.”
“Very perceptive of you. And Mindy?”
“Well, she . . . she didn’t seem that way. Never saw her with any money, in fact. And she wasn’t like the other gals. Over half of them are strung out all the time. To my eye, I doubt the lady ever popped a pill or even smoked a joint.”
“Well, you’re the expert on that, Ernie,” noted Kelly.
“Would you recognize this guy again if you saw him?” asked Jamison.
“Doubtful. They all look the same to me. And I see enough of them.”
Kelly eyed the stairs. “Take us to the room they were using.”
“Okay, but there have been other people in there since then.”
Ernie grabbed a key from a box on the front desk and led them up a flight of steps to the top floor and then down the hall. He unlocked the door and motioned them in. “Have at it.”
He left them there and scurried back down the stairs like a rat abandoning a ship.
Decker wasn’t even sure the man would still be there when they came back down.
THIS IS BEYOND DISGUSTING,” observed Jamison. “Do they even clean these rooms?”
The carpet was tattered and stained. The small bed was unmade. The smell in the air was fuggy and foul. The paint on the walls was chipped and peeling. The few bits of other furniture looked decades old and badly in need of repair. There was a single bare light bulb clinging to the ceiling like a barnacle on a ship’s hull.
Jamison’s gaze dropped to the floor, where sat an opened plastic condom package.
“Okay, I’m getting a tetanus booster as soon as we get out of here.”
Decker was walking around the room taking everything in. His observations were being placed on mental slides and uploaded to the cloud that constituted his largely infallible memory. “We’ll at least need to check all the prints here and try to do an elimination run.”
Kelly said, “Well, from what Ernie told us, it seems like Cramer and the young buck had sex that night.”
“Yeah, it does,” said Jamison. “And maybe the guy was so happy because she didn’t charge him for it.”
“And Ernie said Cramer was happy, too. I wonder why?”
Decker said, “We have to retrace her steps, every minute of every day. Now, Simms told us that Cramer was planning to go on a trip.” He eyed Kelly. “It’s early September, so I assume school has just started. Unless the Brothers have a different schedule.”
“No, they pretty much follow a traditional schedule when it comes to that.”
“Is she the only teacher there?”
“Except for the woman who lives out there and is a member of the Brothers’ Colony. Cramer taught the subjects the state requires under compulsory education, English, Social Studies, math, that sort of thing.”
“So what were they going to do while she was gone?” asked Jamison.
“Probably just have the kids taught by the other teacher. The Brothers only go to school until they’re fifteen. A week isn’t going to matter much one way or another.”
Decker said, “Let’s go talk to the Brothers, then.”
“We’ll have to make an appointment.”
Decker frowned. “Why, are they that busy?”
“It’s just common courtesy.”
“Fine. Then call them and tell them we’re on the way.”
“Decker, they might not like us barging in like that.”
Decker stared down at Kelly. “I doubt Irene Cramer ‘liked’ being butchered. So I’ll take finding her killer as fast as possible over somebody else’s possible hurt feelings over a visit.” He eyed the local cop severely. “This is a murder investigation, Kelly. Nothing takes precedence over that, at least in my book. If you think differently, we might have a problem working together.”
Kelly shot Jamison a glance and then looked back at Decker. “I have no problem with that.”
“Glad to hear it. Let’s go.”
* * *
“What the hell is that thing?” asked Jamison.
They were in the rental SUV heading east. They had cleared a slight rise in the otherwise flat plains and spied what appeared to be an Egyptian pyramid with its top chopped off and what looked like an enormous golf ball set atop this flat space. It was about a hundred and fifty feet high and made of what looked to be stone. It dwarfed the other buildings set behind it, all enclosed by double perimeter fencing with razor wire toppers.
“That’s the Douglas S. George Defense Complex, otherwise known as London Air Force Station,” replied Kelly, who was riding next to Jamison.
She said, “Air Force station? I don’t see any planes or runways.”
“It’s not an air base. It’s an air station. Although they do have a runway for planes and a helipad. And a super-duper radar array is housed in that blob. It can see into space. It’s part of the early warning system in case somebody fires nukes at North America.”
“Stuck way out here?” commented Jamison.
“I guess some politician from North Dakota lobbied hard for it. But it’s pretty ugly, so would you want something like that in your backyard? Anyway, it’s been here since the fifties, long before I was alive.” He pointed to an upcoming road. “Hang a right there, Alex.”
She did so and they found themselves passing fairly close to the Air Force station.
“Not too far now,” said Kelly. “Just up ahead we turn left and then we’re there.”
Decker looked puzzled. “But it looks like we’re still on the Air Force property.”
Kelly smiled. “About ten years ago most of the property went up for auction and the Brothers bought it. And then frackers recently leased some of it from them.”
“The Brothers bought land from the federal government that has an Air Force installation on it?” said Jamison, looking surprised.
“I guess Uncle Sam is trying to cut costs, or they didn’t need all of the acreage. And they didn’t buy the Air Force station, of course, just the spare acreage. Now, the Brothers did need that land. They’ve spun off a few new colonies and they needed the space for those folks to set up their farms and other operations.”
“Just so I’ve got this straight, you have a religious sect plowing fields right next to a government eye in the sky looking for nukes coming our way?”
“It would make for a great skit on Saturday Night Live,” observed Kelly.
Jamison hung the next left, and another quarter mile down a freshly paved road, they arrived at the Brothers’ compound.
Kelly had phoned ahead, and there were two men waiting by a large metal farm gate. Even in the heat and humidity they were both dressed in heavy, dark clothing and wore battered black fedoras with silk gray bands. Full beards covered their jaws and chins. One wore a pair of old-fashioned pince-nez glasses. The other one, younger by about ten years than his late-fiftyish companion, gazed at them curiously through horn-rimmed spectacles. About a hundred feet behind them was a tall woman in her late forties with brown hair flecked with silver, wearing a long dress with colorful stripes and a kerchief with white polka dots. She, too, was watching them closely.
In the distance, Decker could see low-slung cinderblock buildings fronted either by well-tended lawns or crushed gravel. There were large corrugated-metal buildings, some grain silos, fenced crop fields, and many pieces of neatly arranged heavy farming equipment along with some other machinery that, to Decker’s eye, looked like they would be used in a building or manufacturing process. Everything was laid out with thought and precision, he concluded.
“Like I said before, it’s all communal living here,” said Kelly as the SUV came to a stop. “No personal property, really, except your clothes and what’s in your house.”
“The big buildings?” asked Jamison.
“They sell eggs and vegetables, and other things that they grow. They also make furniture and some parts for manufacturing, and they also do metal fabrication. The fracking people buy from them. They have their own truck fleet to deliver everything. It’s a fairly large-scale operation when all is said and done. They’re very self-sufficient. Their English is excellent, though their first language is German.”
“And you haven’t told them why we’re here?” said Jamison.
Kelly’s look darkened. “No, not over the phone. It’s going to come as a shock.”
“I’m surprised they have phones,” she said.
“Well, they don’t allow TV or the internet, strictly speaking. But younger members do use Facebook and Instagram and email to keep in touch with friends, though that’s closely regulated. And cell phones are necessary for business and personal tasks, so they have those too. There’s only one central hard line phone. They worry that the outside world will try to encroach on them.”
“And maybe convince some of the younger members to leave?” said Jamison.
“The outside world can be enticing, for all the wrong reasons,” conceded Kelly.
They climbed out of the vehicle and approached the two men, who came forward and extended their hands in greeting. They all introduced themselves to one another.
The older man was Peter Gunther, who was the minister of this particular colony, and his companion was Milton Ames, the secretary. The woman, who had remained standing back, was Ames’s wife, Susan, her husband told them. She was the tailor of the colony, Gunther said.
“And what does that mean?” asked Jamison curiously.
“She picks all the clothes or at least the fabric and is in charge of the making of the clothes,” offered Ames.
Jamison turned and waved at the woman, but she simply stared back and didn’t return the gesture.
Gunther warily looked at Decker. “So the FBI? Joe didn’t say why you wanted to meet with us.”
Kelly said, “Can we go inside? We’re going to tell you why we’re here, but it’s not going to be pleasant.”
Gunther and Ames exchanged a startled glance. Gunther turned and led them toward one of the buildings.
It was a startlingly clean communal kitchen with two long picnic-style tables down each wall and a similar table in the middle of the room. The appliances were commercial grade. A woman in a dress similar to Susan Ames’s was unpacking some supplies and placing them neatly in overhead cabinets.
“Excuse us, Martha,” said Gunther. “We need to talk to these folks about some important matters.”
Martha glanced suspiciously at Decker and Jamison and hurried into another room.
They sat down at the table in the middle of the space. Gunther clasped his hands in front of him.
“Now, why are you here?” Gunther asked Kelly.
“Irene Cramer.”
Gunther kept his surprised gaze on Kelly. “Irene? What about her?”
Decker interjected. “We understand that she was going on a trip?”
Ames spoke up. “That’s right. Our school had just started back up. But we saw no reason not to let her go. She coordinated with Doris, the Colony teacher. It was only a week or so. She should be back soon.”
“When did she tell you about the trip?” asked Jamison.
Gunther said, “Why all the questions about Irene?”
Kelly glanced at Decker, who nodded. “Irene was found dead,” Kelly said to Gunther.
“Dead?” exclaimed a horrified Gunther. “Where? How?”
“The ‘where’ was out in the middle of nowhere. She was found by a hunter. The ‘how’ was that she was murdered.”
“Well, I’m not surprised.”
They all turned to see Susan Ames standing in the doorway where Martha had earlier walked through.
“Susan?” exclaimed Ames. “What in heaven’s name do you mean you’re not surprised?”
“Mindy? It was only a matter of time.”