Death Du Jour (41 page)

“
G
ONE
? W
HAT DO YOU MEAN, GONE
?”

I’d slept fitfully, and when Ryan woke me at dawn, I felt headachy and out of sorts.

“When we arrived with the warrant the place was deserted.”

“Twenty-six people just vanished?”

“Owens and a female companion gassed up the vans around seven yesterday morning. The attendant remembered because it wasn’t their normal routine. Baker and I got to the commune around five
P.M.
Sometime in between the padre and his disciples took the big powder.”

“They just drove off?”

“Baker’s put out an APB, but so far the vans haven’t been spotted.”

“For God’s sake.” I wasn’t believing this.

“Actually, it’s worse.”

I waited.

“Another eighteen people have vanished in Texas.”

I felt myself go cold.

“Turns out there was another little band on the Guillion property out there. The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Department has been monitoring them for
several years and weren’t all that adverse to taking a closer look. Unfortunately, when the team showed up, the brethren had split. They bagged one old man and a cocker spaniel hiding under the porch.”

“What’s his story?”

”The guy’s in custody, but he’s either senile or feebleminded and hasn’t given much up.”

“Or cagey as hell.”

I watched the gray outside my window lighten.

“Now what?”

“Now we toss the Saint Helena compound and hope the state boys can discover where Owens has led the faithful.”

I glanced at the clock. Seven-ten and already I was at the thumbnail.

“How’s your end?”

I told Ryan about the tooth marks on the bones, and about my suspicions concerning Carole Comptois.

“Not the right MO.”

“What MO? Simonnet was shot, Heidi and her family were slashed and stabbed, and we don’t know how the two in the upstairs bedroom died. Cannon and Comptois were both attacked by animals and knives. That’s not a common occurrence.”

“Comptois was killed in Montreal. Cannon and friend were found twelve hundred miles south of there. Did this dog catch a shuttle?”

“I’m not saying it’s the same dog. Just the same pattern.”

“Why?”

I’d been asking myself that question all night. And who?

“Jennifer Cannon was a McGill student. So is Anna Goyette. Heidi and Brian were also in school when they
joined Owens’ group. Can you find out if Carole Comptois had any university ties? Took a course or worked at a college?”

“She was a hooker.”

“Maybe she won a scholarship,” I snapped. His negative attitude was irritating me.

“O.K., O.K. Don’t get your bra in a twist.”

“Ryan . . .” I hesitated, not wanting to give reality to my fear by shaping it into words.

He waited.

“My sister registered for her seminar at a community college in Texas.”

The line was quiet.

“Her son called me yesterday because he can’t contact her. Neither can I.”

“She may be hunkered in as part of the training. You know, like a retreat. Maybe she’s laid a grid map over her soul and she’s combing it inch by inch. But if you’re really worried, call the college.”

“Yeah.”

“Just because she enrolled in the Lone Star State doesn’t m—”

“I realize I’m being absurd, but Kathryn’s words frightened me, and now Dom Owens is out there planning God knows what.”

“We’ll nail his ass.”

“I know.”

“Brennan, how do I say this?” He drew a long breath, let it out. “Your sister is going through a transition, and right now she’s open to new relationships. She may have met someone and gone off for a few days.”

Without her curling iron? Anxiety lodged like a cold, dense mass inside my chest.

*   *   *

When we disconnected I tried Harry again. In my mind’s eye I saw the phone ringing in my empty condo. Where could she be at seven on a Sunday morning?

Sunday. Damn! I couldn’t call the college until tomorrow.

I made coffee then rang Kit, even though it was an hour earlier in Texas.

He was polite but groggy, and didn’t follow my line of questioning. When he finally began to comprehend, he was unsure if his mother’s course had been a regular college offering. He thought he remembered literature, and promised to drop by her house to check.

I couldn’t sit still. I opened the
Observer,
then the Bélanger journals. I even tried the Sunday morning evangelists. Neither crime nor Louis-Philippe nor Jeeee-zus could hold my attention. I was a mental cul-de-sac with no outlet.

Not really in the mood, I threw on running gear and headed out. The sky was clear, the air soft and balmy as I followed Queens Road West, then cut over on Princeton to Freedom Park. Sweat droplets changed to rivulets as my Nikes pounded past the lagoon. Little ducks glided single file behind their mother, their quacks drifting on the Sunday morning air.

My thoughts remained jumbled and useless, the players and events of the past weeks running in circles around my brain. I tried to focus on the steady beat of my sneakers, the rhythm of my breath, but I kept hearing Ryan’s phrase. New relationships. Is that what he and Harry had called their Hurley’s night? Is that what I’d danced into with my adventure with Ryan on the
Melanie Tess
?

I traversed the park, ran north past the medical clinic, then snaked my way through the narrow streets
of Myers Park. I passed flawless gardens and parklike lawns, here and there tended by an equally impeccable homeowner.

I’d just crossed Providence Road when I nearly collided with a man in tan slacks, a pink shirt, and a rumpled seersucker sports jacket that looked like a Sears original. He carried a battered briefcase and a canvas bag bulging with slide carousels. It was Red Skyler.

“Slumming in southeast?” I asked, trying to catch my breath. Red lived on the opposite side of Charlotte, near the university.

“My lecture at Myers Park Methodist is today.” He gestured at the gray stone complex across the street. “I’ve come early to set my slides.”

“Right.” I was slick with sweat, and my hair hung in stringy, wet clumps. I pinched my T-shirt and flapped it away from my skin.

“How is your case progressing?”

“Not well. Owens and his followers have gone to ground.”

“They’re in hiding?”

“Apparently. Red, can I follow up on something you said?”

“Of course.”

“When we discussed cults, you mentioned two broad types. We talked so much about one I forgot to ask about the other.”

A man passed with a black Standard poodle. Both needed a trim.

“You said you would include some of the commercially packaged awareness programs in your definition.”

“Yes. If they rely on thought reform to get and keep members.” He set the bag on the sidewalk and scratched the side of his nose.

“I think you said these groups fill their ranks by persuading participants to buy more and more courses?”

“Yes. Unlike the cults we discussed, these programs don’t intend to keep people forever. They exploit participants as long as they’re willing to buy more courses. And bring in others.”

“So why do you consider them cults?”

“The coercive influence that these so-called self-improvement programs exert is amazing. It’s the same old thing, behavioral control through thought reform.”

“What goes on in these awareness training programs?”

Red glanced at his watch.

“I finish at ten forty-five. Let’s meet for breakfast and I’ll share what I know.”

*   *   *

“It’s known as large group awareness training.”

As he spoke Red spread red-eye gravy over his grits. We were at Anderson’s, and through the window I could see the hedges and brick of Presbyterian Hospital.

“They’re packaged to sound like seminars, or college courses, but the sessions are scripted to get participants emotionally and psychologically aroused. That part isn’t mentioned in the brochure. Neither is the fact that attendees will be brainwashed into accepting an entirely new worldview.” He forked a piece of country ham.

“How do they work?”

“Most programs last four or five days. The first day is devoted to establishing the leader’s authority. Lots of humiliation and verbal abuse. The next day pounds in the new philosophy. The trainer convinces participants their lives are crap and that the only way out is to accept the new way of thinking.”

Grits.

“Day three is typically filled with exercises. Trance inducement. Memory regression. Guided imagery. The trainer gets everyone to dredge up disappointments, rejections, bad memories. It really lays people out emotionally. Then the following day there’s a lot of warm fuzzy group sharing, and the leader morphs from the hard taskmaster to the loving mommy or daddy. It’s the beginning of the pitch for the next series of courses. The last day is fun and happy, with lots of hugs and dancing and music and games. And the hard sell.”

A couple in khakis and identical golf shirts slid into the booth to our right. He was seashell, she was foam green.

“The damaging thing is that these courses can be incredibly stressful, both physically and psychologically. Most people have no idea how intense it’s going to be. If they did, they wouldn’t sign up.”

“Don’t participants talk about the program afterward?”

“They’re told to be vague, that to discuss the experience would spoil it for others. They’re instructed to rave about how their lives have changed, but to conceal how confrontational and unnerving the process was.”

“Where do these groups recruit?” I feared I already knew the answer.

“Everywhere. On the street. Door to door. At schools, businesses, health clinics. They advertise in alternative newspapers, New Age magazines—”

“What about colleges and universities?”

“Very fertile ground. On bulletin boards, in dorms and eating halls, at student activity sign-up days. Some cults assign members to hang around campus counseling centers looking for students who come in alone. The schools don’t condone or encourage these outfits,
but there’s little they can do. The administrations have the flyers removed from bulletin boards, but the ads go right back up.”

“But this is a separate animal, right? These awareness seminars are unrelated to the type of cults we discussed before?”

“Not necessarily. Some programs are used to recruit members to background organizations. You take the course, then you’re told that you’ve performed so well you’ve been singled out to go to a higher level, or meet the guru, or whatever.”

The words hit me like a blow to the chest. Harry’s dinner at the leader’s house.

“Red, what sort of people fall for these things?” I hoped my voice sounded calmer than I felt.

“My research shows that there are two important factors.” He ticked them off on greasy fingers. “Depression and broken affiliations.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone who is in transition is often lonely and confused, and therefore vulnerable.”

“In transition?”

“Between high school and college, college and a job. Recently separated. Recently fired.”

Red’s words blurred into the breakfast clatter. I had to talk to Kit.

When I refocused Red was eyeing me strangely. I knew I had to say something.

“I think my sister may have signed on to one of these group training courses. Inner Life Empowerment.”

He shrugged. “There are so many. It’s not one that I know.”

“Now she’s gone incommunicado. No one can raise her.”

“Tempe, most of these programs are fairly benign. But you should talk to her. The effects can be very damaging for certain individuals.”

Like Harry.

The usual mix of fear and aggravation seethed inside me.

I thanked Red and paid the bill. On the sidewalk I remembered another question.

“Have you ever heard of a sociologist named Jeannotte? She studies religious movements.”

“Daisy Jeannotte?” One eyebrow rose, sending lopsided furrows across his forehead.

“I met her at McGill several weeks ago and I’m curious about how she’s viewed by her colleagues.”

He hesitated. “Yes. I’d heard she was in Canada.”

“Do you know her?”

“I knew her years ago.” His voice had gone flat. “Jeannotte is not considered mainstream.”

“Oh?” I searched his face but it was blank.

“Thank you for the ham and grits, Tempe. I hope you got your money’s worth.” His grin looked strained.

I touched his arm. “What aren’t you telling me, Red?”

The grin faded. “Is your sister a pupil of Daisy Jeannotte?”

“No. Why?”

“Jeannotte was at the center of a controversy some years back. I don’t know the real story, and I don’t want to spread gossip. Just be cautious.”

I wanted to ask more, but with that he nodded and set off toward his car.

I stood in the sunshine with my mouth open. What the hell did that mean?

*   *   *

When I got home Kit had left a message. He’d located a course catalog, but there was nothing that sounded like Harry’s workshop in the North Harris County Community College listings. He had found an Inner Life Empowerment flyer on his mother’s desk, however. The paper had a thumbtack hole, and he suspected it had come from a bulletin board. He’d called the number. It was no longer in service.

Harry’s course had nothing to do with the college!

Red’s words intertwined with Ryan’s, heightening my feeling of dread. New relationships. In transition. Unaffiliated. Vulnerable.

For the rest of the day I skittered from task to task, my concentration destroyed by worry and indecision. Then, as shadows lengthened across my patio, I took a call that jarred me into more organized thinking. I listened in shock as the story unfolded, then I made a decision.

I dialed my department head to tell him that I would be leaving earlier than planned. Since I’d scheduled an absence for the physical anthropology conference my students would miss only one additional class period. I was sorry, but I had to go.

When we disconnected I went upstairs to pack. Not for Oakland, but for Montreal.